If I have my headphones on, it means I don’t care what you’re saying to me, I’m listening to some sick jams.

Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Current Date: February 5, 2023

Character: Sapphire Lace
Race: Human – Modified
Age: 63, physically about 20
Current residence: Liège, Belgium
 

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I’m still here. In a way, I didn’t expect to be. Not when, not long before the holiday rush last year, during a very quiet late morning, I asked my bosses if they had a few minutes for me. They both gave me a worried look, but we headed to the office, we sat down, we talked. I think they expected me to tell them I quit. I wouldn’t have done that to them; I’ve worked here long enough at this point that I think I’m the only one who has any seniority anymore. I really like this job.

When I told them about the little, I guess I should call it a slip, as I filled in my paper—though it wasn’t so much a slip as it was deliberate, but still—they gave me confused looks. I can’t say I blame them for it. I’ve always had two cards to my name, at least, I’ve had these since I left the brothel. One with my proper age and date of birth on it, and another that I update via a particular system to reflect a new date of birth and age that better fit my physical age whenever I know I have to move.

I didn’t give them all the details, that wasn’t wholly necessary. I just gave them enough information so that they would understand things and I sort of gave them time. For a near week, I felt like I was walking on eggshells. They didn’t really talk to me but they didn’t treat me any differently; I was mostly let to work my usual shift and other than I didn’t know what their potential answer to things would be, everything was as it should have been.

There was Teddy who keeps on coming into work with his headphones on and no amount of anyone telling him to leave them in the back with his things does any good. He’s mostly around to do the cleaning but he still needs to be able to hear us as he works. The last time I tried to get him to take them off, he rolled his eyes at me and told me that if he had his headphones on, it meant that he didn’t care what I was trying to say to him because he was listening to some sick jams.

I might or might not have rolled my eyes at him and told him that he needed to either switch to earbuds—to which he made a face as though I’d told him to eat gross brown dog droppings—so he could leave one out and listen to us, or just remove them altogether; it’s a whole frigging safety hazard.

Then there was Olivia who came in complaining of heartbreak and needing a triple-shot espresso in a cup of frothed warm milk with some extra pumps of whatever sugary syrup is all the rage lately—which she got on her lunch break and I don’t know how she can function drinking that much caffeine.

There were others, of course, but these two stand out more than the others on that particular week.

By the near end of my shift and the end of that particular week, the bosses finally asked me to join them in the back and by the serious looks on their faces, I thought that was it for me. I didn’t hold much hope though I suppose I shouldn’t have been that worried; they always look serious no matter what but I’d just been nervous about their decision, in the long run.

As it turns out; while they were a bit confused about everything still, I was a good worker, I was always on time; I knew the recipes just about by heart, the list went on as to the positive things and they said that as long as I kept on working hard, I would be fine to stay with them, no matter what. They would still need some time to wrap their mind around the fact that I was essentially older than they were but that was about it.

So here I am still, working away. Full-time, full hours, usually morning shifts because those suit me well though once in a blue moon I’ll help with the later shifts because we just don’t have enough people for that and it’s fine. I still have three cats, and I still have no idea where they came from. They’ve made my home their home and I can’t really complain because they helped me unwind during that particular week.

We’re a little short-staffed currently but that tends to happen around this time of the year. Students are going back to school and I know that we’ll get new faces before long. That’ll just be a new adventure.

Final Word Count: 796

I was never meant to be here, but I carved myself into this. I made it my own.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Characters: Sapphire Lace
Race: Human – Modified
Age: 62, physically about 20
Current residence: Liège, Belgium
Final Word Count: 738 words
 

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In a way, I think I’m as surprised as anyone else that I’m still here. At least, anyone else that might have learned only recently that I was different from everyone else.

I still have my job as a barista. I really had been quite sure that, after a year or two, I would have had to find somewhere else to work. I am much older than I look and that will never change. I don’t know that my physical looks will ever change. I stopped aging when I became an adult and that is part of what makes me who I am. I don’t know exactly what runs within my blood, but I know that I am not fully human.

It was with that thought in mind that I had made sure to remember that I couldn’t stay where I was very long. People would begin to wonder and ask questions.

As it turned out, though, I like my small little house. It’s comfortable, the neighbours are nice though I socialize enough at work to not feel any need to socialize while at home. I told myself that I would stay. That I somehow would figure things out and go from there. I believed that I wasn’t meant to stay though I wanted to. I feel like, in the almost two years since I’ve been here, I’ve carved my place into this community.

I know the orders of the regulars, though some like to change it up every so often. I know the names of most of the people that have come in at least a handful of times, and they always seem to be happy to see a familiar face. Most of the other baristas are students and only stay around for a few months before moving on. The owner told me that they were just so glad that I still was there.

