Try cleaning up the marks from last night.

The water in the shower had run hot and cold, then only hot, until the small bathroom was completely steamed up, drowning out any sound that might escape her lips. Magi scrubbed herself with the sponge until her skin stung, reddening under the rough friction. She used a strong soap, with an antiseptic smell that had nothing to do with the sweet perfumes of the club, rubbing herself over and over, especially where the fingers of Adrian and the other men had rested their hands, where the black lace had bitten her skin.

But no matter how much she scrubbed, the feeling of dirtiness would not leave. It wasn't physical grime; it was a deeper stain, a moral grease that had adhered to her soul. As she stepped out of the shower, the steam dispersed, revealing her reflection in the misted mirror. A stranger looked back at her. Eyes too large in a pale face, framed by dark, wet strands of hair. And her skin, though reddened and clean, still seemed to carry the memory of the stares, the hands, the black dress, and the obscene lingerie.

She wrapped herself in a rough towel and moved into the room. There, on the floor, lay the dress. A puddle of wrinkled silk and sweat that seemed to contain the very essence of the night. And next to the bed, on the nightstand, was Adrian's white card. Strategic Investments. The words felt obscene. He didn't invest in business; he invested in people, in degradation, in silences.

She collapsed onto the bed, feeling the roughness of the towel against her sensitive skin. She closed her eyes, but the images immediately flooded back, sharp and cruel: the blinding spotlight, the weight of the gazes, the sound of the zipper giving way, the feeling of the cold air on her nearly naked skin before a crowd of strangers, the expression of satisfied lust on Adrian's face.

A sudden nausea made her sit up. She suppressed the gag, breathing deeply. She felt... different. As if the Magi who had entered Ébano was not the same one who had left. Something had broken, something had been added: a layer of cynicism, of dirty knowledge of the world and of herself that she hadn't asked for.

She had obeyed Costa. She had done what she was ordered to do. She had been "useful." But utility had a bitter, metallic taste, like the blood from a self-inflicted wound. She wondered if any cadet, any agent, had had to pay such a price before. And she wondered, with a shiver of horror, if Costa even cared. The Warrant Officer's voice in the micro, cold and calculating, giving her orders as she stripped on a stage... that was the most sickening memory of all. There was no compassion, not even tactical concern for her well-being. Only the pure, hard calculation of profit over person.

And then there was Adrian. His touch, his innuendos, the card that was now like a poisoned snake on her nightstand. She felt trapped between two fires: Costa's cold ambition and Adrian's possessive lust. Both saw her as an instrument, a means to an end.

She got up and picked up the card. She tore it in half, then into quarters, and finally into pieces so small they were barely recognizable. She dropped them into the trash, over the remnants of the dress. A symbolic, useless act. She knew Adrian wasn't the type of man who gave up easily. And she knew Costa would expect her to use that contact, to extract more profit.

She looked at her hands. They no longer trembled. There was a new weight in them, a heaviness that wasn't there before. They were the hands of someone who had done things she had never imagined doing. They were no longer the hands of a student turning book pages; they were the hands of a woman who had stripped naked for a crowd by superior order.

The night was over, but the mission, she knew, was not. The mission was her now. Her body, her mind, her will, all had been recruited, molded, and used. And as she lay down, surrounded by the gloom of her small apartment, Magi felt no relief at having survived. She felt the cold emptiness of one who knows she has crossed a line from which there is no return, and that the person she was before was fading, replaced by another, harder, more fragile, and terribly alone, clothed in a skin that no longer felt entirely her own.