Clean Linens and Two Meals a Day pt 2

Fancy stared at Mr. James Hutton, one of the richest men in the city. A man capable of taking away everything she had just gained. “Liza,” she called, keeping her voice firm and loud.  She wasn’t about to let this man see one ounce of weakness in her.

“I’m Ms. Fancy O’Connor,” she said primly, sitting down on the narrow sofa and waving that he sit as well.  He remained standing.

Liza poked her head into the room from the door leading to the kitchen. “What?” she asked, not trying in the slightest to act like proper ‘help.’

“Could you bring out some tea for our guest?”

“I just did!”

“Our other guest,” Fancy said, trying not to feel dismayed.

Liza glanced at Mr. Hutton. “Oh. Alright.”

Mr. Hutton gave Fancy a withering glare. “This is the type of business you’re running for my son? Where did he find you anyway, Ms. Fancy O’Connor? On the street?” No, he came straight to my door, she thought, but didn’t say a word as he continued to speak. “I gave my son that money as a gift of good faith. The boy needs to learn how to take care of himself, and I thought he had the good sense to invest in something practical! Stocks in the Werner company have been rising…but I doubt you would know anything about that.”

“No, I don’t imagine I would.”

“So when I found out he had bought a Storyville shack—“

“Begging your pardon, Sir, but this house is in Old Town,” she responded.  “Just like your own home.”

“Do you think anyone of quality comes this far south, madam?

Madam. She wished he would stop saying that word. His meaning for it and hers were so vastly different, no doubt he hadn’t the slightest idea of what he was insinuating.

“This is a respectable boarding house,” she assured.  “We’re boarding university students,” she added, which was not a lie.

“Is that so? You have a whole gaggle of youths upstairs then?”

“N-no…” she admitted. “A girl.”

“A girl.”  His face was growing pink with anger or annoyance. “My son will not be associated with co-eds.”

“Yes I will.” Will said from the doorway. In her discomfort with his father Fancy hadn’t noticed him come in. He walked into the room with a tall defiance that (though he doubted he was aware of it) mimicked his father perfectly. For a moment Fancy saw Will as the great man he was going to be, instead of the boy-virgin who had come to her last summer begging for attention. “You shouldn’t be here, Father,” he said.

“No, I shouldn’t,” Mr. Hutton agreed. “But you seem to have given me no choice. What the hell were you thinking?  Is this a plot to get me to allow you to simply fritter away your trust fund with no thought of responsibility?  This house—”

“Will not bring a high return, no,” Will interrupted, which caused his father to grow from pink to red. “But it will be in the black as soon as Mr. O’Connor fills the rooms. It’s good for the community. There aren’t a lot of affordable housing options for the working poor.”

“Charity?” his father questioned. “You waste my money on charity?”

“It’s my money, father. You gave it to me.”

“Not a mistake I’ll be making again,” the older man assured.

He left without saying another word, a flash of cashmere and gold, and Will immediately fell onto the sofa next to Fancy, melting next to her. “That was terrifying,” he admitted.

“You were wonderful,” Fancy assured, reaching out to stroke his face.  He smiled and pulled her towards him, initiating a kiss that started small and grateful, only to grow in passion.

They were interrupted by Liza putting down the tea tray in front of them with a loud clink. “I thought I was making tea for the scary rich guy,” she said, not even hiding her annoyance.

“We need to work on your table-side manners,” Fancy said to her niece. “Go…clean something. Earn your keep.”

Liza made an exasperated noise and shuffled off.

“Are you in very big trouble?” Fancy asked Will.

“Not big trouble,” he assured. “But not small either. My father has very exact ideas on the kind of people the Huttons are supposed to be, you know.”

“I can imagine.”

“Even though before Karstenhaven became…what it is today…do you know what we were? Grocers!” he laughed. “Can you believe it? That’s why he’s so concerned.”

“Because having comfortably middle class ancestors is such a social stigma,” Fancy said.

“Never mind him. I’m happy with what I’ve done. And now I have a perfect excuse not to go home.”

“You mean?”

“Fancy, may I sleep next to you tonight?”

***

The next morning Liza was less than amused when Fancy and Will insisted on eating breakfast in her parlor instead of eating in the dining room with Miss Ariadne Gill, leaving her alone with their only resident as she served her eggs and potatoes.   “Where’s Ms. O’ Connor?” their oblivious tenant asked as Liza poured coffee.

“Having a lie-in,” Liza replied.  She knew she needed to be nicer, but it was just so hard. “Is everything satisfactory, Miss Gill?” There. That’s better.

“Please, call me Ari,” the other girl said.  “We’re about the same age, I think. It’s silly to address each other as though we’re our elders. I’m from the country. We don’t take to all these city manners.”

“Neither do I,” Liza admitted, a warmth spreading through her against her will.

“And I love my room,” Ari said. “And the food is…interesting.”

The warmth Liza felt vanished. She knew she was a terrible cook. She didn’t need it thrown in her face. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

Apparently Ari decided she was done insulting Liza’s cooking, because the next time she went into the dining room she found only an empty plate and mug.  She gathered the dirty dishes and took them back, trying desperately not to be annoyed.  She didn’t mind the work—cooking and cleaning was so easy (and safe) compared to back-breaking factory work, but she really didn’t handle being nice outside of Storyville.

