Chapter 3: The Booking
Three days passed in a thin, gilded line of notifications. Charli woke to a text from Harry most mornings now, something light, a joke about their quantum mechanics lecturer or a question about what she was wearing. She answered from the bathroom while Jamie showered, one thumb moving fast over the screen, her heart doing something complicated in her chest.
The messages had settled into a rhythm that felt almost safe. Flirty, yes. A little charged, yes. But nothing like that first explosive night, when she had sent him her voice and heard the low animal sound he made in reply. Now it was coffee talk, and compliments, and the occasional *what are you thinking about* that she never answered honestly. Or rather, she always answered honestly, and that was the problem. She was thinking about him far more than she should have been.
"Still texting the rich boy?" Jess asked, sliding onto the stool beside Charli in the club's back dressing room. It was late on a Friday, the Velvet Club already humming with the bass of the main floor bleeding through the walls. Jess had finished her first set and was fanning herself with a folded twenty, her tan legs glossy under the cheap fluorescent lights.
Charli tucked her phone face down on the counter. "I don't know what you mean."
"Sure you don't." Jess grinned, tugging the sheer mesh top she had insisted Charli wear tonight, a deep sapphire number that left nothing to the imagination. "You've got that look. The glow. The one you never get when Jamie's around."
"Jamie's going through a hard time," Charli said, but the words came out thin.
"He's been going through a hard time for three months, babe. At some point it stops being a hard time and starts being a personality." Jess hopped off the stool and came around behind her, fingers working through Charli's dark hair, gathering it into a loose twist. "You're not his mum. You're his girlfriend. And you're out here in a club wearing nothing but physics and good intentions, paying the rent he can't touch."
Charli closed her eyes. She should have defended him. Jamie was kind, and warm, and he loved her. That was real. But love didn't pay the electric bill, and love didn't stop her from noticing that her body had become a currency she was trading in without even fully realising it. The thought sat sour in her stomach and sweet on her tongue at the same time.
"Harry thinks I'm interesting," she said quietly.
"Harry thinks you're delicious, and he's right." Jess finished the twist and patted her shoulder. "That's not a bad thing, Char. You're allowed to be wanted. Especially when the man you live with hasn't looked at you like a woman in weeks."
That was the sharpest part, because it was true. Jamie looked at her like a problem he needed to solve, like a spreadsheet that wouldn't balance. Harry looked at her like she was the answer.
The shift passed in a blur of trays and tips. Charli had become something of a fixture in her weeks at the club, a favourite of the regulars who liked her dark hair and her Italian curves, the way she smiled like she knew a secret. She wore the sapphire mesh with a pair of white shorts that rode high, and she moved through the velvet dark like she belonged there. She was good at it now. That was the terrifying thing. She was good at it.
Simone, the older woman with the shaved head and the heavy gold necklace, caught her arm as she came off the floor. "Gift for you, love." She nodded toward the bar where a flat parcel wrapped in black paper sat propped against a cocktail napkin. "Came through for you an hour ago. The courier had clear instructions."
Charli frowned, crossing to the bar. The parcel was long, maybe a foot and a half, and heavy when she lifted it, the weight of it settling into her palm like something deliberate. The black paper was smooth, tied with a single strand of deep red ribbon.
She pulled the ribbon loose and unfolded the paper. Inside was a box, plain white, unmarked.
And a card.
Her name in bold, confident handwriting. *For when you're thinking of me. Come find me. – H.*
Her breath caught. She glanced around, but the club's attention was elsewhere, a new dancer on the main stage drawing every pair of eyes. Charli turned her back to the room and lifted the lid.
Inside, nestled in dark velvet, rested something that made her thighs clench and her face burn. It was a dildo, long and thick and devastatingly familiar. The shape of it, the curve, the particular slope of the head, she knew it. She had studied it, had looked at Harry's photograph until her eyes watered. This was a copy. A perfect, obscene replica of the man who texted her good morning.
Her hands were shaking as she closed the lid.
Jess appeared at her elbow, eyes dropping to the box. "Oh. Oh, my." She let out a low whistle. "That's not a gift, that's a declaration."
"He had this made," Charli whispered. "How do you even get something like this made? He must have gone to a specialist. He must have thought about it, planned it."
"He's rich, babe. Rich people plan."
Charli held the box against her chest, the weight of it pressing into her sternum. Her phone buzzed in her back pocket and she knew, without looking, who it was.
*Did you get my present?*
She stared at the words until they blurred. Then she typed back, her fingers clumsy.
*Just got it. Is that really—*
The reply came in seconds. *Every inch. Can't wait for you to try it. Tell me what you think.*
The bass thumped through the floor. The club hummed around her, oblivious. On the main stage, someone was making a fortune in tips. And Charli stood in the heart of all that velvet darkness, holding a perfect copy of a man who was not her boyfriend, and felt the line she had been walking for weeks dissolve completely beneath her feet.
She looked at Jess. Jess looked at the box. Neither of them said what they were both thinking.
But Charli knew, with a terrifying certainty, that she was going to try it. And she was going to tell Harry exactly what she thought.
She tucked the box into her locker, shoved it behind a spare pair of heels and a crumpled hoodie, and tried to pretend she hadn't just received the most obscene gift of her life. The shift carried on around her in its usual velvet blur. Drinks were poured, tips were collected, a birthday party near the back corner got rowdy enough that one of the bouncers had to step in.
