The beer was over served by women in short, tight, pleather cop outfits and aviators that confront your reflection in their blurred lenses. Men were rocking feather boas and grinding on each other's smoothly manicured skin. Tall bodies with sequin bellbottoms and bedazzled five-inch heels stood several feet above me. The sun warmed our drunken faces and the smiles grew contagious. It was impossible not to get up and dance as the music faded in and out. Crazy electronic beats radiated the dance floor and “To Russia, with LOVE, from Copenhagen,” was a distance sound, barely audible amongst the screaming transvestites.
The Copenhagen Pride Parade was night that challenged my sexual preference. The night that made the unwanted, lip licking desirable and absolutely irresistible. It was the night that awoken my sexual subconscious. On the dance floor, I let my hair blow in the soft breeze, allowing my body to move, as it desired. All of our inner fantasies began to emerge into a camouflaged society, in a moment free of judgment. It seemed as if the entire city was a sacred space of dancing and celebrating, which continued until sunrise.
Hannah was the first person to approach me. My American accent must have been a dead giveaway and she like me, was intimidated by free love and the anything goes environment, or so it seemed. Hannah was visiting from Paris but she was not your stereotypical Parisian. Hannah, originally from Texas, was living in Paris, studying social engineering in her second masters program. She had long dark hair, pale skin, and a smile that went sideways when she spoke to me.
As I sipped on my fourth beer of the evening, I listened to Hannah tell me story after story. Her energy was intoxicating and I was fascinated by the stranger I had met only a few hours before. It seemed as if we were sitting in this peculiar bubble, unaware that there was an outrageous party occurring around us. People grew drunker and the music got louder, but I was hypnotized by Hannah and needed to know more. I told her about my dreams of becoming an artist and she shared her plans to save the world.
The conversation was flowing effortlessly and she created and environment that allowed me to confess my darkest and most secretive insecurities. It was the conversation about her learning how to speak French when I finally began to realize where the day was going. I was in utter disbelief when she revealed to me that her ex-girlfriend was an older French woman whom she had been cohabitating with for a year and a half. The conversation quickly progressed into a discussion about gay sex.
I cracked beer number six and chugged it almost instantly and the conversation quickly turned become more provocative. As the conversation grew more and more blurry, thoughts started to overpower my words. Anxious and nervous, I began to have somewhat of an outer body experience. I started to wonder if Hannah felt the same way. Would this friendly conversation progress into something more?
My excitement quickly turned to fear. Luckily, nature called and I interrupted Hannah to take a bathroom break only to find out that she also had to use the toilet. Together we maneuvered through the chaos to avoid being soaked in beer.
McDonald’s was our closet option. We bee-lined it across the street, nearly getting trapped in the dust of glitter that covered the street. The line to the bathroom was a mixed gendered mob of people that ransacked any stall that was open. I followed the footsteps of a few brave women and used the urinal to relieve my bladder. Washing my hands was almost beside the point and I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.
I waited for Hannah as people were making out. The floors were covered in French fries and rainbow flags. I started to laugh at myself, realizing that I was apart of the most outlandish shows of Copenhagen and I, in my drunken state, came off to be a lesbian to a woman who just went through a break up. But it didn’t matter, today was a day full of happiness and love, not whether Hannah wanted to kiss me or not. I patiently waited for her to come out of the stall, but she never did. One minute she was there and the next she was gone. It wasn’t possible that she left because I watched her enter the stall, but yet there was no Hannah to be found. It was almost as if she flushed herself down the toilet or she was a figment of my imagination.
I stood there utterly confused but finally decided to leave because I looked like a complete weirdo alone in a McDonald’s bathroom. Passing drag queens with broken heels and struggling to walk down the cobblestone streets, I wondered how that could have happened. The city was out of focus and I was completely baffled by my experience.
The world we live in is strange in the sense that people come in and out of our lives so fleetingly and how in a moments time, even the most secure person can question life and how the live it. It is people like Hannah that influence change and challenge the status quo. Maybe she was the woman I needed to understand this unspoken and unidentifiable emptiness in order to grow. It is funny how someone who might have just been in a drunken banter can have such a profound effect. I hope to meet Hannah again.
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