In Storyville everyone was poor, everyone was struggling (except for the nightclub owners and the drug dealers and pimps). Out here in the real world though, there were girls just like her wearing nice dresses and going to the university, or spending their days shopping and gossiping instead of earning a days’ wages.  It wasn’t fair and it made her uncomfortable. Why had Will, for example, been born into luxury, where one’s father gave them enough money to buy houses, while she and Fancy were forced to do vile things (like Manny) simply to have something to eat?

Fancy came into the kitchen, Will trailing behind her with their empty tray. He wore the same clothes from the day before, slightly rumpled, but he wasn’t ashamed to have spent the night, and neither was Fancy.  Liza didn’t know what to think of Will. He was rich, young and kind…yes, he was handicapped, but any girl would be happy to overlook it for everything else.  Yet he had latched on to Fancy, of all people.

Liza wasn’t complaining—her life had certainly took a turn for the better, but he was so strange…

“I have a job for you,” Fancy told Liza. “I need you to go downtown to a print shop.”  She gave Liza a dollar coin and a piece of paper. “Have them make up two hundred half-sheet fliers with that information.” She glanced at Will. “We need to fill these rooms before Will starts to lose money.”

Liza nodded. “Am I passing out the fliers too?”

“Yes,” Fancy said. “In Cheapside.”

“I know you can do this,” Will said to Fancy, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close. "I believe in you."

“Ugh,” Liza said. “Get a room.”  She scraped the dishes into the garbage pail and began to fill the sink while he nuzzled her aunt.  At least it wasn’t Storyville.

****

A/N:
And so the class war begins!  Author insight: The whole Fancy/Will relationship stems from my desire to be a cougar when I hit my 40's.  Liza's mood comes directly from how I feel when I'm at work.  I spent the first 28 years of my life in a neighborhood full of working class poor.  Now I'm still working class poor, but I'm doing it in a middle-class neighborhood. Drives me nuts.

Clean Linens and Two Meals a Day pt 1

“It’s not a bad ad, is it?” Fancy asked Liza, studying the wanted column of the paper.  She had placed it herself. “Dewdrop Inn: Short and Long Term Boarding. Clean Linens, two meals a day. Shared WC. Electric lights.  $8.50 per week.”  She looked up at Liza, sitting at the kitchen table with pots of white and blue paint, carefully tracing the lettering of their new sign.  “That’s good, right?”

“I’d pay it if I could afford it,” Liza said. “Indoor plumbing and food? What’s not to like?”

“I’ve posted the advert in the paper every day this week, and nothing!” Before Liza could reply Fancy comforted herself, “It’ll be better once the sign is up.” 

What if she failed? What if, at the age of 41, the only thing she was good for was laying on her back with her legs in the air?

“The sign will help,” Liza assured. “It’s good, isn’t it?” Liza asked, admiring her handiwork.  The girl had always done well with a pencil and a piece of paper. Painting signs was a little different, but the results were satisfactory.  “Maybe I’ll be a famous painter one day.”

“Maybe,” Fancy said. “You can take care of me when I’m old.”

“Isn’t that what your beau is for?” Liza teased.

“Will is not—” Fancy began, only to be interrupted by the doorbell. 

Liza jumped at the unexpected sound and smeared the second ‘d’ in ‘Dewdrop.’ “Damn it,” she muttered.

“No swearing in front of the guests,” Fancy warned, and hurried to open the door.

The young woman standing on the doorstep was pretty and well dressed in a simple brown wool coat hanging open over a purple dress with a high lace collar and a plain hat.  She carried a carpet bag with both leather-gloved hands and had a copy of the Morning Gazette shoved under one arm.  “I’m here about the room?”

Fancy noted her rural accent and the carpet bag.  “New in town?” she asked.

The young woman winced. “Am I that obvious?”

“Come in,” she said instead of answering, leading the prospective tenant to the main sitting room.   It was larger than Fancy’s private room, with less dilapidated furniture, a half-full book case, and a chess set on a table near the fireplace. She thought it was a nice, homey room, and the woman looked around with wide-eyed curiosity.  “My name is Fan—Ms. O’Connor,” she amended, uncomfortable with her last name.

“Miss Ariadne Gill,” her visitor said.  “I’m starting at the university next week.”

Fancy’s eyebrows went up at this information.  The university had only just decided to take female students for the winter term.  To end up with one of the mere twelve brave girls in her parlor—“That is very impressive, Miss Gill,” she said.

“Because as a girl I was smart enough to get in?” Miss Gill asked with an edge to her voice that surprised Fancy.

“Because,” she answered gently, “you were brave enough to try.”

Miss Gill relaxed all at once and sat down on the sofa.  “You’re the first one to tell me so,” she answered.  “I have to confess, this house is a little far out of the way of the university.”  Fancy agreed—while it was a direct route to the University of Karstenhaven, it was a long one even by the trolley.  “But as soon as I told the other landladies why I was here they weren’t so interested in renting to me.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“Because I knew there had to be someone out there who believes women in the school can bring nothing but good, and I was determined to find her! May I have a room please?”

“I can show it to you right away,” Fancy said, doing her best to look composed as they stood and she led the young woman upstairs.  Her first tenant. She could do this. She had to.

Ari’s head ached, she was exhausted from wandering around the city all day after a long train ride in from the country.  She wasn’t too happy Ms. O’Connor was taking her up to the third floor either, but when they stepped into the room she found it to be clean and spacious with cheerful red curtains and a colorful quilt on the bed. A perfect room. She thought she would burst into tears of happiness. “Can I stay tonight?” she asked.

