Like shit.

“Please! Stop fucking dropping! At least let me win once!” Bonnie’s hands grab her computer screen, shaking. Her eyes are red and swollen. Take-out boxes and coffee cups are littered across her usually clean room and table. She has been staring at the squares on the computer screen for over 48 hours. This time is even worse. She hasn’t left her small room for over two weeks. Not only did she take out a second mortgage on her house and car, maxed out all her credit cards, she also stole her wife’s savings and deleted all the text messages from the banks on her phone. All her family members and friends have stopped lending her more money. Her trading position is about to be closed out if her margin level falls even lower. By then, she will truly be homeless, hopeless, and worthless. The half a million dollars she arbitrarily invested is about to be evaporated. She needs to put more money in to stay in the game.

“LYING PIECES OF SHIT! Give me back my money!” Bonnie screams as her margin level dips once again.

“Yes, yes, no… Too early to give up now. I need more money. It will bounce back…” Bonnie’s trembling hands reach inside her pocket for her phone.

*Knock* *knock*

“Bonnie, what the hell is going on? Get out of your room. We need to talk!” It’s Bonnie’s wife Bianca knocking on her door. She is seriously concerned about her partner’s strange behavior for the past couple of days.

Bonnie opens her door. Her hair is all messy and oily. Her eyes look like they just came out of a Japanese horror film. Her room is littered with layers of garbage and dried tissues. Her laptop is sitting on top of a pile of garbage.

“Have you been gambling? Tell me the truth!” Bianca screams with her arms crossed. She’s an average typical American blonde, but very skinny. Bianca and Bonnie have always been having a healthy loving relationship, until recently.

“Everything is fine…Had to deal with some shitty clients…” Bonnie moves to close the door.

“NO! Tell me the truth!” Bianca forces the door open and grabs Bonnie by the wrist.

“I said I’m fine! FUCK OFF!” Bonnie slaps Bianca in the face, and storms out of the house wearing only her white nightgown. Bianca is stunned. This is the first time she saw Bonnie like this. Bonnie gets in her car and drives to Gretchen’s upscale apartment building.

Gretchen awakens from her dreams. She somehow knows the person violently knocking on her door is Bonnie, instead of the usual rapists she had to deal with on her knees. She takes the sweet time to put on her working attire: a button-down shirt with a black jacket, a layered-skirt and a pair of long cotton stockings. She opens the door and sees a Bonnie completely different from last time. She almost mistook her for some crack whore who got kicked out of a **** den.

“Hello Bonnie, this is not my usual business hours. Come back another time.” Gretchen moves to slowly close the door on purpose, only for Bonnie to **** her way in, and falls onto her knees, clinging onto Gretchen's skirt. If not for the belt, Gretchen would’ve been stripped.

“PLEASE! You said you would lend me money, right? I need it now. I’m about to lose it all… Please, I’ll do anything!” Bonnie’s face is smeared by her own tear marks and her makeup she put on last week. Gretchen’s heart is tingled by the feeling of joy, a feeling that she only feels when she sees a woman suffer. Gretchen shows a fake concerned look, and slowly helps Bonnie sit in her usual spot. Bonnie frantically turns on her dying phone with her shaky hands to look at the trading app.

“I can lend you money, sure. Will one hundred thousand dollars be sufficient?” Gretchen makes a generous offer. She has no use for money anyways. The only things she willingly pays for are her social images and instruments to hurt women.

“YES YES YES!” Bonnie’s eyes are lit up with the mixture of happiness and insanity. Gretchen promptly takes out her phone, exchanges some information, and lands the money in Bonnie’s trade.

Bonnie’s mouth spreads wide open, wheezing like a crazy maniac while staring into the phone screen.

“As I told you, it is only a matter of time you prevail and feel what you felt like last time when you were brought back from the depths of hell. I can lend you another one hundred thousand. One, for safety. Two, to enhance the kick that you will be getting. But I have a condition.”

“Oh oh oh okay. I’ll do anything! Thank you so much you have no idea how I-”

“I am aware you are supposedly a housewife. I will need a guarantee that I can get my money back in case you lose the trade. The possibility is trivial, but still. You need to have a job. The catch is-” Gretchen takes a sip of hot tea, “you do the job I ask you to do. Consider it a personal contract.”

“What, what should I do?” I’ll do it. I’ll take the money!”

Gretchen smirks and promptly sends Bonnie the sum of money she promised.

“You will be contacted. Now if you don’t mind, I was sleeping in my own bed just before you arrived.”

Bonnie nods as she tries to leave the penthouse. Just as she takes the first step out of the door, she is greeted by a baseball bat swinging towards her head.