OVER and OVER

[Billie Hart]

Fingers roamed keys aimlessly, remembering the notes as they went along. Most of the people sitting in this seedy place didn't listen to the piano much, luckily for Billie, the customers were usually too busy with their suspicious business deals to worry about a pianist who only knew three songs and then made up the rest. Her fingers suddenly become more attentive, feeling a lull in the talking coming on. As the people around her paused shortly in their dealings, her playing became more apparent. Smoothly, her left hand takes over completely as her right comes up to push the brim of her hat down over her eyes. Billie's hands go back to what they were supposed to be doing as she shot a nod toward her employer as he walked behind the bar. Her sharp eyes wandered over everyone in the room, most of them were foreign - well most of them were Russian since this was a Russian restaurant.

Tucked in the corner of the room, Billie wasn't all too noticeable unless your eyes were in her direction because, well her hair was quite striking even if it was up in a messy ponytail. She shook away the stray tendrils that framed (and hid) her face and looked at the table a few feet away from her clear up. The two Russian men rose to their feet and shuffled out, leaving empty plates and glasses behind them. Billie used to think that the Russian language was a rough, and harsh sounding - but that was only when the men talked mostly. She had once heard two women speaking Russian......and it had undoubtedly been the most sexy thing she had ever heard in her short life. For a second she wondered if listening to two Italian men talk would get the same reaction. Out of the corner of her eye she watches the busboy make his rounds.

Billie soon turned her attention back to the keys. Her feet switch pedals twice very quickly as the song's pace picks up. The player kept the volume low, so it wouldn't bother the customers, but just enough to take away attention from someone, probably Radigan, yelling at a poor waiter in the kitchen. Speaking of which, where was her dinner, or did she have to have instant ramen again? Billie let out a short sigh as the slow reverted back into a short period. It was times like this that she was relieved to know that nothing stayed the same forever, none of this would be the same in ten years. She didn't like planning things out, and in fact her future was a blank slate entirely. Though, Billie hoped that she wasn't a son of a taint in the future, she hoped that she wasn't homeless, she hoped she still had people she could have a nice conversation with - you know the basics.

Her steel-blue eyes dart over toward the other side of the restuarant, noticing the hostess lead someone over to the empty table next to her. Who knew this place was even remotely popular...especially with a Denny's around the corner.

Words;; around 535 or something...
Outfit;; here
Status;; Open~!
Notes;; None really....couldn't think of another board to put this in.

[Ember Candi Blaine]

Ember was drunk, that was really the only way to put things, she was shit faced and completely wasted. Hell, she wasn’t working tonight, didn’t have classes tomorrow and was of age, you couldn’t exactly judge the girl. Her and her friends, all of which were as wasted as she was, had been club hopping all night, and having a great time as they did. What were they doing now? Well, they couldn’t really tell you. They had meant to grab the subway to head home, back to the apartment they shared on the college grounds, instead they had been distracted by a light still on somewhere and managed to find themselves inside. To their dismay, they were greeted by a lot of Russian, when they all looked at each other with a confused face, but didn’t do much about it. Hell, very little said to any of them made much sense right now, rather it was in English or not, so as far as they knew, this was completely normal. Nights like this weren’t exactly common, at least not for Ember. She worked at least five nights a week, generally more like six, and when not working she was either in class or doing homework. She needed to keep her scholarship, but she also needed to keep her income at a decent level in order to keep up her smoking habit, her designer clothes obsession and her general lack of sense when it came to money. That and the fact that she needed food and books and such, well, yeah, money was a good thing, we all know that.

