The first time he met her it was at a club called the Paradise. It wasn't the type of place he normally hung out, but then, he wasn't looking for his normal type of affair. The Paradise was a techno/industrial dance club where 110 decibel bass lines pulsated up to the sidewalk on the street. It was patronized by a crowd with a fondness for black, metal body adornments and high octane refreshments. To say that Adam felt out of his element would have been a hilarious understatement. He may as well have been stark naked for as conspicuous as he felt in his newly purchased faux biker jacket. He knew he just didn't have the attitude to carry it off, and he knew that everyone else in the club knew it too. But then that presumed that they gave a fuck, which was pretty unlikely.
After orienting himself in the rapid fire strobe lighting and the body pounding music, he made his way past the nearest dance floor where bodies shook and gyrated and jostled each other like so many machined parts being run through a mechanical sorter. Adam pressed his way to one of the bars and, after several futile tries, finally flagged down the bartender. He yelled above the din for a Stoli with a twist. She nodded acknowledgment, tapped a few times on the touch screen, and delivered a perfectly measured shot of vodka in a glass so chilled the evaporating sweat and breath of the crowd collected on the outside.
He turned, took a sip of the icy liquid and let it burn down his throat into his chest. He had never really acquired a taste for this stuff, but it was the only thing he could think of that seemed appropriate. He took another sip. That's when he noticed her. Or rather, he noticed it. It was the silver ring that adorned the north rim of her navel, above the waist of her black jeans and below the black, lacy cut-off tank top she wore under the leather jacket. It flashed in the blue-hot halogen lighting overhead as she stood next to him at the bar. Adam was intrigued by the current piercing craze and navel rings held a particular fascination for him. After fixating on it for a moment he let his gaze wander up to see who was wearing it. When he reached her face she was staring back at him through her Ray Bans with a look that sneered, "My, aren't you amusing."
"Sorry. I was just admiring your navel ring."
She seemed to accept that and broke a near-smile. She offered to clink glasses in a toast that said, "No offense taken, dweeb." She slammed her drink back and set the glass down, signaling for another.
"What are you drinking?" he tried to ask above noise.
"Calvados."
Calvados. Brandy made from apples in Normandy. They clinked glasses again and she slammed the second one back while Adam took a bigger gulp than he normally would. It burned all the way into his gut. He thought for a moment that the glasses as they touched must be something like what it would feel like to bite down on that silver ring.
She nodded toward the dance floor and, taking him by his condensation-slick fingers, pulled him away from the bar. They entered the sea of bodies and began to find the pace of the music. She cleared a space for them as she bumped and moved in time to the electronic bass line. He orbited awkwardly around her. Soon the crowd moved back into the vacuum and closed up the space. He was pressed up against her. He could feel the heat rise off her skin into his nostrils. She turned her back to him and kept moving to the frenetic beat. The rounded curve of her ass swayed back and forth across the front of his jeans. But she seemed oblivious, or at least indifferent, to the reaction this was causing in his groin. They continued to bump and grind and sway for another 30 minutes. Finally, dripping with sweat, Adam beckoned her back to the bar. She ordered two calvados, one for him. They clinked glasses. Yes, that must be something like biting down on her navel ring, he thought to himself. She tossed her head back and drained the glass, Adam following her lead a moment later.
"Shall we go?"
It was more a statement than a question. He followed her out of the Paradise and up the stairs on to the street. It was a short, silent walk to a nearby warehouse building. She let them in through a heavy steel door and closed the gate behind them on the freight elevator that creaked and groaned as it slowly rose to the second floor.