The Long Winter #17
Up in the Club part two
The dance club was nestled among several other bars, restaurants, arcades, and music halls. They were all five- or six-story brick buildings that looked like they belonged in the downtown area of a much smaller city, but the charming Americana atmosphere felt oddly perfect beneath the great glass and steel structures that had sprung up around them. Maddie and Clark led them down the street, busy with mostly young people, for that place, with its pink neon sign jutting out over the sidewalk that said, “WORXX.” complete with the period. Music thrummed through the walls, a tropical baseline that promised to wiggle its way into their backsides. A line of people waited behind a velvet rope and Maddie passed them all and hugged the bouncers who stopped them when they heard Penny’s voice.
“She’s a PMer,” the burly man with “SECURITY” across the back of his shirt said when he heard her tell Maddie how different this was from her home. “List don’t say nothin’ about that.”
“She’ll be fine,” Bart said, stepping up between him and Penny with Carlos near him. “She’s with us.”
The bouncer frowned at Bart and Carlos and then shrugged and waved them past.
The music was tangible inside, made moreso by the dim lighting and the faint smoke that smelled slightly of taffy in the air. Maddie led them past the crowded bar and across the crowded raised areas with table seating and through the dancefloor thick with people to a doorway guarded by yet another bouncer. She smiled and hugged him too and he let them through. A winding stairway emerged on a mezzanine that ran around the perimeter of the areas below, with roped off areas on an expansive balcony waiting for VIPs to sit down and drink. Maddie led them to a middle one. Carlos shook hands with the bouncer at the ropes and took up a position alongside him. They both eyed Penny as she passed with her friends.
The music was less oppressive up there. The seats were soft and the tables were gilded in gold. A waitress wearing what amounted to lingerie opened a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass. Maddie raised hers and toasted them to their first night out together and everyone drank, all but Penny draining their glasses. Penny watched the waitress fill the glasses again but kept hers away from the bottle. She felt more than drunk enough and the thrumming music kept her legs unsteady, to say nothing for the wicked tilt to the floor beneath her.
Sandra pulled Clark away to go downstairs and dance. Bart followed, rubbing his hands together as he prepared to wade through the females below, but Penny collapsed into a chair and Maddie stopped before she could follow the others. She knelt down in front of Penny, put her hands on the PMer’s knees, and smiled up at her.
“Penny baby, what seems to be the problem?” she shouted over the music.
“I’m tired.”
Maddie’s face went passive. Penny took a deep breath.
“I’m tired! Tired and drunk! I don’t like this feeling!”
“If you come with me and dance you’ll feel better!”
“I don’t want to dance!”
“You’ll feel better! I promise!”
“But you have a fiance!”
“So?”
“So! He won’t like it!”
“He knows there’s nothing to worry about! You have a girlfriend anyway!”
Penny smiled. Yes. She did have a girlfriend, didn’t she? She set her still nearly full glass of champagne aside and let Maddie pull her to her feet. Maddie supported her as they walked across the swaying floor and down the jelly steps and out onto the dancefloor and the bass did indeed thrum its way into their backsides. They surrendered themselvese to it and let it take them out into the crowd, into the smoke and the sweat of the night.
Maddie kept Penny’s hand in hers, and the PMer rewarded her with a sensual swirl to her motions, stepping close and staying there, close enough to hear her breathe, close enough to feel her heartbeat and smell her desire. And yes. Their eyes met, not more than an inch or two apart, and Maddie knew that desire was for her that night. Her girlfriend and, indeed, Maddie’s fiance, were far away, far away and irrelevant.
Maddie gasped when Penny pulled her hand from Maddie’s and placed both her hands on Maddie’s firm backside. Penny grinded her hips against Maddie’s and ran her hands up Maddie’s sides, pulling her closer, ever closer against her. The space disappeared and Penny’s hands were on Maddie’s neck, her cheeks, up into her hair, her breath hot on Maddie’s face, her lips parted, her eyes half-open, the lust of a messy bed just visible in them—
Someone bumped them and Penny tumbled away and Maddie with her. The crowd was shouting, girls shrieking in delight and everyone jostling each other to get out of someone’s way. Where Maddie had led her friends through to the VIP section, an actual VIP was bringing his section with him.
