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The club has been open for hours, but it doesn’t feel like the night has started yet. Not really. Not with the way everyone keeps glancing toward the back entrance, as if willing the door to open and deliver the reason the place is overbooked, overlit, overpolished.
They keep saying her name. Not the real one, most of them don’t seem to remember she has one, but the one printed in looping silver script on the sandwich board outside the front door, on the flyers stapled to telephone poles around the block, on the hastily relettered marquee.
Nightshade.
You straighten another line of lipstick tubes on the crowded vanity, aware that your hands are already too precise to be casual. The dressing room smells of powder and hairspray and the faint, sharp tang of nerves. You’ve been here long enough that the usual chaos backstage has a rhythm, a predictable tide. Costumes half-zipped, jokes thrown across the room, someone swearing about a missing stocking.
Tonight, though, there’s a softness underneath the noise. A waiting.
You hear when she arrives before you see her, the hum dipping and rising, voices shifting into something almost reverent. Footsteps move down the corridor, the stage manager’s tone pitched just a little higher than usual, as if he’s trying too hard not to sound impressed.
The door opens.
She is taller than any of the pictures let on, tall enough that the doorway seems too small for a moment, the frame cutting a clean line across her shoulders as if the room has to make space for her. The overhead light catches in her hair—platinum turned to white fire—and somewhere beneath the sleek coat and the high collar you can see the suggestion of sequins, a shimmer every time she takes a breath.
“Good evening,” she says, and the room exhales.
Her voice is lower than you expected, smooth but not soft, each word placed with the same care you’d use to set a rhinestone. She looks around once, taking in the dressing tables, the racks of costumes, the cluster of half-dressed performers trying not to stare. Her gaze slides past you at first, and your shoulders loosen without permission. You’re not ready to be seen yet.
The stage manager clears his throat. “Nightshade, this is—”
You don’t hear what he calls you, not really. You’re focused on the way she shrugs out of her coat, the easy roll of her shoulders, the way the fabric slips down her arms and reveals the first glimpse of the gown beneath. It’s not the one she’ll wear on stage—not yet—but it’s still too much. Midnight blue, cut close at the waist, the line of it making a quiet promise of everything it doesn’t show.
Her eyes find you then. Blue, yes, but sharper than any photograph, thoughtful rather than cold. She considers you for a beat that stretches longer than it should.
“So,” she says, “this is my assistant for the evening?”
You manage to nod. “Yes. I—if you need anything, I’ll…” You trail off, annoyed with yourself, because that’s not a sentence and you know it.
One corner of her mouth lifts, just enough to say she noticed but isn’t going to be unkind about it. “Anything,” she repeats, taste-testing the word. “That’s generous.”
The stage manager gives you a look that’s meant to be encouraging and only succeeds in making you more aware of your own posture. You straighten instinctively.
“You can hang that up,” she says, slipping the coat from her shoulders completely now and offering it without looking.
You take it carefully, the wool still warm where it touched her. You hang it on the stand by the door because it’s something to do that doesn’t involve staring at the long, clean line of her neck or the way the blue silk moulds to her back when she leans forward.
She turns toward the mirror, lowering herself into the chair with a grace that feels rehearsed and yet somehow entirely natural.
“Do you prefer Nightshade?” you ask, after a moment. Your voice comes out quieter than you intend, swallowed by the soft buzz of the bulbs.
She meets your gaze in the mirror. “You may call me Larissa.”
It sounds like a concession, like something she doesn’t offer often. You tuck it away, unsure what to do with it yet.
Her makeup case is already open on the vanity, a compact little universe of colour and shadow. You move to her side, hands hovering for a second above the array of brushes. You know this part, you do this for the regular dancers, the girls who come in late and leave earlier than they should. But somehow, under this gaze, with this name in your mouth, the simple act of reaching for a mascara wand feels like stepping onto a tightrope.
“What do you usually go for?” you ask.
She tilts her head, considering her reflection. “Classic. Glamour with restraint. I leave spectacle to the costume.” Her lips curve slightly. “And to the way I take it off.”
The comment could be crass in someone else’s mouth. From her, it’s almost academic, a statement of method. Still, you feel heat rise to your face and are grateful she’s watching herself instead of you.
You work slowly, because that is the only way you know how to be steady. Foundation smoothed along the high planes of her cheekbones, the faintest deepening of contour beneath. You blend until there are no edges, only the illusion of shadow where you want it to be.
“Your hands don’t shake,” she observes.
“I do this a lot,” you say.
“Do you?”
