It's the holidays, so it's time for creativity. I'm determined to get at least one story finished over the holidays and this is the one I'd like it to be. Comments and criticism are welcome. Enjoy!
The interior of the club throbbed with noise, a blaring repeated pulse of music that effortlessly penetrated the skin and took hold of nerve, muscle and bone in a brutal caress of bass-drenched rhythm and glittering cascades of hauntingly beautiful synthesised melody. David paused on the threshold. Was he about to make yet another stupid mistake?
Possibly. But he was committed now. He had to find her. He just had to.
Pausing for a moment to let two girls who could only have just been out of their teens push past him, he surveyed the interior of the club anxiously. L’Enfer Angelic was, in many respects, a typical city centre nightclub. A single cavernous space was divided into stage, dancefloor and, on the far side of the room, large bar. Fire exit signs gleamed green over invisible doors and sets of metal-mesh steps led to raised seating platforms that jutted out over the dance space, each one big enough to hold five or six comfortably upholstered chairs grouped around low, wide tables. Some of these were already occupied and David scanned these first as he skirted the edge of the dance floor, looking for a tell-tale flash of electric blue hair in the frantically-strobed half-light.
She wasn’t there.
The nameless girl with eyes and hair the colour of the most vivid summer sky. The girl who had said…
He couldn’t think about that now. Had to keep looking.
He made his way as politely as he could through the edges of the dance floor, just managing to dodge a particularly enthusiastic elbow belonging to a tall, angular man in day-glo shorts and a tie-dyed t-shirt, hoping against hope that he might just bump into her, as naturally and easily as meeting an old acquaintance at a railway station or a former colleague at a company do. There were girls all around him and all of them attractive enough in their own way – a girl with short-cropped hair, beautiful almond eyes and a sleeve of swirling, delicate tattoos caught his eye and smiled at him, but his answering smile was too forced, too awkward, to be seen as anything but a polite rebuff and she turned away from him to plunge once more into the violent rhythm of the latest track.
Last night had been different, of course. Last night he would have said something. His smile would have been genuine, excited. There would have been tension, a frisson of attraction. He would have complimented her on her look, on her tattoos. He would have been, if not confident, at least adventurous enough to try. But last night he had met her and now things had totally changed.
“I’m thirsty.”
Exiting the dance floor, bathed in a sweaty euphoria, he hadn’t noticed the girl with the blue hair, lounging against a pillar. He noticed her now. She was small – not much more than five feet tall – and her hair was cut in a stylish bob. And very very blue. As, he noticed as he drew nearer, were her eyes. A strategically ripped t-shirt that sported the faded logo of a band he’d never heard of covered her small breasts, while leaving her stomach bare. Her belly button was pierced with a simple silver ring and a tattoo of some leafy design crept out from the waistline of a short skirt of some fluffy, lacy material, as if crawling up the left side of her abdomen towards the light in her eyes.
And her eyes were shining.
In amusement, he thought. And perhaps something else.
“Well, I’m Dave,” he said, grinning.
She smiled. A guarded smile, to be sure, but a smile nonetheless. He felt his pulse quicken at that smile.
Behind him a roar went up from the dancers as the DJ worked the crowd.
His grin widened. “What can I get you?”
“A blueberry margarita.” Her lips were very full, he noticed. She pursed them thoughtfully. “Yeah. Blueberry.”
Having no idea whether that was something they even sold at the bar, he headed over, the girl following him closely. He was struck by the compulsion to reach out and hold her hand, but he restrained himself. He didn’t want to be too forward. Didn’t want to be… desperate.
The bar was busy when they arrived and he took the opportunity to examine her more closely.
“Your hair is incredible.” He’d had to shout the compliment above the pounding of the music, but her reply came in a sudden lull in the sound.
“Thank you,” she said and, for a moment, he thought he’d detected the merest hint of an accent.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place look so busy…”
“You’ve not been here for a while.”
“Well, I…” The music started again, loud but slower, a rhythmic sensuality suffusing the air. The revellers on the dance floor moved closer to one another, fingers touching bare flesh, arms coming up and around to embrace, draw near. Sex drifted on the hot air, delicate scents hovering above an earthier pungency.
“I come every night. I’ve never seen you before.” Her azure eyes narrowed a little and she leaned forward as if examining him, looking for something – a defect perhaps, some sign of damage. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, glanced in the direction of the barman, who acknowledged him with a curt nod, but made no move towards him, turning instead to a well-built older man a few feet away. “I’d have remembered, I think,” she said, finally. “Yes, I think I would.”
He laughed, nervously. “Am I that… unusual?” Not six feet away from them, on the edge of the dance floor, a couple were kissing, his hand under her thin cotton blouse, pressing, grasping with a deliberate urgency.
The smile returned, still guarded, still bewitching. “You are hurt, I think. It is need, not desire, that has brought you here tonight…”
He gulped. What was this? This wasn’t what he’d wanted. But maybe… maybe it was what he needed…
She leaned in close. Close enough that he could see shards of grey and green in the blue of her eyes, feel the heat of her breath on his neck. She took his hand in hers, rubbing the back of it with her thumb for a moment. He was losing himself, falling into her gaze, drowning in depths of green-flecked blue.
“I can help you with that,” she said, softly. “But you’ve got to want me.” Her hand was warm but the skin was completely dry. Her touch was feather-delicate. He felt a sudden spasm of desire in his gut, a twisting, burning need to hold her, to kiss her, to crush her body against his. “Do you want me?”
He tried to laugh, to say something self-deprecating, something clever, something that wasn’t so fucking serious.
“You’ve got to want me.” The movement of her thumb against his skin stopped. Gently, she let him go. She glanced over his shoulder. “Time to give your order.”
He stared at her confused for a moment, and then realised. With a sheepish grin, he turned to the barman.
“A blueberry margarita.”
The barman raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. David’s heart was pounding as he watched the barman mix the drink, his movements quick and fluid. David paid and turned to give the drink to his companion.
She was gone.
Like a physical blow, her absence struck him. The hand that she had touched shook involuntarily for a moment and he spilled a few drops of the drink on his skin. Placing the drink carefully on the bar, he licked those droplets off, all the while scanning the crowd for her, increasingly desperate, increasingly panicky.
Where was she?
Where was she?
David had been in the club for half an hour now and there was still no sign of her – just like last night. It was as if she had just vanished off the face of the earth. Here one moment, gone to someplace else the next. He had not felt quite so bereft since… well, since Emily.
He steeled himself. He wouldn’t think about Emily tonight. He mustn’t. But the girl had been right. Six months since Emily had gone and he needed… something. Something dramatic. Something to change the listlessness he had felt ever since his fiancée had left him.
Emily, sweet Emily…
The image of his ex stabbed into his mind – beautiful, flawless Emily. Fair, perfect, smiling Emily. For a moment, it even supplanted the face of the girl from the night before. He screwed his eyes tight shut, willing Emily away, willing the blue-haired girl to come back.
He opened his eyes.
The blue-haired girl was standing in front of him, looking carefully at him, a blueberry margarita held lightly in one hand. His heart beat quickened. He stared at her, mouth open. He knew he looked like a fool but there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.
“Are you alright?” she said.
“You came back!”
“So did you,” she pointed out.
“Yeah…” The shyness again. The awkwardness. The never-ending struggle between hope and fear.
She smiled slightly and sipped her drink. “That’s good,” she said, licking her full lips daintily. “Now we can get started.”
