Chapter 1
Zoe arrived by bus, dragging her suitcase behind her. The ad looked dubious, but it promised room and board, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. Unemployed, with a mountain of student debt, it was either this job or moving into her parents’ basement.
Her destination, 1056 Alhambra Drive, was an old motel with an empty parking lot, half overgrown by weeds. The pool on the east side of the building was empty, its blue tiles faded and cracked. A few lawn chairs stood on what had once been a lawn, now reclaimed by nature.
So I’ll be scrubbing toilets, she thought. Could be worse. Still better than living in a basement.
She pushed through the door and walked up to reception. The room reeked of cold cigarette smoke and sweat. A bald man in his sixties in a greasy white undershirt got up, resting his elbows on the dusty counter.
“Yeah?” he grunted, looking her over from head to toe, his gaze lingering on her breasts long enough to make her skin crawl. His teeth were yellow, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“I’m Zoe,” she said. “I’m here for the job.”
“Job? I don’t know nothin’ about a job.”
Zoe sighed. “I briefly talked to Ms. Myers on the phone this morning. She assured me the position’s still open.”
“There ain’t no Ms. Myers here. Sorry, kid.”
“But this is Alhambra Drive, isn’t it? Number 1056?”
He grinned. “You must be talkin’ about Angela. This is 1057. You’re lookin’ for the Sheriff’s station across the road. Tell her Carl said hi.”
“Thanks.”
Partially relieved, she left the building and crossed the road. Compared to the motel, the station seemed in good shape, and the parking lot was full of oversized SUVs, expensive European coupes, and a few American-made convertibles – a bizarre collection for a sheriff’s station. Curiously, someone had removed the sign outside without replacing it with something else.
She walked in.
It looked like any old small town police station, with a high counter and a few desks behind it. The security door on the right hand side probably led to the cell block. She shuddered. A few years ago, when driving home from a party on a Friday night, she failed a field sobriety test and the breathalyzer. Her parents, furious and unwilling to bail her out, let her sit in a cell for the whole weekend. Then, carted to court on a prison transport, cuffed and shackled and utterly humiliated, the judge cut her loose with a stern warning and a fine.
She rubbed her wrists, still remembering the stiff orange jail uniform and the handcuffs she had worn for half a day.
The security door buzzed. A middle-aged brunette in severe black pants and an equally black, fitted turtleneck opened the door. The large ring of keys dangling from her belt jingled as she moved.
“You must be Zoe,” she said, giving her an amused smile. “I’m Angela Myers.”
Zoe gulped. “Hello. Uh… Carl says hi.”
Myers stared at her for a moment, then laughed a deep, throaty laugh. “Ah, got the wrong address, huh. That happens a lot.”
“Thank you so much for considering me, ma’am. It’s not easy finding something in this economy.”
Myers walked over to the desk, glancing at the screen. “I’m sure that DUI on your record didn’t help either.”
Zoe blushed. “It didn’t.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve all done stupid shit when we were nineteen. Come, you can leave your stuff in the back.” Myers reached for her keychain. “God, I really hope you work out. Your predecessor ran after five minutes. No offense, but your generation is a bunch of sissies.”
I couldn’t run if I wanted to. I spent my last six dollars on the bus.
Before they reached the door, Zoe stopped. “But ma’am, what exactly is the job?”
“You’ll see.”
The security door led to a hallway lined with administrative rooms. A couple of offices, a nurse's station where breathalyzer tests were conducted, and the armory. They stopped in a large room where prisoners had once been booked, and it looked eerily familiar: the lockers for private effects, the wall for the mug shots, the desk for taking fingerprints.
Zoe’s blood ran cold as she remembered standing naked in the middle of the room, shackled at her hands and feet. Bent over, in front of everyone, a female deputy checked her vagina and rectum for contraband. The woman was thorough, and then let her sit on the cold steel bench for a while before she issued the orange jail uniform.
She flinched, snapping back to the present when she heard a voice from behind. “Oh, we’ve got a new one.”
When she turned around, she saw a chubby blonde in her mid-twenties, looking up from her phone as she walked. All she wore was a pair of flip-flops and, to Zoe’s horror, a massive black strap-on. The heavy silicone dildo was wrapped in a condom and swayed between her legs as she moved. Her nipples were adorned by barbell piercings, and she had a sheriff’s star tattooed on her pubic mound. Zoe’s breath hitched, the sound of her own gasp loud in her ears.
“Zoe, meet Becca,” said Myers, as if they were meeting at the water cooler in an office. “She’s my other little helper.”
