Nothing ever happened in Venice, and then, for a week, the city choked on parties.
In Castello, a waiter shoved open the metal fire door of a warehouse, dragging bin bags into the calle, and let them slip past in the dark. They threw back free shots of Brennivín and caught the end of Björk’s DJ set and danced with their arms over their heads. But the party had already lost its edge. Halfway through a track, her friend was hunched over her phone.
On the vaporetto gangway her heel snagged on the metal, and snapped off. Her friend was messaging around, trying to figure out where was next, but nobody had a way in. Shoes in hand, bare feet on the cold stone, flushed and abandoned, she headed home.
Over a bridge where two strangers were filming themselves kissing, her phone lit up in her palm. For days she’d been obsessing over a man who’d promised to take her to a party, her only real in. But he’d sent her a photo of her with his thumb in her mouth, and then she was ghosted. To her last text, if there is a party, will you wait for me?, he never replied.
And now, just a pin.
Three dots appeared, and then were gone.
The pin was in Dorsoduro, not far from her house. She changed shoes and put on the mesh top she knew he liked, sheer against her ribs.
The pin took her to a calle off a quiet campiello, hemmed in by high walls. From a tall palazzo, the bass rattled the glass. A crowd had gathered by the door, thrusting their phones at the bouncers, but nobody was getting through.
She circled the palazzo. Round the far side, where an abutting house met the garden wall, the bricks were cracked and rotten, with gaps for a foot or a hand. She hitched her skirt into her underwear, found a grip in the mortar, and hauled herself up.
She dropped blind into the garden below. It was tangled with overgrown laurels, dark, stank of rotten leaves and sour earth. Through the branches, the party glowed. Her skirt snagged on a root. As she tore the hem free, a wolf howled.
She spun around. Past a crumbled shed, two men were pissing in the bushes. One howled again, head thrown back, while the other laughed.
She fixed her skirt and stepped onto a gravel path. Where it opened onto the courtyard, two women with their fingers locked brushed past her, watching her as they went. They smelt of burnt metal and tuberose, stems rotting in a vase. Beyond them the air hung dense and feral, sweet perfume and the damp of the lagoon, salt against the stone.
The courtyard was packed, unbuttoned linen sticking to wet chests, sheer slips glued to skin, everyone glowing under the heat. Beneath the low branches of a fig tree, a DJ bent over the decks, while blue strobes washed across the dancing crowd and out toward a bar jammed four people deep. The palazzo rose up behind them, its gothic windows cut out of the dark. Upstairs, bodies moved against the backlit glass. A couple pinned against a pane, mouths locked. Ivy smothered the brick right up to the stone balconies, thick enough that you could climb it, if you were desperate enough. If you actually believed someone was waiting at the top.
She pushed through the heat of the crowd, sweat-slick arms brushing against hers. Every dark silhouette was his, right up until it turned.
At the bar someone thrust a glass into her hand. Green citrus, wet earth, and something strange, bitter and salt, like she’d swallowed lagoon spray off the back of a boat. The alcohol, sharp and clean, scraped down her throat.
She dropped blind into the garden below. It was tangled with overgrown laurels, dark, stank of rotten leaves and sour earth. Through the branches, the party glowed. Her skirt snagged on a root. As she tore the hem free, a wolf howled.
She retreated to the centre of the courtyard and leant against the edge of the well. The marble was cold through her shirt. As she set down her drink, she caught a man staring.
“You have leaves in your hair,” he said, as he came close.
She brushed her fingers through her hair and felt dry fragments fall down her neck.
“Did you get lost in the woods,” he asked, “and find yourself here?”
“It’s just a party, man,” she said, stepping back.
“Most people here wish they were at a different party,” he said, his voice flat. “In the end, every party is like that.”
“Which party would they rather be at?” she asked.
“Any other. Whatever isn’t this.”
She looked past him. The faces around them were laughing, but their eyes drifted off, to the garden, or their screens, or up to the upper floors.
“There’s another party up there,” he said.
In the upper windows, violet strobes cut across a painted ceiling. Swirling clouds, and an angel, falling, with its pale wings twisted towards the earth.
