Actually, before Saturday Starts...

It was a typical Friday night at The Back Door, a bar on the south side of town. The low lights glittered off bottles and glasses as soft music played through the air, though most of the people there were too busy talking with each other to notice. The walls were painted a soft red velvet and the marble black floors were nearly spotless despite their heavy traffic. Like the name suggested, the bar was out of the way, hidden from view from most of the public; the only way to get in was to have an invitation or know someone who did.

That exclusivity was exactly the reason why its customers loved it so much. It was a place to go to get away from it all, to forget about all your worries and obligations, if only for one evening. And, for the city’s many sex workers, it was also a great place to get a drink and socialize without worrying about being approached by a man; the only people who received invites were women, so the few men who did enter the bar only ever did so with a date.

In one of the far corners of the bar, a group of ten women sat in a booth together on a long seat bound in black leather that stretched around a large table in between them. They each met each other on the streets of the red-light district, but for now, their trademark sex worker clothing was left at home as they put their work behind them for the evening.

“Cheers, everyone!” A woman with tan skin and pink hair wearing a white shirt and black pants said as she raised her drink into the air. “To us getting through another week!”

“Cheers!” The other girls said together as they clinked their glasses over the center of the table, the scent of **** and fruit weighing heavy in the air.

“Ah, the weeks never get any easier, do they?” one woman with a dark ponytail said after taking a long sip of her drink. “I swear, Johns are getting harder to please these days.”

“Tell me about it,” said another girl with blonde hair named Lily. “I met this one today who didn’t want to hire me unless I had an ‘Ultimate Talent’, so I had to convince him that I was The Ultimate Perfume Master!”

“Ha! And he fell for it?” the girl with purple hair, Akari giggled. “Maybe I should try something like that sometime.”

“Well, you can try, but trust me when I say nothing is a replacement for true talent,” the girl at the center of the group interjected. She had short, strawberry blonde hair, a tight pink dress that showed off moderate chest well, and a fashionable yellow hat with a little fake strawberry at the top of it. “But, if you don’t have that, I recommend getting some better shoes.” The woman crossed her legs underneath the table and took a sip of her pink pina colada. “Men love women who can pull off a good pair of pumps.”

“Oh, wow! I see what you mean, Ruruka!” A girl with long teal hair, Masako, said as she glanced underneath the table and spotted the sparkling new high heels that she was wearing. “Those look absolutely incredible on you!”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Ruruka replied with a faux-humility that just barely hid how smug she felt.

“No, really, I’m super jealous of you right now!” Masako replied. “Did your boyfriend buy those for you? What boutique did he go to?

Ruruka flinched subtly at the mention of her boyfriend, but her smile quickly returned.

“No, I actually paid for these myself; I got some clients who paid a good price to get a taste of my ‘cake’, if you know what I mean,” Ruruka replied before pausing to take a drink. “Sonosuke and I… aren’t together anymore.”

“Oh…” An awkward silence descended upon the table. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Pfft, don’t bother; I’m better off without that backstabbing loser anyway,” Ruruka scoffed, hiding just how much that breakup had hurt her. Ruruka was no stranger to short-lasting relationships; she’d been through six boyfriends in the last year alone, after all, with Ruruka usually breaking up with them when they began refusing to buy her the things she wanted. However, she had hoped that Sonosuke would be different, and when he broke up with her Ruruka was inconsolable for over a day. The shoes she was wearing were bought largely to help her get out of the slump she was in. “Besides, I’ve already moved on to greener pastures and sweeter sweeties.”

“Phew… that’s good to hear at least,” Masako replied with relief, taking another sip from her drink. “What about you, Akari? Have you had any luck getting a boyfriend?”

“Well, I got close, but he said he wanted to stop seeing me the instant he found out what I actually do for a living,” Akari replied.

“Ah, that’s just the way it is, isn’t it?” Lily asked. “You’d think being good at sex would be a turn on for most guys, but I guess not.”

“Well, who needs boyfriends anyway?” a woman with brown hair asked. “We get more than enough love from our customers, after all, and they don’t even expect us to remember their names!”

“I can drink to that,” Masako joked, raising her drink in the air and taking a sip. “Speaking of customers, how’s business going for you, Lily?”

“Eh, it’s been going well enough, Masako, but my street corner could use a little more action,” Lily replied. “That, or higher-paying Johns.”

“Hey, who knows; maybe you’ll get lucky and Shuichi Saihara will pay you a visit,” Masako playfully replied.

“Shuichi? Who’s that?” a brunette woman at the table, Yuuko, at the table asked curiously.

“You haven’t heard of Shuichi?” Masako blinked in surprise. “He’s supposedly a guy who’s been hiring a bunch of different sex workers over the last few weeks. Word on the street is that he’s very generous with his money, and he’s not half bad at sex too.”

“Oh?” Ruruka’s ears perked up at hearing that and leaned forward in her seat.

“That’s nothing; I heard that he’s so rich, he funded that women’s shelter behind that one sex shop just because he could,” Lilly chimed in. “It was the biggest donation they ever had, so they made a statue to honor him for it!”

“Rumor has it that he got a sex drive so insatiable that he hires a new girl every night. And he always makes sure to go for the best of the best!” said Akari.

“Get this, girl; people have been saying that Shuichi spends his days making big business deals, and he spends his nights partying with celebrities,” Masako added. “And I think it’s true too! Marisa Amami, that up and coming singer and influencer, just posted a picture on Instagram of her with Shuichi tonight! Man, I can only imagine the kind of stuff they got up to!”

“Oh, I even heard that a fancy new mansion on the north end of town was built just for his pet dog,” said Lilly. “Wait… was it for the dog or for the llama? I forget the details.”

“Wow, that’s so amazing!” Yuuko said, filled with excitement. “It would make my day to meet him in person!”

“Super rich and generous?” Ruruka whispered to herself in between sips of her drink. “Interesting… very interesting.”

“Eh? What do you mean by that, Ruruka?” Yuuko asked. “Have you heard of this ‘Shuichi’ guy too?”

“Heard of him?” Ruruka laughed so hard she nearly spilled her glass. “Of course! He’s only my new boyfriend, after all~”