move, harder to hear. I felt my way through the crowd, asking anyone I could find in a kitty collar where Mirror was. Finally I found her talking to a couple of sullen fetish model types near the punchbowl in the safe room. She saw me and came over.
“Dude, the swings have snapped twice, half of my tops flipped because this whole town is just a bunch of fucking slaves,” she glared at the two girls by the punchbowl, “you better have some good news for me.”
“Flipping roles can be sexy.”
“No. It’s not sexy when you have two totally passive bottoms trying to out-meek each other. Not sexy at all. If I wanted that kind of action I’d run a knitting café.”
“I was wondering when Tamara left.”
“That faggot! She split earlier today. If she hadn’t painted the sawhorses I’d never speak to her again. Oh,” she pulled an envelope out of a pink faux fur clutch, “She wanted me to give you this.”
Just then Mirror saw a pack of Goth chicks heading for the alcove.
“I got to go. There’s a No Bat Wings Allowed policy in that room. Someone got stabbed by a wire earlier. I need to tell them to hang the wings by the door.”
She took several steps away then stopped.
“Della, you should check out the upstairs. You’d like it,” she grinned. “It’s called the Motel.”
Mirror disappeared into the darkened alcove and seconds later a girl with bat wings emerged, sulking.
I opened the letter.
Dear Salome,
I wish I could have stayed for the party but I should have been home days ago. Come to the Farm. There’s a place for you here. I think you would like it.
xoxo,
Mara
Inside the directions were folded up into a little swan. I turned it over. For that one moment there was no pull in any direction. I let out a breath. Nowhere for me to be this night but here. I unbraided my hair and shook it out. I had been waiting for something and not known what. Unpinned from all the things to which I was beholden—Grace in the hall of mirrors, Credence in the candlelight, Jimmy, the box-mall-church, the head of John the Baptist—I felt my body like I owed it to no one. Loosening the strap on my bag, it fell to the ground and for the first time in forever I let everything slip. Soon I might be in a foreign country, or maybe in jail, but right then I was under that broken slab of concrete with everyone else.
Steam rose from people in the Big Tent, condensed on the metal rafters and rained back down on the crowd. Raina was in the corner, her long auburn hair falling over her naked body, moving through her Vinyasa. Several people followed her and more were coming and going. She led the asanas, flowing through the warrior stances, lowering each time to the ground and arcing back then down again in a metered dance half time to the industrial buzzing of the DJ loops. I walked past them all and up a narrow, metal stairway. At the top was a door with the word MOTEL written in small black letters over the door handle. I opened it. A long carpeted hallway stretched ahead with rooms on either side. They must have been clerical offices a long time ago. Mirror had painted numbers on the doors. The one closest to the stairway was empty and I could see in. There was a ratty bed, a chair and an end table with a lamp that gave off yellow light. Mirror put a Bible next to the lamp and covered the window with a dark sheet to block any light from outside.
I took a few more steps in. It was cold in the Motel. I could hear beds creaking and soft moaning. It was full of people. Down the hallway a woman cried out and I heard the door slam shut. The hallway was dark. Some had kept their lights on and others had them off. At the end of the hallway there was a room with the door open and the light off. I went in.
A man was sitting in a chair.
“Claire?” he said and turned.
He couldn’t see me. The end of the hallway was black.
“No. Not Claire.”
He went back to looking out the covered window. Through the green flannel sheet the outline of Public Utility with its dormered windows and gabled roof could be seen. I walked over to him until the