SwissBanker
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2005
- Messages
- 85
Last trip report from me for a bit, mostly because I have now caught you all up to the most recent fun (as this was just a pair of weekends ago).
As more occurs I will share it with "the group."
Excited by the prospects created by our discovery of some absolutely wonderful E in Amsterdam, (See: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186144&r=21 ), the Girlfriend and I were anxious to "share the love" with some locals in Zurich. Our victim for the evening was Aren, a mid 20 something Swiss guy going to University near Zurich. Aren was a pretty typical Swiss German. Highly conservative, reserved and usually quite quiet. Like a skittish horse he was fairly easy to spook by just dropping a political comment with a bit of an edge on it. Just a well placed, "You know, I think the death penalty would do some good around here," and you could watch the blood drain from his face. Despite this, Aren was pretty cool. He came from a rather wealthy family, the son of a designer and a doctor, but quite enjoyed hitting the trendier dance clubs in Zurich until 6am. This was, however, a secret vice of his. A study in conflict, like Switzerland itself really.
What I do love about the Swiss, particularly those who hail from near Zurich, is their tendency to want to live vicariously through the adventures of others. Switzerland is quite isolated from the rest of the world. Unless you fire up CNN.com you will be blessedly free of the latest news on the Michael Jackson case, the potential capture of the BTK strangler or more Prince Charles nonsense. But this breeds an interesting feature in the Swiss. They need to be shocked, to have something to talk about amongst themselves. Something more exciting than the latest snow reports.
I remember one pair of Swiss students who lived in my building and who, one day, got a 26 year old American roommate from Michigan named Michelle. Their entire day was filled with discussion about her (rather mild) antics. Did I know she stayed out until 1:30 am last night? Did I see all the wine bottles in the recycling bin? When I explained that I knew this girl and that in fact I was at the same bar with her they grew silent and scalded me with long, envious stares. Just for fun I threw in, "she has three boyfriends, you know... including an ITALIAN!" The one looked at another "that NOISE last night!" They both turned red and changed the subject quickly. Not surprisingly, however, I caught them talking about her again in the hall on my way back in not 20 minutes later.
Apparently, I am not the only one to appreciate the potential of the Swiss need for shock value. Michelle, for instance, told me of her new game in the apartment. She had hung a bra to dry on the heated towel rack. Just by coincidence it had managed to fall on top of one of her roommates towels. The next morning she observed a path of wet footsteps to his room from the bathroom. He had avoided using his own towel so that he would not disturb Michelle's undergarments. Finding this amusing she left the bra there for four days. On the fifth day a brand new towel appeared and found itself carefully folded at the other end of the bathroom.
"Imagine the power," Michelle quipped. "I can pretty much bar them from any area of the house just by being sloppy. I think I'm going to try underwear next. Maybe that lacy, red pair I got in Chicago..." Come to think of it, I haven't seen either of her roommates for quite awhile now....
All of this is a long way of saying that the Swiss are easily shocked and offended, but secretly... they love it.
Having previously targeted the poor unsuspecting Aren, the Girlfriend and I laid plans. Like small dogs, say Dachshunds, you cannot chase the Swiss. They will just run the other way. You have to express disinterest and insist that something is not for them. This will immediately draw them like moths to the flame. We invited Aren, who aspires to work with my banking firm, over for Friday night dinner. A quiet affair amongst friends, I called it. Quite a flattering invitation for him, a "modest" student, enough so that I was certain he would accept. He did indeed and as the evening wound to a close I announced, "Well. We are headed into Zurich later. You are welcome to take the train with us if you wish."
"Zurich? So late?" It was 10:30 pm on a Friday.
I acted embarrassed, "Well, yes. We are going to... *ahem*... go out." As if on que, the girlfriend looked down at her feet with a shy, coy smile and slid one toe back and forth across the floor. An Oscar winning performance. Aren was immediately intrigued.
"Where could you ever be going at such an hour," he asked, looking at his Vacheron for the third time in as many minutes.
"Well," I explained, "this place... It is not for you, I think." Aren grew even more interested.
"How do you know? What do you mean?"
