Trust was what made people weak, and now she knew that awful truth. Never would she have imagined that one day he would be the one to rope her into this hell hole, but here she was. Temari is sold into the sex industry, a hard life that she desperately wishes she could escape, but escape is unthinkable. She had tried once and it failed terribly. But one day she meets a strange man who changes her views on on everything around her, and she finds herself falling into a mix of emotions and decisions. Sadly, I do not own Naruto or its characters :(
No matter how many times she would tell herself it would be over soon, she knew deep down that nothing would change in the near future. And as the bulky stranger pulled himself from inside her, his breath ragged, his skin coated in a thin layer of sweat that gleamed in the dim light of the bedroom, she questioned herself if she would make it that long.
The man signed, one hand fumbling with the button of his pants, the other slicking his greasy hair back out of his face. The blonde who was sprawled spread eagle on the bed below him didn't move, nor did she even look at him.
"That was good sweetheart," he mumbled. "You sure know how to please'em." His pants were done up now and he leaned down, placing a rough, wet kiss on her cheek. She turned her head slightly, trying to escape his contact as much as she could. She could feel the smile on his lips as he pressed them to her skin, and she could smell alcohol reeking off his breath. He stood once again, grabbed his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head before stumbling out of the room, leaving her there to wallow in her guilt and disgust.
How many times would she have to do this? When could she just go home and forget everything happened? Could she even forget at this point, she didn't know. All she knew was that she used to be strong willed; she used to know exactly who she was. But now she was broken, and unidentified, merely just an object. And that's what she hated the most.
After moments of looking at the ceiling, the blonde slowly got up and redressed herself before slinking to the bathroom. She didn't know if she was going to make it to the sink fast enough, but when she got there she began to cough up what felt like everything in her stomach. She thought she would have been used to this by now.
"Come on Temari..."she sobbed, clenching her eyes shut, whipping her mouth with the back of her hand. She turned the sink on and gathered a handful of water into her cupped hands, splashing it into her face as if to wake herself up. The cold water felt nice, refreshing, and it caused her to open her eyes.
She stared blankly into the mirror in front of her, or, she thought it was a mirror, but the woman standing adjacent to her didn't seem familiar. Her frizzy blonde hair looked almost straw like, dry and un-kept. She was made to curl it before this "event", but she knew all too well that her hair didn't curl. It fell out within a half an hour. Her turquoise eyes that used to be so full of life and independence were now lifeless, dull orbs that seemed to stare through everything and anything. The dark makeup that surrounded them didn't compliment the color at all. She could also see the top of her discreditable dress. Far too low cut, far too much transparent fish net, far too short, and the thigh high fishnet stockings didn't help her either. She looked like a sluttly mess.
Standing up straight, she brushed her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to smooth it out, then she headed out of the bathroom, grabbing her stiletto heels from the bedside and leaving the dark room behind her.
Trying to be as quiet as she could, she tiptoed down the hallway of the Asian styled house, keeping her eyes peeled for her client. She could hear someone talking down the hallway by the front door, and when she reached the living room she noticed that the man was sitting in a chair with his back to her, cigarette in hand, watching the TV. On a small coffee table that sat behind the chair lay a stack of bills. Without saying a word to him, she snatched them from the table and quickly counted something she was told repeatedly to do, and rushed to the door.
Standing outside, beside a large wagon that was being pulled by a strong looking thorough bred, was a tall man. And although half of his face was hidden under the material of an off white turban, his one black eye gleamed with satisfaction.
"Took you long enough, Mari." he called over to her as she approached him, holding out the money, he took it and began to count.
"I already counted." she assured him, but he didn't stop. "Six hundred and -"
"Fifty." he finished her sentence, stuffing the money in his pocket. "Good girl."
His quick smile revolted her and she looked away, trying hard to subside the urge of kicking off her heels and trying to run as far away as she could.
After a moment or so of standing there, the man roughly grabbed her upper arm and headed to the coach of the wagon, wrenching the door open and shoving her towards the opening. Temari clenched her hands onto the railing and hoisted herself up and inside, barely missing having her leg caught in the slamming door behind her.
Inside the carriage were two other girls, probably those Baki had picked up earlier. One of them was sitting with one arm around the other, her short pink hair was twisted into a side braid and she too had on a mesh dress much like Temari's. The other girl had long raven hair that was tied up into two pigtails, and was wearing a revealing school girl outfit. She was huddled into the pink haired girl as if scared for her life, tears streaming down her face, smudging her makeup.
