Author's notes: Welcome to Border of Taboo! Settle down and make yourself comfortable. I'd like to warn you that it's M for a reason, and that yes, the triangle will work, only it'll take time to set up properly. I was tempted to use the plot for gratuitous sex scenes just to spare everyone the frustration (me included), but that just wouldn't be civil.

Also, like any starving writer of fanfiction (or even fiction in general) I thrive on reviews, so do be so kind as to throw a bone to this poor soul if you like the writing. Ta. :)

Warning: The narrative modes change around a bit. At first it was just a stylistic exercise but I'll be using it to add flavour to certain scenes, if I can pull it off.

Border of Taboo

• • •

"Going to see the boyfriend again?" Elmyra smiled as I snuggled into an old black trench coat. Her smile turned into a bit of an anxious grimace when she saw what I was wearing underneath the black; usually I put on casual clothes to get to work, so that no one can guess what I might be up to. The orphans and lonely wretches that I help during the day can't know that their smiling mascot vehemently rips away the buttoned pink to replace it by grid patterns of vulgarity and deep, blood red. It just… wouldn't be fair. Not to mention, I do have a certain sense of self-preservation seeing how dangerous it can get out there.

This time though, I was late, and Elmyra could see the long slit climbing up my dress and revealing a bit too much leg, as well as the lacey heights of a pair of borrowed stockings.

"Aeris Gainsborough," she said as I decidedly failed to look innocent. "Don't you think you're overdoing it a little bit? I thought women used this kind of armament to cover up the fact that they possess no natural charm. And I'm sure you don't need all that to please a man."

To please a man. If only she knew what she'd implied! Cheeks reddening, I corrected my posture in order to hide my legs from her, unable to repress an embarrassed grin. If this is how she reacted to the slightest hint of sensuous clothing, then I didn't even want to venture a thought towards the day she'd discover what my nights were like.

"I just …wanted to try something different. Does it look that horrid?" I asked her, and she laughed at me, hiding her smile behind her hands.

"Horrid's not really the right word, sweetie. No woman looks horrid in such a dress. I'm just saying… be careful on your way there. Zack won't appreciate the thought of wrinkly old men checking out his woman, I don't think."

His woman. The sound of that almost took me off-guard; it sounded so… nice. Decent. It brought to mind the stable kind of relationship that a slumgirl can't possible afford, be it for lack of time, or money, or just plain good attitude. Bitter attachment to one's own survival can get in the way of a great many things, after all.

• • •

"What?! You still live with your mother?!" Zack leaned his elbows on the table, giving the new girl an incredulous look. He'd known her for a while now, having grown up in the same sector as her, and yet now that she was approaching her twenties he couldn't believe she hadn't moved on to something by now. Glass beads studded her ears, light spirals of chestnut hair tickled her collarbones; her chin was lowered, casting a shadow over her décolleté. He had to remind himself that it was bad for business to feast his eyes on a colleague; and that it was equally bad for old friendships, if not worse.

Aeris smiled a little shyly. "Well, you know, I don't really have any reasons to change that. Anyway it's not a crime, is it? I don't remember it being any worse for a soldier to hide his nightly business from his boss than a daughter from her mother."

"The General doesn't give a damn what I do with my nights. Hell, he'd probably come on over here and get himself a room if he knew how much he'd be earning, and with what kind of company he'd be doing business."

He kept his eyes fixed on her face, trying hard to keep his gaze from wavering. She must've noticed, because she lifted a curious eyebrow at him.

"I'll admit the girls I've seen so far…" she said, and didn't have to finish for him to get her gist. They were in the client's waiting room, doing what several other fidgety men were doing; waiting for the boss to call them into his office, except they wouldn't be going in there to see the 'menu' of men and women.

"Don't go lusting after any of them," Zack said with a sly smile, "It's useless. The money either of you would spend on the other would just go to the same purse."

Aeris scoffed, trying to keep a semblance of elegance as she giggled behind a hand.

"It really has been a while since we've actually sat down to talk, Zack," she said, glancing up at him playfully, "I haven't had the occasion to tell you that I haven't quite broken up with my male preferences just yet."

