Surrender to The Crowd

My leather jacket had developed a lovely patina. The purple leather dye was still vivid in some places, but anywhere it rubbed and bent, the surface had worn off to reveal the black underneath it. It shape snapped onto my torso perfectly, giving me reassuring pressure all around but no squeeze anywhere. When I inhaled, I could feel it stretch around my rib cage. The leather parts that had stiffened with age seemed to give off a barely audible snarl like a scruffy terrier in its dreams. Not only had the jacket become part of me and my identity, but it had also collected memories: a gash over the pocket from jumping a concert fence in the desert as I slipped over and a bent wire caught me, a frozen, dark night on a sailboat where the salt waves crusted it around the neck, and the line from being bent harshly across the back when I had thrown the jacket onto the truckbed before I jump on top of both the truckbed and the jacket to cushion the bumps on the dirt road.

All that weathering from adventures looked to the people in the line like I merely had bought a trendy, distressed jacket from a Soho boutique, but it was real. We two had a bond like a cowboy and his horse has. I zipped the zipper down in front to reveal my cleavage. I reached in and under in my bra to lift them to the center to get that beautiful popping look of them pressed together. People gave me more attention that way. I leisurely let my look work its way to slowly pull the attention in like a gravity field. I know I'd get more and more little side looks. I touched up my lips in that popping pink that was really sparkling and vivid. That hue of colors resonated with the hue of my blue eyes. The two colors amplified each other very much.

Revealing the top of my boobs with that squeezed-together and fully round look was important. Since doing it, I got so much more attention. People no longer gave me a quick glimpse and continued on in a harried way, but I got their full attention. They try to put on smiles to impress me. I can see how the guys wipe off their minds whatever was there before to fully pay attention to me. They listen to my words and ideas. "Quiet! Dakota is talking!" are words that I started to love hearing. It was cute how the guys started posturing to shut up another guy to make me heard. And when I look away on purpose, I know exactly where their eyes have wandered because they can't control the corners of their lips from beaming a big smile.

I could feel how the conversations around me got a little more quiet because people lost their train of thought to look at me. I could tell the little ways in which people shifted their weight on their feet so that they could angle their bodies a little bit more towards me to make it easier to steal glances. The quiet, unspoken attention felt on my skin the way an infrared lamp bath feels: You can't tell when the light touching your skin, but your skin starts warming up. The same way, I relished the attention crawling all over my skin even from the directions that I could see like behind me. You dress up in tight jeans to stand in a concert line for a reason. You are being paraded and there to be seen, but you can't show that you are hunting that attention. It's fleeting like a bat if you look, they scurry to look the other way.

"You're so gorgeous, Sydney! Your abs are rock-hard. Are you still seeing that cute boxing trainer?" I asked my friend.

She turned to me to speak in her nervous, rushed tone that seems half delinquent, angst-ridden teenager (quick and weak) and half crazy woman with a machine gun (her Russian accent). "Oh, gosh! We both are killing it tonight! You mean Karl, the Norwegian dude, right! I'm done with him. I take Muy Thai boxing sessions with Phong. He's this 6' 5" dude with a giant tiger tattoo across his back. I mostly just go because he takes his shirt off after the warm-up and I love watching the tattoo on his back."

"I can't help..." sounded a male voice behind me. I perked up and got my defenses ready to shoot his annoyance down. "But hear you talking about Muy-Thai boxing. I love myself a good sparring session to start a Saturday. Lately, I've really been getting into clinch drills." I couldn't make my mind up. He looked a bit boring like he came from the office, but there was a little refinement in the way his jacket's button holes were stitched. He didn't seem ready to fold like a nervous loser. Some of the most famous people purposefully dressed down. You had to be careful judging people or you might miss out.

"Do you think that impresses me?" asked Sydney coldly. Oh good! I didn't have to deal with this.

"If I tried to impress you, I'd tell you about the lawsuit that I'm leading. If you've trained Muy Thai, you've fallen flat on your face so much and embarrassed yourself, you are kind of beyond the impressing game," replied the guy. He was a bit stately. However, he didn't fold under pressure. There wasn't the slightest twitch on his face from being coldly embraced by Sydney. His cheeks looked as jolly and ready for a night out as before. Maybe, he had cred. Damn! I was kind of curious about what kind of lawsuit he ran. Was he a multi-millionaire in private practice or a high-powered AG? Lawyers can be terribly boring and also can have extremely good verbal skills.

