Glitter & Mayhem Read online

  “You’re objectifying yourself, Cass,” one of the Smithies said, pointing to my spiked dog collar.

  “Gotta pee,” I mumbled, and made a beeline for the bathroom. Time to pop some MDMA to make this party more palatable. My gay friends in college called it “Adam,” and I’d heard some people starting to refer to it as “ecstasy,” but all I knew was that this shit had totally made my Chemistry degree profitable by my senior year at UT Austin.

  Austin. I’d liked it there. Too bad it was surrounded by Texas.

  The MDMA had kicked in by the time the bellydancer arrived. I could tell it was working because I didn’t care that I was surrounded by Smithies anymore. In fact, I was starting to think about asking one of them out. I had the sneaking suspicion that the one who was wearing pants instead of an Indian broomstick skirt was hiding a pair of shaved legs. Yeah, my standards were getting pretty low now that I was back home.

  The glittery dancer set up her boombox, and promptly dropped to the floor and started doing inhuman things with her abs.

  No, I seriously mean inhuman. I may have been a Chem major, but I’d taken enough Bio to realize that the human body didn’t have that many abdominal muscles. Never mind the fact that her arms didn’t appear to have bones and her hair was undulating under its own power.

  I looked around the room, but no one else seemed to be bothered by any of this.

  Had to be the MDMA, right?

  Shahrazad got up from the floor and started doing a killer shimmy as she danced in a circle around the room. She stopped directly in front of me, planted her navel inches from my nose and started undulating on top of that shimmy. That’s when I realized that she wasn’t actually wearing glitter. That was her skin.

  I looked up, mouth agape, into eyes greener than any I’d ever seen before.

  She winked.

  Too soon, the show was over, and Shahrazad pulled a caftan on over her spangly costume, much to the dismay of the Smithies. Then, to their further dismay, she walked over to me and handed me a business card.

  “What are you?” I whispered.

  “See you tomorrow. Midnight.”

  I looked down at the card. It was for the Agawam Rollaway.

  “Belly dance party at the roller rink?” one the Smithies asked. “We’re totally there!”

  When I looked up again, Shahrazad was gone.

  “Uh, can someone give me a ride to the bus?”

  As I sat on the Peter Pan bus, staring out at the median strip of I–91 as it hypnotically floated by the window, I clutched the card in my hand and wondered what the fuck I was getting myself into. Like, what if they were doing an all–night “Thriller” skate tomorrow? Wasn’t that the kind of thing the Geneva Convention protected me from?

  As always, I’d timed my drug trip perfectly. My brain was straight by the time I got off of the bus. I headed to my beat–up, second–hand Pinto, and stuffed my fingers in my ears as the boys from Westover did a low, fast, fly–over. They’d been doing a lot of night runs lately. I blamed Reagan. Mind you, I also blamed him for stubbed toes and hangovers and shoulder pads coming back into style.

  I drove back to suburbia, to the room I rented over my parents’ garage.

  To Boring–ville.

  I had to get to London. Or New York. Or Tokyo.

  But for now, I guess I’d have to settle for the roller rink.

  §

  I was awoken by my windows rattling to the tune of another Air Force fly–over. Shit, I’d overslept. I had to open the store in half an hour. I put a new coat of eyeliner over the smeared remnants of the previous night’s, ran my fingers through my hair to re–spike it a little, then tossed on last night’s clothes, stuffed a baggie of MDMA in my pocket in case one of my special side customers came to the store, and climbed into the Pinto to head to Eclipse Records.

  Working at a record store sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is. Well, it might be a cool job in Boston or Cambridge or New York City. Here, I mostly peddled Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, and this new chick named Madonna. She wouldn’t last. Some days, I thought about dipping into my stash to get through the workday. Then I remembered that I had no way of restocking it, and chugged coffee instead. Someday, I’d be able to set up a new lab. When I had the money. Which at this rate would be never.

