I do the math. Fifty-three minus twenty-six… yeah, twenty-seven years older. I swipe right and don’t flinch when I see that this AARP horndog has the same idea as me. We match.

Ever since I moved here earlier this summer, I’ve been working my way up as far as numbers are concerned. Shooting for the moon, going for gold, however you wanna lay it out, the fact remains that this lay would be my personal best. Numbers-wise, at least. Everything beyond hard numbers? That’s up for debate.

I take another swig from the bottle of three-buck chuck wedged between my thighs. It tastes like charred tin foil and dirt, but that hasn’t stopped me from starting bottle number two. My hands are nearly vibrating as I continue to swipe through the city. It’s a cheap comfort to be reminded that I’m not the only one within a three-mile radius hoping to fuck some pain away.

He messages me within the minute. Quick trigger fingers usually spell trouble—I’m either about to get stood up or he’s about to be far too eager. The desperation oozes from the sapphire glow of my phone, but I breathe through my mouth, ignoring the stench of his starved heart and assuredly hard cock. We volley a few messages glossing over kinks and limits, logistics and locations. He’s got a car and condoms, all we really need.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing on a street corner, just a block from the apartment I share with two strangers half my age. They’re both out for the night, off doing whatever it is young and beautiful women do these days. To them, I’m little more than a contagion—socially and otherwise. I haven’t exchanged a single glance with either of them since move-in day. They seem to see something in me that I can’t: a wretch, or maybe just someone inherently unworthy of even the briefest eye contact.

My silk skirt is bright as a clementine—easier to spot, less cliché than a red rose behind my ear. It’s the middle of July, and everything clings to me, especially silk to my skin. I hope he doesn’t notice the red wine dribbled down my white tank top. I fidget with the tail of my hair hoping to conceal the evidence of what got me here. Passing drivers pay me no mind; they’re too busy crawling toward a better tomorrow. I’m not sure where I’m heading.

I don’t usually hitch a ride with strangers, especially ones I’m about to allow inside me. But the right combination of sleeplessness and alcohol can persuade me to make some compromises, and tonight, I’m feeling particularly weak-willed.

He jerks the SUV toward me and nearly curbs the car on the corner of Roscoe and Damen. I’m disappointed to see that his profile photo was doing him some favors. Through the windshield’s ruddy tint, I dissect his feathery hairline and sun-spotted face. He claims his name is Victor, but you can’t trust anyone who does the things we’re about to do at the hour we’re about to do them. He looks at me like I’m a meal he’ll be picking out of his teeth come morning.

I leap into the car, and he guns the engine before the door even clicks shut. My body jerks as we bounce over potholes and discuss where to grope for some privacy. I’m fine with fucking in the car, I tell him. He’s got other plans—doesn’t want to scrub cum from his leather seats in daylight. He’s got a spot by the river. I agree, too tired to argue with fate. We head east, the city lights flickering as we chat in sparse, awkward bursts.

Victor skids onto the dividing line between two parking spots at Paciuzko Park. His blatant disregard for something as simple as a white line makes me go dry. Who knows what other rules he’ll treat as suggestions?

He pulls a tin of Altoids from his sweat-stained cargo shorts. Inside are not mints, though—they’re little blue pills. “Just need a kickstart,” he mutters impishly as he washes the hog heaver down with a glug of flat Diet Coke. The mixture of hot sugar and sweat makes the air go brick-heavy.

I choke back my disgust, it tastes bitter, like bile, and stumble out of the car. Victor takes my hand as we trudge into the dense thicket of trees, our path lit by the fractured moonlight fighting to stream through the leafy canopy. Even though he’s minutes away from throwing his pharmaceutically enhanced dick in me, the handholding is more intimacy than I can stomach. I snatch my hand away and stitch my arms across my chest. As we push deeper into the woods, the distant hum of cars on empty streets gives way to a symphony of cicadas. ’Tis the season. I’ve barely been able to hear my own thoughts since they emerged from their slumber. Some have been sleeping for half my life, I read in the paper.

Victor’s New Balance sneakers carve a path in the loose dirt trail. At least if I die here, he’ll lead some poor sap straight to my body. The starts working its way into my eyes, turning everything in my sight seven degrees wayward. I trip over a root, and he catches me, his fingers digging into my arm with an intensity that feels more sinister than caring. He touches me like he owns me.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this,” he says, navigating the dark woods with the confidence of an Eagle Scout. I refuse to believe I’m his first. We pass a couple tangled on a bench and venture further, barely hearing the white noise of traffic on Sparhawk Avenue and reach a small clearing by the river, the water has gone glassy under the moonlight. We settle on a half-pipe of highway median, marking our claim. Victor pulls me close, his breath hot and stale against my neck. The urge to bolt surges through me, but my body betrays me. It has a tendency of doing that at the worst possible moments. He fumbles with his belt, and I hear the faint clink of metal as he struggles with the buckle.

