Peaceful Quiet Lives

Forbidden lovers fall foul of laws in both nations born from the ashes of the Second American Civil War — Part 1, Chapter 6

Continued from Part I: Chapter Five

Part I: Chapter Six

I frown. ‘You’re meeting someone else?’

‘A friend,’ Eve says. ‘She’s taking me to a party. You could come too, if you weren’t so determined to leave.’

I feel a curious mixture of fear and excitement. ‘What kind of party is this?’

‘A party like they used to have before the war. Before the NPAR. A party with alcohol, cigarettes, and other illegal drugs. A party with loud, forbidden music. A party with dancing. A party where people make love…’

My heart speeds up a little. ‘An illegal assembly?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But… you can end up in jail for attending one of those.’

‘I know. Sam, I think there’s no point in life, if it can’t be lived. I’d love you to come with us. The only reason I didn’t ask is because I didn’t think you had the courage… yet.’

‘It’s not about the courage exactly, just… Well, being caught would be… How do you know you can trust these people?’

‘They have as much to lose as I do, if we get caught. Obviously, there’s always a danger, but these events are well planned and well hidden. Do you want to come?’

‘Perhaps I’ll hang around for a bit and meet this friend of yours. Then I’ll decide.’

‘OK.’

We sit for a while, talking about the kinds of music played at these illegal assemblies. I often hear about them in the news, whenever the police manage to locate one. Those found present are arrested, and contraband is always confiscated — drugs, alcohol, forbidden music and so on. These busts always make the news, as the New Puritans like to remind people of just how abhorrent they consider such behaviour. I’ve even written editorials decrying the foolishness of those who attend. The organisers receive very severe sentences in some cases, depending on their previous criminal convictions.

Exactly how these illegal assemblies are arranged and kept secret, I have no idea. But Eve seems to know an awful lot more about them than I do, and her confidence is infectious.

As we debate the relative merits of early 21st Century dance music, I notice a female figure emerge from the shadows nearby, first walking along a path then crossing the lawn in our direction. She is about the same age as Eve, though her hair is shorter. She smiles as she catches sight of me and addresses Eve.

‘So, this is the famous Sam Wright?’

I feel at a loss. ‘Er… hardly famous.’

‘Oh, Eve’s talked about you a lot. I can see the attraction… Awkward, flustered, cute in that repressed British way.’

‘Yes, well much as I’d love to stand here and discuss my prowess as a specimen of a stereotypical Brit…’

‘And of course, the famous British sarcasm,’ Eve put in. ‘Sam, this is Sarah. She’s also a teacher at the school.’

I shake Sarah’s hand. ‘You teachers are a subversive lot.’

‘Why are we subversive? Because we don’t like being told who we can and can’t meet? That we can’t drink booze? Because we don’t like it when we’re told what music we can and can’t listen to, or what books we can and can’t read?’

‘I guess there are lots of people with secretly subversive views, not just teachers,’ I say.

Sarah laughs. ‘Oh, you’re right about teachers. We’re thoroughly subversive. Eve and I do our best to inject common sense and a healthy questioning of authority into our lessons, but of course we have to be careful, or the parents complain.’

‘Perhaps the next generation isn’t as lost as ours,’ Eve says. ‘I guess we’ll find out in twenty years or so.’

‘In the meantime, are you coming to this party or not?’ Sarah asks. ‘Be careful how you answer Sam. I’ve got twenty bucks on the line here.’

‘Did you bet I would come or not?

‘Oh, I’m betting you’ll come. Eve can’t be resisted.’

I turn to Eve. ‘You bet I’d leave?’

‘Well, I want you to come of course, Sam, but I didn’t think you’d have the guts for something like this yet.’

A surge of recklessness overtakes me, and I arrive at what feels like a momentous decision.

‘I’m coming to the party.’

Eve raises an eyebrow. ‘You are?’

‘It’s now a matter of principle. I have to make sure you lose your bet.’

Sarah laughs. ‘I love this guy already.’

‘Jolly good,’ I say. ‘Illegal assembly here we come. Er… which way?’

‘We’re going back to Newton Street,’ Eve says. ‘Just follow my lead.’

‘Do you honestly think they’ll let him in?’ Sarah asks.

‘I’ll vouch for him. Besides, Roger owes me. He won’t want to ruffle my feathers.’

Sarah grins. ‘Looks like you’re in for a hell of a night, Sam Wright. The online editor of Badger News Incorporated attending an illegal assembly. Scandalous as hell.’

