PROSECCO PEASANTS
Yaz, Jasmine, Kara, Liv
Jasmine: Liv I'm comin over in a bit you up?
Yaz: Why are you putting this in the group??Just message her direct!!
She was working last night I doubt she'll be up for now
Jasmine: She was last seen at 8.45am *rolls eyes*
Can I borrow your straighteners Yaz I left mine at Liv's and it's looking like she isn't getting up anytime soon
Yaz: Nope I'm au natural, join the movement and you won't need to worry about having straighteners ever again J
Jasmine: Urgh. Bye!
Yaz: Just go round and bang her door until she answers. You're acting like you haven't known her 15 years
Jasmine: 20 years! And I cba to get the bus down and she doesn't answer
Yaz: Can't Michael drop you?
Jasmine is typing....
Yaz:?
Jasmine: He moved back to his moms last week
Yaz: What??
Liv: I'm up
I have worked two hours overtime at the shop every day this week and topped it off with a nightshift - I'm not sure if I'm alive. It's a feeling I am used to, having relived this same week for almost a year now and the worst part is that the improvement on my finances has been centimetres from minimal. My wages from the shop are way less than they should be thanks to a housing benefit overpayment that I didn't ask for. They got tired of waiting for me to pay and now take it directly from my wages, as does the water company. So what I earn now isn't enough to cover the bills I'm trying to keep up with all while trying to make a dent in what I owe. Enter The Norton, which I took on to pay back a pay day loan. Figured that would help which It did, until I had to take out another to pay a fine before it went to court – the cycles goes on. I'm starting to think the only way I am ever going to move forward is to live a life of complete deprivation – like a monk. Fasting for three days a week then when I do eat ensure its no more than a meal a day. No meat, eggs, fish, alcohol and no bread, especially not the fancy three cheese bread that's double the cost of normal bread but lasts half the time. Yes, I should aim to live a life of complete nothingness and I probably shouldn't bother breathing too much either. That way my body will be prepared when they eventually start charging us for air as I won't be able to afford that either.
I've even considered selling my TV on Facebook market place 'want it gone today – need the space.' Or trying to flog my worn sofa as a bargain "Barely used- paid £300 only want £299" It would mean that I'd have to sit on the hard, uncomfortable floor but that's okay, it would match my hard, uncomfortable life.
"You look like shit!" is what I am greeted with when I open my front door.
"Hello to you too," I answer. I am so not in the mood for her voice right now.
"I got you Maccies!"
"Lifesaver," I reply grabbing the brown paper bag out of her hands. I didn't realise how hungry I was until I saw it. She walks past me, noticeably annoyed by my slow pace, goes into my bedroom and starts moving things around.
"Jesus Liv when's the last time you cleaned up in here?" I look up at her and mumble. I can feel the lettuce hanging out from the corner of my mouth and the warm mayonnaise on my chin. She looks back at me, disgusted.
"Where are my straighteners?" she asks and I point to the chest of draws/dressing table/ storage station lovingly placed next to my everything chair – not that anybody can see the chair. I believe the last time I laid eyes on it before my coats and jeans and once worn pjs took over was more than two years ago. She rummages through the hair brushes, solo eye lash strips, empty deodorant cans and half bottles of perfume until she finds them.
I have known Jasmine since I was four. Our parents lived next door to each other for about ten years or so and at some point it wasn't clear who lived where as we were barely separated. Either she was at mine or I was at hers. Truth be told I often leaned towards going over to her place more than she came to mine, other people's houses are always more interesting than your own – at least they are when you're a child. Once we hit our teens her mom left her dad. Something about him not being the man she once knew and that Jasmine and her brother were not even his kids . It was all very soap-opera like and like a soap it was not the most original storyline. Then there was a big hoopla about whether it was true or not and Jasmine ran away from home for two nights and to this day, I don't know where she went. When she came back she never saw her dad again and we never spoke about it. Not once. Her mom had a string of relationships with hopeless, useless, penniless men and each relationship started and ended the same way. She'd fall in 'love' with a guy, said guy would move in, Jasmines brother would move out, the guy would contribute nothing to the house but problems and unpaid parking tickets, the relationship would end then she'd meet another hopeless, useless, penniless guy. Presumably at the same place she found the first one which I am starting to think may have been homeless shelter as where else would you meet so many men with no home.
