Written by fugi88 ( patreon.com/Fugi88 ), commissions open

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Be careful; there is no sex here but there is touching, which the protagonist... enjoys. There's also mention of a brothel and work, being pimped in a way that's illegal in many (human) countries.

This work is about 34,000 words long; the NSFW version will be closer to novel-length and that's purely because of all the sex scenes.

It's unedited, too; it's mostly verbatim to that of the  previous weeks.

1

A cradle of cotton. A flash of light. All ten fingers. A pinched nose with no air leaks; i'm real, the air is blocked.

Ok, i was back in reality, a clap of thunder reminding me of the warm comfort of this bed..

I remember what i had saved m self from in my sleep. I remember. Oh, what a horrific dream.

"Make this shit terrifying" was what i shouted out into the suburbia of what i knew was just an illusion.

My  environment responded in a way that only my subconscious could; it brought about the worst. It started with a floor less house falling atop me, red walls and vintage furnishings, a real place of paid depravity and what could almost be considered suffering, according to my brain.

I was the only human in this room.

Barely-human creatures formed of a tight wrapping of charred black bandages and blood wondered the premises and cast their gaze into me, a kind of envious gaze. Being the only human, i was special and could get out of here sooner, my brain reminded me. The gazes were ones that knocked butterflies into my stomach, fluttering around like banknotes in the wind. The phrase "social injustice" bounced around my brain like a bell had rung.

A bag of money fell to my feet. I opened it, but it was only opposite-money, some ¤10,000 in minus-money, some 10,000 of suffering, a voice in my brain conjectured.

"400 days" uttered one of the creatures, one of the larger, more muscular ones. "400 days and you'll pay this off. You'll hate it here. 400 days."

Just under my feet opened up a hole through which i fell.

A cradle of cotton. A flash of amber light. All 7 fingers. All… what fingers? Fuck, i was still here. Out of the window i heard knocking. The tapping of a claw against it, a shadowy thread-monster of my nightmares (literally) staring at me with eyes, flickering amber lights casting a pained red glow across the room. "400 days. Oh, you really shouldn't have fucked with them."

"400 days of pain" he looked almost sympathetic, almost pained by my situation. "I don't want to hurt you, but maybe it'd be better for you…"

"Just step out of bed. Climb through the window. I'll meet you and take your debt."

"HELP" i screamed. And again, and again. I had to escape this place. Thank you subconscious, for the nightmare, can we end it now?

The dream finally ended and here i was again, the cradle of cotton during the storm, the first one this season. My bed was a warm recluse from the cold house.

Gosh, what a cozy life here. If it wasn't for the drought, it'd be perfect. I feasted on the silence as i tried to find sleep again, somehow having drifted away when i woke up. Was it as scared as i?

I heard a car pull up outside. My clock said it was 03:24. How strange. Maybe it was our night-shift-working neighbor.

Strange voices with foreign accents, even foreigner then was usual for my little expat neighborhood. The thin window let the sound of these deep, guttural voices through.

"We're here, it's the address"

It's a voice i recognised from the phone, those conversations painted red with internal liquid and green with overrated paper.

It was the dark part of my life that had come to visit.

"Ugh, their gate is locked."

"Don't worry, i have the ram"

A pause and then a great big bang as the gate slammed against the inside of the external wall. It was a solid iron gate, the kind designed to protect against all burglars. I remember what they said in the calls. Oh, you should have read the small print. You should have. You're ours now. No point crying!

"Ha, look at this weak door!"

A big bang from the main room as a sudden noise of cracking wood gave way to just as sudden of a impact noise, the wood hitting the floor. A cold draft ran into my room, slamming my door open.

"You, guard the exit. I'll go find our lost client."

"Coffee machine, ¤30. Microwave, ¤200 TV, ¤300."

I sat up and donned my gown, the closest garment to my bed, his steps still approaching.

"Antique kitsch painting, value to be determined. Dated copy of Lord of the Rings, possibly original, value to be determined."

They weren't quite human steps nor voices, either.

I stood up and got my slippers on. These damn tiles are too cold!

"Unopened box of Methylphenidate, black market rate ¤75"

Not my damn pills!

I scanned my room for anything that could be used as a weapon. I had a small, mostly blunt knife i had used for cutting apples yesterday. Thank god i didn't bother taking it to the sink yesterday. Well, not so much didn't bother as just forgot to. I had also neglected to sharpen it. What a shame, my pointer finger's cut reminded me. What a shame, the noises outside reminded me. What a shame that i was i. What a shame i had taken their loan. What a shame everything was! Ah, shame, one of life's great treasures.

I walked out into the hallway and saw the thing standing there.

The full moon shining through the hallway mirror next to it, i saw its silhouette first. It was a block of flesh, two metres tall and sharply defined with muscle.

It was hardly wearing anything but a pair of underpants with a zipper across the middle and a series of belts across its pecs.

I could just about see a yellowy flare to his hair, mixing with the whites.

"Well, i guess i found our client…" he teasingly muttered with an air of dominance. "Put the knife down."

Did werewolves really exist in this world? No, it was impossible. No, it had to be a dream!

I still had all 10 fingers. None passed through each other. No, not a dream.

"If you know what's good for you, i suggest you drop the damn knife", he reinforced.

He's serious now. Fearing his strength, i gently unwrapped my fingers, letting the knife fall to the floor with a clattering noise.

"That's what i like to see."

The creature eyed me up and down, looking for my weaknesses.

"Come here."

I was too frozen with the fear to let myself walk to the damned beast.

I waited a second, us staring at each other. What beautiful abs! Oh, and those legs! Gosh, my libido's too high for my good.

It, instead, grabbed me with its hand, the claws digging slightly into my shoulder, a flash of lightning the instant he touched me painting the creature in a sickly white light. It sent tingles down me to feel it rest its power on me, the hand that could kill being used to merely restrain me. Oh, he was serious now. It almost turned me on.

"I don't want no funny business. Once you leave the house, you're getting into the boot.", he said, "If i hear a single word or see a single hint of rebellion….", he continued, "You're going back to sleep. And not in a good way, either."

The thunder arrived, a deep, evil rumble reverberating through the wet mountains that surrounded our neighborhood.

The creature took my wrist and dragged me through my house, past the hallway's window., past the living room, past the front door and the werewolf who was guarding the house..

Terror makes a mind work differently. Rationality falls out of the window. Survival takes over the head. Anything, just to live the next day, would be fine. And i wasn't sure if i'd live the next day under these loan sharks, having already received enough threats that they could kill me right here, an example to those who take without giving back.

We went past the busted gate and i was shoved into the car on the other side of the road.

It was a beat up metal box from the 60s, of which i was being shoved into the boot of. I had to assume a fetal position, which i knew would make my knees hurt. A draft blew in from the wheel bay near my head, sucking away what little warmth i had made between the boot lid and the floor, driving a chill into my under-dressed body.

The car moved down in a kind of mechanical exhaustion, the creatures hopping on board with their great weight.

I looked for emergency release levers in the boot. Fuck, i didn't know what they looked like!

The engine eventually kicked to life and we started moving.

There was this one lever… wait, no, it's just a hook for a chord!

I counted the turns and tried to guesstimate where we were. We were already at the end of my street and finding the way to the main road.

Damn these cars!

And we then reached the motorway, where i found myself losing my way.

When we stopped, i had long-ago fallen into a state of half-sleep, the poor suspension keeping me from yet more rest. The boot opened and the cold air hit like a cup of coffee, bringing me back to full consciousness, giving me lucidity.

I stared at the three captors crowded around the boot. On the right was the one who i had met in the hallway, the middle the one who was guarding my door, and to the left a werewolf i hadn't seen before.

Each were wearing the same skimpy “clothes". The one on the right held a gun slung against his shoulder, pointing back.

The one in the middle had a phone blaring a laughingly clinical white light. "Oh, we have the client in our facility now. He's perfect for the spice restaurant" he said, in a low and nasal-ish tone. Was i going to be forced to work somewhere to pay off my debt?

Each of the three looked at me with an expression of malicious victory, a dangerous kind of victory, the one that told me one statement: "You fucked up. Like, seriously. Fuuuuuck.". Their stares, each checking out my curves past the loose fabric of the gown, drove the butterflies in my stomach into a flight so anxious one would worry the butterflies had butterflies in their tummy, too.

I'm fucked.

The left one had orange highlights in their hair, with black arms holding studded bracelets. His right foot sat on the wall of the car, his gentle fidgeting bouncing the car slightly to flex his dominance over me, no, their dominance over me.

The one in the middle had ears that pointed straight up, his left hand groping the side of yellow-haired werewolf slightly.

