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Day 2 - Part 1

It is barely light when I wake up after badly slept night. My room is too small and too dusty, like whole town. Only recalling her sad eyes convince me to stay.

I go down to have some breakfast. I confirm number of the bus from reception, then hop in and travel to meet her.

I see her as soon as I get out of the bus. She is standing in the corner of the streets, leaning to the street lamp. As I walk closer I see that she's wearing warmer jacket today. I want to ask where she's spent her night but somehow I just can't.

-Hey, she says when she finally notices me.
-Ugly weather, don't you think? I ask.
She doesn't even bother to look at me. Obviously she isn't that much fan of small talk. Instead she bows to take her bag from the ground. That's new. Yesterday she didn't have anything with her.
-Let's go, she orders and I follow her.

She walks few blocks and then into a little bar. She opens the door and undoes the alarm with experience. Place is new to me and I wonder what she has to do with it.

She walks trough the dim place, between tables to the stage. There is grand piano. She carefully places her bag on floor next to that, sits down and starts to play.

After a moment I take a chair for myself and look around. Place still looks the same, midlevel little town bar. Because it doesn't give me any hints of today's story, I look at her.

She�s playing well. Her small hands suddenly reach to every key. Her eyes are closed and one lock of hair gathered to the bun is caressing softly her neck as she moves her head with the music.

Finally she stops and turns to me. I applaud. She doesn't even smile but comes to sit opposite me, holding her bag in her lap.
-So where did we get yesterday? she asks.
-Your first night in that house.
-Oh yes. My first night...

It's almost morning, even if you couldn't tell that by looking outside. Cara, Ophelia, Peach and Pie were still sitting in that same corner. Cara was really tired but Ophelia wouldn't let her sleep.
-She looks too sweet, doesn't she? Pie asked from the others.
-She looks too young, Peach said. -Too damn young.
-We have to do something about that, Ophelia decided and got up. -Camoon girl, let's make you a woman.
And the dragged her upstairs to the bathroom.

I am already getting interested about that bag when she finally opens it and takes an envelope from there. She lets pictures from it fall to the table.
-I guess that wasn't really traditional image of a woman, she tells and places one of the pictures in front of me.
-That's me before... everything.
This girl I know. She is there, probably fifteen, smiling. She looks sweet and young. Her hair is long but not too, you can see her eyes, which even without makeup are dark and shiny at the same time.
Then she shows another picture. It is take in one of those automatons, black and white, granular picture. She stares to the camera with glanced look. Her eyes are surrounded with heavy black and her hair... It's short and points to every possible direction.
-That's taken two days after Christmas, she says. -Little over two weeks after I met Ophelia.
-Your eyes, I put my finger on them.
-I'm high, she whispers and takes picture away from me. -I have that on my passport too.
-Your passport? I thought that...
-We'll get to it later, she promises. -There�s so much before that.
-So what happened during those two weeks? Did you get to meet Nick?
-Not right away.
She places more pictures in front of me.
-Actually I shouldn�t even have these. Ophelia wouldn�t mind, I don�t know about the others. There�s Peach and Pie. We were usual four. I soon became the highest level of fans, because of those three. There are very clear bounds. We were categorized as group F, as fanatic. To that group belonged all who had dedicated their whole life to follow the boys. For my amazement there is only about a dozen of those. But then comes slaves. They are on the road when they can but sometimes they return to their family or home to gain more money. You see, it�s a very slight difference but it still exists. Then there are reward hunters.
She gives me a list of names.
-It�s pretty old but will give you an idea of system.
I tried to read it but didn�t understand anything. There were just names of famous people and after those some number and other marks. It was taken from the web but she had blacked all the addresses.
-What is this?
-It�s point list. It tells you how many points you get. You see, Brian is the hardest of the boys. And here, Mick Jagger, because of his age and the history with women, you only get 30 for him.
-Points?
-These three here, she points to one group picture. -Those were our reward hunters. They were almost like group F, but they never forget their real identity. What they do is trying to sleep with as many celebrities you can. Or hunt those with biggest points. Part time actor of the Days doesn�t get you anything near what you can get for example of Howie.
-Why do they have so high points?
-Isn�t it obvious? They�re too hard to reach. In the beginning they were almost too young. Well, not Kevin, he still suffers decrease because of that. Backstreet Boys are probably the only band where you get points from sleeping with staff.
It all sound very weird to me.
-What do they get out of it?
-Don�t ask me. Don�t ask me why I followed them for so long. It gives you something to live for. Yes, it can be pretty low, but it�s still a reason. Those hunters gave up pretty soon, after they got to Europe, they separated and went after Westlife and Ronan Keating. He was hard at that time too. I�ve been in contact with Leah. As you learn to know them, you realize that they�ve had a hard past, I mean really hard, not in a Pie-kind-of-way. But I guess there isn�t really any explanation for things like these.
-So you just went after boys?
-Yeah. We spent three nights in that house and then started hitchhiking. Usually we got to travel with the roadies. You could say that we were one part of their staff on the road. We did everything we could and everything they let us do. We carried stuff, sewed clothes, warmed food... Even so it was rare to catch up with the boys. OK, there was only less than two weeks tour left when I joined them but still I saw Nick only twice if you don�t count their presence on stage. But I got valuable information of their ways, their staff and got to know few of those.

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