The landlady nodded. “It’s eight-fifty a week, due at the beginning of the week.”  She looked a little nervous as she said this, as though eight dollars and fifty cents was an impossible number.  It was just as well that the other boarding houses wouldn’t take her—The Dewdrop Inn was barely in her budget while the houses closer to the school were asking ten or even twelve.  Maybe living so far away from the university wasn’t a bad thing.

Ari set her carpet bag down on a little table in front of the window and stood blocking Ms. O’Connor’s view.  The roll of dollars in her bag was an uncomfortable amount to carry around. She hoped there would be a suitable hiding place for the money that would have to last her the entire half-year. She peeled off eight dollar bills and retrieved the half-dollar from her coat pocket.  “Here,” she said, handing over the money. She noticed Ms. O’Connor’s hand shook as she took it.

“Thank you,” the landlady said.  “Dinner is served every night at six, breakfast at seven.  The linens are washed every Thursday.  If you want extra meals or laundry service it can be arranged for a fee.”

“That sounds just fine,” Ari said, a weight lifting from her chest.

Ms. O’Connor smiled and left Ari on her own.  She looked around the room. Aside from the bed and nightstand there was a wash stand, the table her bag rested on, and a row of hooks on one wall for her clothes. Over the hooks was a shelf.  She stashed her money under the mattress and put away her clothes.  There was a hook behind the door for her coat and hat, and soon enough the room was lived in.

The last thing she removed from her bag was a thick, tattered copy of Anatomy of the Human Body by Henry Grey.  It was the 1862 edition, ancient and no doubt full of errors, but as a farmer’s daughter she had never gotten a chance to view a newer version. She had bought it out of the back of the book wagon that came through town every summer with her birthday dime when she was ten, and had spent the last decade memorizing it.

Twelve women and girls had been admitted into the University gates, but they were only allowed into the College of Liberal Arts.  Ari could study Literature, Latin, and French. She could take Maths.  She could not take Physics, or Engineering, or, her true love, Biology and Medical Science.

“There’s a perfectly good nursing school if you must go to the city, but no one is going to make you a doctor!” her mother had complained the day Ari announced she intended to take the entrance exam, but it was the university or nothing.  Once in the school she could, at the very least, sit in on as many medical and science classes as possible.  She would learn the secrets Karstenhaven had kept to itself for a hundred and ten years: the animation of mechanical limbs attached to flesh, the transplantation of organs from one creature (even people) to the other, and, if the stories were true, bringing the dead back to life.

“You’re willing to bankrupt your father for some pipe-dream?” her mother had asked, but it was a silly thing to say. Her father recognized, in the eyes of his ten year old daughter, a thirst for knowledge that couldn’t be quenched. Both he and Ari herself had been saving for the day she would leave to go to school for many years.

Ari touched the cover of her most prized possession, preparing to flip through the familiar pages yet again, when a knock sounded on the door.  “Come in,” she said, turning to see her visitor.

It was a sour-faced girl in a dull black dress carrying a tea tray with a pot and a plate of scones. “Fancy thought you could use this,” she said, crossing the room to set it down next to the book. Ari snatched it up protectively.  “No charge since you paid for today but missed breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Ari said, and then, “Who’s Fancy?”

“My aunt.”

“You mean Ms. O’Connor? That’s an…interesting name.”

The girl frowned. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ariadne Gill,” she answered. She had always been proud of her name, growing up in a community of Marys and Janes and Ethels.

The serving girl didn’t try to hide her laugh. “Don’t think you can go making fun of people’s names.”

“What’s yours?” Ari asked, trying to ignore her rudeness. It was, she supposed, the price she had to pay for cheap lodging.

“Liza,” she answered. “Enjoy the tea.”

What an unpleasant girl, Ari thought, but as soon as Liza was gone she pounced on the tray, finding herself ravenous.  The cheese scones were dry and rather tasteless, the tea over-brewed and bitter, but at that moment she didn’t care.

She had made it.  She was in Karstenhaven.  Now she just had to figure out how to make her mark on it.

Fancy buzzed with excited anticipation.  It was Saturday and Will usually pretended to go to his club on Saturdays, instead slipping away to spend a few hours with her.  She had a tenant at last, and was too eager to tell him so.

Not long after she had sent Liza grudgingly upstairs with a snack for Miss Gill she heard the front door open.  Will never rang the bell.  But the footsteps in the hall were too heavy to belong to Will, and the visitor did not call to announce his presence.

Fancy moved with speed, snatching up the poker from beside the fire place, and flew into the hallway only to be greeted by the most imposing man she had ever encountered.

Twenty-five years a whore, Fancy was not unaccustomed to large men, violent men, or men who were angry with the world. But not one of them exuded power like the man in front of her.   The Prince of Cats acted like he was the benevolent savior to the world. The foremen at Liza’s factory jobs were nothing more than bullies who enjoyed beating on those weaker than themselves.  No one Fancy had ever met could compare to this man. Average in height, he seemed taller, and the well-cut cashmere suit made his frame appear strong. A gold-topped walking stick and expensive silk hat gave her the impression a very rich man was standing in her hall, and his steely blue eyes told her he always got his way.  “Who are you?” he demanded, and she was so cowed by his appearance she almost answered, but she caught herself and gripped the poker tighter.

