They did not speak about women often, she had noticed that from the start. They spoke of idealised mother-figures, they spoke of females in the abstract, but they did not speak about women.

Today they were speaking of monsters.

“The fairer sex is given to deceit by neccessity,” Grantaire was saying. “Women are unlucky in that they have many faces to take off and put on. We mock them for it, but it is the fault of nature. Medusa would not have lain with Poseidon in the shrine of Athena had she known what fate would befall her-”

“She did not lie with him by choice,” Matelote said, placing Grantaire’s bottle on the table in front of him. He gave a start at the interruption, but (to her surprise) considered it.

“Ah, well, there you have it! The fault of nature, of mankind. Man is wicked and betrays, woman suffers and is wicked. Woman goes on to make others suffer in her turn. Medusa must have delighted in turning men to stone, but Perseus equally delighted in killing the monster, who began life as guiltless as my maiden sister. There are no heroes in such stories. We should not idolise these people. We should not idolise anyone-” Matelote glanced at the other side of the room, where a blond man was seated with his friends, “-and women especially are poorly served, their idols were forged in the bedroom rather than the battlefield. What woman would venerate Helen of Troy? Would Iphigenia, as she was slaughtered like an animal? I doubt it.”

“You should ask a woman,” said Matelote pointedly. Grantaire pulled a chair out for her with no qualms at all. She paused in surprise (and, perhaps, a little shock). There was no-one else she knew at the table, merely a few old drunk men lulled into silence and perhaps hardly there at all. After a moment’s hesitation she sat, and Grantaire continued his train of thought: “When a woman is wronged and she seeks her vengance, it is more often other women crushed on the wheel. Therefore there are no more heroic females than there are males. They punish each other for the failings of men, though necessity dictates it-”

“It is men who dictate it,” Matelote said. “Women are punished threefold for flaws that go unnoticed in their husbands.”

Grantaire looked at her, the other men did too, and she swallowed her uncertainity. “In all matters of society- the home, the church, the family, the field- women is kept in her place, subserviant to the man. When she oversteps her mark she is condemned. Yet a defiant spirit is admired in her counterpart, we adore men who break their chains. Why?”

“We keep woman in chains for the same reason we do the dog,” said the old dandy on the other side of the table, his yellow teeth glistening. “For fear of unprovoked attack, and to contain the spread of disease.”

“Shut up, Bambatois,” Grantaire said. “One who has such bad breath shouldn’t open his mouth.”

Matelote was spurred on a little, but not much. “You say there is no sisterhood between women,” she said to Grantaire.

“As there is no brotherhood between men,” he said. “But the lack of love for women from all quarters dooms them in a way no other being is. If Athena found Medusa in her temple not as she thought but…abused, and her action was not to avenge her but to punish her-“

“It has been said,” Matelote interrupted, “that Athena granted Medusa monsterhood not to condemn her, but to protect her from any other man who would wish to do her harm. She did not avenge her, but rather gave her the means to avenge herself.”

Grantaire seemed to consider this quite thoroughly, and (once again, to Matelote’s surprise) seemed almost to approve of being fed information new to him. “That version of the story is charitable to the gods,” he said.

“This is the dullest conversation I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear,” said the other old man. “You, woman. Who is serving the drinks while you’re sitting here talking?”

“My landlady Hucheloup behaves as a mother to me,” Matelote said. “She will always grant me a few minutes rest.”

“Pffft. You are a poor speaker for your sex,” the old man Bambatois said. “You are a waitress, you are not much higher than a whore, and you neither act nor look like a lady.”

“You neither act nor look like a man,” said Matelote, and Grantaire snorted, which encouraged her greatly. “You would not be saying such things, anyway, if you did not fear I was right.”

“Ha! You’re a fine specimen to be making complaints at any rate. You have the same freedoms as a man, the same restrictions. Should a man defile you – not that he would want to – he would be punished. You, your fellow ingrates, that fat old woman you are calling your mother- you have more than you deserve!” And suddenly Matelote felt real bitterness, and rage.

“You are fatter by far, and ancient-looking in middle age,” Grantaire said to Bambatois, but Matelote spoke over him.

“If I were to take a man to bed because I wished to, out of wedlock…if I were to have as many lovers as a man may have…no matter the result, I would be villified! I have heard of women losing their jobs for less, and their children turned out onto the streets! How can you say I am considered equal to you?”

“I don’t think you’re equal to me,” Bambatois said delightedly. “And what man would take you?”

“I would,” Grantaire said.

Matelote knew him well enough to know he meant it, and she was shocked.

“I always thought you thought me ugly,” she managed to say.

“I think the whole world ugly. What does that matter?”

Matelote looked at the other men and made a quick decision. “I will take you to bed, then. Now. Because I wish to. And I won’t be thought any less of for doing so! Do you understand?”

“Whore,” said Bambatois, laughing, as she stood up.

“You may have to search the vast workings of your brain, and find a worse word than ‘whore’ for me,” Grantaire said to him, also standing. “I have had both women and men. I’m told this contradicts not only nature, but, to his more devout followers, the teachings of the Almighty himself. What are we to do?”

The second of the old men spat on the floor. “And you now allow yourself to be ordered around by a girl?”

“I am not a solid creature,” said Grantaire. “I need many hands to mould me.”

He saw Matelote leaving, and followed her in a theatrical manner. Neither of them heard if the old men had anything more to say. They went out into the street, which was snowy.

