The bread tastes like sawdust in my mouth, and the soup isn’t much better.
I’m sitting at the table, hunched over a bowl that’s more water than substance, trying to remember what it felt like to have energy. My whole body aches. Meira made good on her threat this morning, and the hours that followed turned into something that felt less like sex and more like endurance training.
I came inside Meira twice and once in Tisha.
Across from me, Meira sits with perfect posture, sipping black coffee with the satisfied air of someone who just won a chess match. Her silver hair is immaculate, her expression calm and composed. She looks invigorated. Radiant, even.
Beside her, Tisha slumps in her chair with her elbows on the table, cradling her own bowl like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Her braid is slightly disheveled.
We almost missed breakfast entirely. The innkeeper was halfway through clearing the common room when we finally stumbled downstairs.
Meira takes another sip of her coffee, her pale eyes sweeping over both of us with unmistakable satisfaction.
“How much money do we have left, Tisha?”
Tisha lifts her head slowly. “Enough to stay here for two weeks.”
“Alright.” Meira sets her cup down with deliberate precision. “We have to start earning again.”
“Yeah. We don’t want to be homeless again.”
The words register a beat late. “You were homeless?”
Meira’s hand comes up in a dismissive wave, cutting me off before I can ask anything else. “We’re discussing business right now, Vincent.”
I tear off another piece of bread and force myself to chew. The silence stretches for a moment before I swallow and look up at Meira.
“You want me to fuck clients today?”
Meira’s eyebrow arches slightly. “I’d love to get the ball rolling today if we could, but I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Why not?”
Meira leans back in her chair, and I watch something calculating move behind those silver eyes.
“I don’t know how much to charge.” Her fingers drum against the table once, twice. “Plus we’ll need to rent another room here. Which...” She pauses, and I can almost see her doing math in her head. “That only gives us one week if we’re paying for all the days instead of two.”
She breathes out, long and controlled.
“We also need to get you a slightly better outfit.” Her gaze travels over what I’m wearing, the same clothes I’ve had since I got here. “Really just something that doesn’t look like it was sewn together by a human missing a hand.”
Tisha snorts into her bowl. The sound turns into a laugh, and her shoulders shake as she tries to muffle it.
I look down at my shirt. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s terrible,” Meira says flatly. “No one is going to pay premium rates for a stud who looks like he crawled out of a ditch.”
“I literally did get enslaved in a ditch, though.”
Concern flickers across Meira’s face for just a moment before that composed mask slides back into place.
“I’ll take you to find an outfit today,” she says, her tone shifting to more businesslike. She turns to Tisha. “You can find the going rate of…”
She stops herself mid-sentence.
“No, wait.” Her pale eyes narrow slightly. “Tisha, you’re not going anywhere near a whorehouse. I forbid it.”
Tisha’s head snaps up from her bowl. “What? I was just gonna ask around.”
“That would be cheating.”
The words hang in the air for a moment. I look between them, my tired brain trying to process what I just heard.
“Wait,” I say slowly. “Other whores would be cheating, but not me?”
Meira’s attention shifts to me, and her expression goes flat. “We own you, Vincent. I control you.” She pauses, and something hardens in her voice. “Which means I understand exactly what’s happening to my lovely Tisha when she’s with you.”
I nod slowly. “Alright.”
Tisha shifts in her chair, her green eyes moving to Meira. “I wouldn’t try nothing, Meira. You know that.”
“I believe you.” Meira’s voice softens slightly, but the steel underneath doesn’t disappear. “But I’d prefer you stay untempted, love. Let’s all just go out together.”
“I can’t.” Her voice drops. “I have to go pick up the supplies from the guild hall and then try to sell them.”
Meira’s satisfaction dims visibly. Her shoulders drop, and disappointment flickers across her face before she smooths it away.
“Understood.”
Tisha shifts in her chair, straightening a bit like she’s trying to salvage something. “How about I ask them there how much it runs? A bunch of those women love studs. They’d know the going rates.”
Meira considers this for a moment, her fingers drumming against the table again.
“Yeah. That’s suitable.”
The relief that crosses Tisha’s face is immediate. She grins, some of her energy returning despite the obvious exhaustion still weighing her down.
“Great. I’ll get whatever information I can.”
Meira’s attention shifts back to me. “Then it’s just you and me today, Vincent.”
My stomach does something complicated. Part nervousness, part something I don’t want to examine too closely.
“Just us,” I repeat.
“Yes.” She takes another sip of her coffee, her pale eyes never leaving my face. “We’ll get you presentable.” A pause. “And we’ll also discuss expectations.”
“Okay.”