Lilith (rewrite)

Chapter 2

Lilith

"Do not romanticise the bruises beneath my eyes. Do not compare them to fields of violets ready to be plucked. I'm just tired. I'm just so goddamn tired. And there's nothing beautiful about that."

It's 12:47am, just over four more hours of her shift to go and she can finally go home. She pours herself another shot of the cheapest vodka we store, she's not nearly as drunk as she needs to be to get through this shift without shouting at anyone. She guesses that's what heavy drinking from the age of 13 does to you, it fucks with your tolerance. She wishes she could say she's not an alcoholic but after being surrounded by them her whole life she can see the signs. She can't function normally without a shot or two in her morning coffee, and if she didn't get dirt cheap alcohol from the bar then she'd probably be just as broke as her parents. It's both a blessing and a curse, how easy it is to acquire alcohol and drugs when you're surrounded by them almost daily. At least she's not too far in with drugs. Yet. There more of a social thing, a bit of weed here, bit of coke there. She wouldn't ever do heroin at least, so it's really not that bad. The one thing her parents did teach her was stay away from heroin, and unsurprisingly she listened. When your parents have never cared enough to give you any form of life advice or rules, when they give you a singular one it really sticks.

Although that's a lie, saying that they don't give her any rules, they give her plenty; at least her dad does. He likes to take an old-fashioned approach into getting them drilled into her. Ironically enough, by literally drilling them into her with his fists. Or his boot. Or both. It's only when he's off his face that he hurts her, but he's off his face pretty much all the time nowadays. She can't even remember when it started, she was probably flung out her mum's womb and immediately met with a fist. Honestly though she's normally so pissed herself she doesn't feel most of the beatings, at least not until the next day. The day after always sucks. Hence why she just doesn't stop drinking. Then she doesn't need to remember it either. Here's the thing, people always say they hate remembering what they did the previous night they were drunk. But if you never stop drinking, then you never have to remember.

Lilith take another shot and rinse out the glass before polishing it with the cloth draped over her shoulder. She goes back to making the previous drink for one of the customers at the bar, he's looking at her intently; probably checking she measures out the alcohol correctly. Most men hate that a young girl is pouring there drinks, insisting she never pours enough in even after watching her measure out a perfect shot time after time. You'd think by now that society would've progressed a bit to letting a lady pour you a drink, but apparently even that's a step too far. Whatever, it's not like she gets paid enough to care about society's opinions or the way these grumpy old men talk to her. She's sure they have a loving wife at home who's cooking them a nice homemade meal, whilst she's stuck serving their stupid neat scotches.

Lilith sees a large group of younger men come through the doors; they really don't look like they fit this sort of place. They're all wearing suits of some kind, although they're worn casually; shirts untucked, sleeves rolled up, tights loosely hanging from their necks. Even so, they definitely aren't the usual middle-aged men with beer bellies and jeans on that tend to come in around this time of the night. Or early morning, she silently corrects herself.

She kind of hopes that they're going to sit at the bar, so she can get a change from the regulars. But she watches as they ignore the bar entirely and walk straight towards the stage with the beautiful dancers on; typical. Of course they're here just for the strippers, She can't blame them though, they're hot. She even had a fling with one of the girls a couple months ago, she was one of the most graceful dancers she'd ever seen, and she couldn't help but want to see if she was as graceful in bed. She's sure these men won't have a problem finding a dancer each to go home with either.