When he woke up, he tried to make out where he was. In my apartment? But why? Isn't Sky living here now?
Hearing a familiar soft voice in the hallway, he finally realized what had happened. His body ached, there was a bump on his head, and then there was the hangover…
Sky quietly entered the room, trying not to wake him up, but noticing that Cord was already awake, went to the unfolded sofa on which he was lying.
"Good morning," the girl smiled warmly. "How are you feeling?"
"Well, it could have been better, but it could have been worse too."
"It's not good to receive so many beatings," Sky reproached him. "Your girlfriend just called. She will be here soon."
With a gasp, Cord sat up.
"I need a shower."
"Not really a good idea: the bandages will get wet. I washed you yesterday. You were covered in blood."
Cord looked at his own body. Indeed, there were bandages on his arms, and when he felt his face, Band-Aids.
"Thank you," Cord smiled a little apologetically.
***
He had intended to go to the bathroom and wash up, but accidentally got caught up in thought. The doorbell brought him back from the nothingness.
"Hello!" Dia's assertive voice could be heard in the hallway. "Where is he?"
"In there," Sky's quiet voice replied.
A second later, a disheveled Dia appeared in the doorway to the room.
"Cord! What happened!"
Cord, finding himself lying down again, tried to sit up.
"A fight," he smiled. "It happens."
Dia rapidly walked over to the bed and conducted a cursory examination of Cord's injuries.
"Yes, there is not an untouched spot on you!" she exclaimed.
"It would have been even worse if not for Sky," Cord nodded in her direction, "and anyway, stop fussing, I'm still alive."
Dia sighed and sat down on the edge of the sofa.
"Did you bandage him up?" she turned to Sky.
"Yeah, I thought—" she nodded and hesitantly stepped forward.
"Are you a nurse?"
"No, a prostitute," Sky answered dispassionately.
Dia's eyebrows seemed about to launch themselves into space.
"You're a pros— prostit—" she stuttered out of shock.
"Prostitute, an escort," Sky repeated a little louder. "We are trained to provide first aid."
"But— but—"
"We met after the Villain's first victim," Cord explained, "in a brothel. This sweet girl you just pounced on helped a lot with finding the killer. But the problem was that after that she had some serious problems: she was kicked out of her dorm and had nowhere to live. Therefore, I rented her the apartment."
"Ah… Ah-ha…" Dia said in drawn-out tones. "I'm sorry," she smiled at the girl unexpectedly warmly. "I'm Dia. Let's get to know each other."
"Okay, let's," she smiled in response, "I'm Sky."
***
When Cord returned from the bath, both girls were busy in the kitchen: Sky was making hot open-faced sandwiches and occasionally glancing at a tomato omelet on the stove, while Dia was making tea and setting the table.
"Is that the proper etiquette for placing the forks on the table?" Sky asked with interest.
In response, Dia happily chirped out a brief lecture on the rules of table setting.
Cord smiled. It looked like the girls had found a common language.
"And here is our fighter!" Dia finally noticed Cord. "Sit down, the table is almost ready!"
A few minutes later, a dish of hot sandwiches baked in the roaster, green tea in a teapot, an omelet in a frying pan, and a glass salad bowl filled with salted crackers appeared on the beautiful white tablecloth.
They sat down to breakfast. Cord pounced on the sandwiches with a voracious appetite. The girls, as befits those in decent society, began by pouring tea and then carefully, with a spatula, served portions of the omelet. By the time they finished, the pile of sandwiches had already decreased by two.
The girls glanced at Cord, who was devouring the third.
"Sorry, very tasty, I could not restrain myself," he smiled apologetically.
The girls burst out laughing and started eating too.
"Sky, can I ask you a little personal question?" Dia asked suddenly.
"Of course," she answered with a smile.
"And you… Well, you are little…"
"Little?" Sky asked in surprise.
"Age, I mean." Dia explained. "How old are you?"
"Nineteen. Why?"
"Well, you said that you were a prostitute…"
"Ah. Well, yeah," the smile faded slightly. "Are you going to judge me?"
"What? No, no!" Dia caught herself. "I wasn't even thinking of doing that! I just wondered how you became one and why."
"Why?" Sky thoughtfully rubbed her lower lip with two fingers. "Hmm. That is a rather long story, and it seems to me that it will not fit at breakfast. But if you insist…" Sky said thoughtfully in a low voice, but then the smile returned to her face. "I was eleven when a man came to our village…"
***
"He called himself the Storyteller. He said that he was a traveler and collected fairy tales from different places. Such a rather cute old man with a beard. We believed him. Why not? Very few people came to our village: it was in the Taiga, in the north, far from here, and there were no roads to it, at least decent ones with asphalt, anyway. We didn't even have a store. We went to a larger, neighboring village, about thirty kilometers from us. It really wasn't that far away, but few burned with desire to ride through the potholes and gullies. Once a month, we sent a truck with orders, and he brought everything back.
