[right][sub]__________ 𝙿𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕 𝚂𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚟𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚒𝚛é𝚎 𝟼𝟿 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚘𝚗𝚊, 𝚆𝙸 __________ [/sub][/right] [centre][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019d1c21-8549-76bd-b244-855fda51e79e.webp[/img][/centre] [centre]An overhead light, frosted and yellowing. The hum of an extraction fan whirring above a wonky mirror clouded with many breaths, smeared with sweaty fingerprints. A toilet roll holder, with just a tube of cardboard spinning uselessly beneath fumbling fingertips. Cracked tiles with blackened grouting. A montage of posters glued over the top of one another in a messy mosaic of memories long forgotten, repressed or discarded, concealing lipsticked slurs drunkenly carved into the walls beneath. This toilet seat dodges your ass as you sit down. The hinges are coppered with rust and someone else’s piss licks the back of your thighs if you flop down without checking first. This is a cubicle that’s seen more than just a few dicks; It’s seen vomit spattered like watercolour on the linoleum. It’s seen mascara-marked tears trickling down many cheeks. It’s seen someone slumped, all bloody, as they cradle busted knuckles and a bruised ego. [quote] “[i]You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?[/i]” Pearl Sackville hissed as her heavy-handedly mascara’d eyes landed on the very much paperless paper-towel holder. She slumped back in the bowl in defeat, deflating as the toilet seat slalomed in protest, throwing her head back to curse that big guy in the sky or whomever had left her dripping in the cold like this.[/quote] Heels chittered as Pearly got to her feet, teetering in her 6 inch stilettos, straps snagging on her fishnets. She turned the air blue with a string of mumbled less-than-ladylike vocabulary and flung the cubicle door open like a cowboy in a swing-doored saloon. Lace and black sequins still round her ankles, binding her in to tiny steps as she pottered into the neighbouring cubicle, foggy mirrors reflected back her bare ass cheeks as they jiggled behind another cubicle door. She tore at a toilet roll, patted herself clumsily with a makeshift paper towel glove, then watched it flutter like silken ribbon into the toilet bowl and disappear with a flush. Blood red nails plucked at lace and fishnets like guitar strings, mixed materials refusing to cooperate with Pearly’s intoxicated determination. She huffed, smoothing down her sequinned skirt, careful not to dislodge the Smith & Wesson in her garter (Model 28. 357 Magnum, if ya wonderin’) and she clung to the door for balance as she swayed like a weeping willow whipped by winds. Staring back at her from the blurry film of a mirror opposite her was a woman who was, once upon a time, strikingly beautiful. With porcelain skin, ruby-red lips and over-plucked arching brows framing pupils as wide and black as her favourite vinyl record, the woman in the reflection was a hardened, weathered chrysalis. The personification of metamorphosis reversed, this woman was once a butterfly that had, through the trials and tribulations of her tragic life story, regressed. Much like a butterfly’s life span, Pearly’s window of attractiveness was short-lived. The echoes of natural beauty haunted her gaunt, drawn features. Clinging to a youthful self-consciousness, Pearly fussed with her hair, smoothing down the strays that had made their bid for freedom springing forth from loosened pins. She thumbed a smudge of lipstick from the underside of her bottom lip, promptly forming another one in its place, then licked at her index finger before probing the fuzzy kohl liner in her waterline. Shaky hands scrunched at midnight black curls that cascaded over her naked shoulders, entangling like vines with the thin straps of her silk cowl-neck camisole. Then, Pearl’s sea green eyes blearily strayed down the length of her form, her blurred reflection capturing the very moment the shock registered on her face. Her gaze landed and lingered on splatters of blood littering the ivory camisole, scarlet so contrasted against her china white skin like blood in snow. Clammy fingertips tugged at the silken material, brandishing the blighting blood stains as if they were little red finger-paintings littered across a piece of crepe paper. Like paw prints, they tracked up her front, haphazardly tracing a trail from her belly button to her nipples. Mouth forming an almost-perfect “O”, Pearly let out a frustrated screech, slamming her palms into the sink with a weight that shook the shoddy Soirée piping. [quote] “[i]My [b]fucking[/b] favourite cami![/i]” Pearly shrilly protested, to no one in particular. Spittle cotton balled in the corners of her mouth.