It kept bugging Pete about that business card she’d gotten from the guy. If it hadn’t been blank she’d have probably just tossed it, because who gave a shit; but as it was it seemed like he’d deliberately presented her a mystery. Why hand a girl a blank card? What kind of jackass did that? Was it some weird negging thing? Maybe there was a message there in lemon juice. She felt like she was missing something about the thing and she couldn’t really formulate what.

And now it was lost. She stood at the bathroom mirror fighting the urge to berate herself out loud. She hadn’t once taken the card out of her bag since she put it in there, she knew it for a fact, and all the same it was gone. Helplessly Pete pawed yet again through the pile of non-card-containing crap she’d dumped out next to the sink. She felt an unaccountable panic welling up and had to remind herself to breathe.

If Cart could be just a fraction less of a drama bitch. Pete knew she’d been procrastinating the last couple days, but absolutely she meant to say something about the dude before work this morning. Hell she’d gotten herself up ahead of time for it. And there was CeeCee lolling about on the couch in obscure crisis, somehow even nakeder than usual, as soon as Pete came in the room she started whining how nobody loved her, nobody ever paid attention to her… Cart with an empty day on her schedule was always a heartbeat away from meltdown. “I haven’t seen DeeDee in like forever, now you’re leaving, maybe I should just go out in the street and start turning tricks” kind of thing. Hungry hungry pussy, Dash called her once. Pete let herself get eaten out just to shut the girl up, and then there wasn’t time to think about party dudes or blank business cards or anything but a wipedown and scramble for the bus.

Pete hadn’t seen Dash either. Like, “didn’t come home the last couple nights” hadn’t seen. Not the first time. She sighed, and with her forearm tried to sweep the pile of stuff on the counter back into her bag. Half made it, generously. As she bent down to pick up the bits that didn’t she felt the whole miserable weight of things crash on top of her all at once. The bag thudded to the floor and Pete hung her head and started to cry.

They were losing DeeDee. She hadn’t admitted it to herself before but she’d known. It was obvious. And she didn’t know how to talk about it. That’s all the card was, it was a token, something she could put in front of Cart just so they’d have a topic. There was so much weirdness and silence between them all about their relationship,— especially over the dude and how they’d met and what it all meant for them. It had all got tangled up in her head, the card, what she’d been sensing about Dash, how precarious the delibery girls situation had started to seem. The dude wasn’t relevant. His fucking mystery card wasn’t relevant. And yet misplacing it felt to Pete like she’d fucked up for good, like without even knowing it she’d blown their little sisterhood’s last chance.

And she still had half the fucking shift left to go. Crouched beside her open bag, she tried to calm her breathing and get a customer service face back on. She thought she’d picked up all the stuff but then after a moment noticed a pale something on the floor next to the trash can. She reached for it. It was a neatly torn rectangle of heavy paper stock, like from a business card. Unmarked. She wondered at it a moment, flipping it back and forth a few times, but there was nothing there, so she threw it away.

She stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She hated just the sight of that dumb corporate nameplate, and felt a savage little triumph ripping her apron off and tossing it and the nameplate into the corner by the toilet. The blouse she had on was nothing special, but at least you could see now she had tits. She smoothed the fabric over them and imagined chucking her bra too, but break time was about up. She smiled. “How may I help you?” she asked her reflection sarcastically.

Her bag was in front of the door, and before she turned the lock Pete kicked it out of the way under the sink. Leaving the bathroom she hung a right, not back to her station but towards the front of the store. No one said a word. The sunlight made her blink, and it took a second for Pete to process that she’d gone outside. She closed her eyes for a moment and let the street noises clear her head. Then she squared her shoulders, pointed herself in a direction and strode off.

She was standing just inside the foyer of the penthouse. The party dude came in carrying a couple of glasses, and without being asked handed Pete one. She hadn’t undressed yet. He scanned her up and down, looking somewhat put out. “Gotta say, you’re kind of unexpected. On your way to work or coming from?”

Pete paused to consider. “From? I think?” she said. She drained the bourbon at one go. “I don’t know how I got here,” she shrugged. She handed back the glass and started to strip.

“You really shouldn’t wear a bra,” he said, setting the tumbler on a side table. “Right?” she answered, shimmying her tits at him. The thing had been chafing her something fierce, and she gave a little kick at it where it landed. Bending forward to pull her slacks down she caught a glimpse of flaccid penis through the folds of his big black robe. “And you should get a more flattering gown.”

