Chapter 7

A knocking sound dragged me from my dreamless sleep. I blinked, confused by the orange canopy above me for a few seconds.

When my memories came flooding back to me I groaned.

“Auralia, you alright?” a female voice called from the other side of my bedroom door.

“Yes. Coming,” I replied, hoping I was loud enough to be heard. Even if I wasn’t, my visitor couldn’t get in. After crying for almost an hour the night before, I’d decided to wedge a chair under the door handle and prevent any late-night intruders. There was no knowing what sort of ideas the other courtesans, or worse, the bodyguards, might have.

When I reached the door, I noticed the chair wasn’t perfectly where I’d left it. It had slipped, no longer preventing the handle from turning, but still preventing the door from opening.

I took a deep breath, as much to calm myself at the confirmation someone had tried to enter my room as to prepare myself for the day and whatever it brought with it.

My guide from the night before stood on the other side of the door, her eyes and face almost entirely expressionless. She was dressed more casually, her hair still wet from washing and almost no make-up on her face.

Near her was another guard, one I hadn’t yet met. He carried two large containers with handles, one dangling from each hand. They looked heavy, the guard about ready to drop them.

“Your body paint arrived,” Mhairi said. I stepped back, letting both of them into the room. Her eyes found the chair I’d barely pulled farther away, but the guard was far too intent on depositing his cargo.

He almost dropped the paints in the middle of the room and hurried away.

Mhairi lingered by the chair, still looking between me and it.

“You’re not stupid, then,” she said as if she was stating a normal fact. I felt a small flush of pride. “The others said you were insane enough to actually ask for these paints, though. Said you were arrogant enough to think you could make back the money.”

“Hmmm,” I replied, stumped by the accusation. It didn’t surprise me that they’d been talking about me, but it did take me aback that she was willing to just insult me to my face. “Yaru thought they were a good idea. I’ve no clue how much they cost.”

“Oh.” Her eyes went a little wider, the first sign of any kind of emotional reaction.

For a moment we studied each other. In the daylight she looked older, everything about her passive, almost meek.

Before either of us could say anything else, the guard returned. This time he carried an array of different items, from what looked like small paint brushes to sponges, and a large roll of something shiny and smooth, almost cling-wrap like, but on a much bigger scale.

“Boss says you know what you’re doing with this stuff,” the guard said, looking straight at Mhairi and ignoring me. She nodded.

“Well enough. Yaru will be here with someone to help soon,” she said as the guard walked away. He gave her a thumbs-up over his shoulder, already leaving.

Paying me no attention, Mhairi went over to the first case and opened the lid. It contained sixteen pots, twelve colours and doubles of black and white. Each had a G in the middle of the colour label.

The second container held the same colours, a large M on them instead.

“Matte and Gloss?” I asked.

“Yes. We’ll go for Matte today. Yaru said we needed to paint something the businessmen in the Asian district would like.”

At this I smiled. I’d had several ideas I could do, involving cherry blossoms and painting myself as if I were a blossom tree. I quickly relayed this to Mhairi.

“Yes, I can do that, and I used to do calligraphy. We’ll paint some Japanese words in particular places.”

“As long as they actually say things like hope and peace and aren’t just letters of the alphabet,” I replied.

Mhairi raised her eyebrows, the unspoken why written on her face.

“Never mind. Old joke… Very old joke, I guess.”

“Oh,” she said, not sounding particularly interested either way. She returned her attention to the paints, pulling out some of the brushes and several circular trays with holes in the middle. Each one had six indents for paints to be mixed in.

“The paints are here then,” Bernice said, walking into my room as if she owned it, her hips swaying. She was wearing a flowing dressing gown, a grey face mask on. Several other courtesans followed in her wake. I mentally kicked myself for not putting the chair back behind the door once the guard had left.

Mhairi immediately shut the lid of one container and squatted down in front of the other. It was a subtle way to defend them. In my head I thanked her. Outwardly, I moved nearer the women and farther from the paints, putting myself between them.

