Meet Logan Davis, lover of detective novels and trains, caught in a cycle of debt as a sex worker in a steampunk version of Chicago.
CW: sex trafficking (in the form of financial exploitation/debt backed by threat of violence), financial stress, brief mention of underage exploitation
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Logan snapped the crop against his client's ass. “Come now,” he chided. “Behave.”
The man keened. He stood naked, ass reddening, with his arms spread and tied to each high bedpost. He was a steel mogul who was burdened with more foundries and factories and fortunes than he knew what to do with. Logan had already forgotten this one’s name.
For now, the young man was buttoned into a neat suit, his black hair slicked back to emphasise the sharp angles of his face. “Pathetic,” he sneered, reaching around to flick at the man’s erection. “I bet you could come from this alone.”
“Slut,” he whispered.
“What did you just call me?” Logan snapped as he wound his hand in the man’s balding hair and yanked his head backwards.
“S-sorry, master,” he panted. “I want you to call me that.”
“Is that so?” He kept his grip, and trailed a hand over the light welts, making the client whimper. “I bet,” he whispered in his ear, “that you could come from this alone, slut.”
And, with a faltering moan, he did.
—
Logan shuffled the bills in his hands. “My apologies, sir. It was three hundred dollars.”
Though just about dressed, the client was still flushed and his tie was askew. Most of Logan’s regulars preferred to pay at the start, and be carried out by the fantasy. He could understand that new clients were more cautious, but it was no wonder he’d miscounted when he was still on a high from his scheduled wake-up.
“You were just balls-deep in me.” He laughed through his nose. “Benjamin, please.”
“Sorry. Benjamin,” he corrected. He tugged the necktie to be even. “You’re short twenty dollars, check again if you like.”
“Oh. Well.” He patted his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here you are, then.”
“Many of my clients like to tip,” Logan added, as nonchalantly as he could. The entirety of the payment disappeared into his boss’s pockets, but the tip was his. He needed a coat for the upcoming winter - Dupont would supply shoes with cardboard soles and shirts which cut cheap fabrics into the latest fashions, but nothing needed outside the walls of the brothel. He regularly reminded the men to be grateful that, unlike some, he allowed them to wear their borrowed clothing outside. It was a kindness they were further indebted to him for.
“As far as I’m concerned, you should tip me,” he replied with a laugh.
Logan joined in. “Quite.” He raised his eyebrows. “I will receive the tip myself, they're not split-”
The wallet snapped shut, and was tucked back away.
He smiled tightly. “Would you like to book anything in?”
Benjamin grinned. “Same time next week?”
Just perfect. “I look forward to it.”
—
Once he’d seen him out, Logan headed up to the attic. The brothel had once been a comfortable townhouse, before the factories nearby had spread and a train line had been installed over the next street. The facade was patchy grey over the cream paint, no matter how often they repainted, and even in high summer they kept the arched windows closed. Some of the country boys developed hacking coughs within weeks. Those who had grown up in Chicago had already become as asthmatic or immune as they were going to be.
They lived in the old servant's quarters, while the master bedrooms had remained the same and the lower rooms had mostly been subdivided and furnished with beds, other than a long parlour at the front for entertaining. Up here, the boiler downstairs couldn’t quite drive the autumn chill from the single-paned windows and slanted walls.
Logan knocked at the door of his shared bedroom, waiting for a moment and glancing at the papers pasted over the peeling wallpaper. Dirty pictures of both men and women, pages ripped out of free calenders with landscapes, a pennant for the local baseball team. It seemed to him a completely futile effort at cheering up the place.
Especially when a type-written page was stuck over all of it:
Fines - payable monthly
Tardiness - $5 + $1 per minute
Slovenliness - $5
Fighting - $10
Drunkenness - $10
Incompletion of chores - $20
Incurring physical damage - $25 per mark/bruise
Equipment breakage - cost of repair + 20%
Clothing damage - cost of repair + 30%
Client dissatisfaction - $40+
Arrest - termination at will. Bail pay + 150% for risk to establishment
This didn't include others such as “correct me one more time, Logan”, “is that your opinion, Logan?” and of course, “if you think that fine is unfair, Logan, you can argue yourself all the way back to the poorhouse.”
