Page 1 of Twisted Little Thing

CHAPTER I

Nicky

My heart sinks as I watch my friends turn away and weave through the crowd toward the exit.

This had to be expected, but I still feel disappointed. Yes, they gave it a chance, and yes, they had warned me that they would leave if the club turned out to be as "underground and grungy” as they suspected.

But still.

A not so little part of me had still hoped that they would like it after all. That they would be positively surprised once they got here, and that coming here would not just end up being for my sake – that they would end up staying and enjoying it with me.

Instead, it only took a little more than an hour before all three of them had decided that I indeed had bad taste when it comes to music – and when it comes to picking out clubs where we can hang out on Friday nights.

I’m disheartened, but not enough to let it spoil my evening. After all, I am having fun. I have been wanting to visit this little basement club for months.

'A hidden gem' it was called by my equally non-conforming roommate Yuka. Too bad she had to work tonight. She would have been perfect company and much more inclined to appreciate its merits than my old college friends

I only moved in with Yuka a few weeks ago. My last living arrangement with an unsuccessful artist who was older than me turned out to be a bit too crazy, even for my taste. It was fun for a while, and in the beginning, I enjoyed the idea of never knowing what I would come home to. Another spontaneous art exhibit, either displaying her own work or that of an artist friend of hers, or a new temporary roommate – human or animal. All along before I moved in, she had been using her apartment for all kinds of visitors and events. She had played host to a refugee family, a snake, a bunch of abandoned kittens, and someone she introduced to me as her daughter, but who then miraculously disappeared after a few days and was never heard from again.

It never got boring, but things continued spiraling out of control, and at some point, coming home to a new kind of craziness every single day just stopped being fun.

Especially when part of that craziness was an unannounced gangbang with a bunch of kinky guys aged over fifty who were happily frolicking on my living room couch when I came home late one Friday night. I was exhausted from a long shift at work and looking forward to a quiet and relaxing evening in front of the TV.

So, it was time for a change. My new place provides its own kind of folly, but one that I can handle. Yuka grew up in Japan, but she couldn't wait to move across the ocean after finishing high school, even though her parents stayed behind in Tokyo. Her plan was to earn an undergraduate degree in business from an American university and then land a well-paying job.

But similar to me, she never finished her degree and dropped out of college when she stopped seeing the point of the whole endeavor. And just like me, she has been working several part-time jobs since then, never willing to commit to a full-time position. We became fast friends considering the fact that both of us value freedom and flexibility above financial security and a more comfortable living standard. Yuka is also an artist – a musician – and though she is anything but normal, I doubt that her quirkiness will ever reach that uncomfortable level of my former roommate. Or so I hope.

She is working at a bar tonight, one of her part-time jobs. Otherwise, she would be here with me, having fun and eye-rolling along with me at my friends’ ignorance of good music.

How could they not see it? This place is great! Yes, it is a bit of what they call ‘underground and grungy’, but it’s nowhere near as filthy and creepy as my friends made it out to be before they left.

It was awkward being here alone at first, but after just a few minutes, I really didn't mind. The place is full, but not overly crowded, leaving enough room for me to own the dance floor. The best thing about my friends leaving is that I don't have to hold back on my erratic dancing to be considerate not to embarrass them.

Granted, my dancing is not what one would call pretty. I'm not cool, and I know I'm not as graceful and lovely as most girls are when they move along with the music. Apparently, I am quite ‘a spectacle’, according to my friends. And they didn't mean it as a compliment.

As I am throwing my arms up in the air, waving and swinging uncontrollably with my eyes closed, I begin to wonder why I even bother going out with them anymore. This is so much more fun than any of the places they have picked in the past.

It has been more than an hour since they left. I have been dancing this entire time, so I am sweating and breathing heavily when I finally decide to take a break. As I stumble over to the bar, I wipe the sweat from my forehead and hope my make-up really is as waterproof as it claims to be.

"Beer!" I yell at the bartender, who miraculously can hear me over the loud bass of the music.

Delicate as a flower, that's me.

I am leaning against the counter, sipping on a cheap but wonderfully cold beer when I notice him for the first time. He is standing a few feet away from me, leaning over the counter to place a drink order.

He is ridiculously handsome. His dark hair frames his face in a rumpled, yet kept and thoughtfully styled manner, and his three-day stubble perfectly accents his well-defined face. He is tall, a lot taller than most guys here and looks to be about my age, or maybe a bit older.

But it is not his very appealing features that catch my eye. It's how he is dressed in a tailored button-down shirt and what appears to be suit pants. The shirt is dark-colored and rather low-key, but it still makes him stand out. He is too well-dressed for this club.

No one else here is dressed like this. This is a place for worn-out jeans, old, crappy band-theme shirts, and even punk or goth-inspired get-ups. Handsome or not, he looks like the poster child for a business yuppie who got lost and ended up somewhere he doesn't belong.

If anything, he looks like he literally owns the place, like he knows more about making money than choosing tonight’s playlist. Instead of asking for a drink, he might just be checking up on how business is performing tonight. Or he really is lost and asking for directions.

All these assumptions are cast aside when I see the bartender placing a beer in front of him. The same cheap brand that I am drinking. Our eyes meet when he grabs it and looks over in my direction. I think, for a split second, that he may even be about to raise his drink to me – but I quickly turn away before he catches me staring.

My heart is beating inexplicably fast as I lift my own beer to my parched lips and take an unnaturally big swig from it. What the hell was that? Since when do stuck-up yuppie guys draw my attention? The only thing that could be worse was if he was actually wearing a suit coat and tie.

I despise people like him. Corporate slaves, narrow-minded workaholics. People who have nothing else on their minds besides their career. People who follow the boring mainstream path that forces them to get up at six in the morning, dress in their corporate uniforms, spend eight to ten hours in an office with equally uninspiring people and fall sleep in front of their TVs in the evening – just to repeat the same routine the next day. Money and power are the only things that drive them. It’s disgusting.

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