"You see... No really. You must trust me," I reeled in the line slowly, careful not to lose the big catch.
"That is absurd!" he protested.
"You see, Aren, darling," the Girlfriend began. I made a faux effort to interrupt.
"Honey, no..." But she continued.
"There are, well, a lot of drugs in this place." Aren's mouth narrowed to a small "O."
"Ohhhhh. I see." We were all quiet for awhile.
"Does anyone want more coffee?" The girlfriend asked.
Before leaving the Girlfriend and I sneak to the bathroom in turns to preload on Vit C and 5-HTP. I pocket a few for Aren, just in case.
Of course, Aren availed himself of the company on the train ride. We avoided the topic of our destination, but I could see the need to ask for more details literally burning into Aren's brain on the entire train trip. Aren's stop was before ours and as it approached we bid him goodnight.
He paused and then said, "I must see this place, I think." The Girlfriend and I exchanged quick looks and then she sunk the hook.
"Aren, I'm not sure that is a good idea."
"That is ridiculous. I will see this place for myself. It cannot be as bad as you claim." This is an old Swiss standby. It's not that they want to look at the porn, its that they want to see if it is really as naughty as described on the cover of the box. It's purely an academic exercise, you see. Looking for false advertising claims to file against the Dutch.
Aren's stop on the train slides by. He was committed now.
Zurich reportedly has more clubs per capita than any other city in Europe. There are technically no club closing hours anymore, at least not for the so called "underground" clubs. Accordingly, when we saunter into our club of choice (selected for the rather raw music scene, a blend of progressive house, trance and vocal trance that I have found wonderful for E and particular to Zurich) at around quarter to midnight. Expectedly, things are quiet.
"This? This is nothing," Aren protests. I smile and buy three beers.
The flood begins about half after midnight. Before long the place, which is not entirely that large, is near packed. Restrooms in these kinds of clubs are decidedly co-ed and Aren looks mortified after his first trip. The Girlfriend and I smile to each other. By 1 something the music has worked its way up to where it should be and even Aren is affected. After our first two beers I start buying waters for the Girlfriend and myself, preferring to keep hydrated. Aren notices after the second such round.
"You're not drinking?" I look at him in silence.
"Well, no, Aren," the Girlfriend says. "We are going to do... something else." Aren gets quiet again. The Girlfriend saunters off to dance and immediately attracts three or four admirers. I watch with a smile. Aren watches me with a frown.
"She dances with other men?" Aren is getting that offended Swiss look. Ready to start puffing in literally over boiling offense at any minute.
"Yes...?" I say.
"You allow this?"
"Aren, she isn't going to go home with them, she is going to go home with me. Why should I care if she has fun? The night is for her too, not just me." Seeing our pointing and Aren's expression, I am certain that I notice the Girlfriend rubbing a bit more aggressively on her random dance partners than usual, surely for Aren's benefit. It works. Aren is in full outraged mode. It is, of course, mostly an act. Aren cannot go to the clubs he goes to at the hours he does and not see cocaine, and married women dancing with strange ringless men. When the Girlfriend returns, I drop the bomb. We slide into a dark corner, Aren following, afraid perhaps to be too separated from his lifeline to sanity. I pull out a little red baggie that I have put 6 of our pure, Red E tablets into and pull out one for the Girlfriend and one for me. I pop mine quickly, she takes hers with more deliberate grace. Aren gets a full screen view.
"What is that? What did you take? Are those drugs?" He gasps loudly. The Girlfriend smiles at Aren and leads him off to the side by the hand for a private chat. I only catch the beginning of it as she is pulling him to the corner and pouring on the charm.
"Aren. Not so loud, dear. We don't want to share with the whole club, now do we?" They talk alone for about 10 minutes. The E leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that I can't seem to wash out even with half a liter of water. I am sitting on a sort of diaz. The club is shaped like a trading pit with the dance floor in the middle and a series of flanking platforms around it with a bar at one end. Aren and the Girlfriend come back and Aren seems calmed. We drink some more water and generally take it easy, waiting for the effects to begin. The Girlfriend is pointing out people she thinks might be on E for Aren. "See her eyes? She how she is nuzzling that guy? See the pure joy in her expression?" I look too. By god, I think she's actually right! This goes on for quite some time and Aren gets quite an E education. Right as I start to feel the love creeping in Aren taps me on the shoulder. "Do you have any left?" I smile.
