Texas Hold'em

by Wild Cards Trust

  With that, the line pressed forward and they didn’t get to ask anything further. Bacho thought, Rips and shredding are the usual sort of stuff? But, again, he held his tongue. She was probably joking with them. Nobody in the crowd seemed the least bit menacing.

  A second girl met them at yet another door. She handed Bacho an iPad, seemingly assuming he knew what to do with it. He didn’t. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Terms and conditions. Type your name and sign.”

  “He’s read them before,” Dina said. She flicked the screen until the text scrolled up and only the signature square was on display. As efficiently as if she worked here, she typed in his name and said to Bacho, “Sign. Use your finger.”

  He did, though he was thinking more about Dina’s arm brushing against his—and the fact that she’d known his last name—than about what he was signing.

  “What’s it say?” Darryl asked, when the tablet came to him.

  Dina pushed him playfully on the shoulder. “It says, ‘I hereby confirm that I’m not a complete Monti.’ Okay?”

  “But he is a complete Monti,” Jax said. He punched Darryl’s other shoulder with enough force that it looked like it hurt.

  As they stepped through a haze of pink smoke the music went silent, just for a second, and then it came back, one throbbing electronic beat, slowly mingling with what sounded like quivering tambourines. It almost seemed like the music was acknowledging their entry, coaxing them in, letting them take in the scene. The dance hall opened up before them like a large subterranean cavern. Bacho couldn’t believe the dimensions of the place. So much bigger than it looked like from the outside, with a maze of dance floors on different levels, some elevated, some sunk into a lower level. The DJ booth at the center stood like a squat tower from a medieval castle. Strobe lights blinked and twirled from the ceiling. The place was packed. Some people danced, but in a subdued, swaying way. Most seemed to be waiting, just hanging out.

  A tall guy with a tray of plastic water bottles hanging from his neck stopped in front of the group. He handed them each a bottle, saying, “Hydrate. Hydrate. Hydrate.”

  Jax sucked on the little straw protruding from the top of his, and then scowled. “It’s water.”

  “Best stuff in the world,” the guy said.

  “How about something stronger?”

  Smiling, the guy said, “You must be a first timer. Don’t worry, there’s no need for inebriation here, my friend. DJ Tod will take care of all your needs.”

  When he moved on, Bacho pointed to the DJ booth and asked, “Is that DJ Tod?”

  Dina laughed. “Nah, that’s just some warm-up. He’ll be on soon, though. He’s in the building. I can feel him. Can’t you?” She didn’t wait for answer. “Come on. Let’s get a space on the dance floor.”

  She grabbed Antonia’s tentacled hand and began weaving through the crowd.

  Bacho started to follow, but Jax said, “Hey, forget them. We should do our own thing. There are plenty of other girls here. Like her.” He thrust his chin toward a pretty blond girl not far from them. “Bet I could nail her.”

  “But Dina brought us here in the first place,” Bacho said. “We can’t just—”

  “She brought us to a place that serves water!” Jax said. “I can’t believe she had to go and drop the sherry. And bringing her joker cousin … It’s like she’s enjoying messing with us.”

  “Yeah,” Darryl said.

  “Let’s dump them,” Jax said. “It’ll serve them right. Bet we hook up in no time. They certainly won’t. Not with tentacle-girl there. Think about it. Dina’s related to her. I wouldn’t even touch that now that I know. I vomit a little just thinking about it. But anyway, we’re here. Let’s at least get some action. Come on.”

  Jax began walking in the blond girl’s direction, Darryl just behind him. This time, it was Bacho’s turn not to move. Noticing, Jax swung around, smirking. “What?”

  Bacho stood there for a moment. He knew what. The thought had come to him fully formed, a sentence that summed it up. He heard the words, and realized he was even up for saying them. So he did. “You guys are jerks.” He turned and walked away. Jax called after him, but Bacho’s eyes found Dina and the sight of her pulled him through the crowd.

  When he reached her and Antonia, Dina smiled. “Hey.” She let the word and the smile sit for a moment. Then asked, “Where are your pals?”

  “You know, I don’t really care,” Bacho responded.

  “They didn’t leave, did they?”

