The Girls by jaisma
Summary:

A series of short stories written in a post-apoctalyptic world, following the lives of the girls and boys of Dianne's brothel.

Nneka suffers from a rare skin condition that attracts the wrong kind of attention.

Pokow has the mind of a doctor, but half the respect and none of the rescources.

Amnon is the spoiled son of Dianne herself.

Their stories and more are told in the endless dust bowl that is their home.


Categories: Original Fiction Characters: None
Classification: General
Genre: Drama, Romance
Story Status: Active
Pairings: None
Warnings: Original Characters, Work in Progress
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 3 Completed: No Word count: 2261 Read: 6584 Published: January 27 2015 Updated: September 23 2017

1. Mannequin by jaisma

2. Several Years Later by jaisma

3. Pokow's Bedroom by jaisma

Mannequin by jaisma
Author's Notes:

This story is written in no particular order.

Nneka sat in the wall of her cage with her arms and legs hanging out. Her forehead rested on one of the wooden planks that made up the wall, causing it to snag on her thick cloud of black and teal hair.

“The thing I hate the most about it is the way Dianna’s customers treat us: like little, poseable dolls; like voice-activated puppets with no feelings and no wants of our own.” She sounded cheerful as she spoke. She always did. “They don’t care about what we might want or how we feel. They don’t even care to know if we can want or feel at all.”

Nneka flashed a smile in Amnon’s direction without looking at him directly, then averted her attention back to her feet. She was digging little valleys in the dirt with them.

Amnon took a second to observe his new friend. The twelve year old was covered in peach colored cream from head to toe, and bright red lipstick was smeared all over her mouth - an attempt by his mother, Dianna, and some of her other employees to make Nneka look more normal. Instead she looked like a mannequin; a mannequin with sad eyes and a weak smile.

Amnon suddenly felt guilty for asking her about her work. His mother had always warned him about his mouth…

“But there are good things about working here. No one’s trying to snatch me up and run experiments on me, and there’re no more bloody fingers,” Nneka said as she drove her heels into the red dust.

Amnon had overheard Dianna talking about such things with one of The Girls who worked with Nneka. Dianna bought her thinking that her customers would think she was exotic looking, but was disappointed when they ignored her completely. She was a rarity. Most children who were born from women who were exposed to the Great Haze, while pregnant died by the age of five. Whatever it was that made their skin and hair transparent, also made it disintegrate, but Nneka’s skin and hair was only transparent in certain places, and these areas were getting smaller over time. However, it turned an unnatural, teal color wherever her skin had once been see-through. He understood why there might be people trying to experiment on her, but…

“What are ‘bloody fingers’?” he asked before he thought to stop himself.

“That meant I worked hard enough to sleep inside, when I lived with the doctor’s wife.”

“So you guys had a code type of thing?”

Nneka looked puzzled for a moment, then laughed. Hard. It was an ugly laugh. Amnon didn’t like it.

“What do you like about working for my mom?” he blurted, desperate to change the subject then immediately regretted it. Hadn’t he just decided that it was bad to ask her about work?

“What do I like?” she repeated playfully, leaning so that she was eyelevel with Amnon, who was squatting next to her. Her charcoal eyes looked flat and out of placed next to the peach cream she was wearing. He wanted to tackle her and wipe all that crap off her face. Dianna’s customers might think she looked like a blue cow, but he thought she was-

He felt something press his forehead lightly: Nneka’s index finger. And for some reason, his heart was suddenly pounding in his chest. He looked up at her again to see her smile, and thought that this must have been the first time he ever saw her smile genuinely. Then she pulled herself all the way back into her cage.

“Hey!” Amnon said, almost franticly. “You leaving?”

“I need to get cleaned up, and you need to get back to Ms. Dianna before you get in trouble,” she answered. She was right, but he wasn’t ready to go back yet.

“But you never answered my question,” he said.

“Yes I did.”