"Why?"
"I would like to try it." Now look what we've gone and done. He was such a nice Swiss boy too. I take one out, break it in half.
"Do half now. Take these first and wait about 20 minutes before taking the half." I give him 2 5-HTP pills and a pair of C tablets. I know he won't wait an hour but I figure it will help some. By now the love has started to take me along for the ride. Just then the Girlfriend walks up and gives me a big kiss. Her eyes are big black orbs now. "Yummy," she exclaims. Aren watches intently, then pops the pills all at once with an determined look on his face.
There is "That Moment"(tm) on E, when it has just begun to come up and all the possibilities of the evening open before you. What can be. What will present itself. How wonderful you will feel. The realization of how absolutely magnificent life is at that moment and that there may indeed be other moments just like it in future. It is all coming. It is all before you. I am alone. Aren and the Girlfriend are perhaps 15 paces away. It seems like a mile in a loud and crowded club. Suddenly, "That Moment"(tm) hits me, and a big smile crosses my face just as the first hints of a wonderful (and heretofore unheard) mix of Motorcycle's "As the Rush Comes" drifts with blissful grace from the club speakers, across the floor to caress my temples with hints of its breathy vocals before it slips intrusively into my ears like third date sex with the girl of your dreams. The moment you've just been waiting for. And then waiting for three more dates before getting there. The anticipation is so built up that even poor sex would be an astounding experience and yet here is pure bliss, crystal clear and perfectly timed.
I hadn't heard "As the Rush Comes" in quite awhile, and didn't really expect to hear it in a club again, much less what appeared to be an ORIGINAL remix by a local Zurich DJ in a club far more attuned to progressive house, and hard techno. When it trickled on, just barely hidden behind the beat of the last song, my spirits soared. Could it be? Would it be? No, how can it be? It is! I was instantly taken back to the many pointless and destinationless road trips the Girlfriend and I had taken over the many years. "Traveling somewhere, could be anywhere. There's a coldness in the air... but I don't care." Coming up on E to this song was too good to be true and an experience that could never be eclipsed or repeated... or could it? For just as that "never again will I be so happy" conviction laid itself heavily on my temporal lobes... it got better. I am reminded of that old beer commercial... "it doesn't get any better than this..." say a bunch of guys hanging out for a backyard, poolside Bar-B-Q with a particular beer can gracing all their hands, but then the Swedish Bikini team arrives, and it most certainly did get better. I realize this slowly. My brain, overloaded with bliss already is dull and lethargic to catch onto the hints that quickly approach. It knows somehow, someway that the danger is near. The hints of melody are blurred so expertly by our DJ that all I can muster is a slowly rising sense of deja vu. The echoes of "As the Rush Comes" begin to fade and morph into something entirely different. And then, with a quick cut, right between wonderful phrases it is there. Tonight, my Swedish bikini team is Leama's "Requiem for a Dream," remixed by DJ Tiesto.
I nearly blow up. Tears are threatening in my eyes. I fight them back at first, not wanting to be teary eyed in front of Aren but then I just don't care. He is a friend of the highest order. I have nothing to hide from him or anyone else. I have a thing for vocal trance, or whatever you want to call the genre of that song. In the same way that the movie from which it is taken had such an impact on me. The melody haunts me. Takes me up and to a place I thought I had lost forever. I am soaring, nearly too close to the sun. I fear my wings will melt, but how can I care? Oh! Beautiful bliss. How can I have thought to have ever known thee before? I cannot tell you how long this went on. I just don't know. Certainly, for the rest of the song and perhaps into several others.
