While we do have a blanket warning on the show about graphic and explicit content, we want to note that this book specifically contains subject matter around abortion, sexual assault, power dynamics, and the joys and unfortunate horrors of coming of age.

Listener discretion is extra advised.

Passages contains graphic and explicit sexual content.

Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome, Oh yeah, welcome to Passages.

Passages which one of you bitches is my mother.

To find the answers.

Lily will be taken to worlds of horny, excess, luxury, power, op a lands.

Don't you mean opulence, I don't.

Aristocrats, magnates, and so much.

Six hundred pages, five continents, and four life stories of women as strong, elegant and full of holes as place.

Dude, I feel like we, oh wait, are we even not recording that?

Are we recording it?

Aaron?

Aaron doesn't know what's happening.

Uh yeah, yeah, we might as well be.

So we are, by the way, five chapters, and this is crazy, and I feel like we've read eight books.

Hello, welcome to Passages.

This book.

This book, this book that's strong and sturdy and complexible.

What's interesting is they aren't plot holes.

No, they're they're the.

Whole of women, the strong independent.

Yes, and we did talk about this pretty in depth last episode.

Sorry, I just hit it strong marijuana.

She just.

But I think this book is so good at well, it's great period but it's really well written.

But it's really good at taking you like the tone shifts are not shifts, they are shocking.

Yes, uh sudden, the rug is being absolutely fucking yanked out from under you.

You're in these like innocent, joyful, exciting, beautiful moment and then you're then one of our protagonists is literally handcuffed to a bed by an adult man.

She's sixteen and a fucking raped.

Yes, there no other it does because it's a little I went back and read that that part because I to face it.

Yes, and it's really it's really bad, but it's it's a little ambiguous about this happening exactly because she's a she was drugs.

It's her POV.

It's her POV, and she doesn't really know what she doesn't.

Know everything's happening.

But that's what I was trying to capture.

I think last time was like how it's so effective without needing every detail.

It can be ambiguous, and it was chilling.

It's chilling, but it's not it's not graphs.

It's not gratuitous.

I wouldn't say gratuitous or graph.

No, but it doesn't need to be because the reader, if you know, she's done such a good job of connecting you to these characters and allowing the reader to kind of PLoP into each of their worlds at any given moment depending on who is like quote unquote on screen that you don't need all of this extra really graphic shit.

Now.

It moves really quickly through very like a lot of deep material, but it's really good at like jump nimbly jumping in and out of the heads of the characters, because it is like an omniscient narrator, it is, but it jumps into her head and gives us the way she felt about this this attack, and she doesn't even have the the context to come to like really even know what happened.

I want to know what something that's crazy.

She never says I was raped, No, she which is what happened?

Yep, she says like later on as she's going forward, she's like, oh, I just had this awful, awful experience with with the with the driver.

She calls it this ugly experience.

Not she doesn't have the language the structure to like.

Even though you were to communicate what happens, it wasn't.

Just a horrible you did nothing wrong.

Which I think is actually another kind of brilliant thing about the writing is that obviously, So to recap the last chapter, which is relevant here, Yeah, the three of the four of our girlies kind of have their first sexual encounter.

One is not.

Good, not great, bad, bad bad, a.

Gray area in terms of assault, and that would be very much up to her how she felt about that.

It felt a little coarse, a little manipulative on his end, for sure, and it was not a pleasurable experience.

He's he's a piece of ship.

And then we get a real like romance.

Loving bumbling.

Ski professional, and then we get this full blown.

Her literal as she as Pagan is covering for her friend Kate.

No, it's it's Maxine friends.

Up with Kate is with uh Franois.

So I'm trying to get all these nets.

I I don't know if you could tell, but I was so stoned last episode that has to be basically not forming me.

We're going to try to just outdo that every week, but it goes back and forth.

So it's my week to listen.

So I get to get crazy.

You can get you get to get crazy.

I have I have to be able to get to this because's a lot of material.

It's very difficult, but yeah, I just So we go from Pagan covering up for this adorable innocent trists trying to sneak her back in, and as part of that, she is like, well, I'll guess I'll go with this driver.

To cover because then we get it.

We get a co conspirator essentially.

Yeah, but if I out and get him in trouble, then I have something on him and he can't turn us in.

But unfortunately he slips something into her drink and photographs and take dirty pictures for this blackmail ring.

Yep, yeah Jesus.

But what I found.

Funny, not necessarily funny, haha, but funny, Oh my god.

And I can't wait to see if it plays out, is to like process through that episode that we recorded.

On the way home, I was listening to the episode that had just been released.

Yes, and we find out about Shark the fucking Headmaster, who he's a huge piece of shit whatever, and everybody's terrified of him, and we even made the like if we were joking, it's like what if they all kill him and then they have a shared secret?

Yeah, what if?

That's the thing that actually bonds these four girls together.

But that I think is the main thing from the last episode, because Pagan can't remember some things something.

But then she wakes up, she asks to go to the bathroom.

He lets her go to the bathroom.

She opens like a dresser drawer by the bathroom.

She sees something in the top drawer and she reaches for it and then it cuts cut.

So something happened between there and her getting hold back.

And she gets back and they're asking her like, oh my god, it's five in the morning, like where have you been?

We've been covering for you all night.

She's like I got really drunk.

I don't want to talk.

I talk about this, And she is then like sick for two days.

She has like flu and there's a gap and oh yes.

And that is definitely significant.

Oh yes, we get to it.

It is spectacular.

Remember how you when you walked in I was like I love this book.

Okay, so yeah, that's really like the highlights.

That's a real roller coaster, just the way that life constantly blindsides you, especially when you're a young person who has not been given enough information.

They don't know what This young girl does not even know that she has been assaulted, assaulted.

She does not even know that that that she.

Knows, but doesn't have like the language to articulate what's happened.

You just feel that you've been violated without having no knowledge.

She knows it was gross, she knows it was violating, but she does not seem to, throughout this next couple of chapters, be able to actually process what actually happened to her.

And she just tries to like move on with their life like it was just a bad sexual encounter she had.

Which I find interesting because isn't it her mother who assaulted Kate in their home.

It is so I wonder if patterns are building.

And not to say that Pagan is going to be someone who commits assault, but this is the kind of thing, but there's this weird connection.

Yeah, and then how she's processing it is very much that's the lord behavior.

From all of us.

Just don't talk it.

Yeah, it's a nasty thing, and we just don't talk about oh god, uh ah knock.

But as as you're about to see, Pagan is a fucking queen and uh so so.

So this book then proceeds to from this dark, dark low, because that's literally.

Where we ended was.

She gets back to the school and she's in the hospital for like three days, and then the chapter's done.

But life does not fucking slow down for these characters even a little bit to give them a chance to figure out what the fuck happened.

It comes at them with a literal prince.

So Christmas print, it's a Christmas prince.

Oh my god, she.

Gets her own Christmas prince.

Okay, she finds miss it's you will not You could guess what the next plot beat in Pagan's storyline is, and you would.

It would take you a million years.

Okay, I guess, But I'm not even gonna bother.

I'm just gonna lock in and be ready for the ride.

Light j like smack that jay.

All right.

Chapter five chat, So we were about to get through that.

I get to I get to the end of part one in this so part.

We might be moving out of their adolescent Yeah.

So we are like a hundred pages in after this chapter.

We're probably gonna be late teens, early twenties.

I have no idea.

I have no idea what comes on and scared.

I'm thinking it will be them out of school.

I bet they'll jump until after prep school.

But I don't know.

I have no idea.

You can't wait.

We know that something must happen for them to disconnect because they're all surprised to see each other in the opening scene, and.

That could easily be in their adulthood.

It isn't their adulthood, but I'm saying it's seen.

The picture that was painted to me was they were all very surprised to see each other.

They hadn't seen each other in decades, and there's a reason why.

But here, by the end of part one, they are sisters, like they are so tight, so close.

The trauma bonded.

They share traumas and secrets, and Joe and you will not I mean like after after part one, after finishing part one today, I'm like, well, they.

I love them so much.

I have to know each other for a lot longer, like they have to be.

They have to be super bonded to each other.

So I'm really excited to see what is in part two because this like them at school is so fucking sweet and puts them in such close proximity to each other.

But I'm curious how we can keep those relationships gorong, because it seems like their lives are going to pull them in some really drastically different directions, allegedly, allegedly, maybe maybe we get a little bit of information about that.

Right now, Yes, right now, begin the repression for chapter five.

Okay, we're repressing all the horrors that we have seen dust as are the great repression.

Ten days later, the resilience of youth had triumphed.

Pagan had managed to convince herself that she had wiped that revolting incident out of her mind and could pretend it had never happened.

Amazingly, the episode had not lowered her high spirits, and one Sunday afternoon, sparkling with restless energy, repression, repression, repression, she wheedled the other three into hiring the horse drawn red sleigh for an hour.

