And there’s nothing, per se, wrong with asking your employees to dress in a certain way to serve your customers. I’m sure there are completely legal adult brothels in this district that dress their employees up like… I dunno, circus clowns or famous historical figures or something. So if you have the money to waste bleaching your employees hair and dying it the color of poppies, there’s nothing on the surface wrong with that, or so most people think. (And if you even want to waste your money on bleaching the hair of your kitchen girls and stable boys, it’s your money…)

Yes, they’re all named after cats. The owners say that it “protects” the employees, if they’re ever freed, because Reme hasn’t abolished slavery and they are actually literal slaves, they can go into the civilian world and not be tied to the identity of being a brothel employee. So like a pen or stage name so to speak. Of course what it really is is a cheap way of chipping away at the identity of those kids, but that’s what they say.

re. Cox, Josh, and Jayson, in a lot of ways Jayson does hold Cox in more regard than he does Josh. He knows where the skeletons are hidden, he knows how to use what Cox fears and wants to get Cox to do exactly what he wants Cox to do. Josh, on the other hand, Jayson can’t control.

It’s things like helping Philipa out. In Jayson’s mind, Josh should have come to Jayson and told him everything, then Jayson would have extracted how to best make the situation benefit Jayson and if that meant Philipa got hurt, well, she should have been smarter.

Josh doesn’t play by Jayson’s rules and that makes him less valuable than Cox to Jayson. Josh isn’t something that Jayson can use reliably.

Also, Josh does worry, a lot, about Elizabet, especially as she gets closer and closer to the age that Cox prefers, but they do have two things in their corner when it comes to Elizabet and Cox. Marisol and Annette. The two women that scare Cox more than anything and they’re both, in their own ways close to Elizabet.

Under no circumstances could I imagine that Cox would think he could get away with molesting Elizabet because he, quite frankly, would get caught. The likelihood that he could molest Elizabet and keep her quiet is so slim that Cox isn’t going to trust it. (It’s the same reason that Lyssa is as safe as you can be being a child in the same house as a pedophile.) Everything that Cox knows about Elizabet says that she would totally tell somebody.

Plus, I think that a lot of the reason that Cox likes young girls is because he likes the fear. He likes the idea of a girl being scared by him. It appeals to his sadistic nature. (And he is, in his own way, as sadistic as Loki.) Elizabet is more likely to spit in his eye than cower away from him. And that makes her nearly as distasteful to Cox as a prospective bed partner as his wife is.

Thanks, Van!

Oh, I think that if Cats hasn’t been closed down by the time that Josh is Baron, he’ll throw most everything he’s got at getting the place closed down and helping the kids who work there find better lives and employment that doesn’t leave them both physically and metaphorically screwed. (As for the branch of the church, I have a perfect one. What about the patron saint of children in trouble. St. Betsy. *bats lashes*

There are certainly a lot of people, even at the top who would go “wait, what? We have a brothel in Reme where you can go screw a six year old boy? I want blood!” But with a combination of bribery and misdirection the owners of the place haven’t let anyone know.

Yes, Jayson is going away for a month. We’ll see if he makes it back for Elizabet’s birthday. After all the right hand Chipmunk of the Demigoddess is firmly in Elizabet’s corner.

Uh, yeah, it’s one thing to know that your husband likes ‘em young, it’s a whole other universe of something altogether to let your husband who likes ‘em young sleep in the same bed as your seven year old daughter…

Sorry for the shudders, but thanks, Morgaine!

I’m guessing the odds of Jayson dying during the Camelot trip aren’t great, which is a shame. The sooner Joshua is baron, the sooner he can make some changes. But how has no one in the town objected to that place yet? It should be obvious to anyone with eyeballs that those dressed-up, made-up kids are not employed as stable boys and kitchen girls. I’m guessing that someone’s feeding wallets somewhere along the line, and someone is totally okay with throwing Wright knows how many children under the bus for the sake of said wallet. Sick.

And are they all named after cats there? They don’t even get their real names?

I’ve got to wonder why Josh cares at all about keeping Cox out of the public eye. If Cox gets caught, and it’s a serious scandal, then awareness about the place will skyrocket and Jayson may be pressured to do something about it, and who knows, maybe there’s a branch of the church that would allow Annette to divorce him, and to get herself and her daughter away from that creep. Also, Josh has an eleven-year-old sister. Now, maybe Cox isn’t stupid enough to do anything to his employer’s daughter, but given how close Josh and Elizabet are, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t at least sort of concerned.

I don’t know, maybe Jayson is stupidly attached to Cox, to the point where he cares more about his steward than his son. From what we’ve seen so far, it wouldn’t shock me.

Poor Darin. And poor Josh. And all those poor, poor children.

Please, Andavri, PLEASE let the Demigoddess smite this place when you’re done with it! Let her smite it in such a way that all the kids and the young adults who were too fucked over as kids to protest or get away get out safely, but the adults who set this place up and really run it FRY! Or burn. Whatever! I’m not picky!

And take out the clients too!

*shudders* I don’t blame Joshua for wanting moral support … I don’t blame him at all … and I hope, if the Demigoddess doesn’t get a chance to do some old-fashioned smiting, that he shuts this place down when he’s Baron. There has to be some element of the Church in Reme that would flip out over a child brothel and not be afraid to protest it to the highest levels. And there have to be some people at the highest levels who would be horrified if this was brought to their attention.

I’d imagine that shutting down a child brothel could be one thing that Albionese and Remans could agree on, most of the time …

On the bright side … at least Jayson is going away for a month? (And while a summer snowstorm might be too much for the Lord Wright to handle, you should ask the Demigoddess or the Chipmunk, I’m sure between the two of them they could come up with something …)

… Also, Jiminy Cricket, no wonder Annette doesn’t want Lyssa anywhere near Masen’s room …

*shudder* *shudder* *shudder*