Dark City

36.

As they drove from Laura's house, Tom could see dazzling explosions of purple and gold overhead. They might have even passed the police car en route to break up the party. Tom listened to the voices in the backseat.

"Hey. Who's the pirate cat?" said Cleopatra.

"This is Tom," said Alex.

"Tom, hmm?" Cleopatra chuckled. "Is he your boyfriend?"

"I don't know. Hey Tom, are you my boyfriend?"

Tom tried to speak, but as he opened his mouth, he felt something the size of a golf ball coming up. He rolled down the window, spat it outside onto the road, then returned to his position as if nothing had happened.

"Wow. Quite the reaction. I guess he's not my boyfriend," said Alex, laughing hysterically.

Cleopatra rolled down her window to smoke a cigarette and replace the stink of Tom's puke with the stale smell of tobacco. Alex leaned into Tom, kissing him deeply. Neither cared if his mouth tasted like vomit. Who could taste anything at this point of the evening?

Captain Morgan drove for a long while until they reached a cabin in the woods. Acres and acres around the place were filled with forest.

"All right. We're here," he said, pulling into a carport. Cleopatra got out of the passenger side and went around back to help Tom to his feet. She helped him walk in a zigzag to the cabin.

"O Captain, my Captain!" Tom bellowed, feeling drunker by the second.

Cleopatra pulled him inside by the laces on his peasant shirt. He could hear voices in the kitchen and a group of people hanging out on the back porch. Alex came in behind them and tipped over onto a brown leather sofa.

Captain Morgan knelt beside her, tucked her in and asked if she was okay. She smiled like a sleepy Pokémon and nodded. While the king of spiced rum got her some water, Cleopatra got on her cell phone and started hijacking people from other parties, luring them to this cabin in the woods. As the different groups gathered, they cranked up tribal dance music and passed out plastic cups of jungle juice.

Tom noticed several of the younger girls gravitating to a bedroom in the back of the house. The floor had pillows and luxurious throw blankets piled all around. On a large king size bed he spied a swarm of nude bodies glistening with oil. One of the guys kept dipping his hand into a jar of coconut oil and smearing it across whatever flesh came within range. Tom's prerogative shifted suddenly from investigation to keeping Alex as far away from that room as possible.

The harem room, they called it. Tom caught bits and pieces of conversation about that room.

"I left my shoes in the harem room."

"Forget them. Let's just go."

The doors in this home were so large. They were made of thick, mineral rich hickory wood. Tom found himself smelling them like an animal, basking in the soothing aroma. He'd been dosed and he knew it. Everything grew stranger by the second. The walls breathed in and out with every gradual shift of color emanating from the fairy lights. Blue then purple then pink. The windows stretched from wall to wall and ceiling to floor and suddenly Tom realized they were open, slid back into the walls to offer nothing separating himself from the forest. He could smell the pine. Cold air burned in his nostrils. And in spite of this incredible vulnerability to the elements, masked individuals shed their inhibitions and engaged in acts of gross hedonism, from body shots to dancing naked from the neck down. There were monsters, goblins, and super mutants, some of them copulating without a shred of modesty. Tom felt oppressed by the number of people in this house. Demons and ghouls peppered every nook and blanketed the awnings of the upper levels.