I find Jade flirting with a group of guys all dressed as pirates and hand off her drink. I stand with her for a bit, sipping my own, wishing I were back at the dorm. I’m out of place at parties like this, like a Cheerio box placed back on the wrong shelf at the grocery store because someone decided in the baking aisle to do muffins instead of cereal for breakfast. I give Jade my “Can we do something else, or I’m leaving” eyes, and she nods, makes her excuses, takes my hand, and leads me to the basement.
“Basement” feels like a generous word for the space, like maybe the place will be furnished and cozy, but it’s just a spacious concrete room with a few measly places to sit and it happens to be under the house.
Colorful lights dot the room, but they do a poor job of lighting it—I can barely make out faces. As usual, the space is packed with people and reeks of cheap beer and sweat. A techno remix of theHalloweenmovie theme song blasts through large speakers that frame a wooden platform used as a stage when a live band or DJ plays for a party. Tonight it’s being used as a makeshift bar with coolers holding drinks for people who don’t want to schlep all the way back upstairs for a beer.
Jade and I hang at the edge of the crowd, judging costumes and waiting for our drinks to kick in. Or rather, I’m waiting for Jade’s drink to kick in so she’ll find a dance partner and I can sneak off. But Jade stays with me until we’ve finished our first drinks and then she gets us each a beer from the coolers. By the time I’ve reached the bottom of the second drink, I’ve started to succumb to the quirky Halloween techno beats and the mob of sweaty, dancing bodies, so the thought of leaving doesn’t feel so urgent. We both sway and jerk to the music in a rhythmic fashion that could technically be called dancing until we reallyaredancing, joining in with the crowd.
There’s a pleasant buzz in my brain and a looseness to my muscles that indicates I’m tipsy but not drunk. It feels good to move with the music. I let my arms swirl and move around my head. I keep telling myself I’ll leave after the next song, but when the song ends I can’t seem to remember why I want to go.
“This is fun!” I shout at Jade and give her a thumbs-up. She smiles at me, a big, bright smile, and I give her my biggest, brightest smile too. Why didn’t I want to come out? This is great. I’m feeling myself. Why can’t I always be this relaxed? Maybe I can party a little and study a lot. Finding that balance would…
Hands on my waist interrupt my thoughts; a chest against my back, hips against my own moving in sync with me. Before I can turn and see who the person is, Jade squeezes my hand and gives me the look that says “Hottie, not a creeper.” She starts to dance away from me, and I try to grip her hand tighter, to make her stay, but she shimmies off, winking and snapping her candy necklace. I don’t normally like to dance with strangers, but he’s moving his hips with me and the music, not just smashing his junk against my ass and calling it dancing, so maybe one song won’t be so bad.
I close my eyes and lose myself in our movement, in the way his broad chest feels against my back. His hands splay against my ribs and slide down to my hips, fingers digging into me, pinning me against him even as we sway to the music. The bass vibrates through me as if the speaker is inside my body, and when the beat drops I raise my arms, tossing my head from side to side, giving myself over to the music fully. My partner has no trouble keeping up, and when his hands graze my arms, goosebumps break out over my exposed skin. How long has it been since I’ve been touched like this?
When the song changes, he grips my hips and spins me to face him. My hands land on a broad, firm chest, and though we’re still moving to the music I can finally get a good look at my mystery partner and see if Jade was right.
I don’t know what I expected, but a half-masked man wearing a frilly blouse is not it. I suppress a burst of laughter. Most of the guys here are dressed like pirates or zombie-somethings. Zombie football players. Zombie doctors. Plain old zombies. This guy looks like Shakespeare. I do a quick once-over. A very sexy Shakespeare, but Shakespeare nonetheless. Pants tucked into knee-high boots, a Venetian mask—even his hair is giving Shakespeare, curled and kind of wild.
I fucking love it.
I can’t see much else about the guy in the bright neon-green, purple, and blue light of the basement, but I can see a little stubble on the hard line of his jaw and the way his eyes drink me in. Even in this lighting, I can tell this guy is capital “H”hot. Guys this attractive haven’t historically chosen me as their dance partner. It’s gotta be the leather.
His lips quirk into a smile and the room gets warmer, but I don’t think that’s just the leather.
