Come to me, you pretty thing. I know all about you. Three days married and honeymooning with your husband. A romantic interlude for the two of you in the old world. Come to see our crumbling buildings and drowning cities before you return and begin the humdrum life of a housewife. How do I know? He told me. He came looking last night and found me and I took his 400 Euros and then I took his cum inside me. Look at him. You know it's true. You can see it on his face. No, don't struggle, let me see these breasts. They are perfection. Yes, he gave me what he should only share with you, his wife. Money and sex. It was easy and quick and finished in ten minutes and I faked my orgasm so he went away satisfied with himself.

Ha. I see it in your eyes. You have done the same. It becomes easier and more convincing when you are in my profession. My profession? You already know. I am a courtesan of Venice. You've read stories of me. We are legends which are true, famed throughout the world and so costly. We are the women who took all we wanted from Casanova and left him broke and broken. Byron ran from us to war because he knew we were more dangerous. Napoleon and his armies conquered Europe and thought they had conquered us but by the time they marched away, we had given them the grande vérole to weaken their bodies and their minds incessantly. And the victor over Napoleon? The Iron Duke? There was nothing iron about him after he had been between our legs. Popes and Princes. We've had them all.

Those artists? Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese? Do you really believe they used young men to pose as women for their paintings, celebrating the divine? Don't make me laugh! Not when, for the right price, we would drop our robes and show them pieces of heaven to copy and place in their churches and cathedrals.

You belong here with me. Not back in suburbia. Be like me, be with me. Be my Venetian courtesan. At night, we will sell our cunts to them and take their money and their seed. We will wake late in the morning. Make love to each other. You will never have to fake it with me - I won't allow you to and you won't be able to fool me and you will never want to pretend your climax. I promise. Nor will I fake it with you - I will never allow you to leave me unsatisfied. I promise.

Then we will rise, take our coffee, wander to a restaurant and restore our strength by the canal, away from the crowds. Then to bed again to make love lazily, to make love wildly. When the hour comes, dressing one another and making ourselves our most beautiful. Preparing for la Passeggiata and we will walk arm in arm, showing off our wares, enticing our customers and you will hear the words whore and puta but said how you have never heard them before - with the awe and reverence that women such as us deserve for our skills and knowledge. You will feel pride before we begin our night's labours.

Yes. Come with me, pretty thing. Forget him. Join me in my bed. Deteriorate with me just as the city does. Sink into the rising waters with me just as the city does.

Sell your cunt to them and nothing more.

Give your cunt to me and I will do the same.