Alina’s Journey - Status: Stranger in a Strange Land

By: Wax the Velvet

TW: Sex Work, Erotica

The first thing I did when I woke up was make a plea. "God, let my bro delete my browsing history before my parents see it!"

I got out of bed. I felt weird. Like I was piloting my body instead of you now… moving it. It's hard to explain, but it went away quickly. I was in a brick and wood structure that looked like a place from the Bible. It was plain, and the windows were covered by some sort of thin fabric, or was it paper? I really wasn't sure. I was on a simple wooden bed with a slightly lumpy mattress. Even though the bed felt cheap, the room itself wasn't sparsely furnished or even cheap-looking. There was a desk and a chair. The chair resembled an ergonomic seat, and the table was made from beautifully varnished wood. There was a metal sheet hung on the wall, which was weird. Oh, and on my table there were a couple of fountain pens that looked fancy. There were all sorts of accessories I didn't recognize, and a few that I did, like hair brushes.

There was a knock on the door. "Milady, may I enter? Your bath is prepared." The voice was feminine. I was startled. What the hay is going on here? Wasn't it a dream? Did I actually die? Did I actually meet this angel? Was I really sent to another world?

"Yes. Thanks." I said loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. Mainly because that's what I thought I was supposed to say.

Into the room entered a woman wearing a simple black dress with a white apron. Maid dress? She looked gorgeous. She was fairly short, with red hair, freckles, and… yellow eyes? She had slit pupils like an animal's. She also had expressive fox ears. Fox ears? And she even had a luxurious tail that was swishing with her every step. She was carrying a metal bath that looked heavy. How?

Another woman with the same dress entered the room. Her dress still seemed slightly fancier, and she wasn't wearing an apron. She was not bad-looking, but she looked much simpler and was a human. I only had eyes for the redhead.

"Remind me what you're called?" I asked Lady Fox.

Her ears twitched, and she gave me a look like I had just come from a different world. "Julia, Milady. I hope I didn't do anything to offend you." I interpreted the ear twitching as a sign of anxiety.

"Not at all! I was just curious." I said in the most neutral tone I could summon.

Julia put the bath down in an empty corner of the room, and the other girl mumbled something incongruous. From her outstretched hand flowed water, like the miracle of Moses and the rock. The girl, whom I was starting to dub "Not-Julia," mumbled something and began stirring the water with her finger. A moment later, the water was steaming. Neat trick.

Not-Julia left the room. I was waiting for Julia to leave, but she just waited, unmoving. We looked at each other for several seconds. She, expectantly, I, uncertainly. "Milady, should I help you strip?"

This hottie was going to help me strip? "Ah. Yes. Thank you." I said in a cool tone. In what I hoped was a cool tone. She looked expectantly again, and I realized she wanted me to turn. She started removing my clothes one by one in some sort of reverse striptease. Or is that when someone puts the clothes on instead of taking them off? Anyway, it was sexy as hell. That girl, ah, woman, I guess, was like a model, and she was stripping me with tender love and care.

After I stripped, she sat me down on a wooden stool and used bath water, hard soap, and a clean rag to clean me. She started at my shoulders, going down to my upper back. It was a blend of a sponge bath and a massage, and she was skilled at both. I closed my eyes. I don't know how you would feel when you're sitting in the nude and a beautiful woman starts touching you all over, but I reacted like any red-blooded woman would. And by that, I mean, I tried to hide how horny I was becoming. I tried to breathe slowly, but my breath came out in shallow gasps. After several minutes, she moved to face me. She gave me a smug smile. She knew what she was doing. She started cleaning my collarbone and shoulder blades. After a long pause, where I didn't even notice I stopped breathing, she started washing my breasts.

For a moment, I started thinking, "Hey, isn't my chest much too big?" Isn't it even bigger than Grace's? Why would I think of Grace when I have Julia? Am I an idiot or something?

She ministered to each breast with circular motions. Touching-not-touching the areolas. Suddenly, she started rubbing my nipples, which were as hard as iron. I gasped. I just couldn't stop myself.

"If milady wishes, I can minister to your needs for some extra payment," she said seductively. Is she a prostitute? I thought she was a maid?

