Chapter Text
I know that you're wrong for me
Gonna wish we never met on the day I leave
I brought you down to your knees
'Cause they say that misery loves company
It's not your fault I ruin everything
And it's not your fault I can't be what you need
“I should have said no.” Beatrice laments, for the fifth (perhaps sixth) time since she arrived at Lilith’s house for drinks.
Lilith, of course, scoffs at this because scoffing and arguing are her default settings. “No you shouldn't have,” Lilith walks around her kitchen counter, pristine and clean with only a single bowl of fruit that is never empty and that all of her guests are always terrified to eat from because Lilith has never once offered anyone fruit in her apartment.
She sets a drink down in front of Beatrice and then finds the stool next to her. “The one relative I actually liked is getting married and I tell my parents, who I haven't spoken to in seven years by the way-”
“I know the story, why are you rehashing the story with me? I’ve literally been here for all of it.”
Beatrice glares at her over the rim of her drink. “Will you let me lament a little?”
Lilith sighs and rolls her eyes. “Fine, monologue away.”
She almost doesn’t out of spite, but God help her she needs to vent. “Seven years, and they reach out to tell me that my cousin is getting married and they want me to come.” Beatrice takes a big drink. Feeling the cool, bitter liquid burn down her throat. “There has to be some kind of motive.”
“Mmm,” Lilith sets her drink down, a serious look on her face. “Perhaps there will be a conversion therapist waiting to pick you up at the airport.”
“I’ll break his nose,” Beatrice says, knowing Lilith is kidding, but she almost broke the last therapist’s nose. “They sounded so…weird.”
“Because they spoke to you like an adult?”
Beatrice can still hear her mother’s voice in her ear - so…inviting and warm. It didn’t sound right. She can't help but wonder how long Mariel spent going over that speech she gave her.
“We know it’s been hard, for all parties and we know we were at fault. We’ve accepted that, and we hope you’ll accept our attempt to mend fences. We would love to see you.”
It was so off kilter, so unsettling and unfamiliar. Yet, Beatrice was lured in. Because no matter the distance she created or the life she built for herself (all by herself), she can't ignore the pull they have on her.
She can't ignore the fourteen year old version of herself who would bend over backwards trying to please them, only to be told she was never what they wanted in the first place.
“I can't believe you told them you have a girlfriend.” Both Beatrice and Lilith turn to see Camila walking into the apartment. She has her bag over her shoulder and sets it very precisely on the floor next to her shoes.
“Did you get it?” Lilith asks and she’s far too excited for her own personality, so of course Beatrice is curious. As soon as Beatrice told Lilith her dilemma, she was calling up Camila in hushed tones.
Camila has that smile on her face, the dreadfully familiar one she had right before Beatrice was somehow signed up for an adult softball league last year.
It was tremendous fun, but she’ll never admit it to them because that would only make them spring things on her more.
Like this, apparently. “Get what?”
“I did,” Camila answers Lilith and ignores Beatrice. She makes her way to the fridge and starts mixing her own drink. Camila is probably the only one of their friend group who generally doesn’t give a damn about Lilith and her house rules. Lilith never really challenges her on it either - she glares and tries to beat Camila to the punch when it comes to digging through her things. But today she doesn’t even get up.
Meaning she is too excited about whatever it is Camila brought, which is more than likely going to be something Beatrice will hate. “What are you two hiding? I’ve known you both long enough to know all the signs of conspiring.”
They share a look and Beatrice may just stand up and leave.
“Okay so…don’t freak out.” Camila sets her down next to Beatrice’s and then pulls out her phone and starts tapping through it. Beatrice watches the sunflower keychain she has hanging from the case jangle around with each swipe of her finger. “Now, Lilith told me your situation. You need a fake girlfriend.”
Beatrice gets up. “Not another dating app, Camila. I can't…”
“No,” Lilith’s hands are on her shoulders, keeping her in place. “It’s not that.”
Camila makes a face, a wince, like it’s somehow worse than her nightmarish stint on eHarmony. “This feels vaguely familiar to when I was told I’d be taking some time away from home and ended up in a catholic boarding school.”