"Therefore, we were delighted with the old man. He told us about what was happening in the outside world and even in distant places, in other countries. And then there were the fairy tales, of course, all kinds of different stories. Every evening he gathered all the children around him. And he gave away candies, of which he had a few, but each got a little.
"And then suddenly, one day, he stopped calling on the children and started calling on our parents. And they came back… Merry, but very odd. They behaved incomprehensibly. Now I know the reason, but back then, I had no idea.
"Soon, I realized that something bad was happening. People were getting sick. Very sick. They spat blood, cough very badly, their skin turned red at first, and then festered and began to flake off—"
***
Dia covered her mouth with her hand and swallowed.
"'Mice'?" suggested Cord.
Sky nodded.
"Wh-what is that?" Dia was dumbfounded.
"Modified 'crocodile'."
She gave him an incomprehensible look.
"'Crocodile' was cheap narcotic with extremely horrendous side effects," Cord explained. "'Mice' were supposed to have gotten rid of the side effects or somehow slowed them down, but it turned out differently."
***
"Yes, that drug. They were pills in the form of multi-colored mice. Our people were naive and did not suspect any danger. They were not suspicious that, at first, the old man had invited the children and then stopped. I think now, he befriended the children first on purpose and then the adults.
"Well, sorry, I got distracted. Realizing that something terrible had been done to them, our people began to look for the old man, but he had disappeared. Later I learned he had been killed by one of our boys who had guessed what was happening before anyone else, even so, it was too late. For the people anyway…
"You see, the old man had given them more than one pill. All at once, he gave them handfuls, in little packets, like sweets for children. Therefore, despite his disappearance, people had small stockpiles. Aaand… Well, the people very quickly became dependent on them. They swallowed the pills one by one, and their appearance and behavior became worse and worse, but they could not stop. My parents— Uh… Sorry, but I won't tell you that part. I'll just tell you the general story.
"People began to attack each other, to attack the children. They no longer looked like people, more like puffed-up cun… Oh, Dia, I'm sorry, I mean, decaying dead, like those, uh… Zombies, is that what they call them? And we, children, at first, hid from them, but we saw and heard everything. They actually started killing each other. People were attacked and torn apart for a dose of the drug. They were in such an awful state that even with weak blows, pieces of their bodies literally fell off of them— Oh, Dia…"
***
Dia jumped up and ran into the bathroom. Sky looked guiltily at Cord.
"It seems I shouldn't have said that…"
"It's okay," Cord reassured her. "Dia, she—" He sighed. "She's a princess. Literally."
"Really?" Sky was surprised.
"Yes, her full name is Diadem."
"And I was thinking… how does she know so much about etiquette?"
"Didn't you guess?" Cord smiled.
"Well, I'm a little foolish, that's why…" Sky spread her hands out with a sweet smile. "And shouldn't we address her somehow… Well… Your Majesty, your Highness or something like that?"
"No, she doesn't like that. On the contrary, you need to communicate with her as with an ordinary person. But some topics are better off not touched upon."
"Like cruelty and unpleasantness?"
"Uh-huh."
Dia returned to the kitchen. Her face was wet—she must have washed her face—but she was smiling.
"What are you two doing here, whispering without me?" she winked.
"Yes, your Majesty," Cord bowed obsequiously.
Dia gave him a light slap on the head.
"That's why," Cord smiled at Sky.
She giggled.
"Shall I continue?"
Dia was embarrassed.
"Yeah, just— Uh-uh…"
"No unpleasant details," Sky nodded.
"Thank you!"
***
"So, after we witnessed everything, our boys decided it was necessary to leave the village, and we went into the forest. First, it was la-la-la, la-la-la. Two weeks later, we returned, and it was oopsie daisy, whoopsie whooh. Boom!
"Our boys, and specifically one of the elder ones and his friends, decided that we could survive if we could get money. There were twenty of us left, including thirteen girls of different ages. And the boys thought: what if we open a brothel? And that's what they did. The eldest of the girls were still trying to argue, but the younger ones, including myself, did not know what it was and why the more aged children were cursing at each other. No matter what, they still decided to arrange one.
"We didn't even need to set up too much. We just repaired the broken furniture as best we could and weaved a fence of branches for every house that didn't have one yet. The two older boys left in the village truck and were gone for about a month, and we lived and existed in peace. That is, until the first guests arrived with them—the clients. They wanted sex with young girls."