I, somehow, just thought she was doing it because she liked me. It never occurred to me that she had financial reasons to have sex with me. I may not have been a stunner, but I wasn't bad-looking in my previous life. And since my chest got this massive upgrade, I just imagined she wanted me. Maybe it was hard for the maids to make a living? That was so exploitative. "Ah, no need. I don't want to be a bother." I answered in the flattest tone I could muster. Don't want to be a bother? What I actually didn't want to do was to lose my virginity by paying for it. I have some standards, even with the way I died.

"Too bad," she said and switched to 'professional' mode. She still bathed me, even in all the sexy parts, but it somehow lost its seductive quality. It wasn't painful, and I was clean at the end of it, but all the sex-appeal escaped the room like air from a deflated balloon.

She helped me get in the tub, washed me some more, and simply left the room. After about twenty minutes of me soaking, she came in again, wiped me, and helped me wear this funny, elaborate suit. She invited Not-Julia back into the room, who muttered some more, and the water disappeared.

Julia put her hand on the metal sheet and said, "Mirror". Suddenly, the sheet turned into a clear mirror and I saw my new body for the first time.

What the? Why am I suddenly so hot? It's like I was looking at my photoshopped self in the mirror. I was at least two inches taller. I had no acne scars. My skin was as smooth as a baby's. I was a fudging babe! I think if I were a random girl I just met on the street with Julia, I'd think of Julia as "Not-Maria".

"Milady, you said yesterday you had a visitor for breakfast. Would you like me to show you to your usual room?"

"Yes. Thanks." I answered. She started leading me outside of the room, down the stairs. The first floor of the hotel looked like some rustic trendy restaurant. There were red and white plaid tablecloths that gave an intense "Italian restaurant" vibe, even though I never saw this kind of linen outside of TV shows. I never went to an Italian restaurant, now that I think of it.

Even though it looked like an Italian restaurant, it was more like a diner. People were having breakfasts that looked similar to dishes you could get at a Denny's, if Denny's was any good anymore. There were these weird pancakes, eggs, sausages, and something that looked like hashbrowns but was shaped like a small patty.

There were several other people dressed with the same red suit resembling mine; I guess this was some kind of uniform. Some were attired less formally, with vests and unbuttoned shirts, or shirts with strings instead of buttons that were undone at the collar. No one looked poor here, so definitely not a Denny's. It was a classy restaurant.

Julia took me through the crowd and led me to the back. We got to a red door, which she opened and waved me in. There was a table for 6 and a couple of chairs, as well as a drink cabinet with bottles that looked suspiciously like cartoon poison with the XXX on the label, only these bottles were mostly unlabeled.

"Should I pour you a drink while you wait for your appointment?" She spoke professionally, gesturing at one of the dubious bottles.

"I would prefer black coffee". Ha, in my previous life, my parents never even let me try coffee. It seemed like an almost mythical drink, especially since it was so close, but so far from me. Now my parents definitely can't stop me from drinking it.

"Are you sure? When you first came into the inn, you told me your parents disallowed you to drink coffee, and I shouldn't even try offering any," Julia said incredulously.

Wow. Even here? "Let's start with my usual drink, then," I answered glumly.

She took a small glass that was sitting at the bottom of the cabinet. From a lidded bucket to the side, she took a big, clear ice cube. She put the ice cube and filled the glass to the middle. It smelled spicy! I started drinking and choked. "It's alcoholic! I want black coffee instead!" Oh man, I have no style. So alcohol goes, but coffee is forbidden?

Julia looked as confused as could be, with her ears adorably moving from side to side. I am so different from this world's Maria, huh? She left without another word.

After a couple of minutes, she came back with all sorts of… equipment?

She put a porcelain cup with an ornate metal cover, which she called a Finjan. She had a box of sand for some reason? She put some coffee in a narrow copper pot, filled it with water, and put it on the sand. What's going on here? I've never seen anything like it before.

"This is a date syrup, it's called dibius[1]," she pointed at a canister. "Would you like some in your coffee?"

I scoffed. "No thanks."

"Are you sure? Your first coffee without any sweetener is… not recommended."