She was crossing the floor with a tray of champagne flutes when it happened. A hand, large and heavy, landed flat on her ass with a smack that echoed off the low ceiling. The shock of it nearly sent the flutes sliding. Charli spun, the tray tilting, champagne sloshing over the rims.
The man was mid-thirties, ruddy-faced, already drunk enough that his eyes couldn't quite focus on her face. He grinned, showing a row of yellowed teeth.
"Worth every penny of that tip I gave you earlier, love."
Charli's face went hot. She opened her mouth, but before she could form a word, two of the bouncers were there, moving with practiced efficiency. The man was lifted from his stool, his protests swallowed by the bass of the music, and marched toward the front door. The whole thing took maybe ten seconds. From the stage, one of the dancers laughed, a bright trill that cut through the dark.
"You alright, love?" The bouncer who'd grabbed the man, a mountain of muscle named Derek, was looking at her with concern.
"Fine," Charli managed, though her heart was hammering. "Just surprised, that's all."
"Won't be seeing him again tonight. You need anything, you call for me."
She nodded, straightened the tray, and kept walking. The flutes were half empty now, but no one seemed to care, and she finished the delivery with a smile she didn't entirely feel.
The slapping had rattled her, but it had done something else too. It had lit a fire low in her belly, a strange mix of anger and something she didn't want to name. She'd been groped before, pawed at, propositioned. It was part of the job, Jess had warned her. But tonight, with the weight of Harry's gift burning in her locker and the memory of his voice note playing on a loop in her head, the violation felt different. It felt like permission.
She let herself drift toward the VIP booths, a section separated by a velvet rope and a bored-looking hostess. A group had taken the largest booth, half a dozen men in expensive sneakers and chains thick enough to anchor a boat. They were tall, every one of them, with the broad-shouldered, long-limbed build of athletes. Basketball players, Jess had said once, gesturing vaguely. Charli had nodded along, having absolutely no idea which team they played for.
One of them caught her eye as she hovered near the edge of the section, a dark-skinned man with a shaved head and a diamond stud in each ear. He raised his glass, a slow grin spreading across his face.
"You lost, shorty?"
She should have laughed and moved on. She should have taken the easy out. Instead, she felt her hips sway as she stepped closer, the mesh top catching the low light.
"Just admiring the view," she said, and the grin widened.
The night unraveled from there, thread by thread. She found herself in the booth, squeezed between two of them because there wasn't anywhere else to sit, their thighs pressing against hers on either side. A drink appeared in her hand, something sweet and cold, and she sipped it slowly while they talked over her head about a game she didn't understand. Points, rebounds, a trade that was apparently the worst decision in franchise history.
She laughed when they laughed, nodded when they looked at her for agreement, and let the warmth of the drink and the weight of their attention settle over her like a blanket. One of them, the one who'd first called her over, had a name she couldn't pronounce and an accent she couldn't place, and he kept leaning in to explain things to her in a low voice, his hand resting on the back of the booth behind her head.
"See, if he hits that shot, the whole game changes," he was saying. "It's about momentum."
"Momentum," she repeated, as if the word meant something to her.
"You got it." He grinned at her, white teeth against dark skin. "You ever watch basketball?"
"Not really."
"Then I'm teaching you wrong. Let me start over."
He shifted, and the man on her other side shifted too, and suddenly there was no room at all. She ended up on his lap, his hand sliding around her waist to steady her, his palm coming to rest on the curve of her ass. The grip was enormous. His fingers spanned almost the entire cheek, thumb hooking at the edge of her shorts, and he held her there like she weighed nothing.
"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "No room for everyone."
"It's fine." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I've got your lap."
"You do."
The heat of him was immense, his thigh hard beneath her, his chest solid at her back. She could feel the size of him in a way that was almost dizzying, how small she was in comparison, how easily he could have wrapped both hands around her entire body. The thought made her stomach flip.
Someone said something and the group laughed, and Charli felt herself laughing too, her body moving against his. His hand tightened on her ass, a reflex, and she let herself lean back into it. The drink in her hand was half empty. She hadn't even noticed.
"You're a light thing," he murmured against her ear. "You sure you eat enough?"
"I eat plenty."
"Then you got a fast metabolism. Lucky you."
From across the booth, another of them was watching her, a wiry man with braids and a tattoo curling up his neck. He raised his drink in her direction.
"You work here long?"
"Few weeks."
"And they already got you in VIP? You must be good."
"She's got a face for it," the one holding her said, and his hand squeezed again, a deliberate press that made her breath catch. "And a body for the rest."
Charli's cheeks burned, but she smiled, letting the comment land where it would. She could feel herself loosening, the night's earlier tension bleeding out of her. The slap, the box in her locker, the text from Harry she hadn't answered yet, all of it faded into the warm haze of the booth, the press of bodies, the easy laughter.
She sat on his lap for what felt like hours, though it was probably only twenty minutes. She drank half a glass more, let herself be the center of their attention, and felt something shift inside her. It wasn't just confidence. It was hunger. The same hunger that had been building for weeks, fed by Harry's messages and her own lonely hands in the dark.
When she finally slid off his lap, his hand lingering a moment too long on her hip, she felt light. Unmoored. She smoothed her shorts and winked at him.
