Goda's Slave (Lesbian, Dystopia, LGBT Fantasy)

Chapter 18: The Surfaceless Eye

Past the curtain, there was a burst of light. The space felt wet, like there was vapor leaking in from the corridors that flanked them on each side. The chamber they found themselves in had no candles or electric lamps, but straight ahead of them there was a wide open gash in the wall and a courtyard that spread out in the full force of the late afternoon light. It was a small garden with a tree planted at each corner and a thatch of flowery bushes in the middle, and it was surrounded by rock walls with many doorways that seemed to lead to darker places.

Noa pulled Kanna towards the courtyard, and it was only then that Kanna noticed the people passing back and forth through the chamber they were standing in, and she twisted her neck to look at them. The sunlight had made the bodies seem like mere shadows on the curtain from the outside, but now Kanna could make out some details. They came by in groups of two or three—a man and one woman, a man and two women—but most of them did not seem to notice her, and they appeared over-focused and rushed as they disappeared into the hallways around them.

Abruptly, a young man bumped into her and gasped when he appeared to notice her features. Kanna quickly matched his astonished expression, but his companion pulled him away in a hurry, and Leina stepped between Kanna and the boy so that she could no longer see his face.

"Careful," Noa said, guiding her into the bright square. "The women around here can get ornery if you touch their special friends."

In the light of the garden, it was harder to see the people inside the chamber behind them, but Kanna still kept her gaze trained on the movement because something about the whole thing disturbed her. She stopped in the middle of the space, even though the twins seemed to be beckoning her to cross, to enter one of the dark thresholds carved out of stone on the other side.

"What's going on?" she whispered. She stood next to one of the trees and refused to move further, so Noa let go of her hand. "Are all these people here to bathe? Where are the pools, in those dank caverns? If that's the case, then I'd rather stay out here." Actually, she was starting to rethink the place entirely. She already felt a strange, invisible force tugging her away, back towards Goda's direction.

Leina laughed and tipped her head towards a doorway. "Yes, the pools are in there, in many different rooms. Some people do come to bathe here, but not everyone does, of course," she said. She leaned against the tree, which Kanna then noticed had low branches brimming with fruit. "It's a discreet spot because there's a maze of caverns and hallways, so it's really popular for other purposes, too."

"What purposes?" But Kanna's mind had already begun to wander into unseemly territory, and her inklings were confirmed when Noa answered:

"What do you think?" She smirked. "It's tradition to bathe immediately after meeting with a lady-friend, so the young men from poorer families who don't have running water at home just come here. It's considered low-class, though, so the wealthier families avoid it. They're also pickier about who they allow their sons to meet up with, so you won't find the fancy boys mingling with the kind of women who hang out here; the poorer families are a bit more open to anyone as long as they have money."

Kanna's eyes widened. She turned again towards the open chamber behind them. "You mean those women are paying?"

Noa shrugged. "Some of them probably, yeah—but not directly. It's illegal to pay any money and it makes the family look bad, but people do it anyway by offering expensive gifts to the man's mother and stuff like that. That's why if you're a poor family, it's like hitting the jackpot if you have a son. You get a lot of social leverage, and if your son strikes the fancy of someone with means, then you can be set for a few years. If you haven't noticed, men aren't exactly abundant around here, so the demand totally outstrips the supply, and some of the women are desperate to have children. That's the way it's always been, though."