Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Jul 30, 2011 19:01:30 GMT -5
So it was a quiet day – one of those days when we don't quite well know what to do with ourselves, because it's hot and murky and just blistering ripe for hell. But you don't make your living at the bathhouse lounging about: that'd be much too easy. Oh no – and so I'd been set to re-stocking the various rooms in which we served, the hot and cold baths, the steam room, the sweating room, too. I was going in, counting soaps, towels, perfumes and lotions, then going back to re-fill what needed to be refilled.
It wasn't really a thankful job, no – but I didn't mind it was much as lavatory duty, and it was something to do, something to keep busy. I'd tried not to think of Necthan, of our tumultuous last day together. Perhaps I was making ready for him, in a way. And maybe I was just trying to block him forever out of my mind.
I hadn't gone to his house – not of yet. But it was important for me to keep moving, to keep doing things, because every time I had a moment to myself, I could hear his voice echoing, I want all that you are because you are one of the few people that can manipulate me, that can alter my mind. I'd never wanted to change him – I'd just wanted him to see me, without cheating. When I closed my eyes at night, and there was no john panting over me, it was worse.
Then, I could see him. Leaning against the wall to my window, with his little smile that begged to be kissed. Then, I could see see his eyes, black with fury, and his anger, palpable, and my knees quivering under me in desire, I will tell my lungs not to breathe so that I can know you. And then I tried to pretend those weren't tears on my face, those weren't goosebumps on my skin, and I buried my sobs in the pillow.
No, better to work, and work, and work, then, and forget. Wherever he'd gone – it wasn't to war, he'd told me it wasn't his style. And he wasn't out in some basement printing La voix de la Raison either. Not unless his magic was so powerful that he could – change.
Could he?
It didn't matter. I was still a discounted whore, still unheard, if he was gone. He wouldn't have spoken to me like that man had. He wouldn't have – he would have – responded, somehow. Because Necthan wasn't afraid of me or my words. Or was he, now?
Of course, I'd seen the latest issue. The Prissy Fuck's work was hard to avoid, these days, it was like a paper plague, snookering all the way even to my bloody bedroom. I'd heard one of the girls collected them and had stuffed a cushion with a bunch. How would he react to knowing that? Probably in a huff. Again. Because Prissy Fucks are just as brave as little mice when the cat comes about. Hah. I preferred to think it wasn't Necthan, even if it would have been a good explanation for his absence. Even if part of me wanted to think it was him.
Elua, I hoped he was alright.
And could he have had access to these numbers, if they were even true? Was that the kind of magic his mind could do? If he'd met this party-throwing Noemi and read her mind – and I kept on looping in and out of these two themes, and it drove me mad.
Right. No more cinnamon oil. Better go get that, before a john shows up who needs it. And some of those Menekhetan salts too. Right. Was that a dirty towel - oh Naamah, yes, and disgustingly so, who'd used that? And so on.
Regardless of how much I tried to fill my mind with counting bottles of eau de parfum and massage oils, the thought came to me, and I found myself wishing for a john, any john, that might make me forget for a moment. I'd been relieved, at first. Now I was both bored and desperate for a distraction.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 1, 2011 9:07:18 GMT -5
“And then,” I went on, “she called me a prissy fuck with no honour or courage.”
I was sitting in front of the mirror, weaving ribbons into Felicien’s hair, in imitation of some style we’d seen in a fashion monthly, and it was taking bloody ages. I kept my attention on the apparently endless strands, so I didn’t have to meet my own eyes.
Fouinon was supposed to be helping me but he was actually lying on the freshly made bed, boots on, reading a text we’d lately acquired on the blackmarket from Ruskovia. I’d translated the first few chapters, in preparation for possible printing, but he claimed he was having trouble deciphering my handwriting.
“Prol…prolit…”
“Proletariat.”
“Huh.”
“Are you evening listening to me?”
“Well, on the one hand I have you babbling about a conversation you had in the pub and on the other I have this book which is saying some pretty interesting things. So, ‘no’ would be the short answer. If you can’t cope with people saying things you shouldn’t talk to them.”
“I don’t, as a general rule.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as a bit hypocritical?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, you’re all about getting people to listen to you – and, don’t get me wrong, I know what you’re saying is important – but you don’t give two hoots about listening to them.”
“She’s just a two copper whore, what would she have to say that would be worth listening to?”
“My mother was a whore,” said Fouinon, rolling onto his side, putting his back to me. I think I’d actually offended him. “And you are a prissy fuck.”
They were right, of course. Both of them. Not about me being a prissy fuck, for I most assuredly am not. But that I don’t listen. And that it was not only arrant hypocrisy but rampant snobbery to dismiss someone based on their profession. I actually didn’t care what she did to earn her living, but telling myself she was “only” a harlot was the easiest way to convince myself what she said didn’t matter to me.
I was ashamed of myself. Not an entirely new sensation.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
Fouinon was still being pissy. “Don’t trip over your hair on the way out,” he said, not looking at me.
It took me a while to de-ribbon and de-Felicien, but once that was done, it did not take me long to reach Night’s Doorstep, nor to find “the bathhouse” that had been referenced in our previous conversation. The place was, thankfully, relatively quiet, although it was far from pleasant. I couldn’t imagine wanting to take a bath here, let alone … well.
The moment I stepped through the door, a girl peeled herself away from where she standing in a bored attitude against a wall and came to greet me. She had yellow hair that owed far more to a bottle than nature’s grace, but she was still young enough to be comely and that, somewhat, made it all much worse.
“Hello handsome,” she said.
I cringed. I’m a writer. I can’t stand cliché. “I’m not handsome and I’m looking for someone.”
She gave me what I presume was meant to be a saucy smile. “You’ll do, and I reckon you’ve found ‘er.”
“No no,” I said, stepping back so hastily I collided with the doorframe. “I’m really looking for someone. She’s…” Oh shit. I couldn’t remember her name, only “bathhouse whore” and it appeared there were several of those available to the punter. Every word the woman had spoken was branded on my soul but apart from the fact she had red hair and breasts I couldn’t recall a damn thing about her. “She has red hair?” I tried, since the revelation that she had breasts wasn’t likely to narrow it down any.
The woman plunked her hands on her hips, interest waning rapidly.
“’m a whore, not a bleedin’ tout."
“Red hair, filthy mouth, bad temper?” I said, desperately.
“Oh you want Alayne,” she said immediately.
Alayne! That was it.