I may have mentioned before that my sense of smell seems to get highly acute on E. With my eyes closed against the haunting melodies, absorbing all that my senses can without distraction, I am certain that I smell blood somewhere, suddenly. I open my eyes and as if by magic the Girlfriend shows up from some corner of the club somewhere with a cut on her finger. Blood runs down her hand and into her sleeve. It's a small cut, but has decided to bleed quite a bit. A jagged corner of some pillar somewhere near the dance floor is the culprit. She offers the wounded digit up to my mouth, urging the entire finger between my lips. I am struck with the sudden taste of salt. Her essence. The very blood from her veins. I wonder if Aren has seen and suddenly I am certain that he has. This entire experience strikes me as beyond intimate. I am immediately aroused in that particularly intense "E" way. I repress it, fearful I might pull her into a corner and rip off all her clothes, heedless of the public, but quite certain that she would let me. Instead, a quick wash with bottled water and a wrap with some tissue and all is fixed. She is so happy that I've helped her that she plants a huge, lustful kiss on my mouth (can she taste her own blood?) and hugs me for almost ten minutes straight. Towards the end I glance at Aren. The telltale pupils. The lazy grin that I have never before seen on his face. Aren is flying. Good for Aren.
Suddenly, I feel mischievous. "Go give Aren a big kiss," I tell the Girlfriend. She gets an evil look in her eye, glides over to him and plants a similarly lusty kiss on a surprised Aren's mouth. He almost recoils, sees me watching him and is bathed in horror before almost freaking out. He spends the next 15 minutes apologizing to me frantically. I can't help but smile and in the midst of one of his pleadings for forgiveness I tell the Girlfriend out loud so Aren can hear "Hey, hon. Aren needs another kiss." She proceeds to plant another humdinger right on his lips without so much as a "by your leave." Aren is close to blowing up himself.
"What are you doing!?" He protests, pushing away.
"What?" She asks innocently. "I need to see what the story is with Swiss guys. I keep hearing that they can really kiss."
"Really?" Aren looks stunned and flattered.
"Yeah."
"Uh, ok." Aren stammers. Not one to resist an invitation the Girlfriend pretty much removes Aren's tongue from his mouth with hers. I smile, amused.
Aren remains somewhat stressed out about this for going on an hour and I feel like I'm wrecking his buzz. The Girlfriend is leaning against a base cube by the wall. I walk over and lean back against her, straddling her right knee. Aren wanders over at some point, lit up like a prison yard during a midnight jailbreak. I grab him, haul him over next to me by his left shoulder with my left hand and pull him back against the Girlfriend so he is straddling her left knee. The two of us are leaning on her in what approaches a Cuddle Puddle. Suddenly, Aren stiffens.
"Hey! She grabbed my ass!" I laugh.
"Well FUCK ME RUNNING WITH A ROLLING CHOCOLATE FROSTED DOUGHNUT HOLE," I scream. Then I stare at Aren, who looks ready to hide in a tiny corner anywhere that will conceal him. I laugh. "Aren. RE-LAX." I give him a big hug from across the Girlfriend, and finally he does. He's slipping into the warm hottub of E now and it won't be long until he tosses off the suit. He doesn't even seem to mind the ass grabbing anymore.
We continue our mixed Cuddle Puddle until the Girlfriend spots a cute redhead on the dance floor and goes to dance with her. Aren and I just suck in the eye candy for what seems like half an hour. The intensity of the club is WAY up at this point and what was a wonderfully mellow E experiment turns into a fantastically energized mood. The music has left trance/vocal behind and shifted back to the more traditional progressive and hard techno. Classic Zurich underground. Strange original mixes of Future Sound of London, Infected Mushroom, Benny Benassi. The dance floor beckons and I am one with the beat. I return, thirsty and sweaty, to our base cube some time later, it must be 5 or 6 am by then and find Aren and the redhead the Girlfriend found in the deepest, most passionate kiss I've seen in awhile. I look at the Girlfriend in shocked silence. She shrugs. "He needed a playmate," she quips. "Do we have any E left for her?"
"But of course!" I say, mocking the Grey Poupon commercial. I pass two red beans to the Girlfriend who slips them to Aren. He's a hero now with the hot redhead (Alicia Witt?), I have no doubt.
45 minutes later the redhead and Aren vanish together, never to be seen or heard from again. I have no idea where they went off to and I haven't talked to Aren since. I did, however, see his name on an interview list for my firm recently. He is graduating in May. I think I'll put in a good word.
