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  He didn’t come though. Just as I sensed he was about to climax, he pushed me away. He dragged me to the bed by my hair. He shoved me forward onto my hands and knees and took me from behind. It wasn’t quite pleasure, and it wasn’t quite pain. I rode the fog of the whore’s first pill, somewhere just outside and to the right of my body, until he finished. He pushed me off the bed onto the floor. I couldn’t stop shaking. I wondered if it was over, or if we were only getting started.

  He fisted his withering cock as he looked down on me, huddled on the floor, trying to hide my drug-induced erection under the brocade cloak. He tossed a gold coin onto the floor in front of me. Not the first gold coin I’d ever seen, but the first one I’d ever earned.

  “You’ve done well,” he said. “Now get the fuck out.”

  ***

  The carriage was waiting for me. I climbed into it, my feelings a jumble. I couldn’t decide if I was humiliated or proud. My ass hurt, but my erection chafed against my pants. I clutched the gold coin in my hand, huddled back into the soft seat of the carriage and bit back a sob.

  The driver took me to Talia’s. Through the back door once again. I was met by a tall, regal black woman who had to be close to sixty. She put her arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the stairs. “Well done. He’s already requested to see you again tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? I thought about how it felt to be on my knees in front of him, and I shuddered. This time, the sob made it halfway out of my throat before I managed to swallow it. I made a strangled, choking sound.

  “Hush, baby,” she soothed. “Talia takes care of her girls.” She laughed. “And my boys, too.”

  So, she was Talia. I should have known, but I’d never met her before. She turned me into a tiny room. A bed waited in the corner—narrow, but clean. She sat me down on it. The gold coin was gently pried from my hand to disappear I knew not where.

  “Doesn’t look like he beat you,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Did he hurt you?”

  Had he? I managed to shake my head. I couldn’t stop trembling. I wrapped my arms around my body. My teeth began to chatter.

  Talia looked pointedly at my groin. I couldn’t even manage to be embarrassed at my ever-lasting erection. “Did Tawny give you il?”

  “Th-the what?

  “Ildenaaf? The drug to keep you hard.”

  “Sh-sh-she g-gave me something.”

  She put her hand on my knee. She couldn’t quite keep the amusement from shining through her concern. “How many?”

  My teeth were chattering harder. “A few,” I managed to say.

  She chuckled and shook her head. “Well, that certainly isn’t helping you now. You like girls at all? For sex, I mean?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I’ll send you Lalo. Hold tight.”

  I didn’t know who Lalo was. I didn’t care. I curled up on the cot, trembling so violently the metal frame of the bed rattled against the wall. I drifted in some kind of fevered state. At some point, I became aware of a man standing over me. He helped me sit up and handed me a cup of something warm.

  “Drink this.”

  It tasted like a mixture of mud and licorice, but I swallowed it down. Almost immediately, the shaking subsided, but now I felt something new. A gentle excitement, rushing through my veins. My erection began to ache in a wonderfully erotic way.

  Lalo set the cup on the bedside table and started undressing me. “Tawny gave you the ildenaaf, but she should have told you to take one at a time. As needed. Not all at once. What’s both good and bad about il is that it keeps you hard, but the more of it you take at once, the more difficult it is for you to orgasm. And you can’t maintain this kind of arousal and not be granted release. Not without going a bit mad. The tea I gave you will help with that.”

  He pushed me back on the bed. He wrapped soft, silky fingers around my length, and I whimpered. He crouched over me, one hand still gripping my erection, his dark gaze meeting mine. He looked sad, but I thought it might have been for me rather than for himself. “I wasn’t exotic enough for him,” he said. “I’m glad though. He scares me. Was he awful?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer him, but he didn’t wait for a reply.

  “It doesn’t matter. This job’s tough at first. Sometimes you want to enjoy it, but feel like you shouldn’t. Sometimes you feel dirty and wish you didn’t. But you’ll get used to it, I promise.”

