Chapter 9
You can’t be Toby Tennant’s sex slave.
But I want to.
You can’t.
But I want to.
The thoughts rocked back and forth like a see-saw with two hyperactive toddlers on each end.
Tabby wasn’t typically a macro thinker, but even she had to question how giving into Toby’s ‘big dick on campus’ fuckhead routine and letting him put her through her BDSM paces was going to end in anything but tears. They were so different now, not even friends. And she wasn’t exactly in a good mental place. If she’d had to describe it, she’d have said she was about as stable as a broken table.
Buuuuuut…
He’d looked so fucking good on his couch, holding out his bottle of tequila. He’d sounded so good offering her money for a kiss, all cocky and confident—precisely the way a hot guy bribing you into sex in your fantasies should be. And the way he’d made her come…
As much as she’d wanted to fuck him that night, she respected him for calling time on their hookup. His cock had been at full salute, and he’d still left her at his front door, and that kind of control… It was fucking sexy. Everything about the man was too fucking sexy. Despite how they’d left things, she’d floated home on a cloud of horniness, and when she’d gotten into bed, she’d run two of her vibrators dry thinking about it. Him. Everything. And then she’d fucking dreamed about him. He’d been in a tuxedo, and she’d been naked, and the things he”d made her do. Tabby had always thought of herself as an ‘up for anything’ gal rather than a submissive, but who dreamed about a guy making her lick his black leather Oxfords before forcing her to service him in front of his window where any and all beachgoers could see her humiliation?
The only conclusion was that she was losing her head. Or Toby Tennant was using chemical warfare to warp her mind and turn her into his willing sex doll.
As she muddled her way through her morning tattoo bookings, she pictured her brain changing shape, twisting with fresh synapses, the cognitive bridges thickening with thoughts of Toby’s ripped chest, asshole smirk, and pale blue eyes. They’d already had sex, and it had been good sex. What possibilities lay ahead if she took him up on his indecent proposal?
“Do you like getting topped in the sack?” she asked Sam at lunch, apropos of nothing.
Her older sister didn’t bat an eyelid. “Depends on the dude, but fuck yeah.”
“You don’t think it’s, like… degrading to women?”
Now Sam batted an eyelid. She batted two. “What the fuck’s going on? You got the same ‘An ye harm none, do what ye will’ speeches from Dad that I did.”
“Sure, but… what if the guy isn’t, like, kosher?”
“Who’re you fucking?”
“No one yet,” Tabby said honestly enough. “But the dude’s a douche. Total fucking clown.”
Sam tapped the end of her fork to her chin. “Well… I think anyone who says they wouldn’t bend their morals for hot sex is a liar, so it probably depends on how much of a clown. Ex-con?”
“Nah. Anyway, Noah’s an ex-con.”
“True. Dickhead?”
“Certified.”
But as soon as she said it, Tabby wondered if it was true. Toby was in finance, and he’d been slutting around the Eastern suburbs, but that was hardly a crime. At least not to anyone except her and her stupid, misplaced jealousy.
“Maybe not a total dickhead,” she admitted. “But so not my usual. He’s rich and wears shirts and shit.”
Sam looked intrigued. “Where’d you meet?”
“The apps,” she said without missing a beat. She’d come prepared for that one. Tabby had absolutely zero intention of explaining to Sam that the douchebag twisting her brain into new shapes was the same one who’d given them the dogs running around their tattoo studio.
“You matched with a preppy cunt on the apps?” Sam asked.
“I didn’t know the levels of preppy when I matched with him. He’s got a kickin’ bod,” she said, both lying and not lying. “I saw the abs and couldn’t help myself.”
Sam laughed. “Hey, we’ve all been there. When I first saw Scott with his shirt off, I was fucking gone.”
“Vom! Can we focus on me, actually, please?”
“Sure. Well, I think you should go for it.”
“And if he only wants one thing? Namely a bunch of ‘yes sir, no sir’ stuff?”
