“Ok. Now, you just have to let that sit for twenty minutes. Your transformation has begun,” she says, wrinkling her tiny nose and half-smiling.
      I smell the bleach odor in the air and feel the tingling advance to a slight burning. She turns away from behind me and washes the bleach from her hands in the sink. She is neither slim nor fat, but somewhere in between. The curve from her lower back, hugged tightly by the t-shirt, to her ass, which snugly fits into her jeans, may have been the first thing I really noticed about her. She had come into the store looking for a new pair of Docs. I was helping another attractive female when I looked over to see Christine bending down, staring at a pair of eight-holes with British flags on the steel-toes.
      “See something you like?” I said, closing the distance between us as I spoke.
      She looked up at me, bringing our eyes together for the first time. “These ones, in a six.” Her petite fingers pointed to the Docs. She worked into our conversation some recommendations for clubs and how she could fix my “feeble attempt” at hair-bleaching. She bought the shoes, scribbled her number on a gum wrapper, and left, with me staring at her ass exiting onto Wisconsin Avenue.
      I stare into the mirror and study my face. I hear Christine in the bedroom pulling clothes from her closet. She occasionally sighs or makes another sound similar to that. She returns to the bathroom.
      “Fuck. I can’t figure out what to wear. Do you like stockings? Fishnet or regular black?”
      Before I can answer, she is out of the room again. The bleach continues to sting my scalp, and I reach up to scratch near my ear. She returns again.
      “Where are you from again? Where in California, I mean.”
      “San Clemente,” I quickly say.
      “By the beach, right? Isn’t that what you said?” She exits the room in the middle of the word “said”.
      “Yes,” I blurt out, measuring the volume of my voice to where I think she is in the apartment. “It’s a small surf-town between L.A. and San Diego.” I wait for her next question. After about five minutes, hearing nothing from the other room, I add, “I miss the ocean the most, the expanse of it, the smell, the tides.”
      “What did you say?” she says, her voice rises as she comes closer to the bathroom.
      “Nothing.”
      She comes back through the door behind me.
      “How’s this?”
      Our eyes meet, and I avert mine down to her fishnet stockings forming a snug web around her feet, calves, and thighs. My gaze fixates on her short tartan skirt ending about eight inches below her exposed belly button. A black bra pulls her bosom tightly together.
“Well? What do you think?”
      I turn from the mirror to face her, forcing myself to look her in the eyes.
      I let out a deep “Mmmmm” and a slight internal laugh.
      “That’s what I thought.” Her cheeks rise ever so slightly, and she moves closer to me. Before I can react, our lips are gently rubbing. I reach my left hand up, lightly touching her left cheek. She bites onto my lower lip. I move my hand around to the back of her neck and squeeze the nape. She releases my lip, and we resume the rubbing. Upper lips brush the lower ones. Her breathing quickens. I run my fingers up her neck and into the short blonde hair, attempting to pull on the strands. She backs away from me.
      “You need to rinse that hair when the timer goes off. I’ve got to run down and meet my dealer. I’m getting weed and some X for later. There’s a towel in the cabinet,” she says, catching her breath as the words flow out of her. She closes the door as she leaves, and I lock it.
      After the timer expires, I shower, dry myself, and slide my jeans on. Wiping away the moisture from the mirror, I see my hair. This must be what is called platinum. The once light-rust color is gone, and the roots almost match the hair tips shooting out about an inch and a half from my head. In the other room, music plays, and Christine’s voice rises and falls as the song changes. I try to recognize the song, but can’t. Her ass leaving the store reinfiltrates my mind. A knock comes from the door.
      “Hey, Josh? Are you done yet? Open the door if you are. I missed you and want to see you again.”
      “Just a sec. Just need to put my shirt on.”
      I pull my Cure shirt over my head, squeezing my arms into their proper places and managing to fill my mind with thoughts of her eyes and smile. I unlock the door and open it. As the steam flows from behind me and unto and around Christine, she steps forward, now wearing a necklace with a large silver pentacle charm that rests on her breastbone, the bottom of which just grazes the beginning gap of her cleavage. She presses her lips to mine gently, and we kiss. She pulls back after about twenty seconds.
      “How do you like your hair? It looks great. I’ve got another surprise for you. Will you let me do something else to you? Will you?” She moves her arms erratically from next to her sides to a more horizontal position, opening and closing her hands, turning her wrists, and then returning them to her sides, only to repeat it again. I have no idea what she is possibly thinking.
