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Entry tags:
abc prompts; k+s: queers
The first words audible in the buzz of the club were from the loudspeakers, and if Kirsten wasn't mistaken, they were 'lookin' like pimps in my gold Trans-Am.' That was almost justification enough for Kirsten to turn right around and leave. If the look on Regina's face was anything to judge by, she felt the same way.
"How do you survive a night of this?" Kirsten raised her voice to be heard over the autotuned lyrics and the conversations around them.
Regina's eyes rolled extravagantly. "The girls make it worthwhile," she called back. "Trust me, there are some gems."
They linked arms to avoid being separated as they made their way inside. The air was a heady mix of perfumes and colognes, smoke and liquor. Kirsten breathed through her mouth.
"Now remember, darling, you're here for a woman tonight, and none of these men are here for you." Regina sounded like she was instructing Experimental Lesbianism 101. "There's no sense in wasting your time ogling them."
Kirsten sighed dramatically, tearing her eyes from a quartet of clean-cut boys occupying a table near the door. "They're still pretty to look at."
"So are they," Regina remarked, turning Kirsten's head with a white-nailed hand. She looked where she was directed, and her eyes focused on a pair of petite girls at the bar.
They were attractive, objectively speaking. One was a rich honey-blonde in a sea-green sequined miniskirt. She had a natural-looking tan and a bright, dimpled smile. Her friend (girlfriend? Kirsten tried to picture them together — intimate, maybe naked — and failed) was fairer, with straight chocolate brown hair and shockingly blue eyes set off by her bronze eyeshadow.
"They're pretty," she admitted, prompting a sigh from Regina.
"Come on, let's get a drink or two in you, darling. You'll warm up."
'Warm up' was right. Kirsten wasn't counting, but she'd had more than three and less than eight, and the club was so much hotter than it had been when she'd walked in. The drape of her cowl-neck blouse wasn't helping anything, even as light as the fabric was, and she found herself plucking at it aimlessly as her eyes wandered the room.
There were plenty of good-looking girls, but Kirsten's gaze passed right over them. She'd sworn up and down to Regina that she wasn't going home with a guy tonight, because that was what 'I'm done with men' meant, after all.
Still, she couldn't keep her eyes off of them. Broad shoulders, trim waists, guns unholstered — delicious. Most of them were already engaged (grinding, dancing, talking, flirting; nothing Kirsten could complain about, since it meant at least twice as many attractive men as if they were standing alone), and Kirsten's attentions went unnoticed for the better part of fifteen minutes while Regina busied herself with a tall green-haired lipstick lesbian.
The sound of a laugh nearby eventually caught Kirsten's ear: a soft baritone, the kind of laugh that came with a smile that could make a girl's toes curl. She turned, craning her neck, and spotted the flash of teeth that went with it. An exotic-looking guy leaned on the bar a few people away, all bronzed skin and dark hair and dark almond eyes. He was as charming to watch as he was to listen to — while Kirsten looked on, hand momentarily stilled at her neckline, he shifted forward, still grinning, and raised his hands to talk with them. It was a long moment before Kirsten thought to look at who he was talking to.
His conversational partner was just as attractive, in a less exotic and more all-American way. He was taller, broader, with a glowing tan and blonde hair, and his body language was just as relaxed, and even more engaged.
It was too bad, she thought wistfully, that they were gay and she'd come here with a lesbian. This would've been one time she'd have happily played wingman. There was no losing between those two.
Maybe she'd prefer the blonde, though. She watched him as he took a sip of something fruity-looking. He was more muscular, where his brunette friend looked toned (though admittedly she could only see their arms). He was also taller. That was always a plus.
But then that laugh happened again, almost quiet enough to get lost in the din, and her eyes were drawn back to meet with those dark ones. He had glanced her way in the same moment she'd glanced his, but rather than turn back to his clearly scintillating discussion with his hot blonde boyfriend, he held her gaze. Kirsten felt her heart skip a few beats.
It was a much shorter moment than it seemed, she was sure, before something his boyfriend said drew his attention and she could breathe again. He slipped back into the conversation. He was probably wondering why she was staring at him. She looked down into her drink, but her resolve lasted only seconds before she raised her eyes to watch him again.
