Chapter Text
“Working on the two dirty martinis, then I’m on service for the VIP section. Is it mustache on the left?”
Alex pivots in her heels on the platform elevated between the partitions of two private booths, glancing toward the exclusive area beneath the winding, cherry wood staircase at the back of the showroom. The men, the humanoids, the shapeshifters, and the singular woman who constitute tonight’s VIPs keep their heads ducked low, their conversation drowned out by techno music. It’s an early night at club Jaguar, eight or nine p.m., and the group in question have recently sauntered in after what Alex imagines has been a trying bout of negotiations. All are clad in disheveled states of business casual, but none of the higher-ups seem to be paying any attention to the stage, to the girls, or to the drinks.
Not for the moment, anyway.
They just got here.
Lucy hovers over the main stage, holding herself parallel to the floor with straining muscles. She's wrapped up in two durable, satiny curtains of material unfurled from the ceiling. Vasquez is loading up the whiskey drinks onto a tray to take back to VIP, and Hank is probably biting his nails in the van parked out back, ready to send in a team should even the slightest snafu occur while the three of them maintain the charade.
“No, not mustache,” Alex mumbles, twisting around the pole in the center of her raised dance space. She taps discreetly at the flesh-colored com lodged in her ear canal. “It’s the woman… all those men, they’re easily distracted. White streak, she’s keeping them focused.”
“Doesn’t make her the boss,” Lucy grumbles from her inverted position on the stage. “Just sober. And significantly less horny than all the other negotiators.”
“It’s her,” Alex murmurs under her breath.
“How do you know?” Vasquez asks, strutting around the corner, tray filled to brimming with drinks: two whole liters of vodka positioned in the center, surrounded by high balls and snifters and coupette glassware. The towering bottles of liquor would teeter and topple in anyone else’s hands, but Vasquez remains steady as she transports the tray in fishnets and electric blue stilettos.
That was their “in” for the meeting: weeks of research at the DEO, and their strike team had finally deduced that the mercenaries who usually dealt in ammo and Uzis were now in the aliens-for-hire business. And that business deal was going down tonight, amid some of humanity’s most extravagant vices.
Most of the off-world creatures Alex has encountered in the field are able to withstand even the most advanced human fire-power. So, adding aliens to the illegal arms business will likely turn the market on its bloodied ear. The DEO had tracked the alien attacks worldwide, and knew that this deal between Fort Rozz and the Circuit—the international arms smuggling gang—was make-or-break. The Circuit had finally gotten in touch with some of the Fort Rozz hostiles, and tonight was a show of good faith, the Circuit rolling out the proverbial red carpet for their lethal alien allies.
Cue the reservations at club Jaguar, National City’s swankiest gentleman’s club.
With lush leather seats, hazy neon lighting, private booths, top-shelf liquors, and enough women to stage three separate Ziegfeld Follies’ productions, the Jaguar was not some run-of-the-mill stripping buffet for frat dudes and the occasional bachelor party. This place has seen royalty, has seen ambassadors, politicians, millionaires, and real-estate moguls. Escorts-turned-reality-stars had gotten their start here. Three former Miss Californias. One Senator. Most of the dancers are classically trained and several possess college degrees; they are above average, and Alex gets the feeling that she’s seeing the type of woman—escort—dancer, that might cater to international diplomats.
Alex bends and swoops around the pole at center, gracing the trio of younger men sporting perfectly shaded five-o’clock shadows with a wink and a smile. She at least has to pretend to work here, even if her attention sails back across the showroom to where the velvet ropes dip and curve, parabolas of exclusivity. Behind the bouncers sits a dozen of the most dangerous beings on the planet, and Alex wants nothing more than to infiltrate their group. The closer she gets to the Circuit, the closer she is to the renegade hostiles, and the closer the DEO gets to Rozz.
The safer National City will be.
The safer Kara will be.
And, judging by the pointed fingers and near-full glasses, the dipped heads and lack of women providing lap dances, Alex thinks they haven’t gotten to the ‘enjoyment’ portion of the evening yet.
Alex plans on changing that.