They helped each other to their feet and the crowd gave way before them ahead of a young man in a plain white T-shirt and black slacks. He had messy dark hair and a well-trimmed beard framing his square chin and behind him was a train of beautiful hangers-on.
“That’s Huston Chandler, the Infantryman!” Penny shouted.
Maddie looked at him. Penny was right, it was the Infantryman, a super soldier famous for demonstrating his peerless fighting abilities on everyone and anyone within an arm’s reach. Chandler stayed more than an arm’s reach away from her and Penny and turned to dance with his hangers-on. Maddie took Penny’s arm and pulled her back towards the stairs.
“What? Why are we leaving?”
“I’m tired, I want to sit down and rest my feet!”
“I thought we were having fun!”
Penny began dancing, and there was no way Maddie could deny her adorable foreign friend. Her hips started moving in time to Penny’s but…
But that was still the Infantryman over there, and her foreign friend was not just some exchange student, but a PMer with ties to The Best Defense however much she claimed the contrary.
Penny’s hand was on Maddie’s cheek, gently pulling her attention back to those pretty dark eyes.
“I’m right here, Maddie,” she said. “Not over there.”
“But that’s—”
“It could be the entire Best Defense and I would still want to dance with you like this.”
Maddie ran her hands through Penny’s hair. Soft, silky smooth, and so light since it was so much shorter than Maddie’s own. It was hard not to kiss her. Impossible. Impossible not to kiss her, those lips, parted just so, soft and moist, waiting for their first taste of Maddie—
“Yo!”
They looked over. A dark-skinned man with his hair in tight braids and a Brooks Brothers shirt on tapped their shoulders.
“Yo yo yo! My boy wants to know if you two want to join us!”
“Oh my gosh!” Maddie turned away from Penny, the half-Asian girl suddenly invisible as she beheld— “You’re Kagny White!” Maddie cleared her throat and pulled herself upright and then hooked her arm around Penny’s waist and pulled the PMer hard against her side. “We’re a package deal tonight, my friend!”
“Rev says you got a VIP section already!”
“That is true!”
“There are a few others around here with you, too!”
“That is also true!”
“We’ll combine sections! First, though, my boy wants to meet her!”
Kagny pointed at Penny and she stared back, trying to see him through the bottom of a champagne bottle. Maddie frowned at her. The lush had barely even smelled that champagne.
“Meet who?” Penny shouted at the rapper.
“The Infantryman!”
“Huston Chandler!” Penny nodded and tried to lurch away from Maddie. The blonde girl kept her grip on the PMer and they staggered closer to Kagny together.
“I guess that’s a yes!” he laughed.
The rapper stepped beside Penny and put his hand on her ass and pushed her ahead towards the Infantryman. Maddie glared at him but he paid her no attention. He delivered them to Huston and stood aside while the Infantryman examined them head to toe. He dismissed Maddie first, smiling at her and pulling her aside, separating her from Penny, and then he stepped between them and took Penny in his arms. Maddie tapped his beefy shoulder and worked her way around him.
“She’s with me tonight!”
“Look, heiress, you’re pretty and all, but I’m not here for that sort of thing,” he barely looked at her. Penny’s wrists were in one of his fists and she strained back from him.
“I thought we were combining VIP sections!”
Huston sighed and looked at her. He nodded and released Penny.
“Let’s go have some drinks!”
They cut through the crowd for the stairs. The bouncer let them through with a familiar nod of his head. Back up those winding stairs, and then to their roped-off areas, now combined, and back into those soft seats and glasses full of champagne or wine or beer or gin and tonics or rum and cokes or whatever and Huston sat down and pulled Penny into his lap and she squirmed and edged to his kneecap but he was big and strong and he kept her from getting any further away and looked at her like a shark looked at its dinner. He asked her a question. She glanced at him. Her face was pale, sickly under the gyrating club lights. He leaned closer and asked her again. She shook her head. His hand went up under her chin and he bared his teeth. She shook her head again and that was when Maddie had enough. She stood and took two steps towards them but Bart was faster and he said one thing to Huston and helped Penny gently to her feet and smiled at Maddie as he handed the PMer off to her.
“Get her another glass of champagne.”
“Yes, sir.”
She and Penny staggered back to Maddie’s chair and Penny pushed Maddie down on it and climbed into her lap. She put her arms around Maddie’s neck and set her forehead against Maddie’s, her short hair shading their faces just a little.
