This choice: Break down and go out to the Warehouse • Go Back...Chapter #19Warehouse Warriors by: rugal b.   It feels like there's an overwhelming amount of pressure on you to do it. To cover for Marc with his girlfriend while he goes out to have fun with the rest of them. There is something tempting about it because Marc is handsome, he's popular, he's smart, athletic, outgoing... all the things that you feel that you aren't. And he's got a girlfriend. You don't actually know who "Hannah" is, beyond the fact she's on the soccer team, since you've only heard about her once or twice when Marc's sisters have brought her up. But given that it's Marc, she's probably the type of girl you'd be excited to spend a night with.
However, a thought gnaws at the back of your mind and you wonder if Laurent didn't just bring it up as a way to get rid of you. While he seems like a nice enough guy, you've felt completely out of place hanging around with him and his friend. Surely they notice too that you don't fit in so maybe they're thinking to dump you off on "babysitting" duty with Marc's girlfriend while they bring him out for the night. After all, he's their buddy and you're just that weird dweeb hanging around them. You now flip in the opposite direction, wondering if you should just flat out turn down the whole thing.
But that just makes you worry that it could piss them off and you sure as hell don't want a group of athletes pissed at you, especially when half of them could probably tie you into a pretzel. So then it's back to the idea of filling in for Marc which, despite your misgivings, you feel like you're resigning yourself to... that is, until you have a spark of inspiration.
"I'd like to but, uh, I was kinda planning on going out to the Warehouse myself," you say. Then, maybe in an attempt to mollify some of your own worries about not fitting in, you decide to follow it up. "Besides, I don't want to ruin Marc's chances. It'd be weird if he was cucking himself."
"Aww shit!" Chris exclaims as he grins at Marc, "Will's lookin' out for you, man!"
"C'mon, I don't really have anything to worry about. He wouldn't do that to me," Marc says as he looks at you. His expression is amused but also one of relief so you wonder if you read him wrong a minute ago.
"Alright," Laurent's voice booms, "we're outta here; gonna get ready." He turns to you with a crooked grin. "So, you know who you want?" he asks you.
"Who I want?"
"Y'know, the girls?"
Oh right... oh shit! Laurent seriously wants you to go out to the Warehouse under the mask of one of these girls? He seriously expects you to do that? "I don't, uh," you start.
"Yo, what about us?" Ethan chimes in. "We're gonna have to—"
"Hey, it's cool," Laurent insists. "It's his book and he passed up doing it before let him have priority this time."
"Ah, uh, no that's fine," you nervously insist. "It's probably better if I, you know, get a feel for the place first before I start trying to pretend to be somebody else."
"You sure? It'd probably be easier if—"
"Hey, he said he doesn't wanna do it so we're not gonna make him do it," Brownie cuts in.
"Yeah, okay," Laurent says as he continues to grin. "But I'm warning you, Will. We go hard when we're there so you better be able to keep up. Consider this your initiation."
* * * * *
Everyone breaks for the afternoon after that and you head home to kill time and get ready. You do casually ask your parents if you can get an extension on your curfew "by an hour or two." They're both skeptical and you insist that some guys from the wrestling team were taking you out to a party tonight. That just makes them even more skeptical so you spin a yarn about how you helped one of them with some notes for a test in a class you shared and he decided he "owed you one" for it. It takes a little more cajoling but they finally relent on letting you stay out until one so long as you can still get up for church in the morning.
"But that's—" you begin to protest. But all your dad has to do is raise an eyebrow and you know it's your loss. "I'll be up for church," you declare. You'd bet that was the entire point was to give you a reasonable extension just to tack on the unreasonable (in your mind) clause so you'd essentially just give up and wind up coming home at a normal time on your own. But still, it's at least a nice cushion.
It's close to nine when you finally get a text from Laurent saying to meet them up at the Warehouse. You get there and see Laurent, Chris and three girls: Ethan's done up in Kendra's mask, Noah in Mackenzie's and Brownie in Maria's. From there, you enter (though Laurent has to vouch for you with the bouncer, one of Westside's myriad lowlifes) and it's not long before Chris shoves a beer into your hand.
"First of many," he laughs as he shoves you out into the crowd.