“Well,” Camila stops searching through her phone, apparently finding what she needed. “It’s nothing like that at all, but it might be equally as jarring. I had to break through like three security firewalls just to access this site.” She turns her phone around then for Beatrice to see the website she’s pulled up.
CAT’S CRADLE - ESCORT SERVICE
“Escorts?!” Beatrice would scoff but even a scoff feels insufficient for this absurdity. “You think I should hire an escort?”
“They pretend to be partners for other people for a living!”
Beatrice is suddenly regretting her choice in friends. “You want me to not only hire some random woman who sleeps with people for a living, but you want me to bring her back to the Dalton-Lee estates in high society London and attend a massive event filled with stodgy, uptight, wealthy upper class and…pretend we’re a couple?”
“It’s either that or go alone and show them that they were right all along and that being a lesbian means being a-lone-sbian.”
“Camila,” Lilith groans. “That was awful.”
Camila just giggles and shrugs. “Made my point though, didn’t I?”
Beatrice hates how much she made her point. Because the idea of going back alone, of showing that despite her rebellion after boarding school - the big speeches about living her own life as her own person. About loving who she wanted to love and to hell with them doesn’t carry nearly as much weight if they know that it’s been seven years of short-lived relationships and scattered hookups.
Seven years and so very little to show for it romantically.
But still, “an escort? I wouldn’t even know how to talk to someone like that.”
“They’re not aliens, Beatrice. They’re professionals. If anything, you pay for a good enough one and they’ll adjust to you.” Lilith is too good of a saleswoman. It’s a character flaw really, she is constantly putting her friends in terrible situations. Mary isn’t even here right now because Lilith convinced her to take on rock climbing because she had a crush on the girl who worked there and now they’re dating and Mary is miserable on some mountain.
Well not entirely miserable, she is falling in love and suddenly talking about marriage - but still Lilith is a monster.
“I can hardly speak to women. You remember my last date, don’t you?”
“Beatrice, she took you a nude beach, in the middle of the night.”
Beatrice can still see all of the penises from that night - there were so many. “Yes, and when she tried to convince me to take my towel off I sprained her wrist and slammed her into the sand and she almost pressed charges.”
It was a dreadful night and thank God for Camila quickly pointing out that her trying to take off Beatrice’s towel was potentially assault and grounds for Beatrice to defend herself.
Not that Beatrice was ever worried that someone named Missy who works as an "aura cleanser" could possibly have the upper hand in a fight with her.
eHarmony truly is hell on earth.
“This isn’t that, Lilith is right - these are pros and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want, but the website literally says ‘great for extended trips’.”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure they mean like…weekends at a beach resort where you never leave the room but…”
Beatrice pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to process it all. Her drink is gone, her head is spinning and for some insane reason she is actually considering it.
Is this the ideal way she wants to see her parents again? No, but the ideal way she was hoping to see them again was at their funeral - now they’re reaching out to her and at least pretending they want to fix the mess they made.
The logical part of Beatrice’s brain is screaming at her to bury all of this. To break off contact and not go back to London and never speak of it again. She spent years in therapy trying to process all of it, trying and working hard to become the person she is today.
She runs her own business, she makes good money and has friends and three different vibrators because that’s how far she’s come in accepting her sexuality. Is it really worth risking all of that just on the off chance her mom and dad might actually love her?
“How do we even do this?” She finds herself asking, forever a lost cause.
Camila claps with delight. “We’ll go to Cat's Cradle and pick out a fake girlfriend for you!”
------------------------------
Beatrice isn’t sure what she expected Cat’s Cradle to look like, but based on her limited source knowledge it mostly just looks like a bar.
A fairly over the top and quite upscale bar. There is no shortage of neon lights and speakers blasting loud music. Tables and booths scattered everywhere and there’s a dance floor under a swirling of lights and even a disco ball.
It’s packed as well, swarms of people fill every corner and all of them seem absolutely delighted to be there.
Beatrice has never found the appeal of places like this. It’s so loud and crowded, it’s hard enough to process her own thoughts, let alone start up any sort of conversation.
Still, she follows Camila inside, takes note of the effort Lilith is putting in to not touch anything and decides she’ll at least pretend this is a viable option.
Because she knows it isn’t. There’s absolutely no way she can even begin to consider taking home a sex worker back to London.
