She felt a moment of surprise that he was ready again so soon, but then his hand slipped over her hip and touched between her legs. She was as wet for him as she’d been last time, and when he stroked her, she moaned her pleasure.
He touched her gently at first, then more firmly when she pressed up for more. His fingers teased her, discovering sensitive spots that made her thighs fall open. “That’s it,” he whispered into her ear as she rocked up in rhythm with his hand. “That’s it.”
It was all so sweet and slow. He didn’t rush. He never even pushed his fingers inside her. He just stroked and circled and teased until she finally gasped in shock and pressed a hand to her mouth to cover her cry. Her hips spasmed, shaking with the climax that rolled over her again and again.
He murmured into her ear that she was beautiful. That she was perfect.
She calmed until it seemed she could fall asleep just like that if only she wouldn’t resent the hours wasted on sleeping.
Melisande opened her eyes to find him watching her. “Why do you want that?” she asked.
“Want what?”
“To bring me pleasure.”
Frowning, he stroked a curl of hair back from her face. “How could I not want that?”
She didn’t have an answer to such a strange question, so she kissed him for a good long while and then, unwilling to leave the bed, stretched as far as she could until she caught hold of the pastries. Bill tugged her safely back to the bed, and they propped themselves against the wall to eat.
“Are you cold?” he asked, but she was fine now, his body like a furnace next to hers. “Do you need to leave soon?”
She shook her head. “I can stay for hours. We could have lunch, even.” Catching herself, she tried to take it back. “But I’m sure you don’t have time. If—”
“I have all day, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and he rewarded her with one of his rare smiles. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be, either.”
They ate in silence for a time, getting crumbs all over his pile of worn blankets, but the quiet was nice. Comfortable. She felt warmer than she had all winter.
“Melisande,” he finally said. “The reason I like bringing you pleasure is because I care for you.”
She nodded, breaking off another piece of croissant to eat.
“It’s not just the sex. I like talking to you after. The way you lean into me. The truth is, I love you.”
She froze, blinking in shock, then struggled to swallow the tiny piece of pastry. “You don’t even know me,” she managed to say.
“I do. I know you’re afraid of mice, and honeysuckle’s your favorite flower, and you hate the taste of beer, and you broke your little finger when you were a girl and it still aches sometimes.”
Had she told him all that? She couldn’t recall. She remembered lying there with him in her room and talking in the dark, but she didn’t remember the words.
“I don’t want you to go back,” he said.
“What…what do you mean?”
“You don’t have to work there anymore. You could stay with me. I could get a bigger place.”
She heard her mother’s voice in her head, telling her to jump at the offer. She could be a whore for one man instead of hundreds. Hardly even a whore at all. She shook her head. “If I left there, what would I do?”
“Just be my girl, I guess.”
“I…I’ve only got another ten years of work left. A little more if I’m lucky. I need to save what I can or I won’t have a chance after.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
Would he? For how long? Her throat felt parched. “Men leave,” she whispered. “You know that as well as I.”
“I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Bill…” She pressed a hand to his cheek and studied his eyes. He didn’t look pleading. He looked sincere. “You’ll want to get married someday. Have children. I can’t depend on you. I have to take care of myself.”
He took her hand and wrapped it in his. “We could marry.”
She tugged her hand back. “You’re insane. We can’t marry. We’d be hard pressed even to find a room to share.”
“We can marry in Kansas. Or farther north.”
He wanted to marry her? That made no sense. She felt dizzy at the idea. Confused and…terrified. “We can’t.”
“We could if you wanted. If you think you could love me back.”
This was madness. “But I’m a whore. And you’re white. And I can’t even have babies, so what would be the point?”
“The point would be that you wouldn’t have to fear me leaving.”
“That wouldn’t make a difference! No one would bat an eye at you leaving a black wife behind. Who would even care?”
“I would.”
“Bill…” What could she say to this man, who watched her so steadily as he proposed sweet, ridiculous things? Her heart beat so hard she thought it might break free from her chest and leave her for good. He loved her? She’d never imagined anyone could.
She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed slowly, trying to quiet her heart. “Maybe I love you already,” she whispered. “Just for asking. But I can’t put my life in someone else’s hands. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was a girl. And you…you’ll find a wife someday. Have kids. I’ll want you to. You should have that.”
When he took her hand again, she opened her eyes. “I was married already,” he said.
She drew back in shock. “You’re married?”
“She died back in Norfolk. She was twenty. I was nineteen. I loved her like nothing else in this world. She was the only other person I’ve felt peace with like I do with you.”
Her heart clenched. She tightened her grip on his hand. “What happened?”
“She got pregnant. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. She’s the one who taught me how to touch a woman. We were…happy together that way.”
Melisande nodded, picturing a younger, eager version of him. He must have made a lovely husband.
“Everything seemed fine, and then one day it wasn’t. She got headaches. Her feet swelled. In the end, she started having fits. Seizures. The worst one killed her. Happens to some women when it gets close to their time, the doctor said.”
