Later that night, I asked Guard Bitch and Guard Slut to escort me to Khess Klub.

After almost half an hour of driving, we arrived at the place. The club wasn’t in the previous place. I thought he would pick a city center as he talked big about making a club for like-minded rich boys like himself, instead, it was being on the city’s outskirts, far from society. But the place he picked was bigger than before. The club was four storeys tall, easily the biggest in the surrounding area. This was fitting for an evil castle. It was always in the middle of nowhere.

The bouncer that guard the front door was still Malia. Malia wasn’t in the suit like she did before, but in a sexed-up military camo-patterned leotard, with tall black leather boots and matching leather biker gloves. Also, complete with the black beret that had the club emblem on it. A baton was strapped to her muscular thick thigh. She sported a new Rook piece tattoo on her upper left arm

“Name?” She stopped me when I approached the door. Her words were brief and cold.

This kind of play again. It’s given me a deja vu.

“Nathan Greene. I’m a special member.”

“Nathan Greene. Special member,” she mumbled. Moments later, her eyes light up, and the serious expression turns into a happy, business smile, “Right this way, sir. As a special member, you can access the third floor. Enjoy your stay in Khess Klub.”

I didn’t expect that she would turn friendly; I thought she would be ready to humiliate me like before.

“Can you tell me about these floors?” Before Malia changed her attitude again, now was a good chance to dig some information before I entered the tiger den.

“The first floor is open for the public, it’s the dance floor where you can watch our strippers and order a drink from the bar. The second floor is the hot floor. The place for whore and bitches you can have a good time with. The second floor was also open for regular members.”

“What is the difference between members and the public?”

“Well, not much, the difference is that a member can go and enjoy what the second floor offers. You need to pay the membership fee to be a member.“

“Then how about Special Members?”

“The third floor is reserved for Special members. Special members don’t need to pay for the membership, but their membership is vetted by the owner himself.”

“I am a special member with one hour of freedom. What does that mean?”

Malia suddenly looked surprised after hearing what I said. I had a bad feeling about this.

“That’s…you need to come to the floor to find out. I don’t know that you are a special ‘special’ member.”

I felt like I would be walking into a trap again this time if I got to the third floor.

“And what on the fourth floor?”

“It’s staff only floor, we call it the bitch house. After the club hours end, all the workers in this club will go to the fourth floor to make a report and rest. Only when the owner brings you along can an outsider like you go to the fourth floor to take a look,” Malia had this dreamy face when she talked about her owner.

So Evan had made this club some of those women’s entire world and prison. But it made me feel more helpless; it proved what Christophe said before. Even if they did something outrageous to these women, the police would not be able to help me.

I walked into the club. Instantly, I was welcomed with loud electronic dance music. I could see on the stage, some of the nuns that I took control of before, Sister Desiree and Sister Maria, were in a slutty parody of a nun costume, twerking their asses and shaking their tits to the music. Their faces were caked with thick, whorish makeup to make them look younger and more sensual. Those former god-fearing women were turned into slutty strippers because of me.

I shifted my gaze from the stage to the nearby bar, and my jaw almost dropped. I could still tell from the face that it was Dr. Mallory. But her look…

“Dr. Mallory.” I walked toward the bartender

“Are you looking for someone, sir?”

Of course, Evan had erased any of her familiarity with me.

“Sorry, you just look like someone I know. What can I call you?”

She looked at me deeply.

“Most just call me Tendy. Short of bartendy, but depending on who you are, I could give you my real name. The owner had told us to look out for someone.”

I knew the correct response, but it’s Evan's open invitation to jump into his trap and torture my mind.

“I’m Nathan Greene.”

Her expression changed, from neutral and professional to playful with a jeer on her face.

“Oh, it’s you. I’m Punkdolly Makunte. You should call me Makunte.”

Makunte? My Cunt? What kind of name was Punk doll my cunt? It was another name change that was purposely humiliating, and it was easy to guess the purpose, considering she said she only gave the name to very specific people. Evan wanted to gloat and to ruin what I know about Dr. Mallory. Dr. Mallory’s full name was Grace Mallory. Dr. Mallory had lived up to her name, graceful and kind, at least before this nightmare happened and Evan got his hand on her. But the name Punkdolly fits her current appearance.

Previously, Evan still bothered to put Dr. Mallory in a bartender uniform, but now, Dr. Mallory was naked. Her entire neck downward was now fully filled with full-body tattoos; no inch of her neck downward was freed from tattoos; Roses, vines, skulls, spiders, tattoos of naked women, she got it all on her body. Her body became a canvas for ink. The only clothes on her was the bartender's bow-tie around her neck, which didn’t help cover anything. She had a black and white bishop piece as earrings. Dr. Mallory no longer wore her glasses. I stared at her eyes that were unnaturally red. It’s probably a contact lens, but there was also a possibility that it was from some technological eye implant I didn’t know, considering what Christophe’s corp was capable of doing. Her brown hair stayed, but only half. The left part of her hair was hacked so short until only a little inch of scalp was left, giving her a side-shave bob hairstyle. She also sported some new piercings, such as a barbell piercing around her eyebrow and the spike piercings above her nostrils. Her lips were coated with shimmering dark purple lipstick. Dr. Mallory was fully punked; the studious, graceful, geeky Dr. Mallory was no more. Evan managed to bring out her wild side that I never knew. I wouldn’t lie, there’s that dangerous, attractive charm in this version of Dr. Mallory. But maybe because of my guilt, I denied my attraction toward her.