“Do you wish me to escort you anywhere?” Grantaire asked.

“To your rooms,” Matelote said. She caught Grantaire’s surprised look and said, “I was serious.”

“So was I, but I assumed our human hearts would get in the way. And my rooms are hardly fit for a lady.”

“We have established I am no lady.”

“Very well,” Grantaire said, and offered her his arm.

*

His room was not only not fit for a lady, it was not fit for a man either. It wasn’t fit for anybody.

“It is small, true, but furnished,” Grantaire said. There was a stack of paintings on the side, all featuring one particular person whom Matelote knew by sight. “Those are wretched little pictures I’ve been painting. Ignore them. Anyway, what do you wish of me?”

Matelote considered things. In the cold of the night, rather than the warmth of the bar, she felt almost foolish. She had attempted to argue with old men on a point that wouldn’t concern them in the slightest, and she had barely gained the upper hand, and she was tired.

“Why offer me…help?” she asked.

“I admire passion in all people.”

“Such passion was a rare occurence for me. Usually I hold my tongue.”

“You know whom you’re speaking to, Matelote. I have very little fire in me at all.” As if to prove it, he began to strip dispassionately, stopping only when he got down to his underwear. “We should clarify. Do you still want to sleep with me? Because, through no major fault of either of us, it may not be the most erotically charged affair.”

Matelote considered things. She decided sleeping with him would be an act of defiance more than anything, and she did not get many oppotunities for that in her life. “I would like to.”

Grantaire nodded in agreement and clambered into the bed. After a minute of unbuttoning her clothes, Matelote joined him. They lay there awkwardly, their naked skin touching. He was as cold as marble, or common stone.

“You say you’ve been with men, too?” Matelote asked, as her bedmate (it seemed the best term) fumbled between her legs. “Have you?”

“Recent occurences. But I have varied tastes.”

“Deal with me as you would a man, then,” she said, emboldened by the situation and the flickers of pleasure. Grantaire looked at her in surprise, and laughed.

“I feel we are kindred spirits, you and I.”

They switched positions. Matelote felt a thrill, but she also now felt guilt for the thrill, so she choked it all down with words.

“Will you-” She gasped as she felt sensations she’d never felt before- “tell anyone about this?”

“Why would I?”

“Everything I spoke of in the cafe- the insults, the vilification- I don’t want that. I fear it!”

“Then my lips are sealed,” Grantaire said, but she thought he may have meant it ironically, his lips were travelling towards an intimate area of her body and so they weren’t sealed at all.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked after a minute.

“No,” she said. It didn’t. He had twisted his neck around to get at her chest, and he came with his fists gripping the bedsheets.

He relaxed with a groan, and she found herself doing the same. She waited for the sensations to die down, and missed them when they were gone. The experience hadn’t been entirely what she’d hoped for, but it hadn’t been without pleasure. And since it had been her first experience, she was glad she had managed to choose a partner who knew what they were doing.

“Thank you,” she found herself saying.

Grantaire laughed. “Should you not be asking, did I please you?”

“You did please me,” she said, and it wasn’t really a lie. She thought his laugh sounded more like a plea.

Gradually, they put their clothes back on.

“You don’t think any less of me?” she said. It was her turn to plead now.

“No.” And for possibly the first time since she’d met him, he didn’t seem to feel the need to elaborate. He began moving around the room, arranging things, as if Matelote was a visiting sibling.

“I had a sister who fell pregnant out of wedlock,” Matelote said to his back. She didn’t know why she was telling him. “Our mother turned her away. All faces dear to her, they turned away. She died in childbirth, all alone.” Grantaire gave her a look that combined sadness, curiousity and anger. “Perhaps you’re right when you say there’s no sisterhood between women.”

“Perhaps you were right when you spoke of a goddess giving a wronged woman the ability for vengance. That is…well, perhaps not sisterhood. Motherhood maybe.” He sat down next to her. “But I prefer Pygmalion to Medusa. I am already as ugly as a statue, and sometimes just as lifeless.”

“I have never heard you call yourself ugly,” Matelote said. “I don’t like it. You should not. Besides, I am ugly.”

“Ugly women are fortunate. They can transcend life’s cruel boundaries in a way beautiful women cannot.”

“What of beautiful men?” she asked, wondering what his reaction would be, and briefly revelling in the fact that she could cause a reaction.

“What of them?” he asked.

The night was growing dark outside and the candles were burning down. “What became of your sister’s child?” Grantaire asked. “Did it survive?”

“No.”

He shrugged, but Matelote knew it wasn’t done meaninglessly. “If I had a drink for every story like that, I would never be sober,” he said.

“You’re never sober anyway.”

He gave another pleading, saddening laugh. “Well,” he said. And after a minute, “Perhaps you should leave now. Your mother will be worried about you.” It took her a few moments to realise he was speaking of Madame Hucheloup, the woman she called her mother, rather than her actual mother. She went to the door.

“I hope my melancholy has not put you in low spirits,” Grantaire added.

Matelote shook her head. “Men are unlucky in that they have many faces to take off and put on.”

He smiled at her- it was almost a real smile- and unlocked the door for her. She knew that the next time she saw him he would be drunk, and she knew she was returning home to thankless work and dim lights and mocking faces, and she knew she (not unlike Grantaire himself, probably) would only ever win very small victories. But she still managed to walk with her head held high.