So she's manic.

She's in a manic episode.

Nothing traumatic, man nothing happened to me, Pagan, nothing at all.

And she goes into a fucking full manic thing, and she takes them out on a sleigh ride.

Off.

You've never taken me on a sleigh ride.

You're such a shit.

I've never been joyful enough or repressing to go on a sleigh ride.

Off.

Cough the horse over the snow laced cobbles.

The four girls huddled luxuriously under the ancient silver fox for rugs, jogging along to the jingle of the silver bells on the harness.

They waved to pass her by as they drove through the fields outside the town and headed towards Sinnin.

So we get this cozy cuddled the total whiplash is I know, I know, I love it.

So the girls are playing around on the horse, and then Judy, being a little dumb dumb fucking gets up she doesn't know anything about horses and can't ride.

Judy, who couldn't ride?

This is Pagan's povy Wow.

She flaps the reins and like does a little crack with the whip, just playing around the driving well.

The driver is out of the carriage at the time, and she accidentally hits the mayor in the ear with the whip, and so the mayor is like mah and like fucking drags them off and Pagan is like running alongside and trying to get control of it.

Again, did I tell you that this happened kind of in Ireland?

What Bill and I were like just walking, just the two of us on a busy city street in double way.

People I love have almost been trampled by horses.

This is crazy and they have a bunch of the touristy we did it.

Horse rawn carriage rides through Dublin's horse calves pettycabs and so this young kid, really he was maybe nineteen or twenty at the oldest, was working.

He's like in his bright green I'm operating the horse drawn carriage cab with people in his cab, and we suddenly just heard like a slam, and from what we understand, a car hit the carriage, but then hit and ran and sped off.

It's booked the horse, which bucked off the driver while the two people were still in the carriage, and the horse took off and the big giant carriage with two people in it ran over the driver and he was just laid out in the street.

So Bill and I jumped into the street to like stop traffic, and other people were getting him out of the street.

And then like he was kind of concussed and out of it.

It was just like we laid him on the on the sidewalk and somebody called their equivalent of nine on one.

And people were like checking.

And meanwhile the horse and the two people who bought the cab were just long gone.

We had no one before the word the horse was in charge now yeah.

And then once an ambulance got there, Bill and I were liked, so should we just go because there's nothing else we can do about it.

Literally, we would only be in the way.

It was crazy, So we're pretty sure he broke something, at least a couple of rips.

It was fine, I'm sure, But I want to hear the POV of the people in the carriage when Pagan fucking snapped the ear and then they went wild.

So I think we're about to get it.

So that's basically it.

It's basically them going as they're pulled through the but they but Pagan knows, she knows horses.

She catches up with it, gets control of the thing and the and hands back to this other driver comes by and helps, and but Pagan is fucking pissed.

Yeah, She's like, how killed us?

Yeah, you, how dare you hit that mare?

How dare you make her reer and gallop on ice?

You bloody idiot, get in the back.

So Pagan like takes control of the situation.

You stupid bitch, stupid bitch.

Outside the stable, a man was waiting for them, A dark fellow wearing ski clothes and the arrogant air of a privileged servant, with a face devoid of expression except for a hint of hateur.

He approached Pagan and gave a slight bow.

So after they have this horse drawn carriage incident action scene, action scene, they are on their way back and just there's this guy waiting for Pagan.

I don't know, he's just waiting for them back by this back by the he's older, but he works for someone who wants to meet you.

So, my Master, his Royal Highness, the Crown Prince Abdullah wishes to invite you to meet him at the Imperial Hotel.

And Pagan just goes and I'm the Queen of China.

Yeah, choosing to listen to Junie's apologies.

So Junius, he's trying to apologize.

This guy is like, Prince Abdullah wants to meet you, and She's like yeah, yeah, and I'm from the Moon and just blows him off.

And the guy is like, Karima Abdullah certainly is staying at the Imperial Pagan Judy says.

Judy's like, listen, this guy just legit.

Yeah, he's got two permanent sweets there while he's at school.

So he's going to school at the school, but he can't can't stay on the grounds because they're much below his stature.

Nick definitely knows him.

Uh, I've seen him, but this guy certainly looks like one of his Arab bodyguards.

Judy flung her pale blue scarf around her chin.

Look, I must go.

I'm doing the chessa but I'd consider the invitation.

How often does a royal invite you to tea?

So Judy is like trying to apologize, and it like quickly He's like, well, I know he's real, go with him trying, probably trying to butter Pagan prince okay, and then the other girls are like, oh my god, royalty like and then so they fucking go to meet him.

I don't like Pagan continuously being whisked off by strange men.

Yeah, poor girl.

So wait, did the other girls come with her.

Yes, so she's not going a lot.

They're all going together, thank god.

Okay.

In a corner of the Great Hall, wearing all white ski clothes sat Prince Abdullah, upright and impatient, under winged eyebrows.

He had the watchful look of a hawk, the eyes of a man who is used to being obeyed without moving his head.

His eyes followed the girl's approach when he stood and said politely, so good of you to come.

Wonderful weather we're having, don't you think.

His English was clipped with only the faintest trace of an accent.

The Prince waved a hand at the velvet chairs grouped around the table.

They sat down and talked about the weather and the hotel and ski runs.

The Prince's ramrod backed his arrogant, almost menacing calm proclaimed majesty, but sat oddly on the shoulders of an eighteen year old boy.

Oh he's like their age, Pagan thought he would probably look more at home on an Arab horse than on that old green velvet hotel chair.

She steered the conversation to horses, and the Prince smiled for the first time.

From that moment, the other two girls might not have existed.

So I love that they like feel hornylicious lust for the first time, and they're like, I'm in love.

These boys the Prince.

The Prince honestly makes He's like, I want to meet these girls.

Bring them over, and he talks to the one and she knows about horses.

He finds a moment of connection with one of these women, which I bet is very difficult for him given his upbringing, which is very intense and very violent and has an absurd amount of money flying around, so it causes all this danger.

Oh wowsh is what they get.

They talk about this pretty quickly, so we then cut to ahead in time to I suppose it's a snap.

It's a smash cut because Pagan is just beating him at this card game.

She's like, snap, and she beats him in this card game and he's like but so she's teaching him like nursery card games, and they're in his suite.

She's literally laying on a polar bear skin rug in front of a giant fireplace playing cards with Prince Crown Prince Doula.

Oh my god, I know, it's crazy literal fantasy.

She's in a like a two thousand and four rom com movie with all of the the big choices that those made.

Uh so he she's in his uh but teaching him card games like Racing Demon and Snap, which I don't know what those are.

Racing Demon, Racing Demon.

In private, Abdullah dropped his invisible cloak of majesty.

It disappeared as soon as his bodyguards were dismissed with yeah, yeah, they this is actually very sweet.

I'm starting to think you cheat yond Abdullah, who always cheated himself.

His grin widened into a full lipped smile, showing white even teeth.

As Abdullah twisted onto his side with an agile catlike movement that was somehow lazily dangerous.

There was a shot crack from the adjoining room, and again this.

Isn't a gunshot.

This book proceeds to give the the the Okay, I thought we were on like a roller coaster.

I don't think that's strong enough.

Now we're on like one of those weird like tilted whirl whip around things that just like makes you go like.

Ah, it's a power tower.

That tower, like an absurd hydraulic lift that's like shooting you up and down.

Because he hears a beautiful fantasy moment, and then like two pages there's a gun shot in the other fucking room.

Yeah, and now there's this like crack, and Prince Abdullah draws a gun out of his fucking waistband and fucking James bonds like flipping and dodging into the next room, like clearing corners with this gun.

That is like looking around thinking that there might be an attacker of some kind.

Oh my god.

And then he like checks the room.

He looks out this like huge window down over the valley and then calms down and like lowers his weapon and he's like, uh he was standing beside the window wall looking out.

I think it's like the fuck.

I think a tree just fell.

He said, I'm sorry I alarmed you, but I have to be careful.

But the bodyguards gaps Pagan.

The price of a bodyguard is low.

I am in the same position as the poorest beggar in my kingdom.

If I don't look after myself, no one will merry Christmas.

Time.

Listen to shopping as by.

A thing or two, or don't just listen to the ads.

You have to hear it.

And uh so he talks about like how so his room is extremely bare, but the guest, like the receiving room is extremely opulent.

And he talks about how he has He says that, like, Arabs have an uneasy luxury, you know, experience.

But I think he's really talking about his experience.

So he's like, I don't have an easy experience with luxury because like, I have to be so sharp because my life is in danger frequently, because I am at the head of this very wealthy power like family, family, in this group, and so like I have to be sharp and and and she's like, what are you so afraid of?

H what do you think would have happened?

And he goes on to about He goes on to tell her about all of the times that people try to kidnap and or assassinate him.