“Just arrived,” I said, meeting Bernice’s gaze without hesitation despite the nerves that tugged my stomach in four directions at once. “They look complicated. Good thing Yaru is going to be here with an expert soon.”

“An expert?” Bernice let out an almost mocking whistle. “They really are putting out for your debut, aren’t they? Yaru, the wonder eunuch, and the new prototype body paints complete with your own teacher. You must be expecting to make a big impact.”

“I’m hoping to pay my debt back. Just like everyone here,” I replied as Bernice came closer, her eyes flicking between me and the piles of accessories.

“How many years were you frozen again? Couple of hundred? You’ve got a lot of… confidence for waking up in such a different culture.”

Arrogance, you mean, I thought but didn’t say. It was jealousy. They didn’t like how much Daniel was spending on me.

“I’ve not got much choice. My debt is huge. If I don’t make a big impression today, I may never be free.”

My honesty earnt me a lot of laughs, Bernice’s the loudest and most mocking.

“You really don’t get it yet, do you?” she said.

Warily, I raised one eyebrow, the most I’d do to show my curiosity and desire for more information from her.

“None of us will ever be free.” Bernice’s smile disappeared, her genuine anger giving her words bite. “Any time any of us get close, something happens, or Daniel comes up with a way to make our debt larger. Another expense. Some more protection. Finding a reason to ditch one of our well-paying regulars.”

I gulped, not sure what to say. I’d feared that her words would be true, but I’d allowed hope to motivate me.

“We make men like Daniel rich, and we don’t ever get to do anything else. Welcome to our court, Auralia. You’re one of us now.”

Bernice spun on her heel and strode away. Everyone but Mhairi followed her, but they didn’t shut the door behind them.

“Well played,” Mhairi said a moment later. I wondered what she meant, but she’d gone back to looking through the equipment, reading the labels on bottles and preparing a small area on a side table to begin mixing. “I thought they might come break something out of spite. You took their attention away. Made her think she’d hurt you in another way.”

I nodded.

There was no thinking about it. She had hurt me. She’d taken my hope and shattered it into a thousand tiny shards. But there was no way I could express that now.

Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to think of anything else. Perhaps she was wrong, but either way, I had to carry on. If I stopped and thought about it I’d cry again.

Thankfully, Mhairi seemed to be as eager to get on with things as I was and soon held out the base layer of fabric that had come with the kit.

While the paint worked on skin, it didn’t work very well on fabrics. And a courtesan couldn’t go around naked, especially one in my situation. The company behind the paint had designed a fabric that hugged the skin almost as much. I would look naked except for the paint.

“Come on, hurry up and put them on,” Mhairi said, a paintbrush ready in one hand and a tray of already mixed colours in the other. “We need to hurry up or you’ll be late.”

I nodded, taking the edges of my dressing gown in my hands. My naked walk the night before had done little to ease the sense of vulnerability I felt again. I didn’t want to be so exposed in front of a relative stranger.

The thought made me laugh as I urged my hands to obey my mind and drop the dressing gown to the floor.

Mhairi stared at me, evidently puzzled by my sense of humour.

If I’d not wanted to be naked in front of strangers I probably shouldn’t have suggested the body paints as an idea. I only had myself to blame.

The stretchy garment only covered a small area around my crotch and buttocks, only just larger than underwear, but it fitted comfortably and felt soft.

With a quick nod, Mhairi came closer, using the brush in her hand to begin painting the wooden branches of a cherry tree. She had to re-dip the brush often, giving me a thicker coating of paint than I’d hoped.

As it dried it felt similar to a face mask, my skin stretching slightly as it warmed up and shrunk. The smell of it was surprising, however. It didn’t smell as I’d remembered wall paint had; instead it had a sweet, almost coconut-like aroma.

Mhairi painted deft strokes while I tried to keep still, but it seemed to take an age, every inch of my skin becoming something else.

I tried not to blush as she incorporated my areolas into the design of the tree’s blossom, the painting growing more intimate and tickly as she continued. Just like pretty much everything else, Mhairi was completely unembarrassed and emotionless. I could have been a blank canvas, or a female statue to be painted.