"Yeah, the testing's going to have to happen, handover possible at 19:00." said the straight-eared one, hanging up his call.

Fuck, was i going to sit some stupid exam?

"You'll need this" said the one on the right, as he placed the gun on the floor with a slight plasticity hollow clacking noise. He leaned in to put my neck into the loop of the leash. He held onto the other end, careful to keep his grip on what held me now.

Terror makes you act strange. I would have resisted if i wasn't so terrified under the watchful glare of these three creatures, their thick claws ready to shred skin.

I was now under the full control of the yellow werewolf. It was kind of appealing to think about him having his way with me, but the terror kept the sexual euphoria away, somewhat.

They could sense my terror, i could tell.

"We might be loan sharks, well… more loan werewolves, but we don't want to hurt you", introduced the black-armed one, in a low, slow, still-domineering tone. "No, you're too valuable to be lost… for now"

Their "soothing" words didn't work very well.

"We have better things to do then be cruel to such an sellable client", teased the yellow-haired one. "Well, no, it depends on your definition of cruel, i guess."

The one on the left leaned in to grab me, the other two to moving away so he could take me in his arms, a cradling hold. I could feel the compassion in him through his arms, radiating from him in a gentle, warm way.

Oh, how comfortable it was! The muscle and the hair worked together far better then any pillow i had ever been on, the slow changes of pressure of each balancing-step he found himself taking being just what i needed! Oh, my abstinence was worth it. It was!

It was the warmth though, that sold it. I was almost shivering in the car because it was so cold, but here? It was perfect. His naked warmth against my dressing gown provided the most awesome feelings. The tingles went straight into my dick. Why had i overworked myself to pay back these werewolves when i could have been just here? Oh, it was amazing to finally be able to give in someone!

"Hey, look at this guy, hes getting off to just being carried!" Said my carrier, noticing my growing boner.

"Oh, you have a lot to get used to, then", teased orange-hair. "Oh, we'll build up your tolerance"

I was carried into a metal shed. I was let  onto the floor, standing on the cold, almost abrasive concrete.

The shed was quite bare. There was a sink and toilet, lube and extra large condoms, a table with a thin foam pad, and a futon were strewn about. A chair sat in the corner, upon which the straight-eared werewolf sat on.

An electronic heater sat in the corner of the room, making a constant whirring noise. It was surprising it could heat such a large space.

"Welcome to our testing shed. State of the art, just for you" joked the black-armed one.

He took a step back to give me the space to find myself.

"Take off the gown", said the yellow-haired one. "I want to see just how valuable our client is"

"Oh, not a client, no, our inventory" quipped the straight-eared one.

I let my gown drop to the floor. If this was the direction i thought it was going, i knew my fantasies would finally come true. Oh, how much i  would have gave for this!

"Beautiful curves" the black-armed one commented in a kind of light admiration.

"Oh, we always needed this kind of body to fill in our portfolio" added the yellow-haired one

"I can already imagine how much we're going to make from this" half-joked the straight-eared one

"Hmmm… we should begin testing", the yellow-haired one half-teased. “We need to see whether they're a category III or II, heck, maybe even a category I !"

After the testing had rendered me exhausted, the werewolves went to begin talking.

"Well, how's your freelancing gig been going?" asked the yellow werewolf to the black-armed one, as if he was unaware of what he'd just done 30 seconds ago, his boner still flying.

"Oh, absolute shit. Nobody cares for what marketing i do and nobody's contacted me for a commission."

"Have you tried penetrative pricing? I remember reading about it once."

"Well, yes, but i don't even know where to post my prices!"

"Just keep posting your work, someone might just become interested."

"I'm already doing that!"

The black-armed looked at me. It wasn't a normal kind of look. It went through me so deeply it's going through me and to you, reading this text.

"You'll be in the central hall. If a person chooses you, get the money first and then go into your designated sex room with them", he explained.

"You'll have a menu of services with set prices. If they ask for anything off the menu, negotiate.", he continued. "If it's lower then ¤75, it's not worth your time. Ask for a higher price or direct them to the lower categories. gauge their bank balance."

"Go back to the central hall and meet the next client. The sooner you earn back your debt, the sooner you get to leave", he said.

The yellow-haired then turned to me.

"If you don't get the brothel money, we'll have to sell your possessions."

"It'll be a shame to have to demolish the door that's been rebuilt now, wouldn't it?", he teased with a strong twang of seriousness. "Oh, You are not a free man anymore."

A chill swept over me at that statement. I didn't even know what country i was in. Was this whole thing against the law here? And what did it matter i was under the control of these wolves?

They stood up to leave, the straight-haired one shutting his laptop and moving to leave.

"Stay here until we get you", said the black-arm one before walking past the self-locking door, leaving me all alone.

I put on my gown as i shook a little shiver in this place. The werewolves brought a kind of warmth, a kind of rude hospitality, a double-edged nature. When they were gone, the warmth was gone and replaced with the cold.

I took the futon and the blanket and let the tiredness wash over me. I finally got to continue the sleep that was so rudely interrupted, trying to get asleep before the growingly yellow red in the sky would render that impossible.

2

I woke up to the orange flare of the setting sun accompanied with the sudden shuffling of the locks in the door.

“we have 30 minutes before we need to go" said the black-armed werewolf who had come in, shutting the door behind him

“Here's the menu. You're charging category I rates." he said, holding a leaflet. “They're all intuitive, you shouldn't need that much guidance. You're obviously experienced."

I didn't complain. the earlier i got work, the earlier i'd pay off the debt. Maybe i'd want to escape in the future. It's about keeping doors open, really. 

“If you ever feel unsafe, remember that there's the bell system. Doesn't matter, anyways, we'll be supervising you for the first few nights" he explained.

He walked to me and passed the menu to me. I saw three separate sections, each with a little grid breaking down each service and its prices in ascending order from category V to category I.

In the foreplay section, i saw massages and dances for sale, accompanied by other things. I'd have to charge about ¤80 per minute for the massage. It felt exorbitant, especially given Category V'd have to charge only ¤10 per massage session.

“We'll put 15% of what you earn towards your debt, and once paid, to your wage. The rest goes to keeping you safe", he explained. "It's dangerous for the public to see you, so you stay inside the brothel at all times."

"Wait, so you forced me here knowing it was so dangerous here?!" I asked him, finding my voice

“Well, not exactly dangerous if you follow our simple rules, but the outsiders are scared of humans", he said. “The police have orders to shoot on sight. They never enter the brothel… as part of their work."

“We're a specialty brothel in a way; humans are weird and exciting to our clientele", he said.

The straight-eared one walked in too, armed with a calculator. He came to the futon to accompany black-arms, making me feel slightly hemmed-in.

“If you make ¤500 per night, then…." he said, tapping away on his calculator. “You'll need about 400 nights in the brothel."

“If you somehow manage to make ¤1,000 per night, you'll only need 200 nights", he added.

Take the ¤500 and multiply it by 100 and multiply it by 4; that's ¤50,000, going into 5*4, 20, so… ¤200,000 in total, and only ¤30,00 to my debt!

“Isn't it unfair there's ¤200,000 in total?!", i said in a little shock

“Oh, but it's all for a good cause", he said. “Lawyers are expensive and the officers' demands for bribes only ever get higher."

“It's all in the contract you signed", said the black-armed one.

We left the shed, i wearing some kind of informal gown, and we embarked to the brothel, i in the tiny boot of the car.

It had quite an underwhelming façade. An unlit sign, “the spice restaurant (?$$ entry)" was affixed to a plain wall sitting above a door leading into a room filled the the acidic odor of cigarette smoke alongside quite a hefty spot of body odor.

Inside the dim room, i saw lavish furnishings, decorated in a seductory red and a diverse group of creatures loitering around. The room was much larger then you'd expect from the facade; it went well into the domain of the other houses on the street, hell, i could see the holes made in the walls of this house! Signs pointed every which way, pointing out the different categories. Category III was the closest one. 

The gentle murmur of an anxious conversation between people filled the room, some conversations audible over the noise. 

“How many days in are you?"

“20. It's so strange here."

“I would've figured. I've got 20 left."

“Of how many?"

“300."

We walked across the maze of hallways to category I's position, somewhat distant from the front door. 

There were only 3 humans here, i included. We all seemed to be category I.

I was instructed to find a place in the category I seating area, in which a muscular hunk and a smaller, skinny human sat, accompanied by what seemed to be a Minotaur.

Joining me came my supervisor, the black-armed werewolf, who sat silently next to me.

"Er... hi?" I half-mumbled to who seemed to be my coworkers.

