CHAPTER FOUR
Diana and Cheryl and Hera followed silently. At the top of the flight of steps they moved behind her into a room at the end of the hallway, Modiste shutting the door when they were all inside.
It was a small room furnished with a single item: a big double mattress in the middle of the floor, candles in wine glasses against each of the four walls lighting the room, casting flickering shadows on the walls and floor.
"Me for the mattress," Modiste said, and she dropped onto the mattress, turning over on her back and stretching herself out with a proud exhibitionistic ostentation, dauntless, her gaze sweeping the three pairs of eyes surrounding her as her acolytes knelt around her, Hera by her head, and Cheryl and Diana beside her. Her body was a long soft terrain of glens and