Her brother joined the army then moved to France which I found very random but everybody else seemed to think it was nothing out of the ordinary. Where we lived, people used to move to another area sometimes and maybe even the next town or city across but never another country, never France. It wasn't even Paris either it was some random town two hours north of Paris. That's how it was described to us, as a cardinal direction like we were going to head over to Paris with our trusty compass and march there or something. But I have to say for all the ups and downs in her life she turned out pretty stable. Steady job, long term on/off partner and while we were partying and buying a new outfit every other day thinking she was a boring bitch, she was actually saving the money she earnt to buy a house. Which is all good and well for her but who would want to be tied down by a mortgage? Not me.
My upbringing was less eventful but only by an inch, well at least the first half of my life was. Nobody moved for France, no bailiffs ever turned up at the door, there were no paternity queries, nobody died (that I know off) and unless you can count that time my cousin played on his game console for 2 weeks straight there were no addiction sufferers. Yet look at my life. I haven't achieved a single thing I'm proud of, I hate my jobs, I'm drowning in debt and if my round bellied, round headed, duck bottomed manager Rob appears in my dream one more time I will be forced to spend my entire wages on therapy.
"How was work?" Jasmine asks,
"Someone did a shit by one of the fire exits on the first floor,"
"Nice,"
"Yeah." Unfortunately this occurrence can be described as mundane. The people who stay at The Norton 'hotel', as they insist on calling it although it's more like a hostel if you ask me, hold certain qualities. There are those with limited vocabulary outside of 'naa' and 'yeah' and "you get me'. Those with a dependence on alcohol or drugs, usually both. Those who rent a room for the night to then rent their bodies by the hour, although from what I have gathered rent is also available in 15-30 minute intervals. And for the pleasure of dealing with these guests, checking them in, translating their slurred words, providing toilet roll, dodging the phone and in last nights case risking typhoid, I am paid the standard minimum wage with no night shift allowance and constantly referred to as Abby. Abby is the middle aged black women about two sizes bigger and a foot smaller than me. She works as the night receptionist during the week.
"So, how long are you gonna work there Liv? Bit, grim isn't it," Jasmine asks. Her feelings of disgust around the state of my room appear to have now changed to curiosity as she is rolls an outdated misshapen bath bomb across my windowsill.
"Until I've sorted my life out,"
"Ah, could be a while then," she laughs, I don't. I respond to my beds constant calls and crawl back in, burger in hand, and sit with the duvet draped over my knees.
"Jasmine?"
"Hmm,"
"What do you think of sugar babies?" She diverts her attention away from the ever crumbling bath bomb and back to me.
"What? Those women that sleep with men for an allowance?"
'They don't have sleep with them!
"Pfft what planet are you on Liv? Don't tell me you're actually considering becoming one,"
"Okay. I won't tell you,"
PROSECCO PEASANTS
Yaz, Jasmine, Kara, Liv
Yaz: Jasmine you still at Liv's?
Jasmine: Naa got home ages ago
Liv have you told everyone about your new career plan
Liv*Rolls eyes*
Yaz: You going uni Liv?
Jasmine: LMAO!!!!
Yaz: ????
Liv: I'm gonna be a sugar baby J
Yaz: Yeahh???? I was thinking of doing that myself LOL where you gonna find your daddies?
Jasmine: You mean to tell me I'm friends with a bunch of hoes
Yaz: You didn't know that already?
Liv: LMAO Yaz behave!
Jasmine: Urghhhh
Yaz: Sex work is still work my girl
Liv: Ermm thanks Yaz but it's not sex work. From the stories I read you don't even have to sleep with them
Jasmine: And you actually believe that?
Kara are you seeing this?
Kara: Sorry guys todays been manic
Liv! You will defo have to sleep with them. It's basically prostitution
Jasmine: Did you see that ladies? It's basically prostitution. The oracle has spoken
Hello???
