Fabiola - Part Six

The beds were slabs of chiseled stone decorated and made comfortable with tasseled pillows. Fabiola could make that much out through the edges of the smoke-stained doorway curtains as she groped her way along the dark hallway of the brothel. She could hear the people in the rooms. Heavy breathing, tell-tale moans, and rhythmic slaps. Gallus, her prey, had disappeared somewhere in this maze.
  
It suddenly occurred to her to wonder if her father had ever taken a boy. Her brother hadn't. Gallus, the young man from dinner clearly hadn't. But she knew from overheard conversations that men often took boys. They spoke openly in front of the invisible Fabiola, joking about the softness of a boy's skin, boasting of having made one a woman.  The elders would change the subject when it came up or if one of the priests came into the room. Or the men would turn on their own to describing the women who earn and their encounters with servants. Fabiola knew what men thought of the women in this building. She felt it too, even if it made her uncomfortable. They couldn't control themselves, these women; they needed men and enjoyed their taste. Those who weren't ravenous for men were simply lazy. This is what Fabiola had been told a hundred times; it was the assumption behind everything that was said. It was the reason that Fabiola hated being called a whore for the way she dressed.
  
Very few of the women in the brothel seemed to be enjoying much of anything. Fabiola stopped to gaze through one of the curtains of an occupied room. There was a man with long hair and a scar across his back, a soldier, with a soldier's body. He was on his knees, entering a woman from behind. The woman wasn't lifting her leg for display as in the lamp, nor was she looking back with joy. Instead she rested the side of her head on a pillow, moaning and breathing absently while the man alternated between slow and fast movements, grunting to himself. Fabiola could see the drug at work in her eyes. And while part of Fabiola pitied the woman, whatever her reason for earning, there was a part of her who at this moment remembered the feeling of finger tips on stone and wondered what it felt like to be alone with a man in a room.
  
Continuing along the hallway, passing women waiting to ply their trade and rooms occupied with heat and sweat, Fabiola did her best to look through the crack of each curtain, trying to find Gallus. She didn't even know his name, and it bothered her to know that he was here, but she was determined. She was determined because he was here, and because she didn't know his name.
  
Eventually, having reached the end of the hallway, she again heard Gallus' voice. Forceful, yet assured, he was speaking--of all things--about the wanderers in the sky. As Fabiola slowly approached his curtain, she heard also the laughter and purring voices of the two women Gallus had taken with him into the brothel. She was afraid to look into the room. So Fabiola stood silently, as invisible to Gallus as she assumed she had been at dinner. There, in the shadows, she listened as closely as she could manage.

Fabiola - Part Five

That night, along the road adjacent the Market Square, Fabiola found herself among the women who earn. Having slowly unfastened the lock to her wooden window shutters, she had slid carefully and silently out of her bedroom into the inner courtyard, making sure that the sentry did not see her. The babbling of the water fountain had concealed the ticking of pebbles under her sandaled feet, and a moments conversation between the sentry and one of his fellows had allowed her a chance to unlock and escape through the front gate. She closed it securely behind her, not knowing how she would find her way back into the villa come morning. Right now things like that did not matter. Not here among all these bodies; women, their breasts exposed to the cool night air or--in a few cases--draped in a transparent yellow silk; men, drunken and loud, pushing and roughhousing, fondling the women openly, negotiating their price. Fabiola had heard the warnings of her mother, and knew that these things existed, but those were only stories. This was real, in front of her.

  Suddenly a hand rested lightly on her shoulder. It was a woman's. Fabiola turned to look at her. The woman squinted lightly, inching her head forward drunkenly, as she examined Fabiola's masculine robe. Her other hand, the one not resting on Fabiola's shoulder, held a clay pipe. The woman's words were slow and halting. It was at this moment that Fabiola began to see how damaged and thin many of these women were, how vacantly they sold themselves. "You're new," the woman said.

