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"It's not your fault

I'm a bitch, I'm a monster.

Yes I'm a beast and I feast when I conquer.

But I'm alone on my throne,

all these witches

I came all this way, all this way

just to say:

This time won't you save me?

This time won't you save me?

Baby I can feel myself

_ Giving up_

_ Giving up."_

-Nicki Minaj, "Save Me"

Yesenia woke with the sunrise. It was a habit she'd built up as one of those rare on-campus residents that was actually effective at being a studious and achieving student. She didn't need her screeching alarm to make her do it, but she always made sure to set it, anyhow. Her eyes were already staring at the ceiling even before the cheap little thing began blasting its screeching annoyances into the air. She hit the snooze button, but still her body had all the liveliness of a corpse. Her legs were refusing to find the strength she needed to get up and head to the shower.

Just another day, she sighed mentally.

Still trying to decide just how she was going to get up, Yesenia--or, as all her friends called her, "Jess"--looked to her right, spotting the blinking light of her hibernating laptop. Pulling it over, she hoped that perhaps she would find something on her facebook to awaken her interests in this life a little more. Opening her browser, several home tabs opened up, including facebook.com. She immediately regretted typing in her logon information and hitting the enter key. There, in front of her eyes, were a slew of pictures from probably the only AO? sister she hated in her four years as an engineering major. Nori's pics of her tour across Europe were like a painful slap in the face to Jess. Even in the four years of being side-by-side with Nori, first as initiates and then as sisters in the sorority, she had always disliked her. But she was, after all, a sister, and Jess had to keep reminding herself of that as she stared at the pictures in mingled horror and longing.

Image after image after image flashed on Jess' screen. Nori had actually taken the time to upload all her photos at once, and there were at least two months' worth of photos to see. There were photos of Paris, expansive vineyards, elegant castles, and a very large share of photos from bars and pubs all along the way. There had to be over five hundred photos, and Jess only found herself getting more sour each time she saw another one.

Her sisters, of course, had already made thousands of comments. Many of the pics had long conversations going on underneath them already, and the album overall was getting bombarded with "likes" and comments of congratulation. Yes, Jess thought bitterly as she read one of those comments, congratulate the whore whose parents can afford flying her overseas, even though she still doesn't have a major selected and is bordering on dropping out. Jess typed out a quick comment on the album--Omg that looks so awesome! Wishing I was there and not getting up for work :P--and hit enter. Thankfully, she really did have work soon, and that would allow her the opportunity to not make hundreds of little comments across the entire slew of pictures.

Climbing out of bed, Jess snapped her laptop shut and stretched, taking a particular savor in this as so many of her kind did. She looked around her tiny room, glad at least to still have it to herself, and walks to the door, grabbing her towel on the way out.

Instead of turning right into the bathroom, what Jess got was a face-full of her cousin's bare chest.

"Hmph--hey, what the hell?" Jess hissed, backing up from the brick wall that was her cousin. "What are you doing in my hallway?"

"Your hallway?" Carlos said with that irritating grin of his, folding a shirt that was probably too small for him, just like every shirt he wore. "Guy's gotta do his laundry, cuz."

"Don't call me cuz," she spat, throwing the towel over her shoulders to hide her breasts under that white baby-t of hers. She hated how Carlos would constantly ogle her twins. Now she wished she had thrown on her bathrobe as she stood there, legs bare and girly bits concealed only by a small, frilly pair of pink panties that stood out vividly on her black fur.

As expected, Carlos gave her body his once-over with his dark brown eyes before speaking to her. "Hey, it's just a term of endearment," he said with that shit-faced grin.

"It sounds trashy."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Carlos said, sobering up a little. "Little-miss-high-and-mighty doesn't appreciate the linguistic ineptitudes of the non-college-degree-holding individuals of the world."

"You wouldn't even know what linguistic ineptitudes meant if I didn't spell it out for you," she hissed again. Her ears were back, her eyes narrowed. He was three times her size, but she could still claw his face apart--Carlos refused to hit the chicas, especially when it was his cousin and the whole family would come down on him for attacking her.

Carlos got the hint. He stepped aside into the narrow passage on the left where the laundry was, which also lead to the garage-turned-to-two-bedrooms that her parents rented out, as well. She turned to the right, into her own bathroom, slamming the door shut. Unfortunately for her, the doorway was part of her father's remodel, and she lost all dramatic effect when she had to push hard on the door to make the latch click into place. She stood with her back leaning on the door, breathing hard. She was trying to remind herself that she was very lucky, indeed, to not have to share her bathroom with anyone else. Little miracles she thought cynically as her mind drifted back to Nori and her whirlwind tour across Europe.

