Memories

"You probably thought I wouldn't get this far
You thought I'd end up in the back of a car"

Bad dreams were something Velvette had hoped she'd escaped when she died. Night terrors had haunted her for a long time as a mortal, and they followed her to hell too. She supposed to a degree, if Hell was eternal punishment that made some sense. But it still had awoken her from her beauty sleep. And that just wouldn't do.  She had to find a way to pass out, she had too much to do the next day. 

Nightmares of the past, her eyes wide in a dingey apartment she can barely afford, her computer laying smashed on the hardwood, a man in a black hoodie standing in front of her, a knife in his hand. cold words about the bitch in front of him on his angry lips. She'd pay for that slander on her blog. Pay for sh*t talking his favorite model.

Vel would crawl from bed, grabbing her phone from the nightstand and shuffling to the kitchen, a quick night cap would help settle her down she was sure. Sitting down, she had a bottle of rum, and a shot glass in front of her in a moment, and she'd pour the drink. Downing the burning liquor she'd look out the kitchen in the studio she owned with her fellow overlords over Pentagram City. It had a commanding view. Best view in the whole f***ing city. 

So why didn't it settle her nerves? She was a f***ing winner! So why?!

Pain shoots through her chest, scarlet coats her crop top, and her dark skin, her eyes glaze over as she ciollapses, the shock killing her as much as the knife. The last she sees is his boot coming down on her face. It's funny, her last thought on how bad he was dressed even as her life slips away.

Her throat burned as she stood up, tossing the empty shot glass to the side, it shattering against the nearby wall. He shouldn't matter. He shouldn't have in the first place. Vox was right. Their lives were over, so why let what happened then trouble her?

You probably thought that I'd never escape
I'd be a rat in a cage, I'd be a slave to this place
You don't know how hard I fought to survive
Waking up alone when I was left to die

"Well, aren't you the scrappy little thing?" a mans voice, a television for a head. Hardly the strangest thing Velvette has seen since she came to in this place. His voice is kinder than most. She's standing over another sinner who had come for what little she'd scrounged in the last few days. He's dead, throat slit. Her frilly little dress is soaked in blood and utterly ruined.
"Why don't you come with me?" she has no reason to, but, out of fear, or perhaps, his own powers of persuasion, she agrees.

It doesn't take long for the two to meet Vox's other partner. This one scares her. His eyes are like a predator, and his words are like chocolate laced with cyanide. "Who's this little morsel you brought Voxy?"  The other turns quickly. "She's not here to be your newest hooker Val. Calm your tits" his next words are a whisper so only Val hears. "only if she doesn't work out do you touch her."

The rest had been history for Vel. She'd risen all three of them to the top, even if Valentino had been as big a pig as he came off in that pimp coat of his, and as often as he'd tried in the beginning to make her one of his bitches like the others Vox brought home at times. He'd never managed

"Eat a whole cock, Val! I won't take any more of your sh*t I swear to God!" She was shouting at him, in her part of the studio, one of her girls passed out behind her, and leaking a red fluid from her lips. "You touch one of my girls again I'll have your c*ck as a goddamn Hors d'oeuvre!" She has a knitting needle in hand, pointed at him.

"Relax, chica. You've made your point. No touching your girls." And he didn't. That was a surprising turn for him, learning some boundaries.

Slowly, those thoughts, of Vox, taking her off the streets, of Valentino later, showing her respect fitting of a woman in her position. They relaxed her mind. And eased her soul as she wandered over to her bed again. Perhaps now that man wouldn't haunt her dreams for at least a little bit and her focus could be where it belonged:

On the now.

I am your sinner
I am your whore
But let me tell you something baby
You love me for everything you hate me for