The harlot pressed herself against me and I flinched. “’m cheaper than she is, love,” she whispered. It was probably meant to be alluring. “An’ I’ll do most things she’ll do.”
“I … I … j-j-just want to talk,” I said.
“Don’ they all.”
I slithered away from her body, trying not to push her too roughly. “It has to be Alayne,” I said, sounding creepier by the second.
Her shoulders slumped, and I felt almost bad for it. She gestured to a door at the other end of the room. “Through there. Pay the Madame.”
Pay..? Of course. Typical. Not only did I have to apologise but I had to pay for the privilege. And through the nose apparently. I probably looked green enough to swindle, and I was way too off-balance to haggle.
I finally made it through the indicated door. The red-headed whore – Alayne – seemed to be fiddling about listlessly with some bottles of something.
I took a deep breath.
“I, uh,” I said.
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 2, 2011 0:32:32 GMT -5
There were bottles and pots and little cotton balls too, the latter, I loved to touch, because I liked to think that they were what angel hair must feel like. Then again, of course it wasn't. And I was counting, all the way to thirteen, and then there was a noise, and I turned.
And blinked.
Clearly, I'd been obsessing too much over the Prissy Fuck.
Because he was right there. In the massage room. Clearing hist throat. And I swear, I felt my eyes widen, and if one of me eyeballs had somehow rolled off to the floor and all the way to his boot, I'd have not been surprised. (Well no, I'd have screamed in horror, bu that was besides the point.)
What is one supposed to do, when the john you're sent (and without warning, mind you) is the last person you'd want to fuck? Or to talk to, really. I took a moment to examine him.
In fact, I looked at him much more than I had back in the Traveller's inn. At the time, I hadn't really paid attention – too engrossed in the debate, all that. Too stimulated. And I'd been fine with not looking and not being looked at. This wasn't the Inn, though.
This was the bathhouse, and here, I was expected to spread my legs and shed my dress. So of course I gave him a good looking, head to toe, toe to head. To decide if I was alright with that.
He was... well, he could have been uglier. He would do. Besides, I was bored.
“You,” I said.
Well, that was eloquent. Let's try again, Alayne, and do better. Use what you have. Use what you do best.
“Right. You're way too over dressed for the service we're selling here,” I informed him. Wandering over to the wardrobe, I fetched a dressing gown (thankfully, I'd just made sure there was a clean one in this room) and dumped it on his hands. “Call me when you're ready, I need to get your bath running in the meantime.”
Not to mention take a layer off, Elua.
“And nice to see you too. Until you give me another name, I won't use any, right, Messire Prissy?”
A pause, then, in the doorway, and I gave him a bit of a wry grin, hands on my hips.
“Unless you're here for something else entirely, of course.”
Oh, bugger. I was, Elua save me, happy to see him. If only because he'd be a diversion from everything else that kept on running in my mind. A diversion from himself, how ironic would that be.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 2, 2011 13:59:57 GMT -5
By the Gods.
The woman was a whirlwind. Before I quite knew what was happening she was thrusting a dressing gown into my unwilling arms, calling me names (again) and ordering me to get out of my clothes. People came here for pleasure?! I've been invited more graciously to throw up.
And as for the way her eyes travelled up and down my body, it was if I were a low-quality offering on a butcher's stall, and she was short of cash. Even though I was dressed, and had every intention of staying so at all times, I felt utterly naked. I even caught myself wishing for some of Felicien's garish sartorial protection; people are so busy looking at what he's wearing, they never see him. But there was nothing, really, between me, whoever I am, and her critical attention.
“No,” I said, quickly, before anything worse happened. “No! I'm not here for … that. The distractions of the flesh hold no interest for me.”
The distractions of the flesh? Maybe I am a prissy fuck...
“I mean, um.” The dressing gown slithered out of my nerveless hands and onto the floor. “The thing is. I came to … that is I … I came to the conclusion … having thought about it ... I realised that ... ”
I stopped. This was hopeless. “Look, can we sit down or something? I can't really think with you looking at me like you're a tiger and I'm a lame gazelle while ordering me around like I'm a new recruit in the army, which is a selection of rather mixed similes I know. I don't have much experience of these matters but if that's really what people look for at the bath house, I'm truly a little startled. Err, but that's besides the point. It's your job and, unlike some people, I don't make a habit of telling people how they should do their jobs.”
Oh, I was meant to be apologising, not making snide remarks. But there was something about her that seemed to bring all my worst impulses to the fore. I had come with the best intentions to be civil and almost failed immediately.
I took a deep breath, trying again. “They call me Florian,” I said.
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 3, 2011 3:08:11 GMT -5
It was almost amusing – the panic in his eyes, as if he'd never shown his arse or his prick to anyone. Maybe he was afraid he'd be too small? He did have the ego of those that had fuzzy chicks instead of cocks. Not that it meant anything. But I couldn't help but be amused, and that's just one hop away from endeared, isn't it?
So I let him go on and on about gazelles and tigers, and I almost roared at him, in play. True that I was known for being an aggressive lover – that was what they came for. Scrapes and harsh kisses, and insults, and resistance, too, though those who were strong enough in their passions found me generous and pliant after a while. It was getting old, though. This, though – this was new.
I grinned.
When he'd spoken of sitting down, I'd gestured to the alcove – it was a bed, but one could sit on it too. Johns did. I did too, but less often. Usually I knelt and sucked on their cocks – though clearly not on, well, Florian's. I decided it was a good name, and smiled a bit more genuinely. Besides, it was a good name.
It made him human.
“Well, sugar,” I drawled as I sat and leaned against the wall, “if you ever whored yourself out, I'll listen to your pointers on the matter, though I'm guessing you're still a virgin.” I waved it off, though, because it didn't matter. “What you're saying is you thought about what I said in that pub, aren't ya? Well, have at it. Won't be said that I don't listen to people when they try to tell me something. Oh no.”
And then, I propped my elbow on the side of the bed, propped my head in my palm, and looked at him, as if he were a delicious morsel I might eat.
Why did I do that? Mostly because I could. Also, because it was nice to reverse roles, once in a while.
And also: because he'd already paid.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 3, 2011 13:54:33 GMT -5
I sat down gingerly on the very edge of the bed, trying not to think about what usually happened here.
“Just because I choose not to sleep with whores does not mean I am ignorant of love or passion,” I said, mildly. Of all the jibes she could have chosen, that one, at least, had missed its mark. Although those emotions, and experiences, seemed a long way from me now. They had happened to a different man.
