A/N: Slightly longer chapter this time. N.B. I'm changing the rating to M now, just in case. But don't worry. It's never going to get too graphic. That isn't my thing.
A/N: Looks like Dean's journey is over, huh? So now we switch to Samantha's story. How is 'she' doing at University? Can 'she' keep 'her' cover intact?
Bought And Sold (Chapter 7: A Close Encounter) by frostygossamer
On the face of it, Samantha Winchester was a normal enough college girl. A 'full ride' scholarship student from a dirt-poor town in the sticks, she had spent the past two years working damn hard to get herself some excellent grades. She kept her nose impeccably clean all the while, and was known throughout her sorority as an unusually dedicated and somewhat boring scholar.
It was evening and she was sitting at her desk in her dormitory room as usual, poring over textbooks as she worked on an essay for law class.
Her best friend Jessica stopped in her doorway. Samantha had buddied up with the blonde on her first day at school, and they had soon become besties. The sweet and feminine Jess had soon devoted herself to helping out the gauche country girl, with her lack of natural grace and dress sense.
"Burning the midnight oil again, Samantha?" Jess asked, playfully. "We're all going bowling. Wanna come?"
Samantha looked up from her page and smiled. "Gotta finish this one assignment," she said.
Jess grinned. "Well, don't you work too hard," she said, laughing as she turned away.
Samantha chuckled as she returned her attention to her books. Her friend Jess was such a popular girl and always trying to get her involved in the college's social scene. But Samantha had more important things in mind, such as getting an A+ for this assignment. Still, if everyone was going out, at least she would get some peace to finish her work.
Ten minutes later, however, Samantha was interrupted again. This time by Ruby, a transfer student who had only joined the sorority after New Year's and straight away had latched onto Jess's little clique. The dark-haired female wasn't a good girl like Jessica. Ruby liked to party. And, worse than that, she was a gossip. So, naturally, Samantha had to watch herself around her.
Ruby was the one Samantha had most to worry about in the whole sorority. Ruby wasn't the kind of gal to take things on face value. She liked to get to the bottom of a mystery. And she noticed things. Jeez, why did that woman have to be so damn snoopy?
"You still working on that dumb report?" Ruby asked, leaning on the doorjamb lazily, as she examined her perfect, polished black nails, a Cheshire cat smile on her face. "Sure LURVE to study. Doncha, Sami?"
Samantha faked a smile. She didn't like Ruby using that nickname. It reminded her too much of her old life. But she so didn't need to get on the wrong side of someone like Ruby by making a fuss.
"Wanna do it justice, Ruby. Really gotta up my grades this semester."
Ruby shook her head. "All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl," she reminded her. "You really need to have more fun."
No one could fault Samantha's single-minded ambition to qualify as a lawyer. She had sacrificed more than anyone could ever know. All because she was determined that, one day, she would do her bit to change the archaic and unfair chauvinist legislation of her native country, 'Columbia, Land of the Free Woman'.
When Samantha turned back to her book, Ruby sashayed over and closed the open tome with a slam. She stood behind her, placing her hands on Samantha's unfemininely chunky shoulders.
"Nuh-uh, Sami," she admonished. "You and me are gonna go out and get us a few beers. It's Friday night. Homework can wait. OK?"
Samantha sighed. She knew what Ruby could be like when she had made up her mind about something. She wasn't going to leave the bookworm in peace. Samantha might as well go along with whatever she had in mind. The work could wait a couple hours, she guessed.
"So, where're we gonna go?" Samantha asked. She hoped Ruby wasn't thinking of anyplace loud.
Ruby's face lit up. "Just a couple drinks," she said. "C'mon, Sami. Get your war paint on. Girl, we're gonna hit the town."
~o~
The United States of Columbia was a forward-thinking nation run by women, because women were obviously the superior sex. Men, their weaker counterparts, inferior because they couldn't bear children and had feeble brains incapable of performing more than one task at a time, were downtrodden and unrepresented. Naturally, Samantha didn't agree with the unjust status quo.
She was a liberal, an unpopular attitude amongst the wealthy classes who sent their daughters to university. But it was not so strange amongst the lowly denizens of the poorer provincial villages, like the one where her destitute widowed father, had struggled to raise her. Out in the backwoods, both sexes had to pull together to survive.
