Adrian
I didn’t plan to drink that night—not really.
I told myself I’d go to the club, sit at the bar, maybe find clarity in the darkness that had become my second home. But the moment I walked through the velvet-draped entrance and the music vibrated through my chest, something inside me cracked, something raw and festering that had been tearing at me since the night Serafina looked at me like she was guarding a truth I was not meant to know. I moved straight to the bar, not bothering with greetings or pretense.
“Whiskey,” I said, dropping into a seat. “Double.”
The bartender raised a brow. “Rough night?”
“Make it a triple,” I snapped, and that was answer enough.
The first drink burned, sharp and unforgiving—a punishment I welcomed. The second numbed the edges. The third drowned everything that made sense. By the fourth, my limbs felt heavy, my mind suspended in a warm, suffocating haze. Conversations blurred around me, flirtatious giggles, low moans from the shadowed corners, bodies moving in rhythm like they had forgotten the world existed beyond these walls.
“Someone’s spiraling,” a sultry voice murmured beside me.
I turned slowly to find a woman leaning close, her lips painted a deep wine red, her gaze lazy and assessing. She touched my shoulder lightly, sliding into the seat beside me without invitation.
I stared at her hand, feeling nothing. Absolutely nothing. “I’m fine,” I said flatly.
She laughed softly. “Men who say that never are.”
“Then why do you ask?” I muttered.
“Because I like broken things,” she said, swirling her drink. “They’re easier to play with.”
Another woman approached on my right, this one masked, dressed in a shimmering dark slip that clung to her body like liquid sin. “I remember you,” she purred, fingers sliding along my thigh. “You’re searching for someone.”
I stiffened. “Not anymore.”
Her laugh curved around my ear like smoke. “Everyone searches, sweetheart. Even when they pretend they aren’t.”
The bartender set another drink in front of me. I didn’t remember asking for it, but I drank it anyway.
“She must’ve been something,” the masked woman murmured, tracing her fingers up my arm. “To leave a man like you in this state.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m not here to talk.”
“Then what are you here for?” she asked, her tone softening, becoming almost tender. “Escape?”
I stared at the amber liquid in my glass. “Something like that.”
“What did she do?” the first woman asked, leaning closer until her breath warmed my neck. “Did she break your heart?”
“No,” I said bitterly. “She just stopped letting me in.”
The masked woman touched my chest lightly. “So you’re trying to forget.”
“I’m trying to feel,” I whispered, hating how pathetic the words sounded, how naked they made me.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt. “Then let us help.”
I should have pushed them away. I should have stood up and left. I should have gone home to my wife, even if home had become a battlefield of silence and unspoken truths. But instead, I let myself be guided—hands on my shoulders, voices whispering in my ear, laughter echoing around me as they led me toward one of the private rooms.
The door shut behind us with a soft click.
Hands were on me immediately—too many, too eager, too unfamiliar. Lips pressed against my neck, fingers tugged at my clothes, bodies pressed against mine, warm and willing. The room spun around me, the music vibrating through the walls like a second heartbeat.
“Relax,” one of them whispered.
“Let go,” another urged.
“Forget her,” a third murmured against my skin.
Forget her.
If only it were that simple.
I grabbed one of the women by the waist, pulling her closer, but even as her lips met mine, all I could think about was Serafina—the way she used to kiss me, the softness of her sighs, the way she whispered my name like it meant something sacred. This woman’s mouth tasted like alcohol and desperation. It did nothing to fill the emptiness inside me.
Another woman straddled my lap, tilting my face toward hers. “Be present,” she whispered. “Be here.”
But I wasn’t here. I wasn’t anywhere. I was suspended between guilt and longing, drowning in memories of the wife who slept on the other side of the bed, her back turned, her heart drifting somewhere I couldn’t reach.
Her eyes flashed in my mind—sad, guarded, full of something she refused to say out loud.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to sob.
I wanted to drink until the world went dark and I no longer had to think about how far we had fallen.
Instead, I let them push me down onto the mattress. Bodies tangled with mine, warm skin against warm skin, hands everywhere, lips everywhere. But none of it mattered. None of it meant anything. It felt like watching myself from a distance, like inhabiting a body I no longer recognized.
“Do you want this?” someone whispered.
“No,” I whispered back, even as my hands moved on their own.
“You’re lying,” she said, laughing softly. “Your body wants something.”
“My body wants something it can’t have,” I said, voice slurred with alcohol and misery.
“Then take what’s in front of you,” she urged.
And I did.
Or at least, I pretended to.
When it was over—when the room stopped spinning and the bodies around me quieted—I lay staring at the ceiling, feeling utterly hollow. The women murmured to each other softly, gathering their things, brushing their hair back into place. One of them leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“You’ll forget her eventually,” she said gently.
I didn’t answer.
Because I knew I wouldn’t.
When I finally staggered out of the room and down the hallway, the bartender glanced up, a flicker of pity crossing his face. “Rough night?” he asked.
I laughed, a broken sound. “Isn’t it always?”
Outside, the cold air hit me like a slap. I leaned against the brick wall, breathing hard, trying to steady myself. The city lights blurred behind the haze of alcohol, and for a moment, I felt something close to despair.
“Serafina,” I whispered to no one. “Why are we losing each other?”
No answer came.
Just the echo of my own guilt, and the knowledge that while I was destroying myself in the arms of strangers…
she was drifting further away—
into someone else’s darkness.