What a day. What a fucking day!

The call that Claire had gotten was from her mom. Something about a dead relative or whatever. I wasn’t able to hear it clearly, but considering everything, this conjecture should’ve been close enough to the truth.

Obviously enough, the date ended right at that moment, with Counter Girl clearly in shock. After a bit of consideration, I ordered my driver to send her home and follow her instructions afterward.

I paid some attention to the idea of tagging along by myself, but, in my current state, meeting her family would’ve been a complete disaster. Claire most likely understood my logic as well. At least, I hoped so.

I was standing on the street, waiting for my ride to arrive.

I took out my phone and, for a long moment, thought about dialing Olivia’s number. Beast really liked her. And that would be a problem. I wasn’t all that keen on undoing our budding normal relationship just to appease this fucking animal.

Man, what I wouldn’t give right now for a smoke...

A car stopped in front of me, and the passenger side window rolled down.

“Waiting for a ride?” I heard a question.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

The guy behind the steering wheel scrolled his phone a bit and said the number, I checked my own and gave another confirmation.

I named the address, not a Bella’s club, but a place I visited quite frequently in my youth. The driver entered it into the navigator, and we drove off.

The ride was silent as I stared out the window onto a lit-up nighttime street. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to see there, but it helped me a bit, if barely, with not blanking out.

“Hey, bro. Are you okay there?” A question brought me back to reality.

“Dunno,” I answered truthfully.

I had no idea why, but it felt like a conversation would do me good right now.

“Took too much?” he followed with another question, a sincere concern clear in his tone.

“Nah, more like a withdrawal, man.” I answered him.

“Oh.” The man behind the steering wheel gave me a quick side glance and continued. “Bro, I know it’s not my business, but do you want to hear a piece of advice from someone with a troubled past?”

I shrugged. I didn’t really care either way.

“This shit won’t do you any good, man. As someone said, ‘at first it seems so sweet, but then you wake up next to a monster’. And this monster is out there to fuck your whole life up, brother.” In his voice, I could hear pain and conviction.

“You don’t say. I tried so many times, man. Every time, it backfired somehow.” I let out an empty chuckle, remembering the past. Or the future. “You can say that I stayed clean for the last two weeks, and, ha, here we go again.”

“Fuck, man.” He looked at me again. “This sucks.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I nodded and turned my head back towards the side window.

For a while, the car's interior was quiet.

“Hey, once more, it’s not my business, but...” The guy paused, looking for words. “Don’t you think it would be better to go straight home then?”

“Nah, if I go back right now, it would end with me going onto the streets, looking for a dose anyway. I'm not sure what will happen if I go to the club, but maybe I will find something to distract myself instead.” I played around with this thought for a minute or two before giving him my answer.

“Fuck, man,” he repeated his earlier words.

“Yeah, fuck, man,” was my response.

And another bout of silence.

“Hey, friend,” I called out. I had an insane idea. “How about you go with me? To the club, I mean. My treat, obviously. Your only job will be to make sure that I won’t kill anyone.”

The guy behind the steering wheel looked at me again, as if trying to decide if I was joking. I was dead serious, though.

“Sorry, man. I promised my kid I would take him to his practice tomorrow, and a party night doesn’t really mix well with that. And my missus will kill me if I get into trouble. I already used all my luck with her giving the chance to an ex-felon,” he declined.

“Understandable.” I nodded back. “Hey, mind telling me a bit about your family?”

“Why the sudden interest?” He turned suspicious.

“Dunno, I just want to hear about their happy ending from a fellow junkie, I suppose.” It was, in fact, a simple curiosity on my part.

The rest of the ride I spent listening to him brag. Well, at least it kept me relatively sane.

***

The insides of this club weren’t all that different from Bella’s place. Loud music, people doing their best to ‘live to their fullest, hah.

Once again, I pushed through the dancing crowd in a deliberately rude manner. My aim was the bar. Once there, I got some booze into my bloodstream and looked around.

I let beast take control, choosing the prey. It was all the same to me either way.

***

She was pretty. Not overwhelmingly beautiful like Helen, of course, but enough to catch my attention.

And she wasn’t alone, either. A company, three girls, three guys—I had no idea whether it was a group date or what. Either way, it made her an even better target.

I approached her on the dance floor, since the guy she was here with was either too drunk or too conscious to be her partner. I couldn’t leave the lady in such distress; how could I?

She could dance. She was not born to do so like Olivia, of course, but she had the moves and knew where and when to grind herself against me for better effect. I had no real complaints.

She had a nice body. Not to the level of Bella, whose mere presence could set me on fire, but it would be fun to explore all her curves. Which my hands were busy doing at the moment.

A few tracks later, I asked if she wanted to hit the bar, and she agreed.

My fucking god, she was boring as fuck. Her endless yapping about useless, uninteresting shit tired me almost instantly. Yeah, this certainly wasn’t Claire, whom I had fun simply talking to.

Overall, I wasn’t even interested in asking her name. Even if she told me by herself, I would forget it by noon tomorrow at the latest.

Well, I guess my luck at meeting interesting people every Friday was bound to run out at some point. And it happened today. It was a good thing Beast was fine with simply fucking her then, I suppose.

She was easy. Since I had no real interest in her, Gigolo’s pick-up macro, the one for this specific occasion, worked like a miracle. A phrase here, a smile there, a meaningful look, a daring touch—it was a solved game. How fucking boring.

I even wondered if her name started with J since she reminded me about those women I picked up in bars near the end of my first run.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to spend the whole night with her. A quickie in the club’s bathroom would suffice. Even Beast agreed with this appraisal.

A hand on my shoulder, trying to turn me around. Loud cursing.

Ah, yes, the cuck she came here with. I had completely forgotten about this sob.