Surrender to The Crowd

The out-of-control nature of being half dropped and tossed back up was a huge adrenaline thrill. The uninhibited way in which I tried to climb on people to breaking my bones from a fall mixed with the uninhibited way in which people pushed up on me to protect their head from my body, their hands landing anywhere on my body. I could hear the screams of joy from Parker. She relished the uninhibited release.

We were being pushed pretty quickly away from the stage. As soon as there was a little gap between people, we slipped down in between bodies to the floor. For a moment, I was on the dirty, hard floor. I looked at a forest of legs. Parker pulled me up to my feet.

"Did you get your boob grabbed? Did you get your ass squeezed? Did anybody go for your pussy?" she asked me with her eyes wide open from the adrenaline. Her lips were shaking from the adrenaline. She was so excited about the possibility of having been physically violated like a secret, like a dare, like wanting to get caught but needing to be caught rather than giving up. Her excitement was infectious. I could feel the same excitement inside of me. It was a huge thrill. I craved to amp up the thrill to feel more. Feeling the thrill itched an itch that I hadn't known I had.

"We have to hide!" she didn't let me answer. "If the general manager saw us, the security guys can get fired because it's a huge liability risk. If he can't get us as evidence, they get off free."

She pulled me by my hand back into the crowd. We were so small that we couldn't look over the shoulders of the men around us. I guess that gave us camouflage. She kept asking me to boost her up so that she could take a quick peek. Apparently, there was a tall man, the general manager roaming through the crowd looking for us. We kept hiding in crowded spots. I felt like we had our own space because we were so short. It felt exciting to be with Parker. I felt excited to hold her hand and run after her, always sensing the general manager chasing behind us. My heart was pounding so fast. Getting away with a crime was such a thrill.

The next day, I was back in my office. I had a headache. I felt tired. My work looked sloppy. I felt like a nobody. Nobody cared. I wanted to die, but the project manager insisted on me finishing my task first. The office lighting was harsh. There was no daylight. People were decidedly uncool but got all the respect. I had to make my mind focus hard to type the right things in the computer. The errors the program spit back at me were inexplicable. Ron from IT support only rolled his eye at me and told me to read the manual again. The cafeteria salad tasted like shit. My pantyhoses had a run that kept running deeper and deeper down my leg.

I stopped working. I thought about the thrill above the crowd with Parker. I googled crows surfing. I found out that it was a thing of the past because people got dropped and badly injured. I started digging down Reddits to find out if there were any places left over that allowed crowd surfing. That's when I came across Pineapple Bandits. They were an underground hip-hop group with a cult following. You had to stand on the subway platform for the 2 train until the first car would have a dude in a giant pineapple costume. You had to follow the pineapple to the secret location in a basement. They had no security staff at all. Things were known to get wild and raucous.

I texted Parker. She told me to come by her place after work. She lived in a shabby building in Chinatown. A restaurant with a giant yellow sign was on the ground floor. You had to walk into the restaurant to get the the staircase, which was narrow and filthy. The host only spoke Mandarin and babbled something at me. I kept pointing towards where I guess the staircase was. There was a giant aquarium with two gray lobsters who had their claws tied. Boxes of $5 specials with rice and nuclear bright green broccoli were being filled for a waiting delivery guy from Ghana.

Parker opened the door still wearing an old Mickey Mouse t-shirt and a hair mask lathered into hair. Her studio was tiny. Clothes and stuff were all over the floor. I took my shoes off at the door. I tried to shuffle my toes to the ground among the stuff as best as I could before I put my weight down. The wall was full of polaroid shots of barely and completely naked girls smiling at the camera. Their signatures were on the polaroids. They seemed to be girls that Parker had slept with. They seemed happy to have partied with her. Parker seemed to have a definite thing for short blond girls like me, but she had a lot of variety. She also had black and Asian girls. "You can check out my wives," she yelled proudly fixing herself in the bathroom with the door open.

