The night after Petal was sold as a slave to Swat in Maria’s bar in Skala Eressos, and after a full day of Petal submitting to Swat’s every desire, Bb and Petal are handed their next Race Around The World envelope by Maria and Ingrid.
The instructions read:
Bid farewell to the pleasures of Lesbos, you are off to Turkey! You must catch the morning boat from Miltilini to Ayvalik, a small fishing village in Turkey. From there, you will travel by dolmus (shared minibus) to the town of Selcuk near Ephesus. At the museum, near the statue of Beautiful Artemis, you will find further instructions.”
“Who’s Artemis?” Bb and Petal wonder aloud.
“Ayvalik, Ayvalik” Bb intones. “I’ve a lick, I’ve a lick. . . Hmm, sounds propitious” she laughs. “I’ve a chick to lick, and a lickin’ chick” she hums as she runs her hands across Petal’s sweet arse and across the bare skin of her middle. Petal has not worn clothes for the past 24 hours, but is now ‘demurely’ dressed in a pair of tight, short shorts and bikini top. Her shorts leave little to the imagination, emphasising the womanly folds of her cunt and allowing the curves of her arse cheeks exposure. She wears Doc Martens. Bb is still in jeans, Cuban heels and white silk shirt, now buttoned, so her beautiful tattoos and piercings are now a secret of which only Petal is aware.
Turkey. A country not known for its gay-friendliness, where a mayor of Istanbul cancelled a gay festival not many years back, claiming it as offensive to public morality. A country where stereotypical perceptions about covered women and moustachioed men predominate. Petal shudders a little and decides to wear a light cotton sundress over her shorts and bikini.
By afternoon, Barberboi and Petal are standing, along with many other tourists in a room of the Selcuk museum, admiring not one, but three, beautiful statues of the goddess Artemis, the most popular of the Greek goddesses, known to the Romans as Diana. They are learning about the ancient cult of Artemis. According to legend, Ephesus was founded by Amazons who set up a statue of Artemis and conducted dances and ceremonies of worship. A huge and magnificent temple to Artemis, the Artemision, once stood nearby. It was the largest marble structure ever built, four times larger than the Parthenon in Athens and was one of the Seven Wonders of The World.