*thud*
“What is this place? Where am I?”
Year ago. Something odd happened to me. I found myself lying on the floor of a building that I’ve never seen before. I didn’t know how I even ended up in such a place and when I stood back on my feet I felt that something odd had happened. I couldn’t remember who I was or how had I fallen on to the floor in the first place. There were gaps in my memories and I could only remember bits and pieces who I were and where I lived. Then it hit me. I remembered this place.
This was the place where they would offer services to satisfy your never-ending needs of sexual pleasure. I opened the nearest door and I was greeted by a girl that was standing near the wall. When the girl first saw me she smiled at me. She asked if I wanted to sit down and talk with her. I nodded my head in approval. While we sat down it felt strange that I didn’t know who I was but somehow it didn’t bother me. When we talked to each other it made me forget my own worries as she told hers. I jokingly asked was this normal what we did and she agreed that most of her clients wanted something more sexual out of her.
She said that she didn’t mind at all that we only talked and added that she would have to charge me money ONLY if it involved her body and not her mouth. She playfully winked and smiled at me. I saw her hint. I told her in a casual manner that I was willing to pay for her if she needed that money. Then I felt odd. Why did I lie to her like that. I felt bad for doing so, and it made my head hurt. The flinch must have been quite visible as it made the girl’s face looked worried. I tried to cheer her up with a smile and then she smiled back. Maybe it was for the best that I didn’t think of my own past in front of her as it obviously made her sad. We continued the conversation and I asked for her name.
She introduced herself to me and told me that her name was Debbie. I gave her a fake name as I couldn’t remember my real name and I called myself ‘Rosy’.
Debbie told me that she had been working here ever since she was seventeen. She was now nineteen years old, and she had her birthday yesterday. Which opened a bridge to an another conversation topic. Debbie told me that her mother wanted to give her a chance at normal life. She had passed the middle school without a problem, but days before she had to go to the high-school, things became complicated. It became clear to Debbie, that her piece didn’t fit the society’s well crafted puzzle. She explained to me, just like with her mother, Debbie’s own unique shaped puzzle piece perfectly fitted into a place like this. She described it as the shadowy side of the skyscraper where the people from the high looked down on them and paid them to stay there. This was the place where she belonged. Which made me think. I didn’t understand how such a pretty girl with a very long and well-maintained auburn hair, topaz colored eyes and with her attractive pale oval shaped face had to work in such an environment. I wanted to ask her how did she got kicked out of the school but based on her reaction the subject seemed more than complicated. So we moved on.
As we kept talking to each other. I felt a little, how should I described it, an inquisitive spark inside me or a strong sense that I needed to help her. I looked Debbie with different eyes as if I was trying to spot what made her end up in a place like this. At first I listened to her voice. She spoke coherently and her voice sounded like a small piece of meringue dipped in whipped cream as it entered my ear. It felt like as if I was eating her voice. I felt relaxed when her soothing clarinet souding E-flat notes exited her vocal chords and tingled the inner parts of my ears when she spoke her sentences like if she was singing a song. Her maroon colored lips playfully nibbled my lobes. Even when she wasn’t acting sensual. The way she spoke to me made my brain tingle in a weird way.
Next I looked at Debbie’s long black frilled dress. It complimented her face, her hair and her make-up she had on her as it made her look like a princess without a crown. The end of the skirt opened in Y-shape which revealed her pinkie finger length high heels that she wore on her feet. Debbie’s dress made sure that every one could see her petite thighs and shaven legs. To me she looked like someone who knew what she was doing. To me she didn’t appear ill-educated for a nineteen year old. She knew how to speak, how to properly dress and she was socially aware of her surroundings. So what was the problem. There was nothing wrong with her. Why did she dropout of the school. Why did she stay with her mother and didn’t consider leaving this place behind. I asked from her what was her reasoning for staying and I told her what I thought of her. She hesitated for a moment, looked behind her as if she was afraid of something or rather someone, and then she loosened her tight grip on lips.