Sam looked like she wanted to laugh.
“Don’t,” Tabby wailed. “This is a fucking serious dilemma. My progressive credentials are on the line here, bitch!”
“Okay, okay, calm your areolas.” Sam stared into the middle distance. “So, you’re worried roleplaying Fifty Shades shit with this dude is gonna encourage him in whatever warped ideas he has about girls or whatever?”
“Yes,” Tabby said, relieved that her big sister had gotten it. “Exactly that. Because he wants to, like, pay me. Or pretend he’s paying me for sex.”
“That’s… pretty fuckin’ hot,” Sam admitted. “You’ve never done anything like that before?”
“Not so cold-bloodedly.”
“Hmm. Well, again, it comes down to what you can live with. But they’re not gonna come for your socialist card for fucking this guy, Tabs. ‘They’ don’t even exist.”
“But I’ll know.”
“That’s it. If you think you’ll be able to look yourself in the mirror afterwards, then roll tide.”
Noah opened the door to the staff kitchen, and she and Sam both fell silent. Tabby’s brain was teeming with contradictory thoughts. She still wasn’t sure she should fall any deeper into whatever horny rabbit hole Toby had opened for her, but on the other hand, she’d finished all over his fingers last night, and she could still look herself in the mirror today, if she squinted.
“Sam,” Noah said. “A word?”
As soon as Sam stood, Tabby pulled out her phone, and before she was even aware of what she was doing, she sent a text.
What have you done to me that I’m actually *considering* this sugar daddy thing?
Hands shaking, she turned off alerts, not wanting to know if, when or how Toby replied. Maybe he was smarter than her and had already mentally pulled the plug on this trainwreck. But that didn’t seem likely. The guy owned a Lamborghini.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Sam bellowed from somewhere.
Tabby jumped to her feet and ran. She found Noah and Sam in tattoo room three, where her big sister was stomping on what looked like a massive bouquet. “The hell’s happening?”
“That fucking bitch sent flowers!” Sam screamed, kicking her Doc Martens through pink paper and banksias, sending petals and native greenery everywhere.
Tabby’s heart sank to her sneakers. She didn’t need to know who ‘that fucking bitch’ was. Their mother had decided to make another appearance. “How do you know it was her?”
Sam halted her stomping to toss a card at her. Tabby opened the stiff cream-coloured paper and read:
I miss you, Babby-Tabby.
Love, M.
Her vision swam as she stared down at the message. Her. Just her. What the fuck was Jo playing at? Why was this happening?
“You’re not seeing someone called ‘M’?” Noah asked gruffly.
Tabby shook her head.
“Thought not.” Noah put a heavy arm around her shoulders. “Sorry, Tabs.”
“For what?” she said, her voice all high. The heat and weight of Noah’s body was unbearable. She shifted away, and his face went blank. She’d hurt him. He so rarely tried to comfort anyone, and she’d hurt him. She was such a piece of shit. Head pounding, she left tattoo room three.
She heard someone follow, and Sam snatched the card from her hands as she prepared to tell her big sister everything was fine. Sam tore it in half, then quarters, then eighths.
“This isn’t your fault,” she hissed. “It’s hers. I’m gonna fucking brutalise her.”
“Cool,” Tabby said in the same helium voice. “I’m just going to…” She walked out of the studio, the little doorbell ringing behind her.
The right thing to do in this scenario was cry, but she couldn’t manage that. She felt frozen inside, a hundred miles from her thoughts. Wandering toward the street corner, she pulled out her phone and opened apps at random. She wasn’t sure how long she walked for, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but she wound up at Gilpin Park, sitting on an embankment and watching joggers and dogs rush around like they had somewhere to be. She’d abandoned her afternoon booking with Brody, a long-time client coming in for a touch-up, but she knew Sam and Noah would have handled it.
They would probably understand her running away, but she still felt miserable about it. About everything, really.
