TW: Sexual Themes, Violence, Alcohol and Drug Abuse

Madly went the women, their minds empty of anything except the heat, the night and the predrinks they'd already imbibed. Their hair swung wildly, full and sensuous as they gyrated to the beat. In the lights of the club, their bodies were bathed in blue, green, red and purple dresses plunging from their pert and ample breasts, stopping far short of their knees.

The men stood around awkwardly, nursing glowing cigarettes, cultivating a day's stubble and ill intentions to have their way with any young thing they could get into their cars and home to bed. Illicit stashes were palmed and tucked into back pockets as money changed hands in the bathrooms. The women would get their drugs later, in exchange for sexual favours. A blowjob here, a quick fuck in a filthy bathroom there, a firmly and furtively fondled cock on the ride home; such recreation as this is never entirely free.

By design, few of them knew more than each other's names, didn't care to. Candy was the one with the almost good looks and crooked nose given to her by a past would-be suitor who got nasty when he didn't get his way. She had skin-tight clothes, black-rimmed nervous eyes that always sought after a diversion, an escape route if one was needed. Chloe was out again, in old clothes, having not been seen for a while. She didn't get out much any more, spending most nights at home taking care of her ailing mother. Mel always wore long sleeves and dark tees, kept her hair long over the ear that had met with an otherwise dog on a bad day at work. She noticed other women's bodies more than she'd like to admit. There were one or two she might take to bed, if she ever worked up the nerve to ask them home for a night. "How do guys manage it?", she wondered privately to herself. "Maybe I'll have to ask one." She shuddered at the thought, before spotting Dave (who was passable, as blokes go) and making her way over to say "Hello".

Justin was failing his Accounting course. He'd grabbed the shirt he'd worn that day, from the dirty pile of laundry on his bathroom floor. It hadn't been done thanks to the damn rain pounding down for the last three days. Cole, an astute Chemist, flute player and liar, had bragged to his friends that he'd seduced his gorgeous younger stepsister, two months earlier, with his charismatic tongue as smooth as glass. (Never trust a flute player with a Jethro Tull album, my friend.) Somewhere, he'd secreted away her black satin push-up bra as a memento of his illicit act. Now she was far away and in no position to demand it back.

They were all young, bad-mannered, brash and desperate for distraction, lusting after each other only for tonight. Tomorrow, the awkward conversations, hurried breakfasts and aching heads, the walk of shame. But that comes later. The night is still young.

The music is so loud as to be physical, the bass flowing up through the floor and into the unsteady legs of the inebriated dancers. It yanked at their bones and screamed through their blood. Mel's face was lost against a guy pal's broad chest. She lifted her mouth up to his. She hoped that the others were watching this pretense, were aware of their incipient sexual charade of gangling limbs and bouncing breasts. Her sunburned back and buttocks shrank away from a roaming hand. "No, Dave! That's enough!"

Justin couldn't pay attention to the beauty on his arm, although he was aware that he should. His mind keeps spacing out and his limbs were not his own. He considered that he might be dreaming (the women were certainly not out of place), but he felt too tired to be asleep. "No", he decided, "I've had one to many. It must have been the painkillers as well." In truth, he'd had one too many a few drinks ago, but the painkillers certainly didn't help. Still, he kept lurching about, thinking he was dancing, aware of himself only as a separate, observable entity. Hands grabbed him, pulled hum onto a couch when he stumbled, before more than his feet became well-acquainted with the sticky floor.

Candy, who hated the taste of alcohol, as much as the memories of what had come after on the night she'd got her new nose, spotted her friends at the bar. She made her way over, stood on a foot in her heels and awarded its owner with an appeasing, if wet and gapped-tooth smile. The fellow picked her up gently and, smirking, rumbled, "Well, what have we here, little lady?" She reached out a hand and touched his arm. "Hello, Jerry. Good to see you again. Now put me down, please?" Knowing that he was around and would keep an eye out for trouble, she began to relax a little. If only the fool would show an interest ... She turned to his sister. "I love your dress!" issued from their mouths almost in unison, as if in little speech bubbles above their heads.

