Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,38

enough extra height to keep her from being dwarfed by my stature.

Once we were clothed, it didn’t take long before Madeline had hair and make-up involved. The girl certainly didn’t do anything half-assed.

Two hours later, we loaded into a black SUV with tinted windows that Marissa Little-Ashford, the mom-ager, had ordered for us for the night.

“She doesn’t mind that you’re going to a club?” I asked, trying to unify the idea of a regular mom and a Hollywood mom in my head.

Madeline shook her head. Outside, a hundred famous sights whizzed by. “Mom is always telling me that I should spice up my public image if I want to be considered for more adult roles.”

With stubborn consistency, the eighteen-year-old starlet called her manager/mother ‘mom.’ Each time she spoke the word with clear, forced enunciation, and in her backwards world, it sounded unnatural. Marissa didn’t act, talk, or feel like Madeline’s mother. Why should she get to wear the title?

“Where are we going?” Some of the street names we passed looked familiar, but it had been so long since I’d driven through Los Angeles and I was clueless as to our location or direction.

“A new club downtown. Fran handled everything.”

I didn’t know what ‘everything’ meant until we arrived at the venue and were ushered through a back door. Loud music pounded in my ears and kept me from understanding what the polite, well-dressed man was saying to Madeline. I gave up trying when it seemed no one was going to ask for my ID, and I took the time to study the insides of the building.

It was a cavernous room with a bar running down the entirety of one side. The other side was made up of dozens of raised platforms with tables and leather booths. A few platforms had the curtains drawn around them, keeping prying eyes out, but others flaunted their depravity proudly, as girls poured expensive vodka into the eager waiting mouths of men in suits.

Madeline grabbed my hand and I was pulled along behind her as she followed our host to one of the curtained sections. It wasn’t empty like I expected, but instead filled with a group of ten or so people I guessed to be around our age. The music was still too loud to really hear anything, but Madeline seemed to know a few of them as she attempted to make introductions.

I just smiled and nodded like I could understand her. Red drinks were handed to us, and I happily downed the first fruity concoction, chapping my lips together at the old sting of alcohol. Another drink quickly took its place. Every once in a while a breeze would ruffle the gauzy curtain draped around us, and I could take in the dance floor that filled in the mass of space in the middle of the club.

Madeline had started what appeared to be a passionate discussion with another girl, who looked vaguely familiar, and the poor girl kept glancing away from Madeline as if she desperately wanted to escape, but couldn’t dismiss someone of Madeline’s importance.

I caught her eye, and pointed to the dance floor to let her know that’s where I was headed as I sat down my third finished beverage. Slipping down from the secluded section, I was immediately immersed in bodies.

Sweat and glitter gleamed in the erratic pulses of light as I pushed myself further onto the dance floor. Couples ground into each other, and groups of girls fought to find rhythm in uneven clusters. Hands wrapped around my waist, encouraging me to move with the stranger’s hips, but I kept moving until people pressed against me from every angle.

It was claustrophobic and overwhelming. And I loved it. I let my body revel in it, picking up the beat easily. I was just one tiny part of a mass that moved and swayed with the music. I was nobody. I was free. My hips contorted with edgy swivels, and I raised my hands to the ceiling as I let the mood consume me.

A cute, preppy-looking guy bought me another drink, so I didn’t have to fight my way back to Madeline and the free alcohol. I danced with him as I sipped. The next song came on and I danced with him again, even though I’d discarded my empty cup. My eyes were closed, letting the smooth swirls of the music slither along my spine and dig into my soul.

I was standing right across from Madeline’s booth, and I made sure