Disclaimer: Not mine.

Difference

"I'm not a whore. I'm not a whore," Mimi kept repeating to herself again and again as she walked down the dark, empty streets, hoping that they would sound true if she said it long enough.

She had only been working for this job for two weeks. The other girls had told her what to expect. Rude guys. Drunk idiots. Men waving money at her. She had been prepared for that. She had been expecting that. Nothing like that had ever surprised her. But what he called her had left her in complete shock. It was something she hadn't been prepared for. Nobody warned her about it. And she was certainly not expecting anyone to call her that.

The words had shocked her as soon as she heard them. She wondered why they had surprised her as much as they did. She had been leaving the club when she saw one of the customers who had been there all night. His had been glued to her for a good portion of the night. She stopped walking as soon as she caught sight of him. She instinctively knew he was waiting for her, and she felt a mixture of flattery and fear.

Only, the flattery vanished as quickly as it came, leaving only fear. The terror and knowledge increased with every step he took towards her. She knew what he was doing. She looked around for a way out. But the only way to leave would take her right by him.

She took a chance, and tried to run. But his arm caught her and threw her down. The side of her face collided with the hard, cold cement. A warm trickle of blood mingled with tears slowly seeped down her cheek. She barely had time to register the words that he yelled at her. But they hurt more than any other injury he could possibly give her.

"You stupid whore!" he spit out.

The words cut deeply into her like a knife. She tightly closed her eyes, hoping that it would all be over soon. She waited for him to say something else, to do something else. She focused on the pain in her head, hoping that it would numb all other senses of feeling.

"Are you okay?" someone asked. Someone different. It wasn't the same man as before. Not the same one who had tried to hurt her. His voice was nicer, more gentle. She opened her eyes, and saw a blond-haired man holding out his hand to help her off the ground. She noticed a woman, presumably his girlfriend, standing nearby, awkwardly holding a guitar case and a small bag of something. She couldn't see the other man anywhere.

"He's gone?" she asked somewhat frightened. She was afraid he still might be lurking nearby.

"Yeah, I kicked his ass, and he ran out of here as fast as he could," he said with a proud smile on his face. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, it was just some things that he said," she mumbled gratefully.

"Things he said? You're bleeding," he stated.

"I know," she said feeling a little stupid. The words he said had hurt her more than anything else. But how was she supposed to explain that to a random stranger?

"You're sure you're okay?" he asked looking genuinely concerned.

"Yes, I just want to go home," she answered.

"Do you need someone to go with you? And are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital? That cut looks really bad," he asked. Mimi nodded her head in response, but he still seemed reluctant to leave her alone. He eyed the cut on her head, as she vaguely wondered how bad it was.

"Roger! She's fine! Let's go," the other woman shouted at him.

"I'm fine," Mimi told him before he could protest anymore. She appreciated his concern, but it was making her feel slightly uncomfortable. Roger stared at Mimi for a minute before turning to leave with his girlfriend.

"Thank you," Mimi whispered as she watched Roger take the guitar case back from his girlfriend and walked away. She instantly regretted her decision. She wished that she had allowed Roger to take her to a hospital or walk her back to her apartment.

She didn't want to be alone. If she was alone, it meant that there wasn't anything to distract her. She had time to think now. She had time to focus on what the man had called her. It was something she didn't want to think about.

She knew her job wasn't the most respectable job in the world. She knew how others viewed her. But to call her something like a whore. She had always seen a subtle difference between the two jobs. It was subtle, but it was there. Stripper did not equate prostitute. It didn't mean whore.

There was a big difference between a whore and stripper. A whore would give it away to anyone she saw as long as they paid. It was part of their job. But a stripper, a stripper didn't have to do that. A stripper could pick and choose. A stripper didn't even have to have sex if she didn't want to. A whore did. And so she kept repeating the words to affirm her place as a stripper, not a whore.

"I'm not a whore," Mimi started to speak the words out loud as she started walking home. She repeated them over and over again, hoping that they would sound true as soon as they hit the air.