Kintsugi (closed)

[Scuttle Buttin']

There's no ghosts in the graveyard
That's not where they live
They float in between us
'What is' and 'what if'
​

He didn't cry anymore, and that was worse.

Humans had the ability to adapt to almost anything, given enough time, and it was both blessing and curse. Somethings shouldn't be adapted to; or, at least, some people didn't want to adapt to them. When the pain felt raw and near, when the wound was fresh and the blood still wet, it felt right in a world that had gone all wrong. She was gone, and that wasn't right, but you were meant to suffer when someone was taken from you. The gaping maw of eternity staring at him where she used to be was meant to hurt. But humans adapted, and despite not feeling terribly close to it anymore he was still human to the core. His mind did what minds do, and he adapted.

The rawness subsided, the wound scabbed over, and he wanted to pick at it. Make it bleed. Healing felt like a dishonor to her memory, a shameful betrayal of what she meant to him. The passage of time was undeterred, entirely unconcerned with his wishes, and marched on anyway. Eventually, the pain settled into numbness. The days blurred together, and eventually the weeks joined them. The months were close behind, time slipping through his fingers like grains of sand, and he couldn't be bothered to care. He was empty, and numb to it, drifting through life like a boat broken from it's moorings and left to the whims of wind and wave.

It was while in this fog that the first girl showed up at his door. He was not even sure he'd heard the chime of the doorbell at first, so foreign had the sound become to him. The visitors had been few and far between in recent years, the people checking up on him doing so with more time stretching between trips to his doorstep; more than that, though, was the fact that his property was gated, and anyone coming to his door would've had to buzz at the gate to be allowed in before they were even close enough to ring the doorbell. Assuming the gate had been closed last time he'd gone through it. When was that? Days ago? Weeks? He couldn't remember if the gate was even still there that long ago. Lost in the thought of this line of questioning himself, the doorbell chimed again and pulled him out of it, an insistent reminder that whether he had closed it or not was irrelevant when someone was clearly at the door.

Or he was finally, fully losing it.

Whatever he may have expected when he opened the door, though truly little consideration was given to whoever may be on the other side of the heavy slab of oak and iron, he never would've guessed the woman he found waiting for him. She was shorter than him - most were - her hair and skin clearly displaying colors not natural to them. He was surprised by the appearance of a woman half his age that he didn't recognize on his on the other side of his door, but it was another moment before the surprise of her attractiveness past through him as well. Except... that wasn't quite true either, was it? Fake hair color and fake tan, yes, but as he appraised her there in his doorway he realized her tits, large for her small frame, likely were as well. And her nails, he saw, as she looked from his face down to her phone, the rapid click click click of her fingers moving over the screen filling him with the sudden, fierce urge to slap the device from her hands. It seemed to be the strongest emotion he'd felt in some time. Had he been more aware of himself, the silence that sat between them for so long after he opened the door to find her there would've been awkward; if the girl found it to be, however, she gave no indication in the way she took her time in breaking it.

"Thomas?" she asked at last, glancing up to his face from the glowing screen and then back again, "Thomas... Lord? Is your name really Lord?"

Her eyes were on him again, brows raised, and slowly he was realizing that much of her attractiveness was an illusion. The longer he looked at her, the more she was examined, the more obvious the illusion became. The makeup on her face was thickly applied; her lashes were as fake as her hair and skin color, her tits, her nails; her skin was starting to show the signs of too much time spent in tanning beds and laying out in the sun; he suspected that there was a bit of botox hanging out in her face, too, which she seemed much too young for. To her credit, she did seem to keep herself in nice shape. The dress she wore was a pink so bright that he may not have needed a light on to be able to see her, and the way it hugged her body made it clear that there was barely a molecule of space between the fabric and her body.

None of it explained what she was doing there.

"Who are you?" he asked, his eyes on her face again, though he'd made no effort to hide the journey of his eyes as he appraised her.

"Are you Thomas Lord?" she asked again, her curiosity at his name evaporating to be replaced by... boredom? It suddenly felt like she was used to asking this question, and he found himself growing curious.

"I am," he answered after a moment, "And you have thirty seconds to tell me who you are and why you're here."

"I'm Kelly," she said, with a smile as fake as the name she'd just given him, "And I'm..."

She paused, her smile fading like fruit rotting on the vine, as she looked back down to her phone, thumb swiping quickly. The white glow illuminated her face, her neck, her cleavage, and he scolded himself silently for the way his gaze flickered down to her breasts.

"Ah," she said finally, and looked from the phone, the fake smile springing back as if it had never left. "I'm Kelly," she began again, a lie just as much the same time as it was the first, "And I'm here because a friend of yours thought you needed someone to take care of you."

Until she glanced down from his face to the rest of him, he'd not spent a moment considering how he might look right then. That all changed in a rush, and he frowned in irritation as he felt the hot rush of embarrassment surge through his chest. As if he should be embarrassed what this woman with her fake tan and fake tits thought of him.

Thomas Lord - actually his real name, unlike the girl in front of him - was 46, and despite the bog of depression he'd been living in he still wore the years well. He was tall, nearly 6'3", which helped some, and had played baseball until an elbow injury meant his pitching days were over. He and Jane had played tennis weekly until... well, until, and that plus the gym beneath where he and "Kelly" now stood meant he still kept himself in pretty good shape. Now, though, the slowly greying dark hair that he normally kept in an expensively stylish cut was longer and unkempt, and he wore two day's worth of beard growth - greyer than his hair - that normally wouldn't have been there. This was not to say he was unclean, he still forced himself to shower and brush his teeth every day, but why bother shaving or brushing your hair when you didn't planned to go anywhere or see anyone? His clothes were similarly shabby: a thinning Standford shirt that was likely older than she was and a pair of dark grey sweatpants that probably cost more than her dress. His feet were bare as he stood across from her, being appraised in the same way he'd done to her moments before.

His irritation grew.

"I don't know anyone that might send you, and I don't need anyone taking care of me," he said, as he began to close the door in her face.

"They said you'd say that!" she said in a rush that seemed to cut through her boredom, "And to tell you..." her eyes were on her phone again, just for a moment, before she looked back up to him and announced clearly, as if it was the solution to all problems, "Thought you could use a little pick-me-up, Captain."

Only one person called him that, and the odds that this girl would know about it without being told were vanishingly small.

The fact that he'd sent Thomas what, by all indications, was an escort was more than a little surprising.

More surprising was the fact that he let her in.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

The girl left 45 minutes later, walking past pictures of he and his wife that still hung on the walls; past a framed covers of Fortune and Inc with his smiling, younger face on the cover; past a signed photo of Jim Cramer standing next to him on the CNBC set, both men smiling broadly for the camera three days after his company's IPO made him into an overnight multimillionaire. If she took notice of any of them, she gave no indication, and he shut the door behind her without another word between them.