“I love your outfit!” I yell, but he doesn’t hear me. He shakes his head and points to his ear. I grab the front of his frilly blouse and pull him closer, repeating myself, but with my lips pressed to his ear this time. When I pull back, the vaguest hint of that fresh laundry detergent scent bleeds through the smell of sweat and beer.
He mouths, “Thank you,” and then smiles—a real smile, teeth and everything—and I thank all the Halloween gods I came to this party.
The music changes abruptly like someone picked a different song on a phone somewhere. Loud groans sound from various people around the room, but “I Put a Spell on You” by Annie Lennox blasts over their complaints. A noticeable number of people stop dancing, but for those who remain the vibe of the room totally shifts. People are pairing off, slowing down. I don’t see Jade anywhere, but my dance partner presses a hand against my lower back and moves against me in a way that refocuses my attention fully on him. His tempo matches the music, hips swaying in a slow, sensual movement that implies these moves aren’t just for the dance floor. Desire swirls around inside me like sand kicked up from a riverbed. It doesn’t matter that a piece of paper couldn’t fit between us right now; we aren’t nearly close enough.
He leans in, his lips against my ear, sending a chill down my spine. “May I?” He loops a finger under my candy necklace, stretching it a little. The elastic pulls against the small hairs of my neck.
The bass of his voice, gravelly, deep, and accented, renders me speechless. I nod, moving my face against his. Is that the alcohol, or is this what happens when a man dressed like a literary character flirts with me?
I expect him to pull the necklace away from my neck and nibble off a piece of the colorful candy, but he releases it so it sits flush against my skin instead. I flinch as it snaps, but the pain disappears when he dips his head and presses his lips around the candy, right against my neck. I almost jerk back in surprise, but his tongue and teeth graze my skin, and it feels so good my knees buckle a little and I melt against him. He bites at a small, round candy piece, and I wait for the crunch, but he releases the necklace, not having taken a piece of candy at all. Instead he kisses my neck, tongue and lips soft against the sensitive skin. My pulse beats wildly at the sensation. I dig my fingers into his back, trying and failing to take a full breath. His mask scratches my face, but the sensation is overpowered by the ripples of desire radiating through my body. I forgot what it was like to be touched like this, to be wanted this way. I’m no longer sand kicked up in a riverbed; I’m a volcano once thought to be dormant. I’m not made of flesh and blood; I’m power and heat and—
He presses the softest trail of kisses up my neck, landing just behind my earlobe.
I am a goner.
Longing overtakes me, infuriating and luxurious. I grip the fabric of his shirt, desperate for more, desperate for him to be closer. He only barely grants my wish, moving his mouth along my jaw and cupping the back of my head, fingers entangled in my hair. Neither of us is moving with the music anymore.
His lips hover close to mine, prolonging my torture, but I am not a patient woman. I push up on my toes to meet them, relief flooding me. It is a chaste, sweet kiss. Nothing to write home about. And for a moment, I’m disappointed. What happened to our chemistry? He pulls back, his eyes searching mine for a split second and I don’t know what he finds, but when he kisses me again, it’s exactly the way I like to be kissed: as if oxygen is optional. He tastes like cinnamon schnapps and oranges.
Satisfaction creeps in at the edge of my longing, but when his tongue finds mine I can’t even conjure the word “satisfaction.” I’m insatiable, a caged animal set free, losing all sense of reality. The building could collapse around us, and I’d never know.
I have lost myself completely to this stranger.
That is until someone pours a drink down my back.
“Eugh!” I stumble out of my partner’s embrace and try to find the guilty party. A very drunk zombie cheerleader is attempting to apologize, but she’s having trouble with her words.
“I’m sssorr— It was not on purplesss…” she slurs, and a zombie football player puts his arm around her, issues an actual apology, and leads the girl away.
My back is soaked and already turning sticky. I make a beeline for the outside door, the spell of desire broken, cinnamon and oranges already a distant memory.
The cool air of the night refreshes me after the humidity of the basement. I gather my hair off my back and braid it to the side. It’s half wet from the beer and half from sweat. I desperately need a shower. I don’t even want to know what my eyeliner cat whiskers look like now given how much I’m sweating, and when I feel the top of my head for my cat-ear headband it seems to have disappeared. My ears feel full and everything sounds like it could be underwater. My buzz is wearing off.