It’s not as if she has anything against people in this industry, she doesn’t. In fact, her friend Yasmine who comes by the book store works in finance and has told her before that people in this line of work are very well off when done properly.
The legality of it all is up for debate, but you will never catch Beatrice shaming someone for this. That’s not the truth of high society London however, and taking someone from here back there is just asking for trouble.
“Okay, let’s go get drinks and start asking around. This is…well it’s a bar but it’s also a strip club - but that’s in the back.” Camila knows far too much about all of this.
Lilith has a permanent scowl on her face. “Why is it so loud?” She shouts as Camila guides them both through the main club area. They move and shuffle past bodies, most of them not even bothering to move. Some of them even seem delighted when they’re bumped into.
Beatrice catches not one, but three different people making eyes at her and one of them even winks at her and Beatrice feels her face heat up so much she nearly trips over her own two feet.
Everyone here seems so…alive, so free and in the moment. It’s not something she’s ever been good at, existing in a space without conscious thought of the how and why she should or shouldn't be there.
It’s a nice idea certainly, but just being here makes her feel so out of place.
Thankfully, it seems as if Lilith is struggling just as much as she is. Though her method for dealing with the attention is scowls and threatening gestures.
Once they make it out of the pit of the main club area, they duck underneath a string of beads pretending to be a door after Camila says a few things to a large man in a muscle t-shirt and sunglasses indoors standing guard.
He lets them in, because Camila is charming and sweet and despite the fact that all of them have trained in various forms of combat, they do not look the part of anything threatening.
Despite it not even being an actual door, just a collection of colorful beads, stepping through them feels like entering another dimension. The music is quieter, the amount of people is nearly cut in half and everything is just far more relaxed.
It still has the energy of the building, with people clearly here to have fun and most of them looking for someone to spend a night or even a few hours with. There’s a palpable electricity to every single interaction Beatrice sees as they pass through. She feels so out of place, but she can't deny the way it tingles on her skin - the strangeness is almost inviting.
Their steps slow as they both follow Camila towards the bar, which looks much tamer than the big one in the main club. There is still a plethora of alcohol and drinks to choose from, none of which Beatrice has any interest in, but she can already tell they’re going to buy her one to help her relax.
Which is probably not the worst idea in the world.
“Okay, so we’ll get a drink and ease into it but…and don’t argue with me on this,” Lilith is suddenly close to her, talking over the music as they sit down at the bar. “I want you to find a girl you like and I’ll buy you a dance.”
Beatrice’s heart starts to race. “This is the strip club?”
Camila snorts out a laugh. “Duh! This whole place is built on sex, Beatrice.”
“But…it’s…I thought-”
“Look, even if we weren’t trying to find you a fake girlfriend to take back home, you needed a night like this. We…we’ve been worried about you.”
Beatrice frowns at that, because they joke and tease a lot, but the way Lilith says it this time sounds genuine, which is not at all her default tone. “I’m fine,” Beatrice says, going to her own default tone.
Camila and Lilith share yet another look, she really needs them to stop doing that. “We know about the book, Bea.”
“What…what book?”
Lilith grimaces. “The one you bought online, the one you’ve been reading instead of coming out when we invite you.”
There’s no way they know about that book. “It’s not what you think, obviously. Yes there are some smutty scenes in it but they’re crucial to the narrative and mostly I just skip over them and-”
“Oh my God that’s not what I was talking about!” Camila nearly falls off her stool in her haste to grab Beatrice by the shoulders.
Beatrice suddenly wishes a very large black hole would open up and take her. “Oh…wh - what…what book were you speaking about?”
“The big book of Egyptian history you spent an absurd amount of money on.”
“Oh,” right, of course, the big one she keeps on her coffee table that everyone can see. Not the…dammit to hell. “Well that’s…that’s just interesting knowledge and I enjoy it, it’s not-”
“Okay yeah, we need to get you a dance. Let’s get our drinks and go watch the dancers.” Lilith says, giving her a side-eyed look like Beatrice is suddenly the saddest and most pathetic human she’s ever seen.
It’s too much. “How are you so alright with this? You, of all people, hate this sort of environment.”
“Sure, but I’m also just coming out of a very beneficial relationship and am not so wound up that I nearly got into a fight with a barista over the size of my drink.”
