I pass out many times through the night and always wake up to Father George setting up some new way to torture me. The screams and the moans all mix together in a war zone, but then there is the one blissful darkness where shapes blend and the light becomes a flicker, and when I open my eyes again I'm lying on the bed, clutching the covers to my naked body and Father George is buttoning up his priest's robe. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm still alive. I don't feel alive, but I am still breathing and I can still open my eyes and move my body although it hurts. There is a deep rattle in my throat and I can't swallow right.
Father George looks remarkably unmarked albeit slightly tired, but also satisfied. I have a small recollection of scraping skin lighter than mine bloody, so somewhere underneath the dress code of God is a souvenir from the prostitute he bought to let him do the things no one in their right mind would let him do for free. He's wearing a small smile and then a few coins hit the pillow beside me.
"May God be with you," he says and then he opens the door as if he's done it a thousand times before and walks out.
I know she's there without having to look. I feel her presence in the doorway as if she was wearing a bell. Garmen. I know there must be others too, milling to the room to get a good look at me as soon as they see Father George leave. Is it morning? It must be. I can't handle it if it's not.
Garmen kneels beside me without touching. It must be bad then, if she can't even touch me.
"Noah," she says softly. It takes me a moment to get my eyes pried open and there she is, her angel face a few inches from mine. Her eyes are big and worried.
I try to smile for her, to say hi, but my voice will only make a weird jittering sound, so I just give up and close my eyes again.
"Brice!" Garmen calls loudly and then there is the unmistakable sound of the floor shifting beneath Brice's weight. I can hear him breathing in the room but nothing else. "I don't think he can walk," Garmen says. "You'll have to carry him."
"Garmen-" Brice begins.
"He won't crumble, he just needs a shower. Please."
I think I most of all need Death to come knocking, but then someone throws the sheet around me and strong arms lift me up. Every move my body makes hurts, but I'm too tired to protest. Let them do what they want with me I don't care anymore.
I'm aware of the others looking at me as Brice carries me through the Cave and upstairs to the first floor. I'm aware of Garmen beside me, and of the faint light trailing in through the windows we pass.
"Where should I put him?" Brice asks.
"In the shower," Garmen says and I hear the shower curtain being pulled aside and then my feet hit the bathroom tiles. Somehow, my legs don't give out underneath me. They're drained, but they still work, which is good because I can't sit down. If I fall I'll just stay lying down in the shower, beg for sleep. Brice positions me against the corner of the stall and then the heat of his body disappears. Garmen is still here. I can recognize the way she moves, her touch, her breathing in my sleep. She carefully pulls off the sheet and then the water turns on. I blink and manage to open my eyes to stare up in the shower head.
"It's hot," I mutter with what sounds like an asthmatic breath. Garmen understands it anyway.
"Everybody saved it for you," she says as she takes a sponge and begins moving it over my arms in soft circles. I think of the button hidden beneath the dresser, of the lack of catty comments as Brice carried me upstairs. It feels sort of... nice. To know that the others care.
I don't say anything, just let Garmen wash my hair and torso and legs as I stare downwards and watch scabs of skin and drizzles of blood disappear down the drain. I'm fairly sure the Cave rooms are more than capable of containing my whimpers, but they aren't totally soundproofed after all. Did the others hear my screaming last night? Did it disturb the other customers? If it did, nobody said anything.
My skin is all raw and pink when Garmen helps me out of the shower and I'm faced with my own terrorized body in the mirror. I have to take a second glance before shock settles, because the body doesn't belong to me at all. It has become a stranger's.
My skin has been terraformed into an alien landscape with craters of blue and purple littering my neck, and night skies with stars shaped like fingernails on my arms, small wounds and bigger wounds and slices from the whip on my back where I imagine all the blood came from. There are reddish and blue marks underneath my ribs, a few of them shaped like bites, and a bruise blooming around my right eye, reaching my cheekbone. My lips are swollen and a small crust is threatening to break if I stretch them too wide. My hair just looks wet, but I can imagine it in chunks of coagulated blood. My wrists look like I've tried to cut them off.