As they went into the restaurant they shrugged off the hostesses and went straight over to the bar, on the same side of the room as the piano and the less than enthusiastic pianist. They weren’t about to pay too much attention to her, however, when there were drinks to be had. Now, however, they were all happy with a simple beer. For the first time of the night, none of them were carded, which was nice because Ember wasn’t sure she would be able to find her id anymore. It was somewhere in her purse… wait, where was her purse? Oh, right, right in front of her on the bar… well, it was one of those dancing red clutches at least. She was wearing a white tank top that buttoned up the front, but was actually unbuttoned to right above her bra. However, the shirt was skewed off center so her bra was slightly visible, blue and lacey if you wanted to know. She was then in short, blue shorts that showed off her dancer’s legs and high black, strappy stilettos with a lack of jewelry. Hell, she looked fairly sexy when they left the apartment, but now she makeup and smeared and her hair was no longer nicely combed and straightened. It was hard to keep up your appearance when you looked in the mirror and saw five of yourself, after all.

For a while the girls enjoyed themselves, laughing and pointing out the cute guys in the room, not being worried if they knew what they were doing either. Sure, most of the guys they were pointing out with a bit older than all of them, but why did that matter? No one planned on dating a one of them, or even going home with any of them. Not when they were this drunk at least, and never with Ember. Not that her morals were stopping her or anything like that, no, it was more her ego than anything else. She had yet to find a guy who was good enough for her and at this rate it may take a while as well. She had high standards, and she was all right with that as well. Why settle when you were as great as she was? In her own mind, of course. Many people flat out couldn’t stand her due to her ego and self adoring nature, but she was all right with that as well. She felt that anyone who had a problem with her must not love themselves as much as they should, and needed a lesson on that as well, which she was happy to give.

Ember had half finished her beer when she glanced over to the piano, hoping for a male player to see if she could call him hot as well, but was disappointed when he managed to notice that she was in fact female. She rolled her blue eyes to the top of her head before turning back to her friends, almost falling off her bar stool as she did. She laughed to herself as she managed to find her balance by placing a hand on the bar, but almost spilt her beer in the process as well, which just caused all of them to laugh even more. And to think, this group of girls was generally considered fairly intelligent, but alcohol will do some weird things to your brain. And they would all feel it in the morning, when they would hopefully wake up in their beds at home instead of some random park bench, but we’d have to see what happened, of course. They didn’t always end up back home after their drunken nights, and they managed to accept it by now.

Finally Ember was getting tired of hearing crap on the piano, or at least, barely playing on the piano or whatever it was. Generally, she would keep her mouth shut, but not tonight, she didn’t want to tonight. Granted, she didn’t really know what she wanted right now, but whatever worked, yes? “Hey you,” she finally said, turning towards the female at the piano, so it was fairly obvious who she was talking to, though eye contact wasn’t made. “Play something fun, or normal or… not the same thing, I’d like that,” she said, leaning backwards onto the bar and closing her eyes for a moment to try and calm her shaking eyes. “I mean, you’re getting paid for this, right? May as well do it well,” she finished as she also downed the rest of her beer, but didn’t ask for another right away. She wasn’t thinking well enough to even know her beer had been finished.

Outfit – here

[Billie Hart]

It was Billie's lucky day apparently. It was as if god was doing her a major solid and sending a flock of 'hot chicks' over her way - even better! Drunk hot chicks, probably drunk enough to make a huge mistake and go home with her....maybe. Billie's grin widened, if it were possible, she chuckled - if they wouldn't go home with her...well there wasn't anything wrong with flirting shamelessly with them right? Billie could at least hear that they were mainly interested in guys, maybe this wasn't a bone being thrown at her and just some sick joke pulled by karma. Did she cut off a voodoo priest in traff- oh wait...Billie didn't drive. Okay, major bullet dodged there - you never want to mess with those voodoo priests because they will fuck you up. Anyway, Billie was trying to do two things at once - listen to these girls chatter away and play the piano somewhat decently. She failed at the latter, of course since she was a mediocre player. Billie messed her notes up, and to someone with a keen ear for piano playing it would have been obvious.

