The Beautiful and the Psychotic

Chapter Seven

It was Isaac.

"Get-off-me!" I screeched, pushing him away and turning to go through the doors. Isaac grabbed me by the back of my halterneck, pulling the strings. I felt a sudden air rush to my stomach as it fell away.

The top fell to the floor, the loose ties of the bottom coming undone. I gasped, reaching down to grab the top and running through the double doors, crying.

I flung myself into bed, tears running down my face. I'm learning who I can trust: David, Bella, Ruby... and not Isaac. Not Ava. And never, ever Jamey.

In the morning, David came along, waking everybody up, rattling a metal pipe along the bars. "EVERYBODY UP. 6AM! TIME TO GET READY FOR WORK!"

I peeled myself off the uncomfortable bed. I was still in my swimsuit bottoms with nothing on top in the hot summer room. I held my swimsuit top up to my chest as I went over to the dresser, figuring I would take a shower in the evening when it wasn't so crowded. On top of the dresser were some clothes- a black singlet, black leggings and some white sneakers.

I put those on, hearing the sounds of Ivy stumbling out of bed and down to the showers in her pyjamas. In the drawers of the dresser I found the things I needed to brush my hair, straighten it again, and pull it into a ponytail. I quickly brushed my teeth and headed outside.

At that point David was rattling the bars with his pipe, trying to wake the remaining girls up. Most of them headed to the shower, and some to breakfast. David motioned for me to follow him down the stairs, towards the restaurant. We always ate really early or late, on either side of the resturaunt's public hours, with lunch at one of the B rooms, I'm not sure which. Along the way, David explained the schedule he had for today.

"Okay, so this is your first day of training. You'll have two more after this, so you won't have to work the next two days. First I'll show you how to deal with visitors, then how to clean the hotel rooms. Next I'll teach you how a general job day works. Then it's lunch. After lunch Bella wants you to come by to pick up some more clothes and also want to work more on your makeover. Then you have a health assessment by Sienna and some photography from Sophie. Then there's dinner. After dinner, even though I'm not meant to, I'm going to add something of my own. Because of your special circumstances, I'm going to add a self defence class."

"Self defence class?"

"Because you're one of the few virgins here, there's going to be several creeps trying to get to you first. So I'm going to show you how to keep them under control."

"Oh. Well, thanks for that. One other thing, why do I need to go to photography?"

"Well, um...." David thought about how to word his sentence. "Oh, it's just easier to show you. If we can find...." he trailed off, and then took a sudden turn into a hallway, leaving us behind the other girls, who had now been joined by more girls and a few guys. He went into one of the A rooms, A117. "Rooms A1-A200 have these in them," he said, holding up what looked like a magazine. On the front, it was plain black, with the words VIP CATALOGUE in big white letters. He flipped through it, stopping at a few pages and showing me. They were photos of girls, and at the end guys, all wearing little clothing and in various situations. I remembered vaguely that the "VIPs" were just people who knew that this was an underground business. I didn't take long to understand why I had to get photos.

I saw Ivy's photo, and some other ones, girls called Scarlett and Isla, some boys called Charlie and Jayden. I guessed Ruby must've been promoted to manager and not been in there.

At breakfast, I ate my cereal in silence. Sitting at the same tables we did yesterday, I had full view of the door. And I was one of the first to see the man who walked in the door. I was also close enough to hear him talk to the girl behind the desk whose name I'm pretty sure was Sarah.

As soon as I heard him speak, I felt cold dread seep through me at the small, yet seemingly so big chance, the chance that terrified me as soon as I heard his words: "Good morning, I would like to validate my VIP pass."