His eyes were trained on his boyfriend's face, intent and sincere. She could watch the flow of the dialogue in his expressions — the not-quite smiles that teased the corners of his mouth and eyes; the quirk of an eyebrow or the nod of his head. Maybe the alcohol was helping, but he was unfairly gorgeous. His bone structure was lean and elegant and his skin flashed warm under the club lights. The artful messiness of his hair brought it down around his eyes, a soft fringe. Even his jeans were an attractive, muted shade of dark blue (though that, she thought decisively, was definitely the alcohol talking).
Something his boyfriend said made him first smile, then grin, raising his eyes to the ceiling, and Kirsten realized she was smiling with him.
She might have kept watching him all night, except that her charmed reverie was interrupted by a sudden splash of something cold and pungent. With a yelp, she straightened up, looking down at herself. Nearly her entire right side was soaking with something alcoholic and icy, blouse, bare arm and all.
The green-haired girl Regina had been talking with was holding a conspicuously empty glass, looking as surprised as Kirsten was, and before Kirsten could say a word, Regina was on her feet.
She'd rarely seen Regina actually angry, and it was an intimidating sight — in her heels, she stood a good six inches taller than the other girl (and towered even higher over Kirsten), and her blue eyes flashed against her dark skin. She put herself in front of Kirsten, but Kirsten had to imagine that the girl was feeling the full force of Regina's fury.
"You uncivilized twat," Regina began, and Kirsten marked her drink count up to four. Regina didn't use words like 'twat' without a few gin and tonics in her. Kirsten thought she heard the girl start to say something, but Regina already had her by the arm and was hauling her away, toward the back room doors where a pair of bouncers loomed.
Picking up her napkin from the bar, Kirsten made a dejected sort of attempt at drying off her arm as she quietly mourned her shirt (nevermind that Regina would, in her fits of unnecessary apology, surely make her one to replace it, and it would be even lovelier). Whatever that girl had been drinking had something blue in it, and the pale grey rayon was hopelessly stained. For once, Kirsten couldn't imagine what she'd done to prompt someone to dump their drink on her. She'd been minding her own business.
"Hey," a voice said, so sudden and so near that Kirsten jumped.
It was the exotic-looking gay guy from down the bar, who looked even more exotic up close. His lashes were as dark and soft-looking as his hair, and his expression was serious.
"You okay?"
Kirsten nodded quickly, but it took her a moment to find words to accompany the gesture.
"Yeah, I'm just —" She held her arms out, looking down at her blouse. "I really liked this shirt."
He shifted his weight and glanced toward the front door. "I've got a jacket in my car, if you want something dry to change into."
There was something patently red-flag about the offer. 'Hey, come out to the dark parking lot with me for this totally innocuous reason!' But he looked sincere, and he was gay, anyway, right?
She glanced down the bar to find the blonde boyfriend watching. He offered a sympathetic headtilt when their eyes met.
"Sure," she said, turning a grateful smile on her rescuer. "That'd be great."
He jerked his head, and she slid off the barstool to follow him, grabbing her purse from the counter on her way. There was pepper spray in there, if things got dicey.
Outside, the fresh air hit her like a much more refreshing rendition of the icy drink — cool and crisp and rousing, drawing away some of the dizzy heat of the club and the alcohol. It also sent goosebumps scattering up and down her arms. She rubbed them idly.
His car, as it turned out, was just as attractive as he was. She couldn't have guessed a make or model, but it was sleek, dark, classic and well-groomed. It didn't look like the kind of car you kidnapped or raped girls in, which was a comfort.
"Nice car," she murmured, running her fingers across the hood.
"I know." She'd been expecting a 'thanks,' and she looked up with eyebrows raised to find him smirking. He'd probably give her that same look if she told him how gorgeous he was. She decided she shouldn't.
He retrieved a jacket from the backseat, something lightweight and dark-colored, and she took it with another smile, pulling it over her shoulders. It smelled like boy, woodsy and warm and masculine. She'd been crazy to think she could give up men.
Delicately, she drew her arms into her shirt and wriggled out of it, which was no mean feat while keeping the jacket draped over her shoulders. Sliding her arms into the too-long sleeves of the jacket, she held up the blouse to inspect it in the dim streetlight. It was definitely beyond repair.
Folding it in her hands, she turned to face him again.
"Shane," he offered as he looked down from the sky. His eyes lit on her face and flickered briefly downward, but didn't linger.
"Kirsten." She pulled the front of the jacket closed with one hand, more to guard against the chill of the night than out of any discomfort with his attentions. He was gay; what did it matter if he looked? "Thanks for this," she added after a moment. "It's really sweet of you." Maybe this was why girls fell for gay guys.
