CHAPTER 1
I’ve never spent the night on the station before. I’ve always come in and out on what is, effectively, a day pass, but the hotel Phantom put me in is luxurious. I wake up feeling like I’ve slept on a cloud.
Maybe I should switch to a two-day schedule. If I’d get this kind of treatment each time, I definitely would.
Stretching beneath the thick, downy comforter, I check my phone.
I still don’t know how I have service here—Phantom swears they’ll never tell—but I rub my bleary eyes as I respond to my mother’s questions about when I’ll be home and if the business trip really needed to be extended.
It makes me tired all over again.
She doesn’t need me the way she says she does. She’s used to me being around, so she doesn’t like when I’m not.
I grit my teeth and let her know I’ll be home tonight. And then I close my phone so she can’t remind me how selfish I’m being.
I’m still tired as I stand up and go to look out the window at the dark sparkle of space. But I can’t blame the low-grade exhaustion on the ereader tangled in my sheets. I’m always tired. Just a few more bills and I’ll be able to rest.
Glancing back over my shoulder toward the door, I imagine the freedom to come here and not care about the money… just enjoy the sex and maybe learn how to have a conversation with the other women who work here without feeling like an absolute fool.
That sounds nice.
There’s a knock at my door and I flinch. I’m not expecting anyone, so I drag on the provided robe and look through the peephole.
Feather stands on the other side, smiling and rocking on the balls of her feet as she waits for me to open up.
“Hey,” I say as I pull the door wide and let her in.
I’ve never seen Feather outside of Phantom’s. I’ve never seen her in “street clothes” I’m so confused by her existence in this space that I forget to speak at all as I close the door.
Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to notice. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”
“Well. Thank you.”
She wears a flowy white shirt and jeans that hug her hips. Her sleeves flutter as she claps her hands together.
“Marvelous. I am here to collect you for breakfast.”
“Oh, right.” I hadn’t actually thought about what my day might look like before my appointment with Mooralan.
I’d kind of assumed I’d stay here and read all day.
But it occurs to me… “Do I need an escort to leave?”
“Kind of?” She smiles at me as she sits at the table. “Think of me more as a guide than a babysitter.”
I wouldn’t even know how to get out of the hotel. There’s a direct entrance to Phantoms here. They might own the place.
“I could certainly use one.”
I change without slipping into the bathroom. I’m sure Feather’s used to naked bodies, and I’m used to being seen.
“Do you live on the station?” I ask as I make sure my lip rings are in the right place and pull on my jean jacket.
“No, I’m here two weeks out of every six months.” She tucks a random piece of hair behind my ear and smiles at me. “I’m just down the hall.”
“Cool.”
“What do you want for breakfast? We can get anything you’d like.” She chuckles and wags her eyebrows. “And I do mean anything.”
“Something familiar would be great. I’d hate to have to bail on today’s appointment because something fun and delicious didn’t wind up agreeing with me.” I want to see Mooralan today.
“Sure. You can save the fun stuff for dinner. There’s a cafe that serves Earth food about three levels down. We’ll go there.”
“As long as they can make me a latte, it’ll be my favorite place in the universe.”
Feather chuckles as she leads the way out of the room and down the hall.
She guides me through the station, wide eyed and with my jaw on the floor.
I knew it was huge. I knew that every kind of alien, shop, restaurant and other delight would probably be on offer, but I think I could get lost here for weeks and still have not seen everything.
But the diner Feather finally pulls me into is so Earthlike, I don’t notice the anachronisms at first.
The decor is almost right and also not at the same time.
“Is that a velvet painting of Elvis riding a dragon with Michael Jordan?”
“Yes. The history might be wrong—Phantom won’t let anyone know where Earth is—but the food, they get right.”
When I get my latte and a stack of fluffy pancakes, I can’t argue.
Pearl has French toast that’s absolutely smothered in powdered sugar and a London fog tea.
“You’ve been working at the club for almost a year now, haven’t you?” she asks.
I nod, because my mouth is thankfully full. It gives me the needed time to think out my answer. “Off and on, yeah. I was thinking about doing longer stays now that I’m used to the actual flow of things.”
“That’s great. But this is your first time in a one-on-one appointment?”
“It is… should I be worried?”
She pauses with her fork halfway to her lips and sugar falls from the triangle of bread like snow. “No, of course not! I’m not here as a warning or anything like that. I promise.”
“Okay.”
“The women who live here have lives here, so I haven’t really gotten to know any of them. And the ones who don’t live here tend to be day trippers.”
“Like me.”
She nods. “So breakfast is a rare treat.”
“That sounds like a lonely two weeks.”
She shrugs and chews.
“It is and it isn’t.” She glances out the window at a man leaning against the opposite bulkhead. “That’s Kicker. He’s essentially my bodyguard.”
“You need a bodyguard?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “I have a… fan base that I don’t recommend cultivating.”
Someone mentioned—months ago—that Feather was one of the first women Phantom brought to their club.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About seven years? I just danced at first… before Phantom added the booth to their options for fuckery. The stage is where I wound up with my less desirable fans.”
“Oh… Is that why we’re not allowed to work the regular club floor?”
“We can. Phantom just doesn’t offer it until you’ve been here long enough to get a feel for things. If you want to go out on the floor, just send them a request and they’ll make it happen.”
Maybe I will…
We finish our breakfast talking about the two completely different sides of the country we live on and make very loose plans to get together someday on Earth. I’ve never been to the redwoods and she’s never set foot in New York, let alone Brooklyn.
Kicker follows behind us at a decent distance and we wander back to the hotel. I don’t know what time checkout is, but I need to gather my small bag of things and head down to the locker room.
There’s plenty of time before my appointment, but I need to figure out what rules change in the ring-view rooms… and I can’t do that here.
Feather walks me all the way back to my door—with Kicker following far enough back that he’s not a part of the conversation, but I have no doubt he could grab Feather if he needed to. “Have fun today. Maybe I’ll see you next time!”
“I hope so.”
When I close the door behind me, I take a deep breath and then blink as the whole experience plays back… I managed to get through it without saying something that’s going to replay in my head for months.
Maybe there’s something in the station air.