“I’m sorry.” Her throat thickened with tears when she saw that Bill’s eyes were damp. “I’m so sorry.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I never thought I’d get over it. Never thought I’d marry again. When the need for a woman got too bad, I’d go to a brothel. Not often. Not until you.”
She tipped her face up and kissed him gently. “I’m glad I brought you some peace, then.”
“You did. But the thought of having babies… I know that’s all some men want, but that ain’t something I dream of, Melisande. It scares me half to death.”
She pressed a hand to her belly. It had scared her too, when she’d come up pregnant at fourteen. After that, not being able to have a baby had made her life simpler, but she knew anyone else would say it was one more thing that made her less than other women.
“So you’re saying you don’t want me if I keep whoring?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“Then can’t we just have this?” she pled. “On Sunday mornings? Something to look forward to?”
“Yes. As long as you know I’m aiming for more. I won’t lie about that.”
She looked down at their hands clasped together, unable to meet his gaze. “Anything more than this scares me.”
“Why?” he pressed, his thumb stroking hers.
“Because wanting something makes it powerful. You could hurt me. Badly.”
“I never would,” he promised, but everything she felt for him already hurt, didn’t it?
Chapter 5
‡
By Tuesday afternoon, her Sunday with Bill felt like a world she’d left behind years before. Melisande sighed so often over her lunch that one of the other gi
rls asked if she was sick.
No, she wasn’t sick. She was only in love.
She’d read stories of romance in books and had always thought it foolish. Drivel written by women who had no idea what their husbands were up to outside the house. But now when she wasn’t with Bill, she missed him. Anytime she wasn’t occupied—and often when she was—she thought of him.
Work was unbearable. All she wanted to do was sneer at every man who touched her, knock his hands away, so she could get back to remembering that morning in Bill’s room.
Five more days before she’d see him again, and then only for a short time. But she couldn’t indulge his fantasy that she could leave this place. Even if he could afford a larger place without her income, they’d be hard pressed to find someone to rent to them. And there’d always be people around who wouldn’t like it. He could lose his job. His friends. Surely he wouldn’t want her for long if he lost everything else.
And then there was money. This was the only work Melisande knew. Even if she could find work as a maid or some such, she wouldn’t earn half as much as she did now, and she’d have to depend on a man who wasn’t her husband to provide the rest.
If she walked away from this, she wouldn’t be a whore, but she’d have even less than she did now.
Sighing again, she got up from the table and cleaned her plate, nearly making it out of the kitchen before Madame called her name. Melisande winced and stopped, waiting to see what the woman wanted. It was never anything good.
“Melisande,” she snapped, “take this girl up to the empty room.”
She turned to find Madame standing with a girl who looked a few years younger than Melisande. She was striking, slender and delicate and dark-skinned, with a full mouth that blossomed into an easy smile.
Madame seemed unmoved by the girl’s cheerful demeanor. “Work starts in an hour,” she told the girl. “And the doctor comes the first Monday of every month to be sure you’re clean and not with child. If you come up pregnant, you can get rid of it or keep working until you can’t earn enough. Then you’ll have to go.”
“Yes, Madame,” the girl chirped. She must be brand-new to be so happy.
“Melisande will show you your room.”
Melisande waited for the girl to cross the kitchen, then led her down the hall toward the staircase. “The maids bring clean sheets every morning,” she explained. “You make your own bed and see to your own clothing.”
“That’s nice. We only got sheets twice a week at my last place.”
“You been working long?”
“About a year.”
Maybe her personality would sustain her through this life, but Melisande imagined some of her friendliness would fade soon. After a year of whoring, Melisande had still thought maybe she’d get out of it. She didn’t believe it anymore, not even with Bill there asking for just that.
“I’m Louise,” the girl said just as Melisande put a foot to the first stair. She glanced back to see Louise’s hand outstretched. “Louise Dupart.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said carefully. “I’m Melisande Angelle.” She shook the girl’s hand and then led the way up the stairs.
“Angelle,” Louise repeated. “There was a kitchen woman named Angelle at my old house.”
Melisande’s heart stuttered for a quick moment. “Marie?” she asked casually.
“That’s right. Marie Angelle.”
“My mother,” she said as they reached the top of the stairs. Instead of turning right toward her own room, she turned left.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Louise said breathlessly.
Melisande huffed out a laugh. “Was she that bad?”
“No! I just meant I’m sorry she passed.”
Melisande’s feet froze. Her heart stopped as well. Strangely, it still felt as if she were moving, the hallway sliding past her vision. “What do you mean?”
“She passed. In April. Didn’t you…?”
She felt the girl’s hand settle lightly on her shoulder. “My mother’s dead?” she managed to ask.
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head, and Louise’s hand tightened on her shoulder. Then the girl’s whole arm was around her. “I’m so sorry.”
