Agatha smiles, and feigns bashfulness. She could have been a model, and maybe would have been if it wasn’t such a demeaning profession.
Agatha takes a deep breath. The lad is sporting a stupid grin. He seems pleased with himself. She can’t decide whether she finds this obnoxious or alluring. “The bath’s ready. Are you going to get in?”
“Sure.” He begins to take off his clothes. He pulls off his socks and tosses them aside. Then he lifts his sweatshirt over his head, and then his T-shirt. He is tensing his muscles and pulling in his waist, to show his body at its best. She likes this. She likes that he’s trying to please her.
He loops his thumbs over the elastic of his joggers and pulls them down. He steps out of them and kicks them over to the corner of the bathroom where the rest of his clothes are now piled. He is wearing a pair of old, off-white boxer shorts. He pauses before taking them off. He pulls at the front to make himself more comfortable, then apparently realizes that the pants are his only remaining item of clothing, but also that he has agreed to get into the bath, and that obviously he can’t back out now, and obviously he wants to fuck this hot woman because what lad wouldn’t, and what kind of lad would he be if he didn’t?
He pulls the boxers down and stands naked in front of her.
His body is exactly as she hoped it would be.
His stupid grin re-emerges.
She realizes she finds it obnoxious and alluring, and alluring because it is obnoxious, and obnoxious because it is alluring.
He steps over the rim of the bath and drops his foot into the water. There is no grace in his movement, but Agatha isn’t looking for grace.
The lad washes himself. For the most part his method is practical, efficient, but on occasions he remembers why he’s been brought here and he affects a sensual air, leaning back or stretching or flexing muscles in a way he obviously thinks is seductive. Agatha would have found it embarrassing if he wasn’t so physically attractive, and if she wasn’t so truly turned on.
He gets out of the bath and steps into a towel she holds out for him.
Agatha leads him into her bedroom, which is connected to the bathroom by a short corridor with clothes rails on either side. She instructs him to climb onto the bed. He does. She takes hold of his wrists and draws them above his head, then proceeds to fasten them to the bedposts with a pair of leather belts.
“Kinky,” he says, mundanely.
She takes a handkerchief from the bedside table and stuffs it inside his mouth so he cannot speak. Then she takes another and uses it to blindfold him.
“I won’t hurt you,” she says. “It is simply that I do not like to be touched, or spoken to or looked at. So, here is what is going to happen. I am going to go down on you. Then I am going to climb on top of you and fuck you, then I am going to leave. You won’t see me again. Roster will come in and untie you and show you out.”
Agatha slowly undresses and folds her clothes onto a chair at the side of the room. She returns to the bed and places her left hand on his chest. She runs her hand down his body. It is fresh and new and beautiful.
Coup d’état
Soho is a word with no etymology. It sprang to life through declaration, like um … or oy!
The Archbishop is the same.
It is said he was born in a little hut in the woods, long before the trees were cleared for pasture, long before the pasture was cleared for houses, long before the houses were divided into flats. The Archbishop has stories of the first speculators who built tenements on the Lammas Land, where the poor folk hung laundry, and grazed their animals come August. It was said he started out as a gravedigger and was seen to hang around the churchyard. “There are bodies beneath the ground. There are bodies all around.” He points. “There. There. There.” He speaks of the plague as if he remembers it. He tells them how they thought animals spread disease so they slaughtered them. The bodies of dogs and cats were piled high; food for the rats they used to chase away. His topics of conversation change as quickly as his moods. “Lord Nelson was here the last night he ever spent on dry land. Came up to Soho to visit his coffin maker. I knew him personally, of course. I could have been with him on that ship.” The Archbishop tells people he went to the same parties as the real-life Casanova and that he remembered the square of land they now call Soho Square when it was trampled by hundreds of aristocrats, who drank and danced until the sun grew hot and the wine and beer and sweat grew stale. The Archbishop tells all who will listen that Casanova stole all his stories of seduction from him because he was too dignified to write them down. He was once a town crier, or so he says. He was once a roaming troubadour, or so he says. He posed for Joshua Reynolds. He posed for Francis Bacon. He gave Karl Marx all his best ideas and had long drinking sessions with him in his flat on Dean Street. He has been known to go out onto the street and flag down passers-by. He takes people on tours, from the Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street to the statue of Anteros in Piccadilly Circus. “He is the god of requited love,” the Archbishop tells all who will listen. “The brother of Eros. Eros creates a desire that is unfilled; Anteros gives us the antidote.”
The Archbishop sits in his cellar, where he always
