15 - A THIN FLAME
Lacey
I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom until my legs started to ache.
The little black dress hung on the hanger beside the mirror like an accusation.
Silk and lace, fitted through the bust and waist, flaring to mid-thigh, the hem shorter than anything I had allowed myself in years.
I remembered a classmate in med school holding up a similar dress in the dorm bathroom, laughing.
A fuck-me dress. That's what the guys call these. I shoved the hanger aside.
No. Too much.
I pulled out the navy cotton midi skirt and paired it with a cream blouse buttoned nearly to the collar.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I was someone's reliable colleague, not a woman walking into a sex club on a Saturday night, which was either exactly right or exactly wrong and I couldn't decide which.
Am I already on the menu just by showing up?
My hands shook as I smoothed the skirt over my hips. I stood there a full minute, half considering sweatpants, half composing the text that would get me out of tonight, I'm sick, I'm sorry, another time, and then I picked up the phone.
I don't want to do anything sexual there. I only want to sit and get used to it. Nothing more. Please promise me.
Janice's reply came back almost instantly.
Lacey!! Nobody will touch you, I promise on my life. These people are respectful as hell! Just come sit with me. If it gets weird, we bounce. Pinky swear, bestie.
I stared at the screen. My heart was already going too fast.
I put the phone in my purse and went downstairs to wait for Janice.
She pulled up right on time wearing a deep red wrap dress, Jeep idling at the curb. I almost turned around twice on the short walk from my front door to her passenger seat. My legs felt wrong, like they were receiving instructions from somewhere that wasn't fully committed to this plan.
"You look gorgeous," Janice said as I climbed in. "Are you nervous?"
"Terrified." My fingers wouldn't cooperate with the seatbelt. I tried twice before it clicked. "I keep thinking, what if someone expects something from me? What if I see things I can't unsee?"
She patted my knee once. "Breathe. This is just a night out with your favorite bad influence. No expectations, and nobody is going to jump you. If it gets to be too much, we walk right back out the front door. I've got you."
The drive felt too short and endlessly long.
Streetlights slid across the windshield in long amber streaks.
Every red light made me want to ask her to turn around.
Janice talked about a client who had sobbed through every session for three months and then tried to ask her out, which under any other circumstances would have made me laugh, but I could only half track it.
My mind was imagining the possibilities.
People staring at my outfit. Someone assuming I was there for more than watching.
Someone touching me without asking. The door locked from the outside.
Stop it, I told myself. You're a doctor. You know how to be in uncomfortable rooms.
When she pulled into the small lot behind the club my stomach clenched so hard I pressed a hand against it.
The building was ordinary. Dark brick, unremarkable, no signage from the street, just a discreet black door with a small silver plaque.
Private Members Club, 21+. No neon. No line of people in leather.
It looked like a high-end speakeasy, or a private dining club, or any number of things it might plausibly have been.
Then I noticed the people arriving ahead of us.
A woman in a sheer black slip that left the shape of her body completely visible. A man in leather pants, bare-chested. A couple where the woman's top was, as far as I could determine, a few strategic straps performing the function of a top without quite being one.
I looked down at my midi skirt and blouse. "Are they going to laugh at me? Am I dressed completely wrong?"
Janice stopped and took both my hands. "Nobody cares what anyone is wearing.
People come in jeans, people come in corsets, people come in full suits.
It isn't a fashion show. You look beautiful and you look safe.
That's exactly right for where you are tonight.
" She squeezed my hands once. "Now come on, before you talk yourself out of it, you adorable chicken. "
Ricardo was waiting beside the entrance in a charcoal suit with no tie, dark hair swept back, hands easy in his pockets.
He looked good. His being there should have steadied me.
Instead it spiked my nerves higher, because he was the reason any of this was happening, and his presence made it real in a different way than Janice's did.
He smiled when he saw me. "You came."
"I came," I agreed, not certain I wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
"We're on the list," he said, nodding at the door. "Janice's name gets us in fast."
He pressed the buzzer. A camera lens glinted above the frame. A moment later the lock clicked and the door swung inward, releasing a current of warm, bass-heavy air and the faint smell of perfume and leather.