We dive straight into the task at hand. No dirty talk. No grade school foreplay. Just two people fighting their way toward a little less loneliness, racing toward a cloud of forgetting. He asks me to call him Daddy, and I moan it out of the back of my throat as he rides me with the delicacy of a fingerless butcher. I ask him to eat me out, he does so with teeth and protest.

“Get on top,” he orders, appending his request with “whore” and a harsh slap to my ass. I follow his command, grinding against him, the rough texture of the cement scraping against my skin.

“Hit me,” he pleads, lips curling like he just sucked a lemon. His buzz cut’s streaked with dirt, sweat, something darker.

I oblige, not gently. He grunts.

“More.” He tries propping himself up on his elbows, belly sagging, but I don’t want his face anywhere near me. That’s when it happens.

The crack isn’t loud. More like a dull thud, a noise swallowed by the damp air. I don’t even register the blood at first, just the way his body goes slack, like a string-cut marionette. Then it’s there—a sluggish trickle from his nose, swelling to a slow drip down his cheek. I see the moment again, like it happens twice: my hand flying, knuckles burning, his head snapping back and connecting with something hard. A rock? The edge of the curb? I don’t know. But now there’s blood blooming under his head, not a flood, just a dark stain spreading through the cracks in the concrete.

I make my breathing small, listen. The woods have gone dead silent. The river isn’t hiccuping, the cicadas have gone mute, like they’re all waiting to see what I’ll do next.

I know better than to let myself dwell on the past few minutes. I hoist myself up and pull my underwear back on, stained with dirt and stale rainwater. I slip the condom off Victor and fish his phone out of his shorts, throwing them both into the stagnant river. I take the clothes rumpled next to him and toss those into the glittering black, too. Now I’m ready to flee the scene of more crimes than I know to name.

It takes seven steps for me to realize exactly what has been done, what’s gone undone. It’s just something I do when I’m anxious—the counting. I puke up all the wine that it took to get me here, feel the guilt sprinting down my limbs like a 10-volt current, as if I’ve unleashed some shadow I can’t shove back inside.

The only person I know to call is Susie. We met three months ago at a lame loft party thrown by some guy either I or her or both of us were sleeping with—those details are fuzzy now, rendered baseless by time and tonics. We were both swiping bottles of Veuve from the wet bar and have refused to vacate each other’s lives since. It isn’t quite friendship, what we have, but it’s close enough for the two of us.

When I arrive at Cafe Tapatillo, as Susie requested, is nestled in a corner booth, already taking care of the order. I’m too busy staring out the window, counting every police car that rolls by. She’s changed her hair again, now a grapefruit pink. With her mod bob and plunging lace top, she looks like a hentai star brought to life. The world can’t look away from her.

“It’s gonna be fine, y’know.”

“You can’t think I believe that, Susie,” I strain, my throat tight. “A man is dead because I fucked him.”

“Did he ask you to punch him?”

“He asked for a lot of things,” I stammer. “Well, told me to.”

“Then you’re fine. Asking for it—that’s what gets men out of rape charges. You’re just a conduit for his transference.”

I stare, mouth agape, as I wrestle with her pretzel logic. A waitress drops a basket of chips, salsa negra, and tacos. Susie tears into them like a famished bird. I wonder how long until she vomits it all up or if she’s been starving herself. She’s always changing her strategy.

“He’s out there rotting in the woods,” I whimper, grinding a chip between my molars. If living with guilt feels this heavy, I might as well throw myself into the river where I discarded Victor.

“You said you got rid of his phone and clothes. No trace of you remains,” Susie says as she shovels rice into her mouth.

“You see all the shit they can do on Cold Case or whatever the fuck…even the smallest DNA can incriminate someone—even someone who didn’t commit the crime.” I drain my margarita and start chewing ice cubes to keep from crying or talking.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll wipe tonight from your memory. No guilt, no alibi. Tonight never happened.”

“How?” I ask, desperate.

“Trust me,” she says, sliding a pistachio-green pill across the table. It’s almost the size of a dime.

I swallow the pill, knowing better than to trust Susie.

“Let’s head to the function,” she says, shoving chips and a pill into her mouth, still the most captivating one in the room despite her sloppiness.

By the time we’re in a taxi heading to Chinatown for some nameless DJ’s set, the ecstasy kicks in. I glance at my reflection in the rearview mirror and for once, I like what I see. My eyes don’t bulge as much, my cheeks not as puffed. I sway in the backseat, eager to feel the linen of the interior burrow into my pores. The street unfurls into my 50 mile-per-hour disco. I glance at Susie and see that, as usual, we’re on the same page.

