Chapter 1: Pajamas in Gomorrah
The old book smelled of dust and vanilla, a familiar comfort against Sera’s palm as she curled deeper into the worn cushions of her sofa. The print was blurry, the language arcane, something about geomantic ley lines and dimensional folds. She skimmed, her mind half on the text and half on the quiet loneliness of her apartment. Her threadbare robe was soft from a thousand washes.
Her finger traced a peculiar illustration—a spiral that seemed to twist under her touch. A sudden, violent heat flared in the paper. It wasn't a burn, but a pull, deep in her navel, yanking her forward.
She gasped, but no sound came out. The couch, the lamp, the fading light of evening, all dissolved into a smear of color and noise.
She landed hard. Cold, seamless onyx tile shocked the bare soles of her feet. The air, previously still, now throbbed with a bass rhythm she felt in her teeth. It was humid, carrying a cocktail of sweat,expensive perfume, ozone, and something earthy and animal.
Sera clutched her robe shut, knuckles white. Around her, the city coiled and pulsed. Towers of mirrored obsystone reflected a thousand scenes of depravity. A woman with iridescent scales and no top hissed laughter as a demon with ram horns fed her a purple fruit. A man walked by on all fours, a polished leather hood encasing his head, a silent handler holding his leash. His attire wasn't clothing; it was a second skin of intricate, belted straps that showcased every muscle, every vulnerable curve.
And then came the chime. A delicate, musical sound cutting through the drone.
A procession glided past. Pony girls. Three of them. Their bodies were sheathed in high-gloss, black latex that shone under the glow of floating orb-lights. Bridles of silver and leather fitted their heads, the bits gleaming between painted lips. Their hands were bound in tight mitts, their legs elongated by impossibly high ballet heels that forced their posture into a perpetual, elegant arch. Every movement made the tiny silver bells on their harnesses sing. Their latex-clad thighs gleamed, powerful and restrained, as they trotted in synchronized step behind a tall figure in a tailored coat.
Sera’s breath hitched. It wasn't the women themselves she craved. It was the absolute surrender. The freedom from choice. The gleaming, uncomplicated purpose of their existence. To be looked at, to be led, to have every decision stripped away until only obedience remained—it felt, in that moment of terrifying dislocation, like a perverse kind of peace. A sharp, shameful ache pooled low in her belly. She envied them. She pitied them. The heat in her face had nothing to do with the ambient temperature.
"Lost, little moth?"
The voice was a velvet-sheathed blade, smooth and capable of drawing blood. Sera flinched, turning.
The woman before her made the pony girls look almost plain. She was clad in a corset of deepest crimson latex, laced so tightly it sculpted a waist Sera could have circled with her hands. It pushed her breasts up into sharp, dramatic curves, each tipped with a glint of silver piercing that showed through the tight material. Below, a harness of thin straps delineated her hips and the bare, waxed cleft between her legs, leading down to knee-high boots that gleamed like liquid obsidian. Her face was all sharp angles and cool amusement, framed by ink-black hair. On her left wrist, a simple black barcode stood out against her pale skin.
Sera’s own worn robe, her bare feet, her utterly unadorned face, felt like a profound obscenity in comparison.
“I… I’m not from here,” Sera managed, her voice a mouse-squeak.
“No shit.” The woman’s eyes, a chilling gray, raked over her from tangled orange hair to frozen toes. “That robe is an atrocity. It’s practically emitting a frequency of pure desperation. They’ll eat you alive.”
Tears of humiliation pricked Sera’s eyes. She wanted to vanish. But she also wanted this woman to keep looking at her, with that devastating, critical focus. The contrast was a shock to her system, a brutal and alluring dominance. Her shyness was a physical weight, but she forced her chin up, her intelligent green eyes meeting the steel-gray ones.
“I like your clothes,” Sera whispered, the words tearing from her throat. “I think… I think you look pretty.”
The woman—Velvet—went very still. Her plush, crimson-painted lips curved, not into a smile, but into something more akin to a predator discovering interesting prey. The cold amusement didn't leave her eyes, but it deepened, intensified.
“Pretty,” Velvet repeated, rolling the word like a foreign object. She took a step closer. The scent of her, cold orchid and gunmetal, washed over Sera. “Pretty is for flowers and weak champagne. I am effective.” Her gloved hand came up, not touching, but hovering near the frayed collar of Sera’s robe. “You, however, are a blank page. A potential scandal. Come.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.
Sera followed, her bare feet slapping softly against the tile. Velvet moved with a predatory grace, the crowd parting for her instinctively. They arrived at a smooth, pearl-white wall. Velvet pressed her barcoded wrist against it. A panel slid open, revealing a cylindrical chamber lit with a soft pink light.