Oh my god, which is one, two, three, four, five, five, like five ish time?

Holy?

She he's eighteen.

Maybe a kidnap plot, maybe an assassination And do you really think that would have happened.

The first kidnap attempt happened before I was a year old.

My nurse was stoned to death for her part in the plot.

The next attempt was when I was seven years old.

I had a bodyguard pushed me under the bed, but they hauled me out, then stabbed him five times and left him for dead.

Oh So when he said that the bodyguards are poor, essentially they're kind of low on the hierarchy, I think that could mean two things.

Two things.

One they're replaceable, so he can always get another one, and b they can't be trusted because if they could easily be manipulated into giving people.

Access to me, which is something that has happened to him before, he has both been saved by his bodyguard trade and betrayed by bodyguards.

And he's eighteen, Damn.

His nurse when he was a baby.

The fuck next attempt was when I was fourteen.

We were returning from a hunting trip and the first land rover, so he imagine driving the first land rover.

Damn yep.

So then a bunch of people starts shooting at them, their guard shoot back.

He shot twice, and again by one of his own guards in the leg accidentally.

And so after that he's like, listen, I'm always going to have a gun.

Yep.

So footle she notices that there is a gun on his bedside table, so he has a gun on his person.

A gun on his bend side table, and he talks about how he always drives around with a submachine gun to fucking defend himself if fucking shit goes down, because he's.

Like, honestly, can't blame him, yeah for that logic.

So, after he tells her all about all this crazy violence that he has gone through in his youth, after she has adorable evenings with him playing card games, yes, she then finds out, oh my gosh, he comes from a very turbulent background which is alien to me in every way.

I cannot even imagine it.

Yeah, there's a quiet knock at the door.

Nick, wearing his waiters uniform, opened the door.

The respectful look on his face dropped for an instant when he saw Pagan lulling on the bear skin.

Hi, Nick, can you imagine going into Prince Abdula's room and seeing you're.

What are your bestie?

I'm on the bear skin and he's like, what are you doing?

And it's you.

I'm with the Prince now, man dad.

What the fucking on?

He showed me his guns?

I didn't.

I do not have nicks like yeah, ability to hold it back.

I would lose my ship.

What the fun is having.

Abdullah ordered lemonade, and.

It wouldn't really surprised.

No, of course you're in here.

You're naked with little rosy.

But the man I'm with, the prince.

Of course you are.

Of course you are.

Here's your cavio Robbie.

He had him killed.

He ordered lemonaded tea uh, And Abdula is still agitated, like a cat pacing around the house.

And she's like, Pagan is like, stop prowling.

It's just Nick, I.

Have a restless spirit.

If you never feel secure, then naturally you feel restless.

Nick returned the laden tray and gave Abdullah another look of servile insolence as he stiffly bent and placed the tray on the low table on the velvet couch.

Pagan winked at Nick, who ignored her.

He can't stand Abdullah, she thought.

I wonder why, not one muscle movement did Abdullah show that he had recognized Nick.

But he had, and for one swift moment, Abdullah remembered the most humiliating moment of his life.

So now we get an Abdullah flashback POV to his time at boarding school.

I'm curious what the fuck this has to do with Nick.

Yep, yeah, because Nick also goes to the same school.

They knew each other before now and.

They don't have any bad blood.

But the Prince has big bad blood with these other boys.

Oh, he's got big fucking anger towards these other boys because of the way they treat him.

And we get the worst incident of his past at the boarding school, the most humiliating incident at the boarding school.

So it starts with the scene where all the boys are gathered around this board that like the poster board or where all the like posters and flyers and things are putting corpord.

Yeah, they call it a base board, but I don't know what that is.

So there, they put up the list for who's going to be on the house team for football, and he made which.

Is, of course soccer.

Yes, yes, of course American, our American listeners soccer.

Because no one could figure this out, No one knows this.

So he is on the house team and he's so excited, he's like fist pumping excited about this.

But Abdullah is also, interestingly the only boy without a surname, so it's all like John Winston and blah blah blah, and then just aulay, because he does have a he doesn't.

He doesn't have a name.

He has like probably a long series of titles.

Abdullah didn't understand why every boy himself, include included, was equal of rank inside those stone walls.

To Abdullah, the centuries old traditional top drawer British school was a hostile, incomprehensible world.

Ignorant of the private language and rigid conversations of his school fellows, Abdullah did was what was not done and said what, according to eat and etiquette, should not be said.

Okay, so he can't connect with these boys because he doesn't know their world and comes from a different one.

So he says, he probably just doesn't use like the same kind of decorum and edita he means.

When he went exactly, he just speaks his mind.

But now he's these are meant for talking aboutind each other's backs, not for just saying.

He's like, listen, I can't make friends with these guys, but now I'm on the house team, maybe we can will be friends with them.

They'll all be so proud of me and we'll all be buddies.

All the innocence.

Yes, uh So, each pupil had his own small room with a scarred wooden table, two chairs, and a narrow metal convertible bed.

A bureau in a chest of Dulah was pretty much the same, except he has pictures of King George, a ceremonial uniform dedicated by King George, a prince of when Prince Abdullah was thirteen, taking a salute from the Sidonian Palace guard and getting a kiss on the cheek from Rita Hayworth.

Hi God, it's the same room except his pictures.

His pictures are very different, very.

Very different from the rest of the boys.

So this is back when he was younger and still living like actually in the boarding school, but now he's living nearby in the hotel.

Got it.

As Abdullah rummaged in his bureau for a missing Latin grammar, he heard voices that he recognized outside the door, and he sort of eavesdrops on these boys talking about him.

Can you believe it?

Look haut in the baboons on the house's side.

Oh my god, no bucking me.

We can't can't think why they would have to have him in cool Ridges.

I suppose he's not bad at dribbling, but he's always cornering and sneaking am some N word lover will put him up for the pop next expect he'll get a record number of black balls.

Black l ol, Oh my god, what colored balls?

Do you think baboons have?

Royal purple?

Do you think?

Stop?

There was a burst of horse laughter as a bell rang and the malicious voices drifted away.

These little racist.

Little racist fuckers managed to be all kinds of different sorts of racists, all back to back.

Yes, And he hears this, this like dream of his, crushed that these boys can accept him now that he has something in common with them, and then he essentially vows vengeance in the most perfect for this book, fucking get way.

Possibly.

He's like, I fucking don't dare confront them there.

First of all, they're all on the debate team, which makes them high status at this school.

They're also good at arguing with the spoken words, with the spoken word, which is probably my second or third language.

But I've been targeted my whole life.

Yeah, so I can get them.

I have is they never even fucking imagine I.

And the way he comes up with is fucking amazing.

He's like, who cares what those trash things they were destined to be merely farmers, soldiers or politician.

I'm gonna be a fucking king man beloved by many tries, cheered by men and women.

And then he takes a deep breath and he's like women, He's like, I'm gonna fuck all their girlfriends.

Yes, yes, so he I love him.

He then goes those arrogant non entities hadn't been instructed for three weeks by the Hakiman Cairo, which we find out later.

We find out later is a like sex tutor mentor about how to pleasure women about they He went for a three week intensive with this, like I don't know, like guru, lady pleasing guru.

This should be required.

I think there should just be like just everyone sex working professionals that are like all right, eighteen nineteen twenty, whenever you're ready, come here and we will we will show you how all this is here.

Here's how smash the clin smash smash it, yank ye, then smash the clin, rip it, tear it with.

You, leslie Nope, giving the condom to okay, put roll it down.

So he's like he's like plotting this.

He's like shaking with rage, but is like he decided that he would have the women.

Yeah fuck yeah, dude.

I was like, by the way, I have to point out arrogant non entities is the fucking slam.

I can fucking think of it.

It's very much giving.

I don't think about you at all.

I don't think about you.

Calling someone a non entity is so fucking brutal that hurts.

Okay, So Pagan goes up to Nick's room after this encounter because she's like, I gotta find out why he is all pissy about Abdullah.

And then Nick is like, when she walks in, is like slumming, he inquired coldly, as Pagan pecked him on the cheek.

Oh my god, No.

Just wondering why you can't stand Abdullah.

You can't expect to have all the attention of all four of us, you know, especially when we know that you're besauted with Judy.

The spring sag on as she sat on the iron bedstead.

Nick looked unhappy.

Your private license is none of my business, but what is Nick?

Has Abdy already got a girl?

I have no idea anyway, It's none of my business, and I wouldn't tell you if I knew.

But we were at school together.

And I promise you that bastard Abdullah is not what he seems.

So Nick probably has this idea in his head that Abdullah is like a quote unquote manhore player and like he cares about Pagan exactly, You're just gonna be another because he's with everyone at school.

But he doesn't have the context of why why he did that, which is so which I think Nick might respect.

