23. Going Undercover
Going Undercover
Bianca
Idid not sign up to be an FBI profiler in a thong.
“I’m zippering his balls ’til they pop,” I mutter to the pussy cleavage staring back at me in the mirror. One wrong move and my lips will swallow the thin material between my thighs.
I mock Benny’s Sicilian accent. “Bring back the information I need.”
When I said I’d go to the club, I did not agree to play Harriet the Spy with my butt out. My “uniform” is fishnets under a leather thong bodysuit. The high-waisted cut curves up my lower abdomen toward my hip, where it disappears into my crack—uncomfortably, might I add.
Benny left out key details about tonight.
Like why I look like an extra from one of Prince’s music videos, may he rest in peace with his assless chaps.
The only thing I got was gentle coercion and a charming smirk before his driver dropped me off in front of an old brick estate.
He had to call Benny because nary a toe of mine was stepping into some Eyes Wide Shut mansion in the middle of the night.
I don’t know what type of club Eden is, but I guarantee nobody is playing Backgammon in here.
We’re thirty minutes from civilization or any help should someone chase me around with baby oil in an adult diaper.
Benny assured me that a “disco club” was inside and he was on his way.
When I didn’t move, he threatened to spank my pussy, like I was scared.
I eventually went inside…because I was cold.
“Stephanie would lose her mind.” I turn from side to side in the mirror and add a booty bounce. “Okay, jiggle.”
She jokes that I’m in my Kelly Rowland era. My thighs have some weight to them, as does my ass. I’m petite compared to some, but I can still throw it in a circle with the baddest.
“Got me out here looking like a P-Valley episode.“ I huff out a laugh, my vacation braids cascading down my open back.
A light tap dances across the door. Passion twists poke around the metal with a face that should’ve competed in Miss Universe. Rich truffle skin smoothed in copper glows under low light.
“It fits! Ready?” An accent waves through Rosalie’s Italian and her grin.
She’s the second person I met at Eden. The first was an Edna Mode lookalike, with a black bob to match, who didn’t blink at my pajamas. I was checked for weapons, made to sign an NDA, and taken to the dressing room.
No questions asked, another sign that freak behavior collects its mail here.
You said you wanted an adventure.
I tug my black lace thigh-highs. The clasps on my open stilettos glint. “Sì.”
Plush carpet absorbs the six-inch heels strapped to my feet. Lockers, bathrooms, a kitchen, and vanities shine under chandeliers.
“More thoughts?” Rosalie’s question floats from a foot above my eyeline. Her black leather bodysuit skates over her long, toned figure. It’s like mine, but it has shorts.
Do not ask about her career development goals.
“How long have you worked here?”
Rosalie’s brows tug. She squints across the hallway soaked in blue light. Her lashes fan her cat eye. “I. The—“
“English?”
“Yes,” she exhales, the gloss over her lips spreading her smile. “I’m still learning Italian. Sicilian, not so much.”
“I don’t know a lick of Sicilian, either,” I admit. “I’m new to the area.” Free will aside.
The hallway opens into a large room lined with black silk. Eden’s club, or disco, glows under purple lights swaying over a dance floor between two oversized champagne glasses. Femme figures in silver nipple covers breach the fizzy surface in G-strings.
“Three months.” The pitch in Rosalie’s voice drops under the crescendo of the DJ’s mix. “I left Angola with my brother after our parents died. We moved around but found our way to Sicily through Libya.”
Her stare lands on a corner bathed in gold, spilling onto black leather booths. “I work here as a server to afford school. I want to be a social worker to help families fleeing violence.”
I swallow hard. “You’ll do it.”
Thousands have died crossing the Mediterranean.
Individuals and families battling deadly conditions for the chance at a better life on a safer shore.
I remember the headlines. Standing next to Rosalie—someone whose experience feels so distant but is a reminder of the humanity behind the stories—cracks something in my chest.
I’m not tall enough to reach her shoulders, but I wrap my arms around her, my ass out for all to see.
“I should’ve asked if you’re a hugger before making this weird,” I sniffle into her floral-scented armpit. Drew Barrymore-like tendencies with people’s personal space aren’t a norm for me, but the hug felt right.
Rosalie squeezes back. “You are very kind, Bianca.” She fans her face. “No crying in the disco. Come.”
The lights in the room shift from blue to merlot, matching the wine glasses lining the bar’s granite counter.