He shrugged, leaning a hip against the car door. "No problem. Hate to see a pretty girl in trouble."
She smiled, and he reflected it back at her, a quick flash of white in the shadows cast by the streetlight. "I don't know what that girl's problem was," she admitted. "I wasn't even talking to her."
"I think she missed. She wasn't aiming for you."
Kirsten recalled the startled look the girl had worn in the seconds before Regina put herself between them. "She was after Regina, I guess," she said, shaking her head. "At least it didn't get her. That dress she's wearing tonight is one-of-a-kind."
"Literally one-of-a-kind, or idiomatically one-of-a-kind?"
"Literally." Kirsten shifted to lean back against the car's fender. "She designed it and made it herself." Regina had a natural talent, one that Kirsten envied desperately. She might resent her for it, if Regina weren't quite possibly the sweetest human being ever to walk the planet. She was the kind of girl who would give you the one-of-a-kind indie designer shirt right off her back.
"That's pretty cool." If he wasn't interested, Shane at least managed not to sound dismissive. Kirsten guessed that maybe he actually meant it.
She nodded. "She's been getting some big breaks lately; making connections with photographers and modeling agencies." After a beat, she asked, "Is your boyfriend going to be missing you?" They'd been out here a few minutes, and as sympathetic as the guy had seemed to her plight, he might not appreciate her monopolizing his gorgeous boyfriend's attention.
Quickly, Shane responded, "He's not my boyfriend." It wasn't a precise answer to the question, but it implied one. If she'd said it, it would've meant he doesn't have a right or reason to miss me.
She formed an O with her mouth. "Sorry. Complicated?"
"Not really." There was that laugh again, soft and low. "We're just friends. I owed him a favor, so he dragged me with him tonight. It's not really — my venue. No offense."
Suddenly Kirsten was seeing a ray of hope that she hadn't even been looking for. "You mean because it's a club, or because it's a gay club?" she asked tentatively.
"Either? Both." He shrugged. "I'm not really a club kinda guy, and I'm not gay, either."
Biting her lip, Kirsten looked down at her feet. This little parking lot rendezvous just got a bit more questionable, but more importantly, he wasn't gay.
"Sounds like you're not in a hurry to get back inside," she said, stealing a glance up at him. His eyes were on her again, making her stomach flip.
"Not if you aren't."
She couldn't help grinning, then, and he glanced briefly away, smiling too. This night was shaping up to be better than expected.
"How do you survive a night of this?" Kirsten raised her voice to be heard over the autotuned lyrics and the conversations around them.
Regina's eyes rolled extravagantly. "The girls make it worthwhile," she called back. "Trust me, there are some gems."
They linked arms to avoid being separated as they made their way inside. The air was a heady mix of perfumes and colognes, smoke and liquor. Kirsten breathed through her mouth.
"Now remember, darling, you're here for a woman tonight, and none of these men are here for you." Regina sounded like she was instructing Experimental Lesbianism 101. "There's no sense in wasting your time ogling them."
Kirsten sighed dramatically, tearing her eyes from a quartet of clean-cut boys occupying a table near the door. "They're still pretty to look at."
"So are they," Regina remarked, turning Kirsten's head with a white-nailed hand. She looked where she was directed, and her eyes focused on a pair of petite girls at the bar.
They were attractive, objectively speaking. One was a rich honey-blonde in a sea-green sequined miniskirt. She had a natural-looking tan and a bright, dimpled smile. Her friend (girlfriend? Kirsten tried to picture them together — intimate, maybe naked — and failed) was fairer, with straight chocolate brown hair and shockingly blue eyes set off by her bronze eyeshadow.
"They're pretty," she admitted, prompting a sigh from Regina.
"Come on, let's get a drink or two in you, darling. You'll warm up."
'Warm up' was right. Kirsten wasn't counting, but she'd had more than three and less than eight, and the club was so much hotter than it had been when she'd walked in. The drape of her cowl-neck blouse wasn't helping anything, even as light as the fabric was, and she found herself plucking at it aimlessly as her eyes wandered the room.
There were plenty of good-looking girls, but Kirsten's gaze passed right over them. She'd sworn up and down to Regina that she wasn't going home with a guy tonight, because that was what 'I'm done with men' meant, after all.
Still, she couldn't keep her eyes off of them. Broad shoulders, trim waists, guns unholstered — delicious. Most of them were already engaged (grinding, dancing, talking, flirting; nothing Kirsten could complain about, since it meant at least twice as many attractive men as if they were standing alone), and Kirsten's attentions went unnoticed for the better part of fifteen minutes while Regina busied herself with a tall green-haired lipstick lesbian.