Alayne had sprawled out next to me, and was still regarding me rather in the manner of a bored lioness. I wondered men didn't fear to reveal a cockstand lest she bite it off. Or maybe she was just taunting me as usual.
“I have been thinking about what you said,” I said, finally. “And I also came to … you know ...” I made a vague gesture with my hand then, fearing she would misinterpret as a vague sexual gesture I rushed on “...apologise, for not having listened the first time.” Was that sufficient? I had no idea what counted as an acceptable gesture for storming off in a huff because a name-calling whore insulted your revolutionary pamphlet. That one hadn't made it into the etiquette books yet. It was almost funny but I suspect I buried my sense of humour with all the other things I lost with Ann, and I had no idea how to even begin to express the sentiment.
“La Voix is still very much an experimental work,” I went on awkwardly, “in terms of style and content. I shall consider your criticisms fairly.”
I heard myself and cringed. I think I was back to Prissy Fuck.
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 3, 2011 15:57:25 GMT -5
The one thing you had to give this Florian fellow was that in the course of one conversation, he could be endearing, annoying, ponderous and interesting. It was a feat. He was a one-man act.
Add to that infuriating. So I wasn't good enough for him, huh? Me, or anyone else who got paid. What an arse. Were adepts too low for him too? I had to wonder. Pretentious prig.
I was getting ready to throw something biting, but he went on with something absolutely new to me.
An apology.
I couldn't remember the last time someone had apologized to me, or the last time I'd apologized to anyone. Well then. That was kind of nice. Actually, so nice, I might try to replay that sentence in my head later. Inexplicably, I colored and shifted a little, looking into my hands. Needless to say, I was pleased.
“You shouldn't consider them,” I said, after he was done. “You should listen. Look, lemme be blunt, Flo, because you're being kinda sweet and I think you're a nice guy. Still a prissy fuck, and pretentious to boot, but you mean well. Thing is, you stink of up there, with the way you speak. Even if you're not perfumed and beribbonned like a piece of candy from the Palace District. No, really. You talk like one, see. Can hear it.”
I grinned. “So don't consider. Tell me – aight, Alayne, you're onta sumthin' talk at me.” And I'll believe you a bit more, aye?” I winked, and reached into my corsage to get to La Voix. “And now that's up to Auntie Alayne's crit hour.”
Grinning, I proceeded to reading La Voix, Issue XIV, and handed it to him. “Aight, Messire Florian, here's the deal. It's great and detailed, but how do I know you're not pulling this outta of your own arse? Say you've never come here and wrung your hands at me, how would I know? Those numbers, they mean nothing to me, so you tell me how many people I can feed with this, and maybe you'll be getting somewhere.”
A pause.
“And even if people buy it, then what?”
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 5, 2011 5:17:31 GMT -5
A variety of expressions – none of them especially encouraging – flashed across her face as I spoke, but my apology, such as it was, seemed to go over better. It felt a little ridiculous, to be honest, but just made me realise the depth of my own hypocrisy. I would have to do better. That was the paradox at the heart of everything though: I was too much a product of my noble birth. But I could still be an usher of a better world – if I could also accept there would be no place for me in it. The thought was reassuring rather than depressing. There is no place for me in this one, either. I’m a ghost, an illusion, a delusion.
“I can’t help the way I talk,” I said, shrugging “But it has its uses. I could approximate you, I s’spect, good enough to pass, anyhows,” I roughened my register for her at the end of my sentence, copying her rhythms, “but…” returning to myself, with a sudden, absurd desire to laugh that made my voice shake unexpectedly “…I’m confused enough as it is.”
A nobleman pretending to be an idiot pretending to be a commoner pretending to be a gods knew what. Maybe it was funny. It was strange, because I normally don’t have much time for humour.
Then she was pulling a crumpled copy of La Voix out of her bosom. Was that funny as well? I mean, I imagined many fates for my pamphlets. In privies. Trampled under boots. Burned. Or simply disregarded. What about nestled between the tits of a whore? That was surely hilarious.
I lay back on the bed, suddenly not really caring what I was lying in or on, flicking the long braid of my hair out of my way, and folding my hands behind my head. “One thing at a time, hmm? As for the numbers, it’s true, I could be pulling them out of any orifice of my pleasing but think of it like this..."
"How much to do you earn, on average, in say a week? I’m not green enough to presume you see all that much of what I paid the Madam. Actually perhaps you don't want to tell me. But just think of how you much earn, and everything it's supposed to cover, food, clothes, some of the pleasures and luxuries of life because you’re a human being, not an animal. And then look at those numbers again. They’re meant to be unimaginable because they are. Could you imagine seeing such wealth in a life time? And here it is squandered on frippery and distraction.”
It was easy enough to condemn Noemi when I didn’t have look at her, sweet, pretty, bare-foot Princess.
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 5, 2011 12:02:29 GMT -5
Right. I had to wonder if the man was a right mad git, the way he spoke, the way he wanted to laugh while telling me he was confused. That, though – ah, that had the incredible ring of sincerity. They called him Florian, but I had to wonder – what'd he call himself? I let it go, for now – maybe it was because I thought if I asked now, it'd be too early, and I was feeling the sudden urge to... ha, to tame this Prissy Fuck of a Florian. Or this fuckin' flower of prissiness. Not in the way men tamed me, but in the way, ah – I guessed the word for it was friend. Huh.
Me and my weird habit of befriending johns. If Florian joined the select club of men who paid to speak to me (and he'd already done that once), maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Come to think of it, it was even flattering.
Florian, or whatever his name was. Still didn't believe that lie. But it was fine. I didn't care much for that sort of truth.
And I certainly wasn't going to tell me how much I earned! Though the bathhouse wasn't so bad – and we were freer than adepts, so long as the goods weren't going out for free. That didn't take anything away from the fact that he was right, damn the man.
“I agree,” I said, and I bawled my fist. “And I know how much people could eat with all that money. Don't count the adepts in there, though. Adepts need to take on assignations to be free, and even if I'm not big on the mountain up there, you know, they're people. And they need jobs. So don't count the people working on there. The thing is, though, you gotta think, what'd she do, this Noemi princess person, if she didn't throw that party? She'd just be sitting on all that money, not giving it away or what. So you gotta push it further. If you wanna change things, stop crying wolf and tell'm.”
A pause, then, and I looked at him again. Hm. He looked better, now that he wasn't fiddling about like I might bite him. I liked the hair. Kind of wanted to braid it. Unbraid and rebraid, I meant. Hm. That was weird. Well then. On to the discussion. Moving along, moving along, nothing to see here, folks.
