"Come on Lucy, almost there!", Sarah encouraged as her tenant pushed the barbell up with her hips. She was on the floor doing glute bridges, toning her ass, emphasized by the pink shorts. The tiny, tight garment looked almost painted on, stopping right at the edge of her bottom cheeks.

 

She groaned under the strain.

 

With her face stiffened by the toxins, mouth lopsided, and eyelids half-closed, she looked especially ridiculous grunting like that. Like she had devolved into some particularly stupid, non-verbal female Neanderthal.

 

But she couldn't see it. 

 

Sure, every morning, Lucy noticed how frozen her face was becoming, but, having no point of reference, she thought it was the normal progression and that it would relax later.

 

She finished her set and switched places with Sarah.

 

Looking at Sarah doing her own set, Lucy realized how severely she had underestimated the amount of work needed to get such a defined physique. She really had misjudged the girl. Only now, after walking in her footsteps (in modeling, camming and working at the strip club), could she appreciate all the hardship her former schoolmate had had to endure. She looked at her with newfound respect. A respect that was, right now, mixed with apprehension.

 

Because she had to tell her about her job.

 

"Sarah..." she started to say as they stripped the weights from the bar.

 

"Yes?"

 

They were both standing near the racks. Two fit, big-breasted beauties (Lucy being padded), in neon fabrics revealing more skin than most lingerie. With the amount of makeup they were both wearing and their filler-plumped lips, they looked like glamour models. A very sexy, sultry glamour model in Lucy's case, because of her permanent vacant expression. Men around them had a hard time trying not to look, glancing not-so-discreetly toward the duo. It didn't faze the girls, as they were both used to being ogled.

 

"I... I'm sorry..." Lucy said, holding back tears, "I lost... I lost the job at the strip club!"

 

"Aww, Lucy..." said Sarah with empathy, before hugging her.

 

She held her tenant in her arms and said in a comforting voice:

"It's ok. I knew about it already. Word travels fast in this business. Don't worry."

 

Lucy stayed silent, taken aback by Sarah's reaction. She had expected anger and screaming.

 

"I trust you. You'll figure something out. You managed to pay the rent every time, right?" continued Sarah.

 

She felt Lucy nod against her chest.

 

Overwhelmed by relief, the girl wept with gratitude, without restraint this time, melting into Sarah's arms. She had been so afraid of telling her, unaware that Sarah felt that way about her. She felt that a mutual respect, maybe even a true friendship, was slowly blossoming between them. She had been a bad friend to Sarah.

 

"I'll ask around, ok?" Sarah offered.

 

"I don't know, I... I feel like I'm fucking up, like... every chance you give me."

 

"Nonsense. You nailed the photoshoots, the cam work... Your Instagram account is booming. You were too good for this club, that's all."

 

Lucy thought about it. Those jobs weren't something she wanted to be proud of but, in Sarah's world, they were significant. She knew the girl wanted to cheer her up and it worked. Lucy felt better.

 

She tried to give her a genuine smile, failing to notice it came out stiff and half-crooked.

 

"Like... Thanks, Sarah."

 

***

 

In the afternoon, Sarah caught Lucy as she was passing through the apartment.

 

"Lucy! Wait. I heard back from another club. You could start right after you've healed from surgery."

 

"Really?"

 

"Yes. At the one close by. But it's not a hostess job though."

 

"What is it?"

 

"You'd be a stripper."

 

A stripper!

Lucy was shocked by Sarah's efficiency. She hadn't expected her to find her something so fast. The timing, right after her surgery, was perfect. The location was ideal too, she wouldn't even need a ride. And working as a stripper... it didn't sound impossible at all anymore.

She imagined herself, parading around the club with her future silicone rack, getting up on stage, being showered with money, just like the girls she'd watched during her shifts. This time, SHE would be in the spotlight. Could she really do that? Yes. She felt she could do a better job than any of them.

Still pumped up by the gym session and her heartfelt talk with Sarah, she answered cockily:

 

"As a stripper, huh? Even better."

 

Sarah laughed at that.

 

"Okay, you'll have to learn some dance basics, though. Come on, help me set up my old pole."