Sitting in the crunchy summer grass, she thought about buying her plane ticket to Cartagena right then and there with Toby’s money. She’d be screwing up his tattoo, but the guy was loaded. He could find someone else to finish it. A couple of middle-aged men wandered past, gabbing happily, and she thought about Jo. Was she nearby watching her? It was a stupid idea, given that Tabby hadn’t even known she was coming to Gilpies, but she couldn’t shake the feeling. She looked around and saw nothing; she felt like even more of an idiot. Pulling her knees into her chest, she counted passing cars, segmenting them into year and colour.
Two hours passed that way, but it wasn’t an issue; she had nowhere to be except Cartagena. But as sunlight faded and dog walkers increased, Tabby found herself thinking something new, something more truthful: She didn’t want to go to Colombia. To start over. To run away. She wanted to return to the night of Sam and Nix’s birthday party and stay there, Toby at her side, the future still a bright possibility. Photoshop her dad in, and everything would be perfect. Sam would stop yelling, Nix would stop crying, and everything would be normal. Was that so much to ask? Maybe, but what else was there to hope for? In what way would her current situation resolve itself with anything but more tears and anger?
Her stomach rumbled, and she pulled out her phone, wondering if anyone would be willing to deliver a burger to the top of a hill. She unlocked the screen, and there it was—Toby Tennant’s name flashing—an incoming call. The sight of it was like a bomb detonating in her stomach: epinephrine and a million other chemicals surging up fear and hope and mostly desire. She shivered as the sensations whirled through her, praying the moment wouldn’t end. It was the best kind of drug; that point right before you got what you wanted and there was still a little chance you wouldn’t. The sting of lime slicing through sweet cream. The agony before blissful release.
She accepted the call and raised her phone to her ear.
“No sell, no sell,” she said into her phone. “Diamond hands. MOASS. Apes together strong.”
“Very funny,” he grumbled, and she felt her forearm hairs swoosh upward.
Yes, to being his sex slave. Yes, to all of it.
“I don’t do conspiracy finance,” he said, and she could tell from the background that he was out somewhere. The office, maybe, or a bar. She smoothed out her frizzed hair as though he and everyone he was with could see her.
“It’s all conspiracy finance in the end, Tennant. For a price.”
He huffed a little laugh, and warmth went through her like syrup. Toby didn’t know what had happened, had no idea her mum was back and being confusing as balls. That was a joy in and of itself.
“So why are you calling me?” she asked. “Or do you just want my take on the NASDAQ?”
“I don’t. I want you to come over tomorrow night and work on my tattoo.”
“And the other thing…?”
“That depends,” Toby said, his voice two octaves lower. “Are you committing?”
“I’m… I might be interested.”
Toby was silent, and she swore under her breath. She’d seen this ‘still waters’ side of him when they were friends, but it pissed her off how frequently he was wielding it against her now. “I’m interested, okay? I wanna do it.”
“Good,” Toby said as though there’d been no pause. “I want that too. So here are my rules?—”
“You have rules?”
More silence.
“Oh my God, fuck off,” Tabby snapped. “What are you? Fucking Batman?”
As could have been predicted, Toby stayed quiet.
“Sorry!” she hissed. “I’ll stop interrupting!”
“Good girl.”
Another syrupy glow, this time right between her legs. “What are your rules?”
“You’ll pick a safeword and text it to me, and you’ll show up at seven on the dot tomorrow, or I’ll lock you out of the house.”
“Fine. Anything else?”
“Yes, actually, can you take tomorrow off work?”
Tabby recalled Sam violently trampling the unwanted flowers sent to her by their mother. “Yeah, I think I can swing that. Why?”
“There are some things I’d like to do before you come over.”
“Such as?”
“I’ve made a few appointments for you. You’ll get your hair and nails done and a few other things. I’ll pay for it.”
“What the fucking what?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Toby said calmly. “I said I wanted to dress you up?—”
“Dress me up, not paint me like one of your French girls, you fucking spanner!”
