Chapter 1

Kate’s roommate was a whore. Not in the way you call someone a whore because they wronged you in some way, but in the way that she took money in exchange for sexual acts. While it was hardly the friend she thought she needed, a whore was exactly the kind of companion that could help Kate shed the disappointment of the life which had chased her across the Atlantic to Europe seven months prior.

At first, Kate thought living with Tatiana was a short term solution to a short term problem. Her hostel had a one week limit on the daily bed rate and Kate couldn’t commit to staying a whole month since her bank account had far fewer digits in it than she was comfortable with.

Her momentum of running from reality had managed to propel her through most major European countries and each time she skipped town, her possessions underwent a Darwinian selection process, whereby the survival of the fittest had resulted in a backpack full of sequined bar-star outfits, makeup, and birth control pills. Now, she was stranded halfway between Milan and the ski resorts of France in an Italian border town named Rhonde.

“Is declined,” the grumpy Italian woman behind the hostel desk looked very unsurprised, but Kate felt a cold chill as the word she had feared hearing every time she swiped the card for weeks finally ambushed her.

The game was up, the blinders she had put on when she left America were being tugged at and the anxiety of having to grovel to her parents for a ticket home was enough to make her search the hostel bulletin board one more time for a scrap of hope.

“Girl Roomfriend Wanted.” a single piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it stood out to Kate as a desperate plea from another like-minded refugee. A crude map consisting of two lines and an x-marks-the-spot filled the rest of the ripped scrap of paper. The use of the term “roomfriend” was an accident resulting from Tatiana’s imperfect command of the English language, but it was, in fact, the perfect term for what she intended and Kate later argued that the word should be immediately adopted by all the world’s dictionaries and made part of children’s education.

Two foreign girls living in northern Italy with shoddy immigration statuses are definitely in need of a roomfriend much more than a roommate. For the term “roommate” inspires everything predictable and boring about a living situation that is cured by the substitution of the informal for the formal.

Their first conversation was a clear indication that Kate had finally found her mischievous counterpart,

“Hi, I’m calling about the room for rent, is it still available?” Kate put on her professional voice.

“Are you police?” Tatiana responded.

“Sorry?”

“If you are police you have to say you are police. There is rule.”

“No, I’m not police.”

“Excellent, when are you coming?”

“I was wondering if I could just rent until the end of the month.”

“No problem. You can sleep in my bed. Come before 6 o’clock.”

Then she hung up. The last comment had her on her heels but before her creepy-radar could put up any defenses she was already laughing. Something about the confidence and direct nature of the girl’s voice convinced her that she had to find out what the hell she meant by ‘you can sleep in my bed’.

On her way to the apartment, Kate’s enthusiasm for meeting the crazy person on the phone began to slip as she considered what it must mean for her life that her options had been reduced to sleeping in a stranger’s bed. But, when the door opened, her heart renewed with hunger for the adventure.

It was massive, the living room and dining room were really one giant square room, separated by a six inch step in the hard cement floor and decorated by only 3 pieces of furniture. The decrepit couch was definitely not an option for sleeping on, but the apartment had its charms. It was old and European, the walls were hand laid stone, the roof had a gap in it where something had broken but no one fixed it. Sunshine slid in sideways through the cracks and windows and highlighted exactly what it was to Kate: the shitty European backpacking adventure she had left America for.

Tatiana herself inspired enough intrigue for Kate to let her state her case before running back to America. The long-haired Russian filled the doorframe with her tall, slender frame and big eyes, but that’s not what Kate noticed. Instead, she was lured in by the entertaining Hello Kitty sweatshirt and neon leg warmers she was wearing.

“Hi, I’m Kate,” she held her hand out,

“Tatiana, nice to meet you,” the black-haired stranger gripped her hand hard and smiled at her with genuine friendliness, as though Kate was the first friend Tatiana ever had the opportunity to make.

“There is roommate already, but she is moving at end of month,” Tatiana pointed at a closed bedroom door, “you stay with me until then.”

Once Kate understood Tatiana’s logic, she allowed herself to consider it. Since there was hardly any usable furniture and the floor was solid stone, there wasn’t much alternative other than to embrace the stranger-sleepover and share a bed with the odd, but likable girl.

