All of my experience with clubbing comes from pop culture. Actually, most of that experience comes from a single video game, and the rest just got absorbed through random miscellanea.

When I think of a nightclub, I think of people grinding against each other in very suggestive ways that barely qualify as dancing, and I think of strobe lights and dark spots, and I think of music that is… what do the kids call it? EDM? The music with the noise and the other noise and uh, okay, look, I don’t know anything about music and couldn’t describe it to save my life.

When the viewpoint character in a story goes into a club, the sound washes over them and gets under their skin in all the right ways. They feel the beat and the crowd, they melt into the masses like they belong there. The lights and the music are stimulating in all the right ways and it gets everyone in just the right mood for the kind of hedonistic delights portrayed as going on in a club like this.

When there’s a vampire in a nightclub, they’re like a predator roaming their natural ecosystem, feeling the ebb and flow and following it to know exactly where and when to find the perfect prey. They are masters of the environment, perfectly at home and perfectly dangerous. I imagine myself as one of those vampires, gliding past dancers and finding a pretty girl to lead into a dark corner and sink my fangs into.

But none of the characters in those stories were autistic, so instead we walk inside and the atmosphere punches me in the face.

Any pretense of being a cool, unflappable, badass vampire sexy lady vanishes in an instant as I desperately cover my ears with my hands to try and protect myself from the assault of loud music. I freeze up, paralyzed just past the entryway as the barrage of sound makes it difficult to even hear my own thoughts.

The lights aren’t strobing–they’re actually quite muted and dim–which helps a little, but then the stench of body odor comes crashing in and I’m being jostled by bodies that come flooding in to fill the space like sardines shoving themselves into a can. This space is too packed, there are too many people touching me, and it’s only been a few moments but it’s already way, way too much. I try to cope with the onslaught of too-sharp sensory data and I can’t. I’m shutting down.

Light spots, dark spots, music pounding, dancers, skin and leather and fabric and jangly metal, space, movement, too much, too much! I hate it, I hate it! My hands over my ears aren’t enough, it’s still too loud, it’s all awful. My whole body is tense, frozen, knife’s edge.

Touch, sensation, a hand on my arm, I look over and there’s Cheshire, and Bashe behind her, and she’s tracing delicate circles on my skin that force my attention away from the lights and sounds and smells, at least halfway. I look at the motion of her hands, the expression of soft concern on her face, the way her cat ears are flattened.

Bashe tilts his head and my vision snaps to the new motion, and I watch as he quirks his eyebrow as if to ask what’s wrong. I mumble, “Loud,” so quietly that I can’t even hear my own voice. He doesn’t seem to get it.

I want to be angry at myself, I want to be furious that I’m having a meltdown over sensory overload like I’m still a little kid, but I can’t think through all the information my senses are trying to process. Cheshire grabs my hand and tugs on it and I follow her mutely as she leads me away from the crowd and over to an alcove booth where the music isn’t quite so loud and I can’t see as much of the club.

I sit down and Cheshire sits next to me, leaning against me. I’d be uncomfortable about her closeness in any other situation, but right now I’m actually grateful for her presence and how it helps me focus. I try to breathe, try to sort all the information, try to be a fucking adult about this.

I’m not a kid anymore, I’m not a kid anymore, fuck!

Cheshire moves in closer, brings her mouth to my ear, and asks, “Do you wanna see a magic trick?”

What? I don’t understand, so I say nothing and just stare at her. The catgirl smiles, and then she vanishes and there’s an actual housecat stepping into my lap.

The cat has fluffy white fur, one yellow eye, and one blue eye. She kneads my thighs and settles in like cats normally do, and I have no idea how to react. What? She’s a cat? She can do that? Holy shit.

The Cheshire cat–yes yes, this is the reference–pokes at my hand with her face and I automatically start petting. Her fur is soft, her body is warm, and when I close my eyes I can let the world start to fade and just focus on the repetitive, controllable sensation of soft fur on the skin of my hand.

I breathe, deep and steady, and the panic starts to subside. I let out some of my nervousness in joyless laughter, and slowly my body relaxes from its initial tenseness.

I open my eyes and look down at the feline in my lap. I feel a wave of gratitude for her help, for just immediately getting what I was going through and knowing how to fix it, and that gratitude is followed by suspicion.

Did you set this up? Was that a leading question, when you asked where a vampire goes to hunt? Nudge me towards the nightclub where you know I’ll go into overload, then be right there at my side to offer the solution so I’ll feel affection towards you?