He snorted and gave her a disbelieving head shake. “Things you do remember though,” he muttered, laughing. He downed his own drink. “Alright, well, you’re here anyway,” he sighed. “Come on up.”

She walked behind him up the front stairs and into a large, chilly-looking bedroom dominated by an enormous round bed in the center, draped all in black, set on a low platform. A round mirror about the same diameter was mounted on the ceiling above it, and a circumference of pale LEDs marked the platform’s rim. To play the sexy light shows that would go with your playlist of sexy beats, Pete naturally assumed. It was such a cock thrust of a bed she had to stifle a laugh.

Between the dimness of the barely-lit room and the LED shimmer below the bed Pete had some trouble adjusting her eyes. She paused not far from the door while the dude went on ahead. There were girls on the bed, kneeling there in a group, and she had just made out the cute pair of Asian chicks from before when he turned in his steps and asked her, “Hey, what happened to that bag of yours?”

There were three girls. They were facing each other, knee to knee to knee, looking up at a point about midway to the ceiling, as if they were watching something hung in the dimness there. Pete tried and failed to conjure a shape out of it.

“I guess I didn’t bring it,” she said. Slowly the girls stuck their tongues out, all the way, their mouths wide and their faces blank, in perfect sync. They closed their mouths and then they did it again. It was mesmerizing.

Pete flashed on an image of her bag slumped sideways next to a trash can. “I think I threw it away,” she told the dude. She wasn’t sure why that would interest him. He made a dissatisfied sort of grunt in reply, then turned aside and pulled out his phone.

All three of them were wearing headphones with little cat ears on top. Pink, Pete saw as the room brightened. She came towards the bed. The girls blinked and stopped gazing up at the invisible point and reached in unison to pull their ears off. Pete watched the tall one shake her hair out in front of her and then flip it back, and with an intake of breath she realized she was looking at Dash.

“Oh,” the dude said, glancing up. “Right.” Absorbed in whatever he was doing with the phone, he’d wandered some way to the other side of the bed, and now he came back over. He punched at something on the screen and scowled “fucking lights” in the direction of the LEDs, then slid the phone into a pocket of his robe.

“I’m afraid your friend was a little naughty,” he said to Pete. The girls were facing them now, eyes hooded, hips squirming, intent on their own arousal. You could see how wet they all were. “Remember, naughty girl?” It seemed to take effort for Dash to realize he was speaking to her. “Tell her what you did.”

Dash smiled at Pete, a voracious smile that spread to the sisters, who were kneeling on either side of her. “Hey pal,” she said, her voice throaty, and the Asian girls echoed her, hey pal, a beat late, in the same fuck-me register. Pete felt suddenly queasy. “We were going through your purse,” the girl on the left said. “We do that sometimes,” added the one on the right.

“We kept telling you you don’t keep good track of your tips,” Dash said. “Always letting em pile up in there.” Still smiling, the sisters nodded their agreement. Only DeeDee could have managed to scold her and confess to being a purse sneak in the same breath, except it didn’t feel to Pete like it was DeeDee. Or that she even knew who it was standing in front of her. There was no more recognition in those hooded eyes than if she’d been a marionette.

“Really it’s just a party trick,” he said confidingly in Pete’s ear. “I mean I’ve done a lot with the twins these last couple months, you know, how much can you fuck with their individuality sort of deal, but even so. Not like you’re gonna get them thinking each other’s thoughts.” He folded his arms, took a pace back, frowned. “I liked the visual of that little blonde in there. That’s what got me started. But hey, the artist works with what the universe provides, yeah? And it’s kind of growing on me.” From her spot off the platform it seemed to Pete that Dash towered over the other two. The dude scratched near his bald spot. “It’s funny in a different way.”

The circle of LEDs flashed three times and went dark. “See if the reset took,” he murmured, fishing in his pocket for the phone. He stepped onto the platform and snapped his fingers. Dash and her new companions collapsed back onto the bed, a puddle of hands and thighs and mouth noises. “We’re gonna do a little something later,” he told Pete. “Got some friends stopping by.” He made a wry face. “Friends. Associates, let’s say. Anyhow,” he held out a hand, “we should discuss.” Pete gave him hers, and let him pull her up.