Excerpt: Counterworld

The Students' Association Bar was large but also well packed, as was to be expected on a Friday. Nevertheless Jessup had somehow managed to lay claim to an entire table, and now eight students – four girls and four boys – sat around it, trying to make conversation.
It didn't help, Philip thought, that the other boys seemed perfectly at ease with the situation. Jessup was at his most laid-back, the more obvious symptoms of horniness hidden beneath a veneer of gentility (and possibly the table). The two others – Andrews, who Philip recalled seeing in Basic Programming, and Rosetti, who was completely unfamiliar to him – appeared to be cast from the same mould; dressed in their chic-casual striped shirts and baggy trousers with suspenders they made Philip feel completely out of place in his regular t-shirt and jeans combo.
And it didn't help that the girls opposite him were as interchangeable as the boys. They wore the same type of clothing, carried the same cloned handbags, had their hair styled the same. In fact colour – there was a slight variation in hair colour, plus one of the girls looked like she might have some Indian ethnicity from a couple of generations back – was the main thing that made it possible to distinguish between them once you got past their outfits. Certainly their attitudes and behaviour was as stuck-up and snotty as Philip had always imagined upper-class girls to be. The one called Emmaline didn't differ noticeably from the others, as far as Philip could tell, and he wondered what had made Jessup decide he fancied her above the rest.
Not that he cared much, to be honest.
It was dawning on him that Jessup had probably invited him on the very presumption that he wouldn't be able to hit it off with any of the girls, thus skewing the odds of getting laid in his own favour. And the truth was, he didn't know whether to be offended at the perceived slight or relieved that Jessup probably wouldn't be ribbing him about his lack of success come Monday.
“- think it's terrible. Don't you?”
“S-sorry?” Philip yanked himself back to the here and now. The girl talking to him – Melissa (or was it Clarissa?) - was studying him from beneath lowered eyelashes. Philip wondered briefly if she was trying to flirt with him or just filter him out of her field of vision.
“What's going on in the Middle East. It's awful, don't you think?” Her voice was nasal, oddly grating; he found himself wishing she'd either shut up or get some speech therapy. Not that he could say that out loud, of course.
“I suppose...” he replied cautiously, not sure what exactly she was talking about.
“I mean, all these people killing each other over some teeny tiny difference of opinion – and now they're trying to freeze oil production as well. Don't they know what it will do to people?”
Of course they know, that's why they're doing it, you stupid cow, he thought despairingly. If it wouldn't affect anyone there'd be no point. You're supposed to be a uni student, how about you make like one and start using your brain if you've got one? Again, though, he didn't say it out loud. He was well aware that his honest opinion was probably the last thing anyone at the table was interested in.
“I expect you're right,” he settled for. “Um, excuse me for one second.” He hurriedly got to his feet and headed for the bar. This definitely called for another drink... except he wasn't exactly an experienced drinker, and he knew it. The two pints he'd had so far were already making him feel slightly dizzy. Or maybe that was just the stuffiness of the room. Or the company. After talking to those girls for five minutes anyone with an ounce of brains would feel light-headed, he was sure.
There was quite a crowd around the bar; although most didn't seem to be queueing but merely standing where they were because they liked the view. Philip tried to plot a course through the throng, but realised it was futile; people kept shifting one way or the other. Brute force appeared to be the only way.
Too bad he didn't naturally have pointy elbows.
“Excuse me...” he mumbled meekly as he managed to shove his way past a couple of guys in shirts and suspenders. Geez, what was it with that look? It seemed plain stupid to him, yet the majority of the guys in the bar were dressed that way. And of those that weren't the number of blokes wearing plain stuff like his could be counted on one hand. Philip didn't have much fashion sense (which suited him just fine since he thought fashion was a completely superfluous waste of time and money), but it still troubled him to be standing out like this.
“Excuse me,” he managed in a more firm tone than before, making his way past a trio of just that sort of guy. He felt immense relief as he finally came into contact with the bar top. Right, he told himself. Now all he had to do was catch the bartender's attention, and he'd be home free. Provided 'home free' could be redefined to mean 'chatting up brain-dead socialites', he added to himself.