My parents said, 'It's not real coffee if you add all these fancy syrups,' and I always respected my parents. "No thanks. No dibius for me."

The coffee suddenly almost overflowed from the copper pot, which Julia mentioned was called a cezve, and the foxy maid rescued it deftly and poured the coffee into the finjan.

It smelled dang good! I always thought coffee had a good smell, but this was ridiculous. It wasn't coffee, it was next level!

She gave me the cup, and I waited for the coffee to cool a little. After a moment with Julia staring at me with a curious expression, I sipped from the brown liquid. It was disgusting. It was so bitter, and somehow slightly sour, too. Is this the drink the confident, independent women of Starbucks drank? If it was, I didn't want to be confident or independent. I grimaced.

Julia looked sympathetic, but she was also smirking. "Are you sure you don't want the dibius?" she asked innocently.

"Yes. Two teaspoons," I told the foxy coffee expert meekly. She graciously poured the teaspoons into the drink and stirred it for me. It was pretty good afterwards. Sorry, dear parents, I am a disappointment to you a second time. I cannot drink coffee as it was meant to be suffered. Hmm… I mean, enjoyed.

A short time after I finished drinking, my guest, for whom I ordered the private room, entered. My stomach was rumbling, so I was happy he got here. He was a handsome man. A little old, maybe in his thirties. He was wearing a familiar uniform.

"Lady Ashburn. It is lovely to see you again." He gallantly said. Huh, cool. My last name is still Ashburn.

I didn't know how to respond. It seemed like we already knew each other, so I simply said, "Yes. It's been a while." Even if I was mistaken, it seemed like the correct answer.

"It has," he chuckled. "I'd like a Full Babylonian," he said to Julia. Babylon? Are we in Babylon or something?

"I'd like the usual," I said. This way, I wouldn't have to look at the menu and look weird.

"No problem. Two Full Babylonians," my maid said with a helpful tone. "Tea, sir?"

"No. I'll have coffee," he gestured to all the equipment still on the table. "But no need for you to stick around. I can make it myself. If you could just get me a cup?"

Julia left the room, and he turned to me with an abrupt change of pace. "Alina, you rascal!" Oh, my name was Alina in this world. "I see you've finally seen the light on coffee. I can't believe you let your parents poison you against this wondrous drink." He started working on the drink. "How's it going in this dinky little border town? I see you found yourself a gorgeous fox. You somehow find the most beautiful woman everywhere you go and make them yours, huh? You know, everyone is still courting Nelly back at the base. She's been rejecting every man or woman who approaches her. You have to tell me your secret". This whole speech was said in one breath. Even though he asked questions, he didn't give me any time to answer. I don't know how 'she', Alina, 'got' Nelly, but it seems like paying for it was the answer, if Julia was the example to prove the rule.

I gave him a wan smile, which he interpreted as a pitying look. "Don't worry about me, I get around. Besides, who's the commander and who's the subordinate?" He said in a half-joking tone. "Well, report time," He finished. This time, seriously.

I didn't know what I had to report. "I, uh, left my notes upstairs," I said quickly. The old 'I left my homework at home' excuse. It never worked for me at school, and it didn't work for me here.

"Notes upstairs? Don't you usually write it down on your status screen?" He gave me a weird look. This is hard. How am I supposed to live the life of someone else without knowing anything about them? Wait, status? Right, the angel said something about "opening my status" back then. I spent a moment thinking about it, but there was no issue; as soon as I thought of opening my status, it opened on its own. It looked like a futuristic monitor window from a sci-fi movie.

There were several tabs:

Overview

Journal

Messages (3)

Reports

Misc.

I ignored everything and immediately opened the reports page in my status. Dang, Alina wrote detailed reports. They were tagged and sorted by date. Even though I didn't understand the dates, the last report was written on Tamuz 5th.

"Sorry. I'm a little out of it today. Maybe because of the coffee." I said. I skimmed over the report and tried to summarize it for my commander. "So, for the espionage mission, I started developing a reliable asset. I still don't have enough information to plan a strike, even with the information I'll get from them. I think I need to maybe go there and find more information."