He felt guilty, that this was the first person he'd been with since Jane, that he had been with anyone after Jane, that he hadn't waited for something more special. He also had no idea what that would've been, or if he even wanted something more special.

But also, he felt a strange kind of relief, an easing of a little tension in his chest; he showered after she left, and had a good night of sleep for the first time in... longer than he could remember.

It took a little work, but he managed to find out where she'd be sent from, and after a few days of debate with himself he made the call and told the person on the other end that he'd like to place an order. The girl showed up the next night, and he was more put together this time. Gradually, he fell into a rhythm, lost in a different kind of fog. The girls were a reason to pay more attention to his appearance, and so he had someone to the house regularly to see to his hair; they did not speak while she worked, though he tipped her nicely. Sometimes the girls were only there for half an hour, long enough to discover that he only wanted them on their knees in front of him while he sat back and closed his eyes; sometimes it was two hours or more, and then they left they carried with them marks they had not walked in with. Those that were willing to endure such things were paid more, both for the extra services they were offering and the time they may be unable to work until the marks faded.

It was more of a life than he'd lived, but only just. The rest of his time was spent like Rapunzel, still locked away in his tower but looking for no one to save him.

The agency learned quickly what his tastes - both in women and in how he treated them - were, and they made an effort to please him in who they sent. Most of the time they managed to succeed, but not always. In a strange way he liked that better, though. It gave opening the door a bit more intrigue than it might otherwise have, the curiosity of finding out if this girl knew what she was about or would be in over her head. It was often quickly apparent which of those was the case, and he quickly grew bored with those that showed themselves to be a disappointment.

Now a little over four months into this new habit, it had become as much a part of his life as anything else he did. It was a reason to spend a little more time in front of the mirror, dragging a brush through his hair and a razor over his face. It was a reason to wear something other than clothes he didn't expect anyone to see him in, even if he may not wear them for long. It was, in the absence of so many others, a reason to be.

And it was the reason he was dressed on this night in grey cotton pants and a light blue shirt, the final two buttons at the top left open, exposing his bare chest. He watched the time carefully, lifting his wrist frequently as he waited; anyone that arrived more than five minutes late was sent away empty-handed. He was unmoved by tears, though a couple had tried. Tonight, however, it seemed he had nothing to worry about there - the doorbell chimed nearly a full two minutes early, and he smiled slightly to himself as he rose to let her in.

Whatever else the girl may have going for herself, she had made a good first impression by arriving early.

It's funny the way a first impression can set the tone for so much that follows, isn't it?

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Let’s get this over with.







Her Morton’s Toe, or Greek Foot, was what caused all of this.


A fluke of genetics (she couldn’t remember if it was actually hereditary, or one of those things that happened when something fired left instead of right), all it meant was that the second toe on each of her feet was longer than the first toe. The term “Greek foot” came from the preference that the ancients had for this particular phalange configuration - it was commonly seen in sculpture and in paintings. The golden haired Venus from Botticelli’s painting was another good example.


It meant nothing to her, but to the eyes of the “entrepreneur” (masquerading as a harmless “talent scout”), it meant dollar signs. It was laughable, really - the humor of TikTok (which she still didn’t understand, and therefore avoided), Instagram, memes: selling feet pics being more lucrative than a real job. And after how disastrously her modeling “audition” had gone, the suggestion that she use her feet to earn her money was met with incredulity. But her debts didn’t give a damn if she believed it or not, so backed into a corner, she figured why not.


At least the upkeep was marginal: most of the time, she didn’t have to do anything extra. There were the occasional requests for a shade of polish, or a coat of baby oil. Apparently her feet were considered too much like those of the ancient admiration to really be worth “sullying” - so the more bizarre things that she’d heard of, such as stomping on eggs, were avoided. It was a nice “supplement” to what she made between dog-walking, being a barista, and a general jack of all trades -


That was before the debts had gotten to be too much. She knew she’d been in a precarious position for years - a woman standing on tiptoes on a rock as the tide was coming in, doing her best to hold her head above the waves. The agency, “Super UFO Talent,” and her scout, an innocuously named “Ryan Barton” (at this point, she wasn’t entirely sure that was his real name), had swept in, the knight in shining armor as always. “Your feet are a gold mine,” he’d crowed, “totally untapped market for our agency. It’ll be no problem to give you an advance - of course, with the usual fees and APR - ”


Too desperate to really read the fine print (and run it by her bank), she’d signed.


It hadn’t felt like too much of a big deal at first - then she noticed more and more of her “usual” income was being sucked up by paying back the loan. It seemed that her handful of jobs were just to pay back the interest, let alone the principal amount. The only time she felt that she got any rest was, ironically enough, those foot shoots. More than once she’d dozed off to the feel of someone’s tongue caressing her soles (normally grossing her right the hell out, but for the hundreds it pulled in from sitting there, it could be worse).


“Y’know, I have to hand it to you, Holland,” (some sort of distant professionalism there - he only referred to her by her last name. The other girls and guys, the high earners, they all were either called by first name or loving nickname), “You’ve really made a dent in what you owe. But you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, and that doesn’t make for a good look for us. Heard about this gig - it’s a one time deal, promise - and if you take it, it’ll not only pay off the rest of your debt, but it’ll actually put some money in your pocket.” Ryan called her out after her last session. Not to his office, with it’s scent of cigarettes and sex and old body splash, but to the balcony of the UFO offices. True to the company’s fledgling nature, it was less of an opulent office overlooking the glittering night lights of the city and more of an abandoned selection of suites, one of which used to be a church, because they kept finding prayer cards and hymnals as they cleaned it out. Take the feeder off of the main highway, make a right at the Burger King; in the same shopping center as Sweet’s Barber Shop and Pink Lotus Massage, and if you see the Good Times corner market, you’ve gone too far.



The “balcony” was little more than a rickety back patio, complete with weather worn wood that promised splinters if it was looked at the wrong way. At some point in the building’s history, she supposed that there had been an attempt to make the scrubby back lot into something of a garden: the remnants of an after school project trellis still clung tenaciously to the edge of the railing. From the back deck, there was a lengthy 2 foot drop, leading into said scrubby back lot that was constantly illuminated by the red lights of a bail bond office. And always, the dull roar of the traffic from the highway.



He’d waved away his cigarette smoke, beaming. One of the many things that she utterly hated about Ryan was that he was boyishly charming, even while being a complete snake. He’d clearly had no compunction about how he’d dragged her deeper. And to be fair, he’d be right in not feeling anything he was working his business, and never had she been forced to do one thing or the other.


Blame the game, not the player.