  She presented Fabiola with the pipe, directing them both closer to one of the torches lighting the street. "It's good," she said, setting fire to a short wooden stick that she then used to ignite for herself the substance in the pipe. Fabiola took in the thick scent of the herbs as the woman dragged in the smoke. "Here," the woman said, exhaling. Fabiola took the pipe hesitantly, but then confidently. The woman held the fire to the pipe for her, and then Fabiola inhaled strongly. Too strongly. It left her bent over coughing for a few seconds.

  In that time some passing men had grabbed the arm of the unnamed woman, pulling her down the street with them, laughing, surrounding her, leaving Fabiola alone with the pipe. Having seen how it was done, Fabiola used a piece of straw on the ground to take another gentle toke. Nothing seemed to be happening, and she did not know any better. When the drug finally took effect, Fabiola was reaching the end of the earning district, among the brothels, where things were quieter. Standing dazed, she could feel the warmth of the torches through her clothing and the hardness of the ground beneath her feet. It seemed to her that the touch of the woman had remained on her shoulder, radiating into her skin. Fabiola ran her finger tips across the nearest wall. The edges of the stone read like letters of an alphabet, sharp and distinct and meaningful.

  She could make out the contours of people fucking in the alleyways. A woman pressed forward against the wall as a man thrust into her from behind, his left hand gripping her breast. Another taking a woman laying on her back, moaning and whispering to the woman what to say.

  Fabiola watched, her pupils dilated and mouth open, a slight wobble in her stance. But when one of the men seemed to look up at her, she startled, and shuffled away as quickly as she could. Realizing now how vulnerable she may have made herself, how far away from home she had wandered, Fabiola decided to try to make her way to safety. 

  However, it was in that very moment of rational clarity when Fabiola heard a voice that would eliminate all reason, all clarity. It was the young man from the dinner, Gallus. He was here on the street, talking loudly in the relative silence of the brothel district, oblivious of Fabiola's presence. Looking over, Fabiola could see that he had taken one of the women who earn under his arm, and was heading for the entrance to one of the buildings. An unexpected jealousy crept into her heart. It inspired her to follow Gallus into the building.

Fabiola - Part Four

The young man, Gallus, watched the strange girl at a distance. The girl who insisted on wearing a soldier's robe over her white, wool-embroidered linen dress. Even from there, leaning against one of the arched columns of High Priest's Road, nestled among the fruit vendors, he could see the curls of Fabiola's hair peaking out from under her loose head scarf. Although she'd never looked at him, and perhaps did not even know he existed, Gallus could imagine returning to those intense brown eyes.
 
He took note of her leisurely walking pace as she moved closer and closer towards him, and examined her gestures for signs of who she was below those folds of cloth and beneath that soft, tan skin. Would her hand always feel so warm? Would she notice him? She seemed to notice everything else around her, as her eyes moved slowly and carefully from objects to persons to the open windows above the busy street. The modest, silent girl he coveted at dinner and fantasied about at night had opened herself now. In this moment of revelation, he could see that something about the old beggar woman had troubled her. Thoughtful yet alert, she strolled by him, oblivious.
 
Fabiola, meanwhile, flanked by her anxious servants, was thinking about property. She was thinking about money. It reminded her of stories that she'd heard at dinner regarding the man across the sea who had submit himself to fatal torture in order to erase all debts. What a strange thing to have done, she thought. This seemingly endless debt won't be paid until the wandering gods themselves collapse from exhaustion, destroying Fortune. Before that day, man will continue to prey upon man. And bodies will continue to disembark from ships docked along a river silted with the hopeless, penniless dead.
 
It was in thinking such thoughts that Fabiola decided that she was going to sneak out of her room that night and see how those bodies lived.

