Indebted - Part 4 (SFW version)
See what it's like inside a hospital; spoiler - The brothel humans aren't the only humans...!
Written by fugi88 ( patreon.com/Fugi88 ), commissions open
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Part 4 of indebted: Continuing from a night spent shutting down a riot
I took a bite of the mushy breakfast. Someone here had to have been a former cook before the kidnapping, i think. They should really take the “cook"'s job.
The riot was called off because nobody had any idea how to do it.
Well, crisis averted. They said they wanted to plan something larger later on to escape, but not yet. The upstairs were double-locked. The records, when unlocked and removed from their fireproof cases, could simply be burnt. Their backups, too, would have to be burnt, but none of them knew where they were held.
The cash was held in a massive wall of drawers, about ¤1,000's worth of cash in each. Every drawer was locked, though. Lockpicking and stealing would be a slow process. Management had guns, too. It'd be trivial to stop any robbery.
That's what i heard.
The day passed quickly.
Night came and the prostitutes began flowing in, followed by the clients some short time later.
Black-arms was sat a little further away from us, a little hidden in a dark nook. I was still being supervised, mind you, just less overbearingly.
A muscular hunk, a client, came to us. He ended up getting some quite kinky stuff done with Skinny Joe and Muscle Mike.
One of them came up. He looked kind of slick and had a head-hairdo which was pulled-back and greased into place, almost from the 80s.
“Oh, look at you here, all alone", he said. “You must be a little lonely."
Well, not really, i was enjoying watching the world go by. “Yeah", i lied.
I was back in the main room with my client. He had woken me up and walked me back there.
He sat at the chair with me for quite some time after. He held onto my shoulder. He squeezed it a little, knowing how touch-deprived i was. It sent tingles down me. It made me feel comforted and warm, in a way. It wasn't normal for clients to hang around in this brothel.
“Your friends still haven't arrived", he said. "How did they even come to start working here?"
“By choice", i said. Should i reveal the kidnappings? What would he do about it? Could he do anything about it?
“Really?", he said. “I don't think so, from what i've seen."
He was gesturing at category V. “I hear a lot about the kidnapping and not much about choice, it seems."
“Care to explain?", he asked, looking back at me. His face was rife with some kind of sympathetic social worker expression, either fake or real.
“Well, i took out a loan of €10,000", i said. “It ballooned to €30,000 and one night i was kidnapped and brought here."
“I like it here, though. It's much simpler then real life", i added.
A little bit of what seemed to be dilute relief washed over his face.
“Ah, as i thought", he said.
He pulled me a little closer. Black-arms didn't seem to care much. He looked like he was asleep, like some middle-aged man out in the midday sun of the village i used to live near. But he was instead out in a shadow of midnight.
“Just to confirm, this place is very illegal, right?", he asked.
“To the point we need to bribe the police", i said.
“Ah, we can talk about my job then", he said. “It's just as illegal as yours"
I pulled myself a little closer, brushing up against his hair. He also nudged himself a little closer, sending tingles down me.
“I'm a human rights activist", he said in a hushed tone. "Well, for you, more rather 'human legality activist'"
Yeah, that's right. To me, “human rights activist" was little more then a person that went to protect humans from humans. Here, instead, this guy was a creature in a creature society going against the status quo. For me. For me and the 8 others stuck here.
“Have you ever set foot on the street?", he asked.
“No, except for when i was brought here."
“Would you like to?"
“I'm getting bored of being here, so, yeah, possibly"
“What if i said there was a way to become legal, a way to escape this place?"
“Hmm?"
“You work an important job here, don't you? I've seen the prices. There are humans in many workplaces here, too."
“Which?"
“Well, there are the restaurants; the werewolves love the precise cuts humans make. And there are the hospitals - have you ever though of what a shitty surgeon werewolves could be?"
Clumsy hands and over-sized frames, yeah.
“I have an idea: find a way into the hospital. It's the true center for humans, they'll find ways for you to contribute. Are there any high-skill humans here, y'know, those with degrees?"