I put Jasmine and her negativity disguised as good intentions in a box and into the back of the cupboard with all the other things I am ignoring. I am soon to be debt free and internet shopping on a brand new phone, filtering the clothes I buy online from high to low. And I'll be on a Yacht, yes of course I'll be on a Yacht in Dubai or Tulum or some random island that they market as undiscovered even though people have been living there for generations. All I have to do is make an online profile, upload a few photos, list my wants and needs and watch the requests roll in. Maybe I should take some new photos, at a bar bloggers would describe as 'high-end' to show I'm not just an average girl. A midi dress with my barely there boobs barely covered and a sexy yet sophisticated thigh high split. A sort of classy/slutty vibe, although that will take quite a bit of effort and this is why women get so annoyed with send me a pic messages. Because there's the picture on a person's profile, and then there are the 11,375 pictures they had to take before they arrived there. Lighting, angles, background, random blurriness, oh it's on video. Exhaustion! I decide I'll try my chances with the thousands of pictures I already have.
I enter "Find a sugar daddy UK" into Google and sign up to the first website that doesn't look like it's been made with a free hosting platform. There are more questions then I care to answer and I almost give up but if I can't even finish this profile there's little hope for me. It takes a while for me to find a user name that hasn't already been used and I go back on forth as to whether to use my real age or not. Then there's my actual profile hmm, should I be upfront about what I want? Direct. Some men will appreciate that. Or do I skirt around and pretend I'm looking to get to know someone (and their wallet) for long companionship (fancy dates and spas). Right here goes.
User Name: LivelyLivvy
Age: 24
About me: I am a quiet but fun loving girl and I love meeting new people and being around someone with a good sense of humour. I'm a good conversationalist and enjoy a mental connection over a physical one. I am currently studying and working part time which keeps me quite busy so I'm not looking for anything serious just a special friend to spend time and hopefully build a connection with. Outside of studying my hobbies include the gym, cocktails, wine tasting, volunteer-work, reading and travel.
What I expect : I am looking for a discreet someone who enjoys looking after a woman and can take me out and show me new places and things I haven't seen before. Due to me only being able to work part time I'd like to get to know someone who is open to helping me with my expenses from time to time. I am available to get together once a week maybe more.
My profile did everything but scream choose please – which I considered adding towards the end and it's not all lies. Okay yes, me studying is an obvious lie, I haven't studied since I left school eight years ago but it seems like the go to thing to be doing. It's always student twilights at a strip club to pay college tuition or graduate paid off student loan with the help of sugar daddies. It's never broke shop assistant seeks sugar daddy to improve the overall quality of her life. The gym is more of me truth stretching then outright lying as I did have a gym membership a few years ago, I just never went and I did volunteer to show parents and potential students around my old senior school once when we had an open day The main reason for this was because I got to skip the last two lessons of the day and was told we would be provided with student snacks which turned out to be cold slices of 99p frozen pizza and onion rings. It feels a little cheap to use the word "discreet" but let's be honest, it's a mutually beneficial word. He may not want to be seen out and about with me for reasons I won't ask about and I won't want to be seen out with him because he could be older than death and if someone saw that how would I ever explain it? So after reading then re-reading and then reading once more I rest my phone on the chapped arm of my sofa and I dose off having been woken prematurely.
Today is Saturday, not just any Saturday but the third Saturday and the third Saturdays are always the hardest. This is because Every employee will be scheduled to work the morning shift on both Saturday and Sunday of every 3rd weekend. It's right there in the employee handbook that I did not read until I was sent the rota and saw my own name betray me - Olive Ellis cosied up by the 7am-3pm shift. I was nearly sick. And try as I might I can never swap them, who on earth would want to work the early shift on a weekend? I'm not an idiot, I am aware supermarkets are open and at their most busiest on a weekend which means that there has to be people working. I just never assumed that person would one day be me, especially after having worked a nightshift at the worlds worst hotel. I usually finish at The Norton after having intermittent naps at the desk from 10 till 5, then go home and contemplate my existence over a bowl of super soft cereal, souring milk and a mocha sachet, then I head back to the shop. Most of the time I make it, sometimes I don't and I am never ever in the mood to do a single thing required in my job role (listed on page 14 on the employee handbook). This morning, I crashed. I called in sick with back pain or stomach pain or some other pain. My eyelids were thick and sore from being up all night and my legs felt like they had weights strapped around them. There was no way I could have gone to work in this condition plus it was raining and I hate being on the bus when it's raining. The airs always so damp and suffocating and has a sour smell. And you can't open the windows to get rid of it as you just end up getting wet, so the windows steam up and then you're sitting their breathing in the same hot air as twenty strangers and it's just vile. There is absolutely no way I could have gone to work today.