Beatrice can feel her anger from the encounter simmering again. “I specifically asked for a medium and she had the audacity-”
“This is exactly my point!” Lilith says, her eyes wide and Beatrice realizes she was perhaps screaming a little.
Maybe she is on edge.
“Just take the night, Bea. Don’t overthink it and have fun. What could it hurt? You’re already here?”
She sighs, Camila is good at putting things into perspective. She is already here and even if she has no intentions of actually purchasing a girlfriend to bring home with her, she can at least appreciate a few beautiful women and friends who care enough to try. “Alright, let’s…let’s have a drink.”
----------------------------------
If there’s one thing Beatrice can say with certainty, this place knows how to make a drink. She’s not a huge fan of alcohol, but she has her favorites and this might be the best whiskey ginger she’s ever had and that’s more than enough to help her settle in her seat as the next dancer is about to take the stage.
The chairs are comfortable, and also pretty much full. There is an assortment of people all gathered around the stage to watch - mostly male of course, but they are also not the only women with a front row seat.
“So this place actually has dancers of all genders, it’s not specific and it’s queer friendly so there won’t be any judgment when you make an inquiry.” Camila has been on her phone while they wait, researching this quietly underground escort service with more precision than the FBI.
Lilith sits between them, halfway through her scotch already as she gets more and more comfortable. “How does all this work, anyway? Do you simply show a large stack of cash if you want to…be…escorted?”
Camila giggles, she gets very giggly when she drinks. “Not at all, this place is very tight with their transactions.” Lilith quirks a brow at Camila, who waves her off. “I’ve been reading reviews on forums and stuff, relax. You put in an inquiry and then they do a background check and make sure their workers are safe.”
She might not be considering it, but Beatrice is glad to hear that they take it seriously.
“What are the costs?” Someone asks, and it takes Beatrice at least three full seconds to realize it was her.
Camila grins at the question. “Not cheap,” she flashes the screen in her direction again and Beatrice gapes.
“Oh, wow.”
“Still affordable though, you’ve got all that ‘don’t air our dirty laundry’ trust fund money just sitting there collecting dust.” Lilith, more than anyone else, knows all the intricate details of Beatrice’s separation from her parents. She’s experienced similar treatment and detachment.
Beatrice has refused for years to spend any of that money. It’s one of the many agreements she made with herself when she removed herself from their lives permanently. Spending their money would be like giving a part of herself to them. It never sat right with her, even when she was doing a job she hated and saving as much money as she could for years in order to start her own business.
And sure, her bookstore does well but it isn’t as if she lives a lavish lifestyle. Her apartment is one bedroom, she had a full crash course on cutting coupons and living on a budget with Mary. She’s adjusted and adapted, as she has her entire adult life.
Such is the product of having to raise yourself from the age of fourteen.
When the lights start to dim, it suddenly feels like the previews of a movie have ended and the main feature is about to start. Though unlike when Camila dragged her to the Barbie movie (which turned out to be amazing), Beatrice finds herself with butterflies in her stomach.
Because she’s about to see a naked woman, and though she’s not so repressed as to clutch her pearls and shield her eyes, it has been more than a few months since the last time a pair of tits had been in front of her that weren’t on some kind of screen or monitor.
“Please put your hands together and give your warmest welcome to our first dancer of the evening, the alluring and disarming…Halo.”
A large spotlight hits the stage and Beatrice sees the elevated dancing area, complete with a single chair that looks like it was pulled from a kitchen table display at IKEA, and a pole that goes from the base all the way up to the roof.
From the tiny set of steps at the back, a figure starts to slowly walk up into the light, putting a whole life’s worth of Catholic teaching into disarray with a name like Halo in this setting.
Before she can even see her face, Beatrice realizes this woman is gorgeous. Yes, it’s perhaps objectifying, but in this environment that seems to be the currency and Halo is pulsating with sex appeal.
She isn’t in the light enough to see her face, but her body is and she’s wearing something lacey and barely there. Her chest, prominent and inviting, is on full display. Her arms are intoxicating, rounded and strong…Beatrice has a weakness for it. She also has a tight, firm stomach with muscles that cut down and disappear beneath her petite black panties with straps that go down and attach to a pair of stockings on her feet. She’s also wearing heels that click with each step she takes as the music hasn’t picked up yet.