  “No, they’re here.” He dipped his head to the side and admitted, embarrassed for and by them, “They’re trying to score.”

  “I wish them good luck with that.” She stared at him for a moment. “You’re really not much like them, are you?”

  Bacho shrugged. “I guess not.”

  “Good to know.” Again, her eyes studied him, her mind clearly thinking through something. “There’s something that maybe I should—”

  A voice replaced the music, cutting her off. The DJ. He thanked the crowd for letting him spin for them, but admitted he knew they weren’t here for him. “So, without further delay, let’s get to why you’re really here. With pleasure, I hand you over to the one and only, DJ Tod. Feel the love, people. Feel the love!”

  Judging by the rapturous response from the clubbers, they did.

  “It’s time,” Dina said, leaning in close and shouting. “Bacho, are you okay with surprises?”

  “Sure.”

  She exchanged a glance with Antonia and said, dryly, “Good to know.”

  Dina clapped her hands excitedly. “Look, there he is!”

  For a moment Bacho couldn’t make out anyone specifically in the throng and with the flashing strobes and the careening beams of light. Standing on his tiptoes, he noticed people in the crowd reaching to touch someone moving through them. He couldn’t see him clearly, but the adoration of the masses around him seemed fervently religious, as if he was Jesus about to hand out loaves or something. He climbed into the DJ booth and, above the crowd now, Bacho could see him. He was a tall guy, wearing what seemed to be a white lab coat and black gloves. That was strange enough, but to top it off he wore a metal mask that covered his face. He held up one arm, leaned close to his mic, and waited for the commotion to die down. When it did, he released the intro, a slow eerie tune played on some sort of wavering flute. It started low and he spoke over it. He said, calmly, “Welcome to the Drop City Experience. Love is a transformative force in the world. Tonight, I hope you all feel the love and are reborn through it.” He paused a moment, and then added, “Oh, and I also hope you dance.”

  DJ Tod caught the word “dance” and looped it instantly into the sound system. The word became a rapid-fire repetition, starting low and rising, rising, rising in pitch until it boomed into a long, trembling command. An explosion of rapid techno beats cut in and, just like that, the crowd went wild. The club became a churning mass of writhing, jumping, undulating bodies. Bacho couldn’t have stopped himself from dancing if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to. It was as if the music suddenly controlled his body and standing still would’ve been impossible. He bounced on his toes, thrashed with his arms, twisted his torso. He just moved. The more he did so, the more exhilarated he felt.

  Dina was dancing like crazy, all of her running and bouncing, her head bobbing side to side, hair snapping. She pumped her water bottle in the air. She was gorgeous. She was all in. She was the music, and, watching, so was Bacho. When she met his eyes, smiling, he leaned in and shouted, “This is awesome!”

  “Just wait,” she said.

  “For what?” he asked.

  The music cut suddenly, dropping into an entirely different tune, with different strings of music and pulses, all of them instantly addictive. Instead of answering, Dina fell back into full-on dancing. Bacho did too. In no time at all he was sweat-covered, breathing hard. But it didn’t matter; he didn’t want to stop. For a while there was only music, dance, measu
red by the additions of new riffs, hooks that came and went. Samples from song after song, vocal hooks that layered over each other.

  “It’s starting!” Dina exclaimed. She shouted the same to Antonia, and then turned to Bacho. Unexpectedly, she grabbed him and kissed him. Pulling away, she pointed at the DJ booth. “Just watch.”

  DJ Tod worked within a strange light show. A ring of shimmering yellow brilliance surrounded him. Neat trick, Bacho thought. Inside it, he was a whirlwind of intense motion. His body swayed as he worked. His hands flew about, shoulders bouncing. He was a mad scientist of crazy beats. That’s not all he was, though. Still dancing, Bacho watched the glowing ring coalesce around DJ Tod’s head and start to climb. How are they doing that? It became a peak of light that slowly rose above his head. Watching it, Bacho realized that it vibrated with the same rising intensity of the pulse in the music. It was climbing, energy building, getting faster, containing a staccato tension that was too much. The cone of light was as high as the ceiling. Bacho felt like he was going to erupt.

