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+---- Thread: [Complete] When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back [Hotels, Pubs, and Accommodations] (/showthread.php?tid=912)
When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back [Hotels, Pubs, and Accommodations] - Ruth Longbottom - 01-29-2023
Ruth had begun to work here informally, but she was yet to meet the owners and be officially hired. A bummer, because it meant people would have to like her, and Ruth wasn't good at making people like her. A greater bummer, because she had been told it was Mrs. Meijer who was present, and not her husband. Men were stupid, and stopped thinking altogether when women spread their legs. If they didn't like her, she at least knew how to make them want her - or so she told herself. But women she didn't trust.
Reluctantly, she had put on her best dress (a red seventh-or-something-hand dress that had been fashionable fifteen years ago, brushed her dark curls and pulled them up in a bun, before deciding to let them down instead, and washed her face. She had applied a quick layer of paint on her lips and some rouge and then hurried up to the madam's office. She took a deep breath, breathed out again slowly, then knocked.
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Sonia DeAngelis - 01-31-2023
A frail looking Sonia answered the door, peering out. The sound of her children whimpering at the sudden noise could be heard, but the babies both settled down. Eyes that were heavily guarded, shadowed by the smudges of exhaustion underneath. She stepped back and allowed for the dusky haired woman the room to enter, not knowing who she was but assuming she was one of the newer employees hired since the reinventing of the Diamond Pony.
"I am Sonia Meijer... and you are?"
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Ruth Longbottom - 02-01-2023
Ruth had expected the madame to be an older woman, someone nearly beyond her 'succesful' years, who was now earning money by running the place rather than working for it. Instead, she looked in a face that could hardly be older than her own.
Taken aback, the next shock came before she could recollect herself, when she stepped into the room and her eyes were drawn to the sound of whimpering babies. Her eyebrows lowered and her mouth hung slightly open as she looked at the infants. What kind of sick individual brought her babies to a brothel?! Even Ruth was a better mother than that, and had left her babes safely in the care of her nine-year old brother.
Her eyes turned back to this Sonia Meijer and took her in suspiciously. If this was that kind of place, she'd settle for the streets or double down on blackmailing the shitty baker. "Ruth..." Fuck. "Beryl..." What was her last name again? The babes' noise distracted her. "Sorry. Beryl Ruth Silver, ma'm. Neither you nor yer husband was around when I arrived. They told me I could work until I 'ad a chance to see ye."
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Sonia DeAngelis - 02-01-2023
She saw that look when it was taken note that the babies were there in the brothel... but if one looked around too, they would see crates, some full and some not, of things being packed by the woman herself. Husband, ugh... she hated the reminder that she was married to someone she despised worse than the actual father of the twins. She jerkily picked up some things from the piles of things she had arranged to make packing easier. She paused to look Ruth over a few times, then nodded when she actually didn't care. On the one hand, she was free to get out of this godforsaken place, on the other, she was going into another damned gilded cage lifted by a man who would always be disgusting to her.
Sonia threw another object heedlessly into a crate that was a little too full. She sighed and raked her hand through her hair. "My advice to you is to make this job work as a stepping stone to get out of this place. No matter what you do, it will be a curse over your head," she said this tiredly. "But as long as you are paying your dues, you are welcome here." She paused as one of the children began to fuss. The fact that Zecheriah had chosen the names and she couldn't even remember them made her blood boil. She picked up the one who was whimpering and began to dance around, looking frazzled now. This wasn't someone that WANTED to bring her kids to a brothel, that would probably become clear soon enough as she began to do the new mother dance and start getting overly emotional because the children liked to fuss a lot.
"You'll have to forgive me, I didn't trust anyone with the children and I have to get my belongings."
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Ruth Longbottom - 02-01-2023
[CW: reference to sex/prostitution and violence]
The name 'Longbottom' would always be a curse over her head. Really, a career at the Diamond Pony seemed like a step up. Gentlemen came here. Men who actually washed. Their desires were as healthy or depraved as any other man's, but they didn't reek of cheap beer and gin, of sweat and unwashed clothes. She'd do it in a bed, not standing up or kneeling down in some dirty alley that reeked of piss, and where she could be knocked down or worse by someone who decided he didn't want to pay. She'd wear pretty clothes like Lory and live like the rich. What more could she want?
But Ruth didn't say any of that. Nobody here needed to know where she came from. "Aye ma'm," she muttered instead, pleased at how easily this was going. No questions asked. She had the job. She shrugged when the woman commented on the children. Not wares to be traded then. That difficulty was solved too. "That's alright, ma'm. Are ye leavin', then?" She watched the woman fuss over her children, and suddenly felt a need to hold her own.
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Sonia DeAngelis - 02-01-2023
"Yes," she said as she calmed Jacob down, or what was the other boy's name? Damn it, she hated not being in control of her situation. She didn't explain that she was merely moving from one bad place to another. Well, unless her husband decided to take it easier on her than he had been. At least she didn't have to see him naked, that would have added insult to injury in her book. Once the child was not so fussy, she placed him back next to his sleeping brother and then touched his face. How could someone be the seed of the devil yet look so very innocent? Perhaps if she raised both boys right, they would not have the curse their father had, and now that they had the protection of another man's name, there would be no reason to worry about their grandparents interfering with things. The last thing she needed was the Carringtons involved with the rearing of her children. It was bad enough to have to be called a Meijer though.
She moved to sit down, easily winded still since giving birth. She was glad she was leaving the brothel even still. She didn't think she had another year in her on her back.
RE: When Life Knocks You Down, Punch Back - Ruth Longbottom - 02-02-2023
"Oh." Did that mean she would soon need to ask permission again? Well, she wasn't asking questions now. She had permission from this lady, so there! "Well, I'll leave ye to yer packing, then. Thank you," she said, and she moved to the door.