Behind the Curtain
A Nordic chamber larp about community and sex work
Setting
Welcome to the Gilded Lily, a premier establishment for the discerning client interested in anything their heart desires! Our skilled companions are dedicated to pleasure: from lips gently brushed on the neck to fingertips pressing into the flesh of a hip to… well, just let your imagination run away with you.
We promise we’ll keep up.
This welcome, written in a flowing, golden script in the brothel’s antechamber is the first thing a customer sees beyond the building’s nondescript, windowless frontage. After reading it, they meet the Madam – and pay a hefty deposit. Only then does a companion emerge from behind a heavy, velvet curtain to take them by the hand and lead them to a private room for the fulfillment of anything they desire (and are willing to pay for).
But this is not the story of the client or of anything that happens in those private rooms. The Gilded Lily has other spaces where even more intimate stories unfold.
While waiting for their next “date”, the companions spend their time in a back room: talking, sharing, flirting, but, most of all, just passing time. After a date, they return here to complain about their tip, make jokes, wax rhapsodic, or try to forget what’s just happened. If it’s too quiet, the Madam might insist some of them come stand out front to offer little freebies: a kiss here, a caress there to try to convince punters to come inside for more. Otherwise, a companion only leaves this room after their shift is over.
Each companion took a different path to end up at the Gilded Lily, yet a tight-knit community has blossomed between them – with a few exceptions. Everyone must work to survive and, whether they love it, hate it, or tolerate it, this is the only place they can truly be honest about it. This work is illegal and considered highly immoral, so there’s no complaining about a bad day because most companions would be disowned, outcast, or arrested if they were honest about their jobs. It is a profession built on secrets and lies.
Lies told to lovers and partners about what kind of work keeps a person out all night…
Lies told to friends about why they go from broke to splurging in the span of a week…
Lies told to the babysitter about why they’re late again and never have change…
Lies told to doctors and pharmacists about their sexual health…
Lies told at job interviews about their employment history…
Lies told to government officials about their income…
Everyone deals differently with the paranoid shame they feel when they see a gleam of recognition on the street or notice side-eyed whispers breaking out at the grocery store, but they’ve all felt it at one time or another. They carefully guard their work identities from their “real” lives and have small, personal ways to differentiate between them.
I haven’t worn makeup in years but Diamond wouldn’t be seen without winged eyeliner and bold lipstick
Jeanette has a pronounced French accent but I’ve never even left the country
I dropped out of high school when my kid was born but Tawnee is getting their degree and only works for fun
The lies, the stress, the shame would all weigh much more heavily without this little community of the break room, the only place the companions can be honest about their dates, their feelings, and themselves – at least, to a point. Regardless of their reasons for being there, together they celebrate, commiserate, fight, fall in and out of love, and share this secret, scandalous life with one another.
In addition to the usual rivalries, gossip, and chitchat, today there is another topic hot on everyone’s lips: the Madam recently announced her long-awaited retirement and everybody is wondering what will happen to the Gilded Lily. The Madam joked before that they might gift it to their favorite companion, but more probably they’ll simply sell it. To whom? A client? A competitor? One of the companions? Or simply the highest bidder without a care for what happens to the sex workers that make it lucrative? Maybe they would even close it down or bring in cheaper workers! Everyone is on edge with their own personal theories and nobody can wait until the end of tonight’s shift when they’re going to find out what the Madam decides.
Although this story takes place in a brothel, this game does not focus on loving or hating, supporting or damning sex work. It is also not at all about the actual sex work, and this will not be played or depicted: the game plays in the private, personal, in-between spaces, although the work itself will be discussed in explicit detail in-game.
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