Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 519

Then one evening, Lola came in and looked me over.

"You've been very obedient," she said. "I'm moving you up."

"Moving me up where?"

"High-profile. The men under a new contract, they don't want the same raw meat the rest of the floor gets. They want the finished thing. You're ready."

That evening, for the first time in a week, I was finally allowed out of the room.

They put me to work: makeup stronger than I'd ever worn, my hair washed out, carefully styled, the locks pulled away from my face. And they gave me high, strappy heels, impossible to wear for long.

That was all. No clothes. I was as naked as the day I was born, only the heels between me and the ground, and the cold air like fingertips all over my body.

When I came out of the room, I almost stopped walking. Armed men lined the corridor building of where I'd been held. They stared at me openly and I swallowed.

I was taken to a gathering. There were eight other girls just like me, naked, high-heeled, painted, standing in the hollow with their eyes careful and lowered. We were loaded into the back of a van, two big armed men settling in on the bench opposite us like it was a normal commute.

I didn't try to make conversation. I didn't ask where we were going. I was quiet and held myself, and told myself that whatever this was, I would do it. I would do anything as long as it had me one step closer to off.

The van came to a stop. The door swung open. An armed man leaned in and pointed.

I forced myself forward.

Once inside, we were given different tasks. Some were made strippers and dancers, climbed to the dark red platforms that circled the room. Others became servers. I was a server. Three other girls and I walked around with trays, carrying drinks to the tables, bent and set, and kept a shining, practiced eye that smiled despite everything. The instruction from Lola was clear: always keep the customers happy.

Men reached out their hands and spanked my bare ass as I walked past, and I had to turn and smile like it had been a reward. Some pulled at my nipple as I bent and set a drink, and I had to laugh and jerk away like it was playful. Some cupped their hands and tried to put their fingers inside me, and I had to slow them down sweetly, turning everything they did into a joke so they'd stay happy and not complain, while I was smiling and serving and dying in the middle.

Lola stood at the edge, quiet, watching. She saw everything. I saw her there, all shoulders and heels, and I knew she was not watching to protect me. She was watching to make sure I kept them happy, and I did.

I wished I could disappear. Once, there had been money in it. Billions. I could bear all this with money somewhere after, the thrill of a reward, the power of watching their eyes go wide when I counted what I'd earned. But now there was no reward. There was only this, and the treatment, and the smiling. I felt like a dog with no purpose, given in use to the first hand that asked. I hated everything and everyone around me, myself most of all, but I had to keep it painted in a smile all night.