Author's Note: I'm glad you guys liked the prologue! Here is Chapter 1!
Chapter One
"Hanna! Where are my shoes?"
Hanna examined herself in the mirror, breaking out of her reverie at the sound of Spencer's voice. "They're in my side of the closet. Sorry, Spencer. I borrowed them last night," she apologized. She peeked her head out of the bathroom. "You got someone tonight? Are you going to the club or standing out?" she asked.
Spencer shrugged. "I was just planning on going to the club. What about you?" she inquired, pulling her hair onto one side as she searched for the shoes.
"I don't know. I was sort of hoping that there'd be someone wanting to get lucky at the club," she confessed. "There's usually someone who's really touchy and looking to get laid."
Spencer groaned at the thought. "I hate guys like that. I choose the guys I offer anything to," she told Hanna.
Hanna shrugged. "I can't be that picky," she insisted.
Spencer came out of the closet holding leather ankle boots which would make her legs look even longer. She began to put them on before she assessed what Hanna just said. "When you do what we do, Hanna, you can do whatever you want. It's the only way to be safe. If girls like us didn't pick and choose who we did things with, we'd be dead not even a week after," she reminded her.
Hanna sighed. "I know what I can do and what I can't. I'm just saying that if a guy who's been tipping on me all night wants to do something, I'll do it, as long as he agrees to my ground rules," she reminded her.
Spencer shrugged. "Maybe it's because I have a boyfriend," she suggested, though Hanna knew that wasn't it.
Hanna had a few (about two) relationships before this became her profession, and nothing stopped her when she was with those guys. But something was changing about Hanna. She was twenty-four, and already felt too old to be doing any of it. Maybe it was the fact that she was just tired. Tired of not being in relationships. Tired of being passed around like a joint. Tired of sex, in general. She was certain that if she quit her job today, she would never have to have sex again. It wasn't that she hated it, but she hated the idea of it being completely and utterly meaningless.
Somewhere deep down, she knew that she would likely never change her idea on that. She would never find someone who would change her idea on it.
She looked over her shoulder at Spencer, who was digging around her bag, looking for something. Hanna cringed. "What are you doing, Spencer?" She already didn't like where this was going.
Spencer opened a box with some syringes and white powder. "Do you want any?" she offered.
Hanna winced. "You already know I don't use," she said. "You shouldn't, either."
Spencer seemingly ignored her as she began to prepare the drugs. Hanna rolled her eyes. Truth be told, Spencer wasn't even good at taking drugs. Not that Hanna had ever injected any, but she knew that you were supposed to be able to inject yourself without bleeding nearly every time. Spencer had scars which she concealed with foundation all up and down her arms. She was terrible at injecting herself. Hanna couldn't stand to watch it.
"Could you please just snort it, Spencer? I don't want to deal with you bleeding again," Hanna suggested dramatically.
Spencer scowled at her. She really didn't like snorting drugs, but would do it since she truthfully didn't enjoy stabbing herself and removing the syringe to blood everywhere, either.
Hanna watched. The whole act of watching Spencer get somewhat high off of the drugs felt morbid and wrong to Hanna. She hated it. But she knew it was Spencer's form of escape. It was a vice she had, but when a person dealt with the kinds of people they dealt with on a daily basis, some sort of escapism was required.
Hanna's device of choice was alcohol. She downed two shots of tequila every night before she began working. It wasn't enough to get her drunk, but just a little more carefree and…numb. She needed that.
"Did Ethan give you that?" Hanna asked bluntly.
Spencer nodded. "I think it's a hundred dollars' worth," she added before she fell onto the bed. She sighed.
Hanna wondered if her friend even knew how toxic of a relationship she had. It was sick. Hanna wondered secretly if her boyfriend was a sex addict. He asked her for sexual favors, and in turn, he gave her whichever drugs she wanted. She knew there probably were no feelings in the relationship, as it was more like an agreement between the both of them. The only thing she could possibly hate Ethan for was fueling Spencer's drug habit.
"We'd better go, Spence," Hanna insisted, dragging Spencer out the door.
Both girls got ready for their shifts in the back room of the club. They found their friend Jasmine already there, getting ready.
Jasmine was a small, but feisty Hispanic girl. Hanna met her when they both began working at around the same time. She had large brown eyes, tan skin, and straight brown hair. She was about 5'1".
"Are you ready for tonight?" Jasmine asked, putting another coat of lip gloss on her lips.
Hanna furrowed her eyebrows. "What's so special about tonight?" she asked.