      “Did you get the weed?” I ask.
      My shoulders and upper back are pinned against the flat white headboard. It feels cool, but slowly warms to match the temperature of my body. Christine’s nipples gently rub on my chest as she rises and sinks on me. I watch her, looking from her full thighs flexing to her breasts to her face. She bites into her lower lip with her upper teeth. I maintain the rhythm we have worked into, occasionally working myself deeper into her every few thrusts. My hands clench her buttocks, slowly move up her sides, and then grasp onto the muscles between her shoulders and her neck. As my senses become heightened, I try to think about something other than what is going on at that moment. I look to her face again, and her eyes meet mine. She is there, yet not. The more I search into her eyes, the more jagged her movement changes and the shallower her breaths become. I know she is close, so I begin the extra push into her on each descent. She bites again on her lower lip, and I pull down harder from my grip on her shoulders, no longer locked into her eyes but closing mine and concentrating on not getting there before she does. We continue until she finally convulses. I slow the rhythm as her body tremors, and I feel her warmth spread down across my hips. I pull her completely down onto my chest and kiss her neck. Her breathing is rapid and each continual slow movement into her causes more shudders through her body. I wait for her breathing to normalize, as silence pervades the room. I think of how she must feel at this moment and wonder exactly what it is like for her. What is she thinking? Is it anything like I feel?
      We lie this way for a few more minutes, and my mind shifts to Ariadne. Does she fuck Lannie this way? Does he fuck her like the other girls he has bragged about?
      “Josh?” Christine whispers, her breathing getting closer to regularity.
      “Yeah,” I say.
      “That was incredible. I felt like we were one. I’m still shuddering inside.” She takes my hand and places it on her breast, just below her heart. I feel the rapid beating.
      “I know. You are so fucking gorgeous. I had to keep myself under control, so I wouldn’t, you know, too soon.” I think of what Ariadne is doing at this moment.
      “I wasn’t sure why you didn’t. Are you going to? Are you ok?” She lifts her head from my chest and looks up at me.
      I look down to her, and then back up at the ceiling, dimly lit by the flickering candle on the nightstand. The shadow of her Buddha statue stretches across the ceiling, maybe one hundred times his actual size.
      “Ok? What do you mean? We just made love. How could I not be ok after that?”
      “It’s just that, you know, you, you didn’t finish.” She lays her head back onto my chest.
      My cock is half-erect about the moment she finishes this sentence, and I feel her left thigh pressing against it from above as she lies to my left side. I think of Ariadne here with me, in this bed, her head on my chest. The silence becomes perceptible again.
      “Is that it?” I say. ”You want me to fuck you?” I feel my cock slowly swell with renewed vigor. “Is that it?”
      Christine says nothing and continues to remain stuck to my chest. Her thigh slightly twitches. I look at the ceiling shadow and say with more force, “Is that it?”
      Another long silence, and then I hear, “Yes.”
      I pull my left arm out from under her, palm the back of her head, and push her down. She resists the pressure, and I apply more, as I finally guide her warm mouth to the beginning of me. She continues to slightly push back against the palm of my hand, and I push harder sliding her mouth about halfway onto me. She relaxes, succumbs, and begins alternately grasping with her right hand, as if holding onto a new-found cylindrical treasure, and skillfully attending to the tip in what feels like worship. I look down at her, at the lipstick smear across her chin, at her black-painted nails gripping me. Her upper body curls down, pinching her breasts against her thighs. Her head twists occasionally, as the candle-flicker glows upon her figure. I reach out to run my hand down her back’s curve and down to her ass. I tilt my head back and close my eyes.
      She continues, as she and I fall into a more rhythmic motion of her on me. I finally bring my hand from her ass, which I have been squeezing, and place it around the back of her neck. Pulling her off, she resists again, but only slightly. I rise and position myself behind her, shadow-Buddha now looking down upon us with a full view. The convex of her lower back rises into the fullness that I place my right hand onto. I work my way into her, little by little, as she lets forth sounds of slight ache. My right hand reaches forward and grips to the left of her nape with the thumb spreading across to the right. I ease myself further into her subtly increasing discomfort. I concentrate, shifting my eyes to the dim, framed poster of Madonna across the room, framing her face with her hands. I slip again into thoughts of Ariadne and her spoof of “the material girl”. “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time,” she would sing, while rubbing up against me and Lannie alternately, dropping to her knees, simulating a blow job, and then bending over and backing into us with her ass. Afterwards, she would say, “Like a virgin, my ass. That girl, with her talent, has fucked her way into stardom.” Lannie would laugh and say, “Whatever fucking works. We are all whores, anyway.” Only thing I could do was stare and laugh along. Sometimes, she would say, “Josh, what do you think? Are we all whores?”