In a way, I feel as though it was that little comment that made it so I stayed.

I have thought about telling them the truth about me. I’ve crossed paths with a few others who clearly were not human—though perhaps it was only my trained eye that told me as much—and it gives me some hope as to the fact that I might not be quite on my own here, as someone who is different.

In a little while more, I feel as though I will have to broach the subject. Let them know. If I stay here more than a few years without telling them the truth, they will ask themselves questions, I’m sure. They are not the type to pry but I would feel bad for leaving them to wonder if their mind is still intact.

This is a little community in the heart of the much bigger city. We’re in a little nook not overly close to the heart of the city and people seem to always be very friendly while out and about. This is why it gives me some hope that I might be able to be honest about who I am to the owner, once I feel that the time has come. It might not seem like much, to most, but to me, it is worth a lot of stress.

I grew up and lived more than five decades of my life in a whore house. I moved from one house to the next, my debts long since paid, but I had stayed to help the younger ones understand what life in the place was all about. It was far from fairy glitter and unicorn magic. Fairy tales are a thing that never should have been told to the children who grew up in the place.

It was sad when all of the places closed. Not so much because it meant that people would finally be free of being forced into things they didn’t want, but because so many of them were without a roof over their heads when it all happened. I was glad when I heard that most governmental agencies near the houses had stepped in to help.

Now, well now I just live my life as is. I’ve lost contact with the one person I still somewhat kept in touch with after I’d requested my papers, but I suppose it was inevitable. I have no idea as to where they might be but, in a way, that might be for the best.

I woke up with three cats in my house. I don’t even have any cats! This is why we shut the window.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Characters: Sapphire Lace
Race: Human – Modified
Age: 61, physically about 20
Final Word Count: 727 words
 

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A year ago, the Matron passed away and control over the houses all over the world was handed down to a new woman I had only met a handful of times and had never cared for. I left a week after I learned of the passing and while it pained me to do so—I had stayed to help the younger ones get settled in and not expect things like the fairy tales they’re told when they’re younger—I just had to. I knew that the new matron would somehow find any excuse to keep me within her walls and I couldn’t have that. I had paid my debt a long time ago—decades—and I had only ever stayed to help the kids.

I still was in Adelaide when the news of her death reached me and while I had, just a year before, turned away a man who had been more than willing to pay for my freedom, I knew that I could find my own way as necessary. I had enough savings to not have to worry about things for a long time and it would give me time to settle and find a place to call my own. That was one of those things I did like about the Matron. While I did not condone the line of work that she had us do and the fact that she raised children from the other whores to keep the houses running, she did have our well-being at heart. At least for the most part. After a certain number of years—usually when your debt was repaid in most cases, or with the children, once they were eighteen—you were usually made aware that a rather small percentage of the money you brought in was placed back in an account under your name for you to use, should you ever have a need for it or if you wished to leave.

As the years passed, I believe that the Matron softened her hold on things a little. Once debts were paid, she didn’t force anyone to stay and they would get their money without anything attached to it. The thing is, it’s not a lot of money if you’ve only been around for two or three years. Yes, it paid back the debt but what it left behind was minimal and wouldn’t allow one much of a life. Most stayed.

In my case, I stayed for other reasons but when I heard of her passing, I asked for my release paper and I was given all that belonged to me. Once I had my few belongings in a suitcase and my paperwork, I was out and told to never come back. I had no intentions to.

I still have a contact inside, however; someone I dare to call a friend. Though I suppose I should say, I had a contact inside. Within six months, the new Matron had somehow screwed up so bad all of the houses in the world—twenty, thirty?—had to be shut down but the one in London. Even that was under investigation because she clearly just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. All within were given whatever money was in their accounts and, thankfully, the government in each area saw fit to helping most—they were homeless, after all—in finding homes and jobs.

As far as I’m concerned? I found a little home not far from a park. It’s not very big, two bedrooms, the living room, bathroom, kitchen. It does what I need of it and it is mine. I found a quiet job working as a barista but I know that before too long, I most likely will have to find a job elsewhere. Too few people here are aware that there are others, like myself.

A few nights ago, the temperature had been comfortable enough that I had left my windows cracked open. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time I’d done that but I certainly hadn’t expected to wake up and find myself with three furry visitors at the foot of my bed. I stared at those three cats long and hard, and then I stared at the window with its broken screen and I rolled my eyes.

I have three cats now. They refused to leave. I suppose they’re good company, I can’t complain.

You think I do these things because I want to?

