The Break doesn’t look like much from the outside. There is black painted door set in a smart street, all grey bricks. There are blinds at the window, through which you might see the pale pink-carpeted reception room and the standard shiny business plant. It could be anywhere in London, a typical city office.

My name is Martin, but that doesn’t matter much any more. Only Lucy, the duenna of the harem, still calls me by my birth-name. I have a variety of ‘stage-names’ as we know them here, and usually I go by one of those. I am Dariush, the Eastern courtesan with kohl around my eyes and silk slippers on my feet. I am Henry, the pampered little English boy bought and coddled as a girl, soft with shiny blonde hair and a white shirt. Since I came here, I have learned a lot about desire. Some men would be repulsed by one trick, but rendered hepless by a different one. I have to be flexible, says Maris with a smile.

When you go in, you’re in the reception room. Lucy or Maris keep the desk and take phone-calls, and Kath deals with the website from which we draw most of our customers. It’s a kind of decompression chamber between the city outside and The Break within. Usually the eunuchs and courtesans venture no further than the cloakroom behind the office, but sometimes I am called upon to serve drinks in the reception room. I don’t mind, although sometimes the clients are too eager and try to touch me. Lucy doesn’t stand for this, and politely ejects them onto the street. After all, you wouldn’t do it to a waitress.

I was serving in the cloakroom one day, sprinkling perfume onto the heated floor so the scent would rise up and permeate the visitors’ coats. It must have been raining outside: the coats were beaded with water and steaming in the heat. I was adjusting a leather jacket so it lay better on its stand when Maris popped her head around the door.

“Angel,” she said, “we need two infusions.”

“I’ll be right through,” I said. Maris clucked - she’s never been able to completely train away my Northern accent - and went back through to reception. I heard her voice, and a deeper voice, a man’s voice, in reply.

Not my business, I thought, and made my way to the kitchen.

I boiled the water and brewed some tea. The master left guidelines that we are only to use loose leaves, which he imports, but it’s a fairly easy rule to keep to. In the harem we get through a lot of tea, and I’ve come to hate the dusty, manufactured taste of tea-bags. Some of the customers are connoisseurs. 

I spiced the infusions with a little ginger, stirred them so the powder did not float, then balanced them atop a little gold tea tray and set off for the reception room. It’s quite difficult to just balance the tray on the fingertips of your left hand, but I’ve had a lot of practice. This way, I can use my stronger right hand to open the door, then I put it behind my back and keep my gaze lowered modestly, to show my submission.

I heard a rustle of rain-wet leather from the little sofa when I entered the room. There was a rich, unfamiliar scent which mingled with the rain and the ginger tea. I felt quite warm and aroused.

“This is Angel,” said Maris, introducing me to the men, and subtly giving the hand-signal that I could look up. “He has been here for a little less than two years, and is drawing to the end of his training.”

I laid the tea before them, took two steps back and gave a demure bow. One of the men gave a little shaky breath.

“Thank you, Angel,” she said.

Neither of the clients were familiar. One was much bigger than the other - I guessed that the leather jacket must belong to him. He was handsome, if pale and hollow-eyed. Disordered and rain-soaked black hair hung down to his shoulders, and he was unshaven. The other man was small and light-haired, like myself, although he seemed more nervous, and he was devouring me with his eyes. He had thin, mouse-like features, and glasses which made his narrow eyes seem smaller.

I liked the handsome man more: he reminded me of the master. I knew that I had nothing to fear from either of them, though: the duennas would never let any possible threat beyond the fretted doors, and only a man of proven good character could share mine or the courtesans’ beds.

“Thank you,” said the rugged man, after sipping his tea. The other copied him anxiously, and I gave a submissive nod.

“Angel,” said Maris, “why don’t you stay for a while? Have a sweet.”

This was unusual. Often, Maris would find an excuse to modestly parade a courtesan or eunuch, then send them back to the harem while she spoke to the men. I wasn’t quite sure what this pair wanted. One was clearly aroused by me, but had managed to control himself. The other had shown no sign of noticing me at all.

“Thank you, mistress,” I said, and took an orange pastille from the bowl in the centre of the table. Ever since I was castrated, I have had a weakness for them.

“I saw this boy’s picture on the website,” began the handsome man, although he seemed somehow disinterested, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s difficult to find a beautiful eunuch these days. Most are just fat.”

“Mr. Henderson,” said Maris, straightening her sleeves, “my eunuchs are very carefully kept. They are not allowed to get fat. The sweets are a rare luxury.”

Aware that the men were watching me still, I chewed delicately, letting a flicker of my tongue show as the pastille dissolved.

“Yes,” he said, and his tone had become cold. I wondered if he would make another appointment, or Maris would accept it if he did.

About half of those that find us just want sex. They want the fantasy of a kept courtesan or submissive eunuch, to own for a while and then pay a bit of cash and go away. My arse-hole, my master tells me, is what most of the men who come here want - they want to take me as a woman. It took me quite a while to understand why, before my master started training me in such a way. It was a pleasure even for me, and soon I was wantonly splaying my legs for him, and attending to my arse-hole carefully: every morning I cleaned and perfumed it. My master taught me many other things too: how to awake the penis with my mouth; pursed lips on the tip, a little breath of air down the heated length - and how to seduce, how to dance, sing, make charming conversation and pour wine properly. I am more than what is - and what isn’t - between my legs.

There are some who understand what we are here, to an extent, but do not have the patience and stop making appointments. Then there are those who persevere through watching dances and having supervised dinners with courtesans, and eventually get the real rewards.

“Angel, the courtyard needs sweeping,” Maris said. She too had turned cold; her eyes were pale. I bowed to the men, who both watched me with their cold eyes until I left.

Through the fretted doors, you walk along a spangled carpet to another, stronger set of doors, kept by an armed guard. Men sometimes become crazed by lust, and try to break through into the sanctuary. Today, the man was sitting at his desk, reading an old Persian text.

“Hello, darling,” he said as I went past.

There are candles in candle-nooks in the walls here, which are extinguished in the daytime. It is one of my tasks to sprinkle perfume along this passage, for the carpet becomes musty with bare feet. Shoes are not allowed in the harem: they are kept in racks outside, like in a temple. When you pass the second set of doors, which swing open easily, you are in the courtyard.

High-walled and cloistered, it has just a small square of sky above, positioned directly over the lily-pool. There are goldfish and carp, which the eunuchs feed every morning, and several pale lilies. When it rains, the rain falls into the pond but the tiled courtyard is always dry. In summer, part of the roof is taken down and the whole courtyard is bathed in sunlight. There were girls there, relaxing in the sun, reading and combing their hair. A boy eunuch of about my age was playing a flute, and two children - the result of some of the courtesans not taking their cups of roots - were eating candied orange at the little table.

This is home, I thought, I am content. I went to find the sweeping-brush, but the voice of the tall man remained in my head for a while afterwards.