by D'Urso, J.
AETHERTALES:
BORDELLO DELLA LIBERTÀ
By J. D’Urso & E. Bryan
Copyright © 2015 J. D’Urso & E. Bryan
All Rights Reserved.
Published by Aether Press, LLC
Copyright Registration File Number: 1-2689695981
Date of File: 9 September 2015
eISBN 978-0-9967899-2-9
LUCIA
The wooden sign swayed back and forth in the summer wind, hanging from the lip of an open window. Though the storefronts in that district sported more contemporary banners, flashing with red neon and tiny, sparkling lightbulbs, Lucia di Vigilanti preferred a more rustic façade. It brought an old-world charm to a neighborhood preoccupied with dazzling displays and modern glamour, with the name Bordello della Libertà inscribed elegantly in Blackletter calligraphy. Through the doorway, past the potted marigolds and twin lampposts, wafted the enticing scent of Lucia’s famed puttanesca, beckoning passers-by to draw nearer; Lucia was a culinary siren of sorts, as seductive with her cookery as her girls were with their unrivaled skills in the bedroom, and both held a status of high esteem in a city that, like all cities, had an insatiable hunger for good food and good fornication.
It was lunchtime and her employees were surely in need of a satisfying, traditional dish. Every one of them was a “hooker with a heart of gold,” as Lucia would affectionately say, and they deserved to be treated warmly for the profound success they had brought to the establishment. She provided them with a safe, secure place to live and work, and she was proud to consider herself a mother figure to them, who always fought for their best interests, and did her best to give them whatever was needed to inspire a good, old-fashioned work ethic and to help them relax after a full day of profitable productivity. She found her own work in the kitchen to be a pleasant wellspring of repose and serenity, and she knew that it could be tasted in her comforting puttanesca. Tossing a handful of chopped olives into the pan of simmering sauce, Lucia deeply inhaled and savored the tanginess of the literal fruits of her labor: the olives were picked from the gnarled tree with silvery leaves that stood just outside her kitchen window like an old friend who gave delectably generous gifts.
With an amiable smile two police officers strode past the doorway and through the shade of the olive tree, and Lucia greeted them with a wave of her hand, clutching her wooden spoon. She welcomed their presence outside of her bordello, as they knew as well as she did that disruptive clients were an occasional and inevitable nuisance, and she found herself gratefully under their watchful eyes. Of course, their one condition was that she keep her brothel’s license up to date and legally valid, and it was a deal that she had no trouble with or opposition to. It was a relief compared to her first experiences with Talprettan law. When she first arrived on Talpretta, the urban capital of one of many Caspian system-states, prostitution was a punishable offense, and as a result of the draconian laws, street walking was the only form of sexual business to be found. It was a dangerous time, when disease was rampant without routine medical checks of the working women and men, and violence against prostitutes was undocumented out of fear. Horrified by the destructive state of affairs, and the fighting of a living industry that had flourished since the dawn of Man, Lucia di Vigilanti took it upon herself to organize the whores of Talpretta, who hoped only for respectable work and the civil rights so many Arterrans enjoyed outside the Caspian borders. Marching to the voting booths, the harlots under Lucia’s wing achieved the unprecedented implementation of Arterran-inspired regulations, not harsh and suffocating, but just enough to keep her flock safe and dignified.
Brothels and escort services sprouted across the city soon after, all of which emulated her newly established business proudly known as the Bordello della Libertà. Street walkers quickly abandoned their line of work as arrests escalated for this offense: when not sentenced with jail time, the street walkers and their clients faced punitive fines that whores at their level of poverty couldn’t possibly afford. Though Lucia pitied the girls, she couldn’t disagree with the few laws that remained untouched after her liberty-coup; street walking was risky business, the profits of which were only aggression, sickness and hopelessness, and it was exactly the sort of affair that she had sought to change. The girls left their street corners behind and flocked to businesses like Lucia’s, and their former pimps, manipulative and despicably exploitative, lost their power. The whores were finally able to invest their money instead of giving it up to a man who, despite his condescending arguments to the contrary, didn’t give a damn about his girls’ wellbeing. Naturally, they had to pay their taxes like everyone else, and though Lucia would have preferred a nearly tax-free life like those the Arterrans lived, she knew she couldn’t coerce the Talprettans into giving up all of their prior collectivist tendencies.
