I turned to see a girl, maybe sixteen, dressed modestly in a linen peplos--the gown so often depicted on women of ancient Greece, a long tubelike affair, fastened with clasps at the shoulders, leaving her arms bare. A belt cinched the waist. A snakeskin belt.
"May I help you?" she repeated, but she wasn't addressing me. A man stood in the temple doorway. Perhaps twenty, with a military bearing, though he wasn't in uniform. He looked about the temple uneasily, his brown face darkening with a blush as he saw the mosaics.
The girl smiled. "I am afraid we cannot offer entertainments such as that."
"N-no," he stammered. "Of course not. I...I simply wish to pay m
y regards...That is, I wish to honor..."
"You came to pay your respects," she said. "And to honor the gods with me."
He nodded and held out his hand, coins in the palm. The girl smiled and motioned for him to deposit them into the mouth of a carved snake. Then she took his hand and led him to a room in the back.
The scene went dark, and I heard a girlish giggle. I turned to see dim light filtering through a crack in a stone wall. I followed it and came out in a room, unlit by anything except that seeping light. Another giggle. Then I spotted a girl in a simple Edwardian-era garb, suggesting she was a maid or of similar station. A well-dressed young man bore down on her as she danced away.
"Do you want something, my lord?" she asked.
"You know I do."
He lunged again and she feinted, and eluded his grasp for a few minutes, only to be captured when he faked another charge. He pushed her up against the wall, fumbling with her petticoats. When he shoved them up, I saw a belt of snakeskin around her waist. He got his trousers down and was inside her so fast she gasped. Then she wrapped her hands in his hair, pulling him against her as he thrust.
"You're good to me, Anna," he said.
She smiled. "We're good to each other, my lord."
The scene darkened again. Nighttime now. I heard whispered voices--a man saying, "I don't usually do this," and a girl's laughing reply, "That's okay. Neither do I."
After a moment, I could pick up just enough light to make out what seemed to be an alley. A very dark, very dirty alley. Music boomed from a nearby club. Footsteps sounded and I saw a girl in a miniskirt with a snakeskin belt, cropped leather jacket and leg warmers, her hair teased a mile high. She led a man by the hand. He had to be in his forties, wearing what looked like eighties-style club clothes meant for a guy half his age. A middle-aged divorcee--or not-so-divorced--out for a night on the town. As for the girl, despite the outfit, she didn't look more than sixteen.
As I thought that, he said, "You are eighteen, right, babe?"
She giggled and replied, "Sure I am," in a way that said both of them knew better. He knew what he was getting. He wanted what he was getting.
"So, uh, how much?" he asked.
"Fifty."
"Isn't that a little steep?" He looked down the alley. "I mean, I'm no expert, but this isn't a night at the Ritz."
"I can give you a night at the Ritz...for five hundred." She tugged him closer. "Don't be cheap. I'm quality goods. For men with quality tastes."
He nodded and pulled two twenties and a ten from his wallet. She took it and stuffed it in her pocket.
"The problem, you see, is one of sociological evolution," a voice said behind me.
I turned to see Patrick sitting on a trash bin.
"Yes, you aren't the only one who gets the dramatic recreation version," he said. "So much more interesting than merely reading the words, isn't it?"
"You said something about evolution."
He hopped off the can and started walking down the alley, away from the rutting couple. "Precisely. Look at the lamiae. How old do they appear?"
"Teenagers," I said as I followed him to the street.
"In the modern period, yes. They're teens--a stage of life that was created in the twentieth century to deal with the problem of prolonged adolescence."
"Because in earlier times, you went straight from childhood to adulthood. Betrothed at twelve. Married at fourteen. Usually to a guy at least a decade older."