Temari took the seat opposite them and felt the carriage start to move. She frowned at the crying girl. Hinata was her name, the new girl. She couldn't help but feel bad for her, remembering when she too was the rookie.
"Is she okay?" Temari asked the pink haired girl. She nodded slowly in response, tightening her grip.
"She'll be fine. Just getting used to it I suppose."
"Tch," Temari once again bit back her disgust. "When do we ever get used to this..."
The rest of the ride was silent, other than Hinata's frequent sobs. When they finally arrived at the large brothel that was their home, the three girls piled out of the wagon and followed the turbaned man through the large doors of the main gate. Temari looked up at the building. In all honesty it was a beautiful piece of architecture, it was large, the grounds were stunning, a passerby wouldn't dare believe what the horrible truth about it really was.
"You better make her be quiet Sakura, or I'll do it myself." Baki shouted over his shoulder at the pink haired girl who was still trying to comfort upset newbie. Temari scowled at him. Despite the hate she now felt for him, she had personally grown up with the man. After the death of her mother, Baki had become somewhat of a mentor to her and her two younger brothers, they had trusted him, and actually grew to "love him". But trust was what made people weak, and now she knew that awful truth. Never would she have imagined that one day he would be the one to rope her into this hell hole, but here she was.
"Shh," Sakura hushed Hinata. "We're almost home."
Home. Somewhere Temari feared she would never see again. She missed her brothers, she missed her city. She didn't even get the chance to say goodbye, and that was over six months ago. She knew they probably hadn't given up looking for her, but she'd doubt they'd ever find her. Her city was all the way back in Suna, some hundred miles away from where she was now.
As soon as they walked into the building, they stopped following Baki, who continued down the tatami mat hallway, and turned right towards a large sliding door. They entered, and were met by about a dozen other women, all dressed in nothing but their bra and underwear. Immediately, Temari began to strip out of her defiling attire, tossing everything into a large bin that sat beside the door. Sakura and Hinata followed her actions.
"How was your day..?" a small brunette who stood at the front of the group said hesitantly, trying to spark casual conversation. She was a petit girl, brown eyes, fair skin. Her chocolate hair was tied up in two tight, Chinese buns.
"How do you think their day was, Tenten?" a blonde who stood beside her hissed, throwing her arms across her chest. "Fucking terrific! You can definitely tell the new girl enjoyed herself by the way she's crying her eyes out!"
The brunette withdrew herself and took a step back, bowing her head awkwardly in shame. Sakura looked at her with furrowed eyebrows.
"She's just trying to lighten the mood, Ino."
The blonde stuck her nose in the air, her long ponytail dancing behind her at the motion. "Whatever…"she mumbled.
Temari didn't feel like sticking around to talk, she pushed past the other girls and headed towards the shower room, she wanted nothing more than to cleanse herself completely of her earlier actions.
Not even bothering to remove her undergarments, Temari turned the tap on full blast and allowed the water to take her to a better place. For a moment, as she felt the water brush over every inch of her tattered skin, she imagined she was back with her brothers, back in her house, with people who actually loved her. When she was there, she would often complain about her brothers, she had even told them once that she wished she didn't have to live with them. How foolish she had been, how immature, because right now, the only thing she wanted, really wanted was to see their faces again.
Gaara was her youngest brother. They had never been extremely close as siblings, but they could always go to each other whenever they had a problem, or something they just wanted to talk about. She cared deeply for him, and wondered if he was doing okay without her there to make him his tea just the way he liked it. Then there was Kankuro, the middle child, the one who really liked to grind Temari's gears. The two had never really gotten along; constantly teasing one another, one would say they had the perfect stereotypical brother/sister relationship. But when it all came down to it, they loved each other more than anything in the world, and had each other's backs no matter what. In a way, Temari guessed she was like a mother to them. Since their mother had died when they were all very young, and their father was always busy with work, she was the one who took responsibility to take care of them, and watch out for them. It seemed almost imaginable that for the past half a year they were all on their own with no one to guide them. How could they do it?
Temari turned off the tap and walked over to a wooden cupboard that was built into the wall of the shower room. She took out a towel, dried herself, took out a new pair of underwear and a new bra, discarded her old ones and put them on. Then she left the shower room, and went straight to their sleeping chamber.