A lascivious moan escaped a bedroom into the kitchen, as emotive as Lucia’s yearly groans upon filing her taxes, but with such ecstatic force that even the sound inhibitors along the walls couldn’t suppress it. Sudika had finished up with her client; Lucia smiled and spread some puttanesca over a plate of steaming fettuccine to offer to her favorite working girl, who at any moment would emerge from her room with another satisfied customer handing her a generous stack of Caspian drachmae or Arterran Talents.
The silver double doors retracted into the walls as Sudika led her client to the lobby. “Here’s your tip, Sudika,” the customer said, producing another few bills from his wallet. He was a middle-aged man like many others, tall, with a figure that was once muscular in his younger days, but still retained a hardness that made him appear more maturely masculine. Sudika blushed and gave him a kiss goodbye on his cheek, brushing her lips against salt-and-pepper stubble. He stepped out the door and grinned when Sudika called out, “See you next Thursday!” The girl always managed to turn a one-time client into a frequent flier, especially if he was a man with a difficult life who only needed her touch for an hour or two to feel a much-needed repose from his stresses.
Lucia passed the plate into her buxom worker’s eager hands, and let down her honey blonde hair, which she’d kept pulled back while she crushed her tomatoes and got her hands sticky with garlic. As Sudika raised her fork and spun her pasta, Lucia pulled out a thin stack of glossy black bills, made of a curious blend of plastic and paper, and shuffled through them. She checked the green and cerulean print and presented the money to her carnal protégée. “Ten Talents,” she told her without a hint of condition in her voice.
“Ten Talents? What for?” Sudika asked in disbelief. Even a single Talent was worth at least two and a half times the value of a Talprettan drachma. And besides, they generally used drachmae in the Bordello della Libertà, as most of their clients were Caspian.
“The fee you’ll pay for your immigration application,” Lucia explained. “The Dragon House has offered you the job. They’ve transmitted the offer letter to the Colonial embassy right here in Talpretta.”
Sudika cried, “I got in? Hudson! On Acadica! I’ll be moving to the center of Acadia itself!”
Lucia laughed and gave her a celebratory hug. “Just as I told you: they say you’re one of the best whores they’ve ever seen. Your passion and care for your clients is sublime.” Neither of them had to put into words the recognition of Lucia’s role in Sudika’s good fortunes, as it was her guidance as a successful madam that gave Sudika the solid foundations for whoredom and fame.
“Maybe one day I’ll be as great of a courtesan as you, Lucia!”
Lucia humbled herself, but Sudika wouldn’t allow it. “You led the inter-religious delegation representing the entire League of Arterra t
o the Tellurian Imperium,” she reminded Lucia. “I know it’s been a long time since you’ve visited your homeworld in Romaea, but I know for a fact that you’re still a legend there!”
“Well, I wouldn’t pat myself on the back too much, but I have to admit that my insides got those Tellurian men and women more than a few blessings from their marble gods. Some were so pleased that I bet a few even started praying to the Creator instead!” She sprinkled a dash of Pecorino over Sudika’s dish and laughed, “What better form of assimilation is there than in the arms of a fit prostitute?”
Then they heard footsteps through the doorway, and a man just as foreign as the placated Tellurians entered the Bordello della Libertà. Sudika assumed him to be a new client, but Lucia was suspicious. She knew better than anyone that a man in a dark suit with opaque sunglasses wasn’t just a customer who wanted anonymity. She’d seen his type before. It seemed the government had wandered its way through her door beneath a wooden sign.