Amnon must have looked confused, because she started laughing at him again. But this laugh wasn’t ugly.

Nneka put her finger on his forehead again and said “You.”

“What are you talking about?” said Amnon, sounding more irritable than he meant to.

 

“I like… you.”

End Notes:

This is the one I speifically wrote for a romance writing challenge. When I did challenges back then, I mostly focsed on fluff and romance because those were the areas I am weakest in. I still can't produce fluff, but I've come to terms with that. 

Next we'll learn a little bit about the Great Haze, and meet Dianna and The Girls.

Several Years Later by jaisma

I thought I knew her when I saw her. She had the same sad eyes, the same curved nose, the same high cheekbones. I pretended not to see her just incase it was, even when she greeted me. I didn’t want to talk. But images of her went racing through my mind, flashing behind my eyes as I turned my back and walked the opposite direction. I turned on my poker face and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my sweater to hide the trembling, and tilted my chin up to add fake confidence to my stride.

What was she doing here? Was it even her?

It couldn’t have been.

I glanced behind me to see if she was still there. She wasn’t.

Good.

I turn and bump right into her, almost knocking her over.

Before I can apologize she says, “So you’re avoiding me now?”

Her eyes are just as gentle as before, like doe eyes: black and innocent with long, curled lashes framing them, blinking back at me in an expectant glare.

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing, and wait for her to begin her speech.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were leaving?” she asks sharply, resting a hand on an exposed hip.

I sigh, “I don’t know. It was hard I guess.”

“Nneka really missed you! She really looked up to you. You broke her heart when you left and didn’t even say bye.”

Still, I can’t find any words to say. We stand there looking at each other, waiting for my thoughts to translate into a human language as the unforgiving sun beats down on the land around us, creating illusions of water down every walkway.

After some time she tilts her head and asks, “Well?” rushing me. Trying to get some type of verbal response out of me.

But what can I say? There are a million things I could’ve done instead. I could have announced it. I could’ve left a note. I could’ve broke them out and brought them with me. I could have stayed. At the very least I could’ve said bye, but I didn’t. And I don’t even have a real reason why. I just got up early one morning when the sky was still black, gathered all my money, stole some food out of Dianna’s cupboard, and started walking, just walking and watching the sky turn pink then finally blue. I walked for days, always towards the rising sun. I guess a part of me just wanted to be away from that place, even if that meant having nowhere to go.

“I got the impulse to go town hopping,” I finally say. Before she can respond I continue, “And what are you doing way out here? You’re a long way from Dianne’s.”

A wicked smirk spread across her lips, “We left that place months ago.”

“Yea?” I ask, genuinely surprised, “How did you manage that?”

Kina covered a sly grin with her hand, as if holding back laughter, spun on her heels and walked away. I find myself following without thinking.

“Uh- Where are you going?” she asks, meeting my eyes from over her shoulder.

“That’s what I was about to ask you.”

“Really? About two minutes ago you were trying to run away from me, remember that?”

I smile against my own will.

“I do, but, in my defense... I have no defense. Just answer my questions please.”

Questions? Questions plural?”

“Yea, I need to know how you got away from Dianne’s and how in the hell did you end up in front of me when I damn near jogged away from you.”

She stops to let me catch up.

“Answer to the first question: I’m fast. Answer to the second question: I’m fast. Is that good enough for you?”

“Not at all.”

“It’s gonna have to be, ‘cause you’re not welcome where I’m going,” she states, her smile fading.

“Well, can we talk about it somewhere else?”

“You should be more concerned about talking to Nneka. And you better hope you see her before she sees you-”

“Or what?” I scoff, remembering the frail, white-skinned girl, who sloppily covered her teal spots with powder to hide her skin condition. What could she do to me?

Kina suddenly became eerily somber.

“You’ve been gone way to long, Amnon. She is not the sweet little girl she was when you left and she’s grown up to be quite the animal.”

I gulp without realizing. If Kina of all people is warning me, it might behoove me to get out of town.

