It had been raining for the better part of an hour now. The clouds had been threatening to set loose the entire day, but she'd begun to hold out hope that maybe it wouldn't start until she was actually settled in. Maka Albarn had been stuck inside of a carriage for almost a full day now and she was beyond tired of it. At first, she'd been glad to leave the confines of the smokey city of London and all the stench of sickness and poverty, but at this point not even the beauty of autumn could hold her attention. She let out a heavy sigh and brought a fingernail to her mouth to nervously chew at.
"Hey, you can't do that. Those were cleaned up just this morning." The voice was gentle, but stern. It belonged to her escort, Miss Marie. Marie was a kindly looking woman in her thirties with blonde hair. On several occasions she had tried to make friendly conversation with the much younger girl, but Maka hadn't really been much in the mood to converse. Still, she followed her directions and removed the fingernail from her teeth and let out another dramatic sigh. "We should be there shortly." Marie asked her, offering a small smile. "Nervous?" Maka shook her head.
It was a blatant lie, because once she left this carriage, every single thing in her life was going to change. Oh, who was she even kidding? Life had changed weeks ago when she'd made the decision to go into this business. Her official title was that of a personal assistant. Better known as a courtesan. Better known as a whore. The idea of it made her stomach turn. It was not a business that a proper lady would have chosen, but she'd never really succeeded at being a proper lady. Still, she wasn't quite sure what had pushed her to think this was a good idea.
Oh right, they'd desperately needed the money.
Of course, she wasn't just any common street whore. No, the company of women that Miss Marie worked for had specifically welcomed her in to be trained in the ways of entertaining men. She would be assigned to a single young gentleman, so as to keep him from wandering around to other women. Maka was going to be a toy, so to speak; something to keep some rich young brat entertained so that he wouldn't be shoving his unmentionables into every woman that happened across his path. She'd be at his beck and call whenever a need arose. Maka was pretty sure there was a flaw in the theory of the business, considering that she knew men grew tired of having one woman, but she was in no place to point out those sorts of things. The money was impressive and it was her only thought when she had made the decision to join up with the underside of "Stein's Academy of Delicate Young Women."
Just a year ago, Maka would have laughed in anyone's face if they had told her she would soon be an escort to a wealthy young man. Life back then had been relatively normal; not good, but acceptable. They hadn't always been dirt poor or afraid of going hungry. Once her father had been a soldier for the royal army and had even been promoted to leading one of the troops. Her father had been a hero, but a terrible accident had left him unable to fight or even really work, and now he was more of a joke. Alcohol and women had become the crutch for his soul and her mother had abandoned them years ago, tired of a life she had not signed up for. As if Maka had somehow chosen such for herself. The thought had occurred to her more than once to run away and abandon him. Leave him alone to rot in filth that he'd dug them into. Still, this was still her father, and whether she loved him or despised him, she couldn't just abandon him. Maka was all her father had and she was the only real joy in his life. So no matter how angry she got, no matter how much she screamed at him and blamed him for everything that had ever been wrong in her life, she couldn't leave. For years, odd jobs had been enough. There were flowers to sell on the street, houses to clean, and errands to run for the local shops. It didn't feather their beds, but it kept food in their bellies.
Then the fever had hit.
Spirit Albarn had been hit badly and Maka had been almost positive that he was going to die. She remembered sitting by his bed while he cried out for a wife that was nowhere to be found and screamed from war memories that attacked his mind. Despite that she'd hated herself for it, she'd cried and cried over him. She'd even dared beg him to stay with her. A bad father, was after all, still a father and she was terrified of being alone in the world. Lying there, weak and defenseless, she'd just been a scared little girl who wanted her daddy to come back to her. Somehow, while other, healthier people had died around them, he had survived. Survived, but just barely. Now on top of food bills and living expenses there had been medical bills. Spirit was going to need to take medication for the rest of his life. She'd tried to work overtime, tried to get those extra coins needed, but she knew something was going to have to give if they were both going to live.
