Mouche’s dream of going to sea when he was old enough was not pure foolishness. The books were full of stories about boys who ran away to sea and ships that took them, sometimes with no apprenticeship fee. Poor as Mouche’s family was, he knew it would have to be without a fee. He would have to have something else to recommend him, like knowing things about ropes and nets and repairs and suchlike. He asked his teacher if he could get Mouche a book about all that—which he did, and followed it with others when Mouche was through with the first one. Mouche practiced knots in his bed at night, and learned all the words for the parts of the ship and the pieces of the rigging and how it all worked. “Seaman Mouche,” he said to himself on the edge of sleep. “Captain Mouche.” And he dreamed.
But now it seemed he was not to go to sea. Not even without a fee. He was to be a Hunk. Hunks did not go to sea, did not pull at nets, did not look out to far horizons and distant ports, did not smell of fish. They smelled of perfume. They pranced like ponies. And they fucked, of course. Everyone knew that. That’s what they were for. Though they did not father, they fucked.
Some very wealthy women were known to have several of them. When a woman accepted a dowry from some man she did not know—might never have seen, might grow to detest—thereby making him the sole begetter of her future children, it was her right to include in the contract a provision that after five or seven or ten years, whether she had any daughters or not, she was to have at least one Hunk. This was common knowledge. It was also common knowledge that many of the best-trained Hunks came from House Genevois in Sendoph. Polite people didn’t call them Hunks, of course, Mama was right about that. They called them “Consorts,” but it meant the same thing.
“Consort Mouche,” he said to himself, seeing how it sounded. It sounded dirty, no matter what word he used. It sounded like a teacher saying, “Take your hands out of your pants. What do you think you’re doing? Practicing to be a Consort?”
It sounded like teasing on the school ground, Fenarde saying, “Mouche can’t ever get married. Mouche will have to be a Hunky-monkey.” Which was very dirty talk indeed. All the girls stood and giggled and twitched their bottoms at Mouche and said, “You can be my Hunky-monkey, Mouche. I’ll put you in my contract.” And then they started kissing Mouche and touching him on his behind.
Such evil behavior got the girls a talking to about courtesy and treating males respectfully, because they were not as resilient as girls and their minds weren’t as flexible, and Fenarde got a mouthful of ashes from the schoolroom hearth for starting the whole thing. Mouche merely got a brief lecture. Though the teacher was patient, he didn’t have much time to waste on boys.
“Girls always talk that way,” he said. “They have no masculine modesty. You must behave demurely and simply ignore it, pretend not to hear it. When they pinch you or rub up against you, get away from them as soon as possible. And take no notice! That’s the proper way to behave, and it’s time you learned it.” Though how you could feel those intrusive hands on you and take no notice, the teacher did not say.
The night after Papa had told him about House Genevois, Mouche heard a tap at his door, so soft and so late he almost thought he had dreamed it until Papa slipped in and sat on the edge of his cot.
“My boy,” he said, “a man’s life is never easy. We are the weaker sex, as everyone knows, though sometimes at the end of a long, hard day loading hay I think our weakness is more a matter of fable than reality. Still, this is the world we live in, and we must live, as the Hags say, either with it or against it. I’ve come to say some things to you that I didn’t want to say with your mama there.” He stroked Mouche’s hair away from his forehead, looking at him sadly.