Jasmine shrugged. "It's Friday night, also one of the busiest days of the week," she reminded them. Hanna nodded. "I'm not really in the mood to do this, but I have some bills that need to be paid, and soon," she informed Hanna.
"Do you want to take your shots with me?"
Like Hanna, Jasmine often turned to a few shots to blur what she was doing. She didn't like it much, but was well aware that it provided a nice amount of money to live off of.
The two quickly left Spencer alone in the back to continue getting ready.
"Do I look like Hanna?" she asked, fixing her hair in the mirror.
Spencer looked over to her. "You ask me this question every time, Hanna. And every time, I give you the same answer."
Hanna sighed. "Right. I look like Hanna but…sluttier. And more jaded. And what are you even trying to tell me?" she asked.
Spencer shrugged. "You just look different. Tired," she said.
That always got to her. She didn't know what was so different about her when she put on this persona. Sometimes she wondered if it was the fake bangs and the twenty-inch long, pin straight hair. At the end, she had no idea what it was. Even though some people saw it as trashy, Hanna sometimes considered it to be…eye-opening, in a way. She saw things that most people didn't. And contrary to the popular belief of a man being a sweaty, hormonal mess when they bought her for the night, most of the time, they were just lost. They were usually married or in a relationship, but they just felt alone and confused. They wanted to talk to a third party who wouldn't judge them.
Soon after Hanna began selling herself, she realized that it wasn't like those horror stories that were often perpetuated in movies; she wasn't being tossed around roughly. She made her own rules. If a man didn't comply with them, she would walk away. Often times, they just wanted the sex, and they didn't really care about wearing a condom or that there was no kissing allowed. Those were pretty much Hanna's only rules.
"Come on, Hanna," Spencer called.
Hanna looked over at Spencer. She, too, looked very different. Her hair was long and straight, thanks to similarly long extensions. Hanna concluded that it was Spencer's attempt to preserve some sort of modesty, as it reached down to the small of her back.
Hanna snorted at the idea of being modest in this business. She'd always been an ostentatious person, but even this sometimes made her uncomfortable.
Her emotions about this job would keep wavering, but each and every time, she would tell herself the same thing—this was the only job she could get. She was not mentally, financially, or emotionally stable for anything else. This was the only job a girl like her could have.
Now, Hanna was in the middle of a scenario she knew well—she was in a hotel room with a man from the club. Prior to entering his room, she had made it quite clear what she was looking for—sex for money. There would be no kissing, no cuddling, or anything even close to showing real affection. They would part ways once she left the room, and that would be the end of any interactions they had.
She was quite content with that agreement.
"Twelve-hundred," she said as she straightened the dress she was wearing.
She walked out of the room, examining the bills she had just gotten, and then putting them into a wad in her jacket pocket. Combined with the money she had gotten in tips, she would be fine for a while.
"Spencer?" Hanna called out as she entered the apartment they shared. It wasn't fancy. It was pretty nice for just the two of them, but when you made as much money as they could in a single night, a place like this was affordable.
"Hanna?" called a voice from inside Spencer's bedroom.
Hanna's heels clacked on the floor as she walked over to Spencer's room. Spencer was reading. "Are you ready for the night total?" she asked.
Spencer nodded, reaching into her nightstand where she kept a large wad of bills. The two of them walked over to the kitchen counter. Hanna pulled out the bills from her coat pocket.
Spencer sighed, then smiled. "Are you ready to count this out?"
Hanna nodded. They arranged the money into piles, like OCD Spencer suggested they do when they started this long ago. There were several ones, fives, and tens, and Spencer even managed to get a fifty dollar bill from someone. She figured they were probably just really drunk and didn't pay attention to what they were throwing at her.
"Did you give anything extra tonight?" Hanna asked.
Spencer shook her head. "Did you?"
Hanna nodded, gesturing to a separate wad. "They wanted me for three hours. I made twelve-hundred," she informed her.
Spencer nodded, as she began counting up the total and writing it all down on a note-pad.
"What about Ethan?" Hanna asked cautiously. She knew he was a touchy subject, since Spencer insisted it was a real relationship. Hanna saw things for what they really were—a business deal.
Spencer nodded. "He was over. He said he gave me a hundred and fifty dollars of coke," she said sheepishly, trying to avoid Hanna's gaze.
"Did you use it?"
Spencer rolled her eyes and scoffed. "No, Mom. I try to only use before we go to work," she insisted.
Hanna shrugged it off, not wanting to get into this argument with her.
"What about you? Did you take money out of this for scotch?" Spencer retorted, testing Hanna.
