Bordello della Libertà (Aethertales Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

a far more appropriate adjective. “Women are
people, not objects!” they shrieked. “You’re a shrill of the Patriarchy! You’re
a selfish seller of women’s bodies! You’re perpetuating rape culture!”
    “Oh
yes,” Lucia laughed, sliding a set of knives out of a woodblock on the
countertop. “The Patriarchy : that elusive force you can neither prove
nor define. My girls aren’t selling their bodies—they’re selling a service, one
that has never fallen out of demand over the entire course of history. And what
you female-fascists don’t seem to understand is that I have never forced
them into this profession, and I have always enforced their right to
choose their own clients; this is not slavery, it has never been slavery, and
it will never be slavery. You claim that women have the right to choose
the manner in which they live their lives, but you condemn them for exercising
their freedom of choice, all because they don’t follow what you dictate
as being right for them.”
    “You’re
a dirty slut !” the champions of women’s dignity and rights hissed. “You
and your filth bitches are worthless , disgusting whores !
We hope your next client rapes and kills you and leaves your body
in a ditch!”
    “Typical,”
Lucia groaned with a roll of her eyes. She held the knives in her hand like a
fan of razor-sharp playing cards, ready to deal her enemies what they deserved.
“Once a woman refuses to go along with the farce you call ‘feminism,’ you slut-shame
her, when slut shaming is something you claim to be fighting against. And
apparently, rape isn’t much of a serious issue to you, either, given you’re
willing to throw that word around like a casual interjection and insult us with
threats of sexual assault. Very classy of you. But you, my dear
supremacists, are the worst objectifiers of women of all—but luckily for the
working women of this city, you will perpetuate their weakness and victimhood
no longer.” And with a flick of her wrist the knives went flying across the
room, and the hypocrites met a swift and merciless demise.
    “Sudika!”
Lucia shouted as she bolted out the front door. First came the smell of gas
fuel, then only a ringing in her ears; an explosion rocked the Bordello
della Libertà , unleashing a cloud of flame and smoke from the kitchen
windows. Sudika covered her face and Lucia felt shards of glass raining down
upon her hair, but she ignored the dangers and pulled her protégée by the wrist
out into the street. The girl protested, refusing to leave their beloved brothel
behind, but Lucia insisted on it.
    “We’ll
rebuild,” she promised, waving on the rest of her employees, who leapt over the
mountainous bodies of slain evildoers to follow her. “The Freedom Whores are
gathering on Evita Avenue, and we are to be their guests of honor. It’s about
time we brought this city to its knees. Its citizens will be devastated to
learn that we’re not the only ones who kneel.”
    ••
    S UDIKA
    The bold
banner swayed in the wind as the activists stretched it across the width of
Evita Avenue. In spite of the lively cacophony that left each outcry
indistinct, the sign made all the protesters’ cries clear, in bold-faced
letters: “Dear
Government: Out of our beds, out of our wallets!” It swept down the city block and
pushed autos and buses out of its way like a broom pushing dust, and the hand
that cleaned Talpretta of its societal filth was manifold: it was the crowd
that gathered on the avenue that morning, who marched with their backs painted
gold by the rising sun, with signs and flags held high and their eyes set
firmly on the marble face of city hall. The legislature had always stood as a
stone mountain that could never be moved or reshaped, and it would bow to no
one, but on that day, when all the city’s escorts gathered in the name of liberation,
it was an autumn leaf in a storm. Thousands of voices were thunder, and the
light of morning flashing on painted signs