Alcuin & Phryne
Mar. 20th, 2017 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_unningAlcuin was beginning to, if not quite understand, at least somewhat accept his life here. He was meeting more people, making friends. And every day, the aching grief over the loss of Anafiel, and of his home, seemed perhaps incrementally less painful.
He was laying on the hideous red velvet couch reading one of the books he'd picked up from the hotel gift shop (he'd learned now that it was a romance genre novel), when he heard a knock on the door.
He set aside the book and went to the door. He smiled when he saw who was on the other side. "Hello, Phryne."
As Phryne hadn't seen Alcuin for several days, she'd borrowed Jack's knowledge of everyone's rooms to find him. When he answered the door with a smile, it made her glad she'd taken the step. She leaned close and kissed both of his cheeks in greeting. "It's lovely to see you. You don't mind me stopping by unannounced, I hope?"
"No, of course not," Alcuin said pleasantly. "Come in." He opened the door wider. "Allow yourself a moment to gawk. You get used to it after a while."
"It's quite something, isn't it?" Phryne stepped inside and gave herself a quick visual orientation. She'd been in the room already during her initial investigation of the hotel, but it had been several months. In the intervening months, it hadn't grown less gaudy. "I appear to have been very fortunate in the room lottery."
Alcuin rolled his eyes and then said derisively, "It looks like someone's idea of where a Servant of Naamah might entertain. Someone who thinks very little of them."
"Mmm. Or a very young girl's idea of a romantic St. Valentine's Day," Phryne agreed and sought out an appropriate place to drape herself that wouldn't clash impossibly with her black and white Egyptian-motif jacket. The white skirt would be fine anywhere.
"The young girls I have known have better taste," Alcuin said. "It feels impolite to not have anything to offer you, tea, wine... but I've nothing in the room."
"Most of them that I've known have as well." Phryne gestured to the phone and said, "If it will bother you, I can ask my companion, Dorothy, to bring us something."
"Oh, I have learned what a telephone is!" Alcuin said brightly. "Vax accidentally called me. Remarkable invention." Then he turned and looked back at her. "Are Jack and Dorothy both your lovers?"
She oughtn't have, but Phryne laughed in delight at the frankness (and the implication). "No, but I'll have to tell Jack you said as much." Inwardly, she thought Jack would be pleased that Alcuin had picked up on their relationship, so she would tell him that as well. "Poor Dot would be apoplectic at the suggestion. Sex before marriage is anathematic to her. Polyamory and Sapphic love are quite beyond her." Phryne had rarely felt the inclination herself, but she certainly did understand the appeal of a woman's body.
Alcuin looked at her for a moment and then said, "If I had not been reading novels from the hotel shop, I would be completely confused by what you just said. But I have learned something of the dominant cultural norms around sex, I think."
"Of course. Would you prefer to speak D'Angeline?" she asked in French, but changed the name to make Alcuin more comfortable. "If you have questions, I'm happy to try to answer. I should observe my norms are hardly the same as those of my era. But they may be closer to this era's for it."
"English is fine," said Alcuin pleasantly. "I am growing accustomed to it. I... am not entirely certain what to ask. I have already made a fairly serious misstep. Offered myself... inappropriately, I suppose."
"Inappropriately?" Phryne's gaze narrowed in consternation. "You're so perceptive, Alcuin. I find I can't imagine you pressing attentions on someone who was unreceptive."
"Phryne..." Alcuin looked a bit sheepish. "Prior to this, no one had ever not wanted me. It honestly did not really occur to me that the offer would not be welcome."
"Ah. This, I understand." She gave him a sympathetic look. "It's a very rare man who doesn't want me. Do you know it took me more than 2 years to convince Jack to take me to bed? When you met him, he still hadn't."
Alcuin arched an eyebrow. "... so recently?"
"It took him almost that long to kiss me." Although she understood why, with Alcuin it was safe to sound a little hurt about it. Jack needn't know, for now, how much it had hurt not to have even that much from him.
Alcuin recognized that expression, and he smiled at her empathetically. "I was in love with Anafiel for a long time before I dared express how I felt. There was a debt between us, and I wanted to be certain that he could see me as an equal." He wasn't sure that that had precisely happened, but it had been close enough. And he had been happy. He liked to think they both were.
