The Majestic
6 Weeks Before Autumn’s Turn Festival
Vanja
Over the past three months, Caroline Lovelace has worked hard to transform the Majestic - once a posh hotel, then a low end brothel - into something better than both. Dustown had no market for expensive living accommodations, but the right atmosphere, the right music, the right level of attention, well, that could make anyone feel like they were a member of one of the noble families. The girls at the Majestic ultimately could entertain whatever clients they liked, but Lovelace liked the idea of a curated, custom experience for those with more money to spend - the more special they felt, the more likely they were to return, and bring their friends. So now, the lounge was cordoned off, the girls who would otherwise be crowded in the close, plush room, instead relaxing in the former dining area - ready to be called upon if requested.
Lovelace scans the lounge. One client, but she knows he has to be someone of importance. From the quality of his garments, the cut of his cloak, Lovelace wouldn’t be surprised if he was a minor noble, a bastard son or visiting cousin perhaps, of one of the noble houses. Looking to have anonymous fun in a place where he wasn’t likely to be recognized. Still, if someone of this quality, with this amount of coin, was at the Majestic, that meant that their profile was on the rise. It was therefore important to keep him happy, and to keep wine and coin flowing.
The young man is seated on a large, round pouf. Several of Lovelace’s lovelies are allowing him to hold court - offering wine and amuse bouche upon his request.
Lovelace looks at the scene, pleased with her design. Then, her gaze moves to the bar. One of the girls is there, ready to bring drinks to the young man and his companions, but that isn’t who Lovelace is concerned about. Vanja’s there, too - sitting on the bartop, eyes on the room.
Vanja has not been a problem…yet, and she had a useful skill set. Her healing skills were unmatched - the rare times the lovelies did get into trouble with a client - much less since Lovelace had taken over management herself, but it did still happen - Vanja was able to treat their injuries quickly and efficiently. And two weeks ago, when she’d first started, she’d triaged a dozen patients in a morning, from all over the neighborhood. And she was tougher than she looked. Tonight, she had Vanja acting as bodyguard for the other girls. Lovelace didn’t expect any trouble from the young nobleman in the room, but Vanja was there just in case.
Lovelace locks eyes with Vanja and raises her carefully penciled brows - it’s a signal: Don’t make trouble. Not tonight. This is an important client. Vanja just grins.
Vanja looked out at the sea of velvet and satin - the room was meant for a dozen or more people - the chiffon and silk hangings offering the illusion of privacy in the larger space. Tonight though, there is just the one man.
He’s quite handsome, Vanja assesses with the detached professionalism she’s adopted after working at a brothel for these past few weeks. Better looking by far than most of the clients that regularly frequent the establishment - well built, and well muscled - an easy thing to see even with the loose drape of his shirt.
Vanja watches the young man toss his chestnut colored hair back, allowing one of the girls to feed him grapes directly from the bunch, looking for all the world like how Vanja imagines a king would look.
Vanja leans back on her hands, arching her back, stretching it. Once this man picks a girl, or two, or all four - Vanja doesn’t judge - then she can leave. What the girls did in the privacy of their rooms was between them and the clients. Vanja has been spending more time at Pin’s and Needle’s, the basement fight club, and she’s eager to shake out her muscles. To get her blood flowing.
She’s restless, here, watching this pretty man play with the girls, making a meal of his decision, and Vanja’s growing more than a little bored. There’s a minstrel - a woman, like everyone here - playing somewhere in the next room, and the music is making Vanja tired. She shifts while sitting on the bartop, leans over her legs, her wrists on her thighs, and allows her hair to fall forward across her face, to hide her yawn. She tosses her hair back and softly blows air out through pursed lips. She pulls her legs up, stretching them out across the bartop, trying to wake them from sleep. She wonders how long it’s been. It seems like hours, but maybe Vanja has always been here, in this stuffy, perfumed room. She’s lost all sense of time. For a moment, she closes her eyes.
When she opens them, the young man is no longer on the velvet pouf, but at the bar. He looks at Vanja and smiles.
Talith
This was Talith’s first time visiting this particular brothel. He’d frequently visited others, but it wasn’t until his friend, Amberlyn, mentioned that a friend of hers had recently discovered the place. “I think it might be an up and coming kind of brothel, so be careful visiting for your first time.” Amberlyn had warned him. “If you’re not careful, well, I just hope you’re immune to disease!” She had meant the last part as a joke, though unbeknownst to her, Talith was in fact immune to disease.
