I ended up in Alexandria-next-to-Egypt. A fabled place, gone under the waves years ago but, oh, back then it was a jewel of a city. You ever wondered how I got into the University there? Cheek and a winning smile. I had enough of an education by then to pass the matriculation board interview but I still had to support myself so I did what I could to get money in the most efficient way.

The Gilded Scarab was a club with a notorious reputation for pandering to darker urges, a predictable place for me to gravitate to. No questions asked and I began earning an income in the main bar. Soon after, most of my work was in the private rooms and for the more … specialised clientele. Men would pay me to dance for them … and anything else they wanted. It was easy to take the extra money to be had from letting strangers cut me. I wasn’t particularly interested in their desires. I just knew that the pain felt good, it stopped me from thinking too much.

When asked I took my turn in the floorshows and became a something of an item. I would sing for them, strip for them, I would tease and excite them and I would give myself up to them. Mostly everyone stuck to unwritten rules of the blood mob, anyone who went too far … well, I was a big boy and could take care of myself. No one crossed the line more than once. Actually, most who tried didn’t manage to get all the way over the line the first time but there was always that undercurrent of excitement that someone might try.

I may have preferred the anonymity of crowd surfing in a darkened room filled with frenzied men but I understood the economics of my position very well. Anyone wanting faked, but dutiful, intimacy with me was charged the exorbitant rates agreed between me and ‘Lady Alex’, the owner. I saw no one from the club outside its walls. In the daytime world it was as if that place didn’t exist. I kept myself to myself and concentrated on my studies. My body was just to make money; no one saw me, no one got me for free.

Oh, Lady Alex, now there was a piece of work. Such a beautiful wo/man. Perfect midnight dark skin, lips like honey, breasts that men wanted to get lost in, legs that went on forever, arse like a peach, biggest cock I ever … ok, not everyone paid. But s/he was the only one. I knew my place.

The Scarab was within walking distance of the university. I knew that it was likely that there were some staff and students in the fervid audience but had guessed that no one would confess to seeing me there. Such an admission could open the door to things most clients wanted left unsaid – and those with enough money to be regulars also had enough to fear losing it.

I thought little of it one night when I was told that I was wanted immediately after the end of the ‘show’. Skin blood slicked from cuts and bites, clothes in shreds, still wearing the various bodily fluids I had acquired on my journey through the crowd, I was taken aback when I saw a man and a woman in the private room. A large amount must have changed hands for a woman to be in the club. I just hoped she knew she wouldn’t go beyond watching. The man I’d thought I’d seen before but couldn’t quite place – an effete excuse of a man he didn’t seem to be a likely partner for the petite, dark skinned, woman giving me a very cool look. Not my problem, they’d paid for me so they’d got me. The man held back, a bundle of nerves and repression, as the woman moved in to give me a close inspection like she was buying livestock. Oddest thing, there I was mostly naked and very male and her first comment was that I had lovely eyes. Surprised me a little, it seemed to have been a long time since anyone had found my face interesting.

That was my introduction to Selma Hawass and her single minded campaign to re-introduce the world to classical artistic ideals. Her offer to me was simple, being a model may not pay as much as the Scarab but there was little risk of injury and the hours were much more civilised.

While we discussed options her companion screwed up his courage to wash me down, fussing and tutting over wounds already healing as he sponged my pale flesh clean. I was marginally distracted as we negotiated fees, a side effect not so much of the man’s attempts to fellate me but from the eventual realisation that he had been a pen pusher on the interview panel a couple of years before.

A bargain struck for future employment Selma discreetly withdrew to the shadows, leaving me to casually throw the anonymous faculty member onto the bed and give him the service they had paid for. My name was never used in the Scarab. I made certain he didn’t get another look at my face.

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