It was a small room considering there were about twenty something girls who resided in the brothel. The futons were placed on the floor with only a small gap in between them. Temari went to the far side of the room, to her futon and sank to her knees, crawling under the warm blankets. She knew it was probably only around five o-clock, and she knew she would miss dinner, but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was to sleep the rest of this day away. So closing her eyes, she tried as hard as she could to think about her thoughts in the shower, but somehow Baki, and the man from earlier, and the men from the past six months kept creeping their way back into her mindset. And it took her longer to get to sleep then she wanted.
She managed to sleep the whole night until six am the next morning, when their usually wakeup call from the foreman's suck-up, a girl named Karin, interrupted her deep slumber. Cursing under her breath, along with every other girl around her, Temari dragged herself out of bed.
Breakfasts were never a part of the day anyone looked forward to here. They were crowded, the food wasn't appetizing in the least, and after breakfast came roll call. Roll call was what happened every morning, and would tell every girl what her job would be for the day. If you were lucky, your job could be to stay in and clean the residence, or file paperwork for the higher ups. But usually you were assigned to yuujo duty, in other words prostitution.
Temari sat down at the long table, a plate of soupy porridge in hand, and took the seat beside Sakura. Hinata was on the other side of her, her light blue eyes were swollen and red, most likely from spending the night crying. Tenten sat across from them, holding her spoon tightly in her hand and staring down at her own bowl of slop.
"They could at least give us some decent breakfast food..." she sighed under her breath, before raising the spoon to her lips and taking a small bite of her food. The others watched as her face scrunched up and forced it down her throat with a hard swallow. "I think they added more water this time."
"Is that even possible?" Temari asked, giving the food an experimental poke with her spoon and watched as the water rippled.
"Apparently..."
"Stupid bitch..."
The girls all looked over to see Ino stalking over to them. She slapped her plate down beside Tenten and sat on the bench, her blue eyes narrowed into slits.
"What's wrong?" Sakura asked. Ino looked at her, her expression clearly tired and annoyed.
"It's that moronic whore, Karin." she snapped, smacking the table with her hand, hard. A few other girls who were sitting beside them looked over. "She informed me a few minutes ago, that she told Baki, who told Kisame who told Nagato that I've been cutting out on my cleaning duties, so now I'm apparently put on yuujo duty today and for the rest of the foreseeable schedule." Ino was one of the lucky ones who had the privilege of staying on cleaning duties.
"Have you been cutting out?" Tenten questioned, putting her spoon down in her bowl, and pushing it away from her.
"No! Of course I haven't! She just has it out for me for some reason." Ino began shoveling her own porridge into her mouth, until that is she realized the taste and or texture and her jaw fell open, the soupy substance dropping back into the bowl.
"Charming..." Sakura mumbled.
Ino took a napkin that Tenten had lying beside her bowl and wiped fiercely at her mouth. "That is disgusting! Why do they insist on feeding us this crap? We're the ones who pull in the cash for them for kami sakes!"
Temari's eyes shifted over to Hinata who was silently looking at the raging Ino. Her eyes were slightly fearful, and she could tell that the girl felt intimidated. Temari leaned slightly over the table and smiled reassuringly at her.
"She isn't always like this," the girl slowly turned her head to look at her. "She's just bitter right now because of Karin."
Hinata nodded her head, and forced a small smile. But still, she didn't say a single word.
"Anyway, in other news, I overheard that skank talking to one of the guards. Apparently a lucky group will be on birthday duty tonight!" her enthusiasm was extremely sarcastic, and everyone could tell. Birthday duty was when a set group a girls were sent to "perform" at some low life's birthday party, or sometimes a bachelor party, or sometimes just a party in general.
Fortunately for Temari, Sakura, Tenten and Ino they had never been assigned to work a party before.
"Oh joy," Tenten said, rolling her eyes. "Hopefully our luck holds up."
After breakfast, the girls all headed to the showers. It was protocol that they had at least two showers a day, they needed to keep clean, nobody wanted an unhygienic client. Also with their morning showers came the daily pregnancy test that they each had to take. Pregnancy was a big issue at the brothel as it was completely against regulations to be fertile. If one was pregnant, immediate action had to be taken to abort it. Luckily Temari herself had never been pregnant, but she had heard from Sakura that years ago Ino had been once, and a few times she would notice random girls disappear for a few days only to return even more down than usual.
