Pylaemenes dried himself hurriedly, eager to join Nadira for breakfast. Despite a short conversation with some overweight snail farmer, he had very few people to speak to anyway. His morning had been moving at a very fast pace in general. He could hardly deny that this was all terribly exciting, and he felt far more active than ever before.

As he dressed himself, he found that his mind kept returning to thoughts of Nadira. This was only natural, he supposed, considering the fact that he'd only last night made love to her - and besides, he had quite fallen in love with her as well! He knew it a bit questionable, really... She was a hetaira...a courtesan... How could he expect her to have the same affection for him as he had suddenly developed for her? As of yesterday morning, they did not even know one another! But he recalled her words, her looks towards him...her kisses... Surely she regarded him as more than an object of pleasure.

He sighed as he considered the situation. He would serve as a tutor for a crew of courtesans, all the while in love with one of them... Were his thoughts not blinded by his new passion for Nadira, he would have considered this highly embarrassing. After all, she made money off of making love to other men. He couldn't pay her a thing for her favors; whatever she allowed him must have been strictly out of her own affections for him. That thought pleased him, and yet saddened him at the same moment. He realized that he would always have to share her... He wished to marry her, but how in the name of the Diespiter would she then be able to make her money?

Putting on his sandals and stopping momentarily to wash his hands, he set out in search of the kitchen. Pleased that Nadira was inside, as she had said she would be, he stood about watching her prepare things and occasionally asking if there was anything at all that he could do.

"Just fetch the cheese from the larder, dear," she would say, preparing a loaf of bread and revealing the honey, after first pecking at his cheek. There were also some fresh grapes that had miraculous appeared in the room since last he had seen it. They soon dematerialized as Pylaemenes and Nadira sat down and ate.

The tutor spent very little time actually concentrating on what he was devouring, preferring to glance languidly across the table at Nadira.

"Do you mind it much?" he finally asked.

"Mind what, my dear?" She looked at him quizzically.

"Your profession," he continued. "Wouldn't you like to get away from it? It couldn't possibly be terribly..." He broke off here, seeing that she had already quite understood his meaning.

"Of course I mind it!" she said. "But I can't do anything to change it at the moment, my dear. There is nothing else open to me. I am a woman - and a freedwoman at that! I have very little choice in the matter..."

"Still," Pylaemenes continued, "you would prefer to be away from this..."

"Undoubtedly, my dear. I don't intend to be a hetaira for long... I depend upon you to see that I am not..." She smiled at him as she said this, reaching forward to caress his hand. He returned her smile, quite pleased by her words.

"I sound like such a fool..." he began.

"Not at all!"

"...I didn't even know you yesterday morning, and now I wish to marry you... I don't have a denarius to my name, either!"

"That will change, my dear. A good position is all you need."

Pylaemenes made no comment in regards to what he thought was a good position. Instead, he simply gripped her hand gently and returned her smile.