Benoît looks nervous, and she has every right to be.

Making our introductions, I am the fresh face. Now, we wait, in this decaying temple of decadence. We sit as a fragile circle on four mismatched chairs. Mine threatens to impale me with a rogue spring, and its corduroy arms are pockmarked with cigarette burns. I shift to avoid it, and the rough fabric grazes the back of my thighs. A coarse reminder of how far I have fallen.

The torn jacquard wallpaper hems us in. Water-stained cracks score the ceiling like dark spider webs. Golden rays of sunlight leak through the cracked shutters and paint stripes on the bare floorboards. Somewhere distant, a steady drip marks the passage of time, but it has not rained in days.

Dubois sits across from me, restless. Her fingers twitch for an absent cigarette. She is trying to quit. She sips vin de table from a plastic cup, and her lips twist at the sour bite. Even in these ruins, she radiates Saint Germain's elegance. Coiffured dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and a svelte body honed to its predatory peak. She is eye-fucking me.

Slowly, she lingers on my lips, down my neck, and remains on how my full breasts heave. She strips me naked with overt need, forcing a churning heat to bloom between my thighs. I feign indifference, yet I want her to lean in and catch the scent of my arousal on the stale air.

She claims she was the most discreet matchmaker in Paris. But whoever Dubois upset, her transaction never reached Monaco in time. With her assets frozen, she’s broke, like me.

Fidgeting with her fingers, she tells us she has done this before. Blanc, Moreau, and Fournier are out. Blanc has found God. Moreau, a louche womaniser and poet, has taken to drink. Fournier is a closeted homosexual who tries to write as a woman.

So, the male gaze is out, and the female gaze is in.

And yet, we wait for him.

Albrecht holds her long, willowy frame like a dancer at rest. She flicks her bright blonde hair, and it catches the stray sunbeams. Her blue eyes reveal a cool, confident detachment. She is a twenty-something like me with limbs that move with a liquid grace. Her pert breasts press against her top when she takes a breath. Her forte is filming soft-focus lesbian porn. Shrugging off Dubois’ short critique, she is unashamed, and I like her instantly for that. But she never saw amateur porn coming. Her eyes were behind a different lens. The studio terminated her contract, so now she feels the gutpunch of being broke, too.

Benoît is the one I cannot stop watching. She is slender and fragile, except for the bulky wrist braces on her thin arms. As she speaks, her wild black hair is her emotional prop. She sips from a cracked china mug with careful movements, as if every gesture costs something. With a doctorate in French Literature, she scrapes by, writing erotic fiction for three Euros a page. I feel the irony. She provides pleasure crafted by hands in constant pain.

When she lifts her gaze and meets mine, something wordless and electric passes between us. Her lips part slightly. I am lost in the delicate curve of her neck and collarbone. My eyes wander to the swell of her breasts snug in the bodice of her summer dress.

The heat Dubois first ignited transfers to her. She offers a small, wistful smile, and my sex gives a slow, sympathetic pulse. The tension coils tight and weighs heavily inside me. I imagine those braced fingers tracing over my bare skin. Hesitant at first, and then she grows bolder, pressing into my eager flesh. I am slick with anticipation.

As the last to share my story, the wine loosens my tongue. I am Duprix. An artist once feted as a dazzling talent for a few years, but is now reduced to teaching. My crime? Ignoring my agent. Now, violated by a burglary, the one painting I should have burned immediately is in the wrong hands. They left a venomous blackmail letter for me, too. Obey or be outed as a nymphomaniac libertine to my University and Grant Committee.

I swallow hard, freeing my tight throat.

Dubois leans closer, and her evocative perfume removes this painful distraction. With her warm breath against my ear, it sends a shiver down my spine.

“Our worlds are closer than you imagine.” Her dusky tone slides between my legs as a promise.

Then, Benoît goes rigid like a startled doe as measured footsteps approach. Albrecht leans forward.

The salon doors are missing, and there he stands.

Robespierre.

My former agent. My former lover.

My warmth turns to ice.

Something darker seizes me - betrayal.

The man who once devoured all my dirty fantasies and experienced them with me. He does not flinch in a room thick with anxious estrogen. Instead, he smiles as though he owns the building, and every wet, willing cunt in it.

I hate his rictus grin.

