“It depends on what we’re going to do,” she said. She smiled, I think. “You don’t take very good care of your hands,” Karen said, “and they’re beautiful hands. You should be punished for what you’ve done to your hands.” At least, I thought that’s what she’d said. I was tired, and the fumes from the polish, the wax, and the soaking fluid were making me woozy.

She filed and soaked my nails, then went to work on my hands with pink lotion. Outside, it was getting dark, the wind was rattling, and I looked toward the door.

“Look only at me,” Karen said.

My hands felt boneless. My groin felt warm, weightless.

“I really should pay you,” I said, and my voice came out all soft and dark, too.

The door rattled, but it wasn’t the wind. It was a woman trying to get in. She was dressed in black jeans and a shiny, red silk shirt, and even in the dark, I could see she was desperate. She yanked at the door.

“No more customers,” Karen shouted.

“Customer!” the woman shrieked. “I’m not a customer, you bitch!”

Karen shook her head. “Crazy people in New York,” she said, looking at me sympathetically. “You would never do such a thing, would you?”

“No,” I said, more fervently than I expected. “I’d never do that to you.”

Karen wore some kind of perfume, roses and spice, something off, like jazz, but right, like jazz, too. The woman outside howled some more.

“Hey, you, you in there with Karen. Get out now!”

Karen held my gaze with hers.

“If you ignore her, she’ll go away,” said Karen. “And you want her to go away, don’t you?”

I looked only at Karen’s eyes. I heard the woman walking away. I wanted to turn around then, but Karen tightened her hands around mine. How could such a tiny woman have such powerful hands?

“You wouldn’t be rude like that, would you, Nell?” she whispered. “Not after I’ve done so much for your hands…”

That’s when I saw the man step out of the darkness from the back of shop.

I must have passed out.

The next thing I felt was a mouth on my mouth—smoky, male, wet.

It was now completely dark outside, and inside the shop was lit only with a couple of high-intensity lamps.

My legs were cold.

My legs were naked. My cunt exposed.

Karen worked on my cuticles as if this was the way she did all her nail jobs.