Barefoot Huntress Pt. 02

"Hi, Jessica--Jen. Great news! I've got an ongoing role for you to audition for on Growing Sideways! Let's have coffee and talk about it soon. Let me know when's a good time. Bye for now!"

Jen Garnett was a middling agent in the Toronto and Vancouver scenes and Jessica had owed most of her first shots in TV commercials to her work. Wow. A shot at a role on a semi-serious family drama about a single mom lawyer with two kids each heading down different self-destructive roles. She should have called Jen right back. Serious money for acting, and only a year after graduating. Instead she went to her bartending job at swanky Labyrinth without calling Jen back. She'd call tomorrow--early enough to still seem super keen.

Tuesday nights at Labyrinth were five dollar pints and she worked with Kevin, a twenty-something engineering student who she figured had the hots for her judging by the temperature and edge of the flirting he put out. She wore her staple for the bar's vibe--black formal pants and dressy shoes or boots with a olive or black tank top. She came on to the bar at six, and the straight bar stools were full of regulars from the hipster neighbourhood the bar bordered. Tyla was her best friend and served tables, usually staking out the back lounge section full of white and black leather couches. She was shorter than Jessica but just as pretty, with her Japanese good looks and long, silky black hair making her a favourite with regulars and walkthrough customers alike. Tyla was a graphic design student still looking for a job since graduating from college, though she had already assembled plenty of interesting freelance gigs on a site called Alternative Designs, a website hub for designers and artists to hang their singles online.

"How's life?" Tyla asked.

"Um, good... Really fun lately. I've been looking into some new things."

"Acting?"

"Sort of? Sort of like acting... I guess."

Tyla's face lit up. Rather than ask, she gave her a purposeful look that mixed concern with excitement and mischief.

"Tell you more later if it gets slow."

"Or let's go to my place for drinks and a puff! You down?"

"That might be cool. Yeah."

Alan, one of the regular hipsters who monopolized a bar stool on Tuesdays and other nights asked her what was new.

"Just doing the starving actress thing and seeing if a new lead pans out. My agent has got me an audition of a show produced in town."

"What's the show? Do I know it?" She could tell he was asking with the hope that it was a lame show--something that would keep her grounded in the realm of the opportunities that Labyrinth's gorgeous, mostly female staff usually attracted. A bit part here, reading for a small theatre role there. Nothing anyone would have heard of, that was popular and on the big networks.

"No, I doubt you'd have heard of it. It's just a small theatre production."

"I'm interested. What's the role and the show?" He said, making a show of keen interest.

"It's a play about child abuse and how this painter takes this sexually abused kid and saves her with a creative outlet that really takes off for her." Jessica didn't know how she'd come up with that good a lie on the fly. She noticed Tyla raise a questioning eyebrow.

[break]

It had been a good night, as Tuesdays usually were for cash. Tyla and Jessica walked home bundled in their light winter coats, both their boots clacking on the sidewalk down the west-side sidewalk of Bathurst Street leading south out of Toronto's busy university student--crowded Annex neighbourhood. Tyla's small, cozy apartment was only a ten-minute walk south, on a second-storey apartment in an old mid-century house with its own staircase walkup. Soon, both women had their coats and boots off and were snuggled on her two-seater coach with their stocking feet resting on the old radiator panel and were passing a fat joint back and forth while they sipped decent scotch.

"So you're here and safe--what's this break you've landed?"

"Nothing you're going to believe. You ready for this?"

"Fuck, yeah, lady--tell me!"

"Okay, so I've joined a gym--" That wasn't it. That wasn't nearly the right way to start trying to sell this to her best friend.

"You've joined a gym, okay..."

"No, it's like an MMA gym, but different." Why had she had been able to quick-supply the perfect lie to Alan the regular, but she was clumsy as hell at easing her friend into the truth that she'd followed her clitoris and kinkiness into a fringe career that was about as serious as running away to join the circus, if that circus was a mixture of some pseudo-sport and fetish cat-fighting videos.

"You're making me unbelievably horny to know what sort of gym this is... Spill, bitch!"

Tyla took her by the shoulders and gave her an affectionate, vigorous shake.

"Okay. Promise not to judge me too harshly, okay? You promise?"

"Come on, this is me. You've shared a lot about your boyfriends and sex life, haven't you? If you were doing something illegal, it wouldn't even matter to me. As long as no one is getting hurt, of course."

That was Tyla. A real friend. Which somehow made confessing even harder. It wasn't the wrestling thing--that was easy. It was the huge fix she got out of plunging her feet into men's and especially women's mouths. Among other activities. She'd never even confided to Tyla that she had some definite bi-sexual urges. Or maybe they were instincts.

"Okay--God--this should be so easy to tell you. I'm joining--I've already joined and sort of fit right into--a pro-wrestling gym."

"Like WWE and Triple H and all that?" Tyla looked impressed.

"No, no, way more local and small-time than that. They still do wrestling shows, and their shows are covered on websites and a few indie magazines, but it's grass roots pro wrestling, the real thing. They train you to wrestle and build a character and a history of matches and feuds and a career trajectory towards various belts and even better things."

"Oh, my god! That's fucking amazing! How does that affect your acting career? Is your agent down with this?"

"That's just it, or rather part of it, I haven't told her. I also have an audition to for a role on Sideways Family."

"Holy Fucking Christ! You have an audition for a role on a major network show? That's amazing! Let me hug you!" And Tyla leaned into her and drew her into her embrace, her modest bust squeezing into Jessica's plump breasts. Jessica squeezed her back, but not nearly as hard as Tyla squeezed her.

"Yeah, this is great news and all. I still have to call my agent back for a talk about the role and prepping for it."

"What the fuck! I can't believe that the role on Growing Sideways didn't come first! So the pro wrestling thing is a sideline project?"

"Well, that's the funny thing... I really love the role I may get to play in the local wrestling league a lot. Even more than--I guess--A serious role on a network show."

"Okay, so what's the role already?"

"A pro wrestler who... goes barefoot, and humiliates her opponents with her feet!"

Tyla slapped the couch. "Oh my god, that's fucking hot. So are you stepping on them, stepping on their faces and breasts..."

"Yeah, it's looking like that's going to be fair game for my character. And you actually get to do this for money?"

"So far."

"Okay, let's not get carried away with the pros. How about the cons. Could this damage your acting career and blacklist you?"

"I thought I'd wear a sexy black fetish mask, something with a cat theme. Wrestle incognito, just like Catwoman!"

"Oh, my god, are they looking for any more wrestlers?"

"You, too?"

Well, maybe not the barefoot domination thing, but maybe getting womanhandled and humiliated, thrown around by my hair, and having my opponent to the barefoot domming on me!"

"I can't tell you how hard I found it telling you about this. It's way crazier than anything yet, isn't it?"

"It's not hardcore porn."

"True. But pro wrestling is pretty borderline as a big sexualized tits and ass circus of bodacious bodies rolling around on the ring together, you know?"