Waving the smoke away from her face, she scowled. “Is this actual prostitution-“


“Hey! I do not sell ‘flesh,’” he frowned, holding up his hands defensively, “I sell an ‘experience.’ A guaranteed good date. Don’t sully it with that out of date term.”


“Okay, well,” she shrugged. She’d been around the offices enough to know what it really was. From the “models” that easily, somehow, crossed over from erotic photos to porn and from the “models” that actually did serve as arm candy - there was the undercurrent of sex for sale. It’d taken her too long to figure out what was really going on, as the nature of her work made her a niche product, and therefore shuffled away to the sides. She knew enough now that she was something of a joke at UFO, with her completely ordinary looks and somehow spectacularly elegant feet, but she never hung around long enough for the barbs to hit harder than they already did. “Is this that weirdo that lives up in the boonies?”


“ ‘Weirdo?’ Who taught you such language? I should pull out their forked tongue. No, no, no,” each word emphasized with a click of the tongue, a wave of the cigarette, “He’s a discerning gentleman that’s been quite lonely, and has had some caring friends-”


“With deep pockets.”


Ryan’s brows lowered, the slightest bit of a frown on his face, “Caring friends,” grounding the heel of his voice into the words, “Friends that want to see him taken care of. And it’s come to my attention that he prefers something different - different being clearly, the discretion of my boss. You’ve never met him. A lovely bear of a man. English’s not his strong point. ‘Mr. Miyagi’ is what we call him, if you ever see him, you’ll know. Don’t ask him about his pinky. Anyway - this gentleman’s got a vociferous appetite - and, wouldn’t you know, with his business being so recent to UFO, he’s gone through all of the-”


“Top tier. So you’re sending in the rookie.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Holland, you’d be actually cute if you shut that mouth of yours.” He flicked cigarette ash away. Looked down at the half-dead grass beneath them, and sighed. “I should hire a gardener. Or someone with a blow torch.” He pursed his lips, lost in thought, contemplating the dirt and dead grass beneath him.


“It’s not unsalvageable,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. Hard to navigate under all of her hair, the curtain of impeccably wild dreadlocks, but manageable all the same. “You’d just need to basically dig up this dead sod - maybe go with a xeriscape. I don’t know why people keep trying to have green lawns here. It’s wasteful.”


“Look at you, with your big words!” From anyone else, it’d be an insult well worth a slap in the mouth, but again, Ryan’s boyish charm saved him. He sounded genuinely impressed. “‘Xeriscape,’” he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth, tasting it. She knew he was filing it away for later use. “ ‘Xeriscape,’” he repeated again, lost in the syllables. “That’s right: you do a little of this and that. Well,” he sighed, dramatically lifting his shoulders, “If this was a priority, I’d totally let you work off the rest of that debt by doing yard work, but really, no one sees the back of this shit hole, and all of the money that comes in goes back into the business. Promotion. Photos. Hair. Makeup. All of that. Those cameras don’t pay for themselves. You know,” another causal flick of cigarette ash into the dirt, “We really do operate on razor thin margins. Like a restaurant.”


“A regular pussy buffet.”


He fixed her with such a look that she actually took a step back.


“Like a restaurant,” he repeated, keeping his eyes on her. He might’ve well had her pinned by the shoulders. “I could barely scrape up the start up cash. That’s where Mr. Miyagi came in. He scratched my back, I scratch his. But still, we’re barely keeping these doors open. Our discerning gentleman is more or less who keeps the lights on. You get me?” He ground out the cigarette against the railing. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Holland. And again, you do this, your debt is paid, you have money in your pockets, and you can walk away from all of this. Though,” a plaintive note in his voice, “I wish you wouldn’t; your feet really are a gift from God.”


So much had gone through her mind. The rest of her debt paid off, meaning her contract, wherever it was, would be ripped up, done. She would never have to tell anyone about this. Her debt would be gone. She would have breathing room, financially in the clear for the first time in memory. She could live a normal life. Stop the whole gig economy. An office job!


She would just…have to have sex with a stranger.


For money.


Okay, but you’ve had bad sex before. Terrible sex. Under the influence. Because you thought it might be good. Because it had gone too far to gracefully back down and there was nothing better to do. Bad sex is a part of life. So think of it like that. It’s a date, where he pays for dinner and even if you’re not feeling it, you feel a little bad. A pity fuck.


A pity fuck to be free.


“All right; I’ll do it.”


“Excellent! Pop right back on inside, and Floria will get you all prepped with what you need to know. But before you leave, we’ll get a contract drafted, and before you know it, all of that debt will be gone. Good karma for a good kid, and you’re a good kid, aren’t you, Holland?”


Fuck.





“The easiest way to do this is to take an aspect of your personality and dial it up to 11. Most people act the way they think people want them to act. And that’ll take you so far - but really, the folks that have repeat customers, that are able to charge what they want, they’ve got something real to them. And at the end of the day, even if people know the experience is fake, they want to feel really drawn to someone.”


“Floria,” undoubtedly not her real name, was an older woman, gracefully clearing into her mid-50s, though, if she had to guess, she would’ve thought that she was younger. Floria was a petite woman, a ‘Gidgit’ type that the 1960s had pressed and compacted into such a firm mold that it couldn’t be broken. Slim with the neat ankles of a former dancer, Floria was a constant presence in UFO - something of a den mother, but with a mystique that made her difficult to approach, despite her “As American as Apple Pie” looks - blue eyes and silver hair that used to be blonde kept in an impeccable pixie cut. The rumors that she’d heard was that Floria was a dominatrix of literal international renown - and, sitting in her makeup chair, she could believe it. There was something glacial about the older woman, a core of absolute zero that was magnetic.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“You’re a normal girl. Look up,” peppermint breath close to her nose as Floria lined her eyes with black pencil, “And that’s what’s going to make you stand out. You don’t do the gym. You don’t come with a visible price tag. But you’re also not girl next door. You’re black. That automatically makes you exotic. Not Asian soft exotic - that’s been real popular, especially with these tech guys.”


Floria stepped back, admiring her handiwork. “You’re not big enough or dark enough to pull off the African Amazon. That’s still popular. ‘Post-racial society’ my ass. Fetishes are fetishes are fetishes, built on erroneous perception. And sure, you could get steady work like that. Problem is, outside of your feet, you don’t have anything. The problem is, Holland, you’ve got a pretty face. Not classically pretty, not model pretty. Dignified pretty.” Floria’s hand under her chin made her look upwards. Floria’s hand was cool, smelt of violet, and her grasp was firm as she tilted Holland’s face one side to the other. “These cheekbones, that mouth. All of that says you’re unapproachable. Regal. I like it. Hard to market. And that’s what it boils down to - marketability.”


Holland wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the experience. Was she being insulted, or was she being complimented, or was Floria reading off some unseen list of facts like the weather? Floria had made her strip, and literally commented on every aspect of her body, from her feet to the top of her head. She’d felt near tears under the smaller woman’s harsh gaze.


