The House of Etiquette - Lisoo Conversion

9

Lisa was racked with guilt. She'd tempted Jisoo when her faculties were not at full strength, knowing that she lacked the ability to resist. It was a wicked thing to have done, and now she, too, had regrets. The very thought that Jisoo, in the sober light of day, might look upon the memory of that night with anything short of sheer contented bliss made her sick to the pit of her stomach.

At a loss as to how she might properly apologize for her selfish behaviour, she penned Jisoo a heartfelt note and slipped it into her study one night. Nothing short of a love letter, the eloquent missive proclaimed that the intimacy they'd shared— however brief and improper— was something she'd always treasure. She confessed her inexperience in such matters, said she understood that Jisoo— surely a veteran in the complexities of Sapphic love— would find nothing too much of interest in an ingénue like herself, but that she simply couldn't bear to be married without ever having known even an ounce of true pleasure.

The very next Sunday, the profound effects of that letter became apparent. While the other girls were mooning at Seunghoon  over the back fence, Lisa happened by Jisoo in the hall. She was fixing pins in her outing hat as the house's private horse-drawn carriage waited for her in the driveway, ready to whisk her off to the train station for her weekly disappearance.

"Ah, Lisa! There you are!" She beamed. "I'm engaged to meet some friends in London. Might you like to accompany me?"

A trip? Alone with Jisoo? The invitation required no contemplation. Lisa ran up the stairs, grabbed her own outing hat, and joined Jisoo in the carriage, not giving a single thought to where precisely they were headed. It didn't matter. For the first time since their latest indiscretion, things felt easy between them. There was no awkwardness. Jisoo was relaxed, jovial, and swiftly put Lisa out of her misery.

"You did nothing wrong," she said, slapping a tight lid on the matter. "The transgression was entirely mine. Let's not agonize over it."

And so they didn't. When they arrived in London, Jisoo steered them to a western part of the city that Lisa found entirely unfamiliar. Not that she considered herself anything more than a tourist in any quarter of the capital, but this one was particularly foreign to her.

The streets were filled with women of all varieties, and a good many of them seemed to recognize Jisoo. They wore brightly-coloured feathers in their hats— if they wore hats at all— and held their skirts a few inches too high as they walked.

"Wherever are we?" Lisa took Jisoo's crooked arm as it was offered to her.

"Leicester Square," Jisoo replied, keeping Lisa close. "I come here nearly every week. Isn't it delightful? So vibrant. So much to look at."

Lisa wasn't sure whether she referred to the elaborate garden at the centre of the square or to the women who congregated in it, but readily agreed in either case. Later, she learnt that the whole place was known to be a veritable hive of iniquity, and she ought to have guessed as much when the establishment Jisoo brought her to was filled with scantily-clad women who sat much too freely on the laps of men.

Fortunately, they didn't linger near those rooms. Jisoo took her by the hand and led her up the back staircase, and the higher they rose on the crooked, uneven steps, the stronger the scent of perfume became. Not just one variety but several, all swirling together. The heady floral bouquet hinted at the presence of many women, and sure enough, when they emerged from the darkened passage, there was not a man in sight— much to Lisa's very great relief.

These upper rooms were three in number and decked out lavishly: silk wallpaper, velvet sofas, and imported rugs. Coloured netting hung from the ceiling like a great canopy, filtering the light from the wall sconces and casting the space in shades of purples and pinks.