Scratch One Off - Ch2

    You wake up with a groan. You try to roll over in your bed, but the light coming through the window makes any position you try completely unbearable. With a defeated sigh, you sit up and rub your pounding head. Another late night and another round of questions. You feel around your pockets. Thankfully, nothing missing this time. No vomit imprint of a girl on your bed either.

    A wave of confusion hits you once you see the items laying on your nightstand: two pieces of notebook paper with some barely legible handwriting, and a bag with the logo of the local adult entertainment store.

    You pick up one of the sheets of paper first. Once you read over it, you already know what's going to be in the bag. You let out a victorious laugh in celebration of your past self. The sudden noise causes a stir in your living room. You can only guess who that might be.

    You lean against your doorway, snickering at the sight in front of you. Vinyl's white jeans are halfway down her thighs and she has nothing to cover her breasts. Sunset is stirring to life underneath her on the couch. Boy was she going to be mad once she--

    "What the hell!?" Sunset says, freaking out and tossing the near-naked Vinyl off of her and onto the floor. Vinyl rolls on her back, barely even phased by getting thrown to the floor.

    "Sleep well?" you ask through a series of snickers.

    Sunset puts one hand to her forehead and another to her stomach. "God no. I feel awful, what the hell happened..." Sunset turns to you, seeing the sheet of paper you were reading over yet again, a wide smile on your face. "What is that?" she asks, nervousness growing on her face.

    "Oh, just a contract."

    Sunset slowly rises from the couch, looking like a lioness ready to pounce. "And what does it say?"

    You set your hand on your doorknob, ready to deal with the obvious events about to take place. "Oh, just something about legally binding you to maid service for a week."

    Sunset darts out at you, her face already turning red with rage, or embarrassment. You slam the door in her face before she gets the chance to tackle you. A quick twist of the lock ensures she can't interfere with you saving this little treasure.

    Sunset bangs on the door and jiggled the knob madly. "You open this door and give me that piece of paper right now!"

    "I'm afraid I can't do that, Sunset," you say, sitting down at your computer desk, getting out your phone to take a few pics of both pieces of paper.

    Sunset continues to slam her fist against the door. "You can't stay in there forever! Give me that paper!"

    "Just a sec. Gotta save it to my computer." You settle the cord into your phone and open a few different cloud services, getting ready to save as many copies as humanly possible.

    "I will throw that thing out the window! Do not save it to anything!"

    You hear Vinyl groan in the next room. "Uuuugh. Would you keep it quiet? Some people are still trying to sleep."

    "Oh, shut up. And don't think I've forgotten about waking up with your disgusting naked body on top of me."

    "Bitch, this body is amazing," Vinyl says in a lazy tone.

    Sunset lets out a frustrated grunt and goes back to banging against your door. "Just open the door already!"

    "Just a sec." With a final few keystrokes, the two pictures of both contracts were up on five different websites, ensuring Sunset and Vinyl's cooperation. In reality you had no idea if these scraps of paper are legally binding, but as long as they think they are, it doesn’t really matter.

    You finally open the door and hand Sunset the sheet of paper. She swipes it out of your hand and narrows her eyes at you. "Delete it off your computer," she commands.

    "No can do. Besides, it would take way too long to track down all the copies I saved on the internet."

    Sunset's eye twitches, her fist clenching around the paper in her hand. She is so cute when she's unbelievably angry, until she actually comes at you anyway.

    You walk over to Vinyl and nudge her with a foot. "Hey. You signed a contract too. Time to get up and get dressed, ladies."

    Vinyl slightly perks up at the word 'contract'. "Wait, like legally binding and stuff?"

    "Yup. Your new uniforms are sitting on the nightstand. Suit up, girls. We had a deal," you say, a smug smile on your face the entire time.

    You usher the pair into your room to get dressed. You have to yank Vinyl up off the ground, and even then she doesn't seem to be fully awake. Sunset stomps into your room, arms crossed in frustration. Vinyl on the other hand, barely puts forth the effort to completely pull up her pants, let alone show any emotion other than lethargy.

    After a few minutes and some hushed bickering coming from your room, the girls emerge from your room, not quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but definitely looking the part.

