Chapter Text
“Hey Kimmi! We need help with a new one up front, not an officer this time! He’s got those ugly government robes! The dark ones for some high bureaucrat muckety muck. You up for giving him a good time so he goes away? The new girls are being stupid and talking too much. They’re going to get themselves in trouble.”
“Ugh, I bet he’s here to ‘inspect’ our licenses, like there’s anyone to give licenses anymore!” I said.
By the time I reached the front of the house the government man was talking to three of the new girls! What on Zunidh is he saying? Shirley has her real smile on instead of her customer one! And the other two look somewhere between confused and amused.
He’s not handsome or scary or interesting, just mostly normal looking, a little thin maybe. And sitting awfully far away from them on the couch. Hmmm.
Edging closer I can hear Shirley telling him all about how they really need more businesses in town since there aren’t enough jobs to go around, when Sam chimes in that it won’t help to have more jobs when there’s not enough hard currency to pay anyone anyway.
Oh, shit! Don’t they know better than to tell a customer what they really think! And telling a government man what the government can do better! Are they trying to get disappeared?
I quickly snag a bottle of hooch of the side table, pouring a glass to distract the government man. But before I can hand it to him he asks “What do you all do for a living?” And I freeze in stunned shock staring at the girls sitting around him in what amounts to underwear outside of the house.
Shirley was the first one able to talk answered in a throaty voice “oh honey, our job is to give you a good time.”
Suddenly I get a feeling of creeping dread like ice slipping down my back. There’s something wrong with this government man. He’s just sitting there with a patient polite face smiling while everyone laughs at him. What is he trying to pull? Does he somehow not know that this is a brothel? He’s looks almost middle aged it’s not like he’s one of the clueless teenagers we get wandering in sometimes. Maybe he’s one of those that have to be told straight out to understand something? Gods I hope so, otherwise we’re getting shut down or shaken down for all or our earnings. There’s no other reason for someone to be so calm otherwise. Clearing my throat, I quickly hand him the drink and say “Sex, our job is sex and giving orgasms. Can I give you one?”
“No thank you, I’m just here for work,” he said earnestly. Just as I start to panic thinking for sure this is a shakedown and at the start of the night too when we don’t have enough money in the lock box to make him go away. Then he asks “Is this job your main employment? Do you also have another vocation, like writing or painting, working at the salt works, or teaching or childcare? Or” looking down at his drink, “maybe brewing and distilling?”
By now half the house is in the front room staring at the strange government man, when Sam asks in a sharp voice “We can distill here?”
“Oh yes it’s very easy to set up. There are no local regulations for it oddly enough. All you need is a good source of clean water, several large pots that seal and a condenser.”
At this point a bunch of others chime in with questions and before I know it they are off criticizing the government again and talking about how there should be enough room to run a still in the laundry and telling the government man what he should do and all the gossip about the armies and officers and how stupid all nobles are. Sinking into a chair I put my head in my hands and hope that this is a nightmare and we can just go back to having the regular officials demanding ‘favors’ instead of inciting treason in the front room where anyone can walk in.
Awhile later I hear the owner exclaim “If you ever come back, you’ve got a lifetime free pass here! Thank you for all the help! We’ll have the best liquor in town by next year! You should stop by and get a bottle even if you don’t want anything else.”
“Oh, that’s very nice of you but my position explicitly prohibits kickbacks of any kind.”
After he leaves, Joan pushes a drink at me “Here, have a sip. Don’t worry he’s gone now. I never thought I’d meet one of the good neighbors here of all places,” she says. “Wonder if he got trapped by the fall too?”
“What?” I ask in utter bewilderment.
“You know, the Fae. My ma told me about them. There’s a thousand and a half stories about them on Alinor. They’re like that sometimes and they can make themselves look like anything, they say.”
“Yeah? Think he was a faerie prince?”