Felecia and John

Felecia and John      
        
     She is a fashion designer in New York City whose dresses are worn by socialites who navigate in circles of the wannabe nouveau monied. But she provides them the illusion of glamour and glitz. I have known her since childhood but when she invites me to dance with these snobs my response is to inform her of my personality traits which would preclude mixing in such a crowd. She brushes aside my protestation with a “You’ll have a ball. You won’t need to mingle too much. We’ll disco dance so you can put aside your worries.”
      I enter the discothèque on a Saturday night but she is nowhere in sight. A woman stranger greets me and offers me a dance. So I take her hand and we boogie. Yet, my guilt that my first partner in this club isn’t my girlfriend makes my heart beat faster than the sensual vibes of this woman. My job as a bouncer at a club which is anything but ritzy is foremost on my mind. How can my girlfriend and I marry with me on the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder? I am like a Halibut, a small fish who swims at the bottom. My lovely designer of gowns for the debutantes such as populate this dance floor is far beyond my reach.
     Finally to my great relief she appears but dancing with another man. When she sees me she grabs my arm and pulls me aside.
    She says, “Remember when I summoned you to my corporeal parlor on nights in our makeshift bedrooms of the woods where we bounced to the tune of the galliards from the town square where skirts spun.”
     “You wore those fancy gowns which I longed to get you out of. My dream finally came true when we made love on a bed of clover. I’ll never forget my struggle to stay on top of you because you quaked like a priestess in the throes of Delphic mysteries. Like the oracle, you thrashed about, groaned, and were in need of restraint. Therefore, I pinned you down to really take you as a man to a woman. If a psyche doctor caught us talking like this we’d get a vacation in the madhouse.”
     “Hey, this scene isn’t the real me anymore. Let’s you and I get hitched and I’ll barmaid at your club. I dig blues more than this Disco anyway. So what do you say, let me be part of your world instead of you having to deal with the snobs in this hoity-toity joint?”
     “Your father will disown you, darling. You don’t want to ditch a burgeoning career in the fashion industry for my gin joint.”
     She shakes her hips to a samba groove and takes me sailing across the dance floor. “Dad won’t stop loving me. I’m his only daughter. Trust me you’ll sit at our table for Thanksgiving. I want this so bad, John. Face your fears and fuck them.”
     We star crossed lovers find ourselves in an impossible world. Felecia’s father puts the squeeze on us. Though we are in love Felecia’s Dad puts his fist down. If she so much as comes near me he will take away the tuition for her fashion college and effectively trash her career which to her on second thought isn’t such a bad profession. I keep my butt in Queens as my last gift to my lover girl so as not to make her father angrier than he already is. She keeps herself in Manhattan not daring to cross the East River to my turf. But for every summer solstice, her father allows us to meet on the Queensboro Bridge where we share kisses until his sunset curfew brings our teary parting. But sunset comes late on this longest day of the year which gives us more time together. Her father isn’t without mercy.
     But on one such rendezvous, she walks with me in the direction of Queens. She says, “We’ll walk together just a little further.” But our stroll takes us further into my world until we step off the bridge into a decision long in the making. She walks away from wealth and prestige into the realm of the hoi polloi of her father’s warning which she no longer heeds.
     On the way to my place, she says, “Disrobe me of this royal dress so that true simplicity will be mine. My American dream is to prance prettily on the shag carpet wearing only my skin.”