chapter 5: Intro

Music blared through the midnight warehouse, repurposed by the son of a man who believed he had earned everything he had made with his family's money. Changing from darkness, to light, to darkness again. Darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness, light. The flickering to light caught between every fourth note from above, but only for that moment as darkness enveloped the room once more. In that darkness, gyration and release screamed at each other for nobody to hear. Screaming to be heard, screaming for sex, screaming for the music, screaming just to scream.

One screaming to be heard was a woman wearing a skintight evergreen dress hugging every curve money and a boy toy personal trainer could buy; her bright red hair falling half over her face and down to her waist. She was screaming over the bar, loud as she could. Her cheeks full of passion and the edges of her lips reached up as high as one imagined they could go. She was screaming at a small silhouette that she hardly saw as human, that's only purpose was to serve her what she knew she had earned with the opportunities afforded her by generations of luck and work. She was screaming at Eury.

Eury stood there, in her signature hoodie but instead of leggings wearing short shorts that read Gyro's on the cheeks. Eury couldn't hear her, not only due to the music but also due to the ear plugs she kept in constantly to keep herself from sustaining hearing loss for a paycheck. However, she had gotten extremely good at reading lips working here and knew from the way this Christmas tree's mouth was moving, she wanted shots of tequila. Four of them. Nodding, Eury turned around and grabbed a bottle before pouring the drinks and setting them on a small circular tray. She put the tray in front of the woman before motioning with her hands the number sixteen. The woman handed Eury a twenty before she walked back out into the amalgamation of bodies shaking with one another.

Twenty minutes passed by before Eury saw the Christmas tree walking back to her, inwardly sighing, rolling her eyes as the girl frolicked over to the bar. Her smile was, somehow even larger than before to Eury's sorrow and chagrin. This time she put forty on the table and shouted, to the silence of decimating decibels from overhead "four tequila shots, make them a double! A double!" To which Eury, reading her lips, complied and made another round for the tipsy Christmas tree, watching her walk them away wondering if someone could kick her skinny little legs and knock her down like a real evergreen.

The clock struck one, now forty minutes had gone by as she was checking her phone. Logging onto Tumblr, checking her messages and seeing a few of her customers had left tips here and there for her to send her new collection of feet pics, now including a small bit of thigh. Something she had started doing halfway through college on a dare, thinking it was the dumbest thing she ever heard of. Then deciding that it wasn't so dumb once she made ten dollars of the dare. Over the past five years she had gained a few repeat customers. Some of whom she gained a good understanding of before they left over time. Perhaps having found love, hopefully with someone who also enjoyed doing foot stuff, Eury often thought to herself when reminiscing over her past.

Thing was that ninety nine percent of her customers were kind and generous. Aroused by feet? Sure. But overall, they were lonely men and women who it seemed didn't have many people to talk to. However, there was one person that was… different. Everyone online could come off as a little creepy, sure. However, this was different. This person was-

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Eury looked up from her phone, the Christmas tree had returned and was less smiley than before. She looked at Eury with an expression that screamed what her lips were desperately trying to convey to the defeat of earplugs and speakers.

How dare you be on your phone when you are here to serve me!

Eury's eyes nearly glossed over as she was screamed at, the spirit of not giving a shit overtaking her as she poured a shot of tequila, handing it to the Christmas Tree and motioning the number zero at the woman. Instantly the Christmas tree's angry lips curled into a smug and pleased demeanor. Because of course they would, she got angry and got free things. She knew in her heart this was what she was owed. She took it quickly before asking for eight double shots of tequila. Eury snapped back to her body to question her on what she had said. Eury was sure of it, of course. But she had to ask to obtain the mental preparation to clean up a puke covered Christmas tree or call an ambulance if need be. In a normal environment, as the bartender she could cut her off. She could look at this bundle of holiday cheer and say "no more". But, the boss for the club was very clear that everyone here was meant to be "Happy!" all the time, and nobody could ever be too happy. That people spent more money the more "Happy" they got.

The redheaded woman repeated herself, and begrudgingly, Eury complied. The woman walked back out into the shadows, overhead lights illuminating her wobbly curves for a moment as Eury looked her up and down, shadows embracing the room once more as she vanished.

Back down to her phone she went. There were other customers throughout the night, stopping by asking for a shot, a beer, or cocktail that Eury and her coworkers took care of swiftly and with ease. Her earplugs kept her from hearing any drunk or frisky folks hitting on her or making comments about her butt when she had to bend over to get something from the fridge behind her. The fridge of course had been put there strategically by management, and no bartender was ever told to bend over specifically to grab a drink from the bottom shelf, but that always seemed to be where they were told to restock their most in demand beers.

