Poisonous

“Let’s go to a club tonight,” Ville suggested to the group later on that night. Bam was calmed down from the earlier scuffle and now Ville thought would be the best time to suggest the thought. It was after nine, anyhow, and most clubs in the area started opening soon if they hadn’t already.

“Which one?” Jenn asked him, her eyes looking like they were already hazed over from intoxication.

“Rumor?”

“Why are you wanting to go there?” Bam asked Ville with confusion. “Why do you want to go to a club, period? Why not just hang out here?” Ville knocked back the last of his beer before turning to the cooler in the room to grab another.

“Just feel like going, that’s all,” he simply put with a shrug. “I think it’ll be fun. We can see girls, get drunk and call Jenn to pick us up. That way we’ll be safe, smart drunks.”

Jenn scoffed beside Bam on the black leather couch, her side cuddled into Bam’s. “If I’m going to pick you up, I’ll be there the whole time. Someone needs to make sure the girls stay away from Bam.” Bam growled lowly underneath his breath, while taking a sip of his beer. She didn’t seem to notice but Ville knew the underlying reason. Jenn didn’t trust Bam, and she had good reason not to, but she wasn’t so innocent either.

“If you don’t want to come, I can go alone,” Ville said to the group, “I just assumed you would like to go.”

“Of course I do,” Bam told him, pushing Jenn off his side and standing up. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t really want to go,” Jenn said, pouting to Bam. She hoped it would sway him into staying but she thought wrong. Bam was neutral when it came to Jenn lately. He didn’t have many feelings left for her as it was, and just kept her around so he would have something to stick it in. There was one day, though when she meant the world to him but her crazy was starting to show through, he thought.

“It’s a club,” Bam said, looking at her as if she grew an extra head. “Chicks love clubs. They dance and they get drunk and do white girl things.”

“I just don’t want to go. Stay with me.” Bam looked between his fiancé and his friend. Ville shrugged. It wasn’t his choice.

“I’m going,” he told her. “You can stay if you don’t want to go, that’s your choice.”

“Are you serious right now?” Bam nodded as if it were common knowledge. “Fuck you, don’t call me later when you can’t drive yourself home,” she said while angrily standing up, and stomping out of the room.

“For crying out loud, it’s like she’s six-fucking-teen,” Bam said with wide eyes. “And she’s older than me!”

“Maybe she just wanted to fuck?” Linde asked with a laugh.

“I don’t know, man,” Bam said, dismissing him. “Do you guys want to go?” he asked the remaining members of HIM.

Earlier that night, Sophie was getting ready for work, and she put a lot of effort into not looking like herself, though not by her wishes. Her employers liked her to look a certain way, so she would be more relatable to the crowd to draw them in, not push them out. This required her to put on makeup and do something with her hair, even if that makeup was messy eyeliner, it was something. On the positive side, it made her feel like she was acting out of the box for her performances. Sophie could create a persona, and she could be someone other than herself.

Every night she could be a different person. Some nights she would create a back story for herself even if she didn’t share it with anyone. Tonight, she would be a rock star, one that people loved and envied.

Truth was Sophie was pretty self conscious about herself, which was a huge part of the reason Bam was able to affect her and anger her the way he was able to. She has wished that her mother hadn’t passed when she was young so that she could learn to be more feminine; she wished guys would actually want to date her instead of wanting to be just friends, or in Bam’s case, enemies.

Some things were hard to change though, and she knew that. It was hard to change a person. She knew Bam couldn’t be changed, it was best to avoid him on days she didn’t feel like being yelled at or hated on.

She took a drag of her cigarette and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Foundation was absent; she couldn’t put that on at all. Black rings smudged around her eyes and red lipstick was sloppily placed on her plump lips. Her faded black jeans were probably a size too small, and a stud belt was needed to keep them sliding down from the strain of her ass trying to bust out. Holes were fraying at the knees, and a red plaid patch was glued on between her thighs. The top she wore was nothing more than a tight black vest that revealed a portion of her stomach; she decided to skip a bra. The vest is tight enough, she thought.

Sophie took another drag, eyeing herself, and ruffled her hair. “I need new pants,” she said to herself. With the last puff of her smoke, she put combat boots on and left her apartment. She decided it was the best she could do, and left things at that.

She drove as quick as usual to the club and parked in the employee section. She was an hour early but she would need all of that time to set her stand up. Sophie walked to the back entrance.

“What’s up, baby?” a large black man by the name of James said. Sophie smiled upon seeing him, and patted him on the arm. She was a regular DJ at this particular club and made friends with most of the staff.

“Hey, man,” she said in response.

“You got a smoke?” he asked. She nodded and pulled her pack from her pocket, taking two out. One for each. “How’s your day been?”

Sophie lit her cigarette and passed the lighter over. “Been shit,” she said with a laugh.

“Who’s giving you a hard time?”

“Same shit head,” she told him with a laugh.

“Bam Margera?” Sophie nodded. It wasn’t that she spoke of the people in her life very often that James the bodyguard knew her troubles with him, it was Bam’s reputation around town and the circle of people the two knew. This meant it didn’t take much for anyone to put two and two together. “Man, that dude needs to knock that immature shit off. Want me to kick his ass out if he tries coming here?”

