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Chapter 1 – Claudine – The Apartment
Claudine was halfway through her second glass of Trader Joe’s Côtes du Rhône and seriously considering whether she had the energy to wash her hair when Amy burst through the apartment door like she was being chased.
“Don’t say no.” Amy dropped her tote bag – overflowing with art supplies and what looked like a riding crop – on the futon that served as Claudine’s bed. “Just listen first, then don’t say no.”
Claudine looked up from her laptop, where she’d been pretending to work on a supply chain management case study for the past hour while actually scrolling through LinkedIn and wondering if any of her future corporate overlords would ever discover her FetLife profile. “That’s not how ‘no’ works.”
“I fucked up.” Amy kicked off her shoes – platform Docs that made her 5’2″ frame almost average height – and collapsed onto the futon beside the riding crop. Her fake blonde hair was coming loose from its ponytail, and she had that manic energy that meant she’d either had too much cold brew or was about to ask for something unreasonable. “I double-booked.”
“So cancel one.”
“I can’t. One of them is – okay, remember that guy from the café? The one who does something with sustainable urban planning and has those glasses that make him look like a philosophy professor?”
“The one you’ve been obsessing over for three weeks?”
“I’m not obsessing. I’m being strategically interested.” Amy pulled out her phone, started scrolling frantically. “Anyway, he finally asked me out. Like, a real date. Dinner at that new place in Williamsburg, the one with the pasta that costs forty dollars and you can actually taste the difference.”
Claudine took another sip of her eight-dollar wine. “So cancel the other one.”
“That’s the thing.” Amy’s voice went higher, more pleading. “The other one is at Netherlust.”
The name made Claudine look up. “Netherlust? The – “
“The club. Yes. The invitation-only, impossible-to-get-into, probably-the-most-exclusive-place-in-Manhattan club that we’ve literally only ever heard about through rumors and one very drunk guy at a party who claimed he’d been there but couldn’t prove it.” Amy was talking faster now, the way she did when she was trying to convince herself as much as Claudine. “Welter – that’s the client – he somehow has access. And he wants to take Faerietrix for a ‘professional engagement’ in one of the rooms. The Pressure Chamber. I Googled it but couldn’t find anything, which makes it even more exclusive.”
“Amy – “
“Three thousand dollars, Claudine. For one evening. Plus he’s already Venmoed me a five-hundred-dollar booking fee that’s non-refundable.”
That made Claudine close her laptop. Three thousand dollars would be rent plus be able to drop a couple shifts at the restaurant. Was that enough to finally replace her laptop that kept threatening to die mid-presentation. “For what, exactly?”
“First date, basically. I made very clear rules.” Amy pulled up her messages, started reading. “Full latex – I have the catsuit, the good one with the zipper crotch. I arrive masked. I’m in charge in the room. He can touch me anywhere on the latex with any part of his body. No kissing on first date. If he plays nicely, I’ll unzip the crotch – touch to be negotiated from there, but I maintain veto power at all times.”
Claudine studied her roommate. They’d been living together for two years, had gotten into the dominatrix work together as a way to supplement Amy’s barely-existent freelance design income and Claudine’s student loans. They’d been safe, always. Met clients in public first, had protocols, never went anywhere without telling each other exactly where they’d be.
But Amy had started pushing boundaries lately. Taking calls that were clearly straight escort work, dropping the theatrical dom persona that kept things professional and slipping into something that looked more like desperation dressed up as adventure.
“Show me his profile,” Claudine said.
Amy’s face lit up. She scrambled to pull up FetLife on her laptop – they’d long ago stopped bothering with the pretense of privacy, had watched each other’s sessions enough times to give notes. “Okay, so, username is WelterDiplomat, which I know sounds fake but I did some research and he actually is a diplomat. Special Envoy to the Secretary-General, based in the Spanish mission to the UN.”
The profile photo showed a man in his early thirties, olive skin, dark hair with just enough wave to look good without trying, warm brown eyes that had the tiniest hint of uncertainty around the edges. He was smiling at something off-camera, and there was something genuine about it – not the practiced seduction face that most men used on sites like this.
“He’s cute,” Claudine admitted.
“He’s fucking gorgeous. And look at his messages.” Amy clicked through to their conversation. “He’s so… earnest? Like, he knows what he wants but he’s almost apologetic about asking for it. Very ‘I hope this isn’t too forward’ and ‘I completely understand if this isn’t something you’re comfortable with.'”
Claudine read through the exchange. Amy was right – Welter wrote like someone who’d learned English from formal instruction, with careful grammar and complete sentences. He’d explained that he’d seen Faerietrix’s profile and been intrigued by her aesthetic, that he’d recently gained access to Netherlust through his position and thought it might be an interesting place for a first meeting. He wanted someone who could take charge, who wouldn’t expect him to have all the answers, who understood that sometimes wanting to surrender control didn’t mean being weak.
I am perhaps not so experienced with this, he’d written. But I know that I want to try. And your profile suggests you might be patient with someone who is learning.
“He thinks you’re a faerie,” Claudine said, scrolling back to earlier messages where Welter had asked careful questions about whether Faerietrix was human or fae, whether the name was aspirational or literal.
“I know! Isn’t that cute?” Amy was practically bouncing now. “He’s obsessed with fae culture. Half his questions were about whether I’d ever been to Netherlust, whether I knew any actual faeries, what I thought about the portal magic. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’m just a girl from Tampa who thought the name sounded cool.”
