Petra
The girls line up, their youthful skin dewy in the soft light of the brothel’s bar. The customer, an Englishman visiting Paris for work, blinks rapidly and wets his lips. His fingers dance against each other. “How can I decide?” he asks no one in particular. “You’re all so lovely.”
The girls smile, and a few blush. Some of them mean it, others fake it. It is natural for a woman to enjoy being called beautiful because so much of her value lies in the male appreciation of her body and its ability to create new life. Female bodies are the original currency—each of us is born with a kind of trust fund. In most parts of the world accessing that fund on your own volition is illegal.
Men can, as is tradition, use their bodies for cannon fodder—joining armies for pay. Riddling men with bullets, while running the risk of being riddled in turn, is fine; but allow a woman the same decision power over her physical self…never. Men must maintain authority over women’s bodies. Losing dominion over women would mean losing control of creation. Civilization, as they know it, would unravel. It would all come crashing down…
I take a sip of my drink, dark and syrupy vermouth over ice with a green olive and orange slice garnish. It’s sweet and fortified and I close my eyes to let the texture on my tongue sink in. I’ve never lost touch with my pleasure. I don’t just control my body, I revel in it. And that gives me immense power.
It is why I own this brothel. Those bodies lined up on the floor are mine.
The Englishman chooses a girl—just eighteen and pretty as a pink bow on top of a wrapped gift. She takes him by his hand and leads him behind the silk curtains toward her room.
The other girls settle back into booths or onto barstools and speak softly to each other while sipping seltzer with lime. The girls can only drink alcohol with customers. It’s one of our policies…one of our many policies.
Lenox insists on so many protections for our workers. It leaves a bitter taste at the very back of my tongue. No one sheltered me from the storm. Facing into the wind and rain gave me strength, taught me the value of my body and passion. What will become of these girls if they are not allowed to test themselves against the elements? And why should I be the one to shelter them? My heart does not bleed.
If Lenox and Joyful Justice get their way, nothing bad will come from their decision to tap their trust funds.
I put my drink down on the bar and check my watch, each hour marked by a diamond. Lenox should be here soon. We intend to visit several of our other brothels tonight to make sure operations remain up to our standards.
We will have dinner later, a candle flickering between us, and then he will take me to bed. I release a sigh of anticipation.
The bartender and manager, a French girl named Genevieve, offers me another drink. I shake my head. A bell tinkles softly, letting the girls know a guest has arrived. Between this room and the street is an anteroom. A place for the customer to be inspected—frisked and asked questions. If they are new, the rules are explained.
No violence.
Protection is always used.
Payment is expected in advance.
Once inside, the customer can have a drink and move throughout the space as if it were any other bar…except the women are all in their lingerie, ready to pleasure them at any time. The male fantasy of a night club. They can choose the girl they want to spend time with either in a lineup or through gentle conversation…some men prefer a more organic journey. Either way, they arrive at the girl’s room and a menu is presented.
It is transactional, designed to remind the customer of what is happening here: women are selling their bodies for limited use. No one receives a passport to the girl’s soul, just a time-limited visa to enjoy her landscape. At a mutually agreeable price.
The door opens and Lenox steps into the room, his ebony skin glistening from the light rain outside. He is so beautiful it steals my breath for a moment. Just a moment, though. Then I’m up and smiling at him. He finds me easily in the room, his gaze drawn to me as a lighthouse beacon reaches a vessel at sea. I am always searching for him…
Lenox’s long legs carry him to me in a few strides and his hand meets my waist as he bends to lay his lips against mine. Lenox smells of the sea. Even though he has not bathed in it for days, he smells of salt, sand and sunshine. My eyes close and my body hums to be near him.
Lenox straightens and greets the bartender, ordering a glass of red wine and settling down onto the stool next to me. His cashmere sweater is ash gray, his slacks pure black. The gold chain around his neck twinkles in the light.
“You look beautiful,” he says, his golden brown eyes meeting mine and holding.