“There's a former lawyer and a former mathematician, both now prostitutes, but that's all i know."
“Perfect! Take the lawyer and make them part of the management. Take the mathematician and find a way to get them to be in the management team, too."
“Ok."
When you get to the hospital, i want you to enter the letter-group"
“What's that?"
“A mailing group that organises the human rights movement and the workplaces."
“Ah."
“It's very easy; just tell them the address and they'll get in contact if necessary."
Suddenly, Slim Joe and Muscle Mike limped into the room and sat next to us. They seemed a little exhausted.
“Who's this?", asked Slim Joe.
“A human legality activist", i said.
"Oh! I've been waiting for him", said Slim Joe.
“Ah, it's you, the letter-sender", said the client. “I never would have guessed this brothel would have had humans."
"Isn't it one of their main selling points?", asked Slim Joe.
“Well, not so much a point as a stub", said the client. “A pretty invisible one, too."
“Eh", grunted Slim Joe.
“So we're not as fucked as i thought", said Muscle Mike.
“That's right!", said the client. “And i've got a plan."
“This guy visits the hospital and enter the letter-system.", he said about me. "The lawyer should take a role in management, alongside the mathematician"
He was pointing at Muscle Mike, who he had deduced as the mathematician.
“I'm no mathematician. You're thinking of the first lesbian", said Muscle Mike.
“Ah, so what were you?"
“I was a builder."
“Ah, ok", said the client. “And what i want you all to do is to provide some irreplaceable value to this place."
“They could do with quite a bit of lawyering services", said Skinny Joe. “This place can't be entirely illegal, after all."
“Exactly! And you, the builder, can go keep this place together. For free to compete with the contractors."
“That'll be easy", said Muscle Mike
“And i just respond to letters?", i asked.
“Yeah, that's fine."
The client checked his watch.
“Ok, so i need to go to the next site soon", he said. “Any questions?"
Silence, a thinking silence. We were all glanced at.
“Perfect!"
The client, with an authoritative pat on my shoulder, stood up and saluted to us.
"Quick birth to the human rights movement!"
He walked away.
“Getting into hospital is going to be difficult", Slim Joe noted. “The management are trained in first aid. Well, with how they do it, more like second aid."
“How do doctors get working there?"
“Oh, the Year-90 General Consensus on Exceptions to Human Culling has a clause for hospitals", he said. “No human may be culled in any environment in which the human provides life-saving work impossible for all werewolves."
Culling. What a dehumanising word.
“A lawyer argued once that the precise hands of humans was life-saving work that was impossible for werewolves. And they won, because there was this big test and the human won all of it", he said. “Well, they also had a gun to their head, so there was a lot of pressure too, i guess."
“Wow", i said. “I meant, like, how did humans even get there…?"
“Kidnapped by Government Job-Fulfilling Branch Staff Members", said Skinny Joe. "The Government Job-Fulfilling Branch Staff Members are tasked with getting essential workers for the society here."
“It's a very important job to get those who do the important jobs", mused Skinny Joe.
“And just to think that i'm here instead", complained Muscle Mike. “Maybe i should have chosen to work as a docto-"
A sudden smash of glass either drowned out or cut the final phoneme.
Screaming. So far it was quiet, from the bar on the opposite side of the main room. “And you think you can just do that?!!"
“That's extortion, damn you!"
Another smash of glass.
“WHO is getting extorted?! Not you, damn you! Just go grab a category V!"
“They're USELESS!"
Another voice joined. “Useless?! Mind your damn mouth!"
Black-arms had woken up and ran off to the bar. “Calm down!"
“Ah, look, it's the real extortioner!"
I heard a metallic noise, a bit like a knife.
“Don't you fucking dare."
“Well, i wish i didn't have to 'fucking dare', but…"
A squelchy sound. A scream.
"Now look what you did!
“Well, there goes Mr Problem. Let's go after the elitists!"
“Get out of here, newbie", said Slim Joe. “I'll take them!"
“No, i'll take it", screamed Muscle Mike, jumping in the way of Slim Joe.
“Run!", shouted Slim Joe.
