False Friends

They kept drinking. A few more shots. Too fast. The glasses were small, the burn in her throat intense, the warmth immediately sliding deeper—into her stomach, between her legs, right where Silke was already wet. The hem clung to her. Her breasts felt heavy against her neckline. The thought of Jonas grew fuzzier, sillier, less important.

Two of her new friends asked her to dance. Into the middle. Dance.

Silke remembered the text message. That’s why you’d better dance with anyone who asks you. And don’t even think about saying no.

“Yes,” she said.

She handed Susi her purse as if she were handing over something she no longer needed, and went along with them.

There was no open space in the middle.

There was a cage there.

Low. Too low. Bars that didn’t reach the ceiling, a floor barely higher than the heads of the people standing around it. The girls led her straight inside. No discussion. Hands on her hips, a little nudge, and Silke suddenly found herself standing behind the bars.

She was still wondering why the cage was here and why it was so low. Why it was so easy to look in, look down, and look up from the outside. But she didn’t care. The alcohol had already taken its toll on her. Behind the bars, she felt safe. Separated. Protected. As if the bars could keep out what had been playing with her all evening.

Then came the dizziness.

Suddenly. Intensely. As if the floor were shifting beneath her and the world were spinning along with it. Silke reached out. Clung to her two new friends, fingers digging into unfamiliar fabric, bodies too close, her own dress already riding up too high again. One whispered in her ear, warm, close:

“You’d better close your eyes and let yourself go. It’s about to get really bright. They’re putting on a light show here.”

It didn’t get any better. If anything, it got more wobbly. The lights were blinding. The bass was pounding right inside her skull.

The other one said, “Come on. I’ve got a scarf here. I’ll blindfold you. Look, Vanessa’s blindfolding herself, too. The light show is really intense.”

Silke’s foggy mind watched as Vanessa blindfolded herself and said just one more thing.

“Yes.”

The scarf went over her eyes. Darkness. Tight. No more light, just bass and the hands holding her, and the scent of someone else’s perfume and alcohol. Thirty seconds. The swaying stopped.

And Silke began to dance sensually.

Slowly. Heavily. Her hips first, then her chest, the bare hem shifting a little with every movement. She tried to shut out the world. The poles. The stares. Jonas, who was already sitting in the car. The stranger standing somewhere in the club. Everything.

Just the rhythm. Just the cage. And then the light came. Luckily, she had the scarf over her eyes. The light came from everywhere. Then she felt the hands.

Not rough. Skillful. Two pairs of fingers pulling at her dress, moving the fabric up, to the side—firm enough that it shifted, loose enough that it still looked like dancing. They whirled her around in the cage. Spun her. Let her stagger beneath the scarf, the bass thumping in the floor, the warm light from below.

Silke felt every movement.

The hands guided her. One at her waist, one on her hip, then lower. Sometimes they brushed against her nipples. First through the fabric, firmly, in circles, until the hard tips stood up even more. Then one of them pulled the neckline to the side. Warm fingers directly on her bare breast. A brief pinch. Silke moaned behind the scarf, too quiet for the bass, too loud for her own mind.

Then her ass.

The hem was pushed up. Open palms on her bare skin, firm, possessive, as if presenting her to the light. Fingers tracing the crevice between her buttocks, briefly, probing, before turning her around again. Silke wasn’t worried. She was in the cage. Behind bars. Safe. The two of them wouldn’t really use her. Just dance. Just guide.

Then her pussy.

Not hidden. Not by accident. A hand slid in from the front under the pulled-up fabric, two fingers that knew exactly where to go. Over the shaved lips. Through the wetness that had already gathered again. A stroke across the swollen clitoris, slowly, while the other hand continued to guide her in circles, hip against hip, breast against breast. Silke flinched but kept dancing anyway. Every touch came through the fabric more clearly. Every stroke. Every pressure. The alcohol took away her shame, the cage took away her fear, the light was warm.

The two of them seduced her.

Not with words. With hands. With the warm light that enveloped her, from below, from the sides, turning her bare crotch golden yellow and making the moisture glisten every time the fingers parted her labia a little. Silke tilted her head back, the scarf tight, her lips parted, and moved her hips toward the touch. She still thought she was protected.

Behind the bars.

In the cage.