Selia Ch. 01

E N J O Y! <3

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The city of Aerum had been host to many strange things over the course of its history. It was home to many inventions, the first light bulb, the first telephone, just recently the first car was produced as well. However, one of the things that separated it from most of the other nations in the continent of Allus was its open acceptance of sex work.

Political and social scandals involving whorehouses and mistresses and everything else that makes up the plots of trashy stage plays was common. At some point, those in power decided that maybe if such a thing was normalized, they'd suffer less time in people's morning gossip.

So, sex work became legal as early as 2211 (A.E.). Rich men could tell their wives to stay home, cook up a meal, and watch the kids or a while as they freely went to their nearest brothel to bust a quick nut. In that way, Aerum was a fairly liberal place when it came to sex.

Only in that way though.

Anyway, one of these places where men could spend a few royals for a few hours of awkward fucking was the Black Rose. It was a small brothel placed strategically next to the intercontinental railroad, a steam-train system that could take immigrants, travelers, tourists, and workers to all of the five nations in just a matter of, at most, a few days.

Its positioning was one of the reasons that this small place was allowed to thrive. Knights, couriers, merchants, dukes, and governors alike tended to stop for at least a day there, wet their dicks, and get back to work as if nothing happened. It didn't look all that impressive, it was a red-colored building with just two floors that hugged a nearby blacksmith's shop.

Inside, the manager of the business was on the phone with a potential customer, sighing and facepalming as a scantily-clad girl passed her by. The manager was a basic looking woman, dressed in a dark blue business suit with thin glasses and a bored expression.

"No, no. That's not how it works. You can't take one of our girls as your wife."

The manager mumbled "you dumbass" under her breath as the man on the other end of the phone simply couldn't (or maybe refused to) understand that this business wasn't about selling off girls for the rest of their lives.

"Listen, if your wife kicked you out that's nothing we can really do anything about. Yes," she said as the man interrupted her, "yes, yes. We are aware that she got mad at you for seeking our services without consulting her. Yet, I maintain that that is your fault and no one else's. The Black Rose does not take responsibi-, sir, sir. As I was saying, The Black Rose does not take responsibility for any marital or social problems caused by our services. That is all. Have a good day."

She hung up as the man yelled something out, and as soon as his voice was cut off she leaned back and exhaled deeply.

"Fuck, why are these guys so dumb?" She asked no one, but a girl responded.

"Met another great guy?" She looked to her left and found a glass of cold water held out to her. The person holding it was Lily, a dark-skinned girl who had just started working here a little while ago. She'd only had a few customers and most of her appointments had ended amicably, thankfully. The other girls at the business loved her, she was kind and easygoing with an endearing personality.

She was the youngest of them, at just twenty-years-old. It was a fact that made the manager want to protect her.

"Yeah, yeah. I don't know how you do it." The manager replied and Lily chuckled. The sex worker placed a hand on the manager's shoulder and smiled.

"Usually, men's vocabularies tend to take a hit when they're fucking. You'd be surprised how little variety there is in the bedroom."

"I'll take your word for it." The manager smiled back. She took a sip and the water sliding down her throat felt heavenly.

She looked back at Lily and for a moment, she understood why she'd experienced such instant success. The girl was gorgeous. Her breasts were large and plump, her legs were firm. Her hair was black and bobbed in a way that made her look like a maid of some sort.

"You working today?" The manager asked. It was around 5 in the evening.

"Not yet. Cass hasn't given me anything."

"Ah, okay. So, you came to spend some time with the least sexy girl in the building?" The manager asked light-heartedly.

"Yep, figured I'd brighten your day up a little."

"Ouch." The manager laughed as Lily smiled and turned around, ready to head back to the girl's room.

Before Lily could return to the worker's lounge, the door where she'd come from opened. A stern-looking middle-aged woman walked out. The manager quickly set aside the bit of paperwork she had on her desk to focus as much as she could on answering her boss's questions.

"How many appointments?" The boss asked.

"Just three. Veronica, Phillipa, and Cara." The manager replied and the boss tapped her index finger on her chin a few times.

"Alright. Looks like there won't be much work today."