-=-= 2 =-=-

Our instructions are passed around, accompanied by a sketch. My heart sinks. Benoît smiles and starts scribbling with her left hand. Albrecht is next, and whistles with surprise. Dubois mutters, “Oh la la”. Old school and polite, I admire her touch of class. She hands it to me, and our fingers touch.

I fumble my smile.

I peer at the paper. “Fuck!”

It is more than I earn in a year. The sketch is on cheap printer paper, so no expense is spared. The perspective is crude, and the lines are impatient. It fills me with a deep dread.

His eyes move over us, slow and possessive.

“The Female Orgasm.” He states loudly, making the old walls complain. “Oil on Canvas. From Life.”

A nausea rolls through me.

He petitions us like a showman. “I want the moment she comes. I want to see it happen on the canvas. No poetry. No suggestion. The apex of female intimacy revealed to all.”

Winking at Benoît, he is impressed with that last line. She glares back as if she stepped in dogshit wearing new shoes.

Annoyed, his tone shifts from silk to steel. “You are writing the gallery notes. I want them hard and soaked while they look at the picture.”

“Dubois, procurement of the models,” he adds, stiff and controlled, “and stay away from anyone fucking a politician.”

She flashes her eyes at me. This is not a good time.

“Albrecht, lighting, scene and direction. Get them in the mood. Film it if you want, I don’t care.”

She shrugs, cool as ever.

Finally, his oily gaze settles on me. “Well, Duprix. It’s one metre by one and a half. You have seven days.”

I blanch at the size of the canvas, and the merciless week he grants us.

He looks at me and laughs.

-=-= 3 =-=-

Robespierre leads the way. Our shoes click across the floor, followed by the low whirr of our luggage wheels. The large canvas is trussed in place, and I can see their concerns.

“Ladies, this loft is your home for the week with gourmet food and wine in the kitchen. In that brown envelope over there is twenty thousand in cash for expenses.”

If Robespierre expects gratitude, he’ll wait until hell freezes over.

“At least, I won’t be drinking vin de table,” Dubois opines.

Looking at the main working area, it is an expansive padded mat on the floor. Albrecht calls it the ‘fuckpit’. I have to agree.

“Well?” Robespierre asks.

Clenching my teeth in my jaw, I release them. “The light is good. Almost excellent.”

“Albrecht has the lighting covered.”

Benoît curls up on a sofa, scribbling notes with her right hand. Dubois flips through her contact book, discussing models with Albrecht. I caress the taut canvas with my fingertips, the way a lover might before the first thrust.

“It is sanded, and cleaned,” adds Robespierre, talking to my breasts.

I walk to the supply pedestals with plenty of questions about the materials, but he is bored with leering at me.

He hands me a card. “My personal assistant. Alessandra Sofía Vallarino. She prefers Sofía.”

“I prefer The Panamanian,” adds Dubois, ice cold.

“She is my wife now!” Robespierre retorts.

I share a quick grin with Dubois. The moment feels good.

He straightens his lapels. “I must go.”

As he reaches the door, he raises one arm and points a finger to the sky, “Seven days to the hour!”

“Bastard,” Dubois hisses.

“He’s a cunt.” I whisper back.

-=-= 4 =-=-

Dubois turns to me, “What do you need?”

“Well, I must mask the canvas by tonight,” I sigh, shaking my head. “But it’s the sketch that needs to be traced onto the canvas.”

“So we need the orgasm by tomorrow?”

“Yes.” My eyes implore her. “We only have a week, so I must use a wet-on-wet technique. The paint cannot be allowed to stiffen. Once I start… I can’t stop.”

Dubois’ expression matches my doubt.

“Okay.” I sigh again, “I need a sketch, who wants to model?”

“We need an orgasm, a what-the-fuck-happened one,” adds Albrecht.

“Watch some porn on the computer,” Benoît suggests quietly from the sofa. “It might get you going.”

“For the painting,” I ask, “or something else?”

Benoît gives me a wry grin.

I mix Burnt Sienna and linseed oil in a tray. Loading a roller, I run it over the canvas in random directions. Female moans rise through the air, aggravating that ache inside me. Albrecht works quietly, setting up lights around the fuckpit.

By the time I finish, Dubois looks flushed. Albrecht fidgets in her seat. Benoît has returned to her notes.

I wipe my hands and walk over. “Well?”

The clip with her feral eyes holds me the longest. She stares straight into the lens because she wants us to feel exactly what is jammed inside her. In another shot, she’s cumming, back curved, mouth slack, tendons standing out on her arms.