I think I gasp because Garmen quickly pulls the sheet back over me and turns me away from the carcass staring back at me with dark, hollow eyes. She guides me back to my room and ignores the stares at my face and my slow, limping walk. She has me stand and dresses me in thick jogging pants and a t-shirt, then makes me eat a soft plumb and drink a whole glass of water she has Carrie-Ann retrieve from the kitchen. Every swallow hurts my throat, but it also softens the mess in my head. Then Garmen makes me lie down and pulls my blanket up to my chin.
"Sleep," she says softly and draws my hair back from my forehead. I grab her wrist with feeble hands.
"Stay," I croak. I wince as she climbs underneath the covers with me and gently begins caressing the less damaged parts of my face. But as soon as her warm body lies still beside mine I feel my thoughts becoming heavy until I fall asleep.
It's not always that bad. Most nights what happens in the Cave is downright enjoyable. Not everyone is a Father George and some are even nice. I have had customers whom I've had to guide to their own pleasure because they weren't sure what they liked, where it could be equally as enjoyable for me, where they worried about hurting me if they grabbed my shoulders too tightly. There is an elderly man who likes to talk to Endria. Just talk. He is too old to get a rise and he doesn't believe in taking medicine, so he pays for her company and they laugh together for a few hours until he has to go back to his life which Endria knows every detail of. He's an excellent tipper. There is a transgender woman who wants Ricardo to touch her. Not enter her, only touch her, while he speaks the small amount of French his vocabulary allows him to because it reminds her of her late wife. There is another woman who works as a masseuse, who always cries and insists on giving me back rubs at the end of each session. There is a man who likes to see Garmen and I being intimate together while he sits in the corner masturbating. Those are my favourite nights.
I know Garmen's body better than I know my own, know her smell and the feel of her legs wrapped around me. I know how pleasure looks on her, how her skin tastes. I can recognize her touch by the soft scrape of her fingernails alone over my back.
First time I met her was two weeks after my first check-up. Barooba had said that she didn't care whether or not I talked, I was still eating the food she bought and so I had to learn the trade to earn it back to her. I'd seen Garmen in the hallways of course. I'd been sharing a room with a woman named Smeet at the time, and everybody were strangers, but even at fourteen I was mesmerized by her blonde hair because that feature is such a rarity.
I was still being introduced to places where body hair could grow when Barooba grabbed me by the neck and dragged me into one of the rooms in the subterranean Cave. She'd thrown me inside and I'd fallen on the floor in front of the bed where I immediately noticed Garmen lying across the madras, reading something from a magazine and crunching a hard candy between her teeth. As Barooba closed the door behind us and locked the door, she sent me a smile and swallowed what was left of the candy.
"Hi."
Of course, I didn't answer. Instead I picked myself up and ignored the small scrape on my left knee. I'd experienced way worse when I'd been starving on the street, hitting my skull against the asphalt and praying I'd smash it in so I could finally die, just to realize I was too weak and malnourished to gather the required strength. Garmen slid off the bed and held out her hand towards me.
"I'm Garmen," she said. I didn't answer that either, just looked at her outstretched hand in front of me. Whether it was her wide-open eyes or the fact that she was my age I don't know, but I wearily reached out and grabbed it. It was cool to the touch. Then she leaned in as if she was going to tell me a secret, her breath smelling like sugar and the rest of her like pink drinks. "This is where you say your name."
I didn't answer, didn't even shake my head. Garmen waited for a few heartbeats, but when she realized I wasn't going to speak she shrugged and let my hand drop.
"Look, I don't know why Barooba wants you here," she said. "She just asked me to help you get accustomed to the Cave. So, well," she threw out her arms. "This is where the magic happens. Any questions at this point of the tour?"