Eve leads us across the lawn, out of the park, and back onto 26th Avenue West. The streets are deserted, but I can hear the odd car driving in the distance, and the sound of police sirens. The sheer thrill of breaking the law to such a terrifying degree turns my stomach in knots, but at the same time I feel an incredible rush. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the sheer high of committing such a flagrant act of rebellion.

We cross to Newton Street, and walk along the road in silence for about five minutes. Sarah keeps glancing at me and grinning, as though amused that an outwardly law-abiding citizen would be keeping company with people like them. I don’t see what’s so funny. I’m just as capable of breaking the law as they are.

Presently Eve leads us along a weed-choked path towards a condemned apartment building, on an overgrown patch of ground. The building looms black and silent above us, with boarded up windows. Warnings against trespassing have been placed here and there, and as we reach the smashed in doors that had once been the entrance, our feet crunch over broken glass.

‘The party is here?’ I ask.

‘Keep quiet,’ Eve says.

We pass into an empty concrete lobby with defunct lifts and piles of mouldy carpet. Dank smells linger in the air as we pass through a door with rusty, squeaking hinges, and down a flight of concrete steps, into the basement. At this point, faint, far-off thumping music and crowds can be heard. It’s a sound I’ve not heard in decades.

I can’t quite believe this is really happening. The surrealism of my situation feels like a dream. How did I end up here? I feel like a rebellious teenager. Am I simply having a good old-fashioned mid-life crisis? Or is my recklessness an inevitable by-product of living for years in the NPAR? It can’t be that simple. Many people here have no problem towing the line, obeying the law, keeping all the New Puritan party’s rules, however ludicrous they might have been considered in years gone by.

We approach a thick set of double doors. Two well-built men in leather jackets armed with tasers stand on either side. They nod to Eve and Sarah, apparently in recognition, but they frown as they catch sight of me.

‘Who’s the guy?’

‘He’s been checked out,’ Eve says. ‘I vouch for him.’

The men glance over me, their expressions dubious, but eventually they nod. ‘OK.’

We enter a concrete area with tall cement pillars and faded white lines on the ground. Once this must have been the basement car park. Eve leads us to a metal trapdoor. The thumping music gets louder.

Eve lifts the trapdoor, revealing another concrete staircase. We descend even further beneath the building, and my excitement builds to a crescendo. At the foot of the stairs we pass through another set of doors and into a huge, cavernous area with a high ceiling. A sea of human figures gyrates on the huge dancefloor, bathed in an ethereal glow of strobe lights. The wall of thumping music from the early twenty-first century smashes into me like a speeding train, immediately overwhelming every sense. I have not heard music this loud for over twenty years.

I take a moment to survey the astonishing scene. The first thing that strikes me, as I struggle to cope with the sugar-rush sensory overload, is how people are attired. The men are casually dressed in jeans and T-shirts with slogans or images that would get them arrested if they wore them on the surface. More strikingly, the women are scantily clad in a way I haven’t seen since before the Second Civil War, except in a banned magazines, literature, or bootleg pornography. Miniskirts, leather boots, crop tops… I had forgotten just how alluring these could be. Of course, in those days, I was completely desensitised to their presence. Now they appear astonishingly bold.

The women dance, writhe, and grind themselves against the men, and in some cases against one another. There are also men dancing together. Then I notice some of the women are not women at all, but men in make-up. Some of these people are probably homosexual, bisexual, or transgender. Homosexual intercourse is punishable by death in the NPAR. Anyone suspected of or admitting to homosexual feelings must undergo compulsory Corrective Psychological Treatment (sometimes referred to as CPT). This aversion therapy is little more than quack, ice-pick lobotomy with a dash of sledgehammer religious fervour, and has resulted in depressed, hollowed out people, many of whom end up committing suicide. But the government refuse to admit to the failings in the system, and stories of its failure are regularly buried in the news media. To my shame, I admit that I have done more than my fair share of burying such stories.

At one side of the dance floor I see a DJ with record decks, playing vinyl recordings of banned music. On the other side of the room is a bar, serving contraband whisky, gin, vodka, wine, beer, cocktails… On the dancefloor I see couples kissing, with their hands all over each other. Some slope off with brazen confidence into little side rooms with a green light above the door. Once they enter and the door is closed, the light turns red. It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out what is happening inside.

This spectacle of revelry and debauchery feels almost biblical, and I half expect the ground to open, Old Testament style, to swallow these shameless sinners. My reaction to this situation astonishes me, and I realise just how much living in the NPAR has changed me. Back in England, I would not have bat an eyelid in a nightclub.

