Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) (4 page)

But not now. Now, I start swaying. Trev’s
dark skin shines with sweat. The blonde he’s now with wraps her arm
around him and her tongue’s inside him faster than the next beat
can hit. Skate’s rushing—or maybe not, I didn’t actually see him
take The Doctor.

I’m
swinging, bass ripping into me. The crowd shouts and cries
and—

Aw hell, this is
so hot!

There’s
still smoke from the smoke machines ahead of the
DJ box, blocking my view. Then it moves over a bit. I make out long
blonde hair on one side, streaked with pink and green. The other
side is shaved.
Weird for a dude
. And he’s skinny. That’s all I can see. That and a headset
sitting kitty-corner on his head, one ear covered. The DJ sways,
engulfed as much by the music as the rest of us. The bass dies... A
siren appears... A tinny base pops up.

The smoke disappears.

And then I see...
her
.

Oh, mother, it isn’t a
dude
.

The bass crashes down.

The crowd. G
oes fucking.
Wild.

The DJ is a babe. Like,
female
-Babe, and
also
hot-sexy-babe
-Babe.

I stare at her for a while. She’s in a
black tank, sleeveless. But she has a tat sleeve. Her left arm
sprawls with colorful designs.

Just like mine.

I can’t see from the middle of her forearm
down, but from that point up
I can see she’s inked to over her shoulder. The only piece
I can make out clearly is the one on the shoulder itself. A huge
red flower with green leaves. Not an entirely original piece, but
it always works on woman.

Beautiful
.

I start dancing, my eyes constantly locked on
her jiving body.

I forget about the E. I think I don’t take
my eyes off her for another two hours.

Skate says in my ear, “You empty? I’m
gonna go get us some more.” I shake my head, dig into my pocket and
pull out the E. He frowns at me. “You didn’t take it?”

I shrug, still holding the pill up in
mid-air. He snatches it from my fingers! It disappears into his
mouth. He shouts, “Snooze you lose!” Then he smiles at me with all
the love in the world. When you’re flying, you just don’t ask any
questions. Things just make sense, even when they don’t. “Thanks,
bro! You’re the best!” He wraps his arms around my neck and hugs me
like he loves me more than his own mother.

Right now, he probably does.

My eyes lock back on the
girl
.

Locked completely.

Into the third hour
. The babe’s golden hair is a matted mess
of tendrils sticking to her skin, the blonde parts now the color of
hay because of the moisture, the pink and green streaks now bright
as glow-sticks.

And still she sways, she swings. She puts her
index finger up, rocks her body back and forth, bites her bottom
lip, lowers the beat...

Slowly.

Slowly.

I feel the
surge of the crowd before it hits. Goosebumps
climb over my skin as she brings them up through towering bliss.
Skate is going absolutely ballistic. I think the dude’s found true
Music Heaven. He roars when the bass hits, as does the rest of the
crowd.

I’m getting tired. I haven’t raged all
night without an upper in a long time.
And never with so much
pleasure.

Trev is back from wherever he and that
other blonde disappeared to—a big grin on his face. He stretches
down to the two backpacks inside our dance circle, pulls out three
Orange G-Series Thirst Quenchers. He throws me one, hands the other
to Skate. Then he grabs three packs of
Jack Link’s
. One for each of us to munch on.

Skate’s
brow is dripping. He’s flying high and out of
control, a gentle but aloof grin plastered on his face. We need to
keep him hydrated, because he’ll forget. I can only imagine what
he’s thinking, what he’s seeing. All the love and joy and pleasure
that will come tumbling down like a thick mudslide on his head when
the Tuesday Blues hit. Because I don’t think he took any pure-grade
shit tonight, I think he got the stepped-on stuff. He never buys
from the thoroughbreds, always gets the cheap shit from beat
artists who cut the junk up with low-grade H and maybe even a few
household chemicals.

Rat poison’s a real fave.

But that’ll be later. Right now, it’s just
us. And the music.

And...
that girl
.

Into the fourth hour my legs are giving
in. Trev’s in his own cloud nine. He grabs my neck like a football
and pulls me down to him. (Trev’s a big guy, but few people reach
up to my six-four.) “This beat’s the bomb!”

I see he’s tired as well, sweat pouring
down like Niagara on his brow and the sides of his fade hair. He’s
taken off his shirt and I swear he looks as large as Adrian
Peterson. Dude’s gotten big in the last three years.
Mammoth
is more the word, and
ripped.

He pulls me down again.
“I’m prouda you, homes.” He fixes me with
his gaze. I almost can’t look at his honest hazelnut
eyes.

I know what he’s talking about.
The E.

I look over at Skate, lips slightly parted,
oblivious to the room even if the roof were to fall on his head
right now. Soaked.

I give Trev a tight nod. I was lucky tonight.
I lift up my fist and he taps it.

I look up at the DJ. She rubs her eyes, still
rocks to the music, but I see the exhaustion.

Not rolling?
Impossible...

A
skinnyish Hispanic dude about my age, with curls to his
shoulders and wearing red tartan pants, comes over to her and talks
in her ear. He holds a plastic bottle out and she grabs it and
downs it greedily, spilling some of the water (or Vodka?) on her
black tank, not once taking her eyes off the mixer.

Mr. Curls steps away and plants one
on
—
Oh, my god she’s
hot!
—another bottle
blonde with tits that damn near poke his eye out. He grabs the
blonde’s hand in his and raises it up to his lips, looking up at
her like the Don Juan he clearly wants to be. Then he slides his
hand away from hers as if they’re exchanging—

Oh
, I get it.