"Hm." The manager hummed as she looked at the Black Rose's records. She narrowed her brows. "We could use a few customers though."

"Our records shouldn't look that bad." The boss responded. She rounded the desk and hovered above the manager.

"Nothing to be too concerned about, but we haven't gotten many people today."

"Huh... Maybe some monster attacks on the roads delayed a few of them?"

"Maybe." The manager shrugged. The boss shook her head and walked up to Lily.

"How was your last session?" She asked. Lily blushed. For a prostitute, she was still fairly shy when it came to talking about sex.

"It was fine."

"The man didn't go too far or anything?"

"Nah," Lily said with a shake of her head.

"Good." The boss nodded. "Let me know if you have any trouble, I know how hard it can be to get started in this business."

It wasn't a secret that the boss herself had started off as just another worker a little over a decade ago.

"Sil," she called out to the manager, "bring me those papers, I want to see them for myself."

"Yes, ma'am." The manager quickly organized them into a small folder and stood to follow her. This meant she had to go into the Lounge Room, something that made her heart beat a little faster. She rarely had a reason to head in there.

For a moment she looked at the front of the establishment worried about potential customers, but the front door had a small bell on it, so if someone walked inside she'd know. Lily followed behind them.

As soon as she stepped inside, she got the sense that she'd walked into a different world. There were just seven girls, with Lily being the eighth. Three of them were at the back talking amongst themselves while four were near the door, playing some kind of dice game while vinyl was playing in the background. They were all dressed in barely anything, ready to present themselves to any potential customers who walked inside. It was truthfully a small party that she never got to be a part of. It felt strange working such a monotone job while this was happening just a room away.

"Oh, hey Sil." One of the girls called out to her.

"Hey!" One by one each of them greeted her. She blushed a little and waved back.

A few seconds later, Lily had joined the other workers and it was just the manager and the boss in the latter's room.

"Hm... Okay. I'll go over all of this later."

"I'll get back to..."

The bell rung. Both women's heads snapped in the direction of the other room.

"Oh." The boss said. "Check him in. Maybe work is about to pick up."

"Of course." The manager half-bowed and turned to walk back to her desk.

She had been expecting to find the same, usual, kind of customer. Somewhat out of shape, maybe a little balding, maybe a thin mustache. That sort of thing. She wasn't judging them, definitely. After all, it only made sense that those were the kind of people who would seek a service like this. It was pretty much only once every couple of weeks that the Rose would get a man that could be defined as conventionally attractive as a customer.

She didn't see this coming at all.

There was no man here. Instead, as she walked out of the Lounge she froze. There was a woman standing there, tapping her foot against the floor rhythmically as she looked down at her watch.

One glance was enough to understand many different things about this woman. Firstly, she was certainly wealthy. A gold necklace, black suede gloves, a black purse, and a dress that hugged her figure tightly of the same color. And, wow, what a figure that was. Her breasts were just slightly bigger than the manager's own, big enough to give some of the girls in the room behind her a bit of competition. Her body showed an hourglass shape and the dress accentuated her plump thighs.

The most important thing she could see though was the tattoo on her wrist. A black vine that swirled around her wrist, up to her elbow.

This woman was a sorceress. That tattoo was a fairly well-known mark belonging to one of the three major mage houses. The house of Nilsium, famous for its proficiency in the arts of alchemy and alteration. It was a house that was from one of the northern cities, so maybe she was a tourist?

When the woman's dark blue eyes fell on her, the manager shook her head, remembering that she was an employee.

"Ma'am, if you'd like to file a complaint please do so over the phone." The manager quickly said. Whenever women came here, it was never good. Pretty much 99% of the time they came to complain about their husbands buying the service behind their backs.

The woman laughed. Her voice was sultry, confident.

"No, no. I'm afraid you're misunderstanding." She took a few steps closer and reached for a pouch of coins from her purse. "I am here as a customer, my dear."

...

The manager had worked here for quite a long time. 3 years, in fact. This was the first time she'd heard this.

"But..." She gulped. "You're a woman."

"Hm? Yes?" The woman looked confused.

"But you're here as a customer?"