I make a few rough lines on paper, but the result feels cold and impersonal. I need the real thing. The heat of skin. The scent and taste. My mind needs to forget how to lie.

Dubois looks at me with a dangerous curl on her lip. “We’ll have a better chance if one of us comes like that.”

No persuasion is needed as the undercurrent swells between us. Benoît says she will do it. Albrecht nods and then admits she has never filmed a real one before.

“Benoît? Bi or straight?” Dubois asks.

“Very bi.”

She smiles at me. I feel a sharp thrill of delight.

“Albrecht?”

“Straight.” She hesitates. “Sorry, old occupational hazard… I’m bi.”

Dubois holds my chin gently and glances at my lips. “I know you are bi. I'm having you first. Then you can eat out Benoît to your heart’s content.”

My chest tightens. I swallow and nod once. Her fingers slide down my bare arm, forcing me to whimper.

With her phone to her ear, Dubois is charming and smooth. She bargains fast, and then it’s ciao-ciao. For her second call, she struts around the loft, whispering. The swish of her svelte body seduces me, and the slow click-clack of her heels fades.

We dine on food that seldom passes our lips, and I must not drink too much. Later, I flirt with Benoît and tease her hair, looping it around my fingers. My eyes reveal a story I want to tell, and she smiles. Dubois chats with Albrecht, perhaps trying to dispel her earlier doubts.

Tomorrow, we fuck for art.

-=-= 5 =-=-

The intensity of our nervous anticipation matches the bright sunlight streaming into the loft. My second coffee jolts me awake. Looking at the sketch, I am daunted. What is the female orgasm? Is it the moment ecstasy consumes everything, including the price we must pay? Is it made from love and emotion, or purely from the body?

Benoît reads her draft notes aloud. Her suggestive words beguile as an aural sculpture, stirring the heat in our bodies. Now, we are surging like the inevitable tide.

The models arrive, two men and one woman, offered payment in cash, with no names and no forms. The first man is dark-haired and has the ideal balance of muscle and athleticism. The second is a taller blonde, quieter, with irresistible eyes and a delicious body. The woman moves with an elegance that makes the rest of us ache. The flare of her breasts complements her striking curves. Her skin glows with the faint flush of someone who anticipates sexual abandon.

What draws us in is the way they fuck.

Their matte bodies look soft under the skylight’s filtered beams. Her wide open thighs reveal her glossy sex. Our dark-haired model delves in with his tongue until she rocks against his mouth. She gets on all fours and arches for me while I sketch the long line of her spine. When I nod, she slowly sinks onto the blonde, claiming him on her terms.

My pencil captures her sleek curves, from her neck to her shoulders, down to her ass. She is magnificent in her hunger, taking the rhythm she needs.

“Hold her wrists. Pull her up. Make her body curl more.” My words are crude but necessary.

The blonde obeys.

“A little higher. Perfect. Now fuck her hard.”

My body and mind unite, sketching fast. Sensual curves define the conjunction of her thighs, the shadow of her lean flanks, and her pulled-back arms. Light and dark grey define her quivering breasts.

The charged air smells of sex, musky and sweet against the turpentine. Albrecht rises from the viewfinder, and her breathing hitches. Benoît’s eyes are huge and brooding. My erect nipples graze my t-shirt. Glancing at my coat hanging by the door, that poison blackmail letter sits in a pocket. Everything I do here can be used against me.

Dubois unbuttons her blouse, letting it fall as a puddle on the floor. Her lingerie leaves a trail towards the couple. She cups the woman’s breast. Her thumb brushes its stubby nipple. Provoking the model into a throaty moan, she captures with her mouth and a deep kiss. Their tongues slide visibly. Albrecht peels off her top and slides underneath the woman, sucking a nipple while her fingers trail lower. The woman trembles, and a syrupy, rhythmic sound joins their chorus. Her heavy gaze dares us to look away, but the camera sees everything.

She cries out, shuddering hard.

My heart aches. It is not enough.

-=-= 6 =-=-

The air thickens, heavy with a carnal animal scent. Limbs and bodies writhe across the mat, feeding the frantic yearning inside me. Albrecht clings to the blonde, groaning softly. The female model straddles the dark-haired male, chasing her second climax.

