Free Urban Venus by Sara Downing

there are wives and families to return to in their lodgings here, and they cannot give good reason for a prolonged absence. I am pleased at this; Rosetta will be happy that I am fulfilling my duties to her, and am free again to meet the needs of further visitors as the evening progresses.
    I descend to the drawing room to await the next client who might choose me for his pleasure. The atmosphere within is one of excited anticipation, not only for the pleasures of the flesh which are to come for these gentlemen, but from the exhilaration of the day itself. Rosetta pulls me to one side and leads me directly to a gentleman who is seated quietly in the corner, behind a screen and away from the hubbub of the rest of the salon. He gazes out of the window as if in reflection, and as he turns to us, I note that he is greater in years than many of his fellow clients in the room. One could not describe him as handsome in the true sense, but he is a fine looking man nonetheless. His face is long and thin, tapering towards his narrow jaw-line, which is graced with a small beard. His cheekbones are high and firm, his nose a little on the large side for his face. However it is his eyes that strike me and as he turns to greet me it is as though they are looking into my very soul and I am immediately lost.
    This man fixes me with his stare, taking my hand and kissing it reverently as though he has just been introduced to a lady of the finest standing. I do not move, nor do I speak. Rosetta instructs us always to let the gentlemen take the lead and thus I am not permitted to utter a word until he has first addressed me. He keeps hold of the hand he has kissed, clasping his other hand over it, and leads me gently from the room and towards the stairs, all the while regarding my profile as though he cannot take his eyes from me.
    We reach my chamber, and Clara furnishes us with the necessary comforts for the occasion: some small beer and wine, and a dish of sweetmeats which she places discreetly on the credenza , before exiting the room as silently as a ghost. Still he has not spoken to me; instead he removes his outer wear, placing it carefully on the cappellinaio and comes to stand in front of me, as I busy myself with pomander and rose water, awaiting his instruction. Despite the everyday commonness of this routine, I find myself nervous in his company, like a virgin bride in the sole presence of her husband for the very first time.
    Finally he crosses the room and stops directly in front of me. With a huge sigh he cups my face gently in his hands, his thumbs below my earlobes as he turns my face slowly from one side to the other. His own expression as he does this is one of sheer transfixion. He seems to be studying each of my features in turn; I see the movement of his eyes from my lips to my brow, from my hairline to the point of my chin. Finally he speaks.
    ‘ Such perfect beauty,’ he says, and his voice is barely more than a whisper. ‘What is your name?’
    ‘ Maria,’ I reply. I do not choose, as some of the other girls here do, to change my name and give myself a false title. Maria was the name my dear, late parents chose for me, and as an infant I was blessed in God’s house under that name. Besides, there must be a thousand Maria’s in this city; what is there to hide when my name can neither betray me nor locate me amongst my other namesakes? In any case, I have nothing to hide; no family to come after me, no one on this earth who would give a fig as to my whereabouts, other than those in this establishment who have become my family and friends.
    ‘ Why are you here, Maria?’ he asks. I consider that I have never been asked this question before. The gentlemen who attend me rarely take an interest in my own person, beyond my physical attributes and the pleasure these can bring to them.
    ‘ My parents passed into Our Lord’s care when I was thirteen, and Rosetta gave me a home,’ is my simple reply. ‘She has been very