The Spoils of Sin

by Rebecca Tope

  Carola joined her on the couch near the stove. The fire had sunk down to a few smouldering ashes and outside the wind continued to rage. ‘There is nothing more to be said on the subject. We continue as before, trusting to Hugo and the slender chances of further trouble. Consider the proportion between those who give us no cause for concern, and those who harm us. It is over one hundred to one. We continue as before,’ she repeated.

  ‘You echo my own thoughts,’ said Fanny. ‘We throw the door open as usual at sundown tomorrow.’

  The next evening, there was a single customer. A man in his forties, with a beard that seemed to grow in a dozen difference directions at once, strode through the door without hesitation. He removed his warm hat and placed himself before the glowing fire. ‘Good even to you, ladies,’ he said. ‘I have heard fine tales of your boudoir. ’Tis an excellent service you be offering we poor menfolk, and so it is. For every man that can boast a goodwife, there are fifty all on his lonesome. I be one such. Never known the benefit of a welcoming lady in my bed, night after night. Comes a point where it passes endurance.’

  ‘Will you take a drink, sir?’ asked Fanny, finding herself quite liking the man.

  ‘Is it extra?’ He eyed the notice on the wall. ‘Says naught about drinks on there.’

  ‘It is all included,’ Fanny smiled.

  ‘Then I will take a dram, and thank’ee.’

  ‘Is that an Irish lilt I hear in your voice?’ she asked him.

  He laughed. ‘Is that the way I sound? The truth is, I have never been east of the Rockies, but for a time I associated with an Irishman and adopted his manner of speaking. It is no more than that.’

  ‘Are you a mountain man? A scout or a trapper?’ Fanny recalled the lone figures they had employed during the migration at certain points. Men with huge beards and greasy clothes, often speaking in monosyllables and making no secret of their contempt for the ignorant settlers.

  ‘Those times are almost gone, miss.’ He shook his head gloomily. ‘The west is filling up like a river in spate fills a dried lake. Full to bursting, ’twill be in another year or so. I’m away into Columbia Territory, once the snows are gone. There I’ll trap some bear and beaver for a while longer.’

  ‘British-ruled? Beyond the border?’ Fanny remained hazy as to the exact governance of the coastal lands. The British had retreated from any competition over control of Oregon, but retained land to the north; that much she understood.

  He swigged his whiskey and coughed. Carola, watching him from the couch, had made no contribution to the exchange. All three of them were fully aware that this was Fanny’s customer, and had been from the first moment. Now Carola stood and caught her friend’s eye. She rolled her gaze upwards to indicate that business must be done and there was no more need for conversation.

  ‘Will you go up before me, sir?’ Fanny quickly asked. ‘I shall be one minute. Make yourself comfortable. Mine is the first room you come to at the head of the stairs.’

  He was an easy one, much less urgent than his words had led her to expect. His body had plentiful hair of mixed hues, bushy around his cock. His skin was weathered and creased. He was not the oldest man she had served, but his behaviour was fatherly. So much so, that she was hit by an image of her own father in the midst of their coupling and that was deeply unpleasant. It brought a surge of guilt and self-disgust that she had great difficulty in swallowing.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, afterwards. She was wet, his emissions leaking from her, but in no way excited. Little had been required of her, but to open her legs and allow him to find his relief. As far as bodies were concerned, it had been a simple matter. But in her mind, it was very different. In that respect, her fears of the previous day were realised. New complexities were intruding upon her thoughts, and this was a very unwelcome development.

  He paid his money, having pulled on his clothes. Then he gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Not such an easy matter as all that?’ he asked astutely. ‘I hope I have done nothing to upset you?’

  She shook her head, feeling tears rising at the kindness. ‘We had a touch of trouble last night,’ she muttered. ‘It…changed us a little.’

  ‘I heard about it,’ he said, to her astonishment. ‘The man in question went directly to the bar and drank a deal of moonshine.’