“Sway-back. Expected. Good posture, though. That stomach,” a pause there as Floria seemed to be considering her words, “Not quite a Buddha belly. If it were any bigger, if this was any other situation, I’d tell you to go back to your feet. This,” a gentle tap to the roll of flesh, “is humanizing. This will make him comfortable around you. ‘Comfort’ also can mean extra cruelty, so if you’re sensitive to criticism, this will be a nightmare for you.”


A step back.


“Indent of the navel is good - not too bulbous. Like a fingerprint in clay. Thighs and rear are muscular and high. Calves are good, ankles smaller than I would’ve thought, but they’re fine. No marks, no scars. Even skin. Your breasts are a treasure, though.”


Holland had to blink.


“What?” Her voice came out so quiet, so underused, that it was more of a squeak of dust.


“Your breasts,” Floria repeated, with professional patience. “They’re bigger than I expected. Less projection,” hands held in front of her chest, “and more fullness. There’s no space between the two of them. Nipples point forward, not downward.” A thoughtful pause.


“ ‘Maternal,’ is what I think would be the best thing for you.” Floria took a few more steps back, looking over Holland from head to toe again. “Maternal hippie. That’s it. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong because I can smell perfume oil on you - heather, with a top note of freesia to lighten it. That’s not designer. That’s independent perfume house. You don’t have acrylics - and your nails are so short as to be a cause for concern. So that tells me you work with your hands, and adding false nails to that now would distract from what I’m trying to do. Get dressed, and think of a fake name.”


‘Dressing’ meant a return to her worn in jeans, the holes covered with varying embroidered patches, and her olive green v-neck, worn a little thin in the sleeves. The only thing that Floria had done was apply eyeliner, a swatch of sheer orange gloss, (“To make a man think about sliding his cock between them,” she said, bluntly), and pull her hair back from her face with a orange scarf, neatly tied.


“Huh. Who knew that eyeliner could do so much. Holland, you’ve got a face under all that hair. Floria, my goddess, perfect as always.” Ryan had simply materialized at the dressing room door, paper in hand. Behind him was the ambient sound of the studio: cartoonish moans, dings of digital payment, a director calling for something.


“Mmm,” Floria had responded, taking another look at Holland. “What’s your name?”


“Andromeda Holland.”


Ryan and Floria exchanged a look.


“A doomed princess. It suits your face.”


“Floria, you always give such gravitas with your words. But don’t tell our gentleman that, Holland. Fake names.” A wave of the paper in his hand.








“His name is Thomas Lord,” Ryan began -


“As in wunderkind Thomas Lord?” Andromeda nearly choked. “As in Thomas ‘I have more money than some countries GDP’ Lord?”


“I don’t get how it is that you’re like, one in ten girls that actually knows who this guy is,” Ryan cheerfully drummed his hands against the steering wheel, “But yes, that Thomas Lord. Sort of Bruce Wayne-y, don’t you think?” He craned his head around, beaming at her, “What if he turned out to be some sort of famous vigilante? Wouldn’t that be a hoot?!”


Andromeda shrank back into her seat. Big money meant deviant tastes: it was a historical fact. So she could be walking into the lair of a veritable Caligula.


“…Will he hurt me?” She was ashamed at how small her voice was.


Ryan’s pause wasn’t reassuring, no matter how short it was. “…Nothing that will like, permanently scar you, I’ve heard. And believe it or not, Mr. Miyagi, big boss himself, doesn’t like his employees mistreated. Mistreated employees are unhappy employees, and unhappy employees leave bad reviews and cause problems. He knows his limits.”


“But I don’t know mine! I never signed up for anything like that-”


“You did, Holland. In the contract. Look,” Ryan slowed down, looked over the seat at her, “If it gets too bad, you text me ‘Pancakes’ and someone will be out here pronto. I’m sure it won’t be anything less than like, a spanking or a paddling or whatever it is that sadists do. Me, I’m more of a tender lover. Worse I’ll do is bite.”


“Not reassuring.” Tears were breaking her voice, and she was furious with herself. She was too old to cry, too old to wheedle out of this and go back on her word. A deep breath. Okay. A spanking. A paddling. How bad could it be?


“ ‘Pancakes’,” Ryan got out, opening the door for her. How had they gone through the gates, up the long and winding road to the property? How was she standing in front of this massive house, one that reached taller and taller into the sky, when it felt that five minutes ago she was having Floria draw on her eyeliner? “You’ll be fine. And your debt will be gone.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Grass grown up between pebbles. Low tangles of honeysuckle that added a delicate scent to the air. Beneath her own sense of dread, there was an acknowledgment of the sterilely kept grounds, meticulous and impersonal; even the flowers seemed to grow only according to how they were allowed. She thought that she saw the edge of a rose garden; something that made her heart beat faster, made her want to dart off of this beaten path to be lost in a sea of pink. Flowers, greenery, had always soothed her. And as she walked, she forced her hands to unclench and brush against the edge of a shrub here, stand on tiptoes to caress the overhanging bough of an oak. Spanish moss hung lazily from those oak boughs, and, if she glanced over the imposing bulk of the house, she thought she could see piney woods.

Anything to distract from the fear that sat heavier and heavier in her stomach.

Thomas Lord. Someone completely out of her orbit; a face that belonged to magazine covers detailing a lifestyle a stratosphere away. His name she truly only knew in passing, in the sort of cultural osmosis that forces someone to know about sitcoms that they never watched. Some source of admiration for some, his property always spoken highly of. Hadn’t there been something a few years back, some sort of tragedy? It nagged at her.

Then it clicked.


Maternal. Doomed princess. Comforting a beast in his castle.


They didn’t pick her on a whim. This had been deliberate as anything else. And yes, that meant her debt was erased, but what else could they hold over her now?


She knocked on the door, harder than intended, her rage boiling over into her fist.


Let’s get this over with, so I can figure out what the fuck I signed.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

There was no hurry in the way he moved. She was waiting, and despite her promptness this fact did not trouble him in the slightest; the fact of it was like the existence of gravity, simply a thing that was and he didn't give it a first thought, much less a second. Powering off the large television mounted above a fireplace that seemed as if it had occurred as a happy accident over millions of years of falling and shifting rock (the $2.5 million spent on design, sourcing, and construction very much said otherwise), and placed the remote into the little pocket drawer of a side table. The lights dimmed as he left the room, the color shifting to a muted amber, and his bare feet were nearly silent as he crossed over the cool marble floor, his pace casual and relaxed.

A moment before he arrived at the door, his watch vibrated on his wrist and he paused, lifting his arm so the face illuminated. A text message from a number he didn't recognize was displayed on the watch face, held there for a moment and then gone, the time returning back to the display.

