𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑩𝑨𝑺𝑰𝑺 𝑶𝑭 𝑳𝑶𝑽𝑬 | 𝗯. 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀

𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨;

act one, scene two;

-
"through the darkness,

a hand reaches out,

and my lips find yours,"

-

"Come in at seven tonight." Gina, the no-nonsense and terrifyingly gorgeous owner of Le Fae, a ritzy, high end club a few blocks down the street where Ellie worked, instructed crisply, and promptly cut the call before Ellie could get a word in. Ellie grimaced at her phone and reminded herself for what felt like the millionth time that she might not like Gina, but she definitely liked the money that Gina paid.

What else could she say? Ellie enjoyed the finer things in life, and expensive shoes didn't just pay for themselves.

Ellie glanced over at her fridge, debating over whether she should call for takeout or make an attempt to throw together a rudimentary soup with the k-mart kimchi she had left in the fridge.

Cooking means washing up, her inner spoiled brat piped up. Spoiled brat made a good point, Ellie conceded with a nod and punched in the number of her favorite Korean restaurant.

Then her common sense, which sounded suspiciously like her mom, said in a very judgmental voice, "Isn't this the third time this week that you've called for takeout?"

It was a Tuesday. Three times in two days was a little much, even for her. Shit, common sense made a good point too.

Ellie sat there for a while then sighed, slowly got up, and began pulling out the kimchi to make herself some lackluster soup.

Two hours later, Ellie was rushing to simultaneously put her slinky, exorbitant and completely overpriced black dress on, clip on her dangling earrings, and cursing her past self. Screw being healthy. She should have gotten the goddamn soup delivered to her place in the first place, because as it turned out, making kimchi soup took much longer than she had anticipated, and when she realized that she was behind her neatly planned schedule by twenty minutes, a mad scramble to get ready had ensued.

"Shit! Shit!" Ellie muttered, and completely abandoned her fruitless endeavor to twist her hair up into a semi-acceptable chignon for getting out of her house and into a cab.

The only plus side to being forced to abide by Le Fae's stringent black tie dress code was that it was basically impossible to not be noticed on the streets when she was in five inch Louboutins and an expensive dress, so in record time, Ellie had managed to hail a cab and was speeding her way towards the snazzy club downtown.

On the way, Ellie checked her phone anxiously, staring at the minutes ticking by as if it could make time slow down. She was very, very late, and Gina would be very, very unhappy.

The minutes ticked by quickly, but the taxi driver, an amiable man in his mid-forties had promised to get her to Le Fae in ten minutes if she doubled his pay, and true to his words, Ellie was nodding at Alexandro and Markus, two hulking bouncers on shift for the night, hurrying through the glided doors and rushing to her dressing room for some last minute touch-ups.

Since Ellie considered being anything but an hour early as late and liked to clock in a good one hour before her shift started, she had all the time in the world to properly and painstakingly curl her hair into glamorous movie-star waves, dust her eyes with smoky eye shadow and paint her lips a bold, striking red in the privacy of her dressing room.