“Pleasure,” mumbled Zoe, her eyes darting between Becca’s bare, perky breasts and the absurd dildo.
Becca grinned, moving her hips to make the mass of the dildo bounce. “Our guests like it a bit bigger. You wouldn’t believe what some of these sluts can take. Male and female.”
“I’ll be in the office,” said Myers, turning to leave. “Show Zoe around. And don’t forget Number Eight is still locked in the shower.”
“Sure. Follow me – unless you wanna bolt.”
Zoe glanced after Myers, clutching the handle of her suitcase. Getting out of this place sounded like a very good idea. She swallowed hard. No, she couldn’t bolt; she needed this job, whatever it was.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m staying.”
“Alrighty.”
They walked toward the cell block, Zoe dragging her suitcase behind her. Halfway to the door, Becca stopped in front of one of the shower cages. A naked man stood inside, his hands cuffed behind his back and shackles around his ankles. A collar with a red number eight was locked around his neck.
When he turned around, Zoe’s eyes went wide. A thick, throbbing length of flesh was straining against his fat belly, rigid and engorged. The man sported a raging hard-on.
“Come here,” ordered Becca, producing a handcuff key from somewhere. When he backed against the door, she removed the handcuffs through the slot. “Don’t even think about stroking that thing. You’re on camera, and if I catch you, I’m gonna take the shock prod and blister your little slut balls. Are we clear?”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Becca smashed the button outside and he screamed the moment the water hit his skin. He huddled into the corner, but there was no way to escape in his tiny cage.
“Cold water,” she said, smirking. “Can’t let them get too excited. You’ve gotta be strict with these pervs or they walk all over you.”
Leaving him behind in the shower, Becca tapped against her ear. “Open cell block.”
The door buzzed and there they were. A long corridor with a dozen cells on the left, smelling faintly of disinfectant, with fluorescent light illuminating bare cinderblock walls. The red steel doors were all closed; there was no way to see inside. At the end of the corridor, one cell stood open.
“Drop your stuff; you’ll have to bunk with me. Normally, you can have your own cell, but we have a lot of guests on the weekends. One more and Angie will move us to that shithole motel next door.”
The cell was small and windowless, with a bunk bed, a steel toilet and sink combination, and a desk and chair bolted to the floor. It was almost exactly how she had spent that weekend: locked in with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and a couple of tattered magazines to read.
“You can have the top bed,” said Becca. “I’ll move my stuff later.”
“Thanks.” Zoe pushed her suitcase in the corner. “How long have you been doing this?”
“A little over two years.” Becca paused, rubbing her sheriff’s star tattoo. “What about you? You must be pretty desperate if you answer job ads without any details.”
Zoe shrugged. “Got my degree last year, but it turns out there’s absolutely no jobs for sociology majors.”
“Sociology?” Becca grinned. “Who knew.”
Zoe laughed. “Yeah, who knew. Especially when you’ve got priors.”
Becca sat down on the toilet. “I’m not much better. I have a masters in translation and interpretation. Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin.”
“Let me guess,” said Zoe, eyes locked on Becca's massive strap-on. “AI can do that now.”
“More or less. For most clients, it’s good enough. Then I tried my hand at being a smut writer, but there’s no money in erotica.” Becca rolled her eyes as she peed, the sound echoing off the bare walls. “It’s all bland, AI-generated slop these days.”
“And now you work in a sex dungeon and pee in front of strangers.”
“Service industry for the win, right?” Becca wiped herself with toilet paper. “Angie pays well, and everything we do is billed. The more you’re willing to do, the higher your cut.”
“But I… uh… I don’t have to have sex with anyone, right? That’s a step too far. Ten steps, really.”
Becca got up. “Nah. There’s plenty to do even if you don’t put out.” She grinned, hefting her strap-on. “And most of the time, it’s us doing the fucking: cunts, asses, throats – every hole they put on their consent sheets.”
“Most of the time?” asked Zoe. “So you do have sex with them. I mean, where they… do it to you.”
“Not very often. Maybe a couple of them a day.”
“Isn’t that…” Zoe leaned in and whispered, “prostitution?”
Becca laughed. “I’m not paid to fuck. I get a salary and a performance bonus. There’s a difference.”
Semantics, thought Zoe, wiping cold sweat from her forehead.
“Give it a few weeks,” said Becca, washing her hands in the sink. “You’re gonna do things you never thought possible. And you’re gonna like it, trust me.”
She turned back to Zoe, a broad grin on her face. “Now strip. Let’s see what we’re working with.”