Run it again

Cindy sighed heavily as she left the club, indifferent to the heavy metal door as it slammed shut behind her. Today was a lousy day for tips; customers were lackluster, and no one seemed interested in her tonight. If she were new to the job, it might be enough to hurt her self-esteem. Good thing she ran out of any of that three years ago. She shivered a bit, pulling the collar of her coat closer to her neck to fight the wind.

She said a mental prayer that no hobos or scumbags came near her as she made her way to her POS car. As if answering her secret call for solitude, someone stumbled out of the dark and in her direction. Gritting her teeth and keeping a tight grip on her keys, ready to strike out if the creep tried anything, Cindy kept her head high and walked determinedly to her car.

The stranger staggered a bit but didn’t seem to have bad intent; in fact, they looked more like they were heading in the opposite direction on the sidewalk, not like they were coming directly at her or anything. Cindy slowly released the breath she was holding. Just as she’d started to relax the grip on her keys, the vagabond lurched, grabbing her arm. She couldn’t see the stranger’s face as they had their hood up, but heard their voice, spoken in a broken whisper, “It’s really you…”

Cindy ripped her arm free of the surprisingly weak hold and kicked out, putting as much distance between herself and the stranger as possible. “Get the fuck off, creep!” she screeched, hoping that, if nothing else, her sound might be enough to draw attention to them. It wasn’t very likely, given the late hour and cold weather, but better safe than sorry. The stranger managed not to fall over completely but definitely stumbled.

“Ugh, fuck…wait, Cindy, I need to tell you-”

She didn’t let the stranger finish, turning on her heel and making a swift jog to her car, even in heels, managing to outpace the person. The figure recovered and hobbled after her, hollering out for her to ‘wait’, ‘please’, ‘just listen’, but she wasn’t about to be fooled. She got into her car with a slam of the door and slammed into reverse, not hitting the skeezball but getting close enough to spook to them. She flipped them the bird and peeled out of the parking lot.

Cindy drove just a bit faster than she needed to get home, her nerves still shaken by the encounter. It wasn’t completely out of the norm for creeps to try and approach her after her set at the club, but that didn’t make it any less scary. An involuntary shiver ran up her back, causing Cindy to roll her shoulders to relieve it. It didn’t help that her heater was shit; it wouldn’t kick on fully until she was home. The street was a blur as she made her way, an empty blur.

As her heart started to settle, Cindy couldn’t help reflecting on the stranger. She couldn’t see their face; their voice were not very loud or slurring, often what it was when freaks tried to get with her. In fact, thinking back on it, the creep was kind of on the short side, not much taller than herself. And that voice…it was not only soft in tone but higher in pitch. Was that a woman who’d grabbed onto her?

What did they want? How did they know her actual name, not the stage name she used? Did she make the wrong call, not staying to hear what they had to say? Maybe it was a woman in trouble of some kind, maybe she should’ve stayed…

But they knew my name…maybe it was a bad intention. Maybe it was someone from back home who found out about what I’ve been doing for work…they said, ‘It’s you’, that’s not exactly a cry for help. Her thoughts fought; the desire for self-preservation outweighed the niggling sense of guilt of potentially leaving a person in distress.

If they needed help, they should’ve said so! She continued to argue with herself. It’s not my fault they decided to be creepy about it. Besides, I don’t owe anyone anything; it’s not like anyone’s ever gone out of their way to help me before. What even is there to pay forward?

She was bullshitting herself. Cindy found herself doing that often, just to cope with everything. Life was not going at all how she’d thought it would, how she had planned it would. Movies make it seem like all you need is an acceptance letter to a college and *bam* that’s it, you’re there. They don’t often cover things like tuition, or things like not having any help from anyone to get to a whole new state, as no one in your family is supportive. Things like being horribly alone and wondering every second if you’d screwed yourself more by trying to follow a dream than if you’d just stayed where you were.

Movies suck anyway.

As her car came to a stop in her designated parking spot, Cindy lowered her head onto the steering wheel. She took a deep breath through her nose, then exhaled. This was fine. This was the right choice. Definitely. Sure, stripping to pay for school wasn’t ideal, but fuck it, she was making more than a waitress or a barista at a coffee shop. She wasn’t taking out loans to pay her way. She was doing great financially!

Everything is great.

She repeated the breathing a few more times. With her grip now gotten, Cindy opened the door and dragged herself out of the car and across the parking lot to get to her apartment building. No one was in the halls, just her. After locking her door behind her, she made her way sluggishly to her room.