I wake from my, thankfully, dreamless sleep and naturally the first thing I do is check my phone. There are the usual notifications, WhatsApp group messages for week long birthday celebration plans that I have agreed to attend but will cancel at the last minute when my managers calls me in to cover a shift 'So sorry I was really looking to it as well babe have a drink on me.' There's a few missed calls from 0800 numbers that I would have never answered anyway and so I check the SD app, surely there will be at least five messages for me it's been over two hours. But nothing. I click to see who's viewed my profile but it's an added feature you have to pay for and if I had extra money to pay to see who has viewed my profile, would I be on here in the first place? The people who made this website are trash. I click on the search section and have a browse at the men within ten miles of my location, as anything further than that may as well be Australia, but the prospects aren't great. So I expand to twenty miles then thirty miles and then I realise that limiting the distance isn't doing me any favours so I take it out and things improve by about 3%. After about ten minutes of browsing I've put the sugar daddies into four categories.
There's the old and tanned guys. These are the typical pictures that come into your mind when you think of a sugar daddy, old, tanned with roundish belly that often comes when you have money for finer foods, along with gout and type 2 diabetes. Most of them have less clothes on than I care to see and not one of them is in this country on their profile picture which is sensible marketing I suppose, ladies love the beach. For those that do have a face picture it's so close to their face you can see their pours and the angle is forever completely
Then there are the suited and booted guys. Investment bankers, private bankers, FX traders, general finance dicks. These guys are younger than the old and tanned ones but still older than me. Their profiles generally include things along the lines of "looking for someone to have fun with while I'm in town" or "got the cash to splash." I cringe and wonder if they would be better off hiring an escort although according to Kara and Jasmine, sugar babies and escorts are one in the same. The jury is still out on that one.
Thirdly we have the Wannabe's. I don't know why these guys are on here. Their profiles are like something of Match.com and there is nothing that even suggests they could support a sugar baby. The phrase "I am not an ATM" dominates their bios. Their job title lacks transparency of any kind, a tactical move to hide who they really are, nobody. And weirdly enough these guys are the ones who appear to be the most active which makes me wonder if this is all just a past time for them.
Last and of equal disinterest to me as the Wannabe's are the Cats. The Cats aren't old and tanned, they aren't suited and booted and they aren't a wannabe. They vary in height, background, apparent status and talk a good talk on their profile but one picture doesn't look like the other and that's if there even have a second picture. There's something very phony about the Cats that suggests they don't actually exist. Could be them, could be an overweight man in a trailer park on the other side of the world or some spotty teenage hacker in his bedroom. The worst part is not even the Cats have messaged me.
I consider if it would be a good idea to send a message first which is something I have never done in my entire life, but I can't expect change if I don't change, or something like that. At least that's what Kara's always saying and we don't call her The Oracle for nothing. But for a girl who reads so many self-help books and attends as many motivational seminars as she does, she hasn't actually achieved that much. Just as I sit contemplating what I would even say in a first message I get a notification. A message! "Hey pretty lady," Three words. Three dead words, I may as well be on Tinder but at this point I can't afford to be fussy. My profile has been active for a good few hours now and this is the only message I've received.
I open up his profile and its Ed a Currency Trader from 'Up North.' His profile picture is him in a navy blue suit and pink (although some may prefer the term salmon) shirt standing next to a Mercedes that he may or may not own. He has on dark sunglasses and is looking to the side as if caught off guard, embarrassingly staged. The sky is a striking blue which makes me think it can't have been taken here in England and the thing is, how do you even respond to hey pretty lady? Urgh. Here goes.