    The maid outfits you bought were so revealing they might as well have been underwear. Both of the girls' midriffs were completely exposed, and a healthy amount of cleavage was definitely visible. The little white frills on their skirt barely made any progress down their thighs, ensuring anything they had to bend over for was going to give anyone behind them quite the show. Wrapped up in lace and showing more skin than a hooker at a bachelor party, both girls looked ready to shoot a porno. That’s going to have to wait. You've got an apartment that needs cleaning.

    "How do they feel?" you ask, trying to hide a snicker.

    Sunset crossed her arms and turned away from you, a light blush on her face. "I'm dressed like some two bit slut. This is so demeaning."

    "Well at least now you look the part," Vinyl says with what you could only assume was a roll of her eyes. For some reason she decided to keep her purple shades on. You're not a fashionista, but it definitely clashed.  Now that you're looking, you realize you didn't actually buy them shoes either. Sunset was sporting her usual boots and Vinyl was in a pair of Converse.

    Sunset looks over and narrows her eyes at Vinyl. These two look like they're going to be great friends.

    "Do I have to separate you two?" the girls turn away from each other like they were bickering sisters. You walk over and pick up the previously crumpled contract that Sunset must've thrown down, smoothing it out and preparing to read it. "Now let's see what the conditions are." You scan through the barely legible handwriting, picking out a few bits about their daily duties.

    You clear your throat. "Now, you are to cook and clean when requested to do so, carry out any necessities requested, and maintain your uniform during all work hours," you say, making most of it up since you really couldn't read most of the words on the paper. "Any questions?"

    Vinyl raised her hand. "Uh, when are the work hours? I'm usually not up 'til like... one-ish."

    "Says here it's eight to six," you say, but in reality, you aren't exactly sure those are even numbers written on the paper.

    "That is really gonna mess with my vibe, man. I still can't believe you out-drank me."

    You fold up the piece of paper and put it away in your pocket, a big smile on your face. "Now then, how about some breakfast?"

    Sunset stands rigid at the word 'breakfast', suddenly turning a light shade of green and shooting a hand over her mouth. She shoots over to the kitchen, but not to make breakfast. The wonderful sound of her vomiting in your sink resounds through the apartment, making you feel a little nauseous as well.

    "Yeah, I think I'm gonna go ahead and throw up too. Give me like ten minutes," Vinyl says without much care. She calmly walks over to your bathroom, waiting until the door is definitely shut behind her before the cacophony of gagging and heaving resonates around the frame.

    "Or we could wait I guess." You make your way over to Sunset, who is filling up a good portion of your sink with the spoils of last night. "How we doing, champ?" you say, patting her on the back. Being the good friend that you are, you sweep some of the hair out of her face and hold it behind her back.

    Sunset gags again, filling up your sink even further. "Kill me."

    "Give it a month," you say, giving her another supportive pat on the back.

    With the sudden, disgusting smell of the inside of the human stomach filling your nostrils, and remembering that you weren't completely over your own hangover, breakfast didn't sound so appealing. "You know, on second thought, I'll give you a break on the eggs and bacon this morning."

    Sunset heaves again. "Good idea..."

    After the girls are done spilling their guts over half of your apartment, you decide to go out and get some cleaning supplies, since that definitely wasn't a part of your usual grocery list. You set the sickly pair out to do some more simple tasks, like picking up the trash around the apartment and making sure everything is somewhat ready for actual cleaning.

    After a quick walk to the store, a long haul of a few pounds of various cleaning supplies, and a rigorous walk up the flight of stairs leading up to your apartment, you finally make it home. Before you open the door, the sound of things flying through the air, frustrated women shouting, and things crashing in your apartment make themselves very apparent.

    You sigh. This was going to be a long month.

    Opening the door, you walk right into a battlefield. "Would you stop throwing things like a three year old!?" Sunset says, hiding behind the couch.

   "Would you stop being a bitch for five seconds?" Vinyl says, peaking up from behind the kitchen counter with a scowl.

    "You don't clean a mirror with spit and toilet paper! That's disgusting, Vinyl."

    "I didn't ask for a lecture, Professor Ice Queen!" Vinyl says, throwing a stack of paper plates at Sunset.