Redwood.

After that first night, after Thomas had slipped enough cash into the girl's palm to loosen her lips and spill the information contained in her head, Thomas contacted the owner of "Super UFO Talent" directly. The man feigned ignorance at first, played offended that the voice on the other end of the phone would even suggest that he would be involved in something like that. The lie came crashing down like a house of cards, blown apart by a man with more money than he could spend in six lifetimes and an ability to find information that was envied by some law enforcement agencies. The things you could find when you weren't bound by warrants and due process would give most people sleepless nights; Thomas used it to his advantage, and slept better as a result. He may have forgotten to close the gate that first night, but the cameras around his compound recorded regardless of how he was feeling. Between the information the girl had given him and the license plate number of the vehicle that had picked her up, he had more than enough to start with, and though he was no longer running the day-to-day operations (he was, to be quite frank, barely running the day-to-day operations of his own existence at this point) he still had top-level access to the systems and servers at the company he'd built.

Finding the owner - not the douchebag that ran the girls, but the guy that held the ax over his head, the one with the real power in the organization - became a reason to get up in the morning. It was a mystery, a puzzle, a problem to solve, which had thus far proven to be hard to come by when you had the money to buy God and his throne; throw enough money at a problem and it just, poof, went away. This would too, but it was not quite as simple, of course. There was the legality, for one thing: turns out, paying women for the use of their body was still illegal, and while he knew he'd never end up in jail for it, he also didn't want to deal with the self-righteous condemnations he knew would come from members of the board if he was caught. They wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to kick him out fully, and then celebrate it that night with the women they paid to fuck. More than that, though, there was the simple fact that the Man Behind the Curtain, as he had come to refer to him in his mind, didn't want to be found. Hard to blame him on that, really, but Thomas Lord was not an average client just looking to get his dick wet for a decent price.

Two days, and Thomas had is man. He started those two mornings in the kitchen, brewing a pot of Lapsang Souchong in a cast iron pot that he would carry to his desk, sipping slowly on the steaming, smoked tea as he read through the results of searches and queries that had come in overnight. A second pot was made around mid-day, and it was this second brew on the second day that he was drinking carefully as he spoke to the Asian-accented man on the other end of the phone. The name the girl had given him, as well as the license plate from the vehicle, had led him to a run-down collection of offices; those, it turned out, had been bought by a shell company based in Delaware, and while the person who had set it up was good, he wasn't quite good enough.

Once the reality of his exposure was made clear to the man on the other end of the phone, he became much more willing to listen to the proposal Thomas had for him. Thomas knew he had made a pretty penny off his flesh peddling - the current balance of his accounts was displayed on the monitor as he spoke to the man - but he also knew that the Feds had no problem seizing all of that if they could build a RICO case against you, and they would do that against his Asian friend here with ease. It was a situation that could be significantly improved by having a silent benefactor willing to pay for a lawyer he couldn't afford even now.

"And if I can find you, rest assured that they can find you if you get their attention," he told him pointedly, though this was something he doubted was realistic. He had insulated himself reasonably well from the operations of his little establishment, putting other people in place that would take the fall if things went south; he'd bet his left testicle that they themselves were unaware of this fact, which is part of what made them perfect for the role.

The Asian's cautious reluctance melted quickly when he discovered that he wasn't being blackmailed or set up, but that instead he was gaining an incredibly wealthy new client; all Thomas wanted was active, ongoing assurance that the organization had not been compromised and the girl showing up on his doorstep would not be there to entrap him and get herself a lighter sentence as a result. All it would take is one word, Redwood, and he would know things were safe. Anything else - no message, another word, any other kind of communication of any sort from him - and Thomas would throw the girl off his property and call the police himself as he did it. For his ongoing assurances, money was wired to a new account in the Cayman's set up expressly and exclusively for that purpose. Redwood, always from a burner phone, meant peace of mind for Thomas and an easy $5000 extra for his new friend, tax free.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

Tonight, Redwood meant that the door opened on the girl waiting for him, and unless he was displeased by what he found there, she would be allowed in.

When he did open the door to reveal her there, his brows rose slightly. He was not picky, in truth he didn't really have a type, and yet it was first time they'd send a black girl to him. He wondered, as his gaze moved over her body like a river flowed around and over rocks, if she was a test - like this one and we'll send others; don't and we'll never make the mistake again, he imagined them thinking. Or maybe he was reading too much into it. Maybe she was simply one they thought he would like, and it didn't go beyond that. As his eyes slid along the curve of her hips, the round shape of her belly and swell of her breasts, he suspected the answer may be somewhere in the middle. Not a test, but something they would take note of either way. His appraisal of her paused for a moment, the space of a breath, on her lips, and he wondered how they would feel around his cock. Whatever else may happen tonight, it was a newly formed curiosity he would have to fulfill.

From her lips to the color on her face and wrapped around her hair, the orange an appealing contrast to her skin tone. He made a mental note of the scarf, knowing it may end up being something he appreciated greatly: useful and aesthetically pleasing.

"Alright," he said at last with a nod, his tone neither warm or friendly, as if he was instead simply confirming the fact of her existence. With the girl meeting his approval, the first hurdle cleared, he turned away from her and started back across the smooth marble of the floor.

"Shoes there," he said as he walked away with a wave of his right hand in the direction of the wall, where a bamboo rack stood ready to hold the shoes of any who he allowed in. He had no interest in small talk with this girl, doubted she could be an active participant in any that would hold his interest anyway, and so he did not waste his time or hers with inviting any. As he moved, he passed by expensive, framed pieces of abstract art where wedding pictures and magazine covers had once hung; he had less interest in their questions about the things that had hung there than he did in their dull attempt at small talk. When he did finally turn back in her direction, he stood in front of a large arched entryway further down along the same wall where she was to leave her shoes.

"Would you like a water?" he asked, with a slight incline of his head in the direction of the arched entryway, which she would discover in time led to the spacious kitchen. It was all she, and every other girl, had been and would ever be offered; chilled water, bottled, sealed, and opened only by them. He wanted those that were aware enough to think of such things to know that he was not trying to slip them something, and those who might entertain the idea of claiming later that he did to know that he'd planned ahead to prevent just such an accusation long before they'd ever been sent to him.

Some might consider what was to take place this night, what had taken place on all the nights prior to this, to be intimate and personal. Thomas wasted no time with such foolishly romantic ideas. They were here to provide a service to him, just as those who tended to the grounds or cleaned the pools or did any number of other jobs around the estate did. And just like those people, he knew that occasionally the girls saw in him an opportunity to improve their station in life - pay off their debts, get away from their boyfriend, go back to school, whatever the sob story may be. He had heard them all, and cared about none of them.

