VASL

1. bonnie & clyde

Everything is grey
His hair, his smoke, his dreams
And now he's so devoid of color
He don't know what it means

(Colors, Halsey)

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His eyes are on her.

Raw. Ceaseless. Devouring.

The music blasts away in the crowded room. He can feel the ground thrumming under his feet. The club smells of sweat, smoke, cheap perfume and desperation. When he was 17, he used to think that classy bars meant classy people. Well, he isn't 17 anymore and neither naive nor above base mortals and their base desires. His interests to be there are just as insipid and sordid – to de-stress, get drunk and forget his own name.

Some higher power in the universe, if it exists, is definitely encouraging all his worst vices anyway – he has a clear view of the illuminated dance floor and he has set his eyes on her, dancing like that.

She, whoever she is. It doesn't matter in the long run. He doesn't believe in love at first sight but he does believe in wanting to fuck someone without knowing who they are.

Through the streaks of neon lights, blazing pinks and greens, cutting across pitch black darkness and swarms of bobbing heads, through the blank spots in his vision and the haze of alcohol, through it all, the spotlight rests at her feet, too enthralled to move away. She commands it, demands it and has it. She is dancing like she owns the world and everyone else is just living in it.

Striking. Vivacious. Hypnotic.

Sexy. In the crudest, rawest sense of the word.

He wonders if she should be dancing like that, with men circling her like hunters to a prey, their eyes a reflection of his own. Her eyes though, tell a different story, one of grace and raw sensuality, tempting yet not inviting. All can't help but look. No one dares to touch.

Or he is just bored out of his mind and imagining things, making out reality to be different than it is, more glorious and substantial. Deep down he knows he's painting the same mindless nonsense as ever with different names and different colours.

"I can't believe Kriya's hooking up right at the bar!" Thea suddenly screams beside him and he curses out involuntarily. He hadn't even noticed her sidling up the booth towards him but now she is practically on his lap, drunk and yelling in his ear to be heard over the music. Mere words are enough to crumble resolves because just like that she has managed to snatch his attention back to a scene he wants to ignore.

Anyhow it had been difficult. He knows the club like the back of his hand, including all the exact locations of the shadiest booths and most thickly patterned screens to shamelessly get off behind. Been there done that. In some perverse form of cosmic retribution, his girlf-, no ex-girlfriend, is at the back of one of those right across, the one right under the huge neon sign proudly proclaiming "When I Ask Gently Just Bend Over", her tongue down a man's throat as he gropes her ass, fingers indecently digging into her milky flesh.

The display isn't anything uncommon in a club obviously and nobody bats an eyelid. It's not meant for them anyway. It's his private show from hell. He has a front-row VIP seat. He's the only audience Kriya wants anyway.