The woman Alex makes for the boss taps one of the strippers on the shoulder and motions for her to leave the booth, cutting her head abruptly to the side. The man on the receiving end of the attention pouts, objects, but the command is final. Cash changes hands and the girl struts off as the man combs his mussed hair over and turns back to the woman with the white steak at her temple. She wears a pair of square-framed glasses, but she is not mousy in the slightest; poised, classic, with cheek bones sharper than shattered glass.
Alex spins again in time with the music, leans against the pole, then slides down to get a better look at the VIP section.
Her.
Definitely someone important. Definitely someone in charge.
“Gut feeling,” Alex answers Vasquez, unhooking the purple velvet rope that serves as partition between her platform and clients, or, clients for the women who actually work here. Not the undercover ones like her, like Lucy and Vasquez—and not just undercover agents for VICE, investigators doing their best to keep the exotic dancing industry distinct from the sex workers.
The DEO’s undercover investigation into the individual alien mercenaries had led them to the Circuit and their international contracts: militant groups in Aleppo, orders processed through Kiev, Neo Nazis in Chicago, and shipments docked in Cartegena. Maritt, a Finnish businessman with cronies on every continent, is hosting this little shin-dig. His fellow Circuit members casually slice throats and break fingers while he vacations in National City.
Alex zeroes in on the elder Maritt, a gentleman with grizzled salt-and-pepper hair, a slim trunk, and hawkish nose; he extends his hands along the back of the couch as Vasquez dips down, arching her back and twisting around while she passes out drinks. He keeps fidgeting, bouncing his legs, sniffling, running a hand against the underside of his nose, reaching out to grasp at the back of the one woman in the group. Even in the lowlight of the club, Alex can see the glassy sheen of his eyes, the agitated haze and white residue indicative of a man who hasn’t cleaned up properly after doing a line in the bathroom or the limo, or maybe even at the table in front of him.
Not that the staff of Jaguar would care. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions.
Alex won’t go for him first: he’s antsy enough to spill everything, and horny enough to hit on the brunette with the white streak when there are dozens of girls surrounding him. They’re all dressed in next-to-nothing compared to the businesswoman’s pressed white blouse, the navy pencil skirt, the pantyhose, the glasses, the heels, the carefully twisted chignon at the base of her neck. The surrounding men have popped the buttons at the tops of their shirts, loosened their ties, and are working on their first or second drinks (perhaps their first hits if Maritt secured enough cocaine as ‘gifts’ for his guests). The woman in charge looks immensely agitated, annoyed that she has to continue her (illegal) meeting beyond a board room.
Alex slinks up the stairs to the private booth and reminds herself that any one of these people could be an alien in disguise, with stingers and venom and strength unmatched by human physicality. She’s here, first and foremost, for information. It’s her job to nudge humans or aliens in the right direction with some harmless questioning, a little bit of personal inquiry from a dancer just trying to get by.
“Evening gentlemen,” Alex coos, bumping hips with Vasquez as she exits, squeezing her hand and noting that no signal has yet been given. The strike teams out back won’t go through with the raid tonight until they’ve squeezed every ounce of available information from this group. Dates, times, supplies, vendors. A lot of it rests on whisky-loose lips, and Alex, Lucy, and Vasquez putting on a believable show.
“Hey handsome,” Alex turns, zeroing in on Maritt and what looks to be his number two, a wide-eyed, skittish boy who can’t be twenty-five yet.
“Want a dance?”
“What kind of dancing?” one drunken man asks from the corner, his suit jacket rumpled in a pile at his side, carbonation from a clear club soda drink clinging to his mustachioed lip.
“The dirty kind,” Alex struts over, snapping the strap of her g-string against her hips.
She hears the men go for their pockets, wallets full of smaller bills materializing as she makes the rounds. “You boys been doing big deals all day and now, you’re ready for some action. Is that right?” Alex purrs, turning her back and then lowering herself onto the man’s lap. His hands go for her hips in an instant, and she starts grinding against the growing bulge beneath his slacks.
“I bet you all deserve some special attention,” Alex begins, jostling her ass as she feels the man’s fingers pinching the flesh north of her hipbone, sliding a bill beneath the strap. “Stock brokers, real estate, corporate banking, but I’ve never seen a group like yours,” she teases.
