Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
The strange new program we’re in that feeds us and clothes us also keeps us weirdly safe. The men aren’t allowed to touch us—like physically touch us—until bath day. Then, some of the girls sleep around to make some coin, but once we’re bathed? No one’s allowed to put a hand on us.
I ignore the men and usher Jenny and Manda ahead of me to get trays. Manda holds one out to me and then hesitates, and I bite back a caustic comment because I know she doesn’t mean harm. It’s just irritating. “Thanks,” I manage, and put my tray down on the cafeteria tray rails as we wait to be handed food bowls. I grab silverware wrapped in a cloth napkin, grab a plastic cup and fill it with water, and then take the bowl of corn-mush and tomato that’s offered to me. I bend lower to balance the tray properly in my arms, but just because I only have one hand doesn’t mean I’m helpless, and I hate that Manda flicks another glance at me before moving on.
Even though we’ve both been in the program for two months now, she still doesn’t seem to grasp that I can handle myself just fine. Ironic, because I’m always the one the others go to when they feel scared. I know she means well, that we’re just looking out for each other, but it still rankles.
We take our trays and head to one of the designated women’s tables in the cafeteria—also watched by an armed soldier—and sit down to eat. I immediately start scooping my breakfast into my mouth, but Jenny picks at hers. “I can’t believe this is breakfast.”
“Believe it,” I mumble between bites.
“What happened to the oatmeal? Is it all gone?” She makes a moue of disappointment. “Breakfast should be sweet…unless it’s sausage.”
Manda groans. “Sausage. God, I miss sausage.”
“Just eat,” I tell them. “Or I’ll eat yours.”
“We’re eating,” Jenny says quickly.
I just take another bite. You can always tell which girls have had to struggle for food and which ones haven’t. Jenny and her dad recently came to Fort Dallas a few months ago, she’d told me, after roughing it at a neighboring fort that ended up getting cleaned out by plague. Her father had died last month, and she’d found herself alone and facing prostitution, so she’d signed up for what we jokingly call “the panty program.”
Manda has a similar story. She has two older sisters, both prostituting, who kept her safe for years. One’s got two kids and the other is pregnant, so there are more mouths to feed. The moment the panty program came up, she joined because it was either that or start prostituting, herself.
There’s not a lot of options for women in a fort, which sucks.
Kristi, no one knows her story. She just sits next to us, her head down, and shovels food into her mouth almost as quickly as I do.
Me, I’ve been in Fort Dallas the entire time. When the Rift hit and the dragons came through, I was one of the first to be attacked…and one of the few to live. They raked my face open, crushed my lower right arm, and left me for dead. My wounds got infected, and my hand and most of my lower arm was amputated. My parents abandoned me, deciding to go and fuck off to save their own hides. It took months before I was able to function again.
But I lived. That’s the important part.
I lived, and I’ve made a living doing odd jobs and repairing what I can. I make my money however I can, because I’m scrappy and I’m a survivor. It might be easier for a lot of women to just take money from the soldiers and spread their legs, but I’ve never had that option.
Well, I do have that option, I suppose. It’s just that I’m ugly and missing a hand.
That, and I’m not offering.
“So what do you think the deal is with the panties?” Jenny asks as she pokes her food. She always asks. It’s been two months now and no one knows the answer to why our panties are so meticulously collected every morning. I think a lot of us signed up for the soldiers’ program thinking that we were going to end up in some sort of shitty whoring situation, but no one ever touches us.
No one tells us what’s going on, either. We don’t know why we have to hand over our panties, or why we can’t bathe except on Saturdays, or why the men are threatened with death if they touch us. Everyone looks at me and I know what they’re thinking.
Why’s this ugly, scarred chick in a program if we’re all being kept pure and handing off our panties?
It’s got to be sexual. I’m not stupid or naïve enough to think it’s not sexual. But I’m just as baffled as the others as to why I’ve been included. No one wants to touch me. My lower lip has a massive scar on it and I’ve got ugly claw-marks that left deep furrows across most of my face and shoulder. I’ve got a stump that was cauterized and has burn scars. I’m unpleasant to be around, personality-wise.