Page 134 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

Of partying.

Of getting off our tits.

Of getting fucked.

Why not? Why the hell not?

Rory lays a possessive palm on top of my bare knee, stroking absently as he stares at the Antiro mobs we pass, still chanting, still furious in the darkness beyond. There’s a look of unease on his face as he takes them in, as he watches them with an expression that contains an utter lack of comprehension. Like they may as well be protesting something as benign as the existence of finches.

The cab rolls down the Royal Mile and stops midway, at a street swarming with half-dressed, shrieking girls in neon and glitter. Stilettos totter precariously on cobblestones, attached to legs as rake-like and shaking as newborn deer. Couples scream at each other, women matching and often exceeding men in passion and intensity. A girl slumps at a wall and alternately sobs and vomits, her patient, beleaguered friend insistinghe’s an arsehole, thathe isnae worth it. Bored police officers in high-viz question two sneering young guys at the side of the building. A man dances energetically by himself in the dark, swaying with his arms raised to the sky, looking entirely unaware of the fact he’s no longer inside the club, believing that the twinkling stars are a natural extension of spinning disco lights.

And stretching all the way down the street is the packed, crowded line of people waiting to get inside.

As I slide out from the cab and absorb the frankly Renaissance scene that lies before me, Finlay slaps me on the back and, with a dark tease in his voice, murmurs, “Welcome tae Hype.”

The thumping bass swells and pounds into the street. Bouncers, built like fortresses with thick earpiece wires and black walkie-talkies, are so trussed up with remote communication equipment that they resemble elite bodyguards than nightclub doormen.

There’s a red carpet opposite the snaking, interminable line, roped off by chunky red twisting cord and gold poles, and it’s to this empty section where Rory purposefully strides, handing over ID.

“You’re a VIP?”

“Course,” Rory says, sounding offended I even had to ask, as the bouncer’s eyes sweep with disinterest over the five of us, lingering with a tad more attention on me than strictly necessary. Rory grips my hand and glares at the bouncer, who stands aside dispassionately to let us in.

I’ve never been to a club before but it’s everything I expect and more. Rory leads me through a narrow dark underground passage, illuminated only by the flashing neon laser lights up ahead. Finlay grabs my other hand, and calls over to Danny and Luke to stick together.

The music is shocking, eardrum-bursting levels of loudness. The moment we enter, I’m swallowed by sound. I can’t hear anything other than the all-consuming bass, the zigzagging electronic synths, the euphoric moans of a female singer.

Eventually, the passage opens out into a wide maw, and we’re standing in an area heaving with bodies, of dancers and ravers and people with their tongues stuck down one another’s throats. Glowsticks and neon face paint light the way like lanterns. The section branches off into three different open-plan rooms, each supporting wall thick with the kind of ancient, centuries-old stone that’d remind me instantly of Lochkelvin if it weren’t for the bodies writhing in front of it or the sweat dripping down it.

“Whit are ye wantin’?” Finlay asks, his voice a shout as he leans close toward us. Our noses are almost touching and yet the music still manages to drown him out. “You know how it is,” he says, turning to Rory. “Shots for fifty pence. Cannae beat it.”

Rory shrugs, taking both my hands in his.

Finlay wanders off in the direction of a crowd-within-a-crowd, and it takes every effort not to admire how good he looks, the almost imperceptible cinch of his waist, his muscled ass in those pants, the perfect combination of everything delicate and thoroughly, enticingly male.

Luke and Danny appear somewhat lost, looking like they’d calculated coordinates incorrectly and popped into existence in the entirely wrong place. They take in their surroundings, blinking around at the contorting crowd that pushes them like a wave closer to Rory and me. Somehow I get the impression these two haven’t ever been clubbing, either — or if Luke has, it certainly hasn’t been this kind of clubbing experience, where bodies freely grind against each other in exchange for more alcohol. His style is probably more suited to the kind of laidback clubs that come with a tinkling grand piano and a wine bar.

The longer we remain here, the more it emerges that there’s some kind of theme to the night that only about a quarter of the people here are taking part in. People are dressed up, some with full faces of stage make-up. Half of one woman’s face is regal and Elizabethan, the other half ripped-apart and cartoonishly monstrous. Some guys are dressed in long dark coats and red contacts, which at first I think is an attempt at some kind of sexy vampire clan, but from the signs on their backs it turns out that they’re a squad of Grim Reapers having a stopover on their way to Buckingham Palace. After watching another woman wearing a crown with an ax embedded into her skull, her face seeping with fake blood, I realize it’s supposed to be some kind of apocalyptic Antiro night.

Thankfully, more people are paying attention to the music and dancing than the costumes.

The music changes from happy electro to some remixed indie song from the nineties that everyone shout-sings along with. The singer’s words are almost inaudible over the crowd screaming alongside her, arms in the air, “What’s going on?!” before joining in with a long, eked-out shriek of a wail that seems to dominate the entire chorus.

The hairs on the back of my arms stand on end. This is crazy. All these people together in one spot, making music, chanting lyrics. It feels primal, unearthly, pagan, in a way I never could have expected a trashy nightclub to be.

Rory guides us deeper into the crowd, into the heart of the swelling mass of limbs. Finlay tags on to us, skating toward us with five thimbles of alcohol clutched in his hands, his plastic aviators askew on his head.

“Take them,” he shouts, thrusting the small glasses toward the group. I take mine in an instant, mainly so Finlay doesn’t drop them all on the dancefloor. But the dancefloor is already sticky with a kind of questionable glue, and I get the impression this club is no stranger to a variety of unknown liquids.

We each hold a glass, Luke and Danny extremely uncertain, Rory as though this is completely beneath him. Finlay yells, “Three, two, one,” and we down them together.

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