The mattress gave a soft complaint as Sunita shifted her weight onto the edge of the bed. Maya lay on her back, arms flat at her sides, watching the ceiling fan drag its slow circle over the water stain shaped like a bird lifting off. Her mother's hand landed on her knee, warm and dry, and stayed there.

"Sit up."

Maya pushed herself upright, the sheet sliding off her hip, her heels catching the light. She folded her hands in her lap the way she'd been taught to sit in church, decades ago, in a body that had never fit the pew.

"No." Sunita reached over and pulled her hands apart, one to each thigh. "Not like a schoolgirl. Like you own the room. Shoulders back. Chin level. Look at me."

Maya looked. Her mother's face was bare of the performance smile now, the one she wore in videos, the one that made men's wallets open. This was the other face, the one that got things done.

"Lesson two," Sunita said. "Lesson one was being seen. Anyone can be seen. Lesson two is being watched. There's a difference." She stood, and the silk robe she'd been wearing over her slip slid off one shoulder. "You're going to learn to take your clothes off like a woman who knows exactly what she's worth."

"I've taken my clothes off before."

"You've undressed." Sunita let the other shoulder go. The robe hung for a moment, then dropped. It pooled at her ankles in a spill of pale champagne silk, and she stepped out of it without looking down. "Undressing is something you do to get into bed. Stripping is something you do to a man's nervous system. Different muscles. Watch."

She turned her back to Maya, and the slip she wore was a thin black thing that ended high on her thighs. Her hair, dark and heavy, fell past her shoulder blades. She reached behind her, unhurried, and found the zipper at the small of her back. She didn't pull it. She let her hand rest there, and looked over her shoulder at Maya the way someone looks at a photograph they've decided to keep.

"You don't take it off yet," she said. "You make them wait. A man will spend money he doesn't have for a woman who makes him wait two seconds longer than he expects. That's the whole business, baby. Two seconds."

The zipper came down, tooth by tooth, and the sound was small and deliberate. Sunita rolled her shoulders once, and the slip slid off her back like water off a car window, caught at her hips, and then she turned and let it fall.

She stood there in nothing but her heels and her earrings, and Maya felt her throat tighten — not from shame, from recognition. That was the body she was becoming. The same architecture, the same narrow waist and heavy hips, the same confidence in the shoulders. Her mother had spent twenty years on camera learning how to hold a room, and the room was Maya, and Maya was learning.

"Your turn."

"I'm already—" Maya gestured at her own bare body.

"You're naked. There's a difference." Sunita crouched down and picked up the robe, then tossed it onto the bed next to Maya. "Put it on. We're starting from the top."

Maya pulled the silk over her shoulders and knotted it at her waist. It smelled like her mother — jasmine and something darker, the oil she used on her hair.

"Stand up. Heels on, weight in the balls of your feet." Sunita circled her slowly, and Maya felt the heat of being examined, the specific itch of it along her spine. "First rule. You never rush the shoulder. The shoulder is the whole trick. It's the first thing they see and the last thing they remember."

"The shoulder."

"Watch." Sunita pushed the robe back onto Maya's shoulder, then slid it off in one slow motion — not pulled, slid — and Maya felt the silk travel down her arm, over the elbow, off her hand. Sunita caught the fabric before it hit the floor and handed it back. "Again. And this time, turn your head away when it comes off. You're not looking at the clothes. You're looking at something across the room that's more interesting than the man who's watching you."

Maya tried. The robe slipped off her shoulder and she turned her head, and the silk dropped to the floor in a pool at her heels.

"Better," Sunita said. "Your mouth gave you away. You smiled. Don't smile when you strip. Smiling says please. You want the face you make when you're reading a menu."

Maya laughed, and it came out high and nervous.

"That's the other thing." Sunita's voice softened a fraction. "You're going to be nervous. That's fine. Nerves read as heat on camera. But you cannot giggle. Giggling says girl. You're not a girl anymore, Maya. You're a woman with something extra. That's a different animal entirely, and the men who pay for it want the woman, not the girl."