Fabiola - Part Three

An old beggar woman caught Fabiola's eye. She had wrinkled brown skin, covered hair, and sang a soft song, bowing from her knees. It looked painful. One of the woman's hands had been broken before but never set. Bone jutted awkwardly around the capitate. Fabiola instructed her servants to fetch the woman. When the woman arrived, frightened by the attention of someone above her station, Fabiola attempted to calm her but they did not speak the same language. As Fabiola tried to purchase a new blanket for her, the woman shook her head and waved her hands, speaking as humbly as the language barrier allowed. "She says that robbers will take it from her," the cloth merchant interjected.

Fabiola paused and sighed, seeing now that she had drawn dangerous attention to this woman. Working with the merchant, they settled on a drab brown sack cloth. Fabiola then put some bronze coins in the woman's good hand, clasping it lovingly. "I'm sorry," she said. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment before parting.

Like rats trying to escape a sinking ship, she thought to herself, climbing over each other, leaving the weakest behind. 

Thoughts like this kept her from noticing that she herself had been noticed during this exchange with the beggar woman. He too had visited the market that day. And he too remembered warmly their brief encounter at dinner the night previous.

Fabiola - Part Two

That night she kept thinking about the lamp. Her mother would keep her from filling it with oil when it extinguished itself, but that had not stopped her from looking. She wondered what it meant, those naked bodies and her leg raised above his head. That luxurious couch. What connected them? Why was she looking back? She'd heard her brother with the slave girls. His quiet moans and their whimpers. Would that be her one day? Once she'd been married? Blood rushed to her cheeks against her will. Returned from dinner, she lay in bed remembering the furtive touch of the young man. Her racing heart and a feeling she did not understand prevented her from sleeping. She did not want to sleep. Not when she could let her mind drift with him. Sleeping would bring this dream world, this glow, to an end.

Awaking the next morning she chided herself for her immodesty. Her mother's words repeated themselves to her. She remembered the importance of her honour. And she remembered her duties as a daughter. Today she was to visit the market. So long as she was accompanied by two male servants she was permitted to go alone. This was yet another rare concession on the part of her parents. She did not really need to go. The servants were more than capable of selecting the fabrics they would use to assemble her brother's new clothing. But Fabiola wanted the market, just as she wanted the dinner. She wanted to walk along the waterfront, watching the ships as they unloaded foods, bodies, and materials into the city; she wanted to take in the scent of people cooking; judge the beggars on their appearance and skill; overhear commerce, gossip, and mundane talk. It excited her and made her feel that perhaps she could, walking behind her husband, one day belong on high priest's road, a citizen rather than a visitor.

Fabiola - Part One

Her mother had raised her like a boy. She liked the freedom that it afforded her, even if she was still forced to cover her hair. Like a boy, she could attend dinners, sitting motionlessly, looking down, careful to keep her legs closed together. Her mother taught her to eat slowly, pausing between morsels. She was to never reach for what she wanted, but to ask politely and quietly without imposing. News traveled quickly about this. A throng of young men had approached the house threatening rough music, but her father beat the ringleader mercilessly and ordered his companions to pick him up from the pig shit. They had already earlier tried to take her against her will, calling her a whore, but a quick flash of the knife and a sudden drawing of blood had changed their minds. This after they had humiliated her in the streets, throwing food and rocks. She did not care. Not with all these voices.
 

The men at the table ignored her as they spoke about politics, trade, and the way of a world she would likely never experience. Hiding in plain sight, she used their talk to imagine travel and adventure. Sometimes she would get to sit near to him. The young man with the voice that stood for her above all the others, deep and assertive, yet elegant. Unable to raise her eyes from her meal, she could never see him, but she could smell him and feel the warmth radiating from his body into hers. These sensations called to her with a force she could not explain or even acknowledge to herself. She did not know it, but this was why she did not care about violence and humiliation. She wanted everything these dinners had to offer her. Or, at least, she thought that she did. That was before his hand brushed against hers for that one quick moment. And she heard him apologize for his transgression. After that she could think of nothing else but transgression.