As we stepped inside I caught, behind the hostess station, a silver sign reading Second Circle, and then, so quick I nearly missed it, devil horns and a tail flickered in neon red above the O and were gone. A joke for people paying attention. My mouth curved despite everything.
The hostess was a woman in her late thirties in a black corset dress, with a sleek ponytail, and a professional smile. "Evening. Names?"
"Janice Patel-Campbell, plus two."
She checked a tablet and glanced at each of our faces. "Welcome back. ID check, please."
We handed over our licenses. She compared them, nodded, and reached beneath the counter.
"Rules are posted inside. No phones in play areas. No means no. Respect the space. Enjoy your evening."
She handed Ricardo and me plain black wristbands. Janice she waved through without one, and I saw why a second later in the foyer light. She wore a slim red bracelet at the wrist, matte, unmarked, the kind of thing you would never look at twice unless you knew to.
"Guests get the wristband for the night," Janice said, low, as we stepped through the curtain.
"The bracelet's the members' mark. You don't ask for one.
You get it when you decide you're one of us, and they decide they'll have you.
And of course when you pay the outrageous fee.
" She tipped hers so it caught the light.
"No pressure. The wristband does everything you need tonight. "
I looked at the plain band on my wrist. "The wristband's fine."
The foyer was small and dim, lit deep red, black velvet curtains on three sides, a coat check to the left. The music came through the walls, slow and heavy, a bass line I felt in my sternum more than heard.
I had expected chaos. Bodies. Immediate, unavoidable, in-your-face evidence of what this place was.
What I found was almost formal.
Women in cocktail dresses, corsets, lingerie worn as outerwear with a matter-of-factness that said this is simply what I'm wearing tonight.
Men in tailored suits, a few shirts open, a few leather vests.
The energy was different from any room I had been in.
Eyes lingered longer, smiles carried extra intensity, hands rested on waists and the smalls of backs.
But nobody was undressed. Nobody was doing anything that would have been out of place at a very charged, very knowing cocktail party.
I exhaled for what felt like the first time since the car.
We moved through the inner curtain into the main lounge.
It was larger than I'd expected, lofty ceilings, exposed brick, low leather booths along the walls, a long bar with a mirror backsplash and bottles glowing amber under recessed lights.
A dance floor in the center, maybe twenty people moving slowly to the music, bodies close, hands roaming, hips finding a shared rhythm.
No one was having sex in the open. But the air was thick with what might happen.
A couple in a booth kissing, her hand inside his shirt, his eyes closed. Two women on the dance floor with their bodies aligned, one's fingers tracing the other's spine. A man at the bar watching the room with open interest while his date’s whisper made him smile slowly.
We found our table, a high-top near the edge of the dance floor with three stools and a small, reserved card reading J/R/L. Ricardo pulled out my stool. I sat and smoothed my skirt over my knees, like it was my knees that needed protecting.
"How are you feeling so far?" Ricardo asked, watching me with that full attention of his.
"It's overwhelming," I said. "But less than I expected. Which might be worse, because now I don't know what I'm bracing for."
He laughed softly. "It gets more energetic toward the back."
"Ricardo." Janice's voice carried a warning.
He raised his hands. "I'm just being honest."
"She's new," Janice said. "The advanced tour is not for tonight."
"Understood." He glanced at me, the corner of his mouth still lifted. "Sorry. Ignore me."
A server appeared, black shirt, leather vest. Janice ordered orange juice. "Designated driver."
Ricardo glanced at me. "I took a cab. Whatever you're having."
"Vodka soda," I said. "With lime."
The server nodded and went.
I looked around while we waited. At the next table a couple sat laughing, her hand high on his thigh, his fingers drawing slow circles on her knee, like they had all the time in the world.
On the dance floor a woman in red lingerie moved between two men, all three loose and easy with each other.
Elsewhere people were simply talking. Watching.
Existing in the space with a comfort I couldn't imagine.
The drinks arrived.
Ricardo lifted his glass. "To first nights."
Janice touched hers to his. "To Lacey showing up."