The water ran hot, steam curling up from the basin in lazy ribbons that clung to the mirror and blurred the edges of my reflection. I stood naked in the center of the bathroom, my arms loose at my sides, watching my mother work.

Anna had rolled the sleeves of her silk blouse to her elbows. The red robe she'd worn earlier hung from the hook behind the door, traded for something practical. Her dark hair was pinned up, a few loose strands sticking to the damp skin at her temples. She moved with the kind of focus I'd only ever seen her use on her face—the nightly ritual of creams and serums, the careful mapping of every line.

Tonight, that focus was on me.

The warm cloth slid over my shoulder, down my arm, leaving a trail of heat that evaporated almost as fast as it came. The sandalwood soap smelled like her—like the expensive bottles that lived on the shelf above the sink, the ones I'd never been allowed to touch as a girl.

We didn't speak.

The only sounds were the rush of water and the soft drag of fabric against my skin. The clock on the wall ticked past seven. We had less than an hour.

Anna wrung the cloth out over the basin, the water splashing in a rhythm that felt almost like a heartbeat. She worked her way down my other arm, her touch methodical, unhurried, like she had all the time in the world and none of it mattered except this.

I watched her in the mirror. She watched her hands.

"Lift your chin," she said quietly.

I did. The cloth moved over my throat, my collarbones, the hollow between them. Her knuckles grazed my ribs and I held my breath, the way I'd been doing every time she got close to that spot. She didn't linger. Just moved on, dipping lower, washing a path down my sternum.

"You're tense," she said.

"I'm standing naked in front of my mother while she bathes me."

The corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. "You've done that before."

"Not like this."

She didn't answer. The cloth slid over my stomach, and I felt the muscles there jump under the warmth. She pressed a little firmer, steadying me, and I forced myself to breathe.

The mirror was fogging up again, the steam curling between our reflections like a veil. I could see the shape of us through it—her dark head bent close to my pale skin, the contrast of her hands against my body. She looked like she was sculpting something. Like I was clay and she was shaping me into a version of myself I hadn't met yet.

"When did you learn to do this?" I asked.

"Do what?"

"This." I gestured vaguely with my chin. "The whole thing."

Anna dipped the cloth in the basin again, wrung it out, and started on my left leg. Her hand guided my foot onto the edge of the tub, opening me to her, and I let her move me without thinking. "You learn," she said. "When it's your job, you learn."

"Was it—" I started, then stopped.

She looked up at me, waiting.

"Was it scary? The first time?"

Her eyes held mine in the mirror for a long moment. Then she looked back down, running the cloth over my calf, my knee, the inside of my thigh. "Yes."

"What made it not scary?"

"It's always a little scary." She moved the cloth higher, and I felt the warmth spread up my leg. "You just get better at pretending it isn't."

The water ran. The clock ticked. The cloth moved in slow, deliberate circles over my hip, and I watched her face in the glass—concentrated, almost tender, like she was memorizing the shape of me.

"I don't want to pretend," I said.

Anna's hand stilled. She looked at me properly then, turning to face me instead of my reflection. Her brown eyes searched mine, and I saw something flicker there—something that might have been fear, or might have been hope, or might have been both tangled up so tight they looked the same.

"Then don't," she said. "Pretending is for people who have something to hide. You don't have to hide from them."

"What if I want to?"

"You won't." She said it with such certainty that I almost believed her. "By the end of the night, you won't want to hide anything."

The cloth slid down my other leg, and I gripped the edge of the sink, steadying myself. My reflection stared back at me through the steam—honey-blonde hair still damp from the shower, hazel eyes wide and dark, skin flushed pink from the heat. I looked like myself. I didn't feel like myself.

I felt like something she was building.

Anna finished with the cloth and set it aside. She reached for the towel on the rack, but instead of handing it to me, she knelt. The movement was so smooth, so practiced, that I didn't realize what she was doing until she was already there, her face level with my hips, the towel open in her hands.

"Step," she said.

I lifted my foot. She dried it, patting the soft terry cloth over my arch, between my toes, up my ankle. Then she moved to the other foot, and I felt the heat of her breath against my skin as she worked.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"I know."

"Mom."

She looked up at me, and the word hung between us. In the steam, in the silence, in the weight of everything we hadn't said since the night I'd opened that door.

"I want to," she said. "Let me do this for you."

I didn't argue.

She dried my legs slowly, her hands moving up my thighs, pressing the towel into the damp skin. When she reached the top, she paused, and I felt her fingers brush the soft hair between my legs.

"I need to take care of this," she said. Matter-of-fact, like she was discussing the grocery list.

My throat tightened. "What do you mean?"

"They'll want you smooth." She met my eyes. "All of you. I'll do it, or you can do it yourself, but it needs to be done."

I thought about the razor I'd used on my legs since I was thirteen, the careful, clumsy strokes in the shower. I thought about doing this to myself, alone, in front of the mirror, trying to get it right. And I thought about her hands on me—steady, sure, knowing exactly what they were doing.

"You do it," I said.

She nodded once, like she'd expected that answer. She rose, turning to the cabinet above the sink, and I watched her fingers pass over the bottles and jars before settling on a small white box.

