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Mareel remembers the first time Verad came to the comfort house. He didn’t use her body the way she’d come to expect. Yes, there was sex, but he was gentle and there with her, not using her as a substitute for something else, the way her other clients did. And he talked with her. He told her what his life was like, his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations, how he’d been cheated by the Symbiosis Commission. Well, not that first time. It was four or five visits before that happened. But the point was, she wasn’t just a warm body for him to fuck, which is what she was to the rest. He cared. He must.
And up until that moment, from the second her parents had abandoned her, from the moment she’d found her only usable skill was being good at sex, from the second she’d realized this was her destiny, she’d thought no one ever would. Now, she realized she was worth something else. How could she ever go back to letting herself be used after he did that to her? How could she ever be anything but his?