L.

[4.] Labor. Prostitution. Criminality.

The boy who had touched me, who wanted Saint D's silver penny, was too drunk to walk. D, taller than myself, proved strong enough to carry him on his back. The boy, in his full flush of youth, fell asleep despite the cold.

As we walked I snuck glances at the young prostitute's face, rouged lips and cheeks, eyelashes yet delicate. On his pallid skin, a little rash of bruises along the upper arms. For boys like these, it is hard not to feel a wealth of misplaced tenderness.

Outside of that little honeyed gambling room, and especially as it was winter, the sharp foulness of Paris at night struck in me as a deep and familiar pit of shame in my lower belly. Self-loathing is to be fought by keeping one's eyes away from the river, and away from windows. The smell of fruit so ripe that it were nearly rotting, the smell of bodies in close quarters, gave way to the presence of sewage and sleeping livestock. A feeling of unwillful soiling of the soul.

I kept to myself, so that I would not have to threaten my lungs with breathing. I dug my hands through my hair in order to gather it up and drag a pin into it. Pushed my wrist over my forehead to press down strays.

Dasius, in badly fitting hose and a shirt of fair quality, had at least a doublet appropriate to his coloring and his age, and shoes with a good sole and enough heel for riding. The boy whore on Saint D's back wore only a tunic to the thighs and leather sandals, his laurel crown having slipped off of his drooling head, and as a result was cold as the neglected dead when dropped atop our sheets. 

I cupped his cheek and slapped at it gently, lying around him. "Wake up, you whore," I said.

Belying the chill of his skin to the casual touch, when I pressed my body against his in bed, his drunken heat against my skin was like the furious fire of hell and I pushed my head against his hot neck.

Dasius had gone to the end of the bed, and I watched him untie and unwind the boy's sandals in the dark, slip them off. Watched him clasp one of the boy's feet in his hands and try to warm it. 

"What are you doing that for?" I asked. "Don't do that."

"Sorry."

"You'll be curling your fingers in his pretty brown hair next?" I asked, meaning to dissuade him from false sympathy for an unfortunate stranger, but sounding mockery.

"I'm sorry," he said, letting go of the cold foot and fixing his dark eyes on me. His dark grey eyes, no longer wet. These eyes said, "I'm about tired of being spoken to like that," but only for a moment, before he looked away again.

I gestured to him and he came to me at the top of the bed, wanting him because of feeling low. "Take it off. Take everything you are wearing off."

He nodded, hopelessly obedient, and began to undress, perching himself on the edge of the bed to slip off his shoes.

"When you're done get into bed," I said.

"Oh, well, I," he stuttered, blushing. "I prefer to sleep in the front room."

"You'll not do that. I want you here so that I might teach you something. How is my hair?"

"Well I like it like that. I like it better than when it's wild."

"Why did you touch my hand?" I asked, as he mounted the bed, climbing up.

"The what? When?" he asked, scratching his brow nervously. "Your voice is very quiet."

"Turn him on his side," I said, untangling myself from the sleeping boy's limbs. 

"You're so quiet that I cannot hear," he said, dipping his head down.