Consciousness returned not in flashes, but as one solid, throbbing pain. It pulsed in his temples, drilled into the base of his skull, forcing his eyelids to squeeze even tighter in a futile attempt to hide from reality. But reality was advancing, harsh and inexorable. He lay on his back, and the first thing he felt, besides the headache, was an all-encompassing ache throughout his entire body. Every muscle, every joint ached and protested as if he had been dragged through a concrete mixer all night. His shoulders, back, thighs—everything felt like one big bruise. He turned onto his side with difficulty, and the sheet slid unpleasantly, roughly across his skin, and he felt beneath the fabric a strange, unfamiliar sensitivity, traces... of someone’s touches, left on his sides, on his chest.

The air in the room was stale, thick, smelling of cold sweat, expensive perfume with notes of sandalwood and amber, and beneath that—a faint, barely perceptible scent of someone else's skin and shampoo. He tried to force his brain to work, to gather the scattered fragments of last night. The club. The oppressive crowd. The deafening techno beat pounding into his bones. The strobe lights flashing, capturing smiles of strangers from the darkness. The glassy gleam of cocktail glasses. And... nothing. A deaf, impenetrable wall after a certain point.

His leg under the blanket bumped into something warm, solid, large. Not a blanket. Not a pillow. He froze, listening to the frantic beating of his own heart, which now drowned out even the throbbing in his temples. Slowly, with a feeling of mounting, icy nausea, he propped himself up on an elbow and looked deeper into the bed.

Lying next to him, immersed in a deep sleep, was a stranger. He was sleeping on his stomach, his head turned toward him, his face half-buried in the white pillow he was clutching tightly with both arms, as if it were the most precious trophy. His back, broad and powerful, with the definition of well-built muscles, was bare all the way down to where the blanket modestly pulled up, hiding everything else. The skin on his shoulder blades and shoulders was marked with faint pink streaks—lines from the sheets, and... other marks. Fresh scratches that spoke eloquently of a passion completely erased from his memory.