Chapter Text
"What's your name baby?"
The woman leaned back against the bar, half-faded black lipstick reflecting the neon of some shitty-looking IPA that tasted even shittier. She traced the rim of her whiskey glass with one sharp nail, painted cemetery black.
"I'm Vix." She let her moniker hang between them for a second, making her seem edgier than she was.
The guy swayed closer, beer breath washing over her. His shirt had come untucked on one side. "Vix. That's hot. Like... foxy. You know?"
She tilted her head, silver chains clinking together beneath her leather jacket. "Something like that."
"So what brings a girl like you—" He gestured vaguely at her fishnet sleeves, the tattoo of a black widow crawling up her neck. "—to a place like this?"
"The ambiance." The word dripped sarcasm as she glanced around the dive bar with its peeling band posters and sticky floors.
He laughed too loud, missing it completely. "You're funny. I like funny." His hand found the bar beside her hip, boxing her in. "Buy you another drink?"
Vix picked up her glass, swirled the amber liquid. "This one's doing fine."
"Come on." He leaned heavier, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Let me take care of you tonight."
She'd been Victoria Eveley until sophomore year of college, playing field hockey on scholarship, loving parents, her biggest rebellion a secret septum piercing she flipped up before going home. Vix sounded dangerous. Vix sounded like she'd key your car and laugh about it. Vix didn't take shit from drunk guys at bars.
She set down her glass with a decisive click.
"Here's what you're gonna be taking care of." Her eyes narrowed, further accentuating their green hue beneath all the eyeshadow. "First, you're going to take your hand off me before I break it. Then, you're going to walk back to whatever goon cave you crawled out of. And finally, the only reason you'll ever remember this conversation is to think about how pathetic you are."
"Wait, I just—"
"I don't care what you just. I don't care that you just think my name is sexy or that you're just having a rough week or just think I look like a pornstar you beat off to." She pushed off the bar, forcing him back a step. "How about you just find someone else to stick your micro in. I'm not interested, I'm not playing, and I'm just not fucking available. Clear?"
His face cycled through confusion, anger, embarrassment… horniness. "You're a bitch."
"And you're short." She turned back to her drink. "Now fuck off."
The guy slunk away, muttering something about “daddy issues.” Vix watched him go in the grimy mirror behind the bar, her reflection split and doubled by the cracks in the glass.
“Good riddance," Vix grumbled, finishing off her drink.
Not that she completely blamed him.
To any reasonable observer's reasonable standard, she did not belong in a place like this.
Mostly because, by that same reasonable observer's reasonable standard, Vix was so unreasonably hot that reason had to recuse itself. And not the trashy dive-bar hot, liquor-does-everyone-favors hot, but hot in the way that made the room look temporary around her, like she’d wandered in from a higher tax bracket on a dare. Vix had the sort of face and body that should’ve been selling overpriced activewear on Instagram or ruining some finance bro’s life in Connecticut.
A short, tight, black bob framed cheekbones so gorgeous that photographers would crawl over crushed-up white Monster cans to shoot. Her eyeliner cut a wing so clean it normally required three people and a ring light.
Or, maybe she was that cool and did it herself.
Because Vix was like that.
Her leather jacket hung open over a plain black tee she'd cropped herself with kitchen scissors, the hem hitting just below her ribs. No bra—she didn't need one, blessed with the kind of chest that defied gravity and common sense. Her jet-black skirt rode low enough to show hip bones and the top edge of black lace, tight enough to make every step deliberate.
"Damn, Vix. Let 'em down easy, huh?" The bartender walked back over.
Fishnets covered her pale, toned legs. Silver rings crowded half her fingers. A plain black choker hugged her throat, matching everything else she owned, because Vix had solved fashion the way arsonists solved clutter: aggressively and in one color. Black went with black, which went with slightly different black, which went with the black she had decided was “for daytime.”
Because Vix was like that.
Yet despite that, it didn't change the fact that any outsider would've been able to pick her from the crowd. A girl like Vix didn't belong here—haunting places like this—dive bars where the jukebox only played songs from before she was born and the bathroom had more piss outside the toilets than in. She was too clean-cut, too perfectly messy in the way that stuck out.
"Third one tonight, I was getting tired of easy," Vix replied, tapping her empty glass. The bartender nodded, already reaching for the Jack Daniels.
But Vix didn't care what anyone else thought. She felt at home here.
All the regulars knew her. Knew she'd buy a round when her check cleared and bum cigarettes when it didn't. Knew she'd shut down creeps and help the bartender break up fights without breaking a nail. It was the kind of stuff that went deeper than the outfit. She didn't flinch at spilled beer or crude jokes, didn't wrinkle her nose at the permanent smell of stale smoke that clung to everything. She wasn't Victoria. She was Vix.
