Red Light Deux
Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious
A/N FIRST: This does discuss a mature subject, so if you cannot handle a story with an adult mindset, turn away now. If you can, then read on.
A/N: This is, in a way a continuation of an old story "Red Light". You don't have to know or even follow "Red Light" to get this. I'll have momentary flashbacks where important. I want to do it in Sam's perspective primarily because it'll be the counselor's perspective that will bring further intrigue, rather than Trina's perspective. Doing it in the client would make the story similar to the other. Do read.
Chapter 1 (The First Client)
The familiar smell of smoke filled the twenty year old blonde's nostrils as she attempted to focus on the clacking sounds of her fingers striking the keyboard. Her eyes darted around the musty restaurant and her lungs swelled, filling up from some invisible penetrator.
Her first thought questioned why she had chosen to work on her paper in a crowded sports bar, which was one of the worst places for her to be after everything had been said and done. Yet it was also the one place she could find solace away from Cat. The innocent redhead would never come near one of these places.
The military had given Sam the one opportunity for a normal life, giving her training to be a counselor for people who had struggled with the life that she and Carly had fallen into. She was working on a paper she was entitling Hausse de la Cendre, which was French for 'Rise from the Ash', and was told as part of her internship she needed to find a client-someone that wanted help.
Unfortunately this meant she would have to frequent the familiar dark streets, the strip clubs, and various shady locations. From her own knowledge she knew well how to find a stripper, a prostitute, or even so much as a porn star. Many were in the business because they wanted to be, yes, but the great majority of them were like her or like Carly had been, and they had very little choice or opportunity to get out.
They'd been disowned by family, they'd been abused or with no way of escape. Maybe they got hooked on drugs, or were forced into the business, or were just simply sex addicts. Had it not been for Valerie's kindness, she may never have survived, and like so many she would have self-destructed when her family found out and pushed her out.
A piercing laugh jolted Sam from her thoughts and she threw her head up, lifting her hands ever so slightly above her keys. Her fingers curled inwards as her eyes danced on the drunken men at the bar, gawking at some woman sitting at the other end.
She trailed her gaze to the phone buzzing on her table. Cat was sending her text messages, asking where she was at even though she was busy. She pressed her lips together and turned the phone over with a heavy sigh.
There was a missed call and voicemail from her fiancé, Derek, still overseas. He left a voicemail to let her know he'd call the next day and see how her time was in LA. The reason for her move to Los Angeles was due to nobody knowing her here, unlike Seattle. Where her father had done all he could to try and get as much of her videos off the websites, the damage had still been done and few people wanted to give her opportunities in Seattle.
"Cleveland and Associates," Sam typed out the final line before getting ready to take a break. "My current place of internship on the military base. I am currently seeking out someone to extend services to, but have been unsuccessful thus far in my search. It is far easier to let them come to you than for you to impose services, but thus far I have not received any viable calls for the flyers I have been handing out."
With a heavy sigh, Sam closed down the laptop and began moving it to the case. She closed her eyes and leaned back, letting her mind drift back to Carly. Her best friend had moved with her husband Doug, and her son, to Italy for a shot at a new life. Carly often said she'd come back to the states one day, and Sam hoped for the best, but her friend had suffered far worse than she had and likely would not feel comfortable returning to the states for a long time.
"What the hell is Alice thinking?" Alice Cleveland was her instructor and her boss, a woman she very much admired and respected. However some of the things she suggested to Sam were a little on the unorthodox side, and as good as thinking out of the box was, it was hardly the best thing to do. "Yeah you have to make yourself available to help, but you can't force it. They have to want it." The only way she and Carly ever found help was because they wanted to get out of that life. It started out as a way to make money, then became an addiction, then a lifestyle they couldn't get away from until they hit rock bottom. It was her goal to help girls not to hit rock bottom.
The sad fact remained that most times it wasn't until a person crashed and hit the very bottom before they ever wanted to get out, and many times it would be too late.
"It's all too fresh." Sam packed up her things and grabbed her phone to call Cat. When the girl answered, she was speaking in a worried tone. "Relax Cat, you know I'm working."
"Why don't you ever work at home? I made dinner."
"I have to make myself available to clients." She hated to say it like that, for the memories that wound up stirring a violent sensation into her heart. It was hard for her to think of any better wording. What made it worse was that she didn't want to tell Cat for fear of the girl asking questions.
Namely, she still feared the judgmental attitude that came from people who just didn't understand. She knew her friend, if she learned of her past, would never call her a whore or a slut, but Cat would still look at her in an entirely new light.
"Why won't you tell me about your job, Sam? I don't know who Cleveland and Associates are, other than a counseling clinic on the base my brother goes to." Her elder brother was a good friend of Derek's, and the man had been responsible for being the first to offer Sam a chance.
Sam hung her laptop carrier case loosely at her legs and started for the door, glancing over her shoulders one last time at the girl sitting at the bar. Her stomach clenched as she visualized herself sitting in place of the woman. Broken, fragile, hurt. Her eyebrows meshed together and the corners of her lips sank as her heart began to pound. "Maybe one day I'll give you the full details."
"You don't trust me?"
"It isn't that, Cat. Some things are just…not something I can discuss for personal reasons." The television was playing beside the woman, it was set on Channel 6 News and was celebrating the newly appointed Police Chief-David Vega. His daughter was on stage, singing a song in his honor, and his wife was walking arm and arm with him. Sam tilted her head to the right and raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't your friend have a sister?"
