Lux gets to Malcolm and Rosa's place just as the sun is dying over the Waitakere ranges.  All the sound and fury, condensing into one hangnail sliver, casting a deep orange and pink incandescence skidding across the sky.  She inhales deeply while stepping out of the taxi.  She takes a long draw and lifts her chin high as if smelling the experience.
     The house is a big victorian two storied place on the corner of Carlton Gore and Claremont street.  Once an old doctors office, it's now four flats. The hall has this particularly crazy smell about it. Victorian grease, or something.  M & R's flat is upstairs and Lux holds her breath all the way up, one foot after the other, up the wooden stairs covered by a thin strip of warn carpet, kept to by rusty carpet rods. Maybe it's the carpet that smells.
     She feels the roar and throb of the sounds within on the door handle.
     Shit, not the fucking chemical brothers again.  Inside, the fireflies are out.  It's early stages yet, but the scene is already set.  clustering up, catching up, looking lost | shot | sleazy | moody | goody | baddy | bored | bleared | scared.  Lux works her way around the preliminaries, the `hi'ing, the supposed `catching up'.

     As soon as she moves into the kitchen she blurts, "Why the fuck did you invite Chris Joel?"  She's facing Rosa, but projects it loud enough so the whole room overhears.
     Malcolm overhears.  He's a big lumbering mass of complaints usually, a rambling folklore of an anti-hero.  Don't get the man started on his travels or it'll be thailand this, india that.  A sweet, lovable, wanker.
     "Hey!  He's my friend, fuck you!"
     "Now listen here Malcolm, and I'm only going to say this once tonight - that man is a fucking PREDATOR"
     "You're just saying that cause you need a fuck."  Everyone turns.
     Rosa, to Lux's left, laughs.  The sort of snarky chuckle that is propelled from the back of the throat.  She's sort of holding it back, but can't, so that when it comes, it propels her chin forward.  Heaugh, heaugh.
     Lux's got a huge grin on her face and says, "all right, you fucker.  I'll take you on.  Downstairs... outside... in the middle of the goddam road.  now!"
     One minute she's standing there, her arms on her hips, looking up.  The next, she has leaped forward, springing up from the balls of her feet, causing a motionous cascade of pink satin fabric and blackest tights thickened over splaying catapulting legs and boots.
     The rooms eyes trace the territory from boots to breasts... she's almost falling out of this vinyl top with big buckles... her breasts swell with the movement and then disappear into Malcolm's face. Her handbag swings after her, and like a slingshot not let go, swings around Malcolm's head and hits him in the opposite ear. Her legs are wrapped around Malcolm's waist, holding onto his neck, biting his shoulder.  Malcolm, center of gravity fucked, starts swaying back, puts a leg out to rebalance, then it's all over, more limbs, and a crumpled heap of disjointedness.  Everyone in the room is laughing the slow kind of manic moronic laughter that watchers, heads heavy with blunt overload are left to give.  A goofy, slow trip to external stimulation, and enough time to respond with enjoyable babble.
     Lux pulls her leg over the mass of Malcolm, on his back on the floor.  In slow motion, Malcolm gets up on his elbows.  He's smiling, but he also looks slightly fucked off about dropping beer all over himself.  But he's got no complaints about being part of the joke.  Rosa helps Malcolm up off the floor.  She's enjoyed the joke too.  It's usually her and Malcolm in the kitchen together, the last to leave the party, throwing plates at each other.  Lux is the last to laugh, and its a long and slow one that breaks out of the cacophony.

Some of the people from the lounge have come to watch.  It's too late, really.  The moment has passed.  Chris Joel is near the door frame, big beaky nose, a face scarred with `private income', and an optimist's grin.  "Well, what's about this then?"
     Malcolm opens his mouth to say, "...
     "Oh, just a spot of jelly wrestling... " Lux interrupts.  Chris looks indiscernible.  Lux moves over to the stove.
     "I've got some gear, who's up for some action?".
     The room shows a collective interest in semi boredom.  Weed is not exactly scarce in January.
     She does her own thing.
     The knives that have been sitting under the element have gone black.  Her hand goes into a pocket in her skirt and pulls out a small capsule, and a pin.  She pulls the capsule apart.  The oil drops off the pin, thick as treacle, onto the freed knives.  There is a sharp sizzle followed by a long inhale.  An inhale from the stomach.  The bottle is scarred and flecked with residue.  Lux's short nails skid across the surface.  She holds her lips just off the neck, and curls the last bit into her nose.  A fine looking trick. Her eyes open slowly, chin down, sleepy, heavy lidded, fucked.
     The chatter goes on.  The music pulses.
     "What was..."
     A glass of water slips out of Alex's hand.  no one notices.
     "What was..."
     Lux steps back into the water and glass.  Crunch and graunch as the glass is ground into the lino by her boots.
     "What was that guy..."
     She shifts forward.
     "WHO was that guy..."
     Malcolm does a slow-motion, heavy moving look around.
     "...that guy who was in....
     Tessa and James leave the room.
     "...that guy who was in ... that movie?"
     "Which guy?" says Rosa?
     "The one....."
     Malcolm lumbers off to the lounge.  The kitchen is nearly empty. Lux looks over to the pile of dirty dishes.  Every plate in the house must be there.  Some of that shit is days old.  Weeks old. Cereal stains... like goddam glue to get off.
     "The one..."
     It starts to drizzle outside.  A fine, thin drizzle.  It could almost sound like the hum of an amp.  It washes down the roof tiles, falls off the eves, into night.  Lux looks to the window.
     "Ah fuck.  It's raining."  One of those pre-programmed sort of comments.
    Rosa's expression doesn't change.  "I want a cigarette. My bag's in the lounge.  Are you coming?" Eyes meet.
     "I'm trying to remember that guy..."
     Lux's forehead creases. Rosa lifts her hand up and touches the vinyl on her shoulder.  "I don't know what you're talking about." each word, the same measurement, each word, the same pulse, each word, in time to Lux's blood being pumped further and further around her body.
     Lux smiles with her teeth.  She doesn't usually smile like that. Her lip comes down over her bottom lip, and rolls the tip over to the corner.  She's enjoying the movement.  She makes a noise, a sort of hum of okayness.  A murmur.
     "You go... Malcolm"
     Rosa squeezes, turns around and leaves the room.  Lux pauses in mid-air.  Then she makes a laboured turn to look.  Her upper torso first in the movement, but her body turning as well.  Her feet shuffle, the glass gets ground in further.  She makes the same noise in the back of her throat, to no one.  She puts the bottle down in the sink.

The music is thick now, louder.  It rises, rising above the next room clamors. Larger than life.  Larger than her.  Old, familiar sounds.  The sounds of growing up, being excited by music, shadows getting longer.  The Fall.  A song that had made her consider being someone else.  Hit the north.  An electronic pulse, part mechanical drum, part early synth.  A scream, a squeal. She smiles at the memory.  There is a guitar there too.  She once wanted to that hero, that guitar hero.  She remembered playing the song on her Gibson at home, when no one was around.  She sang the song in a high falsetto. Hit the north.

     John comes into the room.  Lux is dancing with her head down, her arms crossed over, gripping her middle.  Jumping up and down.  Her body jerking, like she was wriggling out of a straitjacket.  Dancing like it was the eighties again.
     "Hey, don't dance in here by yourself Lux."
     She stops, but not suddenly.  There's lots of momentum.  And a big, shit eating grin. "Johnny..."
     He grabs her hand and tugs.  Come on.  She grins.