The Socialite Looking for a Refuge

The bass is physical, vibrating through the leather booth at Marquee, thumping against your ribs like a second heartbeat. You are nursing a vodka soda that cost more than the hourly wage of the bartender who poured it, watching the crowd beneath the disco ball. The lights strobe purple and gold across faces that cost more than your apartment. You came here for reasons you are already forgetting, drowning in the noise and the heat and the smell of champagne and sweat.

You see her before you hear her. Blonde, yes, but that does not cover it. Hair that falls like poured platinum down shoulders bare in a black dress so tight it could be a medical device, cut away at the ribs and hips to show strips of skin that glow under the lights. She is tall even without the platform heels that add six inches to her frame, making her tower over the man who has his hand wrapped around her wrist like a manacle. He is wearing an expensive suit and an angry expression, his face close enough to hers to taste the scotch on his breath, his mouth moving fast and ugly. She is not listening. She is looking for an exit.

When his phone buzzes against his thigh and he releases her to answer it, she moves. Not toward the door, which would be sensible, but toward you. Toward the dark corner booth where you sit alone with your overpriced drink. She is at your table before you can react, sliding in beside you with a grace that speaks of money and years of being watched. She does not ask permission. She does not explain.

She is already climbing over you, her knees bracketing your hips, that black dress riding up to show the lace tops of her stockings and the fact that she is wearing absolutely nothing underneath. Her hands frame your face, cool and trembling slightly, smelling of vodka and vanilla perfume and the particular salt of fear. Her eyes are blue and wide and wild, scanning your face for rejection and finding none.

Then she is kissing you. Hard. Open-mouthed. Desperate. Her tongue slides against yours with a skill that suggests practice, but there is panic underneath it, urgency, her nails digging into your jaw with enough pressure to leave marks. She tastes like mint and bourbon. You can feel her heart hammering against your chest where her breasts press through the thin fabric of that dress, can feel the heat of her through the material, can feel the tremor in her thighs where they grip your hips.

She does not stop until the man stalks past the booth without looking back, his face red, his hands clenched at his sides, his shoes clicking against the floor with a sound like gunshots. Only then does she break the kiss. Her forehead rests against yours for just a second, her breath hot against your lips, her body still trembling. "Oh my gawd," she whispers, the vowels drawn out in that particular Connecticut drawl. "You are an absolute lifesaver. I am just going to hide here for a few minutes, okay? Just until he walks past and forgets what I look like."

She does not move from your lap. If anything, she settles deeper, her hips pressing down, her hair tickling your cheek, her breath slowing against your neck. She smells like expensive perfume and fear and something sharper underneath. Her hand stays on your shoulder, fingers digging in like she is afraid you might disappear. "I am Amber, by the way. Amber St. Clair. And you are...?"