The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis

Chapter Two

“You should have seen it, Kat!” I collapsed into our well-worn sofa and threw my legs over the armrest, letting them dangle over the side. “It was like a big bonfire right in the middle of Eastside. I’ve never seen taller flames!”

Kat hovered before our cracked mirror and alternated between a pale rose pink and a sapphire blue dress—both with equally revealing necklines. We sometimes shared clothes, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in either of these pieces. Though, I wasn’t in the same profession as my older cousin. Not yet, at least.

“I wish I was there to see it.” She threw the sapphire dress onto our bed and tugged at the laces of the rose pink one.

“You could have,” I propped myself up on my elbows, “if you had come with us last night.”

Kat sighed. “I’m not seventeen anymore, Evie. I don’t get to stay here for free. I have to spend my nights working, not running around with Gilow’s gang.”

That was partially true. Ever since I came to live with Auntie Jen and Kat, Auntie was clear about one thing. She’d take care of both of us until we were eighteen. After that, we had to work, pay rent, or leave.

I honestly thought she was bluffing—until Kat turned eighteen last year. Then, two days after her birthday, Auntie set her up with her first John.

Whether or not Kat was happy with her new arrangement, I didn’t know. She’d seemed so curious about what goes on in the barn’s private rooms during the months leading up to her birthday. If I was being honest, I was curious too. Growing up in Auntie Jen’s barn gave us more exposure to the forbidden than most. Still, I think we both knew that actually doing the deed was going to be a lot different than hearing it through the rafters or listening to stories from Sammy or the other girls.

With my eighteenth birthday less than three months away, I wondered how she had really felt back then. Curiosity, yes, was part of it. But more than anything, I was terrified.

Whatever Kat had felt back then, the sentiment appeared to be gone now. She worked more nights than she needed to fill Auntie Jen’s quota and seemed content. She made good money—great money, actually. Sometimes, I hated her for being so at peace with a job she, as a natural light-class, wasn’t bound to—not in the way an artificial light like me was.

She had so many opportunities that I would never have, but she hardly seemed to notice. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d despise her.

Kat could work the floor all her life and be fine. Many women could. But no matter how I stretched the idea, I could never see a version of myself that was alright trading my body for money every night. I didn’t think I was better than Kat, and I surely wasn’t better than any of the half-class girls in the world who couldn’t find any other work. But I still didn’t want that for myself.

Kat yanked at the tangle of ribbons lining the back of her dress until they were loose enough to spread the fabric of the gown apart. Tossing me the dress, she pulled off her night shift—or day shift as it should have been called, since Kat and I only slept during the day most of the time.

I held the bodice of the dress open at her feet. She pulled her lengthy golden hair back as I slid the fabric up to rest on her shoulders. Her fingers fiddled with the front while I detangled the web of laces at the back.

“Isn’t this a little impractical?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you and the other girls be better suited wearing dresses that are a tad easier to take on and off?” I smirked over her shoulder, and she returned it through the mirror.

“There are only two types of men,” Auntie Jen answered. Her heavy cotton skirts rustled as she entered from the rickety staircase on the opposite side of the room. “The type who gets a thrill from the unlacing, and the type who doesn’t care enough to take the dress off.”

I tapped my chin. “And which do you prefer, dearest cousin? The former or the latter?”

“Neither,” Kat said. “I prefer the third type who Auntie has clearly forgotten about.”

“Oh?” Auntie shoved me with a hip and waved my hands from the laces.

I settled at the mirror’s side so I could face the two of them.

“What type is that?” Auntie asked.

“The type who passes out before he can get his boots off and leaves his coin out for the taking.”

Kat and I snickered. The hint of a smile tipped Auntie’s lips too, but before it could fully shine, she hit Kat’s shoulder and straightened her lips. Auntie wasn’t exactly prone to smiling, but wrinkles crawling from the corners of her lips up her cheeks told me she used to be. Perhaps she wasted them all back when she used to work like one of her girls.

Auntie mentioned once that she and Kat’s mother looked similar. Though it was tinted with silver strands, Auntie’s hair still glimmered gold like Kat’s. Both of their eyes had the same honey sparkle—the only family trait I shared with them.

