The Woman Who Doesn't Belong

Something feels off the moment I walk in, and I assume it's just my own anxiety. 

'You're just not used to gay clubs,' I think to myself. 'It's okay to be nervous. Sit with it for a moment. Let yourself feel it, but then let it go. This is a safe space.' I struggle to take my own advice. I'm self-conscious about my age, my appearance, my dress, my hair, my makeup. I suddenly remember how much I struggled tonight with my goddamn eyeliner wings, eventually settling for "good enough" after the third try. I can still feel the dull raw ache on the sides of my face where I kept taking makeup wipes to them before reapplying foundation and trying again.

I head for the glowing back-lit bar, right by the entrance, and stand behind a couple of greek gods in little more than leather chest harnesses. They pay me no mind as they flirt playfully with one another from their barstools. I catch the attention of the short pink-haired pixie behind the bar, who finishes serving another patron, then walks over and eyes me expectantly.

"Blackberry cider?" I ask loudly over the music. She gives a familiar nod, picks up a clean pint glass, and moves to the tap handles behind her. I glance around the room. In the giant mirror above the bar, I can see the rest of the club behind me. The dancefloor is alive. The lights create a shifting, flashing, color-changing spectacle as they scan the otherwise darkened crowd. A pop song I don't recognize continues thumping along.

The bartender turns around to hand me the pint. I trade her my debit card. "Keep it open?" she asks as she holds up my card. I nod. "I'll keep this back here," she responds, and takes my card to a glowing screen elsewhere behind the bar. I look up and down the bar and see no empty seats, so I take my glass toward the dancefloor. 

I take a long, deep drink from my cider. 'why did I come here?' I think to myself. Another part of me answers: I need to get out more. I need to meet more people like me. 'But are these people really like me? Is this where I'm going to make more queer friends? Why do I feel like such an imposter here? Am I the only person here not having fun?' You're overthinking it. Relax. Go with the flow.

I shake this train of thought as I reach the edge of the crowd and start dancing lightly. I take another deep drink from the cider. It burns faintly as it flows down my throat. I start stepping side to side, letting my free arm gently sway beside me, feeling out the music and letting my body move. My heels are tall, taller than I should've worn out to a club. My steps are limited and awkward as I shuffle back and forth. 

I glance around again, doing my best to avoid making awkward eye contact. I'm worried that if I lock eyes with someone, they'll see through me. They'll know that I don't really know what I'm doing here. 

I take another deep drink, and look at my glass at it comes away from my face. It's almost gone already. Jesus, that was fast. I force a smile onto my face and start moving into the crowd. 

It gets louder as I drift deeper, closer to the speakers. The lights of the club dance across the crowd, creating multi-colored flashes of light and shadows over the flowing mass of bodies. The laughter and conversation all around me is drowned out by the loud bassy music. I take it all in. Leaned-in whisperings in one another's ear, embraces, grinding, kissing, a river of perpetual motion and revelry. Femmes in clubwear. Men in tank tops and hotpants. Drag queens in stunning makeup. The beautiful people are out to play, so many little worlds all coexisting and colliding to create a collective joyful chaos. 

The tension in my shoulders begins to soften a little. My smile feels a little less forced. I can feel myself loosening up and letting my body move as I continue deeper into the crowd. I glance around and take it all in. A familiar twinkling melody begins mixing into the music, "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. Fuck yeah, something I know. I toss back more cider, and as I bring the glass away from my face I see her. 

We lock eyes. 

She isn't dancing. She isn't moving at all. She is staring, staring directly into me. Her whole body is squared toward me, her pale face completely expressionless. The people dancing around her don't seem to notice her, nor the way her long black hair or pink frilly dress seem unnaturally motionless in the flowing chaos all around her. The concentration in her sharp blue eyes drills into me. I'm frozen in place. My hair stands on end. Why is she looking at me like that? This moment feels like it lasts an eternity.  

I notice with unease that one of the club's meandering spotlights begins moving toward me. She watches as the light washes over me and blinds me along its path. In that fraction of a second, I can't see her, but the moment the light has moved on and my eyes refocus, she's different. She is looking at the floor, a Mona Lisa grin occupying her striking, androgynous face.