      Christine is completely on me now, and I am hearing her ease into that comfortable pace, so I switch to not quite fully entering her to the occasional deeper thrusting motion. As if she senses my thoughts, she lets out “choke me” in between cycles, only to repeat it again seconds later. I refuse to give in to her and look back at Madonna. Her hair, shooting out like Medusa’s, brings my eyes to an inverted triangle of eye, mouth, and eye.
      “Fucking, choke me,” she lets out on one of my deeper intrusions. I finally concede and slide my hand, as if I have done this before, from around the nape to the convex of her throat. I lightly press my thumb and forefinger as I pull her more and more onto me. I am close, and she emits a deeper sound, closer to an animalistic grunt. Then the other sound begins, something I sense - whether audible or not, I do not care. She falls from her knees to flat on the bed, limp and lifeless. Her hands to her sides against the shoulders and her head turned to the left, I continue, seeing the tears leave her eye’s corner, smear the black eyeliner, and drip onto my clenched hand. As Christine melds further into “the material girl,” I close my eyes for the last time.
      We step off the crowded train at Dupont Circle station and ride the escalator upwards. Christine leans on me, holding tightly to my left arm. She smells like sex. We reach the top and exit the tunnel onto 20th and Q, cross the street, and head down Connecticut. Her arm is looped through mine, occasionally pulling tightly to me again and again every time a black man passes us along the street. Some ask for change, but most move past us without notice. We pass N Street, when Christine takes my hand and begins leading me, our steps’ pace increasing. A building with grafittied columns decorating the front, much like the Lincoln Memorial I saw a week ago but without the vandalism, appears to our left. She leads me through the gray stone cylinders and through a door.
      We ascend the stairs, avoiding the paper strewn across the floor. Christine’s hand holds and pulls mine as we climb upward through the dim corridor. As she rises above me, about half-way up, I glimpse Christine’s fishnets encircling, web-like, her mid-thighs and down. A sign becomes visible, lit in blood-red, slanted script: The Fifth Column. A low bass thump emanates from the other side of the door we approach. At the door, on a low bar-stool, a guy sits with a thick wad of bills in one hand and a mini-flashlight in the other. He greets us without a word, his pale skin illuminating against the contrast of his all-black clothing and his face emitting an emotionless, stone-like expression. I pull my ID and hers from the front pocket of my snug black Lip Services and hand them to him. He clicks on the mini-light, checks each ID, and then seemingly struggles to put forth, “Ten.” His voice, low and deep, resonates on the ‘n”, making it more felt than heard. Christine giggles, looks at me and smiles. I pull a ten from my pocket, hand it to him, just as she begins pulling me forward through the door.
      We enter the large, high-ceilinged room and advance toward the bar. Five or six people pulsate on the dance floor to our right. Lights color the dancers, synchronized to the now-louder music. To our left, others sit at tables, each lit by a candle. Some turn or look up to watch us, me tethered to Christine, make our way across the room. I lock eyes with one girl in particular with long, jet-black hair slightly tinged with blue. She turns to the girl next to her, who then looks at me. I look forward.
      We reach the bar, and Christine says, “What do you want?”
      “I don’t know.” I pause, wanting to look back over at the girls. “Shot of tequila and — a beer.”
      “Ouch. How can you drink that stuff? Hey, hey.” She tries to get the bartender’s attention, who is completing a few drinks for a cocktail waitress. He looks over, raises his hand, gesturing to her it will be just a minute.
      “Dammit. I want my fucking drink. Now,” Christine adds.
      We stand there until he finally comes over. His long, brown hair flows down onto his shoulders, making him look more like something from the seventies and out-of-place in a goth club. A long, one-piece tattoo fills his left arm from wrist to what appears to be up under his Bauhaus t-shirt. A silver ring protrudes from his right eyebrow and, as he begins to speak, I notice the silver ball of his pierced tongue.
