Chad wondered what he was in for.
"Chad, your last night in Poké City's gonna be a learning one," Raelle shouted over her shoulder to make herself heard over muffler and stereo as they sat in city traffic. "A dose of culture for you country folks."
"Where are we going?" Chad shouted back.
"Club Dragon Rage. Almost there already."
"Is that a disco?" said Vixen.
"This is a disco," said Vixen as they strolled toward the open double doors. A gaudy neon sign, surrounded by graffiti, blinked the club's name. Chad already felt the bass tones in his stomach, but was eager to get inside, anything to edge out of the sidewalk crowds. When he followed Raelle and Vixen into the dark mouth of the club, the first thing he thought of was Crimson City Gym. Here, the pandemonium had a beat.
Chad squinted in the mist of cigarette smoke. Further inside, a dense crowd shook and swayed under swirling colored lights, to horn-twistingly loud music, blurred by conversations. "No cover before ten," Raelle yelled, flashing them a smile over her shoulder. The crowded sidewalk was looking better and better, but Chad was determined to try this. Maybe there was something good that he had not yet noticed; it looked pretty popular. He studied the tons of Pokémon (and some humans) as Raelle led them nearer; dozens of bodies pressed together. His skin felt crawly and he rustled his wings. Above them a huge faceted ball cast a whirlpool of speckles spinning on the floor. Everything moved.
"Come on, Chad!" said Raelle, becoming one with the crowd as she caught the smile of another Raichu and faced him. What was he supposed to do? Chad strained his neck above the masses to get air but breathed in cigarette smoke. He longed to stand alone under the sun on a cliff, hearing only wind. Trying new things didn't always lead to pleasant surprises.
"Well, I'm ready to go," said Vixen; Chad leaned down to hear her but couldn't duck his head without smacking someone. "Where is Raelle?"
Chad pivoted his head, looking around his wings, but Raelle was subsumed in the crowd. "I don't see her."
"Great," said Vixen. "See any place to sit?"
"Do you see a bar? A place with lights?"
Vixen described a bar well enough for Chad to recognize one at the far side of the room. He wove through the drunken crowd, Vixen following.
"We'll wait here till one of us sees her," said Vixen as they found stools. "Then we pounce. I have a headache already. Keep your eyes open."
Chad tried, but the smoke was making them tear. "What are they all doing?" This was supposed to be for enjoyment?
"Dancing," said Vixen. "Don't ask."
This resembled in no way the dancing he knew. How could this mass of worming limbs compare to the spacious swoops and glides of charizard grace? Or the leap of an Arcanine? He coughed on the smoke. Any charizard would look ridiculous doing that--they needed to fly to look graceful. Especially him.
Chad was about to close his eyes for good and make for the door when he saw a distant flame through the haze. A charizard's tail--and female. Chad slid off the stool.
"Yeah right," said the fox as Chad wove through the crowd. They somehow made room for him.
Chad drew nearer at last, crossing the obstacle course of people. The first charizard that he had seen in a few years. In the flecks of dim light trickling over her, he saw her color--a dark golden orange. She was over six feet, almost as tall as he was, with suede-blue eyes.
Chad growled a greeting, but he didn't even hear his own voice through the music. "Charrr," he called and she turned around. He smelled too many drinks on her breath as she burped and accidentally flamed his face.
"That's okay," Chad laughed too. He stepped forward to sniff noses with her, but she backed away from the greeting, looking confused. Chad put on a smile. "What's your name?"
"Charmina. Never saw a male like you."
Chad could say the same for her as a female, but not in a completely good way. Still, this was his chance to make a good first impression. Once she wasn't drunk, it would feel good to spend time with one of his own kind.
"Do you come here often?" he said.
Charmina was laughing. "All the time!" Her hand grasped his wrist. "Come with me."
Chad stumbled as she lurched forward, waddling awkwardly. She walked into a chair on the way towards a door. Chad helped her maneuver around it. What is it with drinking problems here? She opened the door and they walked into a little room. Chad could not believe his luck. This was really his chance to make a first impression, and a first roll in the den, as they said. Unlike most other youths, Chad had never had a chance to "play around."
She shut the door, muffling the music. Their tails lit up the small concrete room with a slouching bed against one wall. Charmina got on the floor and Chad followed her down. Now he touched his nose to hers. "What's your name?" she breathed.
Her hand ran along his chest. He lay on her, pressing forward, feeling her breathe beneath him.
She planted her hands on his front, pushing him back. "Hello. You have to pay first."
"Pay. . .?" His face twisted in confusion; too much blood in his brain. He could not catch his breath.
"You know--money?" She wriggled out from under him, holding her hand out. "Five hundred. It's your first time in the city, isn't it."
"I don't have any money." Payment for sex? What would they think of next!
"What kind of idiot are you?" Charmina shoved him away and flamed his face. "Get out!"
The noise slapped him in the face when he opened the door and stepped out, still unsheathed. Looking back, he saw her sitting on the floor on her bum with her feet and tail in front of her, maybe too drunk to get up. She looked at him and crossed her arms, flapping her wings irritably.
Chad felt his masculinity draining away along with his lust as he forged back across the loud, dark dance floor, set apart from the rhythm. Hopefully Vixen hadn't seen him.
"Okay, maybe the disco scene ain't for you," said Raelle as they drove back to the apartment. "But hey, it was worth a try, right?"
"Right." Chad tried to look cheerful, but. . . another chance, and he had blown it. Was he really so pathetic that he had to pay females to play with him? Would this continue once he got home?
I have six or seven thousand more years to live, but with humans it might not be a hundred. He wrestled with second thoughts about going home as much as he wrestled with the music coming from the apartment below as he tried to sleep that night. Going home would be running away, but he'd had enough.