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Chapter 2
A/N: Gosh, I'm just so inventive with my chapter names, aren't I? Right, ANYWAY...
"Right. Yes. Of course. Well, I'm on my way home as it happens. I won't be out much longer." Oh, don't let him scare you away, your Lordship. We could have such fun. Don't go home just yet. But the officer's unexpected arrival had spooked my little stallion and, true to his word, there went his footsteps. Aw, that was mean Officer, spoiling my fun.
I waited until the interfering old constable had wandered off and then quitted my little patch of shade once more. No rest for the wicked, and all that. I still had to make up my evening's losses. There were always the docks, I supposed. Always plenty of work to be had down there... But, no. You had to be really desperate before you would sink as low as the docks. I had a reputation to uphold. And past that, I was used to finer things in life than sailors' damp, smelly cabins. No, not the docks.
I heard a sound in the darkness behind me but did not turn, even went a sly arm slid about my shoulders. "Down on your luck, Peacock?" I rolled my eyes and swivelled. Really, if he could think of no, more orignial, greeting after four years he should really just give up.
"Merely enjoying the peace and tranquility of the empty streets, Mazza. I don't need luck." His arrogant stance and cocky smile diminished a little. He wasn't to know I had been snubbed twice already that evening and, as I said, I had a reputation.
"Care for some company?" He was rather pathetic really. I almost took pity on him, but then I had business to attend to. I couldn't risk him losing me more customers and he was just so... I'm not sure what the word was. Crude? Sloppy? Perhaps the word hadn't been invented yet that could define Mazza. Whatever it was, it had to encompass all-hands, slobbering and indiscreet. The poor word had its work cut out for it; it would be outlawed from vocabularies everywhere.
"No thanks, Maz. You might slow me down. Can't spoil my image by being seen with the likes of a common street-whore like you." You might wonder where I'm getting my distinctions from. Essentially, I was better than him, at everything and in every way. Thus, he was a street-wore while I was something much grander, altough what I'd be hard pressed to tell you.
Alright, it was a little bitchy of me, but really, was that any call for tears? It was distressing to watch. "Oh fine. Dry yourself off, though. You're soggy. And no gentleman pays for soggy, snivelling children." He was a child, when you came right down to it. He was only fourteen. Many people have said that it's a shame to see one so young and innocent as him doing what he does for a living. They say it to me because he follows me around - it's upsetting the number of times I've been mistaken for his elder brother, and therefore accused of not taking care of him. Restrained hysterical laughter on my part tends to follow preachings about his innocence. That child was born jaded. Somewhere along the line someone told him he was pretty and his life spiralled downwards from there. I began to walk away and listened for his footsteps to follow. He came up behind me again, this time slipping his arm around my waist. I noticed with distaste, and not for the first time, that he was taller than me.
As we traversed a few of the city's darker streets, the ones that many people lived in London all their lives and never knew existed, we received lewd stares abd whistles from every other doorway. Honestly, you'd think we were a new sight to these creatures. I draped my arm around Mazza's neck and slipped my fingers under the collar of his half-open shirt. May as well make a bit of a show of it.
"Sash," I could feel his breath on my ear and the sensation made me feel a little ill. I couldn't actually smell it at this angle, but I knew it was foul. "There's a bloke over there staring at us."
"Lots of people are staring at us, lover. They all want to know whatajewellike me is doing with scum like you." Cruel? Maybe. But you had to keep him in his place somehow. "Where is he?" Mazza nodded in the man's direction. It was true; we undoubtedly had a totally captured audience. As he caught me looking over at him, he blew me a kiss and winked deliberately. It seemed the night might not be wasted after all. He wasn't exactly the creme de la creme of my clientel -with his dirty lookingjacket andshaggy hair -but I would have taken what I could get, to have that night's necessary work over and done with. The stifling air was starting to be uncomfortable, suffocating. I swerved our course in the man's direction and, as he saw that we were approaching, he whisked away through the doorway behind him. It wasn't a building I recognised, which surprised me. I had walked down that street most nights, since I was younger than innocent, impoverished Mazza. I ought to have known it like the back of my hand... did know it like the back of my hand. How strange...
I was taken aback whenMazza halted abruptly on the doorstep, pulling from under my arm. "Sash, let's not. This place is creepy. I don't like it." Now, he really did look like a child. His eyes were wide, stretched by fear. He was chewing his bottom lip, the poor dear. I reached out to him, drawing a finger up his throat, stopping beneath his chin.
"Oh, Mazza, scared? Never fear, lover. You're with me." And I believe I really felt as fearless as I sounded. My superiority complex was hard fought for; I wasn't about to let a little shadow in a doorway frighten me. "Come on, Maz. I'll look after you." I had to say something; I wasn't coming away empty-handed a third time in one night. I didn't know then, how could I have? But I would live to regret promising him that...