Rated NC-17. All warnings stated on the description of this fanfic apply.

Prolog

Ask a roomful of wizards and witches why some women (and a handful of men) are prostitutes and usually you’ll get one of two answers. Most of the men will smirk and say, "Because they can’t get enough! There’s nothing they’d rather do in life than lay back and take it all night." A majority of the women will narrow their eyes in indignation and respond, "Because they’re too lazy to earn an honest living. That and they have no respect for marriage and family life—or for themselves!" A minority of wizarding folk will squirm, shrug, and refuse to answer the question. To do so would embarrass them, or they know from experience how futile it is to argue against cruel stereotypes, or they find it too painful to contemplate the hopelessness that drives some of us to sell our sexuality to strangers. Until this winter I was one of those wizards who evaded the issue. Now I’m one of the whores, and I’m no longer reticent about discussing it at all.

How did I become a prostitute? It was a matter of economic necessity—or, to put it more bluntly, of survival. I’ve never been able to fully support myself financially, because I’m a werewolf. My parents and Hogwarts’ Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, fought tenaciously to see that I received proper training as a wizard; and I was one of the best students in my class. In fact, I was our salutatorian. Nonetheless, I’m not sought after as a professional—despite my academic record, my intelligence, my ability to get along with others, and my carefully pleasant (if somewhat shy) personality. What jobs I’ve had have lasted, on average, a little less than a month. Mostly I’ve done sporadic consultative work in my specialty, Defense against the Dark Arts.

Although my family is far from affluent, my parents were able to provide for me throughout my childhood and adolescence without much difficulty. I come from a long line of farmers and shepherds from southwestern Wales. Just over seven years ago my mother developed a chronic degenerative disease, though, which has greatly reduced their assets; so there’s not much that they’ve been able do for me in terms of monetary support since I graduated.

Luckily for me, my lover comes from a prominent family, and he was the fifth-ranking student in our class—after James Potter, myself, Lily Evans, and Severus Snape. He earned enough for both of us to live on comfortably, whether I was having a good month moneywise or not. Sirius Black and I had five affluent years as a couple before disaster struck last fall. Now he’s serving a life sentence in Azkaban; and I very quickly became a homeless man, because my unsuccessful attempt to have his conviction overturned ate up all that we’d managed to save in our time together.

I lost the house that we’d been buying and virtually all of our possessions by April just past. When Sirius was arrested, my consulting business essentially dried up. He was believed (wrongly or rightly) to be an adherent of Voldemort’s. Since I was his lover, I was assumed (wrongly) to be a follower of the Dark Lord as well. My lycanthropy cast a negative halo effect over both of us; suddenly our community thought that they "should’ve seen it coming," because werewolves—and those who befriend us—are "known" to be treacherous, antisocial, and just plain evil. I was reduced to earning my living as an unskilled laborer, usually under an assumed name. Because my picture had been in the Daily Prophet, I was recognized and outed several times, which resulted in my having to relocate immediately—often without my most recent earnings.

During the summer things weren’t too bad. Some of my friends were able to provide me with temporary room and board until it put too great a strain on their resources—or until threats were made against them, if they allowed me to stay, that they could ill afford to ignore. Also, it was warm enough for me to sleep outdoors and forage, hunt, and fish effectively enough to meet my survival needs. When autumn arrived, it became obvious that very soon camping out and living off the land wasn’t going to be a viable option. I knew that when winter came in earnest I would face four spectres that have beset my kind for millennia: freezing to death, dying of sickness (such as pneumonia), starvation, or—worst of all—giving in to my murderous and cannibalistic impulses during a full moon. That was the knowledge that made me decide to become a prostitute and led me to seek employment at the inn in Hogsmeade.

"Dammit! I’m not a pimp," Prospero Bergher protests vehemently.

"I know that," I answer quietly. "That’s why I’m asking you to help me. I don’t think I could handle working in a brothel—not one of ours and certainly not one of the Muggles."

"Why do you have to be a whore at all? You’re a trained wizard, for God’s sake! There has to be another way."

I sigh. I’m so frightened, frustrated, and ashamed that I want to weep; but tears are a luxury that I can’t afford at the moment. "Proz, I wouldn’t be asking you to help me prostitute myself if there were another way. My specialty is Defense against the Dark Arts. Thanks to the help that some of my fellow werewolves gave Voldemort, the wizarding community doesn’t have much faith in any of us as opponents of Dark magic right now. And thanks to Sirius’s troubles with the law, I’m currently the least trusted werewolf in Britain. I can’t get any work in my profession."

Prospero scowls. "Bloody idiot Sirius Black! I’ll never believe that he did what they say, but it’s just like the buggering fool to lose his damned temper and do something that causes you to suffer, too. Remus, you’re not a whore—and I don’t want to help you turn yourself into one. Can’t you do the kind of work a Squib might? It’s better than what you’re proposing!"

"Don’t you think I know that?" I growl.

He jumps at the suppressed rage that he hears in my voice and stares at me in wide-eyed, pale-faced fright. From lifelong habit I quickly begin to let go of my anger. "I’m sorry," I tell him—and that’s the truth. "I didn’t mean to go off on you like that."

He gives me a very rueful smile and shakes his head. "It’s all right. That was a dreadfully foolish thing to ask you! It just hurts to think of your being in such a bind. I wish I could give you a respectable job—keeping my books or managing the restaurant or even tending the bar—but I’m just not well enough off to take on another employee right now. I’ve had to let three of my people go this year, as it is."

"I know. That’s why I asked for the job that I did. You’re not out any money this way. We just split my earnings. And I’d have a comfortable roof over my head and a clientele that’s not too depressing to deal with."

"Yeah. They’re a pretty good lot, actually," the innkeeper agrees. "Mostly they’re businessmen who miss their boyfriends back home—plus a few locals who fancy handsome young men but don’t fancy being known to do so. By the way, I don’t let my guests mistreat any of my employees, including whores, female or male."

I nod. "Thank you. I’m not into being mistreated." That’s not entirely true, of course, or I wouldn’t be making myself the means to others’ sexual ends—and Prospero knows that as well as I do. What we’re mutually affirming is that his guests won’t have the right to beat me. Nor will he force me to contract to perform an act that I can’t bring myself to do—or insist that I agree to having one performed on me that I can’t stomach experiencing. Barring that, they can bloody treat me any way I’ve agreed to let them. That’s how prostitution works.

"All right, Remus. Unless the guests complain, you can set your own rates. If you think about it, it’s not in your interest to get too greedy, anymore than it’s in mine. You won’t make any money that way! If you don’t know what to charge, ask Emerald or Colette. I get half your earnings and you keep half. The half you give me covers the cost of your room and my fee for referring clients to you. You can put my share in an envelope every morning and leave it with the concierge. I make a point never to handle a whore’s money. Prostitution’s legal, but that could still get me in trouble. I expect you to pay for your own food and drink if you dine here, but you’ll get the same discount a regular employee does. Your room will be upstairs, the next to the last on the left. Tell the desk clerk that I said he should give you the key to it."

I’m afraid to ask my next question, but I have no choice. "Do you have some place safe for me to stay when…when the moon is full? I wouldn’t want to disturb your guests—or do any damage to my room."

Bergher frowns just long enough that I’m afraid that our deal is off. Finally he nods and gives me a faint smile.

"I think so. Yes. The wine cellar is an ancient crypt. Long ago this inn was a church, you see. I can lock you into a storeroom down there that has a heavy oak door with an iron bar on it. The stonework in the cellar is so massive that you could howl all night and no one would hear you up here. It’s very dark in the crypt, too. I’ve been told that helps your kind remain relatively calm."

"Yes."

"Very well. Will you be ready to begin working here tonight?"

I look at my pocket watch. It’s 11 a.m. "Would 9 p.m. be acceptable? I want to sleep awhile and to bathe and eat before I start."

"That’s fine. Tell the desk clerk when you want us to wake you."

I shake his hand, murmur "Thank you," and turn away from Prospero Bergher as quickly as I can. He catches me by the wrist and turns me back towards him.

"Wait up, Lupin! Two more things."

"Yes?"

"Well, first I need to know if you’re for my male guests only or are you willing and able to entertain the inn’s female guests, if there’s any call for that."

I’m not sure, so I tell him, "For now it’s best that I concentrate on the men, I think."

"Understood."

"What’s the second thing?" I ask, with more than slight trepidation.

My old friend and new business associate surprises me by giving me a very warm and genuine hug. Somehow—despite my situation—I’m not simply a commodity to him. The knowledge that I’m not eases my unhappiness considerably.

"I wish that it didn’t have to be this way," Prospero whispers as he releases me, "but good luck, Remus. Good luck!"

A buxom desk clerk named Nell gives me a start when she enters my room via the fireplace to wake me.

"I’m sorry, Remus," she apologizes. "Ned told me to wake you at seven when he went off duty at six. But it’s been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to run up here since my shift began, and it’s already seven-thirty. I decided that I’d better resort to a pinch of Floo powder so you’d still have time for the supper and bath that he said you wanted. What shall I have the house elves bring you?"

My stomach is tense, churning, and utterly disinterested in food, so I tell her, "I changed my mind. I think I’ll pass on supper and just have a long, steamy bath."

"Well, it’s early enough that there should be plenty of hot water. Would you like some tea at least?"

"Thank you, no."

She gives me a somewhat sheepish smile and nods. "If you do need anything, I’ll be at my station. Oh—and next time I’ll knock. I promise!"

I’m sure that my own smile is as self-conscious as hers was. "It’s all right. Really! I’m not usually that skittish."

"Goodbye then," she says—and, tossing a bit of Floo powder into the fire from the ginger jar on the mantle, she vanishes back through the flames with a pop and a whoosh.

I’m almost as tired as I was when I lay down to sleep. I had trouble drifting off, and I remember waking more than once from troubling dreams. Not only is my stomach unhappy but I also have a headache that I recognize consists of equal parts of tension and fatigue. Perhaps once I’ve bathed I’ll feel better. I turn on the taps so that the tub can fill and linger in the somewhat claustrophobic bathroom, entranced by the tendrils of steam climbing through the air like a vaporous vine. Water slops onto the floor and over my feet, bringing me back from my reverie of preparing to share a tub with Sirius Black.

"Dammit!" I mutter, quickly turning off the water and grabbing a big, thick towel with which to sop up the mess that I’ve made. When most of the puddle on the tiles has been absorbed, I fling the towel into the sink, strip off my robes, and slip into the tub so that only my knees, shoulders, neck, and head are above the nearly scalding water. I should be leaning back against Sirius, with his arms casually draped over my chest as he kisses the nape of my neck and teases one of my earlobes. Instead he’s in Azkaban, I may never see him or speak to him again, and—in a very short while—I’m going to do what I once would’ve considered unthinkable and sell my favours to a stranger.

From the tub I can see the glint of my razor sitting on the rim of the sink. I’m so tempted! It would be easy to step out of my bath, fetch it back, climb into the water again, and open the arteries of my wrists or throat. Desperate as I am, I won’t do that, though. I fear God, I love Sirius, and I’m too bloody stubborn to give up on my life without a damned good fight. I will, as the poet urged his father, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." I cry like a baby until the water has gone stone cold, but I don’t give another thought to the notion of taking my own life. When I realize that it’s nearly nine, I quickly wash and rinse before draining the tub and putting the bathroom back into order.

What to wear? Not my wizard’s robes—I’m ashamed enough without wearing them in front of my first client. I take a good look at the trousers and shirts that I’ve worn as a laborer. Not them either! They’re badly faded, ripped here and there, worn thin, and stink. I stuff them back into the wardrobe, glad of the pomander that masks the smell. The only other item of clothing that I still own is the silk dressing gown that Sirius gave me three years ago for my eighteenth birthday. The thought of wearing it tonight almost makes me cry again, but I don’t have time for that now; so I whisper "Forgive me" to my absent lover and put it on. I know without glancing into a mirror that I look good in it—and sexy. Sirius wouldn’t have had it any other way!

Returning to the bathroom, I shave and try in vain to make my shaggy head of mouse-brown hair lay neatly in place. I promise myself a long overdue haircut tomorrow, thinking ironically that it’s all right to splurge on that now—because it will be good for business. I promise myself that tomorrow I’ll find other clothes to work in, too; because it’s painful enough to whore in my beautiful dove-gray robe that’s as soft as Sirius’s gentlest touch even this once.

I’ve just finished getting myself ready when there’s a rap at the door. When I open it, Nell’s waiting in the hall with a businesslike expression on her face.

"Mr. Bergher would like to send a gentleman from Drogheda up," she announces. "Are you read to receive him?"

I nod and hope that the tremor that just ran through me wasn’t noticeable. I’m so tense that I feel like someone has beaten me all over.

Nell squeezes my hand and gives me a peck on the cheek. "Mr. Bergher said to tell you that he’s known Jamie for several years now and that he’s very nice and never makes any trouble. He wanted your first to be somebody decent. Oh, and Jamie will spend the night with you—because he always likes to sleep with someone he sleeps with. He’ll buy you supper tonight, if you ask him to, and breakfast in the morning, even if you don’t."

Clearing my throat, I nod again, thank her for the information, and ask her to send Jamie from Drogheda up.

He turns out to be a good-looking "black Irish" businessman about fifteen years my senior, who has an infectious smile and an easy-going manner. When in my nervousness I forget to invite him into my room, he simply prompts me, "May I come in, Remus?" and waits for me to take a deep breath and stammer an unsteady yes before stepping across the threshold. After I close the door behind him, he caresses my cheek. I manage to suppress my desire to flinch from his touch, but I shiver visibly. This is not going well!

"You’re lovely," he tells me and touches my face again.

"Thank you," I answer in a muffled voice that seems too faint and faraway to be mine. I know that I’m supposed to respond to his overtures and make some of my own towards him, but moving—or speaking—seems impossibly hard at the moment. I feel as rooted to the spot where I’m standing as an ancient tree is to its primordial place in the forest.

Jamie takes me by the elbow and guides me to the foot of the bed. With the pressure of one big hand, he forces me to sit; but he doesn’t try to make me lie back nor does he join me. Instead, he drags the chair over from the writing desk and sits facing me.

"You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know! I’m not going to hurt you."

I nod in mute acknowledgement of his reassurance.

He gives me a lopsided grin that reminds me of my dead friend, James Potter. Somehow that grin both comforts me and adds to my misery. I instruct myself to breathe, slowly and evenly.

"Prospero told me you’ve never done this before. I…I want it to be enjoyable for both of us, Remus. It can be, you know! I have no desire to harm you or humiliate you or be unkind to you in any way. If possible, I’d like for this to be as pleasant as an evening back home with my boyfriend Sean. Would you like something to eat and maybe to talk awhile? We have all night."