“So do you.”
He smiles with a flash of teeth. Lenox’s wine arrives and he thanks Genevieve, then his gaze roams over the space. I love to watch him examine the world. I try to imagine what it is to be so physically big and intimidating. His presence instills a natural fear. The girls don’t meet his eyes, but they are watching him from under their lashes. All of them want him. How could they not?
The bell tinkles again and another customer enters. Lenox turns his attention to me, letting the other man see him and grow comfortable with his presence. One of the girls approaches the new man and leads him to a booth. “The space looks good,” Lenox says to me.
“Yes, very nice.”
“Have you spoken with any of the workers?”
“Just Genevieve. I want to let them work. We can speak with them before their shift tomorrow. Not during.”
Lenox agrees with a subtle nod. He trusts my instincts. He finishes his wine and we leave, heading to the next brothel. The night is cool and a wet wind tugs at my hair, though the rain has stopped.
We visit four establishments, each running smoothly; the girls look healthy, the air is perfumed, the drinks strong, the clientele happy. It is after midnight when we return to my apartment.
It may be my favorite property. While my estate in Romania is lavish with a night sky so dark that the Milky Way often reveals itself, Paris is where I gained my freedom. And the one-bedroom apartment is the first piece of real estate I bought. It still holds some of my most personal possessions.
Lenox follows me up the narrow staircase, his steps quiet for a man his size. Over a foot taller than me and at least three times as broad, his shoes make less noise than my heels clicking on the marble.
I chose to buy the attic apartment, with its angled ceilings and views of rooftops, because it felt safe to be so high. To see so far. I unlock the door and push into the living room. Lenox follows, closing the door behind us and cloaking the room in darkness. I walk forward into the shadows and find the lamp on the side table next to the couch, turning it on.
Lenox smiles when the elegant living room is revealed. He shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it in the coat closet before offering to hang mine as well. I hand it to him, surprised by the nerves zipping around in my stomach. This is his first time in this apartment. He came straight from the airport to the brothel, though his bags were delivered here.
Lenox’s gaze catches on the small shrine set up on the deep windowsill. He looks at me, a quick glance, before crossing toward it. The eaves of the building are echoed in the dormer’s shape. It is deep enough for a person to sit and look out across the rooftops.
The window seat in my bedroom has a cushion on it, and I’ve sat there and stared out at the city many times. But in the living room I have an altar with a statue of a goddess. She is clothed in a simple dress and surrounded by wolves, their long lupine bodies a contrast to her feminine curves.
“She is Medeina,” I tell him. Lenox looks over his shoulder at me and then back to the figure on my shrine. “Her sacred animal is a hare.”
“Then why is she surrounded by wolves?” he asks.
“She is a guardian of the hunt. Her role is to protect creatures of the forest.”
“It’s eerily like Sydney coming down the mountain with those mastiffs,” Lenox says almost to himself, referencing the viral video that surfaced more than a year ago, showing Sydney Rye, surrounded by a pack of giant white Kangals, running down a mountainside and into the Syrian city of Surama. The story goes that she liberated the city from ISIS—that the fighters fled, terrified that she was a goddess and would destroy them all.
“Yes,” I agree.
He turns to look at me, a new suspicion in his gaze. Lenox expects everyone to try to take from him. That everyone wants his power. He is very much like a woman in that way.
“I didn’t know you believed,” he says quietly. If I’ve hidden a strong faith from him, he will take it as a mark against me. What if I reveal myself to him now, would that grant us equality?
“She was my mother’s goddess. I am not a protector of vulnerable creatures.” I smile and the tension in his shoulders eases. Lenox knows that my investment in Joyful Justice’s cause is because of him, not my own moral compass. “There is no life without violence, Lenox; you’re either standing on a neck or being stood upon.”
He laughs low then sobers, nodding slowly, not agreeing but understanding. His brow slightly furrows the way it does when he reads poetry. As if he’s weighing my words, searching for a deeper meaning underneath, for some untold truth.
