Stage

"Tomorrow at seven," he said. "Washed. Clean. And the cage stays closed."

"Yes, master."

.

My room was on the second floor, at the end of the hallway from the first grade. It wasn't really my room anymore. It was the place where I slept between classes, between men, between plugs. But the bed was soft, and the sheets were clean, and for a few hours I could close my eyes and think about nothing.

I fell asleep with my hand on my shoulder blade, as if I could shield the fresh tattoo from the world.

Morning came too early. A hand shook my shoulder, and when I opened my eyes, I saw one of Madame Vivienne's assistants—a thin, silent woman who had never spoken to me—standing beside the bed with a black plastic bag in her hand.

"Shower. Then get dressed. Madame will be waiting for you in the great hall in an hour."

I didn't ask anything. I'd learned that questions were useless. I grabbed the bag and went to the bathroom.

I opened the bag. Women's lingerie I'd never worn before.

A short, black, shiny apron. Hold-ups with a silicone strap. A pair of high, black stilettos, shiny as night. And nothing else. No panties. No bra. No skirt.

I got dressed with shaking hands. The apron barely reached my cage, and every time I moved, I felt the air on my exposed skin. The stockings rode up my thighs with a rustling sound that gave me goosebumps. The heels made my figure look slimmer, my ass seems higher and firmer. When I walk, I have to keep my balance: my hips tilt forward, my back arched, and

Suddenly my body took on a shape that had never been mine.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The pink collar shone against the pale skin of my throat. The empty tag hung above my bare chest. The silver cage was visible just below the hem of my apron, and the plug—the one I'd been wearing for days now—pressed against the walls of my ass with every step. I feel sexy and inviting. I feel like a slut.

I looked like a whore. I looked exactly like what I had become.

When I entered the great hall, Madame Vivienne was standing at the front of the line of students. There were five of them, I counted. Five kids like me, dressed like me, with heels and aprons and collars around their necks. Some had long hair, some short. Some wore makeup, some didn't. But they all had the same expression: that of someone who has stopped struggling and started waiting.

Madame Vivienne turned to me as I approached. Her black suit was impeccable as ever, her platinum hair pulled back in a severe bun, her gray eyes swiping over me like a blade.

“Come closer, Lorenzo.”

I took two steps forward. My heels clicked on the marble floor, and I felt the eyes of the other students on me, on my thighs, on my bare chest, on the fresh tattoo visible beneath the gauze.

«Turn around.»

I turned around. My shoulder blade was throbbing. I felt his cold fingers on the gauze, lifting it slightly to look underneath.

"Good," he said. "The work is clean. In a week, the gauze won't be needed anymore."

She dropped the gauze and turned me back to her. The unlit black cigar hung from her fingers like an extension of her arm.

"Today begins your week of internships," he said. "You and four other students will be sent to school-affiliated establishments. Clubs. Bars. Discos. You'll serve customers. You'll be at their disposal. The manager of each establishment will give you assignments. He'll compile an evaluation for each of you, and that evaluation will count towards your final score."

He stopped. He looked me in the eyes.

"Don't disappoint me, Lorenzo. Your name tag depends on how you behave this week."

"Yes, Madame."

"Your place is the Club Nero, downtown. The manager's name is Karim. You'll do what he tells you. Whatever he tells you."

"Yes, Madame."

Madame Vivienne raised her hand, and the thin assistant who had woken me approached with a tray. On the tray were five identical black boxes. Madame took one and handed it to me.

"Open."

I opened it. Inside were two small, silver ace of spades pendants, each with a thin pin ending in a small ball. I didn't immediately understand what they were. Then Madame Vivienne looked at my chest, and I understood.

"Your nipples," she said. "You already pierced them yesterday, along with your tongue and navel. Now you wear them. Always. They're your mark of belonging. Anyone who sees you will know what you are."

He took a pendant from my fingers and moved closer. I smelled his perfume, something spicy and cold, and then his fingers on my right nipple, pinching it, tugging, and inserting the stud through the hole the tattoo artist had made yesterday. The pang made me flinch, but I didn't move. Madame Vivienne didn't look up.

«The other.»

I handed her the second pendant. Same thing, same pain, same choking gasp. When she was finished, she pulled back and looked at me like a newly hung painting.

"You're complete now," he said. "Tongue, ears, nipples, belly button. Your body is a map of the school. Anyone who reads it will know exactly who you belong to."

I touched the pendant with my fingers. The ace of spades, signifying my total submission to the BBC, was cold, and the stud tugged at my skin with every breath. I felt the weight of the metal, the way it shifted when I moved, and I knew I'd never take it off again.