••
SUDIKA
The look on Lucia’s face was disconcerting, and Sudika knew the oddly dressed man was the cause of it. He wore his black suit with its tan trench coat like some sort of gangster from an ancient age when prostitution was not the only outlawed industry, but alcohol as well. His ensemble was complete with a brimmed hat and spats on his shoes. He looked like he was on official business of some kind, and based on Lucia’s distrusting glare, it couldn’t have been anything good. Slipping off his mirrored shades he identified himself before she could even question him.
“My name is Trygassi,” he declared, “local representative for the Sexual Labor Union of Talpretta. I require just a minute of your time.”
Lucia extinguished the blue flame of her gas stove and threw down her washcloth onto the tiled countertop. “We don’t have a minute to spare for your kind. There’s only so many orgasms you can fit in a day, and just like time, orgasms are money.”
“If you don’t listen to what I have to say, then all you’ll have is impotence,” he sneered. “I’m sure you’re aware that on our sensible, collectivist planet, we only permit brothels to operate if every single employee is a registered member of the S.L.U.T.”
“I’m also aware that such a law hasn’t been passed in this city.”
“Perhaps not, but it has been proposed, and I have no doubt that it will be approved. To prevent any lapses in employment when that day comes, myself and other representatives will be organizing all brothels to join our fight against greedy capitalists who would gladly exploit them.”
Lucia sighed. “It’s unions like yours that contributed to the devastating collapse of manufacturing on Old Earth. Thankfully, my ancestors escaped before ever witnessing such a fall.”
“All lies, I can assure you,” he insisted. He set his briefcase on the counter and clicked open the latches, and revealed a mountain of cheap, paper flyers. “If you’d like to enlighten yourself to the truth, then take a look at this literature. I implore you to distribute these amongst your employees. These pamphlets prove in less than two hundred words the myriad benefits of organized labor.” He pulled out another stack of legal paper. “I only need them to sign this roster, as evidence that they’ve been provided with such information. I have quotas to meet, of course.”
Lucia took a cursory look at the blank list and slowly tore it in half. “They will sign no such thing,” she growled. “I’m not about to fall into your little trap. You’ll run back to your bosses and use my employees’ signatures as evidence of their unwitting decision to join your union.”
“Is that really such a travesty?” Trygassi asked. “We’re offering them protection. For just a paltry five percent of their income, and the restriction of working hours to a fairer and far more limited work week to grant the less productive employees more hours, and the waiving of the right to choose their clients—because freedom of choice like that will always lead to discrimination and bigotry against minority customers—they will be guaranteed a secure position in your company, and will be immune to all forms of termination of employment.” He looked to Sudika, who had pushed away her unfinished plate, too sickened to enjoy it. “Take them, for your own good, and share them with your coworkers, if you really care about your job and theirs.”
“This puttanesca would look better on your face than on my plate,” she snapped. The man gasped in disbelief and snatched his briefcase and its unwanted contents off the table.
“This won’t be the last time you hear from the S.L.U.T.,” he threatened in the guise of a simple promise. His trench coat swept along the floor as he brusquely turned his back to the madam and her protégée and stormed out the door. That was the last they saw of him, at least for the time being. But Sudika understood that threats uttered by political bullies were rarely idle, and that it was inevitable that her madam would have to shoo him out the door a second time, maybe a third. And hopefully she wouldn’t have to dump a pot of her famous sauce all over his head. It certainly would have been a wasteful shame.
••
LUCIA
The sun hadn’t risen but the birds were already starting their morning songs from behind the silvery leaves of the olive tree. A pleasant breeze brushed Lucia’s cheek through her open bedroom window, carrying the sweet, fresh scent of dew on lush, green grass. It was time to relieve her night shift manager, who had taken up her responsibilities while she drifted off and dreamt of her home in Romaea, where the cypress trees grew tall and the salt of the sea clung to her hair on the hot summer beaches. After fixing her hair and slipping a seductively tight but still tasteful dress over her bountiful breasts and her barely existent waist, she made her way down the staircase and greeted Jhovern, who had the reddish eyes of a tired man who was satisfied with his work regardless, as productivity and self-betterment were more important than sleep.