"Next time, I'll know what a three-pointer is."
"You better, shorty. I'm holding you to that."
She left the booth on unsteady legs, the bass of the main floor pulling her back into the current of the club. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Harry.
*Still working?*
She typed back without stopping. *Ending my shift soon. I've got a present to unwrap at home.*
The reply came fast. *Take your time with it. Better yet, don't rush anything.*
She smiled at the screen, pocketed the phone, and walked to the locker to retrieve the box.
She was three steps from the locker when a voice cut through the bass.
"Shorty. Hold up."
She turned. The man who'd held her was crossing the floor toward her, moving with the unhurried lope of someone who owned every room he walked into. His friend, the wiry one with the braids, followed a step behind. The two of them filled the corridor, blocking out the low light, their shadows falling across her like a closing door.
"I didn't catch your name," he said, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
"Charli."
"Charli." He repeated it like he was tasting it, rolling it around. "I'm Marcus. That's DeAndre."
The wiry one raised two fingers in a lazy wave. Up close, he was younger than she'd thought, maybe her age, with a sharp jaw and eyes that moved over her like they were counting something.
"You're leaving already?" Marcus asked.
"Shift's over. Early start tomorrow."
"School?"
"Master's. Physics."
Both of them blinked. There was a beat of silence, and then DeAndre let out a low whistle. "Damn. Pretty and smart. That's a dangerous combination."
"She's trouble," Marcus agreed, grinning down at her. "I like trouble."
Charli laughed, the sound surprising her. "I'm not trouble. I'm just tired."
"Then I'll make it worth your while." Marcus reached into the pocket of his track jacket and pulled out a thick fold of bills, creased and warm from his body. He peeled off a single note, a crisp hundred, and held it up. Then another. And another. He counted them into her palm with the casual ease of someone for whom money had stopped being real, ten hundred-dollar bills in a neat stack, a thousand dollars resting against her skin.
"Consider that a retainer," he said. "For when we're next in. You take care of our booth, we take care of you. Deal?"
Charli stared at the money in her hand. It was more than she'd made in three nights of tray work and tips. It was more than Jamie's last paycheck. She could feel the weight of it, the texture of it, the way it made her throat tight.
"That's a lot of money for a booth," she managed.
"You're worth a lot of money, shorty. That's the whole point." Marcus folded her fingers over the bills, his hand swallowing hers. "Next time we're through, you're ours. All night. Understand?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Good." He let go of her hand and stepped back, DeAndre falling into place beside him. "Get some sleep, Charli. You're gonna need your energy."
They moved past her, two mountains of muscle and quiet confidence, and disappeared back into the velvet dark of the club. Charli stood frozen in the corridor, the thousand dollars burning in her grip, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The rest of the shift passed in a blur. She tucked the bills into her bra, the paper cool against her skin, and finished her rounds on autopilot. Drinks were poured. Tips were collected. The birthday party near the back corner got louder, then quieter, then spilled out into the night. She smiled and nodded and laughed at jokes she didn't hear, her mind stuck on a loop: a thousand dollars, Marcus's hand on her ass, the weight of Harry's gift waiting in her locker.
By the time she'd changed and locked up, the club was winding down, the last few stragglers finishing their drinks under the dim amber lights. Jess was waiting by the staff entrance, keys in hand, her makeup smudged and her hair loose around her shoulders.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said as Charli emerged.
"I got a tip."
"Good for you. How much?"
Charli pulled the stack from her bra and fanned it out. Jess's eyes went wide, then wider, and she let out a low whistle.
"Jesus Christ. Who the hell tipped you a grand?"
"Basketball players. VIP booth." Charli's voice came out thin. "They want me for their booth next time they're in."
Jess was quiet for a moment, studying her friend's face in the spill of the streetlight. Then she reached out and squeezed Charli's arm.
"Come on. I'm driving you home."
The car was warm and smelled of Jess's perfume, something floral and sharp. Charli buckled herself into the passenger seat and watched the city slide past the window, the neon of the club district giving way to quieter streets, the familiar sprawl of the flats where she and Jamie lived. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, expecting Harry.
It was Instagram. A notification.
*Marcus_Thorne_23 has requested to follow you.*
Charli's thumb hovered over the screen. She tapped it open. The profile was exactly what she expected and nothing like what she'd imagined. A blue checkmark beside the name. Over two million followers. Photos of him in jerseys, on courts, in private jets, grinning with teammates, holding trophies like they were toys. He looked impossibly tall in every frame, impossibly built, a world away from the Velvet Club and its velvet ropes.
And right below the request, another one.
*DeAndre.Wilson4 has requested to follow you.*
A second checkmark. A million and a half followers. Photos of the same world, the same life, the same impossible height and width and presence. In one photo, he was shirtless, suspended mid-dunk, every muscle in his torso defined and gleaming under the arena lights.
Charli's heart was pounding. She thumbed through the profiles, her breath shallow, her skin hot. Two million followers. A million and a half. These men could have anyone. Anyone on the planet. And they'd given her a thousand dollars and asked her to be theirs for a night.
Her mind drifted, unbidden, to the video she'd watched weeks ago, alone in the flat while Jamie slept. The one she'd been too embarrassed to finish, the one she'd closed out of after three minutes and then gone back to twice more. Two men and a woman in a hotel room, the woman small between them, the two men huge and dark and identical in the way they moved, in the way they took turns, in the way they kept her pinned and full and keening between their bodies.
