After a refreshing day at the golf course in which Vince sunk an eighty-yard chip for birdie, we decided to celebrate the shot of his life with a trip to I-Lounge. I had always been a fan of I-Lounge. It wasn't a huge club, but it had a certain dynamic that made it perfect for my style. I loathe bars that are simply one giant room. The animal in me thinks it essential to hit on girls without the whole damn place as witnesses. I-Lounge was different; there were six separate areas where I could work: a smoking patio, a bar area, a dance floor, a bathroom line, a hallway, and a back bar area. Girls in any one area couldn't observe the other areas. Hopping from one space to the next gave me a fresh start no matter how many times I got shot down. I could get rejected in one area, and then slither my way into the next, and no one would know.
After four rejections, I made eye contact with a reclusive-but-sexy brunette with fishnet stockings sitting in the corner of the smoking patio. She was sitting next to her two blonde friends who were connected at the mouth to two surfer-looking dudes. The brunette had her purse where an open seat would have been, so after making eye contact, I pointed to the purse. She smiled and quickly put it on her lap. I sat down.
Me: "Who are you?"
Her: "I'm Courtney. Who are you?"
Me: "I'm Dave. Are these two girls your friends?"
Her: "Yeah, they've been making out with these douchebags all night. Who are you here with?"
Me: "A couple friends. They're inside. Why are you drinking a Red Bull?"
Her: "I'm the designated driver."
Me: "Aww you're so responsible. Are you a nurse also?"
Her: "Huh? What? No, why?"
Me: "The last girl I knew who drank Red Bull was a nurse, but she had issues—something about hamsters."
Her: "What the fuck? No, I'm not a nurse. I'm currently jobless. What do you do?"
Me: "I teach math."
We talked for another thirty minutes about jobs, hair, fingernails, bracelets, phone numbers, and living arrangements until her friends got up hand-in-hand with their guys and declared they were leaving. "Get his number and tell him to come out with us tomorrow," one of them told Courtney. She gave me a kiss on the cheek, and we agreed to hang out the next night.
Shortly after she left, I received a text from Vince telling me he was leaving. Even though there was still over a half-hour until closing time, I left with him and called it a night.
While my break-up with Kelly may have turned me off to the notion of girlfriends, I'm always open to testing the waters. Aside from her striking looks, twenty-one-year-old Courtney was cool as fuck. When I meet girls like her and can sense a connection, a tingly feeling of excitement brews deep within. A relationship suddenly becomes a possibility. I do want to get married one day and have kids; but I value my independence, and I don't settle. Something inside me was telling me Courtney could be special.
Excited, I quickly masturbated and went to bed, drunk.
Still buzzed, I awoke that morning at 6:45 because I had to pee. The shitty thing about drinking is that I will always wake the next morning at an unfavorable time like 6:45, which renders my sleeping abilities useless for at least the next half hour. I lay in my bed, exhausted but unable to even doze, for another ten minutes when my phone rang. I looked at the red digits on my alarm clock—7:00 a.m. precisely. Then I grabbed my phone off the bed stand. It was Courtney.
Me: "Hello?"
Her: "Hello-hello! What are you doing?"
Me: "Lying down. What about you?"
Her: "No one will drink with me!"
Me: "Really? What idiots! I'll drink with you; come over."
Her: "Yay! Okay, do you have a community pool or something?"
Me: "Uh, no, but I have a spa."
Her: "Okay, perfect. How do I get there?"
I gave her directions and hung up. Just like that, the "tingly feeling" I'd had for this girl quickly transformed into "just another fuck." Who booty-calls someone at seven in the morning? I didn't think of the causes. I prepared for the effects. I hopped out of bed and went straight to the bathroom to do some touch-up manscaping and take a shower.
After showering, I cleaned up my room some, which consisted of me shoving my heap of dirty clothes into a compact wedge in the corner in addition to tossing my four pairs of shoes in the closet, and checking for any leftover female jewelry and condom wrappers. I then threw on my board-shorts and a red T-shirt, and waited in bed.
Courtney stumbled out of a freshly washed black Explorer. She looked much sexier than the previous night. She had shed the reclusive look for a look-at-me look. She wore a purple top, an exposed bra, and low-riding jeans—no underwear—while flaunting a tatted left arm along with another tattoo creeping up from her waistline. "Shots!" was the first thing out of her mouth. My mind came up with a few plausible hypotheses for the attractive human being who was about to enter my house and probably fuck me:
1) She hadn't slept, and after dropping off her sex-bound friends, had taken drugs, partied some more, and then driven to my house under some form of intoxication.
2) She had slept but was a raging alcoholic and began drinking as soon as she woke.
