Page 9 of Thief of Night
At least one would be from the manager of Rapture Bar & Lounge, reminding her that she had a shift tonight.
Charlie moved stiffly into the bathroom, feeling her movements tug at the wound she’d glued closed. Part of her wanted to call out sick, but it was a Thursday night and would probably be slow. She might hurt even more tomorrow. Pain was like that. It wore on you.
Charlie got into the shower, letting the hot water sluice off the rest of the blood on her back and whatever had dried in her hair. Being naked when Red was always nearby was embarrassing, but nothing next to all the other ways she felt stripped bare. God, it was humiliating to be watched while living her life.Do not look at me while I’m peeing!she’d yelled that whole first week after they’d been bound. But that had also meant: Don’t look at me while I’m crying. Look away when I drool in my sleep. Don’t notice all the ways humans are disgusting. Don’t notice all the ways I am human.
Charlie put on her softest sports bra, hoping it wouldn’t drag on the wound too badly, and then one of the new Rapture shirts, featuring two whips crisscrossing on the front. Then after tugging on stretchy jeans, warm socks, and stompy boots, she went to the mirror to put on some concealer and eyeliner. Finally, she smudged cherry-red lipstick into her cheeks to bring a little color back into her face. By the time she was done, she looked less tired and sore, even if she wasn’t.
Posey seemed to have finished the leftover pizza, so Charlie ate black Twizzlers for breakfast, along with an enormous coffee made quick and dirty from instant espresso. After that start to her day, she headed over to Rapture Bar & Lounge.
Odette’s new personal assistant, Rachel, stood on a ladder near the entrance, hanging white tinsel around nails on the painted black wall, along with glass ornaments of liquor bottles, tiny Krampuses, and striped candy canes. During the winter holidays, Odette went in for big, vampy, campy decor. A small pile of red wreaths festooned with fetishy versions of Santa and his elves were waiting to go up next, their legs in fishnets and high heels.
“First holiday party tonight,” Rachel called down to her, by way of explanation. She was a curvy, relentlessly organized woman in her early twenties who wore thick glasses and fifties-style pinup dresses. Even Don liked her in that puzzled way a handsome man likes a girl he thinks ought to be all over him, but who barely remembers his name. And if she had slightly too much interest in Balthazar’s shadow parlor in the basement of the building, well, hopefully she also had the good sense to avoid it.
“’Tis the season,” Charlie said as her dreams for a restful night went up in smoke.
Holiday parties were good for business, but not great for the staff. People never tipped well when they didn’t have to pay for their drinks, especially now that most people didn’t have cash on hand. Plus people wenthardat holiday parties—drinking a lot, awash with their pent-up office resentments, and taking out those bad feelings on anyone unlucky enough to be in their way. Charlie hated holiday party season.
Odette, the retired dominatrix who owned Rapture, looked up from where she was sitting with two friends as Charlie crossed the floor. Odette’s silvery hair was pulled severely back from her face into a bun and she wore a caftan of what looked like liquid silver. Around her neck, a rope of heavy onyx beads provided practical ornamentation. Ever since a gloamist used his shadow to trash Rapture, Odette had been a lot more careful about protection.
“Darling,” she called to Charlie. “Once you’re settled, will you make us all a round of pink squirrels before things get too busy?”
“On it,” Charlie assured her.
Don was already behind the bar, wiping down glasses. They’d known each other through the local restaurant scene, but they’d never worked together before. He’d spent years at Top Hat, a bigger and more mainstream bar, and hadn’t exactly taken to the spirit of Rapture. He felt that dry ice in drinks wasplaying too fast and loose, and hated that he was supposed to set actual fire to sugar when someone ordered absinthe. Despite that, he clearly believed it was only a matter of time before he was put in charge of all the important decisions and would be able to change whatever he didn’t like.
Which was probably why he made a sour face as Charlie put her bag in the cubby behind the bar, along with her coat. Some stuffing gaped out of the rips on the back. She pretended not to notice.
“Odette could have asked me for the drinks,” Don said, as though Charlie taking the order was somehow a dig at him.
Charlie Hall, fired from all of the decent bars around town and most of the less decent ones, probably didn’t seem like someone who ought to have seniority at Rapture, or be well-liked by their boss.
“You know who is hosting this party?” Charlie asked, attempting to change the subject.
“The Ford dealership over on Main.” He gave her an impatient look, like she should have known. That one was probably on her.
A guy from the ramen place down the street, Daikaiju, started bringing in aluminum trays of karaage chicken and setting them up with Sternos on the folding table set up against one wall. The scents of soy, garlic, and mirin made Charlie’s stomach growl.
Trying to put that out of her head, she started mixing the crème de cacao and Crème de Noyaux for Odette’s drinks. As she poured the pink liquid into coupe glasses, a young guy with spiky hair and a silver puffer vest entered, carrying DJ equipment.
“You want to batch some stuff?” she asked Don, but he only shrugged and started cutting up limes. At Top Hat, people didn’t order cocktails the way they did at Rapture, since Top Hat was known for their extensive beer menu with two dozen IPAs on tap, all flavored with banana or aged in whiskey barrels under a full moon. He didn’t know what he was in for.
Charlie carefully carried the pink squirrels over to Odette and her friends, then placed them on the café table, along with a stack of cocktail napkins. A drag performer in a Barbiecore jumpsuit with giant pink spider earrings and a wig to match saluted Charlie as she took her Pepto-Bismol-colored drink.
The DJ system sprang to life in a sudden crash of sound, playing the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” loudly enough to make everyone jump.
“Is there a special menu for tonight?” Charlie asked Odette.
“Entirely open bar,” Odette said, obviously pleased by the dealership’s budget and commitment to partying. “But if you want to make up a few specials, go ahead. I may have over-ordered Canton.”
“I’ve got some ideas.” Charlie went over to the chalkboard hanging on the wall beside the hallway—the one that led to the backstage greenroom, as well as Odette’s office and occasional dungeon—and started half-assing some cocktails. She was fairly sure they had a lot of cranberry juice and allspice dram that no one had so much as opened.
When she looked up, she found Don glaring at her from behind the bar. “You can’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?” Charlie glanced back at the board. Three specials, based on popular orders—a seasonally appropriate cranberry margarita, a ginger corpse reviver with the Canton, and a spiced negroni that she was going to make with allspice dram.
“Just make up stuff without running it by anyone.”
She glanced toward Odette, who was in deep and oblivious conversation with her friends. Don had no idea what Charlie had said to her, and even less whether Odette approved of her specials menu. The person he was complaining about Charlie not running it by was him.
