Dance Of Desire

“KAREN, what the hell is that?”

Cassie pulled her fingers out of her brown hair where she’d shoved them in frustration. Karen walked to her, bringing with her the pungent smell of industrial strength bleach and super cleaner. Karen was the resident manager and caretaker. She perused the stain on the floor as Cassie finished putting the last part of her new bed frame together, then she crossed to open a window for fresh air.

“I still have no freakin’ idea, kiddo.” Karen shoved her hands in her jumpsuit pockets. “That’s my last, best idea on spot removal and it’s not even making one damn dent in it. Sorry. And I know the feeling. I had one of these in my apartment, too. Just figured the last resident manager had left it, which doesn't explain why she’d just bolted and left all her stuff, though.”

“Really?”Cassie’s expression said that was strange.

“Yes. Really. My boss was vague and prickly on the subject. The company should’ve just kept her deposit, not all of her belongings. Who just leaves all their stuff and wanders off? Maybe she just cracked under pressure? Residents can be wicked odd.” She sighed with annoyance, blowing wind through her lips like she was whistling. “What could have made that thing?”

Both young women stared at the large stain staring back at them from the corner of her new bedroom. It was big, and dark. It gave the feeling that it was crawling up the wall—
of course it wasn’t, how could it?
—but it just got under Cassie’s skin somehow.

She frowned at Karen.“How’d you get rid of yours, then?”

Karen shrugged. “Didn’t. Still there under a big rug my last boyfriend stuck me with.”

Cassie stomped her foot in frustration.“This place is new! Half the apartments aren’t even lent yet. There was a janitor and resident manager here before you. How long could she have lived here?”

The manager shrugged before speaking.“Couple of months, maybe? Been here just a couple of weeks myself, Cassie. And to tell you the truth, I keep finding these marks throughout the building.”

“Everyone has one?!”

“No. But, Jimmy—down the hall and other side?”

Cassie made a face, remembering.
That man is distasteful,
she thought.

“Well, Jimmy has one, too. But not the Carsons, that retired couple with the energetic redheaded little girl and boy? Or Ms. Samson, that wicked tough chick, who lets
everyone
know she’s a die-hard celibate, abstaining from sex and all things carnal. Not a good conversationalist, that woman. But you didn’t hear that from me.” Karen sighed again.“I have to check with my boss to talk with the owners to get with the builders, Cassie, but it keeps slipping my mind. I haven’t been getting enough sleep. This is not right. Really bugs me and feels kind of nasty, you know?”

“Yeah, and it ruins my design plans,” Cassie said.

Karen nodded in sympathy.

Then she suddenly got an idea. “Well, now I know what to do with this.”

Cassie grabbed a rolled-up synthetic rug and rolled it out, covering the blemish. Both women moved it and made it flat, covering the part of the stain on the floor, but not the part staining up the walls at the corner. It was an ugly rug, too.

“My grand auntie’s,” she explained. “Insisted I ‘christen’ my ‘first home away from home’ with it. She said that it was accidentally drenched in holy water once and has been lucky ever since. I love her, but I hate this old rug. It still has a good sheen, though. I think it’s made of rayon. They don’t make that anymore, do they?”

Karen almost shook her head, then shrugged, clearly not certain.

Cassie shook her own head, still not feeling the joy over the solution. She now had a spot with a louder spot on top of it. Plus, the original stain was staring back at them with malice from where it crept up the corner’s walls.

“Put the bed over it, kiddo, covers the whole damn thing. That’s what I did downstairs. Diagonal in the corner, works the room better than squarin’ it.”

“Huh. Let’s see.” They dragged Cassie’s new bed frame over, then lifted it over the rug. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Minutes later, they had the foam mattress on and Karen had to leave after her phone buzzed and she read the message.

“Gotta go. Jimmy’s got a ‘drain straight into hell,’ he says.” Chuckling and rolling her eyes, she left.

