Mandy stepped up to the desk where Dee was lounging, playing Candy Crush on her phone.

“Bored?” Mandy smirked, thankful for something mundane to focus on.

Dee chuckled. “Just killing ten minutes until Cassie takes her break. Don’t distract me, I just got to level eighty-three.”

Mandy laughed, but her mind immediately drifted back to the sad woman. Even when the bell rang at the front door and she went to see who the next customer was, the woman who had just departed was at the forefront of her mind. She took the new customer’s money, went through her usual spiel, and tried very hard not to worry about what this new woman was looking for in her visit. Not all of them left here looking lost and forlorn. Not all of them came here for the wrong reasons. At the end of the day, she wasn’t actually responsible for any of that. She provided an opportunity to explore. What they did with that and how they reacted was entirely out of her control.

* * *

Max walked out into the cool night and took a few deep breaths of the relatively clean air. The atmosphere in the club had been a little claustrophobic at the end. She pulled her wallet from her bag to check that there was enough cash for the cab back to the hotel. She walked up to the main road, stood on the corner, and looked in both directions for a cab. Traffic was busy, but after a couple of minutes, she was in luck and flagged one down.

During the ride, she watched a city she didn’t know drift by through the window. The cabbie tried to start up a conversation, but after several one-word answers, he gave up. Before she knew it, they pulled up outside her hotel, and she handed over the cash.

When she got to her room, she poured herself a neat whisky and took a couple of sips while she let the shower warm up. She stripped off, her mind still in the cotton-filled daze it had been in since she’d left the club. As she stood under the hot water, washing away all traces of her hedonistic evening, she let a few memories wander into her mind. She considered them with a detachment she hadn’t felt at the time. It was as if she were watching someone else do the things she’d done. Someone else going down on Lou so eagerly, someone else bent over getting fucked from behind by that strong butch.

She stepped out of the shower, towelled herself dry, and sipped more of the whisky that was warming its way down her insides.