Coy. Sly. An obvious ploy, but those who want praise will find it, regardless of sincerity.
“To big deals!” one sloshed humanoid in a bow tie cries, standing with a whisky shot in hand, downing it, his quills expanding out of the back of his shirt.
Quills… that’s a Bardorian.
Alex feigns disinterest, instead continuing to grind and dance atop the lap of the man beneath her. If the alcohol keeps flowing, maybe the dances will slack off. There’s only so much ego-stroking (and other stroking) she can stomach on this kind of job.
“The deal isn’t done,” the woman shouts at Maritt, who waves her off.
She sulks in her spot, one hand propped against her forehead. Two men beside her swivel their heads round to the front stage when Lucy finally completes her aerial maneuvers and slides into the splits on the stage, rotates, leaving her legs open spread-eagle for the front row spectators. Cash swirls like a whirlpool at the end of Lucy’s number, which means Alex only has fifteen minutes to get prepped for her own show. She needs to gather some intel, but that won’t come if she’s not focusing on the big boss.
Alex changes tactics.
“You don’t sound too happy about that,” Alex yells over the music, attention redirected toward the woman.
Lethal Business Lady ticks a brow skyward as Alex plants her feet, straightens her legs and dips to the ground. Arching her back, Alex flings her hair overhead in time with the thumping bass. She licks her lips, then smirks at the groan and possessive pawing from the man beneath her.
“I could make you happy, just like big boy behind me,” Alex suggests, pulling her arm up above her to clutch at the back of the man’s shaven, dark-skinned head. She secures her grip and drags the man’s face into her neck. He kisses and licks at her while she sways in the dark against gravity and her own personal ethics.
Do it for the job, Alex repeats her mantra of the evening, the chant that makes her feel like an agent, not a whore, an agent, not a whore.
The woman with the white streak rolls her eyes. Shakes her head. Replies with a word that Alex doesn’t hear, but her lips seem to form the two dismissive syllables for doubtful.
“No, really!” Alex presses, feeling ridiculous for shouting over the songs. “I’m not just fun for the boys,” Alex places the man’s hand that isn’t digging into her waist over her breast, prompting him to squeeze at will.
Agent, not a whore. Agent, not a whore.
She wants to vomit, and then shower, and then vomit immediately after, and possibly shatter someone’s tibia.
“You know,” Alex lowers her voice and crawls forward a bit on her hands. This section of the VIP area is cramped, so it doesn’t take much to get in the woman’s space, for her to bend forward and shake her ass for the man behind her, to place her hands on the skeptical woman’s knees while doing so. “Sometimes getting it on with one of us makes the men like you better. You know, boy’s club and all,” Alex advises her. “I work a lot of parties like this. I promise it’ll feel good.”
“Can you get them to promise a delivery date two weeks sooner?” the woman asks, unimpressed with Alex’s flexibility and multi-tasking. “Because that is the only way I will leave this so-called entertainment establishment happy.”
“Well, what is it you’re looking to ship?” Alex grins and tilts her head as she asks, finishing her dance, the man’s legs turned to custard after her merciless grinding. “Fifty bucks, sir,” Alex winks and tucks the Grant beneath her g-string with the handful of collected ones she’d gotten from her shift on the platform. She fans the cash along the protrusions of her hip bones and feels like she’s accomplished something when she looks back at the woman and isn’t dismissed outright.
“Big men, big trucks, fast timelines, shipping jets… I’ve seen deals done here probably bigger than yours,” Alex tries boasting, zeroing in on the woman’s face, cataloging every feature so she can remember for her upcoming report. That white by the temple is striking, and Alex can picture herself pushing against it when she makes the arrest and dips the woman into the back of the containment car.
“So what about you, gorgeous?” Alex prods, pushing the woman’s knees parallel.