I noticed her earrings, Dr. Mallory had bishop piece earrings dangling on her neck. Malia with her Rook tattoo, and Dr. Mallory with her bishop piece. Evan still maintained the theme.

While I was busy observing her, Punkdolly forwarded a glass of beer to me. “It’s in the house, the owner told me you like cheap beer. This high-class club stocked a lot of cheap beers just for customers like you. The owner also said that I should answer some of your questions about myself if you ask. He said that you might be curious about my life.” Punkdolly was trying to be polite, but her feelings of disgust and that she treated me like an annoyance couldn’t be hidden.

Previously, when Evan asked me to come to his club back then, he made Dr. Mallory act in a more robotic way, and unlike Denise and Abby, Evan didn’t make her too out of character. But Punkdolly was more expressive and chatty. She sounded like Dr. Mallory, had Dr. Mallory’s face. That made her way of talking, her degrading words, and her feeling of dislike for me feel more hurtful than before.

“Your life?”

“Yeah, how I dropped out of school, lived the punk life on the street for some times and became a bartender because of the owner’s help.”

No, Dr. Mallory. You had a master's degree, and not a dropout student! What nasty lie did the Boltchek put in your mind and make you believe it? The device had pulverized Dr. Mallory’s life memory and built a new one. A memory about a punk bitch named Punkdolly Makunte.

“Hey, Tendy. I want the special. Is it available?” A customer came up and cut our conversation.

“Excuse me for a minute,” Punkdolly said to me.

She picked a large beer mug and then climbed toward a table on the side. “One special’s coming up.”

Punkdolly positioned the mug below her and then peed in the glass mug. Did she just relieve herself openly in the public area? I still couldn’t believe my eyes. I shouldn’t be surprised, she was already ‘naked’ after all, so the word shame was out of question, but it still surprises me how far Evan would ruin someone’s character.

After relieving herself, she poured some shot of liquor into it and stirred the glass before giving the drink to the man.

“This is your special drink. If you want more, you need to wait for me to fill up.”

“I know I know, I will be back later.” The man grinned, then picked up the glass and walked away.

When the man had walked quite far, I heard Dr. Mallory straight up spat in front of me, “loser.” I knew that it was directed to the man before, but somehow, it sounded like she was saying that word to me.

“Alright, we can continue with our talk,” Punkdolly said to me.

“Do a lot of people order the special?”

“Well, several. I get around 5 to 10 every day.”

“Don’t you feel ashamed?” I still asked the obvious question, wanting to confirm how she truly felt.

“Ashamed? What are you thinking? I love serving the special to these losers. Drinking piss is what these losers deserve. And there are only a few things out there more punk than serving people my piss. Do you want to try it, Nathan Greene? Do you want to drink the special? I bet it still tastes better than the cheap beer you like.” Punkdolly offered in a teasing tone.

All of a sudden, she held my palm. “Would you order the special for your favorite professor, Dr. Mallory, Nate? Please, I want you to try the special drink.”

Her pleading gave me chills on the back. Her way of speaking was no longer the snarky way Punkdolly did, but the polite way of Dr. Mallory that I knew and familiar with.

“Dr. Mallory? Is that you?” I knew it was too much of a hope. But, maybe…maybe a miracle could happen. Like Dr. Mallory’s personality wormed its way to the surface, fighting Evan’s new personality that he gave her.

Her warm smile curved back into a sneer, “I’m not. I do know her though. The owner told me about her and showed me her photos. She looked a lot like me. But I’m not her, who wants to be a boring professor? I heard she went missing. Hence, the owner wants me to learn her way of talking and gestures. He said that people like you may like me to role-play as her and get me more customers.”

You are her. I screamed in my mind, but I kept my silence. There was no hope, and it’s better to save my energy. From this talk, I knew that even if I showed her her old picture and tried to convince her, she wouldn’t realize that she was Dr. Mallory.

“So, do you want the special or not? I could act as Dr. Mallory for you for a few minutes if you order the special.”

She then picked up the box on her leg, “The owner also told me to keep this for occasions. It feels yucky to wear, but I will wear it if you prefer that look. I usually charge an extra, but you are Nathan Greene. The owner said that you get things for free.”

I glanced at the box, which was filled with Dr. Mallory’s belongings, like Dr. Mallory’s grey suit and skirt that she used to wear when she taught at our university. There’s even the name tag of Dr. Mallory and her glasses that she used to wear all the time.

Punkdolly picked the grey suit from the box. “So, do you want me naked, or in uniform?”

Instead of answering her, I retreated, unable to bear the guilt of failure anymore, and left the bar. I didn’t want to play along with Evan’s sick joke. It would ruin the memories I had of Dr. Mallory.

I hid in the crowd and saw Punkdolly had called Malia. I knew Evan wouldn’t easily let me go, and if I tried to leave the club right away, I didn’t know how Mikayla and Sophie would react. I hadn’t achieved my goal of coming here anyway. I still needed to know what happened to Talia. I was defeated by Evan, but I wouldn’t give him what was left of me easily.

What was the easy way out to not get dragged back to the bar? It’s not to keep running away, but playing Evan’s different sick game that he prepared for me. I was betting that Malia would not force me back to the bar as long as I was occupied in another sick game. Trading poison for another poison to take. With that conviction, I stepped upstairs to the second floor.

To be continued.