Last Dance
Last Dance
The following is a semi-autobiographical story that has greatly influenced the writing of my novel series, “The Desert Road of Night.”
I bumped into my ex-girlfriend, Céline, as I was leaving a restaurant with my date, someone I had met through an app. My date had spent the entire evening talking about herself and how amazing of an artist she was, even saying at one point, “Not that you'd get it immediately—most people don’t—but you need a high IQ to grasp the genius that is my art.”
Céline gave my date a once-over before shooting me that look that said, "Really? You’ve become that guy?" Before I could respond—ready to remind her of our age difference, with Céline being older than me—my date started gushing, telling her how much she was a fan of her "art." Céline just rolled her eyes and said, "It’s poetry, not art, but thanks anyway."
Because I had been in a power dynamic with Céline decades before, where I was the "Big" to her "Little," and because there had never been closure between us, Céline's mood shifted from the reserved demeanor most introverts exhibit to that of a "Brat," demanding that I ditch the "Square"—my date—and come with her instead.
Without giving Céline’s demand a second thought, I shifted from the demeanor I had adopted since I was last with her—the one that had made me a decent father and a barely tolerable husband to my now ex-wife—and became the man who welcomed the "brattiness" of his “Sub.” With as little consideration as my date had given our waitress—horrible—I grabbed Céline’s hand and led her from the restaurant doorway, down the dark streets, leaving my date behind.
At first, Céline and I said nothing. I was nervous to see a woman with whom I had had a complex relationship spanning over twenty years. We had become a living testament to the power of pushing and pulling a lover into and out of your life, with each round of this dynamic generating more longing and desire in each other, to the point where we had become a literal drug to one another.
Céline’s hand shook in mine. It was as though she was fighting the feeling of relapsing throughout our entire walk. It seemed aimless—wandering the back streets of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District—until I realized where we had suddenly stopped: in front of the entrance to what was once a BDSM club. It was where she and I used to go, where we started our dynamic. It had since closed, with that entrance now leading into a boutique hotel that had been built upon the foundation of the old building.
By now, the initial flash of Brat energy Céline had given me was gone. Her shoulders were hunched, not just from the cold of that night in January so many years ago but also from the gamble I knew she was taking in making herself vulnerable to me again. But the way she squeezed my hand as she led me told me she was expressing, non-verbally, her desire for a return to us—the way we were—with me as the Dom who would become Céline's mission commander anytime she needed to be launched into that beautiful, ecstatic “Space” that almost every Sub strives to enter when they find that “One” who gets it. A Dom who would understand, at a visceral level, that submission is the gift that, once given, can never be taken back because of the addiction that would arise in his Sub for the transcendent as experienced through another person's body.
By reading her body and the way she suddenly pushed her shoulders back, looking at me directly with her head held high, I understood that she wanted me to take her back to a home she had discovered in our dynamic. I led her into the hotel. In the past, we used to go down an elevator that would open into a labyrinth filled with lovers moaning in the shadows; this time, we went up, toward the loud music blaring from the top floors.
Once there, the elevator doors opened. Céline and I stepped out with the crowd of young men and women who had been packed in with us. We followed them onto the jam-packed dance floor and found ourselves in the middle of it. The arms and backs of others dancing around us pressed against our bodies, pushing Céline and me closer. In the dance, we stared deeply into each other’s eyes. We brought our faces as close as we could without kissing; our lips lingered; her eyes pulsed; her arms wrapped over my shoulders as though she were hanging on to life; my hands flat against the small of her back, her heartbeat pulsing hard enough that I could feel it through her leather jacket and my peacoat.
It was then that I realized what it meant to be lost in time: what had felt like a minute in her arms had turned out to be an hour. We would have remained lost if not for her wincing and saying, “Nature calls.”
After asking around for the bathroom and finding out it was on another floor below ours, we decided to take the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. In the stairwell, we passed murals of dominatrixes and cherubs.
We entered a crowded foyer filled with furnishings designed for aesthetics rather than function. Céline excused herself and went to the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to do the same.
