“Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?” I asked her. “Mutual?”

“I…don’t know, I suppose. I didn’t know.” She caught a ragged breath. “I didn’t know,” she said, almost defensively. “I didn’t know it was supposed to be like that.”

Her comment stunned me. It had never dawned on me to wonder if whores enjoyed their work. I had assumed they did, for the most part, or why had they become whores? Then I recognized the cruelty of that thought. Had I ever imagined that Amzil enjoyed the whoring she did to keep her children alive? “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, not quite sure what I apologized for.

“Don’t be,” she said, slowly sitting up. She peeked up at me shyly, her face full of confusion touched with awe. “You didn’t even touch me,” she said.

“I don’t understand what happened.”

Her hair had fallen across her face and clung to her sweaty brow. With one finger, I lifted a sheaf of it so I could see her eyes. She continued to look up at me. “It is supposed to be like that,” I assured her. “It’s always supposed to be this good.”

I helped her crawl up on her bed and tenderly tucked a blanket around her. I knew she was a whore and I’d had the time I’d paid her for. She owed me nothing more than what she had already given me. Reluctantly, I started to leave her there, but with a cry, she caught at my hand and drew me down beside her. “Stay a little while,” she said quietly. “I don’t want Mama Moggam to make me bring another man back here. Not just yet.”

She gave a sudden shiver. “It’s like it’s echoing in me,” she said.

I lay down beside her. “You’re warm,” she said, and moved closer to me.

She put her head on my chest. “I feel like I could fall asleep.”

“If you want, you can,” I told her. For a time, I held her close in a warmth that I suspect neither of us had felt in a long time. In its own way, it was better than the sex had been.

The candle had long since guttered away to leave us in blessed darkness when I heard a heavy pounding on the door. Stiddick’s voice rousted us.

“You! In there! You’re done now. Leave!”

I startled awake, for I’d dozed off for the second time. Even so, I would have lingered for another go-round, but she pushed at me lightly. “No.

Enough. Good-bye, big man.”

As I walked out, Stiddick was waiting in the hall. He pushed past me to get inside. As the door swung shut, I heard him ask her, “Did he hurt you?

I never known you to let a man stay so long.”

When I walked down the long hall to the entry room, I found it deserted and the fire burning low. Hitch was long gone, I was certain. I rode a surly Clove home in the cold and dark of early morning. Several days later when I came to town again and dined in the mess hall with Ebrooks and Kesey, I heard that rumors about me had circulated through the lower folk of the town. Ebrooks muttered that some were saying I was strangely endowed or unnaturally skilled. Fala had told the other whores that she’d never had such a man. The next night, she’d refused to work. Within the week, she’d abruptly left the brothel’s employ. No one knew where she’d gone, and Kesey warned me to stay away from Sarla Moggam’s, for the brothel owner blamed me personally for the ruination of one of her most profitable whores. My brief spark of fame among the enlisted men was poor compensation for the loss of a welcome at the brothel, nor did Hitch’s evident enjoyment and mockery of me about it make it any easier to bear.