Notices had been coming up on my social media. Fletch was going to play at the Eloquent Spider with a band called Windstorm and I had been battered with information about it.

In response, I wrote Fletch a saucy text asking him if he would be performing shirtless again, to which he sent me a picture of the clothes he would be wearing. To be clear, he only sent a picture of the clothes hung on a hanger. It was a black wife-beater and black cargo pants.

I guessed that if I wanted to see him in them, I had to go to the show.

The show was that night, so that morning I asked Levi about the thing that was really bothering me. “Do you know if Carver Criche has a particular connection to the Eloquent Spider?”

Levi scratched the stubble on his chin. “Well, he books the place for his bands to play at. If he thinks he can get more people coming, he books a bigger hall, like the Sunspear center, but the Eloquent Spider is a good place for the little bands to start.”

“Ever heard of a band called Windstorm?”

“Nope. I only hear about the ones that have recording contracts.”

I nodded. That was just like Levi. He didn’t worry about anything except what work paid well. Along those lines, I had seen that Natalie had paid all her outstanding fees with him, so he was in a particularly good mood. I hadn’t realized it before, but he had thought that Natalie was going nowhere with her talent. He had never expected her to pay him. If that was how he felt, why had he let her accrue all those hours?

I was about to ask when the front door opened and a delivery man came in. He had a package. I signed for it before I saw it was for me.

“I didn’t think you got things delivered to the office,” Levi said, trying to sneak a peek at what it could be before I tore open the flap.

“I don’t get anything delivered,” I replied. “I don’t have room in my place for anything.”

The enormous envelope was very plain and I pulled a piece of black fabric out of it.

“What is it?”

I pulled it between my fingers. “It’s a dress.”

“There’s a note attached,” Levi said, grabbing the hem of the garment as it flapped around. “See you at the show,” he read.

“Oh. It’s from Fletch,” I said as I looked at the return address. “I guess he wants me to wear it tonight.”

Levi made a clicking noise with his tongue and excused himself.

***

I tried the dress on after work.

It had a turtleneck, extended shoulder sleeves, and hugged my body tightly until just above my knee. Actually, it was too tight. It scratched at my neck. I tried to wear a slip under it to protect me from the uncomfortable seams, but it didn’t look right. The dress was too tight and showed every seam and line in my slip. I hadn’t realized there was so much lace around the hem of my slip before because it had never been an issue when I wore it under any of my other dresses.

I took off the dress, removed my slip, shook my head sadly, and put the dress back on. If I liked Fletch less, I wouldn’t have worn it.

All the same, I put on some knee-high boots and hoped that it wouldn’t be too cold out that night.

***

At the club, I texted Fletch when I was outside. It was about ten minutes before his show. I had meant to be there sooner, but I refused to walk to the Eloquent Spider in the dress that felt like paper, and it took forever for a cab to come.

When I got there, there wasn’t an oppressive line of people waiting outside since Windstorm was a lesser band than Blades and Blasters. I started to feel guilty about Fletch coming to let me skip the door fee, and sauntered up to the entrance. Besides, it was too cold to wait outside.

Once inside, I was surprised at how full the dance floor was. I hadn’t expected anyone to be inside after the sparse splattering of people outside. I guessed they’d come early.

Fletch met me on the edge of the dance floor.

“Baby,” he said, pulling me into an embrace. “You look beautiful.”

I was about to say something about how I’d better look good and thank him for the dress when Ringlet came up behind Fletch and grabbed him by the Y strap on his back.

“No chatting,” she barked without looking at me. “Sissy’s friend has no idea how to set up a drum kit and if you don’t get the cymbals on right, they’ll probably come off.”

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He moved to kiss me, but the force of Ringlet’s hoist moved him out of the space of even my fingers.

If he’d had a pair of earplugs with him, he hadn’t had a chance to give them to me. I shrugged and pulled a fresh pair out of my bag. As I finished twisting them into my ears, I noticed a few kids watching me from the bench of a booth. Not only was I alone, but I was also putting in earplugs like a snob.

I needed a seat.

I watched Windstorm play for two minutes before I got bored. Why were there so many people at the club to see them? Levi didn’t always get contracts from the best artists, but the only proper thing that was happening on that stage was Fletch’s drumming. Even Ringlet’s guitar skills and backup singing left much to be desired.

I wondered if they were planning to play more than one set as I approached the bar, which was empty with most people back on the dancefloor.

I sat on a stool.

“Got anything hot?” I asked as I sat down.

“I can make you something hot,” the bartender offered with that look on his face that I was more than familiar with. There was no one else at the bar and he thought it was his lucky day. He’d serve me drinks and we were far enough away from the sound of the band playing that he could have a little banter with me.