“Righty. You’re all done.” Auntie Jen said. She spun Kat around, a crisp bow at her back. It was sure to be gone within the hour. “Sammy and the other girls are downstairs if you want to come down too.”

“Already?” I asked. Orange light glowed through the slit in our curtains. “The sun’s not even down yet.”

“I’m opening early tonight,” Auntie said. “A little birdy told me a regiment of soldiers is to arrive from Ryland, today or tomorrow.” She glanced to Kat, whose eyes lit up at the word soldiers. “You know how those officers are after a long trip. More business for us.” Auntie hoisted up her skirts and headed back for the stairs. “We open in ten. Evie, you’ll work the bar. If it’s as busy as I hope, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

I fell back onto the sofa. “No, thank you. I think I’m going to read tonight, instead.” I had a new volume of Taliver calling my name.

“You’ll need money for your next book soon, won’t you? Better come get the tips while you can.” Auntie Jen descended the stairs without another word.

I tried to set her on fire with my eyes as she left, but alas, it didn’t work.

“So much for curling my hair,” Kat said, plopping down on our bed and pulling on a pair of heeled, cream boots.

I gave her my sweetest smile, pushing my curls from my face. “Kitty Kat…” I fluttered my lashes.

“I’m not giving you the coin for your book.” She laced up one boot, then the other. “But you could earn three times as much coin than the bar in half the time if you flaunted those curls just right.” She let her skirts slip over her calf, casting me a seductive glance.

Resigned, I jumped up from the sofa, took her hands, and pulled her up from the bed too.

“Let’s just go,” I said. Hopefully, it would be a decent, quiet night.

Auntie Jen was right; there was a surge of customers in Bexbury. And they all found their way to the barn.

An hour after dark, we were packed. The main floor swelled with dancing, drinking, and everything in between. Although most of the ladies making rounds downstairs were Auntie Jen’s, there was a fair share of non-working ladies out and about too. The barn was so much more than just a brothel.

It was a gathering place for lights, darks, and half-classes. One of the few places where I was bound to run into at least a handful of others like me, excluding the plethora of half-class girls who made up most of Auntie Jen’s troupe. Walking through the tables, I could pass a light-class arm-wrestling with a dark-class; working the bar, I would serve a half-class flanked by patrons of both other classes. Even just lingering up in the rafters from my favorite perch, I could watch the skin tones ranging from snow to deep umber dance around each other, and feel a strange sense of belonging. It was like there were no classes here—no lines between light and dark-class. And no such thing as half-class at all.

The first couple hours of the night behind the bar with Auntie Jen were all clinking glasses, slurred orders, and sloshing barrels. It was a mess, but I couldn’t help but let my initial grimace fall away after the first hour or so. There was a certain carefreeness in the air that seeped into me, whether I wanted it or not.

When Julian, a dark-class boy a year younger than me, showed up for his shift two hours before midnight to take my place, the cozy friendliness of the night coaxed me onto the floor. Come join crowd, Evie, it said. When else do you get to?

I tied my apron around my skirts and drifted onto the floor. It was a little ridiculous to put the apron on after I’d finished my work, but I’d figured out a long time ago that the apron was often the easiest way to tell the patrons that I was not for sale myself. No matter how modest the dresses I chose to wear were, I still got requests at least once a week. The apron at least deterred most.

I strolled through the floor and around patrons, catching bits and pieces of conversations.

“I appreciate the decrease in taxes since we joined the Ryland empire,” a man with a cloud white beard tickling his dark skin said, rubbing it with each word. “But sometimes I miss the days without the restrictions…” The man’s voice faded away with my steps, replaced soon by less insightful observations.

A trio of lanky young men leaned into a table, trading slurred sentences. The yeasty scent of beer clogged my nose as I passed. “No, it’s a good investment…” one insisted. “With one-hundred gold pieces, I could be the biggest radish seller in the city.”

I held back my grin as I passed. He must have forgotten about the massive radish farm only an hour’s ride from the city’s south edge. But beer tends to leads to forgetfulness.

