"Give it up for Rihlannaaaaa!"

Lincoln turns off the street into the pumping LGBTQ club, curious and keen for a few drinks. He didn't know what to do tonight, but it was a slow day at work and he really wants to have an experience. He squeezes through a few tall men yelling 'yas bitch' and catches from the general effusions that its Queen's night. Standing at the bar, he waits to order a drink and watches the queen performing on stage. Her smile is huge and naughty, and despite the fact that she's a Queen, she is almost definitely also female. Or a very small man. He isn't sure.

A woman bumps into him after dancing the same moves as Rihlana, the queen on stage. She turns around and apologizes profusely. The small, somewhat Hispanic-looking man next to her guffaws and pats him off a bit - the bit of her drink that had spilt on Lincoln's jacket.

"I'm Abbi! Buy you a drink?" she asks but then looks down to her wallet.

"Or… flag you down a bartender? I'm good at that."

Abbi flags him down a bartender – she is good – and catching Lincoln watching the queen gyrating on stage, she shouts "That's my best friend! Rihlana… Well, Ilana." She laughs, "I'm not allowed to call her that tonight. You know, the female showgirl queen is really coming in right now. Turns out girls are more keen on dressing like really exciting femmes than dressing like men." Abbi nods as she talks.

"Oh yeah I guess that makes sense actually."

Rihlana totters off stage in her 6-inch heels, crooning the end of the 90s R&B hit Get it Shawty and stoking an audience member's face. The crowd is loving it.

Finally Rihlana reaches her friends, after an effusive chat with some of the other queens.

"Agh, SO beautiful" she shouts, referring to the queen currently walking on stage. She sees Lincoln standing with Abbi, a little apart from their group but watching her with open appreciation. She smiles brightly at him, tugging off her towering shoes. There's glitter all over her face, and all her features are strongly accentuated with makeup. Her hair is pulled back into a long Jasmine-style clip-on, the plait reaching her bum. Lincoln thinks she looks ridiculous, and fantastic.

They all have another drink, chatting and laughing before they move out of the crowded club.

"Do you guys want to go back to my place? Get a little… higher?" Ilana asks (no longer Rihlana, with her braid and shoes removed). "We can order pizza."

They all quickly agree, and Lincoln feels incredibly comfortable with these relative strangers. There's just something about them.

Later, they're all lying on the ground slowly lifting pizza to their faces and telling each other their conspiracy theories. Ilana just went, with a statement that the world's 1%, the elites, are ensuring that America is slowly dumbed down and addicted to sugar and drugs to make them malleable. Everyone thinks about it for a minute, nodding with wide-open eyes.

"Damn" Lincoln says. "I love sugar."

Lincoln then drawls "you know, I have a theory." The others nod encouragement.

"We have all this amazing brain power, but all we think about is ourselves. Even when we're thinking about other things its in relation to ourselves. So my theory is if we were truly capable of thinking of other things, we would become like gurus, or yogis, and use all our real brain capacity. And it would be like this full understanding of everything, apart from and disconnected to ourselves. It'd be amazing. I don't know. It's a theory in-work.

Ilana stares at him, slowly nodding. "Yas!"