You can dance if you want to...

I don’t know how I got here
But we cannot get out
I’m surrounded by strangers
As the music starts to pound
I see the bodies slowly swayin’
Movin’ side to side
I feel the animal is rising
As I slowly come alive...

The lyrics swam through the air, the dominant sound over a cacophony of others, smothering them all under the heel of its thumping melody. There was something almost primal about its sound that sung to the blood of those that heard it, until they too fell under its spell and joined the dance.

In the dimly lit club, which Dagaz suspected had less to do with being a stylistic choice and more as was more likely down to who ever owned the establishment being too cheap to repair the many lights that appeared to be broken, they weaved their way through the crowd, past the dance floor and towards what appeared to serve as a bar in the place. As they got closer, it appeared the word bar, even if it was used in the widest possible sense of the word, scarcely covered what lay before then. One entire side of the warehouse had been given over to it, and from the looks of the amount of bottles stocked behind it, suggested that this place had been here a lot longer than he had suspected. When he’d first heard about it, Dagaz had been expecting to find something like a pop-up bar, or perhaps something more along the lines of a rave. He had not expected, well, this.

The bar had been here long enough for some of the bottles at the back to have developed a fine layer of dust over them, quite the achievement considering the way the floor shock periodically under from the vibrations of the enormous speakers dotted strategically around the space. There were no stools available, no stalls period in fact. This venue was obviously not a ‘sitting down quietly nursing your drink’ kind of establishment.

“What’ll it be?”

A feminine voice cut through the air. If not for Dagaz’s sensitive hearing, it would have been all but drowned out against the music. He thought he’d inadvertently listened in on a strangers conversation until the voice repeated the question.

“I said, what’ll it be? You drinking or posing? C’mon man, I don’t have all night.”

Ava nudged his shoulder, indicating that someone was trying to talk to him. That someone, as it happened, turned out to bar the bartender. A very cute, very redheaded bartender, who was staring at him impatiently with an expression that said if he didn’t order soon, she was just as likely to serve someone else as she was to try to attempt to insert a bottle into him for wasting her time. For once in his life, he was lost for words in a situation whole alien to him. He was outside his comfort zone, and he suspected it showed. He struggled to find the right words, finally managing to get out, “What have you got?”

Obviously accustomed to listening for orders over the din, the bartender had no issues hearing his question.

“Well, we got beer. We got whisky.” She counted off on her fingers. “And we got a while lot of ‘fuck all else’, so don’t bother asking. Now you gonna order or not?”

He settled on the whisky, which was about as smooth as sandpaper and tasted like it may have been filtered through it too. Seeing Ava had knocked hers back in the same fashion as he had, and appeared to be equally regretting copying him, he ordered another round to the approving nods of the barkeep.

“Not bad,” she said, pouring another finger of whisky into each of their glasses. “Most people run straight to the toilets and try to scrape the taste off their tongues after the first shot.” He had learnt his lesson after that first glass, and decided against knocking it back in one, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to draw out the process of drinking the dark liquid any longer than necessary.

Pouring herself a shot, and throwing a coaster at them both, although he honestly didn’t understand the point as he rested his glass on it, the bartender raised a toast to Ava and Dagaz. “Made from the finest Tennessee lighter fuel.” She said, emptying her glass without missing a beat and slamming it back into the bar with a thump.

Leaning over to his date, Dagaz whispered into her ear. “Go have fun. I’ll join you in a bit.” He’d meant it as half suggestion, half instruction, and was pleasantly surprised when Ava did as he’d asked. He watched her slip away towards the dance floor, caught a glimpse of her beginning to sway her hips in time to the music before the crowd swallowed her and he lost sight of her as the music took her.

So everybody starts to move now
I wanna see you all give way
I wanna tear this place apart tonight
And have you thank me for my rage
Tell me what you came for
Can I give you just a taste?
I wanna see you lose your fucking minds
And rip apart this place...

He felt the music as much a heard it, could feel it resonate in his very bones, trying to pull him towards the dance floor like a siren calling to a sailor from the shore. If he’d have been human he wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to resist.

With considerable effort, he let his attention turn back towards the bar, and the woman stood behind it. From the looks of it there were a few people serving drinks behinds it tonight, each seemed to have there own little section and waiting customers, and thankfully hers seemed to consist mostly of the spot where he had chosen to stand. He fished a twenty from his wallet, not having anything smaller, and held it aloft between his fingers, the universal signal that meant he wanted a drink. He was soon found his glass filled once again, and told her to keep the change and buy herself one on him.

“You’re new here.” She said it as fact, not as a question, and he saw no point in lying. Her voice somehow seemed to cut directly through the noise, either he had inadvertently figured out how to focus his hearing to zone in on one particular sound, or she was masterful at making herself heard in a noisy club.

“How’d you know?” Peeling a hundred from the wad he had, he told her to leave the bottle. It wasn’t worth anywhere close to that, but he figured the amount would be sufficient to buy him not only the bottle, but a little of her time to keep him company whilst he consumed it.