 

Giggling, both girls worked together to retrieve a training pole Sarah kept in storage and managed to install it in about an hour. Sarah tested it, spinning effortlessly around it before Lucy's amazed eyes. She had seen the girl strip in the club but watching it from up close, in full daylight, made her understand just how physical it really was.

 

"Ok Lucy. It's already a bit late to practice. So why don't we watch some videos on the topic? Let me prepare that."

 

Sarah went off to her own room, leaving Lucy alone. She tried to study her business courses, as a new bunch of exams was approaching fast, but found it incredibly hard to understand. She also couldn't focus, as the continuous drug intake was seriously taking a toll on her. She took yet another pill and her thoughts predictably drifted toward eroticism, thinking about her working as a stripper, flaunting gigantic plastic breasts in customers' faces. Her hand was between her thighs, she realized. Defeated, she felt she had no choice but to open a porn site. After all, she was already starting to play with herself so she might as well go all the way.

 

Sarah, who had just finished her video selection, looked at her tenant through the cameras. Masturbating again, she noted with a smile. She really had done a number on her: she couldn't leave the girl alone for five minutes without her touching herself apparently. With her face almost completely frozen, her mouth pumped with plastic, lips pushed forward, jaw open, she looked more and more like the plastic bimbos she was frigging herself to. The permanent bedroom eyes were a nice touch.

 

Sarah waited a bit more, until the wanking girl seemed right at the height of her pleasure, and went to knock on her door.

 

Lucy stopped, startled, and tried to collect herself. Should she pretend to sleep? Finish what she was doing?

 

Another knock, louder this time, that she couldn't ignore.

 

"Coming," she said, as she was putting her clothes back on.

 

She followed Sarah to the living room, face flushed, trying to play it cool but hoping she didn't smell too much like sex.

 

"Uh? Why don't you bring the wand?" asked Sarah innocently.

 

"Ah! Yes."

 

Lucy skipped toward her room, happy for the free pass Sarah was giving her to continue her masturbation session.

 

Of course, the stripping videos were extreme, some clearly pornographic. Legs open on the couch, the Hitachi wand pressed against her clit, Lucy watched big-titted strippers wantonly flicking their beans on stage, inserting various things in their pussies or even straight up fucking the audience members. It fueled her imagination. She tried to decide if she could do that kind of filth, if she wanted to debase herself, act like those sleazes in front of an audience, and, in the height of her arousal, the answer was a resounding yes. In one clip, a performer pulled a long metal chain out of her pussy, then used it like a whip to catch a male spectator, dragging him onto the stage to ride his cock Amazon-style. Sarah also played straight up porn, where the stripping action was only 10 minutes long, merely setting up the scene. Lucy didn't care, happy to watch the remaining 40 minutes of the girl getting gangbanged on stage.

Right behind her, the shining training pole was standing, waiting for her to try her hand at becoming one of those performers she fantasized about.

 

***

 

On Sunday, Lucy trained a bit under Sarah's direction.

 

"The very first step is to be really, really horny. You can't fake it. That's how you'll captivate the audience," explained Sarah as she switched on porn on the big TV again.

 

Lucy, standing in her high heels, considered the metal bar. She tried to climb on it and failed, hard, repeatedly. Sarah kept encouraging her, making sure she never felt humiliated.

Whenever she traded places with her and demonstrated a move, she encouraged Lucy to masturbate, to watch her as filth played loudly on the TV screen. Then, Lucy would attempt it herself.

 

It was particularly wild practicing pole dancing under these conditions, especially after an evening spent watching hours of pornographic videos about it. If Sarah hadn't shown her the videos first, learning to balance herself on the pole would have been a challenge in its own right, one that could have felt almost completely non-sexual. In fact, most legitimate classes are like that: studios deliberately try to separate the physical activity from its sleazy stripping counterpart, insisting it's just a sport like any other.

 

But, because Lucy had seen so many videos of strippers acting like sluts, the two were now strongly correlated for her. Mastering the basics of the pole, what she was trying to do right now, was only the FIRST step. Lucy had an implicit idea of what was expected from her next: masturbating on the pole, sucking audience members' dicks, getting rammed from behind on all fours. She wasn't trying to learn pole dance, she was learning pole dance to turn herself into a depraved, pornographic, public plaything.