“Who the fresh hell are you?” she swore instead. “Get out of my house.”

“Your house?”  He strode past her and into the resident parlor, and she couldn’t manage to find the courage to hit him with the poker, though she desperately wanted to. “Madam, this is my house.”  She tensed as he reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, but it was only to remove a business card. “James Hutton, First Bank of Karstenhaven.”

The poker fell out of Fancy’s hand as she accepted the card, even more concerned now than she had been when she thought this man was an intruder.

He was Will’s father.

****

A/N:  I wasn't planning to have a mad scientist character, but here she is anyway... :) We'll have to see what sort of interesting things she gets up to, because now I have no clue.  I figured out the money system, I think.  I figure a nickle to them is worth a dollar to us, give or take.  I'm using dollars, and the publication date for Ari's copy of Grey's Anatomy is from an American version, but I'm pretty sure this isn't an American city.  Maybe its in the middle of a country that doesnt exist... 

Gift House pt 3

Warning: Description of intravenous drug use and general child neglect in this part.

The house was lonely at night.  Fancy discovered this quickly.  In her room in Storyville there was always the sounds of the neighbors fucking or fighting through the walls, which she had always found annoying, but the empty boarding house felt more like a tomb.   Fancy wished for Will, and then shook the thought away.  He had never spent the night with her, and he never would.  He had to go home to his big family mansion in the north side of Old Town, and pretend he didn’t slum it with middle-aged tarts during the day.

At least the house was clean now.  Will hired a team of people to come in and go over the place from top to bottom, demolishing the ten years of dust and grime.  Fancy sat in her little sitting room, still shabby even if it was clean, and her mind ran with ideas.  White lace curtains for the downstairs, bright, happy red curtains for the resident rooms, and colorful quilts on the beds.

She hadn’t figured out how to fill those beds yet, but she was determined to make Will proud of her (a silly thing—she knew she shouldn’t care what he thought of her) and even more determined to make a proper life for herself and Liza there.

Mona was a problem. Maybe Fancy should have stayed with Liza when she told her mother she was leaving, but the girl insisted she could handle things on her own.  Liza was like Fancy—independent, strong. Not like Mona.  Fancy had tried to do her best for her little sister, but Mona had fallen into opiate abuse, and when Fancy refused to fund her addiction, she turned to hooking as well.  Nothing Fancy could do would change her, so she stopped trying. It wasn’t too late for Liza.  Liza didn’t have to live the same life as Fancy or her mother…

***

Liza ducked as the dirty chamber pot flew over her head and hit the wall by the stove with a bang and a splash.  The smell of the disturbed refuse did nothing to improve the situation.  “You are insane,” she screamed at her mother.

“You always loved her more than you loved me,” her mother said with a sob.  “I always tried to do what was best for you—”

“This is what’s best for me?” Liza demanded, waving her arm around the room.  Broken dishes littered the floor and the table they ate at (not really a kitchen table, since one room was all they had) lay on its side.  Her mother, needless to say, had not taken the news well.

“I tried,” her mother said, sitting on the floor. “Doesn’t it matter that I tried?”

“Not enough,” Liza admitted.  This was no good.  She couldn’t keep fighting with her mother all night long.  “You never tried hard enough to get clean.”  Mona didn’t answer. She only continued to cry on the floor.  Liza watched her.

Her earliest memory was her mother on the bed with a stocking tied around her arm.  One of her boyfriends had the needle, and Liza watched him jab it deep into her flesh and push the plunger.  After that she lay there on the bed with her skirts hiked up around her waist, and the boyfriend (drug dealer, john, Liza was never sure) fucked her.  Mona lay there, barely moving, staring at Liza sitting on the floor with her doll.

Liza was pretty sure she’d been three at the time, but it was hardly the only time she watched such a thing. She started leaving their room at the age of five, and she would go outside or sit with a neighbor, no matter what time of the day or night it was.  Sometimes she woke up to it happening right next to her on the bed.

“You can’t blame me,” Liza continued.  “If you were your daughter you would leave too.”

“I can’t do this myself, Eliza!” Mona begged.  “Don’t we take care of each other? You never had to beg on the streets, I never made you do anything you didn’t want to do! Isn’t that worth anything?”

“Yes.  Thank you for not selling me to your drug dealers.  At least you did that much for me.” Liza wanted to cry. Mona could have done a worse job as a mother.  But to not understand how bad it still was… “I’m gonna go out for a bit,” Liza said.  “You should clean this place up. Patty isn’t going to want to share a room that smells like piss and shit.”

She stepped over the chamber pot on the way out the door, ignoring her mother’s pleas.

There were plenty of places to go at night in Storyville. Clubs, bars, all-night cafes that claimed to sell tea but really sold any drug you could possibly imagine were on every main road.  There was one just a block from home but Liza walked a bit farther, to a dance hall called Chat Noir only a short way from Fancy’s new house. She liked it because she knew the door man and he would let her in for free.

Chat Noir’s sign was brightly painted with a giant black cat next to bright green lettering, made in the French style, though as far as Liza knew the hall’s owner was anything but French.   Bright lights lit the building inside and out, and even though sordid things happened there, Liza felt safe.  She went to the bar and ordered her own drink.  Knowing she would soon have the safety of Fancy’s new-found wealth made getting a glass of wine easy—Liza didn’t have to scheme to get a man to buy it for her.

