Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) (2 page)

I broke off the kiss with the guy who, at this point, I was basically using as a tool to observe the club discreetly. I found my sorority sisters again and pointed out the bouncer.

“I don’t think he’s a bouncer, I haven’t seen him here before,” said Kim Lee, a South Korean exchange student with impeccable taste only rivaled by her uncanny ability to sense what people were really like.

“No, you’re wrong,” said Becca, brushing a lock of her caramelized brown weave with highlights so good they looked natural over her mocha skin. Her dress was mostly pinks and greens which really stood out from her skin. A natural smattering of freckles covered her firm cheeks, brushing across the strong bridge of her button nose. “He’s new. I was talking to Jason earlier and he said they just hired on new staff.”

Jason was the bartender I’d been observing earlier. I’d forgotten he and Becca were fuck buddies with an open relationship. That didn’t mean I could pursue him though: it was bad form to fuck people that your sisters were involved with, past or present, and I wasn’t about to risk my place in the house over some stupid romp with a guy who was cute but probably not boyfriend material. The fact she was okay being here while he basically verbally fucked girls in front of her was something I didn’t really get yet. Was he using her for sex or was she using him for the perks of dating a club employee? Knowing Becca, the latter, not the former. She wasn’t the kind of girl to get played, ever. She was street smart, from Compton but her parents sent her to good schools so she could get into UCBH. Although she acted totally different now, she was still street smart and never forgot where she was from.

Samantha interjected, brushing some imaginary crumbs off of her perfectly white dress which matched her heels and her nails. On some girls, it would look tacky, but on Samantha, it looked as if she belonged at a rapper’s end of summer party. That was more her crowd anyway, as her dad was a big time music producer and she was always extended the most exclusive of invites. That’s what made me want to stay in Cali for the summer, but my parents were dragging me off on some cruise around Europe instead. They’d always wanted to take me, my mom had always wanted to go after taking French in high school, and now, they could afford it but more than anything, I felt Cali was where I was meant to be. “Don’t go for it, Emma. Trust me. There’s so many guys like him out there. There’s some cute guys at Beta Rho Omega that run the door during parties. Go for one of them, not some townie. UCBH students stick together. Together.” She repeated the last word for emphasis and I knew what she meant. I knew that I should listen to her, she was my Big, after all.

However, Kim was her Big, and so in terms of sorority hierarchy, she got the last say. I looked at her with pleading eyes. I knew it was a bad tactic, sort of bad form to be so manipulative to my Grand Big, but she rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. Go get him. But don’t come back without him. He better be good in bed.”

“Thanks, Kim!” I said as I rushed off and away from the red velvet and leather seats of the VIP area that she’d got access to from her promoter from her promoter friend for “free” (read: just a blow job in the back beforehand). As I looked around the club again for the target of my affections – who am I kidding, of my lust! –, I saw the guy I’d been dancing with already locked at the mouth and pelvis with some trashy girl from the bar. Whatever, he was just a low level financial analyst anyway, and that’s not what was on the menu for me tonight.

I saw him going the backdoor with a girl so I knew I had to make my move before it was too late. I moved in to my target and tapped him on the shoulder as the girl made a corner.

He turned to see me and then turned away. That was weird: most guys were stunned when they saw me, especially now that I had the proper clothes and beauty treatments to look like a pageant winner turned sorority girl. I flicked one of my long golden extensions over my tan shoulder. “Uh, excuse me?” I half asked, half ordered. I didn’t really want him to excuse me. I wanted him to notice me.

“Yeah, you’re excused. I’m a bit busy, if you can’t tell,” and so I looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing.

The girl he’d let out of the club to the back alley? She wasn’t a girl he was going to fuck or anything. He was holding up her hair while she puked, her butt against his crotch out of necessity as he held her up so she didn’t fall into the puddle of grossness her stomach was letting out. I wished that I was that girl, kind of, with my ass against the bouncer’s dick, but I didn’t envy the fact she didn’t know her limits. There were splatter marks on his jeans now, as well as on her discount level black bandage bodycon dress that was definitely not in line with the theme of #ThrowbackThursday. It was pretty fucking gross, but whatever.

I ignored it. I wasn’t about to let some other girl kill my buzz, especially one that was wearing a ponytail. “Yeah, so, I was wondering if like, you wanted my number.”