“Let me finish. You know I think you’re stunning, Tabitha?—”
She paused, blindsided by the compliment.
“—but you told me money’s an issue lately, and you always had your hair and nails done when we were friends.”
‘Were friends,’Tabby thought. How’s that for confirmation?
“So, you want me back the way I was, is that it?” she ground out.
“No, I?—”
“You don’t think I look good enough? You want me to be more like the mannequins you put your dick in while you were shit-talking me at the Village Belle?”
Quiet stretched like a spiderweb between them, and Tabby was seconds away from screaming ‘fuck you’ and hanging up when Toby’s voice came down the line, all smoke and satin. “I want you to look like my perfect little fuckdoll. You telling me that doesn’t turn you on?”
The words were like silver arrows tearing through her defences. She couldn’t think of anything funny to say. Couldn’t talk at all. Yes, that turned her on. Of course, that turned her on.
“I want you to pretend I bought you,” Toby muttered. “The whole time you’re getting done up, you’re gonna tell yourself it’s because I bought you for the night, and you need to look good for me. You’re cheating on whatever idiot you were last wasting time with because I’m an entitled cunt, and I made you an offer you couldn’t refuse. Bribery. Blackmail. Whatever you wanna pretend it is. And at seven o’clock, you’ll come to my house looking better than you ever have, and then I’m going to send you home with a wallet full of cash, so well-fucked you can hardly walk. Do you understand?”
Tabby was shaking, her fingers twitching around her phone.
“Tabitha?”
“I say… that’s fine,” she managed.
“Good. Your first appointment is at ten, I’ll text you the details. See you soon.”
He hung up, leaving her in near darkness at the top of the hill. If she was shaking before it was nothing compared to now. She was like one of those jerk-off weights they used to sell on TV before it became a meme. She waited a few minutes for her heart to slow, but it didn’t, so she stood on trembling Bambi legs to walk to FAT Chicken for a burger.
That was the beauty of obsession, she thought as she walked past the abandoned Franco Cozzo. In a world of ridiculous, unexpected, painful things, it was delicious to find yourself in a place where all that mattered was him—whether he was talking to you, whether he wanted to see you. It was gorgeous to give in to that singular distraction. And unlike when she was younger, Tabby went consciously into the sensation, willing it to keep her from thinking about anything else.
* * *
At 9:57a.m. the next day, Tabby was skulking out the front of a rich lady spa in South Yarra. She’d arrived early to stake out the place, needing to make sure this wasn’t a huge goof and Toby hadn’t paid for someone to pour pig blood on her and film it. At one minute to ten, she got a text from the man himself.
Am I going to get what I paid for, Tabitha?
Tabby took a selfie, flipping off the camera. Wincing at how tired she looked, she sent it and entered Serenity Beauty Therapy Centre.
The inside smelled so expensive that Toby would probably have to pay oxygen fees, and the receptionist looked like a supermodel. She eyed Tabby like she’d staggered in drunk with a gunshot wound.
“Do you have a booking?”
“I, uh, hope so,” Tabby said, almost knocking over a spindly naked lady statue with her duffel bag. “Tabitha DaSilva?”
“Up the hall and on the left,” the receptionist said with no change of expression. “Leave your shoes in the rack beside The Pearlescent Room.”
Tabby waited for more information, but the chick’s line-free face remained blank.
“Okayyy,” she said, before venturing deeper into the marble death crypt, praying things would make more sense when she reached ‘The Pearlescent Room.’ Whatever the fuck that was. Thankfully, a sign on the door let Tabby know she’d reached her destination. She took off her battered AF1s and put them on the blond wooden rack beside some Chanel slides. She wondered if her shoes were the grossest thing to ever touch this place and decided to ask the receptionist on the way out—either that or where she could buy some amyl nitrate.
