It had been at least thirty minutes since the last actress was called in for audition. 'A half fucking hour? Really?' Dee complained in her mind. She winkled her brow impatiently, feeling the folds ripple across her forehead like creases in a sheet. There's no way that getting frustrated like this could be good for her skin. All the while, she could distinctly hear her mother's voice berating her.

"Deandra, stop scrunching your face! You're already too unattractive for any respectable man. Do you really want to ruin what chance you have with anyone else? Thought I taught you better than that!"

Ugh! Fucking bitch! Dee felt so grateful to be this far from Philly, and from that god-awful woman for once. Spending a summer in New York felt like just what she needed to take her mind off the life she had left behind in Philadelphia, though her success at finding acting jobs in the Big Apple had thus far been nil. Dee's golden hair bounced from side to side, as she shook her head dejectedly while she read this script. It was truly awful, but more than that, it was not funny by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't even trying to be. It felt like someone's attempt at making a political statement, but without any plot or sense of style.

Suddenly, an agitated scream from the other room. Dee's concentration was shattered. It wasn't the first time that day that she had heard that scream. Whoever this goddamned director was, she seriously needed to chill. God help this bitch if she tried to pull that kind of crap during her audition, Dee mused. After a few seconds, the door flung open, and a very agitated young woman with shoulder length red hair in a ponytail came passed her, heading straight for the hallway door without a word. This had cleared Dee's worry as to whether that bitch got the role or not, but now she was starting to ask herself if this was even a role she wanted. Could she afford to be selective in choosing roles? Had she earned that yet?

The door opened again, and she saw a familiar face. One that she had seen nearly twenty times today, just long enough to say the name of the next audition. Oval shaped, but with a somewhat jaw. Blue eyes which could have glistened like diamonds, had the life not been sucked out of them around the tenth audition. Her long black hair tied up in a tight bun. She was pretty but looked like a huge bitch. Dee could tell she was very uptight just from looking at her. The woman forced an attempt at a friendly smile, but it came off sardonic, jagged, and completely uninviting.

"Deandra Reynolds?" she asked.

Without hesitation, Dee jumped to her feet, not paying attention to the position of her purse strap, and almost tripping over it. She had really hoped the other woman hadn't noticed this fumble. As soon as she recovered her balance, the attempted to return a smile to the woman, achieving similar results that she had received from her.

"That's me! Yeah! You can just call me Dee if you want." Dee walked forward and extended her hand. The woman extended her own long bony fingers towards Dee, and they clasped hands, instantly feeling the coldness in each other's palms. It was as if two clusters of spindly icicles met in the middle and attempted to combine into one large ice block. 'Bad hand shake. Great!' Dee thought.

The woman opened the door wider and let Deandra see the inside of the casting room, which was much smaller than she expected. Also, there was no one else inside, Dee noticed. No crew, no additional casters. Just the thin, pallid woman standing before her, who looked to be no older than Dee. Was this really the director of the thing? She was wearing a black and white off the shoulder number, with an uneven skirt. It looked designer, but also very weird and somewhat off putting. The sort of nonsense you'd see on a runway, that no one would ever have the lack of common sense to wear. Dee decided to save all these thoughts until after she didn't get the role though.

"I'm Alexis, but I suppose you can call me Lexi. That's what my friends call me anyway." The woman answered. Dee cocked her head slightly.

"Got it! Lead the way, Lexi." She responded. Lexi slightly scrunched her face at Dee's statement. Dee couldn't figure out what this bitch's beef was, but again, she wanted to save her negative statements at least until after the audition ended and invariably went sour. Lexi turned towards the casting room, in all its glorious seventy square feet of glory. She sat down in a black director's chair, clipping the heel of her shoe on the bottom cross as she adjusted, and just avoiding tumbling out of the seat and onto her face. A look of tacit embarrassment crossed Lexi's face. 'Damn!' Dee thought. 'Too bad she didn't fall. That would've been funny.'

Dee sat on the couch across from Lexi and crossed her legs. She smiled nervously, trying to read this potential employer, but coming up mostly blank.

"So Dee…" Lexi broke the silence, "Tell me a little bit about yourself."

Dee thought for a moment. What was she actually asking? She may as well just say what comes to mind.