She is dancing now, as if she always was. Her movements are slow, graceful, measured. Her hands move gently through the air around her, caressing it. She sways in place, floating softly, her long black hair flowing around her weightlessly indifferent to gravity.

What the hell did I just see? What am I looking at? What is she? Am I the only one seeing this?

In my state of confused fixation, I forget that I'm holding the empty pint glass. It falls to the floor beside me with a small crash. Instinctively, I jerk down to a crouch to pick up the broken pieces, before immediately remembering the strange woman. I stand back up to look, and she is gone. 

I scan the room nervously to see where she went, but I can't pick her out in the darkness and chaos of the club.

Did that really just happen? Am I going crazy? 

I look back down at the broken glass on the floor by my feet. I crouch back down to pick up the largest of the pieces and set them in the broken bottom half of the glass.

I make my way out of the crowd, back toward the bar. I'm still concentrating on the mental image of her dancing, of her face staring into me. As I get to the edge of the crowd, all I can think about is her piercing blue eyes, staring. They are still boring deep into me. I toss the broken glass into a garbage can by the bar, and make my way to the front door without stopping. I step past the bouncer, through the front door, and out into the crisp midnight air. It is cool and dry and refreshing and grounding, a stark contrast to the hot, sweaty, dancefloor. As I start walking toward my car, I open up my purse to pull out a cigarette. I see my wallet. 

"Fuck," I say to myself, with dawning realization. I didn't close out my tab. I need my debit card.

I look back at the front door to the club. I consider just dealing with it tomorrow, but I badly need gas and I might not make it home.

"Fuck."

I think about those piercing blue eyes again. I think about the unsettling way her hair floated. Nobody else seemed to notice. Is this all in my head?

"Fuck it." 

Back inside at the glowing bar, there are two empty stools where the leather-clad men had been sitting. I take one of the seats and see the pink-haired pixie helping someone else at the far end of the bar. I glance around nervously, dreading that I see the strange woman again. I scan the dancefloor in the mirror above the bar. I look up and down the bar on either side of me. To my relief, there is no sign of her.

The bartender catches my eye and comes over to me.

"What can I get you?" she asks me. I hesitate for a moment.

"Actually, can I get a well whiskey and then close out?" I ask her. I can hear the unease in my own voice. 

"You alright, hon?" She asks, a look of genuine concern on her face.

"Uhh, yeah... I think so." She eyes me over for a moment.

"Alright, well if there's anything else you need, you let me know. Okay?" I nod.

"Thank you."

She walks over to the glowing screen, and starts fishing through a small box of alphabetized debit cards. I glance around the bar again. I see the leather-clad couple on a bench against the wall, embracing each other. I glance around the room and see a pair of butch women in flannel shirts engaged in an animated conversation as a third femme woman smiles and nods along, sipping her from her green cocktail through a tiny pink straw. I turn back toward the bar and look up at the mirror to see the pale woman with long black hair and a pink frilly dress standing right behind me, the reflection of her blue eyes staring directly into mine.

I am frozen in place, paralyzed by fear and unable to look away. She bores into me with those piercing blue eyes, and neither of us move for what feels like forever. Unable to move, I watch in horror as she slowly leans in toward me from behind. 

She speaks softly into my ear, in a voice I instantly recognize. 

"It's okay to be nervous. Sit with it for a moment. Let yourself feel it, but then let it go. This is a safe space."

Without breaking eye contact, she leans back away from my ear and stands up straight. In the mirror, I watch as she reaches both hands toward my face from behind. I watch her hands move toward my eyes, and cover them. Terrified, I reach for her hands to pull them away from me, but there's nothing there. I wheel around to confront her, but there's nobody standing there. I look around frantically. The leather-clad men are still in their embrace on the bench nearby. The trio are still enjoying their conversation. 

I look back to the mirror above the bar. I see only myself. I pause and look into my reflection for a moment. Something is different. I pull out my phone, open my camera, and look closer at my face in the screen. 

My eyeliner is perfectly symmetrical.