But that was not to say he was not willing to give someone the opportunity to earn more. A little harder with a gardener, perhaps, but these girls... they were a different story. And as his eyes settled on newest one to be sent to him, the contrast of orange and black again tugging at his attention, he wondered if she would be one to offer those opportunities.

I'll let you fuck my ass if you give me another $1000...

$2500 and you can take the condom off...

He might even take this one up on it.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Oh, well, thank God for small miracles. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would’ve done if he - no, not ‘he’, Mr. Lord, THE Thomas Lord, there was no denying that - had been…chatty. Conversational. His cool demeanor meant that this was business. That, she could deal with.


Off came her shoes - well-lived in black Converse high tops. There could’ve been a show of either seduction or being demure in how she did it. It wasn’t what happened. She unceremoniously sat down on the floor, rolled up the edges of her straight legged jeans, and deftly unlaced one shoe, then the other. They were splattered with coffee stains, old smudges of rich earth. Out of place with the immaculate bamboo rack, but without a shred of self-consciousness, she deposited them on the rack, pausing momentarily to adjust them. Wrap the once white, now gray, laces just so that they wouldn’t dangle down.


By that point, he’d walked on ahead, and so she paced behind him, jogging a bit to catch up, nearly silent on socked feet. When he turned to address her about the water, she was simply there, her gaze, dark brown and piercing, on him. The surroundings didn’t matter much to her: interior decor wasn’t in particular something she cared two whits about. And from the looks of him, she doubted he’d be interested, or even invested, in how his grounds were taken care of. The inside of his home were like any other emotionless, sterile homes of millions that she’d seen in magazines, usually skipping over them until she either found a more interesting magazine or until her name was called.


She was watching him, a hawk-like gaze out of the regularity of her face. True to Floria’s assessment, it was the face of a “doomed princess” - regality there in the high cheekbones and two toned full mouth, upper lip darker than the lower, the broad forehead. Brows that were natural - scarcely filled in with Floria’s pencil to even out the arches, even brown skin. The almost masculine base of a rectangle that human facial features had been chiseled out of, perched on a long and almost unnaturally slender neck before giving way to the strength of broad shoulders, hidden beneath that threadbare olive green v-neck shirt. A far cry from the other girls who’d been sent to him prim and proper, a pea hen after rows of peacocks. Those eyes, though. Eyes of a predator, those.


“No.” Crisp, as business-like as he’d presented the question to him. Clipped to keep herself from adding any more, the lingering let’s get this over with. Voice was low, unclear if that was intentional or the natural timbre.


How do you start these things? Why should I have to start it? He knows what he paid for. What he wants. It’s not conversation. Though wouldn’t it have been totally ironic if he called for conversation, like Bruce Wayne trying to keep up a persona? We could’ve been watching a movie and had popcorn, and like, half-way through, he’d leave for some reason or the other but I’d still be paid all the same.


The beginning of a smile, quickly chased away. Yeah, right. And while we’re at it, I might as well imagine that he’s actually funny and interesting and has been instantly taken with my homeliness and we end up being best friends and I could totally house sit whenever he’s out.


“But thank you.” An afterthought, recall of deeply engrained manners. Not meant to ingratiate or wheedle. Hawk-like gaze softened, momentarily - not in tenderness, but in question. They’d ask what her mouth didn’t - What do you want from me?

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

The fine muscles around his eyes contracted by millimeters, a minuscule and precise response to her reply. The effect was a slight narrowing of his eyes, and again he let his gaze climb along her, over lip and hip and everything in between. She was different than those that had come to his door before, in ways both immediately obvious and, he was discovering, in ways that were not. Some seemed almost eager to get started, their hands reaching for his belt before he'd even had the opportunity to offer them water; others clearly were nervous, or apprehensive, or only playing at seduction the way a sales clerk played at being friendly while cursing your existence in their mind.

But she felt like none of those things.

His eyes remained on hers for a long moment, and only distantly was he aware of the silence swelling to fill the space between them. She was in there, somewhere, whoever she was, and he found himself wondering at who that was. Somewhere in that moment he found himself irritated by this interest, the feeling of it rising up through his belly, and his Adam's apple worked as he swallowed it down. Not entirely, he didn't want to be rid of it fully, but instead to let it sit in his belly, churning and building, growing his desire to see his marks on her fine, dark skin. He moved then, his feet on the cool marble carrying him closer to her, invading her space, his eyes intent on her face for anything his sudden encroachment might reveal.

Standing close to her, his scent filled his nostrils as he breathed in, a low floral note he recognized but could not name.

Not a designer fragrance; not a knock off imitation of one. Hm.

A hand lifted between them, and his index finger moved under her chin, pressing firmly into the soft space just past her jaw so her head tipped back and her face was angled up towards his. Again, he kept her there a moment longer than seemed natural, the dark blue of his eyes studying her face. He wanted her to feel his appraisal on her, feel his comfort with silence, his enjoyment of her discomfort if she showed him any. He wanted her to see that the pace was his to set, and he would take his time - or hurry things along - as he wanted. Looking at the intelligence that swam in her eyes, he wanted to break her.

Except that wasn't quite accurate, was it? It was the first label he put on the feeling her eyes sparked to life in him, but it was the wrong one and as he kept her there, he took the time to discard it, and identify it more accurately.

He wanted to possess her.

"Sir," he said at last. It would be the only correction she would get that was not preceded or followed by consequences, and he found himself wondering if she would know that; he wasn't even sure he would be surprised if he did.

With his finger still under his chin, Thomas' weight shifted ever so slightly forward, reducing the distance between their bodies a few more centimeters. He was not, in truth, trying to close more distance between them; instead, he was overcome with the sudden urge to grab her by the arm, march her to the door, and throw her out the door. Toss her ridiculous shoes after her and let her go hunting for them in the dark. They'd barely left the entryway and she had these thoughts, these irritating emotions roiling through him, and he was not enjoying it.

Throw the bitch out, he told himself as his gaze swept across the fullness of her bottom lip, Throw the bitch out and tell them if they fuck up like this again he'll never give them another dime.

His jaw clenched, once, and then relaxed.

"This way," he said with the same coolly instructive tone, his finger leaving her jaw as he turned away from her and the front door behind her, to make his way to a door set under the large staircase leading up to the second floor, the light that illuminated the stairs leading down spilling out across the marble as he opened the door.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She’d been so busy watching him in easily digestible sections that she failed to take in the whole. A glance to a vein on his forearm, looping sinuously to his hand. The light blue t-shirt, probably too expensive to be something as simple and as comforting as jersey. Gray sweatpants, probably some designer she’d never heard of. Details that spelled routine and a lack of interest. Perhaps then they were an odd match in their own aloof approach, making the unknown mundane and transactional.

