Kushiel's Dart

pain without pleasure." He stopped before another door and looked curiously at me. "You have never received such training?"
    I shook my head. He shrugged.
    "It is Delaunay's business, I suppose." He pushed the door open. "This is one of the pleasure-chambers. We endeavor to provide environments for all of our patrons' particular desires."
    Servants moved about the room lighting the wall sconces and the brazier. I gazed about me and shuddered again. There were lush carpets in the center of the room, surrounded by aisles of flagstone. The walls were bare of decoration, but hardly unadorned; one held manacles and chains for the wrists and ankles, bolted into the stone, and another held a great wooden wheel, with clamps to hold one spread-eagled.
    "We have a reciprocal agreement with Mandrake House," Didier Vas-con said, watching me take in the accoutrements. "Sometimes we have patrons who take pleasure only in watching, so we might contract a flagellant and an assistant to perform the excruciation on one of our adepts. And of course sometimes Mandrake has clients who must needs observe an abasement performed to move them, for which we provide subjects."
    His words echoed distantly in my ears. I moved to the center of the room, lightly touching a padded pommel horse and looking inquiringly at him.
    "Here." He was dryly amused by my ignorance and, with a deft hand, pushed me down across its back. My cheek was pressed to the padded leather. "You would be lashed in place, of course. Some patrons have a particular fetish for the buttocks. The pommel horse provides good advantage for their indulgence."
    I straightened, flushed, and snapped at him. "I'm not here to receive training at your hands!"
    Didier raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands. "May your patrons have the joy of breaking you," he murmured. "I've no interest in it. But I've taken a fee to ensure you'll not go to them in complete ignorance. Come here." He beckoned me to a cabinet and began pointing out items. "We provide all manner of accessories, of course; collars, blinds, gags, belts, whatever the patron might wish. Rings, pleasure-balls, aides d'amour, pincers-"
    "I was raised in Cereus House," I reminded him, wondering if he thought I was so green I'd never seen a shaft-ring or a carven phallus.
    "-pincers," he said, resuming as if I hadn't interrupted. He picked up one of the spring-forced clamps and squeezed it open, raising his eyebrows again. "Often placed on the nipples or nether lips. Do they use these in Cereus House?"
    "No." I tugged at another drawer, but it was locked. Didier took a key from a chain about his waist and opened it. A row of slim-hafted, razor-edged steel blades gleamed against a red velvet lining, like a chirur-geon's tools, only beautiful.
    "Flechettes," he said. "We require a reference and a guarantee for their usage." He gave an involuntary tremor beside me and his voice changed. "I hate them."
    I imagined an anonymous hand pressing the sharp point of one into my skin, tracing it slowly, a trickle of red following the bright blade. It would be very vivid against my skin. I came out of the reverie to find Didier watching me again.
    "You are what the stories say, aren't you?" The envy was mingled with an obscure pity. "I hope Delaunay screens his clients well. Come on, I'll show you the upper levels."
    My tour of Valerian House continued for some time, through a myriad of rooms; seraglio boudoirs, baths, a folly garden, royal chambers, a harem, a throne room, a room of swings and harnesses, even a child's nursery, although Didier hastened to add that they abided by Guild laws regarding the minimum age for adepts. In the flagellary, he lectured at length on the different types of whips and rods; crops, quirts, scourges, floggers and tawses, the cat-o'-nine-tails and the bullwhip, birches, canes, straps and paddles. Of course many patrons, he told me in his dry voice, preferred to bring their own implements.
    I never saw a single patron throughout the tour. It is the policy of the Night Court to provide privacy, but there were always patrons at Cereus House who treated it as a salon, meeting with friends and acquaintances to enjoy each other's company as well as the services of Naamah. By contrast, Valerian House was marked by an air of hushed secrecy. Fetes and galas were arranged with great care, Didier said, for very select guest lists.
    When all was said and seen, I was glad that I had gone to Delaunay and not to Valerian House.