Iris stands between the staff of other girls and guys who work on stage and at the tables serving during club hours. They were all waiting for these guests that everyone had been gossiping about, following up to this day. Exactly a month from now is opening day for February’s events, and everything around here was about to get exceedingly hectic. The co-owners stood at the end of them all, Adrien and Jax. Jax stood near the door, next to Houston, the head of security. Quite literally, everyone was crowded to the front. It was suffocating.

“How long until they get here again?” One girl whispered.

“Any minute now…” Someone else replied.

“Wish they’d hurry up already, my legs are gonna get sore.” Iris huffed.

Just then, Jax looked through the window, straightened up, and turned to everyone.

“Everyone, quiet. They’re here!” He demanded, and everyone hushed.

Houston stepped to the doors, along with another worker and they opened the double doors for the group outside.

Five clients, all clearly stylish, straight-laced types, walked into the lobby. Iris poked her head out from beside someone to get a better look at who was coming in. Each of these designers varied in species: A cat, a bluejay, a reindeer, a bat, and a bunny.

Typical looking pretty types, Iris rolled her eyes…except, wait. They blinked, realizing they’d seen that exact same bunny before. They looked at them again. That was the familiar-looking man from the cafe that day, the one who’d walked in to pick up his little girl. The world was truly small if he was here, and he was one of their tailors. Must’ve been from good money with the way he dressed. His body was splattered head to toe with freckles, his fur was sleek, deep brown. His ears flopped beside him, quite long, stretching down past his shoulders. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes, a crimson red that shone past the locs that hung over his face. He wore golden glasses with a chain hanging off, a tucked-in shirt with a vest over it, and black slacks that looked flowy at the knees. He was gorgeous, Iris couldn’t deny that. They hadn’t gotten a chance to really look at him last time, but now that they had, they couldn’t take their eyes off him.

“We’re honored to have you all working with us,” Adrien grinned as he shook paws with each of them. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we’ve been looking forward to meeting you all.”

“The pleasure is ours,” The bat chuckled, her hand coming up to shake Adrien’s paw. “We’re looking forward to designing for all these lovely people!”

The staff members shook paws with the group and did their introductions as the designers passed by them. Iris shook paws with the bat before the bunny finally approached them. He blinked at Iris. Iris blinked back. A little bit of an awkward encounter, all things considered. The server who gave your kid ice cream just days ago appears in front of you later, revealing themself to be a nightclub performer. Not exactly the most subtle transition for their second meeting. Since this bunny was stuck in this staring contest, Iris took his paw first, shaking the bunny’s paws.

“Nice to meet you.” She greeted. The bunny seemed to snap back to reality and shook back. He nodded and moved on to the person beside Iris, but it was clear his eyes lingered. It was either from shock or how Iris was dressed for their shift. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was captivated by Iris. They weren’t unaware of their attractiveness; Iris had always had a proclivity for turning heads. Iris was one of the top performers because of their looks. Many people could not decipher their gender, which enticed members to want to find out. Iris’ reputation had become that of a secretive one.

Members who slept with Iris kept their mouths shut about what happened downstairs with her. It was a requirement. The fact that she accepted all pronouns made it even more confusing for club goers, and Iris preferred it that way. Adrien had initially promoted them as someone anybody could “indulge in”. Years ago, that label had burdened Iris when they first started working here. They hated the eyes on them, the attention from all the people who constantly sought to use them. The only thing people wanted from Iris was to defile her and brag about the fact they’d had their way with her. Adrien had set out to properly make use of Iris; he wanted her to simply submit to it. So, she learned how to rebel against this. She teased customers, seduced them, encouraged them to intoxicate themselves, and then would disappear before someone could get their claws on her. Customers who thought with their lower half rather than their brains were easy to fool. She wasn’t always successful, but it significantly helped her out long-term.

Clients she could manage to get off her back were merely a blank face to Iris. They sought to limit their servicing as much as possible, and they deduced that they’d likely have to do it again with this bunny. His gaze was unfaltering, it was clear that he wanted what everyone else did from her. People like him made her sick. But it wouldn’t be long before she was rid of another pest.

“Since there are so many of you, compared to us,” The bat, whose name was Ms. Abby, spoke to the staff collectively. “We’d like to work with you all in groups, we’re thinking groups of three and one with four since we’ve got an even number of you.”

“Oh! I wanna work with him!” A staff member cooed, pointing at the bunny.

He chuckled in return. “I’d be fine with that.”

“Now, hold on,” Jax interjected. “Adrien and I discussed this beforehand. I’ll be assigning you all to groups.”

A collective disappointed groan came from the staff.

“Now, now, everyone listen for your name..” Jax hushed them, taking a clipboard handed to him by Adrien and flipping the page. “Alright…”

Several names were called, and each and every one was assigned to their group at that point.

“Alright, lastly, Iris.” Jax pointed to their name on the clipboard with the pen. “You’ll be with…Mr. Garner.” He pointed to the bunny.

“Great.” Iris snarked, slowly walking over to stand with the rest who’d be assigned to work with this guy. Turns out his name was Lupine Garner, and he was gaining a lot more attention now because people who were into fashion had recognized him and were talking their heads off about him. Same with all the other groups with whom they’d been assigned. It was annoying. Iris just wanted to get all this over with so she could go back to the normal schedule and be done with it. They crossed their arms as Jax and Adrien passed by, Adrien snarling for them to fix their attitude. Iris snarled right back.

Jax elbowed Adrien before clearing his throat. “Alright, I’ll let you all get acquainted with the designer who’s in charge of you all. We expect you to behave, they’re here to work this month, keep that in mind, hm?”

