damnation on the dance floor
Lilith
I want to lose myself on the dance floor. Let the music fill me. Consume me. A fire scorching this skin. The beat is all I
need. A pulse to prove I’m alive.
That I have a heart.
We’re at a house party. These people have opened their doors and welcomed their friends in, cramming into nearly every corner.
The humidity is thick in the living room, where the music is at its loudest.
I’ve come with Cara. She’s my wingwoman for the night. We enter the center of the dance floor together, then split up. We’ll
circle back later. Time to test the waters. See who’s up for grabs. Who’s available.
This vessel will do. A weak Chablis. Too much acidity. Loose skin. I feel no connection, so I abandon him—ditching this vehicle
and hot-wiring another—and another—and another—until I find a host worth lingering in. Never forever. Just enough for now.
Find a pulse. Keep the beat.
Keep dancing.
See all the others sweating around us. Chests heaving. We can make a cesspool of this place, pressing every vessel further into oblivion.
A little nudge here, a little nudge there . . .
This is my gift.
These people are desperate for their own annihilation. Let them have it, I don’t care. Who am I to argue? I’ll happily oblige.
Take me, they all say. Come inside . . .
Let me in, let me in . . .
Let me in.
Voids. So many open hearts, full of nothing. Emptiness all around. Look at them. The desperation in their faces. The neediness
seething up from their skin. It clings to their bodies, like a grease. Napalm sweat.
I’ve never been so bored. It’s so easy to inhabit these people. It takes nothing. So little effort. I’m just going through
the motions. My heart just isn’t in it. Hasn’t been for ages.
Not since Jordan. He still has my heart, and look what he did with it.
Rejected it.
Exorcised.
Corruption is everywhere. On everything. A film of sin, basted and battered on these people. We run our hands over our body.
Absorb the sound in our skin. Move to the music.
Take me, take me, more and more every day. Where’s the fun in this? The challenge?
The love?
“Hey, what’s your name—”
I flood his body before he can finish.
“Have I seen you before—”
I flood her flesh before the words leave her lips.
“You come here often—”
I seize their tongues. I’m so tired of their trivial come-ons. The pretense of interest, of curiosity. There’s nothing but
lust. Wanton, eager, lust. Desperation. Neediness.
I’m getting drunk off these hosts. Bingeing on their sin.
Drifting . . .
I can finesse the flesh on this dance floor. Arouse every last one of these people. Just a tip of the scales. A hand here.
A passing glance there.
I drift through each of them, slipping into their skin with the slightest friction.
So many lost souls on the dance floor, all fighting for my attention. Look at this one. There’s a darkness brewing within
him. Just a shimmer. I can slip in, press against the cracks. Force them open even further. There is a loneliness to him.
A sense of desperation. So young. All it would take is for me to slip inside and push. Just a nudge. Tip the scales.
“Hello,” we say.
“Hi.” His soul sweats. There’s perspiration even in his words. “How’s it going?”
“Are you dancing?”
“Yeah, uh—sure.”
He’s too timid to act upon his urges. I can give him that courage. That desire. Just the slightest push. That’s all. He wouldn’t
even notice.
I abandon this man, sinking back into the dance floor.
What about her? Her essence is already curdling. We feel it from all the way over here. All she needs are a few encouraging
words, a little nudge, and . . . off she goes.
A new direction in life. A path forged by a guiding hand. I’ll see her soon enough.
There’s nothing here for me. Everyone is corrupted already.
What’s left?
I am water without a receptacle. Water doesn’t yearn for an urn. It doesn’t wish to be contained. It wants to be free, boundless,
without shape. Without form. I have no shape. No definition. I need to fill. To find a fresh vessel. But there is nothing
here for me.
No body to call my own.
I’m going to whip them all into a frenzy. Let’s keep on dancing . . . Dancing . . .
I tell myself that I have a task to do, an infernal service to uphold—tip the scales—but I just can’t do it anymore. What’s
the point?
I’ve lost a taste for my talents. I used to love what I do. Now it’s too easy. They all want it while I don’t. I don’t want
any of this. I haven’t for so long now.
I want him. Need him.
Jordan. He’s the only light worth basking in. The only skin worth wearing.
Where is he?