I blinked in shock at her blunt words. She’d seemed so… grandmotherly when I first met her at the door. Like a mean grandma, the kind who yells at neighborhood kids when they’re having fun, but still. Hearing the words cock and fuck come out of her mouth—
“Stay like that,” Mrs. Hawthorne went on. “A lot of the men in the Order like that innocent Bambi look you’ve got going on. And one of my favorite boys comes of age tonight. If Montgomery Kingston chooses you, you better treat him right. He’s got a lot to prove, and he needs a whore who’ll spread her legs, suck his cock, and do everything she can to help him thrive in every challenge.”
“I’m not a whore!” I breathed out in shock.
Mrs. Hawthorne scoffed out an unkind laugh. “There’s a reason they don’t marry your kind. But the Order’s fair. You’ll get your paycheck in the end.”
I blinked and bit my bottom lip against her unkind words.
She leaned in near, her hawkish nose even sharper up close. “You gonna cry, little girl? I thought they did their research and only picked the resilient ones.”
I locked my jaw and tilted my head at her. She was a mean hag who liked to pick on people when they were down. I’d known people like her my entire life, including my own mother.
Instead of spitting curses, though, I smiled sweetly. “Well, I guess I better make sure to ask for a big enough paycheck then, huh? If I’m going to suck all that cock, I better make it worth my while. Are you the person I tell how much I want, or do I discuss that with my” —what was the word she used earlier? Oh right— “my gentleman?”
She was back to glaring. “It’s part of the intake process.” She looked down at her watch again. “Which you are distracting us from. Go ahead and strip completely naked. You’ll have to bathe from scratch because you’ve also made a disaster of your hair. There’s nothing to be done for it. So, strip and wait on the bed for the doctor. I’ll come for you afterwards to bathe you.”
Bathe me? I wasn’t five. And— “The doctor?” I squeaked in confusion, but she was already whirling away in a flurry of gray skirts and sensible shoes out the door.
A doctor was coming to “inspect” me. Jesus Christ. They knew I wasn’t a virgin, right? What else could a doctor— Ooooh, was that what she’d meant by clean?
I felt like an idiot. I was here for sex. Of course they’d want to make sure I wasn’t diseased. But wasn’t it a little too late for that? Shouldn’t that have been one of the first things they asked instead of the last?
I looked down at myself in the expensive lingerie. Shit. Mrs. Hawthorne had kept going on about how I was late and wasting time. But was I really just gonna strip down for some strange person who said he was a doctor to put his hands all over me?
Then again, Mrs. Hawthorne said everything was a test. And I wasn’t doing too well at following instructions, was I?
Without thinking too much more about it, I started stripping down. Still, I did pull the afghan from the bottom of the bed and wrapped it loosely around myself for cover once I was completely naked.
The doctor didn’t knock before coming in, but I was relieved when I saw it was a woman.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Nichols.” She was young, maybe just in her early 30s, and shockingly beautiful. She tugged the stethoscope from around her neck and reached out to shake my hand. Her skin was a deep ebony, she had short cropped hair that only accentuated the long, gazelle-like beauty of her neck. She smiled easily, a huge bright smile that had me easing off my guard in spite of myself.
“Hi, I’m Grace,” I said tentatively.
“Hi, Grace. There’s a lot coming at you really quickly, huh? I get that all of this is crazy and intense. I’m just here to check out your vaginal health and run some quick blood tests. The Order has your bloodwork from when you saw your doctor six months ago, but they just want to double check that you’re still clean and disease free. The men undergo the same check. They really are committed to everyone coming out of this experience with no permanent reminders.” Her smile was compassionate.
I had only about a jillion and one questions.
“So first let’s take your blood and we’ll shoot it off to the lab.” She opened a case she’d brought with her and started pulling out supplies.
“How do you know all this?” I blurted. “Doesn’t it take a long time for lab work to get results back? And wait, how did the Order have access to my personal doctor’s records? That’s confidential information.”