“At the risk of explaining something that you already know,” he began, “sex, when you have it, is... is like a transaction.” He felt his face go red, but he did not look away.
“A transaction?” She repeated this as if he’d said, “Sex is like a garden rake.” Or “...a baby giraffe.” Or, “...a bad clam.”
“Yes,” he said. “Sex is something to which women consent in exchange for something they require—such as money or protection or a name or even a child.”
Sabine scrunched up her face in distaste. “Is that what you believe?”
“Sabine,” he sighed, “I, perhaps more than any man alive, have seen the beginning, middle, and end of every part of human desire. It is not my opinion. It is what I have known since I could hear my mother ‘at work’ across the room while I was meant to be asleep on the floor. Sex was atransactioninto which she entered, again and again, until it killed her. I have rescued countless girls from a similar fate. I have seen it dressed up in luxury, and diversion, and flower-trimmed romantic trappings. I have also seen it reduced to minutes—nay, seconds—against alley walls. But every time, I have seen the same basic trade—a man’s pleasure for some payment to the woman. It troubles me to assume so much and offend you with my bluntness, but it cannot go unsaid. I hold you in too high esteem to enter into any such transaction with you.”
He’d looked away, unable to hold her gaze. It was too much to hope that she would flee from the room. It was too much to hope that she would slap him. Was it too much to hope that she would say, “Very well, I am grateful to finally know the truth of it”?
He glanced back to her.
Yes, it was too much.
She was staring at him as if he’d just explained that Sunday would not follow Saturday.
“But are you certain thateveryoneviews... relations in this manner?” she asked. “That is, not suggesting that I wanted to, er, ‘transact’ with you in this moment, but since you have brought it up.”
He ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck. And now she would force him to elaborate. And now he mustdebatethe topic.
“Sex,” he lectured patiently, “is viewed in every possible light, I’m sure, but few people have seen what I have seen. As much as I am loath to admit it, I really am somewhat of an expert.”
“An expert on sex?”
“An expert on the motivations and ramifications of sex.”
She nodded and looked at the ceiling, thinking this over.
Stoker tried to watch her, but her pensive expression, so stark in profile, was too beautiful, and he looked away.
After a moment she said, “And what of your business partners? Cassin and Joseph Chance?”
“I beg your pardon?” His voice broke.
“One cannot help but wonder about the Earl of Cassin and his countess, my friend Willow? Or, what of Joseph and my friend Tessa? Willow and Tessa have been quite open with me, and they reported nothing transactional about sex with their husbands.”
Stoker sighed. “I have not discussed it with Cassin or Joseph, but I have no doubt they have managed it with decorum and respect and made the effort very worth it for their wives.”
Now her expression was even more confused. “This is nothing like they reported it to me.”
“I... don’t like to speculate on the relations of others,” he said.
She stared at him. He could see wheels of thought turning in her head, but she did not seem embarrassed; she did not seem chastened or threatened.That’s all that matters,he thought.Protect her. The least he could do in return for her care and the stolen thrill of her attention was to protect her.
Now she said, “And soyounever... engage in the, er, transaction of sex? I mean, your own self?”
And now I will die,he thought. “Sabine...” he pleaded.
“What? Surely you cannot mean to demand that I revealmyvirginal state but refuse to discuss your own.”
“I am not a virgin,” he said quickly, praying this was enough.
“And you are racked with guilt because of the advantage you’ve taken of the women in your past? Is that it? It all began so innocently—she wished to touch your tattoo—and then it spiraled into fantastical sex, for you, not for her, because she only wanted to touch your tattoo and then earn some reward?”
“Sabine,” he groaned. He wondered how many times he could skate by on simply saying her name.
“I want to know,” she insisted. “You have been so gracious to educate me, and now I am captivated and want to hear all of it.”
