Cheryl had lived her whole life in Orchard Creek, and she was bored.
She was fed up with the sameness, the endless routine, the very fact that the people around her never seemed to want anything beyond their simple predictable existence. Nothing ever changed in Orchard Creek, and she hated it.
Orchard Creek had one bus stop, and an interstate bus that passed through it every three hours during the day, every six hours during the night. Cheryl had never ridden the bus past the next town, which was called Blue Bell and only slightly larger than Orchard Creek, but she did know that it eventually ended up in New York City. Not that she had ever been. To most people in Orchard Creek, New York City it was a vast wasteland of bohemian decadence. To Cheryl, it represented an escape from the stultifying prudery of small-town life.
She wasn't a virgin, no; her one act of sexual rebellion had occurred with Johnny Shaw, in his parents' car after a movie date. The whole episode had been messy for her and anticlimactic for him, and ultimately disappointing for both. The two of them had avoided eye contact with each other ever since. That was just one more thing that helped to convince her that real excitement lay far outside the boundaries of Orchard Creek.
Afternoons after school Cheryl would go to the library to use their public access computer. Her parents wouldn't allow her to get her own computer, not with the sort of filth on the internet one was constantly hearing about on the news. She, on the other hand, loved the internet, and the way it allowed her to escape the confines of her small-town upbringing. Online she could be a lot more worldly, often recounting fantasies as if they'd been actual experiences. She even had a special pen pal. His name was Lee, a twenty-year-old student of some sort who seemed to spend most of his time attending raves. Lee was the most interesting person she had ever met, and when he told her in his latest e-mail that he would be riding the interstate bus on his way to a rave in New York City, she eagerly accepted his invitation to come along.
***
Cheryl stood at the bus stop, shifting her weight from one foot to another. In preparation for her night out she'd gone through her entire closet before deciding on a sleeveless khaki blouse, jean shorts, and platform sandals. She didn't know what to do with her hair so she'd finally left it alone. Trying to make herself look as little like a small-town girl as possible, she'd put on heavy makeup, then wiped it off again. Finally she opted instead for a simple metallic lipstick that she knew looked good against her tanned skin.
As the bus pulled into view, she shifted again. She hadn't told anyone where she was going. She'd never ridden the bus on her own before, and here she was, preparing to make a trip to a strange city with a boy she'd never met in person. Well, she wanted adventure. Perhaps she'd fit in so well over there that she'd never come back. That would certainly show the folks back in Orchard Creek.
"Ticket to New York City, please." As she paid the driver she scanned the rows of seats. She didn't have the first clue as to what Lee might look like. The only person who looked age-appropriate was a young Asian man slouched in the back row of seats. Cheryl eyed him with fascination. The only Asians she had ever seen in person were the middle-aged couple who owned the only Chinese restaurant in Orchard Creek. This stranger was small and slim, barely taller than she was, with almond shaped eyes and golden skin. He was wearing a black t-shirt and faded jeans. Engineer boots. A small gold hoop dangled from his eyebrow. To Cheryl he was exotic, beautiful, and - in the context of a place like Orchard Creek - about as alien as a visitor from another planet.
She slid in next to him. "Are you Lee?"
He gave her a sly smile. "I could be."
"I'm Cheryl." She settled down next to him. "Do I look all right?"
"You look fine. You've never been to a rave before, have you?"
"Course I have." She felt like an idiot. He had to know she was lying. "Just, you know, not in the city."
Lee shrugged. "Whatever." He settled back in the bus seat and closed his eyes. "Better rest up then. It's going to be a long night."
At least he wasn't going to argue with her. Feeling too nervous and excited to sleep, she leaned back in her seat and stared out the window at the changing scenery. The sky turned orange, then red, and gradually went dark.
Soon they were pulling into a noisy, chaotic bus station. Cheryl didn't think she had seen this many people before in all her life. There must have been more people in this station than in all of Orchard Creek.
Lee took her hand. "Come on," he said, "this way. You ever get lost, just ask anyone for the Port Authority Bust Terminal." Cheryl nodded, barely able to hear him.
They threaded their way through a network of sidewalks and alleys, finally arriving at what looked like an old-fashioned theater building. Lee reached into his back pocket and pulled out two wrinkled pieces of yellow paper. "Invitations," he explained as the bouncer waved them in the door.
The pulsing beat of techno music assaulted Cheryl's ears as soon as she walked inside. The large room was alive with dancing people, many sporting glow-in-the dark batons or necklaces. The stroboscopic black light played surreal patterns across their bodies, making them appear to be jerking like marionettes. The far end of the room was dominated by a stage, the curtains open to display a large armchair.
"What's that?" she asked Lee.
"Just wait, you'll see," he shouted back over the music. Somebody passed him a pair of small blue pills. He popped one immediately and offered the other to Cheryl. When she shook her head no, he shrugged and swallowed that one as well.
The driving beat of the music was infectious, and before long Cheryl had got over her nervousness and was really quite enjoying herself. Lee was an energetic dancer, fluid and graceful in his movements. He surprised her by resting his arms on her shoulders and kissed her, a slow, deep, sensuous kiss that took her breath away. Cheryl looked around and noticed that people all around her were doing the same things, hugging, kissing, and touching.
A girl in a strapless mini-dress had climbed up on the stage and was dancing around the chair doing a striptease. With her back to the crowd, she hiked up her skirt and flashed the crack of her ass out to her audience. She wasn't wearing any panties. She straddled the arm of the chair and began rubbing her crotch back and forth against it as her arms reached around to pull her dress up over her head. She wore nothing underneath.
The room was growing hotter from the close press of dancing bodies. Everybody in the crowd had started shedding their clothes. Lee was dancing shirtless now, his lean hairless chest shining like burnished gold. Cheryl found herself dancing between two tall, statuesque women. One of them was a dark-skinned African-American, the other a pale Nordic looking blonde. They looked like twins, or more appropriately, like photographic negatives of each other. Both of them wore extremely short miniskirts and halter tops.
The striptease artist had finished humping the arm of the chair, and now sat in the middle of the seat with her legs hooked over the armrest. Her juicy pink pussy was completely open to all, and Cheryl found herself staring at it, transfixed. She couldn't remember ever seeing a woman's genitalia exposed like that before. It certainly didn't match any of the pictures they used in sex education classes.
The girl put her hand between her legs and spread open her labia. Then her other hand started massaging her clitoris, which was already pink and swollen in its fold of skin. She slipped one finger into her waiting orifice, then two. Her hips started a slow circular motion and her fingers pushed in and out, in time with the rhythm of the music.