I actually think that if he was like, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, you slept with their girlfriends, not just because you think women are this disposable commodity for your own pleasure, but has an act of revenge against them specifically, it is kind of cool.

It is kind of interesting, it's fucking funny.

It's obviously it's awful and like that's still a way to use women's.

Terrible, But it is something that I am a teenage and like eighteen year old parents might come up with.

Right and long as as long as he's not like assaulting women.

If you're gonna if you're gonna like sleep around, then of course do it at school.

When not everyone that you end up with is like gonna be the person you fucking marry.

When it's like we're all fucking each other.

The other thing that I like to think about is that it isn't even so much that he It's that it isn't even so much that he slept with their girlfriends.

It's that he like showed them heights of pleasure that they never know again, and then their fucking dumpy, little non entity boyfriends could never do for them.

And I like to imagine that it isn't even that they broke up because of the cheating, or he stole them away from them, which is probably what he actually did, right.

He probably stole them away, break up, dated them, and then banged them.

That's that's kind of seams his style.

The back to these chuds and he's and they're just like, I will never touch me again.

Ever, my standards have been raised by a fucking Yeah.

So Nick just knows that this guy gets around.

He sleeps with a lot of women.

He sleeps with a bunch of people.

I know his girlfriends probably.

Yeah, of course women think he's irresistible.

He's obviously attractive.

It's not only that, said Pagan with a giggle.

It's the stage props that are such fun.

The guns, the bodyguards and the flowing robes and the fierce black mustaches and the precautions.

She was talking about the guns.

Yeah, she saw that gun and she's like, oh no, what is this doing for me?

Why to see him doing James Bond tuck'n' roll.

But you know what, after she's had such a violent experience, to be attracted to someone who could protect her makes a ton of sense to me.

So he goes on and he's like, well, you know, Abdullah uses women.

He doesn't care about women, not the maids or chaps, as sisters or even mothers.

So apparently, so apparently at least one of these non entities Abdullah banged their mom.

He got, he got a girlfriend, a sister, and one of their moms.

I fucking love it so much.

I think Abdulah's my favorite.

I love him so much.

Interest fuck, you're gonna bang your but and not just bang them, make them multiple orgasm like your father could never give them nights of their lives.

They will never forget.

That makes it so much better to me.

I love and when you find out, when you get a little bit of like what he Dula's powers later, I do I do think that that is what happened is that they like went back, like change women.

Ship, how hard they came changing the DNA forever.

They can't even see their husbands anymore.

They just John, where are you?

I'm right here.

I don't I hear you.

But I don't see your certainly feel you, ye okie, fucking shit, I.

A best.

Surely you don't mean it's Pagan, imagine exactly what we just imagine.

And she's like, oh, he's just so he like Nick kind of chickens out of being too graphic about it.

And it's like, well, he's just very objective about women.

And he's like and she's like, he's objective about everybody, Like I don't care.

She seems very pet chill passive about this.

She's like, it's just some fun.

Yeah, he's not my husband.

I don't care that much.

He's just a super fun distraction.

I'm not bagging him.

It's fine, like, and they talk about his combination of medaceine charm, which I love, and Nick is essentially just like he's no gentleman, and Pagan throws her head back and laughed.

Darling Nick, she said, you're such an old auntie.

He is.

In the future, I'll wear barbed wire instead of a nicker elastic.

I am nick.

Yeah, I feel very seen pining over some girl who won't give me any fucking attention, and then just winding up as the cuck brother to all of these beautiful, cool, interesting girls, and they're like, oh, Robbie, you're such an old auntie.

This is exactly the role I would be in.

Whatever your husband's so fucking hot.

I know it was.

It was, let me tell you, it was a fucking lot of work to trick him and marry me.

Good.

I did good, but it took all my strength.

He married you for me, all my skills.

Oh listen, package deal, you're an asset.

You're actually probably way up there in assets.

Yeah, I'm just trying to think, like maybe me being kind of funny would be the first one.

And then like right after that, it's like, why you get Amanda two?

Yep, yeah, you hear that.

Boys, you take me, you get Amanda two?

Okay, So every two days a fucking fuck ton of long stem roses comes for Pagan.

Uh oh okay, So she's kind of dating the prince a little bit, get girl, and then she gets a telephone call.

Tagan gets a telephone call.

Who a telephone call was always an event in their lives.

My cousin Casper called me, so she's coming back into the room after having this telephone call.

Huh.

He's our ambassador in the Emirates, and he said that he's heard that I see a great deal of Prince of Doulah and that I should be most prudent.

Caspar also said that in saidan, women are regarded as possessions, and once defiled, they are discarded, in fact, sometimes stoned to death.

Okay, so we're getting.

This like the shroud of racism the.

Arabs.

Yeah, I lovely just call them Arabs as because the whole, the whole, yeah, like subcontinent is like, yeah, we're not going to.

Actually do the work of yeah, being specific about the very different cultures and identities across this entire region.

But obviously not.

We're in nineteen eighty one.

With characters from the forties, the forties, Yeah, bloody well keeps still, Kate, So Maxine keeps interjecting.

It's very again, very cinematic.

Maxine keeps interjecting in with like Kates sits still because she's trying to do her toenails.

So they're having this whole conversation about how women are treated terribly in the Middle East.

Kates, it's still I gotta paint your toes like just it's so great the way that she's like the different characters and conversations, Like she doesn't just forget about the other girls.

You don't just get monologues, you really get these immersive.

Very immersive scenes.

Oh, like a writer, I love how starve we are.

I know, I know, so, so I asked what had defiled?

What defiled Arab women had got to do with me?

She was wearing a tattered Victorian nightgown that was over one hundred years old and a pair of scarlet Turkish slippers with the toes curled up, so she's wearing dift.

She's like, I don't know what all of these four suffering Arab women have to do with me.

She kicks kick Turkish curled shoes, the other two sat up, and nail polish dripped on Kate's ankles.

Old Caspar said that Abdi was pushed into power long before he was old enough, and because his family is apparently very religious and a bit mad, lives in total seclusion, so he's essentially living away from his family.

Now I think he's actually out of school.

He's eighteen, but just out of school.

But he's not going home.

Yeah, because he has this very powerful family and they're apparently all a little fucking nutty nutty.

Yeah, he doesn't want to go.

He doesn't want to go back.

Yeah.

And so her, her cousin, who's the the I don't know, attache to the fucking Emirates or whatever, is like giving her the rundown on this guy.

And then yeah, and I wrote, I wrote in my notes for Pagan, it's just a laugh and a distraction at this point.

Even his warnings about like, oh, it's a very weird, undistable, and she's like, I don't give a fucking shit yet.

Yeah, I got cool robes and slippers on.

I get roses every two weeks.

I'm having a fuck or every two days.

Yeah, I'm having a fucking blast.

And then Caspar told me Abdullah is engaged to be married.

What Maxine and her white nightgows stopped climbing into bed.

Who oh to some Arab princess who's only ten years old?

Can you believe it?

They're gonna be married when she's fifteen?

Oh yis yeah, yuk yuk yuk, which, by the way, a fucking does not.

Also, like, obviously, I feel there's so many trophy things, especially among like brown people from white people about child marriage blah blah blah.

Just a friendly reminder that like, child marriage is very much alive and well here in the United.

States, every.

Ship white Christian like creep O's are some of the most egregious advantage.

Yeah, in the US.

So this is this is not unique, not at all, and and is uh it was a practice in all cultures and all cultures.

It's just maintained unfortunately longer in some others, including American Modern America and Christian societies.

Yeah.

So suddenly the lights go out because the the matron has, like the masters its lights.

What about the toenails have.

To be left unfinished.

Sadly they'll be uneven, and that's why one of them dies.

Oh god, she stumbles down the stairs.

All my toes were even.

Uh.

I loved this, I loved this passage.

Suddenly the lights went out, switched off as usual from the Headmaster's apartment, and the moonlight streaming through the lace curtains cast a wreath of intercuess a wreath of intertwined pale gray roses on Maxine's bed as she tossed back the sheets and rushed over to hug Pagan.

Poor darling, Poor darling, he's a bloody two timer, a rat a sheet because it's because it's Maxine.

So when she says a ship, yeah, he's a yeah.

Oh he's a rat the sheet.

Oh it's true.

It sounds medieval, exclaimed Kate about the un marriage.

Well, that's exactly Caspar's point.

Abdey isn't like a rich western teenager trying to behave like a man in the world.

He's sort of a ruthless, very powerful desert hood.

She paused.

I rather think that that's what I find so fascinating.

So she's like, he's like almost like a gangster, yeah, because she doesn't have any context for like how these families with all this oil money and all this yeah, operate, And she's like, he's just kind of like a like a gangster to me.

But he's certainly not to be trusted, said Maxine.

But then, of course no man can be trusted.

Cut out the sophisticated act, Kate said, who can you trust?

