hostess club (coffeestainedgalaxy & lucyfer)

[coffeestainedgalaxy]

Vincent stared at the time display on the corner of his computer screen: 4:26 pm. The numbers seemed to glare at him, taunting him with the last half-hour remaining in his shift at Blue Lights. This Friday had managed to drag on more slowly than any Friday he'd spent in classrooms and cubicles alike, and it was driving the brunet up the wall – figuratively speaking, though he would not be surprised if it were to take a turn for the literal, with how stir-crazy he was at the moment. He peeled himself from the chair he'd been sitting in for hours on end and stretched, a couple of joints popping from the sudden pressure, before making his way over to the break room. A fair amount of the team had decided to make use of their idle time in here as well; the whir of the coffee pot interwoven with the dull buzz of conversation made Vincent feel a bit more at ease. In time, he managed to snag a styrofoam cup filled with the golden-brown drink he'd come to love over the years and insert himself into the conversation. The topic at hand was weekend plans, none of which Vincent actually had, though he had ideas. "Question for all of you: how many of you have heard of that, uh, host club about 15 minutes from here? I heard about it a while back and thought about going sometime... It's more fun with other people, I've heard."


Briana let out a soft sigh of relief when she walked out of her Social Work Research Methods class, her head spinning with all of the notes she had taken during the lecture. For a 90-minute class, her professor really knew how to make the best of his limited time. The brunet slid her phone out of the messenger back slung on her shoulder to check the time: 4:26 pm. It was a little later than she'd have liked to get out of lecture, especially since her shift started in about half an hour, but she figured she could make the best of the time. With that in mind, she quickly strode out of the building and into the parking lot where her 2002 Honda Civic sat, unlocking the silver doors with her clicker and tossing her bag and textbook in the backseat. There was little to no time for her to stop at home on the way to work, so she would have to make use of her employee discount on the food there instead of cooking her own dinner. It was in times like this when she wished she didn't juggle school and work along with the rest of her life, but not vehemently enough to do anything about it. Briana slammed the back door shut and opened the driver's side door, sinking into the plush upholstered seat before starting the car and pulling her door shut. Within minutes, she was out of the parking lot and on her way to another shift at Dimples – one of the best hostess clubs in San Francisco.

 

[Lucyfer]

For Vincent, and some of the other testers, the day was going slow.


For Paige, it felt like she was running out of time. Whatever the testers and forums reported back to her, Paige went into investigate the coding of the newest game. It had already broken first-day record sales, but to keep it selling and making a profit, all issues had to be addressed so that it didn’t get a bad reputation.


Kitten Quest was one of those games that had mass appeal since it utilized the appearance of a cute animal in an endless quest-like game. There were power-ups rather than level-ups, since it had to appeal to the non-hardcore gamers. It was an app, after all.


It was around 4:30 that the strawberry-blonde haired woman finally let out a sigh of relief as the last bit of buggy code that had been reported to her was fixed. ‘I’ll probably still be in here this weekend.’ She didn’t have a cubicle. She had a beanbag chair and a ridiculously powerful laptop. She was allowed to be comfortable.


With that thought, she decided to reward herself with a cup of coffee, and so she strolled out of her area and went to the coffee pot, where she poured herself a cup. She gave Vincent a smile when she saw the man, and then listened to what he had to say to the gathered.


Paige had seen Dimples several times out of the corner of her turquoise eyes, but she’d never stepped in. She couldn’t adequately find a good reason to go in—perhaps if she’d chosen to be a writer, she could justify it as research. ‘Or for one of those dating sims the Japanese make so popular.’ Except that wasn’t what Blue Lights specialized in.


“I, I think I’ll pass,” Paige said.


Naturally, one of her coworkers thought to insist, “Oh, come on! You’ll probably get the most attention since you’re a girl,” he said. “They’ll think of you as a friend. It’ll be fun!”


‘That’s the problem….’ Paige sipped her coffee to cover up words.


~***~


Hard green eyes narrowed at the e-mail before their eyes. A string of curses followed in Russian, causing some of the coffee shop patrons to look towards the woman in the red tanktop and sweatpants. They could hear the muttering, but not one of them could understand it.


Katarina slammed her laptop shut and pushed it into her messenger bag. It was another rejection to being a court linguist. ‘Grad school may be the only way to go.’ The problem was, the blonde woman did not want more debt. She had also heard horror stories about graduate school. As she shifted the messenger bag onto her shoulder and grabbed her coffee, she considered all that she would have to give up.


Her physical health would go out the window, which she was not going to allow. It took her an hour each day at the gym to keep her current figure. She was careful with her diet—not in that she denied herself, moreso that she portioned her treats and food well. Some of her coworkers didn’t understand how she managed it, considering her job often forced her to drink a lot of alcohol.


Empty calories.


‘I will not stay there forever. Not forever.’ It was not her dream to play a role. She was not an actress. If she were, she’d move down to Hollywood. She’d be typecast as the Russian spy immediately, though.


There were already too many Archer jokes floating around Dimples. If Katarina Aslanov had known that Katya was a character on that accursed show, she never would have chosen that name. Alas, she hadn’t known.


She had time enough to drop off her laptop back home, and pick up one of her many dresses for her shift, as well as all the make-up she would need so that none of her customers would ever recognize her outside of work.