Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
"Long day?" Chaila asks, giving me a weary look. She's an ooli, a froglike, squat race that isn't exactly prized for their beauty. I'm surprised she's one of Abuar's slaves, but she mixes a mean drink and she's utterly loyal, so I guess that answers it.
I shrug as she unlocks me and holds a hand out so I can hop down off the stage. "They're all long."
"Well, this one's about to get longer," Chaila says in a no-nonsense voice.
Immediately, I freeze. She holds a blanket out to me, knowing that I get cold when I stop dancing and the sweat dries on my skin. I don't take it. Instead, I have a bad feeling. "Am I…going back to the rooms?" If so, it's my worst nightmare. I hated the time I spent back there, giving customers a different kind of “service.” Hated how dirty I felt afterward, how they groped me and touched me in places that weren't theirs to touch. That's why I never complain about dancing—because it beats whoring. I'd much rather shake my ass in a window all day long. I'm the lucky one. I know I won't always be so lucky. I know that the day I get too old-looking or my tits drop that I'm fucked. No one wants an elderly dancing girl, and I'm creeping up on thirty. I lie and tell everyone that I'm twenty-six, but Abuar will figure it out when he does the math in his head. Right now, as long as I look good, I'm alive, and I'm in the window.
But Chaila shakes her head. "It's not that. Abuar wants to have a meeting with the staff." Her mouth flattens. "Tonight."
"Oh." I take the blanket from her after all and drape it around my shoulders. "A meeting right now?" Really? But we're all so tired…not that it matters to Abuar. We're here to serve him, and he might call us “staff,” but we know the truth of the matter. We're all slaves.
Chaila just walks toward the far end of the cantina, her short legs moving quickly around a puddle of spilled drink on the floor. "He's in a rotten keffing mood, too. More arguments with the syndicate." She makes a sound of disapproval in her throat. "He's going to get us all murdered."
I bite my lip. The syndicate? Again? I hug the blanket tighter against my frame. The syndicate is a group that controls the running of the station. There are elected officials, but everyone knows that they're completely bought out and you have to pay the syndicate if you want to run a business on 3N. Abuar's cheap—legendarily cheap, actually—and he hates paying the syndicate. There have been times that the syndicate worked out their “discount” on the girls, and I hope tonight is not one of those times. I wish he'd just pay his damned bills like every other business owner around here, but Abuar thinks he's too good for that sort of thing.
As we cross through the cantina, the tables are askew and still covered in the mess of the final customers. There's mugs everywhere, half-eaten food, chairs sprawled across the flooring, and a pool of vomit at the end of the long bar. I step around all of it, hoping that this meeting doesn't take too long, because I have to help the other girls clean the place up before we can go to sleep.
Then it's bedtime, and we wake up an hour before opening time, and the next day starts, just like the last.
Abuar is in his office, and I huddle into the back of it with the other girls. One of them hands me a protein ration, and I give her a thankful look while taking tiny bites out of it. Everyone looks tired…and worried. Not a good sign.
"We're all here now," Chaila tells Abuar. "We're ready to hear your news."
Abuar growls at her, snapping his needle-like teeth. An ugly crossbreed of mesakkah and szzt with a face only a mother could love, Abuar is a real pain in the ass to everyone but Chaila, who just puts up with his shit like a long-suffering wife. "Don't rush me, female," Abuar bitches, digging through his cluttered desk. It's covered with bottles of exotic liquors and piles of credits of every type. He pushes aside a data pad and an old, used shock collar, and sighs heavily. "Now I can't find it."
Chaila moves to his side and nudges a second data pad in front of him, one hanging off the corner of his desk.
He glares at her and snatches it away, like a child. Tapping on the screen, he glances up at us. "You're all here? All seventeen slaves?"
"Sixteen," Chaila corrects him. "You sold Ibbi last month when she got sick."
Abuar grunts, flicking through the data pad's information. "Sixteen. Right. Well. One less to worry about. You should all know that I'm closing the cantina."