Page 79 of Connor's Claim
My phone beeped. I read the screen then jumped up, sliding my feet into a pair of flip-flops which paired nicely with my pyjama trousers and tank top. No one apart from maybe asecurity guard or two would see me go to the warehouse’s back door and collect the dinner I’d ordered.
My stomach rumbled. I had a feast of Chinese food only a few minutes away. Far too much for one person, but that hadn’t stopped my ordering finger.
Slipping from my room, I waved at Dixie, one of my favourites, who stood completely naked in the corridor, the door to a bedroom open in front of her.
“Cassie, get a load of this.” She slanted her eyes at the room.
I skipped over. “What?”
Dixie was such a gossip. I lived for her scandals.
She jabbed a finger at the room, and I peered inside. On the screen at the end of the bed, the picture had frozen. It displayed her butthole, huge and unmoving, and perfectly clear.
I cackled then crammed my hand to my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“I know! It’s been like that for minutes, and the guy I was talking to hung up on me. He was a new client, too. This is just awkward.”
From the other end of the hall, a woman in a black skeleton t-shirt hustled down, a headset nestled in her hair and a tablet in her hands. Tech Support, I gathered.
“Let’s take a look.” She bustled into the room, not blinking an eye at the giant asshole staring back at her.
Dixie sighed and reached for a bag tucked inside the door. She stepped into underwear then clipped on a bra. “Take your time erasing my butt. I’m off-shift now anyway.”
“Heading home?” I asked.
We moseyed to the lift together. I had been planning to take the back stairs but now wanted a chat.
“Nope.” She popped the P sound. “I’m stripping for an hour then I’ll be on my back all night in the brothel.”
The lift light illuminated.
I pondered her evening. “Dixie, how did you get into this work?”
“You really don’t want to know that, hun.” At my head tilt, she wrinkled her pretty nose. “Nearly all of us here were forced into sex work at a young age. It’s my career now, and I love it, but I wouldn’t wish it on a girl who had other choices.”
She poked my shoulder.
“My ma was a sex worker,” I explained. “It’s not like I’m new to the concept.”
Nearly all the jobs in the warehouse revolved around sex or customer service. I didn’t like being nice to people, so sex work had been on my mind. I’d never met my mother, but she’d done the same job as Dixie. I was literally made of that career.
“I mean choices over how to lose her virginity and who owns her body,” she added.
“Oh.”
“You’re the most adorable thing from your button nose all the way down to your cute petite feet. The clientele here would eat you up and spit you out. They’d degrade you, use every part of you, then pay the bill and walk away without even a thanks. It’s not something you want to get used to, more you just don’t care because worse has happened. This is the only place I ever worked where I get to set the terms.”
The lift arrived, and we got in.
“Sorry for what you’ve been through,” I said.
Dixie pressed the button for the ground floor. “I like the person I am now, but it took a lot of work. Alisha helped me.”
We descended one level, and the doors opened again, revealing the operations manager herself.
“Speak of the devil and then she appears,” Dixie said with a grin.
Alisha stepped inside, her head down, her expression distant as if she hadn’t heard Dixie speak. She wiped wet eyes with thesleeve of her baby-pink dressing gown, and my heart swelled. I didn’t know her anywhere near as well as other members of her staff, but I’d liked her when we’d talked.