Ciara

 

I gaze guiltily at the large hazelnut latte sitting on top of my notebooks. It cost three pounds fifty that I definitely can’t afford. Rent is due in eight days’ time. I need to purchase textbooks for the new semester and five bills need paying. I need to eat.

I sigh and pick up the latte and take a swallow. It doesn’t matter now. Not when I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life.

My very short life.

A cold gust of wind blows through the courtyard. The sunshine is warm, but I feel winter edging closer like a glacier along a valley. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, coming to class when I’ll have to drop out and get a full-time job. When I cut ties with my parents two years ago I thought I knew what it meant to be broke. I’ve lived for a week on ramen noodles. Sold birthday presents online. Washed my clothes in a hand basin with supermarket shampoo. But that’s student broke, not real broke. Student broke is a temporary condition that’s easy to deal with because you’re bettering yourself as you struggle along. As soon as you land your first decent job you know that things will get better.

Damir Ravnikar’s predatory gray gaze invades my mind. “I own your ass until all that money is paid back and don’t you fucking forget it.”

“Please, I already told you, I’ve barely spoken to my parents in two years and I didn’t have anything to do with my father’s business. I’m just a student.”

“Not my problem. They were your blood and they’re dead, so now I’m out for yours.”

“I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them you’re threatening me. This isn’t legal.”

“Oh, baby. It’s cute you think they can help you.”

Baby. What a condescending creep.

Real hard-up is suddenly being four hundred and fifty thousand pounds in debt to a criminal. Mr. Ravnikar seems to think I’m hiding a small fortune in my underwear drawer and if he threatens me long enough I’ll hand it over. I don’t know how to make him understand that there’s no money. No cash. No bonds. No trust funds. The house is being repossessed. Everything has been swallowed up by the debt to Mr. Ravnikar. All I have to my name is a three-year-old laptop, some frayed jeans, and this latte.

I take a long sip. And I’m running out of latte.

The only reason I’m not a dead girl floating down the river right now is because Ravnikar thinks I’m lying. Or maybe it’s because he sees another use for me. I remember his hot breath fanning my face the day of my parents’ funeral. He’s a tall man but he bent down close so he didn’t need to speak above a whisper. “If your inheritance doesn’t materialize there are other options. Pretty girl like you, nice tits and ass, you could pay off the debt fast if you work in one of my clubs.” His eyes roamed over my face and he added, “The patrons don’t even mind if the girls have a few scars. Makes them work harder, you know?”

My stomach clenched at the thinly-veiled threat. He’ll cut me if I don’t agree to his demands. “How quickly could I pay the debt off? If I worked for you?”

Mr. Ravnikar smiled a slow, cold smile. It was like seeing a demon smile. “Six nights a week working the pole, giving private lap dances… You’d be done in ten years.”

Ten years. I’m twenty-two. Working all my twenties and some of my thirties away in a strip club for Damir Ravnikar? I can’t.

But what other option do I have?

A chair is scraped out and a girl in high-waisted trousers and a cropped tee sits down. She stares at me with big, green, sympathetic eyes, her pouty mouth twisted in sympathy. “Ciara. You poor goddamn thing.”

I give Sloane a wan smile. I met her two years ago when I transferred from art history to law. We’re both extremely competitive with each other for our grades. It motivates us to study, this friendly competition we have going. Or rather, it did. My heart hurts at the thought of giving up my degree.

“Hey.” I’m about to ask Sloane how she’s been, because I really don’t want to talk about the funeral, when she leans over and envelops me in a huge hug.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

I pat her arms and push her back. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

She studies me closely. “It’s not fine. Just because you haven’t talked to your parents in years doesn’t mean their deaths haven’t affected you.”

If one more person tells me not to bottle up my emotions I will scream. I’m sick of the platitudes, the expressions that say it’s okay to cry. I don’t want to cry, I want half a million pounds.

Sloane takes out her tablet and begins tapping the screen. Her acrylic nails are a glossy nude shade. “I looked it up: there are five stages of grief to go through and you don’t want to stall at any of them or you’ll never process it and move on.”

I don’t have time to process it. I’ve got bigger things to worry about. “I’m fine. Maybe I’ve already been through them all.”

“No way. Have you done anger yet? What about denial?”

“Can you stop going on about it?” I snap. “I said I was fine.”

Sloane’s eyes widen and silence stretches between us.

Crap. I didn’t intend to take this out on her. What can I say to make her understand without blurting the whole mess out? “It’s not Mum and Dad dying I’m thinking about right now. It’s a debt. I’m worried about a debt.”

She glances down at her tablet screen. “I don’t know, babe. That kind of sounds like denial to me.”

I don’t have a chance to reply because we’re interrupted by another chair scrape. It’s a student I think I vaguely recognize, a girl with long black curls, painted-on jeans and a scoop-neck top. She doesn’t ask before she sits down.

“Oh, be our guest,” Sloane says waspishly, flipping the cover over her tablet.

“Hey. I’m Bethany,” the girl announces, gazing around the courtyard with wing-linered eyes. “I hate the new semester, trying to figure out who’s in my classes so there are people to talk to. Land Law?” she asks us, naming the class that starts in fifteen minutes’ time, and we nod.

She casts her eyes over me and seems to notice my miserable expression. “What’s eating you?”