Dubois rises, and her stare locks onto me. Her commanding curves steal my breath. She does not ask and lifts my t-shirt, exposing me as her canvas. Her palm slips into my panties. She cups my torrid sex and takes possession of my body. In this trembling instant, I resist. I am cornered by the threats of men. The only insults that sting are those that are true. I am a common whore. Worse, this time I am bought and paid for. Her lips find the curve of my neck. Her teeth graze it lightly, and she marks me. It dissolves the last of my civilised restraint.

She pulls my panties down with firm hands. My thighs part shamelessly. Her hand claims my breast. Its thumb circles the aching peak until my pleasure borders on exquisite pain. I am liquid, dissolving into quiet, fragile moans. In a close embrace, I am undone by her devouring kisses. Dubois lays me down. Her toned thigh presses against my sex, and instinct makes me grind on it.

My trails of lust shine on her skin. Peering down, her covetous stare demands more. Sparks fly as she eases down my body, making me shiver where her caress and lips graze. She hovers over my mons, and I watch her mouth disappear. The pointed rasp of her tongue forces out unfamiliar sounds to my own ears.

“Mmm, so helpless,” Dubois purrs, “I can taste your surrender.”

I am half-here and half-distracted. Lost in her eyes, she tries to tear me away from the past. As a symphony of flesh, female gasps rise like smoke, with the deep rumblings of men bent to our designs. I clamour as it rises from the deep, and I plead for more. Tightening, I lurch, and Dubois holds me, still splayed and writhing. Clutching the sheet, my jagged little death tears through me. It is mine, and not for the canvas. It breaks the chains that Robespierre used to imprison me.

Orgasms come easily and flow like an electric current. We have the body, but we need the soul inside it.

Albrecht cries out, nearby. The female model shrieks when it overwhelms her. Dubois shudders above me in a determined soixante-neuf. I drink her down. We untangle, sharing its flavour in lip-locked passion.

My eyes find Benoît on the sofa, watching me. Her jeans hang open, with her hand moving inside her panties. I rise and present myself on all fours. The dark-haired male offers it there, and I push him inside. The slow, rich fullness blooms deep in my core. Controlling him, I take it deeper until it kisses that spot. Now, my moans join theirs.

Benoît vaults from the sofa, strips, and almost leaves her shadow behind. Her pale skin is flushed with need. Her broad breasts are tipped with pink, rigid nipples. I stop to admire her narrow hips and the flare of her pert ass, revealing her bare sex.

Without a word, she drops to her knees behind my lothario. I know where her tongue is when he hollers, and she is insistent. He bucks into me hard, making me yelp.

“Still causing trouble?” a strange voice asks, rich and accented.

Dressed in sleek black Chanel, she is resplendent, down to the gold chain on her handbag. Her dark eyes sweep over the fucking without surprise.

“Panamanian,” Dubois purrs. “It’s been too long.”

Her veiled eyes do not hide her longing.

“Forgive me,” she replies.

“There is nothing to forgive. Come, join us,” offers Dubois. “For old times sake if nothing else.”

-=-= 7 =-=-

Sofía drapes each garment on the back of a chair, undressing with a sophisticated poise. There is no brassiere to hide the proud lift of her breasts. Tiny black panties slide down her honeyed thighs, leaving her stockings to frame her flawless cleft.

“It’s nothing more than a marriage of convenience now,” she mutters, frankly.

Sofía kneels beside me. “Sex is polite. Controlled. Negotiated. I miss the spontaneity.”

Gracefully, she coaxes the dark-haired man aside. Benoît takes his glistening shaft into her mouth. Her fingers coil around the blonde’s erection, stroking him, too. Sofía watches for a moment, and then her smouldering eyes burn into mine.

“Most of all, I miss this.” she whispers, soft as velvet. “And I am famished.”

Transfixed, her fingers slide gently against my folds. I melt with a whimper when they twist inside me.

“Yes, that’s it,” she murmurs.

Sofía tastes my essence from her shiny fingers and grins. “I know how much you suffered to be here. Let me help you with that.”

My breathing stalls as my excitement rises. She leans in to kiss Dubois. Not gently, but with a pent-up need, making my stomach tighten.

Then, with an inquisitive eyebrow, Sofía stares deep into me. “So, artist. Do you need inspiration?”

Prone and trembling, her mouth meets my throbbing sex. Sofía's tongue is a patient and wicked revelation. Broad and soothing at first, then pointed and merciless, it circles my clit until I buck involuntarily. Dubois teases my body, prising out my moans. Albrecht adjusts the lens, zooming in closer. I am a libertine and refuse to feel shame for who I am. It scorches the last of my guilt from me. I twist and lurch hard, arching with ecstatic cries.