I wasn't sure what 'magic' was yet. I had seen the other women and men bring customers, as Barooba called it, down in the basement to these very rooms, but this one didn't seem that magical. This one looked almost boring with the only interior being a bed and a bedside table. There was no desk, no windows, no lamps except for a the one in the ceiling which, considering how dim the room was, didn't seem to work very well. I was about to ask what 'magic' was, but then I remembered I wasn't talking. Garmen only nodded.
"Thought so. I'm just going to dive in then. We are in the business of making dreams come true." I remember I raised an eyebrow which protruded a sigh from Garmen because she knew she had to explain now. "It's like, think about the biggest ice cream you have ever seen, bigger than you can ever eat, and then imagine it's right in front of you." She cracked a smile. "That's what we're here for, to make the ice cream. And help you eat it. Pun intended." I blinked in confusion., not at all getting what she meant. "And Barooba says she wants you to be part of it," Garmen continued, which only made me more confused. I didn't know how to make ice cream, and I couldn't even get rid of my own nightmares, how was I supposed to make others' dreams come true? "So, are you, like, ready to get trained? You don't have to say anything, I'll talk if it's okay."
And I think I nodded, an almost unnoticeable move of my head. Garmen lit up in a smile. She grabbed my hand and pulled me with her to the bed.
"Climb up," she said and I did. "And move back."
I shuffled into the middle of the bed, not really sure what exactly was happening. I was even more confused when Garmen climbed on top of me with one leg on either side of my hips, looking as sure of herself as every grown-up I'd ever seen.
"Okay, so this is the cool part, right? I've done it a load of times, so I'm pretty good at it, but if it's too much you just say stop, okay?" she said. "The customer always gets to say stop. That's important, remember that."
I nodded and waved her hair away to keep it from tickling my face. Then she began unbuttoning my pants. I watched her, fascinated by the way her hands moved. Even at the age of thirteen her fingers were slim and adept. She dragged my pants down over my loins together with my briefs and I gasped as she touched the most tender parts of me.
I honestly don't remember much except that it felt good, that I liked having her touch me the way she did. But I clearly remember telling her my name afterwards, my voice deep and raspy from the many days of lying dormant, thereby effectively ending my wow of silence. And I remember that she shared with me the chocolate Barooba had gotten her as payment for training me. I know there were many other evenings, evenings that were wrong because we were so young and still somewhat innocent in our youth, and I remember her body and how she felt both inside and out. I know she showed me tricks to ensnare customers which soon ensured my own base of regulars, taught me how a body responds and that each and every one is different from others, that what makes sex more than enjoyable is connection and empathy and not just being a tease. I know all of this went down those nights she 'trained me', but mostly I remember just talking a lot, and later, once we both got to know each other, a lot of laughter too.
So yes; Garmen did in fact take my virginity. I don't remember it, but I know it happened, and I know we were having fun and probably telling dirty jokes because those are the kind of jokes that are funny in the early teenage years. You might think it's despicable, Barooba forcing me into being a sex worker after having already raised Garmen to be one, but what else could she do? Leave me in the street to sell my organs? Let Garmen go back to her abusive mother? Instead she gave the both of us a chance, and she gave us each other. Although I haven't always shown it, I will always be thankful to her for that.
I wake around noon because of a deep ache in my hips and groin. Garmen feeds me pieces of bread soaked in hot soup to spare my throat and makes me drink half a cup of tea with honey before my esophagus gives up and swells. I fall asleep again and wake in the afternoon where she makes me do a small amount of Gunnar's mix – not enough to get me high, but enough to smother the last of my headache – and I sleep much better after that. When I wake up for the third time in the evening my throat is usable again, although it does sound gruffer than usual as if it's angry at me for dragging it through all of this and has decided to punish me. Barooba comes to visit although she rarely makes the trip upstairs. She believes that to perform, we need at least the resemblance of privacy from the authority she poses, so generally she only comes up here once a month to update the desirability list. She tells me I'm exempted from my duties until further notice.
