Free Sex, Secrets and South Beach by Méta Smith Page B

replied.
    "Word?"
    "Chill, and drink lots of water,"
Ginger instructed. "And juice. Drink lots of juice. Any juice with
vitamin C will enhance your roll."
    "My roll?" Desiree asked her
quizzically.
    Ginger rolled her eyes skyward. "Your
high! God, Desiree, sometimes you are so slow!"
    Desiree chugged the contents of the
water bottle and shrugged. She didn't know what all the hype was
about–she didn't feel anything different–but fifteen minutes later
she began to feel a little light-headed.
    "Look at me." Ginger held Desiree's
head and stared at her.
    "Yeah, you feelin' it. Your pupils are
dilated." Ginger laughed as Desiree smiled blankly at her. Her eyes
looked especially catlike.
    "I love you, Ginny. You're my best
friend. You're like a sister to me, and I love you so much!"
Desiree grinned wildly. Ginger laughed at her.
    "Do you hear that?"
    "What? 'Big Pimpin''?" Ginger shrugged
her shoulders and began to dance to Jay-Z.
    "The music sounds funny. Damn, you're
dancing in slow motion!" Desiree pointed at her.
    "Why did I give you that pill?" Ginger
shook her head and got them both some juice.
    "I feel like love!" Desiree chanted as
she danced to her own beat. She looked crazy as hell, but she was
cute, so she could get away with looking crazy. Besides, Desiree
was far from the only person in the club who was rolling. There
were dozens of people whose eyes looked like those of a cat,
professing their love to anyone who would listen, grinding their
jaws as the effects of MDMA wreaked havoc on their nervous
systems.
    Desiree felt like every pore in her
body was open and the music was sinking into her, replacing the
blood in her veins. The bass was controlling her heart, the lights
controlling her eyes; Desiree was a slave to the rhythm. She
thought she felt cool air blowing through a vent in the ceiling,
sending a chill through her body, but everywhere she moved, she
swore she felt the breeze, as if it were following her.
    "I'm cold. I'm going to the bathroom,"
Desiree sang as she ground her teeth.
    "Mmm 'kay." Ginger smiled at her. She
was deep in conversation about nothing with an equally high man at
the bar.
    "Like I was saying, really, who
decided that green means go and red means stop?" Desiree heard
Ginger telling him. "Green is the color of money. Money makes the
world go round. Red is the color of blood. Blood makes the body go
around. Do you realize the whole conspiracy in all of
that?"
    Desiree went to the bathroom thinking
about blood. She could barely stand straight as she crouched over
the toilet seat. Even though she was high as hell, she wasn't high
enough to put her ass on a public toilet seat. All kinds of shit
went on in the bathroom. She could hear the muffled voices of
others, but it all sounded like gibberish. She flushed the toilet
and straightened her clothes, then placed her ear near the crack in
the stall door cautiously.
    "Y'all can't fade me! Y'all can't even
fade me! I'm covered in the blood of the lamb! Rebuke and yield all
of you demons!" Desiree yelled at the patrons as she burst out of
the stall. Most of them said nothing; they just looked at her
knowingly. Their stares irritated her.
    "I see your souls, people. You need to
repent the evil of your ways. Jesus is corning back for us, can't
you understand that? He still loves us!" Desiree looked pleadingly
at the women in the restroom. Most of them were laughing now. But a
few people nodded in agreement.
    "She might be high or drunk or
whatever, but she ain't said anything that wasn't true. Just
because I'm in the club don't mean I don't love the Lord," Desiree
heard a girl say.
    "Thank you! Praise his name!" Desiree
clapped her hands together and danced around like she was possessed
with the Holy Ghost.
    "You're up in here on a Sunday,
though," her friend teased her.
    "Rebuke and yield. Smite thy tongue.
It is Monday now. The cock has crowed on a new day, nonbeliever."
Desiree looked into the ceiling, arms akimbo.
    "Just say no," the bathroom