Shrouded in Secrets

Chapter 5

Kris woke me on accident when he got up to leave. I smiled sleepily and waved him away to leave when he wished, hoping it was an adequate goodbye as I rolled back over to fall asleep again. It was much later when I woke up for real. I called Kris and left him a voice mail, apologizing for if I'd seemed rude that morning and explaining how I was hardly awake. Then I got around and waited five minutes to leave for work. The house was open today and there were plenty of men ready to pick a girl and go at it. Shayde was raking it in today, meaning that there was a very likely possibility that one of the new girls would make the mistake of attempting to steal some money from him.

The last time a girl tried to take a thing from Shayde she got her pelvis and three ribs broken. The girl before that ended up having her entire foot shattered, and the first girl, who was really unintelligent and tried to steal a small fortune, ended up getting killed. I wasn't working for him when that happened, but I'd heard stories of it from some of the 'veterans.' She'd just finished with a customer when Shayde got her and took her into a backroom. No one ever saw her come back, and she hasn't made any appearance anywhere since. There is still a missing person's report out there for her.

"Hey, S, I want that little one right there, can we get it now?"

"Sure, take any one you want," Shayde yelled back at the man and suddenly my arm was tugged and I was taken into a room.

"Alright, bitch," the vial life form said as he began stripping, "lay your skank ass down."

He pushed me on my back onto the cheap, hard beds provided for the deeds done here. The force knocked the breath out of me and coupled with the weight of him falling on me it felt like I was getting crushed between two large boulders. I bit my lip and stayed silent and tried to make it without air until he was done. It worked for the most part, I felt my brain beginning to shut off towards the end. I got redressed and took my share of the money and stuffed it in my bra.

The rest of the night I spent time with many men, I ended up being the popular one and bringing in the most money, both for myself and for Shayde. After that I went home, so many a night passed just like that that I couldn't keep track. But, it was a very good distraction to keep me from thinking about Lila and Cara.

***

It was a month before Shayde gave me another night off and I got to go on another date with Kristopher. Thankfully by that time the carnival had been completely set up and it gave us a chance to have one of those adorably stereotypical dates that you saw in movies all the time but were rare occurrences in real life because carnivals and relationships did not frequently coincided for those that would go to them.

"Let's go on the ferris wheel first!" I said, grinning. He rolled his eyes slightly and took my hand as we walked to the line, which was quite short because it was early in the day. We got on and the ride went for a while. When it finally came time that everyone kisses in the movies I got very eager. It didn't happen when I was expecting. We were stuck at the top for a while and Kris wouldn't stop talking and then all of a sudden as we were going down he swooped over and kissed me.

"That's fantastic, but your timing is a little off there, just pointing it out."

"No, no, my timing is quite right, Jem. At least you got a kiss from me on the ferris wheel, I didn't have to do it."

"That is a very good point," I agreed as we stepped off. He smiled and kissed my temple. Then we went over to the ball toss game to see if he could win me a prize, all by his choice. He had to prove to himself his manhood was all there. The entire time I sat in the back and suppressed giggles every time he missed but eventually he did it. He ended up getting me a giant stuffed tiger with only a slightly bruised ego, but it was healing quickly.