"In love with him," Phryne murmured thoughtfully as though the words had never occurred to her in connection with Jack. She loved him, yes, but in love with him? She sighed and smiled. "Yes, I suppose I am." Her attention refocused on Alcuin. "You've not mentioned Anafiel before by name. He was the one you lost, yes?"
"Yes," said Alcuin, a touch quieter. "He... everything I did since the moment I met him, it was for him. But we were only lovers for such a short time. I had what I'd always wanted... and then it was gone."
"Oh, darling." Her own voice softened to match and gentled with deep sympathy. She could well imagine losing Jack within a month or so and how it would hurt, so terribly. "I'm sorry."
Alcuin took a little breath. "Thank you," he said. "Though for now... there is nothing to be done for it, but to try to move forward. This is difficult. But I've spent my time sobbing in bed, and doing more of it will not help me."
"Needs must," Phryne replied in complete agreement, brisk but nevertheless warm. "And I shall do my best to help." She considered his situation and his religious devotion and mused aloud, "I would imagine D'Angelines don't often grieve lost loves with celibacy." She certainly hadn't when Vic had 'died,' or when she had summoned up the courage to leave Rene.
No, they did not. Alcuin in fact had had one patron who came to him for that very reason. If Alcuin were back in Terre d'Ange perhaps he would have gone to Balm House. But the way Phryne seemed to connect those two statements.... He blinked at her. "Are you offering?"
Although his response caught her somewhat off-guard, there was no hint of it in her expression. Rather, Phryne gave him a considering look. "If I thought it would help, I wouldn't hesitate. But I was under the impression that you prefer male partners."
Alcuin didn't seem bothered by this assumption. "Male partners prefer me," he said. "I've had limited experience with women. But... I'm not certain that that is what I need, anyway. As part of Naamah's service... that is simple, I know how to do that. The rest, I am not as sure." Even when he'd first been with Anafiel, it had been difficult in some ways. Awkward. Alcuin only knowing how to serve, and Anafiel trying so hard to make him not.
Phryne considered and rejected several possible responses, but they all sounded pushy or predatory when she absolutely didn't mean them in that fashion. Truthfully, his reticence was a bit of a relief; her protectiveness toward him might well get in the way of sex. "By 'the rest', you mean choosing your own partners for your own pleasure?"
Alcuin hesitated, and then nodded. "It is not to say that I did not find pleasure in service, but... it is different. And the only other person I've been with was Anafiel, and that was about far more than sex."
Phryne tipped her head slightly, curious and intent upon Alcuin. "In your world, is it common for people to take lovers outside their romantic relationships?"
"Oh yes," said Alcuin, and then, "... love as thou wilt."
"Yes, of course," Phryne replied, lips pursed thoughtfully. "But that's not precisely what I meant, unless the 'love' of 'love as thou wilt' encompasses sex without love, or with only the affections of a moment."
"There is always love," Alcuin said. "Love of something, someone. Naamah, perhaps. For me, it was always Anafiel. But to answer your question, most D'Angelines find monogamy... I don't know... unnecessarily limiting."
"It seems I was born in the wrong world," came Phryne's response, light, but with an undercurrent of something deeper. "Jack, however, is firmly a product of the one we came from."
"And I certainly do not disparage that way of thinking," Alcuin said, shaking his head. "And I also... I do not want to risk making another misstep."
"I do not disparage it, but it does complicate matters." That was something to be worked out with Jack, though, if there was, indeed, anything more to be worked out. Alcuin's problem might be more easily resolved. "Tell me what happened, darling. Perhaps I can help sort it out."
"Oh, it's... I think it's fine now. He's been very kind about it." Alcuin carded his hands through his long hair, looking a bit sheepish. "I felt I owed him. It is what I have of value to offer. I wouldn't have, if I didn't want him, too, but... he seemed rather shocked. And was not interested. In love with someone, someone not here."
"Ah." Phryne could well imagine how that might have played for someone from a culture that treated sex and love differently than Alcuin's. "It was probably the idea that you would offer your body as repayment of a debt. In Melbourne, in the 1920s, prostitutes being forced into indentured servitude because they couldn't afford the costs of turning themselves out was a genuine concern. I can't say that I wouldn't have to reacted badly to that as well, but only out of a distaste for putting someone I've grown to care about in a position akin to theirs."
