Warnings: Suggestiveness and foul language.

Big thanks to Atheyllia Fox for beta-ing (you know when i say big i mean really really humungous ginormous big right?)

Constructive criticism encouraged. This is one of those pieces where the editing really killed me.

her dreams and fears

The alleyway is dark even with the slight influence of streetlights outside. It reeks strongly, and there is vomit and beer and semen and terrifying things on the walls. It's overwhelming; it's omnipresent. The time is midnight, or close to it. And a young woman is sitting alone in a corner because she needs a breath and maybe a smoke.

She huddles into herself and fades into the stern graffiti markings. Damn, but it's cold. Already autumn.

The season just means shorter days which mean longer nights and more business. Her chest heaves and shakes, and her legs tremble from running.

"Fuck this all…"

Slowly, the woman stands. She flips back her stringy red hair and one of her hands fumbles in the crumpled pocket of her denim short-shorts, resurfacing with an unlit cigarette. Her other hand searches clumsily for a lighter. She has to try several times to get it open, as her shaking fingers keep betraying her.

Finally, the cigarette catches and she takes a long breath of it. It has been a long day and her eyes are bloodshot, her nerves torn. Her last customer had nearly ripped her shirt in half in his anxiety to remove it from her. Now the skimpy cotton garment lies almost severed from one end to another, dipping down to barely contain her breasts and then to tie together the ends in the back. She takes another frustrated drawl of her cigarette.

"Mindy. You sure have grown more pathetic since the last time I saw you."

She freezes.

There is a blonde woman of the same age standing at the entrance of the alleyway with a scowl on her features.

When? What? Why? How? Mindy doesn't know. Unlike her, this woman is completely covered in clothing, with dark leggings under a knee-length leather skirt and a heavy overcoat on her torso. She sees thick, intricate lace on the hem of her skirt and the cuffs of the coat.

"Who are—" She cuts herself off upon glimpsing the familiar frown, the headband tugging her hair back releasing a certain memory. "M…Mandy?"

The cigarette drops to the floor, extinguishing against a plastic garbage lid.

"You should know better than to hide in an alley," the woman murmurs. "All sorts of people can find you here."

She is advancing. Mindy flattens herself against the brick wall, not caring about how the rough texture bites into the backs of her arms and her carefully bronzed legs. Her eyes are confused and riding closely on the throes of terror. "Why are you here? What the hell do you want?"

Mandy stops a mere foot in front of her without answering. They have grown to the same height now—no place to look away.

"Selling yourself to men now, Mindy?" the woman drawls, giving the other's contours a thorough critique. "Predictable. You always were the class slut."

Mindy's eyes narrow, and the curse that is her dignity gets the best of her.

"Slut? Did you just call me a slut?! How dare you—!"

Mandy slaps a palm brutally against her mouth and she is forced to take shallow breaths through the other woman's fingers. They're cold and smell faintly of vinegar.

"Wasn't it true? You know it was." A taut curl of the lips, but Mandy hasn't loosened up. Just pulled some new tricks. "You had the entire football team, you had Sperg, you even had Junior for a while—"

Mindy bites the hand.

With a snarl, the fingers close and withdraw, but Mandy is no less determined. "And all that time, you called me the loser." Her eyes glitter madly, losing their composed silver shimmer and instead glinting like snapped sea glass, jagged and like gemstones. "How is it being a slut for a living? Fucking guys to pay your rent? Fucking the owner so he won't evict you? Is it glorious? Pleasurable? Is it thrilling, Mindy?"

"Shut up!" The words come out high and raw like a banshee cry. "Shut up! You don't even know anything!"

"Still vain, though. Still proud," Mandy observes. She grips Mindy's forearm; the girl can't get away as she squeezes out her next words slowly, deliberately. "You like being a whore, don't you? You have everyone's attention this way. It must be a fulfilling lifestyle."

"As if working for the…for the Mafia is so much better!" Mindy retorts, dredging up the first guess she can.

Mandy is unfazed by the statement. "I work for nobody but myself. That's how I profit, and I do profit, Mindy." She pauses. Cold calculation. "But working for oneself does have its compromises, you see… And there you come in, Mindy."

"There…what?" the young prostitute squeaks.

Mindy gasps as two cold hands are placed on her hips. They snake their way up to her flat belly, the lace cuffs whispering heavily along her skin.

"Sometimes, just sometimes working for oneself isn't enough to keep one satisfied," Mandy says. Her hands reach towards Mindy's back and untie the loose knot holding her shirt together. "You might understand what I mean, you might not. But the power I have now…isn't quite enough…isn't quite the kind I want after all these years. I suppose I've had a realization." The garment falls undone to the ground, baring Mindy's chest. Mandy's voice is almost tranquil with confidence.

But in contrast, the redhead looks around frantically, and squeezes her eyes tight upon realizing no sight will calm her. "What—what the hell are you saying?"

Mandy's hands continue to pace themselves, upwards, upwards, until they latch onto the other's warm, silk breasts. She fondles and squeezes them like no man has fondled and squeezed them before; as if they are her possessions, her playthings, but hers, utterly hers…

Oh, God… Hell no, God…

The alleyway is dark. It reeks strongly—strong, from dreams consumed into fire and eyes swollen from fear, and there is no blood on the walls. Only vomit and beer and semen and more terrifying things. It's overwhelming; it's omnipresent. The time is midnight. And a young woman is cowering against a wall because she can't see her dreams or her fears anymore—just Mandy, only Mandy.

"Tell me, Mindy…" And Mandy exhales, quiet and intimidating and strangely nostalgic, "have you ever fucked a girl before?"

.end.