 

By the afternoon, Sarah's gang had arrived: the blonde girl, the redhead and Leena. Everybody gave tips to the struggling but valiant Lucy, laughing at her attempts, but laughing with her, not at her. They had all been beginners once and their own levels of pole dance mastery were highly varied, so they took turns, the less experienced taking the opportunity to practice.

The same re-framing applied when Lucy was watching them: in her mind, the girls were training on the pole to be fucked like pieces of meat later. Leena's attitude reinforced the idea, as she didn't hesitate to get naked, even fingering herself while staring at Lucy who was also playing with her pussy while standing near her.

 

The whole day was depraved. Still, once again, Lucy felt like she belonged here, with these girls.

 

It was a great Sunday afternoon.

 

But, at one point, the blonde girl took Sarah aside to tell her something about Kessler. The man had been asking questions.

 

They moved to the kitchen. Sarah had to distance herself from the debauchery that was happening in the living room. It wasn't time for playing around anymore. Shit was getting real.

 

"You mean Kessler asked you some questions... about me?", Sarah tried to clarify.

 

"Yes. He implied that he knew you were the one who dropped the hints about Lucy. He wanted me to thank you on his behalf."

 

"Did he specifically name me?"

 

"Yes. I just played dumb. But he's clever, so..."

 

He was clever indeed. Sarah could feel the net closing in on her. She really needed to make her move. And, for that, she needed to dig up some dirt on him.

 

"I see. Thanks. What do you have on him?"

 

"Well, uh... I think I told you everything already... he's divorced, with two adult children living in Europe. He likes to hire escorts and play the dom."

 

There was a possible angle here, thought Sarah. She could find his previous girls and hope they were willing to give her something to use against him. But it was a bit tenuous.

 

"Anything else?", she asked sharply.

 

"N-Not really... I met a few friends of his when he took me to some burlesque club... What was the name again..."

 

"The Revue Room?", Sarah guessed quickly.

 

"That's it! He often goes on Wednesday nights."

 

The blonde girl could see the gears turning in Sarah's head. She couldn't resist probing, worried, a bit afraid of Sarah's crazy plans, even if she didn't particularly like Kessler herself.

 

"Sarah, uh... What are you going to do to him?"

 

"Nothing. Just teach him not to meddle with me and my stuff."

 

She thanked her blonde friend and they turned their attention to Lucy again.

 

Over the following evenings, Sarah continued training Lucy, until, soon enough, it was time for her breast augmentation surgery.

 

***

 

She was riding in Kessler's car, her hand busy under her mini-skirt as porn played on her phone. Her mind wasn't really on it, the stress of the fast-approaching surgery balancing against the endorphins from the porn and the drugs. She was stressed but excited at the same time. She couldn't believe it was going to happen today. She shuffled in the car seat, trying to focus on the implants of the pornstar her phone was displaying.

 

However, Kessler asked her, "How's the job going?"

 

"Like... not... tho good daddy."

 

Her voice had the valley-girl tone, but barely. And with her lips hardening like plastic, she was lisping now.

 

"How come?"

 

"Like... I wath like, fired."

 

"Why?"

 

She couldn't lie. The reason was obvious and different from what Sarah had said, from the excuse she'd been hiding behind. It was the same reason Kessler had taught her, the reason she was more and more convinced was real.

 

"Because... I'm like... a thlut."

 

She looked at him, eyes half closed, mouth dumbly agape, her filled bottom lip slightly shaking as the car moved over a bump. He kept his eyes on the road. As the car stopped at a red light, he looked at her and his eyes widened.

 

"What?" she asked, the word sounding lazy, more like a blurred "houat".

 

"Look at your lips. You're having some kind of allergic reaction," he answered.

 

Taking it as an order, she pulled down the passenger mirror to look at her face. The swelling of her mouth had somehow worsened, giving her the biggest lips she'd ever seen. They were slightly pushed forward, leaving the top part in shadows, giving her the infamous "filler mustache". She had large, perfectly artificial, ridiculous, duck lips. The change had been so gradual that Lucy, who checked herself in the mirror several times a day, hadn't realized how big they'd gotten. She touched them, pressing on the lips. They felt hard inside, like plastic.

