What was he going to do? He stumbled back towards the bed, gave up and crumpled to his knees, too tired and too full of hate even to weep. Nothing ever changed. It was just another form of dependency, another form of powerlessness. If nothing else, he had chosen his own downfall. Twice. How many men could say that? It was a freedom of a kind, when all else was trammelled.
His two lovers, equally treacherous. Isidore and opium.
A painful shiver ran through his body. He really wanted—make that needed, although, at this stage, there was no distinction—some laudanum. He dragged himself across the floor to the bottle on the bedside table and chased the dregs with his tongue. How was he to get more? Even if he found the strength to dress and leave with some trace of dignity, he had no money, no possessions, nothing he could sell, not even himself. He looked around for something to steal, but there was nothing either small or valuable enough to make it worthwhile. His room (no, nothisroom,theroom), though far grander than anythinghe had experienced since his time with Isidore, was clearly neglected. Not in the sense of uncared for, so much as unlived in, unwanted. This was a house of silent days and cold nights. But surely it had silverware? Trinkets. Anything. Somewhere.
He pushed himself to his hands and knees and, from there, back to his feet. He was drenched in sweat—from effort, exhaustion, or lack of laudanum he could not tell. And the memory of the monster in the mirror haunted him, as though he had finally become the thing he truly was, as wasted, ugly, and corrupt on the outside as he was in his heart.
His conscience, however, he did not let trouble him. If it was wrong to repay kindness with selfishness, kindness was itself little more than a whim, changeable and ephemeral, whereas basic human selfishness was very dependable indeed. There seemed little point in allocating behaviour to moral categories. There was simply folly and common sense, and Micha had indulged in enough folly to last him a lifetime. For which he had surely paid his dues.
His course resolved, he was about halfway towards the door when fatigue and weakness overcame him, and he passed out.
2
I’m so hungry, so utterly weary, that when the gentleman offers to take me to dinner, I agree. I am about ready to agree to anything. He calls me his panther. And later his kitten. He smiles indulgently as I eat, and eat, and eat, though the richness of the food almost sickens me. I’m not innocent in this. I know what is to come.
The truth is, I simply lack the courage to die.
The hours drag. The man eats and talks and drinks and talks and talks and talks. My mouth tastes of sickness. Eventually, he takes me to a hotel. They know him there. It’s a copper and sawdust place, I can still remember the faded sunflowers on the quilt blurring with the tears I make sure he doesn’t see.
There is nothing of Isidore in him, even that part all men share, swaying between his white thighs like some bulbous, sap-dripping flower. He is a squalid devil, a vile toad of a man, but I let him have me anyway. His soft hands touch me everywhere.
I wake to find him leaving.
I smell his body on my skin. I am beyond mortified but I mutter something about payment.
My dear boy, he says, wide-eyed, if you expected remuneration you should have said before, not after.
I sit there wrapped in soiled sheets, full of an unspeakable hate, for him, for me, for everything.
Something makes him relent. He touches my cheek. Calls me a sweet, silly kitten. Leaves me his cigarette case, which is silver and engraved with his initials. I pawn it and do not die.
When Micha opened his eyes, he was cradled in Thomas’s arms and there was a woman crouched next to him with a bottle of smelling salts. The acrid scent rushed over him, forcing him into a harsh, painful consciousness. He choked, sneezed, and sat up, spluttering, trying to push them both away. But, for once, Thomas was not to be pushed. He was surprisingly strong for his slender form. Perhaps this was what they called Muscular Christianity. The thought might have amused Micha, once upon a time.
“I thought you were supposed to be resting.” Though Thomas’s voice was too gentle to be chiding, Micha resented it anyway.
“I’m sick of fucking resting,” he growled, to cover a rising sense of panic. He hated being helpless. Yet it seemed the world and his own body were constantly conspiring to remind him that he was. He told himself it could have been worse, for at least he hadn’t fainted in the silver cabinet, but the need for laudanum was a brand in his mind, and the possibility of actually acquiring any was disappearing over the horizon like the sails of a tall ship.