Her dad, John, had given up so much so she could get a college education. She meant to do him proud. That was why she resented being dragged out to 'have fun' when she could have been studying. Especially when what Ruby had called a couple drinks turned into something of a bar crawl. Ruby was surprised to find, though not normally a drinker, Samantha had a surprisingly high alcohol tolerance for a woman.
When Ruby had finally given up trying to get her friend smashed and Samantha was ready to call it a night, Ruby decided she needed to up the level of fun.
"Sami, Sami," she chuckled. "Always so uptight. Honey, when was the last time you got laid, huh?"
Samantha flinched, her mind racing. She had to be careful answering a question like that. What should she say? Make up a colourful love-life? Or tell the truth? That she had never 'gotten laid'. Well, she probably never would, given her circumstances, but she couldn't let Ruby know that.
"There are more important things than sex, Ruby," she grumbled. "I'm freakin' tired. Why don't we go back to the dorm. Get some shuteye?"
Ruby shook her head. "Sami, I do believe I've hit on the problem right there. I'm guessing that you've never used a guy yet. Never have seen you with one."
Samantha tried not to cringe at that observation. She had hoped her fellow students would have put her lack of interest in the 'opposite' sex down to her being a nerd first and foremost.
Ruby laughed her wickedest laugh. "You really gotta let your lovely hair down and get yourself some shirt, honey. Doncha worry. Aunt Ruby's gonna fix that for you. C'mon, Sami. I'm gonna show you what a good time feels like."
That was how they ended up outside of a shady backstreet manhouse, 'Plucky's House of Fun', a place where a woman client could purchase the services of any man-whore that took their fancy for a sum of cash. Technically manhouses were illegal, but generally the local police turned a blind eye, as long as they received their cut of the take. Corruption was rife throughout the USC, mainly because female-led institutions strove for mutually beneficial cooperation rather than what was seen as 'caveman' competition.
"Seriously? A manhouse? Ruby, what are we even doing here?" Samantha groaned.
Ruby chuckled at her friend's discomfort. "Best place for your first time, Sami," she pronounced. "These boys know how to take good care of an inexperienced lady."
It was probably the LAST place in the world Samantha wanted to find herself, but she really had to be SO careful not to arouse Ruby's suspicions. Ruby had a way of putting her in a place where she had no alternative but to go along, because protesting would draw attention. She really did not need Ruby's attention drawn.
Samantha was going to have to grit her teeth and bluff her way through.
~o~
The seedy reception area of the manhouse consisted of a little counter and a tiny bar in a dingy room decorated with multicolour string lights. The mister behind the desk was an middle-aged guy with a paunch. Once he might have been handsome, but age and ill-use had caused his features to sag into a sour expression.
Samantha figured she would wait at the bar until Ruby had finished with her hooker and then go. But Ruby would have none of that. She insisted on choosing Samantha a guy.
After a whispered conversation with the mister, Ruby commanded, "C'mon. Let's see the merchandise!"
The guy clapped his hands twice and a half-dozen man-whores filed into the room. They were all decked out in butt-hugging short pants and skimpy, see-through shirts. Their expressions were anything but enthusiastic, their eyes cast down submissively. They lined up in a row, arms at their sides, waiting to be appraised, like livestock at a cattle market.
Ruby sidled along the line of possibles, brazenly checking out each guy's muscles and his, ahem, package. She tipped up each guy's chin with one finger and smirked in their faces, before picking out a couple guys she approved of.
"Between these two hotties, I'd say," she pronounced, indicating the two tallest guys in the line. "Big guys for my big girlfriend."
Samantha sighed deeply. She was going to have to pretend to go through with this thing. Hopefully the working-boy would have the tact to take her money and say nothing about her sitting this one out.
She walked over to the guys and made a show of giving them a once-over. It didn't really matter which she chose, but for some reason she felt like she should pick the handsomer guy. It was a petty payback on Ruby, taking the best guy for herself.
The one she chose looked like being the older of the two, a couple inches shy of her height and nicely built. She stared in his face and, surprisingly, he met her gaze almost defiantly. She suddenly felt there was something... simpatico about the guy. She really couldn't say why.
She put a hand on his arm. "This guy'll do, I guess," she said.
Ruby grinned, rubbing up against the other big guy.