"Tori? Yeah, but Trina's never around anymore. I mean it makes sense with how ignored she was the last few years."
"Ignored?"
"Yeah, she used to be favored I think. Tori always says how much their dad loved Trina growing up, but then Tori started to be the one everyone focused on. Trina faded away-I remember Jade always told her that nobody liked her, and the look in her eyes…It was scary."
Her heart broke as she focused her attention on the father. She felt a strong connection, but likely due to the fact that her own father had the same name and career as this man. It created an enormous tension in her chest and nearly toppled her as her mind flashed back to her experiences.
When she and Carly got involved in becoming porn stars and prostitutes, the common ground was money, but to Sam it was also about the attention. She didn't feel like she got the attention, not where Melanie was concerned. "Look in whose? Trina's?"
"Yep. Dull, lifeless, almost like she didn't care anymore. Nobody really cared to look long enough to notice it, but after a few years, I think Trina just lost a little bit of that light. I think she gave up." She heard a pause and turned away. Her hand moved up to her chest and her eyes quivered as the fierce pounding of her heart stabbed her. "Why do you ask?"
"No reason. If you see Tori again, could you ask her if she'd send Trina over?"
"Why? Do you want to counsel her or something?"
"No, I just want to see that look you're talking about." If it was anything like she thought it was, then she would know. She had that same look at one point, but Carly had it much worse. Where Valerie and Jonah saved Sam from the streets, Carly was more addicted and didn't want the help at first. Eventually, Carly ended up where many prostitutes did, in the middle of gang abuse. When they finally found her and rescued her, there was absolutely no hope left in her eyes.
Thankfully they rescued her in time to nurture her back, but as Carly so often told her, she still had very vivid and colorful nightmares and memories that brought her to her knees.
"I just know people like that, Cat." She pushed open the door of the bar and waited as her friend let out a sad moan. "People who lose sight of the positive when they've been through something so much that they can no longer feel hope of being rescued." It always took a long way to get there, especially since that point was literally rock bottom.
For Carly, and for herself, of course they enjoyed the sexual activities at first. They loved it and didn't want to stop, especially because it gave them attention and made them feel like people gave a shit. Then reality sank in, nobody cared, men treated them like third class citizens. During a shoot, they had no real say about what went on, they could try but the men would so often demand things done the way they wanted it.
"Something to remember, Cat. Inherently, people are not evil, they are not bad. People do bad things, and then there's the lost-who become the victims of the people who make bad decisions." She closed the door and stepped out on the sidewalk, her eyes followed a green Toyota truck speeding down the bleak street. "Yet, the victim makes that decision at the same time. The lost seek out attention, craving it, and they stumble across these people who do not have the best intentions and usually are out for themselves."
"Okay?"
"Because the lost are in fact, lost, they're vulnerable to manipulation-not realizing that the person they're interacting with is less than good-hearted. After being sullied so many times, the lost lose sight of the light they once had-usually comes after realization that the person they found as well did not care for them, and therefore cemented their entire reason for seeking out that attention at the first place."
"I understand."
"You'd like to know part of what I do, and that's it. I counsel those people-I try to be the person that can rescue them." She heard a voice to her right and looked over to see a scantily dressed woman with brown curls walking towards a flashy red sports car. This woman was dressed in black lingerie, her brown eyes were sharp and emotionless at the same time, and the corners of her lips were digging into her cheeks.
She furrowed her brow and took a step closer, watching as skinhead in the driver's seat jerked his thumb to the passenger seat. This woman looked familiar, but Sam couldn't place a finger on who or where she'd seen this person before. "Hey Cat?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you text me a picture of your friend and her sister again?"
She pulled the phone away from her ear after hearing a slight buzz within seconds. Her eyes drifted to the phone and she pulled up the photo. What she saw stopped her heart in a single instance and turned her blood cold.
As her fears and suspicions were suspected, she turned her eyes to the car, cringing when she saw the man put his arm around the woman's shoulders. "Trina Vega…"
Thinking fast, she made her way to her car-which she usually took when carrying her laptop, as opposed to the motorcycle. Her eyes remained frozen on the car in front of her as she started it up. "Cat, I'm going to let you go. I don't know when I'm going to be home."
"Aw, Sam!"
"Sorry, Cat. Something came up." Her heart was racing as visions of her past came seeping in. This was a woman much like herself, someone with a high profile father and a possibly negligent mother. A woman with a perfect sibling.
If she could reach out and help this girl, that would be something for her to truly be proud of. Only she didn't want this to be just for the accomplishment. If this girl had an experience anything like her own, she wanted to keep her from traveling down that same path.
Only if she wanted the help, though. Yet a no didn't mean Sam would give up. She clicked off the phone and slanted her eyes while gently grasping the steering wheel. The car before her started up and Sam cracked her neck to the right.
"Hopefully, I just found my first client."
Obviously the struggle is to get the person to want help, and here the "client" clearly won't want help or see anything wrong at first. Understand the lifestyle is a very serious and very real issue (Touched on in "Red Light", clearly this is done from the counselor's perspective and won't be a series of sessions in an office). Many people get in this life for reasons of money, attention, sometimes they just like it, and many people find once they get involved it's hard to escape. What we'll see in this is Sam attempting to convince Trina of the risks and trying to be able to get her to see the dangers before it's too late, as unfortunately happens with so many people-and this all the while trying not to force help upon her. Please, as you read this, read it with an open mind.