Whisper in the Crowd
Warmth hovers in shallow pockets of the air. Our silhouettes cast hideous grotesqueries onto lattice and brickwork, as we move through streets. Parks. Blocks. Through the maze, magic soaking my spine because tonight, we get out.
Feet stop; knock knocking at a door which seems gilded in my drug-fused vision. The bustle and the bass seep through cracks, the light shines forth almost holy; but there is no church in the wild. Only this: a hallway of figures dressed in black, clutching their drinks and each other, smiling bemusedly in unrecognized greeting, a flash of confident eyes, the choked roar of upstairs jokes, straps and bare toes. Upwards through corridors, makeshift lounges for the defeated and the dizzy, nails on collar fabric, skin bulging in curated curves, a skewed chord of discontent, a thunderclap of accusation, the muttered unbuttoning of jeans in an upstairs bathroom. The bacchanalia is the endless variation in the same twelve notes, and it keeps us coming, keeps us coming back each weekend with more tricks to blind us.
One already caught by a past acquaintance, the rest of us saunter into an affluent lounge. Tongue resting for a second between the teeth, eyebrow raised, the birthday girl struts towards us and, ever so polite, hands on shoulders, hair brushing ears, grimaced smiles. I’m not here to see her.
Friends and friends of friends abound, tales regaled from work and university, and a shot to celebrate this, and a game of this, and Tahlia Finally Made The Leap Into The Big Five Firms with a side dish of Neoliberalism Makes People Richer And When People Are Richer People Are Happier and a sprinkling of Simon Got With Rashid’s Girlfriend But He Only Lasted Thirty Seconds And Then Came In Her Eye, but I’m not here to hear these, I’m here to hear her.
Her, there. Spotted, there.
Her, who I have carried as a warm secret for weeks, on the sofa. Wedged uncomfortably between cushion and white boy, soft and softer, fabric and braggadocio. She is always surprising, always exactly how I remember her. Hazel eyes feign interest to an alarming degree. Lips curve in all the right places of his story. He thinks she is enraptured.
Perhaps she is. Four weeks ago I was him, lifted by the bubble of subtle disbelief, tightrope-walking terror/elation like every former conversation was a mere precursor outlining the flirtatious parameters of this, ultimate, encounter;; like her every word was weighed and placed rather than stacked haphazardly in front of my moving train;;;like thousands died to light the glint in her eyes.
Left hand tilling dark hair in an upstairs bedroom, pale skin melting into furs, biting her neck, biting her hip; whispered orders through nuzzled ears;;;an impossible silhouette against thin tartan curtains;;streetlamp-lit lips split hips shuddering;;;;shuddering;;;;;;guiding me into her mouth as if it didn’t matter that fear washed through veins like an angry tide;;as nails scraped runes into my back I cursed every God for making me wait this long to find her.
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Here, today, she notices me watching them. Turns, eyes always slightly downcast before they look up. Look up, and recognize me. She looks. Sees straight through me, knowing everything from birth to balding in a split second of purest disgust. Turns, turns away.
I stumble out through the front door, no longer gilded, seeking only light from an ATM. Forty, Sixty, Eighty, enough for a thin plastic rectangle, carefully sealed in Colombia, carefully sold outside the Colombian restaurant on Earl’s Grove. Eventually;; one hundred and twenty pounds squeezing my wallet into my right thigh. I’ll probably spend it all. Pain isn’t cheap.
