“Geez Louise”, she muttered under breath. Standing in front of the door in a little blue shiny dress she thought how lucky it was that the night air was relatively warm for spring. She blew out a stream of cigarette smoke from between her lips. “When will this damn promoter come out and get us?”

Five minutes late she was standing in one of the biggest clubs in the City. So many beautiful people, great music pumping through the sound system, she was ready to get it on. Almost. She was still nursing an Italian hangover from the night before.

She and her friend made their way to the bar and ordered drinks. Vodka cranberry and Long island iced tea were the appointed facilitators of a great night out on the town. Only it took twenty long minutes before she felt the sweet sting of drink in her tummy.

“Bloody female bartenders”, her girlfriend shouted over the music. They look good behind the bar but suck at service”. She was just happy to get her ID and credit card back. “Plane ticket $500. Drinks at the bar $40. Ability to do it again and again. Priceless,” she thought to herself as she tucked her stuff back into her clutch.

Scanning the crowd she tried to find a spot where she and her friend could comfortably stand and get that long-awaited buzz. She especially needed it tonight. Fighting fire with fire and all that.

“Let’s go up the staircase and check out the upstairs room”, she said. As they made their way up, she was well aware that her decently perky butt was fully exposed to all the people below. Not that they cared to look up – everyone was cruising in this place. Frankly she couldn’t be bothered who was staring up her dress. Her only goal was to get enough vodka in her system to beat the hangover aches. She chose to wear a ridiculously short dress. She just had to suck it up.

The arrived on the upper floor and knew immediately that they had arrived in the zone. Pushing their way through the crowd of A+F and American Apparel model wannabes, they made their way to the back of the room. There the two girls from another city halfway across the world surveyed the room with satisfaction. This was going to be another good night.

Two vodkas later, she saw him checking her out. “Little boy”, she thought. “You need to get a tan before wearing a pink shirt.” He beckoned to her to come over and dance with him and suddenly she felt herself blush. Lowering her head to sip out of her straw she peeked at him through her lashes and saw that he was still waiting for her to answer.

“Good lord,” she thought to herself. “You can’t even bring yourself to blow him off. How old are you anyway?” She looked up and shook her head.

He came over to where she was standing. He introduced himself and his wingman and asked all the usual questions. Then he bought her a drink and launched into that dance Americans so favor. The dick-in-the-ass-dance. Having been groomed on dancefloors in Asia and Europe, she considered dry-humping, ass-dancing extremely ghetto. And disrespectful. Not everyone enjoys backdoor action and, more importantly, it prevents two people from doing that almost kissing but not quite flirting while dancing thing.

She loved that.

Also it was ruining her sequined dress.

She turned around to face him, flicked her hair and thought “Ok, let me show you how Euros do it”.

***

Four weeks later, she looked the window of her cab and thought “Plane ticket $400. Vacation days 2. Kissing him again. Priceless”. How her heart beat in anticipation.