"I would not offer myself to someone I did not want," Alcuin said. "Not anymore. But yes, I understand. And I cannot expect others to see the world the way I do."
"Nor would I, although I offer myself more freely than many in my world understand." And she had meant merely that if there had been shocked, it would not have been disgust with Alcuin but the situation. "What makes you think the error was grave rather than merely a cultural misunderstanding?"
"I don't think that it was so grave," Alcuin conceded. "I think we are fine. But I still do not want to repeat the mistake."
"No, I imagine not." It would be embarrassing, if nothing else. "So you need to learn to understand when it is appropriate to offer sex and when not?"
"Yes, I suppose so," Alcuin said, though he sounded a touch sheepish. "And... I want to understand what it means to other people. But perhaps the answer to that is that it is different for everyone. I think I will get better. I am good at reading people."
"We might begin by discussing what it means to each of us," Phryne murmured, the usual brightness in her voice muted by the inevitable pain of it. "It isn't really the same as saying 'love as thou wilt'. At least not for me."
"Sex is supposed to be about worship," Alcuin said quietly. "But I am well aware that it isn't always."
"Is it for you?" It seemed curious to her, to worship a god by pleasuring another, but she imagined that had to do with Christianity's treatment of sexual pleasure as an acceptable byproduct of reproduction. If she didn't subscribe to the ideas, she had nevertheless been influenced by them.
Alcuin hesitated. And then finally admitted, "Most of the time. As you and Jack surmised, I was also... a sort of spy. This complicated things."
"Even so, as you pointed out, there is always love of someone or something at the back of it." And if love was worship, then any act done with love would be a form of worship. Open to interpretation, with plenty of room for abuse; it was obscurely sad that a religion based on love fared no better in that regard than those with which she was more familiar. "But this doesn't really answer the question of what it means to you personally. Did you intend worship when you made the failed attempt here or something else?"
Alcuin considered this, as it wasn't as if he had stopped to make certain that he understood his own motivations. "Naamah would approve very much of pleasure as an exchange for saving my life," Alcuin said. "So yes, it was worship. Both in that sense, and in that I wanted him."
"But in the immediate moment, your motives were personal," Phryne observed, primarily for the purpose of then saying, "If you keep in mind that no one else will have that additional motive, the strong positivity toward sex, that's a good beginning."
"I come with a lot of baggage," Alcuin said, having learned that term from one of the novels he'd read.
Phryne laughed and said, "Darling, don't we all."
"Do you?" Alcuin asked, hoping she took it as interest and not prying.
Her smile faded to something small and brittle, and, for a moment, she glanced at her hands instead of him. Even now, the thought of Rene brought a tremble to them. "When I was young, my father drank heavily and had a heavy-hand with discipline. My sister and I often escaped into the streets or local amusements, and owing to my carelessness, she was taken by a very evil man who killed her. Not the best beginning with men, I fear. It led me to choose a man who worshipped me as a muse--" A shadow flickered across her face, then, fear and fury in equal parts. "--and berated me when his art failed, or I engaged the attention of another man. When he started to use his fists, I left, but you can imagine I'm not in step with my society's monogamous marriages that give men control over their women."
"I am so sorry," Alcuin said quietly, and reached out to put a hand on her arm. "That is never how a relationship should be. In Terre d'Ange..." He shook his head. "Blasphemy. I am glad you left. And now, you have taken control of yourself."
"Thank you." Phryne nodded appreciation and touched his hand, but she hadn't been seeking sympathy. "It was a long time ago. But for me, sex is freedom. Or freedom is sex. Being able to take the lovers I choose for the reasons I want, and to allow no man control over my actions."
Alcuin frowned a little, thinking of the way she'd worded that, several times now. "Where you come from, are women supposed to be subservient to men?"
"In my time, yes. Although it's changing." Phryne tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Jack certainly doesn't believe it."
Alcuin shook his head. "Where I come from, there are other cultures that behave that way as well... how ridiculous. I am glad you do not have to endure such ignorance here."
"I'm doubly fortunate, since Jack understands my need to have my freedom, and doesn't impose his preference for monogamy on me." Which had been a surprise, a very pleasant one, because although she had wanted Jack so very badly, she had dreaded the way she expected it to tie her down. "In any event, because many of us seem to come from cultures similar to mine, our religions teach that sex before marriage or outside of a committed relationship is sinful. Whether we believe that or not, and I certainly don't, it does tend to color our interactions about sex."