“A Clothier,” Velvet said, nudging Sera inside. The door sealed behind them with a pneumatic hiss.
“What is this?” Sera stammered, hugging herself.
“Your only option,” Velvet stated, leaning against the wall. “You have no credits. Your… attire… grants you nothing. The system defines you as a non-entity. To exist here, you must contribute to the aesthetic. You must wear something.”
Holographic displays flickered to life in the air, showing dizzying arrays of garments: latex bodysuits riddled with ornate lacing, leather harnesses that covered nothing, chastity devices of shining steel, complex networks of straps and chains.
“I can’t wear any of that,” Sera breathed, her face flaming.
“You can, and you will,” Velvet said, her voice devoid of all warmth. “Or you can wander out there and see how long until someone decides to claimed you as actual lost property. The contract is simple. The more revealing, the more restrictive, the more it pays you. A one-time credit infusion. That corset I’m wearing?” She tapped a glossy nail against the rigid latex. “Paid for a month in a luxury spire. The boots? A week of synthesized ambrosia. Your robe is costing you money just by existing.”
Sera’s mind spun. The logic was perverse, insane. Yet the aching emptiness in her stomach was real. The fear was real. Her eyes scanned the options, the explicit depictions of bodies trussed and displayed. Her gaze kept drifting back to the simpler corsets. Less of a web, more of a cage.
“That one,” she whispered, pointing to a basic underbust style in plain black, with simple front lacing.
Velvet snorted. “Timid. But a start.” She made a selection. “The system will scan you, fabricate it, and apply it. The process is… intimate. You may want to lose the robe.”
Before Sera could react, jets of warm air shot from the walls, blasting the robe from her body. She cried out, crossing her arms over her breasts, trying to cover the thatch of orange hair between her legs.
“Stop that,” Velvet sighed, as if addressing a misbehaving animal. “Modesty is currency here, and you are bankrupt. Let the system work.”
Arms of flexible metal emerged from the walls, tipped with brushes and nozzles. They moved with detached efficiency, coating her skin in a cool, slick gel. Sera trembled, eyes squeezed shut, as the brushes smoothed the gel over every inch of her—over the soft swell of her belly, the wide curves of her hips, the voluptuous fullness of her breasts. She jolted when a nozzle coated her pink nipples, making them peak instantly under the chill and the stark humiliation. Another brush slid through the curls between her legs, parting her, coating her most intimate flesh. She was panting, a low whine in her throat.
She opened her eyes and saw Velvet watching, those gray eyes cataloging every tremor, every flush of skin.
Then came the material. It sprayed from other nozzles in a fine, black mist, adhering to the gel. It touched her lower back first, a startling sensation of warmth and tightening as it solidified. It spread around her ribs, pulling, cinching. She gasped as it constricted her breathing, molding her softness into a harder, more defined shape. It covered her from just under her breasts to the top of her hips, a rigid shell that forced her spine straight. The lacing down the front tightened automatically, pulling until she made a sharp, pained sound.
A chime echoed in the chamber. On a small screen, a credit amount flashed. It was modest, but to Sera, it was a fortune.
The mechanical arms retracted. The door hissed open. Sera stood, transformed. The corset was a brutal embrace, highlighting the alabaster paleness of her skin, the sudden, shocking fullness of her breasts pushed up and largely exposed above the black edge. The orange hair between her legs seemed brighter, more obscene, against the stark black and white.
Velvet pushed off the wall. She walked a slow circle around Sera. Her gloved hand reached out and skated over the lacings, then up, tracing the upper edge of the corset where Sera’s soft flesh spilled over. Her thumb brushed Sera’s tightened pink nipple. Sera jerked, a bolt of unwelcome, searing pleasure shooting straight to her core.
“Better,” Velvet murmured, her voice lower now. “Now you have a shape. Now you have credits. Now you exist.” She leaned in, her lips close to Sera’s ear. “But you’re still painfully unrefined. I find I have a sudden interest in… curation.”
She withdrew, taking the unbearable proximity with her. She produced a small, blank card and a sleek pen from a hidden compartment in her boot. With quick, sharp strokes, she wrote something, then held it out.
“My comm-code. Should you wish to ascend beyond basic subsistence.” Her eyes held Sera’s, trapping her. “Should you wish to learn what it really means to wear something. To be something.”
She turned to leave, the sound of her boots a sharp, final punctuation on the tiles. She paused at the threshold, looking back over her shoulder. The artificial light caught the silver in her nipples, the cruel curve of her smile.
“Sleep well, little moth. If you can.”