It had taken a bit to find the place, but once he saw two curly headed halflings, one with a ring hanging around his neck, exiting the building and overheard their conversation, Talith knew he was in the right spot. “Nobody knows the heavy burden I carry.” Said one of the halflings before the other had responded. “I can share the load.” Yes, this had to be the right place. And so here he was sitting on a nice velvet pouf while enjoying the company of four gorgeous women feeding him grapes and more or less whatever else his heart desired. They were doing everything in their power to make sure he was comfortable and at ease. They were good.
Talith rubbed his hand through his hair while one of the girls caressed his chest through his loose shirt. “And what’s your name?” Talith asked the girl currently caressing him. The girl smiled, more seductive than anything, “Kalie, but it’s okay. You don’t have to remember it.”
The girls continued making him feel like an absolute king until he couldn’t resist the urge to act the way they treated him. One by one, he placed a gold coin in their laps. “Oh-” The girl seemed surprised with the amount he’d given even before going back to any of the rooms. “You can call me whatever you like! What should we call you? Sir? Master? Or maybe daddy works better for you…hmm?” The words came with an upward inflection. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, something in the background caught his attention, or rather someone.
It was a beautiful girl with long red hair and braids that fell near her face. It was her movement that had caught Talith’s attention. It was the way she arched her back, the way she leaned over her legs and rubbed her wrists against her thighs. He knew the signs. There was even a moment her hair had fallen in front of her face that he was almost certain he had caught her watching him through strands of hair.
He had to admit, she did look out of place compared to the rest of the girls. He could only assume that she must have been dressed for a special theme — absolutely a theme Talith felt he had to be a part of. One of the girls around him leaned in for a kiss, which unfortunately went unnoticed. Talith’s attention was elsewhere as he moved from his seated position towards this new, exotic beauty. Without looking back, he said to the girl that had tried to kiss him, “I’m sorry, love. I’ll be back in just a moment.”
Talith sauntered to the bar knowing that this was exactly what this girl wanted. Oh he knew it. She was the hard to get type; the type that most likely cost more than the average girl and the type that wanted to be approached rather than approach someone herself. Her undivided attention had to be earned and he was going to earn it with absolute ease.
Never taking his eyes off her, he’d leaned on his elbow which rested on the bar while letting his head rest, tilted in the palm of his hand. He put on the most charming smile he could muster as he waited for the girl to open her eyes. Once she finally did, the words carried off his lips like the gentle warmth of spring.
“You are more beautiful than all barons and baronesses in all the land.” His smile was absolutely an attempt to seduce.
Vanja
Vanja blinked at the man, who was now leaning on the bar next to her. He seemed harmless enough, and Lovelace had said he was important. Best to be…nice.
“You’re too kind,” she said, “The barons and baronesses?” she laughs, and sits upright, no longer lounging on the bartop.
Talith
Talith takes a moment, only staring, before he decides to shift a bit closer to her. “I’ve never really seen one dressed quite like you before.” He said. “Are you here often? This is actually my first time coming here myself.”
Vanja
She takes a moment, looks down at herself. The other girls had dressed her up a time or two, as a laugh, but Vanja found their outfits - revealing though they often were - to be surprisingly restrictive. Now, she’s dressed much the way she normally would dress - in the same hide boots, the same sheepskin leggings. She doesn’t follow the meaning of the client’s comment, so she ignores it.
Vanja looks back at the young man, and raises her eyebrows at him. Conversation was not something one usually had at the Majestic. She smiles a little, bemused, “Your first time, huh? Well don’t worry, the girls will take good care of you - they’ll be gentle.” She laughs again, knowing that this was not the young man’s meaning, and rescinds her jab, “A joke,” she says, “a man who’s as comfortable here as you seem must have some…world experience.”
Talith
The edge of Talith’s lips raise only slightly, coming off as a subtle, yet confident smirk. And of course he remembered to clench near his molars as an attempt to highlight his own jawline. He then proceeded to chuckle a bit, like that of a parent chuckling when a child says something amusing.
“You’re adorable.” he says as he moves within inches of her. “Yes, world experience - that I do have.”
Talith glances back to the girls he’d left behind him and then to the red haired beauty once more. His eyes drift up and down as he takes note of her boots, her tight fitting leggings, and a simple cloth wrapped tightly around her bust. She wasn’t dressed like the rest, but she was absolutely dressed for mobility.
Oh I can already tell what kind of girl she’s playing. he thinks to himself. Gentle? There’s no way this outfit was meant for anyone who wanted it gently.
He leans in, “Oh, but I’m not interested in those girls currently.” At this point, his lips are just to the side of her ear, almost touching as he slips two gold coins in between her breasts and the cloth piece. “You don’t have to be gentle with me. I can tell - you like it rough…”
Oh, yes. He had absolutely given her the response he knew she was fishing for. Coming here was probably the best thing Amberlyn had ever suggested. Any prostitute working in a brothel that played hard to get - the way to earn a room with them was to have money and initiative.
