It was an odd moment when I pulled my hair back and held it up-- elbows bent over my head, arms effectively covering my face-- and his fingers brushed my neck as he fumbled clumsily with the clasp. If he was nervous, he didn't show it. There were only a few moments of hesitation in between touches. The gold chain grated painlessly against my skin as he brought the two clasp ends up closer to his face where he could better see them. I made a mock choking sound and I could see the split second of embarrassment on his features through the reflection in my vanity mirror. It was supposed to be a joke, but it had done nothing to disturb his eerie seriousness.

He frowned a little as the clasp stubbornly refused to open. I found myself straightening my posture, wondering what the classic, elegant, movie stars of the forties and fifties would wear to a rave. I'd decided on skinny jeans and a racer back tank that was studded and sparkled, but I don't know if this exercise in demure femininity having him help me get dressed clashed with the outfit or not.

“There,” Jake said with some satisfaction as he arranged the pendant carefully around my neck-- lightly pressing the clasp in place at the back while checking to see that the pendant itself slid freely along the chain without catching. It was a piece of junk jewelry and perhaps not worth the odd pageantry, but with Jake such things had always felt natural. Not the slightest bit out of date or inappropriate

“Thank you,” I said.

“How long has it been?”

“Three days.”

“Three days?”

“...Fine, two and a half.”

Did it please him to know that he knew me better than I knew myself? He had a self satisfied smirk and he would lightly fuss with his hair-- blond locks thin and feather light-- but he didn't gloat about it.

This time, though, he shook his head, brushed his hand lightly over the back of my neck again but lingered on my exposed shoulder. He kneaded the tense muscle below, thumb rubbing circles on the blade, lips pressing chastely on the side of my face before whispering, “two days is too soon.”

“It's manageable.”

“Uh-huh, but it's only been four days since the kitchen thing.”

“The kitchen thing?”

Sometimes I can push too far, be a bitch when I mean to be funny or cute. I feel like this was one of those times, but if it was Jake didn't seem to notice. We all have our shortcomings, and the people that can deal with the fact that you're a psycho are truly precious.

“You think I should cancel?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “He's young and healthy ... he'll be okay, and this need to see him all the time won't last forever.”

“You think it's a phase? That I'll get bored with him?”

He pressed another kiss on my temple and didn't say a word, but I could read his thoughts off his smile. Stop trying to pick a fight because I won't give you one.

Fair enough.

“What do you think about earrings?” I held up a couple of options, some long and dangly, some short and sparkly. Jake looked amused.

“These,” he tapped the gold chandeliers and they swayed back and forth making soft tinkling sounds like tiny bells.

He stretched himself out on my bed, picking up a discarded fashion magazine I had been consulting for reference and browsing it curiously as I slipped both earrings in place. His lips parsed as he thumbed through an article on the merits of cigarette pants.

“Jake?”

“Mm?”

“How do you know so much about this stuff?”

“What stuff? Earrings?”

“No ... I mean, people like me.”

My blondie lowered the magazine enough to peek over the edge at me. He had a complicated look on his face and for a brief moment I could feel the lie forming, but then-- with a blink-- it was gone and he decided to go with the truth.

“My grandmother was like you.”

“Your grandmother?”

He nodded and went back to the fashion magazine.

“Were you close?”

“Kind of ... I don't think she was really close with anyone.”

“Well obviously she was close with someone or you wouldn't be here.”

His smile tightened as he swallowed and fixated on style consultant Andre's assessment of the current trends.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “That was inappropriate.”

“It's okay.”

I wanted to pry; I badly wanted to pry, but the doorbell cut me off, dissolving the tension that my undeniable addiction to being a total asshole had nurtured.

Jake looked pointedly at me. “Lily?”

“Can't be,” I said. “He's way too early!”

Jake shrugged and moved off the bed. “Only one way to find out.”

A few quiet minutes, then I heard the sound of Jake laughing. Leaning over in my chair I stared out at the figure wrapped up in the scalding brightness of the foyer's lights. Nicely dressed, build looking thicker than it actually was standing next to Jake's emaciated thinness.

“You're early!” I said.

Lily looked confused, pointed to his watch and said, “It is nine ... not early.”

“Early for the clubs around here,” Jake helpfully explained. “They don't really get started until ten.”

“So?” His dark eyes registered no comprehension, and-- frankly-- he still seemed a little alarmed that Jake was in my apartment. Which I suppose was pretty rational all things considered. “Women never all pretty at time. Always late.”