We can trust e chezzah, Maxine said firmly, so rather solemnly, they all sat on Kate's bed in the moonlight and promised lasting friendship through thick and thin, Pagan said, wildly, shaking her hands over her head like a bruise but victorious boxer.

Thick and thin, giggled Kate.

Especially thin, she said, prod still well covered ribs again.

She's because they don't know the disordered way in which Maxine has lost all this weight.

They're just like, oh fun, skinny, now seek and scene, said Maxine, who, like all French French people pronounced tea h's as s's.

Well, yes that too, Kate said, thoughtfully interestingly, she had I love that sick and sin, well, yes that too.

So through thick and thrin, through sick and sin.

That's their motto.

In sickness and in.

Sin sin, it's a bad it's a plane.

It's a quick ad break before we get back to the show.

Okay, So they're passing notes in class and Kate reads the note in class surreptitiously to not get caught getting a ball gown.

Whoopee.

So Pagan is getting a ball gown.

For an event with Abdi and how she.

Managed to wrangle the ball gown is fucking masterful.

So she talks to her mother about Abdullah.

Abdullah is quite agitated, but she's like, I need I'm going to He's probably going to ask me to the Saint Valentine's Day ball and my mom, you know, I have nothing to fucking wear.

And then the mom is like, mad bry, don't want you to.

And then she cuts her mom off, hangs up on her, and calls her grandfather and is like.

Grandpa, puppy, I needed prop the ball gown and gown.

And then she and how she gets him to agree to it is that she indicates, kind of insinuates that if he doesn't get her one, Prince Abdullah might get her one.

She'd have no choice but to.

Accept this, yes, this physic extravagant gift.

From this prince of the Middle East.

And he's like, so she he agrees to buy her a ball gown on the condition that she accepts no fucking gifts from Abdullah.

She's like, okay, which was the gift which was a huge mistake because oh my god, he tries to give her some amazing fucking gifts coming up.

But she won't take them.

She keeps take them.

She keeps her word.

It's amazing.

No, I would just lie.

I didn't take anything from.

Her, So she uh spends more time with him.

She drops it about his like ten year old fiance.

I asked whether he had a ten year old fiance.

He wrote, rather displease and pointed his chit at me and said he did, but that it was entirely a matter of diplomacy and nothing to do with UH.

And then he gets mad and just sits there and like like thinks about it for a while, and then she I love this.

I love the scene where he's just like, I don't know what to do.

And then their their interaction is really weird.

And then he leaves and then like a bodyguard comes in with a big red box and he has a huge diamond necklace in God, so that's how he dealt with her finding out give her this gorgeous gift.

I don't know what to do.

I'll give her diamonds.

Yeah, he doesn't know what to do, so.

He never keep my word to my grandfather.

I it's the first.

Box that's I rib as an utterly divine diamond necklace.

But she promised her grandfather.

So she shoots it down, wow, and then she has to shoot down like four or five more of them on following occasion.

On following four occasions, when Pagan turned up at tea time for Prince Abdullah, a big crimson velvet box comes out and including a emerald earrings, a tiara of golden birch leaves, the bracelet of aquamarine, or an enormous uncut sapphire ring.

What The only thing Pagan accepted with with her mother's permission was Abdullah's grandfather's riding cloak, so like a family heirloom that he wants to give her, And she's like, I guess it's kind of ratty, but I guess I'm allowed to take it because I told my mom about it.

And it's a it's like it's like pinning.

It's like giving you his letter jacket or something.

Is kind of what she seems to think it is, but you find out later that it's by far the most expensive thing that he has tried to give her because it is made out of like Persian, like like lamb, it's like cashmer it's like or it's some rare Persian.

Yeah.

So she doesn't know, so she's like, Okay, I guess I took that.

That thing's worthless, like and it's probably a historical artifact.

Yeah soses, Yeah, so I like horses like us.

It's a car, so isn't it fucking great?

I love those?

Yeah, this is so fun.

I love that I got for once, not like graphic discussion.

Yeah, I feel like the way that the chapters are landing is in our favor thus far.

Yes, thus far.

Pagan had coaxed Maxine and lending her her pale blue taffeta Christian Dio dress.

So for a little, a small dance.

It's not the big Valentine's Day dance, but it is like a small, a small dance coming up, which is so funny because they describe all the girls clomping it in their boots becauseide and then they have little their dancing shoes and bags.

So they're in these beautiful dresses with big clompy boots.

It's just very cute.

We used to have to do that sometimes for Sweethearts dances and stuff.

We'd be walking through feet of snow.

Yeah.

My sister went the Halloween blizzard as aerial, so she had the colored shirt.

And the she sell bra and her tail and just big boots and a big puff coat and she was wading through the snow.

She like wouldn't take it off because she liked it so much, even though she had to wade through snow.

It's fucking so cute, so cute.

So Pagan convinces Maxine to give her her pale blue dress, but she has to wear this bolero around her shoulders because she can't zip it up all the way.

Oh yeah, because she's yeah, because she's much larger than Maxica.

But then there goes she's also have to wear this bolero the whole night.

Big deal music from a band playing blah blah blah Dulah's bodyguards.

Ah, so this is this is great.

Uh.

As she's at the dance, she's dancing with another boy and then one of the bodyguards comes up and is like, my master, the crown Princes Abdullah, which just two dance with you, and then the guy is like.

The Danish student is like, well, he'll have to wait, and then the bodyguard knocks him the fuck over.

No, the Danish student was sprawled on the floor and it's like, no, knocks him over and then takes her over there, just being described as a iron hand in the small of her back.

Still smiling, she said, may it please your Royal Highness to tell your thugs never to touch me again?

Yeah?

I good for her.

I love her so much.

Huh.

And remember I'm not one of your subjects.

You don't own me, and I shall dance with whom I please.

Yes, yes, Suddenly she dropped her hoteur and then like leans in and is like, abde, why don't you have to humiliate hans A draw all this attention to me?

And it is a pause, and he apologizes, most regrettable, my servant is over zealous.

Oh stop talking like an Indian raj phrase book.

Of course I want to be with you, but you really can't push people around as it suits you and expect them to like you.

I hate it when you act suddenly imperious.

This is just an ordinary dance, and if you didn't want to be treated like in an ordinary manner, you shouldn't have come.

Yeah, wickedly, she added, I hope you aren't going to be as bossy with your ten year old va, and then Abdullah's mouth tightens, he blazes with anger.

I love that she's kind of laying out.

Listen.

I like spending time with you, and I like being with you, but you cannot fucking act all ownzy ponesy about me when you've got a fiance.

I love it.

It's great.

Abdullah's mouth tightened and he'd just give her jewels and obtained jewels.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, here are jewels.

Abdullah's mouth tightened and his eyes blazed with anger.

For a moment, Pagan thought he might hit her, but instead he put his arms around her and they danced off in silence.

Unseen by Abdullah, Pagan blew a kiss over her shoulder to ham Oh God at her.

I love it.

She is living her fucking life.

Suddenly, Pagan found that she was trembling, and she leaned against And this is the part I didn't want to read because it's all horny, okay, But I have to read it because it's important.

Leaned against Abdullah's muscular body, closer to him, Suddenly, more physically aware of him in the crowd out of dancers than she had ever been alone with him in the suite.

Tonight, Pagan felt different, reckless as she felt his warm breath on the side of her neck, then the tip of his tongue against it.

Erotic and inviting, he gives her a little little kiss.

For the rest of the evening, Pagan moved around the dance floor in an erotic drance.

As the midnight curfew approached, Abdullah look straight into her eyes and murmured, persuasively, come back with me and let me show you what love is.

Whoa make you feel as you've never felt before, And Pagan goes, aha, how can you be so sure, because when I was sixteen, I spent three weeks in Cairo with the Hakim car al Sad, who taught me how to make love.

To think only of your pleasure.

You had lessons in love for three weeks.

You studied it like geography.

Pagan was astounded, impressed, and intrigued.

She longed to ask what he had learned and how it was taught there real life women or a blackboard in chalk, and was their homework and what difference had it made girl girl?

Instead, she simply blurted out how he nibbled at her ear lobe.

Come back to the Imperial and let me show you brawl, and she goes okay and goes out and goes to the door with him before she kept like comes to her senses and it's like no fucking wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait.

Let that she gets as far as the door, she's like in a trance and she's like, yup, let's go.

But then the cold air, yes, yes, that's the way I can't do.

That's actually that's great, that would be amazing.

And then she but then she also thinks about like her mother, the fiance, the paparazzi, like the cold air from the door like snaps her two and she's like, I can't.

I simply can't.

Opdi.

Look, Mademoiselle is waving us all to the cloakroom because there time to leave.

Aching with desire, Abdullah pulled her to him as Pagan tried to break away.

What do you expect a man to do?

He growled, You aroused me, and then you vanished into the night.

In my country, we have a word for such a woman.