She giggled. A sound that felt far too childish for her mature look.

"Yes, dear. I am here as a customer. For sex, if you need me to be that specific."

"Uh... Okay, give me a second." The manager spun and walked straight to the boss's room. She asked her to come and the boss did so without question. When the pair emerged, the woman's blue eyes roamed up to meet them.

"Ugh." The boss facepalmed. "Lady, if your husband..."

"No." She quickly put her hand up. "I am not here on behalf of anyone else. I am here as a customer." She said with a smirk.

"Y-Yeah." The manager continued. "That's why I brought you here." She said in a whisper. "What do we do?"

"A female customer?" The boss scratched her head. "You know we have no male workers, right?"

"Mhm. Quite clear on that."

"Has this happened before?" The manager asked.

"Ah, a few times, I guess. I forgot it was a possibility."

The manager blinked. A woman who was interested in purchasing the sexual services of another woman. She was stunned.

"How much is it?" The woman asked.

"Thirty royals per hour." The boss recited the rules robotically, from memory. "You can do anything with her for the time that she's with you, but hurting her at all is punishable by law."

"Alright, how many hours?"

"As many as you can pay for, but most customers go for two or three."

"Okay, I will take two hours."

"That's sixty royals then."

The woman reached for the coins with one elegant hand and dropped them on the boss's palm with one fluid motion. The manager took a step back. There was something about the way her eyes held others in her vision that made her feel... Prominent. Almost regal.

"Excuse me, what's your name?" The manager asked, reaching for her pen so she could record the information.

"Selia."

"Well, come." The boss beckoned the woman to the Lounge. The manager quickly scribbled her name, the time, and the number of royals she paid. Then, out of sheer curiosity, she followed them into the Lounge.

"Take your pick." The boss stated and the woman took a step closer. The girls, who were all laughing and talking amongst themselves, turned to look at them.

"Oh? Did we hire someone?" Veronica, a redhead with the most freckles the manager had seen on a girl, looked up with a mischievous expression. One that turned to instant confusion when the boss continued.

"No, she's a customer."

There was a silence in the room. Cara, a blonde northerner and definitely the tallest of the bunch, scratched her head and said:

"Oh? Seriously?"

"Yes." The boss sighed and turned toward Selia. "Take your pick."

"Hm..."

Selia walked up to the girl closest to them, Amy, a short bubbly type. Looking up at Selia with her large brown eyes and a hundred questions circling inside of them. The black-haired woman placed a hand under the girl's chin, tilting her head up. Amy flinched. If the woman noticed, she showed no sign of it.

"Ehm... Not her. At least, not today." She winked and the manager felt her own temperature go up, she could only imagine how Amy felt.

Selia paced through the room with a cheery kind of energy.

But, she didn't pick any of the girls there. For a second, both the manager and the boss started to suspect that Selia was just messing with them, but she had paid so...

"Ah, I made my choice." Selia indicated and spun to face them. Then, she lifted one black-covered finger and aimed it at... "Her."

Lily blinked. The manager did a double-take and stepped up to object, but the boss voiced her own concerns first.

"She's the least experienced out of all of them." The boss declared. "I don't think you'd want her."

"Hm..." Selia walked up to Lily. She placed her index finger under her right breast, poking it softly before cupping the whole thing and giving it a squeeze. "No, I'm fairly certain."

There was a silence.

"Very well then." The boss said. Lily blinked again.

"What? B-But..."

"Don't worry." The boss placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's nothing too strange."

The manager thought to herself "how do you know?" but didn't say anything.

"Are you..." Before Lily could finish her question, Selia interrupted her.

"You'll come back in one piece, do not be concerned," she paused before continuing with a smirk, "one fairly wet piece, but still whole."

The manager's eyes popped out of their sockets almost. She hadn't even heard men be that lewd at the establishment itself. Most of them had the decency to wait till they left to start being horny messes.

"Come, I have work to do later. Let's go."

And, with not even a goodbye, Selia dragged Lily out of there. Everyone in the Lounge just watched, baffled as to what they'd just witnessed.