Her head snapped toward the blonde woman as she spoke, hoping that this total babe was talking to her. And oh my god she was! Billie showed her trademark crooked grin and took her fingers away from the keys. "Comin' right up, Sweetie." Billie's fingers returned to the keys along with her eyes, playing a light, quick melody that she was currently making up. It was funny what this girl had said to Billie, or at least the redhead thought so. Yes she wasn't very good at this, she was amazing, knock on wood, at what she was really here to do. And that was to take people's money, plain and simple. It wasn't what she had thought she would being doing at this age, when she was little she had wanted to be something stupid like a princess - or better a queen. Billie knew now that she was nothing even vaguely like that. It didn't bother her of course.

She wanted to impress this girl, since well my redhead does have a soft spot for blondes. Her fingers remember notes from other songs, mixing them and molding them into a new song that didn't sound like complete crap and even Billie was surprised at that. The piano player took a chance and looked at the pretty blonde, her somewhat cocky and dare I say sexy crooked grin plastered all over her face. "This any better love?" Her fingers kept moving, afraid that if they lost concentration that everything would shatter and her chances of even getting her foot in the door would fly out the window. Billie's eyes - no her whole expression probably - was wolfish, hoping that one of these girls was juuuuust drunk enough to make a dumb mistake - preferably with Billie.

words;; 508
status;; finished
notes;; I DO APOLOGIZE FOR THE FACT THAT BILLIE IS BEING A TOTAL PIG RIGHT NOW! XD

[Ember Candi Blaine]

Ember may be drunk, but she wasn’t stupid. It was hard to get Ember to the point where she was stupid but that was due to her high intelligence. Her brain focused on logic and logic was something that was hard to shake, even when things didn’t seem logical at the moment. Like how did she suddenly have five purses, that wasn’t logical, but she would love to have five purses. She needed that extra money. Granted, after tonight, it was doubtful how much money she really had in the one solid clutch sitting on the counter. That was why these drunken nights weren’t all that common for Miss Ember, she just didn’t have the money for them. Working as a full time student and then also paying for all of her daily needs was hard to cover with a part time job, even though her part time job was as an exotic dancer. There were some days when she was lucky and had some guy give her a great tip, but we’ve been over the fact that she wasn’t money smart. She got the tip and went out and spent it, normally the way she was tonight, which is actually how the money she was currently paying for her drinks, but that was going to run out soon too. But maybe that was a good thing. Something needed to stop her drinking at some point. She was smart and generally she knew when she had to stop, but once she got to this point that wasn’t quite so easy.

Something Ember certainly wasn’t interested in was women. Though she did think she had an amazing body, she still tried to avoid seeing herself naked because, come on, seriously, how was anyone attracted to that? That being said, she was also incredibly self confident and had absolutely no problem with same sex relationships and, well, that led to a lot of girl on girl flirting, especially when she was drunk. Or at work, but that brought her in extra money. A little faux lesbian dance and the dollar bills came rolling in. Anyway, she was always willing to play along if girls were either trying to flirt with her, or pretending to get a guys attention. It just didn’t bother her. Unlike some, she was comfortable with her sexuality. She was straight, she knew she was straight and it didn’t matter what anyone else in the world thought. See, that’s something else that came from her intelligence as well as her ego. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought of her, she loved herself, which was the first step to happiness in her opinion.

Ember smiled when the female said she would try to play something else. As she listened to the new music, still laughing with her friends and did once try to drink from the empty glass of beer, but when it failed she slid it down the bar and laughed as she saw multiple glasses doing the same thing. Her vision right now was a little like a kaleidoscope, with random color and images coming from something she was actually looking at. Yeah, she was out of it. She was to the point that it wouldn’t be too long before she would be throwing up, which may be a good thing for her poor liver, but not for her mouth and throat and such, of course. For now, though, she felt great. Any problems were reduced to a minimum and her biggest concern right now was not falling off the stool she was currently sitting on. Of course, she could deal with her problems when she was sober and she didn’t drink to get away, but no one could deny that it was nice to forget it for a while, even though she’d be awful for forgetting it in the morning.