Candice felt envy towards the other women, their sleek, primal animal appeal. It never occurred to her that she possessed it too. Damn Jerry and his resisting her attempts to charm him into putting his arms around her, kissing her when they were alone together. She'd confessed as much to Catherine, who wasn't impressed by such designs on her big brother. Her jaw hurt from all the smiling and convincing.

Some older guy further down the bar was openly staring at her, his mouth open far enough that his jaw was practically on the wooden surface. She felt his brazen gaze on her skin, as oppressive as a hot poultice. Sucking in her stomach and combing her fingers through her straightened hair, bracelets hung heavy on her wrist as she made her mind up what to do about him. She knew what he wanted: To touch her, to undress her, to take her and to claim her for an hour or two, but not to buy her a drink or get her number. Urgh, men! Still, it couldn't hurt to flirt with him a little, get some validation if the object of her affections wouldn't give it.

Cole was trying a little too hard to have a good time, since none of the women would come in earshot of his dexterous tongue nor reach of his roving hands. The one he wanted most wasn't looking at him. This crowd knew his philandering ways. Besides, Jerry would turn him into a pretzel if he went near Catherine under his watch. So Catherine sat ignored in her satin dress, all her delicious creamy skin, red-haired radiance, freckles and emerald eyes going to waste as she sipped her gin with thinly veiled disinterest. "Oh, what a delightful conquest, a prize, she'd made last time we were together, raking those manicured nails along my back as I drove her into fantastic, orgasmic paroxysms of ecstasy ... When will that beefcake leave town again, stop pulling the Venus in furs out of my orbit? It is just as well I've already drank so much, gulped down that tray of shots some idiot had left undefended. How embarrassing it would be to get a stiffy here."

Cole's inner monologue was rudely interrupted by his stomach acid, driving him towards the Mens' room, to relieve itself in a long projectile arc of booze and bile against a plastic seat as his feet met urine-stained white tiles. "Too much tequila, old boy." Tears came to his already-blurry eyes. "Best to call it a night and slink home before anyone notices.", commented the inner schwinehund. Oh, how he missed Stephanie and the wild night he'd had with that kinky little minx tied to his bed posts, squealing happily as his hands turned her buttocks red. He wished she were here, since Catherine wouldn't be coming home with him tonight. As much as he'd bragged to friends about seducing her, she'd really seduced him, walking into his bedroom in little more than a corset, suspenders and lingerie beneath a red dressing gown, running a hand across his cheek in a gentle caress and giving him a long, lingering kiss in lipstick called "Ravish Me Red" as she placed the other hand on his chest. A few days later, she was heading back to London and her boring stuffed shirt well-to-do Mr. so-and-so boyfriend who'd inherit the family estate. Poor Cole, he just wants someone with whom to play kinky, sexy games. The women he knows just want to get it over with so they can get their drugs. "Catherine's different", he reminds himself. "She understands it's not just about sex; I need more." That's his narrative, anyway.

Jerry and Cathy gently frog-marched Candice to his car and eased her in, took off her heels. The poor thing had outdone herself again; gone all out with that creep who nearly needed to be fended off with a crowbar. Candy promptly fell into an uneasy drunken sleep.

"Why does she subject herself to such humiliation?", whispered Jerry to a not remotely amused and long-suffering Catherine, who'd been unable to catch Cole's eye for more than a few seconds without her brother grumbling about that rogue and his bad reputation. What a waste of a night. She'd have to find an excuse for another purely innocent and entirely coincidental meeting once he had flown back home.

"Candice wants your affection, Jerry. Because she can't have it, she flaunts herself in front of other men, hoping you'll get jealous."
"But I'm gay. You both know that."

In the back, Candice murmured indistinctly in her sleep at the flustered Jerry of her dreams.

Dave drove Chloe and Mel to a local greasy spoon that stayed open late to catch the dregs of the party-goers and clubber swill. Mel's faded black jeans were wrinkled, and damp where some jerk had spilled his drink on her. Chloe's head hurt as she thought about, for once, not creeping back into a cold and silent house, to her mother and her oncology appointment in the afternoon (by which time she'd be home from Mel's). Thank God she'd finally admitted her crush on Mel to her. Mel, momentarily forgetting herself in elated relief, had hugged and kissed her happily and then turned bright red at Dave's stupid, hungry grin. Cole wasn't the only one who'd be alone and frustrated tonight.