Power-suit doesn’t resist so Alex straddles her lap, the exertion from her dance finally catching up to her. Alex feels hot and loose, similar to the first round of stretching and calisthenics before PT begins. She sits with white streak chest to chest, eye to eye, and Alex can feel the coiled tension in every muscle, the definition hidden underneath a tasteful blazer and a pair of opaque navy panty-hose. The clothing is deceptive, though; Alex notices through touch and proximity that she is more muscle than money, less Wallstreet and more Waterloo, with her stoicism and apparent revulsion for the night’s activities.
“What about me?” the woman grits through clenched teeth, keeping her eyes trained on Alex’s face.
She’s not once cast a glance at the miles of leg Alex has on display, the black g-string covering what’s left of her dignity down below.
Agent, not a whore. Agent, not a whore.
Nor has the woman’s gaze shifted to Alex’s stomach, wrapped up in some dark green corseted material that defies physics—it pushes her boobs up to her chin and doesn’t leave room for basic human functions, like swallowing or breathing. The damn thing is so tight she can’t even keep her dagger hidden beneath it.
But that is not the case with this woman. There’s enough layers there, layers of clothing, layers of thinly veiled disgust, layers of emotion and physicality that don’t add up with the situation. She could be hiding anything. White streak wears so many layers Alex wonders if she’s got a shiv tucked beneath her cuff, if she’s packing heat in a thigh holster.
Alex wonders why she finds the idea of garters and a thigh holster suddenly appealing.
“You deserve some attention,” Alex says. “Being with these cranky men all day, you need to loosen up.”
“You know nothing of what I need.”
“So serious,” Alex flirts, running her hands over the woman’s biceps, watching as her muscles relax beneath her touch, noting how her pupils expand just a fraction when Alex moves against her.
“And you are to reduce my stress? To ‘loosen up’ as you say?”
“If you want,” Alex says, tangling her hands in the woman’s hair, pulling at the pins holding it in place. Once she releases the knot, waves of thick, dark hair fall over the woman’s shoulders. A streak of white as stark as a fractured bone highlights the severe curve of her cheeks, the rigid set of her jaw.
She might be bad, but she certainly isn’t bad-looking.
“What’s your name, beautiful?”
“Astra,” the woman replies, clutching her fingers into fists at her sides. Alex smiles and dips down to lock eyes with her, then gently takes Astra's hand and places it on her own waist. Her fingers are cool, her grip loose, her concentration… not really where Alex needs it to be. She’s too focused on her colleagues, who in turn are focused on Lucy, trying her best to look sexy as she scrambles around the stage for the cash flung at her during the aerial routine. Alex thanks whatever higher power is listening that she doesn’t really do this for a living.
Agent, not a whore.
Some women make it work. Alex understands that you do what you have to, but there are daily situations in places like this that can be nothing but embarrassing, nothing but awkward.
Like giving a lap dance to someone who has no interest in a lap dance. Who might be straighter than a laser beam. Who might also, beneath her blazer and hostility, be an alien criminal from outer space.
“Hey,” Alex mutters, attempting to turn Astra’s chin back toward her with her index finger.
It’s like trying to move 500 pounds of steel. There is not an ounce of give to her jaw and Alex wonders, fleetingly, if she’s felt that kind of resistance before. The formal lilt of Astra’s speech (even if she hasn’t been doing much talking), her human-like appearance, strength that seems otherworldly—
“Your heart is thundering,” Astra tells her, redirecting her attention from the group of clearly distracted men.
—and superhuman hearing.
…might Astra be Kryptonian?
“I go on in a few minutes and it’s only my second show here,” Alex lies. “Transferred from the Luxor and this is… a step above. I don’t want to mess it up.”
“This is a step above for you?”
“Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about Astra,” Alex deflects, resuming her routine, shifting so that the drag of her thighs sends Astra’s hemline hitching further up her leg. “Astra,” Alex says again, leaning in to place a chaste kiss against the woman’s cheek. Alex feels fingers flex against her corseted waist, but Astra doesn’t push her away.
“You’re a star, you know.”
“A star?”
“Astra… the name. It’s Latin for star,” Alex says, tilting Astra’s chin toward the ceiling, nosing at her neck, letting her lips run down the tight cord of muscle that disappears beneath the crisp white collar of her blouse. She's gyrating in time with the music all the while hoping Astra isn't contemplating throwing her through a wall.