She had more or less stopped paying attention to the music, hey, she was drunk, her attention span wasn’t exactly long right now, when the woman playing called back to her. She turned again and waited a second before finally being able to focus her eyes on the piano and its player as well as decipher what had been said to her. “Yeah, better,” she said, her words slurring together and her elbow reaching over to lean against the bar as well, the sleeve of her tank falling from her shoulder as she did. “Still can’t dance too well, though,” she admitted, trying to find a beat to sway her body to and not finding one, at least for the type of dancing she knew how to do. Granted, her way of dancing generally included a pole, which was lacking here as far as she could tell.

Had Ember been sober she probably wouldn’t stick around this place for too long. It didn’t seem too safe and there seemed to be a few… not so legal dealing going on around here. Granted, in her current condition, she didn’t know that at all. Right now, all she knew was that she wasn’t all there and the funny colors were very amusing. She also knew that she should go home to sleep this off, but where was the fun in that? You’re only young once and she was going to enjoy that time, even if it meant getting sick in public, which was quite possible with how things were going right now. Maybe it would stop her from doing it again. Okay, yeah, who was she kidding? These nights were too much fun to just stop.

Though she wasn’t sure if smoking was allowed inside at the bar Ember was also too drunk to care right now. Ember started to dig through her purse to try and find her pack of cigarettes, but in the end couldn’t because, well, she didn’t put them in there when she left the apartment because she knew smoking when she was drunk generally made her go home with burns. Well, that and she would use an entire pack of cigarettes in one night, which she didn’t have the money to get another one or she’d start smoking where it wasn’t allowed. Well, her lack of cigs wasn’t going to stop her right now anyway. “Hey, anyone have a smoke?” she said, very loudly, but you had to remember she wasn’t thinking straight. “What about you? You seem helpful,” she said, once again turning to the pianist, her blue eyes hazy but managing to focus on the woman as the question was asked.

[Billie Hart]

Radigan smoothly made his way over to Billie and smacked her over the head. He cursed in Russian at her and shook his head before finally making his way to a table that needed attention. He could tell that she was flirting with these girls when she should have been working. Radigan could also probably tell that these girls were straight, but it didn’t hinder Billie’s hopes to get one of these girl’s attention. Billie merely smiled and quickly fixed her hat so the brim was back over her eyes. Billie peeked over her shoulder to take a look at that lost tank top sleeve and the exposed skin. “Can’t help that doll-face, it is just a piano after all.” Her eyes darted over to this girl’s friends for a second before going back to the keys. If she didn’t look after a while she knew she was going to mess up, and that would have made her look stupid.

Billie’s mind began to scramble for notes, momentarily forgetting the order they had originally fit in. She did that sometimes when she was forced to make shit up, though the worst that ever happened was a look from Radigan when he was passing by. Luckily for Billie, it wasn’t often that she was forced to play the part of a pianist for the whole night. However, the young woman desperately needed to learn new songs so she wouldn’t seem so unknowledgeable to the ways of playing the piano. She would have been on the clock for real by now if there was a scheduled match…but there had been times in the past where people would unexpectedly show up and demand a rematch or something, but that wasn’t too often.

The girl at the bar spoke again, but Billie took a moment to turn around in order to face the blonde. She didn’t nod, the pianist simply looked away and took one of her hands away from the keys to whistle sharply. “’EY! CHENKOV!” Billie grinned and winked at the blonde as a large, intimidating Russian man lumbered up to her. Billie had always thought Chenkov walked like he weighed more than his frame could carry, but that just made most even more afraid of him. He let out a curt ‘humph’ and Billie gestured with her chin to the blonde. “She needs a light – do me a solid~?” Billie batted her eyelashes at the giant Russian man. He gave Billie an odd look as he dug into his pockets and fished out a pack of cigarettes, flicked his index against the bottom, and offered smoke that was sticking up toward the blonde. There was no expression on his face, though Billie knew that was a given when you were dealing with the giant Russian. He was the true epitome of the ‘strong, silent type’. Billie rolled her eyes at Chenkov. “You could smile Chenkov.” The Russian only looked at her before taking his leave when he had ‘done his job’.

word;; 500
notes;; sorry for the shortness, I was having trouble with my muse...DX