The look of pleasure on his face deflated me. In the past, I would have taken full advantage of a man’s willingness to go out of his way for me, but tonight, it just made me feel out of place in my own skin.

“Do you like chocolate or peaches? I know a really good recipe for mulled peach wine.”

That sounded like it would take forever. “Actually, I haven’t had anything to eat and if I drink that, I’ll feel worse. I’d like orange juice and soda. ”

“What’s making you feel bad?” he asked, taking my money and pulling on his soda handle.

“This dress. This music.”

The bartender laughed.

Suddenly, two guys took the seats on either side of me. They were enormous and practically crushing me between them even though the stools were screwed to the floor.

Sitting between them was horribly uncomfortable, and I moved to leave once the bartender was finished making my drink.

“Oh, don’t go darling,” one of the hulking men said. “We don’t mean to chase you off. We’re just here to talk for a minute.”

I paused, wondering how badly I would offend them if I strode away with my nose in the air and what the consequences of that might be.

“These guys are the bouncers,” the bartender informed me. “They’ll just be a minute.”

I put my weight back on my stool. Besides, as I looked behind me, the bar was starting to fill up.

I pulled at my collar.

I was uncomfortable. It wasn’t just the dress. What was I doing? This was exactly the sort of thing I had rejected Simon over. I even told Fletch on that first night when we were handcuffed together that I wouldn’t be the girl who was hauled to sleazy clubs, and now I had been hauled to this sleazy club twice. What was I doing?

I knew damn well what I was doing. I was waiting for Fletch to finish his drumming so he would take me to a quiet Greek restaurant and then I would make him feed me pita bread with hummus. Sometimes sets were only twenty minutes. They were probably halfway finished already, but I was going out of my mind.

The reason I didn’t jump up from my chair was that it had gone from six degrees celsius to forty-two degrees in a matter of minutes. I was boiling, and the bouncers weren’t leaving. The juice was sour, and my dress was chafing my neck.

Okay, I liked Fletch.

I was in love with Fletch.

That was the only reason I was putting up with this crap.

And I wouldn’t put up with it anymore. He wanted to know the real me? Well, he was going to get the real me that night. I was going to tell him what I thought of the Eloquent Spider and the people who worked there and the people who worked with the people who worked there. I was going to tell him not to send me pretty dresses because I had so many sensory issues that he was forbidden to shop for me.

I stood up.

I was leaving and when he bothered to contact me, he’d find out why.

I stormed out to the lobby with my fingers in my collar, angry and uncomfortable when I noticed something. When I pulled my fingers out of my collar, there were black smudges on them. It was exactly like I had had my fingerprints taken at the police station, except the ink was on the front and back of all my fingers except my pinkie.

Stunned, I pushed my way into the women’s bathroom.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I pulled my collar down. Black was smudged in a thick ring around my throat. That was not the handiwork of the cheapest fabric and the cheapest dye in the world. Something was going on.

I checked the bathroom stalls, and when I saw that I was alone, I ripped the dress over my head. There was ink all over my body. Like an enormous inky typewriter had used me as its paper, I had the words, “I want Carver” written all over where the dress had touched me, except where my underwear had protected me. I put my hand under the soap pump and smeared some soap on my chest where the words were the clearest. I yanked at the paper towel roll and wetted it.

The only thing that happened was that I got my bra wet.

The words were not coming off.

Fletch hadn’t sent me the dress. Carver had. He had somehow used permanent ink and I didn’t know when it would ever come off.

I called Todd.

“What’s up, Shannon?” he asked pleasantly.

“Where are you? I’m at the Eloquent Spider and I really need you to come get me,” I was not going to cry, but my voice quivered over the phone.

“Why? Is someone chasing you?”

“No. I have a huge problem. I need help, and you are the only one who can help me right now.”

“I’m just down the block,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay. I’m in the girl’s room.”

He was faster than I imagined and I was still wiping at the ink hopelessly when he came in.

He looked at me, up and down. Then up and down again. I could tell he was struggling desperately to stay professional. If I had been a random person he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have struggled at all. Instead, his blue eyes flashed like he was seeing something he should never see on duty. Then he chuckled. “What happened? Did someone do this to you when you were drunk?”

“When have I ever been drunk, Todd? Someone pulled a prank on me.”

“Who?”

I tugged at my bra straps to emphasize Carver’s name across my cleavage.

“Was it the same guy who made you submit to a pedicure at gunpoint?”

I shook my head wearily, before shouting at him, “If you laugh again, I swear I’ll kill you. That wasn’t funny, and neither is this!”

“Okay, I’ll go get a camera, so we can take some pictures of this, and an evidence bag, so I can take that dress. Maybe some clothes for you,” he said, before ducking out of the ladies’ room.

I didn’t like the way he said maybe.