“You can wear this,” he said, taking down what looked like folds of white linen from one of the shelves. “Although I like what you have on now.”
Charlie’s face flushed as he glanced down at his odd costume. “It was all he had for me to wear,” he explained. “My clothes were filthy and stinking.”
He’d tried to wash them the previous afternoon, but the water had turned dingy so fast that he’d given up and leftthem outside on the wall next to where Jonathan dried his photographs.
“They suit you,” Valentine said, nodding for Charlie to take the white cloth, then opening a drawer to take out a white, silken cord. “You’ve an unusual look to you.”
Charlie hugged the pile of cloth tightly, uncertain whether he was being insulted. It didn’t feel like all the other insults that had been hurled at him in his time, and there had been many.
Valentine laughed again. “It’s a compliment,” he said. “Unusual means unique, and unique means valuable.”
The tightness in Charlie’s gut lurched. Valuable. He needed to be valuable so that Jonathan wouldn’t throw him back into the street.
“I need to be valuable,” he whispered.
Valentine sent him a sideways smile. “Don’t we all.”
He understood. It was the second time in as many days that someone understood the twisted, burning things inside him without him having to explain. Charlie couldn’t believe he was so lucky.
Throwing aside every instinct for caution and propriety, he let Valentine help him undress and put on the toga. He didn’t have the first idea how garments like that worked, but Valentine was quick to help him.
“We don’t dress like this all the time,” Valentine said as he tied the cord around Charlie’s waist. “Sometimes this is more comfortable and sometimes wearing trousers and shirts is better. Especially for lessons and everyday things.”
“Lessons?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” Valentine said, stepping back to observe his handiwork. “This isn’t just a brothel, it’s a school as well.”
Charlie’s knees nearly gave out. He’d known he was right about the Den, he just hadn’t expected to have someone confirm that so boldly or so quickly.
Valentine grinned at his shocked expression. “I love it here,” he said, as if that was the best justification for the den of sin Charlie had been drawn into. “We all do. It’s exciting and wicked, but it’s also safe. Unlike most of the rest of the world.”
He had a fair point. And it was far too soon to pass any sort of judgement on The Zagreus Den. He hadn’t been there for more than fifteen minutes yet.
“Come,” Valentine said, taking Charlie’s hand to pull him back through the side room toward the banquet hall. “Serving is easy. It’s just presenting the men with food and making certain their cups stay full. Since you have a master, no one will ask for more.”
“I don’t—” Charlie stopped himself. If he admitted that Jonathan wasn’t really his master, would that mean he could be asked to do more than serve at table?
What if Jonathanwashis master? What exciting things would that mean?
“Do you have a master?” he asked Valentine instead as they neared the open doorway into the banquet hall.
Valentine’s happy expression faded. “I did,” he said, glancing back at Charlie as they passed through the doorway and headed to one of the tables of food waiting to be served. “He died.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie whispered, not particularly inclined to talk anymore once they were surrounded by men who watched them and could easily take them apart with a click of their fingers and a command.
Valentine’s look of grief seemed to swallow him for a moment. “It’s been six months,” he said as he moved some of the slices of roast chicken from the platter where the bird had been carved onto a golden serving plate. “I’m not ready for another master yet.”
Charlie’s heart went out to the young man. He’s never experienced the death of someone he cared about, but he knewwhat it was like to lose his life and his home. He did the only thing he could think of and rested a hand gently over Valentine’s.
Valentine glanced up at him, his grief shifting into a kind smile. “I like you,” he said. “I hope you stay.”
Charlie hoped he stayed, too, even though he didn’t have the first idea what that implied. He knew his staying was connected to Jonathan staying, though. Because of that, as soon as Valentine filled up the plate and whispered a few quick instructions about how to serve the tables, Charlie turned his focus to making certain his savior had everything he needed.
“And you’ve managed to keep all this concealed for ten years?” Jonathan asked Brutus, in the middle of a conversation, when Charlie arrived at the table.
Charlie lowered himself to one knee, as Valentine was doing farther along the table for some of the other men, and held the tray forward, head slightly bowed.
“As you can imagine,” Brutus said in answer to the question, “members of the Den have a vested interest in keeping this paradise as much of a secret as possible. So yes, we’ve been able to go unnoticed for ten years.”