As more occurs I will share it with "the group."
Excited by the prospects created by our discovery of some absolutely wonderful E in Amsterdam, (See: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186144&r=21 ), the Girlfriend and I were anxious to "share the love" with some locals in Zurich. Our victim for the evening was Aren, a mid 20 something Swiss guy going to University near Zurich. Aren was a pretty typical Swiss German. Highly conservative, reserved and usually quite quiet. Like a skittish horse he was fairly easy to spook by just dropping a political comment with a bit of an edge on it. Just a well placed, "You know, I think the death penalty would do some good around here," and you could watch the blood drain from his face. Despite this, Aren was pretty cool. He came from a rather wealthy family, the son of a designer and a doctor, but quite enjoyed hitting the trendier dance clubs in Zurich until 6am. This was, however, a secret vice of his. A study in conflict, like Switzerland itself really.
What I do love about the Swiss, particularly those who hail from near Zurich, is their tendency to want to live vicariously through the adventures of others. Switzerland is quite isolated from the rest of the world. Unless you fire up CNN.com you will be blessedly free of the latest news on the Michael Jackson case, the potential capture of the BTK strangler or more Prince Charles nonsense. But this breeds an interesting feature in the Swiss. They need to be shocked, to have something to talk about amongst themselves. Something more exciting than the latest snow reports.
I remember one pair of Swiss students who lived in my building and who, one day, got a 26 year old American roommate from Michigan named Michelle. Their entire day was filled with discussion about her (rather mild) antics. Did I know she stayed out until 1:30 am last night? Did I see all the wine bottles in the recycling bin? When I explained that I knew this girl and that in fact I was at the same bar with her they grew silent and scalded me with long, envious stares. Just for fun I threw in, "she has three boyfriends, you know... including an ITALIAN!" The one looked at another "that NOISE last night!" They both turned red and changed the subject quickly. Not surprisingly, however, I caught them talking about her again in the hall on my way back in not 20 minutes later.
Apparently, I am not the only one to appreciate the potential of the Swiss need for shock value. Michelle, for instance, told me of her new game in the apartment. She had hung a bra to dry on the heated towel rack. Just by coincidence it had managed to fall on top of one of her roommates towels. The next morning she observed a path of wet footsteps to his room from the bathroom. He had avoided using his own towel so that he would not disturb Michelle's undergarments. Finding this amusing she left the bra there for four days. On the fifth day a brand new towel appeared and found itself carefully folded at the other end of the bathroom.
"Imagine the power," Michelle quipped. "I can pretty much bar them from any area of the house just by being sloppy. I think I'm going to try underwear next. Maybe that lacy, red pair I got in Chicago..." Come to think of it, I haven't seen either of her roommates for quite awhile now....
All of this is a long way of saying that the Swiss are easily shocked and offended, but secretly... they love it.
Having previously targeted the poor unsuspecting Aren, the Girlfriend and I laid plans. Like small dogs, say Dachshunds, you cannot chase the Swiss. They will just run the other way. You have to express disinterest and insist that something is not for them. This will immediately draw them like moths to the flame. We invited Aren, who aspires to work with my banking firm, over for Friday night dinner. A quiet affair amongst friends, I called it. Quite a flattering invitation for him, a "modest" student, enough so that I was certain he would accept. He did indeed and as the evening wound to a close I announced, "Well. We are headed into Zurich later. You are welcome to take the train with us if you wish."
"Zurich? So late?" It was 10:30 pm on a Friday.
I acted embarrassed, "Well, yes. We are going to... *ahem*... go out." As if on que, the girlfriend looked down at her feet with a shy, coy smile and slid one toe back and forth across the floor. An Oscar winning performance. Aren was immediately intrigued.
"Where could you ever be going at such an hour," he asked, looking at his Vacheron for the third time in as many minutes.
"Well," I explained, "this place... It is not for you, I think." Aren grew even more interested.
"How do you know? What do you mean?"
"You see... No really. You must trust me," I reeled in the line slowly, careful not to lose the big catch.