Enter the great Professor Franken Stein. A man of eclectic talents, where no one was quite sure of his actual professional standing. Was he a soldier? A doctor? A teacher? None of the above? All anyone really knew was that the man had questionable motives but he could certainly get a job done. A longtime friend of her father's, Maka had known him for quite a few years. Both he and her father had worked together on the battlefield and if it wasn't for the eccentric, heavily scarred, young man, her father might not have survived. She supposed they owed him for that much. Still, it was really hard to get a read on the man and he'd made her relatively nervous. Years ago, Professor Stein had started a school for young women entering society. If the Albarn family had been able to afford such an education then Maka would have started attending back when she was eleven years old. Whenever Stein was around, he would offer her some reading materials and he kept her well supplied, so she'd gained some sort of education. He would often tell her that he thought she could go far. Of course, she'd never have guessed that this was what he had meant. Before the illness hit, Maka would have thought that Stein's Academy for Delicate Young Women was merely a school. It certainly was for most women, but like everything Professor Stein seemed to do, it had a darker layer to it. This one just happened to be an upscale prostitution ring.
She had come home late one night to find Stein sitting by their fireplace. At first she had thought that he was there to do some sort of business with her father. So it came as a surprise when he said that he was actually there to see her. After checking on her father and fixing a long overdue lunch, she sat down with him by the fire to talk.
"I know things haven't been easy for you lately." That had been putting it mildly. "But I've got a proposition for you."
Maka had been spat out the broth she'd been sipping when the words "sex" and "money" came together in the same sentence. At first she had been adamant; there was no way that she was going to sell her body like that. She'd seen what had happened to other girls who had fallen to that lifestyle, even watched as the streets had slowly stolen away everything they held just for a loaf of bread at the end of the day. She wasn't going to allow herself to sink to that level. She'd been furious that her father's friend could even offer up such a suggestion. He'd stared at her quietly as she'd thrown a fit over the mere mention of such a career. Patiently, he had waited for her to calm down.
"You've got it all wrong. I'm not asking you to walk the streets of Whitechapel. I'm merely offering you a chance to work. One house, with one person, to earn your keep. It's hardly different than working as a hand servant." Professor Stein had stayed rather monotone as he offered up a further description of the job. "Just hear me out."
He explained how jobs as servants were hard to find. That was the night she learned about how men would sometimes patronize a young and beautiful girl whom they could mold and keep at their side for whenever they had an ache of the masculine kind. No need to go out and find some girl when one was readily available right in your home. With so many questionable angles of prostitution and varied diseases, a beautiful young woman was a hot commodity. So while Stein's academy taught girls of wealth to one day be properly paraded around by husbands, it also taught girls of misfortune to be held in secret for basically the same purpose. No need for young men to worry about getting a noblewoman pregnant before marriage, and no reason to worry about disease from the every day common streetwalker. Professor Stein and his set of educators, like Miss Marie, were there to make the less fortunate girls shine like fine porcelain dolls ready to be plucked from a window shelf.
Maka had sent him on his way without an answer that first night. Her pride was severely wounded and she'd buried her face into her pillow and wept with the unfairness of it all. The bills kept coming and the food kept vanishing and her father was laid in bed and unable to even go out and clean shoes for a penny like he sometimes did. Medicine was expensive and doctor's even more so. She searched the papers for work, she begged at doorsteps, and even prayed for some sort of miracle to their situations. But miracles were on a shortage the same as meat, and Maka had run out of ideas.
The second time Stein had come around to ask, he'd brought with him a blonde woman that she now knew as Miss Marie. A previous personal assistant, who had spent years moving from one patron to another before retiring to pass on her knowledge to other girls. She and Stein had been partnered up for years now, though Maka wasn't sure how deep their feelings for each other ran. Miss Marie had a sort of wealthy air to her despite that she had really started out no different than Maka was now. She carried herself with grace and Maka could respect that. She didn't fit her original idea of what a prostitute was. Her clothes were not torn, and her face was extremely pretty; she wasn't marred by years of abuse. Miss Marie had immediately put her at ease in a way that Stein never could. Where Stein had made Maka feel like she would be signing away her body, Miss Marie made Maka feel as if she was merely offering a trade. She talked of the fineries that women of such power were offered. Apparently when sex was involved, men could easily become putty in their hands. Wealthy men with too much money on their hands were known to indulge in their playthings. They were acting out dating and marriage and young girl's like her reaped the benefits of that. Long after she'd made the decision she'd be warned about the dangerous sides, but that night Miss Marie and Professor Stein spoke only of how the entire situation would be beneficial to all parties.