The ‘Pearlescent Room’ looked more like a sandstone cavern dressed up for a porno. There was a circular in-ground pool, shelves covered in glass bottles and a big white-sheeted bed. Tabby hucked her bag onto the floor and rotated, trying to assess how much group sex had taken place in ‘The Pearlescent Room’ and if that was the point.
The door swung open, and Tabby jumped.
“Sorry,” said a broad Dutch woman in white. “I’m Adrie, your beauty therapist and skin healer. Do you want me to come back in a moment?”
Skin healer? “Yes. No. Actually, what am I getting done here, exactly?”
Adrie, who was fresh-faced and mercifully friendly, laughed. “Just take off your clothes and get under the sheets.”
“… And then what will happen?”
“Well, you have a Metamorphosis package, so that includes a therapeutic salt scrub, a full body lymphatic drainage massage, a herbal soak and a coffee and sea-kelp wrap. Then you’ll have tea and fresh fruit followed by a probiome facial with microdermabrasion, and we’ll finish with some beautiful plant-based oils to get you glowing like a golden goddess!”
Tabby blinked. No one in her very pale life had ever promised to turn her into a golden goddess. “Okay, I guess ‘Metamorphosis’ is right. Am I gonna have to… shell out for any of this?”
Adrie gave a sphinx-like smile. “Everything has been paid for, and we’ve been told you can add any number of treatments and services to your package.”
Fuckin’ Toby. Resentment and excitement swirled inside her like fro-yo. “Uh, what other stuff do you do?”
“Needling, threading, eyelash lifts, tints and extensions, nail work and CoolSculpting.”
Tabby was pretty sure CoolSculpting was that thing that fucked up Linda Evangelista, but everything else sounded pretty nice. Not to mention useful. It had been a million years since she’d cleaned up her eyebrows, and she’d never had her lashes tinted.
“We also do waxing,” Adrie declared. “But if you choose this option, we’ll do the scrub first so it doesn’t irritate your skin.”
Tabby looked at her bare feet and saw, yes, the little hairs on her toes had, in fact, regrown, along with all the half-shaved stuff on her legs and underarms and vulva. “Yeah, I could probs do with some waxing.”
In the end, she booked an additional Brazilian, half-leg and underarm wax, lash tint and lift, eyebrow threading, and a pedicure.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a manicure as well?” Adrie asked. “We have a wonderful sheer rainbow SNS, see?”
She held up her flawless, shimmering nails, and Tabby felt a stab of longing. Once upon a time, she’d had lovely nails, the kind everyone had commented on. She’d done them herself under a little heat lamp while she watched classic WWE matches, getting everything just right. Did she even deserve to have them done now?
Fuck it.
“Sure.”
“Wonderful! Do you have any more questions?”
How much is Toby Tennant spending on this, and how good will I have to suck his dick to make up for it? Because I can’t do that throat-bulging stuff.
“No, I’m cool,” Tabby said. “So, I’ll just get undressed?”
“Perfect. I’ll come back in just a moment and begin our lovely morning together!”
Tabby questioned how lovely it would be for Adrie, but she got nude and climbed onto the bed. It was so clean and comfortable she instantly wanted to sleep. She hadn’t gotten much last night, what with endlessly replaying the way Toby urged his fingers inside her…
Stop it, she told herself. If you get turned on in here, four dudes will definitely appear out of nowhere and fuck you.
Tabby did, in fact, fall asleep during the scrub. Her body was coated in a thick, textured paste that smelled like gingerbread, and she woke up to the massage, Adrie releasing tension she hadn’t known she was holding in her hips, elbows, and shoulders.
“Are you a big gym girl?” Adrie asked as she tried valiantly to release the knots in her neck.
“Tattoo artist,” Tabby mumbled, her tongue hanging out like a happy dog.
“Ah, yes, I can see that you like tattoos. They’re very nice.”
Tabby wondered what the wholesome Adrie really thought of her back peacock and the dolphin on her ass and decided it wasn’t worth thinking about. She bathed alone in the circular spa, texting Sam to make sure everything at the studio was good.