Justin walked to his mate's car, his arm around the waist of a gorgeous and sleepy elf named Ellen. They'd been dating for a few weeks now. "Move over, please, Candy; make room for one more", said he as he gave her a nudge. He'd spent his night buying drinks and the lady's affections. She'd spent hers designing appropriate smiles, eyebrow lifts and giggles while his hand rested on her knee.

Mel and Chloe sat at a cheap plastic table, holding hands, blushing and giggling while Dave stood in a line to buy bacon-and-egg burgers and chips. He'd almost finished his by the time he'd come back, congealing yellow running down his disheveled chin and onto his shirt. They soon had to fend him off theirs. It was bad enough he had a certain lupine look about him of late when around them; you'd think he'd never hung out with a lesbian couple before. Embarrassed, he looked away, happened to meet the eyes of a tattooed raven-haired and vulpine stunner who gave him a rueful, disapproving look before it changed to a winning smile. She crooking two of her fingers at him, flexed them back and forth while her other hand toyed with the loose change in the pocket of her black bomber jacket. "Come here, Broseph; give the lovebirds some space. Get a room, you two!", chortled his older sister, pleased to see Mel so happy.

Cole was back home, resting his whirling head on the cold tiled floor next to the toilet, moaning softly to himself. When his phone buzzed a little while later, he crawled to it, doing his best to avoid the splintering glare of its light. There was a photo of Catherine in her stockings and knickers, a crop in her gloved hand, one arm across her beautiful pale breasts. A voice message from her purred throatily and seductively, "I'm so sorry I couldn't spend time with you tonight, you naughty boy! You know what my brother's like. Please don't punish yourself for your excesses; I'll do that when next we play." If he hadn't been so far gone with drink, one hand would have left his aching head to find another. Instead, it mustered up his remaining strength to type out and send, "Yes, Mistress. Yjnak you fot undetstanding, Mistress. Good nogjt, Catjerine." Then he passed out amid the smell of his own vomit, toilet bleach, disinfectant and stale, watery beer. Catherine noted the typos and mentally marked them up against his name, along with his other sins. "When will that boy learn not to sulk and misbehave if he can't have what he wants, when he wants it?" A wicked and gloating smile crossed her face, then came back and camped there, as she got ready for bed and thought about exactly what she'd do to the spoiled bugger next session.

The next morning, each of them would awake stiff, sore, groggy and hungover. They'd forget the night before in small ways, would come to have no idea what they'd forgot and might not have cared, even. They wouldn't recall what they'd said or what had been so funny to make them laugh so much and so hard. They awoke with bruises, full inboxes, pounding heads and smoke-filled hair that had regained its curls. Rooms were tidied or left strewn with clothes and shoes. Assignments were quickly typed or copied. All of the messy excesses of the weekend were shut or shelved away and ignored. Plans of redemption and salvation for the weeks ahead were hastily muttered and scribbled in diaries or typed up, only to later be forgot or overridden: Eat healthily; go to gym; don't drink or smoke so much; don't waste Mom and Dad's money.

Mel awoke with Chloe beside her. Easing herself up onto an elbow, she scooted closer to her, bent her knees slightly and began to stroke her hair, before getting up to write a note to tell her to stay where she was; breakfast would be served in bed.

In a cafe not far from where Mel and Chloe began their romance, Eugene Bertrand Jarvis ate what was to be his last breakfast (although he didn't know it yet). He'd be dead by nightfall. Last night, as he slept, his aunt's boyfriend had crashed his car into a street light and the pavement on Sutherland Street, killing himself, his girlfriend (Jarvis' aunt) and Jarvis' mother (the only family E.B. had) almost instantly. It was assumed they had been drinking. Merciless and devoid of compassion, the older and tougher kids of the neighborhood had declared open season on his grieving, scrawny arse. This was the end for him. He'd soon find out and fast.

Another block of tedium clicked into place, to be followed by another and another.

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