Vanja
Vanja feels the man’s breath at her ear, stirring her hair, and then his hand at her bust.
She let out a sigh. She wasn’t supposed to cause trouble…but…
Vanja catches the man’s collar, pulling him close with a firm jerk of her fist. He loses his footing, slightly, but Vanja can tell that this is the sort of response he was hoping for. She pulls him in, holding him there, his chest pressed against her knees, his face a handsbreadth away from her own, for just a moment.
“You want it rough?” she asks, breathlessly, “Are you sure?”
Talith
Talith readied himself. They were about to kiss, but what kind of kiss she was going for, he was unsure. Regardless, he would be prepared for anything in this moment. His tone was low and soft, almost reaching for something.
“Oh yes.” he said “I’m quite sure, love.”
Vanja
Vanja laughs a little. She’d given him the choice, at least. She still held the man’s collar with her right fist, but now she pulls back her left, releasing it with force and allowing the punch to connect with his eye. Then, both boots planted firmly against his chest, Vanja kicks, hard, sending him sprawling to the floor.
“How’s that?” she asks. She laughs, and leaps down from the bartop, “thanks for the coin - I know just where to spend it.” Vanja nods to the girls, now rushing over to the young nobleman, “I think you ladies can take care of yourselves from here,” she says.
Talith
Talith’s world spun upside down as he lied there on the floor. His vision slowly began to fade back into existence when he felt the jarring pain surging through his chest as well as his eye. He cuffed a hand over his eye before immediately attempting to play it off as though the blow might not have hurt as bad as it looked. He failed.
“Oooooooooooooh!” The words sounded like a dying cow as he struggled to catch his breath, rolling on the floor. That’s when he noticed the four girls knelt over him, caressing his wounds. Now he absolutely HAD to play it off. “Oooooooh it - gasp it… really doesn’t gassssssp it’s not as bad as it looked..” Though, once he removed his hand, his eye said otherwise as he stumbled to his feet, but didn’t have quite the strength to stand upright completely. Instead, he was slightly bent over with a hand placed on his knee for support as he tried to laugh off the situation.
“Ha- gasp hahaha ahem No, no no I’m perfectly fine, ladies. Really, it’s—uh…” He desperately searches for a way to hide his embarrassment as well as a way to maintain his dignity. “Yes, this is—absolutely normal. She’s a friend of mine! We were just horsing around and eh…got carried away.”
The girls seem to completely ignore his attempt and instead keep their motives towards the coin. Two of the girls clasp onto either of his arms before one of them says, “Ohhh are you okay? Want us to kiss you and make it better?” Another says, “Awww it’s okay. That wound on your eye makes you look even tougher!”
Talith briefly contemplates moving towards the now intimidating girl to get a better understanding of the situation, but he thought of another blow to the face or the chest and decided that staying put would be in his best interest. Instead, he addresses her from where he had landed on the floor.
“Umm…” Talith lets out a nervous chuckle. “I’m sorry, was—was two gold coins considered an insult? This is my first time here so…I’m not really sure I understood your theme like I thought… I, umm…” And then an unlikely possibility hit him. “Wait—you DO work here, right? Yeah, of course you do, right? Maybe I just don’t meet your standards…?”
Vanja
Vanja looks over at the injured man, surrounded by his flock of fussing lovelies. He’s put on a brave face, despite the swelling already spreading around the orbit of his eye. Vanja scans him up and down. He still seemed well enough for the girls to relieve him of more coin.
Vanja smiles at the man, and flips him back one of his gold pieces, “Nah, you’re pretty enough. But I don’t go for men who have to pay for it.”
She leaves the room, eager to make her exit before Madam Lovelace noticed that she’d damaged the new client.
Epilogue
The Majestic
6 Weeks Before Autumn’s Turn Festival
The door often stuck with the frost and it was one of the things on the list of repairs at The Majestic that hadn’t been settled just yet — and so it was the clattering sound of the door opening that drew the attention of the broad-shouldered half-orc woman wrapped in thick furs with two tight braids of black haired touched by a verdant tint. Caoth had been working the door of The Majestic for some weeks now and she didn’t mind the work, and Vanja’s late evening excursions out in the streets were something she had become accustomed to. She merely gave a nod and a bit of a grunt.
Neither Caoth nor Vanja could see the teenage girl standing beside the half-orc with her thin arms crossed together in front of her chest to mirror that of the much larger woman beside her. Vivian snuck a glance at the bouncer out of the corner of her eyes, before adjusting her own posture a bit to make herself seem to puff-up just a bit more. The nod and the grunt she gave Vanja mimicked the half-orc and she even gave a second of both for good measure, feeling satisfied.
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