Fifteen minutes until two hit and the club was clearing out more and more with only a handful of people left, trying to scavenge any chances of drunken warmth they could go home with. Eury, the shortest of the bartenders, went to the edge of the bar grabbing a long thick rope that belonged on a ship rather than behind a bar. At the top of that rope hung a bell that actually was from a sailboat, one of the owners first sailboats they had wrecked when they were eighteen (everyone knew because he told the story every chance he got). Back and forth Eury's small arms swung the rope, making it ring loudly throughout the club as the music died down. The last call bell. A fun idea, but not much of a club idea. People began shuffling out, some to the bar to close their tab, others out the doors into the nothingness of the night.

The clock struck two ten and everyone got to cleaning the gross stickiness of the night. The dance floor had a myriad of spilt liquids on it, hopefully all alcoholic in nature. The bar was fairly pristine as the bartenders had started cleaning what they could half an hour prior. However, the worst part of the club has and will always be the bathrooms, and it was Eury's turn to clean them.

She grabbed a bucket and mop from the closet near the stairs to the bathroom. Why this place ever had stairs to a bathroom before it was a club was beyond her. And with it now being a club that needed stairs to go? A hilarious nightmare to watch and a lawsuit waiting to happen. Also, a bitch to clean.

Eury filled the mop bucket with water and cleaning solution, dragging the barely functioning wheels of the bucket up the stairs, one step at a time. Each step, splashing a small amount of water from the bucket on the stairs behind her. With the top reached, a small trail of water followed her as she pushed the left door to the men's restroom open.

Somehow against all odds the men's room seemed clean. The urinals were only moderately sticky, there was no puke that hadn't made it into the toilets and no shit smeared on the walls. The bar was in hell but when it was cleared, people were relieved. Eury finished the men's room in record time. Coming out from that left door, a voice called from below "Really? Already?"

"Yep, no dumb fucks I guess" Eury yelled back down over her shoulder as she dragged the mop bucket with her. The women's room was on the right, giving another breath holding moment as Eury entered to see if this room was trashed or not. The floor was stickier than the men's room upon entering, but overall, at first glance it looked reasonable as well. No horror stories about cleaning tonight, almost. Sighing as she looked forward into the stalls-

"Nevermind" Eury yelled out as she stared under the stalls at two long legs laying on the ground with, of course, an evergreen dress barely covering a plump peach of an ass that was sitting on that gross sticky floor. Letting go of the mop as it fell to the ground, she briskly paced over to the bathroom stall door and started knocking, yelling "We're closed! Time to go home!"

Groans broke through the stall door. Small unintelligible whimpers whispering through the large gaps between the stall and the floor, there was no sign of movement. Eury raddled her fist on the door, slowly pounding harder as she yelled.

Ratatata

"Listen lady!"

Ratatatatat

"I wanna go home and so do you!"

RATATATATATAT

No response.

Sighing, Eury knocked hard one more time before announcing "I'm coming in if you don't come out, ok?"

Only groans echoing underneath. Eury sighed and started pushing on the door, locked of course. The locks were old, barely functional, and hadn't been replaced in 30 years. Yet still they persisted against Eury's show of maximum force. Now echoing the groans back at the chopped down Christmas Tree. "I'm gonna crawl under, ok?" she said, getting to her knees, feeling the sticky floor absorb her skin into itself as her face scrunched up in disgust. Keeping her hands on the stall door, determined not to have them become one with the floor as her knees just had, she slowly poked her head under the door to see the Christmas tree and the toilet she was hugging, somehow by every miracle Eury had due to her, not covered in vomit. A sigh of relief poured through Eury's lips as she pulled herself under the door and onto the other side. Unlocking and pushing open the door behind her as she stood up. "Ok Tequila shots, let's get you home."

Reaching down and pulling up the woman firmly as her body resisted movement, clinging to the toilet for a moment as if it were the last safe place on earth. After another two tugs, she slowly released her grip from the security of the club latrine. Getting to her feet Eury helped her pull down her dress to cover her ass before putting her arm around her waist as she dragged her one step at a time out of the bathroom.

"Ok hon, we're gonna get you your shit and get you home" Eury whispered motherly into her ear as the woman smiled gently back and stumbled along with Eury very carefully down the stairs, making sure not to slip on the water spots left in Eury's cleaning wake. Making their way to the entrance Eury sat the Christmas tree in a chair next to the door. Eury knocked on the walls of the coat closet to get Closet girls attention as she softly requested if she had seen Christmas tree's stuff.