From the other side of the stage, there is a loud round of cheers and applause as the people from the back have a different yet equally delightful view no doubt.
Beatrice glances over at her friends to see how they’re handling all of this and she sees what she expects. Lilith is hard to read, frowning a bit but clearly paying attention. Her hands gripping her drink just a little bit tighter than necessary - enough to prove that she’s enjoying this.
Meanwhile, Camila has a smile so wide she might as well be a second spotlight shining on the dancer.
It calms her a bit, the idea that she’s not here alone, and returns her attention back to the stage just in time to see the girl finally fully revealed.
Everything slows down when she sees her face - Halo is breathtaking.
She has a soft, rounded face, with a jaw that is to die for and a cute button nose. But it’s her eyes that knock the wind out of Beatrice. Black pools of something that seems so entirely endless and enchanting. She has an aura to her, a confidence as she grabs onto the pole and starts to spin around it slowly, her legs wrapping around it as her long hair flows behind her.
Beatrice’s whole body heats up as Halo moves, as she dances and somehow makes it feel like each person she looks at is the only person in the room.
When she comes off the pole, she is on her hands and knees and starts crawling in their direction.
From this angle, she can see almost entirely down the front of her bra, which isn’t covering much, and Beatrice feels herself getting aroused.
She shifts in her seat, embarrassed but unable to move and Halo isn’t even looking at her, she’s actually moving towards Camila who is digging through her purse and pulls out a crisp twenty dollar bill.
“Oh my god,” Camila breathes, holding it out and grinning from ear to ear. “You’re so sexy!” She shouts and this surprisingly makes the others around the stage cheer as well.
Halo smiles, so wide and beautiful that Beatrice feels her heart skip. It occurs to her then that she doesn’t have any cash, when Halo moves past Camila and starts to rise to her feet again. She is grateful that Halo doesn’t see her, or doesn’t seem to focus on her at least, because she thinks she might just toss her credit card onto the stage if given the chance.
---------------------------------------
Beatrice is reeling. They sat through five more dances after Halo, including three more gorgeous women and two men - all of whom were very good at their jobs, but Beatrice couldn't get those brown eyes out of her head.
So now they sit, after the show and still sipping on drinks, and she is about to do something very stupid. “Halo,” she says, not taking the chance to look over at her friends. “She…Halo was nice.”
There is silence that follows, an obnoxious and life ruining kind of silence because she feels like she’s spilled some kind of family secret.
When the silence drags on for too long, she looks up at them and finds a pair of mischievous glints in the eyes of her best friends. “Halo, huh?” Lilith says and looks back at Camila. “You want to do it or should I?”
Camila thumbs through her phone again, wiggling in her seat. “You go for it, ask for a private room, one hour.”
“What?” Beatrice feels herself grip the arm of her comfy lounge chair. “I was merely talking about if I was going to go through with this, what are you talking about?!”
Lilith looks back at her with a devilish look on her face. “We told you that we were going to help you get a better understanding of the situation. You liked Halo, so let’s give you some time to get to know her.”
Oh no, no no no. “I can't…what does that even mean?” She feels her stomach doing flips. Camila moves to the edge of her seat and reaches out to touch her knee as Lilith gets up and leaves. “Where is she going? What’s happening?”
“Relax, Bea,” Camila speaks softly, like she’s a timid baby deer they’re trying to draw out of oncoming traffic. “It’s just a dance, just a private dance to see if you might be comfortable with her, and there’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence.”
Nothing wrong with a little indulgence, she says, as if that wasn't the foundation of the way her parents drove her spirit into the ground on a daily basis. As if everything she ever loved and cared about wasn't used against her to try and break her down.
To take away the parts of her they hated.
God, she really is spiraling.
Beatrice takes a breath, knowing she’s overreacting, knowing she needs to calm down. She’s safe, Camila and Lilith have more than proven that they wouldn’t do something that might upset her.
They’re helping her, they care about her, and she simply cannot deny the urge she feels in her body to see Halo again.
“What…what am I expected to do?”