They weren’t legally binding, of course. But Logan didn’t see too much difference between the threat of debtor’s prison and the business end of a gun to keep them all loyal to their signatures along the dotted line. Bed and board were deducted from their earnings, thousands of dollars for the drafty little rooms. But they had guaranteed business every night, whether they wanted it or not. Most importantly, Dupont supplied protection. Logan no longer had to roll the dice on if each boarding house room or secluded alleyway would be where everything went wrong for the final time. In the dilapidated townhouse, it wasn’t just the men who were kept in line by the threat of violence.
Seeing as nobody had answered either way, Logan pushed into his room, ducking his head against the slant of the roof. Weak morning light dripped in through the skylight. Three iron-framed beds were shoved into the space, too tight to be square with the walls.
A boy who lay in one of the beds with the covers pulled over his head. He'd been like that for days, only dragged out to work or, occasionally, creeping downstairs to eat. Logan rolled his eyes. Anyone could lie about and feel sorry for themself. At least it made him a quiet roommate.
He washed quickly in the freezing basin, and dressed for his day.
Then he knelt to check the stacks of yellowed paperbacks underneath his bed. A few adventure stories, some science fiction, but mainly they were detective novels. Whenever he had a few dimes to spare he picked one up at railway stations and newspaper stands. He liked that the charismatic detectives only needed to observe the clues and apply logic and the truth would out. Best of all was Tarquin Kingston, the trenchcoat-wearing, wise-cracking, hard-boiled private investigator, whose hatred for the police was only matched by his love for cryptography.
Most of the books were in a state of disintegration along the spines, but he could name even those which had the title rubbed off. Tarquin Kingston and the Mines of Mystery, The Enigma of the Purple Crown, Automated Murder…
But this time he selected another book, hidden behind the stacks, and slipped it into his satchel before it could be noticed. Then he grabbed yesterday’s newspaper and a pen before he left the room and headed back to the corridor. There was a full-length mirror by the stairs.
With a quick turn, he checked his reflection.
Logan was twenty-two, a little too tall to look up at most men, with a spare build and severe kind of face. Vividly blue eyes, pale skin, black hair, and sharp cheekbones made him striking. The thin press of his lips and crease between his eyebrows were easy enough to lose in the overall impression. His shirt was done up to the top button, and he wore a black waistcoat over it.
Satisfied, he clattered down the wooden back-stairs, to one of the few benefits of the old townhouse.
The kitchen had huge gleaming green-painted ranges, a flagged floor, and an ice box. As he pushed through the baize door, the exhausted bubble of conversation arose from the men already up for early-morning breakfast.
There was a supply of orange juice, fruit and bread on the table - not quite enough for fifteen grown men. They were all of a type, skinny and pretty. Down the street for musclebound ex-dockworkers, another road along for bears. Most were in their shirtsleeves, though one had forgone his shirt entirely to allow the welts on his back to breathe, and another was attempting to dry his one pair of trousers in front of the fire. They didn’t look up for his entrance, nor did he greet them.
Logan put some bread in the toaster - there was no butter to melt, but he enjoyed the luxury of a hot breakfast.
“How was the new guy?” It was the newest one - he went by Darling. From Iowa or Idaho or somewhere else covered with cornfields, come to the big city to make his fortune on stage. His face was made heart-shaped by a widow’s peak and pointed chin, and his lashes were as long as a baby calf’s. He would never leave this place.
“Fine. Cheap.”
Darling hadn't worked out yet that he did not like conversation. The old guard still didn't like Logan - when he'd arrived here, seventeen and starving, he'd played by street rules. Stolen their clients, thrown his weight around with first fists and then words. He knew to behave a little better now, but he still set upon new customers with single-minded focus, and there was still something in his manner which he couldn't help coming off as condescending.
“No tip?” Darling whistled sympathetically. “That's the second time this month, isn't it?”
“There won't be a third,” he interrupted tersely. He poured himself a glass of orange juice, and opened his paper. Even if they received it themselves, Dupont kept a careful track of their tips, nudging those doing well to start reimbursing their debt before more interest could accrue, and for those who had not been pleasing the customers…
Logan sipped the juice. Fresh and bright, grown in a greenhouse out of the smog of the city, or perhaps in the countryside beyond it. Consequences for failure were reasonable when this was the reward.
