Dancing Blood
Jemima sat on a leather stool, crammed against the wall by a hundred gyrating bodies. Inside her jester's costume, she was sweating.
The costume was a solemn white and black, her mask porcelain with a wretched smile painted on. It was an outfit she liked, fitting to her contrariness.
Jemima giggled to herself, and took a sip of wine. She giggled again, peering into the glass like a cat watching fishes.
The wine was dark red, and the colour of certain flowers that did not, Jemima recalled, taste good. The wine did though. She giggled, and drained the glass.
Having done that, she stared. Empty. She searched around with her eyes - there were no tables for it to be left upon, nobody walking around with a tray. And she could hardly leave it on the floor. Some people here ended up shoeless, and a glass just sitting there could be dangerous, even to the sober.
Jemima giggled once more, imagining elaborate patterns of blood being danced on the floor. Perhaps she would just leave it there.
Jemima swung off her stool, and, in a fit of responsibility, left the glass there. She licked her lips inside her porcelain mask, and pushed her way into the throng.
"Want to dance?" a boy asked suddenly, a warm breath in her ear. Jemima giggled and nodded, turning around into the boy’s grasp, noting how he wore tight black leather pants and a loose ruffled shirt; and giggling.
She grabbed his hands, and pulled him into something vaguely resembling a tango. Together they forced a path through the crowds, and laughed at any protests.
The boy had looked surprised for a moment, but followed Jemima with pizzaz. Jemima wore a toothy grin no one could see.
The boy’s mask did not hide his own smile, and it made Jemima grin all the more. His mask was a showy affair of shimmering black feathers. Jemima felt like tipping a pottle of glitter onto it. She was sure she had one somewhere - her costume provided for very deep pockets.
However, if she did that, the boy might lose his smile. He might leave. Besides, her glitter was green. It wouldn't have suited his look.
The strained waltz of music, barely audible above the crowds, stopped. Jemima let go of the boy, and curtseyed - an odd look. Jesters rarely curtseyed, and certainly not black and white jesters. Then again, maybe black and white jesters with blue and red hair did. Jemima wasn’t sure.
The boy bowed in return, his hair nearly touched the floor. Jemima imagined how it would look dangling in a pool of blood. Not the boy's blood - corpses were all very well, but not for what Jemima had in mind.
He took her up again as a louder, noisier, beat began playing, a beat that demanded spinning. Jemima wasn’t one to disobey a direct command, and spun. The boy nearly fell over, but proved too suave to go through with it, regaining his balance quickly. They spun and spun. The other dancers moved away automatically - something Jemima had not thought they would be clever enough to do.
She didn’t stop when she began to fell dizzy. Instead, she spun faster, and faster, and she was on the floor, and so was the boy, and they were lying, together, in a pool of blood.
But then a lady apologised, and it was only wine.
Jemima stood up, frowning in displeasure. Her costume was sticky and stained with red wine, and it looked nothing like blood. The boy had disappeared. Her glitter (purple, not green) was all over the floor, and her clothes, and her hair.
Jemima pushed her way to the front of the room to get another drink. Then , she decided, she would find another boy. One who didn’t fall over so easily. She was sure there must be at least one of them available. And perhaps, if she were lucky, there would be two. Now that would be fun.
Two glassfuls later, Jemima was again on a leather stool. This one was grape purple. Jemima liked grapes. She liked what you made from grapes.
Jemima giggled, twirling the glass in her fingers. The little wine that had refused to go into her mouth danced at the bottom. She looked up at the crowds - less than before. Good. Jemima had her suspicions she’d only fallen before there were too many people.
Now she needed someone to spin with again. The evening just wasn’t the same when the room was still. She gazed hungrily about the room for a solitary male, or even a female. So many of the good ones had already left the dance floor, and not alone.
Jemima licked her lips, and started moving. This time, she just dropped her wine glass, and it may or may not have broken. She didn’t stop to look. Her eyes were too busy searching for a dance partner.
She liked the music that now played; it was loud and interspersed with screams. Or maybe that wasn’t the music. One could never be sure of these things.
Jemima didn’t particularly care either way - if they were real, they wouldn't be screams of pain.
Mmmm. There. Jemima zeroed in on her target like an arrow. A misaimed arrow. Her face fell as her target suddenly started pashing the boy next to him. She stamped her foot, deciding he wouldn't've been fun anyway.
She would instead dance with that boy in the corner, who locked lips with his wineglass alone. Still, he looked sober enough, and Jemima grabbed him. The message was obvious - ‘Dance’. And he was an okay dancer. He certainly looked up to spinning.
Very good, Jemima thought, and on one particularly shrill scream, she spun.
The boy spun with her, having dropped his own wineglass at her attack. Jemima’s suede shoes were soaked a dark red. She barely noticed, but if she had, she would’ve appreciated the image.
As it was, she was noting the way the boy’s hair looked like a straggly black pom-pom, and that he was dressed all in white, with a stain on his shirt that may or may not have been wine. She thought she could smell the familiar metallic tinge of blood, but she was too giddy to be sure.
Suddenly, she stopped spinning. Her dance partner dealt remarkably, just managing to stay on his feet. Oh, very good, Jemima giggled to herself.
She was glad to hear that even though the music had stopped, the screams continued.
She was distracted from her revery by the boy whispering something in her ear. Something about going somewhere more private.
In response, Jemima bit his ear. The boy only grinned, and tugged on her hand, desperate to carry out the acts his whisper had inferred.
But suddenly, Jemima didn’t want to.
She didn’t particularly like this boy, who didn’t even have the decency to yelp when she bit him. (He had blood dripping down his ear.) He probably wouldn’t remember her in the morning, no matter what they did; even if he had scars; even if he died.
The boy didn’t appreciate what she was.
Jemima gave an unseen sniff, and let go of the boy’s hand.
He grabbed it back.
"Come on," he said.
Jemima narrowed a green eye at him, and she narrowed a blue eye at him, and she shook her head.
The boy rolled his eyes.
"You know you want to," he said.
Jemima dug her nails into his hand. He grinned.
"Come on, baby," he said, "Don’t be like that."
That was it. Jemima was no one’s baby.
Jemima’s free hand was suddenly around the boy’s neck; her nails were digging in; her fist was closing around his windpipe. He spluttered something at her; gasped, once, twice, three times.
Jemima was stronger than the boy would have ever guessed - and certainly harder to seduce.
Jemima let go, and the boy screamed.
It was a good scream. Everyone looked over. The boy fell to the floor, holding a hand to his bleeding neck. It didn't work. He bled all over the dance floor.
Jemima licked her fingers, satisfied.
It had been a good night - now, she was ready to leave.
And so she left, and nobody noticed - except, perhaps, an idiot boy lying in amongst two hundred feet, all dancing patterns of blood on the dance floor.