I couldn’t help myself. I had to kiss her again. And she didn’t seem to mind.

She was sort of leaning against my knees, bending down in a way that looked uncomfortable, so I stood from the bed. 

I broke away first, after just a few more moments of kissing. She probably had to go, and I knew I had another client after, but I couldn’t help myself.

She blinked up at me, shocked, and I rubbed circles on the wrist I was holding. I smiled warmly at her.

She blushed and smiled, and I was still holding her wrist. We walked to the door, keeping our eyes on each other as I pulled the door open for her.

She stepped past the threshold as I slowly dropped her wrist. I leaned against the door in all my tattooed glory, with just two pieces of clothing away from being fully naked as she neared the stairs.

She looked back once when I called, “I’ll see you next week, Sweet Lily.”

Lily blushed again, her face turning into her signature tomato red. She lifted a shy hand to wave back at me, and I laughed, waving back. I watched her leave, her careful steps down the stairs lowering her until she was gone from my view. But I didn’t move from where I stood, listening for the door. I wouldn’t go down until she was gone.

“Thank you for visiting The Dagger’s End,” I heard Doe tell Lily. “Have a good night!”

I could almost see Lily’s blush as she walked out the door. She must’ve smiled in goodbye, too, if I still remembered her right. I smiled involuntarily where I stood, wishing I could see her face.

But my smile quickly evaporated. We will have none of that! I told myself.

I shook my head and turned back into my room. I bent and pulled my shorts from the floor and quickly slipped them up my hips. I left the room again and began down the stairs, buttoning up my shorts as I walked. As much as I wanted to sit and think about Lily, I had a job to do. And I was nothing if not proficient.

After Lily had left at half past seven, I had about eleven other clients with barely a minute spared between them. It was about the usual amount of clients I had. And, by the end of the night, I had a total of $5600.

Satisfied with my night’s work, I showered for what felt like the hundredth time and redressed in my home clothes. Gray sweatpants and a cropped black hoodie. A pair of plain black tennis shoes completed my look as I swung my black backpack over my shoulder. It held all of my whore shit in it, though not including my underwear.

Maybe I should invest in the comfy looking underclothes that Lily had, I thought to myself. I shook my head. How had I managed to keep my mind on her all throughout the entire night?

She was haunting me.

I got downstairs where Doe was closing up and most of the rest of the prostitutes were hanging out in the lobby.

“Hey, Raven,” James called from where he sat, curled up with a cup of coffee in his hands. “How was your night?”

“It was good,” I told him with a smile.

At the end of the work night, at around seven, everyone had finished cleaning and redressing. Usually, everyone gathered around the lobby with coffee or hot cocoa and just relaxed. It was nice to use everyones’ names and see their faces without the masks. But tonight, I needed sleep. Or, today, I guess.

“You staying?” he asked, and several of the others looked up at me.

“Nah,” I told them, shaking my head. “I’m visiting my family in a few hours. Figure I should get some sleep before that.”

“Ah,” James said. “Well, then, see you in the afternoon.”

“Bye,” I called as I smiled, waved, and walked out the door. I pulled my hood up to cover my head before I made it past the threshold and began to walk through the streets.

My house was about a forty minute walk from The Dagger’s End, in a surprisingly safe area. It wasn’t exactly fancy, but it was definitely nice.

A two story house with white walls both inside and out. The roof had pale gray tiles and the windows had similar light gray borders. The black front door was behind a luscious green yard, only maybe two yards back.

Inside my house, I barely had any furniture. One couch and a TV in the living room. One table with two chairs in the kitchen. The laundry room was connected to the kitchen by a white door. And there was one bathroom that I rarely used under the stairs.

Upstairs were the bedrooms. Two rooms, a guest and one for me, though only my room had a bed. I had a desk, closet, and a bookshelf, too, and there was a second bathroom that I mainly used connected to my bedroom.

But except for lamps, dishes, utensils, and such, my house was barren. No pictures or paintings, no plants or vases, no sculptures, games, or toys.

Outside, I had a garage large enough for one car. I used it for storage, though, to hold things from my childhood, teenage years, and things from college.

I had gone to college, surprisingly. No one would think that me, a prostitute, would have gotten a Bachelor's degree in music and psychology. I guess that explains why I was so proficient at understanding my clients.