A light-class soldier, military pins running down his breast and braided gold cords looping over the shoulders of his deep green coat, with two light-classes dressed in casual trousers and the olive-green linen shirts that were quite popular in the Eastside these days, stood near the fireplace.

I took a rest behind the packed stone wall of the fireplace, listening in secret.

“I’m tellin’ you, the entire Eastside almost burned to the ground,” one of the men in the plain shirts said. “If the salters hadn’t gotten there, the whole city might have been gone.”

His companion hummed his agreeance.

The soldier shook his head. His silky wheat brown hair glinted with the firelight.

“How do you put up with it?” he sneered. “You know, back in Aurell, we don’t have this kind of problem. There aren’t any half-classes running around causing unrest like that back home. And certainly, no dark-classes sympathizing with them either.”

“Oh, come on,” one of the casual men said. “You tellin’ me you don’t have any trouble back in the capitol?”

The soldier chuckled and took a swig from the mug in his hands. “Well, of course they exist. But in Aurell, people know where they belong. Where God wants them. There’s no way we’re ever going to get rid of all of the abominations, not any time soon. But halfies know better than to try anything like that in the king’s city.” He smirked. “And besides, we don’t want them all gone, do we?”

The man turned to watch as Samantha crossed the floor a few feet from them, her tight coils still disheveled from the interaction she must have just concluded.

“Who will work places like this without them?”

The men chuckled. Something sick churned in my stomach, and I stormed away from the little corner I’d been eavesdropping from. That was what I got for venturing out against my better judgment. These Ryland soldiers might have been good for business, but the sentiments and reinforcements of their ‘God’ they were bringing with them were certainly not.

I kept my head down as I weaved around the tables, chairs, and sofas cluttering the barn floor. People laughed, hit tables, everyone seemed to be talking. It seemed as if the number of soldiers had doubled since I left the bar. I couldn’t make it two steps without seeing a green coat or braided cords. Was it just me, or did every conversation I passed seem to contain the world half? I was sick of hearing it. I needed to get out.

I caught Samantha’s tight coils and curvy figure slipping behind the bar and into the corridor beyond.

“Sammy,” I called, following her behind the bar.

Samantha, halfway into the kitchen, turned back. “Hi, Evie.” She smiled her brilliant smile. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

“I’m always hungry for Sammy,” I said.

She threw her head back and laughed. “You sound like my patrons.”

She circled behind me, grabbed my shoulders, and guided me into the kitchen. Just like that, I already felt better. Sammy’s spirits were always up, and her air was contagious.

Our cook, scratchy-haired Albo, must have been taking his on-the-hour, half-hour long break because the kitchen was empty. A pot of stew simmered on the stove, and a scent like basted sugar cane wafted from the oven. I sat at a scratched-up table pushed against the back wall and kicked another chair out for Samantha, who joined me after ladling a small bowl.

Sammy blew over the steaming bowl, her cherry red lips pursing adorably as she did. In the ten years I’d known Samantha, I don’t think I’d ever seen her without her signature red lips. They were as distinguishable as her short curls. She took a small sip from the bowl and frowned.

“No good?” I asked.

“It’s...edible.”

“I guess that’s good enough for Albo.”

“What was it he said to me the other day?” Samantha tapped the side of her bowl. “Oh, yes. He said, ‘anything tastes good when you’re drunk.’”

“Then I’m sure our patrons are quite content.”

Sammy rolled her eyes. “If Jen had any sense, she’d fire Albo, but her heart’s too big.”

Poor Albo. He spent more time on break than he actually cooked and his dinner could only be described as ‘edible.’ But if he lost his job here, he’d have nowhere else to go. Auntie must have known that.

The only thing harder than finding work as a half-class girl was finding work as a half-class man. Pity aside, he did make damn good desserts. A feat that almost earned his wage.

“If only she would be so lenient with me,” I murmured.

Sammy’s eyes dropped down. She took another sip of stew.

“Samantha?” She raised a brow. “Does it ever bother you?”

“Albo’s cooking? All the time.”