There was no clear bed in her studio. There were some pillows, an expensive plush rug, and an exotic-looking Japanese kimono. She seemed to have sex with her friends somewhere on the floor, rolling between magazines, a Rubik's cube, and a vibrator. The clothes on the floor ran the gamut of a workout bra, sexy shorts, a ski glove, and a skin-tight dress. There was a cute Gucci top next to a cheap Victory Secret thong. Parker seemed to be working hard with flat iron on her hair. I joined her. She was eating chicken wings out of a styrofoam box while working on her hair. There was a dildo stuck to the wall in the shower that was unceremoniously used to hang her body scrub from, simply like a wall hook.

I could feel the tension in the air. She seemed like she had expected that I wanted to get intimate with her when I had texted her. So to deal with her frustration, she was ignoring me and working on her hair. "You know, it's not only guys who get blue balls!" she claimed bitterly. I didn't know what to say. I wanted her to stop being pissy and be as excited as she was last night. I could sense that she was only excited because she was hoping to get with me. Yet I wasn't into the lesbian thing, but I was really into being with her when she was excited. We were sullen.

Only an hour later, something lifted the mood and broke the icy silence. We were sitting on her floor waiting for the time to leave. She suddenly looked at me with a devilish smile. "You know, you can't go crowd surfing like this anymore. It's not your first time anymore," she said with a sly plan on her mind. I wasn't sure what was wrong with my clothes. I was wearing bright orange track pants that were cut super low, hugged my butt hard, and were extremely baggy at the bottom. I had a snug-fitting top. None of these clothes would come off once we went up on hands.

"You are going to be like me," she promised with love and adoration like she found herself in me. "You'll need more thrill each time you do it. I'll fix you!."

She found the Mickey Mouse t-shirt on the floor. She took the scissors to it to cut out the hem around the neck. She put it on me. With the neckline so big, it slipped down my shoulders and got stuck on my boobs. The oversized t-shirt looked sexy because it seemed so sloppy and threatening to fall off me at any moment. She gave me a short skirt to wear with the fabric full of excess folds that risked getting lifted off with a fast spin.

"The time to wear safe clothes is over. You need to feel the risk of the clothes getting moved around and fingers finding their way to forbidden places," her head lowered so that her eyes looked up at me. She looked evil, like she wanted to do me mean and relish it. The little girl started terrifying me. When I protested her, she found a tube of pills on the floor. She placed one in her mouth. She pressed her lips on mine and didn't let go kissing until the pill was in my mouth and I swallowed. I kind of needed release from the headache and string in my stomach. I didn't know what it was, but I felt myself relaxing more and more. Everything became easygoing. I was glad that her joy was back.

She dressed me up like a pop star with the Mickey Mouse t-shirt hanging over me like a dress. The ruffled skirt was almost completely hidden. She put pink high heels on me. I kept thinking as long as my tits show to get attention, everything is okay! She did make sure that Mickey Mouse t-shirt barely hang on the tip of my nipples with plenty of boobs revealed on top. She filled the bottom of my bra with tissues to push more of it up. My mind was kind of hazy at this point like everything happening to me was like a tingle that lulled me. She must have given me anti-anxiety meds.

We walked down the streets to the 2-train subway. The night was dark and rainy but dry at the moment. The subway was empty with commuters having left. A bunch of guys and girls with basketball jerseys stood near us. They were all black. The grim subway with the rusted steel, fallen-off floor paneling, and rats chasing through toxic green puddles waited with us. The third train arriving had a guy with a pineapple costume. The guy was dancing with his fists pumping to the music of a boom box. There was a homeless guy taking up a whole bench, sleeping with his pants having fallen off his bare butt. A cute girl with a giant butt waved us to jump on the train. She had the cheer of a carnival dancer and was wearing the black, green, and yellow colors of the Jamaican national flag.

"Dakota! You have to wake up to join the party!" Parker told me. I wasn't asleep, but the anti-anxiety meds had put me into a quiet daze. She got a little bit of white powder and arranged it on her boob into a pyramid. "Have some of this with your nose!" she encouraged me. I shrugged resigning myself to know doing blow. I put my nose down on her boobs. She pressed my face harder on her soft boob. I inhaled sharply. My alacrity shot up. I suddenly felt bright awake. My fist was pumping to the music. I was jumping while holding onto the subway pole. We were on the way to an underground party, following a pineapple through the city. It felt surreal.