[Ember Candi Blaine]

Ember couldn’t help but laugh when the pianist got reprimanded more in the way a dog would be than a person. Even at work she wasn’t treated like that. Sure there were times when she was yelled at and she had been pulled by her female boss more than once (she would put in a complaint if her male manager would ever lay a hand on her in such a way) but she had never been hit and it was rather amusing, even more so since she wasn’t exactly all there. Most things were rather humorous to the female at the moment, things that she would normally find stupid and roll her eyes at she was cracking up about. Good thing she wouldn’t remember this in the morning because she would beat herself up over not using the intelligence she knew she had stored… somewhere back in her brain at the moment. Or at least she hoped it was still there and she hadn’t killed it with her alcohol, but that hadn’t happened yet. Her liver, on the other hand, may be cursing at her at the moment but, as was said, this wasn’t a nightly thing. Her liver may be hurting but it wasn’t yet dying.

“And… and what did you think they did when all they had was a piano?” Ember asked, word slurred, feeling herself falling to one side and catching herself even though she hadn’t moved a muscle. “I mean, I hardly want to waltz or nothing,” even her grammar, normal close to perfect, was messed up. Damn girl, you need your brain back. “But I have heard some half… half decent dance music from a… a whatever that thing is,” she made a messy flick of her wrist in the direction of the piano before trying to drink out of her empty beer glass once again and giving it a confused look when nothing came out before just putting it down on the bar and sliding it slightly away from her, laughing once again as she saw it spin and then stop. It was only then that she realized something that, well, she wasn’t sure if she would normally comment about it, but she felt she had to tonight, for whatever reason.

“Doll-face?” she asked, a confused look coming over her face. “I’m not doll-face… kay? My name is Candi,” she said, resting her head against her hand once again, her hair weaving through her long, thin fingers. “Wait…,” she said, as if suddenly realizing her mistake. She looked over to her friends, the same confused look over her face, “That’s not right. I’m Ember, yeah, Ember, right guys?” she asked turning to look towards her friends once again. Her friends agreed and the girls laughed. So, you had to realize that she wasn’t drunk enough to forget her name. While she was working she used her middle name, which was Candi, so she was almost as used to people calling her Candi as she was to people calling her Ember, or Emmy even though she really hated being called Emmy or Em. Why? She couldn’t tell you, she just did. Call it personal preference, or something along those lines. She didn’t, however, mind her name. In fact, she rather liked it, even though she knew her mother would never have named her Ember if she wasn’t seventeen when she had her first child. She was glad she was Amber though, she also connected the name Amber with sluttiness and she didn’t need that in her life.

Ember didn’t have much room to judge about one’s job. She worked as a stripper for crying out loud, and she had been doing so for multiple years as well, even though it wasn’t legal for her to strip when she had started. She had just needed the money from the time she was a freshman in high school and was sent off to that incredibly selective school for the gifted, but selective seemed to mean, more or less, “school for the kids with parents that can afford to send them and a small spattering of the gifted”. She didn’t really fit in at the school because she didn’t have the money and, hell, she was fourteen, who would like not fitting in? As she aged through high school her ego started to grow into what it was today, a girl who loved herself and everything about herself and soon she started to realize that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought as long as she was happy with herself, and she was. Sure, it would have been better if she would have figured that out before she got herself addicted to designer clothes and cigarettes, but at least she finally figured out that she had to do whatever she did to make herself happy and not worry about anyone else and making them happy.

When the pianist turned from her Ember scrunched up her nose and shook her head, making herself dizzy as she did but fairly unhappy about being ignored. When the woman turned back, however, she barely noticed the slight acknowledgements the woman gave but was happy she was actually looked at. Once Ember saw the cigarette in her face it took her a couple times to actually grab the thing but did manage to get it into her hand. “Thanks babe,” she said to the large man with a smile before putting the cigarette, still unlit, between her lips. She watched as the man left before taking the cigarette out of her mouth once again and looking towards her friends with a giggle. “Now, he’s not that hot,” she said, joking slightly but still quite serious. “You know? Your friend there, not that hot,” she said louder as she turned towards the female once again, the cigarette between her fingers as she looked down to it. “Now I need a light,” she complained. She dug through her purse for a second before the bar tender came up to her and offered forward a lit lighter. Ember smiled and put out the cigarette to be lit. Once it was she smiled slightly, thanked the man and called him baby before putting the cigarette in her mouth and inhaling deeply.

