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Tara Jones fiddles with the neckline of her dress, smiles politely at the guy who has been making desperate small talk with her for the last ten minutes and then dumps her drink the second he looks away.
She’d wanted a rum and coke. He’d brought her a Pornstar Martini – poured from a can with a wink.
She shudders.
As far as uni parties go, it’s a pretty good one – weirdo first year students aside – and it’s not like she’s not having fun.
She’s just a little fed up of grinning and pretending that this is the kind of fun she wants to be having: that she’s in any way interested in the seemingly endless nights of trying to impress guys and, when they turn out to be disappointing, get blackout drunk. Every time, it ends with Tara comforting a friend while thanking her lucky stars she’s never been interested in all that crap.
As they all got ready earlier in the evening, her flatmates had squealed and gasped at her dress: a high-necked, floor length, skin-tight sparkly number that has been hanging up in her wardrobe for months now. Depending on the lighting, the colour shifts from purple to blue, and it makes Tara feel like something magical. But, it’s too fancy for the clubs, not fancy enough for the black-tie wedding her mum is dragging her to over the Easter holidays. If anything, it’s ludicrously out of place at a house party. Delphie, Tara’s most vocal housemate, has already warned her that the guys will find it off putting – too much statement and not enough cleavage, apparently. For some reason, she’s struggling to come up with an explanation as to why that doesn’t bother her at all.
She pours herself the rum and coke she’d been waiting for and steps delicately out of the kitchen.
Someone has got a hold of whatever phone is running the collective playlist, because the music has switched from a noughties party mix to some sort of bass heavy synth that pounds in her ears. It’s the first party she’s been to since she started uni where there’s been more than a shoestring budget – hosted by some rugby lout with more money than sense – and they’ve installed strobe lighting and a smoke machine in the main room that makes the whole place feel more like a club than some shitty student house.
It’s also giving her a slight headache.
Fortunately, this place is also massive and there’s a second communal room that the host – Henry or Harry or Harvey or something – loudly declared was for anyone who fancies getting down and dirty. A statement that, collectively, the entire party seemed to find so creepy that barely anyone has ventured there. Tara spots Delphie in the lap of some guy she’s been squealing about for weeks on her way past and picks her way towards the hallway.
A few people stop her for a chat – she should be head of the student union, one of her flatmates has repeatedly told her – but eventually she finds a bit of quiet.
The sofa she flops down on creaks when she lands. It sounds like a human humming, which is strange.
Stranger still, the noise continues even when Tara is settled against the cushions. She glances over to the corner of the room.
A mop of blonde hair is sticking out from behind the arm of the sofa, its owner gently bopping to some internal tune as they busy themselves with something. This particular head of hair is styled into what Tara believes is still called a mullet, and frames a pair of ears with multiple piercings that catch the light whenever the person moves. Tara clears her throat gently.
“What are you doing?”
The head freezes, before popping up and staring at her.
“Having fun,” they reply simply, before standing up and hopping over the arm of the chair to sit next to Tara. for some reason, they’re holding a laminator.
“With… a laminator?”
“Yes, with a laminator. Nice dress, by the way. Makes you look like a mermaid.”
Tara blinks at them blankly. She can’t quite place their face. It’s a good face – one that she knows she would have remembered if she’d seen it before – and their smile makes Tara feel fluttery. Maybe it’s the feeling of being seen , for once.
She fucking does look like a mermaid and more people should appreciate it.
Still, she has questions.
“ Why did you bring a laminator to a party?”
Her new friend rolls their eyes and holds up a collection of tiny laminated doodles. They seem to consist entirely of various genitalia.
“You see the fishtank on the way in?”
“Yeah…”
“How long do you think it’ll take Harry to notice a penis poking out of the substrate?”
“That’s… quite a long game to play to piss a guy off…”
They shrug.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to cause a bit of chaos. Sometimes you’ve got to make sure you’re well clear before anyone can throw the blame your way. But Harry is a prick, so any amount of pissing him off is worth it.”
“So… you brought a massive piece of office equipment purely to fuck with the fish tank of a guy you don’t like?”
“No, I also laminated one of his rugby posters and put the head in a jar of pickles. Don’t panic if you open the fridge.”
Tara lets out a laugh that she knows sounds ugly, but she truly doesn’t care. That, in itself, is a freeing thought. She leans in closer to her new friend.
“You really don’t care what people think of you, do you?”
How refreshing, Tara thinks, when they tip their head back and laugh as if she’s told a good joke.
“Fuck no!”
Tara feels the unfamiliar, fizzy feeling when they pace a hand either side of their hips and scoot close enough to touch.
“What’s your name?”
“Tara.”
“Hi Tara, I’m Darcy. Wanna cause some chaos?”