"Hi! You seem new!", said the skinny one. "i was begging to get a bit tired of Muscle Mike and Mr Troy here"

Those were silly names, i thought.

“How many days do you have?" asked the smaller human to me.

“At ¤1,000 per night, 200" i replied. "Maybe 400 though if i only get ¤500 per night."

“Oh, we hardly make any more then ¤900 on a good night. Think of ¤500 as a normal rate"

“I have 400 days here?!"

“Well… yeah, but…. not exactly", he said.  "You'll be spending an extra month or so here putting money in the 'life bank' thing they have"

I did a quick mental calculation; take my 500 per night, find a tenth of it and a half of a tenth; 50 and 25, add them together, 75, multiply it by 10, 750, and multiply it by 3… er, thats 50, 50, and 50 first double, and then 50 and 25… so, er…

“¤225!" i blurted out.

“Not that much, right?" replied my skinny co-worker.

“Well then, how many days have you?" i asked, to distract myself from the meager amount.

“Oh, well, i decided to, to stay here" he responded. “It's a much simpler life here, you'll find."

“How long did you spend before that, then?"

“Well, i got 70 days for borrowing ¤5,000. It's been around 300 days, and i'm loving it!" he exclaimed. “I'm a lawyer. As soon as i began reading up on this case for someone's lawsuit, i was sold. Fuck lawyering!"

"And guess who's getting to be fucked every night? I even get paid!" he blurted.

“Oh, don't listen to him. you'll be sodomised for days on end. I hate it here." shaded the muscle-man. “you'll be begging to leave. Look at the the categories Vs and IVs. Do you see the tension in them? The desire to leave?"

I looked over at where he was gesturing, at the two banks of crowded seats filled with prostitutes anxiously tapping away, fidgeting away the time. Some played card games.

"I want to leave. I can just step out of the door right now!" cut through the air, from them.

“Not with your debt, you wont be able to. They'll kidnap you, possibly even send you to prison" warned a respondent. “You don't want to go there, no…"

“You're fucked, mate" muscle-man said. “Like, you're seriously fucked."

A werewolf walked through the corridor and to a very main-looking door; it looked far more extravagant then the one we had entered through, even from the inside. They unlocked a box and flipped a switch. The dim lighting suddenly changed as a warmer and redder compliment met it, the buzzing of the neon sign outside beginning its monotone tone. A bartender walked to the bar and began wiping down tables, rinsing cups, dusting surfaces, and a handful of other activities.

A smell of detergent washed through the room, overtaking the semen smell which had entered the air from the opening of the sex rooms. 

A little clink as the lock keeping the main door closed released, letting it swing open to let a cold breeze run through the main room. I hadn't noticed how humid it had gotten as the dry night air came to meet us.

The first clients arrived second later, a line of about 14 of them matching up with the categories they wanted, cutting off to a more meager but still substantial rate. Eventually one came to our table. It was a hunk of a werewolf. He seemed to be a guy who might get sex very easily. Why was he here…? I wondered if he'd want the “chocolate sundae" or the “shower of gold", two menu items i dreaded. Kinky people tend to be willing to pay.

"If you want this guy, be gentle; its his first time", advised my black-armed supervisor.

“Finally, there's some new game here! Oh, it's been too long...", he said. “A massage and one anal dominance session, then."

A strange surprise that he wanted such a mild things. Maybe not, maybe i was his kink…?

I asked for my payment, a ¤75 for a "starter" and a ¤130 for a “main". They happily gave me the tired banknotes they hid in their pockets, with no reluctance to pay the full amount. Another strange surprise; he was willing to pay so much?

"Those are mine", the black-armed werewolf reminded me as soon as my new client passed them over. Not a single second in my fingers, either!

"Well, that's a good ¤205…", he said. “¤30 towards your debt."

We three ended up passing into the hallway to the sex room. "Get key 205. He likes it when the number matches the price. Careful to take from 'r' for ready; 'c' will be a filthy room."

Each number on the board had two hooks, the first labelled “c" and the second "r". I found 205 and took the r hook's single key.

"Would you mind me coming along?", asked my supervisor, to my client.

"I want to try this new flesh alone" replied my client, with an almost sultry tone.

"Ok then, just remember to remind him how you like it. He's a little underripe", said my supervisor, hinting.

We walked together through a maze of hallways, the numbers increasing slowly. We ended going up about two floors and popping onto a room just a few metres from the door, which i unlocked. We walked in, turning on the light and guided him to the bed in the center.

I had finished my work. I thought i did well.

"3/10, could have been slower", he said as he caught his breath. Damn him!

Back in the main room, waiting for a client to come over to the table and request me, i heard heavy footsteps upstairs, reverberating throughout the whole of the main room. They didn't sound like ordinary footsteps for those who'd be in the sex rooms, no, they were intense. Like, kind of enraged.

The stairs creaked and through the main hallway came a werewolf of impressive stature. His body was plump and tense, a tight potbelly providing a kind of foundation for his scowling face, a scar for one of his eyes. 

He was holding in his hands a confectionery bar. I could barely read it, but i managed to read some of the words through his fingers; "Hem", "at", and "gen". He stared at some point between me and black-arms, a mad glare burning into our bodies just from the reflection on the couch.

"You two, from category I!"

A pause.

"You two; the supervisor and his dumb little whore, damn you! UP!"

We two were walked to a sex room behind him. He turned on the light but fumbled and turned on the different, redder, kind of light.

"Fuck, wait"

He switched to the clinical white light.

“I've heard complaints from our most valuable client that you have no quality! None!"

The black-armed werewolf was just as shocked as i about this whole thing, his mouth kind of agape and a little dread locked in behind his eyes.

"That 45% cut you're getting? You're supposed to be getting good clients for me! I see your fourth bad client so far!"

He ripped off a little clump from the snack bar he was holding and chewed on it, glaring at us two. He swallowed with quite a gulp.

"New kid - you need to be trained, like, properly!"

The angry werewolf shifted his glare to the black-armed one.

"And you, do better next time. That 45% is not going to be 45% if you're so shit at your job! Off, now, softshark!"

The black-armed one stood up. I, with the growing terror, stood up too.

As we walked to the door, i saw him walk off to the bar.

Pushing past the staff-only doors, into the grimy hallways again.

“Why was he so angry?", i asked

“Oh, he's just like that. Power corrupts, i guess", he said. A pause. “Well, he's also one of the main clients and brings quite a hefty sum…. that could play a part."

“Oh", i replied.

We walked down the hallway in a kind of awkward silence, a bit disillusioned from the stern telling-off. My thoughts drifted again. He was just eating a sweet, wasn't he? It did look kind of reddish and brown, though. Was it really a sweet?

"What was he eating?" i asked, curious.

"Oh, just an imported good" my supervisor dismissed.

"Yes, but which?"

"One from your world"

"Which part of it?"

"dunno"

“What's its name?"

“gehmatohjen, very iron-y, texture like toffee. I'm pretty sure it has blood in it"

I retched a little at that statement. Blood and sweets do not mix, at least not in my culture.

He noticed and he made a little comment "Wait until you see him with his black sausages! They're made of the same stuff as his 'oil of life' cocktail he's so fond of!"

I knew nothing about the cocktail but i knew the one thing about black sausages.

We had reached my room of beds. He sat next to me.

"Don't ever turn on the main lights", he explained.

"It's the closest light switch, though", i said.

“Well, go for the further one, then."

“Yes, but the logical one is the closest one; less effort for more intimacy!"

"But it's the wrong one" he said with a little hint of amusement at his own witty comment. “Well, let's move onto the actual training. It'd be a shame to evict you onto the street. You'll die quite quickly without us!"

“I'll go get the expert. You sit tight!" he said as he stood to leave, locking the door.

Only now did i take the time in myself to process my situation i had found myself in.

I imagined a little scenario; i running out of the brothel. I'd be lost in their society. And then, i thought, the policemen would run up to me and shoot me. I'd die instantly outside. We're rare here. That's the only reason such a frail person as i is even in category I, i'm sure.

My fantasies turn out to have strings attached!

Oh, how i do remember home! Such a complicated place, having to provide for one's-self through such a wide manner of ways and methods. How could that be the place i was born?

No, i give up. Here, i think, is a simpler life, in the midst of my fantasies and making a living. Why would i want to return to that damned place?

I heard foot-steps approaching and the door unlocked. To my surprise, straight-ears walked in, holding one of the menus.

I was a little shocked. “You…? I thought you were just the, y'know nerd…?"

“Well, er, mostly, i like money, but my libido grows and grows and it needs to go… somewhere. Here." he replied.