“So he’s expecting an actual faerie dominatrix, and he’s going to get a human art school dropout in a latex catsuit.”
“Hey.” Amy’s tone had some actual hurt in it. “I didn’t drop out. I graduated. With honors.”
“Sorry.” Claudine squeezed her friend’s hand. “You know what I mean. He has expectations.”
“Which is why I need you to go instead of me.”
There it was. Claudine had known this was coming the moment Amy started explaining, but hearing it out loud still made her stomach clench. “Amy, that’s – “
“You’re better at this than I am. You know you are.” Amy was using her pleading voice now, the one that had convinced Claudine to do a hundred things she’d initially refused. “You never break character. You never let things get out of hand. You’re the one who always says I take it too far, that I need better boundaries – well, this is me having better boundaries. I’m going on my actual real human date with a guy I actually like, and I’m asking you to take the professional booking.”
“With your name. Your profile. Your rules.”
“The latex covers everything. He’ll never see your face once you’re masked. And honestly?” Amy pulled up a photo of herself in full gear – black latex from neck to toe, face completely obscured by a hood with a small mouth opening. “In this? We could be the same person. Same height basically, same build. You think a nervous diplomat from Spain is going to notice the difference?”
Claudine wanted to say no. Wanted to spend the evening finishing her wine, washing her hair, maybe watching something mindless on Netflix before her opening shift at the restaurant tomorrow. She was getting tired of the dom work anyway – had been thinking about quitting, especially now that she was getting closer to graduation and starting to imagine what her LinkedIn profile would look like to recruiters. International MBA, Columbia University. Server at trendy restaurant. Occasional dominatrix for hire. Proficient in Excel.
But three thousand dollars.
And if she was honest – and she tried to be honest with herself, even when it was uncomfortable – some part of her was curious about Netherlust. About what went on behind those supposedly exclusive doors. About whether the rumors were true, whether it was really as extraordinary as people whispered.
“Show me his pictures again,” Claudine said.
Amy pulled them up eagerly. Welter in a suit that probably cost more than their monthly rent, looking diplomatic and composed. Welter in casual clothes at what looked like a football – soccer – match, grinning with his team. Welter in profile, and Claudine could see it now: the slight nervousness in his posture, the way his hands seemed uncertain even in still images, like he was always a half-second from apologizing.
He looked kind. That was the dangerous thing. He looked genuinely kind.
“Fine,” Claudine heard herself say. “But you’re giving me your ID, your FetLife login, everything. And you’re staying by your phone the entire time. If anything feels wrong, I’m texting you and leaving.”
Amy squealed and threw her arms around Claudine’s neck hard enough to make her spill wine on her laptop. “Thank you thank you thank you, you’re literally the best roommate in the entire world, I’m going to owe you forever – “
“You’re giving me two of the three thousand,” Claudine said. “That’s the surcharge for doing your job while you go eat forty-dollar pasta.”
“Deal. Done. Absolutely.” Amy was already pulling up her closet on her phone – their actual closet was too small for the amount of gear they’d accumulated, so most of the latex and leather lived in vacuum-sealed bags under the futon. “Okay, so the catsuit is clean, I just conditioned it last week. The hood has the ponytail attachment – we’ll need to dye your hair or get you a wig because your hair is way too dark.”
“I’m not dyeing my hair for one night.”
“Wig it is. I have the blonde one from that shoot last month.” Amy was in full logistics mode now, the manic energy channeled into something productive. “Shoes – the platform Louboutins, the ones with the red sole. They’re tight on me but they’ll fit you. Gloves – the elbow-length ones. And you’ll need to leave here looking normal, so wear your long raincoat over everything.”
“Amy.”
“Yeah?”
“What happens when he figures out I’m not you?”
Amy paused, looked at Claudine with something that might have been guilt or might have been calculation. “He won’t. You’re both going to be wearing masks – apparently you can do that if you want at Netherlust, it’s a thing. Privacy for everyone if you want it. And besides, he’s never actually met me. He has no idea what I sound like unfiltered, what my mannerisms are. Just be dominant, be confident, stick to the script we already established.”
“And if something goes wrong?”
“Then you use the safeword – it’s ‘red,’ we kept it simple – and you leave. The Netherlust staff supposedly takes safety really seriously. That’s part of what makes it so exclusive.” Amy squeezed Claudine’s hand. “It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be a slightly awkward first date with a sweet nervous diplomat who probably comes in five minutes and then wants to talk about his feelings. You’ll make three thousand dollars – sorry, two thousand – for like three hours of work. Easy money.”
Claudine looked at her laptop, at the supply chain management case study she’d been avoiding, at the half-empty wine glass, at Amy’s hopeful face.
“What time do I need to be ready?”
“Car’s coming at nine. Welter said he’d arrange transportation – another Netherlust thing, apparently. They don’t want people showing up in Ubers with the address in their phone history.” Amy was already pulling out the vacuum-sealed bags, unzipping them to reveal gleaming black latex. “We have two hours. That’s plenty of time to make you look like Faerietrix.”
Claudine picked up her wine glass, drained it, and thought about all the reasonable decisions she’d made in twenty-six years of life.
This wasn’t going to be one of them.
But maybe – just maybe – it would be interesting.
