Hush (ManxMan)

Prologue: Club Hush

So somehow, my friend Jeremy had convinced me to go to club Hush.

I sighed dramatically as I hunched forward, trying to shield myself from the snow that was beating down on Chicago this night. My dark denim pants hugged tightly at my legs, something that should have made me warmer considering it was like a second skin, but we all know how annoying jeans are. They're seriously the only cloth on the face of the planet that can't get warm for shit. Be that as it may, I dug my hands further into my fur-lined, forest green army jacket. It was a present to me from my ex-boyfriend. He liked seeing me in fur, said that my face looked irresistible when it was lined with the golden faux fur coats he always bought me. He said that it made the freckles peppered around my face stand out even more. My ex thought I was some kind of national treasure because I had freckles, yet was a brunette. I tried to assure him that I was not some kind of exotic candy: I was just a normal male and that there were other brunettes in the world whom also had freckles.

Anyway, I must not have looked good enough since he's an ex now.

Jeremy hadn't said a peep to me since we gotten in the car, and now, standing in the line to enter club Hush, he was still as silent as ever. It was odd, considering he was a talkaholic. He has mentioned that some things were on his mind lately, but every time I tried to pry, he'd keep closed and I wasn't the type to beg to be ignored.

Instead I looked around my surroundings curiously. It was amazing how many people actually wanted to be at this club. I gazed up at the building. It was a revamped ex-industrial factory. Judging from the brick, windows, and shape, it had to have been built in the thirties and I was left wondering why anyone would need to make such a large club. It was nearly ten stories high and I couldn't help wonder what the owner used the other floors for. The windows had been cleaned and replaced, and on the old sign that went down the building vertically, it said 'Hush' with a neon finger covering a neon mouth, replacing whatever this factory had been previously called. I can tell you right now that it would be a struggle to find the bathroom in a place this big with so many people.

Speaking of which, we'd been in line for nearly twenty minutes it seemed. I looked behind me and Jeremy and saw that the line extended to wrap around the other end of the building, and this is not a small building as I've stated. Part of me wondered why people came to party here if more than half of their night would be spent waiting!

Jeremy let out a sigh, "I knew I should have done this on a night they weren't open..." He mumbled cryptically.

I whipped my head to him, "What?" I exclaimed. I thought we were here to party? He dragged me all the way out to a club I didn't even want to go to because he said I needed to get my mind off of my ex. Now he was spewing shit about coming here a night where Hush wasn't open? That could only mean he wasn't here to party. I scowled at my friend.

He looked up at me with a sheepish, yet tired smile. Jeremy was only an inch shorter than me and a lot more prettier. His hair was auburn and his teeth were straight and gorgeous. Jeremy's eyes were hazel with flecks of gold glittered about them. If I liked him enough, I'd ask him out on a date. But he's a lazy ass and way above my level. Actually, it always surprised me how close we were and the fact that we were even friends. "Calm down." He told me, "We are going to party. I'm just meeting some business associates here tonight too."

Recently, in the past year, Jeremy has become awfully loaded from getting a promotion at his job. He's been taking me out for dinner a lot and taking me on really lavish vacations to get my mind off of my ex. Suddenly he wasn't eating ramen like me, he was eating carefully sculpted tartars and preciously tendered steaks. Earlier this year he brought over a wine that was bottled in 1945 to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday. To say I was shocked was an understatement. It seemed I needed to file a resumé into his work place then!