I never wanted to live in their world. They dragged me here by force. Well, let them learn to live in the reality that I will create from their world.
*****
Modern urban fantasy, our world.
*****
Ajax, thanks for the preliminary reading.
*****
"It's none of your business, filthborn!" Eleanor stretched into a string and turned up her nose. "It is your duty to remove your plebeian blood from an honorable house."
"Talk to Dave about it," I said calmly. "Let him pay me compensation for the kidnapping and return me home."
Eleanor began to squeal something, but I interrupted her in the bud:
"Give me your phone, I'll call the police and make a statement about the kidnapping on social networks so that the police can't refuse to work."
Eleanor choked on her own screech. I mockingly asked:
"You don't have a smartphone? Are you a savage or are you in prison? Do you have a credit card and a driver's license? Or are you a slave here?"
"A plebeian is incapable of judging the life of a higher caste. But if you don't write a renunciation of any claim to be related to the Terrences, you will regret it."
Eleanor is gone. And servants brought me lunch. It was superbly delicious. I said "thank you" and gladly ate it all. And when I satisfied my hunger, I decided that it was time to take advantage of the big money.
"Where is the beauty salon? I want a massage, a body wrap with the best healing mud and a super-duper face mask."
"The lady doesn't do that sort of thing during the day," James said sternly. "It's employment only for early in the morning, everything must end no later than two hours before the first breakfast, while no one can see her."
"It's for a simple lady," I replied. "But a business lady cleans herself up when it suits her. Therefore, follow the order or go to Dave for a transfer to another place."
"Gerrin," Helmut interrupted, "you've got an appointment with a stylist now. Gotta hurry, she's on her way."
"Is it at such a time?!" James exclaimed indignantly.
"What other stylist?" I was surprised.
"You need a dress for the City Hall ball," Helmut told me. "This is your debut in the high life, and the dress is extremely important. This will affect not only you personally but also TGS shares.
While I was trying to understand what the connection was between duds, even an evening one, and stocks, Helmut admonished James:
"Our lady has no time. Too little time to prepare. And changing the image is not an easy task, she has to learn to be natural with a new look."
"Don't you dare think about any image changes!" I snapped. "I like my look. I need to buy an evening dress, but I will not remake myself."
"And if you like madame Lucy Alouette's ideas?" Raoul asked.
"All stylists are idiots. Those stars who listen to them always look like a scarecrow in a torture device. I myself know what I need! We're going to the store."
The convoyers again stared at me with astonishment and wariness. I realized that arguing or demanding to be taken anywhere was dangerous: it would arouse suspicion. But what to do with the phone in my bra? And I have no more gold for a bribe. But this Lucy Alouette will not take anything — if she was called to Terre Court, she earns a car a week, and it is more profitable for her to look after Dave's interests.
"Do you think you're more versed than Lucy Alouette?" Raoul asked indignantly.
"This is the first time I hear about her." I began to piss off all this fuss around a simple issue that can be solved in fifteen minutes and in three clicks. Moreover, I lost hope of escaping through the store ... I grunted: "If it turns out that she is the same shit as all the stylists, then all you shut up forever and silently do what I say. Now take me to this Alouette."
As I walked, I thought about how to hide the phone. Say that I urgently need to go to the toilet and hide the phone there? But where is the guarantee that I will be allowed to return to the same toilet room, and not be pointed to the toilet in the fitting room? And is there a toilet in the fitting room to hide the phone there and then take it away? In one of my favorite films, a girl (it was in prison) hid a can opener in her vagina. But the phone will deteriorate from moisture. And there is electricity in the phone — albeit very tiny, but I don't want to get even such a discharge, especially in such a tender and vulnerable place.
I didn't come up with anything. And I was taken to a spacious room next to that nightmarish apartment that Dave wanted to slip me into at the very beginning.
There were island hangers in the room, all with monstrous dresses — layered, over-fluffy and too-long skirts, dress bodice with sleeves (its short, but it's still a damn generator of sweat), abnormally narrow waist (I remembered articles about stars which fainting because of a corset ), and even the color of the dresses is pale and sad: white and so light blue and pink that it is almost white. A blonde in a cherry-colored pantsuit stood next to the hangers, too tight-fitting for a businesswoman, and she had skin-colored stilettos that rivaled the height of a sea lighthouse in height. It was impossible to say anything about the dame's face, instead of it there was such a massive and wide black frame of optical glasses that if it turned out to be Dave with false ass and tits, no one would have seen the difference. It seems that the physiognomy of the dame is also one of those with which they try not to go out to people.
The convoyers rushed after me.
"Young miss!" James yelled.