Oh, in my country too.

Then Pagan couldn't resist adding, but after all, you are engaged.

Abdullah's black eyes blazed again, and an impatient Mademoiselle waved a beckoning finger at Pagan.

Prince or no prince, she wanted to prince or no prince, She wanted to get to her bed once more.

Abdullah pulled Pagan tight against his body and she felt his throbbing arousal.

Then Abdullah turned on his heels and stucked angrily.

Mark just boner away from her.

Yeah, just took his big boner and walked it away.

Wow.

On the evening before the Saint Valentine's dance.

So this is the big big dance.

It's like it's like in Puppets, there were like so many parties.

There's six balls.

It's important.

Okay, this is the important one, is the big one.

Guys, ladies, gentlemen, ladies, ladies and gentle ladies and gentle them.

Get ready because here we go.

It's the big one.

On the evening before the Saint Valentine's dance, Kate burst into the bedroom.

Pagan, you slut, You didn't clean the bath after you full your pubs.

There's a grubby ring around it.

But surely a math is for cleaning oneself, said Pagan, puzzled.

One does not clean it, one hasn't up to date, but one damn well will in the future, said Kate.

You have roommates now, you don't have servants in your own little house.

You really are the slaught of the school.

Oh rage on the square.

Pagan yelled her new curse words and threw a tattered exercise book at Kate.

I'm sick to the winners of the both of you.

Kate's always criticizing a Magcine doesn't keep her promises.

I do keep my promises, you, Beach, you promised to lend me ten francs.

Mailed, I mean sheet.

Why don't you ask your little rich prince for ten francs.

He can afford it better than an I, only because you spend all your money on diet food and get skinny for your.

Stupid sche bum who likes skiing more than he likes you.

Pagan pounced on Maxine and pummeled her.

Oh they're literally fighting.

They are playing.

They are being playful.

Ow mail the sheet, fac damn it blo de dep beach okay okay uh al mared sheet f e r k ferk damn it blue dep Beach.

Stop that sexy scuffling, Kate cried.

You know Major always suspects that the whole school is a seething mass of lesbians.

Oh my gosh, they're gonna girl fucking each other.

Please don't quarrel.

I can't bear it.

Pagan didn't mean what she said about Pierre.

Of course he really loves you.

Of course he does.

I know that because of eat, Maxine said, with dignity, especially because of the after else they go didn't glow like fireworks dying in the sky.

There was a pause, and then Kate said timidly, afterward is the awful part for me?

I feel so jittery and weepy and sort of apart from Francois.

Mon you, I feel so much closer to Pierre.

Maybe you haven't done it enough.

I didn't like it the first time with Pierre, but I didn't want to upset him, so I said nothing.

I wanted him to stay with me.

That's all I felt at first.

That's the only thing I feel with Francois.

Kate worried.

I've been doing it longer than you have, Maxine.

But the last thing I feel is deep peace.

When I really feel sexy and utterly marvelous and glowing is before we start.

The afterword is just let down.

I mean, you cling to someone for hours and hours on the dance floor, and you can feel his body against yours.

You can smell it in the rock to the music, wrapped around each other, and every time he moved you almost swoon, and you finally go the whole way because you know that it will be even better.

And then he puts his thing in you and suddenly everything goes flat.

Mm hmm.

He's in seventh heaven and going wild.

And I'm suddenly looking down at the scene from the ceiling and that marvelous melting knees feeling is gone.

I want to hit him and cry.

Yeah, because as soon as he gets what he wants, you're you.

He doesn't have any like he doesn't pay attention to you.

He just gives his own needs.

Fuck about you or your pleasure.

He's not doing this.

Is what he's doing.

It to connect with you because he loves you.

Oh, I can't wait.

He is to do sex with someone who likes you.

Oh that would be preferable.

Likes you at least a little bits.

That's my wisdom.

You never thought of that, did you?

I did it.

Maybe you should relax more, Kate.

Maybe you worry too much about what you should be doing instead of how you feel.

I always feel wonderful and afterwards you're low.

It must be because you're French, Kate said gloomily.

I like to imagine Kate when she gets oppressed as just this dumpy, like like like me in address, Like, just don't be called your French.

Don't be silly, said Pagan.

Maybe Francois hasn't had enough practice, Maybe he's never been told what to do.

When Abdullah was sixteen, he went to a special doctor to learn about love for weeks.

Imagine I didn't like to ask him if it was tests or exams, and oh, that's right.

Everyone stares at her in silence like and she's like, you're wrong.

We never have.

And I'm not going to say another word because pes o Meagan is like, we're not sleeping together.

We just just came up in regular conversation.

Yeah, it's totally normal.

How do we know that story as an upmarket brand of old Arabic bullshit?

If you won't talk about the consumer test, demanded Kate.

We're coming out with our sexual experiences in the interest of further education, and if you won't join us, then you can listen.

This is serious for me.

Maybe I'm serious, you're serious.

Maybe I have a fleek.

Maybe I'm worried.

So she's like, I can't enjoy sex with him, maybe there's something wrong with me.

Yeah, well there isn't no.

Case.

And you know what though, you know what, though there is a little bit of something wrong with her.

It's called undealt with trauma.

Yeah, sexual assault.

Well, if you're a freak, then I am too, because I felt the same way as you did, Pagan says.

But it wasn't with Obdy.

It was with Paul.

And if you dare tell anyone, I'll kill you.

Oh my god, So you did, yes, said Pagan gloomily.

And it was beastly.

I think sex is overrated.

So Pagan seems to think that what happened, that what happened was sex.

Yeah, sadly, so I suspect it's addictive, offered Maxine.

Like istas, there was a bang on the door.

I don't like them either.

Andre the ancient porter carried in a huge box dress to Pagan.

The other two girls peeled over her, peered over her shoulder as she opened it her dress.

There was a There was no tissue paper.

The box was full of soft, dark Persian lamb.

There was an odd silence As Pagan lifted it out and draped it around her shoulders and pulled the hood over her tangled mahogany hair, the wonderful cloak reached to the floor.

Oh Christ, I mean, mon Dieu, said Pagan.

This isn't what Mama expected.

I'll have to check with her or she'll give me hell.

Oh, it's the clothes.

But it's much more beautiful than she and I wonder if he downplayed it.

He said, my father's my grandfather's riding cloak.

That's it.

Yes, So she expecting him to know that a royal riding clothes probably it's like an important garment.

She thinks that it's like they're riding cloak, which is more of a service garment.

But this is a it's like what the the Queen of England wears when she was on a horse.

It's like that big cloak that's a status symbol.

And this like like I like we talked about earlier, this blows away in price anything that he fucking yeah, So she has now a Persian king's cloak.

And it's fucking gorgeous.

All of them try it on immediately.

Pagan went to the telephone to call her mother, she came back half an hour looking vexed.

She says that as she agreed I could have it, I can keep it, but as the cloak is valuable, I can't wear it.

I can wear it to Saint Dontine's Day ball because to do so otherwise would be discourteous, but after that I'm not to be seen in it.

Well, at least it will be warmer to wear at night than that rotten old beld quilt.

So Pagan now has her sight.

Her like nightclothes are like it was like a half a million dollar like our price, all the gifts.

That she's not allowed to wear outside of her room.

So for the rest of her time at school, after lights out, Pagan sat cross legged on the end of Kate's bed, wrapped from head to toe in priceless Persian.

Wow.

Wow, unbelievable.

All right, So then, oh god, there's more.

There's more.

That's the end of chapter five.

Chapter five is quite long.

Chapter six is quite short.

Okay, So now we are at the dance and the girls are all there and she hasn't Kate hasn't seen Francois in fucking weeks, and he's like, oh my god, where's my fucking date?

You know?

And Maxine sees Pierre immediately it's like runs after it.

And so the girls are all at the dance, and Judy is in she's working the event, so she is in a traditional Swiss costume with a white blouse, tightly laced black corsel it and voluminous scarlet skirt a yeardle.

She's in like fucking like traditional October festal and shit, it comes over and is like slipping down into like quickly down to the table to just have little micro chats with them, and it's like, oh, they glad to stop wearing this cuckoo clock outfit.

I can't stay long because I'm helping behind the bar.

What's up, Kate?

When Kate explained, Judy said, you've got two legs and a tongue in your head.

Don't just sit there.

Go over to him and say hello, because she has spotted Francois.

But Francois is seated between two plump, dark girls with identically heavy, heavy lidded somnolent eyes.

So he's with two other chicks.

He is in between two Greek heiresses.

Oh dang, And it turns out perhaps he hasn't been so busy with skiing.

He's been canoodlean with heiresses behind his back, her back.

So Kate is like, you know what, I'm gonna go up to him.

I'm gonna be an adult and I'm going to I'm gonna talk to him.

I'm gonna talk to him.