"Does that include kitchen duty too?" I croak with a grin that opens up the wound in my lip and I have to clear my throat afterwards.
"Yes," Barooba says with the hint of a smile and maybe even some relief at my display of humor. "Until further notice."
I'm even able to get out a laugh as she leaves.
"Who knows, maybe she's forgotten about us getting high and disappearing," Garmen says.
"Maybe that's not the only thing she's 'forgotten'," I wheeze, thinking of how much trouble I've caused with a certain luminary, and how much danger the Cave is in for insisting we hide her. In all fairness, I could never have imagined that she would use us helping her as a tool for blackmail, but when it comes to Alle Bronze I'm gradually learning I know next to nothing.
"Maybe," Garmen says, sharing my thoughts. Then she cracks a grin and gently touches a particular sore spot underneath my eye. "You can say much about that church bastard, but the man has impeccable timing."
I smile and ask her to stay the night. The next morning my muscles are still sore, but it's the soreness of healing and not hurt. The prostitutes are being nicer to me, all except for Hannah. She's just as grumpy as always. I still have trouble sitting down, but my bed is soft and Carrie-Ann is a wiz to get me a pillow whenever I'm downstairs. The third day it really isn't bad anymore and Barooba has absolutely noticed.
"You won't make your fee this week, that's for sure," she mumbles as she sits by the refectory table and dots in stuff on her pad. "But you'd be too valuable to replace. You can make it up by spending more time on kitchen duty. Give the others a break so they can focus on actually making money."
I don't mind kitchen duty. There's something soothing about doing mechanical work like stirring a giant pot of sauce or clean up dishes. Garmen switches her schedule with others a few times to have kitchen duty with me, but she still has to work in the evenings where everything I can do is clean up in the kitchen since 'until further notice' apparently means until my face has healed, which might be a few extra days. I don't mind – the work gives me time to think about what story I want to tell and how I want to spin it, because Tuesday is ticking closer all too fast.
The thing is, Alle gave me complete creative freedom. I can spin my stories however I want, maybe not tell the whole truth because some of the secrets are brutal. I have to hit that thin line between lie and truth. It should be obvious to the person I'm talking about that I'm talking about them so they'll do everything in their power to protect anyone they think might know the secret, including me. But if I tell the stories truthfully, and something goes wrong – if they figure out who I am and decide to do something drastic instead of the carefully woven net of strategies Alle anticipates, or the public finds out who I'm talking about and the person I'm talking about doesn't have to protect me to confirm my stories anymore – I might be able to avoid the demise of the Cave by making the secrets pettier. Maybe the persons will even feel relieved I haven't told all of the story and therefore spare my sorry ass. I don't care much about my own life, at this point I'm pretty sure I'm living out of pure spite, but I can't put Garmen or Carrie-Ann or Brice or any of the others in danger by linking them to me. Except maybe Hannah, but I don't believe in my wildest dreams anyone would ever find a connection between me and her, no matter how much Garmen believes we are alike.
So I decide that's what I'm going to do; tell part of the truth in a way that's still slightly shocking, but might just be tame enough for the politician to be consoled by the fact that I could have revealed far, far worse things about them. That way, if they find out it's me, they'll just have to shut me up before I tell the rest, and the others go free.
And I know just the person to talk about.
Tuesday morning Barooba wakes me at 7:30 where literally nobody else has risen. As she walks downstairs with the admonition to hurry, I stumble into the bathroom and let out a delighted cry to find the water hot for once. After I've washed away most of the sleep I go to my room and drag on a pair of dark pants, a grey shirt and my jacket. I contemplate waking up Garmen to say goodbye, but she had a late work night so I let her sleep. I leave the bag of Gunnar's mix for her after I've taken a little myself, just to clear my head. Hopefully she won't take it all before I've returned.