“Um, hey, I'd like -” He'd barely managed to get as far as that before the bartender, apparently without even registering his presence, rushed past somehow managing to carry a half-dozen pints. Philip glanced around desperately, but the only other person in sight who appeared to be even marginally qualified was busy pouring some kind of liquor into a row of shot glasses.
“You have to be more assertive,” a voice spoke close to his ear.
“Wh-what?” Stunned, Philip turned his head. The guy next to him winked.
“As-ser-tive. It's in the dictionary.” The bloke grinned. “Like this.” He stood up, towering over Philip – who was five feet ten, but this guy had at least an easy three inches on him – and leaned forward just a bit.
“Here. One lager, one – what are you having?” he asked Philip, who quickly replied, “The same,” not wanting to waste the opportunity. “Make that two lagers, then,” the stranger told the barman. There was something in his voice, in the way he spoke, that somehow turned his words into a certainty, as if no barman worth his optic would dare to make things any different than they'd been stated to be. Philip gaped in something between admiration and annoyance when, out of the seeming blue, two pint glasses appeared brimming with beer and foam. It wasn't until he saw a credit card vanish between the fingers of the bartender that he realised, and began digging through his pocket for his wallet.
“Wait, um, I've got -”
“Huh?” The other man glanced at him, spotted the wallet. “Oh. Don't worry about it.” He took the pad the bartender handed him and quickly signed off on the charge, then accepted his card back. “You can owe me one.” With that he picked up one glass and began wending his way through the crowd without another glance in Philip's direction. Speechless Philip took the other glass and slowly made his way back to the table.
The rest of the party didn't seem to even have noticed he'd been gone, he thought at first. Two of the girls, including Jessup's favourite Emmaline, were plainly giving Rosetti the eye, Andrews was actually smooching with number three, and Jessup was nowhere to be seen. Only Clarissa-or-Melissa was paying him any notice, and that was just to sulk at him. He wasn't sure if he'd done something to offend her, or if she was just pissy about having drawn the short straw and ended up with him.
He didn't really care much, either. In fact, with Jessup gone this might be the right time to vanish himself; he was pretty sure no-one else would make any attempt to keep him there. It was so plain that they didn't think he belonged here.
A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder from behind, making him jump and nearly spill his beer. “Ah, the scoundrel returns!” Jessup cried at him, dumping himself into the next chair with his customary smirk. Philip smiled shakily.
“I, I was just -”
“You can't just abandon these fine damsels in distress, you know!” Jessup plainly thought he'd struck gold; if he kept it up Philip might have to slap him. Not that he particularly wanted to, no more than usual anyway; but it riled him to think of the kind of language Jessup had used earlier to describe those 'damsels' and the fact that he was now being a perfectly double-faced arse, plus making a show of himself at Philip's expense.
“You're the only one making a fuss,” he retorted uncertainly. He noted that Rosetti and the two girls who'd been flirting with him were looking at him and Jessup, and even Andrews had abandoned his bout of tongue wrestling with the Indian-looking girl and was regarding Philip speculatively. The whole situation was getting a very familiar feel to it. Unpleasantly so.
“Well, I'd say fussing is necessary,” Jessup went on, undaunted. “After all, if you can't even attend to your duties as a gentleman -”
He might be drunk, Philip thought to himself, but that wasn't a good enough excuse. “Y-you know what?” he said out loud. “You can shove it, mate.” With that he stood up, grabbing his beer glass. “You're the one who's been pestering me to come tonight, so it's all on you.” Angrily he turned away, trying to make his way through the throng; he noticed to his embarrassment that several people were staring at him. Well, fuck them. Just because they wore expensive threads and carried overloaded credit cards didn't give them the right to judge him.
He was nearly out the door when the bouncer shot an arm in front of him. “Oi!” he yelped, out of surprise as well as annoyance.
The bouncer nodded at the glass in his hand. “You gotta leave that, sonny,” he rumbled.
Philip bridled. “Fine. Whatever.” Feeling more than a little belligerent he raised the glass to his lips and drained it in a few huge gulps, doing his best to ignore the way the fizz irritated his palate. He slammed the empty glass into the bouncer's hand. “All right?” he snarled, pulling away from the man and shoving himself against the door. Glancing back he saw the bouncer look like he might be about to go after him, then half-shrug and turn his attention back to the bar's interior.