I shake my head. "Thank you but no. I ate a short while ago," I lie.

"How about a drink?"

"Yes. I would enjoy one about now."

"Very good!" he responds, pulling a bottle from his satchel. "Would you care for a drop of this? I brought it from home. No offense, but you Scots make dreadful whiskey! It tastes like you used leftover sheep dip for water."

I’ve dipped enough sheep in my time to find the notion hilarious, so his remark elicits a boisterous laugh that’s just a bit too harsh and loud, due to my nervousness. "Yes, please. Irish whiskey is fine. And, by the way, I’m Welsh—not Scottish."

"Good on you, boy-o! The Scot’s are generally speaking a dour lot. Which part of Wales are you from?"

"Dyfed."

He nods approvingly. "It’s beautiful—but most of Wales is." He brings two glasses over from the desk. "How do you like your whiskey?"

"Neat." Normally that wouldn’t be true, but tonight it is—for several reasons. I don’t want anyone, even a house elf, to enter this room until I’ve done what I have to do. I don’t want either of us to leave here before then either. Lastly, I want the liquor to be uncut so that I can better use it to calm myself.

Three drinks and well over an hour of small talk later Jamie asks, "May I sit beside you now?"

I nod. "Yes, of course! You could have done that before," I explain as he joins me.

"True. But I wouldn’t have had as good a time in the long run, would I? Are you sure you don’t want anything from the kitchen?" he adds quickly, before I can answer the previous question.

"No, I’m fine," I assure him.

He blows out the candles and sits down next to me. He doesn’t kiss me right away, but he keeps touching me lightly on my arm and back. When he runs his hand down the midline of my body gently, I pull him to me and give him a kiss on the cheek.

"That’s better," he says softly and returns my kiss. He covers my face and throat with kisses. To my amazement, after awhile they feel very good. Nonetheless, as he continues, I want to go into the bathroom, shut the door, and escape them. It isn’t Jamie’s kisses that I want; it’s Sirius’s.

I return his kisses with as much enthusiasm as I can muster—and feign a bit more for good measure. Tonight I’m becoming two things that I’ve never been: a whore and a liar. I hadn’t realized that the one would require the other.

When the Irishman unfastens my robe and exposes my nakedness, I close my eyes and keep them shut until he’s finished with me. I’m amazed at my own embarrassment! My family and some of our friends, the staff at St. Mungo’s, and what sometimes seem like half the Law Enforcement wizards in Britain have seen me unclothed during one full moon or another. I thought that I’d lost all sense of body modesty a long time ago. But although Jamie’s a good man, I’m ashamed to have sold him the right to look at me and touch me and use me to relieve his body’s hunger.

He doesn’t mind my tightly shut eyes. He keeps on kissing and petting me and tells me what he’d like for me to do. I conform to his wishes to the best of my ability. At no time do I hate the man. I invited him to do the things that he’s doing to me, and it’s doubtful that he understands just how miserable I am. When he finishes with a sharp cry of pleasure, he tries to kiss me on the mouth; but I turn my head quickly and his kiss grazes my jaw instead. He doesn’t attempt to kiss my mouth again.

What he does do is cover me with the top sheet and a blanket, for which I’m more grateful than he can imagine. He slips under the covers with me, draws me to him, and wraps an arm around me.

"Would you like to sleep awhile?" he asks.

"Yes, please," I answer him. Dear God! I would like to sleep all night and wake up alone in my bed with no memory of what we’ve done.

Jamie likes me well enough to wake me in the middle of the night for another round of lovemaking. He likes me so much that he decides to see to it that I ejaculate, too. Afterwards I brush the tears from my face quickly, because I know that he won’t go to sleep without kissing me good night.

I can’t go back to sleep. I’m caught up in a web of complex and painful emotions that leave my mind, and my heart, racing. I don't think that the Irishman could make three goes of it in one night, but—just in case—I stay perfectly still beneath his encircling arm lest I wake him and discover to my horror that I’m wrong. When he wakes up shortly after dawn, I pretend to be asleep. He kisses me on the shoulder and wanders into the bathroom to freshen himself to face the new day.

When he comes back into the room, he shakes me and calls my name till I have to respond. "Wake up, sleepyhead!" he insists. "It’s your turn to wash up so that I can take you downstairs for breakfast."

"You don’t have to do that!" I protest.

"No," he agrees, "but I bloody well want to. Be a good sport. You can have anything on the menu." He gives me an impish smile. "You can have everything on the menu, if you like. It would give me that much longer to look at you."

"I haven’t bought anything to wear out in public yet," I try to explain.

"That’s silly! You’re gorgeous, so you don’t need to dress to kill." Before I can stop him, he opens the wardrobe and sees my shabby robes and even more disreputable work clothes.

"You’re a wizard!" he says in a stunned tone, touching my robes.

"Yes."

"Wh-why are you doing this then?" he asks in bewilderment, as he gestures at the bed that I’m sitting in.

"There’s no work for me here as a wizard," I answer quietly.

"It wouldn’t be right of me to ask why, would it?"

"I’d certainly rather you didn’t," I admit.

"I’m sorry, Remus," he murmurs apologetically. "Go ahead and wash up, though, and put your dressing gown back on. I still want to buy you breakfast. I’ll just get the house elves to bring something up. All right?"

Without too much reluctance, I agree. I haven’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, so I’m definitely hungry. What Jamie’s offering sounds very good; Prospero’s kitchen is a marvel of culinary skill. When I step out of the bathroom, I discover my client seated at a small table that’s covered with a mountain of food. By the time that we finish it, Jamie’s bought almost another hour of my time.

He’d set my money on the dresser, as is customary, while I was shutting the door behind him last night. As Jamie prepares to leave, he hands me more.

"What’s this for? You paid me last night."

"Of course, I did! Listen, Remus. I won’t pretend that I’m too good a man to take advantage of your troubles, because I’ve already proved to you that I’m not. But I do actually like you. This...it’s just a way of acknowledging that last night was very difficult for you. Buy something handsome to wear down in the restaurant or out on the town, why don’t you? I’d like that. And don’t split this with Prospero. It’s a gift—and I told him that I’d be giving it to you this morning if you took my fancy. It’s not subject to his bloody fee!"

I surprise myself again by walking around the table and giving him a kiss on the mouth. "Thank you," he tells me. "I won’t be taking it for granted either, because you made it rather clear last night that those are not for sale!"

I laugh. As long as I have this wretched job that I’ve taken on, Jamie from Drogheda will be a valued client.

A few minutes later he has to leave for London. After he’s gone, I go back to bed. It’s already late afternoon when I wake up again. Before it’s time to report in at the front desk for work, I get the haircut that I’ve needed for months and buy clothes like a Squib or a Muggle might wear. It’s good for business, after all.

I hope—in vain—that many, if not most, of my nights will be as tolerable as the first, with Jamie, was. They’re not. Don’t get me wrong! Because Prospero Bergher is an old friend and a hostler trying to please his guests rather than a pimp, my work environment and clientele are relatively upscale and civil. However, very few of my clients see me, as Jamie did, as a human being that they’re willing to like as well as to use. Most of them don’t require my services for a full night either, which means that within a fortnight I’ve been with around fifty men. While that’s about half as many as I would have slept with in the same length of time in a brothel, it’s far more men than I’d intended to have sex with in my entire life!

I don’t seem to be getting used to it either. In my two weeks as a prostitute, I’ve had nearly constant headaches, lost most of my appetite, drunk far too much liquor with my clients, cried myself to sleep every morning, and had to push thoughts of suicide out of my mind every afternoon upon waking. My body is becoming less responsive to the men who use it, too; but fortunately, as long as I do what they ask of me, that’s not usually an issue. So far, when it has mattered, I’ve managed to force myself to become aroused. To my astonishment, I’ve discovered that an orgasm can be utterly joyless. Even more amazingly, I’ve had repeat clients who I feel sure were as unhappy in bed with me as I was with them. It disturbs me that I’m trafficking in so much misery! And I’m full of guilt and shame. How will I ever explain what I’m doing to Sirius—or to God? I thought that they’d understand, because they love me; but now I’m not so sure. And if God and my own lover despise me, who—learning what I’ve done—will be able to accept me?

Today is the first Monday in November. With luck, I’ll be able to give this job up by the middle of April. If I don’t adjust to what I’m doing soon, though, I wonder how I’ll manage to survive with my sanity intact until late spring.

I’ve just come out of my first full-moon seclusion since starting to work at the inn. Certain aspects of it bothered me a great deal. First and foremost, I’m not ordinarily happy to submerge my mind in that of the wolf. This month, though, it felt good to huddle in a remote corner of my psyche unthinking and only dimly conscious. Second, I’m troubled by how little the wolf savaged me, despite the fact that I was unchained and vulnerable to his attack. It’s good not be covered in bites and claw marks today; but I know from prior experience that, if I were healthy and strong, he would’ve taken his rage out on me for depriving him of human prey. The still darkness of Prospero’s stone wine cellar is calming, but not enough so to have saved my skin! Lastly and most worrisome of all, I didn’t want to leave the refuge of the crypt once the full moon passed. Although I’m sometimes exhausted enough when my transformation ends to nap awhile in my place of confinement, I normally can’t wait to leave by the time I’m fully awake. Today I lay in a corner of the storeroom listlessly, not wanting to eat or drink—much less dress and return to my room—for many hours after Ned brought me food, water, and bedding and left the heavy door to my prison unlocked. Not until he comes back late in the afternoon to see if I plan to work tonight do I force myself to put on my clothes and go upstairs after deciding to take one more night off.

Emerald comes knocking on my door just after 6 p.m.

"You look like hell, Remus," she announces almost the moment she sees me. Before I can object, she orders me to, "Put something good-looking on. I’m taking you to supper. My first trick’s not till ten."

"Trick?"

"Client. It’s a Muggle word for someone you have sex with for money."

"You’re a Muggle?"

"Shit, Lupin! You’re not as tuned-out as I thought. Mind if I come in while you change? There’s always the bathroom if you don’t fancy a woman seeing what you’ve got."

I wave her in. She makes herself comfortable on the foot of the bed where, just a few days ago, I hesitated one last time between prostitution and even less attractive possibilities. What she said in the hall made it sound like I would be a fool to claim any right to modesty or privacy. A bit angrily, I throw my dressing gown to the floor and mentally dare her to say anything while I pull on some of the clothes I bought with Jamie’s morning-after money.

"You have a nice body," she comments almost shyly—which, given her previous brashness surprises me.

I give her a grunt that she can take for an acknowledgement of her compliment if she likes. I’m not at my sociable best. I never am the day after a full moon, and this is the first day post-transformation from hell.

"You’re welcome," she says sarcastically. "Move your ass! I don’t have all night."

"Look. Nobody said that you had to ask me out for supper, did they?"

She shrugs. "Somebody needed to. You look like you haven’t eaten in about a week!"

I’m stunned when I suddenly realize that she’s not far from wrong. Now I feel so embarrassed that I can barely speak. "I’m sorry," I murmur. "I should be glad that anyone cares."

"A lot of people care, you ignorant bastard! I do. Ned and Nell do. Mr. B does. Even some of your tri—clients do. I know that you didn’t grow up thinking, ‘I want to be a prostitute.’ Neither did I—or anyone else. But there are worse things, baby; so try to get over it!"

"Have you?"

At first I expect her to blister my ears with the anger that ignites in her eyes, but it gutters out quickly and she’s laughing when she answers me, "Not altogether, Mr. Lupin—but enough. I accept what I am well enough to get by and get on with my life. You’re not turning tricks tonight. Put on your handsome and self-confident hat and come have supper with me. It’s more fun than getting in a row with me. I promise!"

I chuckle. "That’s not hard to imagine!"

A heartbeat later she answers with a slow grin, "Boyfriend, not only are you a prostitute; but you are, undoubtedly, the most insolent whore in Hogsmeade! Must be a Y-chromosome thing—although the young man just before you wasn’t so full of sass."

"Oh? And, for the record, what happened to him?"

Her face freezes into a pained mask. After a moment she draws a breath. "Better you ask another day, baby, since you’re feeling poorly. Never fear, though. We’re all going to look after you." She changes the subject swiftly. "Damn, Remus! If you don’t stop asking so many questions and hit the door soon, I’m going to waste away, too. Let’s go!"

I nod and offer her my arm.

"Ooh, class!" she says happily—and without sarcasm. "I knew there was some good reason that I liked you."

We eat at the Three Broomsticks, because—except for the inn—it’s the best place in Hogsmeade to eat. I’m in luck. Neither any of my classmates nor any of my tricks are there. I gorge like a half-starved wolf, which makes Emerald laugh.

"I’d match you bite for bite," she confesses, "but I don’t think my tricks would appreciate it. Especially not my 10 p.m. treat! How can you pack that much food away and not weigh about 300 pounds?"

"It’s my metabolism," I remark wryly.

She rubs the back of my hand vigorously. "Yeah? Let’s see if I can catch it from you!"

Horrified I grab her hand. "You don’t want my metabolism," I insist.

She grimaces but doesn’t get angry. "Easy, baby! I was just joking. Want to tell me what I said wrong, so I won’t put my foot in it again?"

I shake my head. "I will—but is another time soon enough? I overreacted. I won’t do it again."

"Whatever! Would you like to chase all that food with a slice of Madame Gillian’s cherry pie? It’s to die for."

"Why not?" I pat my belly. "I’m pretty sure there’s still room in there."

After dessert, I try to pick up the tab. Emerald’s jaw goes hard as stone.

"I’m only saying this once, Remus," she says with careful restraint. "You agreed to let me to take you to supper. You’re not going to dis me by trying to pay for my company now."

"Dis?"

"It’s another Muggle word—short for ‘disrespect’."

"But I don’t disrespect you! I just…" I nearly make a complete fool of myself before realizing that, like my kisses, Emerald’s companionship is not for sale. "I just realized how close I came to spoiling a lovely meal," I continue. "Thanks, Emerald. I really appreciated it!"

Her jaw relaxes and a timid smile lightens her face. "All right, boyfriend! You really aren’t tuned out." She pats my hand and leaves the price of our supper on the table.

We walk back to the inn in companionable silence. When we come to her door, one closer to the stairs and across the hall from mine, she gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. I fold her into a hug that lasts awhile—my first in a long time, barring the ones that I’ve sold to my clients. As I release her, she squeezes my hand and wishes me a good night. I nearly wish her the same until I remember her 10 p.m. appointment.

