A/N: Samantha has returned from the manhouse feeling anxious...

Bought And Sold (Chapter 8: A Light In The Darkness) by frostygossamer

All through her classes the next day, Samantha's thoughts constantly went back to her trip to Plucky's manhouse. She wondered if the little she had admitted to that dubious guy Smith might have been too much. Could she trust a guy like him? A hooker? A criminal? Then again, wasn't it part of a whore's job to keep their client's secrets? Or was that some sort of romantic cliché?

What if Ruby went back there? Samantha was sure she would. She had enjoyed herself the last time with that guy Jay. What if she chose Smith next time? What if he talked about Samantha? Laughed about her? If Ruby even found out they hadn't actually had sex she might guess something was screwy. That could NOT happen.

By the end of the school day, Samantha had worked herself into a stew. She decided she really had to see Smith again, to put her mind at rest.

So, early that evening, she made her way to the little back lane where Plucky's was hidden away. She hesitated for a moment or two in the alley outside before entering and approaching the mister. He was sitting behind the little reception desk leafing idly through a questionable magazine.

"I, uh, I was hoping I could... Last night I was with one of your..." she stammered. "His, uh, name was Smith."

The mister grinned widely, his gold fillings glinting in the sparkly electric lights.

"Smith, missus? Certainly," he immediately responded. "I'll call him right away, missus," and he clapped his hands.

When a small skinny boy appeared, the mister sent him to bring Smith out at once. A second later the young guy came out to the reception area, hastily pulling on his 'costume' like he had been interrupted in his downtime.

Samantha tried a little nervous smile, which only resulted in a bowed head from Smith. He led her to the room they had used the night before and closed the door behind them, leaning on it. Once inside he relaxed, a faint smirk playing across his face.

"You again," he began pleasantly. "Come to claim the lay I owe you from last night, huh?"

Samantha wasn't sure if she was pleased or upset that he seemed to recognize her so quickly. She had hoped these guys would have developed a professional amnesia for client's faces.

"No." She shook her head. "It's not that. Needed to ask you something, is all."

"Oh?" responded Smith, sitting on the bed and crossing his legs under him. "Ask me what?"

Samantha paced the room a few turns, unsure of how to explain her fears.

"It's... What we talked about last night. You, uh, you wouldn't repeat it to anyone, would you?"

"What?" Smith asked, confused and searching his memory. "That you didn't use your real name? Could care less about that. Who uses their real name in a manhouse anyways?"

Samantha sighed and sat down on the foot of the bed.

"It's not only that," she said quietly. "You said you could tell I was kinda different. And I am. Got a secret and I could get in a whole lotta trouble if it got out."

She paused, not sure if she wasn't digging herself deeper into the hole she was in.

Smith studied her silently for a moment, then he suddenly said, "You're a guy," like that.

Samantha gasped. "How did you know?" she demanded, now feeling painfully transparent.

"Didn't," Smith answered, smirking. "Until now. Educated guess maybe? This line of work, you gotta learn to read people."

Samantha's heart shrank a little. The cat was out of the bag. She may as well come clean and hope she could swear the guy to silence. She exhaled resignedly. Perching on the bed closer to Smith, she looked straight in his eyes, her own hazel eyes pleading for his sympathy.

"I, uh, I go to school, here in the city. Obviously a college education isn't for males. I live as a female. It's been freakin' hard."

"I'll bet," Smith commented, laughing. "But you're doing an awesome job."

Samantha felt oddly flattered that he should say that.

She chuckled. "Do my best. But try running in high heels when you top six feet four."

They both laughed until their laughter turned sad, then Smith smiled gently and patted Samantha's hand.

"Won't tell a soul. I swear." He crossed his heart. "Whore's like a priest. Secrets of the confessional, yeah? Know how to keep my mouth shut," and he made a zipping the lips gesture.

Samantha smiled, a little relieved. "Thanks," she said.

There was something about this guy, she couldn't say what it was, made her feel he could be trusted.

"It's OK, Samantha," Smith assured her, squeezing her hand, his eyes seeking hers again. "Your secret's safe with me. Got no reason to snitch on you."

For some reason Samantha found she had to believe the sincerity in those eyes.

~o~

Much later, in the early hours before dawn, when the last lady-client of the day had gone, Smith's room was finally his own. A blistering hot shower had restored a little of his self-respect and he felt more like himself again.

Smith was the most popular piece of goods at Plucky's after Vic, the brawny black guy built like a barn door who had been a boxing hopeful before he lost too many fights. The difference was Vic kind of enjoyed his work. Smith hated every moment of it.

It wasn't that the work was hard. It had been a long time since he had failed to perform what was expected of him, even with the most unappealing client. It was just that it was so impersonal, automatonlike, joyless. Any pleasure that he might have once had from the act of sex had long since vanished, to be replaced with the depressing certainty that this was all his life was worth.