Madame Vivienne returned to the group of students. "The bus leaves in half an hour. You're all expected at your offices by ten o'clock. The rules are the same for everyone: total obedience, total availability, total silence. If a customer asks you something, you do it. If a manager gives you an order, you carry it out. If anyone asks your name, say you don't have one yet. Because that's the truth."

The other students nodded. I nodded with them. The golden tag tapped my collarbone.

The van was a black van with no windows in the back. We climbed in one at a time, five kids in heels and pinafores, and sat on the wooden benches along the sides. No one spoke. The engine started, and the van moved off into the gray city dawn.

I looked out the front window, the only one that wasn't tinted. The streets were still almost empty. A few cars, a few passersby, a bar rolling up its shutters. Normal people starting a normal day. People who didn't know that a few meters away, in a black van, were five young men dressed as women, with pierced nipples and chastity cages between their legs, heading towards their new masters.

The Black Club was on a side street, between a warehouse and a phone shop. The sign was off, but the door was open. I got out of the van with the others, and for a moment we all stood on the sidewalk, our heels digging into the cracks in the asphalt, the morning chill sending shivers down my bare thighs.

A man appeared in the doorway. Tall, thin, dark-skinned, with short black hair. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark jeans. He wasn't smiling.

"Are you guys from school?" he asked. His voice was low, calm, with an accent I couldn't place.

“Yes,” I replied, before the others could speak.

The man looked at me. His eyes swept over me, from my pink neck to my dangling nipples, from my apron to my stockings to my heels. He stopped at the gauze on my shoulder blade, and something flashed across his face, something that wasn't disgust or desire, but a kind of professional assessment.

"I'm Karim," he said. "The director. Come in."

The place was dark, and it smelled of stale beer and disinfectant. Karim turned on the bar lights, and I saw it was a normal place, a club like many others, with wooden tables and leather chairs and a stage at the back. There was nothing unusual about it. Nothing threatening. Just an empty place, at dawn, with a man looking at us like one might look at work tools.

"So," said Karim, leaning against the counter. "Black Club Rules."

He took a cigarette from the pack, lit it, and inhaled. The smoke came out of his nose in two thin wisps.

"One: you are at the customers' disposal. Not the customers you choose. The customers I choose. If I tell you to go with a man, you go. If I tell you to kneel behind the counter, you go. If I tell you nothing, you do nothing."

Two: None of you speak to customers except to answer them. If a customer asks you something, you answer. If a customer asks you to do something, you do it. If a customer asks your name, say you don't have one.

"Three: None of you touch the cage. None of you touch the plug. If a client wants to use, he uses you as you are. If the plug comes out, you put it in. If the cage bothers you, you keep it."

Four: At the end of each service, come to me. Tell me what you did, who you did it with, and how much you earned. I'll write it all down. The school wants numbers.

He stopped. He looked at me.

"You're the new one, right? The one with the fresh tattoos."

"Yes."

"What is your name?"

«Lorenzo »

I opened my mouth. Then closed it again. The empty tag thumped against my collarbone.

“I don’t have the new name yet,” I said.

Karim nodded slowly. He took a drag on his cigarette, and the smoke escaped from his mouth in a cloud that dissolved against the light from the counter.

"Good," he said. "Then I'll call you whatever I want, until you have one of your own. And tonight, when the customers start arriving, you'll be the first one down. I want to see what you're capable of."

"The others can go to the back room," he said. "You stay here. I want to watch you while you wait."

The other four students disappeared behind a door at the back of the room. I remained standing at the counter, my heels hurting my feet, my apron constricting my buttocks, my nipple pendants pulling with every breath. Karim sat on a stool and looked at me.

“Turn around,” he said.

I turned around. I felt his eyes on my back, on the gauze on my shoulder blade, on my stockings, on my heels.

“Walk,” he said. “All the way to the end of the room and come back.”

I walked. My heels clicked on the wooden floor, and every step made me feel the plug inside me, pressing, moving, reminding me that my body was no longer mine. I reached the back of the room, the empty stage, and turned around. Karim was still sitting on the stool, motionless, the unlit cigarette between his fingers.

"Come back," he said.

I returned. When I was in front of him, he looked me up and down, slowly.

"You're not bad," he said. "Your legs are good. Your ass is good. Your face is good. But something's wrong."

He stood up. He came closer. I smelled his scent, tobacco and soap, and then his hand cupping my chin and lifting my face.

"You're scared," he said. "It shows. In your eyes. In your shoulders. In the way you stand. Fear is no good in a place like this. Customers don't want fear. They want devotion."

He let go of my chin. He took a step back.

"But you learn," he said. "Everyone learns. I learned, too, once."

He returned to the stool. He lit another cigarette.