  ‘He spoke of it? Has he no shame?’

  ‘He spoke of your hound and its aggression. Of the foolish prudery of you young ladies. Of his temptation to advise the lawmen of the danger you present. It was muddled enough for most of his listeners to turn away from him as being of no interest. But I happened to be close by, and I guessed his meaning. It was your friend he assaulted, I assume?’

  ‘Assaulted,’ she repeated. ‘That was exactly so. She was very upset.’

  ‘She is young. And ye’re both babies in the matter of men and their tastes. The learning can never be easy.’ He tilted his head, still watching her face. ‘And yourself? Did you not have a gentleman of your own?’

  ‘Has he been speaking to you, too?’

  ‘Nay, nay. He slept a long night, and was off at first light. Never said a word. Just threw a sick look at the other, as if he were something foul, and got himself out of sight.’

  ‘He was a gentleman,’ Fanny confirmed. She smiled. ‘Like yourself, sir.’

  ‘Such a thing as too gentle,’ the man remarked.

  Her heart flared, once again too huge and pillowy to remain in its rightful place. How unnerving it was to be understood! She felt raw and exposed, and a tear escaped.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘We should go down.’

  ‘Be of good heart, young woman. The world is as good as it’s bad. And none of it lasts for ever. I have been pleased to meet ye, Miss Francesca, and that’s the livin’ truth.’

  He had lapsed back into his Irish voice, having lost it for the moments of insight. Was he a holy man, she wondered. A magician? Even perhaps an angel? Crazily, she thought of the angel Gabriel coming to the virgin and by words alone sowing a child inside her. This man had also more impact with his tongue than with his cock. She smiled again, amused at herself.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said again. ‘You are a very good man.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he protested. ‘Just old and weary, from all I’ve done and seen. Be happy, my little dear. That’s the great thing.’

  No more men were waiting downstairs. Carola was reading by the fire, Hugo at her feet. It could have been a living room in any of the houses in town. Fanny’s customer evidently thought so.

  ‘Ah!’ he breathed. ‘’Tis a joy to behold.’ He collected his hat and boots, and then paused before leaving. ‘Enjoy the spoils of this gold fever,’ he advised them. ‘If it be that ye are sinners, then let there be some good come from it. The way I see it, ye deserve your rewards.’

  Fanny resisted an urge to kiss his cheek in farewell. When he had gone, she sighed.

  ‘In love all over again?’ asked Carola, somewhat tartly.

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ Fanny snapped, softening the words with a quick laugh. ‘He was kindness itself. A wise man, I believe. He knew of your trouble yestereve, and was concerned.’

  ‘Concerned,’ echoed Carola sceptically. ‘And how does that help me?’

  Fanny shrugged. ‘Not a bit, unless you allow it. The world is as good as it’s bad, he said.’

  Carola moaned and put her hands to her ears. ‘We should both hold our tongues, it seems to me. I am not myself. My stomach ails me, just for good measure.’

  ‘That man has made you sick. Let me warm some broth for you, and we can lock up for tonight.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Life continued for another month without further drama. A scattering of men passed through, most heading south, but a few returning from the goldfields, seeking to settle in Oregon Territory while there was still land to be had. Word came of a horde of migrants following the established trail from Missouri and Wyoming, families and single men in their thousands, mak
ing good speed with the employment of horses instead of oxen. The plodding days of earlier years were apparently over. Mules were in short supply, and the overworked horses were dropping from exhaustion, but still the tide of humanity came on.

  ‘We shall not see them here,’ Carola said, with relief in her voice. ‘They take a different road to the south.’

  ‘As we have known from the start,’ Fanny reminded her with scant patience. ‘They take the route that caused the deaths of so many in the year we came here. Now, I suppose, the road is improved, and the maps better drawn. But, Carrie, do you not hope to encounter those who succeed? Should we not finds some way to inform them that here in Chemeketa there is a good life to be had, with female company any time they wish it?’

