Cygen

Nathan sighed,
picking at his third slice of birthday cake. The music was loud and
celebratory, the people-including Iris- were happily mingling. And here he was,
the excuse for this party, getting quickly drunk on moderately expensive
champagne and feeling terribly sorry for himself again. He should probably just
leave before he spoiled the party for everyone else… well, no, not everyone.
Most of them wouldn’t even notice, but Iris certainly would, eventually, and
then she’d feel obligated to try and cheer him up at his own birthday party, and
it would stop her from having the fun she most definitely deserved. He had
absolutely no right to spoil all her efforts with a foul mood…

“Figured
you’d end up like this,” a familiar voice said behind him, a warm arm situating
itself across his shoulders.

“Yeah.
But no reason you shouldn’t enjoy the party,” he replied, half-heartedly, as
Iris began to walk, herding him somewhere.

“You
know I can’t let you mope while this goes on. Come on, Micky’s
isn’t your place. Works for PR, but you’ve got that set. Party doesn’t need you
anymore, half these people won’t even know you’re gone. Look, there’s some
paparazzi! Make with the conspiracy as we scoot away. There’s gonna be more
headline about our scandalous romance in the tabloids tomorrow.”

Nathan
had to smile at her unfailing ‘fuck you’ attitude toward his fame; he cast a
furtive glance over his shoulder, pretended to look surprised at the flash, and
followed her down the hall.

“So
you’re suggesting?”

“You
know you want to go slumming,” she replied, laughter coloring her voice.

“Do
I now?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Uh-huh.
Not my place, either. Downtown. Piss Street and all that good shit. Hell, I’ll
even pay.”

Nathan
laughed at that, allowed Iris to cleverly lead him out through a side door
without bothering to gather their coats… she’d probably come back for them, or
have someone else do it. He could afford to lose his, but hers was one he’d
bought her, and probably the only ballroom-worthy coat she owned.

An
hour’s time, complete with a quick stop at their respective apartments to
change clothes, saw them wandering down Coppington
Street, better known to the locals as Piss Street.
Iris drew a long drag on a clove-sweet cigarette, one of her habits that Nathan
had never particularly approved of and yet couldn’t vilify her for.

“Devil's
Dirty Nightmare?” she asked between breaths.

“Why
not?” he replied, feeling a smile tugging at the edge of his lips. She was
baiting him again, wondering just how far into the darkness his rich-boy sensibilities
would let him stray. It was a game they’d been at since they were in grade
school. His parents had been very adamant about sending him to an 'attainable'
school, not the best they could afford… for PR, because they ‘believed in the
system’…and they’d been not-so-secretly regretting it since. Nathan’s parents
had tried to enforce an end to Iris’s slow corruption of their son hundreds of
times…just as they’d tried to encourage friendships of ‘better quality’ via
summer camps and extracurricular tedium… and maybe that’s what made it so
deliciously addictive. It got him the heady rush of gaining their attention for
a moment or two. It was one of the few things he’d found that had been worth
worrying Jaquenetta over.

They
walked, having switched Nathan’s car for Iris’ back at her apartment. Bringing
a car like Nate’s down to this end of the city was
like leaving an untagged platinum card on the sidewalk and hoping nobody picked
it up. The sidewalk seemed gritty under his boots, the air lusciously diverse…
polluted. Different from the filtered and pristine air uptown. It smelled like
smoke and booze and cheap sex here. He rushed headlong into the darkness, eager
to escape the charade his life had become and all too aware that in a few dozen
hours he’d have to go slinking back to it in his three piece suit.