Playacting for the men was common at some houses, but this was a simple place catering to tradesmen. That was why she’d chosen it. It was clean and straightforward, and there were no rich men here. She’d lost her taste for wealthy men as a girl. She was petite even now, but as a girl she’d been downright small, and her mother had dressed her in schoolgirl smocks and short dresses and sent her off to wealthy houses until she was sixteen and finally too developed to pull off the ruse.
Men with that much money believed they could have anything they wanted. And they could. Nothing was forbidden them.
She’d heard a girl at one of best brothels in town had been cut to pieces with a razor by the patriarch of a shipping family. Her body had been dumped in a swamp somewhere. Nothing had happened to him. He’d gone home to his children and his wife and likely never thought again about that girl rotting in the water.
Tradesmen might not pay as much for a quick lay, but it was usually an honest deal. A fair exchange.
Melisande was just beginning her stroll around the room, pasting on the empty, meaningless smile she wore for work, when a woman grabbed her elbow.
“Madame,” Melisande gasped at the tight grip.
“I’ll have my cut from that side deal you made this morning.”
“Side deal?” She shook her head in confusion.
“You took a man upstairs.”
“But…but he didn’t pay me. It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, you have a sweetheart, do you?” the woman sneered. When her eyes narrowed, the pale powder she wore creased into the wrinkles it was supposed to hide.
“No,” Melisande said, not wanting Madame to know anything about it. It was Melisande’s secret and hers alone.
“If it was charitable Christmas work then I commend you, but your time is my time and I don’t give free rides. I expect my cut for it at the end of the evening, same as all the others.”
“Oui, Madame,” Melisande whispered. She’d pay it from her own pocket. The day had been worth the coin.
As Madame walked away, Melisande reached for the shell necklace, already an instinct after only a few hours. But she’d removed it, of course. Even if she hadn’t been asked to wear the green ribbon, she’d never have left Bill’s necklace on for this.
She’d walked only halfway through the room when a stranger waved her closer. He looked her up and down, his gray mustache twitching with either approval or disdain—she couldn’t tell. He smelled of cigar smoke, and he didn’t ask her name or call her “miss.” He simply stood and nodded his head toward the stairs. Melisande led the way.
She wished she could hold on to the memory of Bill a little longer, but she’d had it for a few hours, at least. Her Christmas was over now.
The stranger followed her to her room and she lay down for him. It was over in minutes, and she realized it didn’t really matter. She could still remember the feel of Bill in her body. A totally different act that had nothing to do with this.
The man buttoned up and left his money and it was done.
Melisande washed carefully. She smoothed her hair down, tightened the pins in her bun, straightened the thin white linen she wore. When she looked at herself in the mirror it was a girl wearing a green ribbon, not a black one. A girl who looked tired instead of happy. It was some other girl, not her.
She felt so removed as she descended the stairs it took a moment before she realized Bill was there. When she spied him, she nearly missed the next step and had to catch herself on the railing. Half an hour ago, she’d been searching him out, but now she felt like someone else. Someone confused that he was here.
He stood near the door, and unlike the other men in the room, he had no drink in his hand.
His eyebrows rose a little when he looked up and caught sight of her. After a moment’s hesitation, he approached the bottom of the stairs, hat in his hands. “Could I come up with you?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Should she feel happy? Sad? Ashamed? She had no idea. But he’d known she was a whore this morning when he’d bought her gingerbread. And this afternoon when he’d taken her to bed. Nothing had changed tonight. So why did she feel strange?
Unlike her previous customer, she was too aware of Bill as she led him down the hall, and when she let him through her door, his body seemed to fill the room until she could hardly breathe.
“You came back,” she said, but it sounded like a question.
“I couldn’t keep you out of my mind.” His words were at odds with his eyes, though. Instead of looking at her, his gaze roamed over the room as he turned his hat in his hands. He nodded toward the floor next to her bed. “You read?” he asked.
Melisande felt a moment of irritation at his question and moved to scoot the two worn novels under her bed. They were meant to be hidden. She’d been too distracted from her normal routine today. “Yes,” she answered, “I can read.”
“I never had much patience for school,” he said, and she realized he hadn’t meant to insult her. “I got just enough to manage.”
The seconds stretched out, and though he finally looked at her, he made no move to undress.
When Melisande reached to remove her corset, Bill raised a hand so suddenly that she startled.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?” Did he like this charade of white undergarments and bright ribbons?
“Don’t take off your clothes. I don’t want to pay you for this anymore.”
“Oh.” She froze in shock, her mind tumbling over itself until she let her hands fall away. Her pulse skittered in her throat. He’d come back to demand something for nothing. To claim some ownership over her after their day together. She should have known. “Today was…” She swallowed a sudden dryness from her throat. “I can’t give it away for free. I’m sorry. Madame won’t allow it.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I’ll pay you for your time, just not for that. It…it doesn’t feel right anymore. That’s not what you are to me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she muttered, thinking it was hard to hear him past her racing heart. She didn’t want trouble. Didn’t want to make him angry.