Sofía and Dubois kiss deeply, sharing my essence.

It is close to what we need, but not quite.

Benoît’s gesture gives a stern instruction. The dark-haired man lies down, with his hard cock waiting. She straddles him with a sinful expression. Her lithe body against his bulk is a study in contrasts. With a silent gaze, she grips his shaft, rubbing the head along her shiny slit. Teasing herself for a moment, she sinks down. Her eyes widen, and she groans hard.

I mistook Benoît’s words for the product of her imagination. I thought she was shy. She rides him as rigid flesh to demonstrate her knowledge. Her wild black hair lashes like dark flames. Silver droplets of sweat swell and run between her breasts.

Sofía watches, admiring her, then she turns to me, “She has spirit. Is she yours?”

I shake my head, “I wish.”

She purrs, “Perhaps we might convince her… together.”

Benoît rises, exposing her tight embrace. Dropping down, she takes him to the hilt. The engorgement of his flesh reveals its price. Filthy moans pour from her, drowning out the others. She flays herself against him, and the tension swells in her unrestrained cries. Lightning strikes hard. It scorches her runway body. Rapturous features reveal her intense beauty, vulnerability and a fierce pride.

This is hers alone. Not his, and there are sixty thousand reasons why this is a despicable crime.

Quivering with aftershocks, Benoît remains astride him, rolling her hips with purpose. She peers down and tells him to come. Grinding faster, she grins at his deep, plosive groans. Her eyes shine with a quiet triumph.

Lifting herself from him, his seed falls, dripping onto his vanquished shaft.

“Wow… just.. fucking wow,” gasps Albrecht.

Benoît crawls forward and meets the Panamanian’s eyes. She offers a passionate kiss as a tribute to our guest. Dubois slides between Sofía’s legs, clasping her thighs. I stand and weave my fingers through Sofía’s hair. She holds my thighs and looks up, showing me her pleasure. I press my bare mons to her mouth. As Sofía flexes, her zig-zag tongue devours me, her mouth sucking and slurping on my mound.

Her eyelashes flutter. Light reflects in those soulful eyes, and I witness how a storm gathers.

“Show me,” I whisper.

Rapidly, Sofía shakes to a standstill. Freeing her, I witness how her torment burns. There is no convention here. There is no polite. Her mouth opens wide, and from its dark void, a long, impassive cry breaks free.

She slumps, still twitching.

“You!” Dubois commands the blonde man. “Take her from behind.”

Stricken and listless, Sofía is placed on her knees, and he pulls her arms back. I taunt her slick folds with the hard flesh her husband paid her. She looks back at me and plunges onto it with open defiance. Through her weighted eyes, I see the polite black-tie soirees, the rationed affection, and the relentless mind games. Robespierre charmed me, and then controlled me. What I wanted slowly disappeared. I kneel before Sofía, tilt my head, and place that knowledge onto her lips. Caressing her breast, my eyes track her gaze as I circle her tight nipple and suck on it longingly. Benoît’s fingers dance on her clit without mercy.

Dubois kneels alongside me, sharing Sofía’s pouting lips.

“I know Sofía,” I whisper, “Come and join us.”

“Do it for me,” adds Dubois.

Sofía pitches up and fights the man who holds her, slamming back harder. The slap of skin and her sodden sounds fill the loft. Her eyes are wild, and a single tear traces down her cheek. Her body stalls, and she holds Dubois’ gaze.

Sofía convulses with a furious orgasm. Her long, harsh cries run through me. Jolting hard, she is relentless, still pushing onto him.

Caressing her face, Dubois whispers softly, “Welcome back.”

Then, she kisses Sofía tenderly.

I pull on my long t-shirt and reach for the drawing board. Behind me, the blonde’s gruff moans crest and fall.

I cannot lie. Our reasons are seared into my mind, and I work incessantly. Albrecht has the still images. Completing the sketch, I project it onto the canvas and trace it. The echoes of what we did course through my veins. I am possessed. Large blocks of colour define the rough shapes.

The models take their fee and slip away. The others shower, prepare food, and watch me in silence. Albrecht reviews the footage. Dubois lights a cigarette only to stub it out. Instead, she keeps her hands busy, embracing Sofía.

When Benoît approaches, I halt for a moment. She tilts her hand and touches my arm.

