Uzume laughed, loud enough that the Lyft driver shot a glance over his shoulder. "Oh, sweetie," she grinned. "I'mma teach you some new moves tonight."
The car let them out in the northern edge of Prospect Heights, in front of the weathered brick building Uzume had converted into her studio and home. She led Tuck up the steps, fingers lightly laced with his, and through the darkened anteroom into the pole studio.
Somewhere upstairs, the floorboards creaked – probably Boro, the drowsy old boroboroton, in the midst of his nighttime wanderings. A distant flutter of fabric might have been Kasa or Uneri. The sounds were by now so familiar to Uzume, she didn't even consciously register them; her mind certainly wasn't on yōkai now. To Tuck, it probably sounded like nothing more than the settling of an old building, with its usual complement of creaks and drafts.
Uzume turned the dimmer switch down, swathing the room in intimate shadows. The studio was taken up by about ten generously-spaced metal poles; Uzume chose one alongside to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that covered one wall.
"Not really dressed for this," she said, wrinkling her nose, as though the thought had just occurred to her. Then she looked back over her shoulder at Tuck, and the mischievous slope of her smile put the lie to that. "Unzipper me?" she asked, with a small tilt of her head toward the zipper at the back of her sequinned skirt.