  When I got home, my parents were out for the night. There was a note on the fridge saying they’d gone to the movies, and that I should have the leftover pizza. Score one for me. Eating leftovers alone was easier than going through the dinnertime question gauntlet. “Are you still sending out résumés for real jobs?” “Any luck finding a roommate so you can move into your own apartment?” “Will you stop dyeing your hair black long enough to look like a normal human being for your brother’s wedding?”

  Honestly, though, they weren’t bad people. For starters, they were public school teachers, which is one step away from sainthood if you ask me. And they’d mostly accepted my lesbianism. But it’s damned hard to feel like an adult when you’re living in your parents’ house. At least Mom had taken over my old bedroom to make it her crafts room. If I’d had to live there instead of over the garage, I probably would have slit my wrists in despair. Of course, why she’d taken over my old room instead of my brother’s might have had something to do with the lesbianism thing. I guess she preferred a shrine to football trophies over a shrine to cunnilingus.

  I killed time watching TV, then it was back to the Pinto, back to I–91. And then it was midnight, and I was stepping out of the car, staring at the darkened and thoroughly closed Agawam Rollaway.

  Another Air Force flyover thundered past, this one so low to the ground that I reflexively ducked.

  Well, this was a wasted night. And I’d even worn the studded leather jacket and belt that matched my collar. I pulled the card from my jeans pocket and was about to throw it to the ground when suddenly, a door opened, and spinning disco ball light spilled out into the parking lot, stopping at the toes of my scuffed, second–hand combat boots.

  A glittering Amazon of a woman stood in the open doorway, so tall and gorgeous that she would have made Wonder Woman herself weep with jealousy. “She’s waiting for you.”

  I strained to make out the music. Oh, thank God. Not “Thriller”. In fact, I was pretty sure it was Depeche Mode. Eh, that would do.

  As I stepped through the door, the Amazon grabbed my arm, twisted it behind my back, and slammed me against the wall. “You’ve seen things you weren’t supposed to,” she hissed in my ear.

  Okay, so I was beginning to suspect that I’d been pretty stupid to come here without letting anyone else know about it. Wait, the Smithies had seen the card. They’d come to my rescue, right? Oh God, they were probably all stuck up in Northampton with pot munchies right now.

  “Let her go.”

  Shahrazad wafted into view, sparkles spinning around her like a cloud of demented fireflies, and I’m pretty sure I started gaping again.

  “This isn’t possible,” I mumbled. “I’m not even high this time.”

  “No, once you see me as I truly am, I can’t fool you ever again. Celeste, I told you to let her go.”

  I could literally feel the Amazon’s reluctance as she dropped my arm and stepped backwards.

  I shook out my arm and watched Shahrazad’s hair flutter in the complete and utter lack of breeze. The light from the disco ball was interacting in the most mind–bending ways with her glitter cloud. I blinked hard, but it didn’t help. “What are you?”

  “My dear, it’s all in my name.”

  She’d called herself “Shahrazad the Star Dancer.”

  Shit.

  “It seemed like a harmless enough descriptive. I had no idea you had such pharmaceutical sophistication on this part of your planet.”

  “So… um… you came here from another planet to belly dance?”

  When she laughed, it sounded like wind chimes. “Oh, how I wish it were that simple. I came here to hide. Will you help me stay hidd
en?”

  Behind me, the Amazon growled.

  “Celeste, I’m sure we can trust her.” She turned her hypnotic green gaze back to me and asked, “Can we?”

  I swallowed hard. “Lady, if I told anyone, they’d lock me up in the loony bin.”

  Shahrazad smiled. “Wonderful. Now let me show you what else I’ve discovered I’m good at.”

  She led me into a room that I know wasn’t part of the Rollaway, if only because of the wave of nausea that crashed over me as I walked through the door. “A phase junction,” she said. “Pay it no mind.” She lay me back on a pile of subtly undulating pillows, and I stared up through a faceted glass ceiling at more stars than should have been visible under this much light pollution.

  “How — ”

  “No talking,” she said. She nimbly undid my jeans with her teeth, then proceeded to reduce me to a gibbering wreck with her tongue, all to the continued strains of Depeche Mode.

