Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

54 - Rebecca

          It was as if the club was in its prime time, despite the early hour of barely eleven pm. There was a booth to the right of the first hallway, which was supposed to act as a buffer between arriving and being in the club. It didn't work, because the pounding music could be felt in the floor and walls the moment we had stepped through the door. Tara grabbed my hand now, and I didn't stop her.

She dragged me passed the coat handler like she didn't exist, continuing down the hallway covered in neon purple lights. The atmosphere was great, but it stunk already of alcohol, and I didn't know how well I would take the smell getting worse.

As if the night had been going on longer than it had, we passed a couple making out before we got to a pair of double doors fit for a strip club. Eccentric windows in a strange pattern hinted at the contents of this building. I could have sworn we'd walked the length of it, but I guessed it just looked small on the outside.

Tara opened the doors and my ears were assaulted by shitty pop music blasting through so many speakers I wouldn't like to count. I flinched at first, barely being able to look around the room with so many noises attacking me at once. However, eventually, I saw the mass of people already on the dance floor and standing at high tables with drinks of various kinds. This was better than the party I had been to before: everything was more reliable to drink from.

I wasn't led to the bar, though. Tara took me through crowds of people, navigating with ease towards a glass spiral staircase with a guy in a fancy suit at the bottom of it. I didn't question anything at this point. At the top of the stairs was a big balcony of some sort that overlooked most of the ground floor — anywhere that wasn't beneath it, which was just a space for tables. Those tables were all filled up with people sitting and watching from behind a red rope. VIP, I had thought, but I was clearly wrong.

We passed the bouncer at the bottom of the stairs like he didn't exist, and he kept staring forward like we didn't exist. I didn't have to try very hard to make my way up the stairs even though they were kind of steep and small. The sight as the top was very rewarding.

A number of red velvet couches curved into the shape of a semi-circle with a loveseat at one end sat on a gallery overlooking the club. A table perfectly fitting the shape was in the centre, lights surrounding the edges of it. It looked like a luxurious place to be — somewhere I shouldn't be outside of the world I'd grown up in.

The music was still blasting up here, but not so badly because the closest speaker was below the floor, sitting above the red-roped tables.

Tara took me to one of the couches and forced me inside, sliding me around it. There was plenty of space for a lot of people, but just six of us girls had wiggle room, so I was happy to be here.

The question of why the fuck we were able to pass every bouncer in the club was lingering in the air; Tara didn't explain it, I was certain to ask.

Xepher sat on the loveseat so that she could sit sideways with her legs stretched out, her arm resting on top of the table. With the bright light beneath her arm, I could see that the long-sleeved, tight-fitting dress she wore was black like mine and had a massive cutout down her side, leading almost to the end of the dress. It looked like it could break easily, but she wasn't bothered.

A woman unexpectedly walked over with a tray in her hand, six glasses of bubbly gold liquid in champagne glasses sitting on top. This really was luxury.

Everyone had sipped once before Tara turned to me, smirking. "I know you probably don't want to hear his name, but I don't give a shit."

I knew she wouldn't.

"Sam and Colby are really important — more than you probably think. They get a share of this club's earnings, for a start, and we do... jobs occasionally for the owner. That means we're VIP up in this bitch."

"The bouncers are all under our command," Cassie continued with an evil grin over her face. "And the other staff are mostly terrified of us." She sounded pleased by that, and I knew that I would be, too.

Just like how all the designers were terrified of me at the studio, the staff here were terrified of the girls.

As much as I was actually intrigued, I couldn't show it. "I don't care. We're here to drink and dance, not chat."

Tara grinned, tipping her champagne glass down her throat. I couldn't imagine a world where that wouldn't hit you hard, even if it was just champagne. She put the glass down loudly and hardly waved a hand. A moment later, the waitress came back and placed another three glasses down — I realised Cassie and Xepher had finished, too.

I wasn't planning on getting drunk that quickly. I knew that I was always a happy drunk and right now, I didn't feel like being happy at all. So I didn't sip my drink again for a little while. I listened to the girls chat to one another, smiling and full of so much bubbliness that I was really starting to doubt that Tara would be able to drive me back home tonight.

Never, though, did they force me to speak. I knew it wouldn't take long before I wasn't able to keep my mouth shut, as the alcohol slowly started to get more intense in my gut. I could vaguely feel the buzz; the need to move to the music or even to hum along to it. I settled for barely tapping my fingers against my thighs.

And then, like a beacon of light from the sequin dress she wore, Devyn shot up to her feet and placed her glass down on the table. "Time to dance!"

Oh boy.