Chapter #31Blackout by: Seuzz   It's probably not the best plan, buying something alcoholic. But the idea is to get a buzz onto Karl, then get him somewhere alone, then get a mask onto him. Taking a courtesy beer of your own will ease things in that direction, surely. "Cerveza and lime," you say.
"Cerveza and lime," the guy repeats. "The girl knows our specialty." From beneath the plank bar he takes out a bottle of very cheap beer and a wedge of lime. Karl asks for the same. No money changes hands.
The main dance floor takes up the entirety of the western half of the warehouse; the rest is divided into relatively intimate spaces, like the bar and your current locale, the hang-out space, which is where people go when they mostly want to talk and socialize. There are a few tables, and even some booths that got rescued—or stolen—from a restaurant or real bar, but most of the furniture consists of disgusting old bean bags and smelly old furniture. You and Karl plop onto a cast-off futon against a side wall near the front where, on another makeshift stage, two guys are manning the music stand out of which is coming that tuneless song with the driving beat. They look up as sit down, and you recognize them as two of those Eastman students Hannah knows but doesn't care to get involved with: Drew Jeffries and Lane Overstreet.
You and Karl clink bottles, swallow some beer, and since you've got your arms around each other already, put your faces together start to make a meal of each others' mouths. Karl's mouth is warm and wet, and he's very good with his tongue, and Hannah's no slouch either, you can tell. You grip the back of his neck and pull him in hungrily. You breathe in deeply, snuffling at his cheek and the side of his nose, but he's too well-scrubbed—and there's too much stench off the room—for you to get a good noseful of his musk.
After a solid minute, you come up for air with a gasp, and that's the first moment you really have to realize where you are and what you're doing. You're making out with Karl Hennepin. And you're enjoying it.
No, Hannah is enjoying it, you tell yourself. You're just using her face and body and instincts to get close to Karl's face. But Hannah, you can tell, would really be into this moment and into Karl. You knead the side of his face with one hand, and with the other pull one of his hands up to a breast. He cradles it expertly. You close your eyes and are about to dive back onto another wet experience when—
A low whistle breaks your concentration. "You're gonna set off the sprinklers. Good thing we don't got any." You look up and over. Drew is leering down at you.
He's not a bad-looking kid: blonde, with an elfin face and a grin so pointed it's almost a V that's been carved into his face beneath his nose. But he's augmented his look with gangbanger attire that—for you and Hannah both—functions as a "Do Not Touch" sign: wife-beater, baggy shorts, tats on his shoulders, and piercings in his ears, nose, eyebrows, and tongue. He's got a drink in a Styrofoam cup, and he grins as he bites down on the tip of the straw.
"Hey Drew," you say with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. "You know Karl?"
"Seen him around." Drew keeps his eyes locked on you. "Glad to see you around. I heard we lost you to the other side, thought maybe you'd stop showing up here."
"Why would I? Everyone comes here."
"But all the cool kids are from our side of town. You like what we're playing?"
"It's wallpaper."
"But it looks like it's workin' on ya." He bobs his head. "Gets you in the mood. You gonna take it upstairs?"
That's another part of the Warehouse Hannah hasn't explored, though she's heard about it: upstairs rooms, only loosely partitioned, with makeshift mattresses for penetration parties. That part of the place, you've heard, definitely comes with a charge. "We're just here to be casual, have fun." You squeeze Karl.
"Sure," says Drew, and it occurs to you that not once has he blinked since coming up, and not once have his eyes left yours. "But if this is how you start, you might get a request to move it someplace private. Don't want to make all the other guys—and maybe some of the girls—jealous of what your friend's getting."
"How about you go take care of the music," Karl says.
"How about—?" Drew starts to reply sharply, then catches himself. "Okay. But remember, there's fun, and there's too much fun, and too much fun comes with a charge." He sucks noisily on the straw, then turns back to where he'd been working.
"You know that guy," Karl observes.
