Sadistic Measures

I had always been in awe of the tales of sin and intrigue surrounding a club like Vogue. I had never before set foot in her, for such was a place of legend. I had merely gawked at her outer shell on too many occasions to count. You can't judge a book by its cover or else this establishment would have been written off years ago. She was an old, stone building, cracked and crumbling. Her walls were accented with past vomit and urine stains courtesy of its previous patrons. Trash and cigarette butts littered the property and passing sidewalk.

Why would anyone want to risk their delicate immune system to enter such a place? Because the stories here were epic. And with this being a small town, citizens were left with little choice but to give her a fair chance. So when my two friends, Jennifer and Kate, painstakingly managed to acquire fake I.Ds, Vogue was naturally the first place on our list. From the second Jennifer handed me this holiest of golden tickets, I somehow knew life would never be the same. So, as I stood on her door step and the exceptionally long line one expects on a Friday night, I tried to imagine what was on her inside. Scantily clad men in bowties and cleverly placed socks? James Bond sipping his martini, shaken not stirred? A table convened for the sole purpose of solving world hunger? The sky truly was the limit and as much as it made me fired up it also made my tummy perform an acrobatic routine that would have put cirque de sol to shame. What if we don't get in? What if Satan himself owns this place and the price of admission is your soul? Am I ready to part with that?

Before my nerves allowed me to empty my stomach and impart my signature on the club's brick, Kate seized my hand and shuffled me ahead till I was greeted by the meanest lurch-looking bouncer you could imagine. With muscles swollen to an intimidating extreme and a hideously unimpressed scowl, I almost turned on my heel, walked off, and forgotten the last hour I had been crammed in line eagerly waiting. By some miracle I stood my ground.

"I.D" he growled, uncrossing his arms and reaching out his large paw towards me. If it was legal to advertise steroids this guy would have been their spoke's person. With a reassuring nudge from my peers, my shaky fingers produced the falsified document. He probably saw my trembling hands and the droplet of sweat on my forehead. His gaze went from the girl in the picture, who only sort of looked like a Sophie Cavanaugh, to me, the real Sophie Cavanaugh and his brow mischievously lifted. God he knows he is just toying with me now.

"Go on in" he grumbled, giving me back my proof of criminality and lifting the chain to permit my entrance. I immediately booked it for the big ruby red doors. There was no way on God's green earth that I was going to stick around to see if he changed his mind.

I entered but a splash in a tidal wave of newly arriving promiscuous youth and was ushered toward the dance floor. Gyrating bodies brushed against one another, their limbs pulsating to the thunderous beat that ricocheted about the dark enclosed space. The strobe lighting made their movements appear disjointed and erratic as they swayed and dipped flirtatiously rubbing and grinding their torsos together like two stones attempting to ignite a fire. The heat, suffocating to most, appeared to fuel them further into their frenzy. Scantily clad girls spun around silver poles and lasers jutted about in a dance of their own. The scent of sweat and sex hung thick in the air as I took in my surroundings. An energy pumped through the crowded room animating and connecting the flesh of the masses. The music, drawing out their most basic passions and desires, thus reverting them back to a version of their most animalistic selves. It was everything a rebellious teen could hope for. It was freedom.

Not that I could complain about my adolescence. I rarely had a problem with authority, I obeyed my nightly curfews, and I always ate my vegetables. But, let's face it even "Daddy's girl" needed a vacation. It was becoming evermore apparent to me that I had done the right thing in leaving out bits of scattered truth when I begged my father to stay over at Jennifer's house. Technically not a lie since it was where we started the evening and where we planned on finishing it. The Honourable Judge Cavanaugh didn't need to here about my seedy bar visit in between. Striking this evidence from the record was the smartest thing for a small time con like me. Besides, it was a first time offence so I would give myself the benefit of the doubt.