Wow, young again. Is it a promotion from "little" or a demotion? It doesn't care. It's not interesting to understand the varieties of shit. And Raoul said:
"This is the most famous stylist and the most respected fashion expert in Alnorria. She brought dresses for a girl from an honorable family. And you need to learn how to wear them in only a week. You will be walking in the dress chosen for you for almost the remaining time. The dress for the ball will be the same, just a new one."
"My dress will be straight, moderately fitted and as simple as possible," I said. "It's green, not dark and not too bright, soft silk. Dress with straps, but with a bra — I hate it when my breasts swing. It must be a bra, not a corset! Nothing oppressive or uncomfortable. The length of one is strict to the ankle, I don't want to think about how not to step on my hem. Shoes in tone and with a heel of four centimeters and with normal, not pointed toes."
"Herrin…" Helmut began, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
"You are silent and follow the order if you brought a shitty stylist. And around my neck, I will wear one centimeter-diameter diamond, in a droplet pendant, on a platinum chain. And the same drop earrings, but a stone of five millimeters, so that it would not be hard on the ears."
"Diamonds are meant only for married ladies, Herrin, and a girl wears pearls. Green clothes are a lot of courtesans, and the lady wears..."
"If these moronic rules," I interrupted, "did exist, then they were canceled by even the First World War. And since it is always hot at any party, the clothes are needed so that in the toilet you can quickly wipe your armpits with sanitary napkins, and return fresh to the hall."
"Lady's dresses always have absorbent pads sewn into them," Helmut blushed a little in embarrassment as he replied. Victorian virgin, damn it!
"And rub the skin," I replied venomously.
"The lady is patient, young miss," James interjected.
"Lady's dresses always have absorbent pads sewn into them," Helmut blushed a little in embarrassment as he replied. Victorian virgin, damn it!
"And rub the skin," I replied venomously.
"The lady knows how to endure, young miss," James interjected.
"Enduring, forgiving and waiting are occupations for a doormat," I enlightened him. And cut off: "The conversation is over. Bring a trainer and beautician! I want a gym and body wrap."
And I went to my new apartment. The convoyers tried to send me to the old one, but I pleaded bad memories and refused. Putting a wiretap is a matter of five minutes, but I don’t want to simplify the life of the local panopticon. It's better to hide your phone and change for a workout. I changed my capri pants and tank top for leggings and a long T-shirt, and went out into the living room. This time the convoyers didn't argue, they even brought a swimsuit, which I forgot to buy.
Nothing interesting happened for the rest of the day. I have been training, swam in the pool, enjoyed all the delights of a homely, but no less equipped beauty salon, watched a streaming series in the movie room on a cinema-sized TV screen, and read a couple of fan fiction. Of course, I wrote to my friends from the book reader that at night, as soon as I could hide from everyone, I would call them. Finally, everything in the house was quiet, even the convoyers left the living room. I went to the bathroom and took out my phone.
But who better to call? The phone model is old and primitive, it turned out that there is no conference mode here, and you have to choose an interlocutor. Who will help, and who will betray? Big money changes everything. Even though I'm not the official heir to TGS, I'm nevertheless the owner of a very expensive property. And after Dave's death, I get a considerable share in the TGS, whether Dave wants it or not — even if he bequeaths everything to Eleanor or charities, or the church, I can sue myself a good piece.
My friends don’t have that kind of money and can’t have it in the near future, so envy is more than possible. And it doesn’t give a damn that I have nothing and that I still have to sue for my father’s inheritance, and for this I need to escape from the cage.
But time is running out, and I need to choose an interlocutor quickly, before they catch me.
I called Fatima. Her mom also fled, and not only from the family, but also from the country, Fatima even said that her mom could have been killed.
"Hi," I said as soon as Fatima picked up the phone. "Did you receive my letters?"
"We all called your granny. She said that it was vital for you to stay with your grandfather so as not to lose the candy store and end up in the Philippines again. And that you're just a little nervous about having to maintain the security measures required for anyone who can be kidnapped for ransom."
"Made granny say it!" I exclaimed. And I told Fatima everything. And when I finished, I added: "Dave could have been lying. Granny never spoke a word of Rudligish, never mentioned Rudlig."
My mom also never speaks Berber or Arabic and doesn't want to hear about her former country. She was too frightened by the prospect of becoming the wife of an old man instead of entering the university and the sadistic methods that the family forced her to agree to. After that, she ran away with great difficulty first from her orthodox family, and thereafter from the country, so that the family would not get her. But it was even more difficult to get from the refugee camp on a scholarship to the university. If you listen to my mom, then her life began at the age of nineteen on a Spanish campus, and before that, mom was not in the world. Bad memories can make you do even more things. And Rudlig is a mix of North Korea and Afghanistan: a military-religious dictatorship, except Rudlig is a Christian country. Your granny was very lucky that she was able to escape from there.