 If Tatiana hadn’t been dressed quite so ridiculously or been quite so friendly, Kate would not have found an excuse to stay, but Kate let herself be reminded of her teenage slumber parties with her then best friend, Chelsea Kruderberg, and something in her pined for the security of familiarity that sharing close quarters with another girl could bring.

“Ok, what’s the rent?”

“First week free!” Tatiana laughed and took Kate’s backpack into the bedroom. Kate followed the porcelain woman to see her new living arrangement. The bedroom floor was covered in enough thrift shop clothes to be Macklemore’s secret lair and the bed was hardly bigger than a double.

Tatiana threw the backpack on the bed and saw Kate’s concern at its size. What Kate didn’t realize was that her face showed far more emotion than she intended. The stress of running for so long, only to be rewarded at the end with half of a twin bed, was the hair on the camel’s back for Kate’s emotional stability.

Tatiana was moved by Kate’s distress and took her shoulders in her hands to look her in the eyes.

“Kate,” she started, “everything is going to be ok.”

The camel’s back broke and Kate started crying in front of Tatiana, who pulled her in close for a long hug. Unknown to each of them, the moment between them was made beautiful in the objective perspective by the sociological divide between them. Kate, the girl with the last name that could get a reservation anywhere in DC and Tatiana with her history of forced prostitution for organized crime.

“Ok?” Tatiana pulled away.

“Sorry, I just…” Kate wiped her tears and smiled at the unexpected moment.

“It’s ok,” Tatiana became solemn, “for now we go drinking.”

Tatiana’s eyebrows and pursed lips showed she was assessing Kate’s emotional state as a serious and complex problem. The suggestion to go drinking was not exactly the most logical form of therapy, but Kate found comfort in the humor of her situation.

“Yes,” Kate adopted Tatiana’s serious face, “for now we go drinking.” Kate was sold on her new best friend.

Tatiana procured a bottle of vodka and they mixed the last of it with water for lack of a better mixer. After discussing the great benefits of using water as a mixer for vodka, they dressed up for a night on the town. Kate wore her sparkly black tank with black stretch jeans that competed with her skin for tightness.

Tatiana had no problem wearing a black leather jacket with metal studs and torn jeans. Her look would have been completely fashionable if it weren’t for the pattern of rhinestones the previous owner had bedazzled into the back of the jacket with in the shape of a unicorn.

There was one big pub in Rhonde called Il Terrazzo, an American style Irish pub disguised as an Italian Trattoria. It could fit enough drunk skiers on their way back from the slopes to have a good time, but the ski season was ending and the summer hadn’t picked up so the girls were short of a crowd to blend into.

Sitting on the bar stool next to The Girl with the Unicorn Tattoo, Kate couldn’t help but compare herself to her. Kate had always known she was one of the pretty girls, but that was hardly enough to satisfy the need to wonder the what-ifs of being one of the even-prettier girls.

Kate had hips where Tatiana’s body was straight and a little extra flesh gave Kate a pinch-worthy curve to her ass which seemed a little hefty in comparison to the bones that Tatiana sat on. Although, the Russian prostitute carried skinny well, not letting Kate dismiss her as anorexic in her typical skinny-girl defense maneuver.

It was hard to judge Tatiana’s face because she wore an absurd amount of poorly applied makeup, but there was no denying she was beautiful. Her black hair fell in a catastrophic tumble, but it fit her look and despite being dressed with no sense of style at all, there was still enough to attract the eye beneath the camouflage.

Kate wasn’t able to hate Tatiana the way she normally hated skinnier girls, because there was a naivety to the way she carried her looks that made Kate feel she could be trusted despite being attractive. Instead, she saw herself as the trusty sidekick, Tatiana had black hair, Kate had blond hair, Tatiana had a less prominent chest, Kate had a decent rack, Tatiana was nearly five foot ten, Kate was only five seven. She liked the image of the two polar opposite desirables in her mind and decided she would embrace playing Robin to her new Batwoman.

There were probably men in the world that would prefer either of them based on their body types, but Kate decided the key differentiator was in the face. Tatiana had stark features, eyes that shone despite the 1985 makeup job, whereas Kate’s version of the girl next door gave her the gift of prettiness due to a lack of ugliness rather than anything particularly remarkable unto herself. Sort of an Emma Watson, Taylor Swift mashup with a mildly distracting nose.

