Turning A New Leaf

Fifty-Six

****

"You made how much last night?" Brad demanded angrily.

Madison glowered at him from the bed, blanket pulled up to her chin, "I fucking told you, after the stupid fucking house fees I took home thirty-five dollars."

He pulled the blanket off of her, "You're fucking lying, there's no way you only made thirty-five dollars. What did you do with the rest of it?"

Tears welled up in Madison's eyes, "You were there! It was a Sunday night, what the fuck do you expect? There was like three dudes the whole time and nobody bought dances and barely even tipped my sets. Nobody made money yesterday, ask fucking anybody!"

They were out of dope and almost completely broke. Brad had smoked the last of the shit while Madison had finished up at the club at close. She wasn't ugly, she may have even been the best-looking girl at the club yet the other girls were making triple the cash she was.

Why? Because Madison had a shit attitude and didn't even try to talk up the men. Brad watched her lap dances, she didn't like to touch or make eye contact. She came off disgusted to be there and cold.

"You know maybe if you put in some effort and tried to act somewhat tolerable, you'd make money. I feel like I've been footing the bill for you since I met you," he berated her.

"You haven't done shit for me except force me to do things that I don't want to do! Why don't you go do something?"

"Who paid for this shithole apartment? Who bought your car? Who buys you food? Not you with your thirty-five fucking dollars."

Madison turned away, hugging arms around herself, not wanting him to see her cry, "Can you stop yelling at me? You're being really mean," she whimpered, sounding like a child.

"Mean? How would you feel if you were forking out money to support some worthless whore who can't even make an effort to help out? My god, Madi, you could show your asshole to strangers on the internet and suck cock for money before me but somehow dancing is too traumatic for you? Be fucking real."

She spun around, face contorted with rage, "I'm a worthless whore? What about you, you pathetic fucking loser? Your own wife didn't even like fucking you, what does that say about you? Loser!" She shouted through clenched teeth.

Without thought, he slapped her across the face, her head turning with the blow. Madison held her hand to her face, staring at him with big, sad eyes, her cherub-like lips parted in horror.

"I hate you!" She shrieked, darting to the bathroom and slamming the door behind her. Brad sat on the bed, overcome with guilt as he listened to her sobs.

He pulled out his phone, texting Fernando to ask for front on a ball of dope, insisting he could have him paid back by that Friday.

"I'm at my kids baseball game, I can come thru tonight," he replied.

Brad laid back on the bed, questioning whether he should check on Madison or not, who was still crying in the bathroom, he chose not to, instead calling to her, "Babe, Fernando is bringing by some shit later. I got us a front."

She emerged from the bathroom several minutes later, hair disheveled, eyes puffy, and forearm bandaged. Brad had recently learned that she cut herself and thought it was fucked up but had no idea how to approach it. He wanted to lay into her about how fucked up it was but also realized by doing that, she'd probably don't more so he just left it as is.