“Right then, let's run over what each service is. It was dumb letting you out without knowing, in retrospect", he said as he sat down. “You'll earn more money once you can manipulate the ropes."

“First, starters. Your client can choose any from here. Let's start with the massage.", he said.

“It really is quite simple; take the lube and spread it on your hands like this", he said as he dropped a few drops and spread them on his hands.

“Take them onto your client, too", he said as he grabbed my legs and put some cold lube on it. He rubbed and it sent tingles down me. I was still very touch deprived and every little movement of his fingers sent tingles down me.

“Now, what you need to do is rub. Look at your client and find the just right amount of pressure", he said as he started making me melt in pleasure from his magic hands. It was an odd thing to get off to, especially after dominating our unsatisfied client.

“See, with the right technique, anything's possible! Earn that damn cash!"

“Now, you try on me", he said, suddenly stopping his magic rubbing.

I took some lube and spread it on his legs. I found his calves and began massaging them, taking the muscle and holding it between my fingers. He had quite a bit of muscle, being a werewolf bigger then me, and i took the time to use my delicate, intricate hands to make intricate movements over his leg. He'd love it!

“Yeah, that's the spot", he said.

“Just keep massaging the area. Remember to always keep moving. They like it more when you keep them going."

I continued for a little while longer. My fingers began tracing a little series of complicated patterns, combing his now-moist hair in new and exciting ways.

“Ok, you should stop now. We've got, like, 5 other damn items to cover."

“Ok, so the reverse massage. Basically the same but you let the client touch you wherever he wants. Remember, no body part in the brothel is sacred!"

We got into the bed and i was the little spoon. He kind of twitched and squeezed me. He sent tingles down me with the way he held me. He was the best thing to sleep with, almost a reverse teddy-bear. He kept me comfy and warm.

We ended up falling asleep and not realising it till we saw the rays of mid-day sunlight beaming through the window. 

“Well, that was longer then 20 minutes", my big teddy bear spoke to me. “I've got quite the bit of accounting to do, you know, the morning and all that!"

He stood and left me to this room. It stank; the used condom in the uncovered bin, untied, the musk of straight-ears, who had just left, and the dusty bed.

That's a mess for the cleanup crew. I grabbed the hook and put it onto the “c" mode; “clean this up", i presume.

I went into the main room. It was quite a contrast; i, barely dressed, and everyone here in street clothes.

Black-arms noticed first. He ran off to some place in the staff area and came back with some clothes.

“It's not night; who are you impressing?!"

I put on the clothes.

“Breakfast in 20 minutes!" announced the bartender over the ruckus. The bawdy bodies here were playing card games against one-another, checkers, anything to pass the time for tonight. It was notably emptier then it was the night before; surely, some had left to spend their cash.

Soon after engaging in a game of go fish against my human co-workers, breakfast was called.

We were taken through a series of staff-only hallways and into the cafeteria. At each table, we all got the same food, in different rations; i a meager helping of potatoes, rubbery steak, and some vegetables. The werewolves around me, though, had more steak then anything, the vegetables and potatoes more like a seasoning then anything else.

I should have expected we'd be given institution food. 

A few minutes after i had entered an entertaining conversation with muscle Mike (well, that's just his nickname, we don't use real names; there's a risk in real names), the end of dinner was called.

Quite a few of the prostitutes left the building. Black-arms told me it was because about half of them had an outside job they were using to pay off the loan better. Muscle Mike said the other half ran off to enjoy the city. There were a lot of sights, black-arms told me. One day, he might take me out in a bulletproof car to go on a whistle-stop tour, if i earnt enough.

Everyone was busy here, even on the mornings. Straight-ears was probably attacking a spreadsheet and figuring out how to get money properly moved. Black-arms was busy supervising us to make sure we'd be good. Humans were very valuable, apparently. The ones at the brothel the only ones who were living, in the entire city of one million; A handful were at display at the museum to show the werewolves where they came from.

Yellow-hair was taking a gym day.

We were the few who were idle. I wondered the brothel at one point, followed from a distance by black-arms.

There was a lesbian and straight section to the brothel; the three were connected by the sex-rooms hallway. Of course, every sexuality was separated into their own batch of sex rooms, but the accommodation section and food sections were shared. A single cafeteria for all. I managed to glance at the time-table; lesbians first, straights after, gays last. Hey!

It was a very large brothel. Going for a walk around its grounds proved to be a very exercising ordeal. There was a courtyard in the center. Well, not so much a courtyard as a street blocked off on two sides by some wooden buildings connecting into the rest of the brothel. Black-arms said it was a safe place.

I did see other humans; one straight man, two straight women, and three lesbians.

Turns out that before lunch each day, they'd meet and talk in the dormitory. But black-arms would always take care to supervise us, for werewolves knew how powerful a species combined could get, their history being owed to a band of just 5 werewolves. The werewolves came from a failed experiment down in Florida in the 1800s, and somehow managed to run off and develop this whole society from it.

But the 8 humans did form quite a strong bond. They loved to talk about what happened the night before, the interesting things. Apparently, there was a bar fight and one of the category IVs died in the lesbian section. There was a lot of blood, but the manager spilt his cocktail, tripping over them, so that formed a large part of it. 

The lawyer, Skinny Joe, as we called him, told us that not much happens in the straight brothel. It's the smallest wing, after all.

Anista (from “nih'sta", from “nightstand", from “one night stand"), one of the straight women, reminded me who we were supposed to protect. We needed the brothel to protect us from the outside. If it died, we'd die pretty soon after. Keeping management happy was quite paramount.

The first lesbian, as a related note, noted that she was hearing plans for a long-term strike spreading in her section of the brothel. It'd bankrupt the place if the idea spread across all three things. The police, unpaid, might just do a raid against the brothel.

And i've just heard that the werewolves whisper through the thin walls of the dormitory at night, and the whispers spread between wings.

3

All nine of us were seated together at a pushed-together table in the centre of the room, us humans eating lunch mostly alone; most of the werewolves had left for their work.

"Damn", Muscle Mike said. “I never thought of it like that"

“Yeah, and to imagine how it might spread upwards!", the second lesbian said. “People love the idea of protest. They want to have power."

“It'll be the category Vs, and then the category IVs will want a taste of freedom, and before you know it, the entire brothel is bankrupt!", she continued.

“I've seen things like this talked about, but it seriously does feel like it's going to happen now", said the first lesbian. “We really can't do much about it in our position, though."

“I mean, we can try to discourage them, right?", said the third one. “I mean, they're also kind of fucked, right?"

“Yeah, actually! Prostitution is very illegal here!", exclaimed Muscle Mike.  “Have you seen prisons? They're worse then then here!"

“Oh, and the loan sharks tend to seek repayment, without exactly being held back by the law", added Skinny Joe. “They'll never leave until the debt's gone."

“Well, not if the brothel falls bankrupt and it has to be sold off!", the first lesbian said. “No, the prostitutes know that if they kill the brothel, the loan sharks have no bribe money, and then no power because then they go to jail."

“I don't think the strike will ever happen, actually", said the third lesbian. “It's too risky and prison sucks. There you know you never get to leave."

“Couldn't they use their physical force against the management to get what they want?", i asked.

“Not here. No, There's a support structure if you know where to look", said Muscle Mike. “Every wing has a few real prostitutes. They get financial incentives to back up the management."

“The management has kept them armed. A murder is nothing worth paying attention to", he grimly noted. “Nobody knows who they are, either. They're fired if people figure out who they are, so there's that kind of push."

“That said, i'm pretty sure Mr Troy came here by choice", said Slim Joe. “Well, by a choice like mine, not literally just asking for a job here…!"

That was a lie. Maybe he liked Mr Troy.

“Yes. If even by force they end up winning over the management, what happens next?" said the second lesbian.  “Every prostitute at work here had to give over personal details in some way or another, so it'd certainly be very easy to arrest them if the police raided."

“Oh, and they will raid. If you kill the management, no management equals no bribes. If you keep them from making money, no bribes. No bribes equals grounds for a raid.", said the first lesbian. “A raid equals being sent to the shitty prisons."

“We're fucked in all cases, you see", said muscle Mike. "With the strike, though, the loan sharks can be sent to prison

“Lunch over!", yellow-hair shouted. We seperated ways, down the hallways to the brothel-sections. The loan sharks would go back to their work in gaining new prostitutes and we'd be left the brothel mostly to ourselves. Well, locked in our respective main rooms. We were to keep it tidy and well-maintained for the night.

“Really though, what can we do?", asked Muscle Mike, puffing up a cushion, to nobody in particular, except maybe to what god might have been watching us. Muscle Mike was an atheist. He believed in himself more then any deity, so probably just to himself.