Camila smiles, which seems like a struggle within herself not to tease Beatrice. “You just have to be present, just enjoy it. It’s okay to like a pretty girl, Bea.”
Pretty seems like such an understatement for someone like Halo.
Lilith comes back entirely too quick, with a little card of some kind in her hand that she gives Beatrice when she sits down. “Room seven, we’ll be out here.”
Her throat tightens, like she might vomit, as she takes the card from Lilith and stares down at it. The logo of Cat’s Cradle on it with a few words printed on the bottom.
CAT’S CRADLE
ROOM 7
ONE HOUR(S) - PRIVATE
“Your times already started,” Lilith says, pushing her seat to spin around. “Go, doors to the back, stop and pee first if you need to.”
Beatrice stands up without thinking, knowing she won’t stop at the bathroom because if she does she might either throw up or run away.
Instead, she lets her feet carry her, clutching onto the card as if it’s her own personal ticket to heaven.
The music fades even more as she steps through an actual set of double doors with not one, but three guards nearby and all of them looking far more dangerous than the one out front.
One woman in particular isn’t wearing sleeves and her arms are so thick Beatrice is certain she could crush various forms of melon in them if she flexed hard enough.
She makes her way through, showing the card to one of them when they stop and question her. He smiles then, nodding before pointing her in the direction to go.
The hallway is lit with pink and purple neon lights, with glowing signs featuring various phrases and words, bright red glowing lips and a giant Crown Royal sign glowing like a beacon.
How is any of this real? How is she here? She has to wake up soon, right? This can't be real.
Except she finds room seven and when she opens the door to step inside she doesn’t magically wake up in her own bed drenched in sweat.
No, instead she sees a couch that goes around the back end of the tiny, isolated room, and now dressed in a light, sheer long coat and her dancing lingerie still on underneath it. “Are you Beatrice?”
She freezes in the entryway, suddenly having a voice to match the face is terrifying. “Yes, I’m me.” She sighs. “That’s me.”
Halo grins and shifts her legs off the couch. “Would you like to sit?”
“Yes,” Beatrice says but makes no move to do that. “I may also just pass out.”
Halo laughs and oh heaven help her it’s everything. “Your friend told me you might be a bit timid, but that’s okay - we’ve got time.” Halo gets up then and the sheer falls down across her legs, bare and smooth. It’s open at her breasts, putting them on full display. “We should start by getting you out of that jacket, if you’re okay with a little touching?”
She isn’t normally. In fact, Beatrice hates having to make any sort of physical contact with strangers, but as Halo approaches her and she smells the scent of vanilla and something else uniquely Halo, her consistency falters. “Touching is fine.”
The smile this earns her makes her heart race. “Good,” Halo is right in front of her now, those eyes so close she can actually see the brown in them, instead of the black pools they seemed to be at a distance. This woman is gorgeous. “You’re really hot, Bea. I bet you hear that all the time.” Halo says as she pushes her hands across Beatrice’s shoulders, underneath her coat and then drags it down her arms.
She wore a short sleeved shirt today, button down with stripes - she thinks it’s probably not the most attractive look she could have worn into a place like this.
“It’s less likely than you think.”
“Sounds like you’re not spending time with the right people.” Halo lets the coat fall to the floor and runs her strong, warm hands up and down Beatrice’s arms. “You’ve got goosebumps,” Halo says, so close Beatrice can feel her breath on her cheeks.
“I’m nervous,” she says. “I - I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Halo nods and then takes both of her hands and moves them towards the couch. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
With just the slightest bit of pressure, Halo gets Beatrice to sit down and follows gently beside her. “What exactly was I signed up for?” Beatrice asks, feeling comfortable enough to ask. She thinks Halo seems the type to be okay with questions.
Her following laugh confirms it. “An hour of my time, private. I can dance for you, I can grind on you, there’s no touching without my permission and you can dictate how much clothing you want me to have on.”
“Oh,” Beatrice says lamely. “So if I asked you to put on a winter coat?” She wants to fling herself off of a bridge.
But then Halo laughs, throwing her head back and exposing her neck. “If you have one in your back pocket then sure, but usually it goes the other way around.”