Agent, not a whore. Agent, not a… a whore.
Alex can barely make out the tag with her face buried in Astra’s neck, but she knows the blouse isn’t a name brand. In fact, the shirt is something Alex might pick up on her measly government salary.
So maybe not usual working clothes?
Alex grinds down again and tugs at her collar for a better assessment.
Agent, not a whore.
Maybe a cover, maybe she’s really got scales beneath this smooth, sweet skin…
Agent, not a whore, agent, not a whore, agent not—
Alex kisses Astra’s neck and tugs at her hair, feels the heat she’d been left with after the first dance skyrocket to boiling degrees as she grinds her center against Astra’s thighs, the music thundering above them.
“Yo, guys…”
“Check out the general…”
“I’ll give ‘em both fifty to make out…”
Alex blocks it all out and focuses, tries to right Astra’s wavering attention and guide her back, keep her hypnotized… as much as she can with all the snickering from the men surrounding her.
It’s hot and Astra’s skin feels nice, but Alex needs to keep her head on straight, needs to remember why she’s doing this.
Agent, not a… not a dancer, not a stripper, not a…
“What…” Astra eeks out, swallows hard, and makes a high-pitched sound of confusion. Alex feels the bob of Astra's throat, what with the way her lips are latched to her neck. “What… are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, pretty star. You’re not gonna burn me, are you?”
Alex grinds her hips hard against Astra’s legs and oh, there. Alex smirks as the woman hiccups, her eyelids fluttering shut and surging back open. Alex goes to the other side of her neck then to keep her off-balance, sweeping her curtain of curls out of the way, incisors biting at that perfect column of skin.
“Get it, Miss Ze!”
Alex resurfaces to find Astra flushed, the attention of every man in the booth turned toward the pair of them, rubbing and kissing and flirting in their midst.
“Gentlemen,” Alex begins, keeping her heavy-lidded gaze locked on Astra. “What’s say we let Miss Ze here relax with a body shot?”
“Hell yeah!”
“Fuck no.”
“Someone’s gonna die…”
Alex extends a hand and a lime wedge materializes from an over-eager spectator.
“Salt,” she commands, bringing two fingers up to her mouth and licking obscenely, hoping Hank is tuned into Lucy’s or Vasquez’s channel, praying Kara will buy her excuse of another ‘normal’ day in the lab when she goes over for tv night tomorrow after having taken seventeen showers.
She rubs her fingers beneath her ear and smears a handful of salt below the lobe. She then takes the proffered shot glass and pours the Fortaleza in a showy waterfall. It takes some finagling with the corset, but Alex eventually shoves the glass between her breasts, her cleavage held together by undergarment engineering designed to sexualize without any degree of practicality.
(Save for the storage of shot glasses).
“Ze! Ze! Ze! ZE! ZE! ZE!” the chorus builds, led by Maritt and his number two, the men chanting so loudly they drown out the electronica music from overhead.
Alex watches Astra wince and clench her jaw, staring resolutely forward as Alex puts her heaving chest on display.
“Have you ever done a body shot before?” Alex dips her head into her ear, though she doubts Astra needs the closeness to pick up on her every word.
Astra shakes her head, her serious demeanor not waning in the slightest. Alex leans in to Astra’s opposite side and mouths over her jaw, nibbling up to her ear.
“Listen, I know you’re not into this,” Alex tells her, going for solidarity instead of flirtatiousness. “Just give them a show and I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night. I can make my tips on them.”
Alex feels Astra press her sides together with the palms of her hands, feels it way down deep in her ribs like when Kara gets carried away with a hug.
“How do you… take the shot?” Astra asks, her eyes flickering down to Alex’s cleavage.
“Lick the salt, drink the shot, bite and suck the lime,” Alex instructs, pointing beneath her ear, toward her chest, and then at the lime in her hand.
Astra purses her lips. Frowns. Concentrates—as if salt-shot-lime are the most confounding instructions she’s ever received.
Her fingers dig into the miniature valleys of Alex’s ribcage so hard it makes Alex remember her first few rounds in the training room with Hank, getting pummeled every time she left an opening by mistake. Now, it’s intentional, this opening, and she prays Astra will fall for her trick.
