Jim took the emcee’s mike, “Alright, now for the hot, new couple, Harley and Aerin!”

The guys in the group woke, having been lulled to slumber by the slow songs, and cheered lustily while the women looked on expectantly, clapping also.

“Ok, since you all want to see me do something, what do you all think I should sing?” Harley asked as she stood up, wiping her hands down her skirt.

“What else?” Thad asked, faux innocently. “That hot number you danced to for Michael, of course!”

“But Jim was my partner for the first half of it, and Aerin won’t know what …” Harley rebutted.

“No, no, no, Harley,” Rachel jumped up and walked to stand next to Jim. “Aerin should stay in her seat, and get that lap dance from you, in the middle portion, you remember? And Jim should dance with you as your partner at the start of the song, just like in Michael’s party.”

I had a sinking feeling that I was going to have to pretend not to like this while enjoying myself thoroughly.

“Oh, man,” Harley groaned.

The driving, remixed dance beat blared out of the close-in speakers as Harley and Jim took their positions across the dance floor. Harley saucily walked across the floor snapping her fingers as she walked gracefully to the beat, lip-synching into the mike, “Since I met you, I’ve begun to feel so strange, every time I speak your name. That’s funny, you say that you are so helpless too. That you don’t know what to do.”

Jim wound his arms around her and spun her like a top. She spun across the floor, her loose skirt billowing around her as if it was a cloud carrying her to me. She came to a graceful stop in front of me, and she lifted one leg up and rested it on my left shoulder while she continued to mouth the lyrics, swaying her hips, “Each night I pray there will never come a day when you up and take your love away.” She lifted her leg up, stepped away slightly and turned around, and then rubbed her ass over my crotch, swaying with exaggerated swings from side to side. The skirt had settled around us when she’d sat, so it had covered much of what she was doing. But to the audience there was no mistaking what was going on. I swallowed drily, eyes open in a panic that I’m afraid I couldn’t hide, “Say you feel the same way too… and I wonder what it is I feel for you… with you, baby … could it be I’m falling in love…. With you … with you…”