Alone, Cassie dressed her bed then lay down on it for a little nap, glad to be out of that creepy motel with the neighbor who stood in his doorway and watched her every time she stepped outside. Or in a dorm, where kids—well, young adults—out on their own for the first time, acted like crazed hedonists all day, every day. She didn’t mind a drink, sex, or getting a bit smashed on one or the other, but being smashed on both, perpetually….

Okay, her cousin’s antics and horror stories about college life were turning out to be true. The stories of guys and girls who’d didn’t know from where they’d gotten some icky STD. But, oh my god, it was worse here.

That’s why she had wanted her own place. She needed the distance from the constant pressure of daily impromptu dorm parties and tomfoolery as she stretched her own limits and explored adulthood in the big city, without a roommate to distract her or drag her into some long, extended crying jag about her last broken relationship.

Anyway, she presently needed a little rest from moving in and dealing with the unclean—
at least it felt that way
—like a mark of Cain hidden beneath her bed and a clean but ugly rug—before she’d go across town to meet her new friends from school.

Her new bed was especially comfortable so Cassie burrowed in and drifted off into Dreamland on a gentle, warm cloud.

And, in the way of dreams, when your life was in flux, she dreamed of leaving home and entering her new apartment, of moving to a big city that was completely new to her and far from all she’d previously known, in order to attend school as a new freshman at a college the size of a city itself.

Young Cassie dreamed deeply of being an adult with adult responsibilities now, and of a world that was new, wide, and at her feet.

She grinned while she dreamed, pleased to see that what she had envisioned from online pictures and paper brochures hadn’t done justice to the actual places inside the college—the quad, the library (the extensive physical one and the extensive online one, both interconnected with county, state, and fed libraries, too!), the president’s old mansion residence, and the oil baron millionaire heritage mansions that were now part of her school’s real estate. Plus the new corporate-sponsored tech labs.

And she had, as she now dreamed of her new friends in and out of class.

She smiled happily, still in her sleep, exploring with excitement the busy streets and the shopping near to her apartment—laundry shops, coffee shops, internet cafes, a little mall, a burger joint with fattening to-die-for sandwiches and fries and brownies, and a small family-run grocery store. This was her home and place for now—these were her people. And there would be more people more places all fascinating and wonderful!

And, again, in the way of dreams, she walked from one step to another, stepping from college to being surrounded with her friends, taking no notice of the change in the quick dream transition but immediately loving how her possible new apartment was located at the far end of the corridor, on the second floor, at the corner.

It was a completely new building, too, only a few months old.

But Cassie didn’t know that it replaced an older building that had been over a hundred years old, and that it had burned
“to the ground in intense heat and leaping fire like Hell’s own fire,”
the news article had read in print and online.

It hadn’t been empty during that blaze, either.

Cassie’s dream view was as clean and precise as her mind. Her mental schematic included the entire rectangular complex—meaning that in her dream perspective, she could see all of it, like a 3D blueprint. It had a garden square section in the middle that wasn’t yet thriving with greenery—okay, it was just dirt, so far. All doors faced the main, encircling corridor. Each tenant had the choice of a view of the surrounding city block area, or a view of other tenant's windows from the facing buildings.

Cassie’s corner apartment was bigger than the others beside and opposite hers, which were still vacant, at least for now. It overlooked the street and a park and…

And that gross stain on her bed.

Well, on her dream bed, not under it. Either way, it intruded into her mind’s dream.

She scowled in her sleep. She would have been surprised if she were now watching herself dreaming, whimpering a bit, as if she were frightened. Then her alarm went off.

And it quickly dragged her back to this reality. She resurfaced sluggishly, briefly seeing a 3D blueprint of the city, too, especially her university campus with dark, writhing, and gross stains dotted across and encircling…

“Uh!”

Cassie awoke fully, startled upright from her nap by real alarm. And with the shock, she immediately forgot what she was dreaming about. It quickly faded into unreachable nothingness. She could not even remember what shocked and scared her so much that she woke up.