By the time all of that was done, it was time for morning roll call. All the girls stood single file in the main hall of the building, waiting to hear what their daily duty was going to be. After a few moments of waiting, four figures entered the hallway from a sliding door at the very far end. The first was Baki, who was followed closely by a skipping red headed girl, with a much too happy expression, and black rimmed glasses. Karin Uzumaki. Temari noticed Hinata who was beside her stretch her neck to see who else was coming towards them, but she already knew.
Lord Pain, and Lady Konan, two of the brothels higher ups. Temari sucked in a breath, it wasn't very often the two of them joined Baki for roll call, something must have been up. Looking around, she noticed that a few of the guards had appeared. Kisame Hoshigaki and a newer guard named Hidan were standing across from the girls, snickering and whispering to each other. For a split moment, her eyes and Hidan's met, she quickly looked away. Out of all the guards, Hidan was the one she trusted least, one reason being that he was the newest member, she wasn't used to him like she was the others, and there was just something shady about him.
Baki pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and began calling names and assigning rolls. Once the rolls were given to each individual, they would go off down the hall to a wide staircase that led to the dressing chambers. There they would have their hair done, along with their makeup and waxing, and they would also be dressed in appropriate attire.
"Matsuri Minagawa! Cleaning duty!" he shouted. Temari looked down the line of girls until her eyes landed on a young looking brunette. A look of relief washed over her face and she nodded her head and.
"Sari Ootori! Cleaning!"
Temari felt Hinata tense beside her, so she reached down and took her hand in her own, giving it a light squeeze. Hinata didn't look at her, but instead squeezed back. When it came down to Temari's group, Baki and the others stopped and for once he looked up from his list. Temari felt her heart stop in her chest as she waited for him to say what she knew he was going to. She moved her gaze to Pain and Konan; they were both staring at the group, their faces expressionless. Finally it came.
"Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka, Tenten Li, and Shabaku no Temari. You ladies are on party duty tonight." he flashed them a smile before looking down at his list again and continuing on. Karin smiled devilishly at them as well, puffing her chest out as she walked.
"Hinata Hyuuga, paperwork!"
Temari shook her head as she watched them walk away. Ino threw her hands on her hips and stomped her foot on the floor, as if she were an upset child.
"This is just perfect! I get taken from cleaning duty and thrown right into this shit. Lucky me."
"We've never been put on party duty before..." Sakura stated the obvious fact whilst hanging her head. "I don't know if I can entertain a group of guys for more than an hour..."
Tenten shrugged her shoulders. "Well it can't be that hard...I mean there's going to be four of us."
The sound of a low chuckle made the girls stop their conversation and look up. Hidan was striding over to them, an amused smile played on his lips. Temari continued to try to avoid eye contact with him.
"Well, well, ladies," his voice was loud, and sing-song. "Looks like you get to have some fun tonight." he murmured, leaning his face into the crook of Temari's neck, inhaling deeply. Temari jerked away from him as if he was coming at her with fire, her turquoise eyes finally looking at him, warning him to stay away. He laughed again and took a step backwards.
"Fuck, I thought you girls were supposed to be easy, not scary as hell."
Before anyone could say anything more, Kisame strode over to them and clamped a pale hand down on Hidan's shoulder, a large ear to ear, toothy grin plastered to his face.
"Now, now Hidan. Don't get them riled up before the big show tonight."
"Wasn't my intentions. I just wanted to congratulate them on the news."
The two guards gave the girls the same, eerie smile that once again made Hinata tense. She clutched Temari's arm with both hands and sunk behind her.
"From what I can remember, none have you been assigned to a party before." Kisame's voice was calm, but there was an edge to it that just couldn't be placed. "Have you?"
Before the girls could answer, or ignore the guards, a soft voice spoke from behind them.
"Is there a problem, Kisame, Hidan?"
The group all turned around to see Konan standing there. Her voice was quiet, and monotone, her amber eyes were fixated on the two men. They bowed their heads to her in respect, both saying no in unison.
Konan nodded her head. "Then please, be off." With that they retreated down the hallway. Once they were out of sight Konan looked at the girls, mainly Hinata.
"Ms. Hyuuga, please go to the preparation room."
Hinata hesitated for a moment, before letting go of Temari's arm and hastened down the hall, her long hair swishing behind her.
"Now," Konan began. "You girls will come with me."