Juggling an armful of hard seltzers, Melanie shouldered her way through the throng of festival goers, shouting and stumbling as she went. The wait had been so long at the drink stand that the concert was nearly at an end. It was well past midnight now—pitch-black and muggy and roaring loud.
Melanie hastened as best she could through the din and the darkness. The distant glare of the stage lights through the haze of fog and pot smoke was all she had to illuminate her course. Packed in like sardines, the cheering crowd surged around her, against her, a balmy, intoxicated crush of human bodies that thankfully happened to propel her forward.
Even if the ground hadn’t been uneven, it would have been tough going. For about the fiftieth time that day, Melanie cursed herself for wearing these stupid platform heels. She’d wanted a few more inches of height, sure. But mostly she’d wanted to look sexy, and now she was paying the price. Every few steps she almost fell—and surely would have, if not for how tightly-packed the crowd was.
Her short skirt kept riding up her hips. Dangerously high now. She swore she could feel a draft licking the undersides of her ass cheeks. Her arms were too full of seltzers to even think of tugging that wayward hem back down again. She’d just have to trust that things were too dark and distracting for anyone to notice her ass was hanging halfway out.
The frosty aluminum drink cans raised gooseflesh on her arms and chest. Her braless breasts chafed against the ripped clingy fabric of her blouse. Another sexy fashion flourish she was presently regretting. Melanie grit her teeth at how painfully tight her standing nipples had become. Hefting up the seltzers, she soldiered on ahead, toward her gaggle of scantily-clad college girlfriends.
She found them more by luck than anything. She shouted and tried to wave awkwardly with her elbow, but they didn’t notice her until she was practically right on top of them. Clutching each other, they laughed and swayed as they drunkenly sang, too high on the experience—among other things—to even remember she’d gone for more drinks in the first place.
“Mel!” they cried, noticing her at last. “You’re back!”
“You got more booze—hell yeah!”
“What a doll!”
Melanie grimaced as her faded friends swarmed her. Tottering, shrilling and sweating, they clamped onto her with hot, heavy hugs that made her feel like a life preserver at maximum capacity. As she started to sink under the drunken weight of them, a new beat began to blare from the stage. Her friends broke from her with seltzers in hand, screaming.
“Oh my God—oh my fucking God! It’s the hidden track from Dead Idols! They’re playing it, they’re actually playing it!”
“My favorite song ever!”
“Mine, too! Holy shit…!”
Her friends weren’t the only ones losing their minds. All around Melanie the crowd was clamoring and seething, going wild. She was swept almost off her feet in the commotion, jostled this way and that. She’d barely had time to feel relief at being unburdened of the frosty drinks when she glanced around and realized she’d been separated from her friends again. Hopelessly so, it seemed.
“…Damn.”
The noisy throng was still herding her onward. It felt about as close to crowd surfing as she’d ever come. Probably about as close to crowd surfing as a person could get while still remaining vertical. Melanie had never expected to get this close to the stage. Wherever her friends were, she figured she’d outdistanced them.
The glare of the strobe lights blinded her, even through the haze. The electric shriek of the guitars tore across her eardrums, making them hum in the afterburn. A pleasurable sort of pain. Melanie felt a surge of adrenaline, raw excitement. She put her hands to her mouth and howled along with the rest of the raving crowd.
Her heart hammered. Her throat ached. Her nipples were hard again from the sheer frenetic energy of it all. She wasn’t even a big fan of this band. At least not as rabid for them as her friends were. Apart from being ‘the responsible one’ of the group, she hadn’t considered it a great personal sacrifice to be the designated driver for the night. None of those seltzers she’d been fetching had been for her. After the hassle and stress of getting them, she’d been itching for a taste. But now, pressed so close to the vibrant thrumming electric heart of it all, she felt mellow, lax.
Her whole body vibrated, a tuning fork to the rhythms pounding through the ground, through the air, through the teeming crowd. Resonating in her flesh and blood. She scintillated with it, this collective pulse. She’d never imagined she could be aroused by music, but that was exactly how she felt. It was intoxicating. For once, she stopped stressing, overthinking. She stopped thinking consciously at all. She committed herself to the sensual experience. Her soul stripped loose from its uptight restraints and ferried away.
Then the song ended. As the band struck up another, Melanie wasn’t jarred so much by the change in music as by the change in the tide around her. Now instead of being urged forward by the crowd, she was being thrust back, just as randomly and unexpectedly. It was disappointing, but it wouldn’t have been anything worse than that—except that as Melanie was being forced backward, she lost her footing.
Her stomach dropped. Her left ankle rolled. She flung out her arms in a panic, pinwheeling them as she screamed. She knew it was in vain, all of it. Visions of being trampled to death in the shadowy stampede around her flashed before her eyes. But before she could land hard on her ass, a pair of strong arms caught her from behind, steadying her.
“You all right?”
It was a guy’s deep voice, yelling near her ear. Melanie’s eardrums rang. Her ankle smarted. She winced as she straightened against his chest, which felt wonderfully warm and solid to her in the clamminess of her fading fright. He’d have a nice voice too, she thought, if he wasn’t having to shout to be heard.
Melanie nodded in response to his question. She figured that would be better than trying to talk. As he started to let her go, her rolled ankle screamed in complaint. Melanie hissed, hunching. He took hold of her by the upper arms again. She sighed in relief.
“Did you sprain your ankle?”
She shook her head stubbornly, having no idea whether she had or not. She just knew that she wanted to make it to the end of the concert. He seemed to pick up on this. He didn’t let her go, and she didn’t want him to. It didn’t feel so bad with him supporting her, taking some of the pressure off.
It didn’t feel so bad at all.
“You can lean against me, if you want.”
Melanie did. Closing her eyes briefly, she relaxed against him, into his solidness and bracing warmth. He stood tall behind her, even in her impractically high heels. Her head barely reached to his shoulder. But her hips were about level with his. Realizing this, her stomach gave a strange little flutter.
It was bewildering. She had nothing to go on, really. She hadn’t even glimpsed his face. But somehow she could feel that he was an attractive man. In his voice, in his build and his presence, she could sense it. In his touch, too. His hands slid down her arms, sure and strong. Her bare skin prickled. When his arms went around her, Melanie forgot about the concert. For a second, she forgot to breathe.
“This okay?”
Haltingly, Melanie nodded.
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In Rhythm © CS Dark Fantasy