Hanna scowled. "I actually mean what I say when I tell you I only drink before work. And I don't get high like you do."
"You just get drunk," Spencer snapped.
Hanna rolled her eyes, not willing to pursue this any further. "Can you please just tell me how much we made tonight?"
Spencer finished adding the total. "Let's see…I made eight hundred, minus the house fee, which is two-hundred. You made nine-hundred—seems people were in the mood for blonde tonight—and then subtract the house fee. We made one thousand three-hundred. And then add in the twelve hundred is two thousand three-hundred," Spencer announced. She looked at it, rather impressed. "We did well tonight."
Hanna nodded. She was satisfied. "Where are we putting it?" she asked.
Spencer looked around the apartment. "Well, first we should take out the thirteen hundred for the rent, which is due this weekend. Could you drop it off by the landlord's house?" she asked. She began to sort out the money, taking out the rent amount. "That's for the rent. I guess we could figure out where to put the rest. And remember, Hanna, small amounts."
Hanna smirked. "I know, Spence."
Hanna and Spencer were both convinced that banks just screwed everything up for people, playing with their money. Spencer suggested early on that they hide all their cash in small amounts around the apartment. They were in the most mundane places a person would never look—fifty dollars in the cookie jar, thirty dollars in the loose floorboards near Hanna's room, another thirty under the loose floorboards in the living room, a hundred in a cut section of Spencer's Pride and Prejudice…if you picked apart the entire apartment, possession by possession, you could probably find at least a thousand dollars in each room alone. Spencer, with her meticulous memory, recalled every single hiding spot in their entire apartment and the exact amount in each. Hanna still had no idea what all the money was for, but Spencer insisted it was in case they ever needed to drop everything and run, as the bank would leave a paper trail for the police to follow.
The police.
Hanna thought about how either one of them could be arrested at any given time—for prostitution, for possession of illegal substances (well, that was on Spencer, but since Hanna lived with her, it was possible for her to be charged with that, too), and probably many more things. She wasn't sure whether the notion of danger scared or exhilarated her. It was hard to pinpoint it exactly. She enjoyed the rush, but hated thinking of the repercussions of her actions.
Spencer put the money in an envelope and wrote the landlord's name on it, setting it aside. She turned to Hanna. "Sorry about bringing alcohol up. I wanted to ask you something. Your birthday is coming up, and I wanted to know what you wanted to do," Spencer told her.
Hanna shrugged. "You know I'm okay with staying here and curling up on the couch, watching romantic comedies and eating our bodyweight in Ben & Jerry's, right?" she inquired. "And I absolutely want to take off that day."
Spencer nodded. "I know, but it's your twenty-fifth birthday. I figured that you might want to do something special. You're usually so low key on it, and for a stupid reason."
"I didn't think that being a year closer to dying was stupid," Hanna said sardonically.
Spencer rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. Just please, think about it. For once, maybe you could have a nice night."
Hanna thought of that as she opened the freezer and pulled out her favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's: Chunky Monkey.
Is my life really that miserable?
euphoric-acidosis: I've actually read a Spencer/Toby fic where Spencer was a prostitute, but this story is going to be absolutely nothing like that one (at least, from what I remember of that story). I offered you an idea, but you rejected it...
AL3110:Do you need a shoulder to cry on, Alliecat? Love you, too.
CarsasaAllakay:I think I reviewed, but I'm not positive. I'm sorry, I've just had an influx of stuff I actually have to do, plus anxiety from school. But I am reading it. I will be sure to talk about it when I get the chance. I just need to remember. I'll make a mental sticky-note.
Guest:I'm good with cliffy cliff-hangers! Hope you liked it and didn't hate me too much for it :)
Elana01299: Glad you love love loved it.
AlwaysYouTobyCavanaugh: I'm glad you liked it and I hope you liked this chapter.
.Ashwee.11: I'm sorry it took me so long, but I just wanted to make sure it was good :)
sadserenades:I'm really glad you liked the prologue and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
eveningshades1107: Spencer will always be my fav, but Hanna will always be a very, very close second. Yeah, well, angst is my first genre. I've been getting way too soft lately. I've missed my angst. I need it.
SpobyTreegan:Well, I am a hardcore Spobette, but this story focuses mostly on Hanna and therefore Haleb is the primary couple, but trust me, there will be a lot of Spoby, too. I hope that doesn't change your opinion on it, though!
spobylover1237:Thank you! I hope you liked this chapter!
I hope you liked this chapter! This was really more of an establishing chapter. Toby and Caleb will be in the next chapter, though. I promise ;) -Kayson