“So I'm askin' again. Say the good folk of Night's Doorstep buy it.” A pause. “Then what?”
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 6, 2011 18:37:38 GMT -5
She was looming over me somewhat but given that the tigerish look had left her face I wasn't overly concerned. Besides, I was hardly a man to drive a whore to paroxysms of uncontrollable lust in her own receiving room.
The main thing that occupied me at the moment was the extraordinary revelation that she agreed with me. That she thought I was right. No bad going, really, for a Prissy Fuck. A slow smile uncurled across my lips.
“The first step,” I said, oddly calm now we had come to the heart of the matter “is to expose the corruption of the system, and to empower the people. We are raised into habits of acceptance. I need to show people how to question.”
I paused. I suspected the next bit might seem a little daunting.
“The second step is … well … we must overthrow the monarchy, destroy the aristocracy in its entirety and forge a new governmental structure based on the principles of liberty and equality for all. I'm afraid there will bloodshed but it is the price of freedom. Force is, unfortunately, the midwife of revolution.”
I spoke often of such matters often with Fouinon and Mauvoisin, but never to outsiders. I wasn't sure how it would sound, but if anything voicing it only helped shore up my conviction. I knew I was right. Completely and utterly right.
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 6, 2011 19:10:48 GMT -5
He was mad. Utterly, absolutely mad.
“... bloodshed,” I repeated, and though his smile was pleasant, it struck me as a bit illuminated, as if he'd suddenly had a shot of Uisghe, or smoked opium. Clearly, it was the ideas – he'd come in fairly sober.
“... Florian, do you realize what you're saying? You could get executed for saying this. I ---” and suddenly I felt the urge to stand, make sure the door was closed, so I did, and returned to him.
“Undress,” I said, and I started to take off my skirts, started to remove my shirt, stripping down to my shift. “We don't have to fuck, since I'm not good enough for you, but if we're going to talk madness like this, we're going to do it in a way that makes it look like we had a good reason to close the door.”
Half nude, then, my shift rolled down to my waist, I undid my hair and slipped back in the bed, closer to him. “Don't fuck me, but make it look like you did, at least – it's not about my pride, fucked up johns abound. It's about your head, you silly ass.”
Why did I care? I wasn't sure, but it seemed important to me, suddenly, that he remain whole and alive. Perhaps it was because I felt like his revolution was barely a seed – he could be snuffed out tomorrow, and nothing would happen.
And I kind of wanted something to happen.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 6, 2011 19:42:55 GMT -5
“I'm not taking my clothes off.”
I jerked upright on the bed as if someone had attached a string to my midsection and yanked.
I don't know what had possessed me to tell her the second part of the plan, inevitable though it was. I think it was because she kept challenging me, as if she believed I hadn't thought of it, as if I were only made of words. Actually I welcomed what was to come, I yearned for it. Blood and fire, destroying me along with everything else I hated. It truly could not come soon enough.
I'd also accepted the likelihood that I would be executed before my work was done. On the one hand, it would mean I'd failed, but on the other I'd be dead … and therefore presumably I wouldn't care. It would all be someone else's problem, and I would have nothing left for which to atone. There would only be silence.
On the other hand, I'd also heedlessly endangered an innocent. An innocent in the relative sense – given that she was suddenly half-naked and trying to get into bed with me. I received a confused impression of white skin against flame-red hair, and breasts that were probably worth the price of admission alone before I managed to look away.
“I assure you,” I said, jumping away from the now occupied bed, “I am quite capable of seeing to my own safety. I should, however, have guarded my words better for the sake of yours.”
I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. Yes, she really was half-naked and in the bed, and yelling at me. Thankfully I have little interest in the distractions of the flesh.
Even if it has been a painfully long time.
But I have little interest in the distractions of the flesh.
Little interest.
Little interest.
What is wrong with me. Ann as dead as if I had killed her myself. A revolution to start. And all of it unravelling because I got a glimpse of a whore's tits.
Forgive me, Ann, for I am weak.
“And anyway,” I said, sharply, standing in the middle of the room with my back to her, “surely it's not necessary to remove one's garments to have sex with you. Make some obliging noises and your fiction will be unquestioned.”
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Alayne Lombard
Citizen
Employee at the Bath House
Lost child of the Deveroix household.
Posts: 329
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 6, 2011 20:01:08 GMT -5
So either he didn't like sex, or he thought I was monstrous, or --- but I said he didn't have to bugger me, had he not listened?
I remained there, then, sitting on the bed, stubbornly not putting my shirt back on – really, I was almost taking it as a challenge. Not even looking at me? What was this?
“Florian,” I said, very softly, barely audibly, “I'm sure you don't want to be talking about your great,” and then I interrupted myself, and yelled like I'd been suddenly taken then, continuing on more quietly, “ideas with me yelling things like this.”
A pause, and a few more well chosen expletives, and my loudest fake moans, which, to admit, I was rather proud of – a whore has to learn to pretend, sometimes. Not that I pretended very often: I did enjoy sex, most of the time.
“You see, it's not really conducive to discussion.”
A pause.
“Unless that's what you want of me. After all, I'm your whore for the night, and what the john wants, the john gets.”
And again, more moans and pants and pretending, and I finished it with a fairly good climax imitation, that left me all smirking.
“They'll think you're precocious, by the way.” And a pause, quieter, “You should sit, and talk to me. You know you can trust me, that's why you came.”
A pause.
“Well, you know. Not that way.”
Oh dear, I really couldn't help myself. Part of me wanted to nail him, or at least to make him want me, now that he'd rejected me as if I was deformed, or ugly, or broken. I knew I wasn't any of those things.
Not now, though. One challenge at a time.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 7, 2011 10:02:28 GMT -5
I waited out her … performance art, which took a while. It was, I had to admit, a very skilful counterfeiting. And would surely be pleasing to anyone's vanity, if, that is, vanity exceeded common sense. I'll be the first to admit my experience is far from extensive but I have known the pleasure of a woman's joy and I had not recalled it being quite so … violent, nor so prolonged. These were not useful thoughts, and I was annoyed with myself for having them at all.
“Are you quite finished?” I asked, when she was done with all the moaning and thrashing. I risked another glance over my shoulder to discover she was still sitting up in bed, glaring at me rather.