Yet something about this place feels different to the clubs I occasionally frequented in my distant past. Here there is a strange unity of defiance. A communal sense of throwing off stifling shackles; of indulging sinful whims forbidden by the New Puritans, to an extreme that feels both thrilling and dangerous. No such feeling of common purpose existed in the clubs I visited twenty years ago. There I only saw shallow, selfish narcissism. Here, I get the sense not so much of people determined to sin, but people determined to breathe.

As I take all this in, I notice Eve and Sarah undressing next to me. A part of me is shocked, and I feel I ought to look elsewhere, but Eve catches my eye and grins. Beneath their long regulation dresses, she and Sarah are dressed in short skirts and vest tops. Eve stretches out a hand, indicating that I should give her my coat. I do this without even thinking, and watch as she and Sarah head to a nearby cloakroom. A few seconds later they return.

‘What do you think?’ Eve yells, above the music.

‘Overwhelming,’ I reply.

It is virtually impossible to talk above the music, so Eve indicates that we should head to the bar. Once again, I follow her and Sarah, feeling bewildered, thrilled, and terrified. I look around, wondering if the main entrance is the only way in or out. I assume it is. If we were raided by police, everyone here would be arrested. Escape would be impossible.

Worries about being caught remain in the forefront of my mind, as Eve and Sarah order cocktails. I get a beer, and when I put the bottle to my lips, I realise I haven’t tasted one of these in over a year. Occasionally I have obtained alcoholic drinks on the black market, but only when I have felt exceptionally daring. Today, by contrast, I have been utterly, utterly reckless.

The beer is wonderfully refreshing. I smile, and upon seeing my reaction, Eve laughs. She and Sarah whisper together, sharing a private joke I cannot overhear. The jubilant atmosphere is like a drug, and I start to feel less worried about whether the police will discover this hidden party.

For a few minutes we stand at the bar, drinking. As well as the beer, the three of us drink shots together; another thing I haven’t done in years. I feel like the teenage rebel I never was. It’s as though I’ve stepped into a parallel world and become another person.

Presently, Eve takes my hand and tugs me in the direction of the dance floor. I can’t dance, but the pulsating music beckons, and I can no longer resist. I probably look utterly stupid, but I don’t care. By contrast, Eve and Sarah look impossibly cool (to use an old-fashioned, long defunct adjective). Their movements, although sexually alluring and undoubtedly illegal, have a curious elegance.

We spent the better part of an hour dancing. The booze has gone straight to my head, and I start to feel mesmerised amid the strobe lights, as though I have entered another dimension of reality. After a while, Sarah starts to dance with another man. They move closer and closer. She puts her arms around his neck and draws him in. They start kissing. His hands explore her body. I’m astonished at the shameless nature of their interaction, then recall how commonplace such displays were before the Catastrophe, and before the Second Civil War.

Eve keeps glancing at me with a wicked glint in her eyes. I know she wants me. I’m fully aware I’m being seduced, and a part of me feels alarmed. At the same time, I’m thrilled in a way I have never experienced.

On the dance floor, Eve moves toward me. She puts her hand to my face. Despite the sweaty heat around us, I shiver at her touch. I don’t resist as she lightly kisses my lips, waiting for me to respond with faux-coyness. It’s hopeless now. I’m on the hook and couldn’t get free even if I wanted.

I kiss her back. The world around me spins. I had forgotten what this felt like. Intense desire burns within me. I feel her arms around me, pulling me further and further in, exploring my body. I respond in the same way, no longer caring that we stand amid a huge dancing crowd.

Soon, Eve pulls away and motions with her head towards one of the side rooms. I feel a little afraid, but how long will it be until another opportunity like this presents itself? Her parents will return, and it will be much harder for her to sneak off. After this night, I will have to turn up at her church and attempt to obtain the approval of her parents and the New Puritan elders, if I am serious about pursuing a relationship with Eve.

But right now, I just want to take her.

I nod to Eve. She grins and pulls me out from the dance floor, towards a side room with a green light above the door. We open the door and go through, finding ourselves in little more than an empty closet with a small bench and a few towels and cushions. I suppose it’s a squalid, grubby, seedy kind of place for what we have in mind, but at this point, we don’t care.

Eve closes the door and presses the button next to it, turning the light on the other side from green to red. She positions herself against the door and eyes me with an impossibly sexy you-can’t-escape-now expression.

