ICY

o n e.

"Isis, wake your ass up!"

I pretended that I didn't hear Lucky, as she kicked the box spring that held me up from the roach infested carpet only a few inches away. I pulled the cover over my head once more, pretending to be in a deep sleep.

"Fine, but when Solomon show up looking for his cash, I'm pointing right to you!" She spat, next slamming the door after storming out.

I let out a breath of air, happy to see that she was gone. Like every other Thursday, it was date night. In a few hours, I would be in the company of a rich man who paid the best for my companionship, to only reap the benefits of a few dollars to get by. Sitting up, I wiped the crust from my eyes and knocked over the leftover can of  Strawberita once I arose to open our bedroom window. The room was stale, and smelled of weed smoke and trash. I tried to keep it clean, however that was hard when I shared the room with two other females.

"Playing sleep again, huh?" Melrose smirked as she entered the room, catching me as I lit the cigarette that hung from my mouth. It was a dirty habit, but I enjoyed it.

"That bitch know I ain't sleep, i'on know why she acts like my damn alarm clock" I rolled my eyes, plucking the ash.

"If I learned anything while living here, it's to just ignore her. She think she runs the place, but she's a hoe just like us" Melrose shrugged.

However I wasn't a hoe. I refused to claim the filthy name, no matter how many times they tried to paint the label onto me. I was a sex worker. It was 2018, and women actually fought for other women to work freely in a sex occupation. I wasn't one of them, but it felt better knowing that one day it could actually be a choice.

"Anyway" I said moving along the conversation, "What did Omari say?"

I was fresh out of Xanax, my choice of poison, and the only person I knew that would sell them to me was Omari. Solomon made sure that no one in the neighborhood would ever think about selling his girls drugs, because we were precious merchandise. You don't put 87 gasoline in a Lexus, he would say.

"He's waiting to re-up, but he'll let me know" she responded.

Just my luck. That meant I would be most likely sober on my date, if I didn't drown myself in liquor. I had such a high tolerance, that weed just didn't do it for me anymore. It was the same effect as smoking a cig. I put out the one I had secured in my mouth, and glanced over to Melrose as she smiled into her burner phone.

"What are you smiling about?" I asked, curious.

Before she could respond, Lucky came storming back into the room - her eyes dead set on me.

"You have a hour, sleeping beauty" She folded her arms over her large breast, "And don't think I didn't peep how fast yo ass got up to smoke. If Solomon sees that shit, he's beating all of our ass. Put it out"

"Already done" I plucked it out of the window, "Anything else?"

Lucky didn't have any other requests, only making sure to attempt to intimidate me before leaving the room once more. Little did she know I wasn't afraid of her, as I had fought bigger demons in my days. At the young age of seventeen, there was not much that I hadn't done. I had moved from home to home, even turned my body inside out for a quick buck, so no, words never hurt me. However all of us had our own story, even Lucky, who tried her best to run a household of young girls whereas she was only Twenty herself, at the mercy of an Albino man named Solomon. At thirteen, he found me in the alley way of a North Philly apartment unit a week after running away, and with one glance of my pretty mixed features and dollar signs went off in his head.