Once done, we met back in the foyer. We looked at each other, then at the men roaming the room in packs, their scheming obvious in their eyes. The women huddled together in their own groups for mutual safety. One of those young women, who had been watching us, broke away from her group and approached Céline, saying, “I know you… You were on TV.”
Céline chuckled. “Not anymore.”
“Can I have your autograph?”
“Only if you tell me my name. Do you know it, or are you asking because I was on TV?”
The young woman’s expression shifted from star-struck curiosity to confusion. “I don’t know your name—just give it to me.”
“Fine, you can have my autograph. Do you have something I can write on?”
The young woman pulled a napkin from her purse and handed it to Céline.
She scribbled on it before handing it back. The young woman looked at the signature and said, “You’re not ‘The Rock.’”
“How do you know that if you don’t know my name?”
“‘Cause The Rock is a seven-foot dude, and you’re a tiny old bitch trying to fuck with me.”
“Next time, know who you’re talking to before interrupting them and asking for a favor.”
The young woman's body language suggested she was about to throw a drunken punch. I led Céline out of the foyer before a fight, which I realized at that moment she was too old to handle, could break out. As we headed back upstairs, I became lost in my feelings. It was dawning on me that I had met Céline when she was thirty and I was barely in my twenties. Time is cruel; I could never unsee the beauty that had me falling in love so hard with her. But when that young woman called her old, and she flinched at the pain of those words, I caught a glimpse of reality: how haggard and gaunt she looked now, being over fifty. Yet somehow, this glimpse made Céline that much more beautiful to me. In that moment, she suddenly signified just how fragile all life is, and as our days dwindle, Céline and I move closer and closer to death.
Headlong into oblivion.
The realization of how precious her being alive was to me started coming through as a hunger—a desire to experience as much of Céline as I could before our end came. There was no better way to express that hunger and desire than to grab Céline’s hand and, once we were back upstairs, lead her out to the open-air patio—to the railing overlooking the streets below—just so I could tell her she was more beautiful now than ever. It seemed to surprise her.
“Really? I don’t feel it,” she said.
“You are,” I replied.
“You’re just saying that because you have a thing for women who look like bag ladies.”
“Take the compliment.”
“Alright... only because it’s coming from you; I know you’re not bullshitting me, trying to pick me up.”
“That’s because you’re already mine.”
She seemed taken aback by my statement. “Is that what you think?” she asked.
“It’s what I know,” I said.
A moment of stillness settled between us in her silence. We looked around at the groups and couples milling about the rooftop patio, their silhouettes making them appear like shadows.
The tension I felt from her hand in mine tightened.
She looked at me with questioning eyes. “Are you still with ‘what’s her name?’”
“You caught me on a date,” I replied.
“You, of all people, should know that doesn’t mean anything. You were with ‘what’s her name’ when we had our ‘Round Two.’ Look at how that turned out.”
I sighed. “I’m still with her—”
“Of course.”
“But I’m not with her. We’re divorced... but something happened, and we had to put aside our hard feelings to deal with an illness. My daughter’s freaking out that her mother could die. I moved back in for her sake. I need my daughter to focus—she’s in her final year of high school. She’ll be off to college soon, and I’ll be free again.”
Céline became silent again. It was like she was trying to figure out whether she should stay or walk away because of the choice I made to take that quality she loved about me—being the nurturing “Big”—and apply it to my conventional life. I was trying to do the right thing, not think about myself, because I needed my ex-wife to recover. I needed her to survive because she’s the mother of my daughter. She needs to be healthy for our child, and despite the bad blood, I will always love her, too.
If it was my nature to be this way, I needed to remind Céline of hers. “Do you still have a roster?”
She chuckled. “I’ve never had a roster.”
“Bullshit. You’ve always had someone hanging around you—in the shadows—like they were the backup, waiting to be promoted.”
“Jesus… You’ve become more cynical.”
“No... I’ve become more realistic. I always assume anyone beautiful will have someone in their life. Beautiful people are never single.”
“But I am single. I was with someone—a sweet guy—but that was also his problem: he was too sweet, too forgiving, too much in my face, up my ass, always asking what he could do to make me happy.”