"Now stand there," he said. "Stand still. And wait. The doors open in two hours, and at nine-thirty the first customer arrives. A man who comes here every Tuesday morning. He likes new guys. He likes guys with fresh tattoos. He likes you."

I remained standing. My legs were starting to hurt, my heels were cutting into my feet, and the plug was pressing inside me with every breath. Karim was smoking and watching me. The place was quiet, except for the hum of the refrigerator behind the counter and the distant sound of traffic starting to pick up.

I looked at the clock above the counter. Seven thirty.

Two hours.

I felt the golden tag tap on my collarbone, once, twice, like a small metal heart waiting to be filled.

Karim rose from his stool and crushed his cigarette butt in the ashtray. He didn't look at me. He picked up the remote from the counter and pointed it toward the back of the room.

The stage lights came on one by one, from the center outward. First a white circle on the wood, then two, then four, until the entire stage was illuminated and the rest of the room remained in darkness, as if the world had shrunk to that surface of polished boards and my feet resting on them.

“Come up,” he said.

I climbed the three steps. My heels sank into the wood, and each step echoed in the empty room. I stopped in the center, under the brightest light, and felt the heat of the lamps on my head, my shoulders, my thighs.

Karim remained down below, in front of the stage, his arms folded.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

"All?"

"All."

My fingers reached for the first pendant. I unhooked it, and my nipple burned for a second, as if the cold air had bitten it. I did the same with the second. I placed the two rings on the edge of the stage, side by side, and the metal clinked on the wood.

"Easy," Karim said. "I'm in no hurry. I want to see you."

I took off my apron first, as I'd been taught. My fingers behind my back, the clasp opening, the fabric slipping off my buttocks. I placed it next to the pendants. The plug, inside me, made itself felt all at once, now that there was nothing left to hold it.

"Continues."

The hold-ups. I sat on the edge of the stage, my legs toward Karim, and unrolled the first one from thigh to knee, calf, to foot. The black silk wrinkled between my fingers like dead skin. I put it on. I did the second one. I unlaced my heels standing up, leaning on the platform with one hand, and lined them up with the rest, the toes pointing toward the audience that wasn't there.

I was left with the pink collar, the cage, the plug, the tattoos. Nothing else.

Karim stepped onto the stage. He walked slowly around me, his shoes tapping on the same wood I had tapped. He stopped behind me. I felt his breath on the back of my neck.

“Turn around,” he said.

I turned around. He looked down at me, his eyes trailing from my neck to my chest, to the black letters that ran across my sternum, to my belly, my cage, my thighs. He lingered on the small writing inside, and something passed over his mouth, a barely perceptible movement.

"I LOVE BBC," he read slowly. "They spelled it well."

"Yes."

"And you think so?"

"Yes."

“It’s not enough to just say it.” He stepped back and pointed to the center of the stage. “On your knees.”

I knelt. The wood was hard under my kneecaps, and the plug, in that position, pressed inward, a presence I couldn't ignore. Karim's hands grabbed my hair and lifted my face.

"Look ahead," he said. "Don't look at me. Look at the room. That's the room where the men who will use you will be tonight. I want you to look at it now, empty, and learn to stand here as if it were full."

I looked around the room. The wooden tables, the leather chairs, the darkness beyond the circle of light. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, a truck passed, and the floor vibrated slightly.

“Now open your mouth,” Karim said.

I opened it. He slowly inserted two fingers inside me and made me suck them like a cock. My lips closed around his knuckles, my tongue ran up my palm, and he said nothing for a whole minute, letting me work on those two fingers as if they were the most important thing in the world.

"Good," he said, and took them out. He wiped them on my cheek. "You know how to use your mouth. But your mouth isn't the problem."

He crouched down in front of me and looked me closely in the eye.

"The problem is, you're still here," he said. "In your head. You're here thinking about what they did to you yesterday, what they'll do to you tomorrow, the name you don't have. You're not in the room. And the customers sense it when you're not in the room. They sense it right away."

He stood up. He went to the edge of the stage, picked up something I didn't see, and returned. It was a thin chain with a nipple clamp at the end. He dangled it in front of my face.

"I saw your holes," he said. "You made them recently. They're still tender."

"Yes."

"Then we keep them awake."

He applied the clamps, one on each nipple, gently, and the squeeze came after a second, a burning sensation that spread through my chest like a warm wave. The chain hung between the two, and every time I breathed, it swayed and pulled a little tighter.

"Now get down on all fours," Karim said. "Facing the room."

I got down on all fours. My hands spread on the wood, my knees spread, my back arched as I'd been taught. The plug was pushing outward, and I felt my body holding it, my muscles holding it in even without the apron.

Karim walked around me. He stopped behind me, and I felt his warm hand on my buttock, opening me a little wider.

