From the second David gets out of the Uber, Taylor Swift's music scents the air like perfume, and his head bobs to the beat. See? This is going to be fun, he pep-talks himself. Until a man in a sequined tuxedo with a matching masquerade mask emerges from a small guardhouse camouflaged into the wall, startling him. David crosses his arms over the outfit he had happily worn to the Eras concert: thrifted Barbie-pink jeans and a rainbow-stripe button-down purchased at the Target near campus. He hides his masquerade mask behind his back, a cheap, glittery thing he ordered from Amazon. But the bouncer doesn't seem to judge; he scans David's QR admission code, and then with a single, crisp gesture, invites David to follow the gently ascending driveway.

With each step, the Scottsdale mansion reveals itself: a multi-level compound of glass walls carved into the mountain. Once at the top, David takes in the view of Phoenix in the distance: diamond lights set against velvet-purple mountains, and rising above it all, the moon, round and white like an eyeball.

Inside the mansion, Taylor Swifts are everywhere. Bopping and throwing her head back in laughter, shimmying and sitting on laps, her red lipstick in various states of perfect to smudged. In ballgowns, in bodysuits, in sequins of every color. There are also quite a few Travis Kelces, all sporting appropriately healthy beards.

For his whole life, David has tried to take up as little space as possible, tiptoed around people who pigeon-holed him and assumed they knew him when he hardly knew himself. Felt like an intruder and an imposter; sometimes both at the same time. But here, hidden behind his half-face mask, he backstrokes through the rooms full of people. Drunk on anonymity and a sense of belonging for the first time, he's just so— alive. The night stretches out in front of him like the desert, and delighted, David sashays.

He sashays through the Evermore room, where everything is covered in soft moss. Then he sashays into the Reputation room, where the walls are covered in glow-in-the-dark python tapestries. His favorite song from that album is blasting, “Look at What You Made Me Do,” and he thinks, YES! My life's anthem! He closes his eyes and lets the music video he's danced to a million times in his bedroom take over his body; his hands turn into snakes, his hips grind and rotate.

He sashays into the Midnights room with its ceiling covered in lavender helium balloons. The room makes him slightly seasick, like he's in an aquarium, little tetra fish-him surrounded by brilliantly colored drag bettas, slowly undulating their chiffon-flowy fins. Then he sashays into the Red room—the soundtrack of his life—and stays to dance out the entire album. When he hears the opening guitar riffs of “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” he breaks out in goosebumps. When the refrain rolls around, he rage-screams it out with everyone else in the room, even though he's never been in a relationship; he hasn't even been kissed yet.

He sashays himself into a chilly, high-ceilinged foyer with a grand staircase. His eyes follow the curve of the stairs to a shadowy second floor. That's where all the bedrooms are, he thinks, giving himself a boner.

He sashays outside, pretending he's strutting down the Eras stage and the stars in the sky are fans holding their iPhone flashlights up. He unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt and flips the collar up, just like people did in the 80s. A man in a gold jumpsuit is walking in the opposite direction, and he wolf whistles, calls David, “Lover.”

The winding path leads David to a pool that glows a turquoise hue. “Snow on the Beach” is playing on loop, and of course, fake snow is being blown from the roof. On the black-green lawn, scattered sofas and chaises spread out in a web, all of them occupied with bodies. He finds an empty chaise and sits. Something sharp pokes his bottom. He shifts his weight, and his fingers come back with a single diamond stud earring. In his palm, he admires how it glitters; something born under immense pressure, then faceted and polished until everyone proclaims it beautiful. He carefully tucks the earring deep into the small front pocket of his jeans; it will be his souvenir. Suddenly, a shadow falls on him.

“Want to dance, Lover?” David looks up to see Mr. Gold Jumpsuit extending his hand and smiling like a wolf. And in a bedroom on the second floor, he mounts David like a wolf, too. David thought it might hurt this much. In the porn he watches when his roommate is out, faces always have that shifting mix of pain and pleasure. Yes, he came here to dance and worship Taylor, but he had also hoped to understand for himself why a face might shift like that.

Later, in another Uber, David pulls the earring out and twirls it by its post. The passing streetlights make it sparkle. Craving more touch, he rolls down the window, sticks his head out like a dog. He shivers. High above, the moon hovers. David fixes his gaze on the man in the moon, and the man watches him back.