“And they wrote the Dower Laws.”
“Well, not right away. The laws sort of developed. But the key thing was, nobody got a wife without paying for her, and wives got the right to satisfactions for themselves. When the ship with all the women arrived, two or three years later, the Dower Laws were already in effect. Including section four, which you may now quote.”
Mouche nodded. “Section four provides that every Family Man must have a unique family name for his genetic line, as it is to guarantee the uniqueness of each male line that this system was designed by the Revered Hags to meet the needs of the men of Newholme.” Mouche swallowed a yawn.
“And, finally, section five.”
“Section five says that every marriage contract must provide that once the wife has fulfilled her contractual obligations in providing her husband with his own, specific lineage, she has the right to one or more well trained Consorts to make her life more pleasant.”
“Which is why you’re here,” said Simon, cuffing him lightly over the ear. “Recite it one more time, then you can be excused.”
5—Life as a Lobster
During Mouche’s first days at house Genevois, he stayed in the welcome suite where his life seemed to consist of nothing but orientation and baths. Dirt that had taken twelve years to accumulate was loosened over a period of days, pried from beneath finger and toenails, rasped off of horny calluses, steamed out of pores he had not known he had in places he had never bothered to wash.
“You know what we call new boys?” said Simon. “We call them lobsters, because they’re always in hot water.”
“What’s a lobster?” asked Mouche.
“A kind of Old Earthian critter,” Simon replied. “Eaten after boiling. Like a crustfish, sort of, but with more legs.”
Even while Mouche soaked in the hot water there were snacks, bits of this and that, little plates and bowls brought by silent, invisible creatures at whom one never looked directly. They took away the empty plates and refilled them and brought them back again, but no one noticed the plates until they were set down, because when they were being carried, they too were invisible.
Bodies could not be properly contoured, according to Madame, unless they were well fed. There was also massage, which was embarrassing, though he soon learned to disregard the invisible creatures pounding away at him. When the staff of the House weren’t washing him or pounding on him, or feeding him, or correcting his speech, he could read anything he liked from a great library full of real books.
“Am I the only one here?” he asked Simon. “I haven’t seen anyone else.”
“No, boy, and you won’t, not until you’re clean as a plucked goose, and fat as one. New boys are always the butt of jokes and hazing. That’s life. It’s always been that way. But there’s no point letting a new boy in for the kind of labeling that will make training him or selling him more difficult. Too many good Hunks have been ruined by being called Fatty or Slobby or Stinky. So, you don’t meet anyone until you meet them on equal footing, so far as cleanliness and elementary courtesy goes. We’ll have no nasty nicknames here. Propriety, boy. That’s what Madame wants. Our clients want Consorts they can take anywhere: to the theater, to the festivals, to the forecourt of the Temple, even. Our graduates must have no lingering taint of the pigpen or the tanners.”
“Decorum,” said Madame. “You’ll behave in gentlemanly fashion, and you’ll do it not only when you’re being observed by one of us”—by which she meant the staff of Genevois House—”but also when you’re alone with your colleagues. It must become second nature to you, a habit unbreakable as a vow.”
So it was Mouche wasn’t totally surprised when, clad in a white linen tunic, soft stockings and sandals, he was introduced to a similarly clad group of young men so polite it near took his breath away.
“You are welcome, Mouche,” said one. “We are happy to have you among us,” said another, and such like other syrupy phrases that made him more than merely worried. His concern was justified, for when the lights were out and the monitors had left the dormitory, Mouche came in for rather different treatment. The habit unbreakable as a vow was, like most vows, quite breakable when no one was watching. Still, it was no worse a bruising than he’d had from the cow when she’d resented milking, or from the buck of the plow when it had hit a root. Next day he was able to say with a straight face that he’d fallen on the stairs, and Simon was able with a straight face to accept that explanation.