He looked pleased at that and asked me a couple more questions, which I answered as well as I could. I did stay vague at a couple of points, where the report didn't say, which I guess are things Alina simply knew or remembered, but I couldn't.

"The second thing on the agenda is the Mage I was going to recruit. I have someone in mind already, and I'm meeting them… Hm, what was the date today?" I asked, hoping I wasn't embarrassing myself too much.

He gave me a funny look. "It's Tamuz 8th. You drink whisky every morning, but get flustered from drinking coffee?"

"Ha ha" I said. Yes, said. I didn't laugh. I'm ruining your reliable reputation, Alina. Sorry. You look so detail-oriented from your report, and I'm just bumbling through your life. "I'm meeting her tonight."

Again, he had a few more questions, like what her mana affinities were, which I could answer from the report, and was pleased again by Alina's thoroughness.

Our meal arrived. It was good. There was a fruit bowl with all sorts of fruit I'd never seen. Maybe one of them was a fig? There were sausages, eggs, and potato patties. The yolk was blood red. I thought the salad was weird, with onion, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Rice wrapped in some leaves? A flat bread.

It wasn't just good, it was great. We both ate with pleasure. Afterwards, we talked some more about random topics, and I tried to be vague again so he wouldn't suspect me.

After he left, I opened my status at last and started investigating every tab.

Overview

Journal

Messages (3)

Reports

Misc

Name: Alina Ashburn

Class: Spellsword

Profession: Lieutenant, Spy

Level: 2

Title: Heiress of an Earl

Strength: 12

Intelligence: 14

Dexterity: 14

Constitution: 9

Wisdon: 8

Charisma: 18

Affinities: Lightning, space

Spells: Mana Charging, Mana Shield, Misty Step

Skills: Appraisal, Mana Sense, Decode (Babylonian Cypher), Share Mana

Weapon Arts: Sword, Spear, Shield, Dagger, Pistol

Wow, I'm pretty lopsided. My Charisma is much higher than every other number. What's the highest possible number here, twenty? It would be weird if the highest option is twenty, but would it make sense that a bombshell like me would only have eighteen Charisma out of a hundred?

The journal was full of text, but I ignored it for now. I knew I had to read it later, but I had to look at everything first.

I looked at the messages. It was like texting. There were three new messages.

Captain Jack Alicorn:

I guess my commander's name is Jack.

Another text message from "Mom":

I immediately answered her to tell her I fell asleep and forgot to check my messages when I woke up. I’m a dutiful daughter after all. I noticed we texted pretty regularly, so I didn’t want to hurt Alina’s relationship with her mom.

The last message was more serious, and didn’t have a sender.

I meant to review my status more seriously, but Julia came in and asked me if I wanted her to help me get ready for my day. I agreed. We came back to the room. She gave me a sword and a weird pistol. Well, I am a soldier. I should have weapons.

I looked through Alina's status some more and found her schedule. She was meticulous, but she was so hedonistic. Does she really need to write "Go to the officers' club to gamble"? Or "Maybe a quickie with Major's wife(?)". Ah… if only she wrote the name of the Major's wife, maybe I could ride her coattails and finally get laid. Well, my first time shouldn't be stealing the major's woman, the same way I didn’t want my first time to be with a sex worker (sorry, Julia).

"On second thought, cancel my schedule, Julia," I said. I really didn't feel like struggling through Alina's life right now. I needed more context. "Oh, I still need to 'Catch a carpet' this evening," whatever that means. "Don't cancel that."

Julia unstrapped my sword and pistol and set them aside. She had a smug smile again and looked like she expected something of me, but I simply told her, “I’d like to be alone.”.

"Yes, Milady." She left, looking slightly unhappy.

Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but I needed to read Alina's journal. I needed to understand her, primarily how she acts. She wrote her diary like a book. I got the impression that she wanted to publish a book eventually, because she even made editing notes. There were different diaries from different years, but I took the one from the current year. I probably needed to read it all, but I didn't have enough time before meeting Morgan. Oh, that was the Mage's name.