"Thanks," I reply instead. "Be seeing you!" I go to my room feeling better than I have in many days.

Since the night that I began working at the inn, I’ve dreaded the certainty of eventually opening my door to find a former classmate waiting to avail himself of my services. A few days before the December full moon that actually happens.

"You!" exclaims Avery Thorne-Haskel, formerly of Ravenclaw, taking a quick step backwards. "Remus, as in Remus Lupin--Sirius Black’s boyfriend, the werewolf."

The frown on his face is so daunting and I’m so embarrassed that I want to slam the door shut with him still outside. What makes my sense of humiliation so complete is that Avery has concealed his sexual orientation from everyone since we were teenagers; and he’s always held me in contempt because I didn’t. He wouldn’t begin to understand that there’s only so much of myself that I can hide without disappearing altogether! I’d rather be known to be gay than for being a werewolf, but serendipitously I’ve been outed as both at one time or another. That lessens me in Avery’s eyes. I force myself to give him a feeble—and hopefully not too sardonic—smile.

"Would you like to come in?" I ask, half hoping that the answer is no.

He sucks at a front tooth and shifts from foot to foot nervously before responding. "I’m not sure. May I step inside long enough to discuss it with you?"

"Of course." I take a seat on the foot of the bed and intentionally forget to offer him a chair.

He clears his throat nervously. "Well, first I have to ask if there’s any chance that I’ll contract your disease if I decide to stay."

"None whatsoever for another seventy-two hours."

"Mmm. I also need to know if your affliction—ah—affects your temperament between full moons."

"Are you asking if I bite?" I inquire, fixing him with what I know is a somewhat unnerving stare. "Only if my client insists and pays me a great deal of money. I’m not fond of sadomasochism. Are you?"

"Don’t you talk to me like that, you whore!" Avery explodes. He’s turning an alarming shade of red that, in an older man, would promise apoplexy.

I want to smash him in the nose so hard it will bleed, but I immediately set about releasing the knots of my anger instead. I know that I’m being a fool to provoke him.

"I didn’t mean to offend you," I lie. "I really do need to know what you want, to determine whether or not it’s a service that I provide—not to mention to decide what to charge you for it."

"I know what to pay!" Avery protests. "I had it from the last boy—several times."

I choose not to remind him that, if he’s a man and not a boy, so am I. "Be that as it may," I reply mildly, "I may not charge the same—and I still don’t know if what you want is something that I do." Emerald is right. I can be a very insolent whore when I set my mind to it!

The rubor of Avery’s face inches towards purple. Very slowly, as if talking to a moron, he says, "I want you to get down on your knees and suck me till I’m hard so that I can shove my cock up your ass till I come. Is that in your repertoire, Remus?"

"Yes, it is. Do you want one opportunity to do so, or to spend the night?"

"God! Once is enough—and I had sooner spend the night with a polecat. What do you charge?"

Since what he wants is so common that I have no grounds to refuse him service, I quote him twice my usual fee by means of a disincentive. I don’t want to have sex with Avery at all; but, if I have to, I want to make it relatively worth my while.

"That’s three times what I paid the boy!" he objects.

I shrug. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll go away.

"That’s far more than what they charge in the brothels, too!"

"Mmm."

He doesn’t want to saunter over to a full-blown whorehouse, though. It would increase the probability of his sexual proclivities becoming known. He slams my price down on the dresser angrily and orders me to undress.

When I’m naked, he stares at me for a long time. He wants me to feel bad about who I am and what I do for a living. To my very great annoyance, he succeeds.

"What are you waiting for?" he asks, hiking his robes up.

When I begin, he drops them so that I’m in a dark, claustrophobic tent separated from everything but the need to please him. It takes a long time to get him ready, because his heart isn’t in what we’re doing—and neither is mine. Avery is the kind of trick that I’ll never get used to, please God! Finally he lifts his robes again and tells me to lean over the bed. What follows is rough, painful, and mercifully brief.

Afterwards he spins me around and slaps me on the mouth hard enough to draw blood. Except for the moment he forced himself inside me, it’s the only time that he’s touched me with his hands.

"Don’t think that I won’t report you to the management!" he announces belligerently.

I nod but don’t make a sound. He puts his robes back in order and leaves without saying another word. I’m not worried about his threat. When Prospero sees my mouth, Avery will be banned from the inn. Next time he’ll have no choice but to visit a brothel. I smile to myself at the thought of how miserable that will make him. Even though it initially makes me wince because of my split lip, I keep on smiling.

I’ve just finished an hour-long bath to wash the memory of Avery Thorne-Haskel away when Nell knocks at the door to ask if I’m ready for another referral. I greet her wrapped in a bath towel, and she starts to banter with me about wanting to be my first female client—until she notices that my mouth is bloodied.

"That asshole Avery did that to you," she announces with cold, hard anger that would make me want to shiver if it were directed at me.

I nod.

"Well, he won’t be doing it again! In the morning, I’ll see that Mr. Bergher gets your incident report before he reads Mr. Thorne-Haskel’s complaint."

"Thanks."

"Remus, I hate to ask—but are you up for another client yet?"

"Is it someone I know?"

"Yeah. Daniel Keagan."

"He’s fine. Give me a few minutes to get dressed and do something with my mouth, though."

My wand takes care of the bleeding and heals Avery’s wound so that all that remains of it is a slight bruise and a bit of soreness. Daniel doesn’t notice it until we’re in bed making love.

"What’s this, Remus?" he asks, running the pad of his thumb over my lip lightly.

"Nothing serious. One of my clients got a bit rambunctious. The bruise will be gone before morning."

"Poor baby!" Daniel murmurs and kisses my mouth tenderly.

I don’t stop him. In fact, he wakes me with a kiss in the morning; and, after breakfast, I give him a kiss goodbye. After Jamie from Drogheda, who doesn’t show up nearly often enough because he is from Ireland, Daniel Keagan is my favorite client. I enjoy what he does with me enough that I wish it weren’t a commercial transaction. Then I think of Sirius and hate my capacity to give and receive pleasure with Daniel. Which is madness, because my lover is scheduled to spend the rest of his days in Azkaban.

"Remus, may I speak to you for a moment?" Ned calls out as Emerald, Colette, and I return from Honeyduke’s where we’ve bought enough chocolates to help us recover from a battalion of dementors. The past three weeks’ worth of clients has been almost as unpleasant as those soul-sucking monstrosities! The women continue upstairs with our loot as I head toward the front desk. Over my shoulder I remind Emerald that I have a wand in my room and know how to use it, if she eats all the triple-fudge truffles before I rejoin them.

"You’re no fun, Remy!" she sulks. "If I do finish them without your help, you can take it out in trade—okay?"

"You’re not my type," I remind her—which sends both Emerald and Colette into an unrestrained gale of laughter. I feign anger. "Dammit, you two! What do I have to do to get a little respect around here?"

"Us!" Emerald laughs and they dart for the stairs before I can respond.

"Good thing for you that the lobby is empty," Ned shouts at Emerald’s back with mock sternness.

She stops halfway up the stairs and leans over the banister to answer him. "As if I’d be talking trash, if it weren’t!" Then they both squeal with laughter and dash up the rest of the stairs and down the hall that leads to our rooms.

"What did you want to discuss?" I ask the day-shift desk clerk.

"Well, we’ve had a request for your services tonight that Mr. Bergher and I feel merits discussing with you in advance."

I think of the majority of the men that I’ve been with since the day after Christmas and groan. If Ned hears it, he’s too polite—or too businesslike—to acknowledge it. "What’s unusual about the request?" I inquire.

"It’s a woman who wants to buy your company."

When I started working at the inn back in October, I would simply have demurred. This, however, is mid-January. In the past three months I’ve submitted myself to so many acts that I’ve abhorred and become so numb emotionally that all I do is mutely nod my acquiescence. Nonetheless, what I’m consenting to sends a jolt of adrenaline through my body that feels like a physical blow as it arrives in my solar plexus.

"Remus, I don’t mean to be rude," Ned continues, "but Mr. Bergher said to ask you if it’s something that you’re certain that you can do before I call the lady back to confirm her appointment." He blushes and looks away. "I mean, you’d be the one actively doing what has to be done!"

"I know," I reply quietly, "but unless you’re fixing me up with Narcissa Malfoy, it shouldn’t be any harder than taking the active role with Stanislaus Quimby after he’s spent an hour or two playing my disapproving master."

Ned groans and I in turn politely ignore him.

"The woman who wants you is quite nice, actually," he informs me. "I’ve known her since we were small. She’d like to spend the entire night with you, too, by the way."

"All right. I’m sure I can make myself do what has to be done. One thing, though. I don’t have the means of protecting her from pregnancy. How would I go about procuring that?"

"Uh, it’s too late for a sterility potion," Ned mumbles embarassedly. "You have to take those for at least ten days before you can be sure they’ll—ah—safeguard the lady. Have you ever used a condom?"

"No," I answer, seemingly honestly—my "candor" omitting that, since I’ve never yet had intercourse with a woman, I haven’t ever needed a condom or a sterility potion before. "Can you get me some before tonight and teach me how to use them?"

Ned turns a shade of red that I would never have imagined he could attain. "Er, Mr. Lupin, sir, I mean no disrespect; but, since you—you know—like guys, would you please get Emerald to show you what to do with the damned things? She teaches her clients how to use them all the time. In fact, you can just tell her that I asked her to sell you some—okay?"

"There is a God and his name is Ned!" Emerald crows when I give her his message. "Yes! Come right over here," she says, gesturing towards her bed, "and I’ll show you how it’s done."

"Please, you’re my friend." I beg. "Don’t treat me like a whore—or a trick. Just teach me whatever the hell it is that I need to know!"

She frowns and I half expect her to blow up at me for what I just said. Instead she sits on the side of her bed and pats the spot beside her where she wants me to sit. "Shit, Remus! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but it really is kind of show and tell. That’s why Ned passed on instructing you. I really do teach new fucks how to do it all the time. What was nice about the thought of showing you is that, under different circumstances, I’d like to be teaching you for my own sake."

"You mean you fancy me?" I ask incredulously.

"You got a problem with that? Being as how I know that you’re not interested and won’t try anything with me?"

"But you don’t know that!" I object, much to my surprise. "You have no idea how I feel about you."

"You said downstairs that I’m not your type."

"We were joking, for God’s sake!"

"You’re queer."

"Yes, I am—but there are degrees of queer. You know that! Daniel Keagan’s married and has three kids. He tricks with me because he doesn’t want to leave his wife for another man. He’s too much in love with her. I like women, too, sometimes; but Sirius and I got together before I got around to having sex with one. I was only sixteen! Until the night I became a prostitute, I was monogamous."

"Oh my God, Remus! I had no idea. Most of the gay men I know sleep around." Emerald gives a bitter laugh. "But then most of the men I know sleep around, period. Shit, no wonder you damned near lost your mind at first!"

"Yeah," I acknowledge. "It wasn’t exactly what I expected."

Emerald nods. "It’s not what anyone expects." She pauses. "Do you like me that way—maybe just a bit?"

"I honestly don’t know. I like you very much, but I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t like sex all that well. It’s just a job, and not a very pleasant one most of the time."

"No, not most of the time," she acknowledges gently. "Can I do show and tell without making you feel bad, baby? I really don’t want to add to your misery."

I nod.

"Okay. Let me help you undress a bit and then lay back and I’ll give you your lesson."

The lesson is as tender and sweet as it could possibly be. A few minutes later, my education complete, I take Emerald down to the restaurant for supper. When we return to her room, I add a lingering kiss to our usual hug.

"Good luck, baby," she tells me as we part. "I wish that I were the lucky bitch that you’re spending the night with!"

I shrug. "Not really. You’ve already got a bigger place in my heart than she ever will."

Emerald grins from ear to ear mischievously. "There is that!" she agrees. "I don’t suppose she likes girls…"

"You’ll be the first—er, second—to know. Now unhand me, you lecherous wench!"

"Unhand you? I’m four—five—feet away from you. You’re mental, Lupin!"

"It’s your fault. You ate all my triple-fudge truffles."

"I did not!" She darts into her room and returns with a bag from Honeyduke’s that she thrusts into my hand. "See? I hadn’t gotten the chance to yet."

I take her face in both hands and kiss her on the forehead. "I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, all right?"

"All right."

Then I go into my room to get ready for my client.

Megan Crabbe is not what I expected. When I invoked the haughty spectre of Narcissa Malfoy to Ned, I had in mind our stereotype of the sort of woman who buys the services of a male prostitute: arrogant, decadent, perverse, cold, controlling, demeaning, and demanding. Megan is none of those things. She’s a pretty young woman, maybe five years my senior, with haunted eyes and a far shyer demeanor than my own.

"What do you want me to do?" she asks as I shut the door to my room.

"Actually, I’m suppose to ask you that," I correct her. When she looks like she’s about to burst into tears and quickly averts her gaze to the carpet, I swear at myself mentally for my own insensitivity. For probably the thousandth time, I reflect that I don’t like some of the changes that this damned job is building into me. I offer her the chair from the desk before sitting on my bed. "I’m sorry. That was boorish of me. I was just…a bit embarrassed."

"Me, too!" she answers fervently—and gives me a wobbly smile that touches my heart despite my newfound cynicism. I lean forward and take her hands in mine, by way of reassurance. She gives a little gasp, but her smile gets a bit steadier and she, in turn, takes hold of my hands.

"I really do need to know what you want us to do," I remind her as gently as possible. "We have all night, so you don’t have to tell me everything at once. And we can have something to eat or drink and chat a bit, if you like, before we do anything more, ah, exciting. Do you have anything in mind?"

She seems a study in perfect misery as she shakes her head. "N-n-nobody’s ever asked me that," she explains, "not my father when I was still a girl, not my husband once I got married, not my husband’s friends."

"Husband’s friends?" I blurt out in shock, before giving my question enough thought to silence it. Thank God, I didn’t follow the implication about her father in time to ask about him!

She nods. "My husband likes his friends, but he doesn’t like me very much; so, when one of them wants me, he usually lets him have me. It seems to whet his own appetite for me, too."

I suppress a shudder more or less successfully before apologizing. "I shouldn’t have asked you that. I’m sorry."

A strangled laugh hangs far back in her throat. "It’s worth it just to hear a man say that he’s sorry about it—even if you don’t really mean it."

"But I do mean it!" I assure her.

She studies my face, first in two or three quick glances and then with a steady gaze. "Yes," she finally acknowledges. "I believe that you actually do." She licks her lips nervously and rattles off an odd litany in response to the suggestions that I made earlier. "I don’t think I should eat. I might get nervous and throw up. I don’t think that I should drink either. It doesn’t take much for me to get drunk and…and then you might hurt me."

