Chapter 7 : There are all sorts of people in the nightclubs of Montreal
*Note from the author: This chapter is based on true events.*
I’m standing on the sidewalk, freezing to death. January was never a friendly month, but this year the cold is more intense than anything I can remember. I’m wearing my shirt, a sweater and my coat, I’m wrapped up in my scarf, holding it up over my nose, leaving open to the cold slap of the wind only my eyes. God, I hate winter! The cold, the wind, the darkness, the dirt and the dust, it’s all just awful. I don’t mind chilly weather, but cold, real Canadian winter cold… I can’t even imagine being remotely all right with. Every winter is hell, and I just pray for an early spring. I’m cursing this country and this season under my breath when I see her appear at the corner on the other side of the street. Like me, she’s wearing so much clothing she’s unrecognizable, but I know it’s her from the way she walks, the way she moves. I also recognized her coat, but that’s just a detail. She doesn’t wait for the light to switch green in her favour to cross the street, she straight up jay-walks to me. A passing car honks at her even though she’s already half-way across the street, not even in the car’s way anymore. She runs into my arm, searching for warmth. Her fingers cling to the hem of my scarf and she pulls it down, making way for her lips to find mine. That kiss warms me up more than any piece of winter clothes could.
“Can we go in now,” I ask her when she pulls away from the kiss. “I’m about to lose some toes here!”
She laughs and pulls open the door for me. The bar is warm and full of people. There are so many people we can barely move, and it takes us many long minutes to cross the room and reach the place where her friends are waiting.
“You didn’t get a table?” she asks the four people I have never met before, two couples, when we reach the corner where they are standing.
“There were no tables left; it’s a full house.”
“Well, do you guys want to stay here? Do you want to spend the evening standing up?”
“Not really.”
Everybody is a little annoyed with the situation. How can one enjoy a comedy show when one cannot sit or put their coat down for at least two hours? We take a unanimous decision to go somewhere else, make our way back to the door, get our entrance tickets reimbursed and walk out in the cold.
“So, where do we go?” Sam asks.
“We can go to downtown,” her friend Brandon says. “But if we do, we need a designated driver.”
“I don’t mind doing it,” says his girlfriend. “You’ll just have to order me a lot of virgin Caesars!”
We get in Bandon’s car and drive away in the night. Even with the heat on, it takes almost the whole ride until my body starts to warm up. Brandon struggles to find parking, cursing the streets of Montreal as he drives up and down the same streets, hoping someone will leave their parking spot. We end up parking a good kilometer away from the club. We start walking and, halfway there, I’m already freezing again. The warmth that envelops me when I walk in the club is so intense that I feel like I just open the door to hell, but I’m not going to complain about being warm! After leaving our coats at the coat check, we find a table that fits all six of us. It’s still pretty early, and the other club was full because of the comedy show, but this one is still pretty empty. There’ll be a band playing here tonight, but they don’t go on for another two hours.
In the meantime, Sam introduces me to her friends and we order food to snack on while we chat. It’s the first time that I’m hanging out with Sam and her friends, and I can see the little differences between when-we-are-alone-together-Sam and out-with-her-friends-Sam. She likes debates, where she always answers with clear arguments but gets frustrated when her opponent doesn’t let her finish her sentences. She doesn’t kiss me in front of her friends, but her hand has been glued to my thigh since we sat down. She asks me if I’m ok a lot, her eyes locking into mine when we speak, making me feel like I’m the only people in the world, and always makes sure I have a drink. It’s funny seeing her this way, in a different environment. It’s like meeting someone I already know, but in a different light, seeing them from a different perspective. Her friends are all very nice. They ask me about school, about myself, how I met Sam, etc. Of course, the questions related to my coming out come up (they always do). How old were you? How did it go? Did your parents take it well? I answer each question politely, even if I don’t like them very much. It’s not that I mind talking about myself and my coming out, or that it’s a painful subject to talk about, not at all. It’s just that everybody is always asking and sometimes I would like to just spend one evening out with people where I can just enjoy myself, be who I am, without having to tell the whole story. I understand that people who have never had the opportunity to do a coming out are curious. When the reaction is positive, a coming out is a great thing to experience. It’s like a celebration of who you are. But the reactions one receives after coming out are not always positive and then, in those cases, coming out can feel like walking through a burning fire while being run over by a ten-wheeler truck. So, I tell the story to Sam’s friends, she’s also listening closely since she’s never heard the story either. The last part of the story is cut short by the band walking up on stage and starting their set. The music is so loud, we can’t hear each other speaking anymore, so we give up chatting and just listen to the music. After a while, Sam gets tired of just sitting and stands up, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the dance floor. I follow her, my head light from the bear, the music echoing through my body, making my bones shake. Her hands in mine, we dance to the music, lost in our world. Her hair bounces up and down around her face when she jumps around, her eyes finding mine again and not letting go of my gaze. She makes me spin around, wraps her arms around me, makes goofy dance moves to embarrass me. I twirl until I’m dizzy, I pull her close to me, I laugh at her moves, playing along and busting some elementary school dance kind of moves.