Melisande shook her head and took a deep breath before she stepped out of Louise’s embrace and continued on toward the last room. “How did she go?” she asked without even meaning to. What did it matter?
Louise’s feet scrambled to catch up, kicking up too much noise on the wood floor. Melisande’s ears rang.
“She got a cold that settled in her lungs. Never did stop smoking those cheroots, though.”
That brought back a sudden, vivid memory of her mother with a cheroot clasped in one hand and a hairbrush in the other, laughing so hard at something her sister had said that she couldn’t catch her breath. That was before she and Melisande’s aunt had fallen out because Marie had put Melisande up for sale.
Life had been almost sweet then. Not easy, but they’d had two rooms to live in, and her mother had kept Melisande’s door locked tight at night while she plied her trade. She’d even had a rich man to support her for a time after Melisande’s father had run off.
Melisande didn’t remember her father at all, though her mother claimed they’d been married for six years.
“Are you all right?” Louise asked as Melisande stopped in the doorway of the only empty room in the house.
“Do you know where she’s buried?” Melisande asked.
The girl shook her head. “You should ask at the house. Maybe they’ll know.” Louise named a house on the other side of town, and Melisande thanked her before waving the girl into the room.
“This is all yours. May need to air it out. It’s been empty a few weeks. Other girl left to have a baby.”
She didn’t hear Louise’s response as she turned to retreat to her own room.
Melisande shut her door and sat down hard on the bed. Her mother was dead. She didn’t know what to feel. Melisande had hated her mother. But she’d loved her too. So much. Her mother had been her world when she’d been young. And then she’d been the one who’d turned Melisande into a whore.
Despite that she hadn’t seen her in so long, it felt strange to think her mother wasn’t here. She was gone. There was no chance they’d someday reconcile. No chance Melisande could search her out if she needed her.
She didn’t know how long she sat on that bed, but by the time she lifted her head, she could hear the other girls starting to get ready. Calling out to each other for hair clips or screaming about a borrowed dress. That meant it was after four. There’d be customers soon.
Melisande looked around, trying to remember which of her dresses was clean, thinking to herself that it was a special night and she’d need a pretty dress. She couldn’t remember why, though, and her eyes wouldn’t settle on anything. What could be special about yet another night of letting strangers grunt themselves to release on top of her?
When she scrubbed a hand over her face, her fingers shook. If one of these men touched her tonight, she would snap in two. She’d cease to be Melisande. They’d grab her and call her “girl” and that’s who she’d be. A girl with no family, no mother, no friends, no love.
But there was Bill. And right now, all she wanted to do was find him. Tell him she’d lost her mother. Ask why she felt so empty about it. His mother was dead, his brothers all scattered. Maybe he’d have an answer. Or maybe he’d just pick her up and hold her again. How had she lived so long without that?
Without even realizing she’d made the decision, she stood and grabbed her shawl to wrap it around her head and shoulders. She was already wearing her drabbest, most thread-worn dress, so she didn’t need to worry about attracting attention in the streets.
She slipped silently down the stairs and out the front door without Madame seeing, though Melisande had no doubt the other girls would report it to her. Even if they did, she wouldn’t be put out on the street. Not for walking away for on
e night. But Madame would expect payment regardless of whether Melisande had worked or not.
She had money saved. She was getting old enough to know she couldn’t do this forever, and she’d started setting cash aside. But she’d been cutting her nights short lately and hadn’t added to her savings at all. A night’s pay to Madame would eat up too much of it.
Yet she couldn’t work right now. She couldn’t.
The cold snap had passed, and Melisande was sweating by the time she reached the place where Louise had worked before. Marie Angelle hadn’t been a whore for years, but she’d never ventured far from it, apparently. Or maybe she’d picked up a few cheap customers behind the kitchen. Melisande would never know. She stole into the alley and knocked at the open back door.
The place was big. A little finer than Melisande’s house. The kitchen was a fairly busy place, women rushing by as steam curled from large pots. Apparently men treated this house as their supper club. Her lip curled, imagining them coming to the girls with greasy fingers and beards that smelled of oyster stew.
An older woman with a spoon in her hand finally noticed Melisande standing there. “Help you?”
Melisande swallowed hard. “Did you know a woman named Marie? Marie Angelle?”
“Sure. Worked with her here for two years.”
“Do you happen to know where she’s buried?”
The woman looked her up and down and stepped closer. “You her daughter?”
Melisande drew back in surprise. Somehow she’d assumed her mother would’ve tried her best to forget their connection, just as Melisande had. “That’s right.”
“I’m Clara. You look a lot like her.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t heard that in so long, she’d forgotten how common an exclamation it had been.
“They took her to Charity Hospital,” Clara said, tipping her chin toward the door as if it had just happened. “I imagine she’s buried back there.”
Of course. Where else would she have been buried except the Potter’s Field of Charity Hospital? “Thank you,” she murmured as the woman turned to get back to work.
Angel: an erotic short story Page 4