"Well, mine was only one culture in my world," said Alcuin. "So I am not unaccustomed to being judged for our attitudes towards sex. I mostly wanted to make sure I had as clear an understanding as I could so that I don't risk misstepping in friendships that may become important to me."
"Yes, as I had to do with Jack," Phryne mused aloud. "I think it's best to assume that anyone from a world adjacent to this one is unlikely to be wholly comfortable with sex outside a committed relationship, especially in such tight quarters. Most people would deny it, if asked outright, but all of our neuroses stack up to sex being both dirty and sacrosanct, with a uniqueness that is damaged if one's intimates have had the same experience."
"Oh dear," said Alcuin with a little sigh. "Well. This is something I will learn my way around, I suppose." He settled a little more comfortably on the couch, and crossed his legs. "Everyone wants or needs something slightly different from sex, though. This is how the houses of the Night Court - the major installation of Servants of Naamah - are built. They each have their own doctrine, which come from an interpretation of why Naamah lay with the king of Persis. Was it for the joy of it? Was it to help heal him? Was it because she wanted to submit? Each doctrine guides what a patron of that House comes looking for."
"Oh how interesting!" Phryne's eyes lit up again with delight. It seemed so sane, and right-thinking. "I would love to hear more, if you're willing."
Alcuin smiled at her, happy to talk about his home with someone who was so receptive. "The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers," he said. "Let's see, I can tell you the canon of each one..." He ticked them off on his fingers.
Alyssum: with eyes averted
Balm: rest and be soothed
Bryony: wealth seeks company
Camellia: without fault or flaw
Cereus: all loveliness fades
Dahlia: upright and unbending
Eglantine: to create is to live
Gentian: truth and vision
Heliotrope: thou and no other
Jasmine: for pleasure's sake
Mandrake: yield all
Orchis: joy in laughter
Valerian: I yield."
With a nice thought, he smiled again and added, "I had a patron once, who had once been in service to Orchis. I was a gift for her birthday, but it was she who gave me a gift, really." After Bouvarre, he might not have seen the joy in it if it weren't for her.
It was, Phryne decided, both sensible and beautiful. And how much better, nicer, would it be to grow up in a world where people actually thought openly about sex and sexuality. Mac deserved to live in such a world, and Charlie, too. As did she, but she had fared better at making one for herself. "Orchis for me, I think. But Jasmine might suit as well."
Alcuin was not certain if she meant as a patron or as an adept, but decided that it did not matter. "Yes, I think either might suit," he said. Then thoughtfully, "I was not part of the Night Court. But if I had been... I am not entirely certain. There are parts of many of them that I can see in myself. I imagine Camellia would have wanted me. I would have done well in Heliotrope. Or perhaps Balm. I do believe that sex has the power to heal, and I am a very good masseuse."
"I defy anyone to prove to me that sex doesn't have the power to heal." If there was a hint of tartness in that response, it certainly wasn't directed at Alcuin. "My darling Jack most certainly would be a patron of Heliotrope, could he bring himself to seek it out." With a lighthearted smile, she said, "I do believe I'll ask your advice in providing him the sense and truth of devotion he desires without giving up my freedom, and..." Even more lightly, so not to put him in a place of obligation, "If you were offering your services as a masseuse and would accept compensation, I would most certainly not turn you down."
"I may be able to help with Jack," Alcuin said thoughtfully. "The adepts of Heliotrope... in some ways, it is an illusion. But it also is not. They say that Naamah basked in her love for the king, even though it was only for one night."
And to her statement at the end, he looked even more thoughtful. "Phryne, I think you may have finally identified a marketable skill that I have." He had been feeling quite useless, thinking that there was not much call for either a Servant of Naamah nor a spy here.
"Since Rene, I haven't been to bed with a man I didn't love for the night that I was with him. But I have rarely been with a man for more than a night. Jack is..." She tipped her head into a bit of a shrug. "Exceptional in more ways than one." Her thoughtful smile grew somewhat warmer then at the thought that she may have helped. "And if you would accept a friend as a client, I would be honored to be the first."
It warmed Alcuin's heart to see her affection for Jack. It made him a little sad, too, wishing that he could feel that again. "I found a spa in my exploring of the hotel," he said, "though it does not appear to really be in use. Perhaps we could meet there sometime. I will see what I can find by way of massage oils, perhaps they have some in the stores there. So... yes, I'd like that very much."