I stood up and looked down the hallway. I saw deranged, depravid werewolves staring back at me.
There was a chase. And then nothing much at all, just the cold of steel inside of me. I blacked out before the pain hit.
The beeping of a heart monitor. I had made it. That was my first thought.
I had made it to the hospital after the… the…?
I looked at the machine. SPo2 90%, BPM 100. That's ok for now.
After the what…?
A doctor rushed in. He had the native accent of my homeland. “How are you?"
“Oh, no pain", i said. A hint of warmth surrounded a wound in my lower back. Late-stage pain, i guess
“Ah, that's the pain medication at work."
The whirr of the IV regulator machine. IV. I circled those words in my head.
IV… category IV. That sounded somewhat familiar.
“You've went into shock. You lost so much blood! See here? Here's the blood-bag to keep you alive"
I looked at the red bag hanging from a hook. It was inserting blood into me, joined with the medication.
Native accent, though. That was my home accent. Last i remember, i wasn't at home, was i?
There was this brothel… right?
“What happened?", i asked.
“Some guy came in limping with you on his shoulder. There was a car crash a few blocks away, he said. Help him, he's dying, he said."
I think i remember now. I was in the car with Darren. I drove down the motorway at speed. A puddle. And then us, veering into the central reservation. Crash, wallop, boom. And then nothing much at all. Just the cold of steel inside me.
And the brothel…? Wait…?
No, it could never have been. Dreams make everything feel real. Werewolves make no sense in the human world.
Oh, how silly i was!
“So it was a car crash, not a stabbing?", i asked, on the off-chance.
“Yeah, last i heard, you were going at great speed on the roads", said the doctor. “There is a puncture wound, but i think it was just debris."
The doctor left, looking back at his checklist.
I realised something. This entire room used modern technology, sterile and clear, utilitarian and human. I was in a human space. Everything was human-sized here.
The brothel was all a dream. Black-arms, Skinny Joe…? All fake, all unreal, all creations of a crazy mind. I needed my Methylphenidate. It'd help me focus on what needs focusing on.
I liked these characters, these things. These were perfect inspiration. Sad to think they're gone. Maybe i should write a story. I've heard hospitals are boring.
Hospitals are boring. Maybe i really should work on my writing. I'd release it to people who would like it.
A button to call a healthcare provider laid on my stomach. I picked it up. I pressed it, a ringing noise behind my head.
“Do you have writing implements?", i asked to the nurse who eventually popped her head in.
“Pen or pencil?"
“Pen; thin-nib, it makes my handwriting better"
“I'll have a look."
And then i was alone. I pushed myself to sit up and noticed all the wires leading into my body. An electrode. An IV port. A sleeve. Plenty more.
I looked at the machine. It looked to be from 2017, like most hospital equipment, slightly outdated. It recorded a constant line. A green flatline with a frequent spike, my heartbeat. A blue line, a sea of crests. my SPo2. And a yellow one. I controlled it with my breathing.
Wires led in and out of the monitor. I was a cyborg, maybe. I was certainly being kept alive by machines. Yeah, very much a cyborg.
I looked out of the window. It was a crappy view, one that led onto a grey building. I saw windows, their grey faces opaque to what was within. They reflected the clouds, a moody overcast day.
The nurse came in. I took the paper and the pen. 3 pages. Not enough. “A cradle of cotton. A flash of light." That's what i started writing. I started writing my story, what i dreamed about. Because i'd get bored otherwise, mainly.
And i was in real life, comfortable to finally be in the human world. Fiction worlds are fun but not quite the place to live.
That's how i spent the night. Occasionally checked on by the nurses and doctors, my IV bags replaced every so often, and my status updated and communicated.
I was recovering slowly. The stitches still sat in me, hidden behind my back. The sun went down, the overcast day nothing more then just a plain darkness now.
Sometimes it was too hot. Sometimes it was too cold. Sometimes it was just right.
I had run out of pages. I'd just started on a scene about “testing". Well, sex. Others shared my fantasy, i was sure.
I eventually felt tiredness wash over me as i closed my eyes to the world.