“Yeah, but clubs don't get started until ten so we show up at eleven.”

“And when we  go home sleep?”

“Ummm ... at dawn usually.”

Lily frowned. “This is not good, only not-date people would do this.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Because when do we have--” He jerked suddenly and quickly threw his hands up over his mouth before the last word could escape.

It didn't matter, we all knew what it was supposed to be. If anything his reaction made it all the more obvious.

Our laughter made Lily relax only slightly. Jake pulled out a bottle of sake from the refrigerator. Navigating my kitchen so easily, he knew all the little odd places I kept things ... like the shot glasses being stored in the freezer instead of with the wine glasses, like the knives being kept separate from the rest of the utensils, or the cereals and pastas being kept in specially numbered plastic bins.

“He knows,” I told Lily. “And besides I thought you didn't want to do that anymore?”

“Well--” His posture curled as he tried to hide the slight flush in his cheeks with his shoulders. “He knows?”

“Yes, silly. Remember? I told you it was his idea.”

Lily nodded and floated shyly into the apartment as Jake played bartender and poured out two shot glasses full of liquor. Somehow drinking sake felt incredibly pretentious.

“So anyway, we'll have couple drinks first, then last minute finishing touches on the look, THEN we'll go out.”

Lily stared down at his silvery reflection in the surface of the liquor. “Oh.”

“Jake can you have one?”

Jake shrugged his shoulders and examined the bottle without actually reading it, fingers playing on the peeling label as the liquid's shadow in the bottle splashed and swirled across the glass. “I don't know ... let's assume no.”

“Drink here?” Lily looked up, glass still pinched gently between three fingers. His discomfort was coming off him in thick, tar-like waves that I had to shut out because they were making me feel physically ill.

“Why?” he continued. “Drink here ... alone? Before party?”

“Because drinks are expensive at the party. And you can never be sure what's in them.”

The first part Lily accepted with a firm nod, the second part, understandably, seemed to alarm him. I had no doubts about his comprehension.

“Which is exactly why I wish you would stop going to these things,” Jake said lightly. His words sounded like they should have been nags, but then he topped off my glass, flat, silky clear liquor rippling around in the small shot glass. “But you have Illya to keep an eye on you, so I guess it's alright.”

I glanced at Lily, the vote of confidence had only further alarmed him. He put his glass down on the counter and subtly moved it away from himself.

I found myself smiling. “He has great faith in you, Lily.”

“Huh? Yeah yeah ... umm ... yeah...” He rubbed his head roughly with his hand, each word sounding more useless than the one before, the very last ones coming off like mutters as if his brain couldn't find the switch to turn his mouth off.

Jake laughed. “But you've already seen how she gets sometimes, so if she's mean to you, I'll take care of her.”

“HEY!”

“Hey what?”

“What the hell does that mean ... 'how I get sometimes'?”

“You like to emasculate guys, disrespect them and make them feel useless.”

“I do not!”

“Yes you do, it's very obvious.”

“And scary,” Lily added spontaneously. “A little scary.”

I was absolutely mortified that they should think so. Okay so I acted tough and called Illya a feminized nickname that he only put up with because he liked me. Okay, fine ... but I wasn't some kind of man eating monster was I?

“Ohh...” Lily hummed. “She worry now. See? Ha ha ha. She think about.”

Jake nodded, smiled and tapped me lightly on the arm with his fist. He might have then winked at me, but I couldn't be sure. “Don't worry, between the two of us we can handle it.”

................................................

I don't consider techno music music per se. Instead I think it's a baseline that under the right circumstances, with the right array of secondary stimuli, possibly with the right collection of pharmacologicals, will alter your conscious state.

The crowd tasted like cheap wanton soup. There's a thinness to it and a saltiness that is vaguely reminiscent of the disgusting things you found to put in your mouth when you were a child: boogers, toe jam, coins, pen caps. And while there is substance, there is meat and nutrition to be had, it's not enough to fill you up.

A strobe light above the DJ booth began flashing seizure inducing messages on the dance floor. The movement of the hundreds of young bodies slowed like time had hit a snag on the rough, industrial décor. God this place was packed. I could only see far enough to make out the girl dealing ecstasy two steps away, everything else were mere blobs of punked out people.

“Nice hickey.” It was Markie who found me first. He looked as if he had a head start on his hangover going already. He was also not alone; he had someone young and pretty to help hold him up ... male, shirt opened and skin nearly covered with glowing finger prints.

