Theodora by Stella Duffy Page A

didn’t know what was coming. Or, he lowered his voice, as if she wasn’t ready for it: she could do with something to sap her wilder energies. It was common knowledge among the other girls – and therefore among their bosses – that Theodora had not yet had her first period, but the precociousness that had been noted when she was in Menander’s troupe was even clearer now she was strutting the main stage, taking absolute control of the five-minute interlude slot she’d been given, where she played up the comedy with two other dancers and far outshone her more technically adept older colleagues. She had plenty of energy, too much most of the time; in Cosmas’ opinion it wasbetter to put that energy to work, than to allow it to run wild on stage.
    Theodora took her concerns to Sophia.
    ‘It’s not that I don’t want to … I mean, I don’t know if I do or not, right? Some people enjoy it?’
    ‘Most people enjoy it Theodora, once they’ve had some practice, and some just enjoy it more than others.’
    ‘But don’t you think I’m too young?’
    ‘You didn’t bleed yet, so yes, theoretically, you’re young. But there are girls bleeding younger than you, and eunuch boys younger than you, they are also working.’
    ‘I don’t think I want to do it.’
    Sophia shook her head, remembering the horror of her own first time, the performance it had turned into, the ghastly spectacle of a huge man deflowering a tiny dwarf virgin, the pain and the blood, but more the humiliation, as the man who had paid for her chose to share his moment of triumph with half a dozen of his friends. It should have put her off for life, it certainly put her off a certain type of man, the all too many who saw her as a freak, an act to be indulged rather than enjoyed. She had, though, found some men could, with the right coaxing, be kinder, more careful, and there she could help Theodora. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
    ‘You’ll tell him I can’t do it?’ Theodora was grinning in relief.
    Sophia looked up at her new friend. ‘No girl, I won’t say that. You don’t have any choice.’
    ‘Then what?’
    ‘I’ll take care of it. I can’t make it wonderful, but maybe I can make it less frightening for you. Yes? Trust me?’
    Sophia did not need to explain the act itself to a girl brought up beneath the Hippodrome, who had played among the animal cages since she was a toddler, nor did she need to coach her inskills of either temptation or coquettishness: both had been learned in Menander’s dance classes for years. Instead she told her about dealing with the customer, encouraging him to talk to waste time, then to play him with her body before he played with hers, and finally how to speed him to his release so the act itself was concluded faster. She explained about the use of herbs and wine to ease any pain and further told Theodora to listen to her own body, to use her acrobatic and dancer’s skills of relaxation, of ease in the physicality, most of all to see the thing itself as a show. A private show, a more revealing show than usual, but a show nonetheless. She taught Theodora to see her body in the act as that of a performer, not her real self. It was the old prostitute’s trick of dissociation, and no less useful for being so ancient.
    And then, when she thought Theodora had learned all she could from mere talk, she set her up with her first paying customer. The son of a senator, who already – at nearly sixteen – knew he preferred the company of boys to girls, eunuchs to women, soldiers to anyone else, but whose father had declared it was time that he too got on with the deed.
    It was not good sex, for either of the parties, but it was not bad either. It was perfunctory, and a little messy, and it was done. And when it was done, Theodora accepted Sophia as her pimp, as most of the other girls in the company had done. Cosmas had no problem with this, he took his cut after all, knew Sophia was probably better than he would