A simple plan. An anti-hero slips into a dark burlesque club, nothing more on his mind than locating the club owner’s locked safe and leaving with its treasure, but instead finds himself transfixed by a beautiful dancer’s haunted eyes, staring back at him from behind her mask, as she seductively spins inside her colorful scarves.
A powerful psychic. Razer supplies the funding for his brother’s slave rescue operation by helping himself to money horded by the rich. He uses his special abilities to get into places normal people are not allowed, like the club owner’s office, where a safe reportedly exists full of jewels and untraceable credits. In and out. No unnecessary interactions. The only people he can afford to care about are the poor and enslaved. He certainly can’t indulge in fantasies about a gorgeous cabaret performer who strips for the richest of the rich.
A fierce female. Talented ballerina Ayanna now headlines at the famed cabaret of a luxury ship, dancing to make the money her ailing father desperately needs for his expensive medical treatments. When a thief uses her employee identity to pull off the plunder of a lifetime, jeopardizing everything she works so hard to protect, she’s not going to let him get away, leaving her behind to suffer the consequences. She refuses to take the fall for the rugged scoundrel, even if she feels mysteriously attracted to him.
Will Razer slip away with the contents of the cabaret’s safe, his heart intact, or will he realize that Ayanna is more valuable to him than any precious stone or single heist?
Previously published in the SFR Anthology, Cosmic Cabaret. This sexy story is intended for readers 18+.
Aboard the LS Solare, traveling near Kadis, Alliance Year 2114
Ayanna fought the mounting pressure behind her eyes. She was not going to cry and ruin all her carefully applied stage make-up. Her act was next in the line-up. She’d cry later, after the show, alone in her bed.
“How’s his pain now?”
“He’s resting peacefully, thanks to the credits you transferred last week. I used them for the good stuff—he’s completely pain-free at the moment, but I’ll admit we’re broke again.”
Through the vidscreen, Luxia rubbed her face, exhaustion pulling her features into a perpetual frown for someone so young. She had been forced to grow up too fast. She pledged she’d make up every sacrifice her sister had suffered as soon as they reunited.
Ayanna nodded, relieved at least that the most recent funds she’d sent to pay for her father’s black market medical drugs had transferred without incident. It wasn’t a sure thing, and more often than not, credits went missing somewhere during the transfer, especially now that Ozan had the colony under martial law. Changing accounts and transfer companies every couple of pay cycles made it possible to avoid their home planet’s rulers discovering the money and confiscating it.
“I’m sending you more credits after the show,” she told Luxia. “I’ll need to know where to forward them.”
“I’ll message you a new name and account.”
Ayanna rolled her shoulders to shake out some of her own exhaustion, glancing briefly at the time on her bracelet. In a few moments, she needed to go onstage for her final act of the day. Most club entertainers only performed one show a day; she’d been giving two or three, with no days off, in order to set aside extra money for Luxia to join her when the time came. Her little hard-earned treasure was stored in her Solare ID access account under her assumed stage persona, Butterfly. The only way to get to those funds was with her bracelet, which she never removed, even onstage.
“You look thinner than the last time we spoke,” Luxia fretted over Ayanna’s appearance through the gritty, black and white image feed channeled through DUCIN, the dark underground communication interplanetary network. In response, Ayanna noted her sister’s washed out cheeks and limp hair, cropped short for her disguise as a young boy. At least Ayanna had access to chemical showers and a comfortable bed. Her sister’s situation was far more…rustic.
“Right back at you, sis. Are you making sure to eat too?”
Luxia rolled her eyes as annoyingly as any teenager not burdened under their troubles.
“Yes. It won’t be much longer though, and then you’ll be free to worry about just yourself,” Luxia promised. Her increasing references to them going their separate ways after their father’s passing added another worry to Ayanna’s stress. Luxia had just turned eighteen a few days ago and their father’s life was fading away from some mysterious illness. If Luxia wanted to disappear instead of joining Ayanna, they might never see each other again. Ayanna’s heart ached. Despite all that had happened to them, the idea of being completely alone in the world shook her to the core.
In their last conversation, Luxia had reported that their father’s illness was getting worse, with no hope for a cure; the medical professionals still on the moon had given him less than a month to live during their last checkup. Time was running out.
Shutting down thoughts of how difficult her father’s passing would be emotionally, despite all the associated drama, Ayanna forced a smile. “I’m still going to worry about you until we’re together again.”
