She stood up there for what felt like hours; the wind blew through her sun-bleached hair and flitted through the hem of her too-short dress. She felt like a bird up there, eyeing the ground for her prey through the pink and green haze of neon signs. Her father would probably have a heart attack if he knew she was out here. But that's okay, he's a doctor. Astronomical Twilight, when the sun is exactly 18 degrees below the horizon. He'd taught her that, along with how germs can be air born and she should never open her window and always wear her mask when breathing outside air.
He taught her about sterilizing surgical tools and how to administer a hypodermic needle. She didn't know how to dance at a party, or what bands were on tour; she didn't know what riding a motorcycle felt like, how intimate it is. She couldn't tell you what colour is the new black. She could tell you that cyanide tastes like rotten almonds and what formaldehyde smelt like, yet she couldn't tell you what it was like to kiss a boy. Her father didn't count. She was missing out on something even if she couldn't point out exactly what.
She brushed her damp hair out of her eyes. Damp and sticking to her cheeks and forehead with the sweat of hundreds of people she didn't know. They call it Raver Rain. When everyone dances in a small, hot room, and their sweat evaporates, accumulating on the ceiling. The condensation drips back onto the heads of the dancers : A sick twist on the water cycle. It's things like these that you don't learn while being quarantined in your surgically clean room by your crazy surgeon of a father.
This guy must have figured she was lost, because he grabbed her thin, pale hand and dragged her to that dance. They hadn't exchanged a single word before he pulled her to the dance floor. He had brown hair that stuck to his face, dark with sweat. He wore black with fishnets spreading over arms and glowsticks around his neck, burning brightly under black light, Phenyl Oxalate and Hydrogen Peroxide under Wood's Glass. He called it a rave. She didn't understand, from what she knew, raving was when someone was mad. She surveyed her surroundings. Perhaps they are mad. Perhaps she was mad. The word echoed in her head and she had to close her eyes and replant her feet firmly on the smooth concrete. The bass shook the very foundation of the building and the synthetic voice rapidly spewed out nonsensical words. "Welcome to the club now. Gonna pump it up now. This is an emergency. Music is my galaxy.." She could still feel the fishnet covered bodies pressed against her, the imprint of his still fresh on her thighs, and she briefly thought of what her father would say, should he find the little crisscross indents mapping her skin.
She remembered the feelings: Fear, Excitement, Hesitation, Exhilaration, Shame, Fear. The overwhelming fear of the thugs that suddenly pulled knives on the dancers, demanding anything of value. Her father warned her that one of the reasons why she wasn't allowed out was because of these punks that ride around on motorcycles and hurt innocent people.
Raver held her hand and squeezed it. He whispered in her ear, with a husky voice that she would be fine as long as she listened and did exactly as he said. And she trusted him. This boy that she'd just met, the same boy who was at this very moment leading her through a crack in the back wall just big enough for her to squeeze through, this boy who had awakened her heart. She didn't know when or how but at some point in these past few hours he managed to kidnap her and show her a side of the world that she never knew existed. And she was frightened. And yet, left wanting more.
She was glad that Raver had taken things into his hands. The room was filled with the screams of the girls that Raver so lovingly called " Scalpel Sluts ". The kind of girl that has more silicon than a sex toy and more plastic than a Barbie Doll. The synthetic voice of the music could no longer be heard over the screams and pounding of feet as the dancers fled. The thugs had their weapons brandished and were waving them about, trying to get in control. The sound of the knife hitting flesh made her turn back to her destination. She knew the sound of flesh being severed, she knew it all too well. But that was not the clinical sound that she was used to. That was real. As she was lead through that hole in the wall, she remembers his voice telling her to run, and in a stroke of courage, she kissed him. And she promised him she would never look back.
Now she wishes she had. She peered over that edge once more and she could faintly smell what could only be formaldehyde...formaldehyde mixed with something acrid. It was Raver Rain. That acrid smell was the sweat of a hundred dancing bodies.
As it filled her senses and reminds her of Raver, she feels a distinct texture of a fishnet glove on her shoulder and a husky voice in her ear, asking for one last dance.