“I mean, I’ll pay for tonight, but I only wanted to see you. To tell you that today was…” His big hand rose in a feeble wave. “It was nice.”
Nice? That was what he’d come to say? Tears burned her eyes. Relief kept her heart beating fast for a few moments before it settled down.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry again,” he whispered. “Melisande.” When she closed her eyes, his hand cupped her cheek and wiped her tears away. “Do you want me to go?”
“No. No, I just… You don’t have to pretend you don’t want sex.”
“I’m not pretending any such thing. I want you. Badly.”
“I don’t understand. You can have me.”
“I don’t want to buy you. And if you get pregnant…”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t what?”
“Have babies. Not since I was fourteen. I had one taken out of me and it took months for the bleeding to stop. I’ve never caught since.”
He nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face. “It just doesn’t feel right. Not like this. You’re on my mind every day. I wonder if you’re well, if you’re happy. Laugh if you want.”
“Why would I laugh?” she whispered. She had to duck her head then, because she couldn’t control the tears. She didn’t know why she was crying now any more than she had earlier, but Bill pulled her to his chest and held her. Again.
“I’m just a whore,” she whispered into his chest. His heat seeped through their layers of clothing and into her skin. He gathered her up and took her to the ugly cushioned chair that sat in the corner of her room farthest from the window. The fabric was stained and faded, so she kept it as far from the light as possible. But she was thankful for the chair today when Bill settled her onto his lap and let her curl close to him.
“That ain’t true,�
�� he said. “You’re not just a whore.”
“How would you know? It’s all I’ve ever been. All I’ve been since I was thirteen. Maybe even since I was born.”
His hand stroked down her back, and she wished he’d let her take her corset off so she could feel his fingers slide along her spine. “Were you a whore today at church? Or sitting next to the river? Or eating that gingerbread faster than I did?”
Her laugh surprised her, hiccupping out between tears.
“Were you a whore when you took me to bed today?” This question was less certain, the words low and careful.
She shook her head. “No.” That was the truth. “It wasn’t like that.”
His mouth brushed softly over the crown of her head. “Have you never had a beau?”
“Never.”
“Would you have me?”
Melisande sat up, pulling back so she could look into his deep brown eyes. “How can you see me that way?”
She’d heard other whores speak of sweethearts, but she’d assumed those men were only out for free goods. Some of the women even had husbands, but those men must have been long gone for their women to find work in a brothel. Melisande had never considered the possibility of a relationship at all.
“My da’ run off when I was six,” Bill said. “Or maybe someone knifed him on the docks and tossed him in the water. Whatever happened, he never did come home. All us boys were put to work, and my mother did whatever she could to make money. I think whoring was the only thing she didn’t do, but there were plenty of women on our block who did. The same women who took me in on cold days and fed me a scrap of bread and hot tea along with their own kids. I never saw any difference in them. They worked the same as us all. Kept their kids from starving.”
“But you wouldn’t…I mean, you didn’t love them.”
“They were a sight older than me,” he said wryly.
Melisande laughed again and let herself settle back against his chest. She felt safe with him. Cared for. How was she supposed to say no to that? “When could I see you if you won’t come here?”
“Do you get a day off?”
“I can leave anytime in the mornings, I suppose. No one would care. But you’re working.”
“Not on Sundays.”
“Do you have a room?” she asked.
“Over in the First Ward, but you don’t have to—”
“I’ll come there. This Sunday.”
He gave her the address and told her how to find his room, and then he held her, his heart beating strong against her ear. Melisande closed her eyes and stayed curled into him as long as she dared. And when she went downstairs to work, she didn’t even see the men who took her back up. All she let herself picture was Bill.
Chapter 4
‡
Melisande had been looking forward to Sunday all week. She hadn’t seen Bill since that night in her room, but she’d thought of him every day, every hour. Wondered how he could look at her and see a sweetheart.
Saturday night had lasted far too long, as it always did. Few men had to work on Sunday, and that meant the girls worked until they collapsed into soiled beds at four a.m. But Melisande didn’t go to sleep. She heated water in the darkened kitchen and filled a metal tub so she could soak away every man who’d touched her.
She washed her hair and then sat next to the hearth to rub fragrant oil into her skin. Instead of pulling her hair back in its normal tight bun, she coiled it into several twists that ended between her shoulder blades. She’d cut it short once in protest of the long curls her mother had made her wear for customers, selling her as a beautiful octoroon girl. A lie, like most everything else. Her grandmother had been a dark-skinned cook in an ambassador’s home, though whoever her grandfather was, he’d been white. Melisande’s father had been light-skinned, but not light-skinned enough, apparently. Her mother had rubbed Melisande’s skin with potions once a week to try to brighten her up, and Melisande could still smell the burning as her mother had pressed her hair with hot tongs.