You’re close enough now that you can see the tiny flecks of darker blue in her irises, the way her lashes are naturally long even before your brush touches them. You focus on the work: the sweep of liner, the precise angle of a wing that elongates her gaze into something feline, predatory.
When you move to do her lips, she watches you more directly.
“Red, I assume?” you ask.
“Anything else would be dishonest.”
You choose the shade without thinking, the one you’ve seen in print ads and still photos, that perfect knife’s edge between scarlet and wine. You steady her chin with your fingers, thumb resting very lightly at the hinge of her jaw. The contact is minimal, professional. It feels like standing too close to a candle anyway.
She parts her lips just enough to let you trace the bow, the careful curves. She holds utterly still.
“You’re very focused,” she murmurs, when you’re almost done.
“So are you,” you reply, before you can stop yourself.
That earns you a quiet, low laugh. “Touché.”
You finish, step back, and for a moment the two of you simply look at the image in the mirror. Larissa Weems, Nightshade, all polished poise and crimson mouth, every line of her composed. It feels strangely intimate to know you had a hand in this final version, that the woman they’ll see on stage will be wearing your precision.
“Hair?” you offer.
She inclines her head. “Please.”
Her hair is heavier than it looks when you unpin it, the pale strands sliding over your knuckles like water. You comb through gently, careful not to tug, dividing and smoothing, coaxing it into soft, controlled waves. She closes her eyes once, briefly, and you have to force yourself not to let your fingers linger too long at the nape of her neck, where the skin is warm and bare.
“You’re trying very hard not to look,” she says eventually, eyes still closed.
You freeze. “Look at what?”
Her lashes lift, and there is amusement there now, unhurried and certain. “Me.”
You swallow. “I’m looking right at you.”
“Mmm.” Her gaze dips, travels slowly from your eyes to your mouth and back again. “That’s one way to put it.”
Heat crawls up your throat, but you hold her stare because you refuse to flinch in front of her. “I’m working.”
“I know.” She smiles, small and knowing. “You’re doing it very well.”
It shouldn’t sound like a caress, but it does.
The stage manager’s voice filters through the thin door, announcing the first act call. The usual lineup will warm them up before Nightshade takes the stage, but everyone knows who they’re here for. The noise from the club drifts in—low jazz, the swell of conversation, glasses clinking, the occasional rough laugh. Beneath it all is something else, a hum of anticipation you can feel even back here.
“Costume, then,” Larissa says, rising. The gown she wore in crashes and blues is replaced by something far more deliberate when you unzip the garment bag: a corseted bodice heavy with black sequins, the light catching on each tiny facet. A split skirt overlay, sheer and dark, falling over stockings attached to suspender clips that gleam faintly in the lamplight.
You help her into it piece by piece. The lacing at the back of the corset is intricate, a pattern of pulled silk running down her spine. You stand close behind her, threading the ribbon through the eyelets, tugging gently to bring the boning snug against her curves.
“Tell me if it’s too tight,” you murmur.
“I’ll tell you if it’s not tight enough,” she counters.
You feel the laugh more than hear it, the faint shake of her shoulders under your hands. You pull a little firmer, the muscles in your forearms flexing with the effort. Her waist narrows as the fabric draws in, the shape of her body becoming even more defined. It’s an almost obscene privilege to be the one doing this, watching the transformation from backstage reality to onstage myth.
You’re aware the whole time of where your fingers are. Grazing the smooth, bared skin at the base of her spine, brushing the sides of her ribs, briefly steadying at her hip when she shifts her weight. Each contact is fleeting, excusable, and yet you can feel the imprint of them lingering in your own body.
“You’re holding your breath,” she observes quietly.
You exhale, surprised. “Am I?”
“Yes.” She looks at you over her shoulder, eyes half-lidded. “It’s unnecessary. I’m not going to break.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” you say, mostly under your breath.
Her smile turns slow. “Aren’t you.”
You finish with the laces, tying them off neatly at the base, the bow resting just above the swell of her backside. You step back, letting your gaze travel up, because you’re allowed to check your own work. That’s all this is. You tell yourself that twice, maybe three times.
The stockings come next, though she does most of that herself, sitting on the edge of the vanity chair with one leg extended. The line of her calf, the curve of her thigh as she rolls the sheer fabric up, the snap of the suspender clip fastening against the stocking top—it’s all measured, efficient, nothing like the slow, performance-ready tease you know she’ll give the audience. And still your throat dries watching it.
“You’ll be in the wings?” she asks, as she slips her feet into heels that seem almost architectural.