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Characters: Sapphire Lace
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 59, physically about 20
Final Word Count: 597 words
 

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“Leave with me.” His eyes had been bright and warm, their desire for him palpable but I’d had to only shake my head at him, sigh a little and point out that I couldn’t do that. I wanted to leave with him, I did. It had been years since I’d had a client who had actually given me any true thought; a client who had taken the time to get to know me. A client who wanted me for who I was more than for just my body though it was clear that my body was a nice little plus for him.

“I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that. I want to but I can’t.” His face had closed up then. I regretted saying the words but I’d had to. There were new workers in these rooms that still needed a mentor and I was the only one who had enough experience to help them with it. I was the oldest worker the place had and the one with the most experience. So many had been born here that I knew them all, I’d seen them grow up, boys and girls both and it broke my heart most of the time to have to see it all happen again and again.

“You just-” I held up one hand, moving forward to rest my fingers against his cheek and he quieted down, frustration clear as day on his face and it made me ache, oh it made me ache.

“I just nothing and you know this. I don’t do these things because I want to. I do these things so these kids know what they’re getting into. So they’re not thrown into the lion’s den unprepared. I don’t want them to come back to me crying because they were expecting it to be like those fairy tales they’re fed while they’re growing up. I can’t leave.” I’ve always hated the words but there was nothing else for me to say about it all. It was the truth and only the truth.

Women who were fertile could, if the Matron so desired it, be impregnated. Usually with only the best-looking of their clients. The little ones born from the union were raised in the upper floors by their mothers until the kids were old enough to be schooled. The mothers then went back to work and the kids were schooled in the upper floors still until they were old enough to start working. Their first jobs were menial. Help in the kitchen, sweep the floors, clean the bedrooms until they were usually fifteen or sixteen. It depended on a lot of things.

From there on, the cycle repeated itself and I was the only one who’d been here as long as I had because, for one thing, I didn’t look my age and for another thing… well I never would look my age and I was the Matron’s favourite. She was getting old, older by the day and I still don’t know how I feel about the woman who will be taking up the chair once the Matron goes. I suppose that’s something I’ll have to deal with when it happens.

For now… well, for now, I have to let down this client I adore, this client who so wanted to buy my freedom. What he doesn’t know is that my freedom has long ago been bought; the Matron has told me that I could leave if I wanted but what of all the young blood? I can’t just leave them alone, so I stay.

Please… don’t go… don’t leave me.

Timeline/World: Main Profile
Characters: Sapphire Lace
Race: Human – Modified
Age: 59, physically about 20
Final Word Count: 575 words

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Let me address the very large, very blue and very present elephant currently settled at the bar, yes? I’m a whore. I have been a whore for the past forty-five years and my perhaps-unique genetic make-up makes it that I have stopped ageing physically when I turned twenty or so. I can thank my Matron for that. She’s done that with a few of her favourites so we wouldn’t have to go anywhere for a long enough time. I thought that once I was old enough, she’d release me back into the fake wild that is the world out there but I was young and foolish then.

Not that I haven’t repaid my debts yet, those have been paid for a long time but she’s rather fond of me, I suppose. Not that I mind. I’m the oldest in the households—plural because to avoid people getting suspicious of whores who do not age, we are rotated between certain of her houses all around the world every five or so years. People tend to follow my lead and respect me well enough. I teach the newbies about the ropes and I pray to whatever might be willing to listen to me to let them live unmodified because there have been days I have so badly wished I could die.

I remember, about six years back, I was in Hanoi—an absolute gem to spend time in, so beautiful—and I’d already been there for three. My Matron had made plans to bring me back to somewhat gloomy and rainy England for the next six and I didn’t feel quite ready to go but what she says go. I had one particular repeat visitor who’d come almost every other week for the last two and a half years, he was a sweet man, around my emotional age but, since I looked little older than twenty, he could have likely been my father.

To a lot of people, that would have been a serious turn-off but I admit that I like somewhat older men who know what they want and are not afraid to take that very thing. His visits were always filled with pleasure that filled me—no pun intended. I could feel it from the tips of my toes all the way up to the top of my head, it was wonderful.

What wasn’t so wonderful is the meltdown he had when I told him that I was being shipped elsewhere. Please note that I didn’t mention where I was being sent. I’ve done that mistake once and a client follow me between three houses until the Matron had him taken care of. It broke my heart to know what needed to be done but that was a necessary evil. He was turning into a stalker.

My Hanoi visitor though, he had a meltdown that lasted far too long and I was glad and yet sad when I got on that plane to get my fine ass back to Liverpool. Six years later, my bags are packed—and you can bet that beyond my clothes and a few trinkets, I don’t have much to my name, even forty-five years later—and I’m on my way to Adelaide for I don’t know how many years. That’s the thing with my Matron. I never truly know how long she’ll keep me in one place. I guess it keeps me on my toes.