i am a mountain
Sevika is eighteen, finally the age of majority in Zaun. She is standing in front of a brothel. Funny enough, that was one of the few things Piltover were hardasses about. Despite the air burning the lungs of too-fragile kids, Piltover decided that what was truly against their morals was underage sex. Until someone reached the age of eighteen, they couldn’t work in a brothel. That was law. Enforcers stormed every brothel for weeks along the Rapture Walk, arresting customers and workers alike if IDs couldn’t be produced. Nevermind the fact that IDs were hard to come by – there was a small office at the bridge connecting the two cities, one that was open random days of the week. And if you were lucky enough to catch them on an open day, papers went missing. Fees were paid, legally and under the table. And Sevika had jumped through the hurdles, saving up what little she had left at the end of each month until she finally had enough to get herself an ID.
Sevika is what’s listed as her first name on her ID card. Jain is what she’s chosen as a last. Her mother had said it was her mother’s last name. Of course, in the Undercity, last names don’t matter. Her mother grew up in these streets – was raised with those same sentiments. Sevika’s grandmother, though, had come from a faraway land. Jain was their family name. That meant that once upon a time, she had something to her name. Whether that meant a home that was actually owned by them, or a family that wasn’t just scraggly kids with a drunkard for an old man… Sevika doesn’t know. She’s sure her grandmother left her land for some reason for another, though to this place is something she’ll always question. Why would she put her roots in a place where the land was barren, the water was sludge, and the air burned?
Maybe she had tried for Piltover at first. Lots of people do. Then they fall down to the Undercity.
Maybe her grandmother hadn’t had anything to come back to, in that far away land. Sevika shakes her head. Squares her jaw. She has her ID in her pocket and washed the ash, dust, and smell of coal off her body this morning. She has to do this right. If not this brothel, then the next down the block. But she needs at least one place to accept her.
The first one rejects her outright. She doesn’t have the look they usually have at this brothel. She’s too tall. Too strong. It’s clear she works in the mines – is that not making enough money for her? Try the next, then.
So she does.
The next one eyes her ID and tells her to get lost. She grits her teeth as she leaves. They’d gone back and forth about the validity of it. Because they don’t want to get raided again, ya hear? One poor underage kid wanting food isn’t going to tank their business. When Sevika insists that the ID is real, the man at the counter scoffs.
Then his face softens just for a moment. He looks her up and down. She holds her breath. Pulls her shoulder back.
She really is eighteen, huh?
She grunts her affirmation.
He still tells her to get lost. Go back to the mines.
She goes to the next one down the block.
--
They look at her ID and ask if she has any limitations. She says no. They ask her if she’ll be an in-house worker or if she has a place to stay. She thinks of her siblings, wondering if they’ll say anything about it.
She says that she has a place to stay.
(she’ll just wash herself off, wipe herself down… that’ll be enough. Right)
The yordle – Babette – who is manning the counter eyes her like the man at the last brothel did. She finally says that there are showers in the back of the house for their workers. Sevika is welcome to use them before she leaves for the evening, then. Unless she wants to be a night worker. Then she’s welcome to use them before she leaves at sunrise. There are shifts, of course. She’ll start off with one day a week, hard limit is three. In-housers get first pick and the lion’s share of the days. A portion of what’s paid to her will be taken out for house dues and maintenance. Rest is hers.
She hadn’t… hadn’t thought she’d get to choose.
But Babette is still looking at her, and she can’t show weakness. Not for what she’s asking for. So Sevika says that she’ll take on any clients. She has a strong body. She wants to let it be used for something more profitable.
(after all, the mines chip away at her joints, at her lungs more than the toxic air does… if that’s not already selling her body, then what is it?)
And… she’ll take nightshifts. (that’s when men roam about the most, isn’t it? So if she wants the most money…)
Babette writes down her ID information. Tells her that she’ll be expected next week then. Same day.
--
Her first client is an Enforcer. If she were to guess, only a few years older than her. She’d come to Babette’s, and Babette had told her which door to go to. When they enter, they actually knock. It’s a woman. She’s tan, a few shades lighter than Sevika herself. Same dark hair, cut short with the ends curling around her ears. Her eyes are grey. She doesn’t deign to tell Sevika her name, but she does call Sevika by hers.
Right. She would have been able to see from the repository of workers today. Sevika hadn’t chosen to use a different name. She’d stupidly forgotten to.
Sevika’s sat on the bed after her shower. Her cloak is off, hidden under the bed. The rest of her clothes are still here. They should be off right.
Grey eyes look at her and ask if she had any limits. She can barely find it in herself to shake her head.
It hurts less than she expected.
Her clothes are stripped off gently. One by one. A hand snakes under her shirt. It’s off the moment Grey Eyes pulls away from the kiss she pulled Sevika into. She’s fondled, and Grey Eyes pulls her hands to her own body too. She has to remind herself that she’s getting paid for this to touch back, hands wandering aimlessly. She can feel Grey Eye’s muscles underneath her Enforcer uniform. The woman hadn’t bothered changing, had only pulled a cloak over herself which promptly came off the moment the door was closed after all.
It doesn’t hit her until Grey Eye’s fingers are brushing across the hem of her pants that she realizes she’s actually doing this.