"Is this hers?" The closet girl asked. She was even smaller framed than Eury, less curvy with huge brown hair that looked as though it could consume the top half of her body. Her lower half had the signature Gyro's short shorts on with long thin legs planting themselves into a chair with comic books surrounding it. The closet girl was holding up a golden orb-shaped purse to which Eury's first thought was-

It's a fucking ornament.

Taking the purse from Closet Girl, Eury ruffled through it until she found a wallet. "She must have been keeping her money for the night in her dress somewhere," Eury thought as she opened the wallet and saw a license. Looking at the picture then back at the girl slouching slowly off the chair.

"Yea this is it" A sigh of relief as she fished out a phone with no case on it from the purse to try and get her home. Tapping the screen, a background of the Christmas tree and two other girls in bikinis on a beach flashed at her. Somewhere like Mexico, the Dominican, or Hawaii, upper-middle-class vacation destinations that Eury knew she'd never see.

Passcode blocking any chance of Eury booking the girl an Uber to get home, she walked over and tapped her bobbing forehead.

"Hey… Drunka Lunka, what's the code?" The girl stared up at her and smiled wider than she had even when ordering four double shots.

"8675309" She blurted out, giggling to herself.

"Dumb hoe, the password is 4 numbers, it is not a cheesy song!" Eury said as she held the phone up to the girl's face. "Password put it in!"

"Put it in, put it in!" the girl chanted under her breath as she took the phone and tried to enter the password.

Try again.

"Oops, that's the old one" she mumbled before screaming out to Eury, who stood approximately 8 inches in front of her "Can you do it?!?" trying to shove the phone back into Eury's hands.

"No jackass, that's the whole reason I gave it back to you." Eury said, pushing the phone back at her.

"But Brandaaa" The Christmas Tree begrudgingly pushed back.

Did this bitch fuck up the name Brenda or does she have a friend with a dumbass name like Branda

Eury, once more firmly pushed back the phone to the Christmas Tree saying "Girl, phone. Un. Lock. it".

Finally throwing her hands up with the phone in response, the Christmas Tree announced "I can't!" and let it fly across the room. Slamming itself against the wall, the phone crashed to the concrete floor. Eury let out a loud, obnoxious sigh directed at the Christmas Tree before walking over to the deconstructed phone, its screen laying in pieces on the cold ground. 

"Fuck it, don't care. Good luck" Eury said as she walked outside leaving behind the hammered woman who wondered where her phone went. Outside the chill Chicago air brushed against her legs, cooling off the hours of club sweat that had accumulated in every nook under her big hoodie and in every cranny of her tight shorts. She waved over at a cab who had been parked outside, waiting for any closers of the establishment to take home in the dead of night. 

The cab pulled up and Eury opened the back door, throwing her bag in the back seat. The driver, a tan old man whose eyelids drooped over his eyes so much you'd worry if he could see the road, asked "where to?" before she looked back through the shaded glass doors to see the helpless Christmas Tree laying on the ground trying to use her useless broken phone. Pausing for a brief moment before muttering obscenities under her breath, trying to convince herself not to do this.

"Hold on one second." Eury sighed at the cab driver as he put it in park and went back to looking at his phone. Eury walked up to the glass doors, opening them with frustration against the hard Chicago winds. "Hey!" she yelled directly at the helpless woman, her reaction time barely having her turn back to her before she said "Hellooooo" in a long, drawn out voice. 

I really should leave this dumbass here

"Where do you live?" Eury asked, politely holding in her climaxing contempt for this woman.

"North…" she muttered as she nodded her head up and down. 

"Yea, no shit YOU live north but where, you dumb annoying ass hoe" Eury snapped as she debated leaving her behind once again.

"Why are you being mean to me?" The Christmas Tree whimpered.

Eury took a deep breath, slowly inhaling the crisp night air, taking in positivity and exhaling her frustration just the way her therapist had told her to do. 

10…

9…

8…

7…

6…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

"Ok sweetheart, let me look at your ID." She said, grabbing the woman's wallet from her purse. Beforehand she only checked to make sure that this belonged to her, not checking to see who she was. 

"Nina Kasi, but this address is for a small town in Ohio. Look how far you've come girly, you've made it." She said, offering a hand down to Nina to help her up. "You can crash at my place until you sober up and can get home, sound good?"