Even then, Jess realized how nasty she was acting. She hated that about herself. She was letting her situation get to her in ways she never thought possible, and felt horribly guilty about it. Turning to her left, she saw herself in the large full-sized mirror. Damn I've gotten skinny she thought with a slight tinge of revulsion; she was not the kind of girl that liked looking like a walking skeleton. And yet here she was, poking at the ribs that were showing from below the bottom hem of her shirt. Her hips were sticking out of her at this point, and as she rubbed at the bone, several of her black hairs fell out. That was probably the most disturbing thing she'd seen about the changes in her body in a long while. The fact her period hadn't come in three months was also bothersome. Thankfully, she knew there was no way she could be pregnant.

It's not that she'd been trying to be anorexic, Jess realized. She just... didn't feel like eating anymore.

_Clinical depression_her mind shouted at her from the recesses of rationality, where there nested her introductory psychology classes she had been required to take at UF.

Shut up, it's just hard times,_she snapped back at herself, studying her face in the mirror. The five remaining pounds of her freshman fifteen that had stuck with her through even her senior year were long gone, along with another twenty or so from before then. Her face was narrowing from the weight loss, losing flesh around her cheeks. Her short, cute muzzle lost a lot of the perk in it, though that was mostly due to the fact she rarely smiled anymore. Her black nose twitched as she sampled the air around her, trying to see how badly she needed to shower, debating whether an extra twenty minutes in bed would be nicer. _Definitely shower Jess thought to herself. Her bold, emerald-green eyes matched the long locks of hair that fell down behind her back, though that was no natural coloration of hair she had. Hidden beneath the neon green coloring was hair that was deeply red and elegant, particularly considering the sleek black color of her fur. Her short, rounded ears topped off her feline facial features.

Removing her clothing and turning towards the tiny sink next to her capsule-sized shower, Yesenia opened the medicine cabinet that was facing her, only to look at the inside of the door. There, staring back at her was a photo of Melinda. Yesenia smiled at the image of the lively brown and white-speckled canine. Her first real love. Yesenia touched her fingertips to Melinda's face, wishing that she could be touching the real thing. Melinda was another sister, but a year younger than Yesenia. She was still at UF, taking classes for the summer so she could hurry up and graduate. Not that it mattered, Yesenia had tried to explain to Melinda. There wasn't a job waiting for anyone when they got out. Still, a semester early in her graduation meant being with her canine lover a semester sooner.

_It also means you have to come out right before Christmas_her mind told her. This time her internal dialogue came from that sick little self-defeating corner of her mind that loved to laugh at her pain. Jess leaned in and kissed the picture, closing the medicine cabinet and stepping into the shower that barely accommodated her.

"You're two minutes late, Jess," Peter said as he watched her coming through the front lobby of the supermarket. She was just throwing on the ugly teal vest she had to wear as part of her uniform and was tying her hair back as she strode immediately to the left and down the front of the store to the break room, which housed the time clock.

"I don't want to hear it, Yaxley," she spat, curling her hair into a quick but sloppy bun as she double-looped her hair tie. "My car broke down and it took me ten minutes just to convince my grandmother I wasn't going to do anything illegal with her shitty little Civic."

Peter didn't have anything to say to that. Jess was never late anyway, so he had no reason to write her up. But he was rather bothered by being called by his last name. "So it's Yaxley now? When did this happen?"

"When you got promoted," she said, punching her ID into the time clock and hitting enter to start her shift. "You know I deserved that promotion more than you."

"I've worked here longer," he quickly defended. "Plus, I've known the store manager since I was twelve."

Jess whirled on the tall, gangly-looking equine. He was most unlike his brethren, stick-thin and with a shortened face. He, too, was solid black, and his movements were always awkward and twitchy, and he had to wear a thick pair of glasses due to issues his eyes had with contacts. "That, Yaxley, is exactly my problem," she hissed. "This whole cock-sucking place is just a giant model for how to run a narcissistic empire. Nobody with any real talent can move up the chain. I'm sick of it."

As Yesenia walked off, Peter said after her. "Maybe if you didn't go around acting as if the world were on your shoulders and spitting on everyone that is trying to make the best of things, you wouldn't be such a cunt and management would like you better."

Ouch. Jess couldn't even turn around to retort on that one. Peter had been, at least before, on semi-friendly terms with her. He was one of the few around this place that was. But she had felt so betrayed by his promotion, when she'd scored the highest on all the aptitudes. Somehow, she thought that justified her anger with him.