As more pineapple followers boarded the train, the vibe of the crew became evident: very black, very loud, and very colorful. Friends psyched each other up by making wild dancing gestures. Everyone felt like they were on the way to the mecca of the music that they loved. A guy with rasta hair was shaking his head around like he was mad excited. A woman tried to stand with two guys who looked mad thuggish, but she seemed very intent on impressing them. They mostly seemed working class, but mad ready to party. At times, the crew seemed like they were getting mad out of control when certain, familiar to them, lyrics hit the boom box. There was a feeling that among each other, they could be free. And that feeling also made them feel like locking out others. They liked showing their wild side so that unexpecting subway riders would quickly run to get the door of the car behind ours.

Somewhere deep inside of Brookly, the pineapple got off the subway. We followed the subway walked across the platform, climbed up the stairs, and darted into the dark of the sleeping neighborhood. He turned the boom box off and put his fingers over his mouth for us all to be quiet. And the mad out of control crowd on the subway, surprisingly obeyed him carefully in the street. There were guys on BMX bicycles riding ahead of us and back to us, scouting into side streets, and reporting back to the pineapple. We lay quiet, hiding behind five cars for a while. A police car slowly drove past us without seeing us. Apparently, we were trying to get to the party destination without drawing attention.

We walked down another poor, residential street. The door in the building next to us opened. The pineapple waved us to quickly run up the stairs and hurry inside. The excitement of the moment swept Parker and me up. Without checking, we sprinted into the house. We followed the press of the crowd into the basement. All the walls and the ceiling were padded with sound-dampening material, brown, puffy material that seemed to come off rolls. The basement door looked like a boat door with a big swiveling lock. When everyone was inside, all eyes were on the guy turning the swivel closed. I guess they had sound proved the basement to be quiet to the outside. They had patiently waited for the sound proving to be sealed. And then the DJ up front started playing and everybody jumped up and down.

The tunes were fun hip-hop tunes. I felt the groove. Parker waited for the energy to build. We hang back. There was a circle of guys dancing, who psyched each other up to dance harder and harder. They started taking off their shirts. Bodies started glistening with sweat. The anti-anxiety med started wearing off. I started feeling how tired I actually was. The cocaine had burned a lot of my energy. I felt lethargic. I was almost ready to call the whole thing off.

Parker noticed. She pulled me up. She could feel the moment fleeting and wanted it to happen. She pulled me forward to the DJ. The crowd was jumping around. I got bumped by a few chests and elbows. There was a lot of tribal energy. She talked to a couple of guys. They nodded in agreement.

"Remember to hold onto my hand always!" she warned me sternly.

The guys nodded at me to wait for me to nod back. Then they lifted us up into the air, prepped us above their heads, and jettisoned us on top of the crowd. This crowd was very different. I was immediately thrown up, up, and to the side. We were getting tossed around. The arms pushing us up were very strong. Rather than being fleeting, disturbed, and trying to get rid of us, these hands relished throwing us around like human beach balls.

My loose Mickey Mouse t-shirt started flying up and around my body very quickly. Someone pulled off one of my pink heels, seemingly for safety reasons, but the feeling of having a piece of clothing pulled off felt very disarming of my armor. I didn't even try to maintain my modesty with my top and skirt. The bounces up and down and jostles side to side were too intense. I tried to keep my balance somewhat. Over the loud music, I could hear Parker's screams of joy. She seemed to be getting groped from the shrillness of her sound but there was also a good-hearted happy tone to her shrill screams.

I felt a pair of hands around my hips holding me up overhead. The moment of the lion king presenting his cub shot through my hand, like I was being presented. I felt startled. I had never felt any one person taking a direct interest in me. All the passes had been quick, fleeting to get me to move on. This man had intentions for me. He passed me to another strong, brawny man. And he passed me on to another man. We were no longer being tossed by the crowd. We had some men toying with us specifically. Our bodies in their control with no way of influencing them. My other heel got pulled off my foot. I felt a shot of terror. What were they going to do with us?

I felt something soft on my face, covering my eyes. It was warm. I managed to grab it. It was Parker's top. She had lost her top or it was torn off of her. She was still screaming with joy. I could sense that the devil in her had been daring for something like that to happen to her. It's one thing to bare your chest and another to get it torn off of you. She had dared for the latter to happen. I could tell that the hands holding me up also sensed that Parker was more into it. The attention of hands started leaving me and seemed to turn to her. Her screams got louder and more shrill. The screams seemed to egg the guys on harder. They had found a willing woman. I felt the coldness of abandonment.

