by Kendra Mase
Emile glanced slowly at the brown paper and then back to her niece.
Pausing, Katherine felt her stomach drop. Did she do something wrong? “Is everything all right?”
The silence rang for a long moment as Emilie opened her mouth, and suddenly Katherine prepared for the worst. Those were serious eyes on her, but slowly they softened. “It’s nothing. The doctor just said I needed to rest.”
“Oh.” Katherine took a deep breath, still waiting for more. “Good.”
“No pick-me-up needed. I’m fine.”
“That’s good. Then a celebratory pastry? A little sugar never hurts.”
“I’m fine, Katherine.” Her aunt enunciated each word as she pushed herself to sit up against the headboard.
Looking around the space, Katherine tried to note if anything was out of place. If her aunt had gotten a phone call minutes ago with bad news or she accidentally spilled her water over the sheets, but nothing.
Raising her eyebrows, she looked back down to the pain au delicious she bought for them. She ripped it in half with her fingers. The sweet filling seeped out onto her knuckles.
“So you’ve said. This is your half.” Katherine pointed to the piece farthest away from her as Emilie’s legs shifted under the comforter. “You know, I have been meaning to talk to you about the store too. I had been waiting, but it’s been a good day and I thought that maybe we could talk about my ideas again. I know my way around and things are running smoothly. We could talk about the idea of expanding to a digital shop platform.”
“Kit.”
“I know that you already said that you didn’t want to think about it right now, but that was months ago when I first thought of it. I have more ideas now. It would be a cinch.”
The shop doesn’t need to go digital.”
“Well, it doesn’t need to, but the sales do. Though we are doing fine—”
“My sales have always been fine here at the shop.”
“Of course, but I just meant that you don’t have to maintain the shop on the big buyers who come in and spend a lot in one sitting occasionally. There is a huge market for pretty simple underpinnings online that makes a woman feel beautiful. Just today, the girl you made the nightgown for, it was a gift for a friend I am pretty sure had always felt too ashamed to approach a shop like ours.” Especially when some people liked to call it a sex shop.
Emilie looked to the left as she gnawed on her lip. “There is nothing to be ashamed of in our shop.”
“I know there isn’t, but some people—”
“But some people what?”
“Some people like to be bombarded with something before they believe it. Even if we start on social media channels first, grow an online following for more orders outside our regulars and Rosin’s costume fixes. They haven’t ordered anything new outside the occasional re-sequin fiasco or costume one of the dancers paid for out of pocket in a long while. There are other people who would and just don’t know it yet.” Katherine hadn’t known it, at least not to the full extent, until she got to the shop in Ashton and discovered how much she loved seeing the way different types of silk and lace looked against her skin and cupped her chest even when no one else was ever going to see them, she thought.
Ripping off a piece of the croissant, Katherine laid the flaky coating on her tongue. She talked around it. She hadn’t eaten all day, too focused on that dang corset she still needed to get back to. “Then we can get the online shop up and running. I already started on the design. It is basically done save for a name and pictures—”
“The store doesn’t need your ideas or to be taken to the next level right now, Kit! You have no fucking clue what I’ve done to make this place what it is.”
Sweetness never tasted so bitter as the filling slipped past her lips and froze there on her tongue. She swallowed the bite she must’ve put into her mouth without thinking, all that time for the past few minutes where she hadn’t been thinking.
“No, I guess not.”
Emilie put the heels of her hands to her eyes.
“You need to tell me what is going on.”
“What? I need to have a doctor’s note to take off from work if I’m feeling a tad under the weather now?” Emilie tried to joke.
“Emilie.”
“I’m fine.”
“Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong, Kit!” Suddenly, Emilie screeched. Her hand connected with her chest at the same time, making a strong slap against her ribs. “Nothing. So how about for a moment since you’ve gotten here, you butt out of my life and stop trying to change it?”
Katherine took a step back, snapping her lips shut as if her aunt had slapped her instead. Maybe it would’ve hurt less.
“Katherine.”
“No.” She put up a hand, forcing it to remain steady. Pushing off the bed, Katherine cleared her throat as she cleaned up the scattered pastry crumbs. “You’re right. If you need time alone, you should have it. I get it.”
Emilie remained silent at that; her eyes all at once pained.
“It’s okay, Emilie.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she tried to explain, shoulders slumped. Her hand went limp over the sheets pooled around her waist.
“Like I said, I get it.” Katherine took a deep breath to steady herself. “Um, I was actually invited out, so I might do that.”
“Avril and Jack called?”
Something like that. Katherine gave a single nod. Sure.
“I’ll take a key with me, so I can lock the door.”
Turning on her heel, Katherine turned back toward the living room so she could change, but not before she heard Emilie’s voice behind her.
“Love you, Kit baby.”
Peeking back around the doorframe, Kit nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she continued to move. Letting herself collapse on the pull-out couch, Katherine held her head in her hands for the world to stop spinning around her, to stop the tears that threatened to spill when she hadn’t cried in so long. She’d been proud of that.