I didn't say anything. I simply reached for his collard and started grooming it. I felt the fabric to judge if it was a cheap one-hundred or a one-thousand-dollar shirt. I took my time. I could feel his chest growing with pride at the female attention that he was getting. I tapped his shoulders with a friendly tap. "You are a cute boy!" I told him. And then I coldly turned my back to him. He was going to find me in the venue and fetch me a drink.

We were getting near the front of the line. The all-black-clad bouncer was a hulking man made of a mix of muscle and fat. His head was shaven to stubble. The face was big, blotchy, and pasty with tiny black eyes. The sleeves on his black jacket were too large. And his hands didn't know what to do with themselves. He was Sven, a German emigrant with a vast knowledge of music.

"You are way too excited. This is not your night. Go home!" Sven told a group of three excited Indian men, who had been laughing at each other's jokes. Their faces turned blank as they were pushed aside from the line in disbelief.

"You've spent the entire time in the line on your phone. We don't like your kind here. Leave!" Sven told the hipster girl with a grandma crochet vest and a purse large enough to fit a shotgun.

"Why are you here tonight?" Sven asked us. He was known to interview customers to decide if we brought the right kind of music appreciation.

Sydney told him that we were here for Motor Croyd. Sven was on the fence. He nodded at us like we could have simply memorized the cover band for the headliner from the flyer. He didn't even bother formulating what he wanted to hear.

I started singing, "Hurts like he-e-e-e-ll." I drew up the word "hell" the way that the drum crescendo goes up and down and has this really tight rhythm. Sven couldn't help himself but rapid fire nodded his head to the rhythm I was laying down. He knew exactly the song I was singing and loved it just as much as I did.

"Has anyone ever told you that it's fake as hell to sing the song to the bouncer," he said and gave a humorous wink with his left eye as he lifted his foot off the fence to allow us to pass inside.

The black cavern that used to house a steel mill embraced us: A huge space, hard-angled architecture, and lots of air space above the crowd. A girl with a giant afro wig, colorfully-dotted bell bottom full body suit on platform shoes so high they might as well be stilts created a circus-like party atmosphere. Otherwise, the crowd was dark and somber the way that the New York crowd is. All you see are backs with uni-color jackets. There is an utter lack of anything energetic or jubilant in the crowd.

I eyed the VIP balcony above the crowd with the low tables ladden with liquor bottles and towers of clean glasses. My eyes traced along the balcony to the staircase that lead down in a diagonal, crowded with people standing on it to look over the crowd. I carefully eyed the area below the staircase. I was looking for a well-dressed young man walking towards the staircase, preferably a bit shy looking. Ah! I saw a dude with a fire-red jacket and sparkling headband. He seemed obviously clueless about fashion but had way too much money. I grabbed Sydney by the wrist and pulled her with me through the crowd. I pushed against the backs. You have to be assertive as a short woman.

We managed to come up to the bloke from behind right before he arrived at the bouncer for the VIP area. I placed my hand on his shoulder and let my fingers delicately roll down like I was a Vegas croupier with a flare for the dramatic as I laid out the cards. My other hand went to his wrist to pull him back. He was surprised. He could feel the feminine touch and yielded like a kitten to the clutch of its mother. I peeled his body around and went straight for his lip, pushing my lips on his. Blitzkrieg-style, I shot my sweet tongue forward to penetrate the feeble defenses of his lips to knock on his teeth. I let go of the dazed youngin.

"I hate to taste what kind of kisser a playboy with a red jacket is?" I said innocently. "I hope you didn't mind," I added coyly.

Sydney couldn't suppress her laughter at how the guy slowly came to terms with reality. Every time, they had the same reaction. It was so predictable. He couldn't see her hands counting the seconds to mock him.

"Of course not! Can I offer you a drink?" he asked.