I'm gonna see what the fuck is going on, Kate said, goes over to him and says, I'm sitting in the far corner.

Francois, so I noticed.

I look forward to dancing with you later.

Perhaps bewildered, Kate recognized his note of dismissal and clumsily bumped her way back to the tables to have a seat later.

That motherfucker.

Perhaps this was the Valentine's tame bo.

Yeah, bitch, you supposed to my boyfriend.

What's wrong, Maxine ass And then they rush off to the coatroom, and they do this five times.

Meet the coatroom, they look at each other and then look at the coatroom, and they all run to the courtroom, and then they have this little chat in the coatroom, and then they go back out, and then they look at each other and they go and they go to the coat room.

It's fucking amazing.

Once in the coatroom, Kate burst into tears, and then Maxine is like, I think perhaps you exaggerate, Maxine said soothingly, perhaps they are old friends of his.

I'll go over and say hello, you wait here, So Maxine goes over to me again.

He's introduced to the two girls.

Poor Kate, thought Maxine, and she hurried back, Yeah, you ain't misinterpreting anything.

Yeah.

Across the dimly room lit room, Maxine saw Judy and jerked her head towards the cloak room.

Judy joined them.

A few minutes later.

Maxine was saying, kay, Chenry, you must stop these tears.

There must be some reason for his behavior.

But even as she spoke, Maxine knew there were two reasons, and one was sitting on each side of Francois.

Look, he's a rat and you're well rid of him, said Judy, too inexperienced to know that a friend should never denigrate a jilted woman's lover.

Oh come on, well, I do have to say that, like if you just got okay, remember clueless When when the girl gets passed over by Elton, the guy they're trying to set her up with, Brittany Murphy's character, and they're like, you can do way better than him.

He sucks, he sucks.

You can do better than him.

If I can do better than him, why am I not?

Why am I not?

Yeah, because you're not in a very rational place at the moment, and it's like he's a piece of shit, he's ugly.

Well, I can't even get a piece of shit.

Ugly guy, is what your evil brain does to you.

Aaron, Our piggy daddy needs his ad.

Slopint here are ads.

But then they're like, okay, but you can't fucking cry in the cloak.

Sure a ship can't be seen.

Go get back at him by fucking dancing with every dude.

You were the bell of the ball last time.

Don't Also they mentioned that herne that her neckline has been getting lower.

Oh yeah, her neckline, which would have gotten lower every dance.

So they're like, you gotta get your ship together and get out there.

You cannot be seen to you cannot let him know he hurt you.

Look, Francois has been having lunch at the chessa all last week with those two Greek lumps, said Judy.

They're heiresses.

Who is shipping fortune, and don't think that Francois doesn't know it.

You can either snivel on or brave it up and show that he's not dumped you, you know.

Unfortunately, this conversation was overheard by another here and Dell Pupil, who was in the toilet booths, and they all hate on Kate.

She gleefully sped out to whisper the news.

Oh mys DoD had received her come up and said lash.

When Kate emerged, freshly made up, she instantly recognized that her humiliation was commonage.

I love that it spreads like wildfires through this place.

It brought out the Irish in Kate, and she beckoned to the waiter, Nick, get me a double something.

There's a darling girl.

Girl, take a shot and get your ass.

So Kate is the Irish in her.

The fire and her crops up and she's like, now she's just pissed at all these fucking people talking behind her back, and she's like, fuck it.

Nick, who also knew about the Greek twins, produced a forbidden double brandy, always.

Have a friend who's a barn under it?

Yeah, it comforted Nick to comfort Kate.

Why didn't Okay, and then he goes on this tangent about his heartbreak in his head, where he's like he knew how it felt.

Why doesn't Judy feel the force of my love?

Why doesn't the force of my love make Judy love me?

Why did she constantly refuse to treat him as anything but a friend.

For both Nick and Kate, part of the pain of their love lay and not realizing that it was not the only love of their lives, but only the first love of their life.

I all, Nick doesn't become some sort of like in Cell because Judy never fucks him.

Quite the opposite, because Nick says, look, there's a but the but oh, he talks to Kate tells, look at all these there's a bunch of boys from le Monne coming in.

Talks about these like the princes.

An Indian rajah blonde Scandinavian boy who's like, looks like a prince blah blah blah blah.

So she's like, go get them.

As as they sauntered over to their table, a sudden mistake, unmistakable hush fell.

So these boys are coming in and then someone else comes in.

Oh.

It was the moment of anticipation that always preceded the entrance of Royalty.

All heads turned towards the door.

Why Prince Aptula, the guest of honor, stood as stiffly as if he were reviewing a parade demure on his arm.

Pagan floated down the steps in a cloud of sparkling missed Gray tweal el that's tool.

It's not pronounced tool.

No tool, disappointing Kate, So Kate.

They see Pagan float down into the room, and then Kate is like fuck it, and she starts flirting with Nick, with whom she feels safe.

At midnight, pink and white balloons fell in a cloud from the ceiling, and all the women guests were presented with a single heart shaped powder compact and a single long stemmed pink rose.

Silver streamers were hurled around the ballroom, and all formality was a mad Kate could no longer bear the gaiety and headed for the cloakroom, but she was way light by Nick.

Look we're both unhappy, he whispered.

Judy won't have anything to do with me except as a friend, and she won't even talk to me tonight.

I'm so lonely and miserable, Kate.

I need you come to my room, darling, Kate.

So he's let's sad, I'm sad, you're sad.

Let's broken hearts club together, baby, and she's like, to her surprise, Kate considered it, I would be really nice to have the warmth of a man's arms after the pain of projection.

Well, I don't know, how do we fix it?

And then they go over like, all right, you come up to my room, come back down, Pagan will go home.

Peg'll let you in the back door five am.

So be there at five am or whatever.

Because Pagan is obviously not going to go home with the Prince because that's untour and everyone would know.

So they're like, all right, fuck it, I'll go And so she goes back to discuss the possibilities with Maxine, who was slightly tipsy after two glasses of champagne.

Pierre wants me to stay too, she said, obviously longing to do so.

Is he going to take you to the team Chalet.

No, he's booked a room upstairs just in case.

Kate was impressed.

Goodness on the off chance.

How expensive?

So now the Tuto, Maxine and Kate now want to hook up with Pierre and Nick, respectively, and they're like, all right, well, sneak up and Pagan will go home and let us in.

I don't think we dared.

They signaled across the room to Pagan, and then they rushed into the cloak.

Stay.

Pagan exclaimed, how can I possibly stay?

Everyone?

But no, I'll let you in at five, But for Heaven's sake, don't be late.

So Pagan, don't let them do it.

They're gonna get caught.

So at one o'clock, Kate and Maxine climbed onto the bus.

They were just ahead of Pagan, who created a diversion by fussing loudly as she held her heartnell skirts over the grimy steps and nearly managed to knock Mademoiselle into the gutter as Kate and Maxine slipped out the other door.

So the bus has two doors, and Maxine is like, man, oh, sorry, but the girls have already been seen getting on the buzz.

Pagan is a fucking fuss.

She's stepping all over the Mademoiselle and then the girl sneak away, so she gets into the room of Nick.

Two of them become very cozy and comfortable.

They do like each other quite a lot, and there's a little bit of cuddling first, where he hugs her and he holds his head to his chest and he pets her hair, and once she relaxes, once she feels relaxed, he kisses her on the head and then on the cheeks.

Okay, he kisses her on the cheek, but he won't kiss her on the lips because that's his measure of treachery, still private measure of treachery.

He's like the line I don't want to cross.

He'll feel kind of naughty, So he doesn't kiss her on the lips.

And then she's like, fuck you, grab him, kisses him on the lips.

Kissed her with all the pent up ardor.

And then he kisses her with all the pent up ardor of his eighteen years and the accumulated anxiety and pain of the last eight months.

That Kate kiss seemed to last for half an hour.

He couldn't bear to leave her mouth.

He felt himself drowning in her fragrance and the soft feel of her body, warm though through the increasingly creased cream.

Dafta.

Oh, then the taffeta was thrown to the floor and he's softly kissing her breasts under the blankets, he murmured, but oddly that was Kate's measure of treasury.

So they lay on top of the tangle of half shed clothes.

She's like, no, if I get in bed with you and I'm cheating, and if I kiss you on the lips, then I'm betraying my love for Judy.

So they kiss, kiss, canoodle, lay triumph.

Nick lay triumphantly naked on top of Kate's yearning body.

But something was quite right, thought Kate, as she slid one arm down Nick's body to caress him with her hand.

It was as if he's done it already.

As she touched him, Nick flinched, then kissed her with renewed ardor, moving himself away from her hand.

Ten minutes later, she feels him again.

Oh it's something's wrong.

Little pouches and limp flesh against the bomb, Nick again removed.

They both felt embarrassed.

They neither of them knew what to do next.

