Fantastic Metropolis

“The light javelins are kept under the counter. But why is a gentle Muse tooling herself up like a mercenary? One assumes you’d rather spend your drachmas in a ‘Typhoon’ boutique.”

“Restrain your maleness. I’m free to shop where I like.”

“Of course you are. I’m curious, that’s all. Put your lyre down and follow me. Don’t worry, my cat will look after it. He’s a noble creature with sleek fur and whiskers which catch flies. I often play the stave of his twitch on a flute. Hold this lamp and mind the oil doesn’t splash on your gorgeous bare legs like a lover’s hot seed.”

“I’m quietly confident it won’t.”

“Consider this rack of breastplates, just in from Colophon. Further along, you may observe reticulated nipple-shields, less cumbersome and a product favoured in Lesbos. Keep going and you’ll come to a pile of iron anoraks, modest but effective, useful when scouting the motions of steam horses and proof against Hydra juice.”

“These aisles are excessively lengthy.”

“Well, they were designed by Eupalinus of Megara. In fact, he owned the store before me. He used it as a studio, carving aisles from pillars of marble and placing them side by side. But he couldn’t get them out of the door and had to abandon them where they lay. Their sides decayed and all that was left was the room within.”

“I thought they smelled vaguely Ionic.”

“You still haven’t told me what you want this equipment for. Please don’t think I’m trying to get you into bed, but taking an undue interest in customers enables me to assist them more accurately. Are you going to attend a kinky boyfriend keen on straps?”

“Forfend! He’s too scruffy and short for that.”

“I get it. You’re auditioning for a job as a model and he’s a faded rock star waiting for you in a wine bar?”

“Hardly. It’s just a simple visit to a writer.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t recommend that. Times have changed and writing’s no longer worthy of the exertions of ravishing Muses. No less than eight have already come to grief this way.”

“What do you know about my sisters?”

“A great deal. I have a huge brain. Now let me assist you with this segment of armour, which fits over your ample breasts, with their russet aureolae visible through the sheer toga, like autumn fits over September and October, and take you this sword and buckler and visor, for methinks you gleam like Athene in her bathroom.”

“I’ll have them all. How much do I owe?”

“Thank you. That’ll be 726,348 drachmas. Pay up, quick.”

“I can’t possibly afford that!”

“Then you must stay and work off the debt. Don’t try sprinting past me. At a signal, my cat will operate a hidden lever and you’ll fall down a trapdoor into a dungeon occupied by a Frantic Lurk. You have no option but to permit me to imprison you in the tower on top of the store, where you shall slave away, with my other captives, fitting together pieces of metal gathered in numerous buckets.”

“Damn your throbbing occipital sinuses!”

“And don’t try to escape by dangling your luxuriant red hair out of the window to tempt roving knights. The tower is too lofty for that, and we live in an age of chivalry recession.”

“Alas, that’s true enough!”