[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/200423/2822c06e302e85aef0e0fb17181b3e37.png[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/qPwtBZW.jpg[/img]
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[sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRr5EasAq84]Oh momma dear, we're not the fortunate ones
And girls, they wanna have fun[/url][/sub][/center]

[right][sub][i]Weeks Ago[/i][/sub][/right]

[center][color=DA0C7A][b]"So, what's your passion?"[/b][/color] 

As far as studio spaces went, Brandy had seen better. Of course, she had seen worse but that didn't exactly change the fact that she had gotten a raw deal from the real estate company. That was the worst thing about this town, everyone was out for themselves. Everyone was willing to walk on the backs of the little guy if it meant climbing a slightly higher fence. Brandy wasn't sinless, she'd gotten where she was on the backs of all the midwestern suburban girls who thought they could be the next Cheryl Ladd or Goldie Hawn just because they did a crappy school production of Romeo and Juliet. They, like so many, had dreams but lacked passion. Lacked drive. Lacked the good sense to throw away their morals for their own benefit. There was a reason those wannabe dreamers worked in crappy diners or reception gigs while Brandy was renting office space and had captured the libidos of young boys peeking in the shoebox under their older brother's bed as much as she had the fathers and bachelors who still had time for fantasy. 

Why should she take the time to mourn those who clung to something as pointless as integrity? The ones who refuse to compromise were the ones who only saw their dreams come to pass when they slept. Everyone thinks they're talented until they leave the comfort of friends and family. 

The studio space, located on the third floor of an office building with nothing on the second floor and a laundromat on the first, was a good first step for Brandy. She still had her day-job of performing various other sorts of [i]jobs[/i] for the camera and select lucky individuals whose sole contribution to the world would be telling their friends in ten years that they were in a porn once but having a place to call her own was how she would turn from being in front of the camera to being behind it as well. Just because she was established, in comparison to the busloads of dreamers anyway, didn't mean she could rest on her laurels. She already took the adult world by storm in her debut, how historic would it be to do it again. A woman running her own little adult entertainment company...imagine the possibilities there. 

Of course, it wasn't all sex and fun. She had her legitimate side and what could be more lucrative to the dreamers, schemers, and true-believers than doing professional head-shots? Brandy had connections. Kind of. More than most and certainly more than the jerks who take advantage of girls fresh off the bus with promise that they know a producer if only they do them a favor...but who would be stupid enough to fall for that trick? Put an ad in the papers, offer a huge discount for anyone who brings said ad, and Brandy was in business. Of course, that it was also a way to gauge potential [i]talent[/i] for her enterprise was a little known secret. Either way, even with her crappy studio space, Brandy was on her way. 

[color=DA0C7A][b]"Wait, don't tell me. You...want to be an actress, right? You and every other pretty face around here. Well, you've got beautiful skin, but your clothes? Totally unflattering. You're hiding your God given assets. We're women in a man's town, we have to make them [i]want[/i] you as much as you want this. But I've got a good feeling about you. You've got a look."[/b][/color] Brandy's words of wisdom were aimed at a young girl with porcelain skin who seemed equal parts nervous and excited about head shots. What aspiring star of the silver screen didn't have that? Producers and agents loved passing around the pictures of would-be starlets. Brandy liked to joke that the more producers who popped a stiff one with the shots, the better chance the girl had at getting cast in a picture. 

None of them found it quite as funny as she did. 

[color=DA0C7A][b]"What'd you say your name was, by the way?"[/b][/color]

[b]"Nikki. Nikki Entwhistle."[/b]

[color=DA0C7A][b]"Well, look to the left for me, Nikki Entwhistle. And smile. You'll be in the papers one day."[/b][/color]

[B][h1]FLASH[/h1][/b][/center]

[right][sub][i]Present Day[/i][/sub]
[sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg]Some of them want to abuse you; Some of them want to be abused. Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?[/url][/sub][/right]

[center][color=DA0C7A][b]"I hate it when I'm right."[/b][/color] 

For a town obsessed with bright, flashing lights no one really wanted to see the blue and red ones shining down the street yet there was always a certain morbid, macabre curiosity that bade onlookers to sneak their peeks. It was worse in a community where people knew each other. Where people talked. Brandy wondered if anyone would claim the body, if anyone knew who Nikki Entwhistle was. The boys in blue were starting to pull people back, but it was a scene many were familiar with. If it wasn't suicide then it was someone a little too friendly with the lines and thinking they were invincible. In a city full of dreamers, nightmares are far too common. 

[b]"Did you know her?"[/b] A curious, old gossip stopped Brandy as she turned away from the scene. 

[color=DA0C7A][b]"I bought her that dress."[/b][/color] 

What more needed to be said? The cops wouldn't be interested in talking to Brandy. It was a suicide, not a homicide, and Brandy wasn't exactly friends with the girl. Nikki Entwhistle's head-shots would be in the obituaries tomorrow courtesy of the photos Brandy took. The ones being passed around a studio would be crumpled up and thrown in the trash like so many others. Brandy couldn't bring herself to mourn for the girl. The city had broken her. Another dream dashed, another hopeful discarded with the hopeless. Just another day in paradise. In the same corner shop selling papers with Nikki's obituary more people would purchase a skin rag with Brandy on page thirteen, finger crooked in the mouth. The irony that both Brandy and Nikki would be photographed in similar positions was not lost. Both women weren't strangers to getting fucked.

Brandy needed one of two things, both stiff, and one was more readily attained. It was almost instinct that carried her feet away from the grizzly scene towards the familiar. The Pit wasn't her typical haunt, she'd lived on the fringes between Oceanside and the city for long enough to dart between worlds, but beggars couldn't be choosers and it wasn't as if she would be paying for it anyway. There wasn't a bar in the state Brandy would have to pay for, such was the way of the endless parade of hopefuls with more cash than sense. 

As she rounded the corner towards her destination, she arrived just in time to see the bouncer tossing someone. What a dive. If he was drinking here by choice then he was some kind of desperate the then get himself tossed. [color=DA0C7A][b]"Rough night?"[/b][/color] Brandy made no attempt to stand in the queue, such as it was. She was getting inside because she was Brandy Valentine. 

[color=red][b]"No more than usual. You in town for a shoot, B? Don't see you around often. What's it been...couple weeks? Months?"[/b][/color]

[color=DA0C7A][b]"Well you know me. I can't keep away from a dive den of depravity. If I stick around, I'll buy you a drink when your shift's done. We can get off together."[/b][/color]

[color=red][b]"So you [i]are[/i] working."[/b][/color]

[color=DA0C7A][b]"Nope."[/b][/color] 

Brandy Valentine left the bouncer grinning as she sauntered past, stepping inside The Pit with all the poise of a celebrity, and considering where she was and who she was...she might as well have been one.[/center]