The sound of a laugh nearby eventually caught Kirsten's ear: a soft baritone, the kind of laugh that came with a smile that could make a girl's toes curl. She turned, craning her neck, and spotted the flash of teeth that went with it. An exotic-looking guy leaned on the bar a few people away, all bronzed skin and dark hair and dark almond eyes. He was as charming to watch as he was to listen to — while Kirsten looked on, hand momentarily stilled at her neckline, he shifted forward, still grinning, and raised his hands to talk with them. It was a long moment before Kirsten thought to look at who he was talking to.
His conversational partner was just as attractive, in a less exotic and more all-American way. He was taller, broader, with a glowing tan and blonde hair, and his body language was just as relaxed, and even more engaged.
It was too bad, she thought wistfully, that they were gay and she'd come here with a lesbian. This would've been one time she'd have happily played wingman. There was no losing between those two.
Maybe she'd prefer the blonde, though. She watched him as he took a sip of something fruity-looking. He was more muscular, where his brunette friend looked toned (though admittedly she could only see their arms). He was also taller. That was always a plus.
But then that laugh happened again, almost quiet enough to get lost in the din, and her eyes were drawn back to meet with those dark ones. He had glanced her way in the same moment she'd glanced his, but rather than turn back to his clearly scintillating discussion with his hot blonde boyfriend, he held her gaze. Kirsten felt her heart skip a few beats.
It was a much shorter moment than it seemed, she was sure, before something his boyfriend said drew his attention and she could breathe again. He slipped back into the conversation. He was probably wondering why she was staring at him. She looked down into her drink, but her resolve lasted only seconds before she raised her eyes to watch him again.
His eyes were trained on his boyfriend's face, intent and sincere. She could watch the flow of the dialogue in his expressions — the not-quite smiles that teased the corners of his mouth and eyes; the quirk of an eyebrow or the nod of his head. Maybe the alcohol was helping, but he was unfairly gorgeous. His bone structure was lean and elegant and his skin flashed warm under the club lights. The artful messiness of his hair brought it down around his eyes, a soft fringe. Even his jeans were an attractive, muted shade of dark blue (though that, she thought decisively, was definitely the alcohol talking).
Something his boyfriend said made him first smile, then grin, raising his eyes to the ceiling, and Kirsten realized she was smiling with him.
She might have kept watching him all night, except that her charmed reverie was interrupted by a sudden splash of something cold and pungent. With a yelp, she straightened up, looking down at herself. Nearly her entire right side was soaking with something alcoholic and icy, blouse, bare arm and all.
The green-haired girl Regina had been talking with was holding a conspicuously empty glass, looking as surprised as Kirsten was, and before Kirsten could say a word, Regina was on her feet.
She'd rarely seen Regina actually angry, and it was an intimidating sight — in her heels, she stood a good six inches taller than the other girl (and towered even higher over Kirsten), and her blue eyes flashed against her dark skin. She put herself in front of Kirsten, but Kirsten had to imagine that the girl was feeling the full force of Regina's fury.
"You uncivilized twat," Regina began, and Kirsten marked her drink count up to four. Regina didn't use words like 'twat' without a few gin and tonics in her. Kirsten thought she heard the girl start to say something, but Regina already had her by the arm and was hauling her away, toward the back room doors where a pair of bouncers loomed.
Picking up her napkin from the bar, Kirsten made a dejected sort of attempt at drying off her arm as she quietly mourned her shirt (nevermind that Regina would, in her fits of unnecessary apology, surely make her one to replace it, and it would be even lovelier). Whatever that girl had been drinking had something blue in it, and the pale grey rayon was hopelessly stained. For once, Kirsten couldn't imagine what she'd done to prompt someone to dump their drink on her. She'd been minding her own business.
"Hey," a voice said, so sudden and so near that Kirsten jumped.
It was the exotic-looking gay guy from down the bar, who looked even more exotic up close. His lashes were as dark and soft-looking as his hair, and his expression was serious.
"You okay?"
Kirsten nodded quickly, but it took her a moment to find words to accompany the gesture.
"Yeah, I'm just —" She held her arms out, looking down at her blouse. "I really liked this shirt."
He shifted his weight and glanced toward the front door. "I've got a jacket in my car, if you want something dry to change into."
