[b][u][center]The Gratitude of Working Ladies
For Jimbo_The_Crow
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]








“You just had to do something bad enough for me to step in…”

Vincent shook his head as he wiped his rapier clean. The rags that the so-called ‘loan sharks’ wore were suitable for little else after he was done with them, though they made pitiful seats. They weren’t breathing anymore for the crow to correct them, though, so he had to deal with the pathetic padding of corpulent corpses as a seat while he waited for his staff to arrive. 

As he wiped down the rapier again, he imagined that the sharks around him hadn’t expected things to go the way it had for them. Sure, they’d pushed into someone else’s territory with their predatory tactics, but most of the other crime bosses would have let it slide or given them a warning, at worst. A one-time bribe to keep the peace, they’d call it. 

The way that he saw it, it was weakness. And weakness was worse than a bit of rough. 

Holding the rapier to the moon, Vincent looked at himself in the blade. A few red streaks remained, discoloring the already-ruined suit further in the reflection. The blue fabric looked like it was streaked with death – which, in a way it was – and the right sleeve was ripped where one of the shark had gotten in a lucky bite. Absolutely ruined without the services of an expert tailor, he imagined, and even then they’d probably be better off just making a new one. 

Spotting something in the hole, Vincent turned from the blade to the black metal that ran down from his shoulder. He fiddled with the panels until – 

Chink. 

A tooth came free. He turned it between his fingers, sighed, and flicked it off into the back of the alley. 

“Next time someone leaves me with a souvenir, here’s hoping they have something more high-value,” he muttered. 

“Mr. Cain.”

The crow looked up. A tigress stood at the edge of the alley, a new suit tucked under one arm and an umbrella held in the other. She was dressed as business-like as one could have asked, with a tight black power-suit around her that hugged muscles that would have been suitable for the Olympians that had been on TV only a few months back. Her hair, a fading dirty blonde, hung over one side of her face, and her stripes were dark enough to tell him that she’d been on a dye job recently. 

“Helga,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. “Didn’t ask for a new suit.”

“Figured you’d need one.”

“I had it handled.”

“Suit didn’t.”

“I didn’t – you know what? Fine.”

There were no thanks from him; Vincent didn’t believe in saying ‘thanks,’ since words were cheap, and Helga never asked for them. She just did what she did, and it worked out for both of them. 

She laid the suit on the concrete in front of her, then turned her back for him to change. Vincent sheathed the rapier and unbuckled his belt, slowly pulling his shirt off. 

“Anything from the other bosses around?” the crow asked as he tossed the ruined garments to the ground. 

“Nothing I’ve heard. Looks like these shits were operating independently.”

“Heh. Even stupider than I thought.”

“Usually are.”

“Well, nobody’s going to miss them. The way that they were talking when I found them, doubt that you’d have done any different.”

“Probably not, Mr. Cain.”

The ‘Mr. Cain’ told him that she was pissed that she hadn’t had the chance to find them first. Helga usually called him Vin or Vinny to rile him up, piss him off. The fact that she hadn’t said that she’d felt the same thing he’d felt when he first heard what the sharks had done to the Under-Girls. There were lines that you didn’t fucking cross, and the sharks had leapt right over it.

“Anything else?” he asked, stuffing his arms into the jacket sleeves. 

“Darina asked me to bring you back when we were done.”

“Planned to head back there anyway. They’ve got a paycheck for me.”

“You take anything from those girls right now, they’ll be –”

“I know what I’m doing, Helga. Do you really think I’m going to hit them with something they can’t handle twice in one night?”

The tigress didn’t say a word. Vincent pulled his tie tight around his throat once more, tucked it in place, and made sure that his suit was properly fitted to his shoulders and arms before belting his sword back into place. The gloves were the last touch, hiding the fact that one of his arms were mechanical, and he made sure that they were both tucked into his sleeves before he cleared his throat. 

“Let’s get going, then.”

“Right, Vinny.”

“Theeere it is. God dammit…Where’s the limo?”

“In the shop. Heh. We’ve got a different ride.”

“Great. Well, better be a – is that a fucking Pinto?!”

“Limo gets too much attention; you wanna get somewhere without being noticed, take the cheapest junker you can get.”

“…I hate you.”

“Like you said, Vinny, there it is.”

The crow shook his head. Before he could get in the back seat, Helga opened the passenger door and looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. He glared back, but didn’t want to fight. Sliding inside and immediately groaning at the musty scent that clung to everything inside, he tucked his legs out of the way. The tigress shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. 

“You couldn’t have cleaned this thing first? Or bought an air freshener or something?”