    Both you and Sunset raise an eyebrow at that one. Sunset lets out a condescending laugh. "Professor Ice Queen? Is that the best you can do?"

    Vinyl grabs an apple from somewhere on the counter and lobs it at the couch, forcing Sunset to take cover again.

    As much as you'd love to watch these two go at it all day, they were doing it in your apartment, which is causing quite the disaster. "Girls! Seriously?" you say, snapping their attention away from each other and towards you. "Vinyl, please clean up this mess. Sunset. Bathroom," you say, pointing towards the bathroom door.

    Sunset perks up, surprised you singled her out. "What? I didn't start th--"

    You walk past her beckoning her to follow. She lets out a defeated sigh and follows you into the bathroom. Once you close the door and silence Vinyl's muffled complaints, you look to Sunset. "Already? I expected at least a few hours before the first catfight."

    Sunset crosses her arms and gives you an amused look. "Catfight? Really?"

    "Hey, a guy can dream."

    Sunset rolls her eyes at you with an amused smile, then her expression turns more frustrated. "Look, she is just... hard to get along with."

    "How's that?"

    Sunset opens her mouth a few times, but nothing comes out. She looks to be trying to find the right words to say. "Well... okay, so I come in here, right? To see how she's doing and she's got half the roll of toilet paper on the floor and she's spitting on the mirror! I tell her that's just going to smear it and make things worse..." Sunset motions towards the mirror, and what she says isn't false. Large streaks of what you can only assume are from Vinyl are marring the mirror, accompanied by slightly wet pieces of toilet paper in the sink.

    "How did it turn into that?" you say, motioning your head back to the battlefield in the living room.

    "Well, she just keeps doing it, like I didn't even say anything. So I nicely told her that she needed to improve her attitude so we could work together better."

    You raise an eyebrow at Sunset. "Are you sure you said that 'nicely'?" you ask, knowing she still had a little bite in her from her days in high school.

    Sunset rubs the back of her neck, a sheepish smile and a light blush on her face. "In... so many words."

    You smile at her, even though you want to try to come off as disappointed. "Look, just try to hold off on the arguing for now, alright?"

    "Alright alright. I'll just work in a different room than her I guess."

    "Good. I'll go talk to her too."

    You leave Sunset to the bathroom to clean up Vinyl's mess. She comes out occasionally to grab something out of the pile of cleaning supplies you bought, but nothing seems to blow up after that.

    You make your way over to Vinyl, who is busy kicking around various bits of food or trash she threw around, supposedly gathering them up into a pile to pick later.

    "So, uh, what was the deal with all that?" you ask her.

    She keeps her eyes down on the trash. "I'm sorry, man. I'm just not really sure how to do this whole 'cleaning' thing, and she," Vinyl says, putting some annoyed emphasis on "she" as she motions towards the bathroom, "really isn't helping."

    "I'm sure she's having some trouble adjusting too, Vinyl."

    Vinyl puts on her best innocent smile. "You know, if it's that much trouble, you could just tear the contract up."

    You smile at her. "Nice try."

    "Worth a shot." Vinyl leans down and picks up the massive pile of trash she had built up, with some falling back to the floor and some leaving stains on her new uniform. "I still can't believe you out-drank me. That was one hell of a night, dude."

    "Was it? I didn't catch much of it," you say, scratching your head. All you really remember was buying the uniforms.

    "Seriously? That was one of the best nights I’ve had in a while. Except for goody two shoes in there complaining the whole time."

    "Hell, it must've been fun then," you say taking a seat on the couch as Vinyl dumps an armload into the trash can.

    "You got a piggyback ride from a homeless dude across like three blocks."

    You laugh. That is way too ridiculous to be true.

    "Not even lying. His name was George. You two were like best friends for three hours."

    "Hahaha. Okay, Vinyl, quit fucking around. What actually happened?"

    "Seriously, dude, check it out," she says, going into your room for a minute before coming back out with a rusty looking fork with some dried blood on it. She tosses it to you. You grab it out of the air and inspect it with some concern in your face.

    "Did you just hand me a murder weapon?"

    Vinyl sits down on the couch beside you. "Nah, we just almost got mugged. Sunset kept whining about how it was a bad part of town and we were going to get mugged or something. Guess she was kinda right."

