THE FRENCH KISSERS ― Thomas Shelby

15. la petite mort

She glanced at him, though he was looking at the shadows in the wall. A man who hid just as well in them as he did in the light. She found her answer. She was drawn to both. In men like him, they were the same. "You have too many enemies. But I'm not one of them. I don't know anything about that."

"I know. You have enough money y'self, so bribes don't work. And people don't scare ya."

She took a long drag to mask a sigh of relief. "Even if they did, that wouldn't be enough to make me betray you. What do you want me to do?"

"You 'ave contacts all over London. Try and find out what you can. Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Any suspicions?"

"Too many." His eyes darted to her, like a moth who had tried too hard to ignore the flame but was ultimately drawn to it. He gestured around, the cigarette leaving a trail of smoke behind. "This place. All kinds of men come here, aye?"

"Yeah. They come here for relief, pleasure, some crumbs of love. I come here for the information the ladies get out of them when they're too astray to think. You wouldn't believe the amount of things a man will tell a woman they want to sleep with."

He rubbed his thumb on the skin between his eyes. "Oh, I know."

"Do you know what it means? La Petite Mort?" Rose motioned towards the name above the door written in floral, silver letters. He shook his head, and she tapped the burnt end of the cigarette before pulling his eyes into hers with the flicker of a smile. "A little death. Us French believe that after the physical and mental exertion that comes with sex the soul transcends to another place. You see, you die a little – to be reborn somewhere else."

Thomas scoffed, the remnant of a cynical smirk lingering on his lips. "Is that what happens 'ere?"

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. But clients keep coming back. I didn't know you were one of them."

"I'm not. But a man has needs. And I fuck whenever I want, love, be it in the dead of the night or at seven in the fookin' morning. How much is it here?"

Her heart contracted, like a paper he had just crumpled and tossed aside. She looked at the bin; she wouldn't have been surprised to find it there.

"That depends on the time and what you want the lady to do to you."

He took out his wallet, and Rose could see he still had the murder on his eyes, and that the shadows were winning over the light, so she ignored her stomach, drowned down her feelings and accepted the money.

She watched him climb up the stairs, and cursed Arwen for having such a large stomach to fill. She didn't want to be there when the name of the brothel surged through him. She paced back and forth, feeling as if she was on a ship with the deck swaying under her feet. She didn't even remember the feeling anymore – of needing a compass just to get to herself.

Then a woman ambled down the stairs with a wad of cash in her hands.

"So soon?" Rose quirked an eyebrow. It shouldn't have to be this hard to fake a smile. And Thomas wasn't supposed to be holding any of the strings of her heart.

The other woman looked at her, long hair falling to her face as she smiled.

"We didn't do anything, he said he wasn't in the mood. Just gave me these pounds and told me to leave. Had a lot on his mind, it seemed. A woman, I'm sure. Often men come here when they can't have what they truly want."

Rose didn't think when she started climbing the stairs, and she didn't think when she got to the last step and went straight into the room. She found him sitting on the bed, back hunched and hands on his head. He looked like a Greek statue, one of those in which the hero is punished by the Gods and can never know what life is like, condemned to seeing it pass by without being able to grasp it. The price of being a moral man in an immoral world.