Shift

“UGH!”

I say as lay there tossing and turning in my bed trying to escape the beams of sunlight hitting me right in the eye. I turn my phone slowly to check the time, rolling my eyes as I put the phone back on my bedside table. It’s 6 am and I’m wide awake now, I sit up looking around my room trying to adjust my eyes because the rest of the room is still in darkness, the only light source is that ray of sunlight that just decided to mess with me today.

I flop back down groaning. It’s one of those days again, not Aunt Flo visiting time, just one of those awkward ’I don’t know why I’m sad days. I lay there wondering if I’m the only person in the word that feels like this sometimes. I can’t be can I? I mean there are 7 billion people in the world.

“7.BILLION.PEOPLE.” I say out loud.

Great, now I feel even more insignificant. Yep….one of those days.

I get out of bed and drag myself to the bathroom to start the day right, I suppose. I turn on the shower and stare at myself in the mirror as the water warms up, analyzing every inch of my body. My long wavy hair is scrunched up into a messy hobo bun on top of my head. I grab my tummy and start to wobble it around, pulling a horrified face as I see it move around almost as if it were moving in slow motion. I’m not extremely overweight but not exactly skinny either. I stand under the warm water rinsing all my worries away, I giggle at the thought.

“As if that were possible!” I say to myself.

I head downstairs only to find my roommate passed out on the floor again.

“Graceful” I mumble as I pick her up slowly to get her to her room.

Rachel is the epitome of hot, every inch of her looks as if it was sculpted by Angles. Her long flowing golden hair drapes over my arm as I cradle her like a baby to her room.

“Kiara?” she says softly.

“Don’t worry Rach, I’ve got you” I whisper back.

I lay her on her bed slowly, not to stir her. Rachel is a dancer like me, sounds weird I know, I never thought I could be a dancer I mean, compared to Rachel I look like a potato with arms and legs but I was hired for a reason, to fulfill the desires of men with a taste for women like me. A little more junk in the trunk.

Rachel and I met on my first day at the club. The club I work at is well known for having the best dancers in the city so all new recruits are sent for training but we only dance for each other and the trainer of course so I was a little bit nervous to dance in front of all those men.

“Hey!”

I look up from my shoes to inspect who was greeting me.

“H-hey.” I say timidly as I ogle at this Greek Goddess standing in front of me, white toga and all.

“I’m Rachel and you are new here aren’t you?” she says. I feel a slight blush creeping up on my cheeks and burning at my ears.

“Is it that obvious?” I say as I look back down at my feet. I don’t normally show people my shy side, I always protrude confidence, growing up was hard because of my weight so I had to act confidante to get through high school.

“Hahaha, no silly, I’ve just never seen you around.” She said as she giggled. I looked up her and smiled as she stood there with the most compassionate eyes I have ever seen. I knew we would be best friends from that day on.

It’s Thursday which means I have the day shift today. I didn’t mind because it’s slow during the day so I would probably have a lot of time to catch up on my studies I know it’s the young girl moving to a big city that has to strip to pay for an education cliché. I head out the door to catch the bus, it’s about a 30-minute ride so I just sit in the back and get lost in the music blaring in my ears. I walk into the club and start heading straight to the dressing room to get ready for my shift.

“Hey, Dollface!” Lucas calls out from the bar where he is busy counting stock from the night before. He calls all the dancers doll face so it normal for me.

“Hey Lucas, it looks like it was really intense here last night.” I say as I walk to the bar scanning the room. He just scoffs and shrugs his shoulders.

“What happened to Rach last night, I found her on the floor again this morning.” I sigh as I flashback to seeing my bestie sprawled on the floor.

“The Thompson boys were here last night, they must have taken her for drinks again after her shift.” He says as he counts the last of the stock.

’’You know she gets when those guys are in the city” he says as he looks back at me, his eyes burning with rage. I just roll my eyes at him and start heading to the dressing room. He is an absolute idiot for falling for her, I mean it’s really not that hard but still, what a fool.

We are all in charge of getting our own outfits so the more tips we get the better our outfits are. Lucky for me I have some regular clients that come see me so I at least have a steady flow of tips to splash out on outfits once in a while. Today is May the 4th so I decide to pay a little bit of tribute to my awkward childhood years watching Star wars while my friends were out getting drunk at parties. I put my hair into two tight buns on the side of my head and slip into my Princess slave costume. I look at myself in the mirror, jiggling my tummy one more time and sigh. As I said I’m not extremely overweight so there is luckily no muffin top but a lot of my parts jiggle so I fall into the “obese” category of society.

The day goes by faster than I thought, I had 1 or 2 clients but nothing too special happened. I flop down in the make-up chair at 5:30 pm ready to take this surprisingly uncomfortable outfit off.

“Canary!!”

I roll my eyes hearing my boss scream my stage name from his office. His office was at the back of the changing rooms so when he had business meetings he would parade all the men through the dressing room. Their jaws would fly open as they watched all of the beautiful woman walking around half-naked.

“Yes DICK?” I hissed through my teeth.

He looks up abruptly from the paperwork he was filling in.

“It’s RICHARD, don’t mock me, bitch.” He growls.

I roll my eyes dramatically at his insult.

“What do you need Richard?” I ask again politely with a sarcastic smirk on my face. He clenches his fist picking up on my attitude

“Rachel called in sick, so get your ass out there for the evening shift”.

“ Bu-“he puts his hand up shooing me away before I can finish my sentence.

“I’m going to kill her!” I mumble as I storm out of his office.