Up on stage the dancing girls were doing a cancan, flashing bright multi-colored skirts and long legs.  The men watching were a mixed lot, from working-class Cheapside and Storyville residents to young men from the college and even a few Old Town gents. Living in Storyville was one thing, but visiting it was another.  On the outskirts of the area men looking for a good time flocked to the whores and drug dealers and game tables. And for those who had spent all of their money on the aforementioned entertainments, there were the loan sharks with their expensive suits and flashy canes.

Liza watched the crowds and wasn’t surprised when the Prince of Cats appeared.  No doubt the flashiest man in all of Storyville, he dealt in every aspect of the seedy underworld.  He wore deep purple suits, carried a gold-topped cane, and was never to be seen without his pet, a blind panther that wandered freely but only (so she had been told) attacked on command.

Manny was among the entourage that came with him, and when he went to the bar to get drinks for the group he approached her.  “I wish you would dress nicer,” he told her. “If you showed some skin and rouged up your face I could bring you over and introduce you to the Prince.  He’d like you.”

“I don’t think I want him to like me,” Liza said.

“Good things always happen to the people the Prince likes,” he said, placing his hand on her knee. She remembered earlier that day in a downtown alley, with Manny while James kept watch. On her knees, Manny’s prick in her mouth…

Liza didn’t feel uncomfortable, exactly…but she knew Manny only liked her because of what she was willing to do in exchange for his company.  She should feel lucky someone wanted to spend time with her, for whatever reason. But she was quite sure she didn’t want to have anything to do with the Prince, who sometimes supplied Mona with her drugs.

“You better hurry back then,” Liza told Manny when the bartender handed him a tray full of drinks. “You wouldn’t want the Prince to not like you anymore.”

“This is why you’re never going to get anywhere in life, Liza,” Manny said. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else, but you’re the one on your knees in exchange for a trolley ride and a sandwich.” He walked away and Liza burned with embarrassment….

She needed out of Storyville. She needed out like Fancy, and she would never look back.

***

Mona was gone when Liza came home for the last time.  All of her belonging’s fit in a cardboard box. Her other dress, one spare pair of very worn-out underclothes, and some drawing pencils and a pad of creamy white paper Fancy had gotten her for her birthday the year before.  Liza looked around the sad little room.  The other things were shared between her and Mona—the dishes, even the brush and comb on the dressing table. 

Only her postcard collection remained on the wall, and she didn’t want to leave it behind.  Each colored card was a beautiful place she had never been. Paris, New York, London. Great cathedrals, rolling country-sides and pictures of the sea.  She bought them for a nickel from a bookshop in Cheapside, or sometimes someone she knew would get one in the mail and give it to her. 

Liza carefully removed and saved every pin, and stacked them neatly in the corner of her box.   She uncovered the first card she had ever gotten, hidden by a layer of dreams that would never come true.  It was a reproduction watercolor of an English cottage on a lane covered in pink and blue flowers.  The text on the bottom of the card read “Dewdrop Inn.”

She remembered being a little girl, maybe seven.  Her mother was getting fucked in their room, and she had wandered to a magazine stand blocks and blocks away from home. She had never had the inclination to steal before, but she saw that cottage among all the other postcards and wanted to be there so badly she snatched it up and ran, her heart beating all the way.

“I remember you,” Liza said to the card.  She wanted to run away that time, and thousands of

other times.  Now she was finally getting the chance.

***

Fancy was already undressed for bed when the knock came at the door. The sudden sound frightened her because she didn’t know any of the neighbors, and no one in her life knew she was there…except Liza.

She hurried to the door without bothering to put on her dressing gown and flung it open.  Liza stood on the stairs, carrying a cardboard box tied with twine.  She held out a post card to Fancy. “I think I know what we should call the place.”

 ***

A/N:
And that's it for the first episode! Next update will begin part two.  An ebook of the first chapter will be available soon.

Gift House pt 2

Liza woke up slowly to the mid-morning sun glowing through the single window.  She groaned as she sat up, glancing at the other side of the bed.  Her mother was there for once, snoring softly.  At least I know she’s breathing, Liza thought as she climbed out of bed.  She looked around their single room.

The wallpaper was stained and dingy except for Liza’s postcard collection pinned on the wall by the door.  The floor was in need of sweeping and mopping and there were hardly any clean dishes left.  It wasn’t any messier than the night before, except for her mother’s clothes strewn across the floor.  An unpleasant smell came from the chamber pot.  Liza did her business and dumped the whole mess out the window before dressing.

She dressed for work in her well-darned black dress, but she wasn’t going to work.  The factory had let her go…again.  She should have been there at six-thirty, and it had to be at least nine now.   She pinned a little bunch of silk flowers at her throat, and began to braid up her hair.  Twelve hours a day six days a week for a dollar a day—there had to be more to life than sitting behind a dusty, noisy machine all day. 

She found a package of crackers in the cupboard and munched on a few, staring at her mother’s prone form.  She needed a job. They couldn’t pay rent and eat on what her mother brought in at the end of the night, and most of the time she brought home more opium than cash.  She picked up her mother’s discarded skirt and rummaged through the pockets, coming up with a half dollar and a few pennies.  All night on the streets, selling what she had left of her body, and this was all she had.

Liza put the money in her pocket, dropping the skirt quickly as her mother moaned and stirred. “What you doing?” she asked from the bed, her voice hoarse.

