No 6: MOMENT BY MOMENT
PHOTO BY MARJHAN VASSEGHI
MARJHAN VASSEGHI
Sitting there, in a sunken booth in the corner of the Hollywood club. Everyone dances around me, laughing and getting tipsy, living their best lives. Observing from my corner, I watch people live out their lives with zeal and wanderlust, while I sit here and waste my own, in envy. I hear the trumpets blaring and the bass thumping - keeping perfect time with my heart beat. Since I have nothing else to do but watch and wish I could have the confidence, let alone friends, to get up on the dance floor, I focus on the bass. And for a moment it's just me and the bassist, the only two in the world, dancing through life and moving perfectly in time, like a slow motion scene in a movie. In my imagination, I see him begin to walk away, I scream as I am ripped from my momentous moment with the bass player. When I become aware of myself, still sitting slumped in the booth of the club, I realize that I am actually screaming. Shutting my mouth I dart to scan the dark, light-hearted room, to see if anyone has heard me. As I look around I see that everyone else is screaming. I become relieved and start to scream again. Camouflaging into the racket of the night club, letting go of all of the stress I’ve held onto since I moved to Hollywood.
Deciding to call it a night and retreat into the quiet cocoon I call home, I attempt to slide out from the booth, the exposed skin from my short dress sticking to the red leather seat that tries to pull me back into its comforting depths. Finally freeing myself I soberly stumble towards the back door in my too-high stilettos, just as the door is in my reach I get pulled onto the dance floor in a whirlwind of movement. By a tall, muscular man, whom I do not know, and smells of alcohol. He tenderly places his hands on my hips and we start swaying to the music. Being held so near to him, I feel like I have known him and his secrets all of my life. After the first couple of songs, I become so overwhelmed with emotions for this stranger that I quickly spin around in his arms and kiss him. Hard. Regardless of tasting the alcohol on his breath. Standing in the middle of the dance floor kissing, we act as though we are the only two people in the world. As we kiss, we exchange words that we have never said to each other or anyone else, yet, we reach an understanding. It's like a language that only we speak. And in those few, long, momentous moments we see all of each other. Hearts open, we accept all of each other.
Reluctantly pulling away from the passion driven, fireworks that were just exchanged between us, he quickly spins me back around, making sure not to sneak a look at me, his hands gently resume their place on my hips, sending a shock through my entire body. He whispers in my ear, “You are magical.”
We stayed, swaying on the dance floor until the teeming club was almost empty. Carefully, I lifted his hands from their resting place on my hips and slipped away, heading for the back door. The last thing he saw of me was my long, fiery, auburn hair, flowing behind me as I walked out of that Hollywood club.