“Is it that obvious?” I rubbed my neck self consciously.

“It's just the way your pale skin catches the strobe light.”

“Cute.” I nodded at the human crutch he was clinging to and his glowing record of Markie's pawing touches. “You know you're not supposed to put glow stick fluid on your skin right?”

“Pffttt.” Markie snorted and twisted his own glow stick right in front of his own face, captivated by the light and color. “... He'll be fine, you know they use these to fish for Swordfish?”

“Fascinating.”

“Tsk ... a hickey ... I never figured Jake for the marking-territory--” Markie was drunk and distracted, but I shouldn't have let my guard down because he gasped and pointed accusingly at something in my expression. “You didn't! You went through with it!”

“It?”

“Don't play dumb now ... you fucked the Russian! You went through with it after all!”

“How do you know about that?” I asked suspiciously.

“Vicki told me ... what? Were you trying to keep it a secret?”

“Just discreet.”

“Tough luck, gossip on one night stands gets around.”

“Lily was not a one night stand.”

“No?”

I frowned. “No ... actually ... he's here ... somewhere.”

“You've lost him?”

I had ... we came in together, but somewhere in the shuffle, bumping and grinding of a dance floor so overloaded with people bodies were routinely squirt out with stumbles and comical waving of arms, we had gotten separated. I had gone off to look for Markie, and maybe Lily hadn't heard me over the music, or maybe he had gotten distracted, but in any case in a space so tight you could only identify the faces of the first two layers of people around you it was going to take a full out search party to find him.

“Sort of,” I said.

“So text him! What's his cell?”

“.... I don't know.”

“How do you not know?” Markie's voice, already strained by yelling over the music, nearly cracked as he tried to scold me. “How do you booty-call each other?”

I rolled my eyes. “We don't.”

A glass slipped out of someone's hand, the sound of shattering and glass shards scattering across the floor was muted by the DJ's change in tracks. Music that wasn't even recognizable as music now. It sounded like computers intertwining their I/O ports and having their own Nature Channel moment. There was a time where I would have found this exact composition invigorating and it's funny because I didn't feel like I had changed.

Markie broke up my thoughts as I kicked glass shards off my shoes. “Well anyway, you'll sniff him out I'm sure ... go on, enjoy the party!”

And with that he pushed himself deeper into the crowd, winking at me and shouting “old times! It's just like old times again!”

Sniff him out.

I don't know if Markie even realized how unbelievably brilliant he actually is. I wondered if I could, if it would work. There were so many people, so much energy in play. Granted, most of it was crap ... but still, all the energy flowing around like white noise was going to make it unbelievably difficult to find Lily in the middle of it.

But maybe not any more difficult than actually looking with my eyes, so theoretically speaking ... perhaps some combination of the two?

As the dance beat thumped like pulsing blood vessels an overhead fog machine hissed and laid out a thick cloud where ribbon-like lasers danced in bright, colorfully 3D patterns. A surge of amusement and wonder cut through the crowd, like a pleasant wave that required only a surf board to ride. The crowd, their individual bodies feeling light under my fingers, rippled as I moved through it. Talk and laughter felt hollow in my ears as invasive slivers of thoughts pricked me like tiny needles.

Glow sticks burnt purple shadows into my field of vision. With a shift in the music something exploded over our heads and the crowd cooed as glitter started fluttering down like snow. That brought with it another pleasant wave of energy that wiped out the noise of lust, fear, jittering stabbing insecurity and sadness.

Wait ... sadness ... that sadness...

I looked around. None of the faces looked even remotely familiar to me, but the trail of sadness stood out. It faded as I moved deeper into the crowd and wobbled around the edges like bits of debris in a pool. I took a step back, closed my eyes and instead of looking for Lily outside, I looked for him inside. The traces of him that still remained in my system.

And then I found him, shoved into a dark corner on one of the perimeter seats reserved for wallflowers and people who have passed out. One such person in fact, sweaty and with slight traces of vomit crusted over on the outer corners of his lips, was passed out cuddled up on Lily's lap.

No wonder he was sad.

“Hey,” I said. I slid into the seat next to him and ruffled his hair. His energy was icy, and although there was a little stab of relief at my arrival, he didn't exactly perk up.

“Hi,” he grunted unhappily.

“Who's your friend?”

“I don't know.”