Still, Melisande had missed her hair once she’d cut it. She’d been growing it out since, but it wasn’t vanity, really. She still hid it in a bun. Today she didn’t want it hidden. Today it was something that belonged only to her, and she wanted Bill to see it.
She ironed the green cotton dress she’d washed the day before, then worked the twists of her hair loose until the curls brushed her shoulders when she moved.
Would Bill like it? She’d convinced herself he would, but now that she was almost ready, doubt seized her. Maybe he liked her smoothed down and as white as possible. Maybe he’d prefer to pretend she wasn’t who she was.
Best to find out now, though. Best to be disappointed early.
She dressed in her room and draped the shawl carefully over her head as if she were only going to church as usual. Last, she took the shell necklace from its hiding spot in her dresser and tied it around her neck.
Bill’s place was a twenty-minute walk away, and she tried her best to enjoy the beautiful pink light of the rising sun as she made her way through neighborhoods she wouldn’t dare enter in the dark. When she got close to his street, she stopped at a bakery and bought warm croissants to surprise him.
Perhaps he wasn’t expecting her so early, but she didn’t want just an hour with him. She wanted as long as she could get. She wanted to pretend she never had to go back.
When she found his building, she hurried along the rows of tall, shuttered windows until she reached the fifth set and knocked softly. Holding her breath, she waited for the shutters to part, her heart thumping hard with fear. After an eternity passed, she knocked harder, wincing at the sound. This time, the shutters opened, and there he was, mouth widening in a smile when he saw her.
“Am I too early?” she whispered.
He reached out to help her step over the low sill and into his room. “Never.” Once he closed the shutters, there was only a lamp to light them, but his room looked clean and spare. “I was still getting ready,” he said, as if he were embarrassed to be caught in his shirtsleeves. “I thought we’d walk along the river again. Get something—”
“I brought breakfast,” she interrupted, holding up the paper-wrapped pastries. “I hoped we could eat them here. Unless you’re worried we’ll be caught.”
He glanced toward the bed. “I’m not worried. No women allowed in rooms, but everyone ignores that rule. I just thought you’d like to do something special.”
“This is special,” she said quietly.
Bill held her gaze for a long moment. “Yes, it is.”
He took the package from her and set it on his dresser, and then he framed her face in his hands and kissed her. That was all it took. Just a simple brush of their lips and she was melting into him, opening her mouth, needing him inside.
She wanted to make him as happy as he’d made her. Bring him more pleasure than he’d ever known. That was what he’d done for her, so Melisande held nothing back. She kissed him and stroked his shoulders and arms and chest. She reached for his buttons and had his trousers open in seconds. She wasn’t only happy to let him have his way with her—she was hungry for him. Starving. It felt so odd to crave a man, like a beast was stretching awake inside her.
She kissed her way down his neck and over the furred strength of his chest. She bit lightly at his skin, loving the way his belly jumped at the sensation.
When she pulled his clothing down, his cock sprang free, already thick with arousal.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” he growled when she went to her knees.
“Yes, it is,” she said, and then she slipped her tongue under his crown and let his cock slide inside her.
His breath left him as if he’d been punched, but he recovered enough to say her name as she took him deeper into her mouth. Of course he wanted this. They all did, usually even more than fucking. But for the first time, Melisande truly wanted it too.
She let him feel her eagerness as she sucked at him, drawing him dee
per, sliding him along her tongue. He was all she could taste and smell, but instead of feeling suffocated, she felt filled with him in the best way.
His protest seemed quickly forgotten in the pleasure. He cupped one hand gently to the back of her head, not pulling or pressing, but just cradling her as she slid up and down his cock. “Melisande…that feels so good.”
Yes. She wanted him to feel good. Wanted him to need her as much as she now needed him. This sweetness he’d given her…it was awful. Too powerful.
She wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and stroked him in rhythm with her sucking mouth. His knees buckled a little. His hips thrust toward her. “Ah, God,” he groaned. “You’ll make me finish too soon.”
But she wanted him to finish. She wanted to give him that. She wanted to lie tangled in bed with him afterward, teasing and stroking until he needed her again.
His fingers curled deeper into her hair. “Melisande,” he growled, a warning, as if she didn’t want this.
She drew his cock deeper, rubbing her tongue over his shaft as his breathing grew ragged. “Christ,” he rasped. “I can’t…”
She felt the force of his climax throb through his cock, and then his seed filled her mouth. She swallowed it, swallowed him, as he pulsed against her tongue.
When he was done, she let him slide gently from her mouth. She wiped her lips on her sleeve and looked up to find him staring at her, his eyes dark and dazed. “You’re still dressed,” he said, as if surprised to find her so.
She laughed. “I am. Did you want to go for a stroll, or shall we stay here and eat breakfast in bed?”
“Breakfast,” he muttered before he turned and collapsed next to her. “I couldn’t walk if I wanted.”
They undressed and slipped beneath the blankets to warm each other. “The croissants,” she said, starting to brave the chill of his room again, but Bill pulled her back down. “Not yet. This first…”
Angel: an erotic short story Page 3