I turn to leave, the room I rented is near by.

 

“You shouldn’t have promised to free her!” Kina yells at my back as I damn near jog to the boarding house to gather my things.

End Notes:

Thanks for reading!

Pokow's Bedroom by jaisma

Pokow didn’t understand what it was about Tuesday nights that brought so many girls in her makeshift office. Every single Tuesday without fail she was up, cleaning up people’s fluids, stitching people up, brewing up anti-pregs and mixing scaraways. Why was that? She had hoped this day would be a little different, a new girl had moved in. Usually the new girls get the brunt of it all, but nope. Here she was, swamped, just like any other Tuesday.

What was Dianne even getting paid for this? You’d think she’d value her property, since they were her only means of living, but nope. She let the girls go untreated, and Pokow, out of the kindness of her shriveled, bitter heart, would risk her life fixing them up. You’d think they’d be a little more thankful and do something nice for her every once in a while.

“This one’s got a bruise,” yells Romee in a lackadaisical tone, grabbing a girl by the arm and swinging her towards the doorway without a second glance. The curtain somewhat blocked her view of the stocky woman, but fabric and a wooden cage was not enough to block out her sultry voice.

The girl doesn’t enter the room, electing to instead stare from the outside with blank eyes, eyes that reminded Pokow of the dead. She had more than a bruise. The entire left side of her mouth was swollen and blotches of crimson stained her clothes and were smudged across her swollen cheeks from a heavily bleeding nose, mixing with unflattering beige makeup.

“Did you ice her yet?” asks Pokow out of habit, but she already knew the answer and she was already preparing a cold rag and and ice bag by the time Romee answered:

“Nah, you know how I feel about the color red.”

Pokow rolls her dark brown eyes, but giggles on the inside.

“That joke gets less and less funny every time you tell it, and it wasn’t funny to begin with,” she says, behind a poorly contained smirk.

The girl in the doorway and Kina make eye contact, wincing at each other, and Pokow becomes suddenly embarrassed.

Her shame turns to venom and she motions to the girl in the walkway and says, “Dead girl!”

The girl snaps to as if she had been sleep while standing. Her entire countenance changes, becoming more tall, more relaxed.

“Come here! How am I going to help you from over there?”

She obeys wordlessly.

Pokow wipes her face, exposing chalk white skin with turquoise blotches, places the ice bag in her left hand and puts it to her swollen mouth. This wasn’t the first strange skin condition she’d seen. Ever since The Haze, all kind of strange, even ludicrous, deformities were showing up on children. This girl had better be thankful that she was born with a fully functional body. But... this explained why this was just like any other Tuesday.

Pokow pulls out one of the paper dolls she uses for young children out of a thick stack and hands her a pen. They were just plain cutouts in the shape of human bodies, nothing fancy, but they served their purpose quite well.

“Go sit over there by Kina and circle on the doll wherever you’re hurt. When you’re done, set it over there on my desk and sit back down.”

“Which one is Kina?” asks Dead Girl facing six other females, two children, four adults.

What a dumb question. There was only one seat left in her bedroom, where else could she sit?

“The little brown girl with the afro puffs.”

It was hours before she got around to the new girl. By then, Kina had twisted her thick coily mass of hair into long, uneven ropes. Where her scalp showed, black stains were exposed, most likely from a terrible dye job. Whoever had styled her up for her stay really did not give a fuck.

Dead Girl had only circled the face where the mouth would be, the blank nose, and a couple other places where she had obvious injuries. Nothing severe. Her nose had stopped bleeding on it’s own but she gave her a serum to spray the scab that had probably formed for the itching that was to come.

She scanned her once for good measure, as she always did with children and pregnant women, and found evidence of repeated stress in her knees and knuckles and scar tissue in places that didn’t make sense.

 

“So, before Dianne bought you, were you a test subject or a maid?” 

This story archived at https://www.valentchamber.com/viewstory.php?sid=3209