OUT

Chapter 14

Thursday, October 16th 2014

'Green, amber, or red, hunny?' asked the woman on the door as she stamped Jack's wrist with a pink triangle for entry.

'Red.' She was a tank of a woman, broad but short, with blonde hair that was cut as short as his was. She had a baby face, but she looked like she'd kick the shit out of ya if you got on her bad side. She handed him a large red circular sticker. 'Thanks,' he replied, sticking it onto his chest.

'Jeepers, you're hardly that afraid of being approached?' Millie laughed, sticking a green circle to her chest as they followed Ciarán inside - also wearing a green circle.

'God forbid,' Ciarán muttered with an eye-roll.

They had forced him to go with them to a traffic light party at the George. Green meant you were single and ready to mingle. Orange meant it was complicated. And red meant you were taken and off the market. As far as anyone there needed to be considered, Jack was very much red.

The trio climbed the stairs to the nightclub, and as they approached, Jack felt his pulse beating in his ears. He was drunk, but not drunk enough for his first gay club experience. He must have downed half a litre of vodka in the fifteen minutes before they had left their house, and while he felt it in his system, he was surprisingly nervous.

'Are you alright?' asked Ciarán.

Jack nodded, and the three of them made their way through the dancefloor and towards the bar, 'I'm grand.'

The space was thronged with people. Girls that looked like they were just about old enough to be there, dressed in skirts that just about covered their bums. There were a lot of foreigners, Jack noted. Brazilians. There was also the occasional older gentleman, standing against one of the walls and just observing, quite creepily actually. He spotted a drag queen in the crowd too, although she looked like she had been dragged backwards through a bush - nothing like how Ciarán had looked. The George was nothing like the nightclub back home, where the oldest in the room was nineteen or twenty max apart from the DJ and the floors were carpeted.

Ciarán seemed to know everyone. As they attempted to wade through the crowd, people were waving and smiling at him, and attempting to pull him for a chat. At one point, a lad grabbed Ciarán's arm as they passed and a second later, the pair of them were shifting. Jack averted his gaze.

'I'll be right back, I'm just going to run to the bathroom,' he said, as Millie continued on and disappeared into the crowd. Jack apprehensively made his way down a little hallway to where the toilets were. There was a huge queue for the two bathroom stalls at the end of the room, and although there were about a dozen urinals against the wall, only a handful were in use. Jack couldn't believe people would ever take a shit in a nightclub, let alone that many. It just felt wrong. He avoided eye-contact with those who brushed past him, and found himself eavesdropping on those chatting around him.

'Don't let da bouncers see you with dem poppers, dey'll throw ya out,' said one of the two lads standing in front of him in the queue.

'Obviously fuckin' noh, I'm not tick,' replied the lad he was with, who was wearing a skirt, with fishnet tights and big black steel-toed boots on his feet. Jack watched the pair pass a small yellow bottle with something scrawled across it in bright red to each other, each taking a deep inhale of whatever it was. Jack got a small whiff of it and his nose contorted. It smelt like a kitchen cleaner. 'You want some?' asked the lad, offering the vial to Jack. He shook his head. 'Suit yourself, ya big riode.'

Jack took out his phone and scrolled on Instagram as the queue moved slowly along.

'Wanna head back to mine?' said one lad to the fellah beside him as the pair washed their hands at the sink beside where Jack stood.

'Buy me a drink first and we'll see,' he replied with a smirk, and slapped the other guy's ass as the pair of them left the bathroom and Jack edged closer to the stall.

This place was wild. Jack was nervous, and scared, but also mesmerised by those that surrounded him. Men dressed in tight tank tops, or skinny jeans that were practically painted on, or V-neck shirts that dipped so low on their chest, they may as well not have been wearing them. Men clad in women's jewellery, with eye-makeup on. It was a bit of a freak show. But Jack was enthralled nonetheless.

'Jack!' He turned, hearing a girl's voice. His stomach sank for a second. Then he realised who it was and he let out an internal sigh of relief.

'Savannah, hey.' It was the girl from his creative writing module.

'I didn't know you were gay.'

'I'm not,' he replied immediately, 'I'm here with my...friends.'

'That's a pity,' said a lad from behind her who must have been seven foot tall. He towered above Jack, who considered himself quite tall, as he and Savannah joined the queue behind him. He was wearing a very tight black tank top, which revealed huge pecs and biceps as big as Jack's calves. He had a slight tan that looked fresh, he must have been away recently, and thick brown hair that sat on his head messily. He looked a bit like Action Man, and he had a scar that cut through the end of one of his brows, splitting it in two.

Jack felt himself staring as the boy smiled back at him, 'hi, I'm Paul.'

'Jack,' he said, extending a hand out to meet his after quickly wiping his palm on his own jeans, 'nice to meet ya.'

'Ah, you've a red circle anyway.'

'Huh?'

The guy pointed to Jack's chest, 'you're off the market.'

He looked down, 'oh, yeah. Sorry.'

'That's a shame.'

'What's the orange for?' Jack asked, glancing down at the boy's own identification choice.

'It's complicated,' he winked, 'and by that, I mean people approach you more if you're orange or red. No man wants a green. They want a challenge.'

'That's so toxic, get therapy,' said Savannah eventually as they shimmied further up the queue, 'so who are you here with, Jack?'

'My housemates. They're both gay. Well, one's a lesbian.'

'Is she hot?' asked Savannah.

'Ehm, yeah she's pretty, I guess. She probably wouldn't be my type,' Jack replied honestly.

'And what is your type?' asked the boy.

'Sorry, next there,' said an impatient voice from behind them, pointing at a cubicle that was free. Jack stepped forward and stepped into the bathroom stall that read 'Strictly One Person Per Cubicle'. He shut the door behind him, placed the lid over the piss-covered toilet seat, and sat down. There was a deep snort from the cubicle beside him.

'Fuck, that's good,' muttered a voice immediately afterwards.

'Don't fucking hog it all!' argued a second, 'that shit's expensive!'

His mind was racing as fast as his heart was. Was that lad trying to flirt with him? Did he think Jack was gay? He glanced down at what he was wearing, a plain white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. He couldn't be more straight if he tried. He looked like Simon Cowell. That said, he was in a gay bar. He stayed in the stall for a few minutes, until a knock on the door stirred him out of his thoughts. 'Hurry up in there!' He took a deep breath, flushed the toilet, and exited the stall. There was no sign of Savannah or Paul when he did, so he made his way back out to the dancefloor to find Millie or Ciarán.

'Jack?'

He felt his body stiffen. It was a male voice this time. But it wasn't Ciarán or Paul. No. It was a voice he recognised from home. He felt the colour drain from his face and he looked up, like a deer caught in headlights, and made eye contact with a lad that had been in the year above him at school. The boy stared back at him, and the two locked eyes for a moment, neither of them speaking. He was wearing a green circle on his chest.

'I...you...' Jack stuttered.

The boy stared back at him, as equally shocked and terrified looking as Jack felt. Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd without saying another word. Jack turned, his gob ajar with horror, as he ran as fast as he could to the exit.