"I’m not going to hurt you, Meg— May I call you ‘Megan’?"

She nods.

"Do you know my name?" I ask.

She nods again. "R-r-remus."

"That’s right." I squeeze her right hand in lieu of shaking it. "Pleased to meet you," I murmur sheepishly. "I’m not going to hurt you, Megan! I don’t like to inflict pain on anyone—even if I’m paid to. If I hurt someone who didn’t want me to, Mr. Bergher would fire me. And call the Law Enforcement wizards. You’re safe."

"I know—and you didn’t even have to tell me about your boss and the Ministry men for me to believe you. It’s just very hard for me to accept! I’m sorry but it’s hard for me to talk to anyone either. Could we maybe just lie down on your bed together for a little while and you hold me? Then later I need for you to f-f-fuck me as many times as you can before morning."

I have never in my life—even as a whore—received such a strange request! Not trusting myself to speak, I nod wordlessly, release Megan’s hands, remove my boots, and lie down on my side in the bed. After a moment, she joins me and I wrap an arm around her lightly. When she starts to shiver, I rub slow circles on her back with the flat of my hand. She nestles closer and kisses me on the chest through my shirt. The pressure of her lips is so light that I can barely feel it. I reach up and stroke her wheat-colored hair. Through the exchange of a long series of small intimacies, I begin to feel aroused. Hopefully she’s beginning to feel some hunger for me and my body, too.

"Megan, "I whisper cautiously, "would you like for me to take some of my clothes off?"

"Uh-huh," she answers in a distant, dreamy voice. "Some of mine, too."

I unfasten my shirt and slip it off. I manage her blouse equally effortlessly but fumble with her brassiere.

She reaches up to help me. "Not much experience with women, huh?"

"Not much," I agree.

She kisses each of my fingertips before guiding my hand to her breast. When she giggles, I start to move it away. Perhaps she doesn’t care for how I’m carrying out her unverbalized request.

"No, no, no," she corrects me, placing my hand back on her breast. "That feels very good! I just laughed because I always wanted to put a man’s hand on me like that. You can do whatever you like now unless I ask you to stop—and I don’t think that I’ll have to."

I lean forward to kiss the breast that I’ve been fondling. I’m amazed by how soft and smooth it feels as my lips brush against it, and I’m delighted to see its nipple harden in response to my kiss. I circle her nipple with flicks of my tongue and feel all of her skin tighten into goosebumps. A moment later my own skin does the same as she runs her nails down my back from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine.

We spend awhile exciting one another with our hands, lips, and tongues before I decide to get out of my trousers. When she sees what I’m doing, she starts removing her skirt, petticoats, and underwear. Before dropping my trousers onto the floor, I take out one of the condoms that Emerald gave me.

Megan frowns and grabs my wrist. "No!" she protests, trying to snatch it out of my hand. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure that I don’t get you pregnant."

"You mustn’t! I need to get pregnant. I picked tonight because it’s my best chance all month."

"WHAT?" My erection vanishes at the mere thought of my begetting a child on her. But how am I going to tell her why she’s asking for a service that I can’t provide?

"Megan, do you know what I am?"

She shakes her head and her eyes fill with bewilderment. "You’re a prostitute," she answers cautiously. "You’re a man. You’re Remus. I…I think you’d make a strong, healthy son on me. A handsome one, too! And I have to have a son—soon, very soon." She starts to cry.

I pull her back into my arms. "We have to talk. There’s something that you need to know about me. I’m a werewolf."

Her eyes go wide with amazement, but she doesn’t attempt to get away from me. "W-w-werewolf?"

I nod.

She’s licking her lips again from nervousness and wringing her hands. "Well, that’s all right," she proposes, "because it isn’t close to the full-moon so the baby would be all right…"

"We don’t know that," I interrupt.

"W-w-what do you mean?"

"Lycanthropy effects every cell of a werewolf’s body," I explain, "including a man’s sperm. If we make love without protection while you’re fertile, there’s a one in four chance that you might give birth to a child who has the pathogen in a form that remains inactive until puberty. So you—no one—can pay me enough for me to risk getting her pregnant! I’m sorry. If you want your money back…"

She lets out a wail that makes my blood run cold, it’s so full of pain. Then her whole body begins to shake with sobs and huge, silent tears run down her cheeks. I’m not sure that it’s the right thing to do under the circumstances, but I gather her into my arms and rock her like the small, hurt child that she’s making me think of.

"It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re going to be all right," I tell her over and over as I rub her back with the flat of my hand. We’ve come full circle to the wretchedness in which we began. Tears begin to roll down my own face. When she sees them, Megan gathers one on a fingertip and hesitantly puts it in her mouth. A moment later, she wraps her arms around my neck and starts to kiss my tears away. I put my arms around her waist and draw her closer to me. Absurdly, my penis decides to twitch faintly with renewed interest in the mysteries of her gently curved and rounded body. I know that it’s heresy, but sometimes I can’t help but think that God is crazy!

We remain in each other’s arms long after our tears have subsided. We drift into sleep together. When I awake, she’s fondling me—and I would have no difficulty whatsoever taking the "active role" that Ned and I discussed my performing this afternoon. I want this enigmatic woman whose circumstances are as harsh as my own. But I don’t want to get her with child!

"I can’t," I remind her softly. It’s then that I notice that she’s opened the foil packet containing the condom and has the prophylactic in her hand. "I know," she admits. "But there’s one other thing that I’ve always wanted; and, if I agree not to risk getting pregnant, I think you can give it to me."

"What’s that?" I ask—and I’m astounded to discover that I truly hope that she’s right.

"I’ve always wanted a man to love me when he made love to me—just a little. I’m not too greedy!"

I sigh, "Megan, I’m a whore. I use people and they use me for what they pay me. Are you certain that’s what you want?"

"If you can love me just a little. I think you can. I think that you already have. Just a little," she pleads.

I hesitate—until I realize that she’s right. I already have loved her just a little, as Jamie and Daniel love me despite the nature of our relationship. "All right," I agree. "I’d better tell you one more thing, though." Her face looks stricken, so I quickly add, "It’s nowhere near as bad as what I told you before."

"Remus, just tell me NOW!"

I draw a deep breath and hope for the best. "I’ve never made love with a woman at all."

Her eyes brighten with nearly manic mirth. "Is that all! I told you my husband doesn’t like me very much. I know how to make love with a man who’s far less interested than you are—not to mention far less patient."

She puts the condom on me almost as adroitly as Emerald did and certainly more deftly than I could. Then she demonstrates that women are quite good at assuming an active role. For the second time in my life, I lose my virginity. Both of us are satisfied with her efforts.

We sleep awhile. Well after midnight she nudges my shoulder. Not fully awake yet, I ask, "What’s up?"

"You," she chuckles, pointing at my erection. "You’ve been poking me in the back with that for at least five minutes. Are you really good for another go?"

"I’m not sure," I confess. "But let me go to the bathroom for a minute, and afterwards we can find out."

When I come back, she’s pleased to see that my interest is still apparent. She gives me a beatific smile that cranks my interest up still further.

"Uh, would you like for me to do the hard work this time?" I ask her diffidently. She nods. After I have a condom on, she guides me into her. Although I slow myself down as much as I can, as before she doesn’t actually climax—so I decide to try alternative means. That’s a bit daunting, as it was the first time with Sirius; but I encounter a bit of my own familiar taste first and hers blends pleasantly enough with it. I also discover that she’s a moaner and a screamer as I keep after her. I suspect that it’s a revelation to her, too! Both of us have our hands clasped over her mouth and are shaking with laughter when she finally comes.

I hesitate to kiss her; but, when I do, it’s apparent that she thinks Remus and Megan tastes pretty good herself. When we stop kissing and giggling, she strokes my cheek and says, "Oh, God! That was good. Don’t take this the wrong way, but that was worth ten times what I paid you."

I go to the dresser and bring her money back to the bed with me. "Here. You don’t have to pay me this time," I explain, as I hand it back to her.

"But you won’t have anything to show for tonight," she objects.

"Oh, yes, I will!" After a moment, we both laugh. "Everyone deserves to be loved just for the joy of it at least once—and I don’t think that your great, ghastly slug of a husband is capable of doing that for you."

"You’re very kind!" she tells me as she gives me another kiss. A little while later we go down to the restaurant for breakfast. She insists on paying for it.

"I wish I could take you home and fix something for you in my own kitchen," she informs me, "but this will have to do."

After she leaves, I go upstairs, put Prospero’s half of my standard fee for an all-night appointment into an envelope from the money that I keep in my dresser awaiting deposit at the local Gringotts branch, and run it down to the concierge. I feel extremely pleased with myself and don’t mind the evening’s loss of income a bit.

Earlier in the day when Ned told me that three gentlemen have booked me for an unrestricted all-night session, I became depressed—but I didn’t refuse the engagement. Although being had by a group of friends is the most unpleasant activity in which I’ll engage, it’s also the most lucrative. In exchange for six to eight hours of more or less nonstop sex, I receive a relatively large amount of money. When a couple want me, they may expect some degree of human warmth from me; and their attentions may be fairly benign. There’s a pair of wizards from Bristol that visit me every fortnight who actually treat me more respectfully than some of my individual clients do. However, what three or more men invariably want is a legalized gang rape. All I have to be for them is a convenient receptacle. I can send my mind elsewhere while they use my body. They won’t object.

Once the night is over, I invariably want to hurt myself as badly as the wolf does when I lock him away from humans; but I don’t give into the urge. If I’m too badly tempted, I seek a few hours’ refuge with Emerald—as she does with me when she’s turned a trick that she finds almost unbearably demeaning. The self-hatred dissipates eventually.

Why do I do such a terrible thing to myself? To have done with this job that much sooner! I can charge as much for spending a night with three men as I can earn in the course of a week spent with a different man every night or in almost two weeks of turning one trick at a time. If I can save enough money, I can give up this job by mid-March rather than mid-April or early May. It’s now mid-February—Valentine’s Day, to be exact—and completing my term as a prostitute as quickly as possible seems irresistibly attractive to me.

Knowing what will happen to me tonight, I’m moody and restless all afternoon. I take three baths, as if to wash away in advance the dirtiness that I’ll feel later. I skip supper because, as Megan Crabbe was with me at first, I’m so nervous that I might throw up. Unlike Megan, I do get somewhat drunk. In my case, the experience will hurt less that way—or at least I’ll be less aware of whatever pain of body and mind that I’m undergoing. I don’t drink too much, though. That would be foolish! Three men out whoring together can be dangerous, so I need my wits about me. I just get enough whiskey into myself to be numb enough not to object to the "gentlemen’s" activities.

The first of my clients arrives at a quarter to nine. When I open the door, I get an even worse shock than I had when I beheld Avery Thorne-Haskel awaiting my services. Lucius Malfoy is giving me a smile that chills me to the bone. I immediately wish that I’d had somewhat less to drink—or that I’d told Ned that I didn’t want the assignment.

"Lupin!" Malfoy exclaims with false bonhomie when he sees me. "It is you. How charming! I always wanted to have my way with you when we were boys. May I come in?" He doesn’t wait for my answer before entering the room and putting a hefty pile of money on my dresser. "Benedict and Edric will pay their share when they arrive. You do remember Crabbe and Goyle from Hogwarts, don’t you?"

I remember them all right! Edric Goyle was alleged to have sexually assaulted at least four of our fellow students, male and female, while he was studying to become a wizard. I saw two of his victims with my own eyes. They were anything but a pretty sight. However, Headmaster Dumbledore was unable to get any of Goyle’s victims to openly accuse him because of the threats he made against them, and their families, if they revealed what he’d done—threats that they felt certain he’d carry out. In the absence of formal accusations, his family’s "good name" protected him.

Shortly after Sirius Black and I became lovers, Edric tried to force himself on me because I was "a filthy little faggot that deserves to be raped." I had to break my own wrist to escape him, but it was worth it. Afterwards Sirius told him that he would kill him if he ever touched me again—and James Potter swore that he’d look the other way while Sirius did it.

Crabbe was never rumored to be as vicious a sadist as Goyle during our days at Hogwarts. However, he roughed more than one student up at Lucius Malfoy’s behest and I’ve been told that he had nastily unrealistic expectations of what a girl owed him in exchange for his attentions. Benedict isn’t a blessing that I wish to receive. He’s the nephew of the brute who married Megan. I’d rather not know what he might think that I owe him for a sizable heap of galleons!

Then there’s the matter of our allegiances during Voldemort’s rebellion. All three of my clients are known to have assisted the Dark Lord. According to our best field operatives, each of them was a Death Eater. Nonetheless, when they were brought to trial last year (and, unlike my lover, they did receive due process!), they were acquitted. They managed to use money, status, and pleas of non compos mentis by virtue of being under the Imperius Curse to evade justice. I worked for the other side during the conflict as a magicocryptographer. I have no way of knowing if they’re aware of that. It’s possible that they’ll be good boys during our time together, because they know as well as I do that the Law Enforcement division is still interested in what they’re up to. Yet I feel that if I spend the night with them, I’m risking my life.

I close my door but don’t lock it. Lucius can’t complain, because his companions for the night’s sport have not yet arrived. While he’s pawing at me and slobbering on me—to a steady stream of threatening innuendoes—I busily search my mind for a way to cancel the appointment without incurring any penalties. Since prostitution is legal (if frowned upon) in the wizarding world, Malfoy and his cronies can and would sue both Prospero Bergher and myself for breach of contract if I decline their business now. Their solicitors need only subpoena the inn’s records to prove that I agreed to this singularly undesirable bit of employment. Given their good names, and my bad one, God alone knows what damages we might have to pay!

Malfoy unbuttons my shirt and pins me against the wall while he gives me a blackish purple passion mark. I can feel his erection harden as I fight down the impulse to cry out in protest against his deliberately cruel roughness. He’s already fantasizing about hurting me with his cock even more than he can hurt me with his lips. He unfastens my trousers and pushes them down so that he can fondle me while he tells me how much he’ll enjoy watching me go down on all fours between Crabbe and Goyle. Far from becoming aroused, my manhood shrivels at his touch. That seems to please him, too. His hands continue to grope me painfully while he enumerates the various ways that they can enjoy me. His voice is an evil incantation, a paralyzing invocation of inhuman brutality. The worst part is that he and his friends can remain within the law while doing what he’s proposing. None of it poses a serious threat to life or limb—only pain and unbearable humiliation. Because I have consented to be with them for an unrestricted night of entertainment, I have tacitly agreed to my own hurt and degradation.