She had told herself it was just curiosity. Just boredom. A lapse in judgment she'd never revisit.
Now she watched Marcus's hands on the screen, watched the width of his shoulders in a post-game interview, and the heat between her thighs was a low, insistent pulse. The video was still on her phone. She knew exactly where it was saved.
"You alright?" Jess asked, glancing over. "You're very quiet."
"Just tired." Charli locked the phone, her thumb pressing hard against the screen. "Long night."
Jess hummed, not quite convinced, but let it go. They drove the rest of the way in silence, the city lights washing over them.
The flat was dark when Charli let herself in. Jamie was already asleep, a lump under the duvet, his breath even and slow. She kicked off her shoes, set the box from Harry on the dresser away from his side of the bed, and stood in the bathroom with the door closed, staring at herself in the mirror.
Her reflection looked back at her, flushed and bright-eyed. She pulled the thousand dollars from her bra and tucked it into her makeup bag beside the dildo that was still there, waiting. Then she unlocked her phone and looked at the follow requests again.
She accepted both.
Her thumbs moved before she could think. *Thank you for tonight. Hope to see you again.* She sent it to Marcus first, then a version to DeAndre, shorter, dumber, a string of emojis that felt like a mask.
Then she put the phone on the sink and looked at her reflection for a long moment.
*What are you doing?*
She didn't have an answer. But the phone buzzed twice in quick succession, and when she looked down, she saw Marcus's reply.
*Count on it, shorty.*
And DeAndre's, a single line.
*Can't wait.
The three dots appeared on Harry's message, that little pulsing ellipsis that had once made her stomach flip. She'd seen the notification while she was still in the bathroom, the screen lighting up on the counter where she'd left it.
*When you get home. I want to hear your voice.*
She'd read it twice, thumbs hovering. And then she'd typed back, the lie smooth and easy, surprising her with how quickly it came.
*Home now. Jamie's awake though. Rain check?*
The reply took longer this time. She watched the screen, the minutes stretching.
*Of course. Sleep well.*
No follow-up. No playful protest. It was the first time he'd let a message end without reaching for more, and it settled in her chest like a stone.
She locked the phone and stood in the dark of the bathroom, the box on the dresser outside, the thousand dollars in her makeup bag, and the two new followers glowing unread in her notifications.
---
Two days passed. The flat smelled of coffee and the faint ghost of Jamie's deodorant, and Charli found herself checking her phone at odd moments, the screen lighting up under the weight of her thumb.
Instagram. Nothing new from Marcus. His last message, *Count on it, shorty*, sat there like a door she couldn't stop staring through. DeAndre hadn't followed up either. She'd checked his profile twice, watched him dunk in a clip she'd already seen, and told herself she was just curious. Just bored. Just a girl with a phone and too much time.
She checked her DMs a third time, and then a fourth, and each time the screen showed the same two conversations, her own bright and eager messages waiting there unanswered, and each time she felt the hum grow a little quieter, a little thinner, like a radio signal fading out of range.
Harry texted her constantly. That was the strangest part of it. He texted her through those two days like nothing had changed, morning messages and afternoon jokes and one long rambling voice note about a lecture he'd had to sit through, his voice warm and wry and entirely, blessedly normal. She answered every message. She laughed at his jokes, asked questions about his day, sent him a photo of the coffee she was drinking and the textbook she was annotating.
But she didn't send him anything else. She didn't tease, didn't test, didn't ask the kinds of questions she'd been asking before, the ones that made his replies come fast and slightly breathless. She let the conversation settle into something she could have with anyone, something easy and safe and entirely unlike what they'd been.
And she didn't open the box.
It sat on the dresser, wrapped in its black paper, the white box inside waiting. She told herself she was being sensible. She told herself she needed to be sure. She told herself a dozen small lies, all of them wearing the same shape.
But at night, when Jamie had rolled over and his breathing had evened out, she'd lie awake and think about other things. The way Marcus's hand had felt on her ass, the width of his palm, the easy certainty of his voice when he'd told her she was worth a lot of money. The way DeAndre's eyes had moved over her like he was already counting what he wanted.
She'd scroll through their profiles in the dark, the screen brightness turned all the way down, and watch them move through a world that had nothing to do with hers. Courts, hotels, private jets, women draped over them in every photo, all of them beautiful, all of them disposable. And she'd wonder what she was to them, if she was anything at all.
She had been one man's focus for so long. Jamie, and before him, a string of high school boys who'd never quite caught her attention the way they'd wanted to. She had always known how to be wanted by one person, how to hold a single gaze and let everything else fall away. Being wanted by two men now, by three, felt like standing in a room full of mirrored doors, seeing herself from a hundred angles she'd never known existed.
She didn't know which version was real. That was the thing. She didn't know which one she was becoming.
---
Tonight, the flat was hers.
Jamie had kissed her forehead just after seven, pulling on his coat, explaining for the third time that he had a thing with an old coworker, networking, trying to find a way back into the industry. She'd nodded and smiled and told him to have fun, and she'd stood at the window watching him walk down the street until he turned the corner and disappeared.
The silence settled around her like dust.
