Chapter 1
Jennifer
The moon is high as I leave the club and I can’t help taking a moment to stare up at its opalescent brilliance. Though not quite full tonight, it’s big enough to dominate the sky and bathe the city in a pearly white glow. There is something haunting about the strange iridescence it provides and it’s stunning. Magical even, if you’re romantically inclined.
I take a mental snapshot, determined to sketch the image out later - maybe even paint it early tomorrow morning before work.
Before real work, because dancing at the club isn’t my full time gig, even though it pays almost the same.
I shake myself out of my moon reverie and scurry towards my beat up old VW. It’s the only thing my dad left me when he died and despite being a pile of shit, I love it - every rust covered hinge and oil dirtied part of it.
Locking myself inside, I spend almost five minutes getting it to start and eventually have to risk bump-starting it on the slope I’ve deliberately parked it on for such an occasion. The starter motor has been playing up for almost a year and I know it’ll fail the upcoming MOT, but I’ve been throwing all my disposable income into paying off the enormous debts I accrued during university and I really cannot afford to spend much more on a vehicle I can barely afford to run.
Three years I spent studying fine art - I got a first class honours degree, a mountain of debt and lost both my parents in the process.
Following all that, I gave myself a year with the goal being to sell my own work. I did everything - from portraits of people’s dogs, to commissioned graffiti art on walls around the city. And I almost starved to death.
That’s the thing about an artist, we won’t think twice about dropping hundreds of pounds on supplies and eating a tin of beans for dinner - cold of course, because we didn’t pay the gas bill.
By the time I got evicted for not paying my rent, I had lost half my body weight - a homeless, unemployed waif. My next step wasn’t exactly a dream come true. I did what everyone who can’t do what they want does - I turned to teaching.
Don’t get me wrong, I know some people choose this career first and foremost above others. I work with some amazing teachers who went into teaching because they love it.
Not me.
I was desperate.
And thanks to some friends who took pity on me, I managed to get myself on a PGCE, accruing even more debt of course, and just one short and manic year later, I qualified and got myself a job teaching Art in a local academy secondary school.
It didn’t take me long to realise that teaching and paying exorbitant rental prices didn’t go together. I knew I had to get a second job to make ends meet. Especially if I wanted to get out of debt before I died.
What a goal!
So now I teach five days a week and dance four nights.
I’m making a dent in the debt but it does mean my art has taken a massive backseat. Between full teaching days, planning and preparing lessons, marking exam work, after school meetings and working at the club - I barely have time for myself let alone my passion.
But sometimes, like tonight, inspiration hits and I’m willing to stay up late and get up early even though I know by tomorrow night I’ll be fried.
Thank fuck for coffee.
I drive home in record time and pull up outside my little flat. It’s in a shit-hole apartment building that stinks of piss and weed - but I’m on the top floor with maintenance between me and the unwashed masses who live here, so thankfully, once I’ve walked up twelve flights of stairs because the lift doesn’t work, I can almost pretend I live somewhere else.
Making my way into the foyer, I avoid eye contact with the dealers hanging outside and they’re kind enough to only wolf whistle and holler promises of - let’s say, affection.
Tonight was french maid night and I’m dressed in the stereotypical black and white outfit with black stockings, suspenders and heels big enough to make my short ass look tall. I’ve covered up with a jacket but there’s enough on show to garner interest. I can’t count on both hands the number of times getting home has involved a grope or worse, so I’m generally wary and on edge until I’m safely behind my front door.
Like I’ve got a rocket up my ass, I scurry quickly past the small group that have made the front of our building their place of business and head straight into the stairwell. No way can I walk up in my heels, so they come off and I start to ascend in my stocking feet.
I’m sweating by the time I reach my floor and stumble along to my little flat. I’m charged an exorbitant amount for the tiny cramped space but at least it’s mine.
Letting myself in, I do a quick check to make sure I haven’t been burgled again - it’s happened twice but not since I got the additional locks installed - and once I’m satisfied everything is as it should be, I strip off on my way to the bathroom.
It’s not strictly a bathroom as it only has a shower and it’s the size of a postage stamp.
I go through my practised routine of showering off the sweat and glitter and bodily fluids from my skin and hair. I may only be a dancer at the club, but when it comes to private dances, you’d be shocked how often I get licked or worse.
Tonight a punter paid for a private dance with me and another girl - I got his tongue on the back of my neck and she got his cum in her hair.
Classy.
But we get hazard pay for guys like that, and we can always say no.
Some of the girls offer more but it’s a line I haven’t crossed yet.
And I say yet because, frankly, I’m tempted.
I’ve had enough offers since I started that I know there are clients ready to pay for more with me. And the money would go a long way to helping me get debt free. And it’s not all sex. Some guys will pay you just to jerk off over your chest, others will happily fork out for you to masturbate in front of them.
I let the hot water turn my skin pink before washing my hair and getting out. It’s nearly one in the morning when I sit naked at my easel.
I like working naked. Don’t ask me why - I haven’t got a clue. I didn’t work it out until an ex dared me to paint him nude and demanded I strip too.
That relationship fizzled out pretty quickly but my affection for nude painting didn’t and I haven’t sketched or painted in clothes since then.
I sketch until the sun rises, illuminating my pencil drawn canvas with its golden rays, and then I climb into bed for an hour or two of sleep before the day begins. It’s a fitful sleep - full of dreams of dealers and men touching me - and when I wake I’m barely able to drag myself out of bed to shower and dress for the day.
This is my life.