Nina smiled at her, taking Eury's hand and walking with her to the cab. Sitting in the back of the cab Nina let her face smoosh against the cold cab window, her breath fogging the view of passing by city blocks. Eury occasionally looked over at her, making sure she was ok and taking note of how the street lights danced over her bright red hair. 

I can't imagine how cold her showers have to be to keep it that red.

The cab made a hard stop in front of Eury and Orpheus's apartment, peeling Nina's face off the cold window in conjunction with the sharp shock of the brakes. Pulling out her wad of cash tips, Eury handed the driver his due and as generous of a tip as she could afford before opening her door, the windy city air burst into the back seats. She walked around and opened Nina's door, watching her almost collapse onto the street due to her reattaching her face to said window.

"Come on, let's get you to sleep." Eury whispered as she took Nina's hand and wrapped her over her shoulder. "Thank you sir." she whispered to the driver before closing the door behind her. She opened the door to her apartment building and climbed the stairs, leaving the sweet serenade of the night sky behind them. The stairs underneath creaked as Nina's heavy feet dragged alongside Eury. Her door now in front of her, fingers fumbling in her purse as she stubbornly tried to fish them out while still holding onto Nina.

The apartment was dark and quiet, Orpheus was dead asleep on the couch where she left him earlier.

Dammit Orph

She set Nina down on the floor for a moment, walking over to Orpheus and debated pulling the blankets off him and making him go sleep in his own bed. Reaching down she grabbed the blankets, really considering it for a brief moment before tucking Orpheus in and walking back over to Nina.

"Come on, you're with me tonight." She said pulling Nina back up and dragging her along to her bedroom.

"You're being so nice to me! I don't even know your name!" Nina whispered, merely mimicking Eury not because she thought it was polite.

"Oh uh, it's Eury."

"That's such a nice name, my names Nina"

"Well Nina it's very nice to meet you" Eury whispered back as she opened her bedroom door. 

The darkness of the room made it hard to see any of its contents, however the frame of the bed was easy enough for Nina to instantly recognize. She pulled down her dress to Eury's surprise as she climbed into the bed without a second thought.

Respectfully

Eury helped pull the covers up and over her before tucking her in. "There you go, comfy?"

"Absolutely positively"

"That's good, stay right there." Eury walked out her bedroom door, to the kitchen, and returned with a glass of water and a sand pail. "This is in case you suddenly don't feel well, and this is to drink if you get thirsty."

"Oh my gawd, you're so nice to me!" Nina heartfeltly whispered back.

"Don't worry about it, just try to get some sleep."

"But I'm not tired."

"But you could use some sleep."

"But I don't want it"

"But you need it"

"But-"

"But how about I let you ask me three questions, three good questions, then if you are still not sleepy we can do something until you are." Eury whispered as she grabbed an extra blanket, laid on the floor and used a stuffed Hippo for a pillow.

"Hmmmmm, ok!" There was a short pause as Nina thought. The silence of the room was interrupted by a nearby train transporting other drunks home. Finally it passed, and Eury thought perhaps Nina had fallen asleep.

"Who was that guy on the couch? Is that your boyfriend?"

Sigh

"No, that's Orpheus. He's my best friend."

"How best of friends? Can I be your best friend?" Nina giggled.

"Hey you only get three, remember." 

"But I wanna know!"

"But you only get three."

"But-"

"But I'll be nice and count those two as one. If you wanna stick around, sure you can be my best friend. That's why he's mine. Everyone else moved on or had all these lofty goals and shit, Orpheus is the only one like me who just is trying to exist. We get each other."

"That's so sweet! Do you not want him to be your boyfriend?"

 Eury groaned a bit at the question but answered it as bluntly as possible. "No, you may not realize this but I'm pretty fucking gay."

"Oh snap! Ok!" There was a long pause before Nina whispered back "Do you want me to be your girlfriend?"

"Sorry I don't make long term commitments with people having short term memory loss, but maybe another day." 

"Ok…" Nina yawned. "That makes sense". 

A long pause hung in the air, Nina yawning again, infecting Eury with a yawn for herself. Eury's eyes started to slowly close, letting herself finally relax as sleep was about to take her.

"One more question."Nina whispered barely awake.

"I said only three," Eury yawned, barely able to stay awake.

"It'll be fast… I noticed in your closet there's like a bunch of instruments…"

"Yea, what of it?"

"Well, are you a musician?" Nina muttered as her mind wafted off to a land of dreams.

"No." Eury sighed. "I gave up."