“I want to drink champagne off your chest!” Penny said.
“You are seriously drunk, aren’t you?”
Penny nodded, rocking both their heads up and down.
“Do you want to go sleep it off?”
“If you mean do I want to go with you to bed and teach you how to have sex like a lesbian, then yes! Yes I do!”
Penny’s lips were there again. Right there. Not smiling, just parted slightly, waiting. Waiting for Maddie to close that gap. Waiting for Maddie’s lips to arrive, right there, in front of everyone. Maddie closed her eyes and breathed the PMer deep, smelling her shampoo and her sweat and the alcohol thick in her breath. Then she pushed Penny back and off to the side and the PMer dropped onto the seat beside her and nearly tumbled over the edge. Maddie caught her, reaching over in a panic to keep her on the chair and caught a handful of Penny’s left breast. Penny laughed and reached out and groped Maddie in return and then stretched over her, rubbing her body across Maddie’s face as she reached for the glass of champagne offered by one of the lingerie-clad waitresses. She sat back down, miraculously keeping the champagne inside the glass, and then took a sip, a long sip, before looking back at Maddie and smiling.
“Want to share?”
Maddie nodded.
“Want to share from my mouth?”
“You’ve seen too many dirty movies.”
“I don’t watch those types of movies,” Penny turned her nose up and Maddie took the champagne and drank the rest of the glass.
“What kinds of movies do you like?”
“Tentacle hentai.”
Maddie laughed.
“But you were all teasing me about robots, or sexbots, like, before, so I watch those now, too.”
Maddie laughed again. More champagne appeared in her glass. She drained it. Suddenly there were two more Pennys with her in that chair.
“How often do you watch those?” Oh, those words felt horrendous on her tongue.
“As often as Leah has her own private time!”
“Are you going to watch them tonight?”
“We can watch them together!”
“You know, you two, who both have significant others they should be thinking about, should stop doing gross stuff like this in front of everybody!”
Sandra stood beside them. Clark was beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t listen to her!” he said. “This is the VIP section! Feel free to do whatever VIP shit you want to do!”
“I have to pee!”
Penny pushed herself up from Maddie and Maddie watched her walk away. Somehow she knew she would never be so close to her again, and her heart ached. She took a dull sip of her champagne and forced herself to laugh at whatever barb Sandra had lobbed at her. What might have been had suddenly become what will never be and the lights were dimmer than ever.
***
Penny knew it was wrong to flirt that way with Maddie. Dancing so close, it reminded her, too much actually, of that pool party with Ayumi that first time. And touching Maddie like that, and being touched by her, so fun, so exciting, and there in public in front of everyone. Everyone!
Penny staggered into the ladies’ room and fumbled through her business. It was brighter in there than anywhere else in the club. A group of girls in dresses that were only a little less embarrassing than the lingerie the waitresses wore stood in front of the mirror and refused to give Penny room to wash her hands. She continued on, barely conscious of the laughter at her expense. Whatever. They were just jealous, weren’t they?
Marv did not answer. That was not new. Whenever she was drunk, and boy was she ever drunk that night, he did not answer. He probably could not. She could barely form a coherent thought on her own, let alone form someone else’s in her own mind. But what if it was actually him? What if when she got drunk he drowned in it? Maybe he was in there, swimming through the rivers of alcohol polluting her brain.
“Oh!”
Penny slammed against the wall somewhere between the bathrooms and the VIP area. Something hard pressed against her backside and someone breathed on the side of her face.
“Now we can finish that conversation we were having before!”
Huston Chandler!
“It’s never a coincidence when one of you shows up where I am! Why are you here?”
Penny whined and squirmed, tried to twist her hips out from under his, but—
“Answer me!”
He had a handful of her hair and he pulled her head back and then shoved her face against the wall just hard enough to let her know he could do far worse. The ringing in her ears swallowed up his next words and she began to cry, she was Port Matthew’s biggest crybaby, always crying especially in public where it was the most embarrassing.
“I don’t believe for a second that this isn’t some sort of set-up!”
He was so big, so strong. She strained against him, twisted and thrashed but it was all for naught. He was tough and felt none of it, his muscles were cords of steel and yielded nothing to her struggle. His other hand touched her.
“Where is it? Where’s your wire? Tell me!”
