IT WAS CURBURRA AVENUE IN FACT, BUT the sentiment was the same: I was looking forward to a decadent blowout. The bungalow was comfortably set in Yabbini, one of the Boulah Ring's shadier suburbs, and was really pumping when I arrived. Two days had passed since my first encounter with the dead body, about eight nightmares or a thousand resolutions to forget it. Pondering the meaning of life was getting me nowhere: it was time to seek the solace of intoxication, hard music and even harder women.

I was talking to an eccentric woman in a flowery sari called Astella when a guy in a really cool, psychedelic Pucci print brushed past me, long hard screw against the wall in hand, stared at me (instead of her) for a few seconds, then said: <<Hey man, how's it doing?>>

Social amnesia is common among regular party goers. In this case, inebriation wasn't the cause!

<<From the toilet?>> I blurted.

<<It was pretty shocking, wasn't it?>> he said. <<Have the cops said anything yet?>>

<<Not that I know of>> I said thinking: Great you fuckhead, I was here to forget!

<<You know>> he said <<I had a dream about him last night. I was alone in that toilet, doing my business, when I noticed him lying on the floor. I knelt down to get a closer look when I saw this classic horrorshop demon emerge from his pocket, a leather wallet between its canine teeth. I yelled "Hey, what are you doing?" and it stood upright, pointed at the stamp on the guy's wrist, said, "The mark of the bloodsucker!" and vanished in a cloud of aftershave.>>

He stared at his feet for a while, mumbled <<It was just a stupid dream>> and walked off looking somewhat embarrassed.

<<How bizarre>> Astella said. I stared after him, thinking of his dream, my eight.

Then a hyperactive remix of Naughty by Nature's OPP summoned Astella urgently on to the dancefloor. Near the speakers a minibar had been set up serving boutique beers and upmarket cocktails. A black guy with an American accent, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and a yellow bandana around his head was behind the bar, exchanging a brown paper bag for three Australian 50 dollar notes. It was a routine deal, and I would hardly have noticed had I not caught a whiff of Hedione #5 hanging around the customer and homed in to see a small, rippled sphere scratched into the bottom of the bag.

The image of a body sprawled on a wet floor filled my mind, ghostwhite, a vampire crawling out of a pocket.

<<Hey... wait!>> The customer did not hear me, and disappeared down a flight of crowded stairs. I tried to follow, but Astella grabbed me around the wrist, said: <<I want to dance!>>

Three hours later, in a room where a large TV set took the place of a soundsystem, a doubleplay of the KLF's classic The Last Train to Trancentral and What Time is Love? on the university music network was interrupted by a news update. The dancefloor was immediately deserted. Astella pulled me towards a couch, but the enigma of a newsbreak at three in the morning held me still. In a special report, a blonde announcer with a Coca-Cola badge on her lapel said:

The TV was obscured as the dancefloor quickly refilled. I wandered alone to the back of the room looking for a heavy drink. In a dark corner I stumbled over something warm and musky and looked down in terror at the unconscious customer of the bar deal.