“If you want me there.”
“I do.” She stands, testing the balance, one hand resting on your shoulder momentarily. The weight of her is brief but undeniable, grounding and dizzying at once. “I like knowing where my constants are.”
You echo the phrase silently—my constants—as if it might mean more than it should.
When she leaves the dressing room, the backstage corridor feels smaller behind her, the space she occupied still humming with her presence. You follow a minute later, after you’ve remembered how to move, slipping along the familiar path to the side of the stage.
The club is dim beyond the curtain, the main room lit in pools: warm amber on the bar, soft gold across the tables, the stage a brighter, expectant glow. The audience is restless in the way of people who think they’re sophisticated but are still susceptible to wonder. Laughing too loudly, clapping too early, craning their necks whenever there’s a flicker of motion near the stage.
From your vantage point in the wings, you can see everything and be seen by no one. You hold onto that anonymity like a talisman as the house lights dip further and the band slides into a languid, sultry number.
Her introduction is almost unnecessary—they already know—but the emcee gives it anyway, voice booming. “Gentlemen, ladies, and all creatures of the night… be sure your hearts are in working order. Please welcome to the stage… Nightshade.”
The applause hits you before the light does, a wave of sound that seems to push the curtain inward for a second. And then she steps through.
Larissa doesn’t burst onto the stage, she arrives. There is a difference. She takes her time, each step a statement, the line from her throat to her toes an unbroken command of attention. The sequins on her corset catch the spotlight, sending a scatter of reflections into the dark like a private constellation.
She doesn’t move much at first, just stands and lets them look. She knows precisely how long they can stand it before the need for motion becomes palpable. When she finally lifts one gloved hand, the small shift feels monumental.
The act is classic burlesque, but she inhabits it with a sort of quiet intelligence. The gloves come off first, of course. She toys with the edge of one as the band leans into a bluesy run, tracing the seam with a fingertip that suggests more than it reveals. When she finally peels it away from her wrist, inch by inch, the fabric clinging before yielding, the crowd’s noise tightens, condensing into whistles, low appreciative murmurs, the occasional shouted endearment.
She uses them, those sounds. Plays them like another instrument.
When she turns in profile, you see the curve of her waist against the cinched corset, the flare of her hip under the sheer overskirt. She drags the glove slowly up her own arm before flicking it out into the darkness, a single long strip of satin that disappears into eager hands.
Her gaze sweeps the room, collecting faces one by one, and then, deliberately, she lets it drift to the wings. To you.
Even from here, you can feel the weight of it. She doesn’t smile immediately, there’s a beat where she just look at you, as if taking inventory, as if reassuring herself that yes, you are where she left you. Then the faintest curve of lips, a small, private acknowledgement no one else would notice over the roar of attention.
Your breath catches on that moment and doesn’t quite right itself.
She moves more now, the choreography a seamless blend of slow hip rolls, graceful turns, teasing dips. The overskirt loosens under her fingers, unfastened with an absent-minded precision that belies the deliberate nature of each reveal. She drops it like a curtain, the sheer fabric pooling at her feet, leaving her in high-cut panties and stockings that gleam faintly under the lights.
The crowd surges again, applause and cheers crashing against the stage like a storm. You think about the way you saw those same stockings rolled up in the quiet yellow light of the dressing room, the way her shoulder felt under your hand when you steadied her. It feels… illicit somehow, to be remembering the backstage softness while she gives them this sharpened, elevated version of herself.
Her hands travel down her own sides, over the boning of the corset, pausing suggestively at the busk. The choreography asks for the idea of unhooking it, the slow, almost-but-not-quite reveal. She obliges, letting her fingers linger on the catches without actually undoing them. She’s not here to strip, she’s here to tease, and you have never understood that word so clearly until now.
When the act hits its peak—the band swelling, her body arched in a pose that offers the illusion of vulnerability without surrender—the room seems to hold its breath. She lets the silence stretch, suspended on the edge of something that will not come, because this is her story, and she decides how far it goes.
Then she releases it, the tension, the pose, the air itself, letting it all dissolve into a sly bow, a slow sweep of her arm that sends another cascade of applause rolling over her.
You don’t realize your hands are clenched until they ache.
She exits cleanly, stepping through the curtain with the same unhurried grace, the persona peeling away in infinitesimally small layers as she crosses the threshold back into the realm of backstage hum. There’s a flush high on her cheekbones now that makeup didn’t put there, a fine sheen of sweat at her temple.