It’s probable. The geist seems to know everything about me, so it wouldn’t be difficult for her to engineer this sequence of events. Another trick, another clever plot to manipulate me. And yet…

Her ears are still flattened against her head. And that could mean nothing, because in both forms those are cat ears that hear better than human ears, so of course she’s going to dislike the loud music, but…

The voice of fear tells me that this is all part of the trick, that she’s doing this on purpose so that I’ll want to empathize with her and trust her and love her. The fear tells me that I’m falling for every trap she lays. But there’s another voice, a voice I hate, that whispers that maybe, just maybe, I’ve found someone who can understand me. Someone like me.

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this, but I think the right course of action is clear: if there’s a chance that Cheshire understands these kinds of sensory difficulties on an intimate, personal level, then I have to reach out and empathize. If it’s real, then it’s an opportunity for me to do to her exactly what she’s doing to me.

“Cheshire,” I ask the cat resting so adorably atop my legs, “do you… well, first, um, thank you for helping. For knowing how to help. It’s been actual years, I think, since I last had to deal with that level of overstimulation. Since I had to deal with any part of my autism really making a problem for me. So, yeah. Thanks. And…” I hesitate, unsure how to word the next part, which Cheshire seems to pick up on.

I hear her voice coming from the cat, though her mouth doesn’t move. “I understand what it’s like to be overwhelmed in ways beyond your control. I get it. I’m here for you.”

I feel relief, and then suspicion, because that’s exactly what I wanted to hear and the perfect opening to ask, “Do you have… sensitivity, like I have? Or is this just something you know from learning all about me?”

Cheshire adjusts her position on my lap and says, “It’s one of the ways that I was made to fit you. I experience the same sensitivity issues that you do, in much the same manner.”

That’s a start, but… If she really was constructed a short while ago, or if she’s going to be firm about that narrative, it’ll be hard to hit on any sense of isolation from those traits. There’s nothing to empathize with if she’s not actually felt it before. Hmm. “Is this your first real experience with it, then? Or were you around for long enough before my arrival here to go through it a few times?”

“I think you misunderstand the nature of my knowledge of you,” Cheshire replies evasively. “My understanding of your existence is not purely observational; I have experienced many of your memories.”

I shiver at the invasiveness of that notion. How many of my memories? How did they make you feel?

How could you possibly love me if you’ve been inside my head?

I look away from Cheshire and out onto the club floor. The throng of humanity–figmentanity?–looks like I was expecting to see: skintight clothing, scraps of fabric that barely qualify as clothing, fishnets and leather, and everything’s either pitch dark or neon color bright. It’s constant physical contact out there, with even the dancers that aren’t grinding on each other still making incidental contact with every motion thanks to how packed together everyone is.

I see Bashekehi out in the midst of it, smiling and laughing and making eyes at all the clubbers he’s flirting with, and I imagine he must be on his way to quite the feast. I, meanwhile, am hiding in the corner because of my stupid broken brain. At least I’m mostly in control now, if still on edge.

I sigh theatrically and stop stimming with Cheshire’s fur, instead folding my arms together and grimacing at the imp having fun out on the dance floor. The cat, perhaps noticing my irritation, gets off my lap and plods over to the seat next to me, where she becomes a catgirl again. I make a mental note to ask about that later, but right now it’s hard to focus on anything but my miserable inadequacies.

“Something on your mind?” Cheshire asks.

“Always,” is my pithy reply, but then I sigh again and admit, “I was hoping to really play up the seductress vampire persona and flirt with a cute girl so that I could see if it would provoke a jealousy response from you, but now I’m realizing that plan is shot for a myriad of reasons.”

“Such as my ability to see it coming from miles away?” she quips.

“Well, yes, but even setting aside how you’d probably see right through my scheming, I’ve never actually flirted with someone I’ve only just met.” I slump against the booth table and admit, “Actually, all my relationships have been the result of calculated charm over an extended period of time, slowly probing that more-than-friends space experimentally before taking the plunge–and even then, I’m not really the initiator type; I’d rather lead the person I’m flirting with into asking me out first. Of course, you know all this, don’t you?” I give the geist an accusatory look.

She grins and holds her hands up to her face in a cutesy pose. “Guilty! But really, what are you worried about?”

“I’m worried that there’s no guarantee anyone in this club would be even slightly receptive to my advances,” I mutter, “because the majority of my experience with flirting is reliant on having the time to learn a person and construct a personality they’ll be attracted to.”

Cheshire laughs. “I love the way you think, dearest Maven. Your mind really does fascinate me.”

I roll my eyes and snort. “I’m really not that special. That’s just life for borderlines. I’m already trying to figure out how to create an ideal persona to appeal to you, and I don’t even like you yet!”

Cheshire laughs harder and I glower at the mirthful wretch. “Oh, sweetie.” She gets a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and says, “You know, this is probably the part where your partner would normally tell you, ‘Oh, just be yourself, you don’t have to change for me.’ I, however, am delightedly looking forward to the mask you make for me. I’m sure it’ll be simply perfect.”

Heh. That… probably shouldn’t make me feel as good as it does. But it is nice, to be accepted for what I am. Hahaha. Am I really this easy?

“I will also point out that this isn’t going to be as much of an issue as you think it will be.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

The catgirl leans back and plays with one of her ears. “You can be sure that at least one person in this club will make for a good mark, because you are a scion and these are figments. You’re putting more weight on Pandaemonium, and they’re exactly the kinds of creatures that respond to that weight.”

I frown and lean in. “Elaborate.”

Cheshire gestures at me, then at the dancers, and says, “If you consider Pandaemonium in terms of theater, then you can treat scions as the lead actors and figments as the extras; put another way, scions drive the scene and figments act as they are needed. That’s going to depend on the throne world, of course, but here in the Labyrinth figments exist to be perfect citizens and perfect victims, which makes them perfect for what you need. If you need prey, the city will provide.”

Fascinating and disturbing in equal measure, but I suppose I should default to expecting that mixture from this strange world. “So, what, someone to feed on is just going to be dropped into my lap? That seems a bit overly convenient.”

Cheshire smirks. “And this whole city doesn’t strike you as overly convenient? It’s a paradise begging to be plundered, Alice. Food, clothing, housing, leisure, all of it absolutely free. A city full of people who can’t fight back and won’t resist if you roll up and declare yourself god-empress of this-and-that part of town, except for the handful of fellow reals. Do you get what that creates? Do you understand the purpose of a city like that?”

I chew my lip and think it over. It creates a certain baseline. It shortcuts a lot. You don’t need to get sucked into some shitty job for your basic necessities, so you can pursue whatever you like. Even the higher stuff isn’t out of reach, so material resources probably aren’t a real motivation. The only people you need to worry about are other people, other non-figments. Wait…

The others like you are also free of material concerns, also free to act as they wish, only having to worry about how their handful of peers will respond. It… does it create anti-social incentives? Or the freedom to act in anti-social ways? All limits are enforced by the few, and you can break those limits if you can just overpower those few standing in your way.

Does that create the world of a comic book? A fantasy novel? A world like that…

I crease my brow and meet Cheshire’s gaze. “It’s a world of heroes and villains, or maybe just conflict. The only consequences come from other people, so if you can overcome those people then you can do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to call yourself king of the castle, what’s stopping you from claiming turf? If you don’t like the attitude of that self-proclaimed king, what’s stopping you from taking his head? There are no structures in place, no societal pressures, so it all comes down to whoever has the biggest stick.”

“And the most friends,” Cheshire adds. “There is strength in numbers, and the strong can draw numbers to them. But in essence, yes: this is a city where all conflict is personal and vicious, driven by the desires and ideals of the powerful. And you, my dear, are now one of them.”

Hells. I’m both deeply concerned and deeply elated by that notion. I tap my leg and hum idly as I process. A world of main characters and extras. My will against whoever gets in my way.

Cheshire intrudes on my musing and says, “Tracing back to your first point: yes, it is quite convenient that prey will come to you if you don’t come to it, but that’s because ‘vampire hunts for figments’ isn’t really the kind of conflict that the Labyrinth cares about. If you want prey, you’ll have prey, and all the ways you can feed on figments are distinctions without differences. What matters isn’t the conflict between you and your food, but the conflict between you and whoever might object to your means of feeding and choice of prey.”

“Huh.” I tilt my head and start chewing on a fingernail. “That is… a fascinating dimension. That’s- well maybe it’s my nerd side showing, but that sounds a bit like conflict resolution in RPGs: if the conflict is trivial enough, don’t bother rolling. Though even then you’d still have to do something to justify the outcome.”

“You have done something,” Cheshire points out. “You came to a suitable feeding ground and you’ve made your presence known, so now it’s just a matter of luring in someone who finds this,” she gestures at me, “enticing.”

“I’ll be fascinated to see how the Labyrinth justifies that,” I mutter.

As if on cue–or perhaps literally on cue, with all that Cheshire’s just told me–I see movement not far from our booth: three young women in goth-adjacent fashion are clustered together, all looking at me, two of them giggling at a nervous-looking third wringing her hands. One of them gives Nervous Girl a push–more of a nudge, really–and Nervous Girl starts walking towards me, keeping to the edge of the crowd.

Cheshire chuckles as she watches me watch the newcomer, and then the catgirl is gone and a white spider is skittering away beneath the table. Spiders, too!? We seriously need to figure out what’s up with that.

Nervous Girl reaches my booth, interrupting my Cheshire-related train of thought. She smiles at me softly and asks, “Hey, um, would you mind if I sat here?”

Fuck. She’s cute. What the fuck do I do now???

…I guess it’s time for another date?