Maya's hand went to her nose ring, turned it once.

"Hand away from the face. You do that when you're thinking, and you can't look like you're thinking. Look like you already know."

She dropped her hand.

"Good. Now the pants." Sunita nodded at the silk shorts Maya had worn under the robe. "But you don't take them off standing. You sit on the edge of the bed, and you take them off with your knees together, and you look at the camera while you do it. Not at the man. At the camera. The camera is the man. The man is furniture."

Maya sat. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband and worked the shorts down her thighs, knees pressed together, and she looked straight ahead — at the wall, at the water stain, at the bird taking off — and she felt the waistband clear her knees, and then her ankles, and she kicked them off one heel at a time.

"You looked at the wall," Sunita said. "The wall is not the camera. Find the lens."

Maya turned her head and looked at the dresser where her mother's phone sat face-down. She imagined a lens in it, a small black circle that would hold her forever.

"Again. Slower. And this time, when the shorts come off, let your knees fall apart for one second before you close them. One second. Then close." Sunita's voice had gone low, instructive, the way she sounded on the phone with clients. "That's the tease. The whole business lives in that one second."

Maya pulled the shorts back on and did it again. Hooked thumbs. Slow slide. Look at the lens. Knees apart — she felt the cool air hit her thighs, felt the small soft weight between her legs shift — and then closed, and the shorts were off, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but her heels.

"That," Sunita said, "was the first real thing you've done all night."

Maya exhaled. Her pulse was in her throat, visible, and she could feel it.

"Next. Oral posture." Sunita sat down on the bed beside her and crossed her legs at the ankle. "You're going to be on your knees a lot, in this work. More than you think. And the difference between a girl who gets rebooked and a girl who doesn't is the angle of her chin."

She tilted Maya's chin up with two fingers. "Not down, not up. Level. Eyes up through your lashes. Mouth open, but not too wide — you want them to wonder if you'll fit, not know."

Maya did it. She felt ridiculous. She felt watched.

"Tongue." Sunita held out her own wrist, turned it over. "Watch." She lowered her mouth to her wrist and licked a slow line from the base of her palm to the heel of her hand, tongue flat, and the sound was wet and quiet. Then she did it again, faster, with the tip. "Flat, then pointed. Slow, then fast. You're not licking an ice cream. You're reading a man's cock like it's a page you're trying to memorize."

Maya's fingers twitched in her lap.

"Do it on your own wrist."

She raised her wrist and licked it, flat, and the taste of her own skin was salt and the faint residue of the oil her mother had rubbed into her hands earlier. She did it again, pointed, and it felt absurd and also — not absurd. It felt like a rehearsal for something.

"Now the rhythm." Sunita took Maya's wrist and pressed it against her own lips, and demonstrated — three slow strokes, then a pause, then three fast, then a pause. "The pause is the whole thing. A man will beg for the pause. It's the same trick as the shoulder. Whatever you do, do it, and then stop, and let him miss you."

Maya mimicked it on her own wrist. Slow. Slow. Slow. Stop. Fast. Fast. Fast. Stop.

"Good girl." Sunita's voice was warm. "Now the breath. When your mouth is full, you breathe through your nose, and you make sure he can hear it. A man wants to hear you working. Silence reads as boredom."

She leaned in and pressed her nose to the hollow of Maya's throat, and breathed — a long, audible breath against her skin. Maya felt it travel down her sternum and settle low in her belly.

"That," Sunita said, pulling back, "is the sound. Memorize it."

Maya nodded, and her hand went to her nose ring, and she caught herself and put it back down.

"Next. Positions." Sunita stood and walked to the foot of the bed. "You're going to learn four. Missionary, doggy, cowgirl, and side. Those are the four they'll ask for ninety percent of the time. Everything else is a specialty."

