Participants:
| Scene Title | The Naughty Nun |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | There are some lines that the girls of St. Clare's don't cross when it comes to roleplay with their clients. |
| Date | June 2, 2011 |
Dominating a corner in this relatively suburban section of Eltingville, Saint Clare's Church and Convent has been converted into somethng else entirely. Now simply called Saint Clare's, the white church with its grey brick foundation dating back into the early century, along with the blockish U-shape of a three level, red brick convent, now houses a brothel and the women that work there. It sits almost directly on the boundaries of the Eltingville Blocks, well in view of the checkpoint and the razor wire fences, and this kind of territory means it attracts a variety of clientele, but mostly the soldiers that guard Eltingville Blocks themselves.
The church is simple and Catholic in purpose, with confession booths and a large, barnhouse-type space that is now devoted towards entertaining patrons with simple music, a bar, and company. The brothel's operation is reasonably traditional, with a sedate social space for clientele to mingle with the women, and pick and choose from there, but also offers privacy for business meetings and shadier deals than the simple purchase of flesh. With a kind of rustic, mismatched sensibility, this place is designed for comfort, with setees of leather, elaborate curtains and hangings to colour up the plain walls.
Accessible from the church is the convent itself. Take the naked wooden stairs up to the choir loft, duck in through a narrow door (which is generally guarded by plain clothes security) and head into the claustrophobic corridors of the third floor of the convent. Each room is decadent and different, all rich furnishings and gauzy curtains, throw rugs and dim lamps. There is a very basic security system installed, cameras watching the doors as well as discreet panic buttons within the rooms, if not always within reach and a dodgy response time. But one makes do.
The second and ground level of the convent are private living areas for the women that work there, as well as, in some cases, their families. There are empty spaces for rent as well for whatever reasons it might be desired. There's a communal eating area, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a few social spaces for comfort, all a lot duller and stripped down than the third level. There is an accessible exit out which is off-limits to patrons.
The bar hasn't reached the normal level of clientele this morning— some groups check in as noon approaches— but it's quite a few hours early for that. Most of the bar is empty, except for a few people drinking glasses of water from the tap, or a morning coffee. Most of them the women of the house. Including one who sits alone at a table, stirring a mix of herbal tea into a cup of hot water that she requested from the kitchen.
Cash is no longer in her element. She's still dressed in slacks and a shirt, but the coveralls she wore in the garden hid much more skin than this. Her hair remains cropped short, with blonde highlights setting off the dark roots and the dark of her eyebrows. Even her blue eyes don't look as much at peace as they had when surrounded by flowers.
There's still flowers all around, they're just of a different kind. In the form of women. Many of whom would be considered deflowered instead. Her spoon tinks occasionally against the edge of the cup, metal against ceramics as she stirs.
Her day begins earlier than the rest with a split in the middle. As of right now, Delia's time is off and she's sitting on a stair, watching from the sidelines as the more brazen of them play hostess to the earlier clients. Curling one hand around the rung of the banister, she peeks her face between two of the wooden pillars. Her eyes are almost immediately drawn to Cash, a woman who not only seems so out of place, she's familiar.
It hasn't been more than a few months since her stay at the Corinthian but it feels like almost a lifetime. Slowly, she pushes herself to a stand and slinks down the stairs. Unlike the older woman, the redhead is clad in a frilly black and white uniform, and silk flats. It acts like a sort of camouflage as she doesn't look like anything more than one of the flowers here. Less perhaps.
"I haven't seen you in a long time, can I sit?" The greeting isn't much of one, she forgot to introduce herself in case the gardener didn't remember her. "If you don't mind, that is. Are you gardening here now? Uhm… we met at the hotel, if you don't remember me."
There's no sign of startlement on her face, but Cash does look up with those gray-blue eyes a little wider than normal. Just a fraction. It settles fairly quickly, and she nods towards the empty seat near her. She's not on the clock, yet, so she doesn't have to worry about the early call soldiers wanting to pay her money—
Not yet.
