Worthless (Camren)

"What if I don't want to leave ever?"

The air outside was cold and the howling wind didn't exactly improve that. Camila was shivering by the time they were seated in the car.

"If you want to I can turn on the seat heating." Lauren offered.

"What's a seat heating?" Camila asked, shivering.

"It erm... well it makes the car seat get warm, it's really nice. I'll put it on for both of us, just tell me if you don't like it and I'll turn it off, okay?" She flicked two switches on the control panel and pulled out of the driveway.

Half a minute later Camila gasped in surprise and leaned forward, looking at her seat in disbelief.

"Do you like it?" Lauren asked.

Camila smiled in excitement, leaning back against her seat again. "It's nice." She said with an excited tone in her voice. "It feels nice on the bruises on my back." She added with a tone of surprise after a while.

"That's good." Lauren said smiling, but focused on the road.

They arrived at the doctor's office 15 minutes early, but there was no secretary at the reception desk when they entered, the entrance hall was only dimly lit. Lauren wondered if the secretary even knew the doctor was seeing patients after hours.

Camila kept close to Lauren as they walked, her eyes firmly fixed on the ground, and for a moment Lauren was tempted to wrap an arm around the other girl's shoulders, but after what had just happened in the entrance hall at home she knew it would be a terrible idea.

"Are you alright?" Lauren asked as they made their way towards the waiting room. Camila looked up at her startled, but nodded.

Lauren opened the waiting room's door.

The room was brightly lit in contrast to the front room, so it took her eyes a second to adjust properly, when they did Lauren was surprised to see they weren't the only occupants of the waiting area. Two girls were sitting in chairs next to each other on the opposite side of the room. Lauren guessed they were about the same age as herself and Camila.

They were looking at the new arrivals.

"Hi." Lauren gave an awkward wave and received two equally awkward waves in return. Camila was still standing next to her, looking at the ground. Lauren helped her out of her coat and hug both of their coats onto a coatrack next to the door.

"Here, sit down with me." Lauren said, closing the waiting room door behind them and directing Camila to a chair while taking up the adjoining one herself. Camila sat stiffly, eyes on the floor. Lauren knew it had to be due to some sort of 'proper slave behaviour in public places' training, but she didn't have the heart to tell Camila she should stop. She could tell Camila was nervous enough without Lauren criticizing her behaviour.

Lauren's focus was pulled from Camila by the sound of quiet whispers from across the room. She looked up in time to see the girls on the other side of the room look away.

Not quite knowing what to do with herself  she picked up a magazine from the chair next to her and opened it at a random page. The whispering across the room resumed as soon as she looked away.

The unsettling feeling of being watched was making her shift nervously in her seat. She looked up again and was met with the sight of the girls frantically whispering to each other again.

Belatedly she wondered if she should have been more careful with how she treated Camila, but all she had done since they entered the room was tell her to sit. Should she have made Camila sit on the floor? But if they were judging her for treating her slave too nicely, why were they at the doctor's office at this hour anyway? Then again, neither of them looked like a slave, so maybe they were emergency patients or something.