“I’m sorry if this sours the mood but the reason, or actually there’s many reasons, why I need to work here. You see, my mother owns this place she calls her palace. If I were to suddenly leave and wished to start my own life. She would disown me. She gave me my one chance and now I have to pay it back for her. My debt is the roof above me and the food in front of me. I own nothing and leaving her side would be complicated. My mother is like a powerful djinn, that makes crooked deals and is able to bend rules of the world to suit her needs. She knows almost everyone in this city and she has many friendly pairs of eyes and ears to extend her vision beyond her own. She has made friends and enemies in her past. Her enemies receives the most watchful eyes. She knows their every movement. I couldn’t fathom the idea of a world where I had to, every day and every night, live in constant paranoia of not knowing who was stalking me and reporting my every movement to my mother. I’ve seen it with my own eyes as I’ve lived in her palace all my life. I consider this as my temporary shelter and in my past I would have called this place my home. If only there was another powerful being that could challenge her accumulated power. There’s no way my mother is inherently that powerful. She must have had made a deal with a devil to get her strength.” Debbie sighed as she shared her story with me as the dimly lit room’s lightbulb flickered.
From that day onward I visited Debbie for months. By talking to her I was slowly recovering my memories and understanding who I was and where I lived. Yesterday when we had our usual meeting Debbie told me something unusual. Tomorrow was going to be her twentieth birthday and she wanted me to keep her company and splurge on her a bit more than usual. She asked if I could buy her a cake and pretty flower. I considered her request as I usually reserved a small cheap room for me and Debbie to have a half hour break. There was never anybody else in the room except for us and we enjoyed our company a lot. Debbie was thankful what I did for her. I thanked her back for still wanting to talk with me.
Debbie wanted to tell me a story. Which happened the day when she celebrated her seventeenth birthday. That was the day when Debbie had to start working in the palace. Some of her first clients described her as the ‘pretty mannequin girl’ who did her job like a living sex doll. This harmless nickname became flammable gasoline for her already jealous co-workers who begun to call her as the ‘doll girl’. On her eighteenth birthday people refered her as the ‘Dolly’. It seemed that even Debbie’s own mother didn’t care what the other girls called her and she didn’t punish them when they called her daughter with such a degraded nickname. Debbie’s mother would instead make Debbie embrace her doll identity as it made them more money. Debbie’s mother begun to force her to wear fancy dresses and outfits she would get gifted by ‘Debbie’s fan club’ or by the rich men that wanted to splurge their wealth on the most expensive girl in the house. One day Debbie would dress as a bunny girl, some other day she would wear a fancy dress and in very special occasions she would wear the most weirdest clothes that couldn’t be counted as clothes.
Debbie told me that she hated when she had to wear those weird ones but loved when her mother handed her the most beautiful and fanciest clothes she couldn’t ever afford. Because of her daughter, Debbie’s mother swam in money. This made Debbie’s co-workers even more jealous and their hatred towards Debbie grew even stronger. On her nineteenth birthday the bullying took a tragic turn as it became physical. Debbie had lost her mind when she found that one of the girls had scissored her favorite dress in to small pieces. That day she felt lucky that she found me.
She told me how I was the only one that gave her strength to continue and she didn’t do anything drastic. I listened to her words and she explained to me how week after her nineteenth birthday, Debbie got a new stage name: “Dolly Anemone”.
Why anemone. Even Debbie had no idea why her mother had added that name as her stage performer’s surname. She had no idea what was wrong with her own birth name.
I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that our time was running out. I reached for my champagne class that Debbie had brought me. I noticed that we were reaching for the same glass. I wanted her to take her drink but in that same moment she pulled her hand back as well.
“Doool-ly~~! Other customers are waiting for you...”
It was her mother’s voice. I looked at Debbie in her eyes and saw the distress in her face. The voice that came out from the hallway scared her. She didn’t want to go back to her work and wanted to stay here and talk with me. I told her that I couldn’t afford her any longer. The money talked in this business, more than the feelings one had inside them. If you ran out of your money, then the love you had loaned ran away as well.
“See you tomorrow?” I asked from Debbie and she nodded her head.
