Through the Glass

Martin walks through the neon-soaked streets of Brussels with no particular destination, just the familiar weight of loneliness pressing against his chest. Friday night pulses around him, people rushing past, couples laughing on street corners, groups of friends disappearing into pubs, everyone seemingly connected to someone else whilst he drifts through the crowd like a ghost.

At twenty-six, he's convinced himself that love simply isn't meant for him. Every attempt at connection has ended in polite rejection or, worse, complete indifference. He's become expert at reading the subtle signs, like the glance over his shoulder searching for someone more interesting, a friend suddenly becoming fascinating mid-conversation, the careful distance maintained even during casual encounters.

The bass-line from Club Évasion throbs through the pavement beneath his feet as he passes the entrance. It's one of those grimy peep shows that stays open until 4 AM, the kind of place where desperate men go to feel less alone for a few moments. Through the smeared glass doors, he can see strobing lights and bodies moving in the artificial twilight.

What will they think, all these passers-by, if he goes inside? Heat stings his cheeks. He lowers his eyes, shuts them tightly, as though by refusing to see the World he can make himself unseen. Then, before he can talk himself out of it and with a desperate jolt of courage, he slips through the doorway like a thief, plunging himself into the peep show's humid darkness.

Martin has never been inside a place like this. The very thought makes his palms sweat with all those men staring at him while he steps inside, the judgment, the inevitable failure to fit in. But tonight, something breaks inside of him. The crushing weight of another evening spent alone in his bed or watching other people's lives play out on TV feels suddenly unbearable.

The music hits him like a physical force. Electronic beats so loud they seem to emanate from inside his skull. Bodies are pressing past him, anonymous in the strobing light, and Martin realises he's perhaps made a terrible mistake. This isn't connection; it's just organized chaos, loneliness disguised as community. But his desire is greater. There will be time for regret tomorrow.

Inside, the air is thick with smoke and sweat. Men are lingering in the shadows, some shuffling coins in their hands, others staring at the posters that display today’s girls. In the centre looms the carousel, ringed with booths like blind cells, one of which stands vacant. Martin hurries into it, shuts the door, and tries to steady his trembling fingers.

The stench of too many men having found release and a lack of proper cleaning overwhelms him as he's locking the door behind him. The traces of those releases are still present on the floor and on the wall in front of him, above which a pane of frosted glass seems to welcome him to another world, with only a slot for coins beneath. A quid for the ferry across. He fishes out a Euro, drops it in. The clang echoes like a verdict. Now there's no turning back. The glass immediately clears; the light in his booth dies.

Suddenly he sees them: two women gliding to the rhythm of the music. One older, practised, moving with bold command. The other, barely more than a girl, looks to be in her early twenties, her amber hair veiling her body with an awkward grace. Where the older woman teases, daring the men with her gaze, the younger seems ill at ease, her movements touched with shyness. Yet it is precisely this that holds Martin transfixed. She does not belong here. She seems too fragile, too unformed, her beauty unsuited to this tawdry stage.

The platform slowly rotates under the coloured lights that pulse with the relentless beat. The older woman regularly lowers her veil, her legs astride, showing the men in the other booths all of herself while they are obviously masturbating. She even goes as far as stepping against the glass of each booth she encounters, pressing her thick-haired pussy against it and making fucking movements with her hips, then pointing at the private cabins at the back where she promises to make the wildest dreams come true. It's just advertising since even in the private cabins there's a wall of glass between her and her momentary suitor, but she'll get paid a hefty fee for the private show.

The girl does nothing of this. She sways to the rhythm, more comfortable showing her rear than her front, only occasionally dropping the veil to reveal her perfect breasts or that stunning little slit of hers, covered in the most delicate hair. She doesn't advertise. She moves with obvious discomfort, her steps tentative despite the music's driving rhythm. Her long hair catches the lights as she dances awkwardly, trying to find her place in this performance she clearly never intended to give. There's something heartbreaking about the way she's holding herself, attempting to mirror her partner's confidence but failing, her movements stilted by what looks like pure mortification.

The platform continues its slow revolution, bringing her closer and closer to where Martin stands frozen in his isolated cell. Martin's heart pounds so hard he can feel it in his throat. For just a moment, she turns in his direction and her eyes seem to find his through the glass, and he sees something there that makes his chest ache. A deep longing, understanding even, but infinitely out of reach as if the glass division is nothing more than a television screen and those women are in reality thousands of miles away, in a different dimension.

He waits for the carousel to bring her in front of him, breath suspended, heart hammering. She's so close now. She's just passing the booth next to his and then it will be his turn to drink her in completely.

But at the instant she should appear before him, the glass clouds over again. The timer by the coin slot is merciless, its double zeroes flashing at him in pure, evil mockery.

Panic takes him. He claws at his wallet, but there are no coins left. Desperation drives him to the counter, where he thrusts a tenner forward for change, then rushes back.

Too late. His booth is gone, another man inside. He paces, sick with longing, until a door opens again. He hurries in, only to hear the announcement of a change of girls. She is gone.

But he cannot accept it. He must see her again. It is no longer mere desire, but something stronger, as though fate has flung him a thread and he cannot let it slip. At the far end of the hall stand the private cabins. Without thinking, he throws himself into the furthest, shuts the door, and stares at the glass. A worn armchair sits on the other side. To his right numbered buttons are glowing so invitingly, about half of them extinguished, the others lit red. Each number represents one of the girls, on call for a private encounter at the touch of that button. Fourteen is glowing, and his breath catches. She is there.

Ten coins rattle into the slot. The buttons start flashing impatiently, urging him to make a choice. With a trembling index finger he presses fourteen. 

