And so far, she hadn’t done a single thing she couldn’t have done at home. She had some catching up to do, or her money was all going to waste. She turned around in her seat to where Kristina was counseling Rory on guy behavior. “Hey,” Cynthia said. “When are we going out dancing again? I need a guy to complain about with you.”
Kristina made her cute pouty face. “Awww. You’re going to break poor Nick’s little hipster heart.”
“He’s fine,” Cynthia said, waving Kristina’s concern away. “We talked about it, and he said he didn’t care. So. Now that you have Nick’s permission, can I date someone else?”
“Alright,” Kristina said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Chapter Nine
Cynthia stood before her mirror and tugged at the hem of her little black dress, scanned her reflection one more time, grabbed her purse, and dashed out to meet her friends. Friday night had finally arrived, and with it, a date with a real Italian.
Or at least the chance to dance with one.
They all gathered at the tram stop—the whole group was going out this time. Even Armani and his friends had gotten off at their stop to wait for them so they could all ride together.
“You remember Danilo, right?” Kristina asked, nudging Cynthia closer to one of Armani’s friends. He was super skinny and super tall, standing a bit stooped, with pale skin and a nose that threatened to crowd the rest of his features right off his face.
“Yeah, of course,” Cynthia said, though she couldn’t remember why she’d ever fantasized about going home with this guy. It must have been the dozen limoncello shots.
“I remember you,” said the other guy, Flavio, his eyes moving appreciatively over her cleavage. He wasn’t much better than Danilo—loud, with a receding hairline and the tell-tale beginning of a beer belly that so many frat guys seemed to develop in college. At least his face was cute…ish.
“I thought you might,” Cynthia said, smiling up at him from under her lashes.
“Let’s have a few drinks and go home early,” he said, loud enough for pretty much everyone in the tram to hear. “I’ll give you something to remember.”
“Don’t worry,” Nick muttered beside her. “They have antibiotics for that.”
“Shut up,” she said, elbowing him while she bit back a laugh.
“I’ll leave you alone with your date,” he said. “But remember, I’m always here if you need me.”
He’d done that plenty of times when they went out back home. Cynthia had even come up with a signal for him to come rescue her when creepy guys hit on her. Over the past few years, she’d had opportunity to use it a number of times, excusing herself from unwanted advances by pretending her boyfriend had just walked in.
“Thanks,” she said. “But I’m fine.” With renewed determination, she turned back to Armani’s friends. Enzo, the guy who was always hounding Maggie, was the cutest one after Armani, but even he was short and seemed to be perpetually shiny with a thin layer of sweat. In the bright lights of the tram, Italian guys didn’t look any better than Americans. But who cared what they looked like? She’d said she wanted to meet an Italian, and now she had two.
They got off the tram and walked a block to the dance club Armani had chosen. Cynthia wobbled on her heels as they crossed a cobbled street, and Flavio slipped his arm through hers, taking the opportunity to brush her boob with his hand while he did so. She laughed and clung to him until they stepped onto a smooth sidewalk. Without looking back, she knew that Nick was behind her, watching, and she pressed even closer to Flavio instead of releasing his arm.
They could hear the club from half a block away, and as they approached, Cynthia admired the shiny glass building with several stories, different color lights pulsing from every floor. The music inside seemed to throb through the entire building and the ground where they paused and stood waiting in the small line to enter.
“I’ll get you in,” Flavio said.
Cynthia couldn’t help smiling even bigger. “Thanks,” she said, tilting her head to let her hair brush across his arm. He disengaged himself to pull out his wallet, and Cynthia hung back and let him pay.
A warm hand slid over her hip from behind. “You look hot, by the way,” Nick murmured, giving her waist a playful squeeze before stepping back to join Rory and Ned.
Before she could respond, Flavio pulled her in front of him, ground his hips against hers, and bumped her through the door, into the wall of music inside the club. Her first instinct was to pull away and tell him to get lost, but she reminded herself that she’d come here to see and experience the world—and the people in it. “I need a shot,” she yelled over the music.
Flavio steered her towards the bar, his hands still clenched on her hips, locking them to his, as if one too many women had sent him to buy them a shot and used the opportunity to disappear. Even while he ordered shots, he leaned his palms on the edge of the stainless steel bar, one on each side of her, so she’d have to duck under them if she wanted to escape. When the four shots arrived, she breathed a sigh of relief and dumped two into her mouth, barely taking time to swallow between them. The combination of lemon and anise flavors was surprisingly pleasing, and she turned to Flavio with a smile.
With a little alcohol buzzing through her, she was ready to dance with anyone. It didn’t really matter if she liked him. She wanted to have fun. Sure, it would have been more fun if she’d been in love with him, or at least in lust, but it wasn’t a requirement for dancing. He was a good dancer, too, almost enough to make up for his other deficits. And since the music was loud, she didn’t have to make conversation, deal with awkward silences, or grind her teeth while he embarrassed her in front of friends and strangers.
