Disclaimer: Same as before, Gregory Maguire's. Not mine.
Author's Note: You people only review sex and conflict, huh? Dammit, I will give you sex and conflict!
Chapter Two: Boss
The room stunk of newness, the starchy smell of unwashed unused goods. It was a smell no less pungent than the smoky incense drifting in the hall. The walls were not white however, nor red; they were a light, periwinkle blue with picture frames and photographs scattered throughout. There were two chairs, one low to the ground and the other normal-sized one sat behind the only other furniture in the room, a shining foxwood desk. The room appeared to her a Glinda-approved one, and set her at ease at least, for the time being. The dwarf laid his itching behind on the low chair with an "oomph" and set about rummaging his pockets. Elphaba impatiently leaned back, contemplating the benefits of this venture, and if there where any.
"How long do we wait?" The edge to her voice failed to register with the fiddling dwarf. She refused to admit that she was indeed desperate for the job, but she remembered that she needed food and shelter just as bad. As much as she felt like spinning on her heel and leaving, she knew that she couldn't go anywhere. Back to where? Shiz? Glinda? Boq? Nessarose?
And admit defeat, an odd voice hissed inside of her churning stomach.
The attraction of leaving suddenly lost its appeal. All she had to do was wait, but how long?
As if answering her question, the dwarf leaped off his tiny chair and stood erect in attention. A figure emerged from the doorless doorway, unmistakably female. The fat dwarf gave a little nod to the woman who acknowledged him with a smirk.
"Ugly sprite, that one but-" She stopped, mid-sentence as she realized Elphaba's presence and noticing her, her eyes widened and smirk vanished.
"Fuck."
The woman suddenly leaned her torso backward, sticking her head out of the door to apparently, someone in the hall.
"Changed my mind, dearie! No job, no job! It's terribly too crowded here!" Elphaba heard a high-pitched whine coming from the hall, causing her eye to instinctively twitch. The woman in the room continued, back probably straining.
"Not my fault, dearie! Try next door or upstairs! Ask for Loorine, and tell him that Boss sent you!"
Elphaba's ears perked at the word "Boss". So this was Boss? The woman's back straightened, and Elphaba, in the damn dim light, squinted to see this Boss better. The woman turned to her and grinned, an awfully white, straight grin, and although quite dark, Elphaba noted that she was beautiful.
In the overly done sexual way that woman can be.
Busty, with cleavage all but popping out of her corset, the woman's body was thin, thin like hers, but according to the chest, more blessed. Her lips and cheeks were smudged with rouge, enhancing the paleness of her skin. Even her eyes dripped of sooty liner and fake lashes that Elphaba at first had trouble looking into her blue eyes. Still, the effect was ravishing. Coughing a bit, the woman reminded Elphaba of her initial intention.
"Someone told me that you could give me a job, is that true?" The woman peered at Elphaba, no doubt because of the lack of desperation in her voice and the strangeness of nonchalance. Perhaps even the green, too.
Mustn't forget the green.
The lady let out a large laugh. "Lurine, you're fit for the job, all right! Colored, yes, colored as sin!" Meeting the confused blank gaze of Elphaba, she explained.
"My name is Boss, and, as you can see, am the owner of this place. What you're in is called-well, whispered on the street-is called Queen Deck. We just started experimenting with a new show we here call "Colored"…"
"Wait, what exactly are you hiring?" All Elphaba remembered was the old woman directing her to this alleyway saying that they were hiring and she "heard through the orangevine" that Elphaba would be perfect for the job. The boss took a sudden lackadaisical tone to her voice.
"Oh, wait jobs, bartending, the works." Elphaba's stomach twisted at the way she enunciated "works". The dwarf, forgotten in their conversation, coughed once and Elphaba's eyes widened in realization.
"For the love of Oz-" She lurched for the door, quickly deciding that this was a complete waste of her time. Unfortunately, Boss blocked her escape, guarding the door like a confident hound. She looked up at Elphaba-Elphaba being the taller one-with eyes trembling with a knowledge that Elphaba didn't know what to make of.
What came out was a cross between a growl and a hiss. "Get out of my way." It made the woman stand even more erect, stubborn as a cross. Growling back, her eyes flashed some sort of resistance to Elphaba.
"Do you want to die?"
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Look, walk out that door and starve. You'll never be able to find this place again." Her narrowed eyes flickered. "Yes, that is a threat."
Not a threat, Elphaba thought as the words sunk on her body like weights. Just a sure prediction.
For a long, frosty silence, she refused to break their heated gaze. Finally the words weighed her neck down, and she glared, staring icicles at a corner painted blue. Boss sighed, partially in frustration and relief. She laid a manicured hand on Elphaba, and Elphaba, shaking it off, bit down hard on her lip.
"Fine." She heard herself say, although she purposely detached herself from the word so that it sounded as foreign as the red hallway.
"Good, good." Boss smiled, though not menacingly. "You'll do fine here, you'll see." Boss waltzed over to the chair behind the table and sat.
"What are the benefits?" Skepticism clouded Elphaba's feel of relief.
Boss lifted a hand and counted off finger by finger. "You got your food, your shelter-you share it with two other girls-and your beautiful salary." Boss's blond ringlets danced quietly in the dim light. "Plus tips." Two robin's egg blue eyes stared fixedly at hers.
She expected a response.
Elphaba sighed, something she had hardly done in her-barely-eighteen years of life.
"Fine." Boss squealed, a noise so much like Glinda that she had to look up and see Boss dangling a piece of paper in her face.
"Consider yourself hired."
After signing the damn thing, Elphaba had the nerve to look a bit relieved. Boss smirked again, very unbecoming for her looks.
"Let's get started then, dearie."
"Right. Then what's my first task, Boss?" Elphaba slurred that word, and it sounded very much sarcastic to Boss. Boss would never tolerate something like that, but instead smiled. And this time maliciously.
"Strip."