They smooch, and their tongues look like
wild snakes in a jungle. It grosses me out a little.
Because I can’t help wonder if
the hand “exchange” was really just a one way exchange, and if
payment for his goods is being expected in another way, at another
time. In another place...

Later.

Curls
moves back to the DJ-chick, talks in her ear. She shakes
her head—eyes constantly on the mixer.

He pauses, looks a little worried, then
smiles briefly. He turns to Randy Dhawan behind him and Randy’s
smiling. The Hispanic with the designer curls gives Randy a thumbs
up. Randy’s bobbing his head—no doubt blasted up to the high
heavens himself—and smiles back, thumbs up as well, then nods to
the girl DJ.

Balding or not,
Randy’s still sporting one helluva pony-tail with
the hair he has left.

The
n Mr. Hispanic Curls turns back to the female DJ, pats her
on the back, talks in her ear. She shakes her head again
vehemently, eyes locked on her decks.

He rubs her back a little more, then turns
back to Randy and shrugs.

Randy shouts “Woohoo!” He gets up, starts
clapping and—
Oh my god
—Randy’s heading down to the dancefloor. Randy
never
heads down to the dancefloor
during one of his parties!

He’s actually partying! His middle-aged
big belly rumbles away. He undoes the pony-tail and soon he looks
almost like a Native American in a trance.

Normally he
just sits back and watches the crowd, handles
interference for the DJ, makes sure things are running smooth,
drops a few Es and just lets it all roll. But he never takes his
finger off the pulse.

Whoever this DJ is, she’s got his
attention.
I wanna pull
out my phone and snap a photo. I wanna tweet how totally awesome
this party is. I wanna scream out to the world how I’m grooving
without an ounce of dope in my system!

But none of these things are allowed in
here. Randy’s rules.

So, instead, I just dance.

I dance until dawn.

Sun comes in through the warehouse
windows.

By eight A.M. the party’s still going.
Eventually, the DJ nearly collapses back away from her decks, held
up by Mr. Curls. She’s smiling. And he’s completely elated for some
reason, pumping a quiet fist up in the air.

Randy
goes up to the decks. He eases the music down and sets a
mellow beat on loop. He pulls out a mic.

Curls
leaves the DJ to get down with a redhead, hands all over
her nearly naked body.

Randy:
“Party people...give it up for Brooklyn’s hottest
undiscovered talent...discovered
right here
at
House Market
...DJing solid for a mind-numbing
seven
unbelievably groovy hours! I’ve been told she can
do everything from Hip Hop to Chill to Electro to—as you heard
tonight—a mix of genres which is entirely her own. The girl is a
genius, a gift from the Underlords of House Music themselves”—and
then, when he says her name, it comes out like an announcer at a
Heavyweight Title Match—“Give it up for...Brooklyn born and raised:
DJ—Heaven—
Leighhhhhhhhhhhhhh
!”

Nice fucking
name
. I feel like a
total groupie, let me tell you.

DJ Heaven-Leigh
sits back, behind the box,
drinking liquids, her head falling from exhaustion. Mr. Curls
extracts himself from the redhead, goes to the DJ. He claps, then
raises the DJs hands like she’s just taken the belt. But when he
lets them go, she just drops them.

She lifts her half-shaved head and gives a
wan smile
to the crowd.
It seems to take all the effort she has. She nods to them,
acknowledging their applause. They cheer, they clap, they fucking
roar. Randy takes over the box and starts mixing slowdown tunes,
Chill House.

And just like that, bit by bit, the crowd
starts to leave. Their voices buzzing audibly about the babe DJ.
Several of them go past and she shakes their hands politely
enough.

At twenty-two, I’m too old to be
infatuated with someone. But I’ll be damned if this
chick with the wild and crazy
hair is not the only thing dancing around in my mind right
now.

Trev sucks down the last of the G-Series,
then
backhands me on the
chest. “Let’s beat it. I need to sleep. And all the pussy’s gone
home anyway.”

I look over at Heaven-Leigh.
Heavenly
indeed
, I think. Trev
tugs at my arm absently. Skate’s coming down from his high and I
see him getting tired.

I stand firm for a second, wondering if I
should go over to her and ask her for a mix tape. That had been the
plan at the start of the night. Only now, it’s different. Now that
would sound like the lamest pick-up line to ever be uttered by
anyone anywhere—like...
ever
.
Because the last thing I want from her now is a freaking
mix-tape.

What I want now, the
only
thing I want— Call it hormones, fine, I’m weak, I
admit it, and I’m also male. But the only thing I want now, is
her.

I want her bad. I want her...in all the
ways a dude should
(and
shouldn’t) want a girl.

I’m
so
glad
I didn’t roll tonight. Because Molly makes you feel all sorts of
shit for all sorts of people. And although I confess this might be
a little bit of infatuation—a
female
DJ, hot as far as sounds go, hot as far as
looks
go; I like the wild look,
always have—I also know that she seems damn interesting. And I’d
hate to think I was thinking that only because I’d been rolling. So
I’m real glad I didn’t.

I feel Trev’s grip leave my wrist. Skate
lumbers past me. I feel a cool breeze around me from other people’s
sudden absence, the body-heat now being replaced by a Sunday
morning chill blowing in from some of the broken
windows.

I’m motionless. Staring.

I decide I’ll go touch
fists with Randy, say hi.

My eyes flick over from her—still sitting
behind the DJ box—to the box itself.

When they flick back to her, she’s looking
up at me.

And she’s smirking.

I head to the DJ box, touch fists with
Randy. “Declan baby! Nice to see you! What you think of the set?”
He swings his head over at Heaven-Leigh. In his Sri Lankan accent
he says, “Da babe is good, eh?”