And that’s when someone pokes me several times in the back. I turn around, suddenly very annoyed at however is trying to burst my bubble. A tall blond guy I’ve never seen before looks at me with a big grin on his face.
“Are you two girls together?” He asks me.
“Yes,” I answer, immediately turning back toward Sam to that we can resume our moment.
He pokes me in the back again.
“No, but like, are you together…together?” He asks again, making an obscene gesture to make sure we understood what he meant.
I just turn around. I don’t want to encourage him, give him reasons to fantasize about us, or worst, hurt us.
Sam rolls her eyes to tell me she thinks he’s stupid and pulls me closer, like she’s scared he’s going to snatch me away. Her eyes are full of all sorts of colors and lights, it looks like they are made out of a part of the Milky Way. I lean in and kiss her, softly. I pull away and she smiles at me, pulling me back into the kiss.
“All right!” screams the guys in our faces, putting one hand on each of our shoulders.
I pull back from the kiss and turn toward him, ready to punch him right in the nose. I feel Sam grab my wrist so I don’t knock his lights out. She pulls me back toward our table. I feel violated. His intrusion in our kiss, in our moment, makes me feel dirty, like he just threw some mud at me. Why do guys feel like they have some kind of right over two girls together. Why do they feel entitle to touch us, intrude on us, when they are clearly not welcome. I just want to leave now, I’m not having fun anymore. I tell Sam and she asks her friends over the loud music if they feel like going. They ask for another 30 minutes, and then we’ll leave. I agree, picking at our left-over nachos while waiting for the half-hour to be over. When it’s finally time to leave, Sam goes to get our coats and I go to the bathroom. I make my way around the many people who are dancing, heading for the hallway that leads to the bathroom. When I break free from the crowd and start down the hallway, someone grabs my wrist strongly. I know who it is even before I turn around. He looks at me with his stupid grin on his face.
“That was hot back there,” he says.
He pulls on my wrist to make me come closer to him.
“Get off,” I say, slamming his hand away.
His face changes. He still has a stupid smile plastered on his face, but his eyes are not happy. I turn around, giving up on the idea of going to the bathroom. I quickly walk back into the crowd, walking away from him as quickly as possible. I’m a lot smaller than him, so I shuffle through the crowd a lot easier than him, and reach Sam who’s waiting for me by the door. I don’t look back, I just put my coat on and push the door. The cold slaps me in the face when I walk outside, but I feel better out here in the cold than in there with the creepy dude.
***
Laying next to her on the bed, I tell Sam what happened when I tried to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to tell all her friends because Brandon was pretty drunk and I was scared he would go back and punch him. But now that it’s just her and me, I tell her everything.
“This whole thing could’ve gone very wrong”, she says under her breath.
I nod.
We don’t say anything else, both of us trying not to think about how wrong this situation could’ve gone. I slide close to her, pressing my head against her chest, where I can hear her heart.
“I got you now,” she says.
“I know.”