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“We are not promoting anything, and… and…”
“And what, young man?”
Her tone makes me flinch. So much bubbles up in me to spew back at her. We are not promoting the practices of what happened here. It wasn’t exactly as hygienic back then as would have been ideal, but Mattie tried. She kept her seamstresses protected, helped secure futures for them, gave them agency they wouldn’t have had without her. That means something! And this is about history, about preservation and remembering important truths of the past. Plus, there is nothing wrong with someone selling their body if it’s by their own choosing!
But I doubt giving a sex positive, especially sex worker positive speech would sway someone like Mrs. Sherman. Even if I wanted to, and no matter how angry she is making me right now, I just… freeze. Sure, I can blow up at Mr. B, because I know him and love him, and I know he cares about me back, but real confrontation…
I always crumble.
“Obviously, it has nothing to do with any lifestyle choices of those who work here,” she says.
Her tone makes me seriously doubt that.
“It is simply a matter of decency and the type of environment we want for our customers.”
I can’t handle this. I push the clipboard back into her arms and start to shut the door. “We’re closed, Mrs. Sherman.”
“Hold on—” She tries to wedge her foot in the door, but I manage to force her out and hear the door click. “Young man!” She knocks loudly, and it makes my ears ring, since I am right there holding it shut and trying to lock it. “This is a serious matter! I will be back tomorrow to give that petition to Mr. Bevilaqua myself! I only wish the best for my business!”
“And I wish you’d go away,” I hiss under my breath.
The knocking stops immediately.
I look up, but through the glass of the front door, I can’t see her anymore.
I lurch backward, looking from side to side at the windows lining the storefront. I can’t see her out of any of them. It’s like she vanished.
“Granted,” a voice says from behind me, and I whirl around ready to swing.
My arms drop in disbelief because it’s the incubus but also… not? He’s wearing the same loincloth. It’s lavender, I can see now in normal lighting. All the gold is still there, the cuffs and armbands and necklace pieces from the feathered mantel on his shoulders. He has gold earrings now too, three hoops, two helixes each, and one in each lobe, like replacements for his horns.
Because his horns are gone, and his wings, claws, fangs, and raptor feet. His eyes aren’t glowing purple anymore but are a dark brown, almost black. His purple skin is a normal shade too, also dark brown, like he’s… I can’t even begin to guess his origin, but how he looks human like this, with that faint accent, and being possibly ancient makes me think Babylonian.
And he is just as hot as when he had wings.
But not hotter, so there are some new kinks I now know I have.
“Did you not mean your wish, beautiful one?” he asks from where he stands off the top of the staircase leading to the tunnels. “Shall I return below?”
I’m just standing there staring and quickly close my mouth that is probably drooling. He has a really nice chest, and hip grooves, and thighs. And he is barefoot and practically naked in the middle of the room. “You look human,” I state the obvious.
“Yes.” He smiles, and wow, he is seriously gorgeous. His skin is perfect, and his hair, while only black now, not with any tinge of purple and not floating like a candle flame, is long enough on top that it falls to one side like a mimic of Cas’s asymmetrical cut. “The wings do tend to make people stare.”
I laugh because the insanity of this night is not stopping. He’s funny! “I think people would still stare at you.”
His smile widens to show pearly white teeth, and I kind of miss the fangs. “I see that many years have passed since I breathed free.” He looks me up and down, and then past me out the windows at the cars and newer buildings and people passing by. “More than I first realized.”
“I’m… sorry?”
“This is not the first time I have woken in another age.”
Wow. What am I dealing with here? He really could be from Babylon, another ancient civilization, or even some alien or otherworldly dimension.
But to any casual onlooker walking past the windows, he is an almost naked man who absolutely makes it look like I have a male prostitute or stripper and that we are trying a whole other approach to our tours.
“Windows!” I race over to him, grabbing him below his armbands, and drag him behind a jutting of the wall. His arms feel like steel beneath my grasp, he is so nicely muscled. “Human is good! But, um, you’re still a little out of place. We’ll need to get you some modern-day clothes.”
On normal human feet, he’s maybe 6’4”, and for someone who was down in the musty underground for over a hundred years, he smells like jasmine and spices.
