Jessica woke up, having slept much better than she expected in an unfamiliar bed. In Chloe's bed - no, for the next couple of weeks, it was
her
bed.
It was so different from her usual life - posh sheets, fancy house, waking up to the sound of people walking by and the sun as it struck her face through the designer blinds. There was none of that here, no - the sheets were old, the flat was disgusting, and even the sun felt a bit colder than it normally did.
But Jessica didn't give a shit about that, not at this moment - to her, this was
exciting
. She'd spent a night in the flat, her flat until this arrangement was over, and that somehow made it all real once again.
She couldn't believe that she'd slept for as long as she had. It wasn't even like they'd had a packed night - Jessica had insisted that Chloe get an early night so she was ready for work tomorrow, and her friend had obliged. They'd ordered a takeaway, and Jessica went to bed, falling into a deep sleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow.
She assumed that Chloe was sleeping elsewhere in the flat. Maybe she had been. As Jessica sat up in bed, she noticed that some of the work clothes she'd bought were gone.
Jessica brushed some of the strands of hair from her face, and she was momentarily surprised by the colour until she remembered that she was now a blonde. Immediately, she was awake, feeling a familiar tingle of excitement run through her.
She got out of bed - she was wearing some of Chloe's old pink pyjamas, a top and shorts, and there were some fluffy slippers left for her. She slipped her feet in, noticing that her toenails were now pink too, and she headed for the living room.
"Chloe?" she asked. "You about, Chloe?"
She saw a piece of paper on the kitchen table with her name on it - she picked up it and read it:
Hey Jess,
So sorry, I wanted to be here today. But it's my first day at the new job, and I didn't know how long it takes to get there, and I wanted to be early, so I've made a move - hopefully I won't fuck it up! When you go to work, don't do anything I wouldn't do!
Thanks again for helping me, Jess - you're the best friend I could ever ask for!
See you later!
Chloe
Jessica finished the letter and smiled - she was genuinely thrilled for her friend, and she knew that she would do amazing.
As to her
own
day, she was getting butterflies already.
She imagined Chloe's smiling face as she wrote those words, 'don't do anything I wouldn't do', and she wondered what she
would
wind up doing.
It was a couple of weeks, and she had a very good sense of what those weeks would entail.
The urge for a cigarette crept into the back of her mind. It wasn't a craving, far from it, she thought - rather, an effect of the lingering smoke in the air in this flat. Still, why not indulge herself for these few weeks?
She returned to the bedroom, remembering that Chloe had left a pack on the dressing table, eager to make use of it.
β
She was so excited when she left the house, beginning the route that Chloe had shown her yesterday - the route that would take her to the House of Virtue, and her first day of working in the place.
Jessica had got dressed, and it had taken her a long time - she couldn't believe quite how turned out she got digging through Chloe's wardrobe, looking at all of her friend's clothes and figuring out what to wear. Chloe had told her that, while she was there, she should think of the clothes and all the things as her own -
that
was a very exciting prospect indeed.
Chloe warned her not to get dressed too fancy in the flat. 'Save that for work', she said, 'you can get changed there'. And then she'd laughed: 'Don't give it to the fuckers on the street for free.'
In the end, Jessica opted for what she thought was a casual outfit - a pair of ripped jeans, a worn pink spaghetti-strap top, and a pair of white scuffed trainers. She'd thought, as she got dressed, that every piece of clothing had lived a long life, and that was an exciting idea - what adventures had Chloe got up to in these clothes?
There was a bit of a chill in the air, so Jessica also opted to borrow one of Chloe's coats - it was grey and plastic, with fake fur around the hood. She put her hands in the pockets as she set off, and found an old lighter - that reminded her to grab one of the packs of cigarettes before she left, and why not have a smoke on the way?
She couldn't quite believe it, but he was still sitting there in that familiar seat.
"Are you always here?" Jessica asked Sid. "Don't you ever fucking leave?"
Sid smirked at her, and then his eyes opened a little with surprise.
"Is that
you
, darling? Fuck me, I thought you were a fit one anyway, but look at you now - this is something else. You look, well-"
Jessica knew what he was grabbing for, and she filled in the blank: "Like Crystal."
Sid smiled at her.
"As I live and breathe."
He folded his arms, and leant back in his chair.
"Thing is," he smiled, "I need to know you're properly serious about this, you get me."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, you might
look
like Crystal, darling, but I need to know it ain't just on the surface. I got a business to run, and I can't have you fucking it up by being miss prude on a shift, you understand?"
"So what do you want me to do?"
He smirked at her, and inched backward in his wheely chair. Her eyes instinctively tracked downwards, and they remained there when Sid finally exposed his bottom half. When he revealed that his giant cock was free, hanging outside of his trousers, practically quivering with excitement as Jessica's eyes sized it up.