He touched her there, he ran his hand up under her dress, he groped at her chest, tore at her skin. Was he really looking for a wire? or was he looking for something else completely?
“Bitch! What are you fucking doing here?”
He released her and she twisted away, sliding two steps sideways against the wall. Then, fueled by the alcohol her tears had not yet burned away, she pulled her arm back and lashed out, swatting him across his face as hard as she could, putting all her weight behind her strike. His head did not even turn and he laughed at her. Her hand was numb from the champagne anyway so she did it again. She pulled back for a third slap and he slapped her. Her body went limp and heavy and she landed some several meters down the hall from him, very nearly back to the mezzanine and well within sight of the VIP sections. He stomped up to her and, groggy though she was, she slapped and scratched at him as he hauled her to her feet and dragged her beside him back to their section. When the passed into the roped off area he walked right up to Bart, threw her down at his feet, and shouted.
“Fine! You’re fucking right! Now keep this little bitch the fuck out of my sight!”
“I warned you against doing this,” Bart said. He put his hand on Huston’s arm, keeping him from turning away. “They’re not going to like this if they hear about it.”
“What? Some drunk loser whore came up to me at a club and got too fresh? Please. Whose word are they going to take? Mine or this drunk bitch?”
“She knows them. Not the way you think, but she does.”
Huston cast an anxious glance down at Penny, an unusual expression on his normally jovial face. Then he scowled at Bart.
“Tell them. If this drunk bitch is so important get them here tonight. Oh wait, you can’t because this is America, mother fucker, and they need special permission to come here, and who’s going to give them that permission over some drunk-ass bitch?”
“You’ve never been the most prudent man in the world, but you have to know this was a bad move on your part. She’s only here with her friends—”
“Yeah, friends from some freaky college working on freaky projects and there’s no way she’s not a spy! They’re going to be looking into it, you know!”
“I’m not a spy.” The words felt strange coming from Penny’s mouth. She did not know how, but she was on her feet again. Maddie was beside her—no. No! It was Sandra. Sandra supported her and Bart stood with the two of them. Penny lifted her head, it was so heavy, and raised her voice to be heard over the bass. “I’m not a spy!”
“I’m only in town tonight!” Huston said, stepping towards her with his shoulders up and his hands clenched into fists. “There’s no way you’re here by coincidence! This was planned! You’re using them! These good Americans!”
“They’re my friends!” She glanced at Sandra. Sandra nodded. “Even her!”
Sandra laughed. Huston frowned at her and then looked back at Penny.
“They’re going to come looking for you. They’re probably already watching you. Even I knew you were here—”
“Yeah, and we’ve already established your lack of mental horsepower.”
“Fuck you, Willis.” Despite the threat in his words, Huston pulled back and dropped his fists. He grabbed the nearest waitress. “Get them a bottle of whatever costs the most in this place. I’m paying for all their shit tonight.” He cast one last anxious glance at Bart. “Find Katrina. He’ll want to see her.”
“I don’t need to see Katrina tonight—”
“Then give her to your PMer bitch. Rev’s coming up here soon. We’re all just one big happy crew, ain’t we?”
Penny did not notice the waitress return. Sandra had guided her back to her seat, the one she had been sharing with Maddie, and set her down by herself.
“You know, you should think about having Bart take you back to Maddie’s to rest!”
“I’m not tired!” Penny’s head lolled back against the chair and her body melted into the rest of it.
“You don’t look like you want to dance!”
“I love to dance!”
“Yeah, that’s what it looked like with Maddie.”
“I’ll dance with you!”
Penny held her hand out. Sandra looked at it, the corners of her mouth twisted down in distaste. Still, she reached down and pulled Penny back to her feet. Penny slammed her body against Sandra’s and put her head on the brunette’s shoulder.
“I think I love you, Sandra.”
“You’re definitely too drunk! When I see a waitress I’m getting you some water!”
“Whatever! Just love me back!”
Sandra swayed with Penny in silence for a little while, letting the beat guide their hips. Then she put her face near Penny’s ear.
“Fine. I love you, too.”
Nearby, Maddie and Clark danced while Huston’s friend Kagny began an impromptu concert, and somewhere below the crowd erupted with cheers. A waitress put waters in their hands and another showed up with a tray of food. Penny let Sandra put her back down in that chair and they remained there together the rest of the night.
Follow The Long Winter into #18 International Incidents part one here.