Addiction

Chapter 3
Sympathy for the Devil

About Three Months Ago: Early that Evening

3- Please allow me to introduce myself

I’m a man of wealth and taste

I’ve been around for a long, long year

Stole many a man’s soul and faith

The Rolling Stones; “Sympathy for the Devil”

“Hey kid,” the voice whispered. “New guy. C’ mere.”

Damien ignored the call, mostly because he didn’t think he was the one being called to. He was standing in line at one of the newest clubs on the scene. Eden hadn’t even been open for a year, and already it had garnered the reputation for being one of the places to be if you were part of the under 40 crowd.

Damien now waited in a line that wound around the block to get in, dressed in khakis and a button up shirt, his hair gelled and smelling slightly of cologne. Standard club attire; nice but not too nice.

The place used to be a bank at the turn of the twentieth century, but had been renovated into a variety of businesses over the decades past. Eden was just the latest, most refurbished, and by far the most successful incarnation of the locale. The rocky cement walls had been fitted with a stone mural filled with carvings of lush forests with birds and deer. Above the towering oak doors at the entrance was a stone carving of an apple. To the left of the apple, a stone snake coiled around a branch, eyeing the fabled forbidden fruit. If music was playing inside, none could be heard through the thick walls that had been used to guard money and jewels a century ago.

“Dude, Damien,” Chad, one of his work buddies had told him earlier that week. “You have got to check this place out. There’s a high cover charge, but there are chicks all over the place, the drinks are cheap, and you are almost guaranteed to score there. Best time I’ve ever had.”

“Best time you’ve ever had?” Damien had asked.

“Best. Time. Ever.” Chad had reiterated.

“Well, wanna go sometime? Try to pick up some chicks?” Damien offered.

“Umm…” Chad had scratched the back of his head. “No.” He said flatly.

“Oh…” Damien had responded, a little disappointed. “Why not?”

“Psssst”, the same whispering voice shook Damien out of his memories. “New guy. You! Hey!”

Damien looked around to his left and right, seeing no one. He pointed to his chest, indicating “me?”

“Yeah, you,” a voice from behind his left shoulder called out. Damien whipped his head around to see the man leaning against the corner of the building, just out of sight of the bouncer at the door. “C’mere.”

Everything about this man reeked of the word “trashy”. He had a neatly trimmed goatee contrasting with raggedy stubble on his cheeks, which you might not notice as your gaze was pulled away towards his dark brown hair put into cornrows. Even though it was warm out tonight, he wore a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood down. His eyes were covered by the same cheap, dark sunglasses that you could buy off the rack at any drug store or gas station. The frayed cuffs of his ratty jeans ended in some kind of green scaled boots: Alligator skin, most likely, maybe snake skin; probably fake.

The dude looked like he was cosplaying as an inner city version of James Franco in “Spring Breakers”. James Franco couldn’t pull that look off, and this joker was no Franco. But still, there was something about him, maybe it was his posture with his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt while leaning against the building. Maybe it was the way he set his jaw, like he was both on the verge of smiling yet was dead serious in the here and now. Damien had common sense, and he had a vague idea of what this man wanted. Damien had gone to enough raves in his life to figure out where this was going, and had already silently decided to decline.

Recreational drugs were fun most of the time as long as you had someone with you designated to stay sober and keep your ass from doing something completely stupid, but as none of his work buddies had decided to come with him (not that he blamed them this time…when Chad told him a little more about the club, he completely understood), Damien lacked a safety net tonight.

“Don’t worry,” the dealer called out. “They’ll save your spot in line.” The woman directly behind him, wearing only a worn t-shirt and even more worn shorts of all things, shrugged and nodded her assent. Damien huffed out a sigh and left the line to go creep into the shadows. Time to shoot the dealer down.

“You looking to get into the club and have a good time tonight?” the dealer asked once Damien was within easy speaking range. Damien leaned his back against the wall so that he was next to the dealer. It felt smarter to be next to this guy instead of across from him. He’d look a little less aggressive when turning this guy down if he were next to the guy, and it wasn’t as suspicious when they were whispering to each other.