"Well, it's quite good for business, you know, to be versatile," Zack said with a would-be innocent look, which made his expression so contradictory to what he was implying that she couldn't help laughing again.

"Anyway, let's get back to the point, since I don't actually want to change you in any way," Zack said with a grin, "We have to find you a good cover-up, seeing as you're still an obstinate goodie-goodie in daylight. I still can't believe that you, Aeris, the damn flowergirl, has joined me here."

"Somewhere along the road you eventually have to realize where you really are and grow up a bit," Aeris countered, trying not to let his banter weaken her determination. "Compassion buys smiles, not bread. And I doubt it buys Upper world flats, either."

Zack gave her a big, wide smile. "Ah, so you'll follow me down the steps to damnation just to satisfy purely material needs," he said in a mock-grave tone, his gaze accidentally slipping down from her eyes- he managed to catch himself, falling no lower than her lips. She opened her mouth to retaliate- he watched her lips unstick, her pearl white teeth hiding behind the pulpous red. As she brought her forearms together on the table, fingers folding over white skin, a cursed chestnut strand came to stick itself to her mouth as she spoke – she lifted a hand to whisk it away, and his gaze escaped to her wrist, tumbling down her forearm, sliding to her throat, trickling slowly down the line of her cleavage…

Almost out of panic he lifted a finger and dragged his eyes back up to hers with much effort.

"I have an idea!" he proclaimed a little louder than necessary, interrupting her without having paid attention to anything she'd said. She pursed her lips, refraining from slapping him so as to not disturb the already tense atmosphere of the waiting room.

"I'm listening."

"Well… you and me…" Zack began, a sudden nervousness creeping over him and forcing him to scratch the back of his head. It was strange; he'd dropped his professional glamour in order to give his old friend a warm welcome, and now he found that without the sly eyes and witty tongue he was defenceless before a woman, and especially this one who knew him so well.

Aeris' eyebrow hadn't stopped escalating since he'd vaguely trailed off. "Oh dear. Why do I get the impression I'm not going to like this?" she said half-jokingly, trying to catch his eyes. Zack let himself be caught, knowing it wasn't a big deal at all, that she'd just surprised him with her unfamiliar attitude and self-confidence. Or maybe this was just a facet that he'd never noticed before; or that she'd purposefully been hiding.

That thought made his smile widen. He hoped the suave façade wouldn't fail him as he said, "We'd make a damn good couple, wouldn't we?"

Aeris wasn't exactly taken aback. Rather, she seemed exasperated – and then she actually laughed right in his face. If his feelings were hurt every time a woman made fun of his attempts at seduction, he'd surely have gone to bang his head against the wall out of denial by now.

"You know, that is possibly the most unromantic thing I've ever heard, and that's saying a lot since it comes from you," was her justification of her rude behaviour.

"Oh come on, Aeris. Don't you think that romance would piss me off, after all these nights? Women are boringly repetitive in their little fantasies. You'll see, you'll be lucky to have male customers; most of them don't really want much else than, well, basic satisfaction. It doesn't stretch your brain out of proportion."

"Poor thing," Aeris said with a compassionate smile and tilt of the head, "Maybe I'll think about that thing you said about versatility. That way we could swap clients; since women never really have to go out of their way to behave like lovesick idiots, maybe it would be less of a hardship for me to pair up with your…" She lifted her gaze to follow the woman who'd just walked in, chin up, gold adorning her pristine throat. "… little gem-studded clients."

Zack was smiling, and Aeris noticed the subtle change in his expression as he noticed the woman coming in and sitting down on the couch that took up the whole opposite wall. She couldn't quite tell if he was smiling at her or the woman; or perhaps both, since he gave her a significant look before glancing over her shoulder surreptitiously and lifting his head, giving him a deliciously arrogant air.

"On the other hand you seem quite fond of them," Aeris grinned, winning Zack's attention.

"Ah, just take it as a game, 'Ris," he said absently, the change in his expression not quite going away. "Anyway, I offered myself as a cover-up for your long, inexplicable nights. Do you accept?" Now he sounded as solemn as if he was asking her to marry him. Aeris stared at him, not quite understanding his offer.

