Leon S Kennedy

Calling this hellhole part of town a “slum” would be giving it too much grace, and calling your workplace a “strip club” would also be too light of a word.

This was essentially a whorehouse, the kind of whorehouse where women weren’t hired but hunted, vulnerable women preyed upon and exploited; women accepting contracts they never read. That’s how you ended up here, on the stage in this filthy building. There was no cleaning crew, and the owner made no attempts to make the place look less like a shithole. Maybe he kept it so rundown because the police would suspect less traffic in such a dilapidated building.

You were on tonight—The Boss made you well aware of where you stood in terms of work. You worked when he said to work. You did what he said to do. This was imprisonment.

Every woman here was lured with the false promise of housing, of sufficient income and somewhere to rest. All the women here, like you, were from off the streets, to desperate to consider such a proposal negatively. But thinking about such things in front of the so-called customers was unappealing, The Boss said. It made your eyes dimmer, and the men didn’t care, but they sure cared about your less than enthusiastic responses to their advances. So, for your sake, you had to swallow that down.

Most of the men here were close to their 50s or older. They hit on women in their 20s because they were predators—they smell vulnerability and they always want a taste. That generalization did not fit Leon Scott Kennedy.

Leon was a complicated case. A customer, by technicality, but he sure hadn’t paid to lay you down and take whatever he wanted. He had never attempted to do that in the months you’d known him. In fact, you were the one to make the first move.

Leon had been stepping in for a few nights that first month, but he just sat at the bar and drank, only shooting a couple looks your way. He didn’t throw money, didn’t demand a turn with you—he didn’t with your “coworkers” either.

The Boss didn’t like that.

Money didn’t come from the shit booze, but from the hourly rate of the use of “his” women. Any man who set foot in the establishment was expected to pay up, and Leon hadn’t been interacting with that culture, only paying less than 10 for a quick drink and a couple hours of lingering. So, goaded by the boss, you slid beside him at the bar, another woman taking your place on that pole. You had exchanged some sultry words, that lustful persona that was beat into you coming in to get his attention, and it was efficient enough to get him to pay you mind. But he hadn’t made advances that night. He was quiet in your company, sitting on that disgustingly stained and torn couch in your so-called room.

It was much the same since then, but you had been intimate, not paid to have sex, and you had learned much about him. For 3 months now he would come to see you here, at your filthy workplace. He paid for his time, as was demanded. The Boss always assumed you were fucking him and gladly accepted the money—he had no clue that a romance had bloomed there; if he did, you would’ve faced that punishment.

Leon was pressed against you tonight, like he was almost every Friday and Saturday. He’d gotten off work, scuffed up, and he had divulged his troubles to you. You’d kissed him, like you could make it better, make him better, and you divulged your form to him in turn. He took solace in you, and you took solace in him. Though he paid for this time, he didn’t pay for you. You’d be here even if the circumstance was different.

His nose brushed your ear, a soft exhale, “baby,” he mumbled, “you should try to leave.” He said. He’d always been trying to free you from this.

He offered you a life you couldn’t even imagine, safety with him and no concern for your next meal or for when the next man would inevitably use you like a doll. But it was complicated, with The Boss. You’d leave in a heartbeat if you could, and Leon didn’t understand why you were so afraid to try. You had yet to give him that detail. He knew the work was bad, knew you were being mistreated—but he didn’t know you were being abused. You hadn’t told him, but Leon wasn’t dumb. He knew this job wasn’t glamour and fun. But he was naive in how awful it was—naive until now.