“And would you mind putting those away, please?” I asked. “I have little interest in the distractions of the flesh but they're distracting me. And now that you've gone to such, err, trouble to ensure our safety, we can certainly talk if you wish it. I may have paid for the night, but that was primarily to allow me to apologise for having dismissed you before. You are not under any obligation to give me more of your time.”
I know I'd likely careened back into Prissy Fuck territory but things felt more than a little awkward just now. It was hard to know how to react when you'd just seen, and heard, what I'd just seen and heard. And I was still having trouble navigating the distractions of the distractions of the flesh.
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 9, 2011 1:26:30 GMT -5
Oh the disdain. How could someone so pretentiously haughty write and say the things he did? He'd be among the dying! What – that made no sense at all.
“You're really something else,” I said. “Well, if you come and sit here, and don't treat me like I'm a bloody leper, maybe I'll cover up. Maybe. If you're nice. And if you don't behave, I'm taking the rest off.”
It was petty of me, it was childish, too. But I had my pride to blame, and I'd never been known for my discipline.
Still, without waiting for his response, I put my shift back on – I wasn't dressed for polite company, but I wasn't polite company anyway and the bathhouse is anything but a polite place, so who cared?
Well, maybe Florian the Prissy not-Fuck cared. Maybe. But he was by far the weirdest, strangest, most messed up john I'd ever met.
Hm. Interesting.
“So come on now and sit with me, and tell me about how you're going to go about your revolution, Florian,” I whispered, audible just for he and I, like a shared secret.
Well, not like. That was exactly what it was.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 9, 2011 5:24:36 GMT -5
The shift did something to cover her. It was still rather too thin a material for my personal comfort but it was obvious by now that asking her to put another layer on was not going to be well received. Whores, I thought, with some irritation. You pay them to take their clothes off and they take it all personally if you ask them to put it back on again. What did it matter to her anyway?
I came and sat next to her. I wasn’t that close but I could somehow feel the warmth of her body. And I could smell her as well, nothing unpleasant, just the normal human scent of skin. It made me remember how long it had been since I’d touched anyone, or been touched, and a sickly sort of yearning, tinged with self-disgust, reared up inside me. Maybe a visit to Kushiel’s Temple would help me focus – but even that doesn’t bring anything like peace any more. It’s probably my own fault. I’m not really looking for redemption.
“Look, for heaven’s sake,” I said, “it’s not you. I don’t think you’re a leper. I’m not simply interested in anyone like that. My passion and devotion is reserved solely for my cause. I’m here to change the world, not partake of it. And, trust me, it’s been years, you’d get absolutely nothing out of sleeping with me.”
I dropped my voice to match her whisper, turning back to a more comfortable subject – bloody revolution. “It’s still very much nascent,” I said. “We’re gathering support, but it’s a process. I need people angry, which is what La Voix is for. Of course there’ll be the military to contend with, but we’ll have numbers, surprise, conviction and right on our side. Taking the city will be relatively simple when the time comes. I …” I hesitated, unsure of how much to reveal, just how far it was fair I should trust her “…I have a way into the palace. If we take the Royal family..." I let my voice trail away.
It was surprisingly difficult to think of the reality of it all. The Queen thought me her friend.
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 10, 2011 19:16:40 GMT -5
The more he defended himself, the more I had a sense that he was simply trying to convince himself more than me, even. It made me smile a little and examine him, then simply shake my head a moment. He couldn't be that bad – if he put only half his passion for killing aristos between his legs, he would be more than adequate. Not that I cared – a whore finds pleasure by accident, most of the time, and it's a nice bonus, but the whole purpose is to please the john so he'll come back and pay up more.
I was getting a hunch that letting him prattle on about his madness would achieve that better than any languishment I could possibly lay on him. Even if the challenge remained... interesting. Intriguing. Something I ultimately wanted.
Ah, I was complicated. But contrary to him, though, I was not mad.
“Darling,” I told him, “you worry too much about my own pleasure, and not enough about your own. You look tense as hell, and like you could use a good fucking. But that said, I'm happy for the break.”
I laid back lazily, and took a moment to reflect on what he was saying.
“Florian, what will you do,” I said, softly, “once you take the Royal family. Kill them? Behead them? You surely can't send'm away, they'll be back with a vengeance, their foreign kingly friens will help them get the country back, and that'll be it. So you gotta kill'm. And then what? Who's going to run the country? You?”
That I was even having this conversation was completely blowing my mind. He was mad. Utterly, completely mad.
I should have just thrown him out of the room. Why didn't I?
Ah, Naamah.
I wanted to save him from himself.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 11, 2011 4:52:34 GMT -5
I most assuredly did not need a good fucking. There would probably be pleasure, yes, in a brief physical release but afterwards there would only be a soul-deep sickness. It was not faith to a dead woman I kept, but faith, at least, to some shreds of her good opinion, having sacrificed so much of it. But then, really, what hypocrisy was this to pretend I had any right to her at all? What would it matter what I did? But, still, I had memories, didn’t I? Memories of love and desire, of sweet, mutual passion, in an Eden of our own making.
I shook my head. “I know you’ll think it’s prissy of me but I’m simply not a man to take without any thought of giving, regardless of having paid for it. And I’m not vain enough to expect you to playact for me – besides,” I glanced down at her with a faint suggestion of amusement shaping my lips, “I’ve already seen that performance.” I looked away again, surprised to find myself still talking. “I … I was very much in love once. It colours things for me.”
Ye Gods, I was a probably a textbook case – so I hadn’t fucked the whore, but I here I was pouring the broken pieces of my heart into her lap. I’d probably be wanting to cry into her bosom next. Perhaps Felicien wasn’t the idiot; perhaps it was Florian all along.
Back to more sensible topics, and skating lightly past the bloodbath I was ultimately proposing. She was right, of course, there wasn’t an alternative. My hated was directed at the system, rather than the individuals who supported it – and the scale and the scope of the bloodshed turned my stomach when I thought of it. But it would be one great evil to usher in a greater good.
“What would be the point of overturning an absolute monarchy to make myself an absolute dictator?” I asked. “Yes, my impulses would be benign and my goals egalitarian but this is a matter of principle, not practice. Rulership of the realm cannot rest in the hands of a single individual, let alone an individual who came to the position simply through accident of birth. There is ultimately no difference between a king and commoner. Do we not bleed the same colour? As for the alternatives, there are many. Tiberium was once a republic, was it not?”
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 11, 2011 18:03:15 GMT -5
When Florian spoke of his broken heart, and of how he saw sex, I wanted to say, softly, in a tone that was more tender than my usual, I think I might not need to play act. I didn't want to push, though – if he didn't want me, and he had his heart to nurse... ah, love.