He was laying on the hideous red velvet couch reading one of the books he'd picked up from the hotel gift shop (he'd learned now that it was a romance genre novel), when he heard a knock on the door.
He set aside the book and went to the door. He smiled when he saw who was on the other side. "Hello, Phryne."
As Phryne hadn't seen Alcuin for several days, she'd borrowed Jack's knowledge of everyone's rooms to find him. When he answered the door with a smile, it made her glad she'd taken the step. She leaned close and kissed both of his cheeks in greeting. "It's lovely to see you. You don't mind me stopping by unannounced, I hope?"
"No, of course not," Alcuin said pleasantly. "Come in." He opened the door wider. "Allow yourself a moment to gawk. You get used to it after a while."
"It's quite something, isn't it?" Phryne stepped inside and gave herself a quick visual orientation. She'd been in the room already during her initial investigation of the hotel, but it had been several months. In the intervening months, it hadn't grown less gaudy. "I appear to have been very fortunate in the room lottery."
Alcuin rolled his eyes and then said derisively, "It looks like someone's idea of where a Servant of Naamah might entertain. Someone who thinks very little of them."
"Mmm. Or a very young girl's idea of a romantic St. Valentine's Day," Phryne agreed and sought out an appropriate place to drape herself that wouldn't clash impossibly with her black and white Egyptian-motif jacket. The white skirt would be fine anywhere.
"The young girls I have known have better taste," Alcuin said. "It feels impolite to not have anything to offer you, tea, wine... but I've nothing in the room."
"Most of them that I've known have as well." Phryne gestured to the phone and said, "If it will bother you, I can ask my companion, Dorothy, to bring us something."
"Oh, I have learned what a telephone is!" Alcuin said brightly. "Vax accidentally called me. Remarkable invention." Then he turned and looked back at her. "Are Jack and Dorothy both your lovers?"
She oughtn't have, but Phryne laughed in delight at the frankness (and the implication). "No, but I'll have to tell Jack you said as much." Inwardly, she thought Jack would be pleased that Alcuin had picked up on their relationship, so she would tell him that as well. "Poor Dot would be apoplectic at the suggestion. Sex before marriage is anathematic to her. Polyamory and Sapphic love are quite beyond her." Phryne had rarely felt the inclination herself, but she certainly did understand the appeal of a woman's body.
Alcuin looked at her for a moment and then said, "If I had not been reading novels from the hotel shop, I would be completely confused by what you just said. But I have learned something of the dominant cultural norms around sex, I think."
"Of course. Would you prefer to speak D'Angeline?" she asked in French, but changed the name to make Alcuin more comfortable. "If you have questions, I'm happy to try to answer. I should observe my norms are hardly the same as those of my era. But they may be closer to this era's for it."
"English is fine," said Alcuin pleasantly. "I am growing accustomed to it. I... am not entirely certain what to ask. I have already made a fairly serious misstep. Offered myself... inappropriately, I suppose."
"Inappropriately?" Phryne's gaze narrowed in consternation. "You're so perceptive, Alcuin. I find I can't imagine you pressing attentions on someone who was unreceptive."
"Phryne..." Alcuin looked a bit sheepish. "Prior to this, no one had ever not wanted me. It honestly did not really occur to me that the offer would not be welcome."
"Ah. This, I understand." She gave him a sympathetic look. "It's a very rare man who doesn't want me. Do you know it took me more than 2 years to convince Jack to take me to bed? When you met him, he still hadn't."
Alcuin arched an eyebrow. "... so recently?"
"It took him almost that long to kiss me." Although she understood why, with Alcuin it was safe to sound a little hurt about it. Jack needn't know, for now, how much it had hurt not to have even that much from him.
Alcuin recognized that expression, and he smiled at her empathetically. "I was in love with Anafiel for a long time before I dared express how I felt. There was a debt between us, and I wanted to be certain that he could see me as an equal." He wasn't sure that that had precisely happened, but it had been close enough. And he had been happy. He liked to think they both were.
"In love with him," Phryne murmured thoughtfully as though the words had never occurred to her in connection with Jack. She loved him, yes, but in love with him? She sighed and smiled. "Yes, I suppose I am." Her attention refocused on Alcuin. "You've not mentioned Anafiel before by name. He was the one you lost, yes?"