“Look man,” Damien said in a hushed tone, “thanks for the offer, but not tonight.”

“Come on, new guy, hear me out,” the dealer pressed. “Do you want to get into the club and have a good time tonight?”

Damien shook his head. “I’m not looking for any X tonight.”

“I’m not selling X, new guy.”

“I’m not into acid.”

“I’m not selling acid, new guy.”

“I’m not looking for weed.”

“I’m not selling weed, new guy.”

“Fuck coke.”

“No coke.”

“Fuck meth.”

“Meth? What do I look like, a trucker? No meth, new guy.”

“Look,” Damien pivoted and faced the dealer in the green hoodie and snake skin shoes, one shoulder still leaning against the wall. “I’m not buying tonight. Maybe some other time.”

“Who said I was selling anything, new guy?” the pusher in the green hoodie and snake skin shoes smiled a toothy grin. There was something insincere and menacing in that smile.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘new guy’?” Damien demanded, his frustration beginning to show. This fucker was pushing all of the wrong buttons.

The man with the cornrows looked Damien up and down, examining him, before saying, “Only a complete newbie comes to a nude club with that much clothing on.”

Yeah…that was why Chad didn’t want to come to Eden with him. It was fine seeing a bunch of strangers- some of them attractive- naked, but looking someone in the eye at work the next morning after you’d casually seen their junk was a bit much for most work buddies.

“I mean, come on, kid,” the dealer chuckled, pointing at various parts of Damien’s wardrobe. “Is that a fuckin’ belt?! Hell, I see an undershirt. You came to a place where people come to get naked together, and you actually came with stuff that gets in the way of that.” He pointed back at the line. “Look at that. Some of the veterans of this place probably aren’t even wearing underwear.”

Admittedly, Damien hadn’t put that much thought into what to wear, or what not to wear to this place. So he had just put on his standard night on the town clothes. How was he supposed to have known there was some kind of unwritten rulebook or (lack of) dress code?

Damien turned around and looked at the line. There were an inordinate number of people wearing just t-shirts and shorts waiting in line. Most of them were just wearing sandals too. They were dressed more for a summer cookout than for a night club. Damien just figured they were the inexperienced ones and they’d be turned away at the door. Now he was having doubts.

Damien frowned and turned to face the dealer. “Okay, point taken,” he conceded, “but that still doesn’t mean I’m looking to buy anything.”

“At what point,” the dealer paused for a beat, “did I ever say ‘Hey, new guy, do you want to buy some drugs?’ Never.” Damien replayed the brief encounter he’d had so far in his head. He hadn’t technically. “All I asked,” the man clarified as he slid his cheap sunglasses up to rest on his head, “was if you wanted to get into the club and have a good time.”

“You got a way in?” Damien wondered. Maybe this guy wasn’t a drug dealer, as much as he was some weird ass promoter, or night club scalper. Was there such even such a thing as tickets into a night club? If so, were there people who scalped those tickets? Probably not, on both counts.

The dealer must have seen the doubt on Damien’s face. “Of course I got a way in. But first, peek around the corner if you want to see your near future.”

Damien took a few steps and peaked around the corner. At the door were two men, dressed in similar fashion to him. They were dressed nice and looked like they were ready for a night on the town. Blocking their way into Eden was a very large and intimidating door man, no hair, douche sunglasses just like the drug dealer, and all muscle. Damien couldn’t make out exactly what was being said from around the corner, but their bodies told the tale.

They both wanted in. The doorman wasn’t letting them. His arms crossed over his chest and his head shook slowly from side to side. Dejectedly, the two men walked away into the night, their bodies becoming more animated the farther they got away, most likely telling themselves and each other about how “lucky” the doorman was that they weren’t there for a fight or some other such bullshit that such men spewed to make themselves feel better about defeat.

“But wait, there’s more,” the dealer whispered into Damien’s ear. “Take a look at the little hottie behind them.” Damien watched in silence as an attractive young woman approached the same doorman. She was at least an 8 out of 10 in the looks department, maybe even a 9. With a backless top and a short skirt that would conceal nothing the second she bent over, she was ideal club material. A club without hot girls wouldn’t have any guys coming either.