  “I don’t know if I want to get used to it.”

  “My advice is, consider it business. You’ve worked as a thief, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s a flat. That’s all. Remember when you were a kid and you could make a game out of picking pockets?”

  I nodded again. I did remember that. I remembered how it felt to laugh.

  “This is the same. If you can have a bit of fun while working, then do it. Don’t feel guilty. You’re getting paid. On a bad day, you take home money. On a good day”—he squeezed my erection gently—”you get off, too. Know what I mean?”

  “I think I do.” The truth was, I was having a hard time focusing on his words. All I could see were his soft, full lips. All I could feel was his hand on my cock. I wanted to come in a way that was entirely inhuman.

  He smiled at me. “Good.” He leaned down to kiss me, his lips barely teasing over mine. He tasted like honey. He was either very young, or very old. Either way, I wanted him in a way I’d never wanted anybody in my life. I thought I might cry if I didn’t have him.

  “It’s the tea,” he said. “It’s not really me.”

  “I don’t think I care.”

  He laughed. But then he moved down my body and took my length in his mouth.

  I might have screamed, it felt so good. I clenched my fingers into his hair and thrust into the amazing warmth he offered me. Colors melted together. I ceased to be anything but a cock finding pleasure. I drifted in some erotically surreal dream. I wasn’t sure if I actually climaxed, or if it was all in my head. Either way, it was a tremendous relief. A release that sent me plummeting into oblivion.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I shouldn’t have been able to sleep. The room Talia had put me in was far too quiet. The bed was comfortable, but I was used to sleeping on the floor, surrounded by my sniffling, snoring, whispering clan. But whether from the stress of the night before or from the tea, I slept hard and long. I didn’t wake until the midday bells were ringing from the Davlova temples. Sun streamed through the open window, turning my fourth-story room into an oven. I missed the cool dampness of the den.

  I searched for my clothes, but found only the ridiculous costume of the night before. I put on the pants, boots, and the ruined shirt, but left the cloak behind and ventured into the hallway. A girl sat in a chair outside my door, and she immediately scampered down the hall and around the corner. A few seconds later, Lalo appeared.

  I felt myself blush when I remembered the night before. He seemed nice enough, but nothing could explain the overwhelming desire I’d felt for him. He smiled at me as he hooked his elbow in mine and began to lead me down the hall. “I told you it was the tea.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s what I do. Last night, you were my flat, and you were one of the easiest and most rewarding jobs I’ve had in a while.”

  “But—”

  We’d reached a closed door, and he stopped in front of it. “Like I said, you enjoy it when you can.” He kissed my cheek. His lips lingered at my ear. “You can be my mark any time.”

  He knocked on the door, then promptly turned and walked away. I was let into the room by a whore I didn’t recognized. Anzhéla and Talia were inside, along with a table set for three. They both smiled at me. Talia’s look of approval didn’t matter to me, but Anzhéla’s did. Her opinion meant more to me than anybody’s, and I felt like a child being praised for bringing home my first pickpocketed wallet. It warmed me to have her smile at me like that.

  She stood and came over to embra
ce me. She was shorter than I was now, not like when she’d first taken me in, thirteen years earlier, but it was still a familiar feeling, being held in her strong arms. I put my nose against her wild hair and breathed deep—the scent of the theatre, and of my clan.

  “Misha, you were perfect.”

  I began to shake despite myself. “I don’t think I was.”

  “Close enough, kid.” She stepped back to hold my hands. “Are you hungry?”

  I hadn’t thought about it until she mentioned it, but my stomach grumbled audibly at the sight of all that food. She sat me down. The fare on the table was simple, but there was more of it than there should have been, especially with times in the trenches as hard as they were. “What’s going on?”

  “Eat as much as you want, but this is a lesson, too. He’s taking you to La Fontaine tonight.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but I listened. As I ate, they coached me through the use of a stupid number of forks and spoons. They explained the various courses. Even living in our hovel, Anzhéla had never let us live like animals, so it wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. When it was over, Anzhéla crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward to meet my gaze.