[/quote] Right on time, a gurgled groan leaked from one of the far cubicles. Pearl’s eyes slid accusingly in the direction of the inhuman-sounding gargles, scapegoat for her favourite and ruined cami. Those strangulated cries punctuated the still air, taught and faint, like a horny street cat in the night. She looked back down at the blood spatters, pawing at them as if she could magic them away, noticing how her right hand knuckles were already pillowing, reddened and raw. Pearly rolled her shoulders, her expression pinched and vengeful. [quote] “[i]Now look what you made me do[/i],” she gritted out, brandishing the limp hand to her own reflection with a roll of her eyes. Another sob answered her, threaded with a wince of pain, echoing off the tiling. She growled. Low and foreboding. “[i]Girl. Quit making them noises. You ain’t being paid to perform right now and I know it ain’t hurt that bad.[/i]” [/quote] Heels clicking across the dirty linoleum like hooves on cobbled streets, Pearly approached the source of those cries with the speed of a patient predator circling injured prey. Thanks to the skin full of alcohol that graced her veins and those little white piles that had been shoved up and in to her right hand nostril all night, the Madam walked with the certainty of a boxer approaching the ring as a firm fan favourite. She kneed the cubicle door open, rattling the hinges and the walled dividers. Crumpled, twisted like a pretzel, the woman at the tip of Pearl’s stilettos had her head hanging over the bowl, detached and wobbling like a loosened screw. Merely a pile of skin and limbs at unnatural angles, the woman cowered at the reappearance of her Madam. She shied away, a wounded animal, whimpering like a kicked puppy. Pearly hissed a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth, the sound of Soirée’s Saturday Night jazz performer followed by a rumble of applause briefly shifting her focus to the restroom door. She smiled at the raucous claps and piercing whistles of approval, revelling in them as if they were just for her. With a few quick tuts of disapproval, Pearly snapped the fingers of her good hand to command the attention of the woman whom promptly, yet wearily, turned to face her. Cheek still pressed up against the toilet seat, cuts and bruises dotted across her objectively beautiful face, she looked up at Pearly with a slow blink. [quote] “[i]Now, Belle, I know we ain’t always seen eye to eye on everydamnthing since I first took you in all them months ago,[/i]” drawled Pearly, a tongue slurring and clumsily threading syllables together with gooey inebriation. “[i]But I was kinda hoping, if it ever came to this moment right here, that we’d be able to go our separate ways without you souring my milk and curdlin’ my blood. Seems to me like, somewhere along the way, you forgot that this place ain’t no charity, didn’t ya? And I ain’t no Motherfuckin’ Theresa. I didn’t drag your bony ass off them streets out the kindness of my heart, did I? Nah, I brought you here because… Why? Alright, I’ll tell ya. It wasn’t cos I thought you were special. You weren’t chosen. No, darlin’. I had an empty bedroom three nights a week that weren’t no good to me breedin’ dust mites and bed bugs. I knew some simpleton would take a fancy to those bee-stings sat on your chest and pay a pretty penny for the pleasure of suckin’ on em.[/i]” [/quote] Puffy with the blue and purple haze of early bruising, bloodshot like a roadmap in the whites of her eyes, Belle could barely muster a sliver of a response. Her split lip, bulbous on one side, wobbled something like an apology. Pearly shouldered the door frame and reached into her clutch slowly and deliberately, pulling out her signature silver tin that harboured rows of little cigarillos all lined up like sardines with a flourish. Pinching one between her manicured fingertips and placing it between her pursed ruby-red lips, that amber cherry bounced tauntingly as she spoke out the corner of her mouth. [quote] “[i]And see? The thing is, my little Belle of the Balls, you knew when you started skimming your takings that I would find out eventually, right?”