"It seems to be so recently that the arcades were introduced. Do you remember? How the city was so narrow, dark, homely but uninviting. Now it is wide, modern. The streets are now full of well-to-do folk. Promenading up and down in areas that previously they wouldn't have dared to frequent. Not, until now.

But when the night comes it is different.

The shadows grow longer, and the dandies and the bourgeoisie will retire to places where they feel more at ease, and the avenues are transformed.

Out come the desperate and the crazy, the poor and the homeless. Infiltrating the street until they are reclaimed by the real citizens of Paris.

Amongst these groups are the whores, and it is these that we have come to see.

He tired of the playwright's endless banter and made his excuses, left a few sous on the table for the drink, went as if to leave, but simply circulated until he presumed the man gone, and then came back.

It was the whores that he had come to see. There were women from all over the world congregated here. Brazenly selling love and desire in a form that could be had for a moment, for but a few francs.

He noticed that it was all in the eyes. That was how they got you. They were the bait and the rod, the eyes were the line. You played the part of the fish.

There were all sorts of fish floating around them. Fat ones, thin ones, sick ones, strong ones, the shark and the minnow swam together here, but all could be caught by the whores.

They would grab you with their gaze, pull you in with a smile or a flick of the hand, a flutter of their heavily painted eyelashes. Seal the deal with a tongue that gently caressed both of their lips.

You were caught in the pull of it all. Believing yourself to be the predator, all the time unaware that it was you who was being preyed upon.

Finally, he was caught by one, she named her price, he nodded, it made no difference now, whatever she said. He was hooked. The stab of the metal pulled against his cheek as she linked her arm with his and led him away.