She walked through the rooms slowly, touching things she'd touched a hundred times. The kettle, the fridge door, the corner of the sofa where she curled up to study. The flat felt smaller without him in it, narrower, the walls pressing in a little closer. She'd been alone here plenty of times. But never quite like this.
She showered, letting the water run hot until the bathroom filled with steam. She put on Jamie's hoodie out of habit, then took it off and hung it back in the wardrobe.
She stood in front of the open wardrobe for a long moment, the silence of the flat pressing in around her. Then she pulled out the silk set she'd bought weeks ago and never worn, a deep burgundy thing with a matching shorts. She'd told herself it was for a special occasion. Tonight, she just wanted to feel like someone else.
The silk was cool against her skin, sliding over her hips as she pulled on the shorts. She caught her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, the burgundy against her olive skin, the curve of her breasts under the soft fabric. She looked different. She looked like the girl in the club, the one who sat on strangers' laps and took thousand-dollar tips. It was strange, seeing her in her own bedroom.
She climbed into bed and lay in the dark, the sheets pulled up to her chin. The streetlight filtered through the curtains, casting long shadows across the ceiling. She closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind.
It didn't work.
Marcus's hands were there, the weight of them on her hips, the impossible span of his fingers pressing into the curve of her ass. DeAndre's eyes, dark and patient, counting something she couldn't name. The heat of the booth, the press of bodies on either side, the way her thighs had clenched when Marcus lowered her onto his lap.
She turned over, punched the pillow, and closed her eyes harder.
The video. She kept coming back to the video. Two men and a woman in a hotel room, the woman small between them, the two men huge and dark and identical in the way they moved. She'd watched it three times now, and each time she'd told herself it was the last.
She couldn't bear to watch it again. Not here, with Jamie's smell still on the pillow, not with the guilt already churning in her stomach.
She got up.
The flat was dark, the only light the blue glow of the streetlamps through the windows. She padded barefoot to the small desk in the corner where Jamie kept his laptop, a battered old thing held together with tape and stubbornness. She'd use her phone normally, but the screen was too small, the light too harsh. She was already wide awake. Might as well be comfortable.
The laptop woke with a soft chime, the screen bright in the dark room. She sat in Jamie's chair, the worn fabric familiar under her thighs, and moved the mouse to open a browser.
The page that loaded made her freeze.
It was a video site, the kind with a black background and white text, and the browser had opened on her history. No. Not her history. His.
The tab was still open. The most recent one.
She stared at the thumbnail, her mind refusing to parse what she was seeing. A woman on her hands and knees, seen from behind, her face buried in a pillow. Behind her, a man, dark-skinned and immense, his hands braced on her hips. The title was a string of words she'd only ever heard whispered in locker rooms, crude and explicit and unmistakable.
Girlfriend cuckold porn.
Charli's hand flew to her mouth. The shock was cold and immediate, a bucket of ice down her spine. Jamie. Jamie had been watching this. This exact video. The tab was still open, the browser frozen mid-play, the timestamp showing she'd been interrupted three minutes in.
She sat in the dark, the blue light washing over her face, and felt the world tilt sideways. Jamie. Her Jamie. The one who'd kissed her forehead before he left. The one who'd held her hand through the worst of his job loss, who'd promised her things would get better. The one who never looked at her like a woman anymore, who rolled over and slept with his back to her, who'd stopped touching her weeks ago.
He had been watching this. And he'd closed the laptop, walked out the door, and kissed her goodbye.
She should close the tab. She should shut the laptop and go back to bed and pretend she'd never seen it. She should respect his privacy, the same way she was betraying his trust with every message she'd ever sent Harry.
She didn't close it.
Her thumb clicked the play button before she'd made a conscious decision, and the video sprang to life, filling the screen with movement and sound. The woman was young, college-aged, blonde hair messily tied back, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. The man behind her was huge, every inch of him a study in controlled power, and he was moving slowly, deliberately, letting her feel every inch of him.
The man holding the camera spoke, his voice low and proud. "Look at you. Look at how you take it. This is all you needed, isn't it? This is what you've been missing."
The woman whimpered, the sound muffled by her arm. She turned her face toward the camera, and Charli saw it, the dazed, fucked-out expression, the way her eyes couldn't quite focus. She looked like she was being undone, one slow thrust at a time.
Charli's body responded before her mind could catch up. A heat bloomed low in her belly, spreading through her thighs, and she pressed her knees together, her breath catching in her throat. She told herself it was disgust. She told herself she was horrified, that this was proof of something broken in Jamie, that she had to look away.
She didn't look away.
The man shifted his angle, driving deeper, and the woman let out a sound that was half sob, half moan. "Please," she gasped. "Please, more."
"More?" The man laughed, low and dark. "You want more? You think you can take more?"
"Please."
He gave it to her. Charli watched, transfixed, as he wrapped a hand around her hips and pulled her back onto him, his pace quickening, the wet sounds of their bodies filling the room. The woman cried out, her fingers clawing at the sheets, and the camera moved closer, capturing every inch of the space between them.
Charli's hand slid down her stomach without her permission, her fingers finding the heat between her thighs through the silk of her shorts. She was wet. Soaking. The slickness of it was obscene, undeniable, and a small voice in her head screamed at her to stop, to close the laptop, to go back to bed and pretend she'd never seen any of this.
She didn't stop.
