Chapter 6: The First Styling Session
The air in the Aphrodite cabin was always thick, but today it felt solid. Jasmine and regret. Piper’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she laid the items on her velvet quilt. The silver chains she’d chosen for the belt were fine, delicate, meant for dangling charms, not framing a hip bone. The mesh top was black, a loose weave she’d once thought would look cool over a tank top. Now it looked like a trap.
Annabeth stood in the center of the room, a statue of herself. She’d untied the linen shirt from her waist. It lay crumpled on a pink ottoman, a forgotten flag of surrender. The orange bikini was all that remained, a stark contrast against her tanned skin. Percy leaned against the closed door, his shoulder pressed to the wood as if barricading them from outside, or maybe barricading himself inside with the reality. He watched Piper, not Annabeth, his sea-green eyes tracking her trembling fingers.
“The compulsion,” Piper began, her voice hollow. “It’s… specific about silhouette. The bikini alone is just baseline. It reads as ‘beach.’ We need ‘boudoir.’ But public.”
“Just say it, Piper,” Annabeth said. Her tone was Athena-clear, analytical. It was the voice she used to dissect a battlefield. “What’s the function of each component?”
Piper swallowed. The geas pressed against the back of her teeth, making the explanation come out in a rush of clinical detail. “The mesh. It covers the shoulders, the upper back. It’s sheer. Its function is suggestion of coverage without providing any. It creates a layer, makes the eye look for what’s beneath. It says ‘look closer.’” She picked up the handful of chains. Their jingle was obscenely cheerful. “These form a low-slung belt. They’ll rest here.” She gestured to a point on her own hips, just below the navel. “They don’t cover. They highlight. They draw a literal line to the… center. The composition is open. Available.”
The last word hung in the perfumed air.
Percy pushed off the door. “This is insane. You’re not wearing that. We’ll find another way. I’ll go dump nectar on Aphrodite’s altar and—”
“And what, Percy?” Annabeth cut him off, still not looking at him. She was staring at the chains in Piper’s hand as if they were a complex lock she needed to pick. “Start a war with an Olympian? Again? This is the way. It’s a tactical retreat to a worse position, but it’s the only position we have.” She finally met his gaze. “You think I want you to see me like this? Dressed by committee for a god’s laugh?”
“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” he said, the words rough.
“I do,” she fired back, her composure cracking for a second to show the raw pride beneath. “So let’s just do it. Piper. Help me.”
The geas purred inside Piper’s veins, a sickening relief. She stepped forward. Annabeth turned, presenting her back, a gesture of terrible trust. Piper lifted the mesh. It was cool, synthetic. As she settled it over Annabeth’s shoulders, it clung instantly, a ghostly second skin that did nothing to obscure the lines of her spine, the clasp of her bikini top. It felt, Piper imagined, like being touched by static.
“Arms through,” Piper murmured, her fingers brushing Annabeth’s sides. Annabeth stiffened but complied.
Next, the chains. Piper knelt, the plush carpet digging into her knees. She had to get close. She looped the first chain low, the metal shockingly cold against Annabeth’s abdomen. Annabeth flinched. The links caught the morning light, throwing tiny, frantic spears of brightness onto the walls. Piper fastened the clasp, her fingers fumbling. She added a second, shorter chain, letting it dangle lower, a deliberate pointer.
She was styling her friend for public consumption. The artist in her, hijacked, noted how the silver contrasted with the orange, how the lines led the eye. The friend in her wanted to vomit.
“Done,” Piper whispered, sitting back on her heels.
Annabeth turned around. Piper’s breath hitched.
The Annabeth she knew was gone. In her place stood a sculpture of defiance and vulnerability. The mesh turned her skin into a muted suggestion, blurring the edges of her in a way that was infinitely more provocative than bare skin. The chains were cold, hard geometry against the softness of her stomach, a modern cage. They didn’t hide the bikini bottom; they framed it, spotlighted it. The overall effect wasn’t just sexy. It was calculated. It was a look that knew it was being looked at. It was, exactly as ordered, available.
