I sit in the room panting after my last encounter. Encounter is the word I use to sugarcoat it a bit. If there's one thing I can say about it that isn't entirely negative, it's that I've learned quite a bit from the secrets I've been told. Unfortunately, I've come to the assorted conclusion that the secrets are knowledge I could easily live without. Basically, I'd rather be six feet under.
My body chants a mantra after I've finished one encounter and it awaits another. Just one more for today, I think to myself. It's the only thing I've got to grip onto. One more. You'll get a little salvation after this one. I promise.
Giggling suddenly sparks outside. Those who Snow elects to work in this field of prostitution reside in an enclosed part of the Capitol that much of the public is aware of, but never wanders by. It's in the slummy part of the Capitol. Each worker has a hut-like room with a cot, a bucket of cold water, a latern and a rack of costumes. Women in the Capitol particularly like to roleplay. In those situations, I can put myself at ease. I'm not an actor by any means, but I get to not be myself for a while. (I don't feel like myself when engaging in my prostitute life in any way, but I feel even less like myself when engaging in roleplay.)
Finnick only appears when the day is over. The rest of the time I'm a nameless, soulless body that is only judged based on the content of my exterior, not what I'm kicking and screaming to reveal inside. That's why I beg for secrets rather than pay. In a way, their secrets become my own. Having them confide in me gives me a sensation. Not that I'm in power for once, but that other people feel on my level. Expressing secrets, I've found, is a way to rebuild a foundation.
Bile arises in my throat whenever I think about my work. I've been with a wide range of women, but they've all be older than me. Some were gentle and tender, and others were crude and harsh. Some only needed a five minute session, and others made me stagger on for hours and hours. Basically, the system works this way: women and men wait in a line outside the huts. When one customer comes out, another waits by the hut that is now ready. We're given a few minutes to recuperate, except on busy nights. Then the vicious cycle begins again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Sometimes, I'll have twelve. Other days, I might have twice as many. Sometimes, I have to improvise. As Snow told me, "You have hands and a mouth for a reason, Odair."
Twelve hours a day I'm a piece of the Capitol's punishment. Then I sleep for eight hours. But the four hours I'm awake and have time to myself, I just sit and think. I think about everything I could do had I not been born into a world like this. According to legend, the world used to have some definition of peace. Now, peace is a word used incorrectly, and rarely.
The hut gets unbelievably humid near the end of my twelve hours. I dunk my head in the large bucket and exhale, letting the water bubble. Then I lift my head out of the bucket and flick it back. The giggling starts up again. A group is outside. It's rare that I get a group all at once. It's only happened to me a handful of times, and I'm the only worker that's had a multiple person encounter in years. Snow smirked in pride when he was told. He knew he struck the goldmine when he put me to work. I gulp and pray that I don't pass out. My hands smear the newly-formed perspiration across my chest over my well-defined muscles.
"Enter," I say shakily, but with false confidence backing it up. I've found many times that Capitol women are like dogs: give them a cheery and confident tone, no matter the words that follow, and they'll believe you're nothing but cheery and confident.
The giggling continues as the girl is nearly pushed into the hut. My hands jet out to help her regain her balance, but she recovers all on her own.
"Happy birthday!" the chorus of girls sings outside, almost mockingly. The giggling follows them as they skip away from the hut. I follow the sound until it's out of sight, and then return my eyes to the girl before me. We're both stuck on what to do next. I've never had a woman stumble in and freeze. Most of the time, they pounce me like prey, no words even spoken until I ask for their secrets. The ones that don't give me a vocal cue in a hushed, seductive tone. Some ask politely, others are far more vulgar. However, the girl before me does neither. She crosses one leg over the other, rubs her hand over her opposite elbow and stares at the ground.
She's beautiful, as most of the Capitol women are, but I feel the bile arise as I see that she's not an adult woman, but a teenage girl. I've never dealt with anyone younger than me before. Perena, the man two huts down, usually takes the younger girls. Most of us are 'assigned' a specific group of people. Perena takes the youngins, Luy takes the much older women, Syumn takes the older men, Lploa takes the young men, Drie, Shlew and Crons take both men and women, and I take the women who range from their early twenties to earlier forties, which is the majority of our customers. Snow knew this when he told me who I'd be assigned to. My stomach churns just thinking about it.
"How old are you?" I whisper when a few minutes go by.
"Sixteen."
When silence encased us I took the opportunity to sit on the cot, and it's a good thing I did. "Sixteen?" I repeat.
"Yes."
I look at the girl again. An African American beauty if I ever saw once. Like most Capitol girls, she wore a bold mask of make-up. Her eyelids would close and I'd see nothing but a lime green with sparkles. When she opened her eyes, a richer brown than cocoa. She wore a dress with an array of lime green stripes spiraling around a thin, black shadow. The background supporting the thin, black shadows and lime green stripes is white. The dress cuts off in the front by her thighs, but the back drapes to the ground easily, creating a train. Her stockings are lime green fishnets and go all the way to her ankles where her black, plain heels begin. I give her a once-over with my eye, which I never do with clients. She's a girl trapped in a woman's body. I'm a boy trapped in a man's body. We've got something in common. I want her to trust me, so I take my eyes off her body and just focus on her face. Defined cheek bones, curly, thick hair that stops at her shoulders and two sets of earing per ear.
"Why are you here?" I ask.
"Why are you here?"
"Snow. You?"
"Birthday present."
"What?" I almost shout in disbelief.
She begins quietly, finally meeting my eyes. "My friends brought me here and said that they had a birthday gift for me. I didn't know this was a brothel."
"We don't have to-"
"I have to," she squeaks.
"Why?"
"I'm the only one who hasn't…all my friends have."