“Mine was really weepy, he felt really bad about cheating on his wife apparently,” Darling laughed.
Logan hummed in response, keeping his eyes on the paper as he flipped to the puzzle section.
“But he tipped really well. I'm thinking of going out, I've got the night off-”
This time he didn't risk a hum.
Darling leant over his shoulder to peer at the crossword.
“Don't tell me any answers,” Logan said, shrinking back from being crowded. “It's my paper.”
“I won't.” Darling leant back with another laugh which rang off the flagstones. “Hey, Ollie, how about going out later?”
“Fuck off,” Ollie replied. “I wouldn't attend a funeral with any of you.”
“Jeez, calm down,” Alan said, flapping his trousers ineffectually in front of the fire. “I'll head out with you, Darling. Just have to check with the wife first.”
“She can come along!” Darling attempted.
Logan grabbed his toast and tried to drown them out.
Alan's eyes narrowed. “She doesn't hang around my work life.”
“Three for three,” Logan muttered. He marked down customary. Alan and Ollie laughed, and Darling, after a second, joined in.
“Alright, lads. That's on me.”
Logan finished his toast, filling in alloy, mansion, hydrogen, elementary, vault. With a glance at the clock, he completed the crossword, then scanned through the news. Financial commentary he didn’t care much to understand, international affairs which wouldn’t affect him, housing prices which would affect him less. Some politician arguing that raising worker ages would deny families the income of their children, some actor arrested for homosexuality, some zeppelin explosion over Louisville. He only read the last article, but there was no detail about the “technical failure” so there wasn’t much point. He was more interested in the great beast of gas and gears than the people in it. He folded the paper and left it on the table for the others.
As soon as he stepped outside, he drew in a breath of polluted air, shoulders relaxing as he rolled it through his lungs like cigarette smoke. The row of houses were half-abandoned, but there was another brothel of women run by a madam rumoured to be the illegitimate daughter of the chief of police. The rest were filled by squatters, factory workers and artists in subdivided apartments, and a pawn shop. The sun blinked, white and wavering, through the smog above. The line of the train tracks was drawn taut over the rooftops, and Logan squinted as a navy steam train rolled through, huffing and panting its way to the centre of the city. It must already be eight in the morning.
Step after step, arms folded against the autumn chill, he let the memories of the night before and the stress of the brewing trouble with his boss recede. Pushed down the annoyance, packed the frustration away, let the cold freeze over it all. The trick was to leave it all behind, not just the anger but the satisfaction of the crossword, the enjoyment of the juice. Joy was as temporary as anything else; it did no good to let it fester. His feet against the cobbles were solid, and the money left in his pocket was real.
Those were the only things he needed.
As for what he wanted…
That would not come until he had walked all the way to the railway station. The café overlooked the platforms, covered by a haze of smoke, and the doll-sized people hurrying in and out. Logan sat by the window, made of glass panes caught in a web of iron muntins. There was a mechanical coffee dispenser, a whole brass wall with protruding automated hands to grind and pour the coffee with coin slots, so nobody was there to ask him to leave. Most people hurried in and out, not wanting to be bothered by the clanking of the machine or the rhythmic chugging and shrill whistles below.
Relaxing into the clamour, he slid the book out of his satchel, and ran his hand over the cover. Even though he was on the final chapters, he started each morning with the litany of the opening lines.
In this introduction to personal accounting, you shall discover how to take control of your household finances, manage debt, and plan your savings. Each chapter tackles a different concept and builds on the last to create a comprehensive curriculum. Using simple mathematics and orderly bookkeeping, transform your financial future from chaos to order.
i have so many sketches to clean up and add color to, but i think logan has to come first.
logan is a transmasc stud (he pronoun) and is your ska punk boyfriend. hes a lesbian and enjoys skateboarding and arcade shooters. hes also a bugs enthusiast and especially likes spiders and tarantulas. logan is a budding artist and is sensitive at heart but may come off as rude at first (if you trip or run into a glass door the first thing he will do without a doubt is snort in laughter then ask if youre ok, but he promises he cares lmao).
I love it, I love it. A heavy rock band formed in Tennessee in 2002 by J Roddy Walston (vocals/piano/guitar) Billy Gordon (lead guitar/vocals) Logan Davis (bass/vocals) and Steve Colmus (drums).