“I’m glad you saw me like that,” she whispers.

I reach out and caress her face with the back of my hand. “I know what it cost you.”

She presses her earnestness onto my lips, “Be with me tonight.”

“I’d like that.”

Eventually, we sleep, and Benoît rests in my arms.

-=-= 8 =-=-

Every day, Sofía and Benoît pose for me until they entwine with Dubois and Albrecht. Their bodies are a living study of female sensuality. The temptation proves too great, and they provide a sublime reprieve until the canvas calls to me again.

Their intense ecstasy flows through my fingers. Benoît embraces me, enlivening me with a kiss when I flag.

I paint with soft Filbert brushes, then down to Flats and Brights. When a brush diminishes in size, it is a minor victory. I mix colours for the palette compulsively. Translucent colours convey their sharp cries of rapture. Adding opaques captures how they glow bright and luminous for that vivid second.

This is my obsession. I must liberate us all.

I snatch sleep when I can, but the dark spectre of exhaustion hovers over me. Now, I must use the palette knife. I build impasto peaks for her erect nipples that beg for a stranger’s caress. I scrape the luminous highlights for those soaked inner thighs. Delicate sgraffito carves the tremors through her body and how sunlight dances on her sweat-slicked skin. I paint from memory and add a prophecy. I describe how she is taken, but she remains unattainable to the observer… forever.

This is the fatal conceit they will never understand.

Delicately, with the finest Rigger, translucent white completes the tear on her cheek. The precise instant her soul is bared, and she conquers him despite her bonds.

Then I stop and gasp.

Standing back to look at it, I shiver with relief.

Benoît slides her arm around my waist. “It was worth everything to see her like that.”

I take her hand and kiss it.

“Come on,” she whispers, and leads me to her bedroom.

I glance back for a moment.

Unmistakably, the woman on the canvas is Sofía.

-=-= 9 =-=-

The mid-afternoon light hits the canvas perfectly. Sofía is the epitome of the female spirit. Captured forever at the precise second it shines at its most beautiful.

Robespierre stands solemnly in the crushing silence. The five of us are his inquisition.

“The apex of female intimacy revealed to all,” I muse. “I think you will agree, it’s visceral. Profane. Her expression captures something she has never experienced before.”

He is trying hard to remain cold.

“Look at the tear,” I bring the end of a brush to point at it. “It’s a joyful gratitude to experience so much pleasure.”

Exchanging glances with Sofía and Dubois, we all know that it is a barefaced lie. Robespierre would never understand the truth, and I am in no mood to tell him.

Benoît approaches, “I have the gallery notes. It’s titled The Orgasm of the Cuckolding Wife.”

The Panamanian smiles sweetly behind his back.

Benoît narrates it with perfect pitch and diction. There is not a word wasted, and the punctuation drips desire. It paints the picture as a thousand words. Precisely.

God, I want her right now.

“This… is… what my patrons asked for.” He mutters.

He should never play poker with that face.

“This part is important,” I chime in. “Move this canvas now, and the surface will shift and crack. A week was never long enough to paint this. It must stay here to dry for at least two more.”

He smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. “Understood. How much of the expense money is left?”

“Eleven thousand,” Dubois replies, unable to conceal her amusement.

“Then stay. Sofía will arrange collection.”

He puts the briefcase on the counter. The clasps click, and he opens it.

“Sixty thousand each, as promised.”

Walking at a slow, controlled pace, Robespierre reaches the door.

He turns back, fixing us with an oily stare. “Sofía, it’s time to go.”

She steps forward and drapes her languid body against Dubois. “No. I think I will stay.”

With a distant expression, he swallows hard, opens the door and leaves. Our raucous laughter lofts high into the ceiling as our final derisory insult.

Dubois purrs. “When a man steals your lover, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. Although, borrow is a better word.”

“Sofía,” I ask, “Do you think we’ll see him again?”

She shakes her head. “He’s nothing without my family inheritance. I heard what he did to you, Duprix. This time, he went too far.”

“Thank you,” I smile, relieved. “All of you. For everything.”

Benoît places a kiss on my lips. Albrecht hugs me, too.

To celebrate our freedom, we start by sharing our first names. We will blow the expenses on exquisite food, alcohol, and vigorous cocks. The rest of it will be wasted.

There is pleasure to find in every hour of every day, with no one left to clip our wings.

Time to fly.

- FIN -