"I remember you, Delia," she says in calm tones, knowing the girl's name whether she'd heard it just the once or not. She knows the woman better than she knows herself. "I have a job here— do you? I admit I am surprised to see you here…" Here especially. "But I am glad to see you out of the wheelchair."
The fact that Cash remembers her name has the young girl smiling as she slips into the empty chair. She smooths out the fabric of her dress, trying to make the frilly skirt lie flat instead of call attention to herself, deciding at last to tuck the majority of it between her bottom and the seat. Her ankles cross underneath the chair as Delia attempts to hide the anklet, an embarrassing new feature in her life, from a majority of the clients and girls in the room.
"Mister Logan takes good care of me," she says with a little bit of a smile. Her hands come up and her fingers rest at the edge of the table as she stares at the empty space in front of her. There's a slight flush to the redhead's cheeks as she takes a small breath inward and lifts her eyes to meet the blue gray ones belonging to Cash. "He let me come with him to work, instead of staying home alone." She continues quietly, averting her eyes every once in a while to glance at a passing soldier. "I didn't want to be a bother, so I asked for a job… He probably only let me to keep me out of his hair but… It's better than being alone and afraid."
Whether Cash has a matching anklet is unknown, because her pants happen to be fairly baggy around the ankle. But she pays no attention to what the girl may happen to have on her own. "John Logan takes good care of many women," she states simply, quietly, as she looks over at the woman at the table.
"You should not be here— on this island at all. You should be elsewhere. Coming here was not what you should have done. No one should choose to be here— but I am going to assume your work is in the kitchen? Or perhaps the laundry?" The women need someone to wash their clothes, and especially the sheets.
Looking down at her 'uniform', Delia gives a jerky little nod and blushes at Cash. "One of the other girls lent me this, she thought it would be cute. I think she used it for uhm… roleplay… because I had to wash it a few times. It's uhm… at least they don't look at me, right?" The smile that punctuates the question is tight, uncomfortable and just a little meek. With a little wave of her fingers from the lip of the table, she brushes off any expectation for answer.
"Uhm… I didn't know there was a garden here. You— you're gardening, right? I mean— you said that no one would choose to come here." Her expression turns neutral before glum and a slight shuffle of her feet has the anklet clanking noisily against the leg of her chair. "I asked people, you know, about going home. I didn't have anywhere else to go. Maybe it was a mistake… but I just didn't want to die. I didn't know."
"I said no one should choose to come here— that does not mean there are not reasons one would," Cash says quietly as she pauses in her calm conversation to take a sip. There's a long moment as she waits for the steamy tea to settle down her throat before she lowers the cup and looks back at her again. "There is a small garden, but it is not the garden that I tend. I am one of the workers here," she explains, stoicly, looking towards the girls flirting with the few men.
"I am not on the clock at the moment, however, and I would not wear those clothes, even if I were. You should be in something else, before you are mistaken for one of the other hirelings." By that she means those doing what she's doing. "Some of the men do not wait to pay before they grab."
Delia's eyebrows twitch and then knit together before she shakes her head in confusion. "D-did something happen to your job at the Corinthian? I mean… is— did they— you just did a really nice job in the gardens there." Obviously missing the fact that Cash might have chosen to come here. "D-did they catch you and bring you here? I have some other friends who were caught… I don't think I would have been caught if I didn't— if I didn't get so scared."
Which really is the problem.
"I did ask for advice, you know. I asked for advice before making the decision. Everyone said I shouldn't go home, this guy that I was staying with… he said it wouldn't work out in the long run so I made other arrangements. You know? Things just kind of snowballed. I don't know that to do anymore." Regarding the clothing, she doesn't really comment. If she has any reservations, she never actually voices them. Moving her hands to her hair, she twists it into a tail and then pulls it over one shoulder to rest against the button of her apron.
"We are about the same size, you can borrow some of my clothes," Cash says with a nod, apparently not letting that subject drop. Based on what she's wearing, it's not her clothes that men buy her for— nor is it her clothes she tries to sell. Though she may wear something different when she's fishing for clients too.