She watched the man take the woman from behind, watched the way her body yielded to him, the way she opened for him, the way she begged. And she thought of Marcus's hands, the weight of them on her body. She thought of DeAndre's eyes, patient and patient and confident. She thought of being small between two men, of being wanted that desperately, of being filled until she couldn't think.
The first voice hadn't registered, buried under the woman's cries and the wet rhythm of the man's hips. But now the camera angle shifted, and she heard it clearly, a man speaking from somewhere off to the side, his voice tight with a strange mix of arousal and worry.
"Babe, you okay? You're... you're really taking it."
The woman on the screen turned her head, her face flushed, her eyes glassy. "I'm fine. I'm fine, it's so good, please don't stop."
There was a pause. The man behind her kept moving, slow and deep, and the off-camera voice came again, thinner this time.
"You've never... you've never looked like this before. With me."
Charli's hand froze against the silk. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. The boyfriend in the video sounded small. Uncertain. He was watching his girlfriend be taken apart by another man, and he sounded like he was shrinking with every thrust, every moan, every wordless sound of pleasure that his girlfriend made for someone else.
She felt the world tilt. That was Jamie. That could be Jamie, watching her be undone by men who weren't him, by hands that spanned her entire body, by a weight she'd only ever imagined. And the thought of it, the thought of Jamie hearing her make those sounds for someone else, did something to her that she couldn't name.
Her hand moved again, pressing harder against the silk. The fabric was slick now, clinging to her fingers, and she rolled her hips into the pressure, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Her own voice echoed in her head, the voice note she'd sent Harry, the wet sounds of the toy filling her, the low moan she'd let escape. She imagined Jamie hearing it. She imagined his face, the hurt and the arousal fighting for space. She imagined him watching her the way the man in the video watched his girlfriend, small and lost and utterly undone.
The woman on screen cried out, a long, shuddering sound, and the man driving into her grunted. The off-camera voice went quiet, and Charli knew he was watching, just watching, his own girlfriend lost to someone else's body.
Charli's fingers found her clit through the silk, circling fast, her hips bucking into her palm. The heat was building, coiling low and tight, and she let herself feel it, let herself imagine being the woman in the video, being watched, being wanted that completely. The image flickered: Marcus's hands, DeAndre's eyes, Harry's voice in her ear. And Jamie, always Jamie, watching from the edge of the frame.
The video ended with a final shuddering cry and the screen went black, the silence of the flat rushing back in like a wave. Charli sat frozen in Jamie's chair, her hand still pressed between her thighs, the silk of her shorts soaked through. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her temples.
She pulled her hand away, stared at it for a long moment, then wiped it on her thigh. The shame hit her like a physical blow, cold and queasy in her stomach. She had just watched her boyfriend's secret porn, in his chair, at his desk, and she had gotten off to it. To the thought of him watching her the way the man in the video had watched his girlfriend.
She shut the laptop with a snap.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand, the screen glowing in the dark. A notification from Harry, time-stamped an hour ago.
You went quiet. Everything alright?
Her thumb hesitated over the screen. The video was still playing in her head, the sound of it, the shape of it, the way it had made her feel. The shame was a hot coil in her stomach, but beneath it, something else was stirring, something restless and hungry.
She looked at the laptop on the bed beside her. The screen was dark, the lid closed. She thought about the box on the dresser, wrapped in black paper, waiting. She thought about the woman in the video, the way she'd been opened up, the way her boyfriend had watched, small and silent.
She pulled her shorts off, the silk sliding down her legs, and left them on the floor. She lay back on the bed, the laptop open in front of her, its screen glow washing over her bare thighs. She angled her phone over her hip, capturing the curve of her waist, the tanned skin of her leg, the suggestion of everything the frame cut off.
She sent it with a single message.
Busy. Sorry.
The reply came in seconds.
Busy doing what?
She smirked, her thumb moving fast.
Wouldn't you like to know.
I would. That's the problem.
She shifted on the bed, the laptop still open before her, the empty video player waiting. Her hand drifted down, her fingers finding the heat between her thighs, slick and ready. She was already wound up, the video having done its work, the thought of Harry's voice in her ear doing the rest.
His next message came through.
I hope you're using your present.
She stared at the words, a flush spreading up her chest. The box on the dresser. The weight of it. She'd been avoiding it for two days, telling herself she wasn't ready, that it was too much, that she'd never actually do it.
Maybe, she typed, her fingers moving on their own.
Maybe's not a yes.
It's not a no either.
She sent a smirk emoji, just to appease him, just to keep him at arm's length while her body burned with everything she was trying not to feel.
Then I'll be waiting, he replied. When you're ready to give me a proper answer.
She set the phone down, her heart hammering. The laptop screen glowed before her, the video site still open, the recommendations list filling the frame. Her hand drifted down again, her fingers circling her clit, slow and deliberate.
She clicked on a new video.
The thumbnail showed a blonde girl, college-aged, her mouth stretched impossibly wide around a cock that looked obscene. The title was a string of words she'd only ever seen in secret, the kind of thing you searched for in incognito mode and never admitted to. She clicked it.
The video opened on a hotel room. The girl was on her knees, a man standing before her, his dick huge and dark and already glistening. Behind her, another man held a phone, filming. The boyfriend, she realized. The same dynamic as before. The same setup.
