Darkwave – A Flash Fiction

The club stank of clove cigarettes and sweat. I held her tight body as hard as I dared; she began kissing my neck. I couldn’t hear her lips over the band, but I could feel them. They traced a path from my earlobe, along some stubble I hadn’t shaved well enough, down to the fleshy parts. I moaned, feeling my hardness against her, until the feeling changed.

I pulled back.

“You can’t give me a hickey,” I shouted lowly.

Her lips pulled in together, one painted eyebrow raised. She put one alabaster arm on my right shoulder, then another on my left. My eyes traced down her pale arms to where the black quasi-victorian quasi-leather dress sloped over her breasts. “Did you want me to stop?”

“Yes. No. no, no.” This was the last night before I had to go back. The last night in yet another meaningless business trip in a meaningless job. The last night before I had to put my ring back on. “Look,” I said. “I, um…”

She kissed me again, throwing me back against the wall of the soundroom. On the other side of that wall, dozens of pale dark-haired youths danced to rhythmic dark beats. On this side, she and I danced to another rhythm. Her skin nearly glowed pale in the dark room. I thought of the copy of _Interview_ in my case at the hotel. That book brought me here, reminded me of how I’d felt then. How I used to laugh at people on business trips.

She kissed her way back down my neck. I felt her teeth. Maybe, I thought. Maybe.

“I have a secret,” she whispered into my throat. I moved with the slow beat of the music, her hot breath on my neck a half-beat behind

“We all have secrets,” I said. Maybe now. Maybe I could escape. Just bite. Make me like you, one of the ageless ones.

“I’m sixteen,” she said, and I realized her shuddering wasn’t passion. The music stopped as the set ended, and she sobbed into my neck on the floor of the storeroom.

The plane was cold and empty the whole flight home, even though every seat was booked.