The music pounds in the club, vibrations running through my bare, glass feet and up my thighs, wrapped in black stockings. The air is thick, humid with bodies moving in rhythm, but I’m frozen in place by the weight of eyes on me. A group in the corner is staring—someone points, another laughs. I feel the heat rise from somewhere deep in my abdomen, and before I can stop it, the wine in my glass belly begins to bubble, shifting into tiny, effervescent streams. Shyness. Damn it. I clutch the hem of my cropped top, trying to feign indifference.

Someone leans closer, his face blurred through the curve of my chest, warped and distant. I think he says something—words muted by the beat—but my focus is on the wine again. It’s shifting. Violet now, a color that curls and spreads like ink in water. Discomfort. I glance down, hating how easy it is to read me. Transparent in more ways than one.

The man steps closer, a crooked smile tugging at his lips, and I try to hold myself together. My stomach’s glass distorts his grin. His hand brushes my exposed waist, and I hate how it makes the wine pulse deeper, darker, rich like bordeaux. Seductive. No. Not now. I step back, the liquid threatening to spill over if it weren’t trapped inside. He doesn’t take the hint.

“You’re fascinating,” he says, loud enough to cut through the music.

I swallow hard, pretending not to hear, but the words push me. They twist something inside me, make the wine shimmer gold for the briefest second—euphoria—and I curse it immediately. I turn on my heel, and though my legs move, my thoughts lag. A collision with someone else’s shoulder shocks me into focus.