"Then I guess YOU get lucky tonight, gorgeous," she snickered, slapping him on the butt.
She dragged him out of the line with a firm grip on his wrist. He followed submissively, used to this degrading treatment. Without a word, the two working-guys led the ladies down a short, dimly lit corridor into two small bedrooms at the back of the building.
~o~
The shabby room Samantha found herself in had little in it but a bed. The hooker closed the door behind them and began to strip off his flimsy clothing. Samantha started to panic.
"No," she yelped. "It's OK. You don't have to do that."
The guy stopped what he was doing. "Wanna undress me yourself, missus?" he asked.
Samantha shook her head. "No. No, I- I, uh, wanna talk, is all. Nothing more."
"You wanna TALK?" he repeated warily.
He had had talkers before, often religious nutjobs trying to 'save his soul'. Those he could do without.
"How much to talk?" she quickly asked.
The guy sighed. "Same," he answered. "Same whether you want it or not. Still gotta pay the going rate for my time. Not doing this for fun, missus."
Samantha chuckled nervously. "That's OK. I, uh, I'm only here because my, uh, friend wanted to come. Didn't want... Don't want..."
The hooker stared at her for a moment, then he visibly relaxed and flopped down on the bed, shrugging his shirt back on.
"Sure, I can talk," he said. "Whatever blows your skirt up. ...Missus."
Samantha perched gingerly on the end of the bed.
"My friend kinda dared me to do this," she explained. "Because I never..."
"Ah," responded the guy, a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "It's that way. I see."
He knew that scenario pretty well. The nervous virgin is brought in by her friends to lose her cherry to a pro. It happened.
Samantha glanced at him and smiled.
"Funny, huh? Me still inexperienced at my age?" she said. "But I got my reasons."
"Sure you have," he replied, looking Samantha up and down. "You're kinda... different."
Samantha inhaled sharply. What did he mean? Was he simply suggesting she was some kind of freak, or had he guessed something? She imagined that a guy in his profession would have seen all sorts. She wondered what he would say if he only knew her secret.
"I'm not a lesbian," Samantha said quickly. "It's not that."
She knew people had suspected her of that before. Female homosexuality was illegal in the USC, because it was commonly believed lesbians were anti-motherhood. Giving birth was one of the things that made women superior to men, what the USC Constitution was based on.
The law was very strict about all kinds of what was seen as 'deviant' morality. Even, well, even Samantha had to be very careful just BEING herself, not actually DOING anything at all. She had to play her cards very close to her chest, and she had been doing it so long it had gotten automatic.
The guy chuckled and shifted to sit more comfortably, plumping the pillows of his bed.
"Don't matter none to me if you are," he commented. "Seen a lot worse."
"I'll bet you have," thought Samantha.
She imagined he got to deal with more than his share of aggressively hormone-fuelled she-women.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Samantha nervously checked her watch. The guy noticed.
"Ten minutes oughta do it," he chuckled. "Knowing Jay. He gets right down to business."
Jay? The other guy's name was Jay? She hadn't thought about them having names. She looked at the young guy in front of her curiously.
"What's your name? I mean, what can I call you?" she asked, for something to say.
The guy snorted. "They call me Smith," he said. "Not my real name."
Samantha nodded. Like strippers and other 'adult entertainers', these guys had working names for their clients' use.
"Of course," she remarked. "They call me Samantha... Also not my real name."
Smith smiled, more genuinely this time. "Hello, Samantha," he said.
"Hello, Smith," Samantha replied.
They filled in a little time talking about impersonal things like the weather, until Smith reckoned that they had wasted long enough to fool Ruby, then Samantha left.
She met up with her friend in the lobby. As she reached for her purse, Ruby stopped her.
"Already taken care of," the smaller woman told her. "Have fun?" she asked, grinning dirtily. "I sure did."
Samantha nodded. "Yes," she answered, awkwardly. "It was... fine... OK."
They started for home, Ruby shaking her head in disbelief at Samantha's lack of enthusiasm.
"You are one strange woman, Sami," she remarked, unaware of the irony of that comment.
"If you only knew the half of it," thought Samantha, praying that she never would.
TBC
A/N: So Samantha has made friends: one nice, one naughty. And then there's Smith? Next chapter coming soon.