Her sister didn’t answer, probably too busy on the dark web trying to source untraceable poisons. She and Nix were crying on the couch when she got home last night, neither of them having realised she wasn’t there. Tabby had slipped into her bedroom, even more determined to follow through with whatever fucked-up shit Toby had planned. How could anything make her feel worse than she already did?
But that was before Adrie started waxing. She’d been so lazy with hair removal that everything hurt a million times worse than usual, especially the Brazilian, which extracted every follicle from her labia, inside and out.
“We call it the, uh, what do you say? OnlyFans wax,” Adrie laughed, and Tabby tried to chuckle along while hurtling through a void of agony.
“You have some, er, hairs on your toes,” Adrie said politely. “Would you like me to…?”
“Let ’er rip, sister.”
Then Tabby was covered in soothing oils, and the facial followed. ‘Microdermabrasion’ turned out to be ‘getting your face vacuumed with an electric toothbrush’ but afterwards, her face skin was as silky smooth as her labia. Adrie brought in another girl, Yara, to flay the soles of her feet while she cleansed Tabby’s nails of the last of the chipped pink polish and trimmed her ragged cuticles. Twenty rainbow surfboards were glued to her fingers and toes, transforming them from goblin grippers to things she couldn’t stop staring at.
“You have beautiful skin,” Adrie remarked. “You just need more sleep, yes?”
“Probably,” Tabby agreed while secretly wondering if Toby had been freaked out by her previously hairy pussy.
Adrie informed her that time was running out before ‘your next appointment,’ so she drank tea and ate papaya in The Pearlescent Room while Adrie finished her pedicure. Then it was back onto the bed for the threading and eyelash stuff.
“Thank you,” she told Adrie when they were finally done. “If you ever want a tattoo, I’ll give you an amazing discount.”
“Thank you, Tabby, and please, sleep more.”
Considering who she was meeting tonight, Tabby very much doubted that would happen, but she smiled and nodded nonetheless.
“Here. This is where you’re going for your next appointment,” the emotionless receptionist said when Tabby floated out of The Pearlescent Room. She shoved a card at her, and Tabby took it. The paper was cream-coloured and thick, folded into half, and as she stared at it, the world stopped spinning.
Jo.
Jo had found her.
Jo had sent her another message.
“Are you okay?” The receptionist asked.
“I… I…” Tabby opened the card with fingers that felt like old capsicum slices. She read an address for a place called ‘Steel Gloss’ in Armadale, but it didn’t help. Her brain was teeming with thoughts of Jo in her tattooing chair, asking if she knew where single men over forty-five drank.
“Oh my God,” the receptionist gasped. “You’re green.”
“Shit,” Tabby mumbled. “I was supposed to be a golden goddess.”
The receptionist gave a shocked laugh and it was the realisation that this hot, cyborg lady was an actual person that pulled her out of her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just… tough week.”
“Let me get you some free samples,” the woman said, as though she were prescribing diazepam. “I’ll grab some mineral water, too.”
Rehydrated and thoroughly embarrassed, Tabby left the day spa in a black taxi Toby had arranged for her. She slumped into the leather seats, trying to forget the white card and her mother.
“You okay?” The driver said, watching her in the rearview mirror.
Tabby nodded, wishing she was invisible.
Steel Gloss turned out to be an upscale hairdressing salon with an industrial, almost grunge aesthetic. The hairdressers circling the red vinyl chairs were young, wiry, and heavily tattooed, and she was directed to a Scottish twenty-year-old with catlike green eyes.
“Nice t’meetcha,” the woman said. “I’m Neve and I’ll be taking care of your hair and your makeup today.”
“Hair and makeup?”
“Ya, we’re a full-service salon. Bridal parties and the like.” Neve flashed her a smile. “So, what d’you want done w’ya hair? Blue again?”