"The plug's still in," he said. "Good. Who put it in?"

"Madame Vivienne."

"And he told you to keep it?"

"Yes."

«Even now?»

"Yes."

"What if I take it away from you?"

I didn't answer. His hand closed around the base of the plug and he pulled it slowly, and I felt my body give way, open, let go. The emptiness came immediately afterward, a pulsating emptiness. Karim held the plug in his hand, in front of me, and rolled it between his fingers.

"Look how big it is," he said. "And it fit all over you. You're further along than you think."

He placed it on the edge of the stage, next to the pendants and stockings. Then his hand returned to me, two fingers, saliva-free, pressing against my hole and entering. I didn't scream. I gritted my teeth and let them enter, and the fingers moved inside me as if searching for something.

“Squeeze,” he said. “Let me feel how tight you are.”

I squeezed. He laughed, a short, unhurt laugh.

"All right," he said. "They've prepared you well."

He pulled out his fingers. He wiped them on my hips. Then he grabbed my chain and pulled me up, and the burning sensation in my nipples made me straighten up abruptly.

"Stand up," he said. "And now walk. On the stage. Back and forth. As if the house were full."

I stood up. The chain dangled between my nipples and tugged with every step. I walked toward the edge of the stage, into the darkness, and stood there, my bare feet on the wood, the light shining on my back.

"Stop," Karim said. "Turn toward the room. And open your arms."

I opened my arms. The chain tightened between my nipples, and the burning sensation rose to my shoulders. I lay there, exposed, under the light, in front of empty tables and empty chairs.

Karim remained silent for a time I couldn't measure. Then I heard his footsteps approaching, and his voice came from behind, low.

"I'm going to tell you something," he said. "And you listen."

"Yes."

"Tonight, when the first customer arrives, you don't think about what they did to you. You don't think about the name. You don't think about Madame Vivienne. You think about him. About what he wants. How you'll give it to him. The rest doesn't exist. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Repeat."

"I think about him. About what he wants. About how I'll give it to him."

"And the rest?"

«The rest doesn't exist.»

Karim placed a hand on the back of my neck and held me there, still with my arms open and the chain tugging. I felt his thumb pressing on the vertebra at the base of my neck.

"Good," he said. "Now you've earned your place."

He let go of the back of my neck. He took a step back. I felt him reach for the edge of the stage and pick up something—I didn't see it, his arms still outstretched and his face toward the darkness.

"You can close your arms," ​​he said. "And get dressed."

I lowered my arms. My nipples throbbed, and the chain, when loosened, dangled against my sternum and the black letters. I turned. Karim was standing in front of me, the plug in one hand and the pendants in the other.

"You put the plug back on," she said. "The apron too. The stockings, the heels, everything. And when you're done, come down and come to the counter. I'll give you something to do while you wait."

I took the plug. I held it in my hand for a second, feeling its weight, its width. Then I knelt on the stage, spread my ass cheeks with one hand, and pushed it in, slowly, and my body took it back as if it had never left. A sigh escaped my chest, and I couldn't hold it back.

Karim watched me do it. He didn't say anything. He waited for me to finish, for me to put on the charms, for me to put on the stockings one leg at a time, for me to lace up my heels. He waited for it all, silently, with his arms folded, as if he were watching an apprentice assemble a piece of furniture.

When I was finished, I stood on the stage, fully clothed again, and I felt as if I'd just been dismantled and reassembled, with something inside that hadn't been there before. The apron was tight around my buttocks. The chain was gone, but my nipples were still there.

"Come down," said Karim.

I descended the three steps. My legs were shaking, just a little, and I felt it as I put my foot down on the floor—a tremor that wasn't fear, or not just fear. Karim was already at the counter, his back to me, lighting a cigarette.

“Come here,” he said, without turning around.

I approached. He turned, looked me up and down one last time, and nodded.

"You're ready," he said. "You can go downstairs."

There was no one in the room. Only the empty tables and the darkness beyond the ring of light from the bar. But he told us to go down, and I went down—to the center of the room, toward the stage I'd just left, my legs still shaking and my plug moving with every step.

Behind me, Karim puffs on his cigarette. The smoke wafts up to me, tobacco and soap, mingling with the smell of wood and disinfectant.

"Nine-thirty," he said. "Two hours to go. In the meantime, get to know the place. Touch the tables. Sit on the chairs. Watch the stage from outside. I want you to already know where you are when the first customer arrives."

I took a step toward the first table. The wood was cold under my fingers. I sat down on a leather chair, and the leather creaked. I looked out at the stage from there, brightly lit, empty, and thought about how I'd be up there later, with someone in front of me.

Karim was smoking behind the counter and wouldn't take his eyes off me.