The girl took him into her mouth, inch by inch, her eyes watering, her throat working. She gagged, pulled back, tried again. The man's hand tangled in her hair, guiding her, pushing deeper. The off-camera voice murmured encouragement, soft and strained.
Charli's fingers moved faster, circling her clit, matching the pace of the girl's bobbing head. Heat coiled in her belly, building. The girl on screen was being taken apart, one inch at a time, and she was taking it, coming back for more, her eyes glazed with a desperate need.
The video shifted. The man pulled her up, bent her over the bed, and entered her in one long, slow push. The girl cried out, her hands fisting in the sheets, her body arching. The camera moved closer, capturing every inch of the penetration, the way she stretched around him, the way she took all of him.
Charli's breath came in gasps. Her hips rolled against her hand, seeking more, needing more. Her other hand reached out blindly, found the edge of the dresser, and pulled the drawstring bag she'd left there earlier. The familiar weight of the six-inch dildo was in her hand, the pink curve of it, the cool silicone.
She paused.
The dildo felt small suddenly. Insufficient. The memory of the video, of Marcus's hands, of Harry's picture, of the weight of his words in her ear, crowded in. The box on the dresser. The gift he'd sent.
She put the six-incher down. She climbed off the bed, her legs unsteady, and crossed the room to the dresser. She picked up the box, wrapped in black paper, the weight of it substantial in her hands. She carried it back to the bed, sat down, and tore the paper open.
Inside, a white box. She lifted the lid.
The dildo was nestled in black velvet, a custom piece, molded and cast. She lifted it out, and her breath caught. It was longer than she'd expected. Thicker. The picture he'd sent hadn't done it justice. It was eight and a half inches of Harry, maybe more, the shaft curved slightly upward, the head flared and smooth, the whole thing warm to the touch.
She held it in both hands, measuring the weight of it, the reality of it. He'd had himself cloned, the casting made from his own body, and sent it to her as a gift. The thought of it, of his hands on himself, of the process, of the sheer audacity, made her thighs press together.
She lay back on the bed, the laptop still open beside her, the video still playing. The girl on screen was on her back now, the man driving into her, the boy a silent shape at the edge of the frame. Charli found the head of the dildo, slick with her own wetness, and pressed it against herself.
It wasn't a small thing. It wasn't the six inches she was used to. It was Harry's full length, real and solid, and as she pushed it inside herself, inch by inch, she thought of him. She thought of the picture he'd sent, the way he'd looked in those boxers. She thought of the way he'd said her name in his voice notes, low and warm. She thought of Jamie, watching porn in this same bed, learning what he couldn't give her.
She pushed deeper, and the fullness of it made her gasp.
She pushed deeper, and the fullness of it made her gasp. The head pressed against something inside her she'd never felt before, a deep ache that was almost too much, and she stilled, her breath coming in shallow pants. She could feel her body struggling to accommodate him, the stretch of her inner walls, the unfamiliar weight of him filling her completely.
She looked down at where they joined, the sight of it obscene in the low light. He was inside her. Harry was inside her, eight and a half inches of him, and she was taking it. The thought made her shudder, a wave of heat rolling through her belly.
She began to move, slow at first, her hips rocking back and forth, the dildo sliding out an inch before pressing back in. The friction was delicious, the fullness of it making her gasp with each thrust. She picked up the pace, her hips finding a rhythm, and the wet sounds of her body filled the room.
The laptop still played beside her, the girl on screen on her hands and knees now, the man behind her driving into her with a steady, relentless rhythm. Charli's eyes fixed on the screen, on the way the girl's body yielded, on the way she took it, and she matched the pace, her hips rolling faster, her hand braced on the mattress for leverage.
She managed three quarters of him before the girth stopped her. The stretch was immense, her body aching with the effort, but she pushed harder, her breath catching, and felt herself give. The last few inches slid home with a wet, obscene sound, and she was full. Completely. Utterly. She lay still for a moment, trembling, the dildo buried to the hilt, and felt something give way inside her.
She began to move, slow at first, her hips rocking back and forth on the shaft. The fullness of him was unlike anything she'd ever felt, the curve of him pressing against a spot that made her see stars. She picked up the pace, her hands gripping the sheets, her body moving in long, rolling gyres as she rode him. Her head fell back, her mouth open, sounds escaping her that she didn't recognize. She was so close, the pressure coiling low in her belly.
She reached for her phone, fumbled it off the nightstand, and pressed the record button on the voice note app. She didn't plan the sound that came out of her, it wasn't performed. It was raw, unguarded, a moan that started in her chest and clawed its way out of her throat.
"That's so good," she gasped, the words slurred, her voice barely her own. "Oh God, Harry, that's so good."
She sent it without listening, tossed the phone away, and braced her hands on her own thighs. She rode the dildo hard, the stretching almost unbearable, her body working it in and out with desperate urgency. The laptop screen glowed beside her, the girl on screen taking it from behind, her boyfriend a silent shape at the edge of the frame, and Charli imagined it was her. Imagined Marcus beneath her, DeAndre behind, imagined being wanted that completely, filled that completely.
The orgasm hit her like a wave, crashing through her with a violence that left her breathless. Her back arched, her thighs trembling, and she cried out, the sound raw and animal. She kept riding through it, the dildo driving deep, her body milking it, and she felt herself come again in a second wave, the pleasure building on pleasure until she was sobbing with it, her body slick with sweat and want.