I’m desperate, almost hysterical. I begin silently praying to escape the trap that I’ve fallen into. But why should God listen? He knows that, even if he saves me from Lucius Malfoy and his friends, I’ll prostitute myself with someone else tomorrow—or maybe even later tonight.

When Malfoy sees my lips moving, it gives him another idea for tormenting me. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he pulls me into a bruising kiss and thrusts his tongue into my mouth. It’s hard to breathe! I’m still praying frantically when I suddenly realize how I’m going to get out of my predicament. Unless he’s as big a scoundrel as I’ve become, I doubt that my salvation has come from the Lord, though. It involves a form of blackmail.

I push Lucius away from me and hiss, "Stop it!" with ferocity that momentarily arrests his assault upon me. Pulling my clothing back on, I add, "Keep your hands off me. Don’t touch me again!"

He gives me a smile dripping with malice. "Why shouldn’t I, Lupin? My friends and I have agreed to pay handsomely for the right to do so until the sun comes up." He nods at his portion of my fee, sitting on the dresser beside me. "You’ve already taken my money." He takes a step towards me. "I won’t let you deprive me of what’s mine."

"You’re a married man, Lucius—as of two years ago. What would your lovely wife say if she knew what you were up to on Valentine’s night?"

"It doesn’t matter what she’d say. As the Muggles put it, I wear the pants in the family!"

"Do you? I’ve met Narcissa. She’s a very jealous woman. She probably gets it from her Borgia relatives. From what I’ve heard, she has their skill as a poison—I mean, potioner—too! So you’d be chancing that, wouldn’t you? And then there’s the loss of income that you’d experience if she left you. Face it, Lucius. You may have the better name as a pureblooded wizard, but she holds the purse-strings in your family—regardless of which of you Slytherin vipers wear the pants. If you don’t call our little date off, first thing tomorrow I’ll demonstrate just how thorough a game of kiss and tell I can play."

Malfoy is dead white with rage. "You wouldn’t dare!" he asserts.

"You can’t afford to find out, can you? You might need Narcissa’s money to buy you out of further legal troubles. If you’re at all intelligent, you’ll leave now—and persuade your two goons to leave as well. Right after paying me for my services."

"Why would my wife take the word of a common whore over mine?"

"Because she knows you—intimately."

Malfoy takes a swing, but I block it. "Lucius, I’m not going to tell you again. Don’t touch me!"

"I’ll leave," he murmurs, reaching for the pile of galleons, "but I’m taking my money with me."

"No, you’re not. In fact, why don’t you pay for Crabbe and Goyle while you’re at it? I’d just as soon not see either of them."

"You’re insane!"

"Possibly. But I daresay my madness is more benevolent than your charming wife’s would be. I need the money to pay my procurer his fees—plus it’s proof that I fulfilled our contract."

"But you didn’t! And you’re saying that you won’t!"

"And it is really, truly not worth your while to contradict me, is it?"

"I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS, YOU ARROGANT WHORE!"

"Not tonight. Not anytime soon. You know as well as I do that the Ministry is fascinated by what you might do next. You’re not going to ‘have your way with’ me, Lucius; so get the hell out of my room. Spend the night with Benedict and Edric if you want to cheat on Narcissa. There’s not a whore in Britain that I’d wish any of you on!"

"You’ll pay for this!" he warns me, as he tosses the remainder of my fee at my dresser. Galleons and sickles fall to the floor from the wildness of his pitch.

"Maybe—and maybe not." I answer him calmly. "But tonight you’re paying me."

He stalks out angrily and I lock the door behind him. I’m sitting at the desk stuffing gold into a thick manila envelope when our security man, Cesare di Bono, lets himself in with a passkey. He—and Prospero, who’s right behind him—are amazed to find me alone.

"I was just getting this ready to give to Madeleine, Proz," I announce, indicating the bulging envelope.

"Where’s Malfoy?" my boss asks.

I shrug. "He decided he was indisposed. I have everyone’s money, though."

Di Bono is amazed. "Everyone’s? I sent Edric Goyle home before he got the chance to pay you a call. How’d you manage to collect his fee?"

Now I’m astonished. "Lucius paid it," I mutter before inquiring. "Why’d you do that? Throw him out, I mean."

Cesare looks at Prospero, and it’s the innkeeper who replies, "Malfoy didn’t disclose who he was sharing you with when he made the appointment with Ned this morning. I banned Goyle from the inn after your predecessor’s death."

"DEATH?"

Prospero Bergher’s eyes take on a haunted look. "Remus, the coroner ruled that Johnny hanged himself after spending the night with Edric—and perhaps he did—but there was suspicion of foul play. I told you that I wouldn’t knowingly allow you prostitutes’ clients to do you any harm. Goyle will never set foot in the inn again with my consent. Cesare and I came up here to tell you that he wasn’t coming and that you weren’t financially liable for defaulting. I have a proper restraining order out on the sorry bastard."

"What about his fee?"

"Because of the restraining order, I can’t take my share of it. I have no idea what you said to cause Lucius and Benedict to leave in a huff—and I don’t want you to explain it to me! Either keep all of their money or return Edric’s to him anonymously. I personally suggest the former. By the way, are you all right? You look okay, but Malfoy was alone with you for awhile."

"I’ve got one bruise, feel like I’ve been dipped in slime, and have a bad taste in my mouth. Other than that I’m fine," I lie—omitting how the night’s events have made me feel about myself. When she wakes up tomorrow, I’ll talk to Emerald about all that.

Prospero smiles. "Would you like me to send something up from the bar to wash away the bad taste?"

I shake my head. "Thanks, but no. Would you please tell Nell that I don’t want to entertain anyone else tonight, though?"

"Yes, of course! Good night, Remus," he says and the security man echoes, "Good night."

After they leave, I draw my fourth bath of the day. Sitting in the tub, I slowly relax; and, as I relax, the awfulness of what almost happened overwhelms me. I shiver violently as I remember what Lucius Malfoy did to me before I stopped him—and all that he planned to do and have done to me. I stay in the tub till the water grows tepid. When I get out, I wrap myself in a towel and sit by the fireplace, letting the flames hypnotize and relax me so that my mind will still itself. I whisper "Thank you" to the God whose love I’ve grown to doubt.

When the fire dies down, I go to bed. More than usually I crave Sirius’s presence. I would love to curl up in his arms again and be young, innocent, loved, and protected. After more than four months of whoring, how strange it feels to sleep at night! I drift off thinking that I must soon find a way to survive without prostituting myself—very soon. When I awake, I know that I’ve dreamed vile dreams through much of the night; but they didn’t pull me back to wakefulness at the time and I don’t remember their content now. I dress and go down to breakfast. I wish it were not so long till Emerald starts her day!

My intuition screams at me not to let the tall wizard with the iron-grey hair into my room. He has an appointment to spend the night with me, though; so I suppress my misgivings, step aside, and allow him to enter. He sets his money on the dresser without a word, and I turn my back on him to lock the door. That mistake nearly proves fatal. While I’m looking away from him, he pulls a blackjack from his clothing and slams it against the side of my head. I fall to the floor gracelessly, and he lays into me with his bludgeon repeatedly. I want to scream, to ward off his blows, to get up and run away, but I’m too dazed and sick to do so. I have no idea why this stranger is brutally battering me.

I hear someone in the hallway and manage to summon enough focus and breath to scream at the top of my lungs. The sound that desperation rips from my throat is like nothing I’ve ever heard. No sane human could possibly mistake it for the shout that a man might make as he ejaculates, or in jest, or even at the height of anger.

Emerald is sane enough and has seen enough in her twenty-eight years to realize that my cry is one of outrage and intense terror. She fumbles with the doorknob, but it doesn’t admit her. When that fails, she flings herself against the door repeatedly. On her third attempt, it gives way and she comes tumbling into the room in time to see my client drop his club and draw a knife from his cloak with which to slash my throat. She sees the bottle of whiskey that I habitually keep on my desk now, picks it up, and breaks it—so that its neck and upper portion becomes a jagged weapon within her grasp.

I feel my trick’s blade pierce my neck just below the scar left years ago by the werewolf’s fangs, followed by a moment of searing pain as he drags it across my throat. Then bright blood pulses onto me from above. A moment passes, and his body pitches towards me before I realize that my friend has laid his throat open more efficiently than he has mine. Emerald is rolling him off me and calling out my name as I lose consciousness.

When my awareness returns, she’s cradled my head in her lap and is telling me over and over again that I’ll be all right. My shirt and the front of her dress are soaked in tacky, half-dried blood. I wonder when she got cut until it occurs to me that the stains on her clothing came from my assailant—and from me. I begin to retch but the pain in my throat quickly stops me. It pulls a moan from me as it peaks.

Slowly I realize that another woman is in the room, bending over me with a vial of smelling salts in her hand. It’s Poppy Pomfrey! As she brings the inhalant near my nose, I push her hand away from my face.

"No, please," I implore her hoarsely. "I’m back now. I don’t want to throw up!"

"No, you don’t," she agrees acerbically. "Are you ready for me to Apparate you back to the castle, Remus?"

"No! You can’t," I plead with her.

"I have to," she insists. "Be reasonable! I just finished healing a wound that stretched damned near halfway around your neck, came perilously close to severing your carotid artery, and cut into your larynx. That thick skull of yours has received multiple blunt-force blows, and your face is a wreck. You belong in the Infirmary for at least 24 hours."

"Madame Pomfrey, no!"

"Mr. Lupin, yes!"

I try to shake my head and end up gasping in pain.

"Remus, be still!" the nurse demands. "He nearly killed you," she continues, pointing at my attacker whose body is covered with a bloody sheet. "Even with the help of half the inn’s staff, I almost lost you. You may have a concussion, and I’ll have to work on you again tomorrow unless you want to have a very ugly face for the rest of your life. You can’t absorb any more healing energy tonight."

"Let me stay here," I beg. "I’ll pay for you to come back tomorrow to do whatever else needs to be done."

"I’ll pay, Poppy," Prospero Bergher interrupts. "I have very good insurance with Gringotts. You can charge whatever you like." He and Ned are sitting on my bed. Cesare di Bono is seated at my desk. Colette is standing beside him by the wardrobe. Apparently several of the staff really did come to my rescue.

The nurse sighs, "Prospero, my fee isn’t the problem. I’ve known Mr. Lupin since he was a boy. I’ll take care of his injuries for free if need be." She turns back to me. "For God’s sake, Remus! You were a student at Hogwarts for seven years. Why won’t you come back to the castle with me?"

"The Headmaster," I murmur enigmatically.

"What about him?"

"I don’t want him to see me."

"Why in God’s name not?"

Sounding like a complete nutter, I answer, "Because he’s a very perceptive wizard. He’ll know!"

"He’ll know WHAT?" she demands irritably.

Prospero tells her what I can’t bring myself to. "Remus entertains some of my guests, Poppy—just for now, because he can’t find better work."

Her expression is quizzical but her voice is very gentle as she asks me, "Does he mean that you’ve become a prostitute?"

"Yes."

"Albus won’t give a bloody damn—except perhaps to find you ‘better work,’" she adds, giving Proz a look that makes him blush.

"I know," I tell her quietly. "But I just couldn’t bear it. Please don’t ask me to!" Tears run down my bruised face, stinging every nick and abrasion. "Please?"

"Remus, I don’t mind coming back to Hogsmeade tomorrow to finish treating you. I have shopping to do here anyhow, but you have to be kept awake for most of the next 24 hours in case you really do have a concussion. Who’s going to do that for you?"

Before I can formulate a reply, a chorus of "Me" and "Us" erupts around the room. Poppy Pomfrey shakes her head. "You’re the staff of an inn, for heaven’s sake! You’ll be too busy to pay proper attention to him."

Emerald speaks up. "Madame Pomfrey, please. I can stay with him most of the time. I entertain guests, too—but I wasn’t going to tonight or tomorrow because I’m under the weather."

"If you’re ill, how can you promise to take care of Remus?"

"It’s just female problems, mum. I don’t want to turn tricks is all. I don’t reckon I’ll get much sleep anyhow, so why shouldn’t I help Remy stay awake? And the others really will help. We all like him very much. Please don’t shame him by making him go up to the school!"

"Oh, what’s the use! He won’t come with me anyhow," the nurse concedes. She gives me her wry, familiar smile. "You always could make decent people like you," she observes with a chuckle. "I’ll be back to work on you again tomorrow night after supper. Try to rest, but don’t go to sleep—and no alcohol or medications. Okay?"

"Yes, Nurse! Madame Pomfrey, thank you—for everything."

She bends down again to kiss me on my forehead. "The one thing I can’t do is keep the Law Enforcement division away from you tonight. Or you, miss," she adds to Emerald. "They’re already waiting out in the hall like polite but avid vultures, and they’ve told me in no uncertain terms that they’re talking to you as soon as I leave. Are you sure that you hadn’t rather be in the Infirmary with Albus on hand when that happens, Remus?"

"Yes," I respond truthfully. "I just tried to defend myself—and she saved my life. I think we can deal with the Ministry men."

"Besides," Prospero interrupts again. "The inn has excellent legal representation."

"I’m sure it does," Madame Pomfrey remarks ironically. "Let’s get you cleaned up and in bed then, Lupin, before I turn them loose on you."

Ten minutes later I’m lying in bed clothed in my grey silk dressing gown. Colette has gotten Emerald a clean dress and helped her wash up. Otherwise, the shambles of the room is unaltered.

Emerald and I let out sighs of relief when the first Law Enforcement wizard through the door is Robbie Comyn and he’s smiling. He’s been her client for the past three years; and one of mine, more often, since the beginning of November when he finally admitted to himself that he prefers men to women. He’s a very likable man. More than once I’ve wished he had the boyfriend that he deserves rather than feeling he has to spend Friday nights with the likes of me. Hopefully he will soon, but being gay is like being a whore in our world: There are no laws against it, but there’s a certain stigma attached to it—especially back at the Ministry of Magic among those obsessed with the respectability of wizards and witches.

Robbie’s partner Fergus M’Carrick waves at us from behind Comyn’s broad back. He isn’t smiling, but then he never is. To look at him, he’s one of those dour Scots that Jamie Collins complains about. In fact, he’s possessed of a scathing and sometimes scatological humour that’s made me laugh till I cried on more than one occasion. Fergus is irrepressibly straight but not exactly a one-woman man, to the point that—not only have Emerald and Colette both entertained him—but also they’ve sometimes done so together.