“No,” he said. This time, he didn’t even turn to talk to me. Maybe he’d misheard me over the pulsing beat of the music, the bass heavier at Club Grit than at most places, but I doubted it. Guys like him said
yes
to girls like me. They always did.

“No? What do you mean, no?” Guys didn’t say no to me, ever. They asked me if I wanted it faster, or harder, but not for me to go away.

“Listen, lady, I’m just trying to do my job. I’m a bouncer, if you want the kind of guy that’ll give you his number out of obligation, try the bartender or better yet, another club. There’s a strip club down the street, I’m sure many guys there would oblige your request.” His voice was getting firmer. I wondered if he was like that in bed, growling orders and commands. It would be like one of those hot stories that Becca had told us. Ever since BDSM had become chic, I’d always wanted a dominant lover. I didn’t want one that was rude.

“Excuse me? I’m not that kind of girl.” I wasn’t some thirty year old single divorcee who read romance novels in the tub with a glass of cheap red wine, who had more cats than ex-boyfriends. I was a young, hot nubile woman, at the prime of my life, and he was a guy. Guys wanted to fuck. That was what they were good for.

“You’re sure acting like it. Now please, go away. I’m trying to help a customer here,” he said, and this time, he did turn to look at me, but not to give me a once over, but to glare. That’s not how guys looked at me. They looked at me and they practically made a pool of drool at their feet. They didn’t ignore me, ever.

“Whatever,” I said, but he had already turned away. I went back into the club, to the VIP where the girls still were. They had just got another round of drinks, a bottle of champagne poured by a sexy bottle service girl who was friends with Kim Lee while the sparklers in the cork fizzled away while emitting bright white and rainbow sparks that didn’t burn our skin or dresses.

“You smell kinda funky, honey...did you bang him against the dumpster or something?” asked Becca as she sipped away at the slender flute, her perfectly shaped gel nails tapping against the crystal glass like a spa chime. The bubbles around the perfectly whole strawberry, as red as her lip gloss, bubbled up to those same lips.

“Ha. Ha. No. I wasn’t even gone that long,” I said as I sat back down, but all eyes were still on me. I knew my answer wasn’t satisfactory. They wanted the juicy details, and they wanted them now.

“Honey, you never know!” she said with a laugh. Becca was the most sexually experienced of the group. Rumor has it a pledge that was assigned to do her laundry opened the wrong drawer once and saw her collection of expensive gold plated vibrators, but of course, that was just a rumor, right? I couldn’t imagine a girl like Becca needing sex toys, given the fact she had a new frat boy on her arm at every social and sometimes, one in the coat closet too.

“Yeah, no success,” I said and I reached for another drink.

Kim Lee pulled it away and her thin designer bangles clinked against the glass so hard I thought the glass might shatter and break, spilling the golden deliciousness all over her vintage Lilly dress she’d borrowed from her mom. “You don’t need another drink. What you need is to get that number off that bouncer. Don’t make me look like a fool for giving you this privilege. I want you to come back to this table with his digits or you don’t get to come back with us at all. You’ll have to find your own way home. If you want another pill for confidence, that I can offer. You can wash it down with the champagne if you want.”

I looked at her to see if she was joking, but the look on her face was the kind she had when we got cucumber gel facials at the spa. It was stoic and it was no nonsense. She’d put her faith in me and I’d failed her, so the only option was that I’d have to make it right. I didn’t want to make her look like a fool in front of everyone else.

She held out the bag of pills in her hand. I took another tab of ecstasy and washed it down with the champagne, and headed back downstairs. I knew the girls were watching me but as I became more relaxed and the pills took hold over my body, all I wanted to do was to fuck. To dance.

However, as I looked over the dance floor, I didn’t see bouncer boy anywhere. I did see a guy dancing by himself and texting, so I walked over to him and started to grind on him while he texted. It wasn’t ideal but it was better than just looking like a stalker. Of course, the guy noticed and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me in to rub me against his cock which I could feel through his pants, and he pushed me over so he could text on the small of my back. It was perfect for finding my bouncer boy.

Until he dropped me and my knees hit the floor.

