Neon Haze

Around them, the music swelled, a chaotic pulse of sound and strobing light. Naomi’s eyes tracked the colors flickering across Lily’s pallid, inscrutable face before her hand closed around Lily’s arm. She coiled her other arm around Lily’s tiny waist, propelling her into the crush of the dance floor. A clumsy-looking slide became an accidental stomp on Lily’s toes, followed by a sharp kick to her ankle. A muscle jumped in Lily’s jaw, the only sign of the impact.

Dancing was always Naomi’s way in. It allowed her to be close to her date, a physical intimacy that sidestepped the emotional. As they moved, their bodies bumped and fell into each other, and Naomi felt she could swallow Lily whole. Her body could accommodate Lily’s, absorb her as easily as a raindrop disappearing into the ocean.

Lily’s hair brushed across Naomi’s cheek, and the tingle it left was dangerously familiar. It sparked a memory of her ex-girlfriend—a ghost of a touch from their last tryst—and Naomi’s pulse hammered in her throat. A line of sweat glistened on Lily’s upper lip. Naomi fought the raw urge to lean in and lick it away. Instead, she flinched, her face twisting into a grimace as she scrubbed her cheek with her palm.

“I’m melting!” Naomi shouted over the pounding bass, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

Lily just smiled, a sheen of sweat on her own temples. As Naomi drew her closer to be heard, she was enveloped in Lily’s scent—a clean mix of shampoo and a floral perfume that was purely her.

“Want to grab a drink?” Naomi yelled into her ear. “Find somewhere to sit?”

Lily nodded, her relief obvious. Naomi took her hand, weaving them through the throng of bodies to a small, secluded booth in the corner. The music was still a dull throb, but here they could speak.

“Better?” Naomi asked, sliding in across from her.

Lily’s smile had vanished. She traced a circle on the sticky tabletop, her gaze distant. “My ex used to bring me here,” she said, her voice quiet and tight. “He called me his princesa. He was so sweet, at first.” She looked up at Naomi, her expression suddenly vulnerable. “Then…he wasn’t.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Naomi said.

“He didn’t beat me or anything like that,” Lily said. “But he’s machista in the worst sense of the word. Possessive, too.”

“Possessive how?” Naomi asked, her eyes catching on the soft curve of Lily’s breasts under her thin red blouse.

“He’d drive me to work and pick me up the second my shift ended, as if I couldn’t be trusted to be alone for even  a minute.”

Naomi nodded, trying to focus. “That sounds suffocating.”

The quarantine had decimated her sex life, a casualty she mourned daily. Worse, though, was the loneliness.

“He’s also codo.” Lily bent her arm and tapped her elbow sharply. “Stingy. With money, with affection, with everything.”

The gesture pulled Naomi’s attention back to the conversation. “Right.”

“But we co-parent our son, so I do my best to be civil.”

“What’s your son’s name?” Naomi asked, the question a flimsy cover for her wandering thoughts. She wanted to lean forward, press her face into the space between Lily’s curves, and just breathe.

“Manuel, like his father.” Lily frowned and scrunched her nose as if she’d sucked a lemon. “But I call him ‘Manny.’” Lily pulled out her phone and showed Naomi some pictures of Lily and her son cuddling.

“He’s cute. I’d love to meet him.” Naomi lied.

Lily pocketed her phone, but her gaze lingered on Naomi, searching for a reaction. The lie—“I’d love to meet him”—hung in the air, thin and unconvincing. Naomi could feel it. She could see the slight shift in Lily’s posture, the way her smile tightened at the edges, becoming a mask again.

Their connection, so potent on the dance floor, had snapped. The space between them was suddenly charged with tension. Naomi’s desire conflicted with the stark reality Lily had just presented: a life with baggage, a child, an ex who would always be in the picture. It was too much. The fantasy of Lily—the ethereal, enigmatic mirage—was so much simpler. That Lily was an image shimmering in the distance, all light and promise, a destination that required no difficult journey. The mirage didn’t have a past; it was a perfect, silent invitation, an escape Naomi could project all her hopes onto without ever having to touch the messy, complicated truth.

“It’s, uh, it’s getting really loud in here,” Naomi stammered, pulling back slightly. Lily’s scent now seemed cloying, the music an assault.

Lily just nodded, her eyes distant. “Yeah. It is.”

Awkward silence stretched between them, a dead space untouched by the cacophony of the club. They sat for another minute, sipping their drinks, the easy intimacy of the dance floor a distant memory.

“Well,” Lily said finally, grabbing her purse. “I should probably get back. The babysitter, you know.”

“Right, of course,” Naomi said, a little too quickly.

They left together. The goodnight at the curb perfunctory and brief. There was no lingering touch, no talk of seeing each other again. As Naomi watched Lily’s retreating figure disappear down the street, the loneliness she had tried to dance away came rushing back, colder and sharper than before.