Chapter 1: Dirty Glass and Dirty Words
The bass from the bar’s sound system was a physical thing, a throbbing pound that vibrated through the sticky bathroom floor and up into the soles of Tiffany’s shoes. The air was thick, a cocktail of stale cigarette smoke, spilled beer, and cheap perfume that had long since lost the fight. She leaned closer to the mirror, its surface fogged with condensation, and carefully reapplied her lip gloss, a practiced, glossy smile.
The door burst open, smacking against the chipped tile wall.
Giselle didn’t so much enter as occupy the space. She filled the cramped yellowed cubicle, her presence immediately swallowing the humid air. She was a solid silhouette against the flickering neon glow of the exit sign through the grimy window, her short hair stark, her face all hard angles in the poor light.
“There you are.” Giselle’s voice was flat, a gravelly thing. “Thought you’d wandered off.”
“Just fixing my face,” Tiffany said, her tone airy, bright. She dropped the gloss into her small clutch with a click.
Giselle moved in, crowding her against the sink. Tiffany could smell her—old leather, faint sweat, and the sharp, clean scent of whiskey. Her heart did a little jump, a familiar, treacherous rhythm. Giselle’s eyes, dark and assessing, scanned her from the top of her blonde head down to the neckline of her dress, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do.
“It’s fine. It’s always fine. That’s the point.” Giselle’s calloused thumb brushed roughly over Tiffany’s cheekbone, wiping away a nonexistent smudge. The gesture was possessive, a correction without cause.
Tiffany held the smile, her blue eyes wide and guileless. “Marc from accounting bought me a drink. He said the chart I made was ‘surprisingly digestible.’”
A snort. “And you laughed at his joke, I bet. Tilted your head just so.”
“Maybe.”
“He’s an idiot. They all are.” Giselle’s hand fell to Tiffany’s waist, grip firm, fingers pressing into the soft material. “You finished being the office pet for the night? I’m ready to go.”
This was the dance. The public pretense. Giselle, the brusque senior project manager, giving the pretty intern a hard time. Tiffany, the eager-to-please millennial, taking it with a smile. No one in the bar, their colleagues included, saw the current running beneath it. Tiffany found a perverse thrill in that, in the secret knowledge that every glance, every growled order, was part of a different, much darker language.
“Sure,” Tiffany chirped. “Just let me pee first. Two cocktails.”
Giselle didn’t move. She just stared, her expression unchanging. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant thump of music and the slow, faulty drip from the tap into the stained porcelain basin.
Tiffany’s polite smile faltered for a half-second. A flicker. That was all it took.
“Now?” Giselle asked, the single word a challenge.
The air left Tiffany’s lungs. The bubbly intern persona evaporated, leaving something quieter, pliant. She looked down at the peeling linoleum, at a dark spot near the toe of Giselle’s boot. “No. Not now.”
“Good.”
They left the bathroom. Tiffany followed half a step behind, feeling the weight of stares from the crowded tables. She saw Marc from accounting give her a sympathetic, slightly drunken wave. She offered him a fleeting, apologetic shrug—what can you do?—before the exit door swung shut behind Giselle, cutting off the noise and the light.
The alley behind the bar was a canyon of shadows and overflowing dumpsters. The night air was cooler but carried the sour tang of garbage.
Giselle didn’t head for the street. She turned, backed Tiffany against the rough brick wall, away from the dim safety of the sodium-vapor light. Up close, her features were even tougher, the lines around her eyes and mouth etched deep.
“You spent twenty minutes in there,” Giselle stated, her voice low.
“It was busy. There was a line.”
“Don’t lie to me.” A hand came up, not to strike, but to cradle Tiffany’s jaw, forcing her head back. The grip was unforgiving. “You like it, don’t you? Having them all look. Having them think they get it. That you’re just a sweet, dumb girl.”
Tiffany’s pulse hammered in her throat. She could feel the rough skin of Giselle’s palm. “It’s useful.”
“Useful.” Giselle repeated the word like it was dirt in her mouth. “You’re a useful little thing. A decoration. A prop.” Her other hand pinched the thin strap of Tiffany’s dress, twisting it slightly. “This is a costume. We both know what’s underneath.”
Tiffany said nothing. Arguing was pointless. Agreeing was dangerous. Silence was the only offering that wouldn’t spark immediate anger, or worse, a cold, dismissive turn away. The intelligence she hid, the sharp observations she made about everyone in that bar, stayed locked behind her lips. Here, in this alley, she was only what Giselle said she was.
Giselle leaned in, her mouth close to Tiffany’s ear. “You’re coming home with me. You’re going to be quiet. You’re going to do exactly what I tell you. And when I’m done with you, you’re going to get yourself together and take a cab back to your sad little apartment. Understand?”
A shudder ran through Tiffany, part dread, part a deep, shameful craving. She hated the way Giselle said it, the sheer contempt. She loved the clarity of it, the absoluteness. It erased the exhausting pretense of the bar, of the office, of her entire life.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The word hung in the foul air. Giselle searched her face, looking for resistance, for a crack in the performance. Finding none, a smirk, thin and unpleasant, touched her lips. She released Tiffany’s jaw, the ghost of the pressure lingering.
“My car’s around the corner. Don’t keep me waiting.”
She turned and walked away, her boots crunching on gravel, not looking back.
Tiffany stayed pressed against the wall for a moment, waiting for her breathing to even out. She could still smell the bar on her clothes, the cloying perfume. She could still feel the heat of all those admiring, oblivious eyes. She pushed off the brick, smoothed her dress, and ran a hand through her perfect blonde hair.
Then she followed, her heels clicking a steady, obedient rhythm on the asphalt into the deeper dark.