It wasn't something I could expect for myself, I didn't think. How can it ever be love, when you can't give the goods for free? I almost broke the rule, once. I might, still – but my Alban playwright, my poet, had vanished in the midst of the world, and I thought, ah, I was just another muse. One of many. Of course. Just like he was one of many johns.
So it is.
I said nothing, just gave him a small smile that slipped – that had my own bruises in it, and nodded, and let him go on.
I felt a strange thing happening to me, and it made me curl up onto myself, legs to my chest, under my shift, arms around them, as if I were a little girl. I rested my cheek on my knees and looked at him a moment, considering.
I still wanted to save him from himself. Delusions of grandeur.
“Florian,” I said quietly, “I'm just a common whore. I can read because I taught myself. I didn't get no fancy tutors and stuff like yous rich folk. You'll have to tell me about this Tiberium of yours. And how that thing works. And then maybe I can tell you what I think.”
A pause, then.
“If you want.”
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 12, 2011 19:37:45 GMT -5
I could happily have talked endless about Tiberium, and the republic. And there were other books I had read recently about systems that allowed all the inhabitants of a country to have an equal say in the decisions made by those who governed, and also in the choice of who governed in the first place, but a movement from behind me drew my attention away from remembered tomes and textbooks to the woman on the bed.
Of all the poses I had seen her take – many of them brazenly performative – this was perhaps the most unexpected. She looked peculiarly, and rather startlingly, fragile curled up on the bed, hugging herself, and smiling an unreadable smile. It was rather like witnessing a tiger pretending to be a kitten and it threw all the thoughts I had gathered right out of my head.
It was probably the first time I had really truly allowed myself to look at her. Well, look at her face, that is. Some other her attributes I had not managed to avoid attending upon. I'd noted red hair and a sharp tongue but not much beyond that. It struck me, now, perhaps that she was pretty. Except that was an insipid word. But, then, I'm no poet – and as I reminded myself, undistracted. All the same – it was arresting to see a flame stilled. I was almost reluctant to say anything at all, knowing that whatever I did would likely break the moment, and the fire would dance its uncatchable dance once more.
“Are you quite well?” I asked, awkwardness making the words come out rather more bluntly than I would have wished.
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 13, 2011 1:58:36 GMT -5
I'd settled comfortably – I was hoping, in all earnest, for a tale, for stories of far away lands, like Hal told be of his native Skaldia, like I'd been told of Alba by a man whose name was a searing whisper in my mind.
Instead, Florian looked at me, and for the first time in a very, very long time, I felt seen. It was an odd, a slightly uncomfortable sensation, both touching and terrifying, and I found myself looking back, because perhaps in returning his regard, there would be some manner of... defense against his examination.
There probably wasn't, though. He'd cut, with his little confidence intended to protect my pride, deep into a place, the fortifications of which I'd been working on for weeks. Oh, the bloody madman. He wasn't as blind as he seemed. Of course.
“I'm fine,” I replied lightly, though I did not budge. “Of course I'm fine. Tell me of Tiberium.”
What was I going to tell him? That a john had written me an absurdly charming poem, and that I'd believed him? That he'd seen things in me, Erika's illness and death in the plage, my solitude, my dreams of green pastures, and he'd tried to respond to them, but that he'd done so awkwardly? That I didn't know how to respond to kindness other than by refusing it? That I'd been the Queen in the Meadow, and that I both loved and loathed it? That, all in all, I felt that I'd been a goose through it all, because I'd almost let myself go entirely? That I'd always felt incomplete, all my life, and I couldn't imagine why? That I feared Necthan had disappeared because of me? What purpose would such admissions serve, other than show him how weak and easily manipulated I could be?
It was silly. I was silly, and I felt like I shouldn't – let myself be silly with him. Or maybe I should. I was confused. Part of me wanted to. The other part of me was terrified to chance it.
“Why wouldn't I be fine?” I asked, again.
Blast. I couldn't just shut up, could I? When had this suddenly become about me?
I shivered, and I couldn't have told why.
Maybe it was because he'd told me things that would endanger him, when I was a stranger, and there was some trust in that sole fact. Maybe that realization alone made me afraid, too.
I wondered if he felt as lonely as I did.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 15, 2011 7:49:50 GMT -5
I opened my mouth to tell her about Tiberium, and then closed it again, not entirely knowing what to say. She was contradicting herself, and I'd tripped over the contradictions, even though I very much wanted to pretend they weren't there. It would have been easy to hold forth about the governmental structures of distant places and ancient history. That was what I wanted to do, it was all I was really fit to do. And, yet, somehow, when she was sitting there like that, I couldn't do it.
This was foolishness. I’d made my choices, I made commitments. I couldn’t do what the world needed me to do, and still cling to the edges of it. I needed my detachment. I’d fashioned ‘Felicien’ into caricature for daily life, and ‘Florian’ was ... I didn’t know. A vehicle. The shell of a man who wasn’t there. But it was all coming apart in my hands. First my silly cousin with her shining smile and her shining hair, and her merciless kindness. And now a red-haired whore who did nothing but criticise but whose attention made me, in however small a way, want to be a man again, instead of merely the ghost of one.
For me, however, this is a weakness. I can’t afford to care for people. I don’t want to feel comfortable in my world. And I’ve entirely forgotten how to do both. I think human beings are good at happiness. They pick up little pieces of it as they go about their lives and it glitters so brightly it blinds them to everything else, do their own misery, and the misery of others.
And what would happen to me if I started thinking it wasn’t so bad? If I let myself connect to others again? Starting chasing my own baubles of happiness, instead of trying to change things. I’d just be someone who made a promise, and broke it. The world is full of such people. But then Ann would be nothing but a dead woman.
Would that have been so unbearable? I tried to imagine another life. I’d be real friends with Coretta, perhaps. Noemi might be more than merely kind to her silly, simple cousin. And Alayne...
“I don’t know why you would or wouldn’t be fine,” I said, snappishly. “That’s why I asked.”
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 15, 2011 10:19:26 GMT -5
He looked utterly undone, and I was confused, enough to match his undoing. There seemed to be gears ticking in his head, ah, but there always were, but these were another brand of gears, whatever they were. I sighed, shifted a little, so as to have the wall against my back, and stretched my legs, then looked away from Florian, because this was becoming, in all earnest, much too personal.
It shouldn't be about me. It should never be about me.