“Hey,” I said, but the guy was already making his way across the floor to the next girl. What a jackass! I tried to get back on my feet but it was hard in heels on a floor now slippery with sweat and spilled drinks, so I gave up after a while. I reached out but nobody was there to help me back up until one person reached out: the bouncer from before, the asshole that wouldn’t just give me his number. I took his hand and got back on my feet, but slipped again, so he took one of my arms and wrapped it around his firm shoulder to steady me. His shirt was wet with sweat but I didn’t care that my bare arms were taking in its saltiness. I got to be close to him and take in his masculine musk as he lead me to the curtained VIP section and sat me down.

“Hey, you,” I said, but I knew my words were slurred. It didn’t really matter. “Are you going to finally give me your number?”

“No, you’ve got to go. Home. Now. Where are those girls you came with?” he asked, looking around the club for them. His voice was filled with desperation and I knew that now, in his eyes, I wasn’t some sexy girl. I was like that girl he’d taken to the back alley to spill her guts. I was a fucking mess. My heart sunk. I’d failed my task and I was sure that there was no way that I was going to get this guy’s number, but I got his name. On the front, in smaller type, I’d missed it but now I could read it, kind of. Kyle? Sky? No, it was Skylar. His name was Skylar.

“They’re coming right back, Skylar,” I insisted but I knew that it had taken me too long to do my task. The girls had already left without me, but that’s what I got for fucking up this task. It wasn’t fair. This was the kind of challenge that I couldn’t just flash my Daddy’s girl credit card at and make disappear as fast as I could say “charge it”.

A bottle service girl in a low cut black dress, patent platform heels, and porn star tits came up. “Her party already left half an hour ago,” she said, in a voice unlike the one I’d heard her use earlier with the table next to us, that squeaky flirty voice replaced by one more serious and free of the lilts I was used to hearing in the club.

“Maybe you could take me home,” I said to Skylar, but he looked at me in a way I didn’t want any guy to look at me: with disappointment.

But his answers surprised me. “Yeah. Maybe I can.”

That’s when I stopped remembering. That’s when I blacked out.

I
WOKE UP IN MY DORM ROOM AND LOOKED AT THE CLOCK. It was already eleven in the morning. I’d missed breakfast and if I’d had class, I would have been late. How did I get home though? I remember staying behind when everyone went home, and something about a bouncer...

Samantha was downstairs with Kim when I opened the fridge and went for a yogurt. It tasted terrible in my mouth, even though it was my favorite: Greek yogurt with the strawberry in the bottom. I hated being hungover and had the pounding head to prove it. “Oh, that cute guy you were talking to, the bouncer? He got a cab and took you home but he left. He didn’t even go upstairs. Kim took you to your room but that guy escorted you home.”

“Did you get his number?” asked Kim. She was dressed in her usual clothes now: black horn rim glasses, a cable knit cardigan light enough for spring, a tank top, and a plaid skirt with black Mary Janes. In one hand was a cup of coffee, in the other, a surprisingly plain looking clipboard: black, with a silver clip, some girls said in hushed whispers that it was custom made by Christian Louboutin himself, as the edges were the same scarlet red as the bottoms of the iconic shoes. Her father was the most famous businessman in all of Korea, renowned for his fashion empire, from small stores that every kawaii-as-fuck ulzaang girl worth their salt wore to exclusive limited batch artisan designer goods that Asian politician's wives bought out in hours upon release.

I bit my lip as I lied. “Yeah, I’m going to call him this weekend.” Hopefully everything would blow over my Monday if I kept my head down and conveniently caught mono from a member of Beta Rho.

Becca walked in with a bagel covered in cream cheese and lox as neon coral pink as her dress had been last night. Just the memory of last night made me sick and the smell of fish wasn’t helping either. “No, silly, why don’t we just go to the club tonight? He knows you now, so we can get in the VIP section quicker. We’ll be able to cut the line, past all the plebs and uglies, and get to partying faster.”

“That’s such a good idea, Becca!” said Samantha.

“Bitch, like I don’t know?” she giggled as they did that half-effort, easy breezy high five all the older girls did, clasping their hands before it could make a slapping sound. I still wasn’t used to the word bitch being tossed around so lightly but I laughed along with them. “You don’t look your best, though.” Becca gave me the once over as she gave me that oh so judging look I was used to her giving all the other pledges too. “We have to hit the spas. Like, now.”