She collapsed forward, her hair plastered to her forehead, her chest heaving. The dildo was still buried inside her, twitching with each aftershock, and she lay there, trembling, the laptop screen still glowing, a soft, wet sound filling the room. She couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't remember her own name.
The phone buzzed. She reached for it blindly, her fingers slick, and saw Harry's reply.
Fuck, Charli. That sound. I'm going to come just from listening to it again.
She smiled, her eyes closing, her body still shaking. She typed back, her thumb clumsy.
Good. I still can't feel my legs.
Stay exactly like that. I want you to know I'm thinking about you.
I know you are. I can feel it.
She set the phone down and lay in the dark, the dildo still inside her, the weight of him a constant presence. She was ruined. She was undone. She was whatever he'd made her, and she didn't have the strength to be anything else.
She lay in the dark for a long time, the dildo still inside her, the weight of Harry's gift a constant, pressing reminder. The phone buzzed twice more, but she didn't reach for it. She let the silence settle around her, the flat empty, Jamie hours away, and she tried to remember who she'd been before all of this.
She didn't get an answer.
Eventually she pulled herself off the bed, the dildo sliding out of her with a wet, obscene sound, and carried it to the bathroom. She cleaned it with soap and warm water, dried it carefully, and tucked it back into its velvet-lined box. She put the box back on the dresser, wrapped in the torn remains of the black paper, and climbed into bed. Sleep came in fragments, broken and restless, her dreams full of hands and eyes and the sound of Jamie's voice, small and lost, asking her if she was okay.
Morning came too soon, grey light filtering through the curtains. She showered, dressed, and stood in the kitchen making coffee while the flat slowly filled with the smell of it. Jamie was still asleep, curled on his side of the bed, his breathing soft and even. She didn't look at him for long. She didn't trust what she'd find on her own face.
Her phone buzzed as she poured the coffee.
Harry.
Morning. How are you feeling?
She read the message three times, her thumb hovering. The night before was a smear in her memory, the video, the box, the sounds she'd made, all of it jumbled together like a half-remembered dream. She typed back carefully.
Sore. But good.
Sore?
You know why.
A good sore or a bad sore?
She smiled despite herself, the mug warm in her hands. I'll never tell.
So you used it, then.
Maybe.
That's not an answer.
It's the only answer you're getting. She added a winking emoji, felt the small thrill of it, and locked the phone. She didn't tell him the truth, that she'd taken all of him, that she'd come twice on his clone, that she'd sent him a voice note that made him want to come just from listening. She kept that close, a secret even from him, a power she wasn't ready to give away.
He replied quickly. You're cruel.
I'm mysterious. There's a difference.
I'm going to be thinking about that all day.
Good.
She set the phone down and went to wake Jamie.
---
The days blurred together after that, a rhythm of lectures and shifts and quiet evenings in the flat. She stopped counting the nights she worked at the Velvet Club and started counting the tips instead, the steady roll of cash that padded her makeup bag and eased the knot in her stomach. She had become something of a mainstay there, Jess said, a fan favourite, the girl with the dark hair and the daring outfits who somehow made every drink order feel like a compliment.
She rotated through the wardrobe she'd built, the sheer tops and tiny skirts, the thigh-high boots, the push-up bras that made her breasts sit high and round and impossible to ignore. She learned the regulars by name, the birthdays and the breakups, the men who wanted to talk and the men who wanted to be seen with her, and she moved through it all with a smile that never quite reached her eyes.
Harry kept texting. Every day, sometimes every hour, small messages that she answered with the same careful ambiguity, never quite confirming what she'd done with his gift, never quite denying it either. She let him wonder. She let him hope. She hadn’t used the gift since.
Marcus and DeAndre stayed silent. Their profiles grew stale in her notifications, the follow requests long since accepted, the messages unread. She checked them daily, the little blue dots of her unanswered overtures glaring back at her, and each time she felt the hum of possibility fade a little more.
Life settled into its new shape. The flat, the club, the lectures, the endless loop of it all. She began to believe she could keep the two halves of herself separate, that the girl who served drinks in a sheer top and the girl who made Jamie breakfast in the mornings could never meet.
Then she came home one Tuesday afternoon, earlier than usual, and found Jamie in the living room.
He was on the sofa, the laptop open on his knees, his face lit by the pale glow of the screen. He didn't hear her come in. His eyes were fixed, his mouth slightly open, and there were earbuds in his ears, the faint tinny sound of audio bleeding out into the quiet room.
Charli stood in the doorway and saw it all at once. The frozen frame on the screen. The woman bent over a bed, the man behind her, the unmistakable tableau of a world she'd already seen in this very room, on this very laptop.
Jamie.
His hand moved, adjusting something on the trackpad, and the screen flickered. The woman on stage cry out, a sound that cut through the earbuds, and Jamie's whole body tensed, his breath catching.
Charli's heart stopped.
For a long, horrible moment, she didn't move. She stood in the doorway of her own flat, watching her boyfriend watch another woman be taken apart, and she felt the world tilt sideways. This was it. The moment she'd been dreading, the moment she'd known was coming since the night she'd opened his laptop and found the same video frozen on the screen.
She took a breath. Then she let her keys fall.