As Robbie comes closer to my bed, his face grows grave. For a moment, I fantasize that he doesn’t believe what he’s been told about the homicide that took place in this room and that he’s going to arrest me. (Although Emerald actually wielded the weapon that killed my client, oddly enough it doesn’t occur to me that he might arrest her.) I wonder if I’ll be sent to Azkaban; and, if so, if I might see or speak to Sirius. My bizarre daydream ends when, he reaches my side and touches my ravaged face.

"Dear God!" he exclaims. "If Em hadn’t killed the bastard that did this to you, I’d be bloody well tempted to do so myself. Can—can the damage be fixed? You have such a handsome face!" As they move across my features, his fingertips are so light that they cause no pain; but I can feel the warmth of the healing energy that’s spontaneously flowing from them. I can’t apply it to erase the bruises, abrasions, lacerations, and fractured facial bones that are currently disfiguring me; because, as Poppy Pomfrey explained, I’ve already absorbed all that I can for one day. His gesture isn’t wasted, though, because his open concern for me reminds me that being beaten and having my throat slashed with a hunting knife isn’t something that I brought on myself by being a prostitute and somehow deserve.

"Madame Pomfrey says she can repair it all," I assure him. "She just had to put so much effort into attending to the damage his knife and bludgeon did to my neck and cranium that she couldn’t do cosmetic work as well tonight." No one’s let me look in a mirror since I was attacked, but everyone who’s looked at me has seemed stunned. "How bad is it?"

Fergus answers, "If it couldn’t be fixed, you’d be out of work—even in the worst hellhole of a Muggle brothel I’ve set foot into."

I shudder. Vanity isn’t my biggest vice; it was Sirius who our friends teasingly called Peacock. Nonetheless, it’s always bothered me for people to see the deep scar on my throat where the wolf who turned me tried to rip it open—which is why I always wear high collars. I’m dismayed that so many of my acquaintances are seeing me in this condition. I turn away from Robbie’s hand.

"None of that," he whispers softly enough that only I hear him. "You’re still beautiful to me—and tomorrow you’ll get your usual good looks back. It’s that sack of shit under the sheet over there that’s an ugly git."

"We’ve got to identify the body and get depositions from you two," Fergus explains, "but we’re pretty sure who that is—and, if we’re right, there won’t be a trial." He glances at Emerald. "In fact, there might be a bit of money for you, girl, because Scotland Yard was offering a reward for the whore killer that we think he was."

"Wh-wh-whore killer?" I stammer.

"Oh, my, yes! If this chap is who we think he is, he’s been a busy lad for going on three years now. His behaviour here fits the m.o. of a bloke who’s done in at least a dozen male prostitutes in the Muggle world. You’re just the first wizard he’s attacked—and neither the Yard nor we knew that he was a wizard himself. The Ministry should have suspected, though, from some of the quick escapes he made. You’re quite the lucky man, Remus! None of his other victims survived."

By the time that Robbie and Fergus leave, I’m dizzy and nauseated from the adrenaline racing through my blood stream. They theorize that he attempted such a crime in the wizarding world for two reasons. First, the Muggle police were closing in on him, so that killing whores in their world was becoming riskier and riskier. Second, he increasingly needed to be sure that he wasn’t being watched on the Muggles’ ubiquitous security cameras—because, as his pathology expressed itself more fully, he needed more and more time to be alone with his victims’ bodies. Like Jack the Ripper (whose career I studied both in Defense against the Dark Arts and Nineteenth Century Muggle Studies), the man had progressed from swiftly butchering whores on the street to spending all night dissecting them in their own quarters. Had Emerald not heard me and interrupted his work, I would have wound up like his last two victims back in London: a bed full of not immediately apparent human remains. That bit of knowledge makes it easy for me to remain awake for much of the night. Each time that I begin to drift off to sleep I see the pile of ineptly butchered meat that I would have become and jerk back into wakefulness.

Around 7 a.m. Emerald finally gets the chance to sleep, because some of the rest of the staff relieve her for an hour or two at a time. When Daniel Keagan shows up around 11 to assure himself that I’m all right, we persuade him to help us relocate me across the hall to her room. By then both of us are tired of contemplating the huge bloodstain on the carpet in front of my dresser. However, I’m dizzy enough and my vision is badly enough blurred that we haven’t wanted to chance my wobbling across the hall under my own power. Daniel stays with us till well past noon, and—as was the case with Robbie—his presence comforts and reassures me.

Around two, Emerald asks, "Do you mind if I lie down a bit, Remy? I don’t need to sleep, but I’m cramping hard. It would feel great to go horizontal for awhile."

"It’s your room, love! I’ll just settle down in that monstrous armchair of yours."

She snorts. "As if I’d object to a man in my bed."

"I thought that since you don’t feel well…"

"Baby, sometimes you think too much! Just roll over a bit so that there’s room for me. You can’t have you half in the middle right now. Okay?"

I nod and scoot to the right. "Would you like for me to apply some healing energy to your belly, Em?"

"Annie."

"What?"

"If you want to call me by a special name, call me Annie. That’s my real name; Emerald’s my hooker’s name—because it’s more glamorous, and because I don’t want to hear my tricks using the name my mum gave me."

"Thanks, Annie," I say with a shy smile and give her hand a squeeze.

"It’s no big deal," she answers me, although we both know that it is. She doesn’t have to tell me that no one else in Hogsmeade is aware that her name is Annie. "Don’t you need to keep all your healing power for yourself right now, though?"

"Not really," I explain. "When I share it with you, I’m able to draw more into myself. You wouldn’t be taking something away from me that I need for myself."

"What do I need to do."

"Take off your clothes, close your eyes, and relax," I begin—but I break off in a furious blush when I realize that what I’ve said sounds as incongruent to her as it does to me after almost five months as a whore. "I’m sorry!"

She laughs and kisses me on the cheek, "Don’t be, baby. With you, what you’re asking is actually a viable option!"

When she’s undressed, I position my hands a few inches over her lower abdomen and begin sending her energy shaped to relieve her discomfort and correct its causes. She reaches up and draws my hands down against her flesh.

"You’re such a lady, Lupin!" she teases. When I redden yet again, she adds, "I’ve been here long enough to feel what you’re doing a little bit even if you don’t touch me, but I’m a Muggle, Remus. I prefer the comfort of experiencing the warmth and weight of your hands touching me."

I nod and work a reassuring pat into what I’m doing. For the first few minutes, it’s very routine—and then awareness hits me that reduces me to tears. From the moment that I first prostituted myself, I haven’t used magic—despite the fact that the inn is in Hogsmeade and every one of my clients has been a wizard or a witch. I’ve felt too powerless and unworthy. Reclaiming enough of my power and self-respect to help this friend who I love and who risked her life to save mine, is unimaginably sweet.

"Remy, are you all right?" she wants to know.

"Oh, yes! I just feel better than I have in a long time."

Annie grins up at me. "Good!"

When the healing is complete, I start to move my hands away; but she stops me. "Don’t!" she implores me. "I want you to touch me, baby, because it feels good. I want to touch you, too."

When I nod, she unfastens the dressing gown and slips it off me. Most folks wouldn’t call what we do for the next hour or so lovemaking, because no form of genital, oral, or anal sex takes place for a variety of reasons—ranging from her overly exuberant menstruation to our mutual fear of becoming each other’s whore and trick. Yet in the world of authentic non-commercial sex the things that we’re doing are an essential part of good sex. We touch one another with a passionate intimacy that even Jamie and I, Daniel and I, Robbie and I, or Megan and I have not. No one has touched me like this—or allowed me to touch them—since Sirius disappeared into Azkaban. Nor do I wish that it were Sirius and not Annie whose hands and lips were exploring the drought-ridden terrain of my flesh and whose body was mine to discover. I still love him deeply and desire him keenly, but not to the exclusion of the gift of herself.

It’s only when we hear someone knocking on my door that our lovemaking ends. Annie slips into my dressing gown, opens her door, and peers into the hall.

"Emerald, where’s Remus?" Nell asks. "I thought I’d sit with him for awhile before I go on duty."

"He’s in here with me. Give us a sec and I’ll let you in." She shuts the door, gives me back my robe, and puts on a dress that I’ve told her looks good on her. A few minutes later the house elves are serving us tea.

Around eight Madame Pomfrey shows up, inspects my neck, checks me for signs of concussion, and puts my face back in order. Annie and Colette scrutinize her work carefully. When she’s done, Colette proclaims, "Good as new!" and both of them give me kisses that cause Nurse to raise her eyebrows. After Colette leaves, Annie asks if I’d like to sleep with her tonight.

"Just sleep, I mean" she’s quick to add. "I don’t really want to be alone and I don’t have any clients till tomorrow night."

"I’d rather not be alone tonight either—so thanks." I try not to think about resuming whoring tomorrow. I’d like another night off, and Prospero would let me take it without argument; but more than ever, I want to earn enough money to leave this place. It’s been two weeks since Julian and Silenus, the couple from Bristol, has visited. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and manage to spend the night with them.

For now, though, Annie and I are ready to sleep contentedly in one another’s arms. "Sweet dreams," I whisper as I kiss her on the lips and shift in the bed a bit so that she can rest her head on my shoulder.

The first half of March doesn’t go as well as I’d hoped it would. My moon change is difficult and exhausting; and, shortly after it, I come down with a chest cold that turns into walking pneumonia by way of bronchitis. For two weeks I’m unable to work, so that by the fifteenth I have less money saved up than I did on the night of February 28^th when I was attacked. Since the assault, I’ve hated being a prostitute more than ever; so when Nell asks me on the eve of my birthday if I’ll do an all-night unrestricted assignment, I readily agree to it.

At 9 p.m. I answer a knock at my door and discover Severus Snape standing in the hall. Apparently my expression is one of obvious dismay.

"I take it that you’re not very happy to see me, Lupin," he observes dryly.

Without even intending to rebuff him, I answer, "Is there any reason that I should be?" I’m that out of sorts lately!

Dangerous fire momentarily dances in the depths of his jet black eyes; but he simply sighs and replies, "Actually, no. To my regret, I can’t say that I’ve ever given you cause to be glad of my presence. Nonetheless, I’ve just paid Prospero Bergher rather handsomely for procuring your services. May I come in?"

I, too, sigh and nod and wave him in. While he puts his money on the dresser, I lock the door.

"What’s your pleasure, Severus?" I ask him tersely. Proz wouldn’t like the tone that I’m using on my client, but at the moment I just don’t care.

Snape’s unpleasant smile displays his mouthful of yellowing teeth. "Oh, since you seem so hell-bent on besmirching Gryffindor House’s good name, I thought I’d drop by and give you a hand," he responds.

"I’m sure that would please you no end—but in the past thousand years the House has withstood worse disgraces than turning out one small-time whore." I pick up the galleons on the dresser and offer them to him. "Perhaps you’d like to save yourself the money, since it seems certain that you’ll get such a poor return on your investment."

Snape shakes his head. "Put the money back," he instructs me. "I was merely making an attempt at levity. My pleasure is to spend the night with you, Remus."

"You’re going to have to be a bit more explicit."

"All right. I’d like to share food and drink with you, if you like, and a bit of conversation. Later I want to sleep with you."

"That’s what you need to be explicit about, Snape. Sleeping with me can cover a whole multitude of sins. I have the right to know which ones you’re commissioning"

"I assure you I was being perfectly straightforward! When we’ve finished dining, imbibing, and chatting, I want to lay down in that bed with you and get some sleep."

"I don’t believe that anyone’s paid me for that before."

"Yes, well, that doesn’t mean that I have to conform to the custom of the vulgar mob, does it?"

"No."

"What I bought is the right to spend the hours from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. with you, doing what I bloody well please as long as it doesn’t cause you significant bodily harm. Or have I misunderstood the contract?"

"No, you’ve summarized it quite well." I point at my fee. "However, that’s a lot of gold to pay for polite patter and half of a bed that’s not all that comfortable. Normally I spend a significant portion of the night performing a variety of sexual favours, that you’d no doubt consider rather droll, in order to fulfill my part of the contract. I find it difficult to believe that you have no intention of demanding any of them of me; and, I repeat, I have the right to know what they are."

A pained look crosses Snape’s habitually sour and unpleasant face. "Sit down, please," he requests—gesturing not at the bed but at the chair to my desk. I ignore his wishes and lean against the wardrobe.

"Let me be honest with you, Lupin. I do hope against hope that before dawn you’ll choose to make love with me, but I will not demand that you do so. You have no way of understanding why, but I could never bring myself to demand that of anyone—least of all someone I love."

"Someone you love!"

"I’ve loved you since we were boys."

"You were infatuated with me when we were boys, perhaps."

He fixes a candid, unflinching gaze upon me. "No one has ever returned my love, Remus; but I promise you that I do know the difference between love and infatuation. I’ve loved you for almost a dozen years now."

"Forgive me, Severus; but I must say that you’ve shown your love in some rather strange ways, if that’s the case!"

He grimaces. "I know. But tonight I want to love you as nicely as I know how."

I draw a deep breath. "Does your notion of being nice include taking cheap shots like the one you made about my disgracing Gryffindor?"

"No. That was nervousness speaking—and a momentary loss of temper."

"You’re noted for losing your temper, aren’t you, Snape?"

To my surprise, he simply nods. "But so is Sirius Black, and you found it in your heart to love him."

His words are like a blow to the belly, but I understand that they aren’t intended to cause me pain. They’re his lament at the seeming injustice of my having forgiven another man for what he thinks that I hold against him. Before answering him, I sit down on the side of the bed and ask him to sit at the desk, which he does.

"Severus, I probably should have resisted Sirius’s charms, too; because he’s in Azkaban now for the rest of his life, and I’m in the midst of prostituting myself to survive winter and early spring. For what it’s worth, you didn’t lose me because you have a short fuse. You lost me because I was already in love with Sirius before either of us realized that you were in love with me."

"It’s kind of you to say that, Lupin."

"Maybe it is—and maybe not." I shrug. "It’s just the truth."

"Are you still in love with Black?"

"Yes."

Snape frowns. "I don’t think Sirius is going to be very happy when he discovers you’ve made a whore of yourself. Or very kind."

"That’s occurred to me," I admit. "He’ll probably never know, though. He’s in solitary confinement. No one’s allowed to write or visit him, and he’s not allowed to write anyone—not even his family."

"You’re his family."

"Yes, but I mean his mother and sisters. The Ministry doesn’t recognize our relationship."

"That’s rubbish!"

"It’s good of you to say so—but it won’t cause them to change their minds."

"No. It won’t."

I switch subjects, because I don’t want to pursue the old one further. "I think it would be for the best if you took your money and left, Severus. I can’t imagine doing what you want me to without being ordered to under the terms of our agreement. I may be a whore, but I don’t want money that I haven’t earned."

