2. Lola #3
Lace cuts deeper at my thighs. I arch my back and tilt my chin exactly how they want it. My hands caress my skin, my hair falling like a wild mess, just the way they like it.
Just a body. Just a prop.
Another flash, but through the light, I see a movement in the hallway through the open space of the door. A man walks by. A moment later, another man. Slower, steadier, as if he were hunting something, lurking in the dark.
The second man stops and looks straight through the door. Our eyes meet while I’m openly grinding on this stranger, tits nearly spilling out.
He’s tall. Bigger than the others with his face half-hidden. His jaw is hard as stone, his eyes on fire even in the low light. Blue, gray, storm-twisted, and locked on me like a scope.
My lungs freeze as a memory slams through me. Rough hands. A stare that never let go. He used to look at me like I was the most precious thing, from across rooms, through windows, like he’d devour me if I got too close.
Panic slithers up my spine. Anger hits next.
It’s him.
The boy who stole my heart. The boy who left me. The boy who broke me.
That was three and a half years ago; we were barely nineteen when he left. Now, he looks more like a man than a teenage boy.
Why in the fuck would he be here?
Brody watches. Not moving, not breathing. Fists coiled so hard at his sides I worry he’ll break his own fingers. His gaze is a furnace, eating through the cameras, the men, the room, torching me whole.
Years gone, dead and buried, but now he stands in the rotted hallway, staring while I sell myself one frame at a time.
My shame curdles into heat, into challenge. I know how this game goes, even if my insides tremble. I roll my hips harder. My hair over my shoulder for his benefit now, too, for the memory of the boy.
Brody’s face never softens. Anger, hurt, the sick echo of desire. All for me. My fury rises, trying to eat the panic. He left me. He left and never came back, and now here he is, watching me.
The shoot winds tighter, messier. Dean barks louder. I bare my teeth at the camera, giving them everything they want. Giving him what I know he remembers, the way only I can.
I catch Brody’s eyes again just before he turns. Not a word. He walks away, silent and brutal, pulling the world with him into the dark.
My chest empties, lungs flat and ruined. I keep moving. I grind. I pose. I let the lace bite because that’s what I’m here for.
Dean barks at me to go slower, then faster. I don’t know which he likes more—the “fuck me” in the arch of my spine or the “don’t touch me” in my eyes. Both, probably. Perverts like options.
“Yeah, like that. Good girl. Now angle your hips. Push your chest out. Perfect.”
I turn, hair in my mouth, my thigh pressed right to the edge of the stranger’s knee. The two men on the couch don’t move, but I sense the heat of their eyes. Hungry. Dead. Like wolves at a kill.
Another pose. Another flash. My body throbs and my teeth grind. I want out of this skin, but it’s glued on.
Done? Not yet. Dean’s voice slices through the haze. “Lean back. Look at him like you mean it.”
I do. Head tipped, eyes empty. I could win an Oscar—if Oscars went to girls who know how to make men believe they could own her.
The man beneath me breathes louder. Dean loves it, he eggs me on. “Last set, Lola. Make it count.”
I stand and bend over. My hands rest on the top cushions of the couch by the man’s head. I arch my back and push my ass out, then my head twists to stare at the camera. Perfect position for full view of my ass, and the side of my tits. They love that.
Perfect whore for the lens and the money. Just a body. Nothing but a shell. But something inside is burning, feral and numb at the same time.
A muffled sound seeps through from the hallway. The music covers it, a static heartbeat thumping under my own. Maybe a thud, maybe a shout. I know enough to pretend it isn’t there.
Dean doesn’t notice, nor do the others. Nothing matters but the show I give them.
But then—
Footsteps. Not creeping, not dragging. Heavy and purposeful.
Echoes punch through the wall and straight through my stomach.
Brody walks back through the hall, the other man nowhere to be seen.
I don’t let the surprise of his reappearance show on my face as I keep moving.
He comes to the open doorway, eyes locked on me, and stands there, burning a hole straight through the set.
My breath goes still. Everything rushes up at once. Shame. Fury. This sick, twisted wanting that has no name. Grief, right under my skin. All I want is to curl up and scream. Or maybe rip the camera off the tripod and throw it through a wall.
But I do my job, because that’s what I am. I know my parts.
His eyes flick downwards, towards my tits, and a fierce expression comes over his face. He glances up again, eyes shifting to the man’s neck. Then, back to me.
It all happens so fast. Too fast that I feel dizzy from the shock. He walks away, and leaves me with the hungry predators.
Alone and lost, sinking into the deep end.
There’s nothing sweet left in me. Only the disgusting shame of who I am now.
He knows it now.