  ‘You are suggesting we place an advertisement in the newspaper?’

  Fanny giggled. ‘Perhaps so.’ Carola made no response. ‘No, that would not do. They would never publish it, at any rate. But we could perhaps enlarge and refresh the approach to the house, with flowers and a lamp. We could devise a more attractive frontage, and provide added comforts inside. As time goes on, the men will crave female touches all the more.’ She paused. ‘I have been thinking we need additional help. If we are to increase our services and attract more men, Hugo will be inadequate to the task. A woman should be here to welcome them in, at all times. We will lose business, if there is nothing but a large dog to greet newcomers at the door.’

  ‘It serves well enough as it is.’

  Fanny gritted her teeth. ‘It does not. You know it does not. And the very woman for the task is surely Marybelle, if we can find her.’

  ‘She is not here. We would know if she had remained in Chemeketa. She would have paid us more visits. Why do you continue to think of her? What is she to us?’

  ‘Why so petulant, Carrie? Why does every word I say bring a contrary one from you?’

  ‘My head aches with all your plans and propositions. We have ample funds, a steady flow of men at our door, and fine prospects. What more can you need?’

  ‘The “fine prospects”, as you call them, will fade away, if we do nothing to attract them. Let me at least ask around for Marybelle. I should enjoy meeting with her again, for whatever reason.’

  ‘No need to ask for my permission,’ said Carola.

  Two more weeks took them into the full glory of springtime. New orchards put out blossom and birds filled the dawn with their songs. Society shifted and jockeyed, as new businesses appeared, to supply forgotten needs. Wives seemed to be in competition as to who could produce the greatest number of children. Deliveries went badly at times, the grim descriptions circulating widely. Men without wives remained in the majority, impatiently wishing the new baby girls would make haste to grow up. There was open discussion as to the advisability of marrying an Indian squaw, or even from sending across the ocean to China for marriageable young women. It all kept the boudoir busy.

  Fanny was slow to notice that she was servicing more than her share of their customers. Invariably, if a man came in alone, Carola would contrive to send him upstairs with ‘Miss Francesca’. And if another came in, an hour later, it was again accorded to her to take the business. Carola was somehow always engaged on some task that could not be laid aside, such as collecting logs for the stove or totting up a column of figures. Eventually, in the early days of May, she remarked, ‘It seems strange that you have found so much occupation during the hours when we are supposed to be awaiting custom. It has become a habit with you to bring sewing or accounts into the evening boudoir, to the point where it has become obvious that you use such activities as an excuse not to work.’

  Carola avoided her eyes, glancing away into a corner. ‘You object to earning the lion’s share of our income?’

  ‘The income is divided equally. You know that.’

  ‘Indeed it is not, Fanny. I have made sure you receive proper dues for the work you do.’

  ‘Then you have altered our usual agreement.’

  ‘And you have not remarked it until now.’

  Fanny’s mood had been cautiously buoyant since her encounters with Paul Merryman and the wise old trapper. She had learned a middle way with the men, which generally served quite well, developing a light banter which plainly told them she would be pleasant but not intimate with them. She would assist on the rare occasions when their bodies failed to respond to the situation, and she would speak sharply to any that threatened to cause her pain. Her own body, which she continued to treat with care, gave satisfaction every time. She discovered there were muscles that she could contract around a man’s member, bringing additional pleasure. By using these muscles daily, she had strengthened them to a point where she felt almost proud. One man gasped, and exclaimed, ‘Just like a virgin you are!’

  The same man paid two dollars in excess of the normal fee, and recommended that they raise their prices, with so much wealth filling the western states. She forbore to tell him that they had done so only a few weeks earlier.

  But Carola was plainly not her usual self. Fanny put it down to the horrid experience with the sodomite. They had spoken of it only once since it occurred, during which Carola had hesitantly posited that she believed it must be the practice referred to in the Old Testament, attributed to the men of Sodom. Their ignorance was paralysing. There was nobody they could ask, and the delicate subject was embarrassing to speak of. Carola was perhaps still sore, and understandably apprehensive that the same could occur again.