I listened to the silence. The not-quite-silence, beeping, almost regular warning noises from the machines attached to the other poor humans stuck to their beds.
Morning again.
A doctor walked in. “You have a special guest."
Black-arms walked in.
We spoke in a deadpan tone. No emotion nor tone, really.
“No, it is not you.." Ai was in real life, right?
"It is me".
“You don't exist"
He blinked in a mockingly confused way. He pinched himself. "Ai exist."
“No, Ai'm supposed to do that." Ai pinched myself to show him.
“See, Ai am real", he said.
No, you are not.
Ai counted my fingers. Ai had 7. Ai counted again. Ai had 8. Ai was in a dream. Well, a lucid one.
“Ai am in a lucid dream", Ai said.
“No you are not", he said.
“You are but a dream character", Ai said.
“That is not possible", he said.
“You speak wrong.", Ai said.
“Ai do not speak wrong. Ai speak wright.", he said.
“We are speaking wrong. None of this is real. None of this is wright", Ai said.
“Fuck you.", he said.
Ai flew. He was shocked. Ai left the window.
“See, Ai am not real. Physics is real. Here there is no physics", Ai said.
“There are."
Ai fell.
I woke up yet again and took care to count my fingers, of which i had 10.
This was real.
I looked at my paper. It was an ok story but it needed some editing.
I looked at the time. 12:10. Still too early for the werewolves. If they had existed. The didn't.
“He's just here, if you want to visit", said a voice, a nurse voice, from the corridor. “I mean, technically, you're not allowed, but i've made a little exception for you."
The nurse came in. Someone wearing a fur coat came in. Someone with arms that were black. Someone wearing a skin with fur attached to it came in.
“Ah, so i haven't left the werewolf world…"
“You almost did, but the doctors patched you up!", said black-arms. “Oh, it would have been a tragedy to lose you!"
Only 3 guys died. All werewolves. A category III, a category V, and a client", said black-arms. “It's all under the rug."
“How's it been?", i asked.
“Oh, horrible. I tried to get you here but you know how it is on the roads, so slippy", he said. “I almost died, but you were in the boot, so you were safe."
Oh…
“Yeah, i had a car crash, not that i'm injured", he said. “We're tough."
“What now?"
The nurse answered. “You'll spend a few more days recovering here so we can get you into tip-top condition."
I think i'm remembering something new from the blue.
Darren. Black-arms. Both were drivers, but the incidents were separate. Darren died on the way down the motorway. I barely survived. I incurred some kind of debt. I took a loan.
And then i came here. And then i had another car crash.
Black-arms left eventually. The nurse didn't.
“You seem new", she said.
“It's my first few days in the werewolf world."
“Ah"
I remembered what to ask for.
“Is there some mailing group?"
“The one for the… the…", she said, hushing her tone in her little pause. "The werewolf movement? Yeah. Do you want to join?"
“Of course, on the behalf of our brothel"
“Ah, a brothel… is it not the spice restaurant?"
“It is."
“We've heard of humans being there. So it's not just rumors?"
“Not at all."
“Name?"
“I'm called Newbie."
“No legal name?"
“I don't remember using real names in the brothel."
“Ah, of course, anonymity."
She left and had a hushed discussion with a doctor. He came into the room, without the nurse.
“Do you, by any chance, know Skinny Joe?"
“Yes… how come you?"
“He came here once. Stabbed in the same place, too. Good guy, really good guy."
“Ah."
“What other humans are there?"
“There are 9 humans, i included. Three per wing", i said
“That's a good amount. They can help us", he said
"With…?"
“Did you not see Constable Green? I sent him there"
“Who?"
“Ah, the human rights, no, legality, activist"
“The slicked-back guy?"
“Yeah."
“Wait, so you knew about the brothel and him? Why didn't you send him earlier?"
“Well, he's kind of the famous activist profile guy, so we don't talk often. First time was yesterday noon."
“Wait, isn't it dangerous to be the public guy?"
“Not really, there's a right to free speech."
“hmm."
A little pause. He broke the silence.