***
"Wha-what?!" Dia exclaimed, astounded. "But that's—"
"Pedophilia, right?" Sky smiled. "To tell you the truth, it sounds worse than it actually was."
***
"We had rules: sex only from fourteen, and very expensive. For rural clients, our first, it was cheaper than for those who came later. Wealthy businessmen, politicians, TV artists…
"The ones of us who were completely children, that is, like me and four other girls from nine to thirteen, they did not touch. In most cases, everything was limited to hugs and requests to sit on their laps. Of course, they had erections, but there was nothing you could do about that. However, there were others. Perverse clients asked us to undress and masturbated while they watched. But the most expensive service was a blow job. In my memory, only seven clients paid for that."
***
"Children?!" Dia's eyes widened with indignation.
Sky just shrugged.
"We saw nothing terrible in it. It seemed strange to us, but the boys persuaded us it was okay. 'It's like a game,' they said, 'and you need to survive.' That's how they explained it."
***
"In general, life was not too bad. We had many things that we hadn't had before—candies, toys, and all kinds of different clothes.
"But then, one day, something bad happened. When I was thirteen, I fell in love with a boy. He was one of our 'bodyguards', those who guarded us against clients who were too impudent. So once I slept with him. As I said, I was in love. Then when the elder boy found out, he became furious. It turned out that he had wanted to sell my virginity for a very, very, very large sum of money. So then they beat me severely, and the boy… Well, I think they killed him.
"Then I was punished. They kept me on bread and water for a whole month, and I became very emaciated. That was when Madam came and saved me."
***
"Madam? So she's not a bad person after all?" Cord stated thoughtfully.
"Not at all. Why did you think so?"
"Well, she's a madam."
"That doesn't make a person bad," Sky shrugged.
***
"Madam not only pulled me out of there, but all the other girls too. The elder boy resisted, fired a gun, and then fled into the forest. I don't know what became of him. The rest seem to have been sent to jail.
"Until I was eighteen, I did not work for her. According to the law, I could not, and Madam herself was against it. She said that we, girls, had to have at least a little childhood.
"I wanted to study. There was no school in the village, so I had no education. Madam hired tutors because I was already the eldest of the girls in the younger grades, and I could still not read, just count a little and scribble. Therefore, I tried to make up for it, and then I passed the exams in a real school almost perfectly! Can you imagine?
"I set a goal for myself, to become a doctor who helps people cope with drugs and their dependence—a narcologist. So I entered the Medical Academy. Though not on a budgetary or scholarship basis, it was still good. I started working as a prostitute only a year ago, although Madam did not even insist. However, I believed I owed her for what she has done for me. I keep some of the money I make for my studies and to live on, but the rest I give to her because I want it so."
***
"You learned to administer First Aid at the academy, is that it?" Dia asked.
"Not at all," Sky shook her head. "All escorts are taught these skills. You never know when a client will overdo it. He could die, and then there would be questions about us."
"Has that ever happened?" Cord asked.
"In my memory only once, to an older man who was rather quite old. His heart could not take it. The girls didn't even have time to do anything, but generally, things like that rarely happen. Mostly they drink too much wine or get hurt being too active during intercourse. In short, small things."
Sky fell silent and looked alternately at Cord, then at Dia.
"So that's the complete story. Now let's eat. It's cold."
Indeed, no one had touched the food: Sky's story had carried them away.
***
The girls had already drunk their third cup of tea and were talking peacefully, and Cord was utterly and unexpectedly quiet.
"By the way, you are lucky that I was at home yesterday," said Sky. "Madam's birthday is today, so she gave us three days off."
"It's funny! Yesterday I was at a birthday too," Cord said.
"I understood that," the girl smiled.
***
It was time to leave. In the hallway, Sky stopped Cord.
"Oh, wait a second, I completely forgot to ask. I have two questions, or rather, uh, requests."
"Yes?"
"You have a rack of books there. Can I read them?"
"Well, of course! What kind of question is that?" Cord was surprised.
"Oh! Okay!" Sky was delighted. "And the second request," the girl suddenly blushed. "Can one more person live here?"
"A guy?" giggled Dia preening in the mirror.
Sky bit her lip and looked down in embarrassment.
"Dia, you are such a
"There won't be!" Sky smiled. "He's nice and quiet, I promise you!"
"Oh, so I was right!" Dia walked over to Cord and, with the greatest care, poked him in the side with her tiny fist. "And you yourself are that bad word!"
"What?" Cord smiled.
"A vahlak! What is that anyway?"
Cord and Sky exchanged glances.
"Well, what?! I'm interested! Sky, maybe at least you can tell me?"
"As you may not know," said Sky seriously, "a vahlak is what they call any tactless Dias."
"Oh, come on!" Dia pretended to pout, and all three laughed.