Alina didn’t seem feminine to me, at least on paper. She had a man's job, an army officer, though I started to suspect the differences between the sexes were more minuscule in this world than the last. I'm not sure why. She loved riding horses, hunting, brawling, eating, and having sex, not necessarily in that order. She was the daughter of an Earl. I didn't know exactly what that meant, except for it being a nobility title. She was a spy, but not like Jason Bourne. She ran a spy network for the empress of Babylon. She was mostly pretending to be a Babylonian officer. It was a cover, though it did seem she had a lot of experience fighting wars. A part of her job was simply hanging out with influential people and listening to them. Oh, and she was pretty hedonistic. She used every opportunity to eat well, gamble, and so on.

Oh, and she documented her "love affairs" meticulously. Wow, you were a slut, Alina. Dang. I really shouldn't think that. These are old-world thoughts. Didn't the angel send me here because she approved of Alina's life and wanted me to experience them?

Besides, Jack treated me like "one of the guys". No one cared about who she had sex with. They were gleeful to see her success, even. Well, the husbands of the married women she seduced might care. Oh, and the best thing about her was that she was like me, a lesbian. I guess anyone would know that.

Was she a butch? I felt like she wasn't. She spent a lot of time on her looks and even put points into it, whatever that meant. Maybe she put points in Charisma? But how do you do that? Butch is more of a term from my world. I don't know if it exists here. I don't know if I was into butches. Oh, who am I kidding? I just want a girlfriend!

As I was investigating the status interface and lost in thought, Julia entered the room. "You never called for me today. Are you sure you don't need anything? It's dinner soon."

"Dinner? Did I miss lunch?" I looked out the window, but it seemed like midday.

"You don't have lunch, usually. You tend to have dinner," Julia answered confusedly. Were we speaking two different languages?

"I'll go down for dinner soon."

Julia looked unhappy again. I was starting to feel like unhappiness was her primary emotion, or that I was just acting so incongruously that she was questioning her sanity. After a couple of minutes, she came back into the room and started combing my hair, which had become messy from me sitting in bed all day. It felt intimate, even with what happened this morning. She finished and caressed my head. I saw her face in the mirror. She usually looked at me flatly, but I felt like she was wearing her heart on her sleeve. She seemed overcome with a slew of different emotions. Caring? Sadness? Affection? I didn't know how to interpret her well enough. Is there a chance you have feelings towards Alina? I asked her in my mind. Then why ask to be paid? Maybe because being a servant at an inn is a difficult job? Did she work for the inn or for me? I couldn't decide. She seemed like she was here to serve me at all times. Did she even have time for other guests? But she was wearing the clothes all the maids and waitresses wore.

I ate lunch with some people Alina knew. They flagged me down the moment I came down. I let them speak and give me more information about everything. It didn't seem to bother them. At least, they didn't act like I was doing anything strange.

I left to tour the streets. Most of the houses had a classy look, like in a book about architecture. There was a wide street and numerous small alleys where all sorts of restaurants and coffee shops sat. The city seemed huge to me. Many of the houses were four to five stories high. Some of them were built so tightly that there was no alley between them. Where I'm from, town hall, the biggest structure in the entire town, was three stories high. I saw bigger buildings in Phoenix and Tucson, but they still somehow made these places feel small. The streets were packed with people. It felt like New York City or something. I've never been to NYC, but I've seen it plenty on TV.

At a certain point, I saw a clock and that I was about to be late for the time I needed to "catch a carpet". Even if I were pretending to be Alina, I have no idea how I could "catch" such a thing. Also, even if Julia learns I'm not Alina, it wouldn't affect my life as much as screwing up her duties. Alina also asked me to 'use her body well'. She took her job seriously, so I'll treat her job seriously too.

I finally found out where I am! I'm in Italy, but for some reason, this place is called Etruscia. I was in Rome. I can't believe someone would call Rome a small town. Where am I originally from?

On my way back to the inn, I saw a regional map in one of the plazas, or should I say Piazzas? It had the name Rome and 'You are Here' written on it. And I could recognize the 'boot' shape. Does that mean I'm in Europe now? Italy is in Europe, right? I never even left the USA in my previous life.