But there are no layers, it is stark and clear, black and white. There is no life free of violence. Lenox and the rest of Joyful Justice want there to be a utopian world where the strong no longer exploit the weak, but that is impossible; it is not human nature, it is not civilization’s future, and it is certainly not our past.
“I do not pray to any goddess but myself,” I add, jutting my chin up.
“And what goddess are you?” Lenox asks. His Senegalese accent plays over the question the same way his fingertips feather over my skin when we are in bed.
“You want to know?” I ask.
His head cocks; I’ve surprised him. Perhaps he thought I was joking.
“Come with me.” I hold out my hand. He closes the distance between us and winds his fingers between mine. I tug him toward my bedroom and through it to my dressing room, where I stop. The walls are pale peach, the floorboards painted a glossy white. The closet doors are upholstered in subtle pinstripes of sunshine yellow.
Lenox raises a brow.
“You see this?” I gesture to my dressing table. His gaze meets mine in the mirror above the work space. Jewelry boxes line the back edge, one of them open, a string of pearls winding out and curling onto the polished wooden surface.
I open a drawer. Inside, pots of makeup, pencils, and tubes wait patiently to be called into service. To create my mask. Another drawer holds brushes and combs, flatteners and curlers, blow dryers—mists, gels, and mousses—everything that goes into creating the hair that surrounds the mask. I slide it shut, the door catching itself and fitting silently, gently back into place, so as not to disturb the precious materials inside.
I turn back to Lenox, leaning against the dressing table and folding my arms. “I am artifice.”
“I didn’t realize that was a goddess,” Lenox says, his tone neutral.
“No.” I shrug. “She was not worshipped in Egyptian, Greek, or Roman temples. But she has been with us all along. A goddess of cunning, excellent at subterfuge and camouflage.”
“You made her up?” Lenox asks. A playful, amused smile pulls at his lips, but his eyes are pools of curiosity. He wants to know me.
You can never know artifice for it is her nature to deceive.
“I don’t think so. She is Eve, no? In the Judeo-Christian Bible, Eve is responsible for the downfall of humanity. She seeks knowledge and so eats the poison fruit, and she then tricks Adam into doing the same. Together they are banished to this world we now inhabit, to fight and kill until judgment day. It is Eve’s artifice that brought about the human condition that continues to this day.”
“I don’t know if my mother’s priest would agree with that interpretation, but I am not a man of religion.”
“No.” I roll my lips together. “You are not. But you are a man of faith.”
“It is impossible to keep living without faith of some kind.”
“How so?” I rest more firmly against the table, relaxing slightly, my revelation not as painful as I’d believed it would be. Maybe because Lenox did not seem to truly believe me. Can he ever comprehend the duplicity in my nature?
I love him, and I will fight for him. But my loyalty is not that of a dog. I am a woman—scorned by humanity, subjugated by all men whether they want to press me down or not. I’ve learned to fight back and one of my principal weapons is duplicity. When you are physically weaker you must be intellectually ruthless or you’ll perish. You are either the Viking or the victim; there are no spectators in life.
Lenox’s phone pings in his back pocket but he does not reach around to take it. He keeps his attention on me. “We must have faith that the sun will rise, the rains will come, and life will go on. Or else we could not plant crops, make babies, or fall in love.”
I am smiling. “You need to believe the sun will rise tomorrow to love someone?”
“Maybe not to love them.” He takes a step closer. “But to commit to them, yes, you must believe there will be a tomorrow shared together. Or else, why bend to their wishes and will? If we have no faith that life will continue then we are already dead.”
I blink up at him. “My poet philosopher,” I joke.
He nods, leaning into me and taking a long and luxurious kiss from my trembling lips. He affects me so that I can hardly think.
I have faith in Lenox Gold. That he will be good to me. Fight for me. I have faith that I will do the same. I must be very careful not to die for this man.