    "This fork definitely looks like someone got mugged and stabbed."

    Vinyl leans forward, really getting into the story now. "Well check it out, this other homeless dude saw the three of us and pulled this fork on us, right? Then George comes out of nowhere and jumps this dude, headbutts him and stabs him right in the dick with his own fork."

    You have a mini panic attack when you realize the object in question is in your hands. The fork drops to the carpet, but the blood has dried at this point, so no stains are left behind. "Jesus, Vinyl. Did you really just hand me a rusty fork with hobo dick blood on it?"

    "Oh, you'll be fine. He didn't look like that much of a junkie," Vinyl says, putting her arms behind the couch and crossing her legs, clearly amused.

    "Why do you even have that?"

    "George wanted you to have it to remember him by. He really was a cool dude."

    Feeling conflicted, you pick the fork back up by the clean end and get up.

    Vinyl looks over her shoulder at you as you walk towards the kitchen. "Hey, you aren't going to throw it away, are you?"

    You toss the disgusting fork in the sink and let the water run over it for a while. You watch in disgust as little flecks of blood and dirt wash down your sink. "Nah, just cleaning it off so nobody catches hepatitis or something."

    As you think it over, you realize Vinyl must've drank at least as much as you. "Say, how do you even remember all of this anyway?"

    Vinyl shrugs. "That is a good question. I thought it was just a dream this morning until I found that in my back pocket."

    You let out an amused chuckle, slightly jealous you don't remember any of that for yourself. Your amusement dies down when you realize Vinyl isn't exactly doing anything. "As awesome as that sounds, you've still got a mess to clean up," you say, motioning to the leftover trash pile on your carpet.

    Vinyl hangs her head in defeat. "Damn. Guess I couldn't have distracted you forever."

    "It was a good try though."

    "Right?"

    The rest of the day passes without any more incidents. You can tell that both of the girls met eyes a few times and some tension managed to build up, but nothing major came of it yet. You spent most of the rest of the day figuring out what exactly you needed to help the girls along, and feed you for the next month. While you weren't exactly working at the moment, you still had a considerable sum in your bank account from previous ventures. Enough to not have to worry about the next few months anyway. You still spent some time out of your day to make sure you weren't completely pissing it away just yet.

    As the sun begins to set outside your apartment, you emerge out of your room. You completely forgot to tell the girls to make you something for dinner, but you still weren't feeling all that hungry anyway. The first sight you see as you make your way into the living room is both of the girls propped up against each other, exhausted.

    "Wow. You two must really be out of it. I should take a picture."

    At the sound of your voice, both of the girls stir to life and realize who the person at their back is. They quickly scoot away from each other, making sure to look in opposite directions.

    "And we were all just starting to get along too," you say in feigned disappointment.

    Sunset yawns and arches her back and raises her arms into a tired stretch. Once she's done she gets up and walks over to your room. "I think it's about six. I'm gonna go home already. I'm tired of looking at this place," she says, grabbing her old clothes and heading for your bathroom.

    You look around your living room, impressed. You walk over to the kitchen to find it even better. "Huh. I guess you've earned it."

    You scratch your head. You are going to have to get imaginative if you're going to keep them busy for an entire month.

    Sunset comes out of the bathroom, back in her usual skirt/leather jacket combo. "Guess I'll report for forced labor again at eight," she says in a mocking tone.

    You give her a smile. "Looking forward to it."

    She playfully rolls her eyes and hits you on the arm, giving you a quick "later" before walking out the door.

    "So, about the whole living arrangement thing," Vinyl says carefully. "I was kinda living with Neon before all this went down, so..."

    "Yeah, you can stay here."

    Vinyl climbs up onto the couch and smiles at you. "Sweet! I promise I won't like, burn the place down or whatever."

    "I wasn't worried about that before, but now I am."

    "Hey, as long as you don't throw up on me again, we'll be cool."

    You still can't believe you did that. You wince at the memory of waking up to that. "Yeah, fair enough. I'll get you some sheets."

    After getting Vinyl set up on the couch, you head off to bed yourself. As you drift off to sleep, visions of sexy maids swim through your mind. This was going to be a good month.