A small crowd gathers on the dance floor.
Bodies grind in thin materials and pheromones volleying like the US Open.
A few couples fill booths cloaked in shadows. For a club, Eden is intimate.
“You’re here to work off a debt?” Rosalie shifts a hip against the bar.
I tie the apron she provides around my waist. “Something like that. I owed a favor.” I could’ve minded my own business and stayed in bed, but boredom got the better of me.
“You wouldn’t be the first to work here temporarily. Women come and go all the time.”
“Is there a concern I should know about?” A warning bell shimmies.
Rosalie’s eyes dart toward a corner in the ceiling. She inches closer and lowers her voice. “No one talks about it, but two women disappeared. One a few days ago and the other earlier this month.”
“What?”
“Shh. Act normal. They don’t like when you ask questions.”
“Who? Renata?” My eyes land on an office on the upper floor framed in opaque glass. I don’t know what she looks like, but Benny told me to watch out for the owner.
A man in a black suit walks up the staircase to the office. I can’t make out his face, but metal rings dance over his knuckles in the light.
Who is that?
A throat clears behind me that sounds like hooves.
“Go to your station, Rosalie,” the woman snaps in Italian, her tone dipped in venom. “I need to talk to this one.”
Rosalie squeezes my hand before grabbing a tray with wine and tending to customers in a booth above amethyst LED lights.
The woman scowls at my bodysuit, which I never asked to wear. “You’re the first woman he’s sent here.”
Every workplace has at least one mean girl. Looks like this one comes with jealousy too.
“And you are?” A bitch is obvious, but knowing her name would be nice.
Shadows sweep her porcelain cheekbones and lips in need of a reality show surgeon. “Vittoria. Mr. Bennici is my client outside the club when he sends for me. He has an appetite that only a few can satisfy. In here, I’m only available to him.”
I did not cross international waters to play “The Boy Is Mine.” Not for any man, and definitely not at this big age. I don’t want to think about whether Benny washed his sheets before I came in the reflection of his ceiling mirror. Men can be trash.
Back up a second.
“Is this a sex club?”
Vittoria grins. “Eden is a lifestyle destination. The disco club is our primary space. In private quarters, any consensual activities are acceptable. No one pays for sex, and no one here receives payment for sex.”
What kind of freak-off did I let this man get me into?
“The house collects thirty percent of your earnings.” The flotation devices she calls her lips coil. “You’re free to dance or enter any available rooms. Stick to serving, it’s safer.”
She tried it.
Vittoria struts away. Her attempt to switch her bony hips in a metallic dress looks like two twigs rubbing together to start a fire. She flips her brown hair over her shoulder with a final glance before disappearing behind a curtain.
“Pay no attention to her,” Rosalie says in my ear over the upbeat tempo of a song in what I assume is Sicilian. “Vittoria is mean to everyone when she’s in charge.”
“Well, that won’t work for me.” HR department or not, she’ll learn a few things about herself if she keeps it up. “Is Renata here?”
Rosalie shakes her head. “Hasn’t been in for a week.”
The familiar anthem for peace and the A hunches my back. My knees activate, sending a signal for my cheeks to clap to the synth melody of Usher’s “Yeah!”
“This is always the one! Let’s dance, Rosie!”
Benny may have kidnapped me, but he and the women laying claim to his dick won’t stress me on my first night out in Sicily. Tonight, I’m making things shake, starting with this ass.
Nobody can tell me I wasn’t a performer in a past life. My ass bounces from a deep squat, hands on the very knees that now predict the rain and crack from years of cutting up. I pop my coochie in the spirit of Ronnie from The Players Club.
There’s no reason to be up on this platform, but I am for the simple fact that it’s fun.
I’m having fun at a job I didn’t expect to work. Who says I can’t make the most of a situation no one would believe happened in the first place? I might as well let loose, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?
A knife fight.
A shoot-out.
It took a bodysuit and some freaky-ass club to remind me that life is too short. Stripper heels and a pole likely won’t be in my future, but there will be joy in everything I do. And a lawsuit.
It’s pitiful to admit it, but getting kidnapped and working with a crime boss is the adventure I’ve been craving.
Minus the syringes, rough handling, murder, and the initial threat of death, I get to make a million euros doing the craziest shit.
I didn’t have a “wild” phase in my twenties. Better late than never, I guess.