Tabby studied herself in the water-flecked mirror. Her skin looked dewy, and her nails were perfect, but her hair was limp. Mouse-brown almost to her ears. “I… don’t know.”
“I’ll getcha wine, and you can have a think.”
A burst of raucous laughter had Tabby looking into the corner of the studio. A group of women sat having their hair styled. They were all wearing white sashes, and Tabby realised they had to be having a hen’s party. They were all well dressed with designer handbags at their feet. The kind of women who added group beauty treatments onto a night out the way she added hot apple pies to a McDonald’s order. But they looked happy. Really happy.
She thought of her sisters and wondered if they’d ever do anything as goofy as a bachelorette party. Nix hadn’t wanted one, and Sam wasn’t getting married, so that left her. The girl is currently haunting her own house like Casper, the irrelevant ghost. Shaking off the unhelpful thoughts, she returned to her reflection. What colour did she want her hair to be? It had been an unnatural shade since she was fifteen, bleaching it in the sink with Nix’s help. Candy pink, maybe? Lavender?
She pulled her fringe away from her face and realised there was a reason she hadn’t re-dyed her hair in months. One she couldn’t admit to herself, let alone to anyone who did hair in Brunswick.
“Here’s y’wine,” Neve said, returning with a flute of bubbles. “Thoughts on colour?”
Tabby swallowed a mouthful of sparkling wine, and the lightness helped make up her mind. “I think… I think I want to go dark.”
“Dark? Like black?”
“No.” Tabby’s heart was pounding unnaturally fast. “What about, like, chestnut brown?”
“Sure. That’s good. We won’t have to strip it. I’ll go mix it up, and I’ll be back in two ticks.”
This isn’t a big deal, Tabby told herself an hour later as brown dye dripped into her follicles. It’s just hair.
Yet once she was shampooed and sitting in a reclining chair with a revitalising treatment mask on her scalp, she was so nervous she could hardly sit still. What was Sam going to say? What would Toby think?
“I’ll do your makeup after this,” Neve said, appearing with a colossal eyeshadow palette. “Pick your colours. Do you want a natural look or something dramatic?”
“Um, dramatic?” Tabby said, conforming to her nature. “I don’t… this isn’t extra, is it?”
“Not for you,” Neve said happily. “Some bloke called up and paid for the whole thing. Is he ya husband?”
Tabby felt herself flush to the roots of her presumably dark hair. “Not in a million years. More of a sugar daddy thing. Paypig, really.”
“Nice. Gotta find me one of those.”
Tabby chose a silvery eyeshadow, and Neve put the palettes away and washed, trimmed and dried her hair. She was sitting in a space without mirrors, which Tabby was happy about. If she looked washed out and horrible with brown hair, there was no way she could sit through an hour or more of makeup without crying.
“I’ve given y’a bit of a blowout,” Neve said. “But your hair’s already quite straight, so it’s hanging well. How’s the wine?”
“Great,” Tabby said, halfway down her second glass. “I’m not scared at all.”
Neve laughed. “Do you want your makeup done before you take a look at your hair? Do a big reveal?”
“Sure.”
Transported to yet another chair, Tabby did her best to hold still as a million different liquids were painted across her face and neck. She was reminded of the fashion shoots she’d done back when modelling for indie brands was even remotely interesting, hours and hours spent preparing for a single purpose. She wondered where Toby was and if he was as nervous as she felt. If he’d be happy when he saw what his money had paid for. She hoped he’d be blown away. That he’d give her that hard, heavy-lidded look he gave her in his hallway before he threw her up against his wall…
“Nevey,” a green-haired girl called. “A dress got delivered for your client!”
“Oooh, more paypig swag!” Neve chortled. “Did y’know?”
“Nope,” Tabby said honestly. Though she had been wondering how Toby would feel when she rocked up at his house all done up but still in sneakers and denim overalls. She wondered what dress he’d sent. Considering his new sexual outlook, it was probably a rubber nurse outfit, and he had every intention of ball-gagging her and destroying her asshole or something.
