You Own Me (Owned 1)

I blinked. Vic was singing to me. And it sounded good. He was singing “Manipulation” in my ear; his low, breathy, voice reverberated through my body. I closed my eyes again, doing nothing save feeling his voice in my body as he moved us both to the music.

I stumbled over to Lissie, unsure if I was stumbling because I was drunk or too horny to function.

“Wow,” Lissie said, staring at me with cartoon-wide eyes. I plopped down clumsily on the barstool and gestured to the bartender for another drink.

“Wow,” Lissie repeated.

I eyed Lissie as I gulped my drink down. “What?”

“What?” Lissie exclaimed, getting alcohol everywhere as she gesticulated wildly with her hands. “What? What was going on with you and that man? That’s what!”

I shrugged. “Nothing.”

After the song ended, Vic let me go and walked out of the bar without another word. It was weird, suffice it to say. He basically Hiroshima’d my heart in the middle of a bar. I’d never felt that kind of magnetic pull and blatant animal attraction to someone I barely knew. Well, that’s not entirely true. I felt attraction to people I didn’t know all the time. But with Vic, it was different. I didn’t just want to have sex with him. I wanted him. Body, soul, everything. And that was the strange, terrifying, and all over nuclear aspect. I didn’t know him at all. So here I was, in a bar, dumbfounded and surviving the aftereffects of a nuclear attack by Vic.

“Nothing?” Lissie exclaimed, her voice rising with each sip of her drink.

“Not nothing, okay?” I responded, trying to calm her down. People were starting to look at us. “I know him, but that’s it.”

Lissie nodded. “You should do him. He’s into you.”

I shook my head. Unlikely. Vic is otherworldly gorgeous and probably rich, considering he owns the building I’m living in. He doesn’t need to be slumming it with the likes of me.

“He is!” Lissie insisted. “You should have seen the way he was looking at you. God, I’m wet just thinking about it.”

I laughed. If nothing came from Vic and me, at least I’d made a new friend.

I stumbled home some time later, after more drinks than I could count, and a rather awkward game of Never Have I Ever . . .

“Never have I ever done a three-way,” Lissie said.

I had to drink. Lissie looked shocked. I was getting much drunker than I had planned to during that game.

“Never have I ever . . . had an abortion,” Lissie offered, still clutching her full shot.

I eyed her warily then drank again. Lissie clasped a hand to her mouth.

“I had no idea! I assumed that was a gimmie,” Lissie said, trying to apologize.

“Sure.” I slurred.

“You go, this is getting mean.” Lissie said.

“Fine. Never have I ever . . . done cocaine.” Other drugs, yes, but I stayed away from the “hard stuff.”

Lissie looked at her drink and then took a big gulp. I looked at her, my eyes wide with surprise.

“It’s a long story,” she finally said.

“Aren’t they all?” I slurred.

Lissie nodded at my reply and we agreed that Never Have I Ever had run its course.

As is customary when I’m drunk, it took me at least three times to get my key in the lock. When I opened my door, pitch blackness greeted me. Only small dots of electronic light hung in the darkness like fireflies. I flipped the light switch, and the room was immediately awash with bright yellow light making my blurry eyes water.

I took off my shoes and let my toes feel the hardwood floor. It was cold and sobering. I walked over to my laptop and picked it up. I was drunk and in the mood to stalk. I wanted to see if Vic had an online presence that could be infiltrated. Me? I didn’t have one. Having a psycho ex-boyfriend after you meant that you couldn’t exactly check in on Foursquare or post photos on Instagram.

I sat cross-legged on my wingback chair and opened my laptop, ready to do some snooping. An alert bubble in the right-hand corner of the screen let me know I had email. I opened it without thinking. The key phrase: without thinking. Drunken people don’t think.