So busy watching those small details that when his eyes locked on hers, it was an almost physical pinning of her shoulders. A small inhale - held in the back of her throat. On the verge of a laugh, a true nervous reaction, that strange habit of humans of dealing with the absurdity of the unknown. No laugh, though - but a firm holding of her gaze to his. A suggestion of a challenge in the slight squaring of her shoulders, a subconscious response to the open stare of an unknown male, one that spoke of a rough upbringing and a innate ability of this woman to handle what was thrown at her. Higher facilities kicked in, tripped into operation by that urge to laugh. What had been so absurd to her?

Why, the way he looked at her.

People didn’t “hit” on Andromeda. It simply wasn’t done. Love, or rather, lust, at first sight, that tickle of something that implied interest; all of that was foreign to her, lessons in a language she’d never bothered to learn. Something that happened to other people. But like a switch being flipped in some deeply buried part of her brain, she felt it. Not the desire to shrink under an intense scrutiny, or the desire to be more pliant to be acceptable. The warmth of suddenly understanding what it meant to be looked at as a thing to be desired. It held her feet in place, sent a million unspoken messages through her body. Outwardly, there was no change, no placid lowering of her eyes.

A jump of the flesh when he touched her; not the instinct to jerk away, or to bat away his hand at the sheer audacity that this creature, this man, regardless of his money and title, dare touch her. A tightening at the corner of her mouth, teeth gritted: another subconscious response to being touched by a stranger. A non-verbal quiet growl, warning him away from the absolute sanctity of her personal space. However, she still took his guidance without complaint, her jaw tightening, chin raised in defiance. A if you must look, drown yourself in it. A captured queen who didn’t shrink before her captor.

But this close, she could look at him as closely as he looked at her, and so she did. The frame of his jaw, the reluctantly graying hair that was still thick and full and made her fingers twitch to want to touch it. Clean shaven. Ah. That’s what it was. It wasn’t that he was handsome (or that her brain merely registered him as such, still processing that flare of desire from him), but the set of his mouth. Firm and stern, yes, but crimped at the edges, swallowing a deep sorrow. And because she was human, and because under the baked sugar hardened exterior, she had a heart bigger than it should have been, she wanted not to swat him away, scolding him for being a foolish man who thought she could be merely bought, but to bring him close, to hold him. Only then did her eyes seem to soften - but not in the dewy melting of a smitten woman. Pity, there, not to be dismissed out of hand. Pathos, rich and full.

He spoke, and the burgeoning warmth that she could have had for him was blown away. A momentary madness. “Sir,” she said, indicating that she’d heard, understood, and would be compliant merely out of expediency, not out of reverence for the title. A bit of sadness there, mourning an opportunity solely created in her heart, of wanting to offer softness and having it roundly rejected. A one-word dirge for what could’ve been.

Maybe it’s for the best. You can’t keep living in your head, thinking, wanting, for this to be anything other than it is. It’s fantasy to think of him as a misunderstood gentleman, some sort of vigilante.

A deep inhale at the recognition of her own weakness. Andromeda had always been a daydreamer, eagerly taking flights of fancy out of her reality whenever she could. The car ride over had been no exception, trying her best to find something fun out of what was in front of her, a softening of the reality. A denial of the reality, if she were to be perfectly honest (and which she was not ready for), a last bastion against an unknown foe.

The fact that he’d looked at her, caused that primal understanding of what it meant to be desired, was relegated to the background, a skip in the record of the events. Given enough time, she’d explain it away. Was already starting to, eased along by the rejection of her softness, real or imagined. You misread the situation. He’s used to buying women. He knows how to look at them to get what he wants. He desires you as a set of holes.

A flash of heat to her cheeks, a rolling in her stomach that threatened nausea. It was becoming real, too real. She’d sold herself for this. Debts had to be repaid.

Only when his back was to her, did she allow herself to take in a full breath. To calm herself, to steward unruly emotions into their various cases, to be locked away, either forever or to be analyzed to death at a later time. She wasn’t going to get through this by leaping at whatever shadows he cast, by seeing human frailty in his eyes and wanting to crack him open to get to it, not to bathe in it or to mock him, but because she alone had the chisel to do so, because he was as human as her, and she needed him to acknowledge that, and once that was done, she’d wrap him up in all of her, pour herself into him until he was overflowing in her warmth, because she wanted to protect.

Huh.

Had she money for a therapist, she’d bet her last good bra that they’d be thrilled to want to begin to unpack all of that.

As if she could scarcely believe her own mind, she followed, silent as ever on her socked feet, her mind a million miles away, struggling to sort through the wealth of information given to her.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

The stairs that led under the large house - in truth, if you knew where to go down there you could find yourself well out from under the house and winding paths under the expansive grounds surrounding it - were wide and plushly carpeted, and he descended them quickly with a practiced, silent stride. His eyes were blazing as he moved, shining with a quiet anger he felt rising in the back of his throat, and he barely saw the spacious room at the bottom of the stairs as he moved through it. It was wide and open, white walls and plush, cream carpeting that helped to absorb some of the sound and prevent the echo that could be so common in rooms like it. A fireplace dominated one wall, a long bar another, and he spared not even a single glance at either as he passed through, slipping around a leather couch and moving up a wide hallway that led away from the stairs.

If asked right at that moment, gun to his head, who his anger was directed at, he'd scarcely be able to provide an answer. Her was his first, instinctual answer, but he knew as he moved with her trailing behind that he had no reason to be angry at her; that fire had no fuel to sustain it. The people that had sent her? Perhaps, but that didn't feel quite right either. They were trying to keep him happy, to respond to what little feedback they received and adjust accordingly; perhaps they had missed badly this time, perhaps she contained surprises yet, but he knew down to the dollar how much he had sent their way since that first girl on that first night, and he knew they were not looking to stem the flow of cash from his hand to theirs. The real truth of it, the one that threatened to send the anger into his veins so it could consume him, was that he was angry at himself for whateverthefuck had just happened up there. It was likely that she'd not even noticed it, rarely did these women seem to be burdened with an overabundance of intelligence, much less what he would consider a talent for perception; they knew how to swallow his cock while controlling their gag reflex and that seemed to be the greatest use their heads might have.

But she may have.

She may have...

The hallway continued on some distance, closed doors set into the wall on one side or the other as the corridor stretched beyond where he stopped.

"Here," he said without looking back, the door swinging open with the slightest whine of hinges. The lights in the room flickered to life when the motion of the door was detected. The knob on the door he released as he stepped into the room was brass, simple and plain; no lock, on either side, so no one could be locked inside or outside the room. The room revealed by the lights was larger than one might expect; a large bed was up against the center of the opposite wall from where they entered, the linens white and fresh; at the end of it stood a wooden bench, stained a deep chestnut color and stretching the width of the bed; against the near wall were two large, heavy-duty tool chests, the metal of the drawer handles and walls polished to a flawless, fingerprint-free shine, though the tools contained within would do little to help one repair a car or change a leaky pipe; on the far end of the room was a shower stall, the only wall separating it from the rest of the room made up of a single panel of glass, and beside it was a sink and faucet, with a mirror mounted on the wall above them. Across from the bed and wooden bench stood a tall, three-panel mirror, as if ready for a suit fitting to begin at any moment.

