Detective Who?

Chapter 1

"Hey," I say to the barman as he walks back in my direction, delivering my Irish whiskey, "Do you happen to know which woman you work with gets rid of bodies?"

"Oh yeah," the dirty blond man replies, "she's one of the girls in purple, stupidly green eyes." he answers, then walks away towards the opposite end of the bar.

Huh?
Did he just ... actually answer my question ... by openly confessing which woman he works with sells dead bodies?
There's no way a worker would openly admit someone he worked with made money from transporting dead people, better yet, the appearance of which woman did it specifically.

I scratched my head in confusion, messing up my dark brown locks as I did so.
I didn't think that would work. It was just a spur of the moment decision to see if one: the man would humour me with a response, and two: if the desire to complete this mission would give me some luck where I won't have to stake out this place for the whole night to find out.

My father told me I could pass this case on if I helped out at least a little bit, and identifying the perpetrator accused of disposing of corpses was all I needed to do in order to go home.
Apparently, I was the 'only one' fitted for this mission as I could 'pass for a customer' that the workers 'wouldn't mind talking to'. Fortunately, my father didn't say that directly, but my uncles I worked with said I had had it easy and decided to send me on another god-awful recon mission.

Asking that question to the barman proved how desperate I was to leave this place as, shockingly, looking at a dozen and a half naked women wasn't the ideal way I wanted to spend my evening.
This may be due to the fact that for every one woman, there were at least three men staring at them, no doubt wondering how badly they could treat the women and get away with it.

Music filtered into the room from somewhere (probably music runes carved into the walls) that created the sense of calm lust and desire. The aroma of this place was a concoction of feminine perfume, masculine cologne, and disgusting excitement filled sweat, courtesy of the male customers.

This place always fascinates me. The Kitten Pub.

Whoever created that name knew what they were doing.

The Kitten Pub was probably the only whore house that had a proper system and hasn't been vandalised, attacked or robbed. It was a place that was respected in the community as a place to drink and let go of all worries and cares - whilst also having a bit of female company.

The bottom floor was a vast expanse of wooden panels with a full bar jutting out of the left side, displaying all sorts of alcoholic drinks in the glass shelving behind it. Comfy seating areas that range from love seats, larger sofas, high backed chesterfields and regular armchairs of all colours were arranged in small intimate groups around the room but were all angled towards the stage.

The stage was the obvious main attraction as the long 'catwalk' ended in the very centre of the room and went all the way back into a curtained archway at the far right wall.
Poles were placed in the middle and at the end of the stage and raised all the way to the ceiling where mage lights are sprinkled throughout the beams.
Normies probably thought they were a good trick of the light and were too drunk to realise the sensual glows filling the room were actually the product of magic.
They varied in colours and were strategically placed to illuminate the stage at the dancing poles and neglect the corner booths, shrouding them in darkness.

The three corner booths were completed with their own round table with a pole where a private dancer would cater to them for their booked time and it also provided a place they could play poker or other gambling games in the meantime. The only corner without a booth was the corner in the back left as you walked in, where a door leading to the second level was placed instead.

The upper floor was the brothel area of the building. It was probably arranged like every other whore house with individual rooms containing a bed and plenty of cushions.

Glancing around the room, I noted that all the women wore the same ensemble as their 'uniform'.

It consisted of tight, high rise shorts with a sheer skirt attached at the waist that draped down to the top of their knees paired with a lightly embellished bralette that also had sheer fabric attached at the band around the rib cage that fell to their belly buttons. Both pieces of sheer fabric were glittery with embroidery at the ends, and the uniform as a whole gave off stereotypical belly dancer vibes. Additionally, the uniform left not much to the imagination as the shorts were so high up you could see the base of the women's arse cheeks and the bralette gave the women's breasts a good boost, enabling the dancers to flaunt their mounds of flesh. The masks on their faces kept their identity hidden as they shielded their noses, upper cheeks, and eyebrows from view, leaving only the cutouts for the eyes visible.

However, it was the Kitten Pubs system that intrigued me the most about this establishment. The pub went off of a simple colour coding basis so all workers and customers know who is responsible for what and where they will be throughout the night as well as the services workers would provide to customers.

Blues was the safest worker as the royal blue fabric dictated that the wearers are simply servers and not open to advances by customers.

Purple was the next step up as they delivered drinks when necessary but were primarily the dancers who also provided lap dances if paid.

Reds were the actual whores who worked on the second floor of the building where separate rooms were located.

You had to book a slot for them like any normal brothel but in the unlikely event a red were to venture into the pub they were considered up for grabs by customers, regardless if their next slot was booked.

I have heard stories about the women ganging up and beating grown men and throwing them into the street - aggressively and with no remorse - because they broke the rules of the pub and continued to touch a blue after a warning. This also happened on an occasion when a man pinned a purple to a wall in an attempt to assault her but received a powerful right hook from the only man that works here as a result.

In short: don't break women's rules. I'm sure anyone with a mother could tell you that, but clearly, some men need a reminder.

Deciding to see if the barman's (who was way too muscular to be a simple bartender in my opinion) too casual answer would get me anywhere, I scoured the room for the women in purple.

I counted seven. Two were leaning on the bar, one talking to the barman, one to a customer; two more were sat on the same sofa entertaining four men who definitely shared hereditary traits; one was providing a lap dance across the other end of the room which left the last two purples dancing on the stage poles, one of which was blond and the other was brunette.

The brunette was dancing around the end pole in the centre of the room and was the closest to where I sat on a barstool, back against the counter, and as she turned her body towards my direction I locked eyes with the most stupidly green ones I have ever seen.

Barnam wasn't lying.
Her eyes were a stupid colour of green, completely unrealistic as no eye came in that shade. They weren't simply a darker shade of grass, hunter, or even forest green, nor were they simply a light olive or lime ... they were straight up emerald. It was as if she had a pair of priceless jewels in her skull since the resemblance between the two could fool even the most experienced jeweller. They reflected the light beautifully and shone with an otherworldly glow. They had to be fake; maybe she was using a witch's facade, or maybe she was a witch. Irregularities tended to show in witch bloodlines, and it could also provide a lead as to why she was dealing corpses.

I'm unsure of how long I was starting, contemplating their credibility, that it took me a while to realise the eyes I had been shamelessly admiring were looking back at me.