The club smelled like alcohol, perfume, and raging hormones.  I kind of liked it.  It was the same club area of the city, the same crowd, the same everything.  Just like every other weekend, I went out with the girls from work.  We’d get drunk, having a good time, until one – usually me – of us would get distracted by a cute guy.  Normally, around the exact time one of the five of us – usually me – was off seducing previously stated cute guy, the remaining four would find themselves hungry and ready to leave.

            This was that time.  I waved to the girls as I bumped and grinded with this weekend’s flavor.  A Korean guy with a baby face and poor English skills.  I was pretty sure he learned all of the English words he knew, all fifty of them, from American rap songs.  So far, in the whole ten minutes we had known each other, all he’s said to me was ‘hey y’ and ‘want to get freaky?’ and, my favorite, ‘I want to touch you.’  Two years being in Korea, my Korean was pretty good.  He seemed to understand more than he could say.  I would speak English, he would answer in Korean.  None of it mattered much though.  At the end of the night, I didn’t plan on having deep conversations with him.

            “Come with us, Kelly,” one of my coworkers yelled to me.  She was right in front of me with the other three, but the bass from the music was so pounding loud, I could barely hear her shouts.

            “Thanks, but don’t worry about me,” I shouted back, leaning my back against the guy’s chest as we continued to gyrate in synch.  “I’ll be alright.  You guys go ahead.”

            The suspicious redhead eyed the boy groping my hips behind me and then looked at me.  “OK…” she conceded wearily.  “Call me if you need anything or if you have any problems, ok?”  I gave her a reassuring smile.  Leah.  She was our group’s designated sober person.  Her strictly religious upbringing kept her from drinking, but she liked being with her friends, so she went out with us.  Self imposing the title of ‘caretaker.’  She was always a really sweet girl.

            “No problem.  See you later.”

            With one last concerned glance, more of a glare, at the boy behind me, she nodded back and turned to leave with the others.  They waved to me.  I waved back.  One girl, Jenna, hesitated.  Our group’s worst lightweight.  She winked sloppily at me and then made kissy faces at me as Reina, the kind of drunk who got bad ice cream cravings, dragged her toward the exit.

            I caught the guy’s hand as it slithered down my thigh.  Enough of this.  My blood pressure, not to mention my libido, was sky high and I was ready to get what I wanted out of him.  And then go home.  Alone.  These heels make my feet hurt.

            Turning, I gave him my best heavy lidded look.  Usually this worked.  Korean culture and guys were obviously different from American culture and guys, so it’s 50-50 on how this could go.  But I’ve discovered (through extensive research of course) that nine out of ten times, guys – no matter where in the world – are the same when they ingest alcohol and are thrown into a club with loud, pumping music.  Toss in a flirty girl and every single guy takes two steps back on the evolutionary track.

            I wished I could remember his name.

            Scratch that, I wished I could remember if he’d told it to me.

            “You want to get out of here?  Because I do,” I moaned, well shouted, next to his ear.  Just for good measure, after I said the words, I rolled my hips into him a little.  The alcohol throwing me slightly off balance.

            He muttered some Korean words that I didn’t really know before he added in English, “Um, yes.  We go now.”

            My mouth opened to reply, but the words caught in my throat when he took me by the hand and yanked me all the way through the club.  Out into the cool night air, I dug my heels into the sidewalk and grabbed his arm with my other hand.

            “Wait, wait!” I called to him.  He skidded to a halt and whipped around to look at me with wide eyes.  I blinked and put a hand to my forehead.  I was feeling drunker than I’d originally thought.  “Do you have your own apartment?” I asked slowly.  A lot of Korean guys, most I would believe, in their twenties still live at home.  With their parents.

            I was not about to be sneaking into someone’s parents’ home.

            He grinned and patted himself on the chest.  “I’m a university student.  I live with a roommate,” he answered in Korean.

            “Is it far?” I asked, letting my voice take back its seductive tone.

            My shoulder made a funny popping noise when he began dragging me again.

            His apartment was about a ten minute walk from the club, I’d guess.  Had we been walking.  At a sprint, it took us about four minutes.

            In the elevator of his building, the doors had barely shut before he’d slammed himself into me.  Crushing me against the mirrored back wall of the cab with his hands all over me.  He was a good kisser at least.

            Once inside his apartment, I realized he must come from money.  His apartment was nice.  Roomy.  Two bedrooms.  In a city full of sky high apartment buildings, roomy multiple bedroom places are rare and expensive.  I didn’t see much of it though, since I was being carried through the place at the speed of light.  I didn’t kick off my shoes near the door, I was pulled out of them.