Several shots later, she was in her dance zone, and everything else was forgotten. She let Flavio grind against her while she danced, then turned and draped herself over him, hooking her foot behind his leg while he gyrated against her. She was at an Italian club, with an Italian guy, taking Italian shots. What more could she ask for? As they danced, she lost all track of time. After what seemed like hours, a cold hand closed around her arm, tugging at her. She opened her eyes to find Maggie pulling her away from Flavio’s sweaty grip.
“Come on, we’re going to check out the next floor,” she said, pointing at the ceiling.
Cynthia had forgotten all about the lights they’d seen from the street outside. But she wanted to go to every floor now that she remembered. She grabbed Maggie’s hand, and Flavio grabbed her hand, and the chain snaked its way through the crowd to a set of black stairs that looked like a place where druggies might go to shoot heroin. Kristina, Armani, and his friends were waiting next to the stairs to join them.
“Where’s everyone else?” Cynthia asked as they trotted up the stairs.
“They went to check out all the different floors,” Maggie said.
Armani opened the door to the club—a heavy black door that looked like something from a gangster movie behind which they’d find Mafiosos in suits playing poker and plotting to murder each other—and deafening rave music filled the stairwell. That answered the question of where Nick had gone. He was the most straight-edge guy she knew, but for some weird reason, he loved the kind of trippy techno music favored by zombie-eyed ravers.
Kristina and Armani slipped into the crowd of dancers, and Flavio tugged at Cynthia to follow.
“You wanna buy some Molly?” asked a grinning black girl with a strong British accent. While she spoke, she continued swirling a chain of interconnected glow sticks around her head and chomping viciously on a piece of gum. Her head was shaved to a layer of fuzz which she’d bleached so white it glowed under the black lights, and she wore a pair of hot pink booty shorts and a tiny white crop top that most closely resembled a sports bra with cap sleeves.
“No, thanks,” Cynthia yelled.
“You sure?” the girl asked, smiling with such joy that Cynthia was tempted. “I’ll give you the cute girl discount.”
> “I’ll get you something if you want it,” Flavio said directly into her other ear.
She cringed away from him a bit, leaning into the girl. She had said she was going to do it all, hadn’t she? And her mom had even told her to have more fun than was legal in America. If she was going to try something, maybe now was the time. “How much fun is it?” she yelled.
“Really bloody fun!”
“Okay, then,” Cynthia said, laughing. “We’ll take two. He’s paying.”
“Good for him,” the girl said with a wink. She slipped two pills into Cynthia’s hand, folded the money in Flavio’s palm, whisked it away and was gone, slipping through the crowd without another word. Cynthia searched for one of her friends in the flashing lights, but she couldn’t find anyone. Flavio was bumping his hips against hers again, this time reaching for her hand. For a second she thought he was going to take her hand while they danced, but then she felt the two little bumps in her palm. That would definitely make her enjoy dancing, no matter who she was with.
They each took a pill and put it on their tongues.
For a second, Cynthia thought about spitting it out. She’d never done anything like that before, and she’d heard stories about people having bad reactions, going into seizure or getting addicted their first time. Because her dad was an addict, she’d always been wary about drugs of any sort. And since Nick didn’t do anything, either, it was easy to find fun that didn’t require mind-altering substances. Though she drank, at home she gave herself a three-beer limit and kept Nick around to watch out for her when they went out. Now she was in the middle of a crazy rave in an Italian dance club with a guy she’d met all of twice.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? To be wild and crazy and try new things. Maybe it was time she had her mind altered, if only for a night.
She swallowed the pill, which had begun to disintegrate in her mouth. It tasted terrible, and she shuddered a few times before recovering. “Whhoooo,” Flavio yelled. “Let’s party!” He pulled her onto the dance floor and started bumping his hips against her butt.
“Let’s get a drink,” she yelled.
He steered her towards the bar again, gripping her hips like the last time, like she was some kind of vehicle he was driving around. At the bar, she pulled away with the excuse of fixing her hair. While she tied up her hair to get it off her sweaty neck, she spotted Nick with Ned and Rory. She told Flavio where to find her and, before he could protest, darted past the few people standing away from the writhing mass of bodies in the center of the dance floor.
“Hey, BFF,” she said, throwing an arm around Nick.
“Hey, Cynthia.” He smiled down at her, his arm finding its way around her waist.
“Are you having fun?”
“Yeah. You?”
“So much fun,” she yelled, doing a half-turn to face him, linking her hands behind his neck. “I took something. Just so you know. In case…I don’t know. Make sure I get home, okay? Even if I try to go with Flavio. I don’t know what it will make me want to do.”
“What’d you take?” he asked, pulling back to look down into her face.
“This girl was selling Molly.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, to make money, I guess.”
He bent down so she could hear him better. “Why’d you take it?”
“I wanted to,” she said. “I told you, this is my chance to do it all, and I’m going to do it.”
His hands rested on her hips and gave them a little squeeze. “Okay. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“He took some, too,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s like, just giving you a heads up.”
He nodded over her head, and she turned to see Flavio standing behind her with a drink in each hand. “You’re the best,” she said, standing on tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on Nick’s cheek before turning to her date. She took the spritz, and they stood yelling at each other over the music until they’d finished their tangy, sweet drinks. Then they all headed into the mass of writhing bodies together.
