I have no choice but to take on another customer. I need coin. Not just to free my family, but to survive. I can’t even afford food. I swallow my pride and head to Madame. “May I please have another customer, Madame?”
“Of course. And what preferences are you willing to indulge?” she asks.
“Any as long as the pay is good,” I say without meeting her eyes.
“Are you sure?” she asks, taking my chin in her hand and bringing my eyes to meet hers. I nod. “I’m not sure you know what you’re asking for.”
“I need the coin,” I say with a desperate plea.
“I understand. Just please come to me if things ever get too much. Okay?” she says. I nod silently. “Why don’t you take a long bath and have a glass of wine? Just try to relax. Tonight, I’ll get you one customer to start and we’ll go from there.”
I nod. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
She wraps her arms around me and holds me for a few moments. “Now go soak in hot water. It usually calms the nerves.”
I nod and do as I’m told. Heating up water in the tub and taking a few long moments to soak in it. What have I gotten myself into? How could things come to this? Was there ever a possibility of a different path? I suppose I could’ve accepted that priest’s offer oh so long ago. It feels like an eternity ago since I was on top of that bell tower and she caught me up there weeping. She was kind, and looking back I wish I had taken her offer. I had been stupid and hasty.
Yet I feel Madame has also been very kind to me. Even though the situation is, for a lack of a better term, fucked; I truly feel like she does what she thinks is best. It’s hard to know what is truly good when you are always put in bad situations. Women shouldn’t have to sell their bodies for a man’s pleasure. But if I don’t work here, who would accept a street rat like me aside from a church I don’t believe in? My father always taught me to be skeptical of religion. To always question everything and find everyone’s true motivations and intentions. And usually, a person’s motives rarely align with the words coming out of their mouth. The best way to judge a person’s character is to watch and observe their actions. So far, Madame has been kind to me and helped me in the way she thinks is best.
Orym told me he loved me; he said he wanted to be here, yet he is not here. I haven’t seen him in so long. My heart is truly broken. I want to crawl into a hole and die there. How could I be so stupid as to think a man as handsome as Orym could ever want anything to do with a street rat like me? Tyma was right. People who come off as good, kind, and pure are the cruelest of them all. Even so, I’m the fool. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t to be. I knew he wasn’t the one. He didn’t feel like the one, but he was still so kind and gentle. He fooled me with such heartwarming words and a warm touch that I was willing to give my heart to him. I’m so stupid.
—
After the hot bath and two cups of hot, spiced wine, I feel a little more at ease. My stomach doesn’t feel as if it were digesting rotting fruit any longer. I have to take another glass of wine to down the foul-tasting tonic.
Madame has me wait in a room for my new customer. My mind wonders about what kind of things this man wants from me. I don’t think I’ll be so lucky to have another man as gentle as Orym. Part of me doesn’t want that anyway so my heart doesn’t grow attached. I’m not sure if I want to enjoy this anymore. My heart is still broken from all the pain I’ve been through. The guilt of my family’s enslavement because of my actions. The feeling of being abandoned by Orym and how stupid I was to fall in love with him. I just don’t want to be a fool any longer.
When the door finally opens, my heart leaps into my chest. A tall, muscle-bound man walks in, and I can tell he’s a ship captain for the Golden High Elven Trading Company. His face is that of a stone wall with burning red hair and eyes that seem to burn with a blue flame full of hate. There’s a scar across his mouth, and one of his long pointy ears has the tip cut off.
I lower my head as he walks around the room, inspecting it. Then I see him start to take his clothes off. He doesn’t seem to be the talkative type. But what happened next, I did not expect.
Everything seems to happen all at once, and I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life. Especially now, laying bare on the floor, shivering, and covered in sweat. Tears bleed down from my eyes. His hands paint a map of the hurt he left upon my body. I can’t fight, I can’t say no, I just feel frozen by fear. He rips the hope from my heart. Strips me of myself.
I can feel his hands around my neck… That hateful stare burning down upon me. The unrelenting assault upon my body never seems to end. He didn’t even give me the courtesy of the comfort of a bed, instead he has me pinned against the cold, hard floor. The rough wood against my face is something I know I will never forget. I’m still bleeding where he tore me apart. I feel so cold. He takes the warmth from me and leaves me with only this chilling, frozen fear and despair. I feel my heart being ripped open and wrung out. I cling to the floor, my nails digging into the wood as my soul is torn with each of his savage assaults.
My mind swirls in and out of the blackness, clinging to a shred of light. My eyes seek mercy and only find the name of this monster. Faidhor Haryrwen, stitched upon his tunic lying in front of me. A name I will never forget.
Time seems to stretch forever while all I feel is pain. I have lost the world around me and my only escape is the icy darkness of my mind. I barely remember him leaving. Just the sound of him putting his clothes on before he walks out, leaving me here shivering on the floor, curled up in tears.
I hurt everywhere, and what little innocence I had left inside me has died in the short few moments in which it took him to break me. He took what little shred of life I had left.
I don’t know how long I laid on the floor, weeping. I no longer have any sense of time. Just pain. It’s all I feel, and each moment is an eternity of suffering.
I hear someone walk in and gasp. “Lura?”
I don’t move as they kneel down. I flinch away as I feel their touch. “Madame!”
The world around me seems to fade as I drown in my pain. I hear their words, but they all sound so empty and hollow. “She’s bleeding. Get a healer. Find the priestess. She’ll help.”
“I’m so sorry… If I had known what that man was going to do to you, I would’ve never let him inside. I don’t tolerate such behavior.” My head is pulled into a lap and a hot towel is pressed against my forehead. I no longer have tears to weep with. Even after they cover me with a blanket, I still lie there shivering. I don’t even remember being lifted into the bed.
I don’t know what hurts worse, the pain that was dealt to my body by that horrible man, or Orym’s empty promises that broke my heart. It’s hard to tell which man is worse. The one who broke my heart, or the one who broke my body.
Then I feel that warmth enters my body once more. That familiar warming joy. It makes the pain fade away and I’m enveloped in the joyous warmth. I want to lose myself in it. Is it him? Orym? Has he finally returned to me? Please, let it be him.
I force my eyes open to such blinding light and see some angel standing above me. Is it really him? Slowly, the warmth fades, taking the light and joy with it, leaving only a blurry outline of a woman with golden hair standing above me. There is something familiar about her, but my mind is too heavy with fog. I can’t think straight. “You poor child. You are safe now. I will take away your pain. Just sleep, poor child. Just sleep.”
Her voice is one I have heard before, but I can’t place it. I feel her touch against my cheek and it radiates with warmth, but then it’s gone as I drift off into the darkness.
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