Une Reverie

Last night I dreamed.

The darkness of the building overwhelmed me. That was key to the dream--that dreary, all-encompassing darkness. Somehow it made everything acceptable. Made what happened acceptable.

I do not remember when I entered the Bistro de Jouissance. How I came to be at such a place I do not know. Never a place of wholesome bread and finer wine, the name was a poor one to mask the brazen nature of this house of ill repute. Jouissance. This may have been an American brothel, but the French words could not hide the house's intention: to get off as many men as would provide the purse.

Scantly clad bodies hovered in the shadows. I watched as the women stood in loose lines like brood mares awaiting examination for purchase. And fine connoisseurs such gentlemen were. I never would see their faces but I always saw their intentions. Take Janice into the room over there, do. She knows well how to drop to her knees and suck. And off they went, as happy as any romantic pair with picnic basket and table cloth. Such things are easily feigned.

I watched the corseted young lady lower her eyes before a prospective patron. I knew well what would occur in that setting. She would have to tell him her limits beforehand. He might be offered the crop. If he paid, she would always please though his restrictions be tighter than her corset.

But lo and behold, a vision resplendent on a throne above the rest. A Norse goddess, golden locks flowing over a face which had seen but little of the day for years. She sat on her dais as I imagined the first Elizabeth may have done. Her face, expressionless, proud, eyes of that dreadful blue few dare to meet.

In that slow, rolling haze peculiar to a dream, I approached her majesty. Kneeling like a courtier. Her smile was slow and small, as though it were something she but deigned to give me.

"I cannot pay," I whispered. She laughed low in her throat, bestowing upon me another small smile.

"No need," replied she.

Naked and humiliated, I waited for my livelihood.