I left the room and watched as Debbie went back to her work from the door that was opposite to mine. The walk from the red district back to my apartment building was hard. What should had been a 30-minute walk felt like hours. But there I was. Standing in middle of my apartment while I wore my usual heels, long skirt, thigh high socks and hoodie with plain colored t-shirt underneath it. I could feel the sweat that my body made during the walk which made me feel dirty.
I took off all my clothes and went to the bathroom to take a shower. When I entered the bathroom I got reminded of my phobia. I don’t know when it started but one day I had to remove all the mirrors in the apartment because of my intense catoptrophobia. This meant that I hadn’t seen my face in years. I also owned a very ancient phone which was smart, but not smart enough for today’s standards, as it only could make and take calls. This also meant that I could only get my news through radio waves or from newspapers. Even thinking about how I looked made me gag. That’s why I never left my house as the outside world felt scary. The only exception to this rule was when I visited Debbie.
In the warm shower I always wondered what I did for a living as my body was bruised and bitten. What ever I did it had to be physical labor but even then I had no memory of ever lifting anything heavy with my arms. My mind was weird and I hated it. I remember that one day I went to therapy because of my phobia. Day prior of therapy I had broken a mirror as I swore that saw someone looking at me. The therapist who I talked with couldn’t help me. They were useless. They offered me pills for my phobia. To me it didn’t feel the right solution to my problem so I pretended taking them.
After I had my usual shower time I heard my phone ringing and went to pick it up.
“Hi. Are you friends with Debbie? My name’s Lucius, Lucy for short, and I’ve heard from a reliable source that I should call you if I want to talk with your friend Debbie.” The voice asked in a friendly manner.
“Yes. You could say that I’m her friend. But I don’t think I’m that close friends with Debbie. Can I ask what’s your business with her miss… uhm.. mister Lucy? Couldn’t you just ask her mother to arrange a meeting with her?” I asked from Lucy as I couldn’t identify their gender by their voice.
“I don’t think that’s possible and I really don’t want to talk with her mother. She hates me. I know it. Everyone at that place hates me. That’s why I can’t talk with her mother. That’s why I’m calling you. All I ask from you is to arrange a meeting with Debbie. Just so I could talk with her for a minute or two.” Lucius explained.
“Uhm, alright, I can ask her if she wants to talk with you. If that’s what you want... I’ll ask her tomorrow. But I can’t guarantee what’s her reply to such a sudden request.” I told to the other person on the phone.
And so, the call ended, and for the rest of the day nothing eventful happened. The next day I went back to see Debbie as I had promised but something felt off. I carried a full backpack on my back and I had no idea why I was carrying it with me. When I got to the usual room where I was supposed to meet Debbie there was another person sitting on my seat.
It was an androgenic guy or a girl and they looked at me with very confident glare.
“So, where is she?” The mysterious person asked from me.
“Huh? Who are you? That voice... You are that caller who wanted to talk with Debbie last night!” I said to the person in the chair.
“You said you would arrange a meeting with me and Debbie, remember?” The very confident looking figure who called themselves Lucius said as they leaned forward.
“No. I told that I was going to ask for her opinion IF she wanted to talk with you. Also how did you get in this room without me noticing?” I tried my best to explain to Lucius but when I said those words out loud I suddenly felt light-headed. “Ow. My head…”
The man presented me with a small self made strawberry shortcake and a crown made out of roses. They told me that if I wanted to help Debbie I should have to make her eat the foods they would bring and make her wear the clothes they had with them. They said that I needed to pretend that these were my gifts meant for Debbie and never mention who was the real gift giver.
“Once she eats that cake and puts on that thorny crown on their head. I take the action as if the contract has been established between us and I will grant you a one wish the moment she has done both. It can be anything you desire and I will grant it for you. But beware, the next week when I call you and send you the gifts you have to give her. You have to make sure that she eats the food and wears the clothes I give her. If she doesn’t do that by the end of the day. I will punish you for breaking our contract.” The person explained as their arms and legs didn’t move at all and their movement felt stiff and demanding.
I looked at the small shortcake and the flowery crown on the table.