“Don’t waste your energy worrying about me. I’ve got solid plans in place to get out of here.” When Luxia did escape, the plan had been to reunite, but Luxia was less committed to the idea than Ayanna.
“You working through DUCIN on a route out?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’ll be careful, yes?”
Luxia snorted. “Duh! I’m not taking any chances…well nothing too risky.”
“After everything, we both deserve some timeout to recover. I can’t wait to get out of this career. I’ve actually set aside a little something so we can settle somewhere safe and regroup.”
“You’ve sacrificed so much for Father and me already.” Luxia grimaced.
“I’m not the one taking care of Father. I know what a challenge that’s been.”
Luxia shrugged, a mask of toughness and belligerence settling over her face. Ayanna ached to see how their circumstances had changed Luxia from a promising ballerina of grace and beauty filled with lightness into a blend of street thug and swaggering thief. Even Ayanna’s six months stripping on the stage for strangers hadn’t toughened her as much.
“It hasn’t been that bad, thanks to your transfers.” Luxia looked away. “We’ve both made sacrifices.”
“Good goddess! Let’s stop talking like a couple of martyrs. We’ve both done what had to be done. I’m just saying that we deserve to treat ourselves to some leisure time and luxury, and I’m going to see that we get it.”
“Thanks, big Sis. But I’m not little anymore and I’ve got my own plans.”
Luxia was two years younger than Ayanna had been when she entered her first beauty competition with the goal of earning enough money for their family to leave the moon colony Huldra for the planet Ozan, and eventually find work in the lucrative film market. The women in their family were born beautiful, and Ayanna had wanted to exploit that good fortune. Despite Luxia’s male clothing, bound chest and cropped hair, it wouldn’t be long before someone figured out that under the grime and rough clothes, a very beautiful female hid. One, like Ayanna, who had stunning violet eyes.
Only Ayanna had managed to escape Huldra the year before, leaving her father and sister behind, and it wasn’t because she’d achieved her goals. She’d been on the run, barely evading the sex trafficking ring that had attempted to kidnap her after the scandal in which she’d been publicly kicked out of the Ozan National Virgin Pageant. She’d been such a fool, taken in by the agency and its operator promising to make her a star. The last thing she wanted Luxia to do was end up dancing on a stage and stripping for all sort of nefarious and dangerous males across the galaxy, even if the pay was exceptional. If Ayanna was a talented dancer, her sister was an athletic genius. Before her disappearance, their mother had been one of the most beautiful dancers in the galaxy. Both girls had inherited her body and her grace, but Luxia’s talent was the kind that only came along once a millennium.
“Don’t worry,” Luxia said, guessing at Ayanna’s thoughts, “I don’t intend to dance, much less strip, for a living. Ever. All our beauty and talent has done is destroy our lives, one way or another.”
“Oh, Luxia…dancing is what we do, what we know, what we were made to do. I hate that you are rejecting it. I know I’m a disgrace, but there is no reason you can’t train with one of the best dance organizations in the Alliance and become a famous ballerina like our mother.”
Luxia made a scoffing noise. “We both know what happened to Mother—it got her attacked and killed. Dancing was always your dream. I plan to put my natural abilities into something less decorative and more useful.”
Ayanna frowned through the grainy screen at her sister. “I don’t want you to train to be a jinka.”
“And I don’t want you stripping. So we’re even.”
“I don’t want to strip either!” Ayanna only danced now to earn the essential credits that sustained them, keeping starvation an arm length away. She rubbed her face in frustration, forgetting about her makeup. Good thing her mask would cover most of her face. Her bracelet chimed.
“Look, I have to go for my last show of the day. I’m on in ten. Please, please be careful. I’ll send more credits tonight. I’ll use DUCIN to contact you with the time and access for my next call.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know if anything changes with Father.” Luxia mock saluted her as the grainy image stream faded to black.
“Butterfly, you’re up in less than five,” Max called through the curtain of her dressing area. With a determined look at herself in the mirror, Ayanna positioned the feathered mask over her face, part of her own disguise to evade Alliance, and therefore the rulers of Huldra’s attention. Her objective, along with the credits? To make a fortune as the most famous erotic dancer in the galaxy, while keeping her true identity a secret. She added the long, concealing cape around her shoulders and stood.