Her first time is going to be with an Enforcer. The Enforcer’s sat between her legs right now, pulling her underwear down. Sevika knows she is splayed out on the bed. Her thighs are on either side of Grey Eyes’ head, whose face she can’t see. She hears and feels the wet kiss pressed to her core. Did the wetness come from her? Or from Grey Eyes’ spit? She gasps, sharp and high as—
Soft moans are pulled from her throat. Small ah-ah-ah’s that she hates because they’re not even that faked. This is the first time someone’s touched herself down there. Babette had given her ground rules. First off, faking it. Sounds. Spit. Eyes. Eyes are what matter the most to give the illusion of pleasure. Lube exists, touching herself before a client exist—but it takes a special sort of control to not give away what you truly feel with your eyes.
Sevika is glad Grey Eyes can’t see her. She knows, instinctually that her eyes are wide open, like how her mouth is hanging open right now too. Most of the pain she’s gone through had been taken with grit teeth, a tense jaw, and slow breathing through her nose. But this – what she hates the most about it is that it doesn’t hurt.
She thought it would. She thought her clients would be drunk men who used their fists against her body, and sore as she already was from the mines, she’d take it. Then they’d have sex while she could still smell the alcohol on their breath. She’d go home with bruises underneath her clothes and work in the mines until her next day in the brothel.
She wasn’t ready for hands that left burning, invisible trails in their aftermath. Everywhere Grey Eyes touches burns even though Sevika knows after they’re done, she won’t have a single mark on her. The realization makes her dizzy even though all she’s staring up at is the painted green ceiling. Her thighs are shaking, and there’s a pit in her stomach that she can’t ignore.
A half-moan, half-whine escapes as her thighs squeeze tight around Grey Eyes’ head before falling apart back onto the woman’s shoulders.
—
She’s still laying on the bed when Grey Eyes finishes. She’s been stretched and hollowed out by callused fingers. Her lips are stained with her own fluids, drool and more. Her body aches. She wishes it hurt more, hurt enough for her to forget what she had felt. The woman had been kind enough to throw the blanket over her once they were done.
She’s pulling on her boots as she turns back to look at Sevika, grey eyes meeting grey.
“Sevika means ‘servant of god’ in Shuriman,” The woman’s voice sounds far away. There’s a bit of a drawl in it. “Keep up the good work.”
–
Babette doesn’t chastise her for not immediately getting up and cleaning herself off for the next client. She doesn’t know how long she lays, but the crick in her neck tells her she’s stayed long enough.
She stumbles out of the door to get to Babette’s counter. Babette looks her up and down before telling her to take a shower. It’s a slow day today. Perhaps there would be another client waiting for her. If she’d like.
–
She does.
It’s well worth it. It’s what she expected to have dealt with when she first got the idea into her head. The man wants a fight and a fight is what Sevika will give him. She’s young and she’s scrappy and she is strong.
The whole point is for him to win, though. So he enters her roughly with his hands around her neck and ruts against her once, twice, tries more, but—
There’s too much alcohol in his system. He ends up sagging against her body, and after waiting what feels like forever, Sevika finally shoves him off. She goes to Babette, saying in short sentences what happened. Babette eyes her again, with the same look she had when they first met. Sevika doesn’t understand what it is. Then the yordle says that Sevika should shower. The other girls have taken the other clients for now and her customer did pay for a full two hours. Wait with him and see what happens. She’ll still get paid, of course. If the man pukes or doesn’t wake up after two hours, then toss him out onto the street.
So Sevika goes and takes her shower. There’s precious hot water here that she relishes before getting dressed and walking back into the room. She takes the floor, away from the man. A clock ticks. She waits.
She knows the man won’t wake up anytime soon. She’s handled her father far too long to not know when a man’s going to be passed out for a long time after drinking too much. Fifteen minutes till the two hour mark, Sevika gets to work. She stands, stretching out parts of her body that have gone sore and will bruise.
Picking up deadweight is easy for Sevika, even with her condition. Her actions pull her muscles and skin in wrong directions, ones that hurt, but Sevika doesn’t care. It’s her last client of the night according to what Babette said, so she’ll spend the last hour of her shift going over guidelines of the brothel again before leaving early. The deadweight is unceremoniously dumped onto the street across from the brothel and Sevika enters again to collect her pay.
It's more than what she makes after two weeks in the mines. Six days a week.
Don’t expect this all the time. Babette says, tapping her long pipe against the bills. The enforcer had given her a big tip. Most nights she’ll get half of this or even less. Depending on how many clients she gets, of course. How many hours they’ll pay for with her. It varies. Is she still up for the job?
Sevika is thinking about how many new shirts and pairs of pants she can buy for her siblings. One for each, she thinks. One for Aisha, for Ishaan. Maybe a dress too, for Aisha. Aisha is pregnant. They haven’t really talked about it much. She just told Sevika one day, in tears, saying that she thought— she thought if she just ignored it, it would go away—but—
And not to mention the food. If she keeps working here, at least one day a week, she won’t have to spend any of her meagre salary on food. It can just get tucked away, saved for whatever happens next. Sevika feels herself nod before she can find it in herself to answer. Grey eyes haunt her.
Yeah. Same time. Same day, right?