Percy made a sound, low in his throat, like a wounded animal. He wasn’t looking away anymore. He was staring, but not with desire—with a kind of furious, helpless recognition. He was seeing the curse made manifest in fabric and metal.
Annabeth walked to the full-length mirror framed in gilded roses. She looked at herself. Her gray eyes, usually so sharp, went distant, cloudy. She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She just assessed.
“It’s effective,” she said flatly.
“Annabeth—” Percy started.
“Don’t,” she said, holding up a hand. The chains swayed with the movement. “Just don’t. We have the uniform. Now we live the day. The… requirement.” She glanced at Percy, a flicker of something else—need, shame, a bitter cocktail—passing through her eyes. “We still have to handle that. Before we face anyone.”
The daily requirement. The other half of the curse. The need that made the outfit feel like a twisted form of advertising.
Piper stood up, her legs unsteady. “I’ll… give you the cabin.” The words felt inadequate, but the geas was momentarily satisfied, dormant. She just felt hollow.
“No,” Annabeth said, still watching her own reflection. “Stay. Please. If you’re in this with me, then be in it. No one gets to hide.”
It was the bravest, cruelest thing she could have asked. Piper nodded, her throat too tight for speech. She moved to sit on the edge of her bed, turning to face the wall of silk scarves, pretending to study them.
Percy approached Annabeth. He didn’t reach for her right away. He stood behind her, his reflection encompassing hers in the roses mirror. He looked like a storm cloud behind a frail, gilded fence.
“I hate this,” he said, his voice barely audible.
“I know,” she said. Her own voice was a thread. “But it’s you. It has to be you. That’s the only part that doesn’t feel like a violation.”
She turned then, away from the mirror, away from the vision of herself. She faced him, the chains whispering. She reached for his hand, pulling it to her waist. The metal was cold under his palm.
What followed was not passion. It was a quiet, desperate transaction. A shared duty. Percy’s touches were gentle, achingly familiar, but his jaw was clenched, his movements focused. Annabeth was methodical, her intellect forcibly channeled into this single, degrading task. There were soft words, but they were instructions, reassurances, not lovers’ whispers. “It’s okay.” “Just…” “I’ve got you.”
Piper sat frozen, listening to the rustle of clothes, the shift of weight on the floorboards, the stifled, hitched breaths that spoke of shared humiliation rather than shared pleasure. She counted the patterns on a scarf until they blurred.
It was over quickly. The sound of Annabeth swallowing was the loudest thing in the room.
A heavy, exhausted silence descended. Then the rustling of dressing. Piper finally turned back.
Percy was sitting on the floor, back against the bed, his head in his hands. Annabeth was crouched in front of him, the chains pooling in her lap. She placed a hand on his knee. Her eyes were clear again, sharp. The sacrifice had been accepted; her mind was her own for another day.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
He did. His eyes were red-rimmed.
“We’re still us,” she said, with a conviction that seemed to draw from a well deeper than the curse. “This is just the mess we’re in. Together. All three of us.”
He nodded, swallowing hard, and covered her hand with his.
Piper watched them, the geas in her asleep but waiting for tomorrow’s artistic brief. She felt like a fracture in the room. She had dressed the victim. She had witnessed the sacrament. There was no clean way to be a part of this.
Annabeth stood up, the chains settling back into their designed place with a final, metallic sigh. She held out a hand to Percy and pulled him up. She looked at Piper.
“Okay,” Annabeth said, squaring her shoulders. The mesh shifted. “Now we go have breakfast. And we pretend it’s a normal day.”
She walked to the cabin door, her posture perfect, a daughter of Athena clad in a web of shame. Percy followed, a step behind, a guardian to a prize he never wanted to see displayed. Piper took a last look at the empty, scented room, the discarded linen shirt on the ottoman, and followed them out into the glaring, ordinary sun. The real performance was about to begin.