She reveals her plan

Mia sits down next to Adam.

She does not rush it. She takes his hand, puts it on her thigh like a reminder of who is sitting where, and looks at Lana the way she looked at her last night: as a problem she has already decided how to use.

“All right,” she says.

Lana goes still.

“You want another night. Fine. You don’t get to knock on this door and ask for my husband because you woke up empty. You earn it.”

Adam turns his head. Mia doesn’t look at him yet.

“You will bring us a new girl,” she says. “Not a maybe. Not a friend who thinks this is a joke. A woman who knows exactly what she is walking into. She knows I am his wife. She knows I will be in the room. She knows he is going to fuck her. She knows she leaves in the morning. Nothing illegal. No pressure that turns into a mess. No lies about what this is. If she is not fully aware, she does not come here.”

Lana’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“There is no dinner,” Mia continues. “That was yours because I named you. The next one doesn’t get courtship. You drop her at our door. She gets the night you got after the door closed. Sex. My rules. My chair. His cock. In the morning, you pick her up and you take her home. That part is your job. You are the delivery and the cleanup.”

Adam’s hand tightens on Mia’s thigh.

“If you do that,” Mia says, “and we like her — if she takes it, if she doesn’t make it ugly, if I like watching him have her — then you get another turn. Not instead of her. After. You bring a girl, we use her, and if I’m satisfied, you get put back on his cock. That’s the trade.”

Lana stares.

“You can do it as long as you want,” Mia says. “Every new girl is a token. No girl, no turn. You don’t get to collect nights in advance. You don’t get to sleep here because you miss him. You work for it.”

The living room feels smaller.

Lana and Adam both look at Mia with the same stunned expression, like she just moved a piece neither of them had seen on the board.

Adam finds his voice first, and it is only her name.

“Mia.”

She still doesn’t look away from Lana.

“I asked him last night who he wanted next,” she says, almost mildly. “Then you showed up and offered yourself as the easy option. This is the version I actually want. You stay useful. He stays mine. I keep watching. And you only get him when you have paid for it with someone else.”

Lana’s hands are locked in her lap. Her face is hot. The speech she walked in with is suddenly a smaller thing than the door Mia just opened.

Mia leans forward a little.

“So,” she says. “Are you up for it?”