The music seemed even louder in the crowd, and Flavio pulled her close, facing him this time. Cynthia rested her head on his shoulder so he wouldn’t kiss her. After a few songs, she could tell the drugs were kicking in. Her blood felt like it was shaking somehow, like the pounding music was moving through her, the sound waves moving her blood through her veins. The lights were blinding and hypnotizing at once.
She closed her eyes and let the music take her over, seeming to move her body for her. Flavio worked his knee between hers, then his thigh, until he was grinding his leg between hers. Though she was buzzing hard now, she felt strangely detached from her body, as if she were watching him dance with a doll. Even when she felt his arousal, her body had no response. Only her brain watched, analyzing what made this guy so enthralled with her. And then even he slipped away, and it was like she was somewhere else entirely, where there was only music and the vague awareness of her body and other bodies around it.
Suddenly she was pulled back from the music by Flavio’s tongue probing to get inside her mouth. Her first impulse was to pull back, but before she could find an excuse, his tongue was darting around inside the cavern of her mouth like it was searching for something. For some reason, his kiss made her own tongue retreat, so his was left to search around inside the empty cave of her mouth. She opened her eyes, hoping no one else was witnessing this humiliation. Nick and Rory were dancing right beside her, but neither were looking at her.
Once she saw them, she was painfully aware of them there, how they were so close their shoulders bumped Flavio’s. They must have seen the kiss and looked away out of politeness. But they couldn’t tell that it was a bad kiss, she reminded herself. It might look hot to them, since they couldn’t see the probing organ flapping back and forth inside her mouth like an angry cat’s tail. When she’d endured for a sufficient amount of time, she detached herself from Flavio’s mouth. He smiled at her, his eyes glassy, and she remembered he was on drugs, too. She could only hope that was the reason for the terrible kissing technique.
“Where’s Ned?” she yelled at Rory.
“He doesn’t dance.”
“Then why’d he come to a club with us?”
“I don’t know,” Rory said. “I think he’s going home, though. I might go, too.”
Cynthia followed Rory towards the bar, Flavio and Nick trailing behind. They all gathered at the end of the bar where Ned was drinking a beer and talking to Maggie and Enzo.
“I’m going to go home, too,” Maggie said, yawning. “I’m tired. Kristina and Armani are staying. Cynthia?”
“I’ll stay,” she said. Flavio stepped into position behind her, his beer belly bumping her back.
“I guess you want me to stay, too,” Nick said, frowning. “Right?”
“If you want,” she said. “Or go. I’ll be fine.”
“I should stay.”
After the others left, they went upstairs to check out the next dancefloor, which was playing hip hop. Cynthia was still high, so she went back into her dance trance. A while later, Kristina and Armani joined them and said they were going to the top floor, which was a quiet bar. As they climbed the stairs, Cynthia’s quads burned in protest from all the dancing she’d done. Inside the bar, they sat at a high table near the windows and looked down at the city. The skyline was lightening to blue, and Cynthia was surprised to see that they’d stayed out all night. She was simultaneously exhausted and wide awake.
They all had a drink and then headed to the tram stop and waited for the first tram of the morning. No one said much on the way back. When they pulled up to their stop, Flavio pulled Cynthia in and said, “You’re a great kisser. We’ll have to do this again soon.” He gave her another awful kiss, this one shorter but in front of everyone, in the bright lights of the tram. She pushed away from him, her skin crawling at the dampness of his shirt and the sour milk smell of his sweat.
She and Nick walked back towards their house
s together. It had rained during the night, and the streets shimmered with lights reflecting off the water. For a few minutes, she didn’t say anything, just hobbled along in her heels, which had given her blisters sometime during the night. She hadn’t noticed until she’d stopped dancing and sat for a while. Standing up again, she’d noticed all the pains she’d missed while having fun—blisters on her heels, her little toe about to fall off from being crushed by the strap of her sandal, soreness in her muscles.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, breaking the silence at last.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “That was a cool place. You?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was the best night of the trip. Maybe of my life.”
“Good,” he said. “It looked like it.”
“Oh, so you were watching me,” she said, smiling sideways at him.
He smiled back. “You asked me to. That’s what friends are for, right?”
They reached her flat and stopped, and that weird lull happened, a few seconds of dead air. She was never sure how to say goodbye here. At home, she would have just hugged him and gotten out of the car. But things were different here.
“Yep,” she said, swinging her arms and rocking on her aching heels. “That’s what friends are for.”
“Well, I’ll see you in class on Monday.” He hesitated, and maybe he leaned in a little, she couldn’t tell for sure. But if he started to, he stopped himself, and their eyes met for a second. She saw something weird there, something very un-Nick-like, something like vulnerability or uncertainty. Not something that calm, confident Nick would feel.
After another beat of silence, Nick turned and hurried down the street. Cynthia shook her head, disconcerted. She felt sober, but the drugs were obviously still messing with her head. Instead of going inside, she watched him walking away this time, the loping stride she knew so well. He was tall, with long limbs, and he walked like he was intent on getting someplace. She smiled to herself, waiting until he turned to a tiny figure down the street before she went inside to sleep the morning away.
When In Rome...Lose Control: Cynthia's Story Page 8