She laughed. “You drank the whisky without hesitation. Anyone who’s been here before’s smarter than that.” Despite he obvious distain for the quality of the booze she was serving, that didn’t seem to stop her from pouring herself another shot from the bottle he’d just purchased and emptying her glass without missing a beat. She didn’t even pull the same horrified face he had when he’d drunk it.

“Ah. You got me. Dagaz. And you are?” he raised his glass to offer her cheers.

“Nowhere near drunk enough to answer that question.” The sarcasm rolled off her in waves, and Dagaz got the distinct impression that she was used to dealing with random dudes nightly, and had learn to dance around their questions with ease. He wasn’t deterred, having struck up his fair share of conversations with elusive women before. Taking the bottle, he refilled both of their glasses, sliding hers back towards her down the bar. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that, shall we.”

She helped him work his way through the bottle, matching him shot for shot, an impressive display considering he had a better than human metabolism breaking down the **** than she did.

“Well Dagaz, its been, well not exactly fun. Decent. You managed to make my shift a little less shitty than usual. So thanks.” She glanced down at her watch. Dagaz had noticed that she taken to checking it regularly between drinks. “But I’m due my break now. See ya around maybe. If you survive the whisky I guess.” She made her way towards the far side of the bar, and disappeared through a door that he hadn’t even seen it had been so well camouflaged against the wall.

His drinking buddy now gone, Dagaz decided to go in search of his dance partner. Scanning the dance floor, it didn’t take long to locate her and it took him even less time to realise that she wasn’t alone out there. In the middle of the floor a space had cleared, and a practically solid wall of bodies had pressed against each other on the outskirts to preserve it. He found himself having to practically haul people from his path in order to make his way through, and as he did he was granted his first proper look at what was taking place in the centre.

It was Ava, of course it was Ava, dancing. Well he wasn’t sure anyone would exactly call what she was doing dancing. Writhing may have been the better term, and she wasn’t doing it alone. So there she was, writhing in the middle of the dance floor, either oblivious or enthused by the amount of eyes and encouraging whistles currently directed towards the display she was putting on. The dance partner she’d found was in every way her mirror opposite. If Ava was day, her partner was night. If Ava was Angelic, so too was this woman a seductress. Whilst their voluptuous curves matched each other in near harmony, the physical similarities stopped there. Long dark hair cascaded down the woman’s back in waves, stopping just above the hem of a skirt of exquisite emerald green. Which was to say, both lay ever so slightly below her hips. Except for one side of her skirt, Dagaz saw as she wrapped one leg around Ava, that ran down to a point on one side, drawing the eye down her long tanned legs. He thought it was a tan anyway, but perhaps her skin was just naturally that shade, it was hard to tell under the poor lighting.

He wasn’t sure who’s hands were over whom, their positions changed so frequent he struggled to keep up. One moment they were in each others hair, the next pulling them in by the hips and pressing their bodies close, fingers trailing across each other as the dancers flaunted with that thin boundary that separated lewd and earth-shatteringly seductive.

I’ll tear you apart
I’ll feed off your heart
I wanna see your bodies grinding just for me
I’m just what you need, the perfect disease
Don’t you wanna turn the beauty into the beast...

Grind they did, until the only distance between the two of them compromised of the thinnest layers of material, and their own perspiration as it glistened on their skins, the sweat a mixture of the exurtion of dancing, the heat of the room, and their blood pumping in arousal. Dagaz could smell it rolling off of the pair of them, Ava especial. She was into this woman, it was obvious, perhaps even as much as she was into him. She had that self same look in her eyes that had been there moments before she’d first taken him into her mouth back in his apartment.

As the song ended, the crowd, realising the show was all but over, began to melt away. Ava caught sight of him amongst the throngs of people that had gathered to watch her display, and grabbing her partner by the hand, dragged her over towards him.

“So, having fun?” he asked rhetorically, the look on her face being all the answer he needed. It appeared she’d followed his instruction to the letter.

“Sec, uh, to catch... uh.. my breathe.” She panted heavily, the exertion of dancing that energetically would have been enough to tire anyone. As she sucked air in greedily, Dagaz couldn’t help but notice the gaze of the woman she’d been dancing with flick in subtly down towards Ava’s heaving sweat slicked breasts as her chest rose and fell.

“Quite the display ladies. Ava, are you going to introduce us?”

She didn’t get the chance. Either through kindness towards Ava to give her chance to compose herself, or utter ballsiness on her part, the brunette grabbed Dagaz by the waist, and planted her lips hard on his own in a deep kiss.

He hadn’t know it was possible for a woman to leave him breathless, but that was how he found himself standing as she finally released him. It wasn’t a parting of equal parties, he felt like she was trying to devour him with the kiss, and if he’d have let it have continued for much longer he felt like he very well may have let her too. She bit his ear gently as he went to pull back, before whispering her name into it.

“Cayla.”

Notes:

Music is 'Beast Within', by In This Moment. Music, at least for anyone who may have played any of the VTM computer games, had a massive effect on setting the tone, so this here is my little homage to those.

As always though, if you've enjoyed what you've read, please, please leave me comments and feedback. If I don't know what works for you guys, I can't adapt.