“No. You know what I mean, Sammy.”

“Do I?”

Was she really going to drag it out of me? I folded my arms. “I mean, servicing men like those soldiers from Aurell. I know work is work, and maybe it shouldn’t matter but...but Samantha, a lot of them hate us. They think we shouldn’t even exist. Or at best they see us as nothing more than…” I raised my hand to her but stopped myself from saying anything else.

“Nothing more than this?” She gestured to herself.

I bit my lip.

“I just meant—does it ever bother you to do that with men like them?”

Sammy sighed and cupped the sides of her bowl. “It used to. Perhaps it still does. But it’s best not to think about it. Just smile instead.”

Just smile. That sounded even worse than thinking about it.

“I didn’t see you last night.” She changed the topic. “Wherever could my Evelyn have been?”

I leaned back in my chair. The wood legs creaked under me. “I was out on the town.”

She paused. “You wouldn’t have happened to be on the east side of town, would you?” Sammy kept her deep brown eyes locked on me. She knew where I was last night. But she’d never say it outright.

“Don’t be silly, Samantha. I never go to the east side.” I smirked. “But if I did, I’m sure I’d have a flaming good time.”

She shook her head. “Well, if you ever find yourself there again, in similar company, please be cautious. As you can see, there are going to be a ton more officers lurking around town this season.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “Me and my company will be fine. We always have been.”

“This is different.” She lowered her voice. “The Ryland officers take resistance a lot more seriously than our officers.”

I scoffed. “I think the Morran officers take it pretty seriously.”

“Not like they do in Ryland.”

Her conviction made my heart beat faster. She’d never shown so much concern before.

Her shoulders dropped, taking the capped rouge sleeves of her dress with them. “I’m only recommending that you be extra careful on your late-night outings while they’re in town, alright?”

Sammy was never supportive of Gilow’s rebellion, especially not my involvement. It was ‘dangerous’ and ‘caused more problems than it solved.’ Maybe the first part was true, but not the latter. Things were going to get worse for us, whether we acted or not.

“Noted.”

I sat with Samantha, running my fingers through my curls while she finished her little meal, all the inclination to converse gone.

Just as she finished, Auntie Jen burst into the kitchen, her gaze skimming the room until she found Sammy. Apparently, Mister Archie was here to see her—a moderately wealthy dark-class man who came every Sunday to see Sammy, and sometimes on extra nights, like tonight. He hadn’t missed a week in ten years. I asked Sammy once why she hadn’t become his full-time mistress. She could have a nice apartment near his, more money than she made now, and she’d only have to spend nights with him. Sammy told me he never asked.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but having a mistress was much more characteristic of the light-class. Most occupations the dark-classes are permitted to just don’t yield enough money to support a mistress. So you don’t see men working as street-sweepers or builders renting out separate apartments for their side women. And even for the dark-class men who could afford one, like Mister Archie, who’d found moderate success in owning and running a small group of dark-class window cleaners, it had become too taboo in the dark-class circles.

“Besides,” Sammy had said. “I would have said no anyway. I much prefer my freedom.”

I didn’t get it. If given both options, a decent life with only one man sounded a hell of a lot better to me. Not that I planned to do either.

Samantha fluffed her taffeta skirt over her thinning stockings, pushed up her corseted bosom, and made her way to the door.

“Bring him a pint of that strong stuff Julian just opened,” Auntie said as Sammy squeezed past her into the corridor. “You know the stuff.”

“Of course, Jen,” Sammy called. The clack of her boots over the wood flooring faded into the hall.

“I wonder why Mister Archie’s here on a Wednesday.” I lowered Samantha’s clay bowl into murky sink water and dried my hands on a stained rag. “You think he had a fight with his wife?”

“If so, let’s hope the marital discord continues. Better him here than at home.” Auntie’s focus flittered around the room. “Where the hell is Albo?”

“Who knows.” I shrugged and walked toward the door. “If I see him, I’ll send him down.”

I crossed the back hallways, peeking into the wide-open cellar door as I passed. Laughter echoed up the cellar steps. Like the main floor, the cellar was probably extra busy tonight, full of clattering coins and countless card games. Maybe I’d use my tips from the bar to wager against some of our guests later.