“Going to work, Ma,” Liza said, banking on her mother being too out of it to notice the time.

“Before you go run to the corner store and get me some snuff,” she drawled, rolling over.

“Sorry Ma, I’m running late.”

“Worthless slut.”

Liza frowned. “Takes one to know one,” she replied, rushing to the door and slamming it shut behind her before her mother found something to throw at her.   

She turned down the corridor to the stairs.  Crazy Willie was slumped over on the landing, a bottle hanging from his limp hand but when Liza stepped over him he grabbed her ankle, his grip surprisingly tight. “I’ll kick you so hard in the jewels you’ll wet yourself,” she warned. 

For a moment he gripped her tighter, but finally he let go. She kicked him hard in the hip as she hurried on, taking the stairs two at a time to the ground floor.  She noted the pink eviction notice sticking out of Patty the Pox’s mailbox by the door.  If she didn’t find another job soon there would be one in their box, as though their single dingy room was worth the five dollars a week they paid for it and the handful of change Liza had just liberated was not going to get them very far at the market. 

Out on the street Liza looked south towards the tall red brick buildings and even taller smokestacks spewing black clouds into the sky.  The last thing she wanted to do was go begging at factory doors for a position. 

She had worked the spooler at a factory that made parts for mechanical limbs.  Her job was to run the machine that spun the hair-thin wire they produced onto spools.  Jeanie Coolie had worked the machine next to her, and only four days ago poor Jeanie’s screams rang louder through the factory than any sound of the machines.  Her hair had gotten caught in the spinning tie rod of the machine.  There hadn’t been much left of her skull by the time the equipment was turned off and she was pulled out of the gears.

Liza lifted her hand to her head, remembering Jeanie’s beautiful blond braid, wrapped around the rod and covered in grease and blood.  She had screamed at the foreman because there should have been a cover over the machine.  She stood there, covered in Jeanie’s blood and she screamed at him until he slapped her and told her to get out. 

No. No more factory work. Not ever again.  Maybe she could get a job at a shop…except she wasn’t good at saying polite things like “may I help you” or “thank you, please come again.”

“Liza!” someone called, and she saw Nandie across the street, sitting on the stoop in front of her tenement.   Nandie was fifteen, two years younger than Liza, and she had phossy mouth.  Liza crossed the street to say hello, even though she hated to look at the other girl.  Nandie’s teeth were gone and big rotting holes were visible in her gums.  Her face was swollen and covered in oozing sores.   Liza had seen others like her, after dark, their mouths glowing from the phosphorous eating away their faces.

“Still no job?” Nandie asked, her bare legs sticking out from under her too-short dress.  “I’m starting at Wyler’s next week.”

This was an outright lie. No one was going to hire poor Nandie looking the way she did. Fortunately the poison in her system would kill her before she starved to death.  Liza was a little surprised she was even still coherent.  “Tizzy said they’re always looking for dance hall girls,” Liza said.

“Yeah, but you only make as much money as you’re willing to—“ and Nandie began to mime fornication with her hands. “Life’s too short, you know?” She said this with no irony in her voice and Liza tried not to be horrified. This was Storyville. Either you died young, or you sold your body until you wished you were dead.

“I know it, girl,” Liza said.  She gave Nandie the four pennies she had in her pocket and moved on.

She found Manny and James hanging around by the trolley stop. Manny was sort-of her beau.  At least, she liked to pretend he was. “Hello boys,” she said. “Going uptown?”

“Doin’ a job,” Manny said trying to sound important even though he was just running opiates for the Prince.

“Can I come?”

“As if,” James replied, and Manny said, “What do I get if I let you?”

“Something,” she said with a false smile and a wink.

When the trolley came Manny paid her dime to ride and she sighed with relief as the car pulled away. Even if she was only leaving Storyville for a few hours, it was better than nothing.

***

Fancy walked across the street from the boarding house and stepped into Storyville for the first time as a non-resident.   She didn’t feel happy—only relieved.  For forty-one years she had remained sane, sober, and healthy in an underworld where the residents were rarely one of the three.  Even escape from the place brought her no happiness, because Storyville still existed for thousands of others…and it always would.

She walked past prostitutes old and young, beggars, young men with gang tattoos inked onto the backs of their hands, and old men passed out in the street—if they weren’t dead.  Factory workers lived in Storyville, and families too.  When one became too poor or sick for the tenements of Cheapside one came to Storyville to rot. Sex, drugs, and sorrow ruled this world.

Fancy hadn’t grown up there. She’d had parents once, in Cheapside, but they died, and she had had to make a living for her…and her sister. 

Her sister’s apartment building boasted broken windows and the smell of human waste in the stairwell.  She climbed to the third floor and knocked on her sister’s door. She heard a rustling and a groan on the other side, but when she tried to open the door it was locked.  Finally her sister Mona opened the door, leaning heavily on the frame.  “Well if it ain’t the holier-than-thou whore,” she drawled.

Mona wore stays yellow with sweat over a dirty chemise.  She was all skin, bone and angles where Fancy was plump and healthy.  Her sister had not adjusted to moving to Storyville and had quickly fallen in with drugs. The fact that she was thirty-eight and still alive sometimes shocked Fancy.

But she wasn’t there for Mona.  Over the years she had done all she could for her broken sister.  Her concern now was her niece, Liza.

“Hello Mona,” Fancy said. “You’re looking well.”