"That is absurd!" he protested.
"You see, Aren, darling," the Girlfriend began. I made a faux effort to interrupt.
"Honey, no..." But she continued.
"There are, well, a lot of drugs in this place." Aren's mouth narrowed to a small "O."
"Ohhhhh. I see." We were all quiet for awhile.
"Does anyone want more coffee?" The girlfriend asked.
Before leaving the Girlfriend and I sneak to the bathroom in turns to preload on Vit C and 5-HTP. I pocket a few for Aren, just in case.
Of course, Aren availed himself of the company on the train ride. We avoided the topic of our destination, but I could see the need to ask for more details literally burning into Aren's brain on the entire train trip. Aren's stop was before ours and as it approached we bid him goodnight.
He paused and then said, "I must see this place, I think." The Girlfriend and I exchanged quick looks and then she sunk the hook.
"Aren, I'm not sure that is a good idea."
"That is ridiculous. I will see this place for myself. It cannot be as bad as you claim." This is an old Swiss standby. It's not that they want to look at the porn, its that they want to see if it is really as naughty as described on the cover of the box. It's purely an academic exercise, you see. Looking for false advertising claims to file against the Dutch.
Aren's stop on the train slides by. He was committed now.
Zurich reportedly has more clubs per capita than any other city in Europe. There are technically no club closing hours anymore, at least not for the so called "underground" clubs. Accordingly, when we saunter into our club of choice (selected for the rather raw music scene, a blend of progressive house, trance and vocal trance that I have found wonderful for E and particular to Zurich) at around quarter to midnight. Expectedly, things are quiet.
"This? This is nothing," Aren protests. I smile and buy three beers.
The flood begins about half after midnight. Before long the place, which is not entirely that large, is near packed. Restrooms in these kinds of clubs are decidedly co-ed and Aren looks mortified after his first trip. The Girlfriend and I smile to each other. By 1 something the music has worked its way up to where it should be and even Aren is affected. After our first two beers I start buying waters for the Girlfriend and myself, preferring to keep hydrated. Aren notices after the second such round.
"You're not drinking?" I look at him in silence.
"Well, no, Aren," the Girlfriend says. "We are going to do... something else." Aren gets quiet again. The Girlfriend saunters off to dance and immediately attracts three or four admirers. I watch with a smile. Aren watches me with a frown.
"She dances with other men?" Aren is getting that offended Swiss look. Ready to start puffing in literally over boiling offense at any minute.
"Yes...?" I say.
"You allow this?"
"Aren, she isn't going to go home with them, she is going to go home with me. Why should I care if she has fun? The night is for her too, not just me." Seeing our pointing and Aren's expression, I am certain that I notice the Girlfriend rubbing a bit more aggressively on her random dance partners than usual, surely for Aren's benefit. It works. Aren is in full outraged mode. It is, of course, mostly an act. Aren cannot go to the clubs he goes to at the hours he does and not see cocaine, and married women dancing with strange ringless men. When the Girlfriend returns, I drop the bomb. We slide into a dark corner, Aren following, afraid perhaps to be too separated from his lifeline to sanity. I pull out a little red baggie that I have put 6 of our pure, Red E tablets into and pull out one for the Girlfriend and one for me. I pop mine quickly, she takes hers with more deliberate grace. Aren gets a full screen view.
"What is that? What did you take? Are those drugs?" He gasps loudly. The Girlfriend smiles at Aren and leads him off to the side by the hand for a private chat. I only catch the beginning of it as she is pulling him to the corner and pouring on the charm.
"Aren. Not so loud, dear. We don't want to share with the whole club, now do we?" They talk alone for about 10 minutes. The E leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that I can't seem to wash out even with half a liter of water. I am sitting on a sort of diaz. The club is shaped like a trading pit with the dance floor in the middle and a series of flanking platforms around it with a bar at one end. Aren and the Girlfriend come back and Aren seems calmed. We drink some more water and generally take it easy, waiting for the effects to begin. The Girlfriend is pointing out people she thinks might be on E for Aren. "See her eyes? She how she is nuzzling that guy? See the pure joy in her expression?" I look too. By god, I think she's actually right! This goes on for quite some time and Aren gets quite an E education. Right as I start to feel the love creeping in Aren taps me on the shoulder. "Do you have any left?" I smile.
