"Yeah!"
"ParadisiO!"
"How much?!"
"It's only eight euros," she says.
"Eight euros!? That's a deal, that's a steal!"
"We're in. Right?"
"Yup."
"Duh."
"Duh."
Fuck it, why not. Just one more spliff before we hit the road, so we show up fashionably in the middle of things. Tickets, then it's to the stage that Billy Idol'd performed on. Except now there's no Billy and the lights are cool and rhythmic and the DJ's playing something dance-y. Something minimalist-y, and edgy and dirty at the same time. And it's not old farts nodding heads to an old legend tonight. It's all hot-skinned, wasted youths, grinding and grabbing, holding and drunkenly having of everything and one another. It's daring. And it's what we think of when we think of a dance club. It's the dance club. In the middle of Amsterdam in the middle of Holland, the land of house DJs. And we dance. We dance like it's what we've been doing for the past two months because it is, and our bodies don't tire through the night. They just keep moving.
In the middle of the floor there's a tiny little mini stage with girls dancing all sexy-like on it. It's not so much a stage as it is a square, four-table-sized box, painted and made of wood, but the girls are dancing on it all the same. About three of them (it's dark, and I think one might be a dude), but I guess there's room for many more because Katinka jumps up onto it and pulls us up too, each one of us, by the hand. And so we're there floating up above the crowd, dance battling the DJ, or at least think we were at times. He's got better things to do apparently, which sits (or dances) well with me, I must say. He is killing it, and we dance so it looks like the stage is our own, hands in motion, touching our faces and bodies, and shooting from the hip, and raining down from above and snorkeling and sprinkler-ing all over the damned place. Either up on the mini stage or jumping down to the floor, but always jumping back up for a little last twist and snap. One last shake before jumping off. "There's still another stage!" yells Katinka over the slippery electro.
"Oh, shet! Let's go!"
"Where we goin'?!"
"The other stage!" We're dance-talking. It's when you talk (or yell) when your dancing because you just can't stop.
"There's another stage!?"
"Yeah, silly!"
"Follow me!" yells Katinka, and she grabs our hands and our faces and dances us out. To the lobby, just between stages. But the place is deafening, so quiet in comparison that I instinctively yawn to try to pop my ears. "Are you tired!?" she yells, but she yells it loud and it's ripe for laughter.
I smile, yelling "No!" before whispering, "Just deaf." And we all laugh because we just don't care as we storm the other stage. It's just as dirty, just smaller so the bodies dance closer, and introductions were with fierce eyes. Fierce eyes, then sultry eyes, then a questioning finger down my chest to my belt. Her finger follows and she pulls me in. Dutch girls, I love them. She turns to face away and holds my hands running down her body, and arcs back to kiss my cheek with the little tip of her tongue, so I'll find it. Of course I find it, why, she make's it so easy. And, well you know, I fucking love making out with girls on the dance flow. Who doesn't?
But alas, there's always that tap on the shoulder, at least in Europe. "Hey, we're going to the other stage! More space to dance!"
"But..." Fuck, ok. "I'm coming!" So I squeeze her hips and kiss her neck good-bye and then her lips. There's always more girls to dance with, I know it. And I'm not one to split the herd. Mostly because I'd loose myself too easily, like that little elephant in the African dust-storms before the flood. Be wise, I always tell myself, you have no phone. I turn to go, "Good-bye, love."
"Hey let's go dance on that mini stage again!"
"Yeah!" It's a night of dancing, the last night we dance before going back, hopping over to London and back over to the States and reality. So we dance dances to exhaustion, until we can't dance anymore. And Katinka's right there with us. I'm going to miss this place.