"Yes," said Alcuin, a touch quieter. "He... everything I did since the moment I met him, it was for him. But we were only lovers for such a short time. I had what I'd always wanted... and then it was gone."
"Oh, darling." Her own voice softened to match and gentled with deep sympathy. She could well imagine losing Jack within a month or so and how it would hurt, so terribly. "I'm sorry."
Alcuin took a little breath. "Thank you," he said. "Though for now... there is nothing to be done for it, but to try to move forward. This is difficult. But I've spent my time sobbing in bed, and doing more of it will not help me."
"Needs must," Phryne replied in complete agreement, brisk but nevertheless warm. "And I shall do my best to help." She considered his situation and his religious devotion and mused aloud, "I would imagine D'Angelines don't often grieve lost loves with celibacy." She certainly hadn't when Vic had 'died,' or when she had summoned up the courage to leave Rene.
No, they did not. Alcuin in fact had had one patron who came to him for that very reason. If Alcuin were back in Terre d'Ange perhaps he would have gone to Balm House. But the way Phryne seemed to connect those two statements.... He blinked at her. "Are you offering?"
Although his response caught her somewhat off-guard, there was no hint of it in her expression. Rather, Phryne gave him a considering look. "If I thought it would help, I wouldn't hesitate. But I was under the impression that you prefer male partners."
Alcuin didn't seem bothered by this assumption. "Male partners prefer me," he said. "I've had limited experience with women. But... I'm not certain that that is what I need, anyway. As part of Naamah's service... that is simple, I know how to do that. The rest, I am not as sure." Even when he'd first been with Anafiel, it had been difficult in some ways. Awkward. Alcuin only knowing how to serve, and Anafiel trying so hard to make him not.
Phryne considered and rejected several possible responses, but they all sounded pushy or predatory when she absolutely didn't mean them in that fashion. Truthfully, his reticence was a bit of a relief; her protectiveness toward him might well get in the way of sex. "By 'the rest', you mean choosing your own partners for your own pleasure?"
Alcuin hesitated, and then nodded. "It is not to say that I did not find pleasure in service, but... it is different. And the only other person I've been with was Anafiel, and that was about far more than sex."
Phryne tipped her head slightly, curious and intent upon Alcuin. "In your world, is it common for people to take lovers outside their romantic relationships?"
"Oh yes," said Alcuin, and then, "... love as thou wilt."
"Yes, of course," Phryne replied, lips pursed thoughtfully. "But that's not precisely what I meant, unless the 'love' of 'love as thou wilt' encompasses sex without love, or with only the affections of a moment."
"There is always love," Alcuin said. "Love of something, someone. Naamah, perhaps. For me, it was always Anafiel. But to answer your question, most D'Angelines find monogamy... I don't know... unnecessarily limiting."
"It seems I was born in the wrong world," came Phryne's response, light, but with an undercurrent of something deeper. "Jack, however, is firmly a product of the one we came from."
"And I certainly do not disparage that way of thinking," Alcuin said, shaking his head. "And I also... I do not want to risk making another misstep."
"I do not disparage it, but it does complicate matters." That was something to be worked out with Jack, though, if there was, indeed, anything more to be worked out. Alcuin's problem might be more easily resolved. "Tell me what happened, darling. Perhaps I can help sort it out."
"Oh, it's... I think it's fine now. He's been very kind about it." Alcuin carded his hands through his long hair, looking a bit sheepish. "I felt I owed him. It is what I have of value to offer. I wouldn't have, if I didn't want him, too, but... he seemed rather shocked. And was not interested. In love with someone, someone not here."
"Ah." Phryne could well imagine how that might have played for someone from a culture that treated sex and love differently than Alcuin's. "It was probably the idea that you would offer your body as repayment of a debt. In Melbourne, in the 1920s, prostitutes being forced into indentured servitude because they couldn't afford the costs of turning themselves out was a genuine concern. I can't say that I wouldn't have to reacted badly to that as well, but only out of a distaste for putting someone I've grown to care about in a position akin to theirs."
"I would not offer myself to someone I did not want," Alcuin said. "Not anymore. But yes, I understand. And I cannot expect others to see the world the way I do."