“You don’t want to be happy.”
“Not in the way ‘Squares’ think happiness is. And my ex is a Square. He has no clue how to be with me. How it’s sometimes good to have conflict—not be such a fucking pussy.” Céline paused. “I had told him the story about how I tried running you over with your car.”
I laughed because that was a memory I treasured. A few years after our first breakup, Céline and I had a chance encounter similar to the one that led us to the hotel, which kicked off the “Round Two” phase of our relationship. Despite knowing I was in another relationship, Céline wanted something—anything romantic—with me, so long as she felt like she was returning to the one person she trusted to send her to Space without fear of injury.
But just as Round Two had begun, it ended. In the middle of the night, I made it clear I needed to leave her apartment and go home. I had plans the next day with my daughter and her mother, a woman I met shortly after our first breakup—whose name Céline still couldn’t say aloud. Céline followed me outside, and after yelling at me in just a bra and panties, she made it clear I wasn’t going anywhere because she had the keys to my car. As we wrestled in the street next to my car, she grabbed me by the balls and twisted just enough that I backed off. She raced over to the driver’s door, opened it, got in, and tried to run me over.
Despite her trying to kill me, I needed to get my keys back. So, I went back to her apartment. Céline and I ended up having the most intense, most passionate sex we’d ever had, leaving us trembling, legs shaking, and me finally understanding the true source of genuine desire: it always comes at the tail end of anxiety.
I couldn’t help but laugh when Céline said, “My ex is someone who would never do anything that would make me want to run him over with a car, and it’s just… ugh—so boring. I’m like, get some balls and show me that you’re honest. Everyone gets mad, but not him. Until he does, and that’s when he starts punching walls.” I stopped smiling when her face became serious. “Yeah, he needed to go. He needed to move out… He still has the keys to my apartment. He won’t give them back.”
“The irony.”
“I know. And now, he drops by whenever he wants, even though I told him to stop and give me back my keys. Earlier today, he showed up saying, ‘Let me give you what you really want. Let’s play, ‘cause that’s what you want… You want me to be him.’ He started calling me by some fucked-up names, trying to be something that he’s not… Yeah, I needed to get away. I needed to disappear. I drove down here, if for anything, to remember who I was, who I used to be before I got old—”
Céline stopped talking when a couple walked up to the railing, standing arm-in-arm next to us. She sighed when they kissed before walking away.
After a long moment of silence, Céline looked at me and said, “I’m too old to be dating. To have to teach someone new how to be with me... I think I’m done.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Bullshit. You were out with that kid. How old is she?”
“Twenty-four.”
“And you’re, like, forty-four?”
“Yup, and I feel the difference. I tried connecting with her, but it was more of a monologue on her part. I knew she was trying to impress me with all these things she said she creates, but to me, the more she talked about ‘art,’ the more I knew she was full of shit. So, I called her a ‘poser,’ and that’s when our date ended, and I ran into you.”
“Did you pick the spot?”
“No, she did.”
Céline smiled. “Interesting... We’ve had great times at our spot.”
“The menu’s changed.”
“Of course it did; everything changes.”
“Not everything. The way I feel about you hasn’t. Has it for you?”
She sighed. “No, although I wish it did. I wouldn’t be feeling all this regret I’m feeling now.”
“Regret is a motherfucker.”
“I know... But the great thing about getting older is knowing we have the power to change things up. If the signs are there, we should go for it. We don’t have to live with regret.”
“We don’t.”
“Okay then... What are your plans for when your daughter moves away?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking of maybe taking my camera and going overseas, maybe to Syria, and doing some war photography.”
“Still angling to be a photojournalist?”
“Yeah…”
“Even if you end up dead?”
“No one lives forever, and to be honest, I’m tired. I’m so tired of life—the boredom, the sadness, the depression.”
“Me too…” Céline was quiet for a moment before a smile crept onto her face. “But it doesn’t have to be this way, not anymore… You don’t need to go to Syria to experience some excitement—some terror. You can get plenty of that here at home.”
“I can?”
“Sure. You can move in with me like we talked about doing.”
“That was then.”
