When I Was Her

Jordyn

The wine barrels in the club basement smelt like sugar gone bad, sweet at first, then sour the longer you stayed. It clung to the air, thick and damp, settling into your clothes whether you wanted it to or not.

I sat wedged between two of them, knees pulled in, my shoulder pressed against the cool curve of the wood. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was out of the way. Easy to miss, if no one came down looking too hard.

For a few minutes, that was enough.

The piano upstairs drifted through the ceiling, softened by the floorboards but steady enough to follow. I knew the tune without thinking about it. Knew how the night would go, too. It always went the same way, same music, same voices, same feeling of stepping into something that had already been decided before I got there.

I told myself I’d only come down for a minute. Just to get a bit of quiet before it all started properly. Just to breathe without anyone watching.

That was the excuse.

The truth was, I didn’t feel like going back up.

I shifted slightly, the wood pressing harder into my arm as I tried to make myself smaller, like that might make any difference. It wouldn’t. It never did. Still, I stayed where I was, listening to the music above, letting it blur into something distant, something that didn’t quite belong to me yet.

If I waited long enough, maybe no one would notice I was gone right away. Maybe I could steal a few more minutes before someone came looking.

The thought barely had time to settle before I heard the footsteps on the stairs.

“Jordyn?”

My stomach dropped the second I heard his voice drift through the basement. Smooth, controlled, like he already knew exactly where I was and was only asking for the sake of it.

I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath, the damp air sticking in my throat. Of course he’d come looking. He always did.

“Jordyn, where the hell are you?”

His voice was louder now, closer, each step on the stairs measured and unhurried. He wasn’t rushing. He never rushed. He liked the space it gave him, the way it made you wait for him instead.

I pushed myself up from between the barrels, brushing my hands against my dress like that might somehow fix the crease of being caught.

“I’m coming.” I called back, my voice steadier than I felt.

The last of the shadows shifted as he stepped into view, his eyes landing on me almost immediately, like he’d known the exact spot all along.

“You always choose the same places, babydoll.”

His lips curved into that smile, the one that never reached his eyes, the one that made my skin prickle before I could stop it. There was something about the way he said it, soft and familiar, like he was letting me in on a joke I didn’t want to be part of.

“You’re going to be late.”

“I know what time it is.” I said, sharper than I meant to.

His gaze dropped, slow and deliberate, taking in every detail of my outfit like he had all the time in the world. It wasn’t the same as the men upstairs, not as obvious, but it was worse in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Like he wasn’t just looking. Like he was checking something that belonged to him.

“Do you?” he said, lifting his eyes back to mine. The softness was gone now, replaced with something firmer. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’d rather be down here than doing what I pay you to do.”

The words settled heavy between us.

There was a lot I could have said to that. Most of it had been sitting at the back of my throat for a long time. But Silas Crowe had a way of making words feel like a risk, and I knew better than to take too many with him.

I held his gaze for a second longer than I should have, then looked past him toward the stairs.

“You barely pay me anyway.” I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

It wasn’t defiance. Not really. Just the closest thing I could manage.

I moved past him before he could answer, the fake pearls around my neck knocking softly against each other with every step. I could feel his eyes on me as I went, steady and unmoving, like he was measuring something again. And somehow, that made me feel smaller than any room ever could.

The music grew louder with every step I took up the stairs, swallowing the quiet of the basement and replacing it with something sharper, brighter, something meant to be seen.

This was where I was supposed to belong.

But I never had belonged, I just never had a choice not to.

By the time I reached the top, the air had changed completely, thicker, warmer, carrying perfume and smoke and something underneath it all that never quite faded. It clung to your skin the same way the smell in the basement did, only this version was dressed up nicer. Easier to pretend it wasn’t there.

This was my life. Had been for as long as I could remember it feeling like mine.

A burlesque dancer in a club no one respectable would admit to knowing, in a city that never really let you leave once it had you.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stepped outside and felt anything close to being alive. Not properly. Not in a way that stayed.

Up here, everything was noise and movement and expectation. You were either part of it, or you got pushed out of the way.

There wasn’t much space in between.

I slipped into the backstage area without anyone really noticing, taking my usual place like it had been marked out for me long before I got there. The other girls were already talking, laughing, fixing each other’s hair, adjusting costumes like it was all just part of the evening, like there was nothing else waiting for them beyond it.

Like this was enough.

I watched them for a moment, trying to see it the way they did. Trying to understand how it could be enough.

I never quite managed.

