Mikhail looked longingly at Bridget and @_Asia and did his woozily best to understand the two options in front of him. His desires were reinforced with the wants of others, but his consciousness just piled upon itself. The orange behind Bridget’s eyes burned brighter and their teal seemed to plead a deeper kind of importance than Mikhail could understand. @_Asia smiled and tugged on his hand, supplanting her thumb below his; it was a digital relationship that Katya had always refused. But Mikhail absolutely knew that he had to go.

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Mikhail walked down Something’s set of stairs for a final time and pushed real hard to find a bit of conversation that would continue his winning streak. Two beautiful women pranced behind him, and even if he only knew one of their names, something magical was in the air. He promised himself that he’d say anything at all, as long as it didn’t involve dangles.

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Mikhail let the dice roll around in his hand a little bit. With only two chips left, the third die chilled unattended near his shifting wrist.

    “Let’s go, CL Smooth. Center and Left, sucka,” Pastor Shakur said. “I got Pete Rock beats that you wouldn’t even believe! Make them dice rhyme C and L, don’t let me down, Mikhail! They reminisce over you!”

    “It’s about time you took an L,” Wood added. He wore a Louis Vuitton visor that probably only left the design room a few times. “But throw a Right in there too...get scary for me, R.L. Stine or some shit.”

    “If I throw snake-eyes, you guys are going to let me beat up Horry without stepping in, aight?”

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“What the media doesn’t say about the Tupac Shakur Association of Being Dastardly Dapper is that we urge mature men to hunt for a compatible woman, someone he wants to share his years with. We may recommend that she likes giving head, but we don’t mandate it. A man and his woman should have their boo-berry pie and eat it too. We should all be so lucky to find that. The brothers that come in here and know that they want permanent female companionship, we give them guidance on how to be real husbands and fathers that last the test of time. That’s what it’s called, ‘Please Your Wife and Still Love Your Life 101,’ you know what I’m saying? We’re only thinking about adding a second level course, but each new idea means a new URL. You smell me?”

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“Just because you can hear what I’m thinking doesn’t mean you know what I want,” Mikhail said. “I don’t even know what I want, I’m just trying to survive a Friday night.”

    “If survival was truly the case than I’d be talking to you from the foot of your bed or maybe even one of the hospital routes. And yet, you’re thinking about sleep when the night ain’t over,” the cat said. Her eyes were a divisive green and he couldn’t tell where she was looking or even if her eyes were actually crossed. “Strike that. I wouldn’t be in your bedroom. I refuse to step foot on Compton’s Circle. The Brown BTWN makes me nauseous. The smell of that place is worse than a litter box.”

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Mikhail leaned up against the exterior wall of Mr. Sallow’s hallow and changed right in the middle of the #720’s hustle and bustle. It was such a relief to kick off his dripping Converse then peel the once-white, since-blackened socks from his ankles. His jeans had shrunk with the moisture and it was a bitch to get them off his calves, but oh-happy-days once his legs were freely breathing. He used whatever dryness was left in the denim to scrub the shit off his shins and feet. The putrid concoction was caked in the hairs on top of his feet, both left and right.

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Mikhail was wasted and Katya was reacting to it better than she normally would. They were alone in her apartment and she was genuinely patient with his slurring shenanigans, even finding them somewhat charming. She glided through her efficiency unit, picking up unfinished Cups O’Noodles, making a big deal about stacking and then balancing them in one hand. Katya spun and spun, while Mikhail tried hard to hold onto her fleeting moments of grace..

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Mikhail watched Jayson step onto the Brown BTWN and reminisced about feeling the things that result in returning home to a warm lady. The well-washed and sweet-smelling blankets, the entanglement of limbs that occasionally lead to more than just that. Then he remembered that Jayson wasn’t gonna get laid and that Katya was never all that warm. The Brown BTWN’s doors closed and Mikhail walked back out into the #720.

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The entirety of Mikhail’s essence—everything he could muster, body and soul—was focused on the monstrous unblinking eyeball meeting his stare. He just wanted the squid to leave, but it wanted to bob up and down and flash red and white in a continuous ripple across the millions of chromatophores that defined its visible anatomy.

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With an exaggeration of showmanship, Mikhail opened the cast iron door for Saffron and Jayson. They had all scanned their MTA cards, traversed the turnstiles, and were ready to wait for the Brown BTWN’s one-stop express towards the Lil’ Rectangle. The spoils of an exclusive after-hours event were something they eagerly anticipated. Mikhail had his own ideas for what it should include, but they were as skewed, warped, and distorted as Photoshop allowed. The door behind them angrily slammed shut without impediment and with such violence that the creaky latches almost broke in half. Everyone jumped at the forewarning clasp of steel against steel.

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Mikhail didn’t question how Saffron was able to procure a towel when no one else could seem to turn up a stack of napkins, it was the same ability that caused traffic around them to significantly slow. She had removed her boots and jeans, letting her cotton blouse fall to the middle of her thighs as she dried herself off from the lemming-like dive into the pool. Her top managed to flow like a dress in the wind at her legs and cling to every inch of the curves above her waist. It was such a mundane act—using a towel to achieve dryness—but the men and many of the women were rubbernecking like it was one of life’s great wonders. It was something of an artistic miracle, as if Saffron were a master sculptor shaving pieces of clay. There was a precision to the process, like her true shape needed to revealed, and maybe rescued, from its original form. If she didn’t finish quickly however, she was going to cause an accident as people left HD and wandered back into the #720.

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      Rather than try to figure out what the hell just happened, Mikhail stood at the bottom of the steps just outside of HD’s bathroom and looked up at The Internet. It seemed to be moving faster than when he had first arrived. Whatever was making the windows move from URL to URL—be it wind, mouse clicks or atmospheric pressure—was in much more of a hurry than it was in the earlier, simpler times inside the club. He didn’t have much time to deconstruct the events with CGI, but he made sure to wipe the smile from his face, take a deep breath to ensure its continued absence and avoid scratching what was already starting to itch. Mikhail’s friends would be looking for him and so he started looking for them.

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