In a frenzy of misery, they threw their arms around each other and cuddled tenderly as friends, warm and comforted in each other's arms, but they both felt sad.

So they try to hook up, but like he couldn't get there and make it happen.

Yeah, yeah, because that's just not the relationship.

It's just not how they are.

He's in love with Judy.

She's just looking for comfort and he just probably feels too, I don't know, like familial or if it's just weird, you know.

I get it.

Yep, this is exactly why we could never hook up.

Oh god, it would just be as much as you press side try, but it'd just be a mushing contest.

I don't know, I don't know the expressions.

It's not a problem that's ever happened to me, just us guys.

We've tried.

It didn't work.

Just a lot of cranked and I cranked and I cranked.

A lot of smushing and awkwards luck giggles.

But we were both very funny about the whole thing was especially but where you smashed mys try to get them to work.

Vaccine crunched down in the snow and the snow covered blue shadowed street towards Kate, who was shivering under the street lamp.

Without a word.

They clasped it in hands and go back in and are fucking immediately caught no by the matron.

She was waiting at the door for them.

The door flings open.

You should be a shamed of yourselves.

Your guard, my head masters.

She'd rags for him.

The two girls immediately to Shardon's office, so something happened.

She knew they were out and she was waiting for them, and they get to show Dan and Shardon, by the way, is pacing around in a maroon silk dressing gown.

Okay cool, so yeah, yeah, Monsieurgean.

Yeah, so he's Pagan wrapped in her shabby camel's hair.

Jaeger dressing around on the lines of a monk's habit, but yanked around her waist is also there.

She looked unhappy.

She had been awakened at three o'clock in that morning by Matron, whose white hair hung in a long plate over her dressing gown.

Pagan's mother had been on the telephone.

Her grandfather had suffered a massive heart attack that afternoon, had collapsed in the stables and died shortly after midnight.

But that meant Matron came to wake her up in the room.

Pagan was to return to England immediately.

So so the matron comes in to say, I'm sorry to tell you, but your grandfather has died, you need to go back to England immediately.

And then she goes, where the fuck are the other girls?

Yeah, so Pagan's in her room.

She goes to see Pagan, but fucking the two girls are gone.

J Pagan has no choice but to be like.

I don't think she rats them out.

Yeah, she says, like, I don't know, I don't know anything now.

Suddenly Kate and Maxine faced reality.

Shivering in their overcoats and the unheated study, they trembled in front of shaw Dan, terrified of facing their parents.

The soft pink petals of Kate's wilting rose floated to the floor, leaving only the long, thorny stem of her hand in her hand.

Then shaw Dan exploded.

He hurled every insult at them, from ingratitude to wared them until he finished pointing a chubby finger at Kate and shrieking out to you, you pull, you chase every pair of pants in town, at which the Irish and Kate rose again, and she replied, so do you, missieur.

There was a nasty silence.

Then Shadan said, with venom you'd both be expelled friend and skirting that I'm gonna just do him as the as Emperor Palpatine or something.

Like the gayest Palpatine of all time.

You'd both be expelled, and then Pagan goes, no, they won't, said Pagan in a tired, oddly disinterested voice.

Il Chardane turned to her, and who are you missed to tell me what to do.

I'm a friend of your friend Paul.

He took me to his house and showed me lots of photographs.

I think that he'd missed.

I didn't think he'd miss them, so I stole a few and left them with a friend in town.

But here's one.

She felt in her dressing gown pocket and produced a photograph of Paul in bed with the two little South African girls who had left so suddenly over Christmas.

Pagan showed the first photograph to Matron, then to Shadan.

Then she put it back in her pocket and produced her trump card, a photograph of Monsieur himself plump and naked, and a baby poised over the naked body of Paul.

Of course, of course, Paul has black mail material on Charden, and he just leaves it lying around with his other black male material because he's got to protect himself from Chardan too, in their whole scheme, and she found it.

And Paul is drunk and clumsy and fucking inept and a piece.

Of shit, and she's smart as hell, and.

She smart as hell in fucking pockets black and both genius.

That she gives up probably give something to Nick.

Who knows, or Judy or or she didn't.

Then it's a lie either, but brilliant nothing he could risk calling her bluff on, So she she has fucking Chardan's this.

This prontation goes on for four paragraphs before Pagan has his balls and a vice.

Uh huh, happy snaps, said Pagan, with disinterested weariness.

Happy snaps about the photographs.

Had little snaps yesterday, this scene would have been dramatic and terrifying.

Today it was trivial compared to her grandfather's Yeah, compared to her grandfather's death.

I can't help thinking that your scheme only works if you play one father at a time.

If any father had seen photographs of more than one girl, it would have been a parent that you were, in fact a cheap blackmailer, Monsieur shah Dang, and that you deliberately set those girls up to be photographed by Paul anyway.

He told me all about it.

Nobody spoke or moved.

I think, he said.

The going rate for fathers is six thousand francs every three months.

I don't really know what to do about it, but if you take any action against Maxine and Kate, I'm going straight to the police and my story and the with my story and the other photographs.

So it's your decision.

Monsieur Shadan Chardin stood silent for a moment.

Then he farten shot his pants, Yeah, pissed his pants and died.

Then smiled in a forced voice.

He said, miss, you are no doubt over wrought because of your grandfather's sad death.

Therefore, I shall take no notice of your ridiculous accusations.

And because I do not want to bring disgrace upon my school, I will not punish these two foolish girls.

He cleared his throat and paused to regain his authority.

But I trust that they realize the seriousness of their folly.

It is just lucky that none of your set is pregnant.

Now get to bed, all of you.

The exhausted, frightened girl stumbled off to bed, weak with relief.

There was no need for further anxiety, they thought as they wearily undressed.

But they were wrong, and so was the headmaster, because one of their set was pregnanto it pregnant Aaron, will you put in like a done done dun?

You always ask and he never does it.

There you go.

End of poked one, beginning of pocked Oh Ship chapter seven, one hundred and six pages in uh begins next damn.

There you have it.

I can't wait.

How fucking sick is that?

I wish that Shardon Sharp Sharp Boy and Paul were dead.

But the second best thing that could happen was we caught you.

You're not gonna do ship and watch yourself.

I'm gonna So.

The other thing that's interesting about this is they know this ship and have this material.

They could just wait until they're out of and fucking drop that ship on them to protect once.

Get those guys out as soon as he has.

No more power over them.

The only thing is there's a photograph of Hagan out there, so they do have a little bit of datonte, like a little bit of mutually assured destruction.

What I would do is I would go to Abdullah and be like, hey, I don't want to talk about it.

But I have some photographs you need to destroy in a guy named Paul's house.

Also beat the shit out of him.

Yep, don't kill him, but do hurt him.

And if you can find anything illegal in his house, they take it and will blackmail him with it.

But I have a photograph you need to destroy.

I mean, I definitely would stick the fucking chik's bodyguards on him in a heartbeat.

But yeah, so, but so she does.

She uses her own intelligence wherewithal and she and she fucking counters's attempts to blackmail both she and her friends.

And so we end part one on this like fucking victory where she had the presence of mind to protect herself and counter this disgusting thing that they just have to do to her.

So she shows she's a fucking boss bitch.

What a fucking queen and maybe a queen maybe maybe a real queen, maybe a future queen and waiting and maybe a queen.

She's not a real queen in the future because she's single.

No, but maybe I wonder if she marries the chic for I wonder if he dies or something.

Oh maybe, yeah, I think I think.

I think they might.

I think they might end up together.

I think she's at least gonna go behind him to his I think that she's at least gonna like spend time in the Middle East with him.

Oh, I can imagine this like Lrentzia of Arabia moment for her in the future, and I really hope we get that.

But yeah, what a star, what a queen?

What a chapter?

What a chapter?

What a set?

Yeah?

Crop, but one of their set is pregnant?

Is pregnant?

What if it's Judy that would be of That would be a shock.

That would be a shock.

Because she's the only one who's like sexploits.

We haven't gotten.

We haven't gotten any of it.

I'm not having any I don't I don't have time for men.

Yeah, I feel like we would, we would know, but that may have happened.

And honestly, off camera, maybe she met somebody within the last couple of weeks.

It's why, Oh remember Nick says that thing about she won't even talk to me tonight.

I wonder if it's maybe because she feels bad because oh, I've follow.

It's not that I don't want any man, it's that I don't want that.

Which was true.

What's true is she was like, oh, I don't have time for men, but what if she met somebody that made her reconsider that?

Anyway, We will find out all these things later.

We will find out who is pregnant eventually, although even just one of the characters.

Being doesn't necessarily mean that's even having a.

Child does not mean that she is our lace culprit.

It's a culprit, but like reveal our reverse Mama Mia reversea.

So yeah, we'll have to just keep chugging away, Apiece, I can't wait.

Thank you for listening to Passages.

Passages.

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