"Alright, well, I graduated with honors from Penn state two years back…" Dee embellished, not wanting to acknowledge her feeble grades near the time of graduation. "I was a dual major, both in theatre and psychology, so… if you ever need a shrink, I can pull double duty." She offered. Lexi look unamused. A bratty bored expression beginning to creep over her face as Dee continued, growing nervous.

"I, uh… I've been coming up with these fantastic characters I can play in the future, once I actually get my career on its feet." Dee said, recognizing that she may have already revealed too much about her status as an actor. Lexi's eyebrow perked, as her boredom seemed to suddenly transform into amusement.

"Characters? Do you consider yourself a character actor?" Lexi asked. Dee began to nod, then seeing Lexi's expression change to one of disdain, began to shake her head vigorously.

"Character actor? Oh god, are you kidding me? No! No! They were just… something I made up because of a dare. I would never wanna stoop so low.." she noticed the disdain on Lexi's face melt away, replaced by the impish smirk she had seen only moments before. 'My god! Why would I want to work for this whore?' Dee started to question. She had managed to make her feel so insignificant in such a short period of time, it was starting to already feel like a dead cause. Dee was beginning to feel her anger mount, right at the pit of her emaciated belly.

"Ok, can I be real with you, Lexi?" Dee snapped suddenly. Lexi cocked her head in confusion.

"Excuse me?" she responded.

"You are not making this interview process pleasant at all, or even comfortable. Did you know that? Also, your script is fucking terrible! 'Oh hear me, children of the inner city'? Who the fuck talks like that?" Dee growled, seeing the other woman's face contort horribly into a mess of indignant contempt. Lexi stood up from her chair. She held her hands at her side, fingers splayed but twitching. Her own rage appeared to be reaching a boiling point already. This had escalated much faster than either woman had expected it to.

"You know what? Leave! Just… just fuck off, skank!" Lexi ordered. Dee was ready to do just that, when she noticed Lexi reach into the purse hanging off the back of her chair, and procuring a tiny bag full of white powder. She untwisted the top of the bag, and scraped a small amount of the chalky substance under her fingernail. Her hand shot directly to her left nostril like a rocket, and she inhaled the substance swiftly. Some of that glimmer that Dee had noticed before returned to her azure eyes. Dee watched the woman's face flatten out. Saw the subtle twitches in the muscles in her nose and pale lips. Dee paused. She had to think of something quick.

"And that," Dee curtsied low "is what you call acting!" The two bony women stood silent for a moment, eyeing each other up and down, trying to determine what move to make next. Dee wasn't sure how convincing she had been just now, but she did read a shred of amusement in Lexi's confused state once again. Maybe she'd at least be able to get her to share some of the white gold she was toting around in her pretty little handbag.

"Alright, look." Lexi said, "I'm pretty sure I don't believe you, and you're reading really hostile, but that was actually pretty funny, what you just did, so I'm going to give you one more shot." Dee approached Lexi cautiously.

"Mind giving me one more bump too?" Dee tried to be friendly, also attempting to downplay just how much she longed to the rush of cocaine.

"In order to give you one more bump, I'd have had to given you a bump to begin with, which I didn't for a reason." Lexi snarked. Dee wrinkled her brow a bit.

"Aw, c'mon Lexi! Don't be like that." She tried to convince her. Lexi's stern expression didn't change.

"I don't need to share my cocaine, goddamn it! I earned it and it's mine!" she barked. As the words came forward, she recognized that she had revealed more than she had intended. A flush of embarrassed pink crawled over her ghostly cheeks. She silently hoped the word choice she had selected had passed Dee's radar, but noticing a smug smile curl over the sunny haired woman's lips, she realized it wouldn't be that easy.

"Oh, you earned it? So you sucked your dealer's cock? Nice!" Dee teased. Lexi's face twisted into another gargoyle pose. This girl clearly had no idea how her expression looked from one minute to the next. Dee knew she'd got to her this time.

"No! Jesus Christ, bitch! You don't know a thing about me!" Lexi glowered. Dee smirked at the dark-haired girl and walked a little closer.

"Ok, well. I doubt you meant that you trafficked it yourself from Columbia, and you don't look smart enough to have like, made it yourself, so I was just making an educated guess. People don't tend to 'earn' cocaine with community service or anything, but you know what? I shouldn't have made assumptions. You're probably terrible at sucking cock anyway. I'm guessing you had to bang the guy!" Dee said, still amusing herself with this banter, knowing full well that any chance she had at being cast in this farce of a film was all but wasted. Lexi crossed her arms, and drilled a hole into Dee's smiling head with her piercing blue eyes, which now contained a blistering fire inside.