And Vix… was like that.
"Hold that thought actually," she said, holding up a hand before the bartender could pour. "Bathroom."
He nodded, setting the bottle aside.
She slid off the stool, adjusting her skirt to cover her ass before heading toward the back. The hallway to the bathrooms smelled of Pine-Sol trying and failing to mask decades of neglect. Someone had carved "EAT THE RICH" into the wall leading up. Vix traced it with one finger as she passed.
Vix locked the bathroom door behind her and leaned against the sink. The mirror showed what it always did—someone who looked like they'd fight you in a parking lot, not someone whose childhood bedroom still had horse posters and a canopy bed.
She could be home right now. Her old apartment in Brookline, the one her parents kept paying for even after she'd stopped going to classes. Her dad kept suggesting "taking a semester off" like this was just a phase, like she'd wake up one morning craving organic smoothies and NPR podcasts again.
That girl—Victoria—she'd had plans. Med school, maybe. Something with an acronym and a six-figure starting salary, something that made her mom's book club friends clutch their pearls in jealous approval.
That girl had also been boring as shit.
Vix pulled a cigarette from behind her ear, stuck it between her lips without lighting it. She'd quit smoking three weeks ago but kept them around for the aesthetic. Because looking like you'd bum a light off a stranger felt more honest than pretending you had your life together.
Because the truth was uglier than rebellion. The truth was she'd tried their version of normal—the classes, the networking brunches, the boys who looked good on paper and bored her to tears in bed. She'd tried being what everyone expected, and it felt like wearing someone else's skin.
So Vix burned it all down. Stopped showing up to lectures. Started showing up here instead, where nobody gave a fuck about your last name or your prospects or whether you were "living up to your potential."
Her parents thought this was acting out, some delayed teenage crisis. They didn't get that this was the most honest she'd ever been.
Vix stared at her reflection. Smudged the lipstick darker with her thumb.
She had every right to go home.
But rights weren't the same as wants.
And Vix wanted the grime under her nails, wanted the burning in her throat from bottom-shelf liquor, wanted the freedom of being nobody's daughter in the dark corners of places that didn't check IDs too carefully.
Vix wanted to explore. That's what she told herself when she first started coming here, what she told herself every time her mom's number lit up her phone. She wasn't afraid of getting dirty, wasn't squeamish about the things that would make other girls—the ones she used to have brunch with—shriek and clutch their Balenciaga bags.
She'd sat through conversations about threesomes with strangers, about bad mushroom trips in dingy basements, about STD scares and pregnancy tests taken on grimy gas station floors. She'd held a girl's hair back while she puked cocaine and cheap tequila into a toilet. She'd watched a guy get glassed in a fight over a pool game and helped pressure the wound with bar napkins until the ambulance showed.
That was real. That was living.
Not some sanitized, Instagram-filtered version where you pretended the world didn't have edges sharp enough to cut.
She was cool. She could handle whatever got thrown at her. The groping, the catcalling, the guys who thought buying her a drink meant buying access to her body. She shut them down clean, never got shaken, never let them see her sweat. Getting hit on came with the territory when you looked like she did and hung out in places like this. She'd learned to navigate it the way you learned to navigate any other hazard—with sharp words and sharper elbows.
The guys here were easy. Predictable. They wanted what they always wanted, and she enjoyed the power of denying them, of watching their faces fall when they realized she wasn't impressed by their—
"Dick?"
Vix blinked, processing.
No—there was a literal dick. Right behind her in the mirror. Poking through a fist-sized hole in the bathroom stall wall she hadn't noticed before.
She turned around fully, cigarette still dangling unlit from her lips.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
This place had glory holes. Of course it did. Why wouldn't the bathroom of a dive bar that still had a working cigarette machine have glory holes? Why wouldn't her exploration of the gritty underbelly of the city's nightlife include—
The dick twitched.
Vix took a step back, nearly slipping on the wet floor. Her heel caught the edge of a cracked tile.
"Nope. No. Absolutely not."
She'd seen a lot in the six months since she'd stopped being Victoria. Drug deals in parking lots. A guy pissing blood in an alley. Someone getting arrested for trying to steal an ATM. She'd thought she'd scraped the bottom of the barrel, found the limits of how raw and real things could get.
Apparently not.
The universe had decided to one-up itself.
She should leave. Walk out, get her drink, pretend this never happened.
But Vix didn't run. That was the whole point. She didn't flinch, didn't get squeamish, didn't retreat to her safe little bubble when things got weird.
