22. The Rave

Richie meets a girl.

“You sure nobody can see us here?” she asks. I shrug.

“Everyone on this side of the bar is too drunk or high to notice us anyway.”

She laughs, her voice almost disappearing under the constant pulse of EDM music spilling out from below us. This is  a pretty big, nice establishment, and it has an elevated area with a bar and seats for people who want to relax. Up here, the music isn’t so loud we can’t hear each other talk.

I take another good look at her. I get quick, small glances at her features as strobing lights pass over her face. I see her purple eye makeup, the piercings in her cheeks, and her long, dark hair each for less than a second, and even that is enough to tell she is beautiful. One of the prettiest girls in the club in fact, at least by the standards of my obnoxious friends who had spent a good percentage of the night sneaking looks at her, daring each other to go speak or ask for a dance. None of them did, though, and somehow or rather here I am. Her name is Sadie. She’s from Sacramento, is a year older than me, and is spending the weekend in the LA area to visit her friend, or sister, or something like that.

I had never been to a rave, not once in my life before moving to California. Yet here I am at my third. Despite the eccentricities of the subculture - the weird fashion that seemed to revolve around bright colors and shredded cloth accentuated by sporadically placed piercings and abstract tattoos, or the slang terms or the ubiquitous celebration of drugs - I find I’m enjoying myself. The mood of the environment is nice; it’s judgement free and everyone just comes to have fun and jam to music that sounds like it’s from the distant future.

“You’re so funny!” Sadie laughs, snapping me out of my mental tangent I had zoned out into. I can’t exactly remember what I even said, but I smile at her anyway.

“I have to be,” I reply. “Unlike my friends I don’t have good looks to coast by on.”

She smiles again, and this time it’s a different kind.

“Who told you that lie?”

I feel her hand reach out and touch mine. I take a seat on the big, black leather couch behind us, and she joins, her body facing. I notice my sneaker sticking to the ground a little, assuredly a spot where somebody had spilled a drink and hadn’t been bothered to clean it up.

“I know we just met,” she says. “But I really feel a vibe here, don’t you? Like some kind of connection?”

She moves her body closer to me, a leg covered only by fishnet stockings lays itself on my lap. I place a hand on her thigh. Her hand reaches out over it, not to move me away but as if to keep my hand there. The warmth of her body, the closeness, it’s all a sensation I haven’t experienced in a long time, and I feel my own body getting excited.

You’re gonna feel a connection alright, I think to myself.

She grabs the side of my face, her pointy nails slightly poking my ear, as she leans forward and kisses my neck. My body freezes entirely. The wetness of her mouth, the nerves in my neck tingling, I had forgotten this feeling entirely. Her hands fall to my shoulders.

“I asked you a question, Richie,” she continues in a breathy, giggly voice. “Don’t you feel it?”

I feel a lot of things, none of which I’m certain is what she’s looking for, but I squeeze her thigh tighter.

“Of course.”

We meet eyes, smiling at each other and time seems to slow down.

“What’s your sign?” she asks.

Time speeds right back up again.

“What?” I ask, caught off guard.

“Your zodiac sign,” she laughs. “Duh.”

I try to think of it but can’t remember off the top of my head. All my mind can do is wonder what relevance it has.

“You feel like a pisces.” she continues, seemingly thinking hard about it.

“I… I feel like one?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“Definitely. I’m a gemini so I always get along with pisces. I could tell as soon as-”

She keeps talking, but my brain automatically tunes her out. Is this chick talking about astrology to me, I think to myself. Homegirl just said she could feel the month I was born in. Girls who talk about ‘vibes’ and ‘energy’ and bring up astrological signs are the types of girls we would avoid and make fun of in high school and here one is in my lap with her arms around me. She doesn’t know anything about me; I could be a rapist, waiting for an opportunity to drug her or whatever they do, and instead of asking me where I’m from or what I do for a living or any basic part of who I am she’s asking my sign and that’s good enough for her?

“Richie?” her voice shoots out, boldly and slightly annoyed.

I snap back to reality. “Yeah?”

“Were you listening to me at all?”

“Yeah, of course. I was just thinking.”

“Right… Are you sure you’re not rolling?”

Rolling is slang here for being high on ecstasy or some other drug. For a moment, I’m annoyed that I’ve been in enough situations to recognize such a term.

“Of course,” I try laughing it off. “The hardest thing I had tonight was a Red Bull.”

Her hazel-ish eyes study my curiously. I notice how excessive her makeup is; now that I’m paying attention to it, she looks like a Mardi Gras dancer. Is all that really necessary?

“Is something wrong?” she asks.

“Pfft, no…” I want to lean back a little, then I remember her arms around me. I feel so enclosed that my body starts nervously squirming in a search for more personal space. I fight the urge to wipe the discomforting blob of lip gloss and saliva off my neck.

“Good,” she replies, her sensual smile returning. “Where were we then?”

She draws her arms around me tighter and leans in to kiss me.

Woah, swerve!

“Wait,” I say, moving my head back before contact is made. The electric horniness in her face dies down and is again replaced by confusion.

“What?” she asks, sounding half confused and half annoyed.

I don’t actually know what to say, I just awkwardly avert my eyes from hers. She quickly moves draws her arms off of me and backs up, moving her body away from mine.

“What’s your deal?” she demands.

“What do you mean?” I ask innocently.

“You were all over me a few minutes ago, had no problem dancing with me in front of our friends but now that we’re alone all of a sudden you’re being weird?”

“I’m not being weird, I just think, you know, maybe we should just chill.”

“Chill? You and your boys were eyeing me all night and after you finally talk to me all you wanna do is chill?”

“Uh, is chilling a bad thing?”

“I was under the impression you liked me?”

I involuntarily cocked my head back. “Like you? I don’t even know you.”

She sucks her teeth and does the most stereotypical valley girl scoff imaginable.

“Maybe you do need to be funny,” she shoots as she gets up from her seat. “You’re cute but way too cocky.”

She turns and walks.

What? Cocky? I’m ‘cocky’? Bit- Wait, calm down Richie. It’s over, she’s leaving.

In a few seconds she’s gone, and I’m sitting there in the empty balcony area alone. I lean back into the soft leather of the seat and lay my head against the cushion as I zone out listening to the EDM music.