"Kylie on seven needs to be relieved for break," he said after she kept on in silence. He was walking behind her, back to his station to supervise all the cashiers. Nothing more was said.

Yesenia's shift was nine to six. And it was on a Thursday, of all days. Worst. Shift. Ever. It was bad enough that you were hit with the lunch rush and the rush of people heading home from work at five, but on Thursdays they had a fox with a brightly colored clown face come and entertain toddlers for free in the seating area by the Deli at 9:30 in the morning. All the mothers and their screaming brats were in attendance, since it was one of the few free forms of entertainment still left. And if the stay-at-home mothers absolutely needed anything, it was a free way to distract their kits and pups for an hour. But that also meant having them go through your registers. And if anyone besides a sugar-crazed child can ruin a register work station faster, Yesenia has never heard of them. It was a nightmare, always trying to cram cleaning up into that last half hour before the lunch rush. The store had strict policies on maintaining a clean register, and there was no way she'd have the opportunity to clean for three hours after the lunch rush began.

It was through all this Yesenia endured, slogging her way through the day as the clock seemed to want to move slower and slower still. There were times where she swore she caught the minute hand move backwards on the clock sitting prominently in the front of the store. Jess was more than relieved to see Thatcher, the evening supervisor, give her the signal to close off her register. It was three minutes to six, and she switched off her light just as one final, pissed-off-looking customer came wheeling her cart into her lane. The woman was a dark, rather hefty Rottweiler with four screaming pups at her ankles. Yesenia paid them no mind, simply trying to get them through as quickly as possible before other customers would get the bright idea that they could sneak in to her register.

"How are you doing this evening?" She said in a pleasant voice to the middle-aged Rottweiler. She was always perfectly charming to the customers. Her record showed a slew of exemplary marks for her attitude, in fact. This time, however, it didn't seem like there would be much friendly interaction.

The Rottweiler eyed Yesenia like an ugly bug in her soup, her eyes immediately drawn to her neon green hair and narrowing. Yesenia could just see the judgment paint its way across the older female's face, and that was when she noticed a rather hefty golden cross hanging over the woman's rather hefty bust. "How does it look like I'm doing?" she mouthed off at Jess, challenging her with every word to retort as she kicked away her wailing daughter, who seemed desperate to try to by a packet of temporary fur coloring.

Yesenia, however, was far above that. She'd worked at this prominent Florida grocer since she was 16, moving back and forth between the store by UF and the store by her home in Broward. Now, at 22, there was no way she was going to make such a dumb mistake as to talk back to a customer. She simply gave a pleasant smile while continuing her scanning. Meanwhile, in the back of her head, she imagined choking the fat bitch in front of her with her own golden crucifix necklace.

The order was very nearly done. Three items, two... and then the hand. Damnit she thought to herself as the Rottweiler lifted her meaty hand to stop her on the last item. It was always the last item. "Wait, that's s'posed to be half off."

"It is half-off, ma'am," Yesenia said pleasantly, pointing at the flat screen monitor the customer was looking at, indicating the line beneath the item description that showed a discount of 50% had been taken off. "See?"

"I ain't blind, but you sure are," she said, and actually snatched the item from where Jess was holding it by the scanner. Now that was one of the few ways a customer could still press her buttons. You don't even think of manhandling anything in her work space, especially to so rudely snatch it from her hands. Still, Jess kept herself calm, even as the customer shoved the package of fake nails into her face, showing her the orange sticker that read $4.99. "You see that? If that's the price, I should be gettin' it for two-fifty."

"No ma'am, that sticker--"

"No?!"

Damnit. That was a mistake. This was it. The manager was getting called.

"Who's your manager?" The fat woman said, kicking away her smallest boy who was begging her for a king-size Hershey bar.

Jess only had to look over to the service counter and catch George's eyes for him to know something was up. "Here he comes now," she said pleasantly to the customer, smiling a smile she knew looked fake and didn't even touch her eyes. But hey, at this point, a customer didn't expect you to be happy about this. Rather, it was just about forcing yourself to concentrate on being pleasant so that you don't do anything stupid.

"Good evening, is there something I can help you with?" George said as he walked up to the belligerent customer. He was a tall male hyena, very pleasantly groomed and manicured. He was the Assistant Store Manager, after all. One had to keep up appearances.

"Yeah, you can tell this dumb Latina bitch to ring this up for the correct price. Don't you make sure your employees understand simple English?"

And there was button two, pulling the race card. Yesenia was born and raised American. And yes, while she'd learned Español in the household, she knew what English was and she knew damn well how to speak it.

