Sneak Peek: The Pit

            Finally, the bus reached my destination. The bus stop itself was in complete darkness. Pools of light flickered from between boarded up building. There was an agricultural factory here, and a few nearby workshops to justify the stop, but at this time of night the way was dark and silent. When I went to disembark, the bus driver kept the door shut.

            “Listen honey, you sure you wanna get off here?” The driver sat behind reinforced, tinted glass, but the concern in their voice was obvious. “This place ain’t safe at night. It ain’t safe during the day, but it’s worse at night.”

            I got off and watched the bus left. Pebbles crunched underfoot and a light wind whistled between crumbling buildings. The taillights of the bus turned a corner and were gone. From somewhere not too distant and unseen, footsteps.

            My mental map of the area didn’t quite correspond with reality, but I started walking to keep moving. Standing still wouldn’t do me any good. My walk was brisk but confident, sticking to main roads as much as possible. The darkness of the bus stop gave way to run-down commercial strips, mostly closed for the night, an occasional shop or fast-food joint shedding some light along the way. Further on, a late-night market: hectic stalls offering oases of reassurance—though everywhere, I drew curious and contemplative looks, some clearly sinister. More than once, I was followed. Stepping into a shop, ducking around a corner or hesitating at a stall helped shake some.

            A few were more persistent. One stalker, a lanky, pasty boy, came too close, surly aggression in jeans and a ripped t-shirt, face pockmarked with acne. I stopped, turned, faced him directly. Nothing was said and I stared him down until his cocky grin faded, he shook his head and slouched away, hands in pocket, muttering under his breath.

            This wasn’t Cindy’s kind of neighbourhood. Good fucking thing I wasn’t Cindy, then, at least not for tonight. It showed in my body language. I walked with an arrogant confidence that did as much to get me through safely as anything else.

            Still. Even though it was hardly my first time walking at night, I’d never felt it so keenly, that is, the way my enforced femininity might be taken as vulnerability. My height, those curves that jeans and hoody couldn’t quite disguise, the cut of my clothes—to the attentive eye, they said ‘girl’ and being a girl, alone at night in a neighborhood like this?

            Yeah. And there were far more attentive eyes that I’d have liked. Eyes, red-rimmed and sullen with dull resentment, that tracked my passage. They hated me because I was female; and because I was female, they wanted to hurt me.

            I moved swiftly—but not too swiftly—and kept to the light as much as possible, and by the time I reached my destination, yeah, I was feeling pretty fucking on edge. I would’ve grabbed a cab, but the instructions were explicit: take bus, get off, walk.

            The Pit. Fuck me, but I hadn’t been to a dive like this in ages. Painted blood-red against a dark sky by enormous floodlights, it towered three stories and throbbed with angry music. A crowd thronged outside, and the main doors gaped open like a bloody maw leading to the depths of some heavy-metal Hell. Raucous noise, thrown bottles and open drinking, the roar of motorcycle—mostly electric, obviously, loud with simulated noise—but even one or two authentic, gas-guzzling antiques, gleaming with fetishistic care.

            Later, finding myself bouncing between this place and Tartarus, I’d be able to compare the experience. Cindy didn’t feel out of place at a dance palace like Tartarus, she fit right in like butterfly wing shimmer in a summer meadow. That place was all sparkles and sweat, short skirts and tight tops, glitter and glamour. Yeah, sure that first time proved humiliating and lead to… Jonas, but the time after that, and again? Happy Cindy times, for the most part.

            But The Pit? No way I’d ever bring the girls here—okay, maybe Mel but not the others—but given the choice, I’d rather visit The Pit any day. Once upon a time, this was my kind of place, but oh my, no, Cindy didn’t belong here.

            It’s not like it was any skimpier than anywhere else: the girls I slouched past were as half-naked as any other night out, less so, in fact. But there was a hell of a lot more leather and denim on show, and metal too, piercings, buckles, chains and spikes. Thigh high boots and chrome heel spikes, bold makeup, fishnets and tattoos. The guys, too. Some tough-as-nails bastards you just knew at a glance were big softies inside, kind smiles hiding behind heavy beards, Santa Claus in leather jackets. But also, the other men, the mean ones, angry and sullen, viciousness thrumming beneath the skin, prowling for any excuse for a fight. I kept my distance from those guys, best I could.

            And so much black! Christ, these people wrapped themselves in shreds of night pierced with steel as they gathered, and at least I matched them for colour if nothing else. Truth is, those pre-Clinic weeks with Julia, and those nights out with the girls hadn’t prepared me for this. Quite the opposite: I had to suppress ingrained feminine instincts that would’ve had me moving and reacting in ways that would’ve made me stand out. This place called for a different kind of femininity, something brasher and bolder—either that, or I found someone tougher to cleave to.

            One girl made it painfully obvious I didn’t belong. I saw myself in her eyes: she was tall and rail-thin, barbell nose piercing and three more along her eyelid and a cluster of spikes dangling from ears. Tight leather bustier and fishnets sleeves and eyes heavy with black makeup, and she took in my hoodie and charity shop jeans—and sneered, not at the cheapness of my clothes but at their plainness. She deliberately stepped into me as I passed, shoulder checking me painfully. “City bitch,” she laughed, arm coiling around the waist a short, curvy girl at her side.

            Clearly, I wasn’t the only city bitch in attendance. It was Friday night busy. City centre lights caught swaths across the clouded sky, and skyscrapers blinked in the distance. And from that centre, affluent, idiotic youths gathered, looking for an edgier night out—a thrill of danger—a unique and authentic experience, their very presence an insult to locals. Some of them looked as nasty as anything local: entitled pricks looking to prove their masculinity, class warfare played out against a backdrop of blacklights and metal. But mostly, the men and women the taxis deposited were cosplaying dickheads way out of their league.

            But hey, maybe they’d find that authentic experience they were eager for. They’d regret it, probably, maybe learn that authenticity wasn’t something you found at a nightclub on the city fringes. Though watching the seething mass of youthful flesh gather: was I any different, really? I was here for precisely the same reason: to reclaim my real self, whatever the fuck that meant anymore.

            The air felt thick with the promise of violence, sweat and sex.

            Smiling, I joined the lineup to get into the club.

            I liked this place.