Sex Addict in Flea Bottom (SI)

The stench hit Thomas first. A sour mix of rot, piss, and unwashed bodies, thick in the air like a miasma that clung to the back of the throat. Flea Bottom: the festering underbelly of King's Landing. Every corner whispered of decay and desperation, where the sun never seemed to shine, only dim, choking smoke from makeshift hearths that turned the skies a sickly grey.

Thomas had barely been a man in his previous life—an office worker with little to show for his thirty years but a penchant for whiskey and late-night escapades that left him more hollow than happy. He didn't remember dying, not exactly. A blinding flash, a jolt of pain, then... this. A boy's body, limbs too skinny and covered in grime, hair matted and filthy, nails blackened with the filth of a city that had no love for anyone born in the Bottom.

Here, men lay sprawled in the mud, faces bloated and blue from too much drink or too little care, rats nibbling at their toes. Women crouched in doorways, nursing their babes or their bruises, hawking whatever scraps of dignity they had left. Kids darted through alleys like feral cats, eyes sharp, stomachs growling, hands quick to snatch anything not nailed down.

The alleys twisted like the guts of some monstrous beast. Puddles of god-knows-what splattered underfoot, and the walls wept with mold and something darker. He passed a butcher hacking away at some unidentifiable carcass, flies swarming in thick clouds. The man's knife glinted, sharp and uncaring, chunks of meat slapping onto the blood-slicked wooden block. No one cared if it was dog or worse.

Thomas weaved through, feeling the eyes on him. Suspicious, hungry, dead-eyed. He kept his gaze low, focused on the slick cobbles, the crushed bones, the stained scraps of cloth that passed for footwear. There was no safety here, only corners where shadows clung too tight, where every breath tasted of soot and shit. He ducked his head as a fight broke out behind him, two men snarling over a half-empty bottle of sour wine. They crashed into a stall of rotting vegetables, the vendor too drunk or too scared to intervene.

He turned down a narrower street, the buildings pressing in like the jaws of a trap. A woman squatted in a doorway, her dress hiked up, pissing into the gutter without a shred of shame. She glanced up at him with dead eyes, not even pausing as the stream trickled away. Thomas moved on, trying not to look too closely at the beggars with limbs twisted and faces scarred from illness or fire.

A shrill scream cut through the murmur of the crowd—a boy, no more than ten, clutching his stomach as a larger man yanked a knife free. The kid's blood splattered the street, dark and thick, and he crumpled without so much as a whimper. Nobody stopped. Nobody cared. Thomas quickened his pace, his heart hammering in his chest. This was the bottom. No rules but survival.

He rounded a corner and found a quiet spot, an alleyway that stank of old piss and broken dreams. There, half-hidden in the shadows, was a woman. She was caked in filth, her skin pale beneath layers of mud and god knows what else. Hair tangled, clinging to her face in greasy clumps, her eyes dull yet strangely inviting. A mockery of beauty, dulled by life's cruel hand.

"Spare a knut, m'lord?" she rasped, voice rough like gravel. She shifted, revealing more of her sunken cheeks and chapped lips, smeared with dirt. Her dress hung off her bony frame, barely covering her, stained and torn. She leaned forward, one hand sliding along the ground, fingertips blackened. "For a knut, I can make ye feel somethin' good."

Thomas stared at her, a sour taste in his mouth, but he couldn't pull his gaze away. The offer was plain, hollow, a transaction in the lowest sense of the word. Her eyes held no illusion of pleasure or seduction—just need. Need for a coin, for a meal, for another day above the dirt.

She cocked her head, a ghost of a smile curling her cracked lips. "What's it gonna be, m'lord? You look like you could use it."

Thomas felt the world tilt, his vision blurring as a sharp, sudden pain exploded behind his eyes. His hands shot up, gripping his temples as the headache pounded, fierce and unrelenting. The woman's voice echoed dimly, fading into the relentless throb that drowned out everything else.

"Just a knut," she whispered again, her words a distant murmur in the dark.