"Why?"
"I would like to try it." Now look what we've gone and done. He was such a nice Swiss boy too. I take one out, break it in half.
"Do half now. Take these first and wait about 20 minutes before taking the half." I give him 2 5-HTP pills and a pair of C tablets. I know he won't wait an hour but I figure it will help some. By now the love has started to take me along for the ride. Just then the Girlfriend walks up and gives me a big kiss. Her eyes are big black orbs now. "Yummy," she exclaims. Aren watches intently, then pops the pills all at once with an determined look on his face.
There is "That Moment"(tm) on E, when it has just begun to come up and all the possibilities of the evening open before you. What can be. What will present itself. How wonderful you will feel. The realization of how absolutely magnificent life is at that moment and that there may indeed be other moments just like it in future. It is all coming. It is all before you. I am alone. Aren and the Girlfriend are perhaps 15 paces away. It seems like a mile in a loud and crowded club. Suddenly, "That Moment"(tm) hits me, and a big smile crosses my face just as the first hints of a wonderful (and heretofore unheard) mix of Motorcycle's "As the Rush Comes" drifts with blissful grace from the club speakers, across the floor to caress my temples with hints of its breathy vocals before it slips intrusively into my ears like third date sex with the girl of your dreams. The moment you've just been waiting for. And then waiting for three more dates before getting there. The anticipation is so built up that even poor sex would be an astounding experience and yet here is pure bliss, crystal clear and perfectly timed.
I hadn't heard "As the Rush Comes" in quite awhile, and didn't really expect to hear it in a club again, much less what appeared to be an ORIGINAL remix by a local Zurich DJ in a club far more attuned to progressive house, and hard techno. When it trickled on, just barely hidden behind the beat of the last song, my spirits soared. Could it be? Would it be? No, how can it be? It is! I was instantly taken back to the many pointless and destinationless road trips the Girlfriend and I had taken over the many years. "Traveling somewhere, could be anywhere. There's a coldness in the air... but I don't care." Coming up on E to this song was too good to be true and an experience that could never be eclipsed or repeated... or could it? For just as that "never again will I be so happy" conviction laid itself heavily on my temporal lobes... it got better. I am reminded of that old beer commercial... "it doesn't get any better than this..." say a bunch of guys hanging out for a backyard, poolside Bar-B-Q with a particular beer can gracing all their hands, but then the Swedish Bikini team arrives, and it most certainly did get better. I realize this slowly. My brain, overloaded with bliss already is dull and lethargic to catch onto the hints that quickly approach. It knows somehow, someway that the danger is near. The hints of melody are blurred so expertly by our DJ that all I can muster is a slowly rising sense of deja vu. The echoes of "As the Rush Comes" begin to fade and morph into something entirely different. And then, with a quick cut, right between wonderful phrases it is there. Tonight, my Swedish bikini team is Leama's "Requiem for a Dream," remixed by DJ Tiesto.
I nearly blow up. Tears are threatening in my eyes. I fight them back at first, not wanting to be teary eyed in front of Aren but then I just don't care. He is a friend of the highest order. I have nothing to hide from him or anyone else. I have a thing for vocal trance, or whatever you want to call the genre of that song. In the same way that the movie from which it is taken had such an impact on me. The melody haunts me. Takes me up and to a place I thought I had lost forever. I am soaring, nearly too close to the sun. I fear my wings will melt, but how can I care? Oh! Beautiful bliss. How can I have thought to have ever known thee before? I cannot tell you how long this went on. I just don't know. Certainly, for the rest of the song and perhaps into several others.