“Of course,” Beatrice sighs. “You’re incredibly attractive, I imagine you could pull off a winter coat just fine but why that when…” Beatrice looks down at her then, eyes aimed directly at her chest for far too long before she looks into her eyes again.
“You want to see them?”
Yes, Beatrice is going to faint. “I…I do,” she does. God she does.
“You want to let them out?”
Beatrice’s eyes go so wide she fears they may fall out. “What?”
Halo shrugs. “Touching is my choice, if I feel comfortable with it, then it’s allowed. I think I want to see if your hands feel as nice as they look.”
Something about the way she says it stirs a warm, protective feeling in her chest. She thinks of the countless people who have come through here and have probably seen Halo dance. Who have been as enticed as she was and found their way back here.
She thinks about how some of them probably went too far or took this all for granted. Who didn’t respect her or appreciate her or really take the time to look at her.
She thinks that being seen as something safe is special. It’s what pushes her to move.
So she reaches out then, pressing the tips of her first two fingers against Halo sternum and dragging them down her skin.
Halo gasps at the contact, her eyes widening as she watches Beatrice push her bra down and then unsnap it in the front.
Her breasts spill out of it, looking even better up close despite the darker light. Beatrice drags her eyes down Halo’s neck and collarbone, fighting the urge she has to lean over and kiss her down her body.
This is not that, this is not sexual - she can only look and study - she’s lost enough as it is.
With her breasts out, Halo moves and swings her leg over Beatrice’s and straddles her. She presses her hands on her shoulders and holds her against the cushions. Her long, dark hair spills over her shoulders. “Your fingers are rough,” she says. “I like it.”
Beatrice nods. “I do woodwork.” She blurts out, feeling like an absolute caveperson.
Halo grins. “Of course you do,” that’s when she feels Halo grind her hips down against her. “Can I dance for you?”
The way she says it, the way her voice gives out, Beatrice can't help but feel like Halo is slipping just as much as Beatrice is.
She wants to believe it, but Lilith and Camila have both mentioned how professional this place is, how escorts have a way of pretending to be exactly what their clients need.
That has to be what this is. It’s an act, she knows that. She understands it.
For one night, Beatrice decides to let herself give into it. “Yes,” she breathes and Halo smiles again before leaning forward and pressing her breasts into Beatrice’s face.
They’re so warm and soft and she has to grip her pants with both hands to keep them from reaching up and wrapping around Halo’s shoulders to keep her there.
Her body is trembling when Halo is finally on her feet, pushing the little table in the room with two ashtrays and cupholders in it away to give herself room.
Halo’s dance is even more desirable up close. It’s not as coordinated as might be expected, like it isn’t entirely natural to her. Somehow though, that makes it even more attractive.
When the sheer coat comes off and the full display of her skin is set free, Beatrice squirms in her seat. Halo is so sexy, she has a body built with muscle and yet still maintains curves, she radiates something Beatrice can't even put into words.
As she pulls her bra off entirely, she steps forward and lays the cups of it on Beatrice’s shoulder and laughs a bit at her own actions.
Beatrice pulls it down, holding it in her hands and taking in the warmth as she watches Halo turn around then, giving Beatrice a clear view of her ass - only covered by a barely there pair of panties.
Her eyes trace up, taking in the faint scarring on her lower back that wasn't noticeable when she was on stage. They’re old scars, but prominent and telling.
Halo has a story, everyone does - Beatrice thinks it’s silly how much she wants to know hers. She doesn’t even know this girl’s real name.
After a few minutes of dancing, Halo climbs back on top of her again, grinding once more. “Touch me,” Halo grabs Beatrice’s wrists and moves them, pressing Beatrice’s palms onto her butt. “Guide me, Bea. Pretend You’re fucking me, how would you want me to ride you?”
She does, her better judgment is gone now and she pulls Halo’s hips forward and starts to move her back and forth.
It all comes apart then, Halo throws her head back and lets out a moan - it’s all for show she’s certain, but Beatrice lets herself get lost in it. She let’s herself surrender.
She’s going to dip into the trust fund for the first time, if Halo agrees.
She’s going to show up at this wedding with the most attractive woman she’s ever seen.
There’s a very good chance she ruins everything she’s spent years building in the process.
But when Halo locks eyes with her as she grinds on top of her, Beatrice couldn't care less.