“It’s a rental,” she said, shutting the driver’s door and pulling out the keys. “Under another name, before you ask.”

“Good.”

“Not worth prettying up for a night. Besides, if you hadn’t found ‘em first, I would have needed something to hide the bodies in the river.”

“That reminds me. We have something in mind for clean-up?” Vincent asked. 

“Already got the usuals on it. Alley will be clean in twenty minutes.”

“Good. Good.”

The crow leaned his head back and closed his eyes. A few flashes of terrified shark faces filled his head before they faded away. The death-expressions would be there for a few hours before they faded away. Might give him a nightmare or two – wouldn’t bother him after that. And it wasn’t like they should be bothering him anyway. 

[i]Fucking David…[/i]

He rubbed his forehead, pinching the spot where the beak folded into the feathers that ran along the rest of his face. It was going to be Vincent, Vincent, Vincent from this point on, and he needed to make sure that the rest of his brain understood that. 

“How far to the station?”

“Ten minutes. Fifteen if we hit traffic.”

“I’m going to get some shut-eye.”

“Get it where you can, Vinny, get it where you can.”

“Don’t call me that…”

#

“We’re here.”

Vincent opened his eyes. Sleep hadn’t come, but he’d at least made some headway forgetting the faces of the dead loan sharks. Most of the details had already faded; all that remained were those white eyes as they realized what was going to happen as they bled out from the cuts he’d given them. He sat up, letting those eyes fade into oblivion as he looked out the window. 

The abandoned train station was waiting just outside. The front door was paneled up, wood blocks forming a barricade between the street and the interior. Most of the windows were cracked, but barred; no getting in there, either. The old dome up top was ringed with gargoyles, some of which probably got up and wandered around on the right nights. All of ‘em were sitting up there, keeping watch tonight. 

He sighed, nudging the door open and stretching one leg out. Helga leaned over the middle of the car. 

“You want me to come along?”

“Nah. Darina likes her privacy when it comes to ‘business.’”

“Those girls don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Women, Helga. They’re women. God knows they worked hard enough for that title.”

“…You’re gonna fuck ‘em, aren’t you?”

“What?!” Vincent whipped his head around, cheeks bright red. “No! No, no, that’s not – I’m not thinking about that.”

Helga smirked. 

“Wipe that grin off your face! You work for me, remember? Stop it.”

“Heh. Fine, fine. Go get your ‘paycheck.’ I’ll see what hotels are still taking reservations; you’ll need a shower after.”

“Fuck. You. Helga.”

She flipped him the bird as he turned around. He kicked the door shut – 

“Watch the deposit!” she shouted after him. 

Vincent didn’t say anything. He was too busy blushing as he walked up the steps to the old subway station. 

The front door was shuttered and the windows were barred, but that didn’t mean anything. Every transit station in the city had different ways in, whether for the service staff – always out of the way, always kept open long after the thing itself was closed – or for the rats and homeless and other under-class people that needed a place to stay. All he had to do was follow the right trails. 

In this case, a few needles, a little lost cash, and a cigarette were enough to lead him to a hole in the wall that the cops hadn’t covered up yet. He ducked under the old caution tape used to disguise it and slipped into the dank. 

Following the old moldy tiles and the barely-visible arrows on the walls, he made his way from the upper levels to the old subway platform. The rails were still there and the trains still passed through, but they never stopped here. Not anymore. Budget cuts meant that there was no reason for a station that delivered maybe two passengers a week to the rest of the city to operate, but they couldn’t just yank the rails off and put them somewhere else.

They could cut the electricity, though. Meant that the whole place was dark as sin, and the crow blended in perfectly. He felt his way to the edge of the subway platform, toe-talons hanging off the edge. With one hand in his pocket, he waited. 

He didn’t have to wait long. A train came rushing down the tunnel, the vibrations arriving before the roar of wind following it along. The rectangle of rattling steel rushed by, the glow from the windows showing him passengers and lighting him up. He imagined that he looked like a grim reaper standing on the platform with a blade at his hip, dressed all fancy and upscale. Some few passengers stared back in sudden shock, one tossing their phone in the air before they passed out of sight. 

Vincent chuckled as the train left. As soon as it cleared the platform but before the light faded, he hopped down and felt around for the hole under the platform. The last of the light cast a shadow that caught the edge of it, and he ducked in. 

More tunnels, more darkness. He felt his way along, feeling more like a mole than a bird as he hunched through the dug-out hideout. Not many people knew about this ‘establishment’ under the platform, but enough did to give them business. 

Some business. 

Some money. 

Enough to – 

“Mr. Cain?”

