Ben said I had to go to his home and take Lucy with me, but he didn't say when I'd have to. Finding that hole in The Loop makes me happier. Well, that plus taking the opportunity to defend myself with a gun and having Lucy by my side for the foreseeable future. Rowan's directive that I'm their family bodyguard will be enough to drag me back soon, because I am at least sufficiently paranoid to know they'll need protecting sooner or later, but at least there's time to get back to my own place and make a few personal preparations for my changing life.
I walk Lucy the back way to The Home for Wayward Honey Pots, our little joke name for the dormitory-style housing Ray provides. He works them hard, up to twelve hours a day either working at one of the topless bars or whorehouses or both. When they're exhausted, they pass out on their own personal bunk at The Home, wearing their own personal headphones to listen to the conditioning recordings.
Every single honey pot was stolen from somewhere or someone else. Every single honey pot went through the breakdown and rebuilding of their character. Ray is -- or maybe was, I don't know if Ben's whispered words addressed this -- the kind of guy who doesn't like a natural-born slut, and neither do his clients. All those men back at the club were the kind of men who cum at the thought of fucking a woman who, a year ago, wouldn't have even glanced their way. Quite a few of those men had paid Ray a lot of money to turn specific girls and women into whores and gladly paid more to use them once they were honey pots.
Lucy uses her key card to get us in the back entry. We take the stairwell up to the third floor and she uses the key card to get us into the hallway. The lights are dim, the carpet shabby and the wall paint a muddy white with scuff marks from a vacuum cleaner making a nearly perfect black line at a certain height off the floor.
Lucy's room is only a few doors down. None of the doors to the rooms lock. Lucy's room has one bunk bed, one small closet, one small chest of drawers, one full-length mirror, and that's it. My own place, spare as it is, has more stuff, and certainly more personal effects and maybe even some sense of decor.
She and I look around. I realize there wasn't much to come back for.
"Am I really free to leave here?" she asks me for the hundredth time.
"Yes," I say.
"Am I going to get sick for the headphones? If I miss my headphone time I get sick," she says.
I didn't know about that part. Ray had been in business a while but hadn't ever had a reason to let a honey pot go. As far as I knew, the ones that got sick or old ended up tipped into the canal.
"I have frie-- acquaintances that can help," I say, hoping I'm right, "Is there anything here you want to take?"
She glances at the slim, wireless headphones.
"You can't take them," I say as quietly and firmly as possible. My heart feels squeezed by her uncertainty.
She crosses the room to the dresser and takes out undies, bras, a pair of sweat pants and a matching sweatshirt.
"There's a box of trash bags under the sink in the kitchenette down the hall," she says.
I head toward the kitchenette to find a trash bag for her clothes. The little recessed area is a mess, confirming the girls that live here don't really live here. I find myself reaching for the dish sponge on automatic, correct my movements mid-reach and open the cabinet below the sink, pull a bag out of the box.
When I get back to Lucy's room I help her put the clothes in the bag, including the coat, gloves, scarf and hat she's brought out of the closet. I realize she's still topless. I laugh to myself.
"What?" Lucy asks.
"I can't take you home with you dressed like that," I say.
"Like what?" she asks. I love that. I love that mix of innocence and sex. Ray had a few honey pots programmed to be constantly embarrassed by their own nudity. Lucy is not one of those. She could walk down Main Street completely nude and be surprised that anyone else might find it odd.
"You need a top," I say. I realize her skirt will probably raise a few eyebrows, not to mention the platform heels and stockings with stitching reading "fuck me" in a lacy script up the backs of her calves. Lucy digs into the bag and comes up with a simple black top.
As she puts it on I look around again. I make sure there's still a set of headphones on each bed. I realize I almost love her enough to want to set her free. I realize I don't know what that means; how can anyone lead a normal life, have a normal brain, after living like this?
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