Maybe they were better at pretending. Or maybe I was worse at it.

I drew in a slow breath, the noise pressing in from all sides now, no space left to hide in it. The lights flickered once, then went out completely, the sudden darkness cutting through everything like a held breath.

That was my cue.

I closed my eyes for just a second.

Then I shut everything else down with it. No thinking. No feeling. Just movement.

The lights came back in a sharp wash, spilling across the stage, and the music followed, louder now, layered with piano, saxophone, violin, all of it rising together until it filled the room completely.

There wasn’t any space left for anything else. That was the point.

I stepped forward.

The curtain parted slowly, and the light found me before anything else did. For a brief second, everything beyond it blurred, the stage, the room, the faces, until I lifted my gaze and let it all come into focus.

Men.

Rows of them, filling the room with noise and movement. Glasses raised, smoke curling lazily into the air, laughter spilling over itself like it meant nothing. Some leaned forward in their seats, already watching, already waiting. Others spoke over the music, careless, distracted, as though I were just another part of the evening they’d paid for.

I let my body move before I let myself think.

That was always the trick.

Slow steps, careful turns, the kind of rhythm that didn’t need forcing. It came easily now, settling into me like something learned too well to ever forget. Every movement was deliberate without feeling that way, each one placed exactly where it needed to be. The dress clung close to my skin, catching the light when I shifted, when I turned, when I let it linger just long enough to hold their attention.

They watched.

Of course they did. They always did.

But it never felt like they were seeing anything real.

My eyes moved across the room the way they always did, never staying too long, never giving too much, until they found him.

Henry Ashford.

He sat where he always did, untouched by the chaos around him, a glass resting easily in his hand, a cigar burning low between his fingers. He didn’t lean forward like the others, didn’t call out or laugh or try to be part of it. He just watched.

When our eyes met, he lifted his glass slightly, the smallest acknowledgment, before taking a slow drag, his gaze never leaving me.

It felt different when he looked at me.

Not softer. Not kinder. Just more focused.

Like he wasn’t watching the performance, but something beneath it. Like every step I took, every turn, every pause meant something more than what the others saw.

Like he understood it.

Or maybe I just wanted him to.

The music carried me through the rest of it, rising and falling around me until it reached its end, and just like that, it was over.

The applause came quickly, loud and easy, filling the space I’d just left behind. The other girls around me played into it, laughing, spinning, feeding off the noise like it gave something back.

I dipped my head slightly, just enough to satisfy them, and stepped away before it could linger too long.

Backstage swallowed the sound, dulled it into something distant again. Voices picked up where they’d left off, the night already moving on to the next thing.

I didn’t stay.

The walk to my room was quieter, the noise fading with every step until it became a dull hum beneath my feet. By the time I reached the door, it barely felt like it belonged to me anymore.

Inside, everything was still.

The bed sat where it always did, narrow and worn, the small lamp casting just enough light to keep the room from disappearing completely. The same book rested beside it, pages bent from being read too many times, its story more familiar to me than my own.

I closed the door behind me and let the silence settle.

For a moment, I just stood there, letting the weight of the night fall away in pieces. The music, the voices, the eyes, it all slipped into the background, leaving something quieter behind.

Something harder to ignore.

I sat on the edge of the bed, then lay back, staring up at the ceiling as if it might give me something different to look at if I waited long enough.

It never did.

This was it.

The same room, the same nights, the same feeling of stepping into something that never changed no matter how many times I lived through it.

I hated it.

I hated the way they looked at me, like I was something made for them. I hated how easy it had become to give them exactly what they wanted. I hated that I didn’t have anywhere else to go, anything else to be.

And still, out of all of it, there was one thing I held onto.

Henry.

He was the only person in that room who ever made it feel like there might be something more waiting for me beyond it all, even if I knew better, even if I understood, deep down, that he would never choose me, not in any way that truly mattered.

That didn’t stop me from wanting it.

From wanting something, someone, who could look at me and see more than just what I gave them under the lights, more than just a part of the evening they could forget as soon as they walked out the door.

I let my eyes close, the quiet of the room settling in around me, softer than the noise downstairs but somehow heavier for it. Without the music, without the voices, there was nothing left to fill the space, nothing to distract from the thought that had been sitting with me for longer than I cared to admit.

I didn’t want this life, not like this, not stretched out endlessly into something I could already see the shape of. I wanted something different, something that felt like it belonged to me instead of something I had simply stepped into and never found a way out of.

And for a moment, lying there in the stillness, it almost felt possible to imagine it.