Page 26 of Shameful Addictions

Her thick, lovely dark hair was gone, replaced by that disgusting shade of white-blonde she disliked so much.

“What do you think?” Wendy gushed, sliding her fingers through Charlotte’s hair. “It feels so different, too. Touch it!”

Charlotte lifted her hand, poked at her hair. It was so fine, almost brittle, she could hardly feel the strands on her skin. Even when she grabbed a handful and lifted it, she might as well have been holding air. She let the hair fall from her grasp and watched it cascade to lie limply over her shoulder.

“It’s exactly what I wanted it to look like,” Charlotte said, the only true compliment she could give the woman who had tried so hard for her. Tears stung her eyes. She forced them back.

Wendy beamed proudly and smiled so widely that Charlotte could see her molars. “That’s always what I want to hear! Why don’t you take a picture? Post it on your social media for all your admirers to gush over.”

Charlotte winced, the unintentional jab striking her hard, going past her meager defenses. “I don’t really have any social media.”

“Well, you might want one to show your friends, still.”

“Can you take it for me?”

“It would be my pleasure. I’d like to take one for myself, too, if you don’t mind, to go along with what you looked like before?” Wendy pulled out her phone and held it up. “It would really amaze people if I post it on my website. I might get some new customers in.”

Someone should be happy and fulfilled with their business life.

“I don’t mind.”

And then she would never ever be able to talk to Wendy again, because the pictures of her would bring in commenters to bash her. She had been lucky that Wendy didn’t know who she was, but it wouldn’t last. She wouldn’t be getting another appointment with her. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to try to get one. Hopefully Mamba would be satisfied with the picture and be done with her.

Wendy took pictures with both phones, and then handed Charlotte’s back to her.

“Thanks,” Charlotte said. She stood up, scattering bits of her old, darker hair.

“You are so very welcome, Charlotte! Why don’t we take this over to the counter?”

A sudden thought struck Charlotte while she was following the other woman over to her cash register. What if posting a picture of her online actually hurt Wendy instead of helping her? Suppose Wendy was then seen as a traitor to her sex as well?

Worse,she thought, handing the stylist her credit card,what if people take this as a sign that I’ve changed my mind? What if they think I did this to try and get my support back?

She could have moaned from despair. This wasn’t going to end well at all, no matter the outcome. It was all terrible.

Charlotte finished paying the exuberant price and gave the stylist a massive tip. She walked out while Wendy was still stammering her thanks.

Back home, Charlotte sent the picture Wendy had taken to Mamba, through email. He responded almost right away, sending a message of approval and telling her that he would waive the month’s payment. She would get a notification in the mail tomorrow.

Charlotte sighed and slumped back in her desk chair. It was over. It was done. She had some breathing room. How she was going to work up enough money in time for next month’s payment was a mystery still, but she was certain she could find a way. Somehow.

Her computer screen went dark due to inactivity. Her reflection appeared, visible against the dark background. Her fine, pale new hair was shimmery and straight, framing her face in a way it hadn’t before. Charlotte leaned forward, toying with it, bringing some of it forward to hang down against her cleavage. The stylist really had done a good job. It looked exactly like the hair of all the girls at Lollipop, and the kind the models had on the posters in Mamba’s office. The silvery gloss of it was kind of nice against her soft, matte skin.

“What am I thinking?” she whispered. She shook her head and got up and left her office. She didn’t look good at all. The hair didn’t look good. It was whore’s hair.

She would not fall victim to Mamba’s mind control.

Chapter eleven

Swallow it

TheletterMambahadpromised arrived in the mail exactly when he had said it would, legal proof that she had no payment to make that month. Charlotte felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders and relief flooded through her. She sagged against the wall and let it carry her, bobbing along like a swimmer on her back in a calm river.

The relief didn’t last long, thanks to a dam of doubt that sprang up ahead of her. This wasn’t time to relax. She had to go out and do something about this, or else she’d find herself on the other side of that dam parched and on the verge of disgrace.

Charlotte pushed away from the wall and went into her bedroom to get dressed for the day, donning a simple purple dress and a pair of cheap earrings she hadn’t been able to get rid of at the pawn shop. Force of habit saw her going into the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror.

But it wasn’t her in the glass. It was that woman pretending to be Charlotte, wearing whore’s hair.

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