We land in a pocket of industrial wasteland that’s actually adjacent to Chinatown. True to form, Susie has only ballpark estimates, nothing close to a real address. We amble up and down roughshod sidewalks like we know what we’re doing, but we’re just hanging off a prayer and the high of whatever chemicals are coursing through us. The air is spiked with chili oil and it burns my eyes, running shadowy lines of mascara down my cheeks. We toke our cigarettes, hoping to mask the scent of our sins and brace ourselves for the night.

The warehouse is a chaotic mix of drugs and shadows. The bass is a relentless assault, pounding so hard I can’t differentiate my heartbeat from its thudding rhythm. Victor’s corpse feels miles away, irrelevant. Susie leads us to a cramped bathroom packed with cocaine. She calls it “Tokyo,” as if its exotic name can mask the chemical bite. We snort, chasing the high as it ebbs into malaise.

“Susie, this isn’t working,” I whine. “I just wanna go home.”

Susie, either ignoring my protest or adrift in the subwoofer wheeze bleeding through the bathroom wall, carries on shaking her hips to the beat like they’re on a swivel, tossing her torso back and forth like a pendulum. Bored and hot-wired, I continue cutting the trenches left on the toilet seat until I decide to snort the remnants. Waste not, want not, or something like that.

The trance is broken by whispers chattering their way up the line to the bathroom and into our snowy little clubhouse.

“I hear the cops got our address,” one techno bro says in hushed tones, his thumbs already plugging away at his phone in search of the next narco Narnia to hit.

The suspicions find ground soon enough, when a flurry of knocks, a mezzo forte flurry, ring through the front door in some binary code that we all seem to understand. Dominoes and bodies start to fall. Bartenders clank bottles, hopscotching beats pulse in and out of audibility, and everyone remaining unravels into a pandemonium.

“We gotta get outta here,” Susie tells me with a terseness that I forget she’s capable of. I have no choice but to agree. We don’t need any more blood on our hands tonight.

We weave through the scrambling crowd through what Susie hopes is a covert fire door. We tumble back into the seasoned air and the laminated torsos of two cops waiting to stumble upon some rough justice. They look like parodies of their own professions: one’s donning an aggressive and unfortunate mustache that looks more rent-a-cop stripper than lawman, the other is trying and failing to stow a beer paunch behind layers of nylon and a spit-polished badge.

“Where do you think you’re going, young ladies,” Magnum P.I. Lite asks.

Susie and I scuttle back toward the door, nestling our backs against the rind of the building. Even through two inches of metal, we can hear screams filling the gaps where music once was. I wonder if they can smell Victor’s blood on me, if they realize what this night has made me.

Magnum’s partner starts pawing at Susie like an alley cat, suggests he take her ‘round back, like a dog about to get shot or a sack of trash to be tossed. He hikes up her neoprene skirt and I take a swipe at his fatty cheek, but I’m toe-to-toe with a man who’s got a hundred pounds and a far clearer head on his linebacker shoulders. He rams the butt of his Glock into my scalp, sending me into the hardest sleep I’ve had in years.

When I shiver back into consciousness, the world is all fuzzy corners and high-beams. My skirt is pocked with drops of blood and smeared with dirt. Susie is laying next to me, stroking my hair, which feels wet and sticky for reasons I’m not ready to know. She looks worse than I feel. Her hair is mussed and matted, capillaries flayed across her jaw like lace.

“Are you ok,” I mumble through an iron-flecked loogie that jumbles my words and feel like dying. I spit and spit and spit until I’m dry, hulled like the pit of a peach.

“I will be.”

Susie scrounges two pills from the gold cylinder hanging around her neck, her jugular thumping hard and fast beneath a fresh hickey. We tap our pills together in a stimulant salud and let the breeze steer us toward our next destination.

We fill the air of daybreak with garbled words and small talk, finally agreeing to grab a bowl of noodles from the Xi’an spot down the street we think we’re on. Filling ourselves back up with hot broth and taro milk and nips of sake seems like the first step to replacing what the men have taken.

The pills kickstart a couple blocks into our stroll, rendering at least one shard of the night reliable. The early risers and morning joggers gawk at us like we belong in cages, behind plate glass. Maybe it’s the dirt in our hair or our lake-wide pupils, or maybe we’ve finally become too marred for mercy.

As we sit in the noodle shop, my neurons rearrange themselves, playing musical chairs. I try wandering down the tunnels of memory but keep getting lost in my own brain, like a needle in a groove. Even past the broken blood vessels, flared across the whites of her eyes like Ferrari red fireworks, I can tell that Susie’s lost in those same stalks of synapses.

The waitress lobs a ceramic bowl beneath my chin and I welcome the tidal wave of steam that bursts the pores of my face. The broth is so crystalline that I can catch my reflection in the red globules of oil. I don’t have the heart to tell Susie, but I feel like I’ve seen this color before. I just can’t seem to place its name… something that starts with a D, I think.