These strange steps

13

"Hey-are you-"

"Unlock the front door. I'll be there in about ten minutes. I want you standing at the foot of the bed without anything on, chin to your chest, hands behind your back, knees together."

A gasp. "I-"

"Ten minutes, Rachel."

Click.

...

It's two in the afternoon when they head out again, and Quinn manipulates a few buttons on the BMW's dash until some music filters out. It's more electronica, of some kind; and Rachel actually feels small-minded, for just the barest of moments, for not being able to narrow it down further than that.

"What is this?" she asks, as they're pulling out of her drive way.

Quinn glances over, and then-with a tap on the steering wheel, this time-turns up the volume just a little. "Ah, I'm trying to find some new stuff for work."

The realization that she doesn't immediately cringe and go, never mind, is an interesting one. Instead, she curls up into the seat a little more-and absently notes that money does in fact make a difference, as her Lexus does not compare in terms of interior fittings-and says, "What's the process there? I mean, how do you pick songs?"

Quinn overtakes a Volkswagen that's going way under the speed limit, and then sighs when they hit traffic as soon as they're out of Rachel's almost cul-de-sac neighborhood. "Shit. Should've left sooner."

"I'm glad we didn't," Rachel says, quietly, and after a second Quinn changes tracks on the album and squints at it for a moment before nodding.

An artist at work, Rachel thinks, absurdly, and then smiles faintly when Quinn tilts her head.

"It's... well, do you remember what it was like picking songs for Nationals?"

Rachel chuckles. "It's kind of hard to forget almost being evicted from a club that was my entire life because I was so gung-ho about not giving up a single solo."

Quinn's lips shift for a second, and then she says, "This isn't that different."

"No, but, I mean-what do you look for?" Rachel hesitates after a moment and then sighs at herself. "Forgive me, but-what makes for a good song for stripping? Is it just bass?"

Quinn sort of tsks at her and says, "Such amateurish notions for such a regular."

It's strangely pleasing, that they can sort of... joke about this, now.

"You didn't use music with me. Except that one time," Rachel notes, twisting in the seat further until she can just... wallow in the ability to study Quin, without Quinn being able to do anything about it.

"I ... it's part of the act," she says, after a second, and then smiles. "In a weird way, I think you'd actually make a really good dancer, because a lot of what the job is about is... quick people reading, and gauging what they're there for. An unhappy married man, looking for a one-time diversion? A seventeen year old who has never seen a girl half-naked and is worried he never might? A powerful corporate figure who really just wants someone else to be in charge for a moment? Funnily enough, we rarely attract actual perverts. Sexual sadists don't like needing to pay for what they want, so... it's all basic play-acting."

Rachel smiles back after a second. "And the music goes with the role."

"Yes." Quinn looks out the window, and then adds, "The Garbage song? That was... very deliberate. You'd told me about your crush at that point, and I set out to play with it. All the words you wanted to hear, but you still couldn't touch me."