“Done,” Neve said, spraying her with setting mist ten minutes later. “Do me a favour, and I’ll go get the dress so you can put it on before you look in the mirror? I looove makeovers.”
“Sure.”
Neve returned with a cloth bag that, once unzipped, showed a white silk halter dress. It had gold hardware in the bustier-style bodice, a hole cut under the boobs and a long slit in the side.
“It’s goooorjus!” Neve crowed. “There are shoes and a bag too! Get into the changeroom and I’ll bring y’the boxes!”
Tabby ducked behind a black rubber curtain and realised she was one hundred percent right to have gotten a wax. The dress fit like a glove but made all underwear impossible. Pre-wax, her pubes would have probably poked right through the material. The shoes, which Neve shoved under the curtain, turned out to be Valentino pumps, tan with gold spikes all over. Even without a receipt, Tabby knew they were the most expensive she’d ever wear. Palms sweating, she buckled them around her ankles. Her newly dark locks tumbled onto her chest like someone else’s hair.
“Go away,” she whispered, brushing them back.
Still crouching, she turned to the flat gold box Neve had also given her, which presumably contained her new bag. The label read ‘Benedetta Bruzziches,’ which wasn’t a brand Tabby knew or had previously believed to be real. Wondering if this was where Toby’s evil revenge manifested itself in a blood explosion, she pushed aside pale blue tissue paper and saw… the most beautiful thing in existence. A tiny blue and green clutch with a crystal clasp. It was shaped like a seashell and looked like something a Greek goddess of beauty would ride into shore. She pulled it from the surrounding paper and held it up, examining the details.
“Hellooo?” Neve called. “Need a hand?”
“No,” Tabby shouted back. Shoving all the paper and crap back into the boxes, she stood. She emerged from her rubber cell, vibrating with something too terrifying to be called excitement.
“You look stoon-nin!” Neve squealed. “Y’man’s gon’ be so happy!”
Tabby was directed to a steel-framed full-length mirror. She glanced at her reflection and saw a beautiful brunette with big boobs and smoky blue eyes. The kind of woman whose white dress and tiny fashionable purse wouldn’t look out of place at the Met Gala.
“Oh my fucking, what?” she breathed. “I can’t… Oh my God… What?”
“Stoonin’,” Neve repeated happily. “Y’boy’s got great taste.”
But Tabby was barely listening; she was still shocked by the sight of herself. For one thing, she looked so much more like Sam and Nix, but she was also just so different.
“I’m so normal,” she whispered to her reflection.
She wasn’t. She was still covered in tattoos, but her skin glowed, her nails were perfect, and her newly chestnut hair was thick and shiny. She looked more conventional than she’d been in her adult life, and what’s more, she… liked it. Turning to the side, she realised, with a guilty jolt, that she looked kind of like Liv Tyler if Liv Tyler had a shitload of tats and big old titties.
She blinked, waiting for the image to fade and for fuckup ghost Tabby to return. The beautiful brunette blinked back at her, and something hot unfurled in her chest. A feeling so sweet, Tabby almost didn’t recognise it.
Hope.
Somehow, it was easy to remember now, the way she’d been before Jo, before the failed festival, before everything that felt like hers had vanished into mud too deep to dig through.
She looked away, tears burning the backs of her eyes. “Jesus…”
“What’s wrong?” Neve said. “Don’cha like it?”
Tabby shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head. She couldn’t begin to explain how it felt to feel beautiful after months of ugliness. She hadn’t known how miserable she had been until this beacon had shone out from the dark.
Toby had given her this. Something she hadn’t even known she’d lost. She forced her gaze to return to the mirror and smiled at herself. Tatted Liv Tyler smiled back, and she felt another surge of hope. Everything might end up okay. And even if it didn’t, come hell or high water, she was going to fuck the life out of Toby Tennant for doing this for her.