[/i] the question was entirely rhetorical but it would be easy to be mistaken for genuinely seeking answer, upward intonation and all, soundtracked by the Jazz performers moody guitar solo on the other side of the bathroom walls. “[i]But you still thought you could outsmart Pearly Sackville didn’t you, darlin’? Couldn’t help but test the theory that I’m not about the life anymore. See these busted knuckles here, Belle? Look at them. No, really look at them. It was these that rearranged your mediocre face tonight. You’re welcome. A little something to remind you when you’re back out there workin’ corners, sucking cock for a few dollars a pop, that you tried to pull the wool over Pearly’s eyes. But you fucked around, darlin’. And you very quickly found out.[/i]”[/quote] Belle choked out a sob, the widening of her eyes disguised by cushioned swelling. Pearly sighed, exasperated and seemingly bored of the whole charade. She flicked the cigarillo, papery ash flaking through the air and snowing over Belle’s scrunched-up body, and began slowly backing out of the cubicle. As if sensing the end of her monologue, Pearly’s Head Doorman barrelled into the Soirée restrooms, followed by the loudened guitar solo that was seemingly never-ending and seeping through the open door like siren-song. The Madam smiled pleasantly at the suited brute, jutting her chin at the cubicle Belle was cowering in. Roger’s brows furrowed, curiously peering round as if he’d even be able to see from that angle anyway. He was the type of man whose neck and chin were conjoined, bald head almost comedically wedged between two very square and very broad shoulders. She nonchalantly pointed her cigarillo in Belle’s direction, as casual as one may point out a spillage that needed mopping up. [quote] “[i]Roge[/i],” Pearly purred, “[i]See to it that Belle is shown out through the back door. I don’t want the girls seeing her in this state. And Roge? Be a doll and get Vince to drive her way out, will ya? Her time here is up, know what I mean?[/i]” [/quote] Roger nodded gruffly, sidestepping the Madam and rubbing his palms together as if he were about to lift dumbbells at the gym. Without so much as a look over her shoulder, Pearly strutted out of the Soirée toilets and back into the depths of the party. She slotted back into the crowd, slipping between bodies with a surprising elegance. Save for the occasional near-stumble, Pearly made it to the Soirée bar without so much as a visible misstep. Heads turned as she passed through the crowd that thrummed with late-night Manhattans and sweaty appreciation for the Jazz band on stage, eyes flooding with recognition as the Madam breezed by them. She reached for her mink coat that was hung on a hook behind the bar like a victorious hunters pelt, throwing her arms through the sleeves and wincing as her swollen right hand scraped along the coat’s inner lining. The coat enveloped her, disguising the bloodied camisole with rich, plush fur. [quote] “[i]Moira, darlin’, pour me a glass of Champagne will ya?[/i]” Pearly called out, her sing-song tone so at odds with the serpentine hiss she’d rattled at Belle in the cubicle. “[i]I’m celebratin[/i]’”[/quote] A cool flute was pressed into her extended fingers and the Madam knocked it back, draining the glass in two loud gulps. A trickle of Champagne dribbled down her chin, swiped at with the back of Pearl’s good hand. She let a long, overdrawn sigh huff from her lips, slick with the 1964 Vintage as she finally allowed herself to embrace the dulcet tones of the singer atop the Soirée stage. Her eyelids fluttered closed, the room swaying like a desert mirage as the bubbles fizzed in her empty stomach. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Roger lumbering towards the back door, Belle’s limp body dwarfed in his tree trunk arms. Pearly sniffed, nose crinkling with disdain, the shadows of empathy threatening to cloud her face. But they were gone with the wind, blinked away as she nudged the empty flute towards the bartender ready for a refill. The Jazz singer continued, trilling a song about urban decay and life in this down and out city. Pearly swayed to the music, the image of her fist burying itself repeatedly in Belle’s face already fading with every sip of Champagne. [/centre]