When I come downstairs I see Frei as the only early riser in the Cave of Dionysus, eating some toast at the table. She doesn't say anything but she does smile as she sees me come tumbling down the stairs. I dive into the kitchen and find the loaf of bread she has opened and make myself an open sandwich with a bit of turkey I find in the fridge. Turkey is kind of luxurious, but Barooba has connections and we in the brothel get to enjoy the perks. I also drink a big slurp of water and dry my mouth with my jacket sleeve.
Barooba meets me at the door as I'm about to leave and pulls up my hood, brush my locks backwards.
"Keep that hair hidden," she says. "And don't run into Pacifiers. I don't trust them."
I smile. That is as much of a good luck as I'm ever going to get.
Keeping my hair hidden turns out to be a no-brainer since it's raining when I step outside – thick droplets of water hammering against the pavement of a city which is not yet awake. My shoes get soaked almost immediately, but I have other things to worry about, like the fact that I have to find a frikken farmhouse and no way of telling the time. I know which way the sewers run and where it comes out at the edge of the town so I just head that direction, passing a corps of Pacifiers as I do, but I keep my head down and go unnoticed. Besides, it's not illegal to walk in the street, and it'll take hours before I'll get to do the interview and probably even longer, days or weeks if ever, before it is released to the public. They have no way to connect me to it by me strolling through the street.
I pass Gunnar's crossbreed fighting ring before the houses begin thinning out, the space between abandoned shops and ruins of others becoming wider. No Pacifiers keep guard at the city limits in the lower parts of the city, because nobody has anywhere to go. When I reach the giant tube where the sewer mounts into a stream I jump down from the last rise of the asphalt. The ground has gone soft from the rain and my shoes sink into the mud and squishes every time I take a step. As I drag myself longer away from the city the stream slowly narrows, and after what I judge to be about an hour of walking I'll probably be able to jump across it if need be. The long trip gives me more than enough time to think of all the worst-case-scenarios I can get into for doing this. Being shot is an option. Arrested if they want to make an example out of me. Getting the Cave shut down. But soon my worries are overtaken by daydreaming. I begin imagining that Garmen is here with me, reprimanding me about waking her up this wrutten early. As I walk through a small acreage of bulrush, the rain begins to lessen and then stops altogether, turning itself in, in favor of a sky in uproar with the sun fighting to break through the layer of clouds. I begin being able to smell all the flowers and plants around me. And I keep walking.
With every step my feet protest, but I have nowhere to stop at. How far have I been walking? Eight miles? Ten?
I've just begun feeling nervous about whether or not this is the right way, that maybe this isn't east at all, when I see a small square in the distance and, as I get closer, discern it as a farmhouse with an attached garage.
Alle was right. It's the only house in the vicinity so it's impossible to miss. It's a muted yellow like something from an earlier century with a windmill on the ceiling, spinning fast in the strong wind, and a watermill attached to the stream. She must have seen me approaching out of the window, because as I come nearer I see her waiting for me on the doorstep with the same smile she uses every time she's live.
"I see you found us," she says and I pull my hood down to show off my damaged face. Might as well get it over with. Alle's smile turns into a grimace at the sight. "What the Hell happened to you?"
I'm honestly getting over it, the only thing that still hurts is my lip which is dry and cracked from the long walk and the tear of the weather. I know it still looks bad, but who really cares anymore?
"Fight," I say because it's easier. Then I smile. "You should see the other guy. And you didn't buy me for my pretty face, right?" Alle just looks at me in a way which makes it seem like she knows exactly how my face got this hurt. "Where's your boyfriend?" I ask to change the subject although I don't particularly care.
"Busy," Alle says and allows my change of subject. "And he's my fiancé." I snort, but instead of getting into an argument she opens the door. "Come in."
I dry off my muddy shoes on the welcoming mat and step into a kitchen filled with pots and pans and glass jars. There is a woman wearing a red dress underneath a dirty apron stirring a bowl of something dough-like with strong arms. Strong enough I can see her muscles bulge under her sleeves. Her hair is cropped close to her scalp and shows off the shape of her head. There is a moment where she looks at me, taking in the wounds and black eye I assume, before she nods a greeting. I nod in return.