“Federal law here says letters may never be tampered with save for the recipient. That's what Slim Joe said. That gave me the idea."
“So that means only i can read the letters?"
“Yeah. It's everyone's legal right", he said. “And that includes humans."
“So, what do you say we do?"
“For now, wait. Go into a management position. Become powerful."
“Aha."
“Use the power and money as a tool. Anonymity will let you climb above management and into society."
“Hmm."
“Of course, the plural form of you. Not sure whether it should be 2 or 9, though."
“Interesting. Do we have a deadline?"
“Prostitution is on the way to becoming legal too. "
“And…?"
“New brothels will pop up. The can charge lower rates as they needn't pay bribes, and they'll drive your brothel out of business unless it legalises itself. Then there'll need to be inspections."
“Oh…"
“And, as we all know, inspections lead to found humans which leads to less humans."
“Ok."
“Well, we can talk again later."
The doctor began leaving. I asked for more paper.
I got about 15 sheets. And i wrote out the plan we had found.
Subscribe to the mailing list. Check.
Become managers. Empty box.
Become powerful through anonymity. Empty box.
Ensure human rights come before prostitution. Empty box. Or maybe the legalisation of prostitution was a deadline.
I had plenty of time to think. People get bored quickly here, i've heard.
People get bored quickly here.
I am getting bored. Writing is boring when i haven't anything to do.
People get bored quickly here.
I'm getting bored. Watching the other windows gets boring.
People get bored quickly here.
Oh, god-damn-it, i'm bored.
I'm ready to rip out these daft wires and get back to work.
“you're not", said my stitches.
“i am", i said.
“you're not", said the pain.
“fuck you", i said.
“you're supposed to stay here", said the bed.
“go away", i said.
Fuck this. I call a nurse. He says i shouldn't rip out the IV lines. I should take a book from the library. There aren't many, though. Maybe i can go grab two; i can read a novel in little time. I have a week here, right?
He says that a good read would be something like The Handmaid's Tale. Something slower, too, maybe.
There's a lot to learn about here. Apparently, there's a whole human trading ring here. A group of werewolves visit a designated earth place and get vital supplies. It's almost an embassy. It's not official. It's a field in Wyoming, a seemingly-abandoned shed.
There, everything passes through. The needle in my arm passed through that shed, the rubber tubes and IV bags through that shed.
Heck, the bed i was on, one of those cool medical ones where you can press buttons to change position, somehow passed through!
Well, a lot of it was stolen, too. The doctors were stolen. So were the nurses. And the computers. All taken from real life hospitals at the dead of the night when everyone was groggy. It was just a hallucination, they said. Sleep more, they said. Werewolves don't exist, they said.
That's what let the thieves steal in the dead of the night.
Everything human here was stolen, really. I was stolen too, i guess. Just not by the official guys.
I slept again, finishing my second day of seven.
I woke up the next morning with no creative drive for the stories.
Instead, i stared out of the window and began thinking about a future, a future not far nor different from now. What if i were to walk out on the street?
I could imagine what'd happen next. I'd take in the fresh air of the outside and take a breath from the humidity of the brothel. I could feel the hot sun shining on my face in the drier air, the quiet, the surprising amount of peace available whilst in the largest city of this world.
And i'd walk down the street with Skinny Joe and we'd talk about the different things in the city as he'd introduce all the cool things they have.
And i'd be relaxing in the shady side of the street, he by me, as he pointed out the history behind things. Skinny Joe was smart in that way, a kind of walking encyclopedia. Maybe he has a supply of books or something.
And we'd find our way into busier and busier streets, breathing in the lead-lined fuel fumes, smokey and pungent from the engines of those ancient cars.
We'd look at their architecture, somewhat Mediterranean. It fit the climate. We'd look at the typography and Skinny Joe would point at a building and say “Hey, this one's almost 175 years old!", and i'd have to say that the downtown of my home town first came to being in the Roman empire, some thousand years ago. And he'd hate that and say “Well, the werewolf society is only 200 years old".
