Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

LV. Devilʼs Kiss

5
Scott
Cockburn Town, Turks and Caicos
El Matador Nightclub
June 31st, 2004
Time: 2:30 AM
______________________

It was the devilʼs lilʼ strip of seedy paradise with Latin American flair.

Nicky Jam spat his Floridian verses into a squeaking little speaker, and in the hurricane of sweat and s*x, Scott made his way through the club. It was a poor travesty with reggaeton making the air heat up like a thousand fires, coffered wooden ceilings that seemed to make dust rain like golden alcohol, and smoke that flowed to the sky in inky plumes. Flesh met flesh, skin slapped skin, and in the Ecuadorian haziness, romance found itself in: cheapened dirt floors and then heightened, raw adrenaline and imported Cuban bacardí, and the perfumed moans that seemed to crescendo with every pulse. Frowning, Scott rushed through the crowd with a crippling anxiety, searching desperately for his brothers in the maze of Colombian papusas and black market Peruvian cigars.

Scott sighed, clutching pages of Vyolèt Domingoʼs story from The Order of the Dragonʼs grimoires on Monsters & Murderers and stuffing it in his pocket.

He hated this part.

"Blake," he seethed. "Damien–"

"Scot-t-a-y!" he heard Blake, his older brother, howl drunkly.

It was the devilʼs lilʼ strip of seedy paradise with Latin American flair. And when an American got sh*t-faced?

The entire club knew.

The neon was vengeful against the ceiling. When the music heightened in tempo, the neon lights battled for its privileged soul, and no one was letting up. In their little corner, bartenders in pristine chiffon uniforms with black aprons fed Blakeʼs hunger, his insatiable liver, with the promise of Latin American exoticism in the bottom of every bottle. Damien, on the other hand, indulged other refined tastes – plunging his tongue into the recesses of a Dominican light-skinned beauty, her br*asts bursting against his nearly bare chest. They smelled of sin and sodomy, and with a heavy sigh, Scott watched Blake down his fifth round of whatever-the-singlehandedly-most-gay-drink was inside El Matador. And with the passion Damien used to heighten his feverish desire for a fiery Hispanic rendezvous, Blake returned with a newfound passion for drinking the entire city dry as he worked the bar tonight.

Scott b*tch-faced.

"Hey, Scotty, where you been?" Blake asked, burping.

"Yeah, Scott, where you been?" Damien moaned out, chuckling when the womanʼs lips teasingly bit, kissed, and licked the side of his neck.

"Hunting," Scott spat. "Doing research, tracking. We canʼt be here, Dadʼll kill us. Oz is already on pins-and-needles. Impatient as sh*t." 

Blake burped again, chuckling again, and Damien was too busy indulging his Latina cravings to give a shit. Rummaging through his back, he pulled out a plastic blood glucose meter – barbed with the godforsaken prick – and sighed with exasperation as the air grew more lusty. Blake and Damien had it all: the aesthetics of James Dean, the taste for the finer, thrilling aspects of life, and the adrenaline for adventure. But Scott was the baby of the family – the type-two diabetic baby of the family – and with the fear of his fatherʼs disapproving eye as sour and abusively dark as the Camel cigarettes that helped paint the risqué picture of El Matadorʼs scenery, as well as the rugged handsomeness that wasn't chiseled and wasn't as athletic as his brothers, he made it abundantly clear to Damien and Blake.

Scott...wasnʼt much of a partying guy.

"Come o-on Scotty, liven up," Blake hiccuped. "Dad isnʼt gonna care if we have some fun on the job. Not when heʼs chasing cheap p*ssy on-the-regular. Have some fun, let loo-o-o-se! You might even get to use this opportunity as a learning experience. Tell them pretentious f*cks up that you did community service in Turks and Caicos by letting some sugar daddy give you a lap dance. They e-at that sh*t up there, ha, community service. Ha-ha."