"What?"

"Tell your mother and whoever's annoying enough to ask that you've finally found yourself a proper man – what?" She was laughing behind her hands again. Wisely, he chose to ignore her; he had a very good idea of what she thought of him, and quite frankly, she could think what she wanted. "So you've found a man, and seeing as he's a SOLDIER, he's very busy during the day so you have to give him your nights to be able to see him. You alright with that?"

"I guess…" She took a minute to think about how her entourage would take this. And then, how she'd take it. And then she looked down at her hands and nodded. "This is going to be real tiring."

Zack barked a laugh. "You're right about that."

"How do you deal with soldiering AND night shifts?"

He grinned at how she defined his jobs, but before he could say anything the office door swung open. Both of them look up at the boss, Aeris in apprehension, Zack in regret; the man nodded his head meaningfully at Zack, telling him wordlessly to get about his business. Squeezing his old friend's hand, Zack got up and proceeded to escorting his client to his appointed room. The men in the waiting room watched with lusting eyes as both beautiful creatures strode up the stairs that lead to the rooms: the green silk dress clinging to the woman's sleek body, and the lucky man's hand sliding from her shoulder to her nape, making her turn her head to the side, lashes flickering up as she gave him a smouldering glance.

Aeris turned her attention back to the boss. He seemed to be made of pink granite, tall and square in his black suit. The black shirt collar that he wore seemed to dig into his slight second chin; a lapis-blue tie gave a finishing touch to his half-pimp, half-banker outfit. His well-groomed moustache sat on his upper lip, and his stern black eyes glittered as he looked down at his new possession.

In conclusion, Aeris was surrendering the control of her night life to the scariest-looking man she'd even seen down here in the slums, and she was trying desperately to repress that little nagging thought that wanted to drag her out of this sordid place and back home to the safety of her mother. Back to her mummy! Hah. What an inappropriate desire it was to have in such a place, she thought, kicking herself; staring up at her new boss, she smiled hesitantly, and stood as he held out his hand to invite her into his office.

He closed the door behind her, stepping around the desk with his polished shoes creaking in the silence; sitting down with a groan of comfort and an even louder creak of leather, he set his plate-sized hands out flat on the desk.

Seconds went by. Aeris fidgeted madly, trying to repress the urge to leap around laughing maniacally.

The 'Big Boss' stared at her from under his bushy eyebrows for what seemed like an eternity. She'd never before felt such invasive scrutiny, and the fabric of her dress suddenly seemed to make her itch absolutely everywhere – her tights constricted her waist till she was sure she couldn't breathe – she felt filthy, she felt queer and absolutely stupid for even thinking of enrolling in this. He was probably going to kick her out anyway, telling her they didn't accept teenage girls with delusions of beauty. Arrogant, he'd call her – he'd say did she really think that with those unimpressive knockers she'd get any success?

Well, she'd tell him that she didn't have any other bodies to sell in order to stay alive in these godforsaken slums, and just because he was damn rich thanks to the girls whom he wrung dry to run his business, that didn't mean he had the right to tell her she had absolutely no chance.

And then he'd slam those huge fists on the desk and make the wood shatter and explode, making her cower and hide her face while he yelled that she should go back home to mummy just like she wanted, and to never show her immature face here again.

And then she'd yell right back at him…

Her eyes must've been darkening and her expression getting glummer and glummer as she imagined what their interaction could turn out to be, because he suddenly gave a loud laugh and held up his mason's hands towards her, shattering the oppressive silence.

She snapped out of it instantly, staring at him, jolted back to reality. They hadn't spoken; she didn't have a reason to hate his guts just yet. (… except maybe that godamn tie.)

"Now, now, my dear, don't be nervous! Just by looking at you I can tell that we'll be doing great business together," he told her, his rumbling voice clothed in a velvet sheath of persuasion. "Zack told me you were looking for… involvement at the HoneyBee because you were short on money. You see, I like you, and Zack is one of my best workers, so if you work well, I'll be extra generous to you."