            Then in his bedroom, I saw mostly only the inside of my eyelids and his bare ceiling.  The pitch black darkness of his bedroom was only weakened by the glow from the moon washing in through his window.  As he was kissing down my neck, I snuck a peek at my watch.  Subways close in 45 minutes.  No time for .

            His bed was too small for the ninja moves I attempted, which was why we ended up crashing to the floor.  That or maybe I just wasn’t a graceful drunk.  He laughed and rubbed the back of his shoulder.  I sat up on my knees, straddling his waist.

            “Sorry,” I said, unapologetically tearing at his belt.  “I need to catch the subway to get home.  No time for the romantic stuff, ok?”  I jerked his belt out of the loops of his jeans and my shirt up over my head at the same time.

            “I’ve never met a girl like you,” he chuckled, slightly breathlessly.  I smirked as I heaved his upper half up off the floor to pull off his tee shirt.

            “And you never will,” I replied as I stood up to shimmy out of my jeans.  That was when he caught on that I wasn’t one for wasting time.  He took advantage of me stumbling around, hopping out of my skinny jeans to scramble up and tackle me back onto his bed.

            I bit my lip through most of it.  Not because it was that mind blowing, though it did serve its purpose, but because I had no name to moan.  I’d like to say I felt bad not knowing or remembering his name, but he purred something that sounded like ‘Ella’ in my ear during it, so I didn’t care. 

            The one bonus about pure, emotionless was that it was just that.  .  No feelings hurt and I never felt bad about sneaking out the second he fell asleep.

            I stumbled and tripped three times in my heels as I tried to drunkenly make my way back to the elevator.  I fell over inside the elevator.  That was when I gave up and kicked off my heels.  I was wearing tights.  I didn’t care about carrying my shoes home.

            The subway had twenty minutes left to run by the time I’d taken it all the way back to my apartment.  Not bothering to change out of my club clothes, I flopped onto my own bed. 

            For as long as I could remember, I always hated the moments before I fell asleep.  Those painfully long moments when my brain unwinds and decides to replay the entire day like a movie reel.  Like I wanted to relive it.

            Tonight’s feature film was full of vodka, American rap songs, groping, and heavy breathing.  Same as almost every other weekend since I’d turned eighteen.  I bet most people would grow tired of living life the way I did.

            But most people had more of a life to look forward to than I did.

            I welcomed the blackness sleep brought.  Temporary blackness.  Like I didn’t have enough problems, I also suffered from night terrors.  Maybe it was my mind rebelling against my body for being so weak.

            The next day the same group of girls, who texted me a dozen times each to make sure I was still alive, called me to see if I wanted to go out for dinner and then back to the club district.  Um, aren’t I always up for that?  Yeah, I think so.

            After a late dinner, we headed straight for the club.  Leah, who I think was a closeted ‘freak in the sheets’ kind of girl, was asking me questions about the guy I left with last night.  She was trying hard to go for the concerned sister role.  Except, even though she gasped and blushed when Jenna pried a few details out of me, her eyes were way too wide with interest for me to buy she was only concerned.

            I strut through the club with the girls like I owned the place, but I wasn’t feeling it that night.  I hated when that hopeless, drained feeling came over me.  It was rare, but sometimes it would fill me and then I wasn’t in the mood for anything.  Usually a lot of alcohol would cure it.  Or at least drown it.

            But after one drink, I realized I wasn’t even in the mood for that.  I quickly ducked into the dancing mob on the floor to get away from the girls so they couldn’t start asking me questions.  I hoped sinking my nails into a hot guy would shake the feeling.

            It didn’t.  Though he was hot.  American maybe.  Or Canadian.  I couldn’t tell since he had no accent at all.  He insisted on talking to me while we danced.  This mood I was in was making me easily aggravated.  Not to mention, I just wasn’t feeling him. If my mood was different, I probably would.  It would also help if he had some y accent.

            Every time I wriggled away from him, he’d catch my wrist and pull me back.

            Determined to beat my funk, I twisted around and decided I needed to cut to the chase.  If alcohol couldn’t do it, maybe some ual interaction would.

            I kissed him full on the mouth, letting his fingers dance down my sides and slip into my back pockets.

            He was a bad kisser.  Epic fail.  After a few minutes of tolerating him slobber on me, I pulled away and squeezed my way through the crowd to claw my way back to the bar where I’d left the girls from work.

            I was surprised I’d been able to lose him.  I explained to the girls that I wasn’t feeling the club and I wanted to leave.  Leah offered to go with me, but I wasn’t in the mood for girl chat either.  I thanked her and quickly melted back into the dancing crowd to make my escape before any of them could interrogate me.

            I’d just stepped outside into the night when I felt someone grab my wrist.  The force of it, whipping me around a full 180 degrees.  I found myself face to face with the guy from before.