Drowning

Fourteen;

"Hey, Bella," I say, a little breathless from rushing into work. I was running a few minutes late.

"Hey, babes!" Bella chirps. She looked extra hot tonight; long dark hair in loose waves, red lips, a heavy dark eye and red lingerie.

"Midweek work sucks," I sigh. "It's gonna be so quiet,"

"I know," Bella pouts. "On the plus side, Mike is here tonight." she smirks. I groan.

"Please," I whine. "I can't think about him right now,"

"I think he's going to want to talk," she says, wiggling her brows at me.

"I'm sure he will," I sigh. "I need to change," I mumble, walking further into the dressing room to my dressing table.

"I'll meet you out front," Bella says. "I'm gonna go have a few drinks to warm up. Want one?"

"No," I smile. "Thanks,"

"Okay, babes." she smiles, before heading off to grab her drinks.

"Fucking Mike," I murmur to myself as I pulled off my sweater, followed by my leggings.

As quickly as I could, I stepped into a black lace babydoll dress, with red leather lingerie beneath. I touched my makeup up in the mirror, and let out a loud sigh. I hated working Wednesday nights. It was a 10:30pm-3am shift, which wasn't awful, but the nights would go so slow midweek.

Once I felt satisfied with how I looked, I sprayed a little more perfume on myself, since I was sure it had worn off since spraying it back home, and made my way out the door of the dressing room.

"Zahara! Darling!" oh, for fuck sake.

"Oh! Mike, hey." I say, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear nervously.

Mike was 55. Mike was the oldest man I had slept with.

"Looking sexy tonight, if I do say so." he says, leaning closer to me, so that his mouth was near my ear in the dark hallway.

"Ha, thanks, Mike." I say uncomfortably.

Mike was my boss.

"See you on that stage, love. Don't forget to look extra sexy for your master, hm?" he whispers, sending shivers of disgust down my spine.

"Mhm. Will do, Mike." I nod.

"There's a good girl." he smirks, kissing my cheek. I quivered. "Off you go; can't be late."

"On my way," I say, gently pushing past him to make my way to the stage. But, as I stepped in front of him, he grabbed my bum and gave it a tight squeeze, causing me to flinch slightly. With a deep breath, I ignored the gesture.

The music began to play, so I went backstage, where Bella now was, and put on my game face.

-

I didn't awaken until 1pm the next day. Bella and I had taken some mushrooms after work, for fun, and didn't sleep until 8am. We'd had a good time, though. She got an Uber back to her place at around 7:30am. Lauren and Zack were already awake by choice when I was going to bed, which made me feel a little bad about my life choices.

It was now 2pm. I'd showered, had copious mugs of coffee, and I was sort of ready to be a human being.

Lauren and Zack were off being real adults, so I had the apartment to myself. I'd been singing Frank Ocean songs happily, until I went into my bedroom and saw the wallet. Shit. I'd completely forgotten about his stupid wallet.