There was something patently red-flag about the offer. 'Hey, come out to the dark parking lot with me for this totally innocuous reason!' But he looked sincere, and he was gay, anyway, right?
She glanced down the bar to find the blonde boyfriend watching. He offered a sympathetic headtilt when their eyes met.
"Sure," she said, turning a grateful smile on her rescuer. "That'd be great."
He jerked his head, and she slid off the barstool to follow him, grabbing her purse from the counter on her way. There was pepper spray in there, if things got dicey.
Outside, the fresh air hit her like a much more refreshing rendition of the icy drink — cool and crisp and rousing, drawing away some of the dizzy heat of the club and the alcohol. It also sent goosebumps scattering up and down her arms. She rubbed them idly.
His car, as it turned out, was just as attractive as he was. She couldn't have guessed a make or model, but it was sleek, dark, classic and well-groomed. It didn't look like the kind of car you kidnapped or raped girls in, which was a comfort.
"Nice car," she murmured, running her fingers across the hood.
"I know." She'd been expecting a 'thanks,' and she looked up with eyebrows raised to find him smirking. He'd probably give her that same look if she told him how gorgeous he was. She decided she shouldn't.
He retrieved a jacket from the backseat, something lightweight and dark-colored, and she took it with another smile, pulling it over her shoulders. It smelled like boy, woodsy and warm and masculine. She'd been crazy to think she could give up men.
Delicately, she drew her arms into her shirt and wriggled out of it, which was no mean feat while keeping the jacket draped over her shoulders. Sliding her arms into the too-long sleeves of the jacket, she held up the blouse to inspect it in the dim streetlight. It was definitely beyond repair.
Folding it in her hands, she turned to face him again.
"Shane," he offered as he looked down from the sky. His eyes lit on her face and flickered briefly downward, but didn't linger.
"Kirsten." She pulled the front of the jacket closed with one hand, more to guard against the chill of the night than out of any discomfort with his attentions. He was gay; what did it matter if he looked? "Thanks for this," she added after a moment. "It's really sweet of you." Maybe this was why girls fell for gay guys.
He shrugged, leaning a hip against the car door. "No problem. Hate to see a pretty girl in trouble."
She smiled, and he reflected it back at her, a quick flash of white in the shadows cast by the streetlight. "I don't know what that girl's problem was," she admitted. "I wasn't even talking to her."
"I think she missed. She wasn't aiming for you."
Kirsten recalled the startled look the girl had worn in the seconds before Regina put herself between them. "She was after Regina, I guess," she said, shaking her head. "At least it didn't get her. That dress she's wearing tonight is one-of-a-kind."
"Literally one-of-a-kind, or idiomatically one-of-a-kind?"
"Literally." Kirsten shifted to lean back against the car's fender. "She designed it and made it herself." Regina had a natural talent, one that Kirsten envied desperately. She might resent her for it, if Regina weren't quite possibly the sweetest human being ever to walk the planet. She was the kind of girl who would give you the one-of-a-kind indie designer shirt right off her back.
"That's pretty cool." If he wasn't interested, Shane at least managed not to sound dismissive. Kirsten guessed that maybe he actually meant it.
She nodded. "She's been getting some big breaks lately; making connections with photographers and modeling agencies." After a beat, she asked, "Is your boyfriend going to be missing you?" They'd been out here a few minutes, and as sympathetic as the guy had seemed to her plight, he might not appreciate her monopolizing his gorgeous boyfriend's attention.
Quickly, Shane responded, "He's not my boyfriend." It wasn't a precise answer to the question, but it implied one. If she'd said it, it would've meant he doesn't have a right or reason to miss me.
She formed an O with her mouth. "Sorry. Complicated?"
"Not really." There was that laugh again, soft and low. "We're just friends. I owed him a favor, so he dragged me with him tonight. It's not really — my venue. No offense."
Suddenly Kirsten was seeing a ray of hope that she hadn't even been looking for. "You mean because it's a club, or because it's a gay club?" she asked tentatively.
"Either? Both." He shrugged. "I'm not really a club kinda guy, and I'm not gay, either."
Biting her lip, Kirsten looked down at her feet. This little parking lot rendezvous just got a bit more questionable, but more importantly, he wasn't gay.
"Sounds like you're not in a hurry to get back inside," she said, stealing a glance up at him. His eyes were on her again, making her stomach flip.
"Not if you aren't."
She couldn't help grinning, then, and he glanced briefly away, smiling too. This night was shaping up to be better than expected.