Chapter 15: A Night at the Club
A week passed in a haze of antiseptic sting and muted agony.
Arthur moved through his accounting firm like a ghost, the crisp columns of numbers offering a cold, predictable solace. The numbers didn’t laugh. They didn’t smell of leather and sweat. They didn’t tear. He sat carefully on a padded donut cushion he’d bought at a pharmacy three towns over, the humiliation of the purchase somehow less than the humiliation of wincing in his office chair. The physical wound, a vicious tear, was slowly knitting itself closed into a raised, angry scar. The other wounds felt older, deeper, as if they’d always been there, waiting to be uncovered.
Vivian treated him with a detached, administrative courtesy. She’d presented him with a printed invoice for the swinger’s cruise deposit, highlighting the amount he’d “earned” from the visit with Mike and his crew. The math was irrefutable. She’d also bought a new remote for the device, a sleeker, black model with a digital screen. “More settings,” she’d said, placing it next to the salt shaker at breakfast.
On Friday evening, she laid a new outfit on the bed for him: dark, slim-fit jeans she’d chosen, a tight black V-neck t-shirt. “Wear this,” she said. “We’re going out.”
“Out?” The word felt strange in his mouth. Their outings were her real estate galas, where he’d stand silently with a drink while she glittered.
“Yes, Arthur. Out. To a club. I need to see you in a… social setting. Before the cruise.” She was already dressed in a short, silver dress that seemed painted on, her blonde hair falling in perfect waves. “It’s a test. A practical. Now get ready. And shave everything. You know what I mean.”
The club was called The Gilded Cage. A pounding bassline hit them from a block away, vibrating up through the sidewalk into Arthur’s bones. Neon silhouettes of women flickered in the blacked-out windows. The line snaked around the corner, a pulsing artery of laughter, tight clothes, and cologne.
Vivian ignored it. She took Arthur’s clammy hand—not holding it, but leading him—and walked straight to the velvet rope. A giant of a man stood there, arms folded over a chest that strained his black security shirt. He had a shaved head, a thick beard, and eyes that scanned the crowd like a predator assessing grazing herds.
“Vivian,” he said, his voice a low rumble that cut through the music leaking from the door.
“Rex, baby,” she replied, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. “This is Arthur.”
Rex’s eyes, pale and assessing, locked onto Arthur. The look was familiar. It was the same look Mike had given him in the foyer: an appraisal of material, of usefulness. “This the bitch?”
“The very one.” Vivian squeezed Arthur’s hand, a sharp, warning pressure. “Be nice.”
Rex unhooked the rope. “VIP section’s in the back. Go on through.”
Inside was a sensory assault. The air was hot, thick with the cloying sweetness of artificial fog and the sharp tang of spilled vodka. Strobe lights fractured the darkness, freezing moments of gyration and leer in stark, ugly tableaus. On a central stage, a woman moved with a tired, mechanical grace around a polished brass pole, her eyes glazed and distant. The bass was a physical force, punching Arthur in the chest with every thump.
Vivian navigated the sea of bodies with ease, pulling Arthur into a dimmer, cordoned-off area at the rear. Plush, semicircular booths in blood-red velvet lined the walls. It was slightly quieter, the music a pervasive throb rather than a frontal assault. The clients here were older, their suits more expensive, their watches glittering in the low light. Their attention was focused on the dancers who moved from booth to booth, but their eyes flicked to Vivian as she slid into a corner seat, pulling Arthur down beside her.
A waitress in a mesh bodysuit appeared. Vivian ordered a martini without looking at her. “Water for him,” she said.
Arthur sat, his hands pressed between his knees, trying to make himself small. The black t-shirt felt like a costume. The jeans chafed against the freshly-shaved skin of his groyn and thighs, a constant, humiliating reminder of his preparation. He could feel the cold, metallic disc nestled against him, a secret anchor in this storm of flesh.
Vivian sipped her drink, her eyes scanning the room. She wasn’t watching the dancers. She was watching the men. Specifically, she was watching a group in the booth opposite: three guys in their forties, laughing too loud, their ties loosened. One of them, balding with a thick gold chain, kept looking over.
“See them?” Vivian murmured, leaning close. Her perfume was vanilla and danger. “They’re bored. Their night isn’t going how they hoped. They’re looking for a story to tell on Monday.”
Arthur followed her gaze. The man with the chain caught his eye and smirked, raising his glass in a mock toast.
“Don’t look at them,” Vivian said, her voice sharp. “Look at the bouncers.”