Once in her room, she kicked off her heels and let her coat drop off her shoulders to the floor, then proceeded to flop onto her bed without care. She sighed heavily, vaguely thinking for the millionth time if she should get a cat or something, anything to break up the deafening silence of being alone. Between work and school, she wouldn’t have time to care for the thing like it deserved. Like all things deserve to be cared for.

…Like that stranger-

Cindy growled audibly at herself and sat up, shaking her own head. “Shut up already! It was a spur-of-the-moment reaction! Get the fuck over it!” Talking aloud to herself didn’t solve anything, but it sure made her feel better. And it did cut through that God awful silence. Now that she was upright, Cindy got off the bed and grabbed her coat off the ground to rummage for her phone.

In her skimpy get-up, there weren’t exactly pockets, and carrying a purse was just asking for trouble. She’d bought this coat secure in the knowledge of its large, deep pockets, enough for her phone, wallet, and such. With phone in hand, she sat back on the bed and opened it up with her fingerprint. A few email notifications, a few on the school app for assignments, and a few messengers. Her eyes were pulled to the messenger. Opening it up, it was a message she’d actually been looking forward to.

Lance.

They’d been messaging for a few weeks now and even met up for coffee once. He was very sweet and wasn’t even judgmental about her job! He always talked kindly about it, asked if she was looking for anything new, said he could probably hook her up with a desk job if she wanted, his family owned a business. All very sweet, but some degree of pride kept her from jumping at the chance.

His messages were much the same as they always were: “You’re such a cool person, I’d really like to help you out.” “My family treats their employees well.” “I had a great time the other night, think we can meet up again soon?”

She reads the messages passively at first, but it slowly dawns on her, an epiphany. For so much of her life, she was always worried about ‘making the wrong choice’. There was always such pressure to ‘make the right choice’. In school, ‘do your homework and pay attention, or else you’ll end up in the gutter.’ At home, ‘be obedient and kind to your family members or else you’ll end up alone and in a gutter.’ There were supposedly the ‘right’ and the ‘wrong’ choices.

She was told as much when she left for school. She was making a foolish choice with her life, the wrong one, and it would only end badly for her. Briefly, her mind flashes to the stranger outside the club, perhaps the ‘wrong’ choice there as well. Cindy quickly switches back on track, looking intently at the messages for the first time.

Lance was offering stability, a real job with real prospects. He was offering community with his family. He was offering a relationship with himself. And he was nice, handsome too, which was a plus…was the ‘right choice’ looking her right in the face, and she was being too stubborn to take it? Was she truly at one of those famous crossroads so often mentioned? If it was, how could she be sure this was truly the ‘right choice’?

She looked at her phone, then looked at her room, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The thong up her ass was lacey and chafed, not very comfortable, and not how she wanted to dress every day just to get by. A few stray tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them away before bringing the phone up to her face. It rang a few times before he picked up.

“Hey Lance, I was just reading your messages. Think we can meet up tomorrow?”

-

20 years.

It's been 20 years since she was last in this area.

It was cold, as it often was this time of year. Cindy shivered a bit, pulling the hood of her coat over her face as she kept walking. She hadn’t been to this side of town since she was young, back in college and stripping to pay the tuition and her bills. Goddamn, time really did go by so damn fast.

She remembers that time of her life very clearly, obsessively almost. It was hard not to, as that was the last time she felt she had an agency. It was hard and lonesome, that was for sure, but she was free then. Free to dream, free to think, not like her life now. As little more than an indentured servant. What a fool she was.

She’d never stop kicking herself for her way of thinking. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’, such arbitrary terms that ultimately don’t mean anything in the grand scheme of life. Whether it was right or wrong, she made her choice in trusting Lance; now she had to live with the consequences of it. The consequence was that she lived in a lovely home that held lovely parties for lovely investors and customers.

She had the stability he’d promised; she didn’t have to worry about food or money. Her job didn’t last long once they started dating, after all, ‘no woman of his was ever going to work for anything’. Sweet…kinda. When she expressed how much she wanted to keep up her schooling, it was shut down because why bother? He would provide her with everything she could ever need. When she would attempt to socialize with the ‘other women, ’ she was met with cold glares and icy shoulders as she was very clearly not a woman born of wealth.

Cindy tried to be happy. After all, looking from the outside of it all, she had it made! Not having to work, not having to worry, it was all just…great. Lance wasn’t much interested in her beyond their initial courting. Once he had her, he stopped caring. All he needed was to have the ‘wife’, then he was the picture of perfection. And he used the comfort and stability he gave as a weapon against her.