"Okay, so be it," I agreed. "But why did Dave kidnap me?"
"You are prolific."
"What?" I didn't understand.
"You said that after your mother, perfectly healthy and therefore never went to the doctors, suddenly died of an aneurysm, your granny began to give you a complete medical examination twice a year. And you go to the hospital yourself from the age of sixteen. You laugh at it, you swear, but you don't want to worry your granny. Your medical record has a long history. If any wish, one can easily hack your personal account on the website of the Ministry of Health or in an insurance company and look into your medical record. Dave is sure that you can give birth to even four healthy children. And Eleanor, apparently, is barren."
"She's pregnant!"
"It means that she has a great risk of supplying the child with pathologies," Fatima replied. "Or pathologies have already been identified, but Eleanor does not want to have an abortion, because incapacity does not deprive a person of the right to inherit, and Eleanor will be the guardian of his property. You don't know who owns what, what wills were before. It is quite possible that Dave cannot completely dispose of TGS, but must leave it to the son of one of his granddaughters or nieces. I will try to find the wills of the Terrents in the site of Property Register because any will go to the state archives after the announcement."
"Thank you. And look, please, on the Internet for information about the profitability of TGS, maybe anyone is going to buy up the conglomerate in parts."
"All right," Fatima said, "I’ll look. And you carefully watch that you aren't married off under drugs and anyone not knocked up you."
"What?" I was taken aback.
"The only reason Dave would take you into the house is because of a marriage that combines two family fortunes. Eleanor turned out to be unsuitable, and Dave had to be used a bastardess. The second-class of her blood is better than the absence of successors of the family."
"What for delirium?!" I was outraged.
"Old money," Fatima said with a touch of disgust. "They still live in the Middle Ages and don’t see the real world. If the empire is inherited by a princess, she must marry the one who will rule, but her mission is to give birth to heirs and be an embellishment to the family mansion."
"Idiocy!"I could only gasp. But Fatima's words explained all the strange training that Dave tried to impose on me, the confiscation of my phone, credit card and driver's license.
"Idiocy," Fatima agreed. "But the line of blood is important to them. So when your granny called Dave and asked for help with the candy shop's pandemic debt, he made you crown princess. He has no other relatives."
"Did granny call?" I was amazed.
"She said yes. Your granny called Dave's reception and reminded him that he had a granddaughter, asked for money. And Dave called back and said he was inviting you to live in Joyterr and learn how to run a business. We were all very surprised but there was no reason not to believe your granny. Especially if Dave pays such an expensive hospital for her."
I tried to understand all this. It turned out bad. Fatima added:
"Granny might not know all of Dave's plans. I'm sure she was thinking about your career, not about forced marriage and excessively early children."
"Yes," I muttered. "Probably. Grandmother always said that men are unreliable, love is fleeting, and therefore a girl can only hope for her job."
I frantically thought about what to do. And decided:
"Write on all social networks where I am. Show your surprise why there is no interview with me, and I don't tell my friends anything, I don’t invite them to visit. You be sure to write about Alnorria's lazy media who don't know news like Cinderella's real-life transformation into a Princess. We need to get Dave to curb his appetite."
"If you go hunting a tiger, be prepared to meet him, so as not to become prey yourself," Fatima answered with the proverb of Northern India, the homeland of her father's ancestors.
"The same goes for Dave, doesn't it?" I said. "Or did he think that a normal person would forgive him for kidnapping and imprisonment, even if it was a gilded prison? I want children, but not earlier than about fifteen years, and their father will be the one I choose myself. And now I'm at risk of unnecessary reproduction without the possibility of an abortion. I don't want to torture my body with pregnancy and childbirth in order to give the baby to torment in an abnormal world. And even sex here will be under duress. I have no choice. The retaliatory strike must be struck immediately."
"I totally agree, but first you have to protect yourself! Dave has a lot of weapons, you have nothing."
"My only weapon is publicity," I said. "Dave didn't just take me out of touch with the world."
"You're right. And I'll ask my mom how to arrange a miscarriage without risking death myself. In her former country, abortion is prohibited, contraception is very bad, but there are enough women who do not torture themselves with an excessive quantity of childbirth. My mom was taught the art be protected by improvised means and making miscarriages by her mother, despite all her orthodoxy. And Dave and his accomplices can deprive you of the ability to choose and control your body. I will send the recipes to you in an personal box on the fanfiction site. I hope it opens with a book reader."
"That would be great," I said. "Now I have to call my granny. I need to know why she shoved me in here."
I wanted to said goodbye and to press the end button, but I remembered one more important thing:
"Fatima, please look on the Internet for the location of Terre Court."
https://www.wattpad.com/story/330893564-if-you-go-hunting-a-tiger https://archiveofourown.org/works/44014216![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