  Yeah, I’d protect her secret. Especially if there was more of that waiting for me.

  Celeste the Amazon growled at me again as I staggered out into the parking lot towards my Pinto. I probably wouldn’t be able to walk straight for a week. And there, at last, were the Smithies. “Sorry we’re late,” one of them said, rolling out of a VW bus that reeked of patchouli. “Did we miss anything good?”

  I just laughed and climbed into my car.

  §

  I went back to the Rollaway every night that week, and every night, I walked back to the car with rubbery legs and a stupid grin on my face. Somehow, Shaz (as I now called her) managed to get her phase thingie to cover the entire building, so on nights when the Rollaway was open late, I sat back and watched two entirely different realities sharing the rink. In the regular old reality, the Smithies, pimply teenagers, and the occasional creepy old guy skated around in circles to the most insipid pop crap out there. In Shaz’s reality, she rocked out to rhythms so complicated that they hurt my well–medicated brain. I’d thought Shaz was unreal on bare feet, but on roller skates, she was something else altogether. I swear, sometimes she was skating a good foot above the actual floor.

  “What are you on?” one of the Smithies asked me.

  “Nothing I’m going to share with you.” Which is exactly what I would have told her even if I weren’t helping hide a bellydancing alien.

  Shaz skated over, her lip in a fetching pout. “You never skate with me.”

  “Lady, I can barely walk when I’m around you, never mind skate.”

  That night, she finally let me show her my own talents. Did I mention that she tasted like smoke and honey? Holy shit, she was something else.

  As she was the one lying bonelessly on the pillows for a change, I chucked a pair of pillows aside, rested my elbow on the comfortingly solid floor, and asked, “Seriously, though, why are you here? On this planet?”

  “I told you, I’m in hiding.”

  “By taking belly dance gigs? That’s not really hiding.”

  She rolled onto her stomach, showing me her magnificent sparkling ass. “Oh, I know,” she said. “I can’t help it. I suppose I’m too much of a diva to stay hidden away entirely.”

  I forced myself to look at her undulating hair. If I kept staring at her ass, I’d lose all ability to think. “Another thing — your English is perfect. The fact that you just busted out the word ’diva’ and used it correctly — ”

  “I studied your language before coming here,” she said. “Really, I can’t believe you care about —”

  “Why are you hiding?”

  She sighed. “I just want to dance and have fun.”

  “Seriously, just answer the question.”

  “I did. I just want to dance and have fun. Those things are… discouraged where I come from. Especially for someone in my position.”

  I looked down at her position. It was tasty.

  She noticed my scrutiny and smiled.

  I couldn’t help myself. I had to show off all over again. I was picking sparkles off my tongue the entire drive home.

  §

  The next morning, I stood groggily behind the counter of Eclipse Records, hoping that the large cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee I’d just chugged would kick in before I had to deal with any customers.

  No such luck. The bell over the door rang, and I looked up to see two young punks walk in.

  Well, that was a refreshing change for Chicopee.

  And then I noticed that both of their mohawks were vibrating.

  Ah. I knew what that meant.

  They shuffled up to the counter, hands stuffed in the pockets of their artfully ripped jeans, their skin glittering madly as a beam of sunlight hit them. The one with the green hair said, “Hey, we heard you could hook us up with a belly dancer.”

  “Like Siouxsie Sioux style? I don’t think we have anyone like that around here.”

  “No, like traditional style.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for the traditional anything type.”

  Their mohawks vibrated even more rapidly, and I pretended not to notice.

  The blue–haired one said, “Well, it’s our mom.”

  “It’s for our mom,” the green–haired one said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

  Hmm. Whatever species she was, they didn’t get stretchmarks.

  “Yeah, sorry. I can’t help you. But if you want the latest from The Cure —”

  “Actually, do you have any Madonna?”

  I gave him a pointed once–over. “Aren’t you a little over–dressed for Madonna?”