She opened it. A razor, new, still wrapped in plastic.

The clock read seven-fifteen.

Anna set the razor on the vanity, next to a small pot of cream I'd never seen before. She uncapped it, and the scent of something floral and clean drifted toward me.

"Sit on the edge of the tub," she said.

I did. The porcelain was cool against the backs of my thighs, a shock after the heat of the room. She knelt in front of me, between my legs, and I felt the vulnerability of it like a physical weight pressing down on my bare shoulders.

She scooped a handful of cream and spread it over my mound, her fingers working it into the skin with small, circular motions. The touch was clinical at first—efficient, detached. But then her thumb grazed the crease where my thigh met my hip, and I felt a jolt run through me.

I held my breath.

Anna didn't seem to notice. She picked up the razor, tapped it against the edge of the tub, and leaned in.

"Hold still," she said.

The first stroke was slow. The blade dragged through the cream, leaving a clean strip of bare skin behind, and I watched her face in the mirror above the sink—her reflection framed between the fogged edges of the glass, her eyes fixed on the work between my legs.

She was concentrating. Fiercely. Like this was the most important thing she'd done all day.

The razor moved again. Another strip. The sound of it scraping against my skin was intimate in a way I hadn't expected, raw and close, filling the silence of the bathroom.

"How do you know how to do this?" I asked.

"Practice."

"On yourself?"

"On myself. On others." She rinsed the blade in the basin, the water turning pink. "They like it. The men. They like the ritual of it."

I watched her work. The cream was being cleared away in careful strokes, revealing skin that felt strange and new, sensitive in a way I'd never noticed before. Every pass of the blade sent a shiver through me, and I gripped the edge of the tub, my knuckles white.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No." My voice came out thin. "It's just—"

"Different?"

"Yes."

"You'll get used to it." She moved the razor higher, her free hand pressing the skin taut, and I felt the blade graze the most sensitive part of me. "They'll want you bare. It makes you feel more—"

She paused, searching for the word.

"Exposed?" I offered.

"Yes." She met my eyes. "But in a good way. Like you have nothing left to hide."

The razor moved again, and I felt the cool air against skin that had never known it. My breath caught, and Anna's hand stilled.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"You're trembling."

"I know."

She didn't ask if I wanted to stop. She just waited, her hand resting on my thigh, the razor poised and patient. The clock ticked. The steam curled. My heartbeat hammered in my ears.

"Keep going," I said.

She did.

The last stroke cleared the final patch of cream, and she sat back on her heels, surveying her work. Her hand ran over the bare skin, checking for missed spots, and I felt the calluses on her palm against the newly smooth flesh.

"Perfect," she said.

She rose, rinsed the razor, and set it aside. Then she reached for a small bottle of oil on the vanity—the one I'd seen her use on her own skin, the one that smelled like jasmine and something darker.

"Stand up," she said.

I stood. She poured a few drops into her palm, rubbed her hands together, and began to work the oil into my skin. Starting at my shoulders, moving down my arms, over my chest, my stomach, my hips. Her touch was firmer now, less clinical—almost like a massage, working the oil into every inch of me.

When she reached the freshly shaved skin between my legs, her fingers paused. She looked at me, and I saw something in her eyes that I couldn't name.

"You're beautiful," she said. "You know that?"

I didn't know what to say. I'd heard it before, from boys at school, from the mirror on good days. But hearing it from her, like this, with her hands on my bare skin and the night pressing down on us—it felt different. Heavier.

"I look like you," I said.

She smiled. It was a real smile, soft and sad and proud all at once. "You look like yourself. That's better."

She finished with the oil and stepped back, turning to the garment bag she'd brought in. I watched her unzip it, watched her pull out something red and delicate, and felt my stomach flip.

The bodysuit was almost identical to the one she'd been wearing that night. The one I'd seen her in, on her knees, with Marcus's hand fisted in her hair. The lace was the same deep red, the cut the same scandalous exposure.

Anna held it up, and I saw the way the light caught the fabric—how thin it was, how transparent.

"This is what they'll want to unwrap," she said softly. "Slowly."

I reached for it, but she pulled it back.

"Let me."

She held it open, and I stepped into it, the lace cool against my oiled skin. She pulled it up over my hips, settled the straps over my shoulders, and adjusted the fit. Her fingers worked the edges, smoothing the fabric over my breasts, my stomach, the curve of my ass.

Then she stepped back.

I turned to the mirror. The steam had mostly cleared, and I could see myself clearly—the red lace clinging to every curve, the transparency of it leaving almost nothing to the imagination. My nipples showed through the fabric, dark and hard from the cool air. The bare skin between my legs was visible through the thin panel.

I looked like her.

I looked like the woman I'd seen on her knees in that private room, the woman who'd been owned by three men for fourteen years.

I looked like I belonged there.

"They'll want to unwrap you slowly," Anna said, and I heard her own hunger reflected in my eyes.

The clock on the wall read seven-fifteen.

I felt the weight of the night pressing down on my bare shoulders, and I didn't know if I was ready.

But I knew I was going.