  “He wants you for a regular. Can you do it again?”

  I looked down at my plate, trying to decide what to say. Did I want to face him again? To be called a whore? To be ordered to my knees?

  Talia reached over and put her slim fingers on the back of my hand. “Honey, I know how hard it is the first time. I usually give my girls a day or two off after their first job, so they can make it right in their heads. But you don’t have that luxury. He wants you again tonight.”

  “Will it be like last night?”

  Talia shrugged. “We don’t know. Whoever he was using before is either gone or isn’t talking.”

  “That’s not exactly reassuring.”

  “Well, it is, and it isn’t. Think about it. If he moved through whores every month or so, we would have had heard. The fact that it’s taken this long for us to even have an opening means he must take care of his possessions.”

  I winced at that word, and she didn’t miss it.

  “That’s what you are to him, Misha. A possession. A thing to be used. Don’t for a minute think otherwise.”

  “You’re not exactly selling the job.”

  She smiled. “I guess I’m not. But maybe this will.”

  She reached into her pocket and held up half a gold coin. “Half we keep,” she said. “But this half goes to you.”

  I looked down at the cold piece of metal in my hand. Was it worth my pride?

  “Misha,” Anzhéla said. “Don’t think of this as one night or one trick. Don’t think he got the better of you last night, and that’s the end of the game. This is a long con, kid. You get in there, convince him you’re harmless. Let him think he owns you. Soon enough, he’ll let you inside. The fact that he’s taking you out in public tonight is a huge step in the right direction.” She pointed to the coin in my hand. “This is nothing compared to what we’re being paid to spy on him. Nothing. It’s pocket change.”

  My head spun. If Donato was a big fish, who was big enough to try to catch him? And who could afford to pay so much? One of Donato’s political opponents, or maybe one of the few men who outranked him, one of the seven mayors of Davlova? Or maybe it was somebody on our side of the wall. It was no secret in the trenches that a revolution was brewing. The powder keg of resentment only lacked the spark of ignition. Would this be it?

  “I won’t force you,” Anzhéla said. “I told you last night you could walk away if you wanted to, and you can. But I want you to think about it as more than what happens in a bedroom in a single night. You can walk away now and go back to the clan. Go back to picking pockets and turning tricks in the alley for bits of iron. Go back to sleeping on the ground and arguing with the new kids for each scrap of food.” She gestured to the table around us, the remains of a feast. “Or you can live like this for a few months. Wear silk. Eat like a pureborn. Let some rich overblown pig from the hill fuck you whenever he gets an itch. And when it’s all over, we will walk away, but with pockets jingling. With a ticket out of the fucking trenches.”

  It was true. Now that it was over and I could see it in the cool light of day, what was there to lose? Was blowing a guy in his carpeted bedroom somehow more demeaning than doing it in an alley filled with rats and human waste? I didn’t like him, no. But I didn’t have to. That’s what Lalo was saying.

  It was a job.

  I stuck the gold coin in my pocket and met Anzhéla’s eyes. “I can do it.”

  That night, my bathing routine was repeated. Tub full of bubbles. Whores styling my hair and painting my face. I greased my own body this time though, especially the intimate parts.

  The clothing was different this time, too. “He sent these for you,” Tawny said. At first, I thought it was only a length of cloth, but then she and Lilja began to help.

  It was silk, the same green as my eyes, embroidered all around the edge with golden thread and dripping with red tassels. Tawny draped it over my body, wrapping here and tucking there, over my left shoulder, but leaving my right shoulder bare. The point was obvious. Slaves wore tattoos on the right side of their chest, just below the collarbone. The dress was designed to reveal one’s status. Or in my case, to show off unmarked skin.