"This is Gretchen," Alle says. "She's been kind enough to offer us her space and unlimited support." Alle must have assured her of my allegiance because Gretchen pulls off a tight smile.
"Everrrything forrr the rrrevolution," she says in a heavy Russian accent. I'm not sure I agree, but this doesn't seem like the place to voice any other opinion.
Alle waves me with her into another room where there are two people assembled. One is an elderly man who, in contrast to the woman, has long white hair pulled into a pony tail down his back. He's wearing overalls and standing on a ladder while screwing a light bulb into a lamp. When he smiles at me, I catch a glimpse of his tongue – or the leftover. It looks like it has been cut off clean.
The second one is a woman whom I recognize from somewhere. Her hair is brown with grey streaks and hanging in ringlets around her long thin face. On her hand, a tattoo of a golden lizard of some sort swirls upwards to hide its tail in her sleeve. She might once have been beautiful, but now she looks too skinny, her bones too starved.
"There he is," she says as she sees me enter. "Our infamous luminary-to-be."
"Noah, meet Mafalda Kase," Alle says as Mafalda reaches out her hand to me and I press it lightly. "She used to be the host of Me and Mafalda."
I nod as I remember that I watched an episode once. Mafalda used to invite luminaries and make them do all sorts of things like throw cakes or axes onto a target range or prank other luminaries. I don't think the show lasted very long.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Noah," Mafalda says in an easy-going way she must have adopted from years of being on stage. "I hear you're the one with all the gossip."
"Yup," I say. "That's me. Prime snitch at your service." If Mafalda sense my sarcastic tone she ignores it.
The tongue-less man with the ponytail has finally gotten the bulb to work and is now climbing down the ladder. He nods at Alle and she says, "Thanks Hansel," before he disappears out of the room and closes the door behind him.
"Come sit," Mafalda says and guides me over to the only furniture in the room. It's a wooden table which looks worm-eaten enough it might give up standing at any moment, and three chairs arranged around it. On it stands what seems like an old model of a computer, more square and compact than the new sleek pads, and connected to a microphone. "So the way this is going to work is, I'll record your interview, cut it together, maybe put in some dramatic effects. Then we'll distort our voices and let it air."
"On the radio?" I ask as we each sit down on a chair, Mafalda opposite me, Alle beside. Nobody uses radio anymore and she must know that being a tv-host herself. I don't even know if there are any left in the city, or are they just trying to reach the countryside like the people in this farmhouse?
"No," Mafalda says. "I have a connection at channel fourteen. He'll be able to patch it through. We'll put a picture of something in the front so people only have to listen." I nod before Mafalda continues. "Any thoughts on an alias you want to go by? I'm using K for Kase." I must have looked incredibly confused because Mafalda feels the need to explain further. "It's just good measure, so the public has something to call you. Most in this movement uses one. Do you think Hansel and Gretchen are the real names of the people living here?"
Well now I don't. Truthfully, the thought that I need a fake name hasn't even crossed my mind.
"I don't suppose Blue is an option," I say.
"Probably not the most anonymous one," Alle says. "How about Napoleon?"
"Isn't that a bit presumptuous?" I ask, but she just shrugs.
"Go big or go home."
"How about Peace?" Mafalda offers.
"Peace isn't exactly what we're going for," Alle says. "Kind of the opposite in fact."
"No, P-I-E-C-E, Piece. Because we're telling pieces of the story, and you're a vital piece of this plan," Mafalda says and looks at me. Alle nods slowly.
"That could work," she says. "I like it."
"Sure," I say. "Why not."
"Great," Mafalda says and juts in some things on her computer. It begins humming like old machinery. Old untraceable machinery. "Shall we get started then?"