      “What’ll you have? The usual?” he says, raising his voice on the last two words. He stares first, directly at Christine’s face, then lowers his eyes to her bulging chest and pentacle, and then returns to her face, releasing something similar to a grin.
      The song playing fades slightly, and the next one begins.
      Christine bites her lower lip, and I glance away to the two girls. Both are now gone. I turn to the dance floor and locate them, just starting to move to the strong bass line which now reverberates off of the walls and vibrates the candle-lit sconces, some of gargoyles, others of crosses, ankhs, and ravens.
      “Yes. My usual. And two tequila shots, and a Miller Light,” Christine answers.
      Kinda like a cloud
      I was up, way up in the sky
      And I was feeling
      Some feelings
      You wouldn’t believe
      “Oh my god. I love this song,” Christine says, pushing her mouth up against my ear. I feel her hot breath.
      “Me, too,” I respond. “This whole album is awesome. Going to see them at Lollapalooza next month. Was going to ask you if you were going.”
      “I don’t think so. I want to, but my boyfriend is taking me to Saint Kitts. It is so beautiful there. Have you ever been?”
      “No. D.C. is the only place I’ve been this side of the country.” I think of her boyfriend and imagine what he must be like from what little I know. I picture him like some chiseled male model stepping out of GQ, wearing Bermuda shorts, white top-siders, and Izod shirts. Going to work at the Senator’s office, he probably spends his days reading through piles of papers, not knowing his girlfriend is out fucking the town’s underbelly – guys he would never associate with.
      The bartender places our drinks on the counter. I take the first shot of tequila and chase it with the Miller, as Christine’s mouth encompasses the straw of her Long Island Ice Tea. The tequila burns my throat, and then slowly mixes in my stomach, producing slow, radiant warmth. I take the second shot and chase it with the beer. The warmth, fetal and numbing, intensifies, spreading out to my chest and groin.
      I light a cigarette and say, “Where do you want to sit?”
      She finishes another sip, drawing down almost a quarter of the drink. She takes my hand and leads me to a couch on the other-side of the dance floor.
      I used to know my right from wrong
      I used to never be afraid
      I used to be somebody
      I used to have something inside
      Now just this hole it's open wide
      Reorienting myself, I sip my beer, watch Christine scan the room, and glance over to the blue-tinted, long-haired girl who seems in a trance. She closes her dark Cleopatra-painted eyes, tilts her head back, and turns it slowly in a circular motion, while maintaining the movement of her lower body and arms to the beat. She reopens her eyes, meets my gaze, and then returns to perform another cycle.
Christine presses against me from my right side. “Is that the one?”
      I feel the blush rise to my face. “What do you mean? I like watching her dance. Watch what she does.”
      Christine watches, as the song merges into the next one. “Is she the one? You know. The one you want to fuck next.”
      The blush, I am sure, is evident to her now. I tilt my head down, reach for my beer with my left hand, and ash with my right. I take another drag from my cigarette.
      “You know I am right. I know you better than you know yourself. You need to go dance with her. Her name is Camille. She is a freak from what I hear. I noticed her as soon as we walked in. You did, too. I would be with her if I didn’t like cock so damn much.”
      We both laugh, and I turn to catch Camille watching us. She averts her eyes to her friend, dancing across from her.
      Christine continues, “I’m gonna go downstairs to the Crypt and see if some of my friends are down there. Maybe do a couple lines. Come on down if she blows you off - though, I’m pretty sure that won’t happen. You’ve got my magic eyeliner on, and it has never failed me.”
      Before I can respond, she kisses my cheek, grabs her drink, and is gone.
      I think, “I am not like that”.
      After passing the bouncer, Camille and I wind our way down the Art Deco spiral staircase into the lower region of the club. The fluorescent yellow steps glow at our feet, as we slowly descend. Stretched-out Halloween spider webs span the cold matte-black iron spindles, which are dotted with an occasional glowing plastic spider or fly. Flashes of the colored upstairs dance floor lights beam down upon my back and partially onto Camille as I follow her. She turns, glances up to me, and then carefully steps to the next yellow stair. We reach the bottom, and I move forward along her right side. The fluorescent paint continues onto the floor, leading to a closed, knobless door in front of us.