He handed her the time sheets; she quickly noticed that one of her male employees, Sargon, was uncharacteristically late. “I’m sure he has a good reason for it,” Jhovern said, and Lucia was inclined to agree. “It’s odd, given that he has an appointment with a client this morning, and he’s well-known for his punctuality. I just wish he’d given me a courtesy call first.”
“I’ll phone him,” Lucia replied, ushering the manager out of the room. “Go get some sleep. It’s Friday, and I’m sure we’re in for a busy night later.”
All of a sudden, Sargon burst into the room, with sweat beading on his brow and a terrified look in his eye. “You’ve got to do something,” he pleaded, pointing out the front door toward the street. “You can’t let them in!”
“Calm down, Sargon,” Lucia urged, offering him a piece of warm bread dipped in herbs and olive oil. “Who shouldn’t I let in?”
“I don’t know who they are,” he panted, taking a sip from the glass of ice water she placed before him. “But they’re dressed like off-worlders, I can tell you that. Strange masks and everything—I couldn’t get a good look at them with their faces covered up.”
Lucia scowled—she had her suspicions as to the men’s identities, and if she was right, then they had only trouble headed their way. So far as she knew, the Shatarins didn’t have a significant presence on Talpretta, and for this she was thankful: whenever they graced a planet with their genocidal, parasitic presence, they brought only discord, intolerance and slaughter. And when Sargon repeated their insults—“A hot little whore in heat,” they’d called him with their heavy accents—and described their demands that he perform fellatio as punishment for his sins, she concluded that they could be none other than Shatarins. Talpretta once seemed safe from their religious fanaticism and their hatred for all infidels, who, as it so happened, were the entire population of the universe other than the Shatarins themselves.
It was offensive that Sargon not only practiced another faith, but that he refused to offer free services to the Shatarin men who were given a divine mandate over the bodies and lives of the heathens that poisoned the galaxy with their disbelief. Lucia herself w
as one such sower of sin among men, in their eyes. She made no apologies for it, and swore to herself that she’d never change her way of life to accommodate the barbarism of Shatarin culture. Lucia decided she’d ask for a heavier police presence outside the Bordello della Libertà, but as history would have it, they would likely be accused of intolerance and racism when they decided to enforce a single law, and Lucia would receive the same label. Sadly, it was the kind of publicity she’d always tried her best to avoid.
••
SUDIKA
After she’d finished satisfying a client, Sudika made it a point to provide him with a fifteen-minute opportunity to bask in the afterglow, and to make light conversation if he so desired. That day, she lay in bed with a man of forty or so years named Kyrond, who poured his heart out to her after each session beneath the sheets. Nine months ago, his wife had passed away tragically and unexpectedly; the tenderness of a woman’s touch was what he desperately needed, and Sudika was happy to provide him with such a service, satisfying both his sexual needs—he was a man, after all—and helping him along his path to psychological recovery. Many people didn’t understand the role she played in these men’s lives, and that, more often than not, they sought her company not just for pleasure, but for the kind of healing that only a woman with open ears, not open legs, could offer.
Over the past weeks she’d come to know him quite well, and she felt comfortable enough to present him with a necklace of turquoise stone, slipping it into his open hand. “For your daughter,” she told him, and reminded him that he’d once told her that turquoise was her favorite, as it brought out the sapphire blue of her eyes. She knew that his daughter would be coming home soon at the end of her semester, and that she hadn’t fully moved on from the loss of her mother. Obviously, Sudika couldn’t offer her the same kind of comfort she offered the girl’s grieving father, but she was happy to do what she could, even if it meant sparing a little money for the sake of a girl she’d never met, but felt she knew closely just from a father’s heartfelt stories.