Sarla Moggam had never relinquished her grip on my wrist. “Fala, you greedy girl!” she rebuked her with a smile. Now she put my hand out to the girl as if I had absolutely no say in the matter, and at that moment, I didn’t. Fala smiled at me as she took my hand in hers; the simple warmth of her touch inflamed me, and the light in her eyes grew knowing, as if she sensed my immediate response to her. “Come with me, big man,” she said, and led me away from the hearth, toward a long hallway that ran down the center of the building. I followed her, docile as a lamb.

The brothel’s doorman stepped suddenly between us. “Pay first,” he growled at me. Then, grinning at Fala, he asked her, “Aren’t you afraid of biting off more than you can chew?” This provoked a round of general laughter from the room. His manner was offensive and I felt a flash of anger. But the girl ignored him, smiling at me so beguilingly that I handed over to Stiddick more than twice what Hitch had told me a whore cost here. I didn’t even quibble, and Fala laughed delightedly as Stiddick stepped out of my way and I lumbered down the hallway behind her. He leered after us, and chuckled knowingly. I ignored him. Doors opened off the dim hall at regular intervals. Grunts and rhythmic thudding left no room for doubt about what went on in the rooms. I heard a muffled yell from one, of anger or ecstasy, I could not tell. My guide had taken my hand again and she tugged me on. “The last door,” she told me breathlessly, “is mine.”

She halted outside it and turned to face me. I could not help myself. I pressed close to her. She set her small hands against my chest and laughed up at me. “You like me already, don’t you, big man?”

“That I do,” I breathed down at her. I reached past her for the doorknob.

Her hand was there first, stopping mine.

“I’m going to do you special,” she said quietly. “Trust me. I know what you’ll like.”

She turned from me to face the door, and as she did, she let her breasts, free beneath her simple shift, brush against me. Was it deliberate that her buttocks rested lightly against my thighs before she opened the door and drew me into the small room?

A single candle, a tall fresh taper, burned in a clay holder beside a rumpled bed. The room smelled of sex and other men, and at any other time, I think I would have found it a repulsive odor. Tonight, it was an aphrodisiac. I followed her in, shutting the door behind me. “Sit down,”

she bade me, and when I started for the bed, she caught at me and said,

“No, not there. In my chair. Sit down. Lean back. Be comfortable. I want to show you something.” It had begun to seem to me that she was much more like the friendly little kitchenmaid of my first experience than the whores I’d known since then. I could not take the foolish smile from my face. I sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. “Watch me!” she bade me, as if I could have stopped myself from doing so. She reached down and took the hem of her shift in both her hands, and then, in one smooth movement, she lifted it up and over her head and then tossed it to one side. She shook her tousled hair free, and her breasts moved with the gesture. She was completely, smoothly naked. She danced toward me.