When I came back, Julia waited for me at the entrance. She looked so relieved to see me. "What's up? Everything alright?" I asked her. Worried.

"I thought you left without your weapons," she answered with a forrowed expression.

"I would never. I was always going to go back for the weapons. Besides, I was going to ask you to arrange a 'rug' for me."

"You mean a carpet?"

"Yup," oops.

"No problem, Milady," she said with a smile. I didn't quite get her, but her red furry ears seemed to awaken. I felt like I made her happy. "After me," she said. She took out my sword from a bag and put my pistol in a shoulder holster for me. She also took out a black baggy jacket to change into instead of my uniform.

She immediately took me out to the plaza. In the street, she was hanging on to me firmly like a wife trying to catch a couple more minutes with her wife at the airport. Who knows, maybe I was planning on going for a long time. She knew about my trip more than I did.

After a couple of minutes of walking without a word, she opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. It wasn't the first time. I felt like Alina was the kind of person to always speak her mind, so I just asked her. "I saw you checking me out. Like what you see?" Oh. My. Gosh. That's so cringeworthy. Why did I have to use the same line Grace used on me? I'm mortified. That was the only suave line I knew. "Hmm… anyway, what did you want to say? I'm curious!" and that was the least suave line I could ever say.

"Are you mad at me, Milady?" she asked me suddenly. I didn't know what to say. What did she do to anger me? "I should have stopped talking about money. I know. But I'm afraid. What if something happens to you and you never return?" Her worried tone was so endearing.

I felt like this was a conversation they had many times. What would be Alina's answer? "And what did I tell you about that?" This was my dad's way of dealing with long arguments. It seemed like exactly the kind of thing Alina would say. Thanks, Dad.

"You told me not to worry. That you'll buy my slave contract and take me with you 'in due course', but you're going on a dangerous mission." Wow, Alina, how low can you go? She's a slave? Were you sleeping with a slave, promising to free her? And I'm almost sure you were never going to. At least you wrote nothing about it in the last couple of entries of your journal.

What would Alina say to that? I feel like she would say something like "I'm invincible. I'm Alina" or something like that, but I couldn't know that. For some reason, it was the first time it occurred to me that the mission is dangerous. Even if Alina could easily do it, I'm not a talented warrior like her. I can't promise I'll be back. Julia was good to Alina; she seems like she's in love with her. I didn't want to take advantage of her love for Alina, but I could at least do something for her.

"What do I need to do to free you?" I asked boldly.

"Free me? You promised you'll buy me," she said with concern. Alina, what are you doing? You were gonna own a slave?

"I was always planning on freeing you," I lied. Or maybe I didn't. I don't know. I have no idea what Alina was planning.

"Really?" She gasped. "You were going to do that for me?" She closed her eyes for a moment, and they sparkled. "I love you so much!" She kissed me in the street, like the V-J day photograph. I was so embarrassed, but somehow no one even stopped to gawk. "If you give the innkeeper ten gold coins, you can have my contract. If you rip it apart with infused mana, it will remove the slavery spell.

"Let's do it." I said with the same bold tone from before.

"But your meeting?"

"The Mage can wait. I have something more important to do." Where am I coming up with all these lines?

We came back to the inn, almost at a sprint. I bought the contract. It took me several seconds, but I infused mana into my fingers and ripped it. A leather collar that didn't seem to exist before suddenly fell from her neck. Julia fell too. She started ugly-crying and kissed me all over. She kissed every part of me as she got up, including my whole face. She started undressing me then and there, but I was already feeling uncomfortable. My lust for her has cooled down already. Reading all of Alina's sexual exploits was sexy, but seeing this person whose fate she held in her hands like this felt cold. Inhuman even. I wanted a relationship based on shared passion and love. On the other hand, I didn't know how to stop her.

At the end, I held her hand and stopped her from opening the last button of my shirt. "I'm in a hurry. Stay here while I'm gone. We'll talk about the future then." I still had to 'catch a carpet'.

[1] Dibius is a real thing, but it’s called Dibis in Arabic or Silan in Hebrew. I just gave it a more Latin-sounding name, since the characters are in Italy. It is recommended, but not as a coffee sweetener.