"Your company is worth something to me. Besides, I didn’t say that I’d make no attempt to persuade you, Remus; I merely remarked that it’s not in my nature to demand it of you."

I shake my head. "I doubt you’re that persuasive. At this point I’m not sure anyone is."

"Nevertheless, I plan to try. What’s the first thing that you’d like for me to do in order to convince you to give me a chance?"

God alone knows what possesses me to give him the answer that I do. Oddly enough, I no longer feel that ill-disposed towards him. Perhaps an imp of the perverse inspires me. "Take a bath," I blurt out.

Snape turns a very unpleasant shade of mottled purple. I brace myself for something nasty. He opens and closes his fists several times and his jaws move without his speaking. After several ragged breaths, he hisses, "That was vicious!"

"Yes, it was," I agree unhappily. "I’m truly sorry! This damned job has been bringing out the cruelty in me lately." I hesitate but ask him, "What can I do to make it up to you?"

He thinks about it for a long moment without replying before he chuckles and fey humour sparkles in his eyes. "You can give me the bath."

"Is that a demand?" I inquire suspiciously.

"No. You asked me what would make me feel better. That would make me feel better."

I remember for what seems like the millionth time just how exasperating Severus Snape can be! "All right," I concede. "I shall give you your bath. But may we put that off for awhile? The evening is young."

"Of course, my dear Lupin!" he agrees with a smug grin.

For the next hour and a half, we eat, share a bottle of a white wine that Snape is particularly fond of, and—somewhat awkwardly—make small talk. When I reach for the bottle of whiskey that’s become my almost constant companion, he gently (but firmly!) arrests the motion of my arm.

"Remus, I’d prefer you not do that," he informs me.

"Why?"

"Because I’m enjoying your company and I don’t want you to withdraw an important part of it from me. I also know that you’ve learned to drink far more than is good for you since you started working here, and I don’t want to encourage or even tacitly approve of that."

Since Snape is the nosiest person I’ve ever met, I don’t dispute the knowledge that he’s claiming. However, I’m vastly annoyed that he’s gathered it. "What business of yours are my drinking habits?" I demand irritably.

"I told you. I love you. I don’t want to watch you harm yourself."

I know that I’m still glaring at him skeptically. I unsuccessfully will myself to let the muscles of my face relax.

"I’ve already watched one person I cared about drown in a sea of liquor," he adds. "That’s enough."

I’m familiar with the gossip about his father, so I immediately understand who Snape means. I nod by way of acknowledgment and draw my hand away from the bottle.

He gives me a faint—almost imperceptible—smile and says, "Thank you."

"Is there anything in particular that you’d care to do next?" I ask.

"Yes. I’m ready for my bath now."

Since I realize that it can’t be put off indefinitely, I mutter, "Fine." I start to rise from the room-service table that we’ve been eating at, but again he grabs me by the wrist to stop me.

"I was going to draw your bath, Severus."

He shakes his head. "I’d rather do that myself," he announces. "Would you give me about five minutes before you join me?"

I nod and he heads for the bathroom. A moment later I hear the sound of water flowing into the deep claw-footed tub. I decide to put on my dressing gown. I’m not altogether comfortable with the idea of wearing Sirius’s gift in front of his archenemy, but then there’s a great deal about tonight’s assignment that I find disturbing!

When I open the bathroom door a thick cloud of steam assails me. Once I enter the room and shut the door behind me, I can scarcely breathe. A very pink Snape is seated in the tub with his head resting on its back rim and his bony knees breaking the surface of the water at the center of the tub. "I see you’re not averse to getting yourself into a great deal of hot water," I joke.

He peers at me intently before admitting, "No, I can’t really say that I am. Why don’t you hang your robe on the door? Or better yet, pitch it back out onto your bed. Otherwise, it’s going to get drenched with steam or bath water or both."

"What a touching display of concern!" I reply with irony so heavy that someone far less sharp-witted than Severus Snape could easily pick up on it. "’Would you undress now, please?’ is considered a polite request—or, ‘It’s time to take your clothes off.’ I’ve even gotten used to, ‘What are you waiting for, you fucking whore? Strip!’ Of course, that last usage could be construed to constitute a demand—so you might not want to use it." Even as I berate him, I’m struggling to curb my tongue. Prospero would be furious; but I’m so tired of being a prostitute, and the thought of whoring with Snape is almost intolerable!

"Would you be more comfortable if I kept my eyes closed?" he unexpectedly inquires.

"What?"

"Would it be less difficult for you if I didn’t look at you?"

"Severus, am I supposed to believe that you don’t want to gawk at me as much as any other man does who pays for my favours?"

"I’m not sure that I would use the word ‘gawk,’ Remus; because you’re far too beautiful to be viewed in such a tawdry way." He momentarily bites his lip. "Of course I would enjoy the sight of your naked body! I have every reason to believe that it’s exceptionally attractive—including the fact that dunderheads do pay to stare at it. However, I’d rather stay in your good graces and hope that you’ll choose to show it to me yourself before the night’s over."

"I’ll be right back," I tell him. Back in the bedroom I take off my dressing gown and drape it over my desk’s straight-backed chair. When I re-enter the tub room, Snape studies me briefly before looking away. When he doesn’t fix his gaze on either my heavily scarred neck or my genitals, a warm wave of relief sweeps over me. Some of the ice around my heart begins to melt. Hopefully I won’t regret that!

When I ask Snape to sit up so that I can wash his back, he hesitates and scrutinizes my face for an uncommonly long moment before doing so. I’m wondering what in God’s name that’s all about when he finally complies with my request. As soon as I see his back, I comprehend his discomfort all too well! A lattice of silver-white scars repeatedly breaks the redness that the hot water has imparted to his skin. At some time in his life, someone flogged him ferociously—and he didn’t receive any healing afterwards. As I continue to stand there silently, he squirms slightly and draws away—just as I do from those who are too disturbed by what the werewolf did to my throat.

I rest one hand on his ruined back and run the other through his damp, but no longer greasy, hair. "I don’t reckon you want me to ask about your back, do you, Severus?"

"I’d rather you didn’t tonight," he confesses. "Maybe another time."

"Maybe."

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"I didn’t know about your scar when I asked you to disrobe earlier."

When I laugh, I’m sure that he can hear the raw pain in it. "I assumed as much."

"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."

There’s a first! But I bite back the urge to say so. What I do say is, "Nor I you," which possibly astonishes him as much as his statement did me. I quietly lather his back and nothing else is said about our respective scars.

Midway through rinsing off Snape asks, "If I draw clean water when I’m done, would you be willing to join me?"

Earlier in the evening I would have unequivocally told him no, but things have progressed in unexpected ways—so I give the notion serious thought. "If I do join you, will you assume that means that I’m willing to let you fuck me later?"

"No! And I wish you wouldn’t put it like that. I want to make love with you; and I refuse to be ashamed of that, because I have no intention of applying force or coercion to get my way—despite your having contracted to let me do what I please with you. Shall I get out of the tub and dry off then? I’m sure that we can find other, conspicuously non-sexual ways to amuse ourselves, Lupin!"

I slowly shake my head no. "I very much want to join you, Severus. I’m just afraid to."

"I AM NOT GOING TO RAPE YOU!" he bellows—and, staring into his eyes, I suddenly intuit why he’s so furious that I think he might. Four unspoken words are caught in his throat, wounding him terribly: "As I was raped."

"No," I whisper contritely. "I understand that. I’m afraid of myself, Snape. Some of Prospero’s guests are very kind to me, but none of them loves me more than he loves the services that I can provide him with. I haven’t been with anyone who did in almost 18 months. I’ve never been in love with you, and I’m not in love with you now; but I don’t want to treat you like a whore—especially since you’ve turned down the chance to treat me like one. Besides, I’ve come to hate prostitution as much as you hate rape."

"Would you enjoy sharing a bath with me?" he persists.

"Yes—but only because I used to do so with Sirius. It’s him I’d be thinking of."

Snape stiffens slightly then shakes his head and gives me a rueful smile. "Don’t you think I know that, Remus?"

"I suppose you do."

"Even so, it’s a moment of pleasure that I’m willing to provide you with. Shall I run another bath?"

I nod wordlessly lest the strength of what I feel catalyzes a mysterious alchemy that threatens to turn stony anger into a flood of tears. A few moments later Severus Snape offers me his hand and makes room for me in the tub. I lean back into his embrace and his long arms timidly enfold me. It’s only when I feel the hard, rapid beat of his heart against my back that I become aware that he’s as frightened as I am. He helps me bathe; and, after we’ve stepped out of the bath, he dries me with one of the inn’s big, thick towels and wraps another one around me like a kilt. I respond by putting my arms around him and kissing him hesitantly on his chest. His long fingers run through my wet hair without snagging in it.

"Slow down just a little," he suggests. "As you’ve said, the night is young. You needn’t rush and end up doing something you dislike afterwards."

I laugh before I can stop myself.

"What’s so funny?"

"Please don’t be angry, but I was just wondering if you’re always this solicitous towards those you’re in love with."

His mouth tightens momentarily, but he shrugs his anger off. "No. This is the first time I’ve ever tried this with you, as you well know. The final verdict’s not in; but, thus far, I don’t regret my ‘solicitousness’. If what you meant is am I like this with everyone I have sex with, no, I’m not—although I may well treat them better than you think." Wrapping himself in a towel he asks if I’d like to go sit by the fire, and I tell him that I would.

We chat by the fire until two in the morning. This time it’s not so difficult to find thoughts to share. We don’t exchange any further physical intimacies. When I doze off he shakes me awake.

"Bed time," he says. "It would appear that you may refuse to have your way with me after all." He’s obviously not pleased with that prospect but neither is he angry or ugly about it.

I drop my towel on the floor and slide under the covers of my bed without giving it a second thought. Except for the night that I was nearly killed and my nights as a wolf, I’ve spent every night lying naked in this bed beside a guest of the inn since I first came here. Snape pulls a grey nightshirt out of his valise but looks at me beseechingly.

"You can put that away," I instruct him. "I’ve been nude in this bed with more men than I had the heart to keep counting. You’ve been more considerate of me than most of them, so I’m not repulsed at the thought of your bare skin touching mine."

"May I hold you?" he asks as he joins me.

My laugh is gentle enough that it doesn’t offend him. "Yes. You may hold me. Is it all right if I touch you, too?"

He gives me a half-repressed grin that’s crooked and mischievous but stops short of lecherous. "I’d like that," he replies.

Just as I’m about to drift off to sleep, I feel a kiss as soft as a butterfly’s wings graze the nape of my neck. The time has finally come to decide what I want. I bargain for a bit more time by snuggling closer to him but neither speaking to him nor returning his kiss. Once I’ve brought my back against him I’m certain that he still wants to make love, though. His erection is pressing against me. He remains still—avoiding the impulse to try to seduce me by rubbing me with it. Instead, he kisses my neck again—and, when I don’t stop him, my shoulders and upper back. Each kiss is like a tiny flame of mage fire, warm but not threatening to ignite an inferno. They feel as good as Sirius’s kisses. If I’m honest, they feel even better—although I can’t for the life of me understand why.

Finally one of Snape’s kisses makes me gasp and tremble slightly. He stops abruptly, not sure of himself, not certain that what I’m experiencing is pleasure. If I keep still, nothing will happen between us. If—as my body and mind are crying out for me to do—I turn in his arms and face him, lightning will surely strike. The erotic potential is that intense. For five years I defined myself as Sirius Black’s lover; for five months, I’ve defined myself as a prostitute. I’m weary beyond bearing of all the labels that have been imposed on me, positive and negative, by others and by myself, starting with werewolf and running through whore, that control who am I and who and what I can want. I’m desperately hungry to love and be loved and to be comfortable with myself again. All night Severus Snape has given me the gift of recognizing my right to choose what I want for myself. I finally trust both of us enough to do so.

I roll over and wrap my arms around his neck. I kiss him on the mouth gently, but I linger long enough that he parts his lips and I let my tongue dart in and out playfully but provocatively. Both of us are afraid to speak and thereby risk breaking the spell that we’ve woven between us. Our endearments are silent, written like Braille upon each other mostly with fingertips and lips. I’m lying between his legs dancing a wild seduction upon the head of his cock with the tip of my tongue when his fingers begin to ask me if I had rather feel the whole cock dancing inside of me. The answer is yes—and a few minutes later we’re in the right position for Severus to oblige me. I clamp a hand over my mouth when he enters me, intent on silencing a wild howl of pleasure. My other hand clamps down on his shoulder.

"Ow, Remus! That hurts," he explains as he pulls my hand away. My fingertips are stained with blood where my nails tore into him.

"Sorry!" I pant and, kissing my fingers, pat the gouge marks that I’ve dug in the flesh near the top of his left scapula. "I’ll make it better," I add breathlessly.

He doesn’t lose his rhythm as he asks with great amusement, "Are you always this wild?"

"Uh-uh. No. Sometimes I’m well behaved. Honest."

He rests his fingers against my lips to keep me from chattering. He doesn’t make a sound when he comes, but he takes me into his arms and holds me close. After he catches his breath, he begins stroking my hair and kissing me. He fondles my cock until I think I’m going to explode. "Would you like to do to me what I did to you?" he asks.

A wild burst of laughter slips past my lips. "Maybe not. I’m not sure that you’d survive the experience right now," I explain. "What you’re doing is good."

"Would what I could do with my mouth be better?"

"YES!"

It is—but when I come I also begin crying uncontrollably.

"Did I hurt you?" Snape asks in confusion.

When I shake my head, he inquires, "Does it depress you that much that I’m not Sirius Black."

I shake my head again. "I haven’t thought of Sirius in awhile," I tell him truthfully between great sobs. "I’m crying because I feel so good now, but tonight I’ll be a whore again—doing what I don’t want to do with people I don’t want to be doing it with. Sometimes I feel like that will never end!"

"It will," he reassures me. "And it won’t be ‘tonight’ for hours. Let’s sleep—and then may I celebrate your birthday with you?"

"How’d you know that today’s my birthday?"

"I went to school with you, dunderhead! I saw seven observances of it altogether. I envied you. It always looked like a lot of fun. "

"It was. And, yes, you may spend the day with me. I don’t usually start work before 9 p.m."

After a few minutes we fall asleep. When I awake around 10 a.m., Snape—still naked—is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed watching me a bit more warily than seems called for. His nine hours are up—but it’s obvious that he wants to make love again. My body is displaying its enthusiastic agreement with his plan. Although I’m a whore, I still have the right to engage in non-commercial sex with whoever I see fit between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.; so I have no intention of making Severus pay for what’s about to happen.