She turned and saw the gold lettered business card propped on the table by her bed, beside her alarm clock. It was one of several given to her by her friend Krystal. She said a
“maybe cute, tattooed guy in a hoodie and sunshades, with delicious lips for kissing”
had given it to her to distribute to her friends. And she was gushing when she said it, which surprised Cassie because it was so un-Krystal-like.

Cassie hadn’t seen the hot, hooded guy. She was on a mandatory library training session when the guy walked up to Krystal and gave her the cards. They were passes to a club
“for free entry, plus one, and a free drink,”
was what he apparently said. Krystal said the club was one of best in town and really hard for just anyone to get into.

“Bring all your friends, Sweet Girl. There’s always room for the smart and beautiful,”
was the last thing the guy said before leaving, according to Krystal.

Cassie had asked if the hoodie guy had said he’d be at the club, too. Krystal hadn’t asked. She’d hoped, but had been too shy to ask. He must have really been impressively magnetic to get K all wet and waxing poetic, even with tats, a hoodie, and dark shades. She often said that she only liked guys who were clean, open, and honest.

And then she suddenly realized… “I’m going out tonight! For the first time, out on the town with my girls; all night. Oh, wow!”

She leapt out of bed, grinning ear to ear, and paused to take a look around her new adult residence—all hers. She still had some unpacking, decorating, and settling in to do but she’d accomplished her dreams. She was grown up now, had moved out on her own and would be
“moving up in the world,”
as her Dad would say.

Looking at it and feeling it all around her felt so good.

She went to get ready.

CASSIE JUMPED OUT of a city taxi with her free card held tight in her hand and rushed to get in line at the nightclub to wait her turn.

“You!” The guy on the door waved her out of line, past those who’d been waiting much longer.

“Me?” Cassie stopped, dead in her tracks, like a deer spotted by a hunter.

“Ah, come on, man! You let the cute girl go in? She just got here!”

The guy on the door shrugged to the complainer. “What can I say? She’ll lighten up the place. Go right on in, miss.”

“I do have a card for free entry.” She held her free card up.

The door guy didn’t even look at it. “Of course you do.”

As soon her card was stamped, Cassie stepped directly inside a throbbing, pulsing, living environment. The place felt like nothing she’d ever been before. It was sensational. Amazing. It was magical.

Alive!

“Want ta dance?” a total male stranger abruptly asked, looking very intent—too intent.

Okay. A little less “magical.” The man’s approach was a bit unsettling, in fact, making her feel suddenly like she’d entered a room of hunters and she was a delicate, edible prey.

“Um. No. But thanks.”

He frowned, like she’d led him on and done him wrong. She was glad when he stalked away. She quickly looked around for her friends.

They waved her over. They were sitting in a cozy corner; three young women clustered around a glass table on lavish, cushioned sofas.

"Hi, Cassie," greeted Lauren, their ringleader, with her dark hair and slanted eyes. "You are late!"

Cassie rolled her eyes as Anne scooted closer to Krystal to make room for her. She felt harried and off-balance. It was always like that when she’d planned to be extra early so she could get her bearings but managed to end up late. "This isn’t class. I can be a little late. Traffic is horrendous in this city at night. Could’ve gotten here faster on a cow." She giggled. Then she took a breath, settling herself, before leveling her gaze at her friends. "Hello, bitches!"

“Yeah!” they all chorused together.

From the looks of it, she wasn't really so late, although she could see her friends had all downed at least two drinks each. Even Krystal, though hers came with umbrellas and straws. Looking sideways at Anne, she found the blonde distracted. Following Anne’s green-eyed gaze, Cassie saw a young man at the bar and Anne was playing a flirty-eye game with him.

"I thought you were a prude," Cassie said to Anne, who shot a double-take look at her.

"A prude? Girlfriend, there is no such thing as a prude in a bar full of hot, available men!"