“Bull,” Mona answered, and let Fancy in.  She was appalled by the state of the rooms. Liza didn’t try very hard to keep the place clean, but it was even worse than normal. Clothing was strewn across the door and dirty pans stacked on the tiny stove.  The entire place smelled of unwashed person.

“Where is my lovely niece?” Fancy asked.

“Shoulda been home from work by now,” Mona said, falling back on the bed. “Out with that boy I suppose.”

“What boy?” Fancy asked, alarmed. Liza hadn’t said anything about a beau the last time she had visited. She prayed the girl hadn’t gotten into anything unsavory, and that it wasn’t too late.

“I don’t know,” Mona said. “Can you buy me some snuff? That devil child took all my money again.”

“I don’t have anything extra this week,” Fancy lied. “Times is hard.”

“Even for the Lady Whore of Storyville?” Mona scoffed.

“You know I ain’t never been a lady,” Fancy said.

“You sure act like one,” Mona said, but before she could continue her rant Liza walked into the room, carrying a paper package and reeking of cheap cigarettes.

“Aunt Fancy!” she exclaimed, dropping the parcel on the stove.  Liza was a pretty girl when she smiled, though it wasn’t very often.  She gave Fancy a hug, and Fancy felt a warmth for the girl that she didn’t feel for anyone else.  She had to get her out of there, before it was too late.

“You left your poor ma without any snuff,” Fancy scolded lightly. “Why don’t you and I walk over to the shop and get her some?” She gave her niece a warning look, and Liza nodded.

***

Liza had bought and smoked two cigarettes on the way home trying to get the taste of Manny out of her mouth.  She’d gone farther this time than she ever had before, and she hadn’t liked it. And now here was her aunt, the only person who would really disapprove of what she had just done. Liza’s day could not get any worse.

They didn’t speak until they were outside, walking slowly towards the nearest corner market. “I have a proposition for you,” Fancy said, and told Liza about the house, and her intention to turn it into a boarding house.

“Who would give you a job running a boarding house, of all things?” Liza asked.

“A very good friend,” Fancy replied with the tone that said Liza should stop asking questions.  She almost laughed. All her life Fancy had pretended not to be a whore, but here she was accepting gifts of entire houses from her johns.  “I’m going to need help,” she finished. “Someone to keep things clean, and to cook and do washing and the like. I know you have a job at the factory, and I can only pay you three dollars a week plus board—”

“I’ll take it!” Liza said immediately, not even having to think.  All that money for herself instead of spending it towards a room—she would be rich in a matter of weeks.  “When can I start?”

“What about your mother?”

“She can take in Patty the Pox, she’ll be…as fine as she can be. Aunt Fancy—thank you.”

“Get your mother taken care of and you can start tomorrow,” Fancy said, and Liza beamed. Things were finally looking up.

***

A/N:

Phossy mouth was a real thing during the industrial age. It was caused by white phosphorous used to make matches.  The employees would eat their lunches in the same room as the equipment, causing necrosis of the jaw. And it really did glow in the dark. Storyville, incidentally, was also a real place, the redlight district of New Orleans from 1897 to 1917.

Don't try to hurt your brain too hard coming to grips with the currency in this story. I'm having a hell of a time with it myself.

Next Chapter

Gift House pt 1

Author's Notes:  

Usually I put these at the end of the chapter, but, first story and all. I think the last time I wrote a serial was in 2010, so it's exciting to be doing this again. Just a warning, I tend to write these from the seat of my pants, right before the deadline, with little editing. If you see any errors leave a comment and I will fix it.

So this is The House of the Dewey Trollop. It's been on my brain for years and here it finally is. This is Steampunk, but it's Steampunk Lite as none of the characters are mad scientists or inventors or adventurers. There will be small steam-tech components to the story, but not a lot. The characters simply fit well with a universe I already had in my brain, so why waste it? I suspect it will be a little soap-opera-y, mostly drama. Plenty of sex, some violence, some social commentary on poor people getting screwed over. (If you read Deadly Liaisons you're used to that though.) This is told mostly from the POV of Fancy and her niece Liza, but since its an ensemble cast (click on the character button on top) you'll hear a lot of voices. I'll try to make it as not-confusing as possible.

The plan is to update a 1000 to 2000 word mini-chapter every Monday. Each full chapter will be an 'episode' of which I have 7 plotted out so far. Each episode will have 3 to 10 updates. I will publish chapter collections in ebook form as we go along as well. So, I think that's all you need to know. If you want to know how Fancy and Will met, the ebook of their first encounter is on your right.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments if you liked it, or if you hated it. I am doing this for free, so show your love!

***

Blind with the finest of handkerchiefs bound over her eyes, only the uneven cobbles of the walk beneath Fancy’s boots suggested they were no longer in Storyville, the red-light district of Karstenhaven.  Will held her arm to help her the rest of the way out of the buggy.  “Are you ready for your surprise?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, unable to keep a smile from her lips. Will didn’t have to treat her to things--she appreciated him just as he was, mechanical arm and all--but she couldn’t say she minded the shopping and chocolates and restaurants. She felt him loosen the knot of cloth behind her head and when it fell away she looked up to see where they were having lunch that day.

They were on the very edge of Old Town, where the unfortunate middle class had the disadvantage of living only a block away from Storyville. The building in front of her was sooty grey with dirty windows and a bright blue front door.  A peeling sign over the door read “Rooms to Let.”

