Page 62 of Audacity

Having the wife of the guy who not only owns my agency but used to pay through the nose to fuck me talk us through the delights that awaited me was interesting. On one infamous evening in Anton’s office, he let two of our colleagues fuck Genevieve because she wouldn’t let him touch her, instead using me to take the edge off for him as he watched her get spit-roasted on his office floor. I may have been blindfolded for all the good parts, but holy fuck was that night electric.

Any woman who has the self-control to hold off on Anton Wolff likethatdeserves serious kudos, in my view. It’s no wonder that he proposed with indecent haste after she finallyyielded to his considerable charms. Watching her today, I’m reminded that she’s my kind of woman. In another lifetime, we would have been friends, I’m sure of it. Rarely have I seen that level of badassery outside of my circle of Seraphim, and I admire her just as much for fronting an outfit like Alchemy as for getting a guy like Anton Wolff to fall head over heels in love with her.

At any rate, she and her indecently attractive colleague, Callum, did an impeccable job on the Zoom of talking us “virgins” through what to expect tonight on a strictly need-to-know basis. They explained that they were intent on furnishing us with enough details to assuage any anxiety or uncertainty we may have had while holding enough back so as not to spoil any of the surprises in store for us tonight.

Let it be said that I had zero anxiety or uncertainty and that, while I usually loathe surprises, sexy surprises are absolutely fine with me. The more the merrier.

Bring them on.

Still, it’s with more trepidation than I expected that I look around at these atmospheric surroundings. This is alot. I haven’t seen Gabe since we finished work yesterday and I skipped off, giddy as a schoolgirl over what lay ahead. We’ve travelled here separately, and the ninety-minute car ride from West London gave me plenty of time to close my eyes and ponder my fate tonight.

The experience started as soon as we reached the castle gates to find routes markedOverlordsandVirgins.God knows what the driver must have made of it, but he’s deposited me in a clearing manned with guards, and I’m shivering at the loss of the nice warm Mercedes and twenty-first century life—both its comforts and its securities.

We’ve been instructed to wear casual clothes, so I’ve turned up in athleisure wear and my enormous Moncler that is more duvet than coat. I hug myself as the guards, in a combination ofchainmail and leather armour, run their hostile gaze over me. A few of them hold the leather leads of Irish wolfhounds who stand still. The dogs are trembling, despite the lit brazier nearby. Poor beasts.

‘Declare yourself,’ one of the guards barks. Hastily, I hold out the piece of parchment that was delivered to the office this week, my name beautifully inscribed on it.

‘Athena Davenport.’

He jerks his head in the direction of the tents. ‘To the bathhouse.’

The tents are a hundred or so metres from where we’re standing. I pick my way down a path that’s been laid with rushes and which is illuminated with flaming torches mounted on iron brackets. Indeed, the vast sweep of the main drive is lit like this, and the effect is certainly dramatic. In the distance, the castle itself has been anachronistically uplit with red lights, but I doubt any of my fellow revellers will mind, because the effect is hauntingly fabulous.

I can’t get over how atmospheric it all is. It’s a clear, cold night and the moody beat of distant drums pulses through the air. The sky is dark above me and azure over to the west, but there’s a smoky haze from the numerous braziers dotted around the campus. Even the scents are alien—cooked meat with, I think, spices, and the earthy scent of horse shit. I really do feel like I’m in one of those full-immersion folk villages.

There’s a gaggle of women outside the cluster of tents signposted as bathhouses, huddled around a brazier wearing the beige-brown bonnets and rags of servants. They are uniformly stout and ruddy-cheeked and I marvel again at the level of detail that’s gone into this event. As I draw closer, I see a large wooden board propped up against the nearest tent. It bears a list of names, including mine, and I point at it.

‘Hello—um, I’m Miss Athena Davenport?’ I say, parroting the format of my name on the board. We were advised on the Zoom that we’d first be washed and given a change of clothes in the manner that a lowly bride might have been, but I don’t know much else aside from the fact that I won’t have to endure any sham wedding ceremony to my village ‘husband’. Lack of self assurance is never a problem for me, but I must admit to feeling a little uncertain right now. What Iamsure of is that every last detail has been contrived to make me feel exactly this way, to stoke that sense of vulnerability, of anticipation, and it’s really bloody clever.

One of the servants jerks her head towards the tent entrance, but the gesture is far cheerier than that of the guard.

‘In ye go, dearie. Let’s get ye washed.’

Inside, the tent is far warmer than it should be, and far grander than I expected. I suspect the Alchemy crew has found a way to marry the needs of its high-maintenance members with adequate historical accuracy. The canvas walls and wooden floors are covered with Persian rugs, and in front of a freestanding copper tub lies a bear-head rug that I sincerely hope is fake.

The tub itself, I’m thrilled to see, is filled with water hot enough to have steam rising thickly from it, carrying the scent of roses and whatever other herbs are floating with the rose petals on the surface.

‘What are ye waiting for, duckie?’ the woman asks me, flapping her hand. ‘In ye get! Do ye know how much wood we had to burn to heat this water?’

I stand still for a second, uncharacteristically frozen as I realise she means for me to strip in front of her. I understand privacy is a modern construct, and I’m hardly a blushing virgin, but still. I can’t help but feel as though this is one more sneaky move on the organisers’ parts to ratchet up that insidious feelingof exposure, of vulnerability. In any legend about Prima Nocta, no matter how fictional, any woman in my position would have felt that terrifying powerlessness at every turn.

She slides my coat off my shoulders and lays it on a nearby wooden chair. ‘Best make haste before your bridegroom appears. His Lordship won’t be happy at all if another man sneaks a look at his goods, not even your own husband.’

That galvanises me. I’m not in the habit of honouring random guys with the gift of my nakedness. I shoe off my trainers before tugging off my clothes, one layer at a time. She watches me unabashedly, as I unclip my bra and pull down my panties.

‘What lovely full hips you have,’ she says cheerily. ‘May you be blessed with many healthy children in your lifetime. His Lordship will have his fill of you tonight, I’ll warrant.’

The significance of her words hits me. Of course. Historians believe that the idea behind Prima Nocta was to give the overlords the chance to spread their seed. If they could impregnate brides before their new husbands had a chance to get to them, they could stamp out the advancement of other or lesser tribes.

The thought is both chilling and impossibly arousing. Within the next hour, “Lord Sullivan” will be tasting his new wares and exercising his feudal rights over every inch of my body. God, I can’t wait to see him in all his seigneurial glory.

I push the thought away as I sink down into the warm, scented water, holding my hair out of the way. I’m not some strong, present-day woman, so confident in the power of her sexuality that she’s forged an entire career from it. I’m a frightened young woman, a virgin who is impossibly ignorant of the things men do to women to create heirs and sate their bodily appetites. In order to wring every last ounce of pleasure from this evening, I need to lean the fuck in.

‘What is he like? His Lordship?’ I ask. This was one of the suggested questions we were given in our information packs. Apparently, the actors we will meet on our way to be deflowered have all been briefed on us and our “Lords” for the night.

She comes around so she’s behind me and, lifting my hair, ties it up in a rag before draping it over the edge of the tub so it won’t get wet. It’s a gesture I’m grateful for. I may be wearing almost no makeup except for blusher and mascara, but I carefully blowdried and tonged my hair this afternoon. I’ll be the most well-groomed virgin in this place tonight, right down to my very modern Brazilian.

‘You’ll have heard that he’s a very handsome man,’ she tells me, stroking my hair as I allow myself to sink down further in the water until only my head and shoulders are above the surface. Rose petals and stems of lavender float around me.

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