“I’m sick of looking and feeling like I’m already dead,” he went on, angry, stubborn, doggedly careless of his own best interests. “I’m sick of pissing in a pot.” He suddenly remembered they were not alone, and, though he had no scruples in haranguing Thomas mercilessly in private, some vague, deeply buried sense of shame made him hesitant to do it publicly. Besides, he had not been so long in the company of whores that he thought it was appropriate to talk about his cock, or any of the fluids that came out of it, in front of a respectable woman. “Fuck. Sorry,” he choked out. “I didn’t mean to—sorry.”
“It is quite all right.” Thomas smiled down at him like the sun. “I know how frustrating you find being bedbound. And if your frankness on the subject has startled Mrs. Clark, we are already supplied with hartshorn to revive her.”
Micha had been idly aware of Thomas’s housekeeper, but this was the first time she had impinged upon his notice. “Oh please.” She actually sounded amused. “I would not faint for mere words.”
“Are you reserving your swoons for something special?” asked Thomas, in a tone so full of affection and laughter that it went through Micha like a shard of ice.
He twisted his head in time to catch a look of real sympathy pass between them, as though they were old friends, not master and servant. Or more than that, perhaps. Was the priest fucking his housekeeper? Micha hoped he was, for hypocrisy was something he could understand—could work with—and the mysteries of Thomas’s nature infuriated him. But whatever satisfaction he expected to derive from learning that Thomas had feet of clay, just like everyone else, was spoiled by something else. Something he could not name, a bitter-tasting thing, as sour as old tears and as sharp as arsenic. How dare Thomas look softly on someone else. How dare he smile with such ease. Share those secret flashes of humour Micha had begun to believe were his alone. As if these were everyday gifts. As if anyone could have them.
He cast a swift glance towards the woman who had captured Thomas’s interest, and most likely more than that. Of course, whilehe was ghastly, haggard, and feeble, it was only fitting she would be extraordinary. A lush, classical beauty, raven-haired, with eyes like the wild sea. And then he recognised her. Their gazes snagged and held for a long moment, and he saw she knew him too. Then she sat back on her heels and looked away.
There were few worlds smaller, Micha thought, than the world of a whore.
Plain clothes and pinned-up hair couldn’t disguise the woman who had once had punters queuing round the block to sample her wares. She’d been little more than a legend by Micha’s time, the subject of an explicit mural in the most expensive room, and the source of Madame Defleur’s anguish and indignation. He’d heard the story many times. He’d even listened to it, at first.
A twisting, poisonous hope curled itself around his heart. Under different circumstances, he would have cared less than nothing for the fate of a prostitute he had barely known, but the prospect of a little power was as sweet to him as opium smoke. Perhaps it was no longer necessary to leave. At least, not yet. Not until he had regained more of his strength. And the silver would still be there. If he played his cards right, he might not even have to be the one to steal it.
Once upon a time, stealing would have been alien to the point of unthinkable to Micha. But he had taken up petty theft almost without noticing—a few coins, here and there, from gentlemen too drunk to notice, a cigarette case, a silk handkerchief, then a few more coins, not always from those who could afford it. It had been such a gentle slide, there was never an opportunity for it to feel wrong. Rather the opposite, in fact. By the time he was desperate enough to do it, he mostly believed his clients as good as deserved it. A reciprocal indignity for the ones they practised on his body. Even so, his thieving had always been personal and small-scale, and ransacking Thomas’s house would be a noticeable escalation. It was use or be used; he knew that well enough. And his mind was already turning through all the ways he could turn the situation to his advantage.
He might even be able to take some pleasure from it, as much as he was capable of finding pleasure in anything not directly derived from the poppy. “Mrs. Clark,” as she styled herself, so clearly enjoyed Thomas’s admiration. It would do her good to remind her of her place. She was, after all, no better than Micha. Worse, in fact, for he was born a gentleman. It could be her punishment for this moment, a scrap of vengeance for having to lie here and watch them smiling at each other.
