Just as Elda had said, the house wasn't hard to find - Sloan rounded two corners and found a two-story house with rock awnings. She knocked on the door and waited. Then waited some more. There was something about the silence that felt…eerie.
Or not. Probably just her imagination fueled by Elda’s frantic warnings. Sloan tried to ease her inexplicably racing heart and reached out to knock again as a woman and a child walked past. Sloan’s attempts to quell her own fears were washed away
Sloan laughed at the client's joke as if it was the first time she had ever heard it and gave him a cheerful wave as he left the room. The moment he was gone, her smile vanished and she rolled her eyes. Why did men always think they were so funny? Especially when they all told the same jokes.
She sighed and stood up from the bed, then pressed the button that summoned the room slave before dressing. She sashayed out of the room in her heels and headed down the stairs. One more, she fi
The next afternoon, after another oiling from Marie, things were a little different. When they entered the common room, there was no announcement. Marie gave her a smile and a kiss on the forehead and walked away, leaving Sloan to her own devices.
She stood along the wall next to the door by which she had entered and just observed. There were fewer clients than last time, although why that would be she had no idea. She watched the other girls as they sashayed about. Sometimes one wou
Sloan slept through the night and, though she didn’t know it, through much of the day, so exhausted was she. A timid slave girl woke her up sometime in the afternoon and bade her to follow. Sloan was bathed (again! Two baths in two days!) and her hair brushed by the slave girl, then Sloan put on her panties and dress and shoes and was led to lunch. Her brain was still fuzzy, so it came as a small shock to her system when they came upon a partially opened door. She glimpsed the room beyond, where
Sloan had had baths before. Once a month, the children at the orphanage were gathered and took turns bathing in a round wooden tub. With so many children, the water did not stay clean for long, and it was debatable how clean most of them got. She had never thought anything of it until Marie gave her a real bath.
The tub was as large as four of the orphanage tubs, made of some dark sweet-smelling wood and filled with water that was hot and clean. Sloan sank into the heat with a profou
It had seemed like a simple plan, really. Not even an imaginative one - after all, she got the idea from the person who had done the same to her.
There were purses everywhere she looked, just hanging from people's belts (a mistake she would never make again!) All she had to do was...take one.
She waited. She studied. She planned. She picked the perfect spot, an alleyway that was narrow enough that people passing by could not help but brush up against each other to pass, b
Sloan walked with fuming abandon. Her rage filled her, blinded her, emptied her of thought or volition. She moved on instinct, weaving through the crowded market without seeing a thing. It wasn't until the sun slipped behind the stone walls and twilight began to take hold of the city that she came to her senses.
She slumped onto a bench and watched the people pass by. They all had places to be, things to do. She only had the clothes on her back and a little pouch of...
Sh
The Bee and Barb hummed with the normal activity of the day as locals, taking a break from their daily routine, came in for a pint and the latest news from the rest of Tamriel via the merchants and other visitors fresh through the Cyrodiil gate. To Sloan, it felt anything but normal. Funny, it was, that she had spent all of her eighteen summers within four blocks of the place yet had never been inside.
Not really funny, though, given the reason. She had not been allowed outside the c