“What is this?” she asked, looking around.  She knew the place well--the house had stood empty on Lane Avenue for almost two years now, it's price far too high for its less than ideal location. Across the street stood a line of shops of dubious reputation, and beyond those shops the derelict tenements of Storyville stood, depressing and unsafe.

“It’s yours,” Will said proudly, his face shining with joy. “I bought it for you.”

She looked at the ugly facade with a realization of horror.  “You--you can’t buy me a house.”

With twenty-five years in the whoring business Fancy had thought she could handle anything, from violent johns to her dearest friends dying of drug overdoses in the street. But none of William’s little gifts and chocolate eclairs (though she did love those) could prepare her for such an extravagant gesture of...what? Love? Maybe she had declared her love a little too soundly the very first day they met, but surely he understood sexual exclamations were far from the truth.  “Will--this isn’t right.”

The light went out of his expression, but Will went on… “You are always telling me how you wish you had the means to retire--now you can. You can fix it up and rent out the rooms--a respectable landlady. You wouldn’t have to...do what you do...anymore.”

“Except for you? Am I your kept woman now? No one keeps me, William Hutton. I make my own way in the world.”

She started to stalk away, crossing to the other side of the street, where Storyville’s slums awaited her. She might be just a whore, but at least she lived her life on her own terms, not on the whims of a spoiled aristocrat. 

With every step towards Storyville her heart sank, until, when she reached the sidewalk, she was afraid she was going to cry. But she couldn't turn around and go back--she just couldn't. “Fancy,” he called after her, and she stopped, relieved. She didn’t want to lose him, the only light in her life.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Will said as he caught up with her. “I have nothing but the most respect for you.”  He reached out to touch her cheek with his mechanical hand.  Will was the youngest son of a well-off banker with little expected inheritance, but it was the unfortunate amputation of his right arm that had made him an outcast among the social elite.

Fancy looked up at him.  Rich, educated, handsome and half her age, she had no idea how she had managed to attract such a man. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just...a shock.”

“I should have spoken to you about it first. My father gave me money to invest. I chose real estate. The building will remain in my name. I want to take care of you and give you everything you need. But I know that’s not what you want. No sordid arrangements, no obligations. I’ll hire you, proper-like, with a salary.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish and wishing she had given Will more credit.

He kissed her forehead, the most affection he was comfortable giving her in the very public arena of the street. “Come inside. You’ll like what you see.”

They walked back arm in arm, and Fancy looked at the house again. It was rather narrow, but tall--three stories not including the peaked roof. Sun-faded curtains hung in the windows, increasing the house’s shabby appearance, but new curtains, a new sign and a solid cleaning would improve matters.  As they walked up the chipped stone stairs she glanced at the weed-filled gap between the front wall and the sidewalk and imagined bright flowers.  She had never planted a flower in her life, but maybe she would like it.

Will unlocked the front door and led her into a dusty hall. The narrow stairs and three tightly closed doors gave it a claustrophobic feel. Fancy’s discontent must have shone in her face because Will quickly opened the door set into the wall next to the staircase. “These are the landlady’s rooms,” he said.

“Rooms?” Fancy asked. Since striking out on her own at the age of sixteen Fancy had lived in a series of one-room flats and boarding houses. They stepped into a furnished sitting room. No one had bothered to cover the furniture so everything--the sofa, end tables, lamps--had a thick layer of dust over them.

“I know it’s a mess,” Will apologized. “I should have hired someone to come clean first, but I couldn’t wait to show it to you.”

“It’s beautiful,” Fancy assured, not because the dull striped wall paper and floral sofa were attractive, but because she knew the room *could be, given a little time and work.

Another door led them into a small bedroom. The brass bedstead with its bare mattress took up most of the space, along with a wardrobe and a compact dressing table with a cracked mirror. A window looked almost directly into another window next door, a mere ten feet away. A nice set of curtains will be first, Fancy thought. “It’s wonderful,” she admitted.

“And there’s a full kitchen, coal heat, electric lights--let me show you the rest.” Fancy laughed at  his enthusiasm as he showed her the resident’s parlor, the dining room, and the kitchen, a small one story add-on to the back of the house. There was even a WC under the stairs--an unknown luxury in Storyville.

The second and third floor were identical with four rooms on each floor, as simply furnished as Fancy’s own little room, but with enough space for a boarder to be comfortable. She stood in the third floor hallway, eyes shining with tears she refused to let fall. “William. You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“It’s...well...not a sound investment, but it should bring in a little money when all is said and done. I would do...more...for you if I could.” His youth betrayed his emotions. “Fancy, I--”

“You’ve done more than enough,” she cut him off before he could admit anything. Will was young and rich, even if he was just a second son. One day he would find a proper girl to love him, and Fancy would become a passing folly of his youth, just as she would consider him no more than an attempt to cling to her youth. She did not want either of them admitting to anything that could not be taken back.

She gave him a smile. “C’mon. Lets try out one of these beds.”

“Fancy,” he said, the tenderness in his voice remaining, but she pulled him into one of the rooms to the bare bed. Though in her middle years Fancy had become accustomed to clean sheets she had been fucked on much worse, so she laughed at the cloud of dust that puffed up around them as she pushed Will down onto the mattress.

Being twenty-two and therefore not particular, he pulled her on top of him into a deep kiss. “You are too beautiful,” he offered.

“No flