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“Ok.” My voice is hollow.
He leans in towards me, his fingers brushing my chin across the table. “Don’t be nervous. We’ll take good care of you.”
His words and the clammy touch of his hand bring an uneasy nausea to my stomach but I squash it down.It’s only this one time,I remind myself. I just have to pay my rent and get my hands on some blood, then I’ll get back on my feet. This time next week, I’ll have a real job again.
Someone appears beside our table and pulls me from my thoughts. A young man in slacks and vest sets down a mysterious red cocktail before Alastor and follows that up by slapping a blood bag on the table. Before I can stop myself, I find myself reaching for it.
Alastor catches my hand in a vice grip, tight enough that I let out a pained huff of air. He smiles with false congeniality. “This is forafter. A little motivation to show yourself from your best side.”
I try to draw my hand away but he keeps it held firmly in place. I grimace. “It’s just… I’m starving.” I swallow. “I can hardly move by myself.”
With a chuckle, he lets go of my wrist. “Even better.”
***
Alastor practically has to drag me up the stairs and into one of the rooms, my legs no longer willing to do the work. I almost feel relief when we arrive, finally able to sink down on a fancy-looking red leather lounge. The room itself manages to be trashy despite each component clearly having been expensive. The furniture is covered in real leather, the wooden floors are solid, the rose-print wallpaper is elaborately textured, and the large bed has an intricately carved bedhead in the shape of a heart. The pillows are plush with what looks like real fur. It looks like a rich person’s caricature of what a room in a brothel should look like.
The back wall is covered in shackles, toys, and devices I don’t understand and can’t name. I swallow. Alastor leaves me with a reminder that the customer is always right and that there’s money waiting for me on the other side of this. When I raise my concerns that I’m not ready – because I have no idea what the hell I’m doing – he just laughs, saying, “You'll learn soon enough,” and closes the door behind himself.
I rub my sweaty palms on my jeans as I wait, hearing my blood rush in my ears. What the hell am I doing? I try to squash down the panic rising in my throat.What did you think?I scold myself.That there’d be an instruction manual for prostitution?
I get weaker with every minute that passes. I’ve never been this starved before and it surprises me how rapidly my state is deteriorating. While I knew that this could happen to vampires, I never really thought about it much when I was still human. Like everyone else, I thought vampires were nothing but parasites. I assumed the hollowed-out shadows hiding from the sun under bridges ended up there because they screwed up in life, not because living like this is impossible.
I try to reason with my own panic. I’ve never been with a guy before but it’s easy enough, right? People do this all the time. It’ll be gross but it’s just one night.People do this all the time,I repeat to myself. It’s just sex. It doesn’t matter.
The more I try to reason, the worse my panic gets. Eventually, the nausea becomes too much.I can’t do this.
With shaking knees, I push myself out of the chair. I can’t stay upright without holding on to the wall. Stumbling, I try to make my way to the door.I’ll just find somewhere to wait for Mav and text him that I changed my mind.He’ll help me get home.
Before I can make it to the door, I stumble straight into someone’s broad, heavily perfumed chest. He smells like he’s put on every expensive scent he could find at once, sweet and musky and nauseatingly strong. Only humans have noses so impervious to smell.
“And where do you think you're going?” He grabs me by the elbows, steadying me.
Another human, recognizable by the smell of sweat clinging to his skin, appears in my vision. He leans in close to me and grabs my arm, turning my back to the wall. His breath is acrid with expensive liquor.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, trying to push myself off the wall. “I’m not… I can’t. I have to go.”
The one with the bad breath pushes me back with ease. He clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “But we’ve already paid.”
Slapping his hand off me, I turn and push myself along the wall toward the door. When I look up I see Alastor leaning in the doorway – for a moment I feel relieved, then I see the expression on his face.
One of the two grabs me from behind, wrapping his arm around my waist. I try to free myself, clawing at his arm, but I’m so weak it doesn't even leave a mark.
“Careful of her teeth, boys,” Alastor says smugly. “What do they say? You can cut the head off a snake but it can still bite.”
“Let go of me!” My voice is thin and quiet, not at all the way I'm trying to sound.
Alastor looks me dead in the eye before closing the door.
The guy behind me turns and pins me against the wall, his body pressed against my back. “Don’t be scared,” he says, his breath damp against my ear. “We’ll have fun.”
“No! Stop it!” I try to struggle free as his hand slides under my shirt. “I changed my mind! Let me go!”
With an annoyed grunt, he moves his other hand up my arm and then claps his hand over my mouth.
Fuck.
My body is too limp, my muscles refusing to do as I ask them. His hands are rough as they find my chest. I can feel him getting hard against the soft flesh of my hips. I have the violent urge to be sick. Desperate, I twist my head to seek the eyes of the other guy.