Seduction.
Charm.
Utter load of bullshit.
Perhaps Astra won’t see it as such, and can tell her more about this delivery, a delivery that could include anything from arms to aliens to asteroids.
Taking the salt-shaker from the tray conveniently delivered by Vasquez, Alex licks her hand again and shakes more salt onto her skin so Astra gets the full picture. She feels inept, the opposite of sexy, going about a rather workaday routine she perfected in grad school… college… fine, senior year, when getting drunk was the only way to deal with her lost surfing sponsorship, her rejection letter from Johns Hopkins, overbearing mother and six-feet-under father, her huge falling-out with her best friend, Victoria Donahue, that left her feeling lost in ways she couldn’t articulate at the time.
Alex finds it harder to concentrate on her melancholic memories with Astra’s tongue on her neck, her teeth scraping beneath the shimmery curtain of hair. Kissing, licking, taking Alex’s earlobe in with her sharp white edges and tugging until the flap of skin stretches and shoots back to its position like a string of elastic.
Agent, not a… holy shit.
Alex grinds down and it’s not an act this time—Astra’s incisors are jagged, and have Alex wondering what type of imprints they would leave on a larger expanse of skin. Her clipped nails dig into the meat of Alex’s thighs and squeeze, likely to leave a palm print if Alex doesn’t say something (Alex wonders why she doesn’t want to say something).
“Sh-shot,” Alex finds her voice beneath the unfamiliar high, pulling Astra’s head away from her neck. The men stand around them gazing, drinking, hollering as Astra raises her hand toward Alex’s breasts. “No,” Alex tells her, guiding Astra’s face down toward her cleavage. “Get it with your lips.”
In the darkness, amid the hooting and raunchy vulgarities spewed from alien and human alike, Alex and Astra the business-human-alien-criminal share a moment. Alex hopes her side of the moment sounds something like do it for the stripper with a heart of gold, the girl who needs the tips. She hopes it doesn’t sound like do it so I can get them talking, confused, their fumbling extremities swinging too wide and wild to put up a decent fight.
Astra holds her tight and Alex feels secure because Astra is strong and solid. Astra also seems completely over this situation, if her quick, audible exhalation is any sign for Alex. She is equally complicit in this show, but Alex wonders what she has at stake—how far Astra will go just to get her way with men who pack hotter heat than subterranean magma.
Astra dips and noses between Alex’s breasts, her mouth smushing against the hard palette of her brassiere-clad sternum. Alex sees a flash go off behind her, one of the men in the Circuit having gotten out his phone.
Wonderful.
She hopes they’re all arrested and every device confiscated.
Astra digs the glass out and tips her head back, the expensive Agave shine dripping into her mouth, journeying down that throat Alex had kissed (for a mission) and churning inside the abdomen Alex had straddled before she felt her own stomach clutch—before she’d seen the challenge in this lethal woman radiating power, danger, and a hint of superior disinterest.
“Lime?” Astra asks her, and Alex nods, the wedge of fruit now stuck between Alex’s pouting lips.
Alex laces her fingers behind Astra head and rotates her neck, feels the heat of the club pressing down insistently upon her. Feels Astra's legs shaking beneath her and feels the ghost of Astra's tongue dancing beneath her ear. Astra tilts her head and leans in, brushing Alex’s lips when Alex sucks the fruit back in her mouth at the last second.
“Fuck, that is so hot!”
“Kiss her again!”
“Go for it, General!”
Another flash from a camera and Alex smirks, sticking the lime back out between her teeth teasingly, ready to suck it back in and take another peck should Astra go for the lime once more. At the end of the day, this is a show, and she’ll definitely get more out of the men fawning over the pair of them if she can keep up the act just a little longer. It's hot between them and Astra looks dazed, her pupils glassy and her breath coming in short, inconsistent bursts.
She almost feels bad for Astra, stuck with these guys who obviously don’t work fast enough for her, and now, Alex is using her to soften up the others so that she can ply them for information. Astra could be human, an outside contractor brought in for her negotiating expertise. It would explain her reluctance at being here, her determination for getting a delivery date pushed up, especially if she’s representing the humans at the proverbial bargaining table.