She hadn’t cried since her father left her.
Since everyone left her.
Her breath shook, and she shoved it down. Now she just needed to stop thinking and do something. The shop was already closed, and her fingers hurt from working. She needed to stop being her for a minute.
Maybe she didn’t have to be, at least not this bit of her.
Moving around the space, Katherine gathered supplies as if she was starting a project, only this time, the latest project was her. She was quiet as she moved so as not to disturb Emilie. She applied her makeup in the bathroom mirror, not caring that it took her four times to get her eyeliner just right. She even opened a new pack of contacts, flinching as she inserted them and set her glasses aside.
She slipped one piece on after another. Panties, garter belt and bra in lavender shades that were for show, and more, as one of the dresses that Avril gave her fell like silk over her shoulders.
Her armor.
No, she didn’t have to be her right now. She could be the person she imagined herself as, and it would all be better. Someone who went out. Someone who was put together and shiny and beautiful in the way no one could see her as invisible.
Someone people looked at in awe. Like Avril.
Like Jack.
Looking down at the brooches at her pelvis, she nodded at herself.
She could be the vixen.
Chapter Sixteen
What would a vixen do? Katherine asked herself as she left the house, trailing down the road before she even realized where she was going.
She was going to find what was hers.
Or at least figure out what surely was just another big disappointment she’d rather face.
Walking through the front doors of DuCain, the woman there only smiled, knowing exactly who she was. A few other glances came her way as well as she glanced around. No one was on stage. The bar just opened, a few people getting their first round of dri
nks as they found their spots.
Pausing, a young man on a leash was tugged to the other side of the room. Katherine didn’t blink, keeping herself on task, pausing at the counter.
“Long time no see,” the bartender smiled at her. “Can I get you something?”
“Do you know where Jack is?”
“Jack?” His eyebrows bounced upward as he shook his head. “Not sure. Maybe in the back? I haven’t seen him.”
Flashing a smile, Katherine tapped the bar. “Thanks.”
“Nik is in the office, down by the dungeons to the right.”
“Thank you!” Katherine said again as she moved away from the next group, laughing as they crowded in behind her. She walked toward the stage door, feeling eyes she no longer cared about as she shoved through.
She’d been in DuCain often enough, traversing the dark dungeons with relative ease at this point, but never had she been to Nik’s office. Door closed; Katherine took a deep breath as she lifted her fist.
At the first knock, she realized the door wasn’t fully shut, creaking as it rolled inward.
Two sets of eyes glanced up at her.
One of them was, as expected, Nik’s glassy green pair.
The other was a girl who couldn’t be much older than Katherine. Her one fishnet-clad leg kicked over her knee. She gave a small smile up at her from where she sat in one of the scattered chairs.
It was odd, Nik’s office felt sort of like she’d been called to the principal’s. Besides the chair, the shelves, including where a riding crop hung above the desk, were undecorated.
“Little Emilie, can I help you?”
“I’m, uh.” All of her excuses were beginning to sound a little off in her head as she thought them through. She leaned back on her heels as she thought of something better than, do they know where the most gossiped about individuals of Ashton were?
The girl tilted her head to the side, a light brown curl falling out of her bun. Her fingers flicked in a small wave. “I’m Evie.”
“Hi.”
Nik continued to wait for her to say something.
“I’m looking for Jack,” Katherine said, quickly adding. “Or Avril. Are they here?”
Nik paused, looking to the ceiling.
Evie’s eyes, on the other hand, lit up.
“She’s the one Jack almost took down that asshole Dev for a few weeks ago,” Evie cleared up in sudden understanding.
Katherine didn’t remember her there that night. Then again, she hadn’t met a lot of the DuCain staff save for Jack and Nik.
“Really?” Nik raised their eyebrows similarly to the bartender. He looked her up and down.
Katherine nodded, hoping to get the answer. “Is Jack working tonight?”
“Is Jack working?” Nik repeated.
Glancing at Evie, she looked for any sign that she, too, was confused by the question.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past two weeks. Is Jack working? No.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jack hasn’t been coming in except for his regulars recently. If he comes into work at all,” said Nik.
“He did come in on Monday.”
“Yeah,” Nik agreed, throwing his hand out to the papers on his desk. “To leave me to deal with all this shit ever since his friend ditched the city from the looks of it.”
“So no?” Katherine asked slowly from the doorway.
“No.”
“And Avril left?”
Nik didn’t answer as they shook their head down at the desk again. A calendar was laid out, as well as old flyers from the past year. They were black and gold, mostly illustrated from what she could see, taking another step inside the office. New Year’s Celebration swam through the background like an art nouveau dream.
Evie leaned back in her chair. “Looks like it. There is an annual party she throws for New Year’s that is apparently quite the bash. She started the planning and people have been calling for things, but…”
She was no longer there to direct the plans.
