Page 53 of Be My First

Chapter Seventeen

Bode

“How does this keephappening?” I mutter.

“What?” Juno says, looking over at me.

“Oh, nothing – just more erotic art,” I say, waving my arms around.

She laughs. “Well, we are in a brothel.”

I nod. “We are.”

Alone. Somehow. Where did everyone else go?

She looks down at a pamphlet in her hands and reads. “It says that Pompeii had roughly thirty five brothels.”

Her eyes jerk over to me. “That seems high, right?”

I shrug. Probably.

“That’s one for roughly every seventy-one men,” she adds.

I rub my chin. “That does seem high.”

She continues to read. “Prostitution was legal and thought to be a necessary part of life.”

She raises her eyebrows a little. “Marriages were economic arrangements and to guarantee a legitimate heir. In this society, men didn’t seek pleasure from their wives hence all the brothels.”

“Hmm.” I can’t think of anything else to say.

“Oh the Latin word for brothel meanswolves denand prostitutes wereshe-wolves. Gross. I do not like that.” She scowls at the paper.

I stay silent. Again, not sure what I can add. I don’t like it either, and the whole thing is making me uncomfortable. Why do we keep talking about sex? Is this what everyone does on Italian vacations? I was not anticipating this.

“Apparently, people would leave inscriptions or graffiti on the walls.” She starts laughing.

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