I grabbed his hand to signal him to start walking. They are always so happy when a girl takes their hand. I bet that he was overexcited to having scored - so excited that he couldn't think, simply struggling to keep his breathing calm enough. The VIP bouncer unclipped the velvet rope for him when he showed his wristband. He pulled us with him - all of us linked together by holding hands. He walked us up the long staircase. We had to snake our way in between people. Others had gotten into the VIP section without having paid for a table. They seemed to have ended up in this kind of no-man's land that was neither a table nor general audience.

He led us to a table with five young guys who looked like first-year finance analysts. They seemed to have money to blow but absolutely not taste or experience on how to do it. Their close were brand new and off the rack. They had the look of Macy's and Neiman Marcus. Their faces were still sleek and featureless like those of teenagers. They were shy. They didn't talk to us. They stared. They smiled. They secretly high-fived each other.

I take pride in being a good guest. I pulled a glass of a stack. I asked the first guy what he wanted. The guys hadn't even poured themselves drinks. It's like they didn't dare to touch the bottles, mixers, and garnishes. I hushed him before he could answer, "Don't tell me! You are an OJ with tequila kind of guy!" They loved the show that I put on. They all wanted to be read by me what kind of drink their look suggested. They were all happy with whatever I poured them. When it was my turn, I poured a little from each liquor bottle. I didn't even check what it was. When they asked me what I was making, I told them a Long Island Iced Tea. I call anything with a lot of different liquors that. I tapped my head like a sailor's salute, got up, and walked away with Sydney arm-in-arm.

We walked to the far end of the balcony where we had the best view on the stage. We were standing high above the crowd. We felt like we owned the night. Sip by sip, the stew of five different liquors made me warm, fuzzy, and bubbly. What a beautiful night! I reached my arms out and waved them above the crowd with the music. I allowed myself to get lost in the energy coming from the music that was pumped out of truck-sized speaker walls. The guitarist for a warm-up band was going crazy jumping around to get the party started. The crowd was too cool to even sway. In those moments, I feel bliss. All the vibes of nightlife, elegance, party, and mystery were swarming around me. I was the priestess of it all. I felt untouchable. A random chubby guy raised his glass to us, completely in awe and frozen in that posture for eternity.

I felt a hand grazing my butt like an accident in passing, but the hand started feeling lower for the bottom of my cheeks. The hand size was small and the energy was distinctly feminine. I would have decked a guy. I let the scene unfold. "Hey, you are a sweet, little thing," the voice said into my neck. I could feel the moisture of her breath on my skin. I could smell the mixture of bubble gum and whiskey on her breath. From the corner of her eyes, I could see her fire-red lipstick with a gloss that made the lips look wet. I could smell lesbian all over the signature of her voice. "I'm Parker," she said. "What's your name, lovely?" She slurred the words like she was heavily drunk already. Without shame, her body was hugging me from behind and holding onto me to save her from her drunk instability.

She was cool, but that whole lesbian thing didn't do it for me. "Call me Dakota!" I told her coldly.

"Oh, we've got an ice queen," she slurred. "Let's see if I can't warm you up. I'm a demon straight from hell."

She was cute as fuck the way she talked and the way how she kept snuggling into me. She got lost in making hissing sounds of fire into my ear. I felt the moisture condensing on my earlobes and turning into droplets. She seemed so harmless as drunk as she was.

"I know what it is," she said. "You like being above it all! You keep everything at a distance. You don't open yourself up to life."

I don't know what it was about her. Drunks are mostly stupid, but sometimes, they have the clarity of a seer. I felt like she was reading my life nerve and spelling everything out. I felt scared to be found out. I felt drawn to being recognized. I tried to snap myself out of it and tell myself that she was simply a random, drunk lesbo. But it was really hard because she was hugging me so intimately from behind like her soul was clinging onto me for safety and protection.

"You don't believe me!" she said upset and sullen. "I'll show you!"

She detached from my body, grabbed my hand hard, and pulled me all the way back to the other side of the balcony. I lost Sydney. Parker was a little smaller than me. Her hand grip was fierce. I couldn't get her off my hand. She had a surprising talent for snaking her body through a crowd at high speed. She didn't leave me time to ask the people to get out of my way. With my larger body, the gaps her body created were too small. I had to squeeze myself in between bodies with my chest and back sliding past people's clothing, backs, and bellies. I didn't feel too bad about following her. Party girls like her usually had mad-good hookups.

