I'm Still Working On It

I've a solitude and/or fraidy-cat gene that, after all these years, still asserts itself. I want to kill it.

The Ashram Galactica is famous for bringing four-star hotel service to the playa but they also run a kick-ass bar. Within a large red pavilion that could have been lifted from an encampment of the Golden Horde, past midnight one night we found luxurious couches, fittings of brass and carven wood, exotic chandeliers and candelabra, a long bar expertly and energetically staffed, top-notch house music, and a press of people dancing on every inch of horizontal space including the bar.

She still had her manacles on so I locked her wrists together as we danced towards the bar. After a good while of dancing and writhing through the crowd with her bound wrists in a firm grip, she said something -- I don't remember what, exactly, but evidently I took it as a challenge, for I surprised her by pulling a carabiner and a stout length of chain out of my pocket. With her now effectively on a leash I had much better control, and for a long while I led her around, pushed her around, pulled her around, and generally treated her like a beast. She rose to the occasion beautifully. With her hair tossed and the chain round her throat, she was hot. Damn hot. Not a few of the other patrons had kind words for our tableau in motion.

But moods can swing and intents can change. In time I pocketed the chain and she took a place near a side door for fresh air and sent me on the hunt. Bring us a girl, she said.

Easier said than done. Four to one, about, was the ratio of men to women. Still, my mission was to find connection. I can do that once in awhile, obviously. But I lack something -- and it isn't talent, or the way I present myself -- something to do with my vision, what I see, who I see, how I see them, how I interact with them ... Not sure just what, yet.

I jigged my way through the crowd looking for a spark and enjoying the spectacle, particularly the bar-top dancers, who in a given snapshot moment ranged from a bikini-and-utility-belt clad vision of yoga-hard feminine perfection to a pair of illuminated Michelin men complete with battery-powered fans inflating their suits. Eyes came and went, and sentence fragments fell about as feathers fall off a boa. Dust clouds occasionally joined the party as the storm outside found its way through open tent flaps. Now and then I looked back to see her, sometimes, in the grip of some man or other, bold men dirty dancing, even one who followed her instruction to lock the handcuffs. She was not a date for the faint of heart. But she saw me through the moving bodies and grinned, mouthing words of encouragement -- and I turned and met with a challenge.

She had her eyes on me and we locked. Still dancing, I pushed through the crowd. She wore an arresting combination of evening wear, bondage wear, and Christmas lights. I drew close and she told me I have beautiful eyes. I told her I loved her costume. Oh, this, she said, just something I threw together. And then --

The gene I must kill asserted itself.

My thought was to say, where, in a machine shop? Maybe that would have been funny or maybe a buzzkill, but we can't know because I stifled the thought ... and had nothing else. We gazed at each other for two or three wordless seconds, and the light in her eyes faded, and she turned away. I hung about as she interacted with her evident boyfriend, my suddenly confused little mind wanting to recharge the moment with my ace in the hole (my manacled one waiting), not caring if the final number would be three or if it would be four, and at the same time feeling foolish and manifestly not wanting to be the guy who hangs around not getting the message.

A sudden impatience with the entire proceeding won out, and I returned to the general fray. My heart wasn't in it, though. I felt I had sought, and not found, and was ready to announce as much. The response to my empty game bag were a shrug and a smile, and in time we left, the final number being two -- a very high quality two, and no disappointment in that as she told me that while waiting for me, she pissed off four or five guys who did make connection, but only for a few moments.

Of course I expect too much of myself, and blame myself for bad luck (or more accurately a lack of extraordinarily good luck), and so on. But that is how we push our way through life, right? Well, and so as I wend my way through these fields of adventure, I'm still working on it.