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catch the eye without being lost in the see of
Ambers and Kellys I’d seen on the site all afternoon.
    I shrugged and
typed Little Miss Ballerina in the
Name field. Good enough. One of the things the site had made clear was that you
could change your name as often as you wanted, though they warned that doing so
would make it impossible for your ‘followers’ to find you.
    I tried to imagine
that, being good enough or sexy enough or successfully enough at this to
actually have followers . Would I be
okay with that?
    I didn’t know. I
told myself that I was only going to try this silliness for a night or two. I
was prepared to fail.
    Hell, I expected
it.
    With that fact
squarely in my mind I got up and turned around to study my bedroom with a
discerning eye. It was the most comfortable room in the house, the only one
where I’d splurged a little. It had been forever since I’d had friends over,
and I’d never invited a guy to share the space, so I didn’t think I had to
worry about someone recognizing it.
    Still, it needed a
little splash of something. I got some colorful silk scarves out of my closet
and draped one of them over the lamp, hanging the rest from the backs of chairs
or the mirror on the dresser to soften the space.
    Good enough.
    Makeup? Check.
Sexy lingerie? Check. It was warm in the room. I had a bottle of water. Earlier
I’d found the vibrator in the bottom of a linen closet, taken it out of the
plastic and put batteries in it.
    It was a pink
thing with ‘rabbit ears’, according to the packaging, and I tossed it next to
the pillow.
    I put on the mask
last, and once it was in place it was as if I’d flicked a switch. Most of my
worry fell away, and I dared to think that this may just work.
    “Here goes
nothing,” I said out loud, grabbing the laptop and setting up on the bed before
pushing the ‘Make a Room!’ button.
    My heart was
pounding.
    How long would it
take before I had my first visitor? Would I get a warning before they appeared
in my room, or did I have to sprawl out sexily all the time, hoping for
interest?
    I figured that was
it. Earlier when I’d been on the sight, you could hover your mouse over any of
the cam girls’ pictures and get a live preview of what was happening in their
room.
    I frowned, then
caught myself. Nobody wanted to watch a moody bitch on these things, did they?
    “It’s just like
dancing,” I said. Ballet hurt . It was
a grueling, physically overwhelming activity that was only beautiful because
the true art of the dancer was to make it look effortless.
    The mask covered
most of my face and some of my hair, but revealed my mouth.
    So I smiled as if
I were on the biggest stage of my life.
    And maybe I was…

Angel

 
 
 
    I got home as fast
as I could, pushing through traffic, running lights if I had to. I didn’t care.
    Whatever tickets I
got I’d pay for, and the cops probably had more important things to worry about
than my driving.
    All I could think
about was Sloane in her bedroom somewhere out there in this big, hungry city.
She’d be scared, but too desperate for money to let herself off the hook.
    I could see why
she was doing it. The bar must have been a good deal for her, and now that she
wasn’t pouring drinks there was probably a chance that her landlord would throw
her out on her ass at the end of the month.
    After all, how
much could a student of ballet really make? Not anywhere near as much as it
cost to live near the University, that was for sure.
    Right now, she
could be gritting her teeth and spreading her legs for some jerk on the
Internet.
    And it was my
fault! I’d tried to avoid that fact all day, but there was really no getting
away from it.
    She’d had a decent
thing going and I’d ruined it by hitting on her.
    Shit. I wasn’t any
different than whatever scumbag she was chatting to online right now.
    I’d made her
retreat from her duties pouring beers, and her boss Frank had tried to take
advantage of the position I’d