“Um, her parents died two weeks ago,” Sloane says, in a tone intended to make it clear that she thinks Bethany is being rude and needs to go away.

“That blows,” Bethany replies in an absent-minded monotone, adding sugar to her takeaway coffee.

Sloane rolls her eyes and turns back to me. “What debt? How much? Do you need money to tide you over? I have some savings.”

I feel a rush of affection for Sloane and I cover her hand with mine and manage a smile. “Thank you, but I can’t take money from you. I need a long-term solution.” There’s no way I’m telling Sloane any details about the debt. I can’t risk her getting involved or Ravnikar might hurt her, too.

I hesitate, because Sloane isn’t going to like this, and I don’t even know this Bethany girl, but I need to float the idea past someone. “I’m thinking of…stripping.”

Sloane gapes at me. “We don’t strip. We’re law students.”

I want to laugh because she says this as if we’re royalty.

Bethany doesn’t bat an eyelid. “Please. Half the girls in this courtyard have worked the pole at some point.”

Sloane flushes. “They have not. Ciara, you’re not that sort of girl.”

Newsflash, Sloane: I’m desperate. Anyone’s that sort of girl when they’re desperate. But I know what she means. I’m too uptight to get naked in a clothing store dressing-room, let alone on a stage in front of drunk strangers. A shudder goes through me. While dancing. But if there’s no other way then I’m just going to have to learn how. Vodka might help.

“I’ve had an offer to work in a place. I don’t really want to, but…”

Bethany shakes her head. “Then don’t. There are easier ways of making money without selling your ass.”

I look at her skeptically. “Easy” ways of making money always come with strings attached. Like prison sentences. “Oh? How?”

Bethany takes a sip of her coffee. “Sugaring.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but Sloane makes a disgusted face. “Without selling your ass? That is literally selling your ass.”

I lean forward, waving a hand between them. “Wait, wait, wait. What is ‘sugaring’?”

Sloane is about to reply but Bethany talks over her. “It’s getting yourself a sugar daddy, seeing him for a couple of dates a month and receiving a fat allowance for your time. You can earn thousands with very little time invested.”

I make a doubtful face. “Men pay for dates?”

“Old men,” Sloane says with a wrinkle of her nose.

“Rich men,” corrects Bethany. “It’s really common, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. There are a ton of sugar dating sites filled with students cashing in.”

Dates. That doesn’t sound so bad. I’ve been on dates. One man at a time seems easier to handle than a whole roomful of them expecting me to perform for them. I get out my phone and search for “sugar daddy”, and then feel my eyebrows creep up my forehead as I see dating site after dating site, all with some combination of “sugar”, “baby” and “daddy” in their names.

“Is this legal?” I ask Bethany suspiciously.

“Of course.”

Sloane opens her mouth but I talk over her. “Is it good money?”

“Very good.”

A legal way of earning very good money. It sounds too good to be true. There must be a catch. “Would I have to sleep with these men?”

Bethany hesitates. “Possibly.”

Sloane snorts. “Possibly? What, you think these rich old men give money to broke students out of the kindness of their hearts? Of course you have to sleep with them. Ciara, no one needs money this badly. If you won’t let me lend you money, then go to a bank and get a short-term loan.”

A bank. She thinks a bank loan will cover what I owe. I turn to Bethany to ask another question but Sloane grabs my wrist.

“Ciara, it’s whoring. It’s straight-up whoring, dressed up with fancy dinners.”

Sloane doesn’t understand. She’s never seen the devil smile before. “So? Maybe I’ll be a whore. At least I’ll be in charge of my own life.” I’ll take independence over being forced into one of Mr. Ravnikar’s strip clubs any day.

Sloane reels as if I’ve slapped her and lets go of my arm. “It can’t be legal.”

“Technically, it is,” says Bethany. “The daddies pay for your time and company, not for sex. You just happen to sleep with them.”

“Daddies,” Sloane replies with a shudder, as if the word squicks her out. “And we’re law students. Technically isn’t good enough.”

I don’t like “technically legal” any more than Sloane. I didn’t choose to study law so I could learn how to get around it, I want to be a lawyer so I can help people.

Wanted to be a lawyer.

But if I can find one or two sugar daddies who pay decently maybe I won’t have to drop out. Hope flares in my chest. I just need a few hundred pounds a month for myself and I’ll give the rest to Mr. Ravnikar.

Bethany scrawls something in my notebook. “Here’s the web address of the very best sugaring website. All the richest daddies are on there. I need to go to the library before class so see you around.”

She picks up her coffee and saunters off. I watch her go, feeling vaguely like I’ve been visited by a disreputable fairy godmother.

Sloane’s about to start talking again but I don’t want to hear it. I’m not the same Ciara I was two weeks ago. The old Ciara would never have dreamed of getting into sex work to pay her bills but that girl died with her parents in the plane crash. The new Ciara does what she has to in order to survive.

“I have to go,” I say collecting my notebooks and handbag. There’s no point staying for class today as I won’t be able to concentrate. I’ll catch up if I find I can continue classes later. Before Sloane can protest I hurry away, heading for the Tube station. A moment later I feel my phone buzz in my pocket and dig it out.

Please, Ciara. Don’t do anything you’re going to regret.

I tuck my phone back into my jeans without replying to Sloane. Regret is the least of my problems right now.