Theodora by Stella Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

belly-laugh comedy. The audience had long ago grown out of the classic Greek works everyone knew they were supposed to appreciate, if not enjoy – this public wanted their performance in street Greek and would take the likes of Euripides and Sophocles only with sweeteners of sex or comedy or song. Sophia could deliver all three, and her renowned one-woman-as-twelve-maenads scene was always guaranteed to draw a huge crowd, no matter how many times it had been seen before. If only for the joy of watching the tiny woman rip off her own head a dozen times.
    Face of a girl, voice of an angel – and coin collection of a madam. While she openly admitted getting away with as little as possible on stage, Sophia worked very hard behind the scenes. Having turned the requisite tricks early on in her career, working her way through stage manager, dance master, touring writers, important patrons, each bedding advancing her status and reputation a little more, Sophia quickly decided the constant jokes about easy access blow jobs and the little girl requests weren’t for her, no matter how much money was offered. She then set about finding out what else she could do that would give her plenty of time to appear on stage, which she still far preferred, and also pay the little, or the lot, extra she wanted to earn. By sixteen Sophia knew she was more interested in talking about sex in theatrical asides than actually doing the deed – for money; she always enjoyed it in private – and took to selling her company sisters instead. As a madam she had all the skills of the men who usually sold the stage-girls – good withmoney, great at haggling, dangerously reckless of her own and others’ bodies when called on to fight – but she had the further advantage of having done the job herself. Sophia knew what her girls liked, understood that playing to type applied to whoring as much as it did to acting. Consequently she was able to pair the girls, and some of the young men of the company, with the kind of paying guests each one could best pleasure by also enjoying herself.
    Sophia and Theodora should not have got on. They occupied too much of the same ground. Both loud, smart-mouthed and quick-witted, both the kind of women that the men in their audience feared and wanted in equal measure, if only to tame. As actresses there should not have been room for two of the same: confronted with a younger woman who might feasibly steal her place in the audience’s heart, Sophia would usually have given the new girl a very hard time, had seen off lesser rivals plenty of times in the past, and was ready to do so with this one too – but that Theodora came prepared.
    She made sure to get to the rehearsal room before the other performers. The company members would know she was joining them, today was not the day to make a late entrance. She sat carefully on one of the bench seats, leaning back against the wall and tucked her legs beneath her in a twisted position only a girl with her years of training could possibly achieve. She then made sure the folds of her pale blue gown fell open at exactly the right point, perfectly revealing henna-tinted toenails. She lifted her hands to her hair and pulled it back behind her ears, checking that the dark curls – curls made by hand, not nature – were not obscuring her fake pearl earrings. Finally she pulled a bracelet from her leather bag, and pushed the coiling silver snake above the elbow to sit proud against her acrobat’s bicep. She took a deep breath, and waited.
    Slowly the room filled. Comito was there, aware of Theodora’s preparations and worried that it might all backfire horribly. Several other singers and dancers arrived, each surprised to see the young woman in the corner, sitting there so very familiar and yet so wrong. There were a few nervous giggles. Then, as Sophia’s raucous yell was heard from upstairs, shouting for water, wine, bread with honey, anything to help her start this fucking new