“Uh-huh.” Lauren nipped at the cleavage being offered to her, her hands still planted firmly on the back of the banquette.

“Yay, make it rain Hotpants!” Kenzi licked random crumbs from her fingers and reached for the bottle on ice. The hostess assigned to take care of them stopped her arm. The hostess, also in leather shorts and a mask, swirled soda and vodka over ice and handed it to Kenzi.

“You know, it’s a weird thing to say, maybe, but I could get used to this.”

“How so?” The song ended. Lauren dropped a few bills into the clear, handled box all the dancers carried with them, and the girl hopped off her lap and back onto the floor. Her lap now empty, she focused on Kenzi.

“Good food and top shelf booze. A personal bartender for me. Non-bookish things for you,” Kenzi’s eyes shined as they roamed the room, “You cool it on dragging me to see old bones and paintings. Feels like a win win.”

Lauren dropped her chin, smiling. She approached their situation like an anthropologist observing animals in the wild only this time, she did more than catalog her findings—she joined the herd. Lauren dipped her nose into the watering hole and gladly, licking and savoring every drop.

“Enough naked for you?” Kenzi asked.

“Mmm.”

”You know that everyone in here looks a little…”

”Eager?”

Kenzi popped a fat green olive into her mouth and smacked her lips in response to its saltiness. ”I was going to say familiar.”

Lauren felt no need for debate. She knew what she was there for. To pin the label of familiar meant to acknowledge the presence of a value or a meaning and the last thing that appealed to her, outside of Kenzi, were attachments of any kind. She told herself that definitions were like fences, separating here from there, then and now—she longed for a fluid life, to be like water and to spread and ebb on its own power, to disappear even, into droplets of nothing if it came to that.

Lauren eyed a tiny and toned girl and smiled at her to come over. As she neared, Lauren leaned into her ear and spoke a few words in Spanish. The girl nodded and within seconds topped Kenzi’s lap.