Stepping down the stairs felt like stepping down into poverty. The more we got to the bottom, the fewer drinks people had in their hands and less shine on their clothing. The space around the beaming smiles the people had at their tables was in stark contrast to the serious faces of the people standing back-to-back in the space in front of the stage. Parker kept pulling me along the side of the space forward toward the stage. There were metal beams that held the ceiling up, which we had to slalom around. We reached the security metal fence that created the noman's land in front of the stage. Parker flipped the bouncer the bird. There was something grotesque about how much she wiggled her index finger out to really stick it to them. There was something stunning to a tiny, blond girl facing up to a giant, strong man four times her size in volume. He smiled like he'd do anything for her. He kicked with his black combat boots a fence to the side to make an opening for us.

We walked down the noman's land to the middle in front of the stage. It was surreal. The metal fence had been reinforced with metal bars into the ground so that a huge crowd could press against them without overrunning the barrier. Concertgoers were so enthusiastic that people got pressed hard against the fence. They were in physical discomfort but didn't want to let go of their premium spots to see the band up close. A second warm-up act was up there. The drummer was a woman with black spikey hair. When she saw Parker, she flicked her tongue like a snake out of her mouth to send Parker a sexually suggestive message. I suddenly felt special that Parker had taken an interest in me. I felt a certain pride that I was somebody to stand out to her. I felt all the more willing to go with Parker to what she wanted to show me. I started feeling like I was in on a heist.

She stopped at the bouncer in front of the center of the stage. They talked. They talked back and forth. They started arguing. It seemed like he wasn't going to be moved. She threw a bigger and bigger fit at him. It was like the unstoppable force had met an immovable obstacle. My expectations started fading that this wasn't going anywhere. I started enjoying being in the center of the concert but having space to breathe, move, and dance. I looked into the faces of the people pressed against the security fence. They looked pale and exhausted from physical discomfort, yet their eyes were glowing with exuberant joy. Soaking in that energy was an intoxicating nectar. I was so close to the lead singer. I could have made a dash for it and grabbed his cowboy boot to throw him to the ground. I don't know why that went through my head, but everything felt so immediate and physical.

"We are good," she told me. I hadn't even noticed her coming up to me. "Trust me. Whatever you do, never let go of my hand!"

That sounded like three important pearls of information. I was trying to untangle what they meant. Two security guys stormed towards us from the side. The way they surged, I felt that something had happened. They were upon us so quickly. One of them grabbed me. It wasn't a simple holding me, but he took my whole body and tossed me into the air. Parker squeezed my hand harder to remind me to never let go of her hand. I felt panic. I felt my world coming crashing down. Had she pissed off the bouncer enough to get us thrown out? I've never been carried out of a venue before to be tossed into the street.

The guy had grabbed my arm and my waist. I was on top of his shoulder. The ground was very far away. He kept lifting me higher. I was overhead. For a brief moment, I saw across the whole length of the crowd. I thought it would be a last memorable flicker before I'd end up in the street, but something odd happened. He was positioning his hands on my body like he was preparing for something. I could feel the center of my gravity being more and more firmly controlled by his grip on my body. Parker kept squeezing my hand tighter and tighter like something was about to happen. Her drummer girlfriend went into a frenzy on her drums. The crowd started calling out with the singers. Everyone's arms were up in the air waving.

Then the bouncer launched me forward onto the crowd. There was something in the hand squeeze from Parker that told me to close my eyes and let go to whatever was going to happen. I felt myself taking off into the air out of the hands of the bouncer. Parker pulled my hand closer to keep us flying through the air together. Then I felt new hands, a whole bunch of them on my back, butt, and legs. I told myself with rapt excitement: "I'm crowd surfing!"

Then the idea of crowd surfing and the reality diverged into starkly different directions. I had expected to be softly passed by lots of hands, but it was really mainly one pair of hands mainly holding me. There was an almost drop when I passed past that set of hands, but someone else picked me up and lifted me high again. I felt like an airplane that's constantly falling down air pockets. I panicked and pulled Parker closer. She was just as scared, and I could feel that was the thrill to her. I almost got thrown down had first. In reaction, I had smashed my elbow on top of someone's head who quickly ducked away.