Chapter 1: The First Taste of Power
The bass from the bar’s speakers thumped a dull, arrhythmic heartbeat through the bathroom wall. Bree stared at her reflection in the smudged mirror, the fluorescent light overhead buzzing like a trapped wasp. Someone had written in cherry-red lipstick on the fogged glass, the words blurred at the edges: "Be my perfect girl."
She traced the cursive letters with a trembling finger. Perfect. What a joke.
The door swung open with a creak, and Cassie slid in, a wave of bar noise and cheap gin scent following her. She locked the flimsy bolt behind her.
“There you are,” Cassie said, her voice a low rasp that cut through the hum. She leaned against the row of sinks, her dark eyes locked on Bree’s in the mirror. “Matt’s two seconds from sending out a search party. You hiding from him?”
“Just… needed a minute,” Bree said, her voice too sweet, too small. The persona felt like a wool sweater in summer—itchy and wrong.
Cassie pushed off the sink and closed the distance. She smelled like smoke and ambition. “You’ve been needing a minute for months, Bree. It’s written all over you.” She reached out, not touching, just letting her fingertips hover near the pulse in Bree’s throat. “All that quiet. It’s not peace. It’s a scream with its mouth shut.”
Bree’s breath caught. Cassie saw too much. Always had.
“Matt’s a good guy,” Bree whispered, but it sounded like a recitation, a line from a play she never auditioned for.
“He is,” Cassie agreed easily, her smile sharp. “And you’re gonna ruin him with all this… genteel suffering. It’s cruel, really.” She stepped closer, her body a new wall between Bree and the door. The room felt smaller, hotter. The peeling linoleum stuck to the soles of Bree’s boots. “What do you really want? When you’re alone in the dark and there’s no one to perform for?”
The lipstick on the mirror seemed to pulse. Be my perfect girl.
Bree’s mouth was dry. “I want…”
Cassie’s gaze dropped to Bree’s lips, then back up. “Yeah?”
“I want to be the one who fucks,” Bree said, the words torn from some secret place, raw and startling in the tiny room.
Silence. Then Cassie’s grin widened, genuine and wicked. “Well, shit. That’s a language I understand.” She didn’t recoil. She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “You wanna know what it feels like? To be the one in control?”
Bree could only nod, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs.
Cassie reached for the beat-up leather bag slung on the hook behind the door. She unzipped it with a slow, deliberate pull. Bree watched, hypnotized, as Cassie’s hand emerged holding a strap-on harness, the leather worn soft, the silicone phallus a pale, deliberate curve in the grim fluorescent light.
“This is just plastic and pretend,” Cassie said, her tone matter-of-fact. She held it up. “But the feeling it gives you… that’s real. The power of it. Looking at someone who wants you and knowing you can give them exactly what they’re aching for.” She stepped close again, crowding Bree back against the cold, sticky tiles. She slid the harness between them, letting the cool silicone press against Bree’s stomach through her thin blouse. “You wanna try?”
Bree’s fingers shook as she lifted her hand. Her fingertips brushed the smooth surface. It was foreign. It was a promise. It was the physical shape of a prayer she’d never dared speak.
“Matt—” she started, a last gasp of the old life.
“Isn’t here,” Cassie finished for her, her breath warm against Bree’s ear. “This is about you. Just you. What Bree wants.” She pressed the harness into Bree’s hands. The weight of it was startling. “Put it on.”
The world narrowed to the creak of the harness straps, the clumsy fumble of her fingers on the buckles under her skirt, the absurd, exhilarating ritual of it behind a flimsy locked door in a dive bar bathroom. Cassie watched, arms crossed, a satisfied curator.
When Bree looked up, done, the person in the mirror was a stranger. The demure curve of her sweater was bisected by the stark lines of the harness. The blush on her cheeks was no longer from embarrassment, but from a terrifying, giddy rush.
Cassie let out a soft whistle. “Look at you.”
Bree looked. And for the first time, the reflection didn’t feel like a lie. The ‘perfect girl’ in the lipstick graffiti wasn’t a sweetheart waiting to be chosen. She was the one doing the choosing. The taking.
Cassie moved then, slow and deliberate. She turned Bree around to face the mirror again, standing behind her, a shadow with warm hands on Bree’s hips. “See?” Cassie murmured, her chin resting on Bree’s shoulder. Their eyes met in the glass. “It fits.”
A violent bang on the door made them both jump.
“Bree? You in there? You okay?” Matt’s voice, concerned and muffled, punched through the moment.
Panic flashed, cold and bright. Bree’s hands flew to the harness straps, fumbling for the buckles.
“Don’t,” Cassie commanded, her voice low but absolute. Her hands stilled Bree’s. “Leave it on.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” Cassie’s gaze in the mirror was unwavering. “Just a little longer. For you.”
The noise from the bar swelled as someone entered the bathroom next door. A toilet flushed. Reality was a tide coming back in.
Bree took a shuddering breath. She looked at the harness, at the stranger in the mirror wearing it, then at Cassie’s defiant reflection behind her. She gave one sharp, final nod.
She pulled her long coat from the hook, the heavy wool familiar in her hands. She put it on, buttoning it slowly, carefully, over the new truth strapped against her skin. It concealed the shape of everything, leaving only the heat, the secret, the potential.