      “I guess this is the way,” I say.
      I take Camille’s right hand in my left and push forward with my shoulder. The heavy swing-door opens, and we enter the room.
      A lone half-adult height pillar covered with several candles sits in the room’s center. The candles flicker as the airflow becomes disrupted from the closing door behind us. Attached to the pillar is a sign stating:
      “A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.”
      Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet
      Beyond the pillar, on the opposite side of the room is another closed, knobless door, painted black to match the surrounding walls. On the wall to our right is a large framed picture of JFK smoking a cigar while being photographed by some man. On the wall to our left is a large framed picture of Marilyn Monroe on a beach wearing a white one-piece bathing suit. Her hand is raised to cheek, and she stares off and downwards into the foreground. She looks vulnerable but free in the beach breeze. I fixate on her plump tanned thighs.
      “Nice decorations,” I say, becoming uncomfortable with the long silence. I turn my head about a quarter-turn to increase my vision of Camille’s face. The candle-glow lights her china-doll skin, adding warmth to her thickly make-upped cheeks. “What do we do now?” I add.
      “Someone will come out soon,” she whispers, turning her face slightly toward me. “Pretty sure the bouncer let them know we were coming.”
      I run my hand through my hair and am tempted to light a cigarette. We stand and wait. I turn my head to the right, then back toward Camille, but quickly find myself fixated on the candle in the room’s center. “Should I try the door maybe?”
      “What was your name again? I could barely hear you upstairs.”
      “Josh. I was --” I respond.
      “That’s what I thought. How do you know Christine?”
      “Haven’t known her very long. About a week. She bought some Docs at my –“
      “What did she say about me, upstairs, when you two were watching me? You couldn’t have made it anymore obvious.”
      “Not much really. She said what a good eye I had for beauty. And,” I hesitate and then continue, “what a freak you are.”
      Camille turns to look at me, her lips pursing together. “She said freak? Huh. That is funny.”
      “She meant you were different. You know, unique? Just complimenting me on my good taste.”
      “Hey, you don’t have to explain. I am pretty sure I know exactly what she meant.”
      After a long, uncomfortable pause, she adds, “I am going to let you in on a little secret. Do you like secrets Josh? Can you keep secrets?”
      “Yes,” I quickly respond.
      “I have been watching Christine since the first time I saw her in this club. Have watched her over three months now. We have never spoken to each other. I have watched her. Watched her come into this club with a new guy almost every week. Watched her go here, downstairs, alone, always alone. I have stood close to her, as our mutual acquaintances talk, but we have never spoken to each other. Our eyes have met, but we do not speak. Do you understand what I am getting at?”
      I look at her, trying to figure out what she is getting at. I mumble, “I don’t know.”
      “Then you show up tonight. You take an immediate interest in me, and here we are now waiting to get in. Seems like your little plan is working. I am good with whatever you have in mind. Like Christine said, I am a freak.”
      “Plan? I don’t know what –“
      “Just cut the bullshit and the act. I know she sent –.”
      A loud male voice, amplified, seems to come from the pillar. “Not so fast, not so fast. I’ll have to give the matter a little thought.”
      We both turn towards the pillar. I think of what to say, but have trouble deciding.
      Camille blurts out, “What is it you want us to do? We have been waiting here for awhile.”
      The voice responds thunderously, vibrating the pillar and the candles, “Do you presume to criticize the great Oz. You ungrateful creatures. Think yourselves lucky.”
      “We do not mean to criticize you.” She pauses and then continues, “Oh, great Oz. We just want to know what to do.” She pauses again. “We want to know how to get, to see the great and powerful Oz.”
      The voice again thunders, “Well why didn’t you ask?”
      I, figuring out the game, look over to see Camille, smile and add, “But we did.”
      Again, the voice thunders, “Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz.”
      “Oh, I am sorry, oh great and powerful Oz. We only wish to please you.”
      “Please me? Now that is what I want to hear. You have learned well and quickly. You may now enter.”
      He turns the first card of the tarot deck. The Magician.
      “As you can see, we’ve been waiting for you.”
      He turns the next card. High Priestess.
      “You are here seeking knowledge.”
      He turns the final card. The Devil
      “And we are here to teach you.”
      “So, tell me, Josh, do you feel the need, the need for speed? Or will you join us on our little journey down the rabbit hole?”
      Everyone laughs.
