Cherry Coloured - Alex Turner

5. Some Kind of Party Anthem

  Saturdays were exceptionally notorious for being the busiest night of the week. Separate plans were no exception to the buzz and intensity that ignited the streets of night life. Finishing by midnight sat next to the impossible dream. Talking her ears off were Cherry's brightly dressed coworkers. All eager to know every detail about her plans for the rest of the night.

  "So it's his mates party?" one of her friends asked as they sat side by side at the mirrors getting ready for the night.

  "His mates flat mate's," Cherry corrected, carefully gluing on a pair of thick faux eyelashes.

  "Oh okay, see, he's invited you somewhere he doesn't even wanna be which means..." her friend Kristy grinned.

  "I'll give you some of these, you'll need them," Aria, a girl dressed in a neon yellow cutout bodysuit grinned and dropped a strip of condoms into Cherry's bag.

  "Oh my god," Cherry laughed, hiding her face in her hands. "You lot are fucking terrible."

  "We're just making sure you're being safe," Kristy grinned and winked at Cherry through the reflection in the mirror. "No matter how many you need."

  "I am not going to shag him," Cherry stated firmly, taking out a tube of warm red lipstick.

  "Whatever you say," Aria sang as she moved off to the back door.

  "Alright ladies, time to head out," Blake's voice called into the fiasco that was the dressing room for all of them. The room began to move like a river out the door and onto the floor. "Cherry you said you wanted to head off early tonight?"

  "If I can," Cherry said hopefully, fixing the white wig over her hair.

  "See how the night goes and I'll let you know," Blake said.

Cherry rolled her eyes and followed the other girls out. Blake was notorious for never following up on his agreements let alone his word. She gave it until twelve thirty before she decided to track him down and politely ask to leave. Alex had told her he was coming by at one.

By the time she went to look for him, the air around her stunk of cheap cologne and sweat, feeling heavier than when she was up on stage. There were no polite smiles to the men around her as she made her way to the bar in search of her manager. They would try and catch her eye or pay her a compliment in hopes of some attention but anything she was serving them was long cold and stale.

"Blake!" she called out and squeezed through two burly men.

Blake checked his watch upon seeing her approach him and sighed. "Fifteen more minutes, get up in front of those two men there," he said and pointed to a pair in suits sitting on a lounge with an empty podium before them. "They're important, own big corps. See if you can score rent from them."

"But I have to go," Cherry pleaded, "please just this one time and I won't ask again."

"You said your friend's coming at one, you can leave then," Blake said dismissively and moved off.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Cherry groaned in frustration. She thought about just going out the back, grabbing her stuff and then leaving but found financial problems holding her in her place. For fucks sake.

With a plastered plastic smile, she reluctantly approached the pair of men and began conversing with them. As they ushered her up onto that stage to dance for them, she disassociated with her reality and began counting the words in the songs playing overhead and seeing how many it took to jump from each misogynistic term. Kill me now.