She smiled at her brother across the pool table as she sat high above tapping her fingers on the auburn table. Up on this lifted balcony with men playing their own games for free as they put thin card down on the small table.  Her brother had no one  to watch me, he said as if  I was a four year’s old. Before we had got to the den of no women, this girl was outlawing that rule.  The truth is I hated to be alone in a room, but loved my freedom. But right now my freedom was in shackles. But soon enough I would not be alone. I had two friends and they  went to what  my parents called. Unlawful for a young girl,  But they simply went to a small high school. It was either married or go behind the pool table and apparently no woman or girl can or should be behind the pool table. So it was a marriage for her., Her parents said she was even lucky to have a suitor with a face like hers & her mother would always say she was lucky just to come out with a scratch from a nail and glass fight.  

She tapped her fingers in morse code: SOS. it read , but it was a dead language. The only ones how still tapped there fingers for communicating were lost lovers. So none knew what she was tapping with her tan fingers.  Her brown hair bouised low down at her side as she had an idea, one that would send the devil after her. 

well to my parents it would be the version of hell that they never wanted. It bounced around in her head, nagging her to do what she thought.

 A smile came to dark light red lips. If you asked her friend Ace, she would always say it had looked like she had been eating cherries, but her lips were just that natural color. But once in a while she would get strange looks. 

She smiled at the thought of Ace walking - no skipping - down the dark alley ,  her hands out to her, said  spinning her waist slightly, saying “cherry lips!” she would say. She had a fondness for Ace. She had just been introduced to her after  Ace brother started courting her. She tapped her thin clear nail polished nails making a quick tapping sound. 

Her black ripped jeans crossed as her legs did, and her black men’s suit jacket wrapped around her arms.It was a little big on her. They did  not even let young innocent ladies in the gabling house, so she often had to change out of her silk, form fitting dress into jeans and a shirt. But if you were asking her, she would rather be in these clothes then the skimpy dress that made boys catcall. If you asked her, the catcall was something that should never have been a thing. Boys should simply keep their mouths shut and their hands to themselves. A scarf though that she had been around her head back home was know wrapped around her neck safely.

A boy with dark blue eyes you almost could not see his irises looked up from his deck still shuffling for a group of men. His eyes met her golden ones. He blushed a light pink, my brother's friend Jazz had not done that before. Then again, she had only known him as her home self, quiet, dressed in a dress and more polite than she wanted to be. Wearing a Hijab which she sully only wore half the time, not because her parents forced her too but because she enjoyed the safety in the cloth. She pulled on her button up white shirt that to her brother was too see through, but she had thought it was fine even if you could see her green black lace bralet.

She had just started coming into the gabling dens because her mother had not had to work before. But she knew that what her father was being payed was not enough to take care of the family. Mother had to find herself a woman-like job. When she had found the job to help pay what they needed to pay, she had heard her own father yelling at mother over a job he told her to find. She only heard a few words like cheating and lace, but her room was all the way on the opposite side of where mother and father were. So it was to be expected that she did not hear much. But her brother heard every word. He went pink when I had asked what it was about and said “no business for a young girl like you.” At that  she had rolled her eyes, getting a scolding from mother after.   

She  uncrossed her legs as a big bang came from the door from outside, straightening up right away.  There stood Ash. He had one glove on, the other in his hands. His brown shirt with a pocket in it and dark brown paints to match made his yellow eyes stand out with his white grey hair. His eyes had always been that yellow. Ace loved to tease Ash and say “ you could see your eyes in the dark like the cheshire cat eyes. 

Ash looked up to me and I got up halfway to only be stared at oddly by the guy across from me How were having a  min  fight with a younger man deck of cards in their hands. 

She shivered and tightened as she walked past their wandering eyes causing her hair to fall over her face , tiny small shaped cuts traced her forehead and around her eyes.

She walked past the brown  banister that kept drunken people from falling over the railing. and slightly traced the brown broken wood banister with her hand. It slid down the slick wood as she took the steps two by two jumping down them.  She smelled the familiar oder of the den  warm cinnamon as she landed on the last step. She could never have cinnamon; it was not that she was allergic to it.  It simply reminded her of this blasted place where she was made to hide how she was. She walked towards the boy standing there, his brown trousers crossed slightly.  As he waited for her, she gave her brother one last look that said “I am going.” Her brother, with his mint dark green eyes said back, “be back  at curfew. You know what happens when you're not.” She just smiled and lightly squeezed Ash’s ungloved hand before she went through the doors, the wood slammed behind them and they stood in the warm summer air.

She breathed in the smoke and flowers with a hint of coffee smells as they stepped off the steps of the gambling  den. Right next to the den in the shadows was a girl. Well she knew it was a girl, but people constantly for some reason thought that oh short hair must be a boy. It was one reason Ace was able to go to the high school in town and learn improper young lady things.  

Ash leaned up against the wall, her darker skin tone caused her to hide in the shadows whenever she got in trouble, which was a lot. Her Yellow brownish eyes stood out against the dark light ombre hair that was cut short with her left side shaved under the flipped over hair. One of her Victoria-style leather shoes  leaned on the dark brick wall in the dark shadows.  

She stepped forward into the midday sunlight her two inched victorian brown leather boots made no sound expect the click of the end metal piece to her overdone laces typed in a bow at the front the tweed fabric oldfashed boot.  

Her white shirt was pulled up to show her small leaf and intricate design tattoo, walce the other was just normal cuffed with silver nails you would find at a workshop. Light Blue stripes on a black straps were attached to her mens black grey pants. “here you are cherry lips,” she said with a smile to her lips, Ace’s dark natural skin toned with  a light pink-red blush caught in the sunlight and made it very clear. She had black grey dust on her nose too. She must have been at the workshop, where she created unique things. If it was not for one of Ash little projects.

 She would not be able to go outside because her parents would not want their strange daughter to walk out on the streets.  But  they were able to compromise with Ash & she left the house more free then she had been.  although was she really?  

She stepped past her, in the light, her dark green bralette was more visible though the white button up. She moved her hands together more out of nervousness than anything else. She looks sideways at Ace who knows how she is & was not forced not to be herself lucky she thought. To not have to hide how you are from  every single person. 

“ Are you sure you want to do this flower?” said Ace, her hair moved in the wind more to show her shaved underside of her brown ombre hair. She looks with concern in her eyes. She knows that Iris wanted to do this to be more free but did she know the consequences. Iris could never take this back. Also her parents would be hella mad. Her brother would not mind, knowing him they did not come from such a high place in the hierarchy. What would her parents do? Dear god she would be in wild amounts of trouble.  

“Yes I want to do this. You can not stop me. I don't want to be controlled by them anymore.” She said as they walked on the way to where they were going. They went into what her mom liked to call mens town. She was warned never to go there alone , always with at least one boy or man. Iris could not tell if there was something wrong, but she thought there was nothing wrong with this small area of their small town. Yes, it was dirty, and there seemed not to be many women down here,but there were also no shops regular women and girls would enjoy down here. Wrapping her silver metal hand over her other arm, not because she was cold but more because she had gotten chills. Her silver arm under the white thin sleeve  was not shivering,  but she could have sworn that her arm was shivering but it  still felt as if it was.  ghosts non-existent shivers.