“They say one of the Contarini daughters threw herself from a window here,” he said.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“We’re having a drink,” he said, as he held up his glass.
The bass dropped and a knot of women screamed. She picked up her glass and pushed past him.
By the speakers, two women, hair gelled slick, were dancing on a low garden wall, a circle of men below. The music was too crisp, she couldn’t feel the bass. She tried to dance, but she kept looking around, thinking it was him. Her eyes drifted to the upper floors. A man fell over, knocking into her. His friends roared as they laughed.
She gave up, downed her drink, left her glass on a passing tray.
By the palazzo, two bouncers blocked the entrance, coiled earpieces tucked behind their ears. Beyond them, a long hall, tapestries on the walls, a warm glow.
She waited.
An old man with a stooped back shuffled through the crowd toward the doors. Three women trailed him, bare young clavicles slick with sweat. She stepped in tight behind the last.
But a thick forearm barred her path.
“I’m with them,” she said, as she pushed off from the bouncer’s arm.
The old man turned. His eyes went from her scuffed shoes up the sheer mesh to her throat, her mouth. He nodded.
The bouncer stepped back.
“Come girls, come,” the old man muttered. “The real party is up here.”
As they turned up the stairs, the courtyard roar fell to a submarine thud. The staircase smelt of beeswax and cold stone. They spiralled up through the spine of the palazzo, footsteps deadened by a thick carpet. The woman ahead gave off bruised jasmine and animal heat. Along the walls, cracked plaster and dark canvases, twisting bodies, arched bare backs draped in tumbling silk. A satyr had its thumb hooked deep into the parted mouth of a nymph.
Double doors gave onto a cavernous hall. Old women sagged under ropes of yellowed pearls, and the young circled them with predatory glares, lips twisted, strobe light as they bared their teeth. A silver tray cut past her shoulder. She snatched a glass and threw it back, myrtle and mud lagoon.
“Most people here wish they were at a different party,” he said, his voice flat. “In the end, every party is like that.”
“Which party would they rather be at?” she asked.
“Any other. Whatever isn’t this.”
And she danced. The heat rose up her spine, pooling behind her eyes, up to her gills. She was swimming through the air, her arms overhead, wound into a knot. All of these bodies, she could barely breathe.
She felt his arms wrap around her. He was dancing with her, holding her against him, smelling of wet copper and warm skin. She gasped as she opened her eyes.
He was gone. Beside her, her best friend swayed to the song. Beyond her, her mother was laughing into her father’s neck. Old school friends clutched each other as they sang along. On the edges, every man she’d ever taken to bed huddled, drinks in hand.
She felt a sudden urge to throw up. She pushed past her sister, past the girl she’d hated at sixteen, past the priest, stumbling to the far wall.
Out the windows was the sunrise. Or was it the sunset? It was the middle of the day, or it was the moonlight, a searchlight, a helicopter searchlight. They were looking for a body in the Grand Canal. The sky was flecked with red, it was the New Year, it was the solstice, a meteorite, the sun snuffed out. She couldn’t tell.
She was as happy as she would ever be.
She yanked open a side door, stumbled through a narrow passage, wrenched a brass handle, and fell into a bathroom. She dropped to her knees, clutching the porcelain bowl, shivering, but nothing came. She leant against the cold, eyes closed, as the room spun.
Behind her, he laughed. “Look where you’ve ended up.”
She pulled herself up. The opposite wall was solid glass. All she saw was her own pale face, but it had changed. Deep lines framed her mouth, dark hollows had sunk beneath her eyes, and the edge of her jaw had gone slack.
She turned around, but behind her was just the same. An infinity of mirrors. Her reflection reflecting her reflection, doubling and tripling and shrinking into the distant dark. It was her face, a thousand times over, creased and sagged, eyes wide.
“Where am I?” she whispered, her voice coming back as though from far away.
But she already knew.
She was at a party.
Trevor Louw is a Venice-based performer and writer born in Pretoria. In 2025, he contributed to Laguna~B’s digital magazine with the short story “Cocaine Lagoon” as part of the series The Marshes Series. He’s currently writing a longish fiction piece for EVERYTHING, issue 2, coming out in May 2027.