What kind of sick, twisted, winding road had the mad pamphleteer and the temperamental whore gone down? What happened to politics?
And also, and this question flabbergasted me, why did he seem to suddenly care? Did he? He'd asked – and that certainly couldn't be for one of his publications, no-one knew who I was, and I had no import.
I took a deep breath. I supposed, if we were talking about inequalities, I might as well bear one more.
“I think,” I said slowly, very softly, “that it's a greatly lucky thing that you were in love once, Florian. I wish I could sympathize, but I don't really know what it is, or how it feels. I only know fucking, and love or no love, that's what happens in this room.”
I paused, and looked at him a bit wryly, “Well, usually. But it's alright, I get all kinds of strange johns.”
I resumed my pose, because it was comfortable, and put my chin on my knee.
“Have you ever – do you feel complete, are you happy, Florian?”
In a way, I was asking him because if he was happy, maybe I could be. And well, maybe, in a very, absolutely absurd way, I cared.
And if his dreams of a blood bath were just an elaborate suicide scheme, well, I'd know, and I'd make him realize how insane that was, because I thought, somehow, that he wasn't as crazy as he had first seemed to me.
Just incredibly lonely – it was a perfume I knew well.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 17, 2011 10:02:06 GMT -5
She moved, and the mood shifted with her. I started up from where I had been perched on the end of the bed and took a few impatient strides, back and forth, across the room. Too many difficult questions, too many difficult answers. I knew I’d been love but now the pain of loss was not sharp, I could recognise that it been a boy’s love. A love as sweet and fleeting as summer days. I think, given time, it would have matured into something more lasting. And mine, I know, is a simple heart, a spaniel heart. If it had only been allowed, we’d have lived a good life together. But when I let myself think of Ann now, it was not the passion I missed (though I missed that too) it was something altogether more abstract: the warmth of her friendship, her boldness, her ready laugh, the swish of her skirts through the grass. She would have called me a prissy fuck – but sometimes I suspect she thought that of me too. And loved me anyway.
I knew everything of love, and nothing of it either. And these days it seemed I mourned something I never had. Just something I could have had. Should have had. But I could barely admit that to myself, let alone to tell it to Alayne, who said she knew only of fucking. I almost envied her that. It seemed so much simpler that my handful of broken moments, all lost potential and moments of pain.
Of course I wasn’t happy. I knew very few people who were. My father with his absurd ambitions and his desperate shame? My mother, who must surely have despised him? My brother who was the worst of both them? Noemi de Trevalion perhaps, but then she was just a silly girl, wasn’t she? A sweet, silly girl, as golden as summer. But then it was a ridiculous question. I’d put the idea of my own happiness aside when I’d decided to fight for a more equal society and a better world.
And of course I wasn’t complete. I’d shattered myself – Felicien, Florian, these are just names. Another choice, for the greater good. And better that than the alternative, which was let someone shatter me. I think I must have come very close to madness in those early days, resisting my father before I learned how to give him exactly what he wanted in a way he found unendurable. “Happiness is irrelevant to me,” I said, with a shrug. “I have committed myself to a different cause. Nothing else matters.”
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Aug 17, 2011 22:32:55 GMT -5
When Florian left the bed and paced, I feared – no, not feared, the word was too strong, and he did not scare me, not for myself, at any rate – I thought he was perhaps angry with my questioning, and I was surprised to find that I cared. I didn't mind calling him a Prissy Fuck to his face or telling him what I thought of his work in earnest, but somehow – ah, somehow, this seemed to bother him, and therefore, it bothered me.
Odd.
I didn't move, and observed his brisk pacing quietly, trying to see if it was fluster or reflection – I settled on the latter, and that made me breathe easier.
Again. Odd. Two oddnesses in a day. He was starting to beat the john whose pleasure it was to recite the latest Parliament edict while he buggered me. Huh. At least it wasn't poetry. (Poetry, I'd decided, was a weapon of demons – it was an evil, pompous thing, designed to charm with futility and break hearts. Never mind that I've only ever seen one poem in my life. Once is enough.)
I sat, cross-legged, and listened when he finally spoke.
It was a grand statement, full of dismissal and nonchalance, which was entirely belied by the way he'd pondered it nervously. Well, I had my answer. Ah, Florian. He dismissed himself as a feeling person because he couldn't have it, whatever it was that prevented him from finding it. Perhaps he couldn't bear it.
I found I could understand that, though...
Coward. Better to admit to misery and change it, than to sit around pretending to be some godly being devoid of sentiment, no? Maybe. Perhaps I wanted to be able to do that – I tried, my darndest. I failed on occasion, most of the time, though, I succeeded and breezed through life with a ready laugh and some dark humor. It worked, often. I suspected most thought me happy. It was enough.
“Nothing else matters,” I repeated, nodding gravely. (Was I mocking his tone? I wasn't sure myself.) “Talk to me about the cause, then.” I took a breath, and said, with more certainty than I'd had in this whole silly exchange, “I want to help.”
Did I?
Maybe I did. At least, I wanted to be part of it. I didn't want a thing to do with killing royalty – that seemed foolish and dangerous, and probably a very direct road to the execution pillory. Maybe, though, one day it would make sense to do it, even if it was generations in the future. Until then, getting people to think for themselves, which was what he was trying to do, I thought, in a way... that was something I liked.
In fact, I just realized, I craved it.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Aug 30, 2011 6:46:26 GMT -5
By the time I’d finished pacing, and speaking, and had turned back to face her, she was looking at me rather peculiarly. I couldn’t read her expression at all. Perhaps she thought I was a madman, and she wouldn’t be the first. Sometimes I thought I might be. And when she repeated my words back at me, it felt like mockery, and I scowled. Perhaps I deserved it. In her voice, with her harsh vowels, it certainly sounded a ridiculous claim. Or at the very least words worn out, because I’d said them too often . I wasn’t sure I even believed them myself any more, it was just easier if I pretended I did.
I couldn’t help wonder to myself about the other life, the one that pushed against the edges of my consciousness, unfurling like a ribbon into the future. The one where I spoke to Noemi like a human being instead of a fool, the one where Coretta was my friend in truth, the one where I didn’t fear the cessation of loneliness more than loneliness itself, the one where I let myself touch Alayne, where none of it mattered, not Ann’s death, my own cowardice, or the marks of my father’s displeasure which shamed me still. And when had I started to think about what it would be like to lie with her? Because she was a whore? Because I could act the ascetic only untempted in private?