Aeris swallowed, not knowing if she was interpreting that right.

"About the money…" she permitted herself to ask, and he laughed kindly.

"Of course. You probably don't know much about how this kind of job works. The money you earn goes to my purse, and I give you a certain percentage of it according to your quality as a worker. If you're a slacker I'll be less generous. Of course, even the worst slacker still gets a fair share. I never go under 50 percent, just so you know."

Aeris didn't know if she had the courage to dare the question… Lacing her fingers together, she tried the best she could to sound confident.

"And, uh, if I may… what's the average price for one night?"

The boss stared at her for a little minute before laughing again, shaking his head.

"You girls always amuse me with your questions. Do you really think a simple man like me, rich or no, could calculate how much each woman is worth? No, I have special system here. It ensnares clients, ensuring your success and mine. You see, all the girls start with a basic price- "

"How much?" Aeris blurted before she could stop herself; she had to know if this was going to be worth it or not. Not that she was a money-addict… far from it. But she'd given much thought to the idea of selling one's own attributes, and it wasn't to flatter herself that she wanted a decent price; it was to ensure her dignity as a woman, not to mention the actual point of her enrolling into the business. Even though the notion of dignity might sound ridiculous in a place like this.

The boss seemed to understand; he didn't laugh this time.

"1000 Gil."

Aeris' mouth dropped open. She couldn't help it. 1000?! Crisis, she'd been thinking maybe 30-ish! And how on the Planet did this man manage his business in a place like this, with such high sums? It could only mean that the clients were all plate-dwelling noblemen… her heart was racing. What if she didn't meet the standards? What if she was too simple, too -

The pimp suddenly laughed.

"Just kidding. 40 Gil is the starting price."

Aeris stared, her heart plummeting. She stared in desperation, disappointment gnawing away at the lovely soaring feeling she'd just experienced.

Alright, now she had a reason to hate him.

"Hey, honey, this isn't the place if you want to win easy money. I was just messing with you. Anyhow, let me explain," he said, not even showing an ounce of discomfort while under the assault of Aeris' deathly glare. "None of that! Have a little humour."

"Only men with plenty of money in their pockets joke around like that," Aeris managed to say without seething, "I'm sorry. 1000 Gil is probably more than any slum-dweller ever wishes to make in his whole life."

"I know that, my dear," the boss told her in a kind voice. "But what I'm trying to say is, the kind of glory that is attained without any build-up is a fool's glory. And I've seen a lot of my girls, and one or two of my men, too, go past the 5000 gil boundary. Let me tell you how this works."

Hearing this, Aeris gazed at him suspiciously, waiting for him to continue.

"You know just like I do that pretty much all rather well-off slum dwellers lead miserable lives. They earn their bread, they have families, but slum life is all you could ever want to escape from. I've seen a lot of slum dwellers working all day just to win enough money to forget their depression at my place. 40 Gil is a good price for them, neither cheap nor expensive… at least for most of my slum customers. Now, you never really do good business with these folk, because if they want to become your regular, they'll never be able to keep on paying higher and higher for your time. See, that's how it works for the slum-dwellers. If you want to just earn your bread, you'll satisfy yourself with these clients.

"Now, if you want to win the attention of the plate-dwellers, you have to put your back into it. Seeing as I used to live up there before opening this business, I have plenty of contacts who organize parties and who always need a fresh little well-groomed woman (or man) from my lot. They never admit it, but they love the raw quality of my women. I never doubted how successful I'd be if I worked with your slum girls; you have qualities that the women leading easy lives will never have. Which, mind you, is pretty understandable. Now, plate-dwellers very often become regulars, seeing as the starting price is so low; they'll be very generous, and most actually pay more than the starting price if they like you. Then, finally, when the prices get real high, it generally means that the client really has something going with my worker, and in that case, I let him have her if that's what they both want. Getting him to buy her wouldn't be right; like I said, I can't just fix prices on my women's heads. Some want to show their women how much they adore them and insist on buying them for extravagant prices- well, what can I say, it's like being impressed by expensive wine, isn't it? I can't really refuse in those cases."