  When she thought back and calculated the number, Fanny could not find more than four instances in which Carola had worked, in as many weeks. Two had been boys, barely eighteen years old, one a timid man, blind in one eye and with a painful limp. The fourth was no more than a shadow in Fanny’s memory. A colourless middle-aged failure of a figure, she thought. A person nobody would glance at twice. Such men would drift into town now and then from outlying homesteads where they were tolerated in return for menial work. They would be a brother or nephew, for the most part. So self-effacing were they that barely a word would be exchanged, as they spent themselves in a joyless coupling. Fanny found them depressing, only with difficulty persuading herself that she was bringing at least a few moments of contact and warmth to a lonely outcast. One man of this sort managed to confide in her that he had been expelled from his family for a shameful act with a horse. In a mumbling halting voice, he had tried to explain – probably for the last time in his life. ‘She was my best friend, my most beloved,’ he whimpered. ‘I was never going to hurt her. But my sister caught us and screamed like a banshee.’

  Fanny was intrigued as to the mechanics of such a performance. ‘Did you have to stand on a box?’ she asked in fascination.

  He recoiled like a snail into its shell and gave her no reply. Fanny was sorry, but the image of the naked man a-tiptoe on a box, thrusting into his darling filly, remained with her for some time. His shame spilled over onto her, too. It ought to arouse disgust and condemnation, instead of the flicker of excitement she actually felt. Humanity was self-evidently vile, and that was all there was to it.

  But Carola was a problem. Another week or two passed by, and nothing changed. She took two more men upstairs, and came down looking pale and miserable. ‘Are you ill?’ Fanny finally demanded. ‘Will you come for a walk with me, and tell me what it is that ails you? We can go down to the river with the dog, and enjoy the air.’

  Outside it was mid-May and the sun was dancing with some fleecy clouds, now and then flooding the land with a golden promise of the summer ahead. So far as Fanny could see, the future was as bright as this Oregon sunshine. The warnings that had come her way had not been fulfilled. She was earning excellent money, eating well and dressing in the finest clothes that Chemeketa could supply. Her skin and lungs were clear of disease, her hair thick and her spirits buoyant. Why Carola could not feel the same mystified her.

  ‘If you insist. Perhaps it will do me some good.’ The effort was palpable, and Fanny was irritated by it.

>   ‘I can see no cause for such gloom.’

  They walked out, nodding brazenly to the housewives they passed in the street and smiling at their husbands, who quickly looked away. In reality, they had not entertained one man known to have a wife. At least, a wife in the vicinity, and not waiting patiently back east for the summons to make the voyage necessary for a reunion. Despite this, it was amusing to tease them in the presence of their wives. ‘It could add a little spice to their lives,’ said Fanny gaily.

  Carola sniffed a soft laugh, thereby goading Fanny into greater efforts to be entertaining.

  ‘They might fear for their sons as much as for their husbands,’ she carried on. ‘More, in fact.’

  ‘Sons are indeed something to be reckoned with. Sons and brothers.’

  Something in her tone awakened Fanny to a more serious turn. ‘Oh?’ she replied cautiously.

  ‘Find us a spot to sit by the river and I will enlighten you,’ said Carola. ‘Just as I have myself been enlightened, barely two days since. You will know me for a great fool, then.’

  Still Fanny had no premonitions, no ideas of calamity or change. She was loath to sit down so soon, having walked for barely fifteen minutes. Hugo was loping ahead of them, wading in the shallows of the river’s edge, before swimming a little way and then shaking himself dry with great drama afterwards. ‘We will go as far as the bend,’ she ordained. ‘Where I fancy there is a fallen tree we might use for a seat.’

  Carola increased her pace and was waiting on the makeshift bench for Fanny, her expression a mixture of impatience and dread.