Point to your usual club

I balance using her strength, my free hand pointing toward my usual club. Through my research, I’ve discovered they have a much more lenient policy toward the Slavecoded. Instead of chaining us to posts outside like most places do, slaves are allowed inside to dance in separate areas.

“It’s your lucky day. Me too.” She laughs, then turns to the crowd. “Enough!”

Those who know the game scatter at once, recognizing the subtle gleam of her jewelry and what it means. The tourists and off-world visitors catch on quickly and melt away. She has no idea that I’m far richer, far more powerful than she could ever guess. For now, though, that truth stays locked behind my mask.

She lifts me by the collar and pulls me toward the entrance, guiding my stumbling steps just enough that I don’t collapse.

To my surprise, she marches straight to the front of the line. The bouncer gives me the usual slow once-over I’ve come to expect here, then nods. She leans in close, her breath warm against the edge of my mask. “I’m going to make this a night you’ll remember.”

Curiosity prickles under my skin. I follow her inside.

The music hits me like a wave I actually like—deep, pulsing, alive. It thrums through my chest, tempting me to move, if only these impossible shoes let me keep my balance. Normally I’d queue for hours just to reach the main floor, but tonight she steers me past it entirely, toward a discreet entrance I’ve never noticed before. We step into an elevator. She presses ‘3.’ Through the glass wall I watch the club fall away beneath us as we rise to the mezzanine.

The doors slide open and the bass floods in. A waitress in a lilac slavesuit—cut even more daringly than mine, nothing at all above the plunging neckline—smiles and leads us to a low table that’s clearly been set up in a hurry.

“Been up here before?”

Yes, actually—though always in normal clothes, never like this, I think. All she sees is the blank, reflective surface of my mask staring back.

She doesn’t wait for an answer she knows won’t come. “Didn’t think so. I’ve granted you the rare privilege of the mezzanine, pet. Privileges have prices.” Her gaze drifts downward, lingering. “And without your mouth… I’ll have to find another use for you.”

She gestures toward a spherical metal cage suspended from the ceiling, its base hovering only an inch above the floor. I’ve watched these before—swaying high above the crowd, beautiful bodies twisting inside them to the rhythm. I’ve fantasized about being locked in one, helpless and on display, but never imagined it would actually happen.

I glance between the cage and her.

“Get in.”

A holo-display flickers to life above it:

MEZZANINE DANCE-OFF – LAST SLOT

3 songs to win

“Beat the other two cages and I triple my credits. Lose, and you stay on display until the lights come up at dawn. I’ll be out a considerable sum… and I’ll expect you to earn every credit back for me.”

A muffled, panicked sound escapes my throat—Mm?!—but the mask swallows it. Staying here all night, exposed like that, isn’t part of any plan I had.

I hesitate for only a heartbeat. My breath fogs the inside of the laminate, coming shallow and hot. Her eyes bore into me, glittering with the easy confidence of someone born into the planet’s rigid hierarchies. She truly believes I’m beneath her. And right now, in every way that matters to the world watching us, I am.

“I said get in.” Her voice drops, velvet over steel. “Or shall I call a Truant Officer, ****?”

There’s no real choice.

I rise, legs trembling as the rigid en pointe footwear forces my calves into burning tension, every muscle straining to hold me upright while I stare anxiously between her, the open cage, and the distant exit.