A soft voice, androgynous, called out to him from around the bend. He was almost there. 

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“Oh. Oh, you – did you –”

“Yeah, it’s done. I’m here to talk to Darina.”

“One – one second.”

He waited. Anybody that wasn’t an asshole would. 

A few seconds later, a sickly green light appeared around the corner, casting a faint glow on broken earth and shattered foundations. Most of the tunnel was held up by scattered bits of lumber scavenged from other places on the surface, though here and there someone had splurged and grabbed some rebar to prop up the tunnel. The light bobbed a bit, then the holder walked around the corner. 

“Ivan,” Vincent said. 

“Mr. Cain.”

Ivan was a slug-man, green-brown and covered in his own slime. His eyes were big and bulbous, the only thing that broke the coloration of the rest of his body and looking like they almost didn’t belong in his skull. He was shorter than the crow, but almost twice as long with his flat, slimy tail extending out behind him. 

“Well? Take me to her.”

“Right. I – yes, Mr. Cain.”

[i]Don’t need to be –

Shut up. You wouldn’t be. I have to be.[/i]

Vincent shook his head as he fell in behind the slug. Despite Ivan’s species, he moved at a decent walking pace; the crow didn’t feel slowed down by following him. 

They went deeper, though not much further. Down a small ramp, around a pillar, and then – then they were at the bottom of the station. The Under-Girls and the Under-Men lived and worked here, and…

Well, they were hard-off. 

“Welcome to the Slime Rooms,” Ivan said. “Sorry; we – we weren’t sure that you’d be back tonight.”

“Mm.”

He grunted as they walked down the dug-out corridor that ran between the various rooms. Each one was slung with a cheap cloth that had been broken down by time, mold, and cutting off the bad parts before they could make anyone sick. The layers of old cloth that were barely there and the new layers that were put up to patch the holes were as varied as could be, so multi-colored that they looked like sad pride flags that had been thrown together by someone that didn’t know what they were doing. 

If their point was to give anyone privacy, it didn’t work. He could see into any room he liked. Slugs and snails alike were faintly visible in the green light of the lantern and the bio-luminescent moss that lined the walls of the underground. He saw the swell of many a breast, the curve of soft rumps, and the coiling slime-tails of the two species that called this place home and work at the same time. 

He’d been here more than a few times. Darina and the workers paid him protection money to make sure that nobody fucked them over. Genuine protection money, not just money to keep him from wrecking them. They expected to be safe. 

So when the loan sharks came…

Well, he had to make a statement. One night was too long to wait. 

He lingered at one of the curtained rooms, looking through the gaps at the snail-woman on the other side. She was softer-looking than some of the others, wearing a rainbow shell across her back that had no straight lines and none of the abstract swirls of greater skill. It looked like it had been painted by a child, and it might as well have been; none of the people down here had any real chance to develop their skills, or get anything better than what they had. They were barely surviving. 

She turned slightly, looking at him. The antennae on her head flicked, almost like they could sense him on the other side of the curtains. Vincent looked away, moving on before she could see him, but not before he saw the bruise on her cheek. 

“They didn’t just force money out of you, did they?” he muttered. 

“No.”

“How bad?”

“Worse than some, better than others. We were all alive afterward.”

That wasn’t good enough. He should have dragged it out in the alley – even if it wasn’t professional, it would have been worth it to make them scream. Just a little. Just enough to make it feel right now. 

Ivan stopped at the far end of the corridor, putting the lamp down. He pulled at the curtains, gesturing inside. 

“Darina’s waiting.”

“Mm.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cain.”

“Don’t mention it. Ever.”

Passing under the curtain, he found himself in the familiar bedroom of the underground’s madame, or at least, the madame of the Slime Rooms, pitiful as they were. Even here, where the person in charge was supposed to rule and hold court, all he could see were old cushions that were barely holding together and stitched-together bits of fancy memories that were fading quicker than a puddle in summer. The green light was slightly stronger here, the moss better fed so that it cast a better light, but it was still an emerald with a cold instead of a patient on a sickbed. 

And the madame herself, Darina, wasn’t even on her bed. She was on the floor, kneeling, facing away from him toward the wall. Her hands – 

Was she praying?

“They’re dead,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

“By you?”

“Yeah. By me.”

“…I’d say I’m sorry you had to…but thank you.”

“Yeah, well. Small price to pay when they fuck up that bad,” the crow muttered, leaning against the doorway. “I wanted to make sure that nobody else did it. Hard to deliver a better message than dead bodies for that.”

“And you’re still here.”

“That matters?”

“We know that you’ll keep your word, young man,” she said, slowly letting her hands fall to her sides. “And that means more than you know.”