“But they’re so cute…” One staff member hummed playfully.

Some of the designers laughed at this. “It’s no problem,” The reindeer, Ms. Elisé, remarked. “We’ll be sure to make sure they are well behaved.” She grinned at the staff she was in charge of. Two of them blushed.

“Well, I’ll leave you all to it. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any trouble,” Jax said as he walked off.

-

It had been a couple of hours now, and it had only gotten more hectic. The designers had brought in extra help to supply the materials for the outfits. Fitting was underway, a lot of measuring, color picking, checking for the right outfits that would work with the staff member, all so the designer could work off it for their final look. Iris groaned, sitting in a chair by the door. One girl was with Mr. Garner now, trying on some outfits so she could pinpoint the type of styles she’d want to wear. Misty walks over to Iris, sitting down next to her.

“Why the long face, Pup?” She asks, her head tilting to mimic the way Iris’ is tilted over. “Aren’t you having any fun?”

“No,” Iris stated plainly.

Misty sighed. “So boring, I really am starting to think you hate anything fun.” She rested her head on her palms.

“There’s nothing fun about standing up and sitting down and standing up and sitting just to try an outfit on.”

“Well, that’s probably cause you’re crabby. You want a snack? You need a hug?” She opens up her arms, reaching for a hug, before having her face pushed away by a firm paw.

“Don’t touch me, Misty.” Iris sighs.

“Fineee…” Misty puts her arms down. “But really, this is so much fun. Getting to try on outfits, getting clothes tailored just for us! It’s gotta be a little exciting, no?” She smiled, looking at the girl and Mr. Garner as they spoke about the clothing in his paws.

Iris looked at Misty, letting out a quiet sigh. Misty was new to this place, having only started working here a few months ago. She was young, and her reasoning for working here had been that she was low-income and since she didn’t see college in the cards, she wanted to do a job where she’d make good money and, think about school again if she saved up well. She’s got an upbeat personality, as opposed to a lot of the older workers. She’s a great dancer and has a charismatic spark that works well for the stage, but she really could’ve picked a better place to work if she was going to try out working at a nightclub. Crimson Red had an excellent reputation. On the surface, at least.

Iris envied her, just a little. She got to still have a hopeful spirit, but honestly…she couldn’t even blame her.

“Excuse me,” A voice called out, snapping Iris out of their thoughts. They looked up, and Mr. Garner was looking right at them. “It’s time for you.”

“Oh,” Iris realized. “Okay..” They got up and walked over. “What do you need me to do, exactly?”

“Well, I’d like to get your measurements first, and then I’ll show you some different styles to get your tastes on things.” He’d smile lightly.

“Mm.” Iris hummed, stepping up on the pedestal in the middle of the room. They looked at the mirror, holding their arms up.

“Thank you,” Mr. Garner said, stepping up behind him with a measuring tape. “I’ll start with your arms since you have them up.”

After the measurements were done, Mr. Garner opened up a book he had for Iris. It was full of sketches, patterns, model photos, swatches, and anything else you could think of that would be in a book was in this thing. Surprisingly, despite the excess amount of content inside the book, it was neatly packed in somehow. Mr. Garner pointed out skirts, tops, pants, shorts, shoes, and different accessories that he thought might complement Iris, but he also let Iris pick and choose what worked and in what style they felt best. He directed Iris a few times to things he strongly felt would work well for Iris, but gave her most of the freedom to make the decisions.

“Thank you all, I’ll need to regroup with you in a while, but I’m going to speak with the others and see how we’d like to approach all these concepts.” Mr. Garner spoke to the three. He nodded, stepping out of the dressing room.

“Ugh, I’m exhausted.” One girl slumped down into a chair. “Prep work for Valentine’s didn’t used to be this much.”

“Well, you want to look cute on opening week, don’t you?” Another retorted. “I honestly can’t wait to see what they’re all gonna cook up. Ugh, I wanna take that jay to bed so bad, though, I can’t believe they’re forcing us to only look at those gorgeous faces and not even touch them a little.”

“Not everyone is as thirsty as you are, Viera.” Iris whinged, slouching in her chair.

“Iris, what has got your panties in a twist?” Viera huffed. “You’re even more grumpy than usual, which is baffling cause you’re like that all the time.”

“I just don’t want to do this, it seems pointless,” Iris grumbled. “We wear these things for two weeks and then, what? We throw 'em out? We can’t wear them any other time of the year.”

“We can wear them next year,” Misty corrected.

Iris rolled their eyes. “As if I want to wear these again next year and relive the customers' reactions a second time.”

Another girl, Babette, sighed dramatically, slumping over Iris now, hugging their head. “It’s okay, puppy, we’ll all have your backs so the bad customers don’t try to do anything stupid.” She squeezed their head.

“Ugh, get off…” Iris growled lowly, trying to push her off, but she was persistent. They sounded like they were joking, but it was completely serious. The rest of them never failed to help each other out, most of the time, when they saw one of the stage workers or wait staff getting uncomfortable with someone who was out of line.

Iris appreciated them, but they couldn’t always protect her. She knew that. And, honestly, she didn’t want them to. If she had the eyes of everyone on her with the knowing look of seeing what she was truly like, she wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“-is? Irisss?” Babette’s voice cut through her worries. “You were off somewhere else for a bit there, you alright?”

“‘m fine.” Iris nodded. “Just get off, will you? You’re suffocating me..”

“No!~” Babette squeezed again, giggling.

...