And suddenly, out of nowhere, would come the police. How did they dress? Probably in a uniform with very loud typography. “GET DOWN", they'd shout as their cocked their guns and shot at us.
Bam bam bam, and that'd be the end of Skinny Joe. And bam bam bam, that'd be the end of me.
No, this wasn't a very good future.
Imagine a future though, where human rights did come into being.
So, me and Skinny Joe would see the police. Skinny Joe would look a little scared, but the police wouldn't shoot. They might say something like “Oh, hi". Then they might use a slur against us. Discrimination happens fairly often, even after such rights movements. They might call us weaklings or incapable or delicate. And Skinny Joe would say “Hey, just use 'ok, brutes' to respond to their slurs", and then “Not actually though, they still have itchy trigger fingers". He would be cautious in that way.
And we'd finally get to enjoy the city together, no more illegal then a bodega cat in New York, no more illegal then a goat in Kabul, no more illegal then a duck in London. We were still strange, but we'd be alive.
It was my fourth day here. My body was recovering quickly and on my sixth day, i should be discharged.
I began to imagine how life might flow from the perspective of a category V. It wouldn't be a very nice life, at least not at the current stage.
I imagined how it might have started. I could have been a minimum wage cleaner, cleaning an office each night. And then i'm fired.
I'd take out a loan from these loan sharks. Black-arms does seem like a nice guy, after all. I'd use it to try to rebuild a life.
But then it'd inflate, and i'd be kidnapped. I'd wake up in the brothel, forced to work. I'd be here for the next decade or so to pay off the debt. I'd probably get quite angry.
But yet i'd still have to work. Or i could face death. Or i could face a longer time. Or i could destroy the rest of my life.
Oh, i'd look for ways to riot against the management. But it was all in vain, said my peers, the people stuck in the same damned situation. We could easily be sent to the police for prostitution. We'd be sent to jail. I imagined how it could be there; the 16 hours of labor interspersed with some sleeping time and some “resting" time, spent in overcrowded rooms, tiny rooms, nothing of nobility.
Life would be hell as a category V, yet it would be less hell then the other lives i'd have access to from my shitty postition. And i was always in danger of being sent to the prison or onto the streets. The savage ones.
I didn't know how it'd be to be homeless on these streets, but i can't assume it'd be a good life. I'd need to find a job and rebuild a life, a life in constant fear of a re-kidnapping to serve the brothel and their financial goals.
So, there i'd be, stuck between a rock and a hard place, stuck between a shitty life and a shitty life, a decade's worth of what is effectively imprisonment.
But i'd have certain freedoms, still. I could always work a different job too, on the side, to pay off the loan quicker. Minimum wage would keep the time down to just 5 years, maybe. Minimum wage was never high here, i heard. But it existed, for people like who i could have been.
Still, i imagine that the brothel would have certain benefits. Free food and accommodation, a place to sleep for the night. It'd certainly make a change from the complications of a real life, and maybe i'd even come to accept my time there.
But still, i'd look for an earlier way out, a way to escape. That would be important to me.
It was my fifth day here. I began imagining yet again, a different future, a new one. Imagine a life where the human rights movement gets born.
It'd start slow, i thought. It'd start with a few boring letters sent to boring people, letters written by Skinny Joe. He'd be interesting like that, finding fun in the most boring things. Being a lawyer fit him quite well, i thought. He always seemed to find fun in quoting stuff normal people didn't care for, digging out the occasional gem from the rough, finding brass among hecktons of muck.
And where there was much, there was always brass to be made. That's why the brothel even existed. But the muck was going to be cleaned off in this world. No, prostitution was on the way to being illegal, Skinny Joe could say, no, the loan sharks are going to find another profession.
There'll be regular checks, he'd say. The brothel would be made ethical, the category Vs would get a living wage, everybody could benefit. Well, everybody save for the humans. That was why the human rights movement was so important, he'd say.
Get the human rights first, he'd say. Get them first and keep us alive, he'd say.
And he'd do, too.
But he'd get rejected, certainly, so he'd need our mailing group. And constable green would be with us, rallying for the human right presidents, pushing us into the better world.
