Title: Damaged Goods
Author: EvilEdna
Summary: A little piece of Inara's history.
"Damaged Goods"
Guild Registered Companion. So much more than a job title, it was a way of life.
Inara Serra had been a Companion for 6 of her indentured 8 years. She knew the little tricks of reading people; of how to read prospective clients for suitability and compatability. The Guild were careful of who they allowed on to the lists, but from there it was up to the Companions themselves to choose wisely.
Usually, Inara did. She chose those whom she saw to be in need of companionship in the truest sense of the word; not just those who were after a quick roll around her bunk. Shy young men fearful of their first sexual encounter and needing reassurance, powerful, exceptional women who needed a place where they could relax their hard façade and show their softer sides.
And yet Inara had been ambitious, once. She had grasped at every opportunity that had came her way and engineered a good few situations if it looked like they wouldn't. She had strove for power and position within her Guild, and had been within a hair's breadth of achieving it.
Then she'd been raped.
Some couldn't, or wouldn't, understand that concept. How could a Companion, a whore, be raped? Surely someone who charged for the use of their body couldn't complain if their customers were a little rough. Money had changed hands, after all. The customer had paid well enough for their sexual gratification.
So how to explain to those people? How to explain that yes, she had granted some rights to her body, but not all? That she hadn't granted the right for a man to make her scared, to make her plead with him not to hurt her. That she hadn't granted him the right to use her body with no regard for the person inside.
It had changed her, that incident. She had considered leaving the Guild then, but quite simply she couldn't afford it. If you left before your eight years were up, you had to repay the Guild for your training. For the four long years of etiquette, of dance lessons, of hard physical work-outs.
So she'd settled for running away, instead. Oh, she'd told the Guild that she wanted to branch out for a while, to see some of the galaxy. The Guild had understood, the members having been quite rightly horrified that something so distasteful could happen to one of their own. That was the word they had used; "distasteful". As though it was an unsightly stain on a favourite shirt.
Inara had rented the shuttle onboard Serenity, sensing something in the Captain that had made her slightly less afraid. She knew instantly that this was a man who wouldn't allow any of his crew to force themselves on her. And she'd been grateful. She'd found that she could still be a Companion, albeit a slightly more discerning one than she had been before. By choosing damaged people like herself, she had began to heal.
And Serenity had become a home.