Chapter 1

Here We Go Again

It was another drab and dreary day in London, and Alice couldn't have hated it more. Glaring at her mother through her lashes, a steady stream of unladylike words kept up in her head.

Oh, if she goes on about my damn stockings, I may tear her not a new head, but a new-

" Alice dear, you did wear proper attire… didn't you?" my mother inquired.

"Proper attire for what exactly Mother? Proper attire for a lady? I haven't the faintest idea how you managed to find out how a lady would dress, seeing as you know how a harlot would dress if she wanted to fuck the entire male popula-" I was interrupted by a sharp pain on my cheek. My mother had slapped me, not for the first time might I add.

"Alice! That is quite enough!" You see, my mother was a whore if I ever saw one. Before my father, who was my best friend growing up, died, she was going around sleeping with other men, anyone really, sailors, men of town, my fathers colleagues, hell, even his best man! She had absolutely no boundaries, and after my father died she began to run a fucking whore house! Sure, my fathers company didn't leave the amount of money we would have had, had he been alive to keep it running, but we had enough to survive, quite comfortably. Instead my mother opened her whore house, and guess who was on her way to be paraded around, advertised, and eventually bought- I mean "courted and married", using my "skills" my mother forced me into learning at the grand age of nine. You guessed it, me. Now she expects me to duck, suck, and fuck our way to a prestigious family, with power and money, because obviously she doesnt have enough of either. I hate my life. Now, don't read me wrong, I really try hard to not be one of those girls who hates my life because of no-good-reason, but you try to be happy while your own mother is forcing you to be a whore. Yeah, thats what i thought.

"I will not tolerate my brat speaking to me that way," my mother declared to me.

"I will not tolerate being sold to some man as a sex slave," I all but hissed to her.

"You can tolerate, and you will."

At the party, everyone knew who my mother is, who I am, and what we do, it seems. And many girls seem to be upset about it, for reasons I can't imagine. The boy, for he can't possibly be a man, I am to seduce then marry is a pasty faced son of a bitch, who is a bratty, spoiled, and stuck-up mama's boy named Hamish. I hate him in every way.

"Alice?! Ms. Kingsley? That is you, correct?" A nasally voice behind me asked. Taking a deep breathe, i faced Hamish.

"Yes Hamish, it is me. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Well, I guess my question for you, my little whore, is to what can I owe for some pleasure," Hamish tried to purr to me, while only succeeding to look like a slimy sleaze. Jeez, and I'm supposed to marry this guy?

"Well Alice, I must go, but meet me at the gazebo," he wheezed out, and the with a disgusting wink, added, "amd maybe we can go somewhere afterwards."

"Or not Hamish, and I doubt you will get what you expect at the gazebo." I hissed at him, before whirling around to storm off to the rose maze to think.

Upon entering the rose maze, explicit, vulgar sounds permeated the air. Creeping around a corner, the source of the noises were soon made apparent. My sisters husband, Lois, and one of his mistresses were groping and doing many other things, practically in public. Practically in my sisters face. Not that I cared, she had been a bitch to me since the start of the whorehouse, but I still felt for that old Margaret. Either way, I wasn't getting involved in what I felt my sister should have ended when it started, and went to walk away when i flash of white caught my eye. Was that… a rabbit? No, it couldn't be, it had been years since I've seen that rabbit… Just a trick of my imagination…

Walking away, i headed to the gazebo, prepared for anger. As I arrived, it all fell silent around me. Looking around, I found all eyes on me waiting,expecting something. Fabulous. walking up to the gazebo I thought about my answer. Would I follow my mothers dreams and become Hamish's whore, or refuse to become what they wanted of me? I know the obvious answer is no, but this is all I know. I don't know what the real world is like, and my abusive mother is all I have. I mean, sure when I was younger and my mother had first begun to hit me and force me to learn the "profession", as she called it, some of the older girls had tried to take me in, shelter me and protect me, give me some form of mothering, however my mother soon stopped that and I had to be on my own mostly.

Approaching the gazebo, I began to fear for what would happen, I still had no idea what my answer would be, nor how my mother would react.

"Alice Kingsley," Hamish began when I was standing in front of him. "Would you love to be honored to be my wife?"

Now, I'm not sure why, but when said that, "Would I love to be honored" as if it's a privalidge to be married to him, I made up my mind.

"No. No, Hamish, I would not love to be your whore, I would loathe it. There is no honor in being your wife, and I detest the fact you act as such. No, I shall not be marrying you any time in this life, or any others."

Quite pleased with myself, I sat back to watch Hamish's reaction, ignoring a strangle cry of "Alice!" from my mother. His reaction, however, was not expected at all. I simply thought he would be angry, yell maybe, which he did, but certainly not this.

"You… don't want me?" he quietly hissed to me. Unable to stop myself, I responded to him.

"It would be a curse to be tied in any way to someone like you," I smirked

"BITCH! YOU UNGRATEFUL WHORE! YOU WOULD BE BLESSED TO HAVE SOMEONE SUCH AS ME!"

With that I barely dodged the fist flying towards my face. Giving one shocked glance, I did not expect him to hit me, I turned tail and sprinted away, Hamish giving pursuit. Stumbling slightly, I took a sharp left, into the maze, and ran through corner after corner. Pausing to catchh my breathe, i strained to hear him.

"Alice dear…" a voice whispered to me, " I know you're in here… And you know I will find you… I just need to turn one more corner, and then you won't ever escape from me.

Terrified, I spied the one long, sharp thorn adorning a loose vine, and pulled it towards me. When I saw a shadow creeping closer I readied myself, and when his face peered around the corner, i jammed the thorn vine and all, into his face, catching his eye, and made one quick loop around his head with the vine. Fleeing him, I took one glance back in time to see him pulling the vine away, leaving a large gash down his eye, before hiding once again. Listening to him roar in rage I hid in bushes, desperate to stay away from him. I knew from my times in the maze, there was only one way out, and he was blocking it. As i heard his footsteps closer and closer, I slowly scooted back, deeper into the brush, when I felt myself give way.

In that one moment, just before you fall, you see your regrets, what you wish you would've done to help others, you dwell on the way your life was horrible, and feel guit for not trying to do more and make your life better. In that one moment, you feel fear, from uncertainty of what will happen, fear it will not turn out good.

As I tipped back, back, back, I felt no guilt. When I felt myself leave the ground,and realize this was no normal hole, I felt no regret. When I was caught up in that moment just before I fell far down, I felt no fear.

I felt exhilarated.