"Only through my junior year. That's when he stopped coming to classes. I don't know what he thinks he's going to do with himself."
"He'll make some convict a pretty girlfriend."
Almost instantly, the intoxicating attraction you'd been feeling for Karl vaporizes. It was just pretense, and you wonder how much of it was self-hypnosis, even on the part of "Hannah." But you've got an act to maintain, so you pull him back into another kiss.
This one doesn't last as long, because when you come out of it again Eva is in the doorway looking at you warily. You wave her over. "Don't let me interrupt," she says in a pinched voice.
But her presence is a relief, since it gives you a reason to throttle things back with Karl. You pull each other close, but now your time is taken up with mild, senseless chatting and lots of pulls on the beer. It goes away pretty quick, and when Eva mentions that she'd like one, you order a second when Karl gets up to oblige. "Do they ever turn the lights down in this place," she asks. "That'd make it easy to get the mask onto him." She indicates the bag she's holding close to her side.
"We'll get another beer into him. Don't throw up, but I might have to suck on his tonsils a little."
Karl returns with a second beer for himself and a second one for you. But as there's now a third at the futon with you, you start to attract attention. Stacey Ventura—one of Hannah's old friends on the Eastman soccer squad—comes in and comes over; and since Eva Garner appears to be with you, Eric Harlin and Andrew Harding come over as well. You're personable and charming to them all—to make up for Eva's frostiness—and when Karl says he can't afford to get you any more beers Eric and Andrew say they'll put you on their club tab. That gets you a third beer and quickly thereafter a fourth.
Then there are some shots that go around. Andrew must have gotten the first, but you're not sure how the second or the third got in your hand, though you've an impression you weren't much too fond of whoever it was that brought them to you. The lights become dim—or you're losing your vision—and you know that's important for some reason, but you're having too much fun laughing and screaming with people to remember what. People keep shouting in your ear to make themselves heard, or maybe it's only one person shouting over and over again. Your head is swimming so you're very uncertain. Your feet don't want to work either, which is amusing, and then it doesn't matter because you've got your spinning head on something soft. Something heavy and comforting is nearby, and you pull it close, loving the touch of its warm, firm, but yielding surfaces. It's very big—it's a person, surely—and you try to put some of it in your mouth, and then you try to put other parts of it inside other parts of your body.
* * * * *
Something is pulling at your arms, and you really want it to stop. Not because it hurts but because it's trying to make you move, and that's making the world rock in a really unpleasant way. You try to tell it—or them—to stop it, but it only comes out as a kind of moan. You feel yourself lifted upright, and you've just the presence of mind to realize that you're being asked to walk. You're a polite kind of girl, helpful and considerate, so you do your best to oblige.
It's slow going, and you slide toward the ground more than once. But you're getting lots of help. You can't see anything because there's too much noise, and you can't hear because your nose is in your eyes, and you're numb all over because your hair is itching, and time seems to be moving sideways in a circle because you never seem to get anywhere even though it feels like the clock is racing breathlessly. But the air turns very cold and the noise drops away, finally, and after shuffling over rough ground for another instantaneous eternity, you bang your temple against something hard that has corners. The air becomes muffled, and you sink gratefully down into darkness. But there are voices—you can't make out the words—and you bat at someone who lifts you by the chin. Hard fingers close about your temples, and—
* * * * *
You come awake at the press of strong fingers about your arms. Reflexes flash, and you slap them away. "The fuck?" you exclaim.
"Come on, Will," says a voice filled with barely retrained irritation. "Work with us. Help us out." The fingers grope at you again.
"I will if you tell me what the fuck's going on!"
There's a pause. "Can you get out on your own?"
"Get out of what? What's going on?"
Another pause. "Are you sober?"
"Are you high? Who is that? Connor?"
"Yeah. We're at my place. Come inside, I want to get a look at you."
As you struggle out of the back seat of his car, you discover that you're wearing Hannah Westrick's clothes. Only then do things start to make sense.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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