Still.
"This is insane," she muttered, but she wasn't moving toward the door.
The cigarette fell from her lips, bouncing off the sink. She stared at the hole, at the bold fucking audacity of whoever was on the other side.
Some guy just... waiting. Hoping some girl desperate or drunk or damaged enough would walk in and—
What? Service a stranger through a hole in a bathroom wall?
"I'm out."
She turned and started toward the door before she caught her reflection in the mirror again. Black lipstick. Fishnet sleeves. The outfit of a girl who could handle anything.
She paused.
She couldn't run away from this. She didn't run away from all those other situations. What would this say about her if she left now? She needed to stand her ground. If anyone was leaving, it would be the creep first.
Because Vix was like that.
She blinked. Looked away. Looked back.
The dick didn't move.
Still there. Jutting through a crude hole in the stall divider, maybe three feet off the ground. White, cut, average length, pointed straight at her like some kind of flesh periscope.
Vix had seen plenty of dicks. She wasn't a prude or some sheltered virgin clutching her pearls. But those had all come with context. They were attached to people she'd chosen, in places she'd agreed to. This was different. This was a disembodied cock poking through bathroom graffiti in the shittiest dive bar in town.
"Hey dude, what the fuck—"
"Come onnnn, touch it!"
The voice slurred through the wall, thick with beer and desperation. Male, obviously. Probably the same breed of loser who'd been hitting on her at the bar all night.
Vix crossed her arms. "Are you being serious right now?"
"Just... just a little. Please?" The dick bobbed, like he was doing a fucking sales pitch with body language. "Won't take long."
"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."
"Five minutes. Less. I'm quick."
"Yeah, I bet you are." She leaned against the sink, putting distance between herself and the situation. "You always this charming? Just whipping it out and hoping for the best?"
"Works sometimes." He sounded proud of that. Genuinely proud.
"Are you fucking kidding?" Vix pressed her fingers to her temples. "Listen, I don't know what pornos you've been watching, but this isn't—"
"You're still here though."
That stopped her. Because he was right. She hadn't left. Hadn't screamed, hadn't run, hadn't done any of the reasonable things a reasonable person would do when confronted with an unreasonable dick.
"I was about to leave," she said, but didn't move.
"Then leave." His voice dropped lower, challenging. "But you're curious. I can tell."
"You can't tell shit through a wall."
"Sooo prove me wrong. Walk out."
Vix stared at the hole. At the pale flesh pushing through cheap tile. Some stranger on the other side, waiting to see what she'd do. Testing her. Calling her bluff about being the kind of girl who could handle anything.
"This is fucking insane," she muttered.
"That a no?"
Her jaw tightened. She hated how he'd flipped this, made it about her instead of his pathetic display. Like she was the one being weird for not immediately servicing a bathroom stranger.
"That's a 'you're a creep.'"
"Maybe." The dick twitched again. A slickness slowly oozed out of the tip, landing quietly on the floor below. "But you're still talking to me."
"That's because I'm deciding whether to crush your balls with my boot."
"Hot." He laughed, wet and sloppy, his dick bouncing with each sound. "You one of those dom girls? I'm into that."
"I'm one of those 'leave me the fuck alone' girls." Vix's fingers drummed against her arm. "What makes you think any woman would—"
"Not my first time."
She stopped. "Bullshit."
"Three times. Well, twice and a half. Last one just... touched it a little. Kinda like you're gonna."
"Fuck you!"
"I'm trying!" His voice got defensive, pouty even. "Look, everyone's got their thing, right? This is mine."
Vix laughed, sharp and mean. "Your thing is bathroom holes? That's pathetic."
"Says the girl who dresses like that and hangs out here every night."
Her jaw clenched. She didn't know that he had seen her walk in. "Excuse me?"
"I've seen you. Same black shit, same tough-girl act, same sitting at the bar alone getting wasted." He was slurring harder, words running together. "We're both here, aren't we? Both looking forrr... for something."
"I'm nothing like you."
"Sure." The wall creaked as he shifted weight. "Bet you got some nice apartment somewhere. Parents' money. College degree you're not using."
Vix's stomach tightened. "You don't know shit about me."
"Yuh huh. Can tell." He hiccupped. "You don't fit. Too pretty. You're here pretending to be rough, and I'm just... being honest about it."
"Honest? You're hiding in a bathroom stall with your dick out."
"I'm not hiding. I'm right here, hehe." The man giggled and twitched his dick again. "At least I'm not putting on some costume and acting like I'm something I'm not."
The words hit too close to home. Too close to the thoughts she'd had in darker moments, when the alcohol made her honest with herself.
