Sex & Drugs & Dungeons & Dragons

D15. Ecstasy and Anguish

Griffin had never enjoyed dancing. He'd always felt too self-conscious. But at this moment he didn't care about who was watching him. He only cared about the music and the lights and being with his friends, all tripping as hard as he was. "All the fellas in the house say Hey!" DJ Hardy announced.

"Hey!" yelled Griffin, along with Tony and a chorus of male voices.

"All the ladies in the house say Yo!"

"Yo!" yelled Griffin again, this time with Hope and a crowd of female voices.

A tall man with Nordic-pale skin glared at Griffin. He wore a leather vest, open to his navel, and a bandana around his neck. Huge police-style mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes, and his curly, greasy hair was cut into a long mullet that tumbled over his shoulders. "The DJ said 'ladies'," the pale-skinned guy growled at Mickey, "Does your friend think he's a lady?"

""He's just on drugs, dude"

Tony noticed the pale-skinned man wasn't alone. A fat friend of his wore a Van Halen T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, though why he'd want to show off his flabby shoulders and biceps Tony couldn't understand. Another friend was shirtless like the pale-skinned guy, an unbuttoned denim jacket taking the place of the pale-skinned guy's leather vest. His beer belly stuck out over the belt of his jeans. A third friend wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with horizontal stripes, and he covered his hair with an American flag-printed dew rag. To Tony's acid-twisted mind he looked like a poser pirate. Tony started to laugh. All four of the men were clearly trying to look macho and intimidating, but to Tony they looked totally ridiculous.

"What's he laughing at?" sneered the poser pirate.

"He's on drugs, too," Mickey assured him, subtly interjecting himself between Tony, Griffin, Hope and the hair band wannabes.

"What about you," the pale-skinned guy asked, turning his attention to Hope. "You down for some action or you some kinda fag hag?" He grabbed his crotch so there would be no doubt what he meant by "action".

"Don't bother answering." Mickey pulled them all off the dance floor and away from the looming confrontation.

"Where are we going?" Hope asked, still smiling blissfully despite the rude interruption.

"I think we'd better get out of here," Mickey advised. He pulled them both to the front door but halted.

The bouncer was doing his best to hold back a group of young men that were clearly dressed differently than the usual club-goers. These guys were wearing jeans or leather pants and mesh tank tops or open jackets over bare chests and bandanas everywhere, either tied around biceps or necks or foreheads. Their hair was either long and stringy or long and permed, cut into mullets or held back by sweatbands or dew rags or the aforementioned bandanas. Tony heard some of the men pushing up against the velvet rope yelling "Let us in, faggot!"

Police cars were parked behind the young men, but the cops were just standing behind the open doors of their cruisers, watching and doing nothing.

Mickey about-faced and led them to a side exit. "What's going on?" Tony asked, confused.

"Gay-bashers," Mickey explained. He saw a dimly lit emergency exit sign and started to push through the mostly still clueless crowd toward it.

"How come the cops aren't doing anything?" Hope wondered.

"Cop's don't care," Mickey replied.

"Gay-bashers?" Griffin asked, still confused. "Why would there be gay-bashers?"

"Because this is a gay club, and some folks don't like gay people" Mickey answered quickly, pushing them both toward the emergency exit.

But then someone else appeared in the crowd, emerging from it to block their path. It was the pale guy with his friends. The men glared at Mickey. The pale guy massaged his knuckles, a ridiculous gesture considering they were hidden underneath fingerless driving gloves. "Hey, sweet thing," he said, smiling, to Hope. "How about you ditch these homos and spend some time with a real man?"