Inside the bathroom Jennifer stuck her tongue out and saw a small black piercing in her tongue in the reflection of the broken mirror. She wasn't sure when she had gotten one but knowing the curse she must have followed her mother's footsteps. Jennifer noticed how she had a experimented with hair coloring as a stripes of artificial colored pitch black hair formed a ring at the ends on her hair. Everything was spiraling out of proportions as she knew old she and her mother was at the time. Grandma Mary must have been only two decades older than her which made Jennifer shiver as she sat down on the toilet's seat.
Another horrific thought popped in Jennifer's mind as she thought how her mother had to be when she first begun to sell her own body. If last time her mother started her whore life at twenty. Now it must have been at the start of college and the end of her high school graduation. Maybe Jennifer would share her mother's fate in six years in the future. She had no idea if she even had a future to aim at. She also tried to see what was written on the lower back but even if she stood up on the toilet's seat the words formed a mushy picture in her mind.
'I can't read anymore. Great...' Jennifer thought to herself as she sat back down on the seat. 'Just great, who even needs it. Not me apparently.'
This could only mean that she had never entered a school bus as her mother and grandmother had kept her hidden from the public. It only seemed that 18-year-old Jennifer's mind was just a passerby in her own body. She had no control over her other self's actions or environment. Shen then proceeded to walk to the kitchen as only a moonlight illuminated the room. Ceiling had no lightbulb or a lamp attached to it. Jennifer looked out the window and saw a very dusty, murky and dirty looking street from it. Some people were sleeping in their smal cardboard boxes while other were laughing and drinking. The street light in the distance couldn't reach the window but she saw that they were on the 3rd floor.
She then proceeded to walk near the front door that had four different types of locks from two door locks, to a padlock and one of those that had to be pulled to the side in order to open the door. It looked very secure and new as she looked closer. Jennifer was glad that the room had somewhat decent heating and security even at night as she walked back towards the 'kitchen table'. Or what seemed to be a an small dented TV-stand with two very cheap looking plastic chairs with towels on top of them.
The TV-stand had the familiar looking wallet fully open on top of it. Jennifer checked how much money it had inside and was amazed how many picture of benjamins were inside it. She counter atleast twenty five of them and saw multiple different plastic cards with pictures of her... or maybe it was her mother looking stern. As she had difficulties reading whatever was in them she only saw them as picture and the logos looked fancy.
The cards had a very odd sweet smell mixed with a hint of nail polish. Jennifer had no idea what they were so she put them back inside the wallets. Jennifer had to think hard how many cheeseburgers could her mom buy with this money as she recalled all the pictures in her head.
'I remember mother telling me that there's the Benjamin, which is a lot of money. His face was easy to remember as her mother had shown them to Jennifer multiple times in past. Then there's that one white haired guy which looked in the same direction as Benjamin but had more hair. Next she remembered the other guy who looked in different direction which was half as worthless as the white haired guy. The last one was also easy to remember as it had that weird try-angle shape with eye on top of it.' Jennifer recalled.
She then looked one of the Benjamins and saw it had a tally mark followed by two Oh's. Jennifer reasoned that the tally mark meant like a finger and if she put that 'oh' behind it. the tally mark would be 1-2-3... 10 fingers worth of burgers. So with added 'oh' that would mean hundred burgers.
Jennifer gasped how much those papers finally were. Her mother could buy twenty five hundred cheeseburgers with these. Jennifer's heart begun to beat and understood finally why her mother did the things she did. People who knocked the door would come here and give her mother money for hugging her.
'That's amazing!' Jennifer happily thought as she put all the Benjamins back to the wallet. 'I'm not sure why I felt so anxious for a moment. It has to be an easy job if my mom can get this money just from hugging.'
But then Jennifer started to think.
'Why isn't my mother buying all those cheeseburgers then even if she had Benjamins to buy them...? Why was that?' Jennifer thought as she was good at solving difficult puzzles. 'Maybe my mom spends this elsewhere. Burgers costs money. So it means that this whole house costs money... Heat had to cost some money too and... did she have a price on herself...?'
It was still a middle of the night and Jennifer begun to feel drowsy as she had no more energy to think. Before heading back to her mattress to sleep she poured a cupful of fridge water on her styrofoam cup and slumped back on the mattress tucking herself inside a warm planket. She dreamed about the day when she could do the same thing as her mother did. The dreams involved her hugging boys of her age and them showering her in benjamins. She let out a giggle and a geeky snort as she felt so happy about her future.