victorian era dirkjake

At the bar there is a man so far from you that you might as well be watching him through the frosted windowpanes outside. “At” is not an ample figure of placement—he’s on the bar, long legs falling over the edge of the counter, a long arm falling over the broad shoulders of a man twice his size. The other hand raises a glass of alcohol high above his head. It spills, sparkles, as it falls down upon the men swirling beneath him like a stormy ocean. The whole scene looks like a work of Renaissance art. Your own private chapel ceiling of muscles and heavensent jubilation gracing you in the depths of a particularly filthy mollyhouse.

The subject of the painting catches your eye. Dirk, they call him. They all know him. Distantly, you wonder if he’s a whore. At an even further distance, you wonder what a man like him would cost. This is a new world to you—your imagination sets the price of a man like him far beyond what your pockets can carry on an adventurous evening out. Far more than what even a queen could bargain.

He’s still looking at you. He smiles, like a hunter, like a man who knows a freshman to this world when he sees one.

You pull back. Feel your shoulderblades collide with a shoddily plastered wall. Your brain flickers with the dim candlelight. His breeches slide from the counter and a man helps set him down with an arm around his waist. They exchange a look, a laugh, and then he’s coming towards you. You, Jake English, fresh from your parent’s home and braving London with the spirit of a man suddenly-wilting.

“Love,” he calls you, and you almost lose your balance, palms pressed to the wall. “Oh, don’t startle like that. Can I get you a drink?”