"This is different."
"How?"
"Because—" She gestured at the wall, at him, at everything. "Because this is gross and desperate and—"
"And sitting at a dive bar every night alone isn't?" He laughed again, bitter this time. "We're both desperate, sweetheart. Just in different ways."
Vix wanted to argue, wanted to explain how she was exploring, experiencing, finding herself in ways her old life never allowed. But the words felt hollow against the grimy bathroom tiles.
"You're wasted," she said finally.
"So are you usually. Tonight you're what, two drinks in? Three?" He was right—she'd been pacing herself. "Maybe that's your problem. Not drunk enough to admit why you're really still standing there."
"I'm standing here because I'm shocked at how sad this is."
"Then leave."
Again. That challenge. That dare.
The dick hadn't gone down. He was committed, she'd give him that. Drunk off his ass and still hard and somehow convinced this would work.
Vix turned toward the door, boots squeaking on the wet tile. She had enough.
"Knew it," the voice called after her, triumphant despite the slur. "Knew you wouldn't."
Her hand froze on the doorknob.
"What?"
"You're just another girl playing dress-up." He laughed, wet and nasty. "All that black lipstick, fishnets, leather—it's just Halloween for you, isn't it?"
Vix's spine went rigid. "Fuck you."
"That's what I'm offering, baby. But you can't even touch it through a wall." The dick bobbed again, mocking her. "Bet you've never done anything actually bad in your whole life."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know you're walking away right now. I know under all that goth shit, you're probably still wearing matching underwear your mom bought you."
Heat rushed to Vix's face.
"Shut up."
"Make me." His laugh echoed through the stall. "Oh wait, you can't. Because you're too good for that. Too much of a good girl—"
"I'm not a good girl!"
"Prove it."
The words hung between them, sharp as broken glass. Vix's reflection stared back from the mirror—smudged makeup, fierce expression, and a veiny cock bouncing helplessly in the corner.
Prove it.
Like everything in her life came down to that. Proving she wasn't her parents' daughter. Proving she belonged here. Proving she was Vix and not Victoria, that the transformation went deeper than clothes and attitude.
"You're a perv," she spat.
"Yeah, tell me something new." He yawned, actually yawned. "Fine, run home, princess. Put on your pajamas, call your mom, tell her about the scary bathroom man."
Vix's hands balled into fists. Her whole body shook with rage—at him, at herself, at the truth bleeding through his drunk rambling.
"Go fuck yourself."
"Guess that's what I'll be doing. Since you're too chickenshit to—"
She slammed the door open hard enough to crack it against the wall, storming into the hallway. Behind her, his laughter followed, drunk and victorious.
Vix pressed her back against the posters covering the hallway, breathing hard, heart thumping in her throat like she'd just sprinted a mile.
What the fuck was that?
She'd stood there arguing with a drunk guy's disembodied dick through a bathroom wall. Had a full conversation with it. Him. Whatever.
Her hands shook. She tucked them into her jacket pockets, using them for support.
Why hadn't she left immediately? The second she saw that thing poking through the stall, she should've walked out. Reported it to the bartender. Got the guy kicked out or arrested or whatever you did with that kind of thing.
Instead she'd... talked to him. She let him get under her skin with his drunken psychoanalysis.
"Fuck." The word came out small, swallowed by the dim hallway.
Her reflection caught in the scratched mirror opposite—black lipstick smeared at one corner, eyeliner still perfect, expression rattled in a way Vix wasn't supposed to get rattled.
You're just playing dress-up.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Hated how his words echoed. Hated more that part of her wondered if he was right.
No. She was exploring. Experiencing things her old life never allowed. That's what this was about—breaking free from expectations, from the sanitized world of organic groceries and networking brunches.
So why had a hole in the wall shaken her?
Vix pushed off the wall, straightened her skirt. She'd dealt with way worse. Creeps at bars, handsy strangers, guys who thought 'no' meant 'convince me.' This just felt different because it was... novel. Unexpected. Some new low she hadn't mentally prepared for.
That's all.
She turned back toward the bar, boots sticking to the linoleum. Her empty glass waited. The bartender probably hadn't even noticed she'd been gone. She'd down it, maybe get another, forget this whole thing happened.
But you're curious.
His voice wormed through her thoughts.
"I'm not," she whispered to no one.
Though if she was being honest—actually honest, not Vix-honest—she'd stood there longer than shock required. She had kept talking when she could've walked. Something twisted in her stomach when he called her chickenshit.
Not arousal. Definitely not that.
Just... curiosity about what kind of person actually went through with something like that. What it said about them. About her, if she had.
It made her wonder.
Was she like that?