"Are you done making your incredibly sexist accusations yet, dildo? Because I am done listening to them. I didn't let my drug dealer fuck me, and for your information, I happen to be a first-class fellatrix, though I'm not sure why you'd care, or why I'm sharing that information with you!" She snapped. Not thinking about her actions, Lexi was suddenly standing inches from Dee's face, breathing puffs of hot, steamy air through her flared nostrils. She was astonished. How had this stupid blonde asshole from Philadelphia managed to injure her pride so effortlessly, and with such crass methods.

Dee took two steps back and sighed deeply. She stopped smiling and met eyes with the other woman. Thinking thoughts to calm herself. She needed to deescalate if she was going to convince this bitch to share.

"Fine, ok. You're right. I'm sorry if I crossed a line there. I'm sure you're very good, considering you know the ten-dollar word for 'cocksucker'. And I guess there were some sexist overtones in that question that I didn't really pay attention to. That's my bad. I agree that as women, we need to stop shitting on each other so goddamned much." Dee stated, with a sliver of genuine remorse. After all the time she spent complaining about sexism and misogyny, it really dug into her guts when Dee recognized her own hypocrisy. Lexi also backed down a bit. Her expression softened.

"Look, I've had a really rough day. I can tell by the way this 'audition' went, that I've been taking it out on you, and I guess that's not really fair. You're the last girl left who answered the call, and I am so close to losing my grant offer. I just… I need to clear my head, ok?" Lexi said, as she dipped her pinky back into the bag to take another snort of cocaine. Dee approached cautiously. She looked down at the bag that the other girl held, and then at her eyes again. There was a pleading nature to Dee's gaze. It over took the dark-haired woman. Finally, she extended the hand which clutched the tiny plastic baggy.

"Here. Just take a little, ok? I don't have that much left, and the new dealer's a racist piece of shit from Belarus, so I really don't like having to go back to him and listen to his shit. I'm gonna find a new dealer soon." she bemoaned. Dee graciously dipped a slender pinky into the baggy and pulled out a nail full of fine powder. The granules were so fine, it almost felt like baby powder to her if not for that distinct subtle tingle in her nail bed. Dee sniffed the precious substance up, feeling her heart race as the bitter substance flew right past her throat, leaving that comfortable numb sensation that she remembered fondly.

"Goddamn! That hit the spot!" Dee exclaimed. "Hey Lexi? I'm sorry I was being such a bitch earlier. I've been told I'm pretty bad with first impressions, but I also really needed this role, if I'm gonna be honest with you. This summer has been the fucking worst."

"The worst how?" Lexi asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, you know. Just the worst. I came down to New York trying to get discovered. Take in the whole city. The first night here, I got mugged on the subway, and had to cancel all my credit cards. Within the first two weeks, I got rejected for like, ten roles! And most of them were shit! Now summer's almost over, and I'm staring straight down the barrel of having to crawl back to Philly on my hands and knees, and beg my narcissistic asshole brother and his dickweed friends to give me my old job back as a waitress at a bar. It's been rough." Dee admitted.

Lexi sighed. She looked Dee over, from head to toe. She wasn't exactly right for the part. She was blonde for one thing. The role called for a brunette. And she didn't have the grace and posture that Lexi was looking for either. But she was pretty. And tall. And she did demonstrate having a lot more personality in the past four minutes than anyone else she'd seen all day. Also, there was all this new information being thrown out now. She couldn't exactly put her finger on why, but she felt like this girl needed another chance. This could still work, maybe.

"I feel ya', Dee. It's really fucking hard to make it in this goddamned city. I've lived here all my life, and I'm still struggling. Nothing I ever do impresses the dildos that run the Soho art scene in the least, and my best friend, Sky. She's a terrible actor. She knows, but she won't admit it. I have such a hard time working with 'normal' people though. Dildos!" she vented.

"Goddamn!" Dee agreed. "That does suck! I feel like we're really vibing right now!"

"Hey! I hope it's not too weird, but… do you wanna just ditch this whole audition thing and get really high?" Lexi said, with hope in her eyes. Dee broke instantly into a smile of pure wicked delight, the same depraved fire in her eys as she'd seen in Lexi's.

"God! Yes! I knew we were vibing! Let's do this!"

Fin