“I have a crazy idea. Maybe one of us report the plans to management and have them handle it", i replied.

“Would that not get category V angrier?", he said.

"Not if i handle it", said Skinny Joe.

At some time later, the paid werewolves started coming back into the brothel through the side entrance. The sun had put-put across the sky quite far by now. Each of the prostitutes found their seat and began their nervous games, their nervous tip-tapping, their waiting.

And i watched as the time came for the clientele to come in; the already-waiting queue poured in first, followed by the meager but consistent flow that began taking away prostitutes, several in groups.

I sat waiting as i watched the cash began flowing from customers to the workers. Well, not to the workers so much as to the management. The real prostitutes made sure to mentally log the transactions. I'm sure they were getting a cut.  The occasional clink of coins a kind of soundscape to  the tired semi-green banknotes moving between hands, pairs of bodies walking off into the sex rooms.

Conversation ran around the air in sultry and bassy tones, seductionary fakery to in a ploy to knabber more green.

A werewolf walked up to us. A potential client.

Black-arms was still supervising me, still sitting next to me. He was always out of place on these human-sized sofas. They were probably the highest quality sofas in the damn brothel. Maybe they'd been stolen from the human world, a bit like i was.

It made our potential client seem slightly confused.

“I didn't know normies got to take category I…?", he said. "

“Ah, no, it's because we have a newbie.", explained black-arms. “Normies for newbies, as we all know!"

He made a wry little smile at his little rule.

“If you had seen who we call, er, Muscle Miguel… no, Mike, here for his first few days, you'd see he had me too", said black-arms.

“Ah, ok. I'll have the skimpy one here, then", said the new client, to nobody at particular.

Skinny Joe…? Wait, no, he's casting his gaze at me. It sent butterflies into me for some reason.

It was weird. If i had to explain it, i'd say it was the fact this body was giving me attention. I felt very special.

We returned to the brothel's main room.

"You did much better, newbie, i've heard" said black-arms. 

"But you need to get better, i've heard", he said, directed at skinny Joe. "We'll have to fire you, and that'll be bad for everyone!"

A wry smile at his own little joke.

Time passed through the night. There was always something happening in the main room, from raised voices over some disagreement to the various clients that came to one of us, twice me.

I made a good amount of money that night, some 750.

Eventually it was the time the brothel to close. A small dinner in the main cafeteria before we retired to the bedroom.

It wasn't quiet there. It wasn't so much of a bedroom as a common space.

Sleep wouldn't be for another few hours, it seemed, even if the sunset had been 6 hours past. 

I was next to a wall dividing the various wings of the brothel. I had a bed nearby the lesbian quarter.

I heard a loud whistle. Just in the room, afront the main door, stood Yellow-arms.

“Category II prostitute 7 to meeting room", he said.

He and one werewolf left the room.

I heard the same noise through the thin walls of the lesbian room.

“I don't think they made enough last night. They'll be 'punished', AKA made to calculate for straight-ears all night", explained Skinny Joe. “I was sent there once. There are way too many numbers."

“You're with three others doing the same calculation and you're supervised by a real prostitute to ensure theres never any fraud", said Muscle Mike. “Redundancy is part of the punishment."

I imagined how i might feel in the same situation. It'd drive me mad, possibly.

"Are you tired too?", i heard through the wall. "You'll never pay off the debt, will you?"

It was intended for the people from that room but the thin walls made conversations quite between wings trivial.

I heard a reply from my side, a manly, almost exhausted voice.

"Yeah. What do you want to do about it, though?"

"Let's arrange for a  strike out in two days, to go on until the brothel is bankrupt."

"Ah-ha, and...?"

"If we keep the clientele from giving us money, the brothel dies and we'll be free!"

It was an optimistic voice, possibly dumbly so.

"Would we not be sent to prison?"

"We have plenty lawyers and we'll be certain to keep you from prison; you never chose to go here, remember!"

Fuck, we forgot about that. Prison is avoidable, it turns out.

"Maybe we should arrange a deal...", said the masculine voice. "We'll stop the strike if our debt is quartered and we get a bigger cut"

“Yeah! Spread the word!"

"If the brothel dies, I'll die, too!", i exclaimed in shock. “The police hate us humans!"

"Yes, and?", they responded in an almost furious tone. "Look, we couldn't care less about you elitist assholes! You make most of the money and you have no right to complain!"

"We couldn't give less of a fuck about you and your management, you corrupt assholes!", a voice added.

"As you can tell, We're fucked", muscle Mike, in the bunk below me, grimly noted. "Nobody here cares for us because they see us as the elite."

I took a bit of the tired, grey breakfast. It was almost flavourless, a kind of nutrient-free mush. It fit the mood, really.

I had only this day to get this strike to end.

They'd agreed to a specific rationalisation as to what would stop them; a half of their loan and a bigger cut. They probably had more then ten years in this damned place when i had just 400 days. I put that number through my head. It was a year and a third, basically. I just needed to hold the brothel together and i'd be safe.

Today, I'd go talk to black arms with my coworkers, i decided to myself.

I talked with the other humans in the lesbian bedroom. Nobody really cared for sexuality-segregation in the morning hours, and this room had the fewest sleepers.

“We're fucked", Muscle Mike stated. “We're fucked beyond belief and the brothel is going to die."

“I don't think there's anything we could do", Chad said.

"I think we could at least do something... Do we have anything for leverage against the management?", asked the first lesbian. “You two are too damn narcissistic!"

"We are the highest earning members, aren't we?", suggested slim Joe. "It's risky, but we could arrange our own strike, right?"

"They can kick us out, though. If they can't get money from us, they have a simple", the second lesbian mused. “They might just negotiate with us and we'll find a compromise. Either that or, if the negotiation fails, they'll take us into the street and let us fend for ourselves, AKA being killed."

"That's too risky, damn you", Muscle Mike stated.

“Maybe it's worth a try, though", said Skinny Joe.

"Wait, no, i have a safer idea! We just tell them that the strike's about to happen and 60% the income of the brothel might just disappear!", i exclaimed. “Straight-ears is kind of materialistic, right?"

"It's a good suggestion, but we only have, like, two days", said the first lesbian. "Wait, no only one now"

"Lets just try something… ok , we'll try this and see what they say by lunchtime", said the third lesbian. “I have faith that they won't let us die; they won't let such great moneymakers just disappear!"

“I'll go do it, and if it doesn't work out, we can find something else to do", i said. “And that something else might just as well be starting an anti-strike movement. You mentioned real prostitutes, didn't you, Muscle Mike?"

“Yeah, you already know three here, but…" he said. “The others, we just don't know who they are. And if they managed to rile up action against the strike, they'd lose their jobs for being found out."

“I only know two, though!", i said, thinking of Mr Troy and Skinny Joe (but was he really that much of a real prostitute?).

“Well, there's Ortil", he said in a hushed tone. “Oh, wait, you don't know her yet!"

Ortil, what a strange name!

“Hi, yeah, i'm basically the straight female Skinny Joe", she said. “I was a prostitute but my pimp was too abusive, so i left. I needed a loan, and look where i am now!"

“I've paid it off and i'm building a hefty sum in my bank account, but i see no reason to spend any yet", she explained.

“And your name… where from?" i asked

“Oh, it's just a silly nickname. I used to be called Señorita Fértil by my co-workers, for my libido, but it contracted, a bit like Anista here", she replied. “You already know her name comes from 'One Night Stand'. What silly names we come up with!"

“Could we not just use your money to find a way to mediate the loan?", i asked, somewhat naïvely.

“Do you know just how old i am? I want to retire early! It's my money!", the shocked Ortil responded. I had struck a nerve, quite the spicy one, too.

“I guess we'll have to find other ways of making things work, eh", i said.

“Breakfast over!", black-arms shouted.

We all went off to our separate wings and found ways to occupy ourselves.

“Maybe i should go talk", i said.

"Let's go together", Skinny Joe said. “We'll do better as a unit."

All of us, save for Mr Troy, a kind of statue of thought, stayed. Black-ears was pulled with us instead.

Skinny Joe guided us through a maze of hallways, passing the stinking sex rooms, past some “staff-only; no fucking whores" signs (likely installed by the manager), the various offices and cash rooms, and into the staff break-room, where we saw yellow-hair.

“Why are you in the management-only room?! Werewolves only, at least!", the angered werewolf said.

“It's very important, they said", said the black-armed werewolf. “Let them talk."

Skinny joe started. “There's some strike brewing. They want to bankrupt the place."

