Friday night.
In a scene played out across the country, singles and couples filtered in and out of the club. Some were there to hook-up; others merely sought to escape the concerns and details of the week now behind them.
Music pounded at a volume guaranteed to be heard for a good eight square blocks, and though it was still early, the pace at the club was hopping and picking up with each passing minute. A substantial number of men and women danced on the floor, contorting their bodies keeping rhythm with the beat. Some were trying to move with the music, rhythm obviously missing. At the bar, a stream of people choked up three different spots, vying for a bartender's attention. Men and women too shy to hit the dance floor either held their ground at the bar, hugged a section of the wall, or sat at one of the tables that ringed the room. Waitresses and a couple of waiters fought their way through the crowd, picking up glasses, taking orders, trying to manage the chaos.
Gary Rogers was a man with a plan. He sat at a table located in the section of the club that was elevated half a floor above the rest of the establishment. From his vantage point, he surveyed the crowd, scoping out his options. One of the beautiful women here would be his love for the evening. Just for the evening, though. He didn't believe in love, romance or relationships. Those were crutch terms the desperate used to hang on to someone when they could no longer compete on the field of sexual conquest. Though still a little early in the evening to be finalizing his selection, he had already narrowed the field a bit. He saw it as separating the women from the girls. Doing that would enable him to focus his attention on the best potential beneficiary of his affections.
He saw a familiar face approaching him. Kim. Blonde, big-breasted, and a nearly relentless tease. He remembered she was pretty good in bed, too, as he shifted in his chair. But she was clingy. Possessive. And that was before she'd gone home with him. He had taken her home with him last week, almost letting her spend the night. Finally, he'd convinced her he had to go in to work the next morning. She had called him four times, wanting to go to dinner, a movie, anything. He'd almost been tempted, but he had resisted, knowing she would try to draw him into the inevitable "relationship chat" that surely would have followed. That cramped his style. Not a good thing.
"Hey," she said, practically shouting to be heard over the music. "You never called me back." She slid into the chair across from him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "My machine garbled your message and I lost your number." Both were lies.
"I locked it into your cell phone!" she said, somewhat incredulous.
"You did?" He hadn't noticed. He hadn't checked, either. She was blocking part of his view.
"Yeah," she nodded. "Look, it doesn't matter. Want to go somewhere and talk?"
"What? No, I can't," he said, her question registering. He'd been looking past her. "I'm meeting someone."
What he had not said finally registered with her. He hadn't called her or returned her calls because he'd never intended to, and now she understood he had no intention of giving her the time of day, much less actually paying attention to her.
"You're an ass!" she said, standing up and glaring at him angrily. He smiled at her, unsympathetic to her anger.
"Now, don't be like that," he said. "We just aren't right for one another; that's all."
"We're not right for one another?! We hardly even know each other! You took me home, I gave you a blowjob and you fucked me. And you all but threw me out of your apartment." She glared at him, her eyes narrowing. She stood up, leaning across the table and bringing her face close to his ear and speaking just loud enough to be heard over the music. "You know, there's a special place in hell for guys like you." She turned and walked away with angered, deliberate strides, almost causing two people to spill their drinks as she bumped into them.
"So I've been told," he said, taking a sip from his drink.
A man slipped into the chair beside him. Doug Marshall had just come off the dance floor, a woman with Asian features wearing a skimpy blue dress disappearing from his arm and making her way to the ladies' room.
"Was that... what was her name, Kim, the girl you took home last Friday night?" Doug asked, out of breath.
"Yeah," Gary said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out his cell phone. He scrolled down, finding that Kim had indeed stored her number there. He was pretty sure he still had the scrap of paper with her number on it sitting on his kitchen counter, too.
"Dude, she's hot," Doug said, contorting himself in his chair to see if she was still visible.
"See if she'll talk to you,' Gary said. "Don't tell her you know me."
"You're kidding." Doug relaxed, leaning back in his chair.
"She actually loaded her number into my cell phone."
"I'm working on Lisa, the chick in the blue dress. I don't think she's wearing a thing under it."
"I've got my eye on the redhead over there, in the green top," Gary said.
"Oh, no, man. Trust me. She looks hot from across the room, but she's really annoying," Doug said. "You won't like her."
The two men continued to analyze the floor. Gary finally noticed a young woman with honey colored hair. She noticed him, too. The hunt was on.
Over the next three hours, he bought her several drinks and turned on the charm. In the end, convincing her to come home with him was easy.
At five in the morning, they'd had sex twice, he'd nearly forced her to perform oral sex on him, and she'd sobered up completely. As the taxi pulled up to take her home, she fought back tears as the pain and insult of being used welled up within her. Gary kissed her on the cheek, shut the door when she was in the cab, and watched as she rode away. Letting out a deep breath of satisfaction, he went back to his apartment, crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep.
The next week was like any other. Somehow, the last weekend's conquest, Terry, wasn't it, had managed to get his phone number. She called him six times. What had she done wrong? Would he please call her so they could talk? He shook his head. Such attachment after one night of ecstasy was unfortunate.
Friday night arrived and Gary found himself occupying his usual seat, looking for his evening's entertainment.
Doug showed up an hour later than usual. He'd gone home with the Asian woman the week before. He'd managed to make her mad enough that she had no interest in seeing him again, so he, too, was on the prowl.
As the evening progressed, Gary expressed some concern that maybe they needed to find somewhere else to go. Doug told him he was worrying about a problem that didn't exist. It wasn't even eleven o'clock yet; the evening was still young.
Doug headed back to the dance floor. A strawberry-blonde wearing a floral print spaghetti strap dress had piqued his interest.