It had been a long time since Kate wasn’t the main attraction in any bar she had walked into in Europe, her blonde hair and American accent was the icing on the cake for her athletic but curvy body. But now there were two women equally apt at drawing the attention of the half cut middle-aged local men at the bar while the sun was still well above the horizon.

But, there was only so much dancing alone to 90’s pop music before Tatiana declared her boredom,

“We need more liquor,” Tatiana told Kate in a voice only she could hear.

“I’ll get you a drink,” Kate responded,

“No, for house. We need more liquor for house.”

Before Kate could question, Tatiana made a run for the counter and jumped on it. Kate was just as surprised as the two dozen men and a handful of women in the bar. Whatever sexiness Tatiana lost in thrift shop couture, she gained back the moment she started gyrating her body.

Unsure of how the dance routine was supposed to result in “liquor for house,” Kate just watched the show. Tatiana’s dancing was nothing spectacular, but she combined her dance with erotic positions, involving the audience like a stripper but less conservative, which ensured everyone was at least shocked into inaction, if not entertained. Kate thought that if Tatiana didn’t look the way she did, the girls would probably be kicked out of the bar right away.

Tatiana looked at Kate with raised eyebrows as though she was supposed to be doing something. Kate shook her head in confusion as Tatiana pointed with her eyes to the liquor behind the bar.

Kate laughed as the plan became clear. Slipping the bottle of gin out of the bar well should have only taken a second, but she found herself watching Tatiana longer than she should have. 

Kate felt her heart rate increase from the excitement of stealing, but she couldn’t help but feel some of the same excitement as the men who watched with open mouths when Tatiana started to her touch herself over her jeans and twerk her pelvis faster than any girl with no booty had any right in doing.

When she finally took the gin, she found herself flushed with jealousy of a new kind, not like the last time a girl flirted with her ex-boyfriend, but the kind that arises when you see something you can’t have. The way Tatiana moved was a little too close to the real thing for daytime television and Kate was getting a little warm in the pants from the show.

She didn’t have anything to hide the bottle in so she had to just book it out the door with Tatiana running after her, leaving a herd of boners behind. They ran to the apartment, Kate still giddy with juvenile post-shoplifting excitement.

Kate was excited to realize why she wasn’t intimidated by the other woman. She didn’t see her as a threat, she saw her as an ally. With their powers of femininity combined, they could stick it to the world together. With Kate’s tits and Tatiana’s lips, they could both be a little less afraid of the world.

“Tatiana, I am so glad I called you,” Kate announced as she poured a gin and water for her roomfriend.

“Me too, Kate,” again Tatiana smiled with a richness Kate hadn’t seen since she was a child. Tatiana lit a cigarette and sat on the window ledge.

The window at the back of the apartment was the pièce de résistance of their brokedown palace, the type of spot that smokers hold sacred. A stone arch over a flat bottom, the giant window gave way to a view straight down the mountainside which also included the back of several taverns and their deep-fryer dumping grounds as well as a noisy highway, but these were easily pardoned for the million dollar view beyond of Piedmont’s finest backdrop of sunset-reflecting hills.

“How long have you been in this town?” Kate started the small talk.

“Three weeks,” Tat grinned.

“You sticking around long?”

“As long as the world will let me,” Tatiana threw her arms up to the view of the sun setting on the hills, “and you?”

“I don’t know really. I’m out of money so I’ll probably have to go home soon.”

“You can leave whenever you like?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Like Dorothy.”

“What?”

“You have ruby slippers. Click-click.” Tat touched her dangling heels together.

“Yes, like Dorothy,” Kate thought of herself as Dorothy and Tatiana as the lollipop queen but kept it to herself, “but I think I’d rather stay here with you.”

“Then you stay here with me.”

“Tatiana, I can’t even afford rent.”

“I don’t need money, I have high paying job.”

“What’s your job?”

“I am very good prostitute.” Tatiana punctuated her last remark by tipping her nose the sky with sarcastic pride. Kate had to laugh, there was no other way her situation could devolve any further and her need to stop running from her life in America embraced rock bottom with a satisfying thump.