In the novel Story of O, the woman, O, is taken to a château, and the minute she’s inside the house, four men take turns ravishing her. Kingsley wondered if such a thing was about to happen to him now. Would he be grabbed, stripped, violated, raped? Myriad lurid scenarios ran through his mind. But it seemed the mysterious stranger in the room had other ideas. He heard the door lock. He heard a woman’s prim footsteps, first on the hardwood floor and then on the rug. Then he sensed her standing directly behind him. He inhaled deeply and smelled lavender water, the kind his mother used to wear.

“Don’t speak,” the woman said. It was the voice from the phone. “Only speak when I ask you a direct question. I’ll speak in French. You answer in English. If someone is eavesdropping it’ll make it a little harder on them. Do you understand?”

Comprenez-vous?

“Yes,” Kingsley said, en anglais. He wondered how she knew he was fluent in English. Apart from saying “looking glass” to her, he’d spoken French the entire time.

“I’m going to touch you,” she said. “If you have an objection to that, then I don’t know why you’re here.”

Again, Kingsley did not speak. He had absolutely no objection to being touched. Not by her, anyway.

He waited, eyes closed, and felt a soft touch on his head, a stroke of fingers through his hair.

“You lied to me,” she said.

Kingsley tensed, but didn’t speak. He knew better than to say anything to that sort of accusation.

“You told me you were handsome. You aren’t,” she said. “You’re exquisite.”

Kingsley almost said something to that. Something like, “Will that be a problem?” But she’d only made a statement. Until she asked a question, he wasn’t allowed to speak.

“If I were a painter, you’d be my muse,” she said. “You belong in oils on canvas.”

Not being allowed to say “thank you” to a compliment of that magnitude was mild torture.

She stroked his hair again. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see her as she stood beyond the farthest edge of his peripheral vision. That explained partly why the curtains had to be closed. Otherwise he could have seen her reflection in the window.

She touched his forehead and now Kingsley felt the silk of gloves against his skin. Her touch was gentle, soothing, and the second he relaxed into it, she put a knife to his throat.

Kingsley froze.

“I don’t want to kill you,” she said.

That made two of them.

“Very good,” she said. “Even with a knife at your throat you hold your tongue. Someone’s trained you very well.”

Kingsley still did not speak. He knew he could overpower her if he needed to, but would she make a fatal stab first? Better to wait it out, behave, play along.

“Someone sent you to me. Who was it and what did he tell you?” she asked. “If you tell me even one lie I will slit your throat. And yes, I will know if you lie.”

She’d asked him one direct question. Therefore he was allowed to speak.

“I’m employed by an intelligence agency without a name,” he said. “French military. Officially unofficial. Leon isn’t my friend. He’s my commanding officer’s nephew. They think you’re holding him against his will. They asked me to get him out. If he wants out.”

“Leon is your commanding officer’s nephew,” she repeated, sounding amused. “So that’s the game, is it?”

“I don’t care about the boy,” he said. Kingsley wasn’t sure what she meant by “the game.” He hoped he lived long enough to find out.

“Then why did you come here?”

“My own reasons.”

“You wish to serve, do you?”

Kingsley whispered, “Yes.”

She said nothing. The blade remained flush against his neck, cool and sharp.

“You betray your mission easily,” she said. “Why is that?”

“Because fuck my mission. Leon is nineteen. And I don’t want to lie to you.”

“And why is that?”

“For my job I have to lie to everyone. I’d like to tell the truth to someone before I forget how.”

“There may be a Leon at my home,” she said. “What does he look like?”

“I don’t know, other than he’s nineteen. The only picture I was given was of you.”

“A picture of me. Was it flattering?” Her tone was mocking.

“I haven’t see you in person yet,” he said. She’d been standing behind him ever since coming into the room. “But if you’re as beautiful in person as you are in the photograph, then it’s you who should be an artist’s muse.”

Did the flattery please her or annoy her? Kingsley wasn’t sure. After a moment’s hesitation, she took the knife away from his jugular.

She stroked his face, his cheeks, his lips. She still wore her gloves, and he ached to feel her flesh on his flesh. He had no doubt that was the reason she wore them.

“I’m quite familiar with the agency you belong to,” she said. “They’ve been dogging my every move for years. I made the mistake of knowing a little too much about one of your brothers-in-arms. They won’t let me be. I would very much like your agency to leave me alone. My family and I live a quiet life in a quiet house near a quiet village. People come to me, people in need, and I take them in. Do you think such a person deserves the scrutiny of your agency?”

“No,” Kingsley said, although he didn’t entirely believe her. He highly doubted she lived a quiet life in a quiet house near a quiet village.

“If I were to take you to my home and allow you to see Leon, would your agency leave me and my family alone?”

“It might help,” Kingsley said. “I don’t have that authority. I can’t make you any guarantees, but I’ll tell them to leave you alone if Leon is safe and happy.”

“If I let you come to my home, you will have to serve.”

Kingsley felt a cold thrill of excitement at the thought of “serving,” the thrill like a feather sliding up the center of his back, like that moment when a hand or foot fallen asleep starts to tingle and come back to life.

“You’ve served before, haven’t you?” she asked. “I can tell from how patiently you wait. Only those who’ve served know how to be humble.”

Kingsley tensed. He didn’t talk about him with anyone, ever. He didn’t particularly want to start now. But he knew he must keep playing if he wanted to win.

“Yes, I’ve served.”

“Did you serve a woman or a man?”

“Neither.”

“Mysterious. Animal?”

“Perhaps.”

“Vegetable?”

“No,” he said, smiling.

“Angel? Demon? God?”

Kingsley considered his options.

“All of the above,” he said.

“Ah,” she said. Again that “ah,” that lovely “ah.”

He wanted to make her “ah” and “ah” and “ahh….”