You're not really sure what's going on at this point. There's a band playing punk music and some people are at rapt attention but for many it appears to be background noise as they sway and move, dancing not so much to the music that's being played but just to dance. You feel all out of sorts and find yourself stumbling around when you bump into someone.
"Whoa, sorry! I—" But you're cut off when the person, a girl, only seems to grab you and start dancing.
"Come on!" she insists and with nothing better to do you begin dancing with her. Very badly at that since you're not much of dancer yourself.
"Sorry!" you practically have to yell a few minutes later. "I left my dancing shoes in the truck!"
She giggles but to your surprise it doesn't seem to be at you specifically but your bad joke. And it doesn't sound malicious either. You dance with her for a few more minutes and engage in some casual chit-chat before she finally decides to move on and all you can think of is that you enjoyed it but lament that because of the excitement of everything, with the music and moving bodies and everyone being crammed in, that you didn't get much of a good look at her. Only that she was close to your height and had dark hair.
But you don't have time to think about it either because you're quickly joined by another girl, different in every way from one you were just with. You're able to get a good look at her and see that she's shorter, stockier, and that her face has a sort of stern, serious prettiness to it. But despite her frame she seems to slide in with smoothness and gets right to dancing.
"Saw you come in with Laurent and Chris," she says. "I didn't think you were the kind to hang out with guys like that."
"I'm not, typically," you reply. "It just kind of happened. But, uh, how do you know me?"
"I see you in second. You hang out with that Tilley bozo, right?"
"He's not— uh, yeah, I guess."
She offers you a wry smile, then pulls you in close. Close enough that you're squeezing against her. "I'm Joyce. Word of warning: those guys go hard," she says to you, "so I wanna see how hard you can go." Something gets hard alright when she turns and begins grinding against you and it takes a Herculean effort to keep from exploding in your pants.
* * * * *
This happens a few more times once Joyce eventually moves on. You and a girl come together, dance, chat (or flirt, you suppose), and move on to the next person. Eventually you begin to feel a bit worn out so step out to catch yourself only to find yourself accosted by what turns out to be the first girl. She introduces herself as Elsie and like you thought, she's taller with long, dark hair that falls in loose waves. She insists you hang out with her and her friends and clasps your hand, leading you through the crowd.
She brings you over to a table where a couple of guys and girls are sitting. They're Eastman students it turns out. Most of the half-dozenish people, like Elsie, are in the marching band there. They pepper you with questions inbetween talking about things going on or people from Westside they might know. Elsie, for her part, giggles a lot and she only lets go of your hand when she moves her own around your waist and rests her head on your shoulder.
You still feel a little left out but not as aggressively so as it was with Laurent and the others and you're enjoying yourself... and then Laurent comes over, calls out to you, and asks to borrow you. You say your goodbyes though you make sure to get Elsie's number in case you don't see her again tonight.
"Was gonna ask where the hell you've been but it looks like you're doin' pretty well huh?" he grins.
"Um, I guess—"
But he doesn't really give you a chance to answer. "Hey, so that mask and that other thing we were gonna use on Garner? It's all still in the car."
"Yeah?"
"I was thinking of running out there and grabbing it. Y'know, so we can use it."
"Tonight!?" you ask in astonishment.
Laurent looks at you and that grin is still plastered on his face. "Lepley's already buzzed and he was trying to fuck with Ysleta by putting the moves on him. Right in front of Victoria," he says and guffaws at that. "She gets pissy at Ysleta and he just kinda takes it. Doesn't really fight back or anything so she marches off in a huff."
You don't really know Ysleta but you know enough, through context, to know that he's talking about Joe Ysleta and his bombshell girlfriend Victoria Rodriguez.
"Anyway, I kinda wanna fuck with 'em a bit," Laurent states. He points up to the stage. "The girl up there with the wild hair? That's Lepley's sister. When they're done, I want you to grab a mask of her. Or if you don't want to wait, you can use the stuff on Victoria."
"You want me to do it? Here!?" you exclaim.
"Like I said, initiation. Besides, do it and you'll get first dibs on the mask. Take it home and do what you want, you know?" He then looks past you back towards Elsie and her friends. "Or am I interrupting something? I'm not gonna be a cockblocker."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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