“We are just going to have to cancel,” Nik said.
“But you just said it was one of the biggest events for DuCain. I’m not sure about Rosin but...”
Nik shook their head. “It was always a supportive group effort the day of, though no one realized how much planning went into it. Queen took care of the rest and made it look like a breeze. It looks a lot more, complicated, to say the least.”
She had a habit of doing that kind of thing.
“Does Jack know?”
Nik gave her another tired look.
“Right,” Katherine whispered. He hadn’t been in.
“The decorations can’t be that hard,” Evie cut in, an amused lilt to her voice. “A few balloons.”
“I got a quote for about a gallon of glitter today,” Nik informed her.
Not a flinch of shock crossed her face. “That’s a lot of glitter. Gel or those specks you throw on people?”
“That’s confetti,” Katherine informed.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. It’ll take a good chunk of money from us by not doing it, but who the hell knows what we’d be getting into at this rate, anyway, two months out and barely any plans to stand on besides all of this.” Again, Nik’s hands fanned around the general vicinity.
“I could find Avril’s notes.”
Both of them turned to Katherine.
Her room was a mess, but it looked like if there was anything to find, it would be there. She had posters and clothes from years ago. Why not a few pieces of paper?
Nik stared for a second longer. “You’ll do this?”
“Well, I didn’t say—”
“Evie, you’ll help her.”
“But—”
“But what? You were the one complaining about it not happening, plus, you said you wanted more hours.”
Evie chewed on her bottom lip for a long moment, she nodded.
“Great. Now that that is settled.”
Katherine didn’t agree to anything. She had enough work at the shop without Emilie there with her the past few days. Her bones complained about how tired she was the moment she thought of it, tips of her fingers burning from all the tiny stabs she inflicted sans thimble.
She stood there, gaping like a fish. Her mouth opened and closed, yet she never found the right words even as Nik brushed past her, back out the door. They left her and Evie there, glancing back and forth.
Evie shrugged, pushing up from the plush chair to stand. It was then Katherine noticed it wasn’t only fishnets she was wearing, like the girls at Rosin, but a small schoolgirl outfit. She put her hand out in front of her. “Nice to meet you.”
Katherine slipped her hand into Evie’s. She squeezed it gently. “So, New Year’s Eve.”
“I’ve heard it’s quite the show. Drinking. Games. Performances. I wanted to go so badly last year, but I wasn’t in the city yet.”
“When did you get to Ashton?”
“May.”
Not long before Katherine.
“I started working here in July, I think. Took a bit of convincing from Nik, but I think they like me well enough.” She smiled, though it withered as if she were remembering something.
“You’re a professional here, then?”
“Yep, I’m a sub, but enough talk for now. I have to change and get back to work. You’re looking for Jack?”
“Or Queen.”
She didn’t look very convinced. “Well, she’s likely off wooing a prime minister’s son somewhere. That would be quite the story, wouldn’t it?”
It would, though Katherine wouldn’t be very surprised if she ran off without her boyfriend and did such a thing.
“Any other plans for the night?”
Katherine had thought she did. She had come out into the night with such purpose, and now she had a new one, but she didn’t feel any lighter.
“Maybe digging up those plans you promised of Queen’s?”
&nbs
p; It wasn’t a bad idea.
Katherine nodded a few times as they walked back out into the hallway. “Have a nice night, Evie.”
Her eyes grinned with her smile. She skipped backward down the hall. “Oh, I will.”
She knew that Avril never locked the door, though she probably should. Of course, Katherine didn’t need to worry about the off chance it would be locked. Passing over the bridge, all the lights of the townhouse were on, music streamed out down the front steps as the door opened and someone came outside to smoke on the small covered stoop.
The fairy lights that never were taken down from what Katherine always imagined was Christmas were even lit, trailing around the porch columns.
A party.
They were throwing a party at the townhouse. That stinging feeling in her chest was back.
Pushing it down, she barely breathed an ounce before plastering a smile on her face toward the man blowing smoke into the house next door.
She was done being messed around with.
Done letting people think that she was less than, able to be beckoned whenever they pleased. Dropping her bag at the door alongside bright red rain boots, Katherine looked into the living room. Raising beer bottles, bodies tangled on top of each other as they talked and laughed.
Another couple on the oversized love seat in the other corner looked to be doing more of the tangling, not that anyone seemed to notice, or at the very least minded as they ground against each other, lips barely had any space between.
Katherine tried to catch the eye of anyone she knew, but she didn’t know anyone. None of the same people from the last party she at least remembered pieces of were anywhere in the house. One or two might’ve looked familiar, but otherwise, that wasn’t her goal anyway.
Turning to the steps, she paused before making it to the second one as she noticed another girl coming down. Swaying to one side before catching herself, she looked more familiar than the rest, though that could’ve been due to her wearing nothing but one of Emilie’s more casual designs that Katherine had made more than a few of herself lately, paying close attention to the embellishments on the edge of the balconette cup.