It was only slightly later that her curse of smoking while drunk took her over and the ashes from the cigarette fell onto her forearm. “Ow!” she screeched as she pulled the smoke from her mouth and quickly brushed the ashes from her mouth. Or… tried, it took her a try or two to find the ashes on her arm. “That hurt,” she complained, now tapping off the ashes in the ash tray, well, mostly in the ash tray. She tried at least. “Why the fuck…” she said, gritting her teeth as she tried to look at the burn on her arm, but having a hard time seeing it. “You friend’s cig hurt me,” she complained once again to the woman at the piano, still gritting her teeth.

[Billie Hart]

Man, this chick was the definition of shitfaced at the moment. Billie’s smirk widened just a little bit, of course Billie didn’t mind naturally, she was still pretending that there was even a faint possibility that this girl would sleep with the redhead. Fat chance. Billie’s fingers picked up the tempo while she also listened to this blonde talk, almost incessantly, but again Billie was not complaining. When the girl mentioned waltzing Billie let out a small snicker – who waltzed anymore? What a boring dance, Billie might actually shoot herself if she was forced to do it…well she would also look like douche while attempting to waltz, but that was a given no doubt. It was then that, in the back of her mind, she realized that there were people who might have actually enjoyed waltzing nowadays and inwardly she felt like an ass….but it went away after a while, like many of her emotions in all honesty….

The redhead nearly started to believe in religion again when she heard that this girl’s name was Candi. An extreme reaction yes, but didn’t it just sound a bit too perfect? Too…coincidental? Her lips audaciously stretch into a goofy grin. Billie wanted to laugh so badly, but laughing might insult the drunk girl sitting nearby and it might destroy the small, almost microscopic chance of being able to take the darling Candi home….fuck her name wasn’t Candi. Her natural high plummeted back down to earth, somehow in the back of her mind she should have known that it had been all too perfect. Ember was still a pretty name in Billie’s opinion – much more feminine sounding than hers. “Name’s Billie by the way. Billie could not remember the last time someone had heard her name and expected her to be a woman, well she couldn’t remember because it had never happened. With a name like Billie people just instantly assumed she had something dangling between her legs.

When Chenkov left, the redhead’s eyes checked on her nimble fingers before darting back to Ember.
Her lips curled into a grin once more at the joke in order to be polite, not truly because she thought it was funny. “By comparison he is.” With a tilt of her chin, Billie gestured toward the other members of staff bustling around the restaurant. Most of them were older men, who were most likely from the USSR area. There was one who was younger than Chenkov, but he was rather scrawny and prepubescent looking….despite the fact that he had to be at least eighteen – she had seen his ID once. She was about to call Chenkov back to light Ember’s cigarette, but it would have seemed that the bartender had beaten her to the punch and was already lighting the white roll for the blonde.

After a moment or two, the pianist tore her focus away from the blonde and went back to the black and white keys in front of her. Her large hands quickly, though with a lack of skill and precision, soared over the white keys. Billie knew she wasn’t very good at playing this instrument, she had learned that fact early on in her ‘career’, so now it was all attitude. Just smile through it and people will buy it…besides how many people could actually play the piano anyway…..?

At the sound of a screech, Billie jumped and her head spun over to see what was going on with Ember, causing her playing to pause for a moment. Her fingers go back to playing and her usual composure reclaims her face. “I think you’ve had enough Ember. Don’t want you burning your hand off now.” Billie smirked at the girl sitting at the bar, holding off a small laugh.


words;; 626
notes;; SORRY FOR THE WAIT/SUCKINESS DDDDDX