“Is that so…?" the yellow-haired creature said.  "They won't succeed. We have three wings and if one breaks down, we're not fucked."

“No, it's all the wings!", i exclaimed.

“Oh, fuck", said yellow-hair. "I'll threaten them with prison then if they dare strike."

“Aren't some of our workers lawyers, though?", i said. “And they have the argument that they were forced into work here, don't they? There's an exemption for forced prostitution."

“Oh… er… it was in the terms and conditions, right?" he said.

"They were in very ambiguous language. Who wrote it, a snail?", said Skinny Joe. “You cant just say that they agree to forced employment here, you know, without the correct workplace licenses and forms as required clearly by the General Workplace Ethics and Humanity, Year-190. It's not 'employment', it's slavery!"

“I can, it's fully legally binding, right? So then we can use the contract as a way to sta-", said the yellow-haired werewolf

“Prostitution is illegal, and thusly, by the Permissible Contractual Rights And Obligations Agreement of Year-57, you cannot have them work here by any circumstances!", he said.

"we bribe the police, don't we? I'm sure they'll let us send them to prison!", said the werewolf.

“Not really; you won't have any money to bribe them", replied Skinny Joe. “Go get the rest of management. We need to have a meeting to unpack this."

The yellow-haired werewolf left, leaving us with black-arms.

“What conditions are there on the strike?", he said.

“If i remember, it was to have the loans quartered and the cut towards their loan being raised to 40%", i said.

“Oh, damn, that's really steep", he said. “consult straight-ears."

Yellow-hair, straight-ears, and the manager entered this room.

“Explain again?", said the manager. “Shit, no, let's first go to the meeting room."

We followed the old hag into a large room, outside the staff-only area, in which a very long but not very wide table sat. There were five chairs door-side and about 20 wall-side.

“We usually teach theory to the prostitutes here, so that's why we have such a table", explained black-arms. “You know, negotiation and other important things."

“You should do that more often", said the manager. “I don't like how little we've made."

“No, the log shows that the lower categories have been, so to say, 'slacking off'", said straight-ears.

“Ok, so explain this shit", said the manager. “So, they're organising a strike, right?"

“Yes, right. The categories from V to IV will be on strike for about a week. They want their loans quartered and an increase in their cut of the pay, to about 40%", said Skinny Joe.

“That means ends won't meet", said straight-ears. “Each category V prostitute only makes ¤50 a night."

“That means they spend decades paying off their debt, though", Skinny Joe said. “Of course they want a strike"

“I have an idea. Let's go for a compromise; half the loan and a 30% cut", said skinny Joe.

“Tight, but it's possible to turn a profit off that", commented straight-ears.

“I'll go contact them and we'll see what they say", said black-arms.

“What if they say no?", i asked.

“They're free to go to jail. I'll send them once every hour. The lawyers can be killed", said the manager. “Well, only if shit turns to shit", he added, almost nonchalantly.

“That's horrible!" black arms protested. 

“No, we enter negotiations with the main ones and find a way to keep them silent", he said.

“We'll see what we can do", he said.

“Meeting paused", said yellow-hair.

We went our separate ways.

It was night again and just the time for prostitutes to enter yet again

Black-arms stood guard at the door, taking away the occasional prostitute. At the point when everyone had come back (save for the few newbies who thought they could escape; they'd be later hunted down and captured), i and the other humans of the gay branch were called for negotiations upstairs.

Back in the main meeting room, there were all the humans, a wide array of prostitutes from all sides, and some new werwolves i hadnt seen. Based on their position at the table, i guessed that they were other managers.

"I've gathered you all today about the strike action that's been arranged for tomorrow", said yellow-hair. “We all have a stake in these strikes and i th-"

“Shut up.", said the manager. “Stop with the shitty buisness words and get to the fucking point. I don't have the damn time."

“You idiot whores are calling for some shitty one-week strike just to fuck with us, right?!", he screamed. “I've already had to deal with this shit back 10 years ago and i'm not letting this shit happen again!"

“Well, er, all we really ask for i-", began a prostitute

“I don't give a fuck about what you want. You could handle this maturely but you idiots decided to put up an attitude!", he hollered.

Yeah, black-arms., you were right He just does get angry sometimes!

“Calm down!", black-arms said firmly, a strong dollop of seriousness with his words. “Be civil or i'll kick you out!"

Straight-ears, yellow-hair, and the various other managers nodded in some kind of agreement.

The manager produced a bar of hematogen and bit into it. He sipped from a flask too, a strong smell of iron hitting my nostrils.

“As i was saying, before i was so damn rudely inter-", began yellow-arms. "As i was saying, there's a strike impending. So far, they've aksed for quarter the loan and 30% the pay, right?"

“Well, no", said a prostitute. “We'd like 50% of the cut and indeed, and yeah, a quartering of our initial loan."

“I've looked at the books. Not possible", said straight-ears. “We can do three-quarters the loan and a 20% cut"

Hey, those aren't the figures initially mentioned! Was he using his negotiation skills against the students? Had they surpassed the teacher?

“As if! And when am i ever going to leave this damn place?", the prostitute said. “I've already spent 4 years here and i'm sick of it!"

A general nod of agreement from all the prostitutes.

“The lowest personally i could do is a 25% cut and a half-loan", said a different one.

“For me, 40% and a quarter-loan", said another one.

“Nonsense! The lowest we can go without going bankrupt and, of course, sending you to prison, is the aforementioned three-quarters of the loan and 20% cut!", said straight-ears.

“Didn't we mention other numbers?" i asked.

“Shh!", black-arms explained.

“Yeah, it was half the loan and 30%, right?" said skinny joe.

“No, it was one eight and 90%, though!", lied Muscle Mike.

“Shut up", said straight-ears, irritated at all three of us. “Yes, we did agree to half the loan and 30%", he reluctantly admitted. “But that doesn't mean you get to have it for free."

“Ha! You liars!", triumphantly said one of the prostitutes. “I always knew that we were underpaid!"

“Calm it the fuck down", said yellow-hair."Straight-ears, break down the money flow"

“Per person per night, we make an average of about ¤300. We then take like 15% and toss it into the loan, about 30% goes into catering, 30% into bribes, and the final 25% into so-called 'other expenses'"

“And what are these other expenses?", asked the prostitute.

“er, some of it goes to us. obviously, and, eer-", said straight-ears

“Not enough!", complained the manager

“Yeah, some to us, some to utilities, and into tax", said straight-ears.

“Wait, we pay tax? I thought prostitution was illegal!", i said.

“Yeah, we're still a business; a restaurant offering spicy goods", he explained. “We pay the police to look past what might be called 'food hygiene inspections'"

"We might be illegal, but we still need to keep the governme-"

“That's beside the point. a 30% cut is fine, i guess", said a prostitute, interrupting.

Every other prostitute seemed to agree.

“And the cut of the loan… can we pay just, like, 40% of our original loan instead?"

A nod of acceptance around the prostitutes.

“Well, possibly", said straight ears.

“I wouldn't be opposed", said the manager, having calmed down in the course of chewing on hematogen. A nod around the room. “But, there are some conditions."

“First, you little shits, i want to establish a strong hierarchy. You, prostitute III-1", he said, gesturing at the prostitute who had suggested the offer. “You manage the categories III, IV, and V from the straight wing."

“All categories have a designated manager. I don't want softshark here having to handle all your dumb requests."

“Slim Joe, you manage the humans, all of them", he said. “You collaborate with human managers Otil and the First lesbian to handle wing-specific matters. Any strike will go through them, first."

“That's a requirement. Handle this shit yourselves. I have things to do, damn you!"

"I don't want to be stirred at all

“sssh", said black-arms. “Let's go for a simple split: humans and management work together to keep the brothel in good shape, and maybe the others can keep the place, let's say, receptive to clientele, AKA with good working conditions. That's for you, big boss."

"We'll have to cut someone's wage to make this a better place to work, i guess", said the manager. “Oh, category I, why can't you give us some of your wage?"

“We already do.", said Muscle Mike. “Use that."

“It's possible", said straight-ears. “But we still need some extra if we want to keep the workers here!"

“Another condition: No strikes or riots allowed!", said the manager. “Just keep in line."

“Yeah, so, to conclude…", said yellow-hair. “We'll be giving some of you new responsibilities but you'll get a 30% cut instead and your loans will be halved. Well, save for category I, who so selflessly paid for this!"

“Not cool", said muscle mike.

“It will have to be cool", responded black-arms.

“Meeting over!"

That night i heard word not of a strike but something else.

“We can always gang up against them… the humans, right?"

“Yeah, we can do that tommorow!"

“And freedom is ours!"