“I’m done talking,” I said, and to my horror, my voice was shaking. I swallowed, mustering a tone of irritation instead. “If you want to help, then there are things to be done. I have a printing press, and it takes maintenance. Inks need mixing, type needs setting. I can teach you if you have a willingness. Mauvoisin was a printer’s devil but now he wants to be a poet so I’ve been doing most of the work myself.”
What was I saying? Unlike me – a gentleman of leisure with no constraints upon him – Alayne actually had a job, and a life of her own. She had enough to do with her time. And given the unhelpful trend of my thoughts lately, long hours toiling over Antoinette together would surely be a sort of torture. The startling image of inky fingers trailing playfully across pale skin came entirely from a Felicien long gone. Lost and buried. From a time when I though the world was kind. What was wrong with me?
“Can you read?” I asked, to cover my own confusion.
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Sept 1, 2011 23:07:35 GMT -5
Florian seemed clearly out of sorts – his voice had the tremor of a man beholding a sewer rat for the first time in his life, and he seemed to be thinking with the restless activity of a sleepless soul.
He probably thought too much – then again, all his own excess of thinking probably compensated for the general lack of it in the world. Maybe. But what does the whore know? Even a man of letters, like Necthan – Elua, why did I keep on thinking of him? - had needed to be shook. Even the rich, even one who knew about exclusion, like Hal.
And to make it all the more absurd, he was, like so many before himself, offering me a job.
Ah, men. Tempted to rescue a fallen girl, are they? I chuckled without humor. I'd offered. He was offering back, it was all fair game, so why the bloody hell was I bothered?
Probably because it would be nice to one day not be told that whoring is not acceptable, particularly when one actually lies in Mont-Nuit's shadow. Was that even his purpose? Probably not.
I stretched a little, considered him. Did I want to learn to mix inks? It sounded like something curious, enticing. Could I... should I? That was more than just listening, more than, even, as I was prepared to offer, serving as his eyes and ears on the Doorstep.
I might get in serious trouble for it – and suddenly, I wasn't so sure I could deal with that amount of compromise. Could I? I needed to think about it. Not to mention: that meant possibly leaving the bathhouse. How would I live? Was he offering me employment? How much would it pay? Was it worth the trouble? Was he worth the risk? Did I believe enough?
“In case you haven't noticed,” I drawled, “I was arguing with that arse of a barkeep at the Traveller's Inn over one of your pamphlets. Which means I probably read it. Just like I did moments ago when we talked about that ridiculous party.”
To buy myself some time, I'd chosen to argue. Heh. Typical of me, that.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Sept 13, 2011 5:27:54 GMT -5
Of course she could bloody well read – anxiety surely makes an idiot out of me. I might as well have asked “are you a whore” or “is your hair red.” Although the course of my life ensured I never followed my dreams to the University, between my tutor and two years spent with nothing to do but read whatever books I could smuggle into my prison, I’ve had actually a first-rate education. I’m no great genius but I’m a clever man. Perhaps, had things been different, I might have amounted to something of worth. Yet all it took was a sardonic look from a bathhouse harlot and I felt as much of a fool as I pretend to be.
“Um, yes, yes, sorry,” I said, awkwardly.
But then the whole situation was awkward. And Alayne had a prickly air about her that I was starting to recognise meant she wanted to fight with me. I found myself wondering once more how she behaved with her more regular clients. I’d always assumed that people would pay a whore in order to feel better about themselves, not receive a tongue lashing from a shrewish wench. But perhaps that was naivety on my part.
“I write on the assumption it’ll be read aloud ... try to, err, control the prissy fuck talk. I don’t know how much I succeed though.”
And now we were both babbling about inconsequentialities. I cleared my throat, and tried again. “Look, I know it’s not exactly a dream offer,” I said. “It’s not exactly a paying gig and it’s hard work. I’m sure you have far better things to do with your free time than grapple with a cantankerous printing press, and her equally cantankerous owner.” Hmm. That sounded unfortunate. “Metphorically grapple, I mean. Well, physically with the press. But metaphorically with ... uh ... me. But I’ll take whatever help you care to give. What did you have in mind?”
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Alayne Lombard
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Post by Alayne Lombard on Sept 19, 2011 20:04:13 GMT -5
For all my inclination to start a fight, the more Florian puddled around like he was wearing boots too big for him, the least I felt like giving him a hard time. By the time he was done pacing and blubbering, I was looking at him, smiling, lips closed, and trying not to laugh. I'd crossed my arms when I was getting angry and crossed they still were, but it was more because it was comfortable than anything else.
Why me? No, really, why would he ask me, when I already had a job, clearly didn't have any knowledge about this printing business, and well, clearly, I didn't know much about writing either.
As the scenario unfolded in my mind, I found myself more and more tempted to laugh – as if I was plucking free a little something from under his strange and thin veil of whatever it was that he was trying to project.
He was desperately lonely, and for Elua knows what reason, he wanted me to stick around.
And well. There was a bit of coin to be made, and while I wouldn't stop myself talking my mind at him either way, having a chance to do it when I so wished wasn't a bad idea.
“How much?” I asked, chin raised defiantly, even as my lips twitched upwards.
Really, it was for show. I was probably going to accept anyway – on what free time I had.
And who knows. Maybe I'd get to... how did he put it. Physically grapple with the cantankerous owner of the press. Whatever that big word meant.
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Post by Felicien Clermont-Montmorency on Sept 21, 2011 17:17:02 GMT -5
I don't have all that much experience of women, other than having loved one once, and having something that came perilously close to at least a façade of friendship with another, and I tried to decide if this degree of volatility was a feature of the sex or particular to Alayne. A few moments ago, she'd looked like she wanted to bite my head of and now she was … smirking.
Smirking and driving a hard bargain, apparently.
Typical.
Well, two could play at that game.
Maybe.
I pushed aside my various doubts and uncertainties for now, despite Alayne's infallible ability to tug them to the surface, and mustered an assessing gaze. “I've offered you a printing press,” I said, trying to making it seem like something she should be grateful for on its own terms, but probably instead sounding like The Master of the Blatantly Obvious. But I pressed on doggedly. “If you want to make money, write me something people are willing to buy. It doesn't have to be political. In fact, if you want to actually profit it probably shouldn't be.”
I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my lips. Really, it was an absurd idea. But why not? “If you really want to rake it in, try this.” I spread my hands before me as if outlining the words of a printed title. “The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. In … I don't know … various lengthy instalments.”
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