  Tawny buckled a gold belt around my hips and Lilja pinned a ruby broach at my collarbone to hold the dress in place. They helped me slip my feet into gold sandals. I stood looking at myself in the mirror for a long time. I didn’t look like me. I looked like a very feminine version of me. I’d always been slim for a man, but now I felt petite and dainty.

  I felt beautiful.

  “Does he want me to look like a woman?”

  “For tonight, yes.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  Tawny pinned a giant gold clip in my hair and painted my lips the color of wine. She and Lilja spent a minute or two bemoaning the fact that my ears weren’t pierced. They didn’t seem to understand that, as a thief, my livelihood had depended on looking as ordinary as possible. Besides, jewelry cost money, and I’d never had enough of that to spend on trinkets.

  “Sorry about last night,” Tawny said as she offered me another pouch of pills. “The girls don’t use them.”

  I tucked them into the pocket she’d shown me, inside the folds of my dress. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Then it was into a carriage and back up the hill.

  As we traveled, I took the blue pill from my pouch and swallowed it. I debated taking one of the white ones, but Lalo had reminded me to only use them as needed, so I decided to wait. I sat back and let the mellow warmth of the sedative wash over me.

  At Donato’s house, I was admitted again through the back door. This time, I paid more attention as the butler led me to the bedroom. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but Anzhéla had stressed that any bit of information might be useful, so I began to try to catalog what I saw. The first portrait was of a woman, the blue tattoos of aristocracy gracing the right side of her face. Next came a man. Then another woman. I caught glimpses of myself in the mirror and was startled each time. My hair glistened, reflecting sparks of red and gold. My eyes seemed to leap out from my face, bright, iridescent green. Underneath the silk, I was bare. I felt both decadent and free.

  I was taken to the same bedroom. The butler used a fine-tipped brush and gold paint on my right cheekbone. I looked in the mirror when he was done, and my eyes widened in surprise.

  “This is a crime,” I said. “Forgery of the tattoos.”

  “It’s only a crime if you do it to try to pass yourself off as one of them. This is different. Everybody knows it’s fake. That’s why they’re gold instead of blue. It’s a game they like to play with their toys.”

  “What does it say?”

  He laughed. “I have no idea. Probably nothing. I don’t know the language, but then again, neithe
r do they. I tried to make it look like theirs. That’s all.”

  He left, and Donato arrived soon after.

  “Stand up and let me look at you.”

  I did. I stood motionless while his eyes played over me. I noticed the bulge that grew in his pants.

  “Pull up those skirts,” he ordered, his voice thick with lust. “Let me see what’s underneath.”

  I did, slowly raising what felt like yards of fabric until I stood bare from the waist down.

  “Turn around.”

  I did. He made a grunting noise, and then he was upon me, his cock hard against my ass. He pulled my hair with one hand, and, with the other, gripped my flaccid cock.

  “This is not acceptable,” he growled in my ear. “I won’t tell you again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  He let me go, almost pushing me over as he did, but I regained my balance. I took a minute to reposition the layers of fabric. My back was to him, and it gave me a moment to swallow one of the ildenaaf pills. I closed my eyes and used my hand through the silk to tease my erection to life until the il had a chance to take effect. When I turned around to face him, I found him smiling at me, the way a wolf smiles at a sheep.

  “You are a lovely little whore,” he said. “And you learn fast.”

  I swallowed hard and made a clumsy bow. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re a woman tonight. Try that bow again.”

  I faltered, then managed a clumsy curtsy.

  “Good enough. They probably told you that last night was a test, but they were wrong. Last night was so I could make sure you were pretty enough. The real test is tonight. Do well, and you’ll be set to make a lot of money from me in the coming months. Do poorly?” He shrugged. “Well, it’s best not to think about what may happen then.”

  My mouth went dry. My bile rose. My cock did, too, as if to taunt me. It wasn’t true arousal. It was purely a matter of the drug running through my veins, but he saw it. And for better or worse, he liked it. His eyes glinted at me.