It was always hard coming back to a client after a job was done. It was easier when he was working for someone else; all he had to do was go out there, muscle or intimidate someone, and then go home. The rest of the gang handled the rest of the job, the talking, the wheeling and dealing, all that junk. It was easier, simpler. 

But with something like this, where he was already invested, when there was something that cut down to the deeper parts of his past…when it was more than just business…it was like he had to be there. Something in him [i]needed[/i] to be there in person, even if it was hard, even if it felt wrong. 

Darina turned. She had a bruise on her cheek, too, though she’d applied some slime and more to it. It was fading, probably would be gone by morning, but he could see it. He squeezed his hands into fists for a moment before relaxing them again. 

“Well. I’ll cut you a break on protection money for a couple months,” Vincent said, looking away. “Don’t want to break the bank. And you’ve always been good before. The sharks must have hid the money somewhere, since it wasn’t on them, but at least they won’t take anything else.”

“You’re better than we deserve.”

“Ha! Oh, that’s rich…”

“You don’t have to give us mercy, but you do.”

“I don’t have to do anything. I do what I want to do, and that’s all.”

“Does that mean you wanted to help us, then?”

“I – that’s not what I said,” he muttered, looking away. “I’m not a good person. Don’t go twisting my words.”

“I’m not. But we don’t have to talk. I – I know it makes you uncomfortable, young man. I…”

He was messing it up. He should go. Now that they knew it was done – why did he even come all the way in? He could have passed the news to Ivan and then left. Hell, why didn’t he just do that? 

Darina slithered toward him. The motions weren’t that different to a snake moving across the ground, only slower, pushing herself along the stone and leaving her slime behind. She was naked, he realized – why did that matter? Well, it was hard to meet her eyes when those soft breasts were there, starting to sag a little, age showing through her in a way that made it hard not to notice, but not in a bad way. Just…experience. So much experience. So much time and pain and suffering and – 

This was why he didn’t do this very often. He didn’t like to think of what other people went through. It made him feel less – 

[i]Special?

Stop it. Not right now.[/i]

The slug woman reached out and took his hand. The living one, not the mechanical one – right, she knew. She’d seen him without the gloves before, one time when he paid for one of the other girls. She’d been there to talk about it afterward, make sure that he paid up and all. That had been before the whole arrangement that they had now, before they had something where he worked for them more directly. 

“Would you…stay?”

“Why? Any other assholes going to come down and make problems for you?” he asked. 

“Not for that.”

“…”

“I can’t pay you. You’re right. But…I know that you –”

“I’m not here to fuck.”

“No. But you can do more than that…with the right woman…”

He should pull his hand away. He should leave. But there was something in her eyes, something that made him wonder what she knew. The way that she looked at him, with that faint swelling just under her eye, the way that she held his hand – 

It was gentle. 

It was firm. 

It was safe. 

Something in him wanted to cry. He didn’t let it. Instead, he slowly brought his hand and hers between his legs. As that soft, slimy hand rubbed over his crotch, teasing the shaft beneath the garment, he let himself focus on that. 

Not the fear. 

Not the pain. 

Not the anger. 

[i]That.[/i]

It was easier. 

“No talking,” he whispered, shaking his head. “If we – if we do that, no talking. I don’t want to –”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to think about –”

“I know. I don’t either.”

Her fingers pulled at his pants, gently nudging them in some way that let his cock slide out. It was half-hard from her touch already, rising against her slick palm. She squeezed it gently, drawing a little huff from him as her other hand rested on his cheek. 

He felt young. He hated that. 

She felt older, softer, knowing. He liked that. 

She leaned in, his beak almost touching her lips. Darina gently patted his cheek. 

“Let’s help each other forget.”

He nodded. 

Guided by the hand on his cock to the bed, he stripped as quickly as he could. She was already naked and flowed onto the bed, her lower body following her up like a fluid climbing out of a vat. By the time he was naked, she’d rolled over, her tail extending toward him, the long, slick-slimy-sticky underside waiting and leading up to a slit just under the waist-part splitting her lower and upper halves. 

Darina didn’t say anything, just like he asked. She just waved him forward, and he joined her. 

They didn’t hold back. He pressed himself to her, his shaft sliding along her slick flesh, coating itself in her slime as he blindly humped and grunted. Her tail lifted, pressing up between his legs and along his back, almost like an embrace guiding him forward. It pushed, he slid, and – 

Squelch. 