She sank into a squat beside the bed, knees wide, one hand on the mattress for balance, and the mattress creaked under her weight. She reached over and adjusted Maya's hip — a firm hand on the outside of her thigh, tilting her pelvis back a few degrees.

"When you're on your back, you tilt. If you don't tilt, he can't get deep, and if he can't get deep, he thinks it's his fault, and a man who thinks it's his fault doesn't rebook. Tilt the hips. Arch the back. Say the word deeper even when you don't need to. He'll hear it and he'll give you his whole night."

Maya tried the tilt. Her lower back complained.

"Less. You're not a bridge. Just enough that your belly button points at the ceiling."

She adjusted. Sunita's hand stayed on her thigh a moment longer than it needed to, then lifted.

"Doggy. On your hands and knees, but you don't put your weight on your hands — you put it on your forearms, and you drop your shoulders, and you arch. The arch is the whole position. If your back is flat, you look like a coffee table."

Maya turned over and got onto her forearms, and the arch was harder than it looked — her hips wanted to sink, and she had to hold them up with her lower back, and she could feel the pull in her abdomen.

"Better. Now look back at me over your shoulder."

She turned her head and looked, and her hair fell across her face, and Sunita reached down and swept it back behind her ear with two fingers.

"That's the shot," Sunita said. "That's the one they use on the poster."

Maya felt something hot move through her chest — pride, or the ache of being good at something new.

"Cowgirl, side, we'll do tomorrow. Tonight we do prep."

She crossed to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer, and came back with a small amber bottle in one hand and a box of gloves in the other. She held the bottle up so Maya could see the label: Anima, in small white letters, with a diagram on the back.

"Anal prep," Sunita said. "This is the part nobody puts on the poster. You're going to learn it like you learned to walk — until you don't think about it anymore."

Maya blinked at the bottle. Her pulse jumped in her throat, and she knew her mother could see it.

"First rule. You clean out before a scene, every time, no exceptions, and you do it at least an hour before so your body has time to settle. You don't eat heavy the day of. You don't drink anything but water for two hours before." Sunita set the bottle on the nightstand. "Second rule. You stretch. Every day. Not just the day of. You take ten minutes in the shower and you work yourself open with your fingers, one at a time, until three is easy. If three isn't easy, you're not ready for a scene, and you tell the booking girl you're not ready. You do not fake it. A torn ass is a lost month of work."

Maya's mouth had gone dry.

"Third. Lube is not optional and it is not a little bit. It's a lot. If you think you've used enough, use more. The Anima is a cleanser, not a lubricant — don't confuse them, I've seen girls make that mistake and it's a hospital visit."

"Okay," Maya said, and her voice came out thin.

Sunita looked at her for a long moment. Then she sat back down on the edge of the bed and put a hand on Maya's damp hair — Maya hadn't realized she'd been sweating — and leaned close.

"You're scared," she said. "Good. Scared means you understand what's happening. Now here's the last thing, and it's the most important thing, and I want you to hear it in your bones."

She pressed her forehead to Maya's, and her voice dropped to almost nothing.

"Every moan, every cry, makes a man harder. Every single one. You are not faking pleasure. You are generating it. You are the source of it. When you whimper, his cock jumps. When you say his name, he fucks you like he's trying to earn it. You have a power between your legs that most women spend their whole lives trying to figure out, and you were born with the wiring for it."

She pulled back and looked at Maya, and her hazel eyes were steady.

"They need a shemale. That's the word they use, that's the word you'll use, and it's not an insult — it's a market. And you, baby, are the market."

Maya's breath caught. The word sat in the room between them, and it didn't feel like a slur in her mother's mouth. It felt like a key turning.

"Now." Sunita stood and stepped back, and the air where her body had been went cool. "Show me you are a shemale. On your knees. Mouth open. Eyes up. And moan for me like I'm the man who's about to pay for you."

The silence that followed was thicker than the air. Maya's unsteady breath was the only sound in the room, and the fan, and somewhere down the hall the water in the pipes ticking as it cooled.