She smoothed her blonde hair, met her own striking green eyes in the mirror, and saw a flicker of the future there.
“Okay,” Bree said, her voice steadier than it had been in years. She wasn’t talking to Cassie. She was talking to the reflection. To the perfect girl she was finally becoming.
She turned, unlocked the door, and walked out to meet her patiently waiting boyfriend, the ghost of a new power moving with her under the wool.
The bar’s noise hit her like a wall—laughter, shouted conversations, the thudding backbeat of a generic pop song. Matt was leaning against the stained wood paneling beside the bathroom door, his face softening with relief when he saw her.
“There you are. You were in there forever. Everything okay?” He reached for her hand, his fingers warm and familiar.
She let him take it, the gesture feeling suddenly scripted. “Fine. Just… felt a bit sick for a second. All better now.” The lie came easily, coated in her usual sweet tone.
He peered at her, his brow slightly furrowed. “You sure? You look… different.”
Her heart stuttered. “Different how?”
“I don’t know. Flushed.” He smiled, shrugging. “Pretty, though. Always pretty.”
The word was a burr. Pretty. Demure. Sweet. A collection of labels that had become a cage. Beneath the wool of her coat, the harness pressed against her skin, a secret architecture. It didn’t feel like an invasion. It felt like a foundation.
“Let’s get you another drink,” Matt said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm, guiding her back to their cramped high-top table.
Cassie was already there, nursing a fresh gin and tonic. She didn’t look up as they approached, just swirled her straw, a faint, knowing smile playing on her lips. The ice clinked in her glass like a tiny, cold celebration.
Matt pulled out Bree’s stool for her. The motion was automatic, chivalrous. As she sat, the leather of the harness shifted against her, a sudden, stark reminder. She adjusted her coat, the heavy wool a fortress.
“So,” Matt said, reclaiming his seat and his pint. “What’s the plan? Last call’s not for another hour. Wanna hit that diner on fifth?”
Bree looked at his open, expectant face. He was planning their shared future in increments: this drink, this diner, this drive home. The conversation they’d have in the car. The gentle, predictable way he’d kiss her goodnight at her door. A wave of claustrophobia, sharp and sour, rose in her throat. It was a life she’d chosen, had even thought she wanted. A life that now felt like a room she’d outgrown.
Her knees bumped the underside of the table. The pressure was indirect, but it traveled straight through the silicone, a vivid, shocking echo of a sensation she’d only imagined. Her breath hitched.
“Actually,” she heard herself say, the words clear and firm over the music. “I think I’m gonna head out.”
Matt’s smile faded. “Head out? You mean… alone?”
“Cassie will keep you company,” Bree said, reaching for her purse. She didn’t look at Cassie, but she felt the woman’s attention like a spotlight.
“Bree, come on. Did I do something?” Matt’s voice held that wounded, bewildered tone that usually made her backtrack, sooth, concede.
Not tonight.
“No,” she said, standing. The coat settled around her, hiding everything, containing everything. “You didn’t do anything. I just need to be by myself for a bit. I’ll text you when I’m home.”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek. His skin was warm. He smelled like beer and his familiar detergent. For a second, a pang of something like grief cut through her. Then she straightened.
“I’ll walk you out,” Cassie offered, sliding off her stool.
“No,” Bree said, a little too quickly. She needed the walk to the door, through the crowd, across the parking lot, to be hers alone. A test drive. “Stay. Have fun.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She turned and made for the exit, navigating the sea of bodies. A man leered, his eyes dropping to her coat. “Hey sweetheart, leaving so soon?” She ignored him, but her hand tightened around her purse strap. Sweetheart. The word didn’t curdle in her stomach this time. It just… evaporated, meaningless.
The night air was a cold slap, cleansing after the bar’s sticky heat. She crossed the cracked asphalt, the sound of her boots loud in the sudden quiet. She fumbled for her keys, the metal cool in her palm.
Inside her car, she sat for a long moment in the dark, the only light the sickly yellow glow from a distant streetlamp. The engine was off. The silence was total.
Slowly, she unbuttoned her coat. She didn’t take it off, just opened it, letting the cold air seep in. She looked down at herself. In the dim light, the outline was unmistakable—a new silhouette against the dark fabric of her skirt.
She let her fingertips brush over the harness, tracing the strap that curved around her hip. It wasn’t arousal she felt, not exactly. It was potential. It was a key turned in a lock she’d thought was sealed shut.
From her purse, her phone buzzed. Matt. A text bubble popped up, then disappeared. He was probably typing, deleting, typing again.
She didn’t open it. Instead, she pulled out her lipstick—the same cherry-red as the graffiti in the bar bathroom. She clicked it open and, in the dashboard’s faint reflection, carefully reapplied it to her lips. The action felt ritualistic, decisive.
She started the car. The headlights cut two bright swaths through the darkness. As she pulled out of the lot, she caught a final glimpse of the bar in her rearview mirror, its neon sign buzzing a faint, fading red.
She drove, not toward her apartment, but away, with no destination in mind. The harness was no longer a foreign object. It was a part of her. An intention made flesh, or something like it. The road ahead was dark, but for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t looking for a light to guide her. She was carrying her own.