4

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.

5

I reached the brothel at the mid-afternoon.

It was empty as it usually was, most of the workers having left to pay off their debt with real jobs too.

Strangely, Slim Joe had disappeared. I hadn't an idea why. I asked black-arms.

He explained that Slim Joe was “busy". Maybe the promotion had hit him.

It was way more lonely in the brothel, being only with Muscle Mike.

“I missed you", he said.

“It was so boring in the hospital", i said.

“I guess we both are glad you're back, then", he said. “Everything's turned to shit."

“Hmm?"

“Slim Joe has, like, zero time to talk now he's taken the lawyership role. There's a lot of reading", he complained. “So i just sit here alone. Well, that is unless they tell me to go plaster up some crack."

“At least it makes a change from doing nothing", i said. Muscle Mike did need optimism.

“Eh, whatever, it's not that interesting. What's worse, the prostitution bill is going through parliament."

“Does that mean we'll be inspected?", i asked, drawing off what i had imagined in the hospital.

“Yeah. And we'll be killed", he said. “We're fucked."

“What do you reckon we can do?"

“Nothing.", he said. “As i said, we're fucked."

That's not an answer, Muscle Mike, that's an excuse.

“How are the other humans?", i asked, to change the topic.

“Oh, they're fine. The first lesbian's working with straight-ears on various aspects of the business", he said. “And the second lesbian sits next to her writing the adverts."

“The third one uses the time to do some drawing commissions for the werewolves", he said. “They request the weirdest things but pay so well."

“Like what…?", i asked, thinking about my time freelancing writing erotica.

“Oh, you wouldn't want to hear", said Muscle Mike. “But the latest one involves a human being dominated by a werewolf with the human being drawn in a half-werewolf way doing some kinky shit… eurgh."

“And the straight wing?" i asked.

“They're just chaos", he said. “Chad keeps bickering over the smallest things."

"Typical", i said.

We talked with each other to spend the evening time off. Muscle Mike kept throwing a negative spin on things. I didn't mind. I was happy to be back in the company of known humans.

I talked about Darren. I missed him.

I remember what happened so clearly now.

He ran down the motorway, excited to get back from our winter holiday down south in Murcia. He was picking up great speed, faster then 120 km/h down the overtaking lane, taking advantage of the night-time lack of traffic. The speed limit was 90 and the roads very curvy. It made for quite the exhilarating experience.

We talked to pass the time in the car.

He let out a little on the pedal. I watched as our speed dropped from 150 to 130 km/h.

We were still going fast. We were in the mountains and the motorway was just getting bendier. I was pressed against the door as we swerved left to follow the road.

It was us in our youth days, sweet seventeen, my birthday being just next week.

The signs we were passing were a flashing 90, a ring of red lights screaming at us to slow down. There were the big flashing signs warning us that the road was curvy, curvier then was normal on the motorway network.

Darren didn't want to slow down. He lived fast through life all his life, burning past the “boring school shit" and running straight into the world of work. He had already made a bunch from his freelancing and he was excited to finally begin working a full-time job, a high-paying one.

We had a job interview to go to. We'd need to get to Madrid by sunrise.

We passed the occasional car. Some honked, some just passively accepted our speed. We didn't mind either way, it was too fun going this fast.

We were fast, we were young, and we were stupid.

But Darren wouldn't be stupid for long.

I heard a screech as a puddle from yesterday's rains ran under our front-left tyre. It all happened so quickly, we couldn't react. Our front hit a car on the hard shoulder with the tyres screeching. A metallic screech. We had so much momentum we simply bounced off and ran a 180 degree turn straight into the central reservation.

There was the crunch of metal as we came to a sudden sliding stop, scraping against the concrete barrier separating the carriageways

I looked at Darren. He was hunched over, the seatbelt doing what little effort it could propping him up. Blood stained his white shirt, barely visible under the sickly yellow of the street lights.

I would have cried if i didn't black out. I woke up in the hospital. My wounds weren't that bad, as it turns out. Darren's were. At least he wasn't in a state to suffer from them.

A cruelty hit 4 months after my birthday.

No, what wound i did have was the financial wound. The car on the hard shoulder? Whilst having been abandoned, it needed to be repaid for. My insurance was rubbish. They wouldn't pay for it. It was obvious we had broken the law recklessly; the speed cameras made sure of that.

My parents didn't want to pay off the debt either. I had a job, they said, so pay it off yourselves, they said. I was getting my own flat, so pay it off yourself, they said. I was mostly gaining financial independence, so pay it off yourself, they said.

I didn't have the funds, though. And the banks wouldn't loan any more money to me after i had missed the handful of rent payments and taken the debt to pay them off.

I saw something beautiful on the internet, though. A group would happily give me the money i needed, €10,000. I thought about the options i had. I had €25,000 to pay off. If i took this, i'd easily be able to take off most of it and keep my financial independence.

It was a good idea, i thought. So that's how i signed my life away.

I was never good with financial planning. I never learnt how to do it, i guess.

I'm twenty now. It was such a daft idea to let Darren go at that speed. So damn daft.

Rest in peace, Darren. I miss you.

And i was here, alone with Muscle Mike, waiting for the time to come that i could pay off the €30,000. What a joke.

The time for the main business of the brothel came again. Slim Joe had come back.

“I missed you!", he exclaimed to me. “Oh, it's been such hard work!"

“I heard you became a lawyer here", i said.

“Yeah. It's all just a step in the plan forwards", he responded. “There's so much more reading then i expected!"

As the normie prostitutes walked in, i could feel the buzz of excitement they were having. The news of the bill, whilst a few days old, still brought new hope.

"Have you any information on that new law?", i asked.

“I've read the full manuscript and i've got some bad news", he said. “They'll do an investigation each year. We can ask for a date later in the year, but it's not going to be easy for us."

“They prioritise bigger brothels first, and we're the biggest in the city", he said. “I found a loophole, though; we could register each wing of the brothel separately and then be pushed down the queue"

“But then we'd need to go through three yearly inspections", said Muscle Mike. “Both options are absolute shit."

“Which is why we need human rights before the bill passes through", said Slim Joe.

“Do you have any ideas?", i asked him. “Couldn't i help?"·

“You wrote in the hospital, didn't you?" he asked.

“How did you know?"

“Black-arms saw the sheets of paper. He said they were well-written", he said. “You should write letters and handle communications."

“That's actually a good idea", i said. It was a little suprise. “But isn't the second lesbian doing that?"

“She mostly handles the PR bit, interacting with the public. I think you'd do well to do the more official things", he said. “I'd much prefer to just be the legal advisor."

“Hmm", i said.

I liked the idea of gaining influence and value here, becoming something indispensable to the brothel. It'd certainly help the human rights movement.

Next morning, whilst we were still in the sleeping room, we had a hushed conversation.

“Did you tell Slim Joe about why you're here?", asked Muscle Mike. “Something feels off about the debt."

I explained what happened to him; the car crash and the debt.

“What was your insurance company?", he asked.

“I've got bad news", he said after i told the name to him. “I've read their terms and conditions for a case once and… and… er…"

He hesitated. He thought about the way to phrase it. What was in the terms and conditions?

“It was an accident with a stupid driver, right?", he asked.

“Yeah", i said. “In a way…."

It kind of hurt to have someone call Darren “stupid". He continued, forcing me to interrupt my thoughts

“They should have paid 80% of the cost", he said. “And they paid 0%?"

“Yeah."

“Fuck, that means you only had to pay about €5,000 in theory."

“And i took the €10,000 debt for nothing?"

“Yep."

“Fuck."

“Indeed."

“I told you we're all fucked", said Muscle Mike.

A little break in conversation as we thought of new things to say.

“We should go work on getting you the job", said Skinny Joe. “They have typewriters. I'm sure you'd love it."

We left the room and met black-arms in the hall. A hushed conversation as Skinny Joe introduced my skills to him. A nod of agreement.

Yellow-hair came over and guided us up.

I was guided upstairs, into a small room.

“Welcome to the brothel management", said yellow-hair. “I'll find you a task. For now, just figure out the typewriter. Skinny Joe's your legal advisor."

It was certainly a weird thing. It wasn't quite like a computer keyboard. My keyboard, being locally bought, had keys for diacritics. This didn't, being an English keyboard. Skinny Joe told me i'd have to hit the side of the paper-holder every time i hit enter and that i really mustn't make mistakes.

This'd be quite difficult, i thought. I was aware of how much i used backspace and just how much more brutally aware i'd get.

I tried typing out some text. The keys felt weird to use. They had a little too much give. I kept making basic mistakes, little typos. It was difficult to adjust myself to this new size of keyboard, but i knew that with time and thought, i could get through this. This and the big this of human rights..