“Do you really want to be stripping again?” “Do you really want to be struggling again?” All valid points, points that kept her feeling stuck, trapped. She played with the ring on her left hand. She chose this. She could’ve left, hell, she still can even, but leave for what? What hope was there to have a meaningful life at her age? She wasted her youth playing dress-up, learning the rules of etiquette to blend into Lance’s social circles. Her degree was unfinished, she had nothing in the means of support or education to even provide for herself, never mind her old profession. Now she was old. Old and more alone than ever.

…she never did get a cat, maybe she could approach the matroness of the house about it…

What she wouldn’t give to have another chance, a chance to talk to herself, to really get down to what it was she wanted in life. To give herself the hope she needed then, to keep persevering, to make what she would see then as ‘the right choice’. If only…

Cindy stopped short.

She was right outside the old club, the one she used to dance at. It didn’t look like the building had aged a day since she’d last seen it. The wind picked up, making her shiver; she was really wishing she’d gotten a better coat. This one covered her up mostly, but the material was thin, nothing like her old winter coat she used to wear on nights like this, with its big pockets.

She hadn’t intended on walking this far out of the way when she left the manor, but she just couldn’t be in that gilded cage a minute longer. Her teeth were chattering, she felt she got cold much more quickly as she aged. She pulled her hood down further.

Her steps were staggering and unsure, so focused on trying to warm up, she wasn’t really attentive to her surroundings until she heard the big metal door slamming shut. It startled her, and she looked up, even further shocked to see a young dancer right outside the door.

Cindy watched with her mouth slightly agape.

The young woman shivered a bit, pulling the collar of her coat closer to her neck to fight the wind. Cindy took note of her ‘ready to fight’ stance, her hand in one of the pockets of her coat, likely holding her key in a tight grip as she once did, ready to fight off any creeps that might try to get her on her way to her car.

The woman walked with purpose, desperate to get to her vehicle without any holdup. Cindy couldn’t help herself; it was just too uncanny. That coat, that figure…she could swear at a distance she was seeing…Cindy kept going towards the young dancer, well aware it was probably creeping her out. Her steps were uneven, and the cold felt dizzying, but she had to know…

The young woman held her head high and walked determinedly to her car. As she got closer, Cindy recognized the determined stance. Much like an animal puffs itself up to freak out a predator. Cindy waited, keeping a good distance but still getting closer, looking as if someone was passing in the opposite direction, rather than someone coming at them.

Cindy watched, waiting for the slowly released breath the woman was likely holding, the subtle sign of a relaxing posture. She waited until she was sure the young woman had relaxed to suddenly reach out, grabbing her arm. She pulled the young woman in close, and her heart stopped in place.

“It’s really you…” she all but whispered, her voice brittle with the cold.

How was this possible? How could this be happening? Her own, younger self, was scowling at her. Cindy could hardly believe it…was this it? The chance she was looking for? A way to change her choice from wrong to right? Cindy struggled to come up with the words to say.

Before she could fully get a grip on speaking, her younger self yanked her arm free of her grip, then suddenly kicked out, pushing Cindy away.

“Get the fuck off, creep!” she screeched.

Cindy managed not to fall over completely, but stumbled. Her young self was stronger than she recalled herself to be. With a groan, Cindy tried again to reach herself. “Ugh, fuck…wait, Cindy, I need to tell you-” she started to say, but her young self didn’t let her finish, turning instead on her heel and making a swift jog to her car.

Cindy recovered and hobbled after herself, hollering out for her. Her young self was cautious, and even as Cindy got closer, she knew nothing she could say would get herself to listen to her. When her young self slammed the door shut and threw it into reverse, Cindy jumped.

Young Cindy flipped the bird and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving Cindy to cough and shake, waving after the car in vain hope.

“No…” Cindy slumped slightly to the ground. “No…”

It was strange, sitting on the ground watching her own headlights fade. The horror of being in some strange time loop was muted by the loss of her chance her life. Change her choice. She remembered now, today was the day. Tonight was the night. She’d get home, see her life, and contact Lance.

Was there ever a way out?

Cindy slowly got to her feet, glancing back at the now barren road.

Maybe…maybe this time, when she got home, maybe she wouldn’t repeat the same thoughts, the same actions…maybe.

Sighing heavily, Cindy turned back from where she came.