Opus Veda

Chapter 56: In the House of the Red Sun



November arrived. Rain persisted, dousing the nation in a drizzly depression. It also diffused the riots when nothing else could, scattering thousands of roving opportunists. Police and terrorists used the moment to pluck easy targets away. Less rioters returned home than had set out.

Rumours spread of Irish ships docking in Blackpool, carrying arms for Revolution Britannia. The conflict otherwise lingered, as each faction fretted about a winter war.

Kasia took on enough clients to support herself and Eva, often sleeping at work in the spare flats. There she browsed for other jobs, but nothing else paid as well.

She kept training. Since the revolution had her knife she focussed on fitness, always repeating Luca's advice, always longing for Sermon's sport-enhancers. She skipped the training modules on Revolution Britannia's ideology, no longer caring.

Ali Hogarth raised Kendi's service charge. Kasia was too worn down to react. Jason remained worried about his drunk taxi fare, who could charge him for assault whenever. Sermon was midway through infantry training and nowhere near the estate.

Imany fought a tide of residents demanding she solve it. They blamed her for going soft on Ali. For once she wanted them to suffer - they had simply stayed passive for too long, always armed with another excuse to play victim. She drank alone and raised a toast, for her pathetic neighbours oppression to never end.

Gemma and Luis kept watching the revolution base in Morden, cultivating a list of people entering it.

An isolated customer left the flats. They snatched him and pumped water up his nose until the truth spilled out. They confirmed the third building was a brothel. Gemma realised why Kasia had asked to meet - to glean what would happen to Eva if her mother didn't make it out one night. Luis unleashed angry rhetoric about coercion and blackmail, insisting they bring Kasia in and end her abuse. Gemma still wanted her turning herself in. She would reveal more with her free will intact.

Luis unleashed his frustration on Kasia's landlord, who brayed of her daughter's assault by 'the Polish slut'. He outwitted her with games she wasn't clever enough to play; exposed vulnerabilities, quirks, errors. Ali broke apart in a panic attack. Luis said he would not go easier on her for it.

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The next day, Ali called the police and dropped her case.

Clients came. Kasia behaved. She made regulars, something Chef said was promising. Some were rough, which she tried to manage. One wanted her to explain things in German, another wanted her to tell them off in Polish. The stressy, prawn-like business woman wanted to be gagged and ignored. The youngest wanted to lay with Kasia, brush her hair, and plan holidays together.

That one was exhausting. Kasia learnt emotional labour demanded more than sexual labour.

She met coworkers, gossiping and trading tips in the waiting rooms. One day would feel comfortable, another would remind her of reality, as when she comforted a petrified worker before security took him upstairs. She never saw him again. Eddy later revealed he was 15.

More acquaintances vanished. Surviving staff were all told theirs was a transient job, but Kasia convinced Eddy's loose mouth to run. He told her with indulgent whispers that Chef gave bad performers a choice: footage or quitting. Filmed pornography with human actors meant extreme tastes. Eddy advised Kasia she promise herself, no matter how desperate life got, she would never go downstairs. Kasia promised, haunted by the knowledge she had already crossed every other boundary.

She was at her happiest with Esmé, always wishing to see her every shift. The younger woman listened to Kasia's story, the fights she had been in and her journey into sex work. Kasia said nothing of her murder but mentioned her viral video outside the Jubilee Line, where her journey began. Esmé watched the video with giggly excitement. In return for making their breaks interesting, she taught Kasia ways to steer difficult clients.

It became clear why Esmé was senior - friendly but not pushy, so rare in England. Lesbian and queer clients fell for her, filling her rota with adorers. Kasia asked her about herself. She was 24, a sex worker since school and during it. The country had given her nothing. When the revolution moved into London, she contributed the best way she could.

Guardsmen kicked back in a lounge, hyping one another as Chef guessed their desires to louder and louder cheers. They began peeling off to hookup.

Two squadmates sat together. Curtis was browsing the menu for a Chinese girl despite Sermon pestering him to try a man.

Something paralysed them. Curtis panicked and swiped left, picking the next match and skulking off. Sermon stewed in guilt. Chef noticed and suggested the Persian boy for him. He accepted and headed up.

That night Kasia received no clients. Chef's assistant offered her a trial on footage. She declined. The assistant said she couldn't hang around every night, if work dried up she'd need to make herself useful in other ways.

In the room above Esmé snared her new client and began weaving. She told them how she envied a woman being a guardsmen; how she felt too femme to take on such a confident role. Zenia melted into her, complaining of every mean thing revolution superiors said about 'Genderless Zee'. Esmé listened and counted from thirty, as her hand wandered between Zenia's legs and took every complaint away.


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