"I’m off the clock," I tell him in a voice unexpectedly thick with desire—which I have long feared that I would never fully experience again. "What are your thoughts on free love?"

Some of the anxiety drains from his face. "I’m in favor of it," he deadpans. "May I assume that you are, too?"

By way of an answer, I give him a kiss that leaves both of us breathless.

With perfect Snape-ish over-control—which for the first time in my life I find endearing—he chivalrously asks, "Would you like some breakfast first?"

I give him the playfully feral smile that always drove Sirius wild. "No," I reply, "tea afterwards will be just fine. Besides, you look like you’d like to be my breakfast!" As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I panic. Without intending to, I’ve reminded Snape of the 16-year-old werewolf who wanted him for supper in a horrifically literal sense.

My fear must be written on my face, because he kisses me, wraps his arms around me, and murmurs, "It’s all right, Remus. The full moon’s over a week away. I’m not afraid of you at the moment." He uses the warm pressure of his body to persuade me to lie back on the bed and allow him to show me just how fearless he (currently!) is. A few minutes later I’m happily demonstrating for him what a loving and devoted alpha wolf I can be.

When we’re done, Severus asks, "Do you want something sent up or had you rather eat downstairs?"

"Downstairs, I should think. Cook’s luncheon buffet is excellent."

While we dress, I ask, "Did I understand you to say that Prospero’s already gotten his money from you for last night?"

"Yes, you did. Silly bugger made me hand it to Nell! Apparently he’s afraid the sky might fall if he personally touches it—despite the fact prostitution’s been legal amongst us since 1782."

"Seventeen eighty-three," I correct him.

He rolls his eyes and attempts less than perfectly to suppress a smile. "By the Gods!" he exclaims. "A whore who’s a gentleman and a scholar. Mirabile dictu!"

"Be careful who you call a whore, " I admonish him—but, because I don’t presently feel like one, I’m mostly joking. I gather up his galleons and supplement them with an equal sum from my dresser drawer. As with Megan Crabbe, I don’t plan to take his money for our night together. I’m willing to sell the use of my body in order to survive and not harm others, but be damned if I’ll sell my love!

"Here’s your money," I say as I press the coins into his hand. Too late I realize that it’s the wrong thing to say. Snape does one of those maddening things that he does best: He utterly misunderstands my gesture.

"You goddamned son of a bitch!" he roars. "I’m not your whore! I honestly loved you. How dare you treat me like this?"

It’s impossible to answer him for many reasons, the first of which is that he punctuates his outburst by flinging the money to the floor and slapping me as hard as he can. Severus Snape is a tall, muscular man—so his blow leaves my ear ringing, my jaw aching, and my mind muddled, all of which makes speech momentarily problematic. Second, when I don’t immediately answer him he launches into a lengthy and thunderous tirade that precludes any answer. But when the tirade ends, I still stare at him mutely. For the second time in 12 hours tension rises between us. However, this tension has nothing to do with love and sex and everything to do with anger and even rage.

It takes all my strength of mind and character not to scream back at Snape, not to knock him to the floor and beat him till he bleeds for having so thoughtlessly hurt me. Why couldn’t this man who—truthfully—claims to have loved me for a dozen years have used the few seconds it takes to ask me, "What do you mean by handing me this money? It feels uncomfortably like you’re trying to pay me for having had sex with you!" That question would have embarrassed me to the point of making me blush and stammer—but I could have answered it in a way that closed the widening chasm between Snape and myself. The one that he did ask, I can’t answer. I’ve been a whore too long. I’m so beaten down, depressed, ashamed, consumed with guilt, and full of anger that I can’t even force myself to try. I sit back down on the foot of my bed and glare at him silently and sullenly till he can’t stand my gaze any longer.

"Bugger you!" he finally announces and strides furiously towards the door. He’s actually stepped across the threshold when he remembers that he has a final errand to conduct with me. He draws an envelope from a pocket of his robes and flings it to the floor. "Dumbledore said to give this to you."

"What’s it about?"

"How the hell should I know!" he growls and disappears down the hall towards the stairwell.

For a long time I sit on the bed, too weary and grieved to move. Finally I get up, close and lock my door, and retrieve the Headmaster’s letter. When I read it, I howl with not only the frustration of the moment but also that of my whole five-month term in hell. Apparently Annie and Colette are out, because the half-human sound that I make doesn’t bring them racing to my door. After I howl, I tremble; after I tremble, I weep; and after I weep, I curl up in the center of the bed like the badly wounded animal that I’ve allowed myself to become.

Dumbledore’s envelope contains three things: His apology for not having come to my aid sooner, due to his ignorance of my whereabouts prior to having assigned Snape to seek me out. A map to a small cottage that he owns, at which he indicates that I may stay whenever I need shelter. A sizable cheque written on his account at Gringotts. Of the latter he explains, "Please don’t think that I’m the sole source of so much money. Many of us decided that your situation is intolerable and calls for immediate redress." He lists the "many". Snape is the final contributor that he enumerates. In parentheses he adds, "You owe Professor Snape a great deal, Remus! Not only did he find you and persuasively inform us of your needs, but also a disproportionately large amount of this money is his gift to you. Hopefully, it will inspire both of you to finally forgo all anger arising from the practical joke that Sirius Black played on Snape at your expense."

When I’ve regained my composure and some of the energy my outburst depleted, I go downstairs and tell Ned, "I just received a windfall that makes it unnecessary for me to continue working here. How much notice do I owe Mr. Bergher?"

The desk clerk looks as flustered as he did the day that I asked him to explain the use of condoms to me. "Uh, Mr. Lupin, we’ve never had a pr-pr-prostitute gives us notice! The custom is just to pack up and go if you’ve had enough or gotten lucky in some way. I don’t think that Mr. Bergher expects you to do otherwise."

"You’re bloody well right I don’t expect him to, Ned!" Prospero—who’s come up behind me without a sound—announces. "I want you out of that room before sundown, Remus."

"Uh-oh! I take it Severus complained about me. Prospero, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be ungrateful to you…"

"What on earth are you babbling about?" he interrupts me. "Yes, Severus lodged a complaint—a somewhat more florid one than usual—but if I sacked every prostitute that Snape bitched about, I’d have none on staff. By the way, the great jackass didn’t hurt you, did he?"

I shake my head. Proz means, "Did Snape do you bodily harm in violation of your contract?" A broken heart and a badly bruised ego don’t count. If they did, whoring would be illegal.

The innkeeper nods. "Good! Can we transfer you to a guestroom, Remus? I’d be grateful if you’d spend the night. The staff and some of your clients have a birthday party planned for you this evening. It was supposed to be a surprise, but better that you should know about it and stay than that the surprise should be your absence. We’ll just turn it into a birthday AND retirement party."

I feel a peculiar blend of elation and dismay about the celebration, but I agree to wait around for it. "How much is a room here?" I ask Ned and reach for my gold.

"The hell with that!" Prospero objects before his employee can answer. "I told you in the beginning that I could afford to put you up for a night or two as a favor to you. You never took me up on it, so tonight’s on the house!"

I spend the afternoon moving into a big, sunshiny corner room, going to Gringotts to deposit my check and most of the money that had accumulated in my dresser drawer, and buying a few things that I want to take to the cottage with me. While I’m packing, I finally throw out the work clothes that I had when I arrived. I think of leaving my dressing gown with Annie or with Colette, who’s actually tall enough to wear it. Even if my lover can someday prove his innocence and escape from Azkaban, my time in this place—and especially the evening and morning that I spent with Severus Snape—may have damaged our relationship irreparably. Because I can’t be sure of that, though, I do keep his gift—although I can no longer bear its gentle touch upon my skin. I change into my wizard’s robes and carefully fold and put away the trousers and shirts that Jamie Collins’s pillow gift paid for. I know that it’s unlikely that he’ll be here tonight, but I hope that he will. I would like for Snape to be at my party, too—but I know better than to believe that might still be possible. He may never speak to me again; and, certainly, he’s unlikely to forgive me for the insult he thinks that I hurled at him. Slytherin pride is prickly at best—and Severus’s is particularly notorious! For the first time, I acknowledge having lost two lovers in less than two years. To my amazement—brief as it was—I truly mourn the loss of what passed between Snape and myself. I told him early during our night together that I wasn’t in love with him. It appears that I was wrong!

At 6 p.m. I go downstairs to my party. Jamie IS there—and Sean. "You are gorgeous!" the latter remarks. "Seamus is lucky to have known you." Jamie nods his head enthusiastically.

The other great surprise of the evening is the presence of Megan Crabbe. She comes up beside me as I’m admiring my birthday cake. "I managed to cook something for you in my own kitchen, after all," she tells me.

"It looks fantastic," I acknowledge.

"It is," she assures me. "In my not so humble opinion, I make the best chocolate cake in the wizarding world!"

"How’d you know that I love chocolate—or did you?"

"Of course I did! I can see that you pay no attention whatsoever to what’s in your trash basket. You’re the only adult man I’ve ever met whose trash is overflowing with Honeyduke’s chocolate truffle bags, Chocolate Frog wrappers, and those little boxes chocolate bark comes in."

Near the end of the party Annie comes up to me and asks, "Would you like to spend the night with me, Remy? I haven’t scheduled anyone. And I’m not… I’m not soliciting."

"I know you’re not," I immediately assure her. "I’m truly sorry, but not tonight. In the first place, my last…the last man I was with exhausted me. Besides, when I do make love with you, I’d rather it not be here."

A small smile forms at the corners of her mouth. "When you make love to me? Is that a promise, baby?"

"Very definitely."

"You’re so sweet! I’m glad that when I wake up tomorrow afternoon you won’t be here turning tricks anymore." She reddens my cheek with the bright scarlet lipstick that she’s chosen for the party, but she laughs and wipes it away.

I kiss her on the side of neck and whisper into her ear, "I’ll always remember you, Annie. I don’t think I could have endured everything without your help."

She replies in a small, shaky voice, "Hush, baby! I don’t even want to blubber at your party."

Just after sunrise of the next day, I give Ned the key to my room and Apparate to my new place of residence. It doesn’t take me long to recognize that it’s the first home I’ve had since I lost the house that I shared with Sirius. For the first time in seventeen months, I feel safe—and free.

Epilog

I never did get to make love with Annie Harkins, which quite possibly saved my life. Before we managed to arrange a day together, she developed an unusual type of pneumonia, which is an indicator for the disease that came to be known as AIDS. We not only didn’t make love but Annie wouldn’t let me touch her during much of her illness, which frustrated me enormously because I’m a very tactile person and wanted to comfort her with my hands. Eventually, though, she did accept massages and hugs and the healing energy of my hands resting upon her wasted body—which seemed to help both of us deal with what was happening to her. My limited gifts as a Healer didn’t save her, of course, nor did Snape’s formidable skills as a Potions Master. AIDS is as much an incurable disease in the wizarding world as it is in the Muggles’ world. My friend’s death was fairly swift as, in those days, such deaths inevitably were. I was fortunate enough to be sitting beside her holding her hand when she drew her last breath at the age of 31. Many witches and wizards, with their prejudices about prostitutes, assume that Annie brought the HIV virus into our world. They’re wrong. A wizard with a penchant for sleeping with Muggles contracted it from an African prostitute while he was in Kinshasa on Ministry business and passed it directly on to Annie—as well as to seven other Muggle women—before the Ministry’s Healers’ division tracked him down.

Annie’s illness made it possible for Snape and I to get back on speaking terms with one another, although—except in her presence—our dialogues were short and, in his case, often angry and almost paranoid. I was amazed to discover that Severus was the one who brought her into our community and helped her get her job at Prospero Bergher’s inn. If you think that you should hate him for that, you’re wrong—as wrong as I was until Annie herself corrected me. She’d already been a prostitute for several years when she met Snape in the Muggle world; she’d begun as a teenage runaway. She was engaged in a terrible form of whoring called "streetwalking" that we don’t permit in the wizarding world. He found her one night with her face slashed to bloody ribbons with a broken bottle, like the one she killed Perseus Champion with the night that he tried to slaughter me. Snape Apparated with her to St. Mungo’s and demanded that they use magic to heal her so that she wouldn’t be disfigured for life. Neither for the first time nor the last, he butted heads with the Ministry over what was rational and ethical to do in such an exceptional case. As often happens, he bellowed long enough and loudly enough to prevail. I haven’t seen him since her funeral, at which we hugged one another like long-lost brothers and both of us cried openly and unashamedly.

Sirius is still alive and still in Azkaban—which is astonishing, as very few prisoners survive as long as he has in that hellhole. I’ve heard that he’s still sane, too! I hope that’s a good thing, because our maximum-security prison is terrible beyond imagining and not, perhaps, best endured in one’s right mind. Albus Dumbledore lets me know how he’s doing from time to time when he gets to visit him on whatever "official business" he can concoct in order to get in. It seems more unlikely than ever that Sirius and I will be reunited. I’ve never been absolutely certain of his innocence because of the very strong (circumstantial) case against him. This may sound terrible to you, but sometimes I hope that he isn’t—because the thought of his suffering what he has these many years without being guilty is unbearable. We’re rapidly approaching middle age now. If he’s ever vindicated, how will he manage to put his life back together? And will it even occur to him that he might put it back together with me? Compared to all that my lover has suffered in Azkaban, my five months as a whore can’t possibly have been so bad!

And yet they nearly killed me, literally and figuratively—and I have yet to fully come to terms with what I did that winter long ago. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, vividly recalling the experiences that I drank so much whiskey to be unmindful of as they happened. Sometimes it’s very hard not to add the reproach "whore" to "werewolf" and "queer" when my self-esteem is having a singularly bad day. After that first dreadful winter of my homelessness, I never sold my body (and soul!) again. I have allies and choices. I get by—not always comfortably, but without wounding myself as terribly as I did back then.

Now I’m aware of four reactions to prostitutes in the wizarding world. They were always there, although the majority of us only perceive three of them. Most wizards still claim that a woman (or man) who would perform sex acts for money does so out of a craving for sex with as many partners as possible. Most witches still insist that laziness and lack of respect for themselves and others impels prostitutes to take up their trade. A minority of us still keeps uneasy silence, unwilling to confront the forces that lead to prostitution and thus unwilling to help resolve them. Last of all there’s the still smaller minority of witches and wizards such as myself who are former or active prostitutes or their friends or loved ones. (And, yes, we do usually have friends and loved ones!) If you start up any hogwash about whores around us, you’re apt to hear one or more stories like mine.

On the day that you do, you’ll have an extraordinary opportunity to become a braver and more compassionate person. My advice to you is, use it well.