Chapter 3: Initiation
The bass from the club was a physical force, a deep, subsonic throb that bypassed my ears and vibrated directly in my sternum. It made my teeth buzz. Each percussive hit traveled up through the thin soles of my platform boots, through my ankles, my calves, settling into a low hum in the marrow of my bones. I stood in the dim, humid backstage corridor of The Eclipse Club, a line of women ahead of me, their bodies glossy under the intermittent pulse of a faulty neon sign.
The air stank of sweat, cheap perfume, and the sharp, sterile tang of ozone from a fog machine. My costume—if you could call it that—was two sequined pasties over my nipples and a strip of black vinyl between my legs, held on by a whisper-thin string that dug into the flesh of my hips. The pasties were an agony. Every thump of the music made the sequins grind against the sensitive, pierced flesh beneath. The barbells felt like live wires, each vibration sending a jolt of raw sensation that was neither pain nor pleasure, but something alarmingly close to both. I crossed my arms, then uncrossed them, the movement causing my breasts to sway heavily, the weight a constant, pulling reminder.
A woman in front of me, a redhead with a snake tattoo coiling up her spine, arched her back and stretched. “Ugh, Mondays. Dead crowd.” Her voice was a bored drawl.
Another, adjusting the tie on her fishnets, laughed. “Dead crowd means less work, Lacy. Just sway and get paid.”
Their ease was a mirror that showed my own grotesque reflection. They inhabited their skin. I was a prisoner in mine. I felt the vinyl strip, a ridiculously flimsy barrier, grow damp. It wasn’t sweat. It was a different, betraying moisture from the new anatomy below, a slick warmth that seemed to pulse in time with the music. My face burned. I focused on the blacked-out monitors lining the wall, their screens dark but humming with latent energy.
The door at the head of the line opened, spilling a wedge of screaming sound and strobe light. A giant of a man with a shaved head and a radio earpiece filled the frame. “Next three! Move!”
We shuffled forward. Lacy and her friend breezed past him with practiced smiles. I followed, my hips instinctively rolling to navigate the tight space, the movement now terrifyingly automatic.
A meaty hand shot out, palm slapping flat against my stomach, halting me. The contact was shocking, the heat of his hand searing my bare skin. I jerked back, but his other hand clamped onto my right buttock, fingers digging in, kneading the soft flesh with a rough, clinical pressure.
“Hold still, sweetheart. Gotta check for wires,” he grunted, his eyes scanning a point over my shoulder.
The violation was instant, total. My mind screamed, a white-hot flare of pure Detective Justin Hayes fury. Get your fucking hands off me. But my body—Sabrina’s body—reacted differently. A shocked, sharp gasp leaked from my lips, a high, feminine sound of surprise. Worse, deep inside, a traitorous, involuntary clench. A slick, hot rush followed, soaking the vinyl, a visceral biological response to the aggressive touch. Shame, hot and acid, flooded my throat. My nipples, already tortured by the pasties, tightened into unbearable, aching points, the metal barbells pressing hard against the sequins.
He gave a final squeeze, then released me, waving me through with a dismissive flick. “You’re clean. Stage left. Milo’s watching.”
I stumbled forward, the world tilting. The noise, the lights, the smell—it all receded behind a rushing in my ears. My legs carried me into the deeper darkness offstage, my hands trembling as I pressed them against my stomach where his hand had been. The skin felt branded. My ass throbbed where he’d gripped it. And between my legs, the evidence of my body’s betrayal was a cool, uncomfortable dampness, a humiliating testament to a physiology I did not understand and could not control.
A man materialized from the shadows, silhouetted by the spinning lights of the main floor. He was slim, dressed in all black, with a sharp goatee. Milo. He held a tablet, its glow painting his face a sickly blue.
“Sabrina Thompson,” he said, not a question. His eyes traveled over me, slow, appraising. The look wasn’t the bouncer’s crude grab; it was colder, more calculated. He was inventorying assets. “File says you danced in Miami. The Velvet Casket.”
I nodded, my throat tight. The backstory Dr. Reed had drilled into me felt like ash in my mouth.
“This ain’t Miami, honey. This is industry town. We cater to a specific clientele. They don’t just want to see you move.” He stepped closer. The air around him smelled of clove cigarettes and hair gel. “They want to believe you’re moving just for them. You got the look. The ink. The metal.” His gaze flicked to my chest. “But you’re holding your breath. You’re stiff. You look like you’re waiting for a bus, not a payday.”
“I’m just getting a feel for the room,” I said, forcing Sabrina’s husky cadence into my voice.
“The room will feel you, if you do it right.” He tapped his tablet. “You’re on after Lacy. Two songs. Simple routine. Use the pole, but make it look like it’s holding you up, not the other way around. The VIP in booth seven, the one with the mirrored glass. See it?”
I followed his gaze. A raised booth, its front one-way glass, glowed like a monolith in the dark.
“He’s interested. Threw a grand on your stage as a pre-tip. Make him more interested. Sell the fantasy. You’re not a girl from Daytona with maxed-out credit cards. You’re the secret he’s always wanted to know. For those two songs, you belong to him. Nod if you understand.”
I nodded, my jaw clenched so tight it ached.
“Good. Get ready. And Sabrina?” He paused, a thin smile on his lips. “Unclench. The best part of this job is that you don’t have to think. Just let the body do the work. It knows what to do.”
He melted back into the shadows. The words were a curse. It knows what to do. The dampness between my legs proved him right. This flesh had its own instincts, its own humiliating responses, and Justin Hayes was just a passenger, locked in, forced to feel every jarring, unwanted sensation.
On stage, Lacy was finishing her set, wrapping herself around the chrome pole like a second skin. The crowd roared. The music switched, the beat dropping into something slower, deeper, predatory.
My turn.
A hand gave me a small push between my shoulder blades. I stepped out into the blistering wall of sound and light. The spotlight hit me, a physical heat. A thousand eyes, invisible in the darkness, pinned me to the spot. The bass vibrated up through the stage floor, into the soles of my feet, shaking my very core. I moved toward the pole, every step an echo of my walk in the safehouse bathroom, the sway now a performance.
My hands closed on the cold, slick metal. I looked toward the VIP booth, its mirrored surface reflecting only the chaos of the stage lights.
I took a breath I didn’t need. And I let the body do the work.