The two lesbians came in and got to work. The second lesbian began her graphic design, the first working out some numbers and scribbling them down in a sheet. 

I was sat next to Skinny Joe. He had notes and a bunch of legal books. Straight-ears bought them for him, said Skinny Joe. He liked the books. He seemed to love going back into lawyership.

I was given a task quite quickly; i had to write a letter out to the official guys responsible for businesses, a letter to be held in reserve a little while as prostitution marched towards legality.

I had finished the letter. Yellow-hair said it was to be sent as soon as prostitution became legal.

Yellow-hair had a little disagreement with us as i made the others realise that if it becomes legal, we'd be killed in an inspection.

Skinny joe did offer something useful, though. As long as we'd get to spend this time working mainly on human rights, he'd ensure the prostitution bill was held back.

That would be incredibly important, he said. There were a lot of rules, most of which would be expensive to start following. Muscle Mike, if he was here, would have said that they'd be fucked.

We're all fucked, he'd say.

Worst of all, i was sure yellow-hair was coming to realise, was that the staff would have to become legally registered workers. And that would mean that the trafficking that the loan sharks had done would have to come to an end.

He said he'd think about it. Slim Joe asked by which time we'd be told.

He said by tomorrow.

It was the next morning. We were put back to work in the office.

Halfway through, we were told of what had been decided by the management.

We could spend roughly half the time working towards human rights and the other half towards the brothel.

Skinny Joe was happy with it. He began work on delaying the prostitution bill. He kept telling me to write letters telling the government that a single line was ambiguous and would lead to misinterpretation.

There was a lot of such lines, he said. But they'd be told a little every so often per week. That was the way to keep them slow and undone. They wouldn't pay for a legal analysist as the letters were coming in for free. The government loved an excuse to procrastinate, after all. 

Wouldn't they send someone to check? No, they couldn't, there was never a return address. The ink used couldn't be traced either, as was common here; it was stolen from the human world directly instead of being bought from the shops.

We continued working, my thoughts drifting again.

I thought about life back in my old home.

I remember just what it was like, my everyday schedule.

It'd start with the morning and a little walk around the town to wake me up to the 11:00 hustle and bustle of the city. Maybe I'd go to the coffee shop or just the end of street.

The noxious car fumes and the loud beeping would keep me from the busier streets.

I always found it beautiful, though, to be on a quaint quiet street.

I would choose what i wanted to do at home. I could take a rest. Well, most of the time i couldn't. I was always understimulated. I needed to do some kind of work to keep myself sane. It always used to be work that wasn't the work that paid me. That sucked.

But then i realised that maybe the work i did off-task could do well as the task. So that's how i began my freelancing career, publishing the things i'm making, promoting them, selling my skills. Cheap, at first.

It took months before i got my first commission and years before they became consistent. But i had began making a living , even if a meager one. It prompted me to stop doing my full-time job. And i managed to grow my wage through focusing on my freelancing. Not that it was easy to focus. But i had the pills and i took them and they helped.

So, i'd spend days working for myself. There were days i worked harder then i thought was healthy, but never did it feel unhealthy. No, passion drove me forwards. I had a full set of side hustles; i was a jack of all trades. But hell, i was getting lonely back then. After moving away from Madrid, where my collage friends were,and after quitting the full-time job which made me feel like shit, i met literally nobody. I had slowly found friends online, but there was a lack of connection.

And the €10,000 loan was ballooning uncontrollably, touching €20,000. I was fucked. I contemplated taking a full-time job for some more income, but i wasn't quite sure it'd help. I was shit at managing my finances anyways. I was fucked.

I could have sought financial advice. That'd have been expensive, i stupidly thought. If only i knew how many sources there really were. No, i instead pushed through myself.

But i was trying to find new friends. It was difficult, but i thought that maybe looking at venues would be a good idea.

Thing is, i was kidnapped before i could set that plan into motion.

It was lunchtime. I was eating lunch. Black Arms came in, holding an envelope.

“Newbie, you have a letter", he said, handing it to me

Skinny Joe saw the handwritten address on the envelope, an scrawl. “That's the doctor's handwriting", he said. Well, no shit, it was almost illegible!

I tore open the envelope and took out a piece of paper covered in typewritten text.

I read it out loud, having seen it was addressed to us all.

There was a group to the north, a society that had accepted the human rights movement themselves. They were growing tired of the south and the capital. And the way the society was divided, it turns out, was between a group of regions and the north itself. The north itself had its own identity.

They were threatening to gain independence from the state-group, especially given that they were having their economic prosperity being taken and reinvested into what was the rust belt of the country, the opposite area.

But the south hated the idea of independence. When things started getting serious and the independence votes were in process, they stormed in with the national guard in a terrifying mass-culling against humans and the idea of independence. Humans and whoever was unlucky enough to happen to be walking near them were shot indiscriminately, many of them becoming flesh-bags of leaking blood, their red juice pouring out onto the cobbles and mixing with the water rains as it poured into the drains.

It was violence without reason. The south wanted to make a point, using their own riches to prove that the north was nothing without them. It wasn't true at all.

It was a horrific culling that the south argued was "necessary". That sparked the local guard of the north to begin mobilisation. They were moving south to give this city, the capital, a taste of its own medicine. Any not-human would be shot at. They were coming straight to the center. And we were on their route.

There'd be turmoil the whole way there. They'd shoot at everybody on the way and raid businesses, finding ways to cripple the capital economy. And we were the largest brothel and likely one of the main sources of police funds. Destroying us would weaken the police. So they'd do just that.

We weren't their targets, being the valuable humans they were fighting for, but they had powerful guns. Their bullets could go through three bodies and we'd die in the crossfire. 

We had only a few days to prepare, apparently.

But once they took over and had control, life would get much easier for all of us. Prostitution would be decriminalised. It would be ignored and seen as nothing worth government care. The brothel management would have easier jobs. 

And importantly, we humans would be legal. I'd get to walk about the street. 

We'd love to be able to do that. But there was danger involved. 

We'd have to find somewhere bulletproof to hide, away from the raid. If only not everyone else was going to do it.

“We're fucked", Muscle Mike said. None of us truly believed him, not even Muscle Mike himself, i was sure.

So, that was it. We had but a few days before the imminent invasion.

“I'll find someplace for us to keep safe", said Skinny Joe.

The end; see the next omnibus

Some notes has been revised for completeness and relevance.

• General notes
  • Money
    • ¤ is the standard universal currency sign. I've used it here as it's not used very much anymore so makes a good choice for their economy.
    • The currency ¤ is equivalent in value to the euro. (side note: i chose not to use the euro as it'd imply the werewolves were part of the eurozone despite them trying to hide themselves from humans)
    • Devising currency exchange between the werewolves and the euro such that the protagonist could borrow money from the is left as an exercise to the reader.
  • Yes, the werewolves do speak English. Blame it on a scientific experiment in America gone wrong or just a coincidence of language evolution. I do think English suits these savages.
  • Because i generally don't make eye contact in conversation, i don't normally write about eye colour. Sorry if it prevents intimacy; you can always complain in the comments if you feel it's that bad, and i'll be happy to include at least some references to it.
• 1
  • Some info to help you better differentiate the characters, should you find yourself needing it:
    • The group of werewolves form a loan sharking group with ties to the sex industry
    • The yellow-haired one is the leader of the group and has a special contract with the brothel owner regarding the transformation of loan shark clients to prostitutes, allowing him the money he gives away to get more prostitutes
    • The straight-eared one is the accountant of the team, making sure to keep the boring non-sexual stuff in check. They have a low libido, but watch out when they get horny!
    • The black-armed one is responsible for the management of the clients when at the facility
• 2
  • If you want, the fomula to calculate days for a certain debt is debt/(money per night*0,15)
  • The lesbians also happen to be teaching the humans how to stay safe.
  • Yes, the werewolves are night birds!
• 4
  • 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.
• 5
  • I've gone for the events in the brothel being less important then the protagonist's remembering of the past. These memories are not presented in chronological order, which i feel offers a refreshing change from the very chronological other parts of the story.
  • Yes, i do find such blatant foreshadowing devices like “little did i know that" and “But only if i knew that" to be of poor taste and writemanship when used improperly, so i tend to follow a “you should never know the future" rule.
  • Well, in some cases, i prefer to let the reader know the future; see the flashbacks in part 4 (this part) and the various futures imagined in part 3.
  • Could you at least leave a comment given that you've gone this far? Favorites and watches are great and i'm very grateful, but i'd like to see some feedback too!