He wandered the streets of the Rossebuurt, looking for her in the windows. All women seemed available to him, the voluptuary and the waif, the mistress and the slave, the housewife and the teen, but none were her. Nearly despairing, he turned down an alley, catching glimpses of forms moving past a barely-translucent frosted window. As he stopped to watch, one stopped also and stood before him. Her form was distorted by the irregularities of the glass, but he knew it was her and he called out to her. She answered his call, her voice reaching him through a crack that allowed the passage of words alone; no sight, no touch, no taste, no scent, and no sound save their words could pass through the glass.
And her words wove a web of surreal lust and desire that told him she was the one he had sought. And he smithed such words back to her, to entangle himself in her web and to bind her to him. Until, at last, she called on him to reach the end of the alley and enter to find her in and of the flesh. He found the door beside a sign that read "Enter, and Abandon All Hope," but neither woman nor man was to be found behind it. He heard her voice echoing down a corridor of myriad labeled doors with a garish neon sign flashing "All Women ARE Yours;" he followed, and opened one that said "Dark Tangiers."
The room within was draped with rich cloths strung from ceiling to walls as if a tent, and with carpets of elaborate geometric designs covering the floor. In the centre was a woman, not yet twenty, her arms stretched above her, hands bound to the centre of the ceiling with a thick silk rope. She was utterly naked, even the fine hairs of her pubis waxed off to emphasize her vulnerability. He caught the scent of perfume from her hair as he gazed on her long black tresses, falling over her shoulders, her back, and her small, firm, young breasts. Her deep brown eyes looked imploringly at him as she silently twisted and turned, desperately trying to keep her balance from the rope that left only her toes to touch the floor. To one side was a small table, intricately carved of cedar, and bearing a coiled whip of braided horsehair, a stallion's penis forming its handle. She was not the one he sought, but still his breath grew deeper and his blood rose as he stared intently at her flawless olive flesh while reaching for the whip.