"Nor would I, although I offer myself more freely than many in my world understand." And she had meant merely that if there had been shocked, it would not have been disgust with Alcuin but the situation. "What makes you think the error was grave rather than merely a cultural misunderstanding?"
"I don't think that it was so grave," Alcuin conceded. "I think we are fine. But I still do not want to repeat the mistake."
"No, I imagine not." It would be embarrassing, if nothing else. "So you need to learn to understand when it is appropriate to offer sex and when not?"
"Yes, I suppose so," Alcuin said, though he sounded a touch sheepish. "And... I want to understand what it means to other people. But perhaps the answer to that is that it is different for everyone. I think I will get better. I am good at reading people."
"We might begin by discussing what it means to each of us," Phryne murmured, the usual brightness in her voice muted by the inevitable pain of it. "It isn't really the same as saying 'love as thou wilt'. At least not for me."
"Sex is supposed to be about worship," Alcuin said quietly. "But I am well aware that it isn't always."
"Is it for you?" It seemed curious to her, to worship a god by pleasuring another, but she imagined that had to do with Christianity's treatment of sexual pleasure as an acceptable byproduct of reproduction. If she didn't subscribe to the ideas, she had nevertheless been influenced by them.
Alcuin hesitated. And then finally admitted, "Most of the time. As you and Jack surmised, I was also... a sort of spy. This complicated things."
"Even so, as you pointed out, there is always love of someone or something at the back of it." And if love was worship, then any act done with love would be a form of worship. Open to interpretation, with plenty of room for abuse; it was obscurely sad that a religion based on love fared no better in that regard than those with which she was more familiar. "But this doesn't really answer the question of what it means to you personally. Did you intend worship when you made the failed attempt here or something else?"
Alcuin considered this, as it wasn't as if he had stopped to make certain that he understood his own motivations. "Naamah would approve very much of pleasure as an exchange for saving my life," Alcuin said. "So yes, it was worship. Both in that sense, and in that I wanted him."
"But in the immediate moment, your motives were personal," Phryne observed, primarily for the purpose of then saying, "If you keep in mind that no one else will have that additional motive, the strong positivity toward sex, that's a good beginning."
"I come with a lot of baggage," Alcuin said, having learned that term from one of the novels he'd read.
Phryne laughed and said, "Darling, don't we all."
"Do you?" Alcuin asked, hoping she took it as interest and not prying.
Her smile faded to something small and brittle, and, for a moment, she glanced at her hands instead of him. Even now, the thought of Rene brought a tremble to them. "When I was young, my father drank heavily and had a heavy-hand with discipline. My sister and I often escaped into the streets or local amusements, and owing to my carelessness, she was taken by a very evil man who killed her. Not the best beginning with men, I fear. It led me to choose a man who worshipped me as a muse--" A shadow flickered across her face, then, fear and fury in equal parts. "--and berated me when his art failed, or I engaged the attention of another man. When he started to use his fists, I left, but you can imagine I'm not in step with my society's monogamous marriages that give men control over their women."
"I am so sorry," Alcuin said quietly, and reached out to put a hand on her arm. "That is never how a relationship should be. In Terre d'Ange..." He shook his head. "Blasphemy. I am glad you left. And now, you have taken control of yourself."
"Thank you." Phryne nodded appreciation and touched his hand, but she hadn't been seeking sympathy. "It was a long time ago. But for me, sex is freedom. Or freedom is sex. Being able to take the lovers I choose for the reasons I want, and to allow no man control over my actions."
Alcuin frowned a little, thinking of the way she'd worded that, several times now. "Where you come from, are women supposed to be subservient to men?"
"In my time, yes. Although it's changing." Phryne tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Jack certainly doesn't believe it."
Alcuin shook his head. "Where I come from, there are other cultures that behave that way as well... how ridiculous. I am glad you do not have to endure such ignorance here."
"I'm doubly fortunate, since Jack understands my need to have my freedom, and doesn't impose his preference for monogamy on me." Which had been a surprise, a very pleasant one, because although she had wanted Jack so very badly, she had dreaded the way she expected it to tie her down. "In any event, because many of us seem to come from cultures similar to mine, our religions teach that sex before marriage or outside of a committed relationship is sinful. Whether we believe that or not, and I certainly don't, it does tend to color our interactions about sex."