She lightly tugged his right earlobe. “Your neck muscles went very tense when I asked about the one you served. Interesting.” She spoke French again—interressant.

Abruptly she ceased touching him and sat in the armchair, crossing her legs at the ankles like a lady. He was so shocked that he looked at her without waiting for permission.

She didn’t seem to mind.

She was wearing a well-tailored ankle-length navy pinstripe skirt and jacket, a navy fascinator with the veil pulled down. This close to her, he could see enough of her face through the veil to know he’d been right. She was beautiful. He still couldn’t place her age, however, not that it mattered to him.

“If you come with me, Kingsley,” she said, “I might decide to kill you. Do you accept that risk?”

“Yes,” he said simply and without hesitation.

“Why?”

“Better to be murdered by beauty than to live without it.”

She took a moment to absorb that. Behind the veil her eyes narrowed. “Do you know this phrase—worth his salt?”

“It means a man is worth his pay,” he said.

“Workers in ancient Rome were paid with salt. It’s where we get the word ‘salary.’ In my home, salt is still the official currency. Blood. Tears. Sweat. Semen. Choose one. That’s how you’ll pay me for taking you in.”

Kingsley started to answer, and she held up a finger to stop him.

“Think carefully before you choose,” she said. “It seems an easy question. It is not by any means.”

Kingsley thought it over.

Sweat meant manual labor.

Tears meant psychological torture.

Blood mean physical torture.

Semen…well, it was obvious what that meant.

“If I knew you better,” he said, “I would choose blood. Maybe even tears. Never sweat. But since I don’t…I’ll have to go with come.”

“You might regret your choice.”

Kingsley only shrugged.

“Aren’t you worried about that?” she asked.

“I regret everything anyway. What’s one more for the butcher’s bill?”

“Very well,” she said. “I accept your payment. Stand up. I’ll have to examine you. Would you like to take your clothes off, or would you rather I do it?”

Her tone indicated she didn’t care either way.

“I will,” he said. She lifted her hand as if to say, Get on with it. Kingsley stood up to undress. He didn’t make a show of it. He had a feeling she wouldn’t approve of theatrics. Without hurrying and without dallying, he stripped completely naked. If his body did anything for her, she didn’t say so. He wasn’t aroused, but he was in that state where he could be easily if someone wanted that from him. She’d used the word “examine,” however, so he had a feeling she was simply checking him for weapons.

“Please,” she said, waving a hand toward the bed. “Sit.”

He sat as ordered and waited.

She rose from her chair and came to him. He watched, curious, as she first removed her white gloves and then replaced them with latex gloves from her small blue handbag.

This was going to get personal.

“Open your mouth,” she said, tilting his head back slightly. He did as he was told, and she slipped a finger into his mouth. He almost gagged, but he’d learned to control that reflex. She made a little clicking sound with her tongue, the sort a mother makes to soothe a fussy child. Was she looking for hidden weapons or counting his teeth? Whatever it was, it was fairly humiliating and dehumanizing, which was likely her intention.

She pushed him backward, and Kingsley lay flat on the bed.

“I won’t hurt you,” she said as if she could sense his sudden tension. “Not until you ask me to. But I see you’ve been hurt.”

She ran her fingers over a small scar on his side. A gunshot wound. She touched a larger scar left from a knife wound on his bicep, a clinical sort of touch, not sentimental or even sensual. She probed the scar tissue like a doctor insuring herself he was healed enough for whatever she had planned for him.

“It was men who hurt you, yes?” she asked.

Kingsley nodded. “Yes.”

“Of course, it was men,” she said and laughed. “It’s always men.”

“Did men hurt you?”

She slapped him—a quick hard nasty little slap that shocked the hell out of him.

“No questions,” she said. She didn’t look angry at him for speaking out of turn. The slap was a mother’s slap, striking her toddler’s hand before he could burn himself on the hot stove. But it stung like fire. He had to tell his cock to calm down.

She was a slim woman, with the classic coveted “French silhouette” achieved only by good genes or self-starvation. Slight as she was, nothing about her seemed weak. Her eyes…he’d seen them before, through the sights of his long gun when he’d been tasked with assassinating an assassin. This was a dangerous woman.

And this dangerous woman was running her hands all over his naked body, sliding them along his thighs and over and under his knees, down his calves, and even across the bottoms of his feet. She briefly cupped his testicles, stroked his cock once—but only once!—and, when she’d touched every square inch of him, she pushed his thighs apart and carefully worked one finger inside him.

She smiled. He could see it even through the veil.

“You like it,” she said.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His body was already telling her.

“You’ll do well in service,” she said, removing her finger. “Polly will love you.”

She snapped off the gloves, tossed them in the rubbish bin, and stood up. With a precise little gesture of her hand, she indicated he was to stand up, too. He did, naked, aroused, eager, and nervous. But not scared.

“Look there.” She pointed at the gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “What is it?”

“A mirror,” he said. “A looking glass.”

“Hold up your right hand,” she ordered. He did. “In the mirror, what hand are you holding up?”

“My left,” he said.

“That’s where we’re going,” she said. “Through the looking glass where everything is backwards. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Put your clothes on. Meet me at the car in front of the hotel in five minutes. If you’re one second late,” she said, “I will leave without you, and you will never see me again.”

With that she was gone.

Kingsley dressed quickly, not wanting to miss his chance. Before he ran out of the room to follow her, he stopped and looked at the mirror again. The looking glass. Their destination.

Through the looking glass where everything is backwards. He knew what that meant. He knew immediately. He might have known from the second she walked into the room.

Where she was taking him, the men served the women.

Where she was taking him, the women ruled the men.

Considering every wound on his body, heart, and soul had been inflicted by a man—the deepest by a boy—Kingsley couldn’t get to her château fast enough.