Martin sits on the edge of the stool, his knees almost knocking together. He has done it now. The coins are gone, the button pressed and the choice made. He has asked for her. The act itself feels outrageous, almost illicit, as though he has reached out beyond his station and dared to summon an angel.

His heart thuds painfully. Every sound in the club seems magnified: the muffled bass of the music, the shuffle of feet outside, the painful murmur of men’s voices. Any second she could appear. He imagines her refusing, imagines the wrong girl entering instead, imagines the seconds stretching on until he realises he has been foolish, that she will not come at all. And yet, hope wrestles with dread inside of him. His palms are slick with sweat; he rubs them against his trousers, trying to steady himself.

Time slows to a crawl. What will he say to her when she arrives? He has no script, no clever words. He fears he will blurt something absurd, or worse, sit mute, staring like every other man here. But his longing eclipses his fear. He wants only to look into her eyes once more, to prove to himself that the strange connection he felt in the carousel was not imagined.

And then, the curtain behind the armchair rustles and she enters. Veiled still, her figure appears slight against the gloom. She closes the curtain behind her and steps into the narrow chamber. Their eyes meet through the glass.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moves. She looks just as nervous as he is, her shoulders taut, her hands fidgeting with the gauze she clutches as if she isn't ready to let go of it. She seems younger still up close, her beauty sharpened by the tremor of uncertainty in her face. Martin cannot tell whether she dreads him or trusts him, whether she is about to play her role or to reveal something more.

The silence between them is heavy, awkward and yet very much alive. Every possibility hangs in it. He can almost see two futures branching before him: one where she goes through the motions, cold and distant, another where the barrier of glass somehow thins, and they reach each other across the divide.

His throat tightens. He wants to speak, but his voice refuses. Instead, he simply looks at her. Not at her body, though she is half-revealed, but at her face, her eyes, where he imagines some fragile sympathy flickers. She holds his gaze longer than he expected, as though weighing him. The tension between them is unbearable, almost electric, yet beneath it hums something quieter: the aching possibility of recognition, of two lonely souls finding each other, if only for minutes stolen from the night.

She sits down on the armchair, presses her switch and a bright light suddenly blooms over her from above. His time begins. She recites the prices, her voice faltering — thirty for a strip, fifty for masturbation, a hundred for toys. She looks as if she has never spoken these words before.

Without thought, Martin slides fifty pounds through the slit in the glass. She quickly tucks them away, then bares herself with visible embarrassment, spreading her legs wide across the arms of her chair with a practised motion that does not reach her eyes.

She begins to touch herself, inviting him to follow. His body burns to respond, yet something stops him. He sees the nervous flicker in her movements, the blush on her cheeks, and feels suddenly ashamed. This girl is more than an object of lust. How did she come to be trapped here, offering herself to strangers across cold glass? He tries small talk, almost impossibile against the pounding music, and to his surprise she answers. Their words are clumsy, but somehow reach each other. He looks up in brief glances, too shy to hold her gaze, while she watches him, startled by his restraint.

"Where are you from?"

Her hand stills for a moment. She blinks, surprised by the question, then shrugs lightly. 

"Antwerp."

The word hangs between them, oddly intimate. He imagines cobbled streets, a life outside these suffocating walls.

"I grew up not far from there," he murmurs, wondering how it's possible he never came across her all of these hundreds of times he visited the city before she took the desperate decision to take this job. "Though I doubt it shows." He tries to laugh, but it catches awkwardly in his throat.

She gives the faintest smile, fleeting, then resumes her motions, but slower, less forced. Her eyes flicker to the bulge in his trousers, then back to his face. 

"You don’t…?" She gestures vaguely, meaning he isn’t joining her.

He shakes his head, his cheeks burning.

"No. It doesn’t feel… I just don't want to bother you with it." He gestures nervously, as though to excuse himself. "You deserve more than… this."

For a moment her mask slips. The weariness in her gaze is raw, naked. She doesn’t reply, but her hand slows further, the pretence of arousal dissolving into something else, not desire perhaps, but maybe a quiet acknowledgement.

She shifts on the worn armchair, veil slipping from her shoulder, fingers moving across her labia in a way that is supposed to look enticing but betrays her unease. Martin can barely look. Each stolen glance makes his chest ache, as though he’s intruding on something sacred.

He swallows hard. His voice has almost turned into a whisper, words suddenly seeming pointless.

The music continues to thud in the distance. He dares one more look at her, properly this time. Not the body she is forced to sell, but the woman, young, obviously intelligent, frightened of the consequences that came with her choices. She meets his eyes and, for a few seconds, neither of them looks away.

It’s not lust that fills the booth, but a fragile bond stitched together by embarrassment, respect, and the strange comfort of being appreciated as a person.

Something shifts. She relaxes, her gestures softening, less mechanical, almost tender, the way she now strokes her delicate pussy, even spreading those small, rosy lips in between. He senses that she feels seen beyond the mere physical and in that fragile moment they share a bond neither of them expected. It trembles between them, not lust, not yet love, but a recognition that no glass wall can contain. For a fleeting moment, Martin imagines that she might reach out to him, pressing her hand on the glass and pleading him to do the same, the warmth of their touch melting whatever barrier still remains.

Then, without warning, the light dies. Time is gone. She startles, quickly closes her legs again, rises whilst gathering her veil, the spell broken. For one aching instant their eyes meet again. Neither dares to speak what hangs in the air between them.

Martin whispers, just loud enough so it drifts above the music: "I wish we had met under different circumstances."

She lowers her gaze, silently, then slips away.

Martin stumbles out into the night, the city swallowing him once more. He walks quickly, ashamed of being seen leaving that place, yet his thoughts remain behind the glass. With her. With number fourteen. With the unbearable knowledge that, in those few stolen minutes, he glimpsed what might have been the love of his life... and that it has slipped through his hands forever.