I may have mentioned before that my sense of smell seems to get highly acute on E. With my eyes closed against the haunting melodies, absorbing all that my senses can without distraction, I am certain that I smell blood somewhere, suddenly. I open my eyes and as if by magic the Girlfriend shows up from some corner of the club somewhere with a cut on her finger. Blood runs down her hand and into her sleeve. It's a small cut, but has decided to bleed quite a bit. A jagged corner of some pillar somewhere near the dance floor is the culprit. She offers the wounded digit up to my mouth, urging the entire finger between my lips. I am struck with the sudden taste of salt. Her essence. The very blood from her veins. I wonder if Aren has seen and suddenly I am certain that he has. This entire experience strikes me as beyond intimate. I am immediately aroused in that particularly intense "E" way. I repress it, fearful I might pull her into a corner and rip off all her clothes, heedless of the public, but quite certain that she would let me. Instead, a quick wash with bottled water and a wrap with some tissue and all is fixed. She is so happy that I've helped her that she plants a huge, lustful kiss on my mouth (can she taste her own blood?) and hugs me for almost ten minutes straight. Towards the end I glance at Aren. The telltale pupils. The lazy grin that I have never before seen on his face. Aren is flying. Good for Aren.
Suddenly, I feel mischievous. "Go give Aren a big kiss," I tell the Girlfriend. She gets an evil look in her eye, glides over to him and plants a similarly lusty kiss on a surprised Aren's mouth. He almost recoils, sees me watching him and is bathed in horror before almost freaking out. He spends the next 15 minutes apologizing to me frantically. I can't help but smile and in the midst of one of his pleadings for forgiveness I tell the Girlfriend out loud so Aren can hear "Hey, hon. Aren needs another kiss." She proceeds to plant another humdinger right on his lips without so much as a "by your leave." Aren is close to blowing up himself.
"What are you doing!?" He protests, pushing away.
"What?" She asks innocently. "I need to see what the story is with Swiss guys. I keep hearing that they can really kiss."
"Really?" Aren looks stunned and flattered.
"Yeah."
"Uh, ok." Aren stammers. Not one to resist an invitation the Girlfriend pretty much removes Aren's tongue from his mouth with hers. I smile, amused.
Aren remains somewhat stressed out about this for going on an hour and I feel like I'm wrecking his buzz. The Girlfriend is leaning against a base cube by the wall. I walk over and lean back against her, straddling her right knee. Aren wanders over at some point, lit up like a prison yard during a midnight jailbreak. I grab him, haul him over next to me by his left shoulder with my left hand and pull him back against the Girlfriend so he is straddling her left knee. The two of us are leaning on her in what approaches a Cuddle Puddle. Suddenly, Aren stiffens.
"Hey! She grabbed my ass!" I laugh.
"Well FUCK ME RUNNING WITH A ROLLING CHOCOLATE FROSTED DOUGHNUT HOLE," I scream. Then I stare at Aren, who looks ready to hide in a tiny corner anywhere that will conceal him. I laugh. "Aren. RE-LAX." I give him a big hug from across the Girlfriend, and finally he does. He's slipping into the warm hottub of E now and it won't be long until he tosses off the suit. He doesn't even seem to mind the ass grabbing anymore.
We continue our mixed Cuddle Puddle until the Girlfriend spots a cute redhead on the dance floor and goes to dance with her. Aren and I just suck in the eye candy for what seems like half an hour. The intensity of the club is WAY up at this point and what was a wonderfully mellow E experiment turns into a fantastically energized mood. The music has left trance/vocal behind and shifted back to the more traditional progressive and hard techno. Classic Zurich underground. Strange original mixes of Future Sound of London, Infected Mushroom, Benny Benassi. The dance floor beckons and I am one with the beat. I return, thirsty and sweaty, to our base cube some time later, it must be 5 or 6 am by then and find Aren and the redhead the Girlfriend found in the deepest, most passionate kiss I've seen in awhile. I look at the Girlfriend in shocked silence. She shrugs. "He needed a playmate," she quips. "Do we have any E left for her?"
"But of course!" I say, mocking the Grey Poupon commercial. I pass two red beans to the Girlfriend who slips them to Aren. He's a hero now with the hot redhead (Alicia Witt?), I have no doubt.
45 minutes later the redhead and Aren vanish together, never to be seen or heard from again. I have no idea where they went off to and I haven't talked to Aren since. I did, however, see his name on an interview list for my firm recently. He is graduating in May. I think I'll put in a good word.