I nod and take a deep breath, clenching my hands underneath the table. I don't know why this makes my heartrate rise so exponentially. It's just talking. I've done far worse in much darker rooms. But somehow, with Mafalda adjusting the microphone towards me, it suddenly feels so real.
"Alright," she says and hits a button. Alle leans back in her chair, knowing that now we're recording. I swallow a lump as Mafalda leans into the microphone. "Hello everybody, and welcome to the first ever recorded episode of Secrets of Our Leaders, the only show which will tell you the truth behind the people in the Government. I'm your hostess K and I'm sitting here with Piece, and Piece, as I understand it you have stories to share?" she asks and looks up at me.
"Yes," I blurt a second too late. "I uh, well," I stop, lost for spit and words.
"It's okay," Mafalda says. "Take your time, we can always edit it out."
"Try asking him questions," Alle offers. "It might help."
"Yes, we can do that," Mafalda nods. "Is that okay with you?"
"Yes," I say, relieved that I will have a guide to make sure I don't say anything stupid.
"Okay then," Mafalda continues. "Piece, what kind of profession is it you're in?" This makes me crack a smile and an old memory of my first training when Garmen told me about the business appears.
"I am in the profession of making dreams come true," I say. "I am known as a hooker or a sex worker. Or a prostitute."
"And how exactly is it this job works?" Mafalda asks.
"It's fairly straight forward actually," I say, finding the words does come easier when I answer questions. Being a prostitute isn't a high status, but in the lower class nobody judges, and neither does Mafalda it seems. I don't look at Alle as I talk though, because her mind and her gaze makes me nervous and how stupid would it be to get flustered now. "I'm part of a brothel where you can either come and buy one of us, or you can call ahead and reserve us. Then the buyer can do whatever they want with us for however long they've paid for."
"And this keeps you out of financial trouble?"
"If you're asking if I keep my customers satisfied enough to pay up then yes," I say. "I have had very little complains about the way I choose to do my work." I don't need another question before I continue. After all, it's just me and Mafalda. "The job allows me a glimpse into some of the darkest desires of the people who buy me. There are some people whose bodies I know better than their spouse does, some people whose inner most hidden desires are shared with me and only me. I imagine it's much like confession at church, but with a lot more sex toys."
"It must be one Hell of a responsibility," Mafalda says after she's done laughing. But I shake my head.
"Actually, it's exhilarating. The connections made are something out of this world. Sure, there is the occasional nasty customer, but we take precautions. I can't imagine doing any other job really."
"Those secrets you're implying," Mafalda says and I feel my heart skip a beat. It was just settling down, and now it's doing somersaults again. "Are they all concerned the common people?"
"No," I say with a hoarse chuckle and decide to go all in. "The middle and lower class can't afford us."
At this Alle has to put a hand over her mouth to conceal a laugh at my obvious arrogance. Even Mafalda has a hard time controlling her voice.
"So, you're mostly hired by the rich," she finally manages to get out.
"Rich, luminaries," I say. "Politicians."
"Politicians?"
"Yes," I continue. "You wouldn't believe the tapestry of strange appetites the leaders of our nation have. It seems the higher your rank, the more grotesque your desires."
"Really," Mafalda says, making it sound like she's surprised although she's nodding a good job to me. "Is there any particular story you'd like to share with us?"
This is it, this is the moment for which I was paid. The moment where Alle finds out exactly what I'm good for.
"There is a man in the Government," I hear myself say without any other introduction. "I see him on the television, but I've also seen him in person."
"Was this one of the times you were, what did you call it, reserved?" Mafalda asks.
"No," I say. "I've never touched or been touched by him. This was a drunken secret spilled between sheets in the dead of the night. Maybe an accident, I don't know. Maybe the customer I was with needed to get it off of her chest. And who was I going to tell? In most of my customers eyes I'm harmless, a thing for them to use, an object which brings them pleasure. No one of real importance. And I am cheaper than the average church contribution because a lot of people seem to want to atone for their sins to God, so why not relieve their own guilty consciousness for keeping this secret to someone meaningless?"
