30 - Cheaper

Asenath rose to pluck a candle from the shrine. She paused to think for a long moment before beginning.

"Not everyone knows what they are worth. It is a harsh world, and people must put a price on their labor. Yet what would happen if that price were to drop? I call this story...

CHEAPER

One thousand dollars on the nightstand...and a box. Meredith sighed, hoping it wouldn't be a ring. She had a good thing going, steady clients. Everything she'd earned since her eighteenth birthday had gone into making her what she was: a top-class escort. Big tits, with implants the locals couldn't afford. A trim body, kept carefully in shape. Glamorous clothes, excellent makeup, a little piercing or two—and a willingness to do anything for money.

Dagon's Hollow was just an overnight stop for her. A client on the train had suggested it, a Japanese-American gentleman with a warm smile and fat wallet. A thousand dollars for a night in what passed for a hotel. Now it was morning, and she opened the box: the small gold object lay there, on a golden chain. It was oddly beautiful, stylized, Art Deco. Meredith couldn't help herself as she put it around her neck, so that the little gold object hung between her breasts.

A good luck charm, maybe.

The New Tokyo Hotel had a subtle Japanese theme, and a very Japanese staff. Meredith took her breakfast at the bar, a Bloody Mary and a cigarette. She knew that she should check the train schedules, figure out the best time to leave.

"Excuse me, miss," an older gentleman said. His neat suit said money, as did his heavy watch on one wrist. "I hate to see a lovely woman drink alone. Mind if I join you?"

She smiled.

"Not at all."

In her room, she was on her back, the old man huffing on top of her. The bastard's prick sawed in and out of her cunny for what felt like an hour...and despite herself, Meredith felt a bit of wet excitement. She urged him on with words, and then with her other talents. There were things she had learned to do with her muscles in Las Vegas that no whore around here would be familiar with, and as he spent for the third time, he fell heavily onto the bed, red-faced and sweating.

Five hundred dollars. Not bad for a morning's work.

The evening crowd was lighter than she'd hoped. A few businessmen had come in on the train, however. Respectable, middle-aged types eager to get away from their lives. Meredith picked the likeliest mark. They shared a drink. She asked about his wife. He grew pale, reached to cover his ring. Then she leaned close and asked him what his wife wouldn't do.

On her knees, skirt bunched around her waist, Meredith moaned as he squeezed his cock into her asshole. She could feel his gut settle on her, but as he pushed his prick deep inside of her, until his hairy balls brushed her shaven slit. With slow, deliberate movements, she milked his cock. After all, he was paying two hundred and fifty dollars. He needed to get his money's worth.

The hotel manager and the hotel detective knocked on Meredith's door the next morning. Pleasant men, Japanese, but locals. They had noticed she had extended her stay. Were here to inquire about her business.

Well, it wasn't the first time she had taken two at once.

Kenjiro, the hotel dick, slid his condom-clad prick into her hot muff as Meredith sucked off Akira, the manager. They took their time. The next train wouldn't arrive until noon, and with it the next load of potential clients. She showed them exactly what she was worth, as she sat on her knees, taking their salty loads onto her face with a perfect smile.

They left a total of one-hundred and twenty-five dollars between them. But they had an agreement.

It was a slow evening at the New Tokyo Hotel. Too many men with their wives, not enough bachelors, not enough money. The bartender made her a gimlet, and then another. When he asked how much for a throw, she followed him to the backroom, to what had been a speakeasy. There was a nice couch there—and if she was surprised when he didn't have a condom, well, she didn't make a fuss out of it so long as he pulled out.

After all, sixty dollars was sixty dollars.

It was the next morning, as Meredith was in the black kimono the hotel provided in place of a bathrobe, that she noticed she was still wearing the gold necklace. The chair was tight, almost a choker, and the golden bauble that dangled from it—she hiss as she recognized the outline of a cock and balls.

"And I've been wearing you in public!" she hissed, and tugged at the thing, trying to find the catch, or tear it off by brute strength.

There was a knock at the door. In her kimono, she answered it.

"Room service," a young man said, with a strange smile.

Except there were six of them. The entire wait staff, in their elegant white jackets. Meredith blinked, surprised.

"Not to worry," the first one said, as he flashed three ten-dollar bills. "We have money."

It wasn't Meredith's first party. Yet she wasn't happy about it, for all that she smiled. They laid their money down on the table beside the bed, as they took their turns with her. None of them had condoms. She felt the first pull out of her, a hot wetness dribbling out of her sore cunny, and at the same time she felt an unnatural urge within her, just as the next pressed his swollen pecker against her hot cunny.

"Fuck me," she murmured, all pretense of glamour lost as the sudden need hit her. The kind of sexual urge she thought she'd lost when she'd sold her virginity. "Come on, you bastards. I'll do everything your goddamn girlfriends won't!"

They grinned wider. And they gave it to her.

Hour after hour. More men came to the room. Meredith lost count. She saw the pile of bills stack up on the end table.

Then men began to leave loose change.

Dollar coins.

Half-dollars.

Quarters.

Dimes.

Nickels.

Pennies.

The bed was a reeking, sticky white mess by the time the sun dipped. Meredith's cunt and ass burned and dribbled. Her mascara ran, face a mask of semen. It leaked out of her mouth as she blew cum-bubbles. The gold chain was tight against her throat, and she could feel the little golden cock rise and fall with each ragged breath.

"I do not think you will be able to afford to stay here much longer, miss." The voice was familiar. The Japanese gentleman, from the train. The one who had left the box, that first night. Meredith couldn't move. Her body was spent. No, not spent. It had been bought and paid for, and the men had gotten their use out of her.

"I would like to offer you a more permanent arrangement," he said. "Unless, of course...you are quite certain you want to continue on in your profession?"

He held up a handful of pennies. Tears leaked out of Meredith's eyes. Not sure how many men she would have to fuck for that much money. It was more than she was worth. His smile was not unkind as his hand closed.

"I thought so."

Meredith never left Dagon's Hollow, or the New Tokyo Hotel. The owner of the hotel kept her in the penthouse suite. He was her sole client. Sometimes she looked out the window at the town, at the train, the men and women that walked around so freely. None knowing what they were worth. What she would do, if any man dropped a single coin at her feet.

Once, she asked him why.

He only answered:

"I like to get my money's worth."

"Sometimes, you can still see her up there," Asenath said. "Out on the balcony. You can see the glimmer of gold at her throat. I do wonder what will happen, when she dies."

A wind blew. All the candle flames shuddered, but only the one Asenath was holding went out.