07-23-2025, 12:08 AM
From above, the crowd was a low tide of sequins, skin and sweat.
The great Ozy stood behind the decks, one hand adjusting the filter on a looped bassline, the other wrapped loosely around the stem of a cut crystal glass. A vodka he didn’t order, that he wouldn’t finish. The drink wasn’t the point. The gesture was. The glint of glass, the practiced grip, the languid ease of his wrist. It all played its part.
He wasn’t mixing for them, not really. The crowd pulsed and surged like obedient plankton, faces lit intermittently by the stuttering strobes. He could feel their hunger, their need. They thought they were dancing because they felt free. Sweet. But Ozy knew better.
They were dancing because he told them to.
The booth had been elevated by design. Manifesto's architect, a shriveled Russian with too much taste and not enough imagination, had proposed something “discreet and minimalistic.” Ozy vetoed it immediately. “If I’m going to command the room,” he had said at the time, “then I need to be seen.” It wasn’t ego. It was logistics.
He turned a dial. The beat stuttered, paused, then dropped again. Half-time, half-grime. Just enough tension to make the bodies below him lose their minds. He didn’t need to see them to know. He felt it. He always did. The air changed. The temperature. The way mouths opened and closed. The involuntary thrust of hips.
There was power in knowing exactly when to withhold. And precisely when to give.
Ozymandias allowed himself a faint smile. Not for the crowd. For himself. For the symmetry of it all. This place was his temple, and it was almost perfect tonight. The energy was dialed in. His appearance, effortless. The lighting had been corrected since last week, when the stage left LEDs had cast an unforgivable green across his jawline. Heads had rolled. Not literally, but only just.
He scanned the sea of revelers below with the cool detachment of a monarch surveying commoners. Occasionally, a face would flicker across his vision. Someone beautiful, someone trying to be, someone with potential, maybe. But none of them had that particular magnetism that made him pause. Not tonight. Not yet.
In the periphery, he caught sight of one of the club’s staff hovering too close to the booth. A runner. New, maybe. Nervous. Sweating. Ozy gave him a single glance, frosted and final, and the man retreated like a kicked dog.
He turned back to his decks. The next track was an unreleased cut from a Berlin producer who begged him to play it. Ozy had made him wait three months. Now it would debut, not because it was the right night, but because Ozy had decided it was. He lined it up, faded it in with threaded grace, and exhaled slowly as the synths washed over the room like chloroform. The crowd roared. They didn’t know why they were euphoric. That was the point.
He tilted his head back, letting the light catch the shimmer of his cheekbone and the subtle flash of the silver crucifix at his neck. A piece he had never believed in, but wore anyway. Symbolism, after all, was a currency far older than fame.
Someone in the crowd was watching him with more than admiration. He could feel it. He didn’t need to look to know. Sometimes it was lust, sometimes envy. Sometimes, rarely, it was recognition of what he truly was: not a DJ. Not a performer. An apex.
And the rumors? Well, let them circulate. Let them whisper about Moscow, about the offers, about whatever was supposedly “next.” He didn’t need to confirm or deny. The uncertainty only sharpened the hunger. A god, after all, need not explain himself.
He raised his glass in an offhand salute to no one, and let the bass drop like the fall of judgment’s axe.
The great Ozy stood behind the decks, one hand adjusting the filter on a looped bassline, the other wrapped loosely around the stem of a cut crystal glass. A vodka he didn’t order, that he wouldn’t finish. The drink wasn’t the point. The gesture was. The glint of glass, the practiced grip, the languid ease of his wrist. It all played its part.
He wasn’t mixing for them, not really. The crowd pulsed and surged like obedient plankton, faces lit intermittently by the stuttering strobes. He could feel their hunger, their need. They thought they were dancing because they felt free. Sweet. But Ozy knew better.
They were dancing because he told them to.
The booth had been elevated by design. Manifesto's architect, a shriveled Russian with too much taste and not enough imagination, had proposed something “discreet and minimalistic.” Ozy vetoed it immediately. “If I’m going to command the room,” he had said at the time, “then I need to be seen.” It wasn’t ego. It was logistics.
He turned a dial. The beat stuttered, paused, then dropped again. Half-time, half-grime. Just enough tension to make the bodies below him lose their minds. He didn’t need to see them to know. He felt it. He always did. The air changed. The temperature. The way mouths opened and closed. The involuntary thrust of hips.
There was power in knowing exactly when to withhold. And precisely when to give.
Ozymandias allowed himself a faint smile. Not for the crowd. For himself. For the symmetry of it all. This place was his temple, and it was almost perfect tonight. The energy was dialed in. His appearance, effortless. The lighting had been corrected since last week, when the stage left LEDs had cast an unforgivable green across his jawline. Heads had rolled. Not literally, but only just.
He scanned the sea of revelers below with the cool detachment of a monarch surveying commoners. Occasionally, a face would flicker across his vision. Someone beautiful, someone trying to be, someone with potential, maybe. But none of them had that particular magnetism that made him pause. Not tonight. Not yet.
In the periphery, he caught sight of one of the club’s staff hovering too close to the booth. A runner. New, maybe. Nervous. Sweating. Ozy gave him a single glance, frosted and final, and the man retreated like a kicked dog.
He turned back to his decks. The next track was an unreleased cut from a Berlin producer who begged him to play it. Ozy had made him wait three months. Now it would debut, not because it was the right night, but because Ozy had decided it was. He lined it up, faded it in with threaded grace, and exhaled slowly as the synths washed over the room like chloroform. The crowd roared. They didn’t know why they were euphoric. That was the point.
He tilted his head back, letting the light catch the shimmer of his cheekbone and the subtle flash of the silver crucifix at his neck. A piece he had never believed in, but wore anyway. Symbolism, after all, was a currency far older than fame.
Someone in the crowd was watching him with more than admiration. He could feel it. He didn’t need to look to know. Sometimes it was lust, sometimes envy. Sometimes, rarely, it was recognition of what he truly was: not a DJ. Not a performer. An apex.
And the rumors? Well, let them circulate. Let them whisper about Moscow, about the offers, about whatever was supposedly “next.” He didn’t need to confirm or deny. The uncertainty only sharpened the hunger. A god, after all, need not explain himself.
He raised his glass in an offhand salute to no one, and let the bass drop like the fall of judgment’s axe.