  Then, when it couldn’t possibly go any higher, all the tension in the music exploded, an auditory bomb as the beat dropped. The cone of light fell. It collapsed onto DJ Tod’s head and shot out in a radiating ring from there. It surged through the crowd like a blast shock wave. It hit Bacho with a physical euphoria that took his breath away. It was so intense he closed his eyes, head thrown back, his whole body in an ecstatic spasm. He flushed as warm and rich as molten gold. He’d never, ever, felt anything nearly as good. It was emotional also, like being possessed by a physical embodiment of rapturous love. He stood, trembling, gasping, stunned. The beat emerged again as throbbing bass, fast and furious. That brought him back. It was impossible not to want to dance to it.

  Bacho opened his eyes, and he froze, gaping. He beheld a scene that seemed ripped from some medieval vision of Hell. All around him, a heaving mass of demons writhed. Right in front of him, a girl with scaled crimson skin and tiny black horns pumped her arms in the air. A man brushed him on the left, a monstrosity with a smiling face of massive teeth and a pointed jaw. The entire crowd had been transformed. Each of them different, but all their own version of a demon from the depths of a deranged nightmare, all of them dancing like this was biggest party Hell had ever thrown.

  Bacho turned toward his left, where Dina and Antonia had been. They weren’t there. Only some demon girls were. They thrashed like all the others. One of them noticed him looking at her. Her skin was a glistening orange. Her overlarge eyes tilted up at the outside edges, between them a twisted, elongated hook of a nose. Her mouth, when she opened it, was crowded with pointed brown teeth. She was horrific. Only …

  She leapt on him, arms around his neck. She shouted in his ear, “Isn’t it beautiful?” Her voice was Dina’s voice. When she pulled back, face near his, he saw her … Dina. Behind the demon features it was her.

  “Dina?”

  She squeezed him again. “I knew you’d make a great joker.” She reached around and grabbed something. Bacho felt her hand on him, but he didn’t know what part of him it was until she said, “Nice tail.”

  As soon as she said it, he felt it. He swung his tail around and stared at the fleshy point of it. “Wait … What am I? What do I look like?”

  She shook her head, her eyes soft and sympathetic on him. “It doesn’t matter. Now feel the love, and dance!”

  As if responding to her, the beat shifted into a higher gear. She spun away and resumed her dance. Antonia was just as wild. She was a gaunt, elongated version of herself, with spots on her flaky-looking skin. Instead of tentacles, her hands matched her body, long, bony fingers that she pulsed in the air to the beat. So weird, Bacho thought. She was a monster, and yet all he had to do was look at her to recognize her. And, stranger still, though he knew they were all monstrosities, he didn’t feel any revulsion. He’d been shocked, but not revolted. He looked at his hands. Rough-skinned, pocked, with jagged black curls for fingernails. He loved them. They were his. Weird. Part of him knew that he should have a million questions, that he should rush out of here and get help, that his whole existence might just’ve changed forever, that this might be the single greatest horror of life. All that he knew, but the part of him that knew it seemed a small, distant, boring voice. He decided not to listen. Instead he said, “Fuck it,” and did as he’d been instructed. He danced like he’d never danced before.

  The music was building again, a low pounding of drums with a pulse darting through it like swirling electronic flies. It rose and rose again. Soon, the halo of light formed around DJ Tod’s head and then climbed into that cone shape. This time, when the beat dropped, Bacho was ready for it. It hit him again with that same euphoric impact, but he kept his eyes open and watched the moment of transformation. The bodies around him morphed in a strange, staccato motion, lit by the strobes and in time with the release of tension in the music. Bacho watched his hands go scaly and green. His arms thinned and he felt plates forming across his back and chest. His feet burst through his sneakers, leaving them tattered as his size thirteen lizard feet stomped them into the dance floor. His thighs, bulky with muscles, strained against his jeans. He glimpsed reptilian forms all around him, each of them different, but all of them sharing in the change. They were all beautiful to him. Every single bizarre, scaly inch of them seemed exactly right.

  Dina flicked a thin ribbon of tongue from her mouth and tickled the end of his snout with it. Is she into me? he wondered. I think she’s into me.

