The Reporter's Notebook

As the music of Equinox plays in the background, a woman wearing a bridal veil and a black leather catsuit grabs the metal bars surrounding her in a raised platform known as The Cage.

It's just another Saturday night at the Man-Ray club located in Central Square.

The club hosts a 19+ night known as "Liquid" every Saturday.

Attitude abounds and the out-of-the-ordinary is ordinary at Liquid.

One room in the club blasts 1980s music, while "camp classic disco" fills another of the club's rooms.

"I come here almost every weekend," says Celia G. Thomas, examining one of her lace-gloved hands. "Great music, great dancing."

The club's decor is as bizarre as the clothing worn by its patrons.

A large picture of Mary Poppins, the magical nanny of film fame, is tacked up behind the bar and lends the club an upbeat atmosphere.

But paradoxically, a wreath of thorny antlers, and small stuffed birds, black of course, surrounds the smiling housekeeper.

Underneath the eerie picture, a bartender moves quickly and forcefully.

The bartender's canine teeth are quite sharp, and her black "Roadkill Cafe" t-shirt and several facial piercings do nothing to soften the first impression.

"Who the hell is next?" she asks, while violently shaking a vodka sour.

"Someone, anyone? Can we move it along here?" the bartender barks.

The next customer tentatively moves forward and orders a Cape Codder.

The bartender rolls her eyes. "I better get a big tip for this one, blondie," she says, both hands already grabbing bottles.

Back on the dance floor, clubgoers gyrate inside The Cage, which is surrounded on either side by black and bright purple scenes of mountains.

Although dancers cover the ground surrounding The Cage, The Cage itself is sparsely populated with only a few fancifully-dressed clubgoers.

Wearing a chopped-off tulle skirt, red and white striped tights and a black leather vest, one woman executes modified pirouettes about the area.

A few feet away, another woman clad from head to toe in black leather sways with eyes half-shut.

"I'm definitely staying out of The Cage area for now," says an MIT student, who asks not to be named. "It's my first time here."

A man in tights and a red cape grooves by. A student raises his eyebrows.

"It's a strange crowd," the student says, "but not actually as weird as I thought it would be."

Some of the clubgoers sport more conservative attire.

A man in a blazer and khakis jumps about wildly; women and men wearing trademark Abercrombie & Fitch vests or J. Crew skirts can be spotted here and there.

Yet most of those in khakis are standing to the side of the dance floor. Some stand, arms folded, in front of an industrial-size fan, while others sit underneath a large black bat that hangs on one wall.

The majority of the collegiately-dressed crowd, however, can be found in the front room, dancing the night away to techno.

Barely a speck of leather is to be found among the front-room group.

"I went to the back room when I got here, and it was too strange," said Boston resident Jamie A. Cho. "[The front room] is great."

Even the bartenders in this room are a little more traditional. One, a clean-cut man of about twenty-five, is politely taking drink orders and serving them with a smile.

The little dishes of pretzels placed along the bar's counter add to the customer-friendly atmosphere.

Techno booms from the speakers, sweat pours from the clientele, and college students bump and grind.

A reminder that another world exists just a few paces away comes as a man with a painted face and a woman with a skull imprint on her leather jacket pass by the door.