Saving Simona (Alone In The World Trilogy) Read Free Page A

be here within the quarter!” She finished doing the hair of the youth in front of her, and quickly ushered the rest of the women to the far wall of the room, where mounds of dressed and corsets of every shape and size were thrown beneath the single boarded window, the gowns damp from the rotting and leaking wood that made up the wall.
    Gia rushed over as quickly as she could, desperately hoping that tonight she would be able to grab one of the few corsets that fit her full breasts. For nearly a full moon, Gia had been unlucky enough to get one of the corsets designed for the younger women, and had often found herself struggling to breathe as she made love to one of her many customers. Occasionally, there would be a man here or there who encouraged her to remove her bindings but, on a normal night, she was only required to remove her petticoat and pantalets so that her customer could access his purchase with the easiest of access.
    Gia considered herself lucky in terms of her life, though. After the first initial year of selling herself on the street and making Leander as much money as she could, Gia had been pulled from the streets and exchanged into a more luxurious business due to the shape that her body had developed into. Any of the girls who grew with a much more womanly figure than the rest had been assumed to make more money, and therefore pulled for Leander’s gain. There were multiple girls like them in their room: the girls who Leander sold out to the wealthy men who came into the town off the ships from faraway lands, the men who were only staying in Leeds for two or three personal days away from their wives and children back home.
    Sure, these girls were still exposed to a different man nearly every night, but Leander took much more care in the health of the men before he would agree to sell them any of these girls.  It was also these same girls who were awarded the bedrolls and occasional presents from Leander, such as the woolen stocking warming Gia’s feet. The girls were also occasionally gifted presents by their more prestigious lovers when they felt especially pleased with their purchase.
    One of these men specifically had taken quite an interest in Gia, and had been requesting her for four or five nights during his weeklong stay every other month. His name was Owen Boyd, and he was the son of a wealthy factory owner in Bristol. Owen swore up and down every time that he purchased Gia for a night that this stay would be the final time that he would purchase her as a lover, and that he was saving up enough money so that he could pay Leander a large sum of money that Father required for one of his daughters to be married. Gia always laughed and agreed with everything that Owen said, out of fear that the man would report her for being insubordinate, but she never believed that he would really bother with purchasing a girl like her. He may have felt a connection to her, but she was not worth the tens of thousands of pounds required for her hand. 
    Gia shook the thoughts away as she felt another girl lunge towards her, trying as well to get to the corsets. Gia pushed through, though, and managed to snag the one correct-fitting shaper that was left in the pile. She let out a sigh of relief before she leaned over and snatched a dress off the top of the closest pile in order to find her usual dress below it, the damp material from one dress bleeding into the next around Gia’s hand until her fingers looked as though she had been playing in the grass first thing after the morning dew had fallen. Fortunately, the dress was not too far down, and Gia was able find it within seconds.
    The dress was just as cheaply made as the rest, out of satin, but it had the allusion of being worth more than it really was by the intricate pattern of flowers that was woven into the material. The bodice and interior of the skirt were an ashen blue, while the sleeves and outer edges of the skirt were a dark reddish-orange. There were