“That can be now... I trust that you know when to pay attention to me and when to give me space without me having to say anything... That’s the thing I miss the most. How you know. How we talk without words.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure. I drove two hours from the Hamptons with the thought of going to that restaurant, all with the hope, however small, that I’d run into you, and there you were. It’s a sign. Don’t you think? That we’re meant for a final round?”
“Anything can be looked at as a sign, even coincidences, if we wish it to be.”
Céline playfully slapped me on the shoulder. “When did you stop being romantic?”
“The day I lost hope.”
“Then let’s get it back.”
Céline led me away from the railing of the outdoor patio and back inside. We cut across the crowded dance floor toward the elevator, rushing in once the doors opened. It took us down to the main lobby, where we headed to the front desk and booked a room for the two of us. After I handed over my credit card details and got the keycards, I led Céline to the separate elevator bank reserved for hotel guests. We rode it up to our floor and got off. Inside the room, we hurried to the window to look out again—down at the icy sidewalks and roads glowing a frosty blue—before turning away and looking at each other.
We pressed our bodies close, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. Our faces came as close as possible without kissing, our lips lingering, her eyes pulsing.
“I just want to be close to you,” she said. “I want to do more than remember the way we were in bed. I want to feel the real again, so let’s get real. I haven’t felt real in years.”
Céline began to undress, and I followed her lead until we were both naked. Her body looked more glorious with age than it ever had in all the time I’ve known her. She went to where she’d dropped her large handbag by the door, reached in, and pulled out a wooden brush before walking back and handing it to me.
We climbed into bed together. My back rested against the headboard, and Céline positioned herself between my legs. I started brushing her hair. She moaned, her head moving with the rhythm of the brush, until it caught on a snag, jerking her head back.
“Why so many knots?” I asked.
“I don’t have anyone to take care of me,” she replied.
“You do now.”
“Forever and ever?”
“Forever and ever.”
“Pinkie swear?”
“Yes, pinkie swear.”
With the crossing of our fingers, I sealed my promise to her and then continued combing her hair.
Her soft moans told me she was feeling the pleasure of being back in the real—what she would call her “Littlespace.”1
Being in a room with Céline like this wasn’t about sex. It was about enjoying how her hair smelled like mint, the city, and sweat. It was about paying attention to her moans, which grew softer the more I brushed her hair, until I knew she was about to fall asleep. That’s when I told her to lay back. I was tucking her in with me, covering our bodies in cool, white sheets. I savored the way her body bent as I spooned her from behind, rocking her softly until she was fully asleep—and then it was my turn to do the same.
When I woke up the next day, Céline was gone. For a moment, I panicked, thinking it had all been a dream. Then I saw she’d left a note on hotel stationery, set on the desk by the window. It had her address, her new phone number, and the following message:
“When the time comes, and your daughter moves away, you’ll know what to do. Until then, we’re ‘no contact.’ I’m sorry, but I learned my lesson the hard way: never be the other woman again.”
I couldn’t help but smile at how Céline still knew exactly how to create the most desire in me—pulling me in before pushing me away, but only temporarily, until we were supposed to meet again. This time, I had hoped it would be for good. But a month later, while waiting for my ex-wife to finish her latest round of chemotherapy, I was reading the New York Times, and there it was: Céline’s obituary. It noted her passing from a stroke and highlighted her accomplishments as a poet, along with the influence she had on others.
That was the day all hope died with her. I haven’t been the same since
Author’s note: The photographs in this semi-autobiographical story were taken the same night as the events that inspired it.
To see how this event also influenced the themes in my novel, The Beautiful World of the Alive, click on this link to Amazon to find out, or subscribe (if you haven't already).
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“The Natural,” as defined in The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene, is someone who exudes an innocent, childlike charm and spontaneity, making them irresistibly seductive. In the context of LittleSpace within a consensual power dynamic, a Natural thrives by embodying these youthful traits, enhancing their role with genuine, carefree behavior that aligns with the submissive, childlike aspects of LittleSpace. This creates a safe space to work through and heal from past trauma, deeply appealing to their "Big's" caregiving instincts.