"That doesn't matter if you have or haven't. I'm not going through with this without your full consent."
"You have it."
"I'm not sure I fully do," I say with a flirtatious hint coming from the tip of my tongue. It gets her to chuckle a bit, progress. "Look, I could tell you a million stories about me. I don't want anyone going down that road. Believe me, I wish myself dead."
"You're Finnick, right?"
"Yes."
"You were in the Games."
"And I won, as you can see."
"That must have been glorious."
"This was my fate after. Would you think this is glorious?"
"Of course not. But I ask because I've heard some of the girls talk about you. You deal in secrets, right?"
"Correct."
"I have plenty."
"Then you could just tell me."
"No, I feel like I owe you a deal. You called me a girl, and I'm ready to become a woman."
"They've brainwashed you!" I exclaim.
"It's either this or the awaited fate of getting jumped. They're jealous that I still have my purity. And I know that's no justification, but I'd rather go this path with you, Finnick Odair. Please save me, and allow me to save you."
"Save me?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"This will be your last night at the brothel. Just…trust what I have to say, okay?"
I pause. What does she mean that she could help me? Running away would only infuriate Snow. I'm tempted to do it to save myself, but at the sake of her purity? She said this was the best road for her to go down. It's the least painful for her, and it strips the pain for me, or at least saves me from even more.
"Kiss me," she says confidently.
I anticipate just infuriating Snow and running. Running as far and as fast as my legs would take me. I really do.
"How are you going to save me?"
"By saving both of us. We don't drown if there's no water. Kiss me."
Oh-so cautiously, I saunter up to her and lightly pinch her chin with my thumb and index finger. My thumb twitches, eager to stroke the area of her chin I set my eyes upon. I lean my head forward and press my lips on an area that makes contact with both her skin and mine. My hand leaves her chin and hovers above her forearm with the tips of my fingers barely grazing her skin. I kiss her bare chin this time with a little more energy behind it. Both of our bodies radiate a vibrating energy that ignites the second I grab her arm, still with a gentle touch, and press it firmly to my sternum to feel my heartbeat. The pulse in her wrist pound against my pectoral ever so lightly, but it's apparent that it's nearly jumping through her skin. I kiss her lips for the first time. They tingle and feel a bit rough. I can tell in the way she reciprocates that this is the first time she's kissed a man. I plant multiple kisses on her bed as I slowly lead her to the cot.
Our kisses grow more intense with each step, but we have to break apart to shed our clothing. Bare in the moment, she lays her naked body on the cot, waiting for me to initiate the second part of this process, the more intense part. I've never had a virgin before. I was one myself long, long ago, but I know that it's different for women. Like anything new, you have to approach it slowly and to your comfort level.
Snow does a conceited thing and doesn't give us any sort of birth control or protection. He figures that those who venture to receive sexual gratification should deal with the consequence of pregnancy or disease. In fact, one of my first customers came back a couple of months after our first encounter to tell me another secret. After we'd coupled she told me there was a child in her womb, but she had terminated it. I couldn't get over that for months, so I did actually enjoy my job for a little bit. I got out all the pent up anger doing this stupid thing. Once I realized how wrong it was, I went back to having to swallow the uprising bile at the back of my throat again.
I carefully mount the young female after I strip down. I stand before her in all my glory, which takes her breath away and paints on a petrified expression that I must ignore. She's never seen a naked man before, obviously. I look into her eyes for a final time before I bury my face into her shoulder and get to work.
The first thrust I make sure is comfortable. Her body shudders from the foreign feeling, but I feel her exhale through the next gentle thrust. I thrust gently in the same spot about two or three times before going in deeper. The walls of her womanhood close in around my manhood, which stops at a resistance. She feels it too, along with my hesitation. Her arms, previously glued by her sides on the cot, now wrap around my shoulders. Her hair tickles my ear as I feel her nod for me to go forth. I grit my teeth and pound through the thin resistance. Her whole body coils and thrashes against the cot, which breaks a dam inside of me. Tears fall from my eyes like rain from the sky as I have to continue on.
The tears stop when we find a paradise of pleasure. Her clitoris, when I find it, buzzes with stimulation, pounding the young girl into orgasmic overdrive multiple times. Her legs wrap around my hips as I thrust too many times to keep count of until I find my own paradise and reach my own climax. The pool of sweat and tears forms at a nook where her collarbone and shoulder meets, which I see as I pull out and stand up. The cot, which I observe on the way to retrieve my clothes, has a small puddle of blood where the girl, now woman, bled out her virginity.
"Your pay?" she whispers, dressing herself.
"What's your secret?"
"Snow has one unwritten rule in which he must obey: Workers of the brothel must not take what's not theirs to take."
"Like virginity," I whisper in awe.
"Precisely. He must release the workers that violate that unwritten rule."
"But I will be punished if let go, won't I?"
"Not if you're a Game winner. Snow will have to make you a mentor instead."
I smirk. A mentor is the last thing Snow would want me to be. "And you'll be the one to tell him?"
"Yes."
"Thank you," I say, rushing towards the girl to give her a hug. Then I realize I don't even know her name. "What's your name?"
"Cseria."
"Well, Cseria, thank you once again."
And I never had another encounter again. The brothel is something I leave behind, but it's a part of me. That past is the puzzle, but the future can replicate pieces of that puzzle to fit your perception of life. Instead of looking at my past and calling myself a whore, I see myself as part of Capitol profit. I still am Capitol profit today, but I'm not hurting anyone else. Including myself.
A/N: First time writing smut, so I'm sorry if it sucked. And I'm sorry if I got anything wrong with Finnick's character. I haven't read Catching Fire or Mockingjay in a while, so it's a little foggy to me. But I hope you enjoyed it!