His words hissed through his accent like a barely contained snarl. A splash of beer went flying as a club kid stumbled drunkenly into a nearby table and knocked it over.

“You don't like it here.” I observed.

“No,” he said. “You say dancing. This is not dancing.” He gestured at the uncoordinated grinding mob of bodies. They were bouncing, gyrating, spinning themselves dizzy ... doing basically anything but dancing. “This is-- These people, bad people. Eat drugs, drink much ... nice friendly faces, but not good.” He gently nudged the drunk twink nuzzling his thigh until he slid off. The Ukrainian muttered darkly, “bad people.”

“Not all of them are like that.”

“Do you eat drugs too?”

The sharpness of his question felt like an accusation. My response was a fumbled startled jump with the word “No” attached.

He nodded, suspicion retreating as relief set in, but inside his thoughts were a whirlwind rampaging through his normally quiet energy Thoughts-- no ... memories-- so strong I could practically hear them myself.

“Can we go home?” he said. The way he asked, a helpless begging whine, there could be only one right answer.

“Of course, let's go.”

Once outside, the heat of a thousand bodies behind us, I realized Lily had been right all long. The party was much too loud for conversation, offered no privacy or intimacy, and had an admittedly disgusting atmosphere. Only 'not-date' people would come here. Why did I think we would have fun here again?

“Subway ... this way?” Lily asked. I nodded and we  started walking.

“Lily...”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you leave Stop!?”

At the word 'Stop!' he did just that-- stop-- but not out of confusion or misunderstanding. His eyes told me he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“You know ... about that?”

“Yeah.”

He started walking again, long strides that soon put him two or three feet in front of me so that I had to scramble to keep up. He reached out and took my hand and guided me protectively forward like the bad memories were real monsters nipping at our heels.

“I write song,” he said. “They say 'Lusya you are too young, too new, next time we will say you write. Now... just now...'” The combined weight of the English language and a bitter trail of regrets made him flail about and panic inside. He inhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself through the frustration. “Now, you team... They say if they tell I write, team members will be jealous ... I should wait, they say good that I wait.

“And then ... again I write song, again we sing song, again they say 'Lusya please wait, be patient. Everyone will know soon.' I was young ... too young maybe. But I know this is wrong. I know they would not do this if I was--”

Russian. I found myself thinking, but what he actually said was “older.”

“Every time I would ask, they would say 'have this drink and do not worry Lusya' or 'forget it and let's go party!' or 'why you complain when so many pretty girls like you Lusya?' Then one day I am not too young anymore, and again I ask ... and when they say 'no' I say 'bye-bye'.”

We continued walking in silence, the green lamps of the subway station lit like little lighthouses in the cement and smog ocean. He was still holding my hand.

We passed by a run down bar blaring Dominican merengue, a hard and fast playful rhythm that directly contradicted the tone that was hanging over our heads. Lily stopped again.

“Maybe ... I should not have did that.”

“Oh Lily,” I rubbed his arm even as he shook his head and stared unhappily off to the side. “No, you made the right decision.”

“After, no one want me. Think I am bad person. Think I only cause problems.”

“So you moved here?”

He nodded.

“Do you work in music now?”

“A bit.” He shrugged. “It is hard because I do not speak English.”

“I can help you with that.”

That got a smile, soft and still a little sad, but a smile nonetheless. I licked my fingers and brushed some stray glitter off his forehead. It was another decidedly motherly gesture and it made that sad little smile brighten into a mischievous trouble-making grin. He wrapped one arm around my waist and roughly jerked me forward so that I spilled with a squeak into his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“You owe ... you owe dance.” He nodded in the direction of the Dominican bar and its noise spilling into the street. “You say we dance and it better than sex.”

“Here?” I replied incredulously. “In the street?”

“Ah, you are a chicken. And you cannot dance better than sex.”

I pushed close and nipped at his jaw, that taste of his skin bitter with some unidentifiable brand of aftershave. “The dancing was never what was supposed to be better than sex.”

I nudged him open. A gasp and a throaty purr was all it took to get him undone-- shuddering, groping, lips looking for more skin to lap and suck on, but I wasn't going to do this in the middle of the street. That would be obscene. So I pulled back and lifted his arm enough to twirl myself around, naïve hips trying their best to keep the rhythm of the music as he stood-- still as a telephone pole at first, but then gradually bobbing and trying to follow along.

I giggled, the street lamp flickering above us as we converted our amateur merengue into a basic slow dance.