Something Blue

Chapter 10

YOU DIDN'T MISS WEDNESDAY'S CHAPTER DID YOU???

That's right, I'm posting twice a week now! If you missed Wednesday's update, go ahead an check her out before you read this. Otherwise, here's the next chapter... 

I hope you enjoy this little aside from Vivian's POV. It was harder to write than I expected. I had hoped I'd have an easier time writing the POV of a powerful, take-no-BS woman, but it was actually really hard . Guess I'm not the badass I thought I was 😂😂😂

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I'll see you again on Wednesday!

Vivian

Vivian Townsend's trade was not one a civilized person might call ethical. The religious crowd would call her a lascivious, sinful glutton for passion. A dealer of damnation. The more secular righteous would call her a predator and a snake, profiting off the bodies of young women and the hard-earned coin of the men who lusted after them.

In truth, neither one of those groups would be wrong. Not all whores enjoyed their job, but Vivian did. She was good at it, as skilled at teasing pleasure from her own body as she was at milking it from her clients'. She was, indeed, a glutton for the rolling bliss of a well-earned climax. And she was, indeed, obsessive about the ever-expanding number on her ledgers. She had never known life outside the confines of a brothel, and she had found a way to thrive within them.

Yes, she was a wanton temptress. Yes, she liked to count her money. But just as her happiness was confined to the bounds of her reality, so too was her concept of right and wrong. A lilly-white damsel and her dandified husband might find her a wretched blight on society, but to her girls and in her own studiously introspective regard, she was the height of honor.

There were three immutable and unbroken rules around which her ethical code was based.

First-- the girls she hired had nowhere else to go. She never forced a girl into service. Never kidnapped her off the streets or sent her to work before she'd reached her majority. All of her employees were rescued from circumstances that allowed them no other alternatives. She improved lives, she didn't diminish them.

Two-- the girls she hired didn't have to work the way Vivian had been forced to work. She pulled her girls from abusive brothels, from dark alleys and street corners, and she gave them a choice. They could whore for her-- clean bed, fair pay, and protection from their unruly customers. Or they could work for her in other capacities, cleaning or serving drinks or waiting tables. She had never been given any option but to earn a living with her body. She took great pride in offering a choice to others that had been denied her.

Three-- the girls she employed were safe. She vetted her clients, and she controlled them. Nobody abused Vivian's girls and got away with it. They lost kneecaps. They lost balls. They lost lives. The punishment met the crime, and Vivian saw that the punishment was meted out swiftly and justly.

It was a dirty code of honor, but it was a code nonetheless, and she was ruthless in her adherence because she was determined that the harsh brutality of the world would not reduce her to some hapless, tormented victim. She had learned very early in her life that a woman's body was a trap. The strictures of society and her own physical vulnerabilities made her a target and lessened the avenues by which she might escape both her predators and her circumstances. Shortly after she learned that her body was a cage, she decided that she could hone the bars of that cage into deadly instruments. She could kill with them. Earn with them. Rule with them.