The King's affection

Smoke and ashes

16 years later…

“Melda, wake up!” a woman’s voice shouts above chaos. “Quickly!” she says again when the girl only stirs in her sleep. Bringing her brows together in a frown, “Just five more minutes mom,” she grumbles as she attempts to pull the blanket over her head. But the woman’s hand stops her movement, flinging the blanket back down her body.

“The building is on fire, and we need to run!” her mother’s voice shouts once again. “Esmerelda Meadows!” she screams again as she violently shakes the girl’s body, desperate to get the sleeping teenager to wake up.

She jolts awake this time.

“Mom-“ she was about to protest when her mother, grabbed her hand and made her way to the window of her bedroom. “We need to get out of here. The entire building is engulfed in flames and the only way out is through the window,” the girl’s mom said. The window she spoke about was two story’s high.

She looked around in haste, before rushing back to the teenager’s bed and grabbing a bedsheet. It was an old bedsheet, so she managed to tear it up into strips barehanded. She then took one end of the bedsheet, tied it around the teenager’s waist, and the other end around her hand.

“Melda, listen to me; I need you to climb out the window. I will lower you down as far as this sheet can go. Once it’s at capacity you’ll have to jump the rest of the way,” the woman said quickly as she hurried the teenager to the window.

“But mom wait, what about you? How will you get out?” Esmerelda asked. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll find a way out. We need to get you out first,” her mother responded as she pushed Esmerelda out the window and braced her feet on the wall just below the window.

She lowered the bed sheet as fast as she could, but while halfway down, a wooden beam that had been on fire above the window fell onto the sheet, startling the woman and causing her to jostle Esmerelda. It’s flames quickly ate away at the fabric, making Esmerelda fall the rest of the way down, landing on her ass on the cobblestone pavement down below.

She winced in pain before regaining her composure and quickly looking up. She got to her feet, noticing that the only exit was now engulfed in flames. Panic, anxiety, and fear took over as she screamed, “MOOOOOM!!!!!” She called out as the building went up in flames, producing a thick black smoke right in front of her eyes.

“MOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!” She screamed once again. “SOMEONE PLEASE HELP MY MOTHER!!” She cried, helpless as the flames continued devouring the building in front of her. Bystanders looked on as she continued to cry and scream there on the pavement.

She screamed until her throat became raw, and her lungs burned from the amount of oxygen was she was using up compared to what she was breathing in.

She screamed until she became dizzy from the lack of oxygen to her brain, until she eventually passed out right on that pavement.

People walked by as she lay there, no one bothering to help her – be it by moving her someplace else or trying to put out the fire.

A man and his henchman stood to the side, watching the girl from a distance. The man simply lit a cigarette, never taking his eyes off the passed-out frame of the girl on the ground.

“What will we do with her, sir?” the henchman asked, gesturing at the girl.

“She’s pretty enough,” the man said, thoughtfully. “Pack her up and sell her off to Madam Lee. We can, at least, make some cash off her. Although it’ll take too long to cover her mother’s debts,” the man said, blowing smoke from his mouth as he ran a hand through his greasy hair.

“What if Madam Lee doesn’t want her? She may be a greedy b***h but we both know she has standards about the type of girls she would rather have in her house.”

“I don’t pay you to question me! Just make it happen goddammit!” the man snapped.

“I’m sorry, as you wish sir,” the henchman bowed slightly as he disappeared into the shadows.

---

Esmerelda woke up to a ray of sunlight shining on her face from the slightly opened curtain. She moved to place her hand in front of her face to shield herself from the harsh light, only to discover her hands had been bound behind her.

She tried to break the ropes free, but all that did was rub the skin on her wrists raw. As she struggled, she heard voices from outside the unfamiliar room she found herself in.

“For f**k’s sake, what am I supposed to do with her?!” came a pissed off woman’s voice.

“What you do best,” a man’s nonchalant response.

“Are you f*****g kidding me with this bullshit Lester? She doesn’t even look like she’s 18! I don’t run that type of establishment here,” the woman fumed again.

“Then have her be a servant, I really don’t f*****g care! I just need enough to cover what her b***h of a mother owes me,” the man snapped back.

Esmerelda wondered if she was the topic of discussion.

“I don’t give a f**k about her mother’s debt!” the woman sassed back. “Out of curiosity, how much did she owe you anyway?”

“40 grand,” he mumbled.

“YOU MUST BE OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND IF YOU THINK I’M BUYING A BARELY 18-YEAR-OLD GIRL FROM YOU FOR 40 GRAND! THAT’S NOT EVEN WHAT I CHARGE MY CLIENTS FOR A REGULAR GIRL IN THIS PLACE!” she shrieked.

“I’m not asking you to buy her for 40 grand! Just think of her as investment. Just give me 25 grand for her. I already had my people inspect her and that’s what she was appraised for. But if you want to check her for yourself, then you’re welcome to do so and we can negotiate something that suits us both,” he said.

Esmerelda’s breath caught in her throat at his words. “What does this ‘inspection’ entail?” she wondered. Her entire body shuddering at the thought of strangers, possibly men, touching her while she was unconscious. Doing God-knows-what to her as she lay there, defenseless.

“Fine.” The woman said flatly, before she opened the door and both she and the man entered the room.

Esmerelda hadn’t expected them, so she jumped at the sudden sound of the door being thrown open.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” the woman said.

Before Esmerelda could even do or say anything, the woman roughly grabbed her chin – pulling her face closer to her own as her eyes scanned her face.

“Beautiful rosy skin, very small pores. Gorgeous stormy grey eyes,” the woman said as she looked over Esmerelda’s features. She moved her hand from her chin, and ran it through her hair, “A bit of a tangled mess, but nothing a little brushing can’t fix. Lovely auburn colour.” She observed.

“She’s pretty. I could definitely find ways to enhance that beauty though…” she paused, as she stepped back and fixed herself up, “Now for the million-dollar question – is she a virgin?”

Esmerelda’s eyes widened at that.

“Sure is. I had Jocelyn check.” The man responded; arms folded over his chest as she stood against the wall. He had silently been observing the two this whole time.

“I’ll have Stella check again to make sure you’re not ripping me off. If it turns out to be true, I’ll give you 30 grand for her, if not, 20 grand,” the woman said.

“Then you have yourself a deal,” the man said.

“I’m Madam Lee, welcome to The Midnight Muse,” the woman said with a wide grin that sent shivers down Esmerelda’s spine – and not in a good way.