| |
[Jul. 18th, 2006|12:28 am] |
The nearest big city was Los Angeles, all neon streets, glittering lights, and standstill traffic blocked by casual disregard for traffic laws and pedestrians alike. It was a three hour drive to the city, but for nightlife, it was expected to be worth it, and if ambience wasn't enough, well, there were other ways to guarantee certainties. He shifted into third, taking a sharp corner too quickly and feeling his body press against the restraints of his seatbelt as the tires screeched their protest and drifted a few inches to the right beneath him, regained footing on the road, and propelled him forward like a gunshot.
A curse was barked from the passenger seat. "Jesus, man, would ya slow down? Living every moment like its your last is fun only as a philosophy."
Jameson. Stupid pretentious name with too many extra letters for a stupid pretentious family with too much money, but weren't they all like that? Carefully reflected to achieve maximum effect on an Ivy League alumni plaque in some grand chandelier-basked hall for a parade of inbred dynasties to come.
He gave Jameson a sparing glance that did as much to disregard him as acknowledge his presence because Jameson got pissy when he was ignored. The ash from the tip of his cigarette soared between them and was ripped apart in the air; it made him realize he'd let it burn down to the filter again, and with disgust, he flicked the butt out of the car and clutched the wheel with more two-handed determination. To his right, the ocean glittered and rippled soundlessly beneath the artificial lights as if born to some independent purpose, moving and moving, sinking back into the earth, being spit back up again. He couldn't really smell the sea.
"Up here, up here," Jameson muttered, waving his cigarette vaguely to the left. Too dark to see much, but the way the road disappeared a little just up ahead... "The road up here. Will you --"
"I see it, I see it. Calm down."
He took the turn less than smoothly. Jameson sat back and released a heavy breath.
Three hours later, he was flushed and dazed against a soft vinyl booth with a bassline determining the way his body seemed to tremble and strobe lights painting dizzying caricatures of writhing bodies, long legs, scraps of riveting clothing, and clumps of dark hair sticking to damp skin. When people smiled, their teeth glowed like florescent lights.
There was a round table laden with half-empty drinks before him, opaque and beaded with condensation. He didn't know which one was his. Maybe all of them. He didn't remember how he had got here. One moment, it was the sea, blink, breathe, flash, Chelsea - regular club fixture - curled up practically in his lap, weighing heavily against his arm that had long since gone numb.
Her hand was in his pants, firmly and unerringly stroking him in time to the music's rhythm.
He blinked, taken aback for a moment by the unabashed, confident hand drawing him expertly into hardness in the middle of a fucking club.
Her breath was too hot on his cheek; he could feel her grinning and see a glint of inebriated smugness in her meerkat eyes. With some effort, he managed to free his arm and extricate himself away from her, sliding along the circumference of the table and muttering nonsensical excuses as he zipped and buttoned his pants. He drained the fullest glass and kept a hand to the wall as he stumbled away.
Jameson nearly crashed into him, grinning laviciously, gripping his shoulder and pulling him close.
"Two o'clock, look."
He slid his gaze up and saw them: tall, tight, fucking gorgeous. Blonde and brunette, dancing together as only two good friends saw fit to do, but exuding that tricky 'fuck me' confidence that drew men (and women - this was San Fran, after all) like wolves. Legs longer than their dresses, toned, powerful, creatures he could see himself wrapped with. Dancing was nothing more than a showcase of how limber and how fantastically formed they were. The club lights almost made Blonde's hair silver, bright as her dress.
"They're roommates," Jameson was shouting into his ear. "And they're ready to jet."
Jameson done good.
He swallowed, turning back to him and patting his shoulder. "Okay, me, blonde. You, brunette. Let's go." He was about to head towards them, but was pulled back by two hands on his shoulders and Jameson's mild protest.
"Hey, why do you always get the blonde?"
"I like blondes."
"Variety's the spice of life, my man!"
"No!" he shouted back and swaggered through the crowd with the unswerving purpose that unconsciously parted crowds.
From behind a dark head of cascading hair that was slowly shimmying down her long, lean torso, Blonde met his eyes and winked.
Grey sunlight filtered through the narrow slots in foreign venetian blinds, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut once he had successfully unglued them. It was dead silent, but the drum was still pounding wildly in his temples, the blood in his veins replaced with lead and weighing him down to the wrinkled sheets. Something thick and warm was seeping into the back of his throat, which was a good enough motivator to sit up quickly, no matter how painful. He swallowed wet copper. Blood.
Small trickle down his nose now, stinging over nerves exposed by one too many hits, his sinuses ached to remind. And beside him, among the eddies of foam green sheets of infinite thread count, a pale smooth-skinned back curved gracefully, blonde hair fanned out on the pillow, somewhat limp.
His heart was still ringing within his chest, vestiges of unformed nightmares. Life in a series of disjointed images with nothing to connect them. Not now, not ever.
She had abandoned her purse on the dresser, and within it, her driver's license told him she was an incredibly fit 32. He choked down his laughter. Lies and more lies. He was only 16.
Wrinkled, worn clothes refitted on his frame, he stumbled through the apartment as quietly as he could, trying to stop the bleed and not trip over the naked bodies in the living room. Jameson's and Brunette's legs all intertwined so as to make it difficult to tell where they were two wholly-contained, separate entities instead of some bizzare hydra.
Somewhere on the road home, he had stopped at an empty no-name beach, more of a hidden outcropping really. The sand was gritty and drab as the overcast sky, but he sat on it anyway, watching the churning, fierce ocean throw bombardment after bombardment of dark, grasping waves upon the sand. The salt was doing nothing for the constant stinging in his nostrils, but the dull roar, the repetition of sea and air, was a soothing and stable sound.
"When all we have is gone," he whispered, threw his hands out and fell back against the hard sand, "there will still be this."
He was asleep when the first rays of sun broke through the clouds. |
|
|