But once I had been about to get my degrees, around when I had turned twenty-two, I found myself lost. My hair was always in a greasy ponytail, I was tired, my dorm room at the time had been a mess.

So I sat down on my bed and just… thought. I thought about my future. About my past. About how I was feeling and why I was feeling what I was feeling. What was my social life like? Did I take care of myself? What could I do with the degrees I had gained?

After a full weekend of pondering, I realized… I didn’t want to continue.

There wasn’t much I felt like I could do. Be a music teacher? A therapist?

But I didn’t want to do that.

For the first time in years, I had found the part of me that wanted for things. And I wanted to stop. Stop studying and taking tests and reading big textbooks and so much. I didn’t want to perform at concerts every other day with people who felt like they were better than everyone else.

So I decided I would push through to the end of college before I dropped out and found myself a life I wanted to live.

I dug into my savings to buy a house, somewhere I’d be proud of living no matter what I did and who I was with. Then, once I had graduated with the third highest scores, I moved into my house and began to focus on myself.

Over the years I had been in college and high school, I had begun to forget to take care of myself. I looked at my hair and thought to myself, I don’t like it when it’s long. There were split ends and it looked wrong when it went past my chin, so I got a pair of scissors and cut it off myself.

It actually turned out amazing, somehow.

And then, I looked at my empty skin, paler than my usual light toned skin due to the lack of sunlight I had gotten. It looked… wrong.

So I got tattoos. It started with a small treble and bass clef behind my ears, though they had been a high school graduation gift from myself and no one had ever noticed them before. Then I expanded my inventory of ink.

I got the orchid on my arm, first, followed by the vines. All seven butterflies for my twenty-third birthday, just a few months after my graduation. Then the skull and dagger when I got my job at The Dagger’s End. Then the snake around my leg when I became the best whore in the place. Last were the orchids around my midsection and thigh. Those were just to emphasize my whore name.

But I rarely got piercings. I had my ears pierced back when I was ten, but they were constantly bothering me, so I decided not to get any more. I looked really cool in my large black hoops, though.

I threw my bag onto my bed as I collapsed next to it. I’d unpack in a few hours. Right now, I was sleeping. 

…

I woke up about seven hours later, around three in the afternoon. I dragged myself from my bed and pulled my clothes out of my bag. I walked through the house and dumped my clothes (chains removed) into the laundry machine.

Then I went to the kitchen and made myself a bowl of cereal because I was too tired to make anything else. And I… really didn’t have anything else.

My pocket buzzed suddenly. I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen.

My mother was calling me.

“Hi, Mom,” I replied reluctantly, the words feeling bitter in my mouth.

“Hello, Carissa,” my mom replied.

I sighed. “Mom, my name is Raven. We’ve been over this.”

She scoffed on the other side, and I flinched. “Oh, really? You hate the name I gave you so much that you had to go and change it? How disrespectful! I gave you life, I raised you, and this is how you treat your mother?”

“Well, it’s legally Raven, now,” I told her for what felt like the millionth time. And definitely not the last time. “Anyway, why are you calling?”

“Are you still coming over tonight?” she asked in her annoying and snotty voice.

“Uh…” I looked at the clock. I had time before I had to go to work, but they lived two hours away… “Sorry, Mom, I’ll have to bail,” I told her. “I only have three hours before my shift at work starts, as it takes two hours to get there, so…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” my mom said dismissively. “I get it, your work is more important than your own family.”

And with that snide remark, she hung up. I scoffed and rolled my eyes as I set my phone down on the counter. 

“‘Mom’ my ass,” I muttered. “Bitch.”

I was slightly thankful that I had overslept. I hated visiting my inconsiderate, ignorant, and impossible family. My toxic bitch of a mother. My weak ‘listen to your mother’ father. My oblivious brother who was praised just because he was born a boy.

That was probably why I moved so far away and found a job they would hate me to have. They didn’t know, of course. They’d kill me if they knew. But I felt all the better just knowing they’d implode if they knew.

So with a half-happy-half-depressed sigh, I scooped the last soggy bits of cereal from the bowl and set it in the sink. Began to wash it as I zoned out, staring out the window.

It felt like my life sort of hit fast forward, like on TV, but at the same time, paused. Time felt agonizingly slow as I pleased clients and faked orgasms. As I dragged myself home and slept, ate, and went back to work.

But then, it had been a week and my redundant life hit a point of interest.