  And then another song. Another drop. Another change. It happened again and again. Each time was just as euphoric, no matter that each time they morphed into different joker forms. Every one was as bizarre and horrible and gorgeous and perfect as the one before. They sprouted tiny wings from their shoulders. They emerged covered in thick hair from head to toe. One time they all had loose flesh that hung from their bones like melting rubber. It was, perhaps, the most hideous change, but in the moment the sensation of flesh flapping as they danced was wonderful. Another time they all ended up with thin, frail bodies and enormous, bony, Afro-shaped bulges around their heads. They tottered more than danced, barely able to support the weight, hysterical until the next drop changed them all again. And again.

  Once the change didn’t distort their basic forms at all, but instead turned the sweat that drenched all of them into a sweet, sticky syrup. Dina said, “Hey honeyface,” and swiped a fingertip of the gook from Bacho’s chin and popped it in her mouth. “Yum.”

  Had anything ever been sexier?

  She’s definitely maybe into me, Bacho thought. Hoped. Prayed.

  And danced.

  What must have been a couple hours in, he caught sight of Jax and Darryl. “Look,” he said, pointing at them for Dina and Antonia. Somehow, the two had gotten themselves up onto one of the raised platforms. They had all just emerged from the drop with bodies that seemed virtually boneless, held upright by sinewy, serpentine muscle. Darryl started popping and locking, and Jax followed suit. In no time the entire place was waving undulating arms about with more fluidity than any nat break-dancer could ever dream of. Clearly, Jax and Darryl were feeling the love.

  A little later, in a canine, werewolf-like body, Bacho felt a strange sensation. It came from inside him, the feeling that he had an infinite cavern that stretched beneath him, inside of him, yes, but also unfathomably deep. And from those depths, something climbed. He felt claws moving up the walls of his insides. It felt quite different from the magic DJ Tod was working, but still, he welcomed it. The crawling thing climbed the vertebrae of his spine, using his ribs like ladders. It squeezed through his throat and out his mouth. He raised his snout to the ceiling and released it. A howl of joy. Others joined him, their cries mixing with the music. Bacho had never heard anything more wonderful. He didn’t want any of it to ever stop.

  Bacho, Dina, and Antonia stumbled out into the cool of the night, propelled by the flood of jokers leaving the club. It was strange leaving the temple of
sound and sensation and motion behind. Bacho would’ve stayed on forever, but all things had to come to an end at some point, as DJ Tod himself said as he signed off.

  The world expanded around them, the air cool and fresh. Bacho sucked it in, his body hungry for it as if he needed to make up for the hours of constant motion. “Oh my God I’m exhausted,” he said. “My legs feel like rubber.”

  “Well, you are a bit flabby,” Antonia said.

  They all laughed. Yeah, they were flabby all right. The last drop—before the music faded, DJ Tod said his goodbyes and waded through the adoring crowd—had left them all short and pudgy, with skin that had the texture of lumpy cottage cheese. They had wide, swinish snouts instead of noses. Bacho’s shirt clung tightly to his chunky torso. His legs, stubby as they were, wouldn’t have fit into his trousers. No matter, he’d replaced them with a pair of shorts from the clothes bank. He would have had to anyway, as his tail from the first change had made an embarrassingly noticeable rip in the seat of his pants.

  “DJ Tod … that guy is epic,” Bacho said.

  “You bet he is.” Dina slipped her hand into his. Before he could get too excited about that, she grabbed Antonia’s as well. “Come on. We should head back.”

  As they moved away from the club, Bacho felt some of the euphoria slip away from him. With each breath of the fresh air his head cleared a bit. The pulsing ecstasy of the club faded. With it, a realization dawned on him. He looked down at his lumpy body, at the stubby fingers of his free hand. “But wait … I’m a…”

  Jax finished the thought for him. “Joker!”

  He and Darryl shoved through the jokers on the sidewalk, eyes on Dina. They both looked comically furious. Jax carried most of his body weight in the jiggling fat of his thighs and ass. He waddled more than ran, and clearly couldn’t move as quickly as he wanted to. For some reason, he had a checkered necktie wrapped around his forehead like a bandanna. Darryl walked on thinner legs than normal, the length of them on display beneath a rather short miniskirt. Above that, his bulky upper body strained to bust out of a short halter top.