I let go of her hand. I felt the abandonment of my childhood creeping back up. The way how I had felt neglect from my parents, uncool among the kids, and unworthy about myself. I used to keep those feelings in check. But sometimes, they broke through. I felt unwell deep in my stomach. I was going to let her have all the fun. I was going to quietly walk home by myself. She was going to have the party of her life. But she didn't let go of my hand. Feeling my hand limp, she only held tighter and tighter.

Then she pulled me with her down from the hands. She pulled me to the back of the room. One of her rosy pink boobs was hanging out from her bra. She had a spider web of spit on her right cheek. Her face showed concern for me. She drew close to ask, "What's wrong, Dakota?" and caressed my hair to calm me. I didn't really know. She seemed to know and told me, "it was too much too fast, wasn't it?" I nodded and put myself into her arm so that she could caress and soothe me.

The next day, I went to an AA meeting. My life felt like it was falling apart. I had gotten another bad performance review. The negative thoughts in my head wouldn't stop. "I suck. I suck just so much!" kept going through my head over and over. AA is a strange place. It's supposed to be a place of healing, but I feel best when I get applause and knocking on the table for admitting horrible things. And it makes me embellish the stuff that I do. When I admitted to being so out of control that I had myself fondled by black guys in a basement for cheap kicks, I got such an applause like I had won a gold medal. And I told them how much I liked the idea of losing my top as well and painting myself as depraved got me so much adoration for admitting it. I even got an air pat on the back. In a confused moment during my speaking time, I reflected back on the idea. Somehow being depraved and losing my top started having appeal. I actually started relishing the idea.

AA meetings are such a trip of digging into guilt and shame. I can't help but be turned on by it. Maybe, it's because guilt and shame are feeling bad about what we enjoy. I remembered Parker's little body. She's like a bird with barely any flesh on the bones. Her face almost always shines with enthusiasm and life. She's intoxicating. You want to be with her and follow her. I started crying because I missed her so much. I got more applause and congratulatory whispers. In a weird thing, I think I'm really good at AA meetings.

In a bizarre twist, AA meetings are celebrations of illicit pleasure. This one woman, a chubby middle-aged woman who didn't seem to have much going on admitted to having hit her rock bottom when she allowed three guys to railroad her so that she could get high on alcohol. As much as she labeled, her actions as terrible, her enjoyment and how that was the highlight of her life came through in the feeling vibrating in her voice. "I was so bad that the giant cock slapped me in the face again and again until I swallowed it!" Her eyes quivered and opened as if she were full of awe and enjoyment to have that happen. Then her eyes eagerly stole to look at the table where a coin was lying for her sobriety achievement. She seemed like caught between a rock and a hard place, wanting the coin and also wanting to get dick slapped like that again. Her life seemed so sad and that seemed like so much fun.

After the meeting, I pulled another cup of orange juice from the dispenser and helped myself to a cookie. A gentle hand placed herself on my forearm with the softest and most gentle touch. I felt struck by it like one is struck by how gently snowflakes can float downward. I couldn't help but freeze to feel deeper into the touch instead of politely turn and ask. The owner of the hand seemed to enjoy the lingering touch as well. We stood in quiet communion feeling each other. I knew that she was another Lesbo aiming for me. And I still wasn't into the Lesbian thing, but I also knew that I craved her soul whoever she was. I craved to be close and feel her soul.

"Hey Dakota! I'm Stella. Your story touched me very much. I've missed Heavy Metal concerts very much. Would you want to go with me to Death Knell this weekend to be sober at a concert?" the woman asked from behind me.

Her voice was as gentle as her touch on my forearm. Her tone felt like a caress. There was no tension in her voice. She was so relaxed. I wanted to stay in that space of feeling her voice and her arms. I didn't turn to face her or say a word. I let the memory of her voice resonate through me again and again. She seemed to sense what was going on with me. Her free hand carefully brushed my hair away from my neck so that she could run her fingertips - deliciously cool and smooth skin - in circles up and down my neck.