Sunny - Mona Lisa Darkening

"An hour's time," she muttered. "He expects me to perform a miracle in that spit of time. This way," she snapped, walking through the same doorway she had come through.

The impression of entering another different world hit me again as I followed her and found myself suddenly in an open lounge. It wasn't the large space, so much as the inhabitants that filled it, that made me feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Women, both human and Monère, were strewn on and around cream-colored sofas and chairs. The walls and floors were the same pink and ivory-white coloring, and it was like being inside a giant oyster shell. Only instead of pearls there were women — so goddamn many of them. All beautiful, some stunningly so. All with perfect skin. They sized me up with bored, jaded eyes. Titters and giggles sounded as they took in my dirty appearance, my far from dazzling looks. One brief glance and they dismissed me. Not just the human women but the Monère ones as well that I sensed scattered among them.

The maistresse waited impatiently for me at the other end of the room. A sharp gesture from her got my feet moving again. She led me into yet another oysterlike lounge filled with even more women. They, too, had pure unblemished skin, but the women here were down a notch or two in the looks department, more pretty instead of beautiful. I belonged here, more with this group than the other — and that was only with lots and lots of help.

They seemed a friendlier bunch. A few of the women even smiled at me as I passed by. Then I was out that room and into yet another part of the hare em, which was what Lord Gordane seemed to have himself here… with me as his newest addition!

"What's with the two separate rooms?" I asked the maistresse.

"The first group of women that you saw are for Lord Gordane's exclusive use. The second group are used to pleasure visitors, guests, and a few of his men that he rewards with the privilege — those who serve him well."

Wonderful. You either got to be Gordane's exclusive whore, or that of any Tom, Dick, or Harry that he chose to give you to. It was hard to think and process everything. I had questions, so many of them, and needed at least some of them answered before I decided what to do next.

We finally reached our destination, the bathing chamber. It was larger than my entire apartment back in Manhattan had been, and was comprised of a tiled portion where a stool and several buckets of water sat, and the actual bath itself, which had to be the size often Jacuzzis put together. A veritable pool. I half expected it to be filled with frolicking, nubile young women, but it was thankfully empty, the bath itself. Not the room. The bathing chamber came with attendants. Two of them. Older, no-nonsense women like the maistresse. Their eyes honed in on me like laser beams sighting their target. A few words spoken in French. I think, from the maistresse, and they advanced on me and started stripping me. I had a moment to decide whether to cooperate like a smart, grateful, new hareem addition, or to shrug off their hands and start screaming at them to stay away from me. I'd like to say that I consciously decided to behave in a smart and civilized manner, but it was actually expedience that won me over. I was exhausted and upset — the numbness was wearing off — and I wanted out of my wet and dirty, ripped gown. I could have probably undressed myself, but only with a great deal of effort. The damp cloth felt glued to my body. Why fight them when they were doing what I would have done? And doing it much more efficiently? My only fuss was when they tried to take off my necklace. "No." I said, knocking their hands away. "The necklace stays on."

The two attendants looked to the maistresse, who nodded her impatient agreement. They left the necklace alone but laid hands on everything else. In the blink of an eye, they had that wet, sticky fabric off of me. I was stripped naked with assembly-line efficiency and sat down on the stool.

I looked at the golden, glittery bath longingly but stayed obediently still as they scrubbed me clean from head to toe, even shampooing my hair. Only after they had rinsed me off thoroughly two times did they finally allow me to enter the pool of water.

Delicious coolness surrounded me the moment I stepped in. I sank down and immersed myself in the clean, liquid embrace, sliding under the soothing water for a long, blissful moment before resurfacing. The sides and bottom of the pool were smooth, polished stone. A shallow underwater ledge hugging the side of the pool made a perfect seat. I sat there and a large goblet of golden water was placed in my hand. Good thing because otherwise I might have simply drank the pool water, so thirsty was I.

I downed the contents in three big gulps, and had another goblet handed to me. Knocking that second cup back like a shot of whiskey, I leaned back with bliss, closing my eyes. Ah, the miracle of water, no matter how weird the color. Drinking it… even more, immersing myself in it, felt like a slice of heaven down here in NetherHell. It was almost a criminal waste of water, the many gallons needed to fill this overgrown tub. Such luxury and power. I mused over that as I soaked in the precious water.

This safe, protected kingdom, sitting in the middle of a barren desert land, had water, beautiful women, and military might. Lord Gordane seemed to have himself a real cozy setup here in this oasis city.

I had all of two brief minutes to unwind and relax before I was urged back out into the women's hands. Most of my weariness had been washed away with the dirt. I wasn't completely recovered yet, but close. I was renewed and refreshed, more than I expected to be. With enough energy to shrug off their hands and dry myself with the thick bath towel while the maistresse watched with sharp eagle eyes and clucked with disapproval and impatience.

"This way," she said, walking out of the room.

I left the bathing chamber with a towel wrapped like a sarong around me, and another towel covering my wet hair. My torn dress had been left on the floor, no doubt destined for the trash. I'd always hated those long, black formal gowns that Monère Queens wore. And yet now, I almost felt a sentimental fondness for that torn scrap of a dress — my last link to my former life. No matter what Gordane said about my still being alive, I felt dead inside… dead and lost to my people in this new harsh realm.

I was hustled through to another room where more attendants waited — the grooming ones. The towels were whisked off me. I'd never been comfortable with casual nudity, but for some reason it didn't bother me now, maybe because it all seemed so surreal. I was in a hareem, for God's sake.

The new attendants, three of them this time, were briskly impersonal, drying off the wet spots I'd missed on my back and arms. I lay down on a raised platform they urged me onto, with neat rows of bottles lined up along the top and bottom edges. It was only when an attendant picked up a thin, flat, rectangular stone, sharpened at one end to a wicked knife's edge, that I stopped being the nice, cooperative, new hareem addition and sat up.

"What the fuck is that?" I demanded as my hand shot out and wrapped around the woman's wrist.

"It is to remove your unsightly body hair," the maistresse said, lips thinned.

"Where?"

"Where what?"

"Where exactly is this unsightly hair?" I asked, nice and patient.

Her patience, though, seemed to evaporate — what little there had been of it. Throwing up her hands in hot agitation, she said, "I have no time for this foolishness! There is still so much for me to do, and only three-quarters of an hour left!"

"That blade," I said uncompromisingly, "is not touching me until I know exactly what parts of me it is going to be touching."