She really doesn't, except the nun's habit that she wore a few times, but that's neither here nor there.
"The reasons I am here are my own, I am sorry that I do not wish to share them, however— I still do not think this was the better of any options. And the way you try to hide the tag they have placed on you, I do not think you find it entirely welcome, either."
"Mine's different from the other ones that I've seen, I guess I can leave Eltingville… I don't know, I haven't tried." The feeble statement from the young woman meant to set her apart from the prisoners inside the walls. "I don't want to go anywhere they can find me. This is the best place, I think, at least right now."
She turns a little somber then and looks up at Cash, her lips in a downturn. She leans forward hushing her voice and speaking with a small sense of urgency. "You were in one of the photographs from the future, you know Benji? My daughter?" Inching a little further on her chair, she reaches for one of Cash's hands and takes it with both of her own. "I need to talk to her, I need to tell her that the thing that Calvin did… Nick is really sick. I need to find Calvin so I can ask him to make Nick better."
For a moment, there's a sign of surprise. A twinge around the eyes, a turning down in the corners of her lips, but Cash hides it well when she takes a sip and it's gone a moment later. Faded away like an expressionless statue, really. "You will need to find Benji in dreams, then. I can try to pass a message, but I can not make an appointment with her— I will have to wait til she contacts me, and I do not know when that will be." The sickness makes her frown visibly for a time, before she shakes her head.
"I doubt Calvin would be willing to reverse it even if he could. Viruses do not usually have cures— when someone catches one, they either die or they do not." The reality of the life she lived in, it sounds like, even if she seems quite unphased by the tragedy. "My suggestion is to give him something to fight to live for."
"I don't know how.." Delia whimpers helplessly as she closes her eyes and draws back from Cash's hand. They fall to her lap and she picks at the fabric of the costume, twisting her fingernail through a bit of the lace around the hem. It snags and rips, just a little, enough that she tugs back quickly and looks around to the girls settled in the room before focusing back on the other woman.
"It's hard telling him how I feel, he gets so— so contrary. If I tell him something, he seems to always take it the wrong way or he somehow turns it all around to blame himself. Even if it's something good, he finds the bad and punishes himself." Sniffling once, Delia lifts her eyes to meet Cash's and shakes her head. "Things that I think are wonderful, like Benji, he— Nick calls himself a failure."
"That is probably because he is," Cash says in a steady and blunt tone. Despite the rather harsh words she says, her voice continues in the same stoic tone, if a little lighter, "A man who wallows in his failures will never get past them and he will never become anything more than that which he hates in himself. If he can't do it, then perhaps you have to do it for him. You must find a way to let him get over what he sees as a failure."
Despite the pulling away from her hand, she reaches across more firmly and grips the girl's upper arm. "The future has not happened yet, so that is a failure he can correct, it is whatever happened in his past he needs to get through. Unfortunately you know him better than me, so you can do that better than anyone. You just have to believe you can, and not panic, as you are now."
"He's not a failure. He's better than what he thinks he is. He's done good things, for me and Toru… even Brad. He just doesn't see it…" Glancing up to the stairs, she presses her lips together and dips her eyebrows into a harsh vee. Delia stares for a long while past the walls and obstacles, imagining the door to the office. "He still sees the monster that he was, what he turned into when— "
Shaking her head she gives Cash a weak smile and lowers her eyes to her hands. "Can you tell me what happened? Where you're from? I know that I should wait for Benji but… there's too many other people to convince and show. I don't want to bother her with my questions. I don't want to get in the way if I can't help."
For a long while, there's a pause. Cash no doubt is considering things carefully, but after those silent moments, she shakes her head, "I wish I could tell you, but I am a firm believer that the child should tell the parent what she wishes, and no one should go behind her back. Someone went against my wishes and told my mother what I did not wish for her to learn, and it may have caused the very thing I came back to avoid."