Don’t get me wrong, I had fun, too. Went clubbing with my friends from the brothel, ate good food, watched movies, read books, and so on. But for some reason, these actions felt a bit… emptier than they usually did.

Only when Wednesday arrived did I understand.

I had been waiting for Lily.

So, with an oversized black shirt tucked into another pair of black jean shorts, I watched as she approached. Leaned against the same part of the wall, around the same people, in the same mask.

She was wearing a pale white dress today, tight fit around her chest and showing every curve, but loose and flowy around her legs. It went to her knees and she had on a pale green cardigan. She had the same clutch slung around her body.

My mouth curled into a smile as she approached me in the shadows. I reached out a hand and she took it, and we wordlessly began towards the entrance.

I nodded to Doe and Lily gave a slight wave as we walked side by side through the lobby. Then up the stairs, down the hallway, and into my designated room. I pushed the door open and stepped in, listening as Lily closed the door behind her.

I turned a smile over my shoulder as she silently walked over and sat on the bed. I pulled a stool from the counter and sat on it, facing her as I leaned back onto the counter.

“How’re you doing, Sweet Lily?” I asked her.

She scrunched her shoulders up to her ears and puffed up her cheeks in an inhale. Then she slouched over and blew out her exhale. I smiled, biting my lip to keep a snicker from slipping out.

“Not… great?” she answered, sort of unsure about herself. “I mean, it was fine, but like… I don’t know…”

I watched as she pulled her bag over her head and dropped it on the bed beside her. Then she did something I didn’t expect.

She flopped backwards onto the bed.

My eyes widened behind my black mask, but my smile spread, too. She seemed so comfortable here, which was a bit surprising considering how new she was here.

“I think I’m just tired,” she told me finally. She sighed again and I really couldn’t help but chuckle under my breath.

“Yeah, I get it,” I told her, pushing off of the stool I had been sitting on and began walking towards her. I sat on the bed beside her and leaned back, on my right hand, watching her face as her eyelashes fluttered up at the ceiling. I reached out my left hand and began to gently brush her face, her hair, her jaw, and her eyes slowly shut. “Anything I can do to help?” I offered in a quiet voice.

“What are you offering?” she countered, a smirk pulling at her own lips.

“Well,” I said, my fingers not pausing as my voice did. Could she take what I was about to say? I said it anyway, my tongue free from the reigns my mind previously held over it. “You are paying me to fuck you, so… Everything’s on the table!” 

Her eyes shot open with shock as she turned to look at me, but my fingers didn’t stop trailing across her face. My smile widened further and I knew it looked devilish, as lots of people had called me.

“What in hell?” she breathed with a half smile and a breath of a laugh.

I threw my head back with a laugh as she didn’t flinch from her bewildered stare. I pulled my hand away from her unknowingly as I flopped beside her on the bed. She turned her head to keep me in her gaze, but I didn’t pay it any mind as I tried to keep from hacking up my lungs.

Somehow, she pulled out my emotions.

And with that thought, my laughter faltered. I caught it quickly, though, and played it off like I had quieted my laughter on purpose.

I twisted my head to look at her before turning my whole body to face her. Trailed that same hand down her face with feather-like fingers.

“So, what’s it going to be, Sweet Lily?” I breathed against her face.

She twisted her body similarly to fully face me. She was blushing, like she usually did, with her eyes gazing down, also like she usually did.

And after a moment of hesitation, she shrugged. It was a small movement, but I caught it and stroked her hair behind her ear.

“A k-kiss?” she asked meekly, glancing up at me.

My smile softened. “Of course,” I whispered as I leaned in. Her eyes fluttered closed again as I touched my lips to hers ever so gently.

I pushed her backwards, until I was straddling her hips with my legs. I silently wondered to myself if she’d ever want to top. Well, for now, she’d bottom, at least until she learned more.

My left hand stayed where it was on her face as my right started to travel up her leg, slipping under her dress and pulling it up. Laid my hand on her stomach and feeling her breaths get heavier and heavier as she lifted her hands to hold my face, gripping my hair with fierce fingers.

But this time, she was the one to delve her tongue into my mouth!

So I indulged her, letting her do what she wanted with our joint mouths while I took more control of my hand and let it ride up higher.

I slipped my hand under her bra as she nearly smashed my face into hers. This would be a lot more fun…