Darren would be an eager student, Tony sensed, with Darren driving down the 101 in San Francisco and Tony looking at the speedometer: 65mph. "Why not open 'er up? Let's see what this car can do," Tony shouted to Darren over the loud electronic music. Darren turned down the music, switched modes as if at the command of a capacitor’s charge, resting his hand on the stick shift. "I got a ticket two years ago and my insurance went through the roof,” he protested, “I can't afford to take another chance! I've only got one and a half years before my record is clean and then I'll be saving two thousand dollars a year." Darren nearly looked over at Tony, but didn't. Tony interpreted this lack of eye contact as one of many of Darren’s defenses. Darren’s guarded demeanour led Tony to look critically at Darren’s body for the first time. Darren’s hair had no form, Tony thought. A comb pulled the one-inch long strands down Darren’s skull toward his rounded hairline. Darren’s head was oval shaped; widest at the cheeks sitting just under closely set glistening, intense dilated pupils. Tony wondered if Darren suffered from a slight constant strabismus, but could not quite say for sure one way or the other. Darren’s average-sized nose prominently perched aloft a cute, almost boyish set of ruby lips. Darren looked like a chemist, Tony thought. As Darren’s left hand grasped the wheel, Tony questioned how those slightly small and delicate fingers handled harsh chemical reagents; hands that didn’t show any veins under tiny hairs racing up the wrist. Darren’s movements betrayed a certain rigidity of character; one that Tony knew often went with self-imposed limitations on free will. Tony wondered how much thought Darren had given to his limitations in dancing, thinking of the many times he himself had crossed the invisible line between society and alpha male amorality. The image of that young Asian girl came to Tony’s mind—she could have been just over, or just under, the legal age. A lick and a suck turning into a suck and a potential f***. He had a girlfriend at that time, too. Marge. She was beautiful and she didn't know he was dancing. The Asian girl was beautiful, too, though. Her friends had cheered and laughed louder and longer the longer she kissed Tony—a common occurrence at such a party. Her lips felt moist and salty. She had reached down and lightly let her arm fall onto his penis. He knew she'd crossed the line, but the instant her hand touched his penis, he felt that familiar shot of endorphins giving him a chemical fix telling him everything was alright. He had shifted; she had pulled away and looked at him, her eyes like dark warm pools. He couldn't quite read her emotions as she looked down for a fraction of a second, then quickly shot her eyes to her friends and started to laugh. Tony knew she liked him, wanted to f*** him, stroke his sculpted contours. He felt hot; he was hot.
Tony’s buddy had come with him to that party. Sometimes dancers went in pairs to keep order or watch over the money box and the stripper’s discarded clothes. Each hat was worth twenty dollars; each pair of Velcro pants cost two hundred. A party would be a complete loss without proper accounting. Having an extra dancer in tow could serve another purpose, though it was not to mention relationship vows and involvements and Tony’s buddy kept his peace, despite what he may have thought. Tony wondered if Darren would come to understand that purpose. He wondered whether Darren would be willing to assume his role in the pursuit of higher glory—the Alpha Kappa Lambda—the pledge to treat others as they treat you, the golden rule. Dancing has a code. Darren needed to learn that code. Tony wondered how Darren could learn it all without losing it all in the process.