"I'm sorry if there has been any inconvenience," George quickly said, using your standard strategy to quell a situation by apologizing first. "But if you look here, ma'am," he said, pointing at the sticker. "This is an in-store sticker we added to clarify how much the item would be. This is the price after 50% off. Besides, Jess here doesn't dictate what the register rings up. She is an excellent cashier and I'm sure this is all just a big misunderstanding."

Big mistake, Jess realized, looking at the woman. You don't tell them no and you don't try to defend yourself or others. Then again, Jess suspected George had a soft spot for her. Actually, make that a hard spot, roundabout the groin area. Yesenia watched as the fat Rottweiler woman hit her boiling point.

"Well I don't care what that damn sticker says," she spat at him, ripping the fake nail set from his hands and brandishing them in his face like a deadly weapon. "You are obviously incapable of marking prices on your items here. Maybe this place would function better if you didn't let these devil-lovin' dykes work in your store, then perhaps your heads would be clearer and this place would operate with some sanity!"

And there was button three. Yesenia's blood turned to ice in that instant. Hate was something she knew happened, but only a few times had ever personally experienced, since she didn't exactly go telling the world she was a lesbian. She stepped back from her register, walked around the metal area where half the customer's groceries were still resting, waiting to be picked up by the bagger, and stepped directly between George and the Rottweiler. Without any warning, Yesenia's hand came up and swiped across the Rottweiler's face. The full-on slap was augmented by the fact Jess had let her claws unsheathe themselves, leaving four hefty gouge marks across the bitch's face.

The whole store was dead silent in that moment. Even the woman's children stood in mouth-gaping awe at what they just witnessed. George spluttered behind her. The lapine male bagger to Jess' right was still holding a jar of spaghetti sauce over an open bag, daring not to move. The only sound was that of the background music playing over the intercom system, now suddenly seeming much, much louder than before.

It was everything in Yesenia not to break down crying as she marched her way over to the break room. Once the door closed behind her, heavy sobs wracked her body violently, and she fell to the bench near the time clock.

Everything was coming out now: the fact she was months into having successfully completed her bachelor's in mechanical engineering and still had no employment prospects; the fact her father was demoted, mother unemployed, and their house had three generations and two renters in it because of the financial instability; the fact she was hundreds of miles away from Melinda, and couldn't just fall into her arms at any moment for comfort; the pain of knowing her Catholic parents would be vehemently against her being with another girl. It was all crashing over Yesenia in that moment like a tidal wave.

"Hey," came a soft voice beside her. "What's wrong?"

Looking up, Jess saw one of the only faces she would never have expected in this place, since it seemed everyone here was attracted to a crying associate like vultures to a carcass. Tears meant gossip, and where money was scarce, gossip was gold. Norgia was sitting beside her. She was an all-white, blonde-haired feline that worked the back desk, dealing with vendors and deliveries. She was a notorious bitch. Then again, nobody who dealt with back desk could survive if you weren't one. The vendors would chew you up and spit you out if you showed the slightest weakness. Norgia hardly looked the part, but had a notoriety as a hardened ball-buster. Most of the males in the store wrote her off as a lesbian man-hater, much to Yesenia's own dislike, though she had never even talked to Norgia.

"What do you care?" Jess asked, sitting up and trying to seem like she was more okay than she really was.

"Just thought I'd be friendly. You seem to be in a lot of pain right now."

"What's it matter to you?" Jess asked, her reddened eyes turning on the other feline with a certain ferocity. She noticed that outside the break room, the woman suddenly erupted in shouts and curses that were most un-god-like of her. The managers would be a while in dealing with Jess. Their priority was calming down the Rottweiler first.

"I've been where you are. I thought I could help you out a bit."

Yesenia looked skeptical, but Norgia only gave a warmer smile in return. "Why don't you look down?"

If Jess looked skeptical before, she now looked incredulous. What the hell was this female playing at? But even as she looked down, she felt a huge sense of vertigo splashing through her veins. She hadn't felt the floor move, nor had she even noticed their surroundings had seemed to sink. But as she looked down, she gasped as she realized the bench they were sitting on was hovering three feet off the ground. With a panicked jolt, she felt the bench plummet, making a loud crashing noise on the floor where it originally sat. Jess immediately stood, turning around and backing away from Norgia, not taking her eyes off the other. "What the hell did you just do?"

"Me? I just gave you something. A gift."

"You mean scaring the hell out of me is a gift?!" she asked, her voice getting hysterical now.

"I wasn't the one making the couch hover. That was you. Enjoy it," she said with a smile and walks right towards Yesenia, only to go right past her and out the door into the store.

Jess couldn't move for several minutes, finally mustering no more than, "What the fuck?"