Arthur’s eyes shifted. Rex was posted at the entrance to the VIP area, his massive frame a silent barrier. Another, younger but just as imposing, with intricate ink covering his neck, stood by a fire exit.
“That’s Gage,” Vivian said, noting his attention. “Rex’s protégé. He handles special VIP requests. Security, discretion… procurement.” She finished her martini in one long swallow. “Rex runs the back room. The truly private parties. The kind of parties where what happened in our living room last week would just be the opening act.”
A cold trickle of sweat traced Arthur’s spine. The bass felt like it was inside his skull.
Vivian leaned back, a slow, cat-like smile spreading across her face. She caught Rex’s eye across the room and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He got up and walked over to their table. Rex sat down across from them and looked at Arthur.
"So, do you know what you'll be doing here?" Rex asked with a growl.
"N, No," Arthur stammered looking back and forth between Rex and Vivian.
"Well, as you can see, I run a gentlemen's club. We get lots of horny guys in here that want more than just a lap dance. Most of the girls won't do that shit, so we need a substitute. Someone with open holes that will take any cock for extra cash. That's where you come in. We're going to dress you up like a sissy and pimp your ass out to horny customers. The girls get a cut, I get a cut, your wife gets a cut and everyone goes home happy. Got it?
The words didn’t parse at first. They were just sounds, crashing against the wall of bass. Sissy. Pimp your ass out. Horny customers.
Then they arranged themselves into a meaning so vast and horrifying his mind tried to flee his body. The coffee table, the hands, the tearing pain—it wasn’t a one-time transaction. It was a job description.
“No,” Arthur whispered. The sound was lost, a moth in a hurricane. He shook his head, a frantic, jerking motion. His hands gripped the edge of the velvet seat, knuckles bleaching white. “Vivian, no. You can’t—I can’t—”
Vivian watched his panic with the detached interest of a scientist observing a lab animal. She took a slow sip of the new martini the waitress had delivered, her eyes never leaving his face.
“He’s a little overwhelmed, Rex,” she said, her voice cutting smoothly through Arthur’s hyperventilating gasps. “It’s a lot to process. But he’ll do it.”
“I won’t!” Arthur choked out, louder. A man at the next booth glanced over, his expression annoyed. Arthur shrank back into the shadows. “Please. Not here. Not with… strangers. Not again.”
“Again?” Rex mused, a slow smile spreading under his beard. “So you’re broken in. Good. Saves time.”
“Think of the cruise, Arthur,” Vivian said, leaning in. Her voice was a venomous syrup. “Think of the balance. This is just expanding your client base. A public service.” She turned back to Rex, all business. “Terms. We get forty percent of his door fee. I want it in cash, nightly. And I have one non-negotiable condition.”
Rex raised a brow. “Which is?”
“You video everything.” Vivian’s eyes gleamed in the strobing light. “Every client. Every angle. High definition. Audio, too. I want to see and hear it all. For my… personal archives. My viewing pleasure.”
Arthur felt the world tilt. The neon smeared. She didn’t just want to sell him; she wanted to curate his violation, to replay it in their sterile living room while she drank whiskey. It was a deeper invasion than anything physical.
“You’re insane,” he breathed, staring at her. “You’re actually insane.”
Vivian ignored him, watching Rex. “Well? Is that a problem for your ‘discretion’?”
Rex chuckled, a low, gravelly sound. “Discretion is for the clients, sweetheart. Not for the product. Yeah, we can film. Gage is good with a camera.” He pushed himself up from the booth, his bulk blocking the flickering stage lights. “Alright. No time like the present. Let’s see what we’re working with. Bring him to the green room. Now.”
The final word was a command that brooked no argument. Vivian stood up, smoothing her silver dress. She looked down at Arthur, who remained frozen to the velvet.
“Get up, Arthur,” she said, her voice losing all pretense of sweetness. It was flat, cold, the voice she used when he’d forgotten to take the trash out. “Or I’ll have Rex and Gage carry you. And I’ll turn the remote to its highest setting right here in front of everyone. Your choice.”
The threat of the device, that silent, embedded engine of humiliation, uncoiled in his gut. He remembered the buzzing horror mixed with the pain on his own coffee table. Here, in this public nightmare, it would destroy whatever fragile shred of him remained.
Trembling violently, he slid out of the booth. His legs threatened to buckle. Rex clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder, the grip impersonal and firm, and guided him away from the VIP section, past a heavy black curtain, and into the pulsating heart of the club’s darkness. Vivian’s heels clicked a steady, rhythmic follow behind them, a countdown to oblivion.