Page 8 of Shattered In Darkness

Dean lowers the camera and clears his throat. “Alright, the next set is with the client.”

He gestures with his jaw and one of the men on the couch shifts forward. He’s older, I think, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I am all nerve endings, all hot blood and chill. My feet move without asking, my work mode activated with a flip of a switch. I become the thing they all want. The thing I have to be.

He sits, legs spread, and pats his thigh. I force a smile that is not a smile, and cross the floor, my hips swinging, and my stomach turning.

Don’t be a prude, Lola. Never let them touch unless I say so.

Marcus knows the job, so this is ok. This won’t be punishable.

I straddle him, facing forwards towards Dean. His hands hover at my waist, not touching. I can feel the want radiating, a pulse that soaks the air.

Dean barks from behind the camera, “Move. Be sexy. Sell it.”

I sway my hips. I rub up against him because the job is the job. I can feel his breath, his heartbeat. Every time I grind, the lace threatens to snap, and my whole body shudders with disgust I bury deep in my gut. I dissociate. Drift. I’m not me, I’m some other bitch pasted on magazine paper, pixels, and color correction. I shut down. No thinking.

The man underneath grunts. I look through him. Lights flash, Dean shouts orders I barely hear. Faster. I go faster.

My chest burns. I grind my hips. He wants a show, so I give one.

Lace cuts deeper at my thighs. I arch my back and tilt my chin exactly how they want it. My hands caress my skin, my hair falling like a wild mess, just the way they like it.

Just a body. Just a prop.

Another flash, but through the light, I see a movement in the hallway through the open space of the door. A man walks by. A moment later, another man. Slower, steadier, as if he were hunting something, lurking in the dark.

The second man stops and looks straight through the door. Our eyes meet while I’m openly grinding on this stranger, tits nearly spilling out.

He’s tall. Bigger than the others with his face half-hidden. His jaw is hard as stone, his eyes on fire even in the low light. Blue, gray, storm-twisted, and locked on me like a scope.

My lungs freeze as a memory slams through me. Rough hands. A stare that never let go. He used to look at me like I was the most precious thing, from across rooms, through windows, like he’d devour me if I got too close.

Panic slithers up my spine. Anger hits next.

It’s him.

The boy who stole my heart. The boy who left me. The boy who broke me.

That was three and a half years ago; we were barely nineteen when he left. Now, he looks more like a man than a teenage boy.

Why in the fuck would he be here?

Brody watches. Not moving, not breathing. Fists coiled so hard at his sides I worry he’ll break his own fingers. His gaze is a furnace, eating through the cameras, the men, the room, torching me whole.

Years gone, dead and buried, but now he stands in the rotted hallway, staring while I sell myself one frame at a time.

My shame curdles into heat, into challenge. I know how this game goes, even if my insides tremble. I roll my hips harder. My hair over my shoulder for his benefit now, too, for the memory of the boy.

Brody’s face never softens. Anger, hurt, the sick echo of desire. All for me. My fury rises, trying to eat the panic. He left me. He left and never came back, and now here he is, watching me.

The shoot winds tighter, messier. Dean barks louder. I bare my teeth at the camera, giving them everything they want. Giving him what I know he remembers, the way only I can.

I catch Brody’s eyes again just before he turns. Not a word. He walks away, silent and brutal, pulling the world with him into the dark.

My chest empties, lungs flat and ruined. I keep moving. I grind. I pose. I let the lace bite because that’s what I’m here for.

Dean barks at me to go slower, then faster. I don’t know which he likes more—the “fuck me” in the arch of my spine or the “don’t touch me” in my eyes. Both, probably. Perverts like options.

“Yeah, like that. Good girl. Now angle your hips. Push your chest out. Perfect.”