It was all about money. Money was the reason that she had stared into the mirror at her naked body and wondered who would even want to buy such a skinny, boney thing like herself. Surely she wasn't desirable. Of course there was one thing she had that was worth it's weight in gold; her virginity. Such a treasured resource that one would have thought she could move the world with it. Men were such stupid things, she had decided as she threw back on her clothes and covered up. Yet if a man was foolish enough to buy her and if that meant saving her life and her father's life, then she swore she would toughen up her courage and face whatever new life the academy was going to place upon her. She was no coward; the world was much too hard a place for cowards. Life ate cowards alive and then spat out the remains to lay rotting on the sidewalks of London with the rest of the trash. Maka Albarn was not going to be tossed to the side like trash.
Her father had been proud to hear that his good friend would be taking her in at his school. She wasn't sure if he was purposefully oblivious or if he honestly thought that someone like her could marry wealthy. She let him live in whatever illusions he had of the situation. There was a certain irony to the fact that her father had paid for women on more than one occasion, and now his daughter was embarking on that path. She preferred for him to think that she was being trained as a lady. It was better for both of them to keep up that fantasy. She reassured herself that soon money would be coming in and things would start to get better for them. Later, when she signed her name on a dotted line, she knew she was signing away her freedom. She had told herself that she was okay with that.
There was the soft pressure of a hand on her shoulder. "Maka. Maka sweetie, we're almost there." For a moment it had sounded like her mother calling to her and she had leaned into the warmth of such a touch. It was broken as the carriage wheel caught on a rock and uncomfortably pulled her back to reality. It was now dark outside, but the rain had stopped. The horses were back on an actual stone road as was evident by the way their hooves clicked against the gravel, much different than the miles of dirt road they'd left behind them. "I'm surprised you could sleep at all given how rough it was getting."
"I must have just been really tired." And she was tired, tired of a lot of things, but more than anything sitting in a bouncy carriage that had left her with a rather numb bottom. Miss Marie leaned over to dab at her face. "Okay, I'm okay...I look fine."
"I know it's just that I want you to look your absolute best." Maka was pretty sure that best was not exactly something that was attainable. She looked better than usual. They had dressed her in a pale blue gown with ruffled sleeves and an appropriately low cut bodice. Her hair had been pulled out of it's typical twin ponytails and looped into a braided weave around her head. They were hoping to make her look innocent, as if a girl could be fully innocent after months of being trained in the art of what men would expect in the bedroom. Still, she looked the part and her innocence at least stretched to the fact that hearing about sex was not the same thing as experiencing it. That honor would be saved for her new owner. Her stomach tied in a familiar, but not pleasant knot and she found herself reaching for Miss Marie's hand.
A palm pressed to her cheek and she was met with a warm smile. "It won't be so bad. I promise, the first time is always the hardest, it gets easier after that. You're a smart girl Maka, I have no doubt that you can do this and be one of the best." Maka wasn't sure how one could ever be the best at a career like that, but some women made wealthy lives playing with men's hearts as they allowed men to play with their bodies.
"Thank you." She whispered to Miss Marie as the carriage came to a halt. The two women shared in a moment of understanding as they stared at each other. The driver came around to open the latch on the door and he offered his hand first to Miss Marie and then to Maka. She looked at his hand as if it were a foreign and untrustworthy object. In a knowing way her escort reached out instead to help her from the carriage. She wasn't sure she even trusted her feet, but she reminded herself that she was not a coward. One foot after another she stepped out from the carriage and into her new life.
Miss Marie smiled at the awestruck look on her face. "Maka, welcome to the Evan's Manor."