shade, smiles and waves back at me.
“And just how ambitious are you?” I ask.
“You’re inquiring about your fate again, am I right?”
“If you’d be so kind as to enlighten me.”
Madame Beaumont finally comes to a stop and removes her sunglasses, hooking them on the neckline of her shirt. “The question, my dear, is how ambitious are you?”
“I’m not selling my body, if that’s what you’re asking of me.”
“No, of course not. You’re worth far more as a virgin. Out here, a man would have to fuck a child to get his hands on one. Women are so scarce these days, that when a man does find one, he’s lucky to have her all to himself. One girl might be used by several men throughout the course of her life. It’s not even rape anymore. It’s expectation. Survival.”
So wrong. And enraging. I can’t even imagine growing up on this side of the wall. I’d never have survived out here.
“Women have become a source of currency,” she continues. “A means of trade. It’s utterly disgusting, what life has become for so many of them.”
“Yet, here you are with your own personal harem.”
“Every one of these girls is free to go. I don’t keep them here. My guards don’t keep them here. The life I offer them is what keeps them here. Look around you. This place is paradise, compared to where they come from. Some of them had no idea what a shower was, or a pillow, or a private pool that they didn’t have to share with another neighboring hive.”
Without a doubt, the women don’t appear distressed, but it doesn’t erase the slimy, icky undercurrent of this place. “You trade them. To have all these things, you trade sex.”
“Of course. For a man who hasn’t seen a woman in months? It’s as valuable as water and food. With the number of women I have under my roof, I’d have been the equivalent to a billionaire before the Dredge. And those are women who have been fucked in every hole twenty ways to Tuesday. You represent the ultimate unicorn. A fully grown woman with her virtue intact? It’s unheard of! Men would fall at your feet, if they weren’t so keen on taking without asking. Fortunately for you? You’re in a good place. Secure. Safe.”
If she only knew I wasn’t a virgin. What then? Would I be forced to have sex with men, just as back in Szolen. Seems to be the expectation for young girls these days, whether within the safety of the walls, or not. “What. Do you want. From me?”
“Want. That is the driving force, isn’t it? Possession is derived at birth with the mother’s breast.” Eyes dipping to my chest, she palms the edge of my breast, and when I bat away her hand, the corner of her lip lifts with amusement. “Possession evolves over time, with darker motives, of course. Mine is to possess what every man left on this planet covets most: an untouched woman.”
I glance back to the pool again, where two of the women give life to my thoughts as they fondle and kiss each other. “As in … sexually?”
“No, of course not. You see, wealth is measured by what you possess. Control. And what you choose to control gives tangibility to what you desire most. A man who collects guns spoils for war. A woman who collects jewels longs to be seen as rare and beautiful as a gem. You are the object of desire, of chastity and purity, and as the one who possesses such treasure, I am the envied.”
Perhaps it’s the concussion, the events of the last two days, or over exhaustion, but the broken bits of her words fail to come together, as I try to imagine how my virtue benefits her.
“You must be hungry. And exhausted. In dire need of fresh clothes. Come, darling, let me show you to your room.”
With another glance back at the pool, I’m reminded that, at the moment, I have no home. No one looking out for me here. I’m on my own. Is this worse than the convent? Is pretending to be some strange woman’s coveted gem as bad as facing Mother Chilson’s scorn?
It’s too much to process on an empty stomach and little sleep, so even with my suspicions and hesitation, I follow after her, taking note of the beastly man who follows after me.
“Forgive the outdated decor,” she says, breezing through an open room that has so many windows, not an