 

"We'll ask Renato," concluded her teacher. "Tell me why you lost your job."

 

Lucy nodded.

 

"Like I wath like, maybe a bit too fhriendly with the clients."

 

"Really. How so."

 

"Maybe... Maybe like I thouthed them a bit too much I don't know. The other girls got like jealouth."

 

"Touched them where?" he asked, not missing a beat.

 

"On... on their cocks," she answered, ashamed. She felt her pussy spasm under her fingers as she confessed.

 

"You were working as a hostess... and were touching clients' cocks. No wonder they fired you."

 

She held her head down, feeling defeated. Her hand kept rubbing her snatch.

 

"What will you do now?"

 

"Well Thara... thomeone found me like another job." Then, seeing he didn't react, she added, "As a stripper."

 

"You don't need to do that," he simply stated.

 

Lucy was taken aback, feeling dumb. Yes, she did need the job. Hell, she WANTED it. But maybe he wanted to give her some money instead, she wondered.

 

"Why?"

 

"I forbid you to work as a stripper. We'll find you something else."

 

What?! Incredulous, Lucy thought back on all the hours wasted practicing, on how the girls had encouraged her, on how she already could see herself on stage... A slow resentment came back toward Kessler, a feeling toward him she'd almost forgotten. She remembered why she had hated him, his cold demeanor toward her, his petty manipulations and lies, him treating her like she was a child. She wanted to fight back, but to fight back for what? For her right to be a stripper? What kind of slut was she becoming?

 

She didn't know what to say.

 

Her fingers were still dancing on her pussy. On the screen, a girl was fucking two studs, and, for the first time, she was jealous of the actress' freedom. Was that what she wanted for herself? To be free to express her own sexuality on her own terms?

 

They rode in silence until they reached the clinic.

 

There, they met Renato who immediately identified the problem with Lucy's face.

 

"Oh no! My dear Lucy, you have been absolutely overfilled with product. What a scandal. I'm surprised such shady clinics still operate."

 

"Can you fix it?", wondered Kessler.

 

"Well, I can certainly try to dissolve the lip filler. But the ptosis, I mean, the drooping of the eyelids, will have to wear off on its own. It should go away in a few weeks," he explained.

 

He would have been right, if the lips had been injected with standard hyaluronic filler, if her face had been injected only with Botox. That wasn't the case.

 

"Shall we schedule another session for that?", asked Renato.

 

Lucy looked at her teacher, silently pleading with her inexpressive eyes. She didn't want to go back to that other clinic. He approved and they booked a slot for a few weeks later.

 

Since it wasn't an allergy, they decided to proceed with the planned surgery.

 

Lucy answered a long list of questions, lying about the drugs she was taking.

 

Then, she found herself back in the white room, stripped down to her panties, head covered by a bouffant cap. She stood there against the wall as Renato was marking her skin with a purple pen. Lucy shivered when he traced the bottom of her breasts, which only his expert eyes could see. It was the last time she exposed her flat chest, she thought with a hint of pride. Soon, she would be fixed.

He added another line separating her ribs, then some others, in a logic that escaped Lucy.

 

The nurse gave her a hospital gown and directed her to a cozy room with soft lighting, various screens fixed on the wall, surgical equipment neatly organized, and a procedure chair in the center. It looked halfway between an operating room and a massage place. She got seated, then an IV catheter get fixed in her hand. She didn't even feel herself falling asleep.

 

She just remembered opening her eyes, groggily, the nurse saying "it's done", pulling the gown back to give her a peek, her looking down, to see two mounds of flesh, and letting her head sink back against the chair, to fall back to sleep, content. She felt loopy, as Kessler pushed her to his car in a wheelchair. He helped her get inside and drove away.

 

"I'm taking you to my place. I'll take care of you for a couple of days," she heard him explain.

 

 

They ended up at his house, where she managed, with his help, to climb the stairs to his bedroom and crashed on his bed.