~one~

Soraya's POV.

“Vivian, why are there so many hickeys on your neck?” I asked, squinting at the dark patches along her skin.

Vivian had blonde hair and bright green eyes. She turned to me after checking herself out in the small mirror she held in her hand.

“It’s not that many hickeys,” she said with a light shrug. “Just about three on my neck.”

I reached out and held her arm. “Look at your arm. You have like two more. Was the man a monster?”

Vivian chuckled. “Well, I guess he couldn’t get enough of me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You seem to really love this. Are you really going to let them lose your body this way?”

Vivian looked right at me. “Wake up, Soraya. This is our life now.”

I wasn’t going to give in to what Vivian was saying. We grew up at the orphanage, and when we turned eighteen, they started pressuring us to find somewhere else to go because we were no longer children.

But I kept working. I worked efficiently around the orphanage, trying to help out wherever I could, hoping they’d let me stay. And they did, for an extra year.

But now I was nineteen, and they said that was enough. They weren’t keeping anyone that old anymore.

So the woman at the orphanage gathered me and some other girls and boys who had come of age, dumped us into a van, and brought us to this stupid, godforsaken brothel called ‘Velvet chics’.

The days blurred together inside Velvet chics. All of us girls they dumped here were crammed into one room, sleeping on thin mattresses that reeked of cheap perfume and desperation.

Every night, someone came in and picked one of us, just like that.

One by one, the girls started getting taken to clients. Sometimes two in one night.

Some came back with trembling legs and tear-streaked cheeks, whispering between sobs that they were virgins and that the man was brutal, impatient, that it was the most painful thing they had ever felt.

Some returned smiling, talking about how kind the man was, how he satisfied them. How he gave them extra cash, perfume, or small gifts.

Then one night, my name was called.

I acted fast.

I clutched my stomach and dropped to the floor, crying and curling in on myself. “It hurts,” I gasped. “Something’s wrong. My stomach—it’s killing me!”

I wailed like a dying woman and it worked.

They backed off that night, grumbling about how useless I’d be to a paying client like that.

They gave me some bitter medicine that numbed my tongue and made me drowsy, but it was better than what they’d planned.

But I knew I couldn’t fake it forever. Sooner or later, they’d stop believing me.

What shocked me the most was how easily Vivian seemed to fit into it all.

After her first night, she returned with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, like she’d just had the time of her life.

I felt her grab her arm.

“Soraya,” she said with that same light voice, “soon enough, you’ll have to spread your legs for a stranger. So you’d better just prepare yourself.”

I yanked my arm away from her.

Spread my legs for a stranger?

Let just any man shove himself inside me like I was some toy?

No way!

There was no way I was going to let that be my reality.

And just when I thought I was going to get some time at least a little moment to breathe, to think, to come up with a way to escape this brothel, to run far away from this cursed place—the door swung open.

My eyes darted to the entrance, and there, a man standing tall by the doorway stepped in.

I recognized him as Sammy, one of the guards. The one who usually came to pick girls for clients.

He never knocked, none of them did. If a girl was changing or standing there naked, they didn’t care. They walked in like we were objects, like we had no privacy and nothing to protect.

My heart raced wildly in my chest. Please don’t pick me. Please don’t pick me, I prayed inwardly.

But then he stepped further in, scanning the room and his eyes landed on me.

He pointed directly at me.

“You,” he said, his voice flat and void of care. “Soraya, step up.”

My stomach dropped.

I glanced at him, frozen. “Why?” I asked quietly. “Why should I step up?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t make me repeat myself, you bitch, step up. We have a client for you.”

“No,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Please. I can’t attend to a client…please.”

“What do you mean?” His tone turned sharp. “You’re in a brothel, you work. Your job is to satisfy these clients. Get up right now.”

I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes. “Please. Don’t make me do this. Please.”

He scoffed. “You’re the only girl here who hasn’t had the feel of a client. You think we’re just keeping you here to breathe air? You cannot waste our time or make us short on money.”

He stepped closer.

“Listen,” he growled. “This particular client is one of the richest we’ve ever had at Velvet chics. He’s powerful and I will not keep him waiting. If I do, Madam Felicia will have my head. Now get up.”

I swallowed, trying to think. Maybe I could try one more trick.

I clutched my chest. “My chest,” I murmured, before I let my body go limp and collapsed forward.

But Sammy wasn’t fooled. His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me upright.

“That trick’s not going to work today,” he said coldly.

And just like that, he dragged me out of the room.

A single tear slipped down my cheek as the hallway swallowed me whole.

I was going to spread my legs for a stranger.