Her smile is tight, but there, as she begins to stand up. "Whatever Benji is willing to tell you is on her. All I can say is, despite being close to your family for many years, I barely knew Nick. I only saw him a few times, whereas I knew you very well." That might be saying too much, but it's her side of things. "I am the child you know now as Kasha, though if you had seen my picture, I am sure you knew that. Do you happen to know who has the picture now?"
"No, I gave everything that I had to Benji. Brian kept your picture, I don't know if he gave it to Koshka to bring back over the fence or if he kept it for himself. I can give you his address if you'd like to go see him?" The young woman pulls away and leans heavily against the back of her chair. When Delia's eyes meet Cash's again, she gives the other woman a slight smile before letting it drop.
"I didn't want to know about Nick… I just have questions about some of the differences. Did I get lost where you're from? Was I ever in the wheelchair, did I stay at the Corinthian… I know I didn't come here and I never lived with Mister Logan." Lifting one shoulder in a helpless shrug, she turns her head away from a few passing soldiers, not allowing them to see her face. "I just don't want to hurt your chances of fixing what went wrong by getting in the way. I sometimes feel like I am in the way too much. Dad could probably do a better job if he didn't have to bother with me."
"I do not know the answers to that, Delia— I was not even a year old when the last half year happened," Cash responds truthfully, even bowing her head for a moment as if expressing shame for her admission, despite the fact that her face doesn't show anything similar to that.
"I can tell you that things have already changed quite a bit. The future you make is your own to make, and you should do what you believe is best. Anything I tell you is based on facts that may have already changed dramatically."
And after a moment, she reaches across and does something a little less stoic. She pushes on the red head's forehead, almost like a smack, just without the quickness to actually be a smack. "And stop insulting yourself. You are no better than the Nick you speak of in that. Only you see yourself as 'in the way' and other degrading things, while he sees himself as a failure. We all fail, we all make mistakes, we all get in the way when we should not. Forgive yourself, forgive others and move on."
It's difficult to keep remembering that the gardener is really just a baby. Perhaps it's better that she doesn't, Delia has the awful habit of baby talking to anything that moves and it might look a little strange to do it to one of the ladies working for Logan. Unless she paid… and there was some type of costume involved.
Not the one she's wearing now. Or a nun habit.
Smiling at the older woman, the redhead nods slightly and reaches up to playfully brush away the hand from her forehead. "Okay, I'll try." A concession for the self depreciation. "If you need anything though, let me know? If I'm not busy with things for Mister Logan, I can try to help you. Not with…" She gives a dubious glance to one of the patrons before giving him a ghost of a smile. It's shy, mostly due to the fact that she's in the common room when she generally hides herself away where none can see.
There are many roleplaying lines that Cash won't step over, and babytalking roleplaying is definitely one of them. "I will, as long as you do me the same. If you need anything, do not hesitate to approach me. I shall be here for some time, with small excursions here and there."
There is a pause, before she reaches into a pocket to pull out a small date book, perhaps supposed to be all business related. She pulls the small pencil out and flips to a blank page. "I would like Brian's address, though, but for now that is all I need of you."
After a second or two of thought and a squiggle of a finger in the air as Delia attempts to remember the information, she rattles off the address for the other woman. "There's a man, Ernesto, that's Brian's neighbor and Brian lives with his fiance and a girl named Koshka. Either Brian or Koshka has the picture, if they don't… it'll be over the fence already, if she managed to get back to the place they took it all from."
Slowly, the chair is pushed out and Delia takes a step back from the table. Her lips curve into a gentle smile that's filled with remorse. "I'm sorry…" she starts before taking another step backward. "I'm sorry that we screwed everything up so badly that you had to some back to fix it all. If you can think of any way that I can help you, I'll do it."
Then, ignoring the offer of fresh clothing, Delia pivots on her heel and dashes toward the steps. She's not as inconspicuous as she'd like to be, gaining the notice of more of the girls than patrons. A few of them giggle at the display but by the time the first few titters fill the air, the redhead is gone.