basement

The red light at the end of the hallway pulls him in. Like a dog on a leash. A puppet on strings. Ever since last night, he’s felt out of control. 

But once he steps inside the club, bathed in that red glow, he comes alive. He runs his hand across the cave wall as he makes it to the dancefloor, ripping away at the layers of old skin. The thumping bass grows closer and spreads into his open wound. A bump of K, a shot of vodka, a hit of Liquid Gold. He is reborn. 

The bodies twist on the dancefloor, each freed from the lives they left upstairs. The room spins into something dark, wet, endless. He stumbles, gracefully, from room to room, observing like a beam of light drifting through them. He spots the men in crevices consuming each other. Kissing. Fucking. He wishes he was more in control of himself to join, to experience what they felt. The electricity of touch. 

He's missing that after Sam. After the unread text. After last night in Bed-Stuy, outside his apartment, waiting for him. Wishing for him. He couldn't believe it was over. It couldn't be. What was it all for, then?

The music turns faster, harder. The DJ keeps feeding the room, one pounding beat after another. Drinks spill and get licked off bodies. He fixates on the scent of drug-laced sweat. One second he's dancing. The next he's in the bathroom, names and numbers written in every corner. One drink. Two. He's standing. He's sitting. He's laughing. He's crying. 

Sometime in the morning, outside light starts to slip under the cracks of the door. He could return to his body. But that would mean calling him. Waiting. Wishing. Hurting some more. Or he could simply keep dancing, never leave, stay in this bliss, run from the rising sun.

Ricardo Sosa-Melo is an author and filmmaker from Florida who loves writing about New York.