Phantom was right: it’sa lot. The second we enter, we’re met with a blast of hot air that makes my layers of thick clothes immediately unbearable. The whole place smells like sweaty bodies and that tangy scent of bubble-mixture. It’s a party in here, an explosion of neon graffiti on the walls, flashing lights, glitter bombs, and half-naked bodies jumping to pounding pop music on the dance floor.
A woman shouts something at me through the open window in the box office beside me. “What?” I ask.
“Your coat!” she points to us. “You gotta check it!”
Ironically, the woman working at coat check isn’t wearing a coat—she’s barely wearing anything at all, with a strappy corset covering the bare minimum and a face full of sparkly makeup. Dove shoves her beanie in the arm of her coat and I pull my coat off as I hand both over to the woman, exchanging our items for a paper ticket.
Then she hands over two soft pillows. One has rubber ducks sewn on it. The other is pink with stars. “Have fun!” she says.
I hold a pillow out to Dove. She looks at me curiously. “What’s this for?”
“Absolutely no idea. In case we need to nap?”
She snorts a laugh, takes the pink pillow, and tucks it under her arm.
What are we getting ourselves into?
We move through pillars plastered with old, ripped band posters to make our way to the bar. I notice everyone is in a state of undress, and they all have pillows of their own, some more ornately decorated than others.
I get us drinks—two Jack and Cokes, I don’t trust their wine selection—and can barely shout the drink order to the bartender over the din of the noise. Somehow, though, Ophelia’s shriek carries when she sees us.
“Where the fuck’ve you been!” Ophelia bounces over. She’s stripped out of her clothes like many of the other degenerates here, her shirt gone with the wind, with only a strappy black bra covering her chest. Princess is with her, and both women are grinning ear to ear and covered in sparkly glitter. Ophelia puts her hands on Dove’s shoulders. “I thought you got eaten alive by subway rats.”
“Not yet, but good guess,” Dove says.
Ophelia squints at her friend. Her eyes flicker over Dove. “Eaten by some other rat, maybe,” she says, lifting her eyebrows at me.
The two women clearly know each other too well. It’s clear she’s read our sins all over Dove, even after we pulled ourselves together.I guess I’ll just squeak myself out…
“Did you find the ornament?” Dove asks, changing the topic.
Ophelia rolls her eyes dramatically. “Fuckthe ornament! Check out the battleground!”
The…what?
She points to a busy space beyond the dancefloor and my eyes try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It is, in a way, the equivalent of a giant bouncy castle…for adults. The floor is covered with an inflated material, the matching walls bouncing with movement. The people in the large enclosure are a flurry of skin, glitter, and activity. And they’re all smacking each other with pillows, screaming and laughing.
“Is that…a giant pillow fight?” Dove asks.
“Yes!” Ophelia shouts. “You have to get in! It’s so much fun!”
Dove grins. I see the temptation in her eyes, the hungry way she watches the chaos, but she shakes her head and calls back over the din: “Maybe in a minute. We just got drinks!”
“Chug them while we put on your war paint.”
Ophelia removes a small tube of makeup from her bra—how do women keep so many items stuffed in there?—and she hands it over to Princess. “You take Dove,” Ophelia says. “I’ve got this one.” She’s looking at me when she says it. This must be how a street rat feels caught in a glue trap. Ophelia corners me, tugs a chair from the bar, and points to it. “Sit.”
Retraction: this must be how a street rat feels caught in a glue trap, staring down the headlights of the A express train.
I don’t argue. My eyes flit to Dove (help!) but she only looks amused, shrugs, and lets Princess paint her face in gold glitter.
Ophelia crouches down in front of me. She puts her knee on my thigh, half in my lap, and squeezes a dollop of glitter-paint onto her finger.
“Consent?” she asks.
“Granted.” Anything for Dove.