--

*Half an hour later*

The walk to the strange woman's house hadn't been too taxing. She lived just a twenty-minute walk away from the brothel. Or, rather, she was staying that far away. Apparently, she was some kind of tourist. The streets of Aerum seemed to open themselves in front of her, people, whether they were knights, nobles or peasants, paced away from her as soon as they saw the woman.

Lily knew why. That tattoo on her wrist. Mages were not a common thing in Aerum, for the most part, only around one in one hundred people even had mana. Of that fraction, only a few of them ever sought to hone their natural abilities. So, seeing an accomplished mage was no small thing. Even at her young age, Lily knew that.

They passed a few taverns, some carriages rolled along on the street next to them, some of them followed by those new "cars" the northerners had invented. Selia didn't spare any of it a glance. Lily imagined that to a mage, ironically, nothing seemed magical.

Her hotel was... Decent. It wasn't the gaudiest, but Lily wouldn't bash anyone from staying there. It was strange, Selia was clearly wealthy, but she chose to stay here?

Selia didn't say a thing to her the entire walk. All Lily had to pass the time with was think. Mostly, she thought about the fact that she'd heard about women like this, "lesbians", but she'd never met one. What exactly was this going to be like? Would she touch her the same way a man did? Would she be as inconsiderate? Would she be... Softer?

The woman checked in at the front while Lily looked around. She tried to make herself as small as possible. Everyone around her knew what she was with one glance, after all, she was barely even dressed. Sure, it was normal, at least that's what the boss said, but Lily had trouble internalizing that.

Before Lily could continue her pondering, they arrived at Selia's room. The mage opened the door and stepped inside, Lily followed. She gasped. It was a small space, but there was quite a bit packed inside. Potions on a table to the right, glowing in the dim light. Different animals' body parts on a table to the left with knives and some stranger tools lying beside them. Finally, there was a bed in front of them with rose sheets.

Lily had no idea what to make of things. She hoped she wasn't about to end up on some newspaper.

"Come in, sorry if things appear unseemly." She gestured at the parts Lily was looking at. "I'm running some experiments for the house of Nilsium. I hope you can ignore those."

"S-Sure."

"... Oh." She turned to Lily with a smile. "You're scared?"

"Well, yeah, no shit." Lily chuckled.

Selia laughed with her and gestured for her to walk forward.

"Trust me, when you leave this room you will be begging to be let back in," Selia muttered as she walked over to one of the potions. "But, first, here. Drink this."

"Wow. A customer asking me to drink strange things I know nothing about. That's a first." Lily joked around nervously while Selia handed her a flask filled with a red liquid.

Well, she was being paid well. Maybe if she went missing the people downstairs would remember she went up here.

WIth a few gulps, she downed the liquid.

Instantly, she felt something about her body change. She could distinguish everything that was touching her more vividly. The cold of the floor, the air hitting her skin from the windows, the vanilla scent in the air clashing with the iron-like smell of the things to the left. It was all there, suddenly, when it hadn't been.

"What did that do?"

"It heightened your senses. All of them except your hearing and eyesight."

"Oh, okay. Why did you give me that?"

Selia smirked and slowly dragged Lily to the bed.

"Let's find out. Close your eyes." Selia told her and Lily paused before giving a nod.

The world went black as she obliged. A spark of curiosity started to spread throughout her body. That spark culminated into an explosion of cold pleasure when she felt what seemed like a pair of soft lips press against her neck.

She got goosebumps. The lips on her neck parted and an even colder tongue slid over her dark skin and her legs clenched. Selia pushed her down so that she was now resting her back on the bed entirely and those lips kept caressing her.

They traced a path up and then, they came into contact with her own. They were kissing. She was kissing another woman! Not only that, but her heightened senses made everything feel that much stronger. The woman's lips and tongue tasted a little sweet, the cotton beneath her felt soft, the mage's hands starting to squeeze her breasts instantly made her wet.

"Wait, what?" She thought as she honed in on that. That warmth between her legs. "How is this..."

The kiss lasted a minute more and ended when their lips separated with one final smack. Lily opened her eyes saw the mage's own blues looking down at her with self-satisfaction.

She wanted to ask what was happening, but she was breathless.