Life would be hard as our days counted down. We'd have to keep the prostitution bill held back for now, keep human rights alive.
Maybe, within a week, skinny joe would have written the pro-human bill and have sent it off. Click-clack went the typewriter, i guess.
And maybe we'd get through. Maybe we wouldn't.
I could imagine what'd happen should prostitution become legal before humans. I'd wake up one day to see officers investigating the interior, and they'd see us. They'd ask me how many humans there were. And if i lied, i'd get shot. So i'd say 8 others.
After they'd have ran down the hallways, diffuse gunshots would fill the space, reverberating in a bleak way like nothing else. A heckton of them. Everyone dies. All the perceived danger snuffed out like the struggling light of a short stub of a candle doused in an ocean's worth of water, the salt making the wounds painful, the drowning removing us from the world.
And then i'd be shot in the back as everything faded away. And that'd be it for me. For me and the hope of all humans. For me and everything we had worked for.
No, that was not the way to have it.
But i could imagine a world where the human bill came first, the bill i would have wanted.
The brothel inspectors would go in but they'll just say hi as they write furiously looking at everything in the brothel, all the wrong things, all the fire hazards, all the structural shortcomings, the whole system.
And skinny joe might just be at the centre of the effort to bring together the whole thing and make it a legal business.
Or maybe not. Bribes seem to work well, and they could certainly pay less because the brothel was legal.
Maybe the best way, skinny joe said, is that if both stayed illegal so the inspections wouldn't bite into our money.
Straight-ears would still pay it off. And unfortunately, as it might turn out, the brothel inspecting people and police belong to different branches of the government. They could certainly remove our legal status and its benefits if we stayed like this. They couldn't call the police because they were pumped with bribes, but maybe the bribes were irrelevant now.
Skinny Joe could tell us all about the benefits of being a legal business, from the government insurance to the amount of support we could get for the simple uncrime of paying taxes.
So, that'd be a new trajectory for the brothel; become legal to keep the inspectors happy.
And eventually, with much work on our part, we'll become legal and wholesome. If only.
It was my sixth and final day here. I had gotten up to part 2 of the story, in which i ended up in the brothel. I had also read up to the part where the handmaid has sex with the commander.
I was surprised by how plain and clinically the sex was presented. “Below it, the commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body", said Margret Atwood. It made for a very refreshing change from the sex scenes i wrote, slower and sensual.
I was taken out from bed, the IV port and all my other wires removed, putting an end to my time as a transhuman, a person improved through machines. No, i now had to go back to facing real life.
"How much is the bill?" black-arms asked.
"Have you forgot? All bodies damaged in work get free government insurance", said the doctor. "Well, unless your buisness doesn't pay taxes."
We do pay taxes, so that wasn't of concern.
"Ah, i forgot. Well, here's the card", black-arms said, handing over a thin plastic card. It seems we were officially just a restaurant.
"Ah, so he was stabbed by an angry chef", joked the doctor, knowing it was a brothel. "That's what I'll say"
"Thanks", said black-arms. He beckoned me over and we walked out of the hospital together.
"As always, you go in the boot. Tinted windows wont hide you from the police", said black-arms. "We've been needing you back at the brothel. Things are going loco."
"Lohcoe". Such a gringo way to butcher a word. Not how we do it at my home country.
The cold of the steel cover of the boot as i was locked inside.
End of part 4 (Stay tuned for details on what's happened in the brothel)
Some notes:
I don't like to imagine the werewolves as being more similar to animals then humans. I'd like to then defend my use of “hair" and “hand" rather then the more animal terms. Please, by all means, imagine their anatomy how you like.
(just in case you're reading, that guy who accidentally sent me a friend request) Note how the werewolves have slightly different ideas from humans; black-arms is sleeping in the midnight shadow instead of the old man of the village, who slept in the midday sun. This is about as far as i'd like to go with your advice.
The stabbing scene is designed to be confusing; you're not supposed to find out what the exact actions were, just that bodies were stabbed and that the protagonist is stabbed.