Am I Bad?

Xiao Mei looked fragile today. Tired. Weary.

“I’ll make us soup tonight?” Nadia said, grabbing a leak out of the fridge.

“No… Pizza… Can we order pizza?” Xiao Mei looked at her fingers.

Xiao Mei had something on her mind. Was she bad for being a sex worker? All her friends were goody two shoes good girls. Xiao Mei normally wouldn’t care, but today it slipped through her defenses.

“Everything okay Xiao Mei?” Nadia said.

“Am I bad for being a sex worker?” Xiao Mei said.

Nadia paused. It was something she had pondered too. She had Alice with her on the stage. So she never felt wrong.

“I don’t know… Sex work is complicated… But I know one thing for sure. You are a good person,” Nadia smiled and brought Xiao Mei in for a hug, “don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

They ate pepperoni pizza and sat on the couch. Xiao Mei brought new nail polish she wanted to try out on Nadia.

Nadia wanted to get something off her chest, “You know… I used to be married…”

“No shit?”

“Yeah… Five years…”

“That explains why you are so good at cooking – you have mad housewife skills… What happened?”

Nadia took a breath, “He wanted me to cheat on him. Cucking. And I did. But that led to flood gates opening and my life ending up here…”

“Sounds like you dodged a bullet with a cuck… I low key end up cucking all my boyfriends… Whether they like it or not…” Xiao Mei admitted, “But none of them wanted me to…”

“I fell in love with a girl. Alice. She was my sunlight and freckles. But she died. I’ve been pretty lost ever since. But when I went to that hotelier course, for the first time I felt her with me again. In the air. Her funny antics at the hotel we used to run…”

“Alice sounds like a great person. I wished I could have met her,” Xiao Mei said.

“She would have liked that,” Nadia said.

Xiao Mei crawled in to hug Nadia, “Also… Despite all the bad stuff… You got to meet me… And you are my best friend…”

Nadia felt warm. She hugged Xiao Mei. Stroking her long black hair.

“I bought sparkles…” Xiao Mei smiled and pulled out a purple nail polish from her bag. Nadia smiled and looked at her nails. Green nail polish chipping from Xiao Mei’s last experiment.

Nadia smiled. Alice used to do Nadia’s nails as well – but more often than not, it was a disaster…