"Well, mine was only one culture in my world," said Alcuin. "So I am not unaccustomed to being judged for our attitudes towards sex. I mostly wanted to make sure I had as clear an understanding as I could so that I don't risk misstepping in friendships that may become important to me."
"Yes, as I had to do with Jack," Phryne mused aloud. "I think it's best to assume that anyone from a world adjacent to this one is unlikely to be wholly comfortable with sex outside a committed relationship, especially in such tight quarters. Most people would deny it, if asked outright, but all of our neuroses stack up to sex being both dirty and sacrosanct, with a uniqueness that is damaged if one's intimates have had the same experience."
"Oh dear," said Alcuin with a little sigh. "Well. This is something I will learn my way around, I suppose." He settled a little more comfortably on the couch, and crossed his legs. "Everyone wants or needs something slightly different from sex, though. This is how the houses of the Night Court - the major installation of Servants of Naamah - are built. They each have their own doctrine, which come from an interpretation of why Naamah lay with the king of Persis. Was it for the joy of it? Was it to help heal him? Was it because she wanted to submit? Each doctrine guides what a patron of that House comes looking for."
"Oh how interesting!" Phryne's eyes lit up again with delight. It seemed so sane, and right-thinking. "I would love to hear more, if you're willing."
Alcuin smiled at her, happy to talk about his home with someone who was so receptive. "The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers," he said. "Let's see, I can tell you the canon of each one..." He ticked them off on his fingers.
Alyssum: with eyes averted
Balm: rest and be soothed
Bryony: wealth seeks company
Camellia: without fault or flaw
Cereus: all loveliness fades
Dahlia: upright and unbending
Eglantine: to create is to live
Gentian: truth and vision
Heliotrope: thou and no other
Jasmine: for pleasure's sake
Mandrake: yield all
Orchis: joy in laughter
Valerian: I yield."
With a nice thought, he smiled again and added, "I had a patron once, who had once been in service to Orchis. I was a gift for her birthday, but it was she who gave me a gift, really." After Bouvarre, he might not have seen the joy in it if it weren't for her.
It was, Phryne decided, both sensible and beautiful. And how much better, nicer, would it be to grow up in a world where people actually thought openly about sex and sexuality. Mac deserved to live in such a world, and Charlie, too. As did she, but she had fared better at making one for herself. "Orchis for me, I think. But Jasmine might suit as well."
Alcuin was not certain if she meant as a patron or as an adept, but decided that it did not matter. "Yes, I think either might suit," he said. Then thoughtfully, "I was not part of the Night Court. But if I had been... I am not entirely certain. There are parts of many of them that I can see in myself. I imagine Camellia would have wanted me. I would have done well in Heliotrope. Or perhaps Balm. I do believe that sex has the power to heal, and I am a very good masseuse."
"I defy anyone to prove to me that sex doesn't have the power to heal." If there was a hint of tartness in that response, it certainly wasn't directed at Alcuin. "My darling Jack most certainly would be a patron of Heliotrope, could he bring himself to seek it out." With a lighthearted smile, she said, "I do believe I'll ask your advice in providing him the sense and truth of devotion he desires without giving up my freedom, and..." Even more lightly, so not to put him in a place of obligation, "If you were offering your services as a masseuse and would accept compensation, I would most certainly not turn you down."
"I may be able to help with Jack," Alcuin said thoughtfully. "The adepts of Heliotrope... in some ways, it is an illusion. But it also is not. They say that Naamah basked in her love for the king, even though it was only for one night."
And to her statement at the end, he looked even more thoughtful. "Phryne, I think you may have finally identified a marketable skill that I have." He had been feeling quite useless, thinking that there was not much call for either a Servant of Naamah nor a spy here.
"Since Rene, I haven't been to bed with a man I didn't love for the night that I was with him. But I have rarely been with a man for more than a night. Jack is..." She tipped her head into a bit of a shrug. "Exceptional in more ways than one." Her thoughtful smile grew somewhat warmer then at the thought that she may have helped. "And if you would accept a friend as a client, I would be honored to be the first."
It warmed Alcuin's heart to see her affection for Jack. It made him a little sad, too, wishing that he could feel that again. "I found a spa in my exploring of the hotel," he said, "though it does not appear to really be in use. Perhaps we could meet there sometime. I will see what I can find by way of massage oils, perhaps they have some in the stores there. So... yes, I'd like that very much."