Sophie chuckled and shook her head ‘no’. “There’s no way he’d be coming here. But I do have a friend coming; he may be bringing some others. If you recognize or hear Ville Valo, let him straight in.”

“Yes Ma’am,” James said, putting his cigarette out. Sophie did the same thing, and walked inside.

Bam pulled his purple Lamborghini straight up to the front of the club. It didn’t take the two long to get out of the low car, and the first person he saw, Bam handed them his keys. “I see one scratch on that car and your ass is mine, understood?” he told the man at the VIP booth. Feverishly shaking his head ‘yes’, the man took the keys and slowly pulled away from the curb after handing Bam a ticket. Ville walked alongside his friend up to the large black man, who stood a good five inches above Ville. He was bald, wore a black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. America… Ville thought. “Bam Margera,” he told the large man, who stayed quiet.

Bam shifted around on his feet, not liking being ignored. The line was long, a lot of good looking girls, he noticed, and the music was to his liking. Bam spotted a poster that read “Punk Night!” “Hey!” he said to the man, “Don’t ignore me!”

James looked down at Bam, pushed the sunglasses down the bridge of this nose and back up again. “No entry,” he said without pause.

“No entry?” Bam laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Look, here’s a hundred,” he spoke, taking his wallet out of his back pocket.

James took the money into his own pocket. “No entry,” he said again.

“Are you shitting me?” Bam’s anger was starting to boil.

“I don’t want trouble,” James said, “and you cause trouble.”

“Bull fucking shit, you have any idea who I am?! What kind of business I could fucking bring this place?!”

James looked down the line of people. “Looks like we ain’t got no problem with that.”

“Ville Valo?” James stopped, looking like he was arguing with himself. He visibly sighed, and let Bam Margera and Ville Valo past the rope. “Thank you,” he said.

“What the fuck was that?” Bam questioned. “You’ve never been here before!”

“I called ahead,” Ville lied. If Bam knew about Sophie working here tonight, he knew Bam wouldn’t take a second thought before leaving, and Ville just wanted a night out, to drink something other than beer.

“Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” Bam laughed.

The two found a table after walking through the mass bodies of people and quickly called over a waitress.

“We’re going to open a tab,” Bam told her.

Ville ordered a jack and coke while Bam ordered a Jagermeister. It didn’t take Ville long to find Sophie, only because he knew she was the DJ. She looked nothing like herself and it took him by surprise. Sophie never wore tight clothing or makeup, but she looked completely comfortable in her setting. She danced to the music and it looked like she was in her own zone. Ville lit a cigarette and offered Bam one as well who accepted the offer.

Bam leaned back in the seat and scanned the dance floor. His main objective was to drink too much, because ‘Fuck Jenn,’ as he had told Ville on the way to the club. Bam looked at his friend, and followed his gaze to the DJ stand.

“She’s got a nice ass,” Bam told him, loudly enough to be heard over the music. Ville stared at him for a second, processing what he said before laughing.

Ville looked to Sophie and knew why Bam hadn’t recognized her, and was glad that he actually hadn’t. The drinks came and both men quickly took theirs to begin drinking them quickly.

“You should go talk to her,” Bam said.

“Well, I’m not interested,” Ville said matter of factly, “and even if I were, she’s busy.”

“She won’t be busy here all night,” Bam said with a laugh. “Fine, I call dibs then. She’s pretty hot.”

Ville busted out laughing, and when he stopped, nodded his head. “Go for it, I won’t tell Jenn.”

“Like she would’ve found out anyway. I’m so close to dropping her, bro, it ain’t even funny.”

“Yes, she has become rather…”

“Psycho,” Bam finished for him. “Yeah, no shit.”

The two amassed a bar tab totaling close to 500 dollars by the end of the night. They were stumbling around the near empty club, trying to find the exit. Sophie was too busy to see Ville, let alone know that he brought Bam with him. She surveyed the club, seeing the usual, people too drunk to walk out. The bartenders were supposed to keep that from happening but some people were really good about hiding it.

Then out of the corner of her eye right before she was about to leave she saw Ville, and with Ville, she saw Ville helping Bam. “Oh you’ve got to be shitting me,” she said. Both men were hanging on to each other, clearly drunk. She tried to turn away, to leave before either of them saw her but when she hear Ville’s voice, she knew she wouldn’t make it.

“Hey! Friend!” She froze. She was tired, and all she wanted to do was go home and crash with a bag of Doritos. But she couldn’t deny a drunk Ville so she turned around and waited for them to come to her. “She is my friend,” Ville told Bam.

“That’s the girl who I said had a nice ass!” Bam blurted out. Sophie felt a flutter but it was quickly replaced with confusion, replaced by clarity. Bam didn’t recognize her. He surely wouldn’t have complimented her had he realized who she was, and for some reason that bothered her. She would rather him compliment her knowing who she was, when she looked like herself, rather than this phony version of herself.

“Yes,” Ville said. “Sophie does have a great ass in those pants.”

“Hi, Sophie, I’m Bam Margera,” he said. The dumbass who can’t see clearly, she thought.

“Are you serious right now?” she asked Ville. “You brought Bam?”

“Sorry,” he said, holding back a laugh, “I needed a ride but my ride is now too drunk to drive, so can I… we… get a ride?”

Sophie grunted in disapproval, rolled her eyes and finally nodded.