Chapter 1
“Wake up, girl! I need to get you ready!” The voice pushes through the fog that's surrounding my head right now. I struggle to open my eyes, but the lights in the room almost blind me.
“What-what?” I stutter out, licking my lips, trying to make my mouth not dry. It feels like I swallowed cotton balls. My lungs won't pull in enough air as I attempt to open my eyes again, only to squeeze them tight as the pain rushes through my skull.
“Get up! We don't have much time! You're due on stage soon!” The woman's voice snaps as I feel nails digging into my arms before she is pulling me off my feet. As soon as she has me in a standing position, my knees become weak, and I fall on the ground hard.
The women didn't even bother to catch me.
“What's happening” I groan out, trying to steady myself on the floor before attempting to stand up.
Did I go to a party last night? A club? Was I out drinking with friends?
Wait.
Do I even have any friends?
I can't remember anything right now. Everything is just an empty haze inside my head.
What's going on? Where am I?
The woman jerks on my arm with a huff, standing me back up. I take a second to look around the small room, it's dark. I can make out a shape of a mattress on the floor in a corner, but the room has little else inside it.
What the heck?
“Do you have a phone I could borrow?” I slur out, turning my head to the woman. I don't understand what's happening, but I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be.
“No! Now get up before I get Bruce in here to fucking make you stand up correctly! You have to be on stage in a few minutes, and I don't feel like taking the blame if you're not!” She growls at me before digging those damn nails right into my skin again, causing me to make a squeaky protest.
“You-You can't handle me this way!” I ground out, trying to jerk my arm from her damn claws.
If she would only explain what the hell was happening, then maybe I would be glad to go with her, but none of this makes sense to me. I woke up in a small room, with a damn mattress, and now I'm being jerked out to God knows where, and she isn't giving me anything to go on, just that I have to be on stage.
A stage?
For what? Do I sing ? Am I an actor and this is where we are shooting a scene?
I understand nothing, and I can't even remember shit. Nothing, nothing about what happened last night.
“I can talk to you, however, I like bitch. You're here to make my boss money! Now I have to get you dressed and make that face of your pretty. They were too rough with you, I see, you have a big knot on your forehead. That's going to take time to cover up now, come on!” She yells before jerking me out the door and leading me down a long, dark hallway.
I'm looking around quickly trying to see what's happening, what I can find out to give me any sort of clue of what's going on, but I come up with nothing. The walls just are black with small lights on them leading the way down the hall.
“Where are you taking me?” I whimper out, I'm beginning to become anxious, something doesn't seem right at all and this woman isn't helping matters.
Can't she tell I'm afraid? Confused? Panicked?
Or does she just not care?
Whoever her boss is, needs to terminate her employment because this is not how employees should be treated! I'm not trying to be a petty woman, but goodness, she could give me some sort of explanation for all this mess instead of dragging me around like a doll.
She stops outside a door before pushing it open and pulling me inside behind her. I see a make-up area and a chair and my nerves come down a bit, okay this is what's going on.
She said I needed to be on stage in a few minutes, and now she is about to do my make-up, that makes sense. I must be an actress, and I'm working at a job. Why didn't she just say that, for god's sake, I wouldn't have fought so much to get here?
When we make it to the chair, she pushes me down, and this time I let her. She must be in a rush. I look at myself in the mirror as she rushes around the room gathering things, but I'm no longer paying attention to her. My eyes are clued to my face.
Jesus, what happened last night?
My make-up all ran down my face. I have a large knot on my forehead, she was kidding about that. Hopefully, whatever make-up she has is strong enough to freaking hide that. I can't do a movie shoot with my face looking like this.
The woman comes back and moves my hands from my face with a slap. I was just trying to rub some of my make-up off under my eyes to help her out, sheesh.
She needs to relax, I see it. We are rushing.
She applies make-up to my face, dark red lipstick, and false eyelashes, and I let her do her thing as I try to soothe my nerves. This is my job. I need to relax and get this done, then I can figure out what happened last night.
A little while later, I'm starting to freak out again when I realize I don't know any lines! What movie is this for? Oh my God, what am I going to do?
“What is the movie about?” I asked the lady in a rush, maybe they have a spare script somewhere I can run through before we go on.
“Movie?” She laughs out as she spins the chair around and begins pulling me up again, roughly, might I add.
Before I can even ask her if she knows where I can find a spare script, she shoves some clothes at me. “Put these on. We don't have much time.” She shouts as she dashes out of the room, leaving me staring down at the clothing she gave me.
It's lingerie.
Red lingerie.
What the hell kind of movie is this? Are we about to do a sex scene? I do these types of roles?
I don't want to make things worse than they are, and I'm here, so apparently I do this, I quickly take off the dress I was wearing which by the way was a party dress, so I assume that answered my question, I partied a little too hard last night.
I slip the lingerie on, it's a two-piece, red lace and the bra has a diamond heart in the middle between my boobs.
The door swings open and that woman walks back inside and says something quietly into her earpiece before grabbing my arm again and pulling me behind her.
I guess it's showtime? I guess I should be happy it's a sex scene, maybe I don't have many lines for this one, so it should be okay, I should be okay.
She stops in front of a classroom, I peek around here and don't see anything inside it, nothing, not even a bed.
How am I supposed to do a sex scene without a bed?
What's going on? Now, this doesn't make any sense, what kind of sex is supposed to take place in a room that has nothing? Floor sex?
“Name?” A man that's standing in front of the door grunts out, looking disappointed when he looks at me.
I know I look horrible, but he could at least fake it, I'm nervous enough.
“Her name is Aria,” the woman beside me says, and that's when it clicks, I didn't even know that was my name.
How badly did I party last night?
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked rushing, I want at least to know what was about to happen before I go inside.
“You're going to stand there, and not talk. Just stand and smile, and look pretty” the man says before writing something down inside a notepad.
That's it? Stand and smile?
Thank god, I thought I had lines I was supposed to remember, but now I don't think I'm an actress, I think I'm a model.
Wow, me a model, that's spectacular.
“It's about to begin. Get her inside. You know the boss likes for things to run smoothly for his client” the man grunts at the woman before pressing some buttons on a keypad and the door swings open.
“Come on,” she says and pulls me inside the room with her. “Now you're going to stand in the middle of the room and smile, you can pose if you like, turn around to make sure everyone can see you properly, and I will come and get you when it's over.” She says before walking out the door, leaving me alone in what looks to be a glass room, the door shuts behind her closing me off.
I guess it's showtime?
