Chapter 1

SABLE

What does it feel like to walk into hell on a stripper's heel?

Ask me. I did it on a Sunday night.

The entire hotel had been emptied out just for me and whoever the mystery Mr. X was. I walked up to the receptionist's desk exactly as I had been instructed.

"Hi. I'm Parisol. The entertainment ordered tonight for Mr. X." I reached into my purse, produced the card Madame Lior had given me, and slid it across the desk.

She stared intently at the card before picking it up.

“Ah. He is expecting you. Come with me.”

I followed her like a lamb to the butcher's hut. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears, behind the mask on my face—my eyelids were trembling.

Madame Lior had been very clear. If I didn't do this tonight, I would owe her more money than I could dream of making in the next five years. I would also not be allowed to leave the club, ever.

I would be stuck living out the rest of my days dancing on poles for wrinkly thirsty men.

"Stairs? Aren't we taking the elevator?" I asked.

The receptionist glanced at me over her shoulder without slowing down. "Mr. X prefers a more specific location. The private lounge downstairs."

"The hotel has a lounge downstairs?"

"I don't think you were paid to ask questions."

I pressed my lips together, unable to say anything else.

We continued to descend down the flight of stairs—her heels were even more pointy than mine… and yet she could walk perfectly on them. Unlike me.

"You look new. The others were always excited, forward-looking even. But you... you look like a rabbit that wandered somewhere it shouldn't have."

She stopped in front of a door. It was black and unmarked except for a single word etched at the top of the door.

Keep out.

“I… I'm not new.” I lied. This was the first time I was wearing a ginger wig and a revealing red-sequined dress. “I'm just a bit chilly due to the weather.”

She looked at me for a moment and then did something I did not expect, she held my wrist.

"I have a daughter your age. So I am going to tell you this. Turn around and leave while you still can.”

A cold sweat broke across the back of my neck.

I wanted to tell her I didn't have a choice. I wanted to tell her about Madame Lior and the interest that had accumulated like slow poison over three years, three years of washing other women's costumes, scrubbing floors and swallowing my discomfort.

I wanted to tell her about how I had shown up on what was supposed to be my last night only to be told I still owed more.

I wanted to tell her about Grandpa at home in his wheelchair thinking I was still tucked in my bed.

Instead, I forced a smile.

“I can handle myself. Thank you.”

She scoffed and shook her head at what she perceived to be stubbornness.

"That's what the last one said. But if you insist, I can't stop you.”

She turned the handle and the door opened into a short dim corridor ending at another door. She didn't follow me any longer. She merely stood where she stood, holding the door knob.

"This is your final stop. I don't know if you're religious. But say a prayer before you go in. And know that even if you scream, the entire hallway is sound proof, no one is going to hear you.”

And without another word, she stepped back into the dark and shut the door behind her.

My legs stayed glued to the floor, unwilling to move.

The girls at the club had talked about him in whispers, and fragments. The man who came once every few months and left no trace. They called him things and none of the things were kind.

“Come on Sable, you can do this. Be Parisol for the night, you can do this.”

I pushed the door open immediately. A second too late and I might've run.

The room was pitch dark, I couldn't even make out shadows or outlines of anything or anyone.

"Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" My voice came out smaller than I intended. "Hello…”

"Turn on the lights, Miss Parisol.”

The voice came from somewhere to my right and seeped into my spine like warm mercury. My hand searched the wall in the dark until my fingers found the switch.

The lights came up in a yellowish hue and I took in the dark walls and furnishing. A bed that hadn't been touched, and beside it, in a chair angled toward the door, he sat, wearing a fitted suit with one leg crossed over the other and on his face, a sleek mask that covered his entire face and left only his eyes bare. They were light grey in colour. I think.

He didn't look like the devil.

That was the thing that unsettled me the most.

The worst of devils never really looked like devils, did they?

He rose to his feet and by the time he reached his full height I understood what the girls had meant. He just expanded the room by standing in it. I held my ground, placed my purse onto the side table and stood with my hands at my sides and my chin up.

“I'm… I'm Parisol.”

“I know that.” His eyes roamed over my figure.

“You wanted me, here I am.”

He circled me like a tiger narrowing in on its juicy deer.

“You have a nice signature.”

I didn't understand what he meant until I remembered. I had signed a non disclosure agreement alongside the agreement to the series of medical tests. My handwriting, apparently, had been worth remarking on.

“Thank you.”

The corner of his mouth curved up in what was not quite a smile.

“Your fingers are trembling.”

I cleared my throat.

“It must be the air conditioner.”

He pointed to the AC on the opposite wall, it was off—then he pointed to the lit fireplace without saying anything. I flushed in embarrassment behind my mask.

“I came here to be your entertainment tonight, Mister X. Can we just get to business already?”