Passing the cellar doors, I continued to the very end of the hallway, where our apartment door waited. I knelt and slipped my fingers into the narrow slit beneath the door frame and found the brass key inside. I unlocked the door before returning the key back to its hiding place. Then, after a quick glance back to make sure none of the patrons had seen me hide the key, I cracked the door open and slipped inside.

I made it a few steps across the patchwork carpet before I spun back around, rushed back up to the door, and relocked it. Oh, how Auntie loved to berate me every time I forgot to do that.

“Albo?” I called. “Are you here?”

I untied my apron and threw it onto the nearest sofa chair—one of many Auntie had clumsily organized around our fairly large sitting room. One side of it was our sitting room, and the other was her makeshift bedroom, complete with a bed, a wardrobe, and a mirror balancing over an old chest only she had the key to. I always wondered if that was where she kept the piles of money she refused to give me for my books.

I crossed the room and started up the rickety stairs.

“I know you’re here, Albo.”

I smirked as I stopped on the little landing dividing the lower half of the stairs from the upper half that led up to Kat’s and my room. My fingers ran over the wooden boards of the wall until they hooked into the little crevices between the boards. With very little force on my part, the hidden door popped open, and I stepped out onto the landing. Laughs and conversation ricocheted up from the main floor. Albo’s silhouette, lanky and tall and topped with a dandelion of brown-black hair, cast a faded shadow behind him.

“Damn.” He took a drag from his cigar. “Didn’t think anyone would find me up here.” His hand clung tightly to one of the wooden beams jutting out from the wall behind us as he leaned precariously over the edge of the landing.

I tip-toed to the edge and grabbed a beam myself, but with both hands. “I’m the one who told you where this place was. You shouldn’t be so surprised.” I know you have a master key for some reason.

He took another drag. A scent of black cherry and ash tickled my nose. Interesting, last week he was smoking cinnamon flavored.

“My Aunt is looking for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go back soon. You leave five minutes, and suddenly everyone’s on your ass.”

Probably half an hour.

I leaned further over the edge, letting the beam hold my weight. The people below looked so jovial from up here. A trio of light-class men in red and blue velvet suits sat laughing at the bar. Their voices were lost to distance, but I imagined they were laughing at some innocent thought. Maybe that’s why my secret little landing occupied a special corner in my heart. I could look down on the diverse company below and hear the buzz of the night without actually listening to a word. Rather than being on the edge of Bexbury—flanked by the forest on one side and the mostly dark-class homes and businesses on the other—we were drifting in an ocean where none of the outside world existed.

“Come up here to read?” Albo nodded to my stack of books pressed against the wall behind us.

“What else is there for people like us to do besides dive into fantasy?”

“Can’t live in a fantasy world forever, Evie. Have to face reality sooner or later.”

The same group of men I’d overheard before were still gathered near the fire, downing new pints of beer and eyeing Christa as she descended the stairs across the room.

“What if reality is less than appealing?”

Albo took a long drag from his cigar, taking a long time to breathe the smoke out. “Then change it.”

He held the butt of his cigar over the edge, balancing it between his fingers. A tall, muscled soldier who was paler than the moon lingered just under it. His head was in the perfect position to catch the still red cigar butt. Albo held it out for a few seconds, and for a moment, I thought he might actually do it.

Albo crushed the butt in his palm. “Enjoy your stories.” He stuffed the crushed butt into his pocket, then slipped out the door, leaving me alone.

I pulled myself back from the ledge and leaned back against my wall, sliding down next to my stack of books.

Across the barn through the beams and rafters, I made out Kat’s golden hair and her alluring pink dress ascending the stairs. A heavy-set light-class man followed right behind her. My heart clenched in my chest. Was that going to be my reality?

I averted my eyes. No, I could change anything—that’s what my nights with Jace and Gilow were for. I’d deal with fixing my reality when I had to.

But for tonight, I wanted to drift away.

So I pulled my current volume of Taliver off the top of the stack and opened the book.