Were she to take the time to look more carefully around the room, she might notice other things: sturdy metal hooks placed in seemingly random places along the ceiling, a coiled garden hose in the shadows under the sink, the metal grate of a drain set into the tile some distance outside of the shower, the slight rough texture of the tile floor underfoot.

He took no time to point out any of this. Instead, he moved to the polished wood of the bench at the end of the bed, and lowered himself onto it. His eyes, intense and focused, found her for the first time since he'd turned his back to her upstairs, and he indicted the three-panel mirror, and the small table that stood next to it, with a wave of his hand.

"There," he said, the table's purpose made apparent as he continued, "Undress. Everything."

Two floors away from the room he once shared with his wife, buried underground in a far room of the basement, hidden away from the world and the memories it contained, Thomas Lord crossed one leg over the other, his fingers interlocking casually against his knee, and waited for this girl to show him more of her dark skin.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

It wasn’t that she hadn’t taken note of their trek to wind up in this room; if anything, it chilled her blood with each foot in front of the other. No one could hear her down here. What if he’d decided that he hated her, and, well, with his money (and the power that came with it), he could easily torture her. Maybe even kill her. And with little to no consequences for it, either. Why would he; she was black, female, with an agency that sold sex, and had no real family to speak of. The type of woman that went missing in droves and no one bothered to look for.

It was easier to keep her eyes down; to give the impression of being coy or demure. Rather than give into despair -though it was so, so easy- she throttled her mind into awareness. Yes, down here, someone couldn’t hear her. But if she kept watch of where she was going, she’d be able to get out. He was fit, she couldn’t deny that, but she had youth on her side, and raw adrenaline. And maybe a few self-defense classes tucked away in there as well. If push came to shove, she’d do what she had to. And she couldn’t let anything shake that.


Not even when he told her to undress.


A glance in his direction. Nothing to suggest eagerness or even a halting in her movements. No tears or reddened nose, downcast eyes full of shame. Her glance, quick as it was, conveyed understanding, and a distinct lack of interest in his reaction that could’ve been perceived as robotic in its chill. That whatever that was human that lurked in her had been lost along the way.


First, the shirt. Her back was to him as she tugged it over her head. A sea of muted green, redolent of perfume and deodorant, the distinct tang of her own body odor encroaching against both. For a moment, she held it, considering tossing it to the ground, then, with a quirk of her lips, deciding against it. Eyeing the table, there was a small tilt of the head, measuring its size, determining if it was large enough for what she wanted. A puff of air as she draped the shirt over the table, and deftly folded it as if it was one that needed to go in a row, displayed neatly on a retail table. Old habits died hard - and a part of her had a distinct hatred for disorder, no matter what the situation. Here, it made sense: at least she was in control of something.


She moved to unbutton her jeans - stopped when she noticed her hands shaking noticeably. A deep breath in through the nostrils. Tried to focus on the round of muted copper of the main button. Forced herself to focus on it. A soft chuckle; a venting of the incredulity of the situation. Of her life, up until this point.


“Who knew I’d get here from my feet,” said so softly to barely be heard; an inside joke to herself, slipping through the prison of her lips before she could stop herself. And on the heels of it, some discordant tone. Either trying to remember the song from a dream, or sing along to one that she didn’t know the words of. The tune was spineless, without real passion, but it did the job in stilling her hands as she finally unbuttoned the jeans, undid the zipper with a muted purr of metal. Coarse folds of denim hissing against one another as she pushed them down her thighs, then to the floor - a resounding pop! as she shook them out, folding them neatly to place on top of her shirt.


Back still to him, the line of her bra hidden by the cascade of hair. The mirror would bare herself better that she did - every once in a while, she would catch the reflection of her own eyes in the mirror and stop, grounding herself, it would seem. To transport herself elsewhere. Nudity on its own was simply a thing; had she not done the same for art classes? Different, then, yes - she’d undressed elsewhere, to shed the robe in the most mundane of ways before standing beneath a collection of hot lights, finding a pose she could hold for however long.


It’s an art class. A private art class. I’m a collection of lines and circles and shadows.


Once, her eyes drifted from her own to his form sitting behind her. A sort of ancient knowledge there, passed between the two of them. Fleeting as to be imagined, as she went back to her undressing.


Of course her bra and panties didn’t match.


The bra was a long-lined one, the minuscule strap of the average bra replaced with a band that was at least three inches long, a series of intricate hooks at her back. It was…whimsical, really, trimmed in black lace and black checked, gingham inspired, but more muted. A bra that spoke of expense, and in her case, saving for weeks before its purchase became a necessity. Her panties were bikini, wide strips of surprisingly bright violet elastic against her brown skin before giving way to lavender cotton. Unlike the bra, the panties had probably seen better days, but were well worn, with logos fading into suggestions of white writing and the occasional long string of elastic that’d worked free from the violet waist band.


Another deep breath, and she was bending forward, swinging her curtain of hair over one shoulder. Hands moved behind her, unfastening the bra, the myriad of hooks not giving her a second pause. No hesitation before she whipped it off, folding it to be on top of her jeans. She didn’t bother covering her breasts out of modesty, instead, simply bent down to step out of her panties as methodically as she’d removed her bra. Then - as an afterthought, she suddenly sat, removed her socks. Folded them as well, placing them, the cherry on top of the sundae of her clothing.


She now turned to face him; forcing herself to do so if the clench in her jaw was any indication.


This is an art class. He’s not here to judge your body, just to use it.


I am lines.


I am circles.


I am chiaroscuro.


Standing in front of him, there was subtle throwing back of the shoulders, a raising of the head, a steadying of her gaze. She was shorter than him still, yes, but her posture suggested that she may have been taller. A clench in her waist that suggested that her current figure had only filled in through recent years, hung on a frame that was prone to being skinny with long limbs that would be leaning towards shapeless, had it not been for recent years. She couldn’t be brushed off as ‘chubby’; there was a fullness to her stomach, yes, but it didn’t take away from the clench in her waist. It wasn’t the figure that someone would scroll across on social media, or in a magazine. It was something that belonged to an older time, recalling frescos, rolls of flesh carved lovingly into stone.


“Sir.” A verbal prod. Why didn’t I ask if this was paid for by the hour? No visible change on her face, perhaps the shadow of a frown in the crease of her brow. God knows how long I’ll be here.