Wildlings

24: The Metropol

Rade's work was an ugly building on the corner of a street lined with overflowing rubbish bags and dingy bars. Its walls were all painted matte black, and a huge neon purple sign saying

The Metropol

flickered above the black double doors.

A thuggish guy, old and wide, cracked teeth and a cheap black suit, guarded the entrance.

"Hiya," Rade said to him as she pushed the door open. "Got me a wannabe."

She nodded towards Sannah. Sannah tried to hide her nerves as she met the doorman's eye.

It felt weird being out on the street without Saint. There was no logical reason for it, but Sannah almost felt like she needed his permission to leave the flat. She probably would have asked, too, if he'd come back, but he hadn't.

"They'll be making up and rubbing up somewhere," Dai had said.

"Lox screaming behind a bin," Rade added.

Their words had felt like a punch to Sannah's throat. She couldn't bear the thought of it, but knew that they were probably right.

Sannah blinked as they stepped inside the club. It was dark, despite the summer brightness of the evening outside. Coloured lights looped on the walls, but seemed to shed little light on the room's inhabitants. Repetitive, thudding music played around them.

A few scantily-clad women, all in super-high heels, were milling about. Men, barely any, perhaps two or three, were dotted in the leather bucket-chairs that filled the room. A long bar ran down one wall, a bored looking waitress, smoking, looking at her screen, at one end. The whole scene was kinda depressing. The men looked sad.

"It doesn't get busy till later," Rade said defensively, as if guessing Sannah's thoughts. "Let's find Carter, OK?"

She led Sannah across the dark room, giving a few of the near-naked girls a small wave as they passed. There was a tiny stage opposite the bar. Empty chairs were clustered around it. One of the men sat in one, drunk and slumped, staring at the coloured lights circling on the blank back wall.

Rade pushed open a door behind the stage and ushered Sannah through. They went down a short staircase, with bare brick walls and an untreated wood floor, scuffed and dirty, and through another door into a large room lit with a bare bulb and only sparsely decorated.

Mirrors lined the walls, bare bricks showing above them where the walls met the ceiling. A simple bench ran around the full perimeter of the room, between the mirrors and the floor. It had a seat of continuous wooden lats, and metal lockers were concealed underneath it.

It smelled like stale sweat and chemical fragrance: perfume, hair products, deodorant. There was stuff everywhere. Clothes, makeup, jewellery, hair dryers with tangled wires, bags and high-heeled shoes were draped on the mirrors, spilling out of the lockers, heaped on the floor.

There were only two inhabitants besides Sannah and Rade. One was a hard faced woman, with poker straight blue-black hair and her foot up on the bench. She was looking in the mirror and rubbing lotion into her muscular thighs. She was entirely naked. No body hair, nothing. Sannah blushed and averted her eyes.

The other was Exotic and wearing a skimpy outfit, hung all over with faux jewels. She was sitting in an old plastic chair and leaning over the bench, doing her eye makeup in the mirror. She was beautiful. So beautiful Sannah couldn't stop staring at her, just to check it wasn't a trick of the light or something. No, it wasn't. God.