The girl looked up at the doorman and swayed her hips and cocked her head to the side coyly while batting her eyelashes. But to Damien’s surprise, the doorman was utterly unmoved. Once again, he crossed his arms over his chest and slowly shook his head. The girl’s shoulders slumped. Damien saw her look up and clasp her hands together in a begging gesture, but the guard remained unmoved. She walked away, defeated.

Damien turned back to face the man in the hoodie. A look of disbelief clearly on his face. The two guys, maybe, but that chick was rocking it. In any other club she would have been through the door, likely with no cover charge.

“The hell?” Damien asked, incredulously.

“I know, right?” this stranger in snake skin shoes echoed Damien’s surprise. “Now ask yourself, what’d those two scrubs and that little number behind them do wrong?” Damien didn’t have time to answer. “I’ll tell you what they did wrong,” the dealer pressed, “they didn’t have what they needed to get into the club and have a good time.”

Now it was Damien’s turn to slump his shoulders and deflate. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he sighed. “How do I get in and have a good time?”

The drug pusher made a flourish with his right hand and closed it into a fist. Then he shook it a few times, as if he were playing a game of rock-paper-scissors with himself, and then reopened his hand, palm up. Now laying in his palm was a little red pill, no bigger than a piece of candy. It could have been a little red “MnM” with the “M” scratched off.

“Thissssss,” he announced, using his other hand to gesture to the single red pill in his palm.

Damien arched an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“I call it, ‘Re-Lease’.” The man with the snake leather shoes explained. “It makes you feel like you’ve got a brand new lease on life. It’s a powerful anti-anxiety agent with a mood lifter, and some relatively minor psychedelic effects to give it a little party kick. Oh, and it also doubles as birth control, but that’s more a feature for the ladies,” he chuckled at his own joke. The dealer stared at the little pill in his hand as if it were Tolkien’s magic ring.

“It might just be the best inhibition-inhibitor out there. Much cleaner buzz than dime store booze,” the dealer concluded. He smiled with pride up at Damien. “It’s perfect for getting naked with a bunch of strangers and promptly not giving a shit.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it?” Damien asked.

“Because it’s a designer drug that just came out a few months ago,” the dealer explained. “And you’re talking to the designer.”

“Is it legal?” Damien found himself being drawn in by the sales pitch.

“Of course it’s legal, new guy!” the dealer explained. “That’s the best part about making a new product. Even if it’s declared illegal, it takes a lot fuckin’ longer for a law to be drafted than for a product to circulate and gain popularity.”

“And this gets me in…how?” Damien asked.

“All you have to do,” the dealer instructed him, “is take this little beauty with you, show it to doorman, pop it in your mouth and tell him that Mister Athan said you were cool.”

“Mr. Athan, huh?” Damien grunted. “That you?”

“Smart man,” the dealer replied. “Friends call me Levi, new guy,” Levi took Damien’s hand pressed it into his open palm. “And you?”

“Damien,” he told Levi, twisting their wrists so that their hands were clasped in a handshake.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Damien,” Levi answered. He released the handshake and Damien withdrew with the little red pill in his hand. “That’s a real good name there if I do say so myself. Now get going, kid. The line’s moving.”

Without thinking Damien turned his back to the strange man called Levi and saw that the woman who had been saving his spot had almost reached the door. “Hey, how much does this-“, Damien turned back around to face Levi, “…cost?” Levi was gone.

“Freak…” Damien muttered as he pocketed the little red pill- the “Re-Lease” as Levi had called it- and rushed back towards the front of the line.

“ ‘Bout time,” the woman who had agreed to save Damien’s place remarked when Damien returned. “Levi give you his sales pitch?”

Damien’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know him?”

“Everybody knows Levi,” she told him. She then reached into her shorts pocket and produced a little red pill identical to what Damien had stashed away in his pants pocket.

“Oh yeah?” Damien pondered. “He the local dealer or something? Got some kind of deal with the doorman?”

“Local dealer?” the woman barked a laugh. “Newbie, Levi owns this club.”