The sheer recklessness we’re showing astonishes me. It’s been years since I did anything like this, but there is very little awkwardness, other than some slightly inept clothing removal, which causes Eve to giggle. Once we actually fuck, it’s pretty hard and fast, with little in the way of foreplay. There isn’t anything particularly romantic about the situation. Instead it feels raw, animal, savage… Eve is against the wall, one with me in a frenzy of uncontrolled urges. Countless years of suppressed instinct are bubbling to the surface in a tornado of fierce passion. The roughness of the encounter — in everything from the location, to the way our bodies bruise and dominate one another, craving a high cruelly denied for years — has a pleasing violence to it, like a thunderstorm that both devastates and feels tremendously satisfying.

Gasping, clammy, and smiling, Eve kisses me. The driving, pounding music continues from the other side of the door. We slump against one another, enjoying the aftermath. I’m not sure if what we just experienced counts as love or lust, but I don’t care. It felt good, and right now I don’t care about potential consequences.

‘I knew there was a beast inside that repressed exterior,’ Eve says. ‘It’s quite an angry beast, but I can understand why. It’s been starved for so long.’

I don’t know what to say to Eve. She’s unlike any woman I’ve ever met. A strange anxiety creeps up on me, amid my ecstatic bliss. There is no turning back from this, ever.

As though reading my thoughts, Eve strokes my face again, her expression soothing. ‘It’s alright. I feel the same way. I’m not going to leave you, I swear.’

‘How can you say that?’

There is no way she can make a promise like that. The NPAR government is fully capable of separating us if we are discovered, and she knows it.

‘You’re what I’ve been searching for,’ Eve continues. ‘It’s going to be alright. We’ll be together. One way or the other, we’re going to be together. I just know it.’

‘I wish I had your optimism.’ I sigh. There are so many hoops to jump through, if we want to make our relationship legitimate, and not end up in jail.

Eve grins. ‘In the meantime, we’ll be able to do this, if we’re careful.’

I nod, feeling somewhat reassured by the fact that Eve seems to have considerable experience at living a double life.

‘I’m definitely coming to your church on Sunday,’ I say.

We begin kissing again, but as we do, the music suddenly stops. Eve pushes away abruptly, grabs her clothes, and starts to dress.

‘We need to get out of here,’ she says. ‘Now.’

Without needing to be told twice, I hurriedly put on my clothes. Movement can be heard outside the door, but no voices whatsoever. Once I’m dressed, Eve takes my hand, and we leave the room.

To my astonishment, the DJ is hurriedly packing his records and gear. Several people are helping him. Others dismantle lights, and others still pack up the bar and the booze. Most of those who were on the dancefloor have already left, and a few more flow out of the entrance. One or two other couples emerge from the side rooms, as we just did. The bouncers at the door silently gesture for us to move as quickly as possible.

The manner in which this is done amazes me. Total silence. No panic. But someone, somewhere has presumably raised an alarm. I don’t know how long we have before the police get here, so I don’t resist as Eve tugs at my arm and pulls me away, across the dancefloor. We pass through the doors, up the stairs, and out of the trapdoor. From the former underground car park, we are directed to leave not the way we came, but along a concrete gradient that moves up and out into the open, under cover of darkness. From here people disperse, again in absolute silence, like vampires disappearing into the night, hurrying back to their coffins before the first light of the sun burns them.

I follow Eve in and out of side street shadows, having completely lost my bearings. Luckily, she seems to know this neighbourhood well. We cross small roads and eventually end up in a dark alleyway. We huddle in the shadow of another abandoned building, and a moment later Eve speaks.

‘We’re safe here,’ she says. ‘But we need to wait a while before moving again.’

Sirens blare in the distance. ‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘Everyone knows that if the music suddenly stops, we leave at once, in absolute silence. No discussion. No lingering.’

‘What happened to Sarah? Will there be enough time for everyone to escape?’

‘Usually there is. And don’t worry about Sarah. She knows the drill. The people who organised that party tonight have contacts in the police. They are tipped off well in advance if there is going to be a raid.’

‘But where do they hide the records, the speakers, the lights, the booze, and so on?’

‘Trust me, those guys are like an army. They move very quickly and don’t get caught. Besides, a few well-placed bribes with the police always help. Generally, the cops arrive, do a superficial search, and deliberately don’t look in areas where the gear is stored.’

‘So how long do we have to wait here?’

Eve smiles. ‘Long enough for this…’

She kisses me.

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Copyright 2020 Simon Dillon. The moral rights of the author have been asserted. For more information about Peaceful Quiet Lives, including articles exploring the themes, inspiration, and initial reactions, as well as purchase links for e-books and paperbacks of the novel, click here. For more information about Simon Dillon on Medium, click here.