Every day at the manhouse was the same. Every night the procession of ladies he had pleasured that day faded into nothing more than an unpleasant jumble in his mind. But that night it was different. One face stood out from the crowd. Only one. Samantha's.

He opened the little drawer in his nightstand and reached past the big box of fancy condoms, props for the clients' enjoyment. All the guys in Plucky's manhouse had been chemically sterilized anyways.

His searching fingers closed around the little token safely hidden from prying eyes in back.

"Well, baby bro," he told the amulet. "Reckon maybe I made a friend today. Only hope I see her, uh, him again. Could use someone to talk to, besides you. Someone who can talk back for a change."

He looped the cord carrying the little token around his neck, as he did every night, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

~o~

After leaving Smith, Samantha returned to her dorm room feeling strangely buoyant. A weight had lifted off of her athletically broad shoulders when she had shared her secret with another soul. She should have been worried but, strangely, she somehow sensed Smith was the ONE person who could understand her predicament and not judge her. After all they were both living a precarious life outside the law. They could both be run in by the police anytime. They were both miscreants, deviants, degenerates, according to the state.

It was ridiculous really that for a few dollars she had been finally able to unburden herself, unburden herself of a secret she had shared only with two other people, her father and her teacher. Sadly, John had passed away the previous year from consumption, a result of his unhealthy working conditions. Missouri Mosley, the unorthodox teacher who had first proposed they pass off her most promising boy pupil as a beribboned schoolgirl, was now in a nursing home following a stroke. For so long Samantha had had to bear her secret alone. It had felt so good to just fess up to someone, anyone.

It was lonely, living a fake life, hiding her true self from everyone. So Samantha began to frequent Plucky's, once or twice every week, to visit with Smith and spend a little time together simply talking. She found she could just afford it from the bit of spare cash she made tutoring a few of the weaker students. The two of them gradually developed a tentative friendship, as much as a whore can be friends with his client. They talked about all sorts of things, but they were both reluctant to speak about their unhappy pasts.

"Where'd you come from?" Smith asked Samantha one day, after they had known each other for a couple months. "I mean, where'd you grow up. In the city?"

Samantha smiled, remembering her childhood in Lawren, which now seemed so far-off, like it had happened to someone else.

"Grew up in a little nowhere place in the boonies. You wouldn't know it," she recalled sadly. "My mom died when I was only a baby. Left us without a head of the family. We had almost nothing to live on. Dad took in mending and such, but he was only a guy. He could barely support two growing kids on a man's pittance."

"Two?" Smith asked. "You had a sister? Or a brother?"

"A brother," Samantha answered. "But he left the USA for the UQ before I even went to school. Never heard a peep from him since. Guess he forgot about me."

"Harsh," commented Smith.

"Dad didn't have the money to send both of us to school. But, after my brother left, he somehow scraped together enough to send me to elementary school. Missus Mosley's Elementary School. I was her star pupil."

Smith chuckled. "Her star pupil a non-girl, huh? Musta really pissed her off."

Samantha shook her head. "Actually, Missus Mosley was kinduva liberal. She believed in coeducation. Shocking, huh? She'd actually marched for opening up college to male students when she was younger."

"Way to go, sister!" Smith cheered, sarcastically.

Naturally, women who agitated for masculine rights were considered eccentric or subversive, even by most males.

"It was Missus Mosley who came up with the plan," Samantha went on.

"The plan?" queried Smith.

"The plan to dress me as a girl, get me false papers. So I could enrol in college as a freshwoman."

"Amazing," commented Smith. He had never heard of such a thing before. "You mean this is not about passing for female? Reckoned you kinda... liked it, you know. The dresses, the underwear..."

Smith had assumed that Samantha was merely some kind of transvestite or transsexual. Not that there was anything 'mere' about it. Trans-anything-ism was considered a very grave crime against the state. No way could any man EVER be allowed to mimic womankind. Many thought it could destabilize the government.

"No, no," Sam insisted. "This was always ALL about college. Had to get into college for Dad. Needed to become all I could be."

"Well you sure did that," Smith had to agree.

Thinking about her late father again made Samantha's heart feel profoundly heavy.

"Dad was SO proud of me, getting that scholarship," she murmured. "Guess my brother would be too. If he ever thinks of me."

That thought, that brothers could forget each other, made Smith feel a little angry.

"If I had me a little brother I could NEVER forget about him," he snapped.

Samantha sighed. "Can't blame him. Guess he had to go try and find his fortune. Hope he found it. Shame dad had to pass without seeing him again. Couldn't even write him the bad news."

Smith turned and glanced at his nightstand, silently pledging his amulet that, unlike Samantha's jerk of a brother, HE would never forget those HE loved.

They were all that kept him going.

TBC

A/N: They haven't worked it out yet, and they won't for a while longer. More soon.