such a harsh, jagged noise should bring a smile to her lips. Just as she thought it odd that this client of hers should choose to linger long enough to shave every time he visited her.
She turned on her sitting cushion, observing the back of his head: round and bronzed, the same colour as the rest of his naked body. His face was calm in the mirror over her washbasin; wrinkles that would become deep, stress-born crevices in the afternoon now lay smooth. Eyes that would later squint against the sunset were wide and brilliantly blue in the glass as he carefully ran the razor along his froth-laden scalp.
‘I wager you have beautiful hair,’ she said from the balcony. He did not turn, so she cleared her throat and spoke up. ‘Long, thick locks of red that would run all the way down to your buttocks if you gave them but two days.’
He paused at that, the referred cheeks squeezing together self-consciously. She giggled, sprawled out on her cushion so that she looked at him upside-down, imagining the river of fire that would descend from his scalp.
‘I could swim in it,’ she sighed at her own mental image, ‘for hours and hours. It wouldn’t matter if the sun didn’t shine. Even if it reflected the light of just one candle, I could be blinded.’
She thought she caught a hint of a smile in the reflection. If it truly was such, however, he did not confirm it as he ran the razor over his scalp and flicked the lather into her basin.
‘My hair is black,’ he replied, ‘like any man’s from Cier’Djaal.’
She muttered something, rolled up onto her belly and propped her chin on her elbows. ‘So glad my poetry is not lost on heathen ears.’
‘“Heathen,” in the common vernacular, is used to refer to a man without faith in gods. Since I do not have such a thing, you are halfway right. Since gods do not exist, you are completely wrong.’ This time, he did smile at her in the mirror as he brought the razor to his head once more. ‘And I didn’t pay for the poetry.’
‘My gift to you, then,’ Anacha replied, making an elaborate bow as she rose to her feet.
‘Gifts are typically given with the expectation that they are to be returned.’ He let the statement hang in the air like an executioner’s axe as he scraped another patch of skin smooth.
‘Recompensed.’
‘What?’
‘If it was to be returned, you would just give me the same poem back. To recompense the gift means that you would give me one of your own.’
The man stopped, tapped the razor against his chin and hummed thoughtfully. Placing a hand against his mouth, he cleared his throat.
‘There once was an urchin from Allssaq—’
‘Stop,’ she interrupted, holding a hand up. ‘Sometimes, too, gifts can just be from one person to another without reprisal.’
‘Recompense.’
‘In this case, I believe my word fits better.’ She drew her robe about her body, staring at him in the mirror and frowning. ‘The sun is still sleeping, I am sure. You don’t have to go yet.’
‘That’s not your decision,’ the man said, ‘nor mine.’
‘It doesn’t strike you as worrisome that your decisions are not your own?’
Anacha immediately regretted the words, knowing that he could just as easily turn the question back upon her. She carefully avoided his stare, turning her gaze toward the door that she would never go beyond, the halls that led to the desert she would never see again.
To his credit, Bralston remained silent.
‘You can go in late, can’t you?’ she pressed, emboldened.
Quietly, she slipped behind him, slinking arms around his waist and pulling him close to her. She breathed deeply of his aroma, smelling the night on him. His scent, she had noticed, lingered a few hours behind him. When he came to her in the evening, he smelled of the markets and sand in the outside world. When he left her in the morning, he smelled of this place, her prison of silk and sunlight.
It was only when the moon rose that she smelled him and herself, their perfumes mingled as their bodies had been the night before. She smelled a concoction on him, a brew of moonlight and whispering sand on a breeze as rare as orchids. This morning, his scent lingered a little longer than usual and she inhaled with breath addicted.
‘Or skip it altogether,’ she continued, drawing him closer. ‘The Venarium can go a day without you.’