Candy sniffed and Julie could hear her shuffling around. “I’ve been trying to get out of the business for a few months now but Ellis… my boss… he owns Kitten Escorts, wouldn’t let me go. At first he upped my rate, then he let me work less, then he started threatening me.” She sniffed again. “He wanted me to go and see a new client. He insisted on driving me himself… he hit me when I refused to get in the car. It isn’t the first time he’s done it. Truth is, I would’ve left months ago but I’m afraid of him. I only started working at the escort agency to save enough to go to med school. I never planned on having sex with anyone but one thing lead to another.” She sucked in a big breath. “Ellis wanted me to meet with this new client and I kept insisting that I wanted out. Kind of my luck as of late, one minute Ellis was hitting me and trying to get me into his car and the next, I was abducted. A dragon swooped down out of the sky. A dragon.” She huffed out the last like she couldn’t believe she was saying it.

The new girl whimpered loudly. “Oh god. Please help me.” She moaned. “It can’t be true. It can’t.”

“Hey. Try and calm down.” Julie used a coaxing voice. “Did you get taken by a dragon too?”

She whimpered. “Yes.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

“What happened?” Candy asked.

“My parents both died in a car accident last year. I’ve been struggling to keep up the payments on the house and eat. I work at the Titty Twister bar on 2nd Avenue.”

“Oh god!” Lisa groaned. “Another sex worker.”

“It’s not like that. Not that I would ever judge,” the new girl added. She sniffed a few times. “I’m a bartender. I wear tiny hot pants and a bikini to work, which is humiliating enough. A lot of the ladies that work at the club are awesome. They are single moms or, like you, Candy, working at the bar to put themselves through school. They are not all sex workers,” she half growled. “You shouldn’t judge like that. I wish I had more guts, I’d totally do it. Anyway…” she sighed. “The bank foreclosed on my house. I got the letter just yesterday. It’s been such a struggle. I was about to lose everything.”

There was a definite common thread between them.