"This must be some secret," Mafalda says, and I shrug.
"It's fairly tame compared to whatever else goes on in the White House," I say. "Most of them pay for some pleasure or the other, but this one in particular has a taste for starving girls."
"Starving girls?" Mafalda asks, and there is real shock in her voice. She's probably expected that the deepest secret of a male Minister is that he likes to get it in the ass.
"Yes. The man in question has a stooge which he sends into the lower parts of the city once every third night or thereabout," I say and watch in satisfaction as the tv-host's expression widens in surprise. "The stooge's job is to find female hooders or lowlifes, whoever is in need of food or other things you can only get for money, and promise them money and meals if they show up at a specific address at a specific hour."
"An address?"
"A safe house," I elaborate. "I don't know where it is, I can imagine it's in the outer skirts of the city or maybe not in the city at all. But he goes there sometimes, whisking starving girls with him, as many as his stooge can find."
"Are you- are you implying he has orgies with these girls?"
"I'm not implying," I say and let that sink in. Mafalda is staring at me with her mouth hanging open. Maybe she had been like Alle. Maybe she hadn't thought I really had any valuable secrets to share. And she doesn't even know half of it, I remind myself.
The truth is that I know for a fact that most of the girls are underage, ranging from ten to fifteen or looking like it. But I don't say that. I don't call the man out as a pedophile. I don't say it would have been Garmen's fate if old Gunnar hadn't found her. I don't mention the fact that when he's done with the girls, he gives them food and drinks tainted with poison so he can discard of them easily afterwards to keep his secret. That it's not even ethically incorrect but downright illegal.
I don't say his name either, that the man in question is the Minister of Military Tactics, our one and only Governor Raze.
Does that surprise you reader? That this chaste collected Minister has an appetite for underage girls? Maybe it should. I hope it does, otherwise you have allowed the world too much.
From the corner of my eye I can see Alle staring at me, but I can also see the small tug in her lips. She must be thrilled – she better be – that I am worth the bags of gold and pearls and jewels she paid for me.
Mafalda has recovered enough her voice doesn't sound too wrong when she speaks again.
"And that's one of the lesser secrets you said."
"Yes."
"Well then," she clears her throat. "I'm looking forward to hearing more stories next time you're here."
"And I'm looking forward to telling them," I say with a promiscuous smile. Mafalda push a button on her computer and closes it so the hum dies down. She disconnects the microphone for good measure. Then she leans in over the table.
"Okay, who is it?" she asks.
"Mafalda," Alle says, not doubting for one second that I'm lying. I guess the story is too delicious not to believe.
"Alight alright," Mafalda says and leans back in her chair. "It's just, not something you'd think about a politician. That's all."
"It's how I think about them," I admit which shuts Mafalda up.
I'm allowed to use Hansel and Gretchen's bathroom and drink a tall glass of water before I'm sent off. My voice, still not 100% rebounded, has worn itself out by all the talking. Mafalda is incredibly excited about the raw data, and even Alle seems upbeat about it, less calculative even. Maybe she's allowing herself a small break from all the planning of overthrowing the Government. Gretchen insists Hansel drive me half the way back to town, and I'm in no position to decline. I've walked for what must be about twenty miles and my body, still healing, is aching and hanging on me like a heavy blanket instead of holding me up. Alle says she'll be in touch, and then I climb into an old automobile Hansel gets out from the garage.
He gives off a few grunts from the back of his nose as we drive onto a small road and follow it as it weaves itself through the countryside. When we've driven for half an hour or so, half an hour I use to lean my head against the window to feel the vibration of the machine and try not to fall asleep, he stops and looks at me, then the door. It's an obvious message that this is as far as he will take me. I get out and thank him, just for good measure, and then he turns the car around and drives back.
I have to admit I like him.