A Dark Time For The Light

37

Monday morning. An alarm clock trilled into the dark. Slapped into silence. Hermione rolled over, gathered her lover into her arms, nuzzling her awake. Mornings were not a Weasley speciality. Ginny got ready on automatic pilot, then set out for her new job, the journey mapped on a sweaty bit of paper clutched in her hot hand. Anxious eyes following the Underground map, streaming off this train, to descend to a lower line. Ginny giggled. At least she didn’t have to time the trains. She leaned back and enjoyed the legitimate commuter crush, debarking at Oxford Road and making her way to work.

She met with her new boss and was provided with a new polo shirt bearing the shop’s logo being given a moment to change, then she was introduced to the colleague nominated to show her the ropes. She didn’t catch the girl’s name as, just then, the sound system started to blast out as the shutters were raised and the public let in.

She was supposed to shadow her new colleague all day. She was quickly shown round, although, truthfully, she found her colleague’s strong Yorkshire accent hard to understand at first, but heard the patterns and cadences, and got it. She was shown round the large store. CD’s on the ground floor. Jazz and Classical upstairs along with books and DVD’s. Ginny felt her heart sink. Films and bands she’d never heard of, but all neatly labelled. She huffed a long breath at the end of the tour, “I’ll never learn where everything is”. Her colleague grinned, “I thought that when I started, but you soon get used to it. Come on, fag break time”

She led Ginny out into the alley behind the store. In moments she lit up and coughed. She offered the pack to Ginny who refused politely. The redhead stole a look at her colleague. Tiny and frail, her polo shirt over a long sleeved t-shirt bagging over tight skinny jeans, tucked into 3-inch heel tall boots, blonde hair in need of a retouch, darker roots evident, tied back sloppily, leaving wisps and tendrils hanging around the girl’s face, that looked older than her professed twenty two years.

The rest of the morning she was trying to get to grips with the till and card payment systems. “This your first job?”, the blonde asked. Ginny blushed and nodded. They were busy all morning until Andy the line manager let them go for lunch. They went into a local sandwich bar and the older girl showed Ginny to a tiny slice of park where they sat and ate.

Just to make conversation, Ginny asked, “What’s ‘Jo’ short for?. Joanne?”. The other girl shook her head, “If you tell anyone, I’ll have to take you out at the knees. It’s Josephine”. Ginny giggled. “I won’t tell, honest. To even the score if you like, Ginny’s short for Ginevra. Did you ever hear such a thing? Luckily most think it’s Virginia”.

“Dunno, Ginevra’s pretty and unusual, not like someone’s friggin’ maiden aunt”. Then she started, her eyes going big and round, her hand covering her mouth. Ginny frowned, “What? Did I say something?”. Jo nodded, her breathing rapid, “You’re her, aren’t you?”, she whispered, “Oh my God. Tall, beautiful, red hair. Ginny. You’re her. Oh fuck!”.

Ginny shook her head trying to clear the confusion, then the light went on, “Aaagh. You’re Josie aren’t you?”. Jo nodded. “What happened to her, a punter paid for a night with her and she vanished. I’ve been looking in the papers for months for news, even her body being fished out of the fuckin’ Thames. Tell me she’s still alive, please”.

“The guy that paid for her?, he was one of us and he rescued her. She’s off the heroin but it took a long while. She’s only just starting to trust herself to handle cash”, Ginny’s tone was brusque as annoyance grew in her chest towards this girl. “Was it you that started her off on it?” a question she’d wanted answering, but Hermione had always prevaricated.

Jo fixed her with grey eyes, “No. Janey was already flirting with it, we were as bad as each other, Ginny. I know what you probably think, girl from rough background seduces sheltered middle class girl. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was totally her idea to rob her parents house and she’s a friggin’ expert at getting into locks. I watched her practicing with them lock picks, then hairpins. You know she can hack and disable an alarm system in less than a minute?. I never knew any of this shit, you know?”.

Ginny was thoughtful. She did want to blame this girl for her lover’s plight, but she couldn’t deny the truth behind Hermione’s breaking and entering skills and realised it was quite possible that Hermione had kept from her the more sordid details of her recent past. “All I could teach that girl was how to hack power and give good blow jobs, she never did like cock. It was her who taught me how to fix with a needle”, her voice tailed off, a slight smile as if she was sharing fond reminiscences.

Ginny was horrified, realising either this girl was lying through her teeth or Hermione had been sparse with details, economical with the truth. Her attention was caught by Jo pulling her sleeves up. Plentiful marks, but all old ones. She slipped her trainers off, the same fading marks that her lover had. “How long have you been off?”, Ginny cautiously enquired. Jo grinned, “A few months now. I was terrified when Janey disappeared. Prozzies are a favourite target for all sorts of sickoes and weirdoes. We all worried when the guy insisted on her even though she’d just fixed. He had no car either, so we didn’t have anything to link him to the real world. I was fuckin’ furious with Pete for just lettin’ her go like that. Us working girls all try to keep each other safe from the random fuck-ups out there”.

“Well, after that, I decided life was worth more to me than that, and even if Janey was dead, then it wasn’t in vain”. She raised her knees and sank onto her folded arms and wept, “She’s alive, she’s alive. Fuck, that’s brilliant. I thought she was dead”.

Ginny didn’t quite know what to do at this outburst, so laid a cautious hand on Jo’s arm. “She talks about you. She told us a bit of what she’d done, not everything. She values your abilities with computers a lot and she’s hacked us all free power and light and phone line and stuff. She said she learned it all from you. I arrived as she was drying out. It wasn’t pretty. She was a mess and she stank, puking every hour or so, but she’s stuck it out and now she’s looking for real work”.

They wended their way back to work. Jo couldn’t keep a grin off her face, taking sidelong looks at her new colleague, “Look, Ginny. She never stopped talking about you. She was so in love with you. I was a bit jealous even though I’m straight. That a great love, a love that big could sustain you while life is so shit, and the miracle is, she found you again”, her eyes raked Ginny up and down, “And if I say so myself, you’re worth agonising over. You should be modelling not working in some shitty minimum wage job. No. Fuck off. Don’t blush and go all shy on me. I mean it”.

That afternoon was busier than the morning and Ginny’s nose was held to the grindstone. Hometime. Ginny fought her way with the other tired and disgruntled commuters and tipped into the Bunker exhausted. She was guarded with Hermione that night, finding herself watching her from the corner of her eye. If someone had asked her, she couldn’t have given a genuine reason, but somehow Josie wasn’t mentioned that night. She took a long hot shower by herself and was asleep as soon as her head lay down.

Hermione wondered at her lover’s mood as she lay beside her. Not even a kiss goodnight. Perhaps it was because, as the Domme, she should be taking care of her lover not the other way around. She felt guilty as she threaded an arm around Ginny’s middle and cried herself to sleep.