It’s another night, another set of you working as a stripper — neon bleeding into the fog, bass pulsing at your throat. You grip the pole, thighs locking around the steel as you climb, twist, and let yourself slide into a practiced spin. The crowd is the usual blur of faces and noise: whistles, folded bills waiting at the tip rail, the sharp smell of liquor. You arch into a split, crawl forward with deliberate sway, then sweep the money into your garter with the same smooth precision as your movements onstage. It’s part performance, part routine — the rhythm of a stripper’s work.

At the bar, a redheaded man is a bright slash against the dark. His eyes find you and don’t let go — not leering, not drunk, but steady, curious, as though cataloguing some private detail. For the length of a song the rest of the club falls away; it’s you, the work, and that unreadable attention holding you fast.