Objectifying Objectives

Living in  a studio apartment ain’t easy, yo.

Especially when you have no business in a studio apartment. Remember that time you came home for Thanksgiving and your parents met you in ultra trendy Adidas jump suits as you drove in. They stood on the porch, paunchy, goofy and wearing more money than you earned on vacation that day? Right. That’s how much Vickee belonged in this studio. Like watching Michael Jackson roll up to his concert in a Ford hatchback, wearing his glitter glove no less. Not going to work.

Vickee woke up and slid her legs out of bed first, sat up, droped her head into her hands. A pink camisole strap slipped down off her shoulder as it did perpetually. She had stretched it one night when a guy grabbed her by that side of her clothes in an attempt to throw her against a wall. She couldn’t remember if he’d gotten her against the wall but she could remember the big slob and how much it annoyed her that he’d stretched the cami. The feel of him grabbing at her. Especially since she never remembered that the cami was stretched until she got the damn thing on and that strap started slipping. She had on that cami and her underwear from the day before. Lacy yellow stuff. The sort she liked. Girly.

Vickee beat her head against her hands. “No vacation. No vacation. No vacation.” She chanted. “Fuck.” She had a hand mirror on the floor that she kept for looking herself over and also of reminding herself of things in because she has little self control issues. She picked it up, held it out and got a look at her face. She thought she looked like a stupid late-twenties woman who thought she was still seventeen, that had drank too much, talked too loudly and completely lost track of what she was about/was supposed to be about. “You look like hell,” she said to her reflection. “You are not on vacation. You are here to work, right? Work. Work. Work. No vacation. No fucking vacation. You look like shit, girl. Absolute fucking shit… You did worse.”

She set the mirror down on the ground, rested her elbows on her knees, legs spread and looked around the room. Just a small place. Only the bathroom had it’s own walls. She only had about four changes of clothes. They were scattered all over the floor. She had a box of files on her bedstand, a lap top open on the kitchen table and some food scattered on the counter. The walls were also splattered with blue paint. Whenever Vikki set up a safe house she splattered the walls with paint. She liked some decor. She liked a look. Whatever. The bosses never expected to get the security deposits back, anyway, because people in her line always disappeared from a safe house one day without a note and a phony name on the lease, anyway.

She got up from the bed and started to walk toward the fridge. She was absently pulling her underwear out of her crack when her cell phone rang. She cursed mentally.

“What happened last night,” the mechanical voice on the other end said.

“Why the fuck should you care?”

“Entrenchment Kafka,” the mechanical voice said.

“Hold on,” Vickee said. That was the password for today, right?

“Christ, what’s wrong with you?”

“Hold the fuck on, all right?” Vickee flipped open a little book and looked at the date. ‘Entrenchment Kafka’ matched the day’s password all right. The caller id matched, too. Check and check.

“Did you make friends with  anyone in the target’s circle?”

“Not unless I’m really lucky. Where the fuck is my gun?” Vickee walked back to her bed and found her 9mm, stainless steel S&W, sitting on the floor beside her bed, right where she liked it. At least she had got one thing right last night.

“What do you mean?”

“Not unless the random dude I made out with — drunk as sinning Senators — happened to know our boy. Don’t think I got his name, anyway, so it wouldn’t fucking matter.”

“…”

“You know — sorry. Shit.”