You’re there, already moving, the glass of water in your hand an excuse more than a necessity. She takes it, fingers brushing yours, and this time the touch lingers, her thumb grazing the side of your index finger as if by accident.
“You watched,” she says, as though there was any chance you wouldn’t have.
“You told me to.”
“I did.” She studies you over the rim of the glass as she finally drinks, her throat working with each swallow. When she lowers it, there’s a hint of a smirk. “You were very intent.”
You think of all the ways you could deny that, dismiss it, laugh it off. None of them feel honest, and dishonesty would sound ugly in this room, with her eyes on you like that.
“You’re… difficult not to watch,” you admit, forcing the words out slowly, measured.
Her gaze warms, just a fraction. “Is that so?”
“You know it is.”
“Yes,” she agrees softly. “I do.”
She sets the glass down, close enough that you smell the faint tang of citrus from the water, layered over the jasmine of her perfume and the salt of her skin.
“You were trying so desperately not to stare earlier,” she continues, drawing out the words, “and yet onstage, you looked at me like you’d forgotten anyone else existed.”
Your mouth goes dry. “I was concentrating. On the performance.”
“Mmm.” She steps closer, until you have to tilt your chin up just slightly to keep her in focus. “On the performance.” Her hand lifts, fingers ghosting over the front of your blouse, not quite touching, tracing the line of a button. “And which part held your attention the most, I wonder?”
You don’t answer. She doesn’t seem to expect you to.
“Don’t worry,” she says instead, voice dipping into something that feels like a secret. “I like it.”
“Like what?”
“Being watched. Properly.” Her smile turns thoughtful. “There’s a difference between being seen as an object and being witnessed as a person performing an object. You understand that, I think.”
You do, though you’re not entirely sure how she’s pulled that admission out of you without you having said a word.
She reaches up, then, and very gently tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. The contact is light enough to dismiss and careful enough that you know she doesn’t intend for you to. Her fingers linger a heartbeat longer than they need to, her knuckles brushing the curve where your jaw meets your neck.
“You’re flushed,” she notes quietly.
“So are you,” you answer, because you refuse to be the only one laid bare here.
Her lips part, surprised amusement flickering across her face. “You’re bolder than you pretend.”
“Not bold,” you say. “Just… present.”
“Present,” she repeats thoughtfully. “I could use more of that.”
There’s a commotion further down the corridor—another act hurrying to change, someone complaining about a missing prop—and the spell thins a little, though it doesn’t break. Larissa glances past you, then back, recalibrating.
“You’ll be here tomorrow as well?” she asks.
You hadn’t thought that far ahead. She’s only booked for two nights at your club, on her way through to the next city, the next stage, the next set of hands lacing her into some other costume. Your schedule flashes through your head—yes, you’re on the roster, but that could change, it often does—yet the word that comes out is simple.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She reaches for a silk robe hanging nearby, sliding it over her shoulders, the deep plum fabric obscuring some of the sparkle without dulling her presence. “I like consistency on tour. Familiar faces. Hands that already know how tight my corset should be, how I prefer my liner drawn.”
She ties the robe loosely, fingers deft. Then, almost as an afterthought, she looks back at you, expression unreadable.
“If I ever decide to take on a constant assistant,” she says, voice still level, almost casual, “someone to travel with me rather than a new face at each club… I’ll think of you.”
The words land with more weight than their tone suggests. You feel them slot into place somewhere low in your chest, like a promise and a temptation and a challenge all folded together.
You search her face for any hint of a joke, some sign she’s teasing you past your limit, but there’s only that same composed amusement, that same thoughtful curiosity.
“You barely know me,” you manage, because it’s the only protest you can find that doesn’t sound like begging.
Her gaze drifts over your features, lingering just briefly at your mouth before returning to your eyes. “I know enough for now,” she says. “The rest… can be learned.”
She moves past you then, the hem of her robe whispering against your leg as she goes. As she reaches the door, she pauses, looking back over her shoulder.
“Oh,” she adds, as if the thought has only just occurred to her, “and next time, don’t fight it so hard.”
“Fight what?”
“The urge to look.” Her smile is small and devastating. “After all, I’ll be looking for you.”
The door swings shut behind her with a soft click, leaving you alone with the warm impression of her touch on your skin and the echo of that almost-offhand promise. Out in the club, the band starts up again and the audience’s chatter swells, hungry for whatever comes next.
You stand still in the dressing room, surrounded by powder and perfume and the faint glint of sequins on the floor, and realize that for the first time since you started working here, the rest of the night feels like an intermission.