  He had the decency to blush at that. At least, I think that was what it meant when someone like him turned gray.

  They hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes when the bell rang again. This time, it was three military guys. I think Air Force. And me with a pocket full of MDMA.

  Shit.

  The oldest one removed his hat as they walked through the door and tucked it under his arm. “Excuse me, are you Miss Labonté?”

  “Ms. Labonte. I’m a feminist, and this isn’t France.”

  “I’m Colonel Gagnon. May we have a word with you?”

  “I’m working.”

  “We’re your only customers.”

  “So buy something.”

  He nodded at the youngest of the soldiers, and the kid started dutifully browsing through the cassettes.

  “Now, Ms. Labonte, have you seen anything unusual lately?”

  “This is Chicopee. I’m the most unusual thing here.”

  He placed his hat on the counter and gave me an appraising look. He lingered briefly at my chest, but I chalked the attention up to the fact that I was wearing a homemade “Smash the Patriarchy” t–shirt. “Perhaps in a neighboring town?”

  “I really doubt we have the same idea of what constitutes unusual.”

  “And I suspect you doubt that I even have the same ability as you to see the unusual.”

  The small lump of pills in my right pants pocket suddenly felt as large as a grapefruit.

  “You’d be right, of course. But Captain Ireland here has a different perspective.”

  The third man stepped forward, stared intently at my temple. “Are you wearing glitter?” he asked.

  “Uh… I’m dating a stripper.” The military hated lesbians, right? Maybe that would scare them off.

  “Captain Ireland had a rather checkered past before joining the Air Force. He sees things a little differently than the rest of us do. And clearly, he sees something in you.”

  I laughed nervously and tried my best to avoid catching Ireland’s eye. “Well, so long as he’s clean now. I’d hate to think the Air Force was sticking junkies into cockpits.”

  “Interesting,” Ireland said. “So you know drugs are the key to seeing them.”

  Oh, fuck me.

  I opened my mouth to sputter out some half–assed rebuttal, but the Colonel held up his hand and said, “Just tell us where she is.”

  Wait, maybe I cou
ld still make this work.

  “She? I thought you were talking about those two guys that were just in here. You know, the glittery guys with the colored mohawks? The vibrating mohawks?”

  Ireland’s eyes lit up. “So there are more —”

  Gagnon held up his hand. “Not in front of the civilian.” He turned to the third soldier and said, “Lieutenant, we’re leaving.”

  The young lieutenant came up to the counter with a Joy Division cassette. “I’d like to buy this.”

  Maybe there was hope for the military yet.

  Ireland took another long, appraising look at me, then asked, “So, what have you taken?”

  “Lots of pills,” I said with a shrug. “You know how college is. I never bothered asking what they were. Figured I was better off not knowing.”

  “Pills,” he mused. “Not peyote?”

  “God, no. Give me medical–grade pharmaceuticals any day. Nature’s got no quality control.”

  “Hallucinogens? Amphetamines? Soporifics?”

  “Sometimes all at once. I lost track. You know. College.”

  I rang up the lieutenant’s purchase, and Gagnon handed me a business card. “If you see these young punks again, or anyone else like them, call me. It’s crucial that we locate them.”

  “National security, eh?”

  “Planetary,” Ireland said.

  Gagnon shot him an irate look. “Not in front of the civilian.”

  The three men left, and I tossed the business card into the trash. Then my knees gave out and I found myself on the floor, legs tucked against my chest, perilously close to being in the fetal position.

  Suddenly, this alien girlfriend of mine was starting to seem like more work than she was worth.

  §

  I spent the rest of my shift trying to figure out what the fuck to do. Call the Rollaway? First off, the Air Force was probably tapping the store’s line. Secondly, what the hell was I supposed to say? “Hi, can you please hand the phone to the woman who’s living in a slightly different dimension in the middle of your rink?” Yeah, that wouldn’t work so well. And with my luck, they’d have a digital phone and know to dial *69 to figure out who’d called, resulting in a one–way trip to the loony bin for me.