He was inside of her. She huffed against his ear – fake? How could someone with her experience feel something like him – 

She must have. She squeezed around him, inside and out, pulling him deeper. The crow gave himself to it, thrusting, humping, grinding against her. She arched her back against him, her chest squished against his, her breasts grinding along his feathery pecs. Vincent groaned, surrendering for the first time in too long to someone else’s touch, letting her guide him, letting her hold him – 

Thrust. Thrust. Thrust. She was always rippling around him, teasing, squeezing along his shaft. Some part of him tried to pay attention to her tricks, wanting to understand them, know them, fight them, but the rest of him was too desperate for oblivion and the rush of not-thinking, just feeling. 

Sex. Hot, slippery sex with someone that knew what they were doing was impossible to think through. Her tail rested against his back, sealing him in the body-warm from both sides, keeping him flush to her. He closed his eyes, letting the pleasure grow, surrendering to the back-and-forth hump and grind and schlick of her pussy sucking around his cock. It was a mess, but sex was messy. Life was messier; sex was honest. 

She moaned for him, and he felt better. He leaned his head down, his beak sliding between her breasts, and her hand rested on the back of his head, holding him close as he worked himself in, out, in, out – 

Condom – he should mention – 

No, too late. He’d said no words, and it was too late to talk, and she could have said, and – 

In, out, in, out, the warm wet running down his cock, dripping off his balls. He moaned, trying to keep it from turning to a whimper as he got closer and closer. His arms wrapped around her, trying to take some hint of control, but it was too late; he was so far gone that he was helpless, barely better than a virgin in her experienced coils. 

In. Out. In. Out. In. 

He moaned against her, stifling the sound against her chest as he came. The sudden rush hit him hard, leaving him shivering all over. The heat of her slit grew hotter still as he added his own juices to it, flooding deep and pushing back. The backwash slammed into him, bubbling up around the base of his cock as they laid together in her bed. 

He held himself there, unable to move at first. The sheer sensitivity that followed had nothing to do with anything special with her body and slime, nor anything about what they had done. It was the rawness, the pleasure that came after climax, the – the tingling that ran up and down his cock and told him to hold the fuck still so he didn’t feel worse. 

Darina rested against her pillows as she unfolded her tail from his back. She kept him covered from the waist down, almost like someone trying to preserve his modesty. He didn’t know what to feel about that. 

“…Will that take?” he muttered under his breath. 

“I don’t know. We’ve been too poor for birth control or condoms for the last couple of months.”

“…”

“We’ll have to see.”

“If it comes…I’ll take care of it.”

As a father? No; he wasn’t getting into that. Financially? Maybe; he was doing well enough. Offering her options? That…that he could do. 

She stroked down his spine, giving him the option of settling in. It didn’t feel right, but he knew he should try. At least for a while. At least with her when – 

Tap-tap. 

Darina looked past him. Reluctantly, Vincent looked over his shoulder. 

It was the snail-woman from the other room, the one that had taken a bit of a beating as well. The rainbow shell made her slick body look more colorful somehow, as if the amateur painting could bleed from the curly shell across the rest of her. She leaned against the door frame, looking down at him, her lips moving soundlessly. Darina broke the silence. 

“Yes, Izolda?” 

“Is he…done?” the snail-woman asked, her voice so quiet that he could barely hear it. 

“He’s finished once, but he may have more. He has much to forget.”

“Can…he help me forget, too?”

“That depends on him,” Darina said, shaking her head while stroking his. “We owe him much; we cannot ask him too many favors.”

Favors. They called [i]this[/i] a favor. He wanted to laugh, and the only reason he didn’t was because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop once he started. If he lost it, then he wasn’t getting it back. 

“Please, Mr. Cain,” Izolda whispered. “If you can…”

“…Fine.”

“Come here, dear,” Darina said, waving the other woman over. “There’s plenty of room on my bed.”

Were there going to be more? Would others want his help to ‘forget’ for a while? Or was it going to be just them?

Just them. As if any other man would complain about having two women – two women that knew every trick in the book – willing to go as far as they could to forget about the world for a while. Even as he slowly pulled out and rolled over, Izolda was already there, her hands on his thighs and her mouth lowering between his legs. Darina gently maneuvered them so his head rested between her breasts. 

“Thank you, Vincent,” she whispered. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“I’m not kind.”

“…Thank you, anyway.”










[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Vincent Cain is someone that doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, but he also has a fair bit that he doesn’t want to think about. When he helps a group of working girls that the world forgot, he gets a chance to forget for a while, as hard as that is to do.

Tags: M/F, Age Difference, Prostitution, Gritty, Gang Life, Vaginal, Slug, Crow, Madame, Sad, Emotional, Forget the World, Cum, Cum Inside, Snail,