Maybe she’s not a Kryptonian, maybe she’s just an innocent bystander.
Alex moves her hands to Astra’s side, smiling all the while, slipping them beneath her blazer to feel the hardened planes of muscle that comprise the woman’s torso. Astra goes for the lime again and Alex evades her, tucking the fruit to the side of her bulging jaw. Sour juice oozes out of the corner of her mouth while Astra kisses Alex again to the utter delight of the Circuit members and disguised Rozz hostiles. Alex pokes her tongue out, laps at Astra’s lips, relishing the warm, sour taste of lime juice.
Astra tenses beneath her and her eyes fly open, flashing with danger. She whips one hand up to grab Alex's jaw and jerks her chin, forcing eye contact after their kiss.
It’s not gentle, not easy, and certainly not tentative in the way Astra had acted when Alex first settled above her. It hurts a little, her chin stuck between Astra’s thumb and forefinger, pinched, her lips pursed and wet from the tequila and kisses.
“Do not test me for their benefit,” Astra hisses, yanking Alex’s chin back to attention. “You will be compensated accordingly, do not feel as though you have to pander to them. Lime,” she commands, loosening her grip ever so slightly.
Alex’s muscles twitch in her cheeks, her face held captive in Astra’s firm (inhuman—definitely inhuman—there is nothing but steel and stardust in Astra’s) grip. Alex pushes the fruit back between her lips and Astra bites into it, chomps it, chews and swallows half of the pulpy flesh, rind and all. “Thank you,” Astra mumbles, and then forcibly lifts Alex from her lap with zero leverage, while she’s sitting, just so she can reach for her purse.
“That’s…that’s eighty with the shot,” Alex stutters, because Astra, Astra’s definitely an alien, probably the alien they’re looking for. Alex clambers down from the hold to right herself on shaky knees, swiping at her lip as Astra rifles through her bag.
Her gut was right, and Alex got nothing more than bruises and flushed cheeks and hints about a shipment, nothing more than frustration bubbling low and hot right before she has to go on that stage while Vasquez and Lucy take their turns at trading lap dances for insider information.
“Here. I believe this is five-hundred,” Astra removes a wad of cash, stands, turns Alex out of the booth and walks her past the velvet rope amongst the whistles and cat-calls of her fellow conspirators. “Use it to go back and study whatever subject required you to learn Latin. I know that is not a common language, and only those with more erudite inclinations would have an affinity for such vocabulary. I do not know much of you, but I do not believe this is who you truly are.”
Agent, not a whore.
The assumption hits with all the force of a bare-knuckled punch. Astra flicks the bills from an absurd collection of cash, folds them carefully, gently takes Alex’s hand, and completes the exchange. Nothing about Astra seems tentative any longer: not her grip on Alex’s chin, not her severing bite against the rind of the fruit, and certainly not her man-handling strength, not her command that Alex leave their booth and find better use of her time than sitting in randy gentlemen’s laps for singles and Lincolns.
“You’re supposed to put it in the—”
Alex moves Astra’s hand to the thin strap rolling over her hip.
Astra narrows her eyes in the dark of the club and Alex can feel the embarrassing cocktail of judgment and pity. Alex has known strippers. Hasn’t pitied them. Because just like shooting, killing and maiming is her job, stripping, entertaining, and flaunting is theirs.
So why is the shame so apparent? Who is Astra to judge her?
Alex wants to see arrogance and hubris but the expression doesn’t register as such. Astra can belittle with a sneer, but the curve of her palm over Alex’s hip—the insistent fingernails digging into Alex’s flesh—all the little touches and pitying expressions signal a desperation Alex wonders if Astra even understands.
Perhaps that is a desperation on the precipice of concession?
Perhaps it is a desperation Alex can exploit.
Astra pivots back into the sea of business suits as Alex retreats to ready herself for her set. Lucy’s out of her stage costume and back on the floor in a purple g-string and corset combo, ready to pick up where Alex left off.
Maybe Lucy won’t leave the VIP section as frustrated as Alex, her lips tingling from the taste of kissing a star.