Aeris couldn't take her eyes off him as he spoke. He looked like such a frightful character, and yet… what he was doing was of an unexpected, unimaginable kindness. This realization wiped clean the deception of the prices.

"It's a flux, really. Women manage to get out of the slums, at the same time freeing a place here for any woman who wants to try her luck."

"You used to live up on the plate," Aeris echoed him feebly.

"Yes," he said, nodding solemnly, "and anyone who lives up there is a damn bastard if he never thinks at least once of those who live under him, in complete darkness and misery. You know, a lot of people disagree with what I'm doing. Others think like I do about the injustice of Midgar, but don't really know how to act. There are a lot who want to help, and so I've already got a good number of clients up there who spread the word. It's a good business you know. But every once in a while one of my girls manages to spin the less sensitive around, and that's always good- most of those kind of men are the richest little Shinra dogs who earn a bloody sin of money every month. Not only is it good for business, but it's good for the morals of those rich asses."

He looked at Aeris, stopping his chatter, and reached over, his black eyes warmer than she would've thought possible. She slipped her hand into his outstretched one, and he stood and came around the desk to face her. He could see she was shaken; most of the girls were when he explained his business to them, but this one here had a different expression in her eyes. It was almost like she was relieved not only for herself but for all the women and men that he opened his doors to.

She wanted to express this expansive feeling that was taking up her entire chest; maybe she could say something real sappy, like 'This business you're running is absolutely beautiful', or 'You're a godsend', or something of like that… but then he'd taken her by the shoulders and was looking at her quite seriously.

"The goal of my business might be a respectable one, but that doesn't make the work any easier," he said in the gravest of tones. Aeris nodded. She thought she knew what she was getting herself involved with… and she thought it couldn't really be that hard, as long as you get to live decently enough during the day. Right?

"I have to tell you that I lost quite a few of my girls to some shady characters who took advantage of my system; but unless the Midgarian law does anything about it, I can't afford to track them and help them out. You've got to understand that the hearts of men are more often corrupted than not. Yes?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

"That's my girl," the boss said. "Aeris, is that it? We can get you a pseudonym if you like."

"Uh…" She hadn't thought of that. Maybe it would be safer.

"Maybe something to do with your affinities? What you love?"

The earth. The sweet smell of loamy soil, of her garden in the slum church… But calling herself Gaia would be much too cheesy.

On the other hand, her garden wasn't exactly what one would expect of a flowergirl such as herself. She cultivated weeds in her garden, and they gave the most magnificent flowers- well, actually, it wasn't really a matter of cultivating the weeds, it was more like arbitrating a war between two species who each wanted to entangle and snuff out the other. Encroached in its soil, the weed would never give up its conquest, impossible to get rid of even if she ripped all of it out… in a way, she'd be playing the same game with these men she'd meet, wouldn't she? She'd tangle them in her vines, a weed among defenseless but beautiful flowers of the Better Kind…

The comparison made her laugh; it was kind of ridiculous. None of the weeds' names sounded quite feminine enough, however.

"What kinds of names do the other girls choose?"

The boss looked at her with one of those bushy eyebrows raised.

"The basic kind of names that women who want to hide their identity behind a glamorous façades use," he said, as if all this bored him. "Assassins and prostitutes name their own reputation rather than themselves. To deal out pleasure, or to deal out death… whichever it is, you're going to have men wanting you, so you better have a professional-sounding name."

Aeris would've smiled if he hadn't used that vulgar term to define what she was about to be. Breathing in deeply, she tried to fill herself with the old determination that kept wavering from side to side, trying to keep it from falling flat.

"Why don't you name me? I can't think of anything."

As soon as she'd asked the favour, she wished she could take it back- the boss was smiling as though she'd just offered him much more than a chance to name her, and he proceeded to walk around her, two fingers on his lips as he examined her and tried to find something. Finally, just as she was about to tell him to forget it, he stopped in front of her and seemed to find some grain in the depths of her eye that he could not rip his gaze from.

"Those eyes… are most unusual. Much too green. They almost look like SOLDIER eyes, and yet…they don't exactly glow like the Mako eyes we're used to see, they…somehow, they seem to… pulsate. Yes. Most unusual…

He still wouldn't look away. "Pearls of Lifestream they are, no doubt. You're a strange creature, Aeris. A chimera blending among beautiful women."

Her heart was beginning to race; she wasn't sure she liked where he was going with his inspection..

"You know, apart from those in my sector, no one really knows me by my name…" She was about to say, 'only by my face and code number', but her boss didn't need to know that she was one of Shinra's most wanted targets. Though they hadn't threatened to kidnap her anytime soon, they'd set a dark-haired man to watch her, and if they thought they could get away with that without her noticing then they must've really known nothing about her other than her origins and specimen number.

Maybe she could do something with that number, actually…to laugh at them from the murky depths just under their feet. CS03AG was what they'd tattooed vertically behind her left ear, with a little encircled JP just under that, just behind her earlobe. She remembered; she'd been young when they'd taken her into their 'care'… she saw those letters everywhere. JP. JP. It never stopped. There weren't many others who had the encircled tattoo, except the man in the white blouse who called himself Hojo; maybe others who were as dedicated as him had tattooed themselves as a reminder, or for good luck, or Planet knows what.

"You are part of a great project," she remembered Hojo telling her once, threading wires into her skin and rubbing her needle-wounds with some kind of appeasing orange-ish goo. His eyes were far too lifeless, his forehead far too wide, his smile far too crooked for her to trust him; she remembered how she terrorized she was, wriggling as he held out her arm in an iron grip in order to go about his strange business. She'd flinch as he pricked her, she'd cry out and wail in fear as he took from her blood and skin samples, when he'd inject countless multicoloured 'tests' into her… but he'd still blabber to her about his precious plans, never getting tired of imagining his future grandeur. "When you'll be older, when you'll understand what an honour it is to be a part of this great thing, you'll be able to tell your loved ones, 'I helped the Jenova Project become a reality, I helped you all to plunge deep into your minds and find the ancient roots you forsook so long ago. I helped recreate the perfect Beings…'"

"So what will it be?"

Shaken back to reality, Aeris almost said 'Jenova Project' aloud: she managed to look at the man who'd sat back down at his desk, allowing her the time to think.

"I don't want some silly composed name or anything self-glorifying," she said, more boldly than she'd expected; "I think I'll take something simple and meaningless. If I change names it'll just be for the rumours, so that no one goes around saying that Aeris is a great one, or that Aeris is terrible at it, and all; let's just say that certain reactions could be… dangerous?" She thought of her adoptive mother, feeling bitter for having to lie to her. She was doing this for both of their good, anyway… in these times they weren't as well off as Elmyra liked to have her think.

The boss gave a loud 'Hah!' before looking up to her.

"What then?" He was getting impatient.

"It'll be Nova."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He whistled, checking her out again and give her an teasingly anxious look, as if he wasn't impressed by what he was seeing. "So much for self-glorifying! Better live up to it or your success will blow itself out like a balloon."

"Will you accept it?" Now she just felt stupid. This whole naming business was ridiculous.

"Sure, I accept it. In fact, I'm going to put you in my Menu just about now, little Nova. Pose, darling, I need a nice portrait to go with your nice, plain, uninteresting name." He was teasing her; there was a hint of a smile under his moustache, though she knew that he probably really did fear for her success, next to the girls whose attitudes actually fit quite well with the animal or cataclysm or assassin names. She was worlds away from her own cataclysm. Actually he'd always wondered what that queer feeling was that she had whenever someone mentioned the Jenova phenomenon. She'd never gotten around to finding out what exactly Jenova could be defined as; and yet to her it couldn't be something good, if the simple evocation made her feel queasy.

Flash. A Polaroid picture came sliding from the camera, and she looked up at the boss, startled.

"What? Wh- I didn't even pose!"

"Ah, but you looked lovely in your musing, my honey," the boss smiled at her, before waving a paw at her. "Well, I'm giving you the ninth room to your right when you get upstairs. You better get going, I'll organize all this." He sighed. "Looks like it's going to be a long night."

• • •