Currency in nightlife works differently than it does on the outside.
Money matters, sure. Money gets you through the doors, buys you entry and a few drinks. But inside a club, there are other things. Things people need in the moment, and that can’t simply be fixed with a dollar bill.
A cigarette, for example.
Someone asks you for one. It’s either a yes or a no, but if it’s a no, it leaves little room for more interaction. No chance to distract them from their nicotine hit. If you had one, they’d stay. If you do not, they move on to somebody who has.
Fifty cents bought you a little time. Time to joke back and forth, check if the person is cool, maybe even flirt a bit. It opens doors.
That was why I always carry two things with me, even though I don’t touch them myself: cigarettes and cocaine.
I never understood smoking. It is too short-lived for the damage it does. Your clothes smell, your teeth turn yellow, and let’s not talk about lung cancer. If I want to smoke, I roll a joint. But nicotine has people by the throat. They will stand outside in winter rain, shaking, just for one more drag.
Cocaine is simpler. I never did it because I knew I would probably enjoy it too much. There is no reason to willingly walk into an addiction. Simply put, I know no one who would refuse a line after a couple of drinks. It’s too casual, too mellow, too much of a ‘why not’.
That’s why people absolutely love cocaine.
So, who am I to judge? It’s easy to reject someone because of different habits. But then I could just stay at home instead of going out. It’s far more valuable to understand what those traits can enable.
Drugs open conversations. They make strangers friendly. They make bouncers remember your face and turn you into someone who’s welcome to come back.
I do not take money for it. Money is useless at four in the morning when the bar is occupied by six guests. Usually people buy me drinks. They wait in line. They catch the bartender’s eye. They carry them over. A small luxury: your personal server in the club.
Sometimes the payoff is access. A guest-list spot. An invitation to something private. A festival pass, a football ticket. I ended up in rooms I could not have bought my way into, all because somebody needed a cigarette, a drink, and two lines.
Sometimes offering comes from a place of generosity, but that’s not always the case.
I saw her on the dance floor before I spoke to her.
She stood in the one good spot near the edge of the room, where the strobe caught her every few seconds. The club was dark, sticky, packed with people.
I found a place a few metres away. There were bodies between us, but I kept looking over.
The music was bad. No real groove, very monotone and boring. Normally I would have left the floor. That time I was grateful for it. It gave me something to say.
She checked her phone. Looked around. Checked it again.
I stepped beside her.
“Music kind of sucks, doesn’t it?”
A small smile, without leaning in too close.
She looked at me and laughed.
“Well, what are we supposed to do about it?”
“Get a drink. Wait it out.”
She looked me over once, quickly. Then she nodded.
At the bar, while we waited for two gin and tonics, I got a proper look at her. She had something of Nelly Furtado about her. Early-2000s television glamour dragged into a Berlin club. Low-rise jeans. A white crop top. Black panty laces showing above her waistband and a cloud of thick, sweet perfume.
She told me she modelled sometimes but mostly worked in marketing.
I had heard that combination before - too many times.
Still, she was funny. Quick and witty. She did not just stand there waiting to be admired. We went back and forth, nagging each other, until my hand found her waist and her hand stayed on my arm longer than it needed to.
For a while, it was easy.
The drinks kept coming. We leaned in to each other just to pull away in the last possible moment. She loved being teased and knew exactly how to do it back.
Then she looked at me with wide eyes.
“Don’t you get tired?”
“Kind of.”
“Do you have anything with you?”
I knew what she meant.
“I’m only drinking tonight,” I said. “But I have some coke with me.”
Her face changed immediately.
“I love coke.”
Of course you do, I thought. Young, pretty, coked-up model. Nothing new.
We went to the toilets.
The stall was filthy. The lock barely worked. Somebody had spilled beer over the floor. There were empty bottles in the corner, wet toilet paper around the base of the bowl, old graffiti scratched into the door.
I took out the bag.
Maybe half a gram. A friend had left it at my place before his flight because he did not want to risk taking it through the airport. Now it sat in my hand like a little packet of gold.
She looked at it as if I had found water in the desert.
I made a line on the back of my phone. She rolled up a note and bent over. Every last bit went up her nose. Then she put the note back into her wallet, grabbed my face, and kissed me hard.
When I reached for her ass, she pulled away.
She smiled.
“Let’s dance.”
Back on the floor, she was different. Her eyes were bigger. Her smile was more ecstatic. She threw her hands up, pressed herself against me, moved without a single care.
For half an hour, she was all over me.
Then the feeling started to drain from her face.
She slowed down. Her hands dropped. Her eyes began to wander. When I suggested another toilet break, she brightened again.
That became the night.
Dance floor. Bar. Toilet stall.
Dance floor. Bar. Toilet stall.
The same little circuit, over and over.
By the last trip, there was almost nothing left. I scraped together a thin line and handed her the empty plastic bag.
She licked her finger, ran it around the inside, and put the sticky crumbs in her mouth. Then she looked at my phone, where the last line waited.
“You don’t have any more?”
“No. It’s eight in the morning. We can have one last drink, one last dance, then call it a night.”
“But it’s so good right now.”
She looked sad.
“Do you know anybody here with more?”
“I met somebody earlier,” I said. “He sells sometimes.”
Her face lit up again.
“Oh my God, perfect. Can you text him?”
She bent over, took the last line, and handed me my phone. The gesture was so clean it almost made me laugh.
“Look,” I said, “I’m not really feeling it. I’m going home soon.”
She pressed me against the wall.
Leaning in with her whole body, I could feel every one of her curves on me. She felt good. She kissed my mouth, then my neck. Her hands moved down between us. She leaned close to my ear.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” she whispered.
The drinks had made my head heavy. I leaned back against the wall.
The floor was wet. Somebody flushed nearby. The bass vibrated through the walls, weak and distant.
She got down in front of me, carefully squatting so her jeans would not touch the filthy ground.
For a moment, I watched her face. Her eyes were glassy. Her movements were careful but impatient.
Then I took out my phone.
The stall beside us had a couple arguing. Two men, one accusing the other of losing the drugs. The other one kept denying it, then bringing up old complaints: the rent, the phone calls, the cheating, the fucking jacket he had borrowed three months ago and never returned.
I found the contact and started typing.
I could feel her eyes on me and a distant mumble that resembled a “thank you” in between the glurping noises.
A few minutes later, I finished.
For a second, everything seemed to stop.
The arguments next door faded. The music disappeared. I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose.
Sweat. Piss. Stagnant toilet water. Sour beer.
The smell was so thick it felt like I had stuck my nose inside a puma enclosure.
All I wanted was to leave. Go home. Shower. Put on clean clothes. Get into my bed, where the sheets smelled of detergent and nothing else.
She stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
I handed her the gin and tonic we had put on top of the toilet, of which she took a large sip.
I pulled up my jeans. “The guy is just around the corner outside the toilets,” I said. “Bright green lanyard. Black ripped shirt. You can’t miss him.”
Then I left the stall.
Purely a fictional Story!
