Fresh air filled Zephyr’s lungs, sterilizing the notes of sweat and smoke. She slipped out the back door of the club into an empty back alley. Dim light filtered in from the runic sconces at the far end. Wanting a moment to drink in the silence, she ventured away from the street. It was muffled chaos —the steady reverberation of a bass, the sycophantic screams of debauchery— rather than total quiet that accompanied her stroll but it would have to do.

She found herself amused at her detour. Old habits die hard. Her attention suddenly yanked to the feel of something plush beneath her foot. She looked down to find a discarded velvet dress. The club was no stranger to vice— alcohol, gambling, drugs, sex. Someone else must’ve slipped out here earlier and indulged in private. She stooped over, fishing the dress off the ground to inspect it, one woman’s trash was another woman’s treasure after all.

It was short and scanty, exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to find worn at a place like this, with sequins decorating the neckline. It reminded her of a dress her wife had brought home one time. Something new-age, she’d said, instead of one of her many mooncloth robes. She leaned into the side of the building, clutching the velvet, as ancient memories danced behind her eyelids.

The distant hum of music and voices transported her back to a salon she’d attended. Back braced against stone, alone in a sea of socialites, watching as her wife flitted through the crowd. Or tried to. She somehow always seemed to amass an entourage. Meanwhile, Zephyr had always been the observer, watching from the sanctity of afar. Still, she found her attention drawn toward her wife, even a wallflower craved sunlight.

Inevitably, her wife would flash her a saccharine smile and whisk her back into the throngs to socialize. And the night she wore the velvet dress was no different. She remembered the brush of her hand, faint conversation she tuned out, then the cold embrace of winter as they braved the trek back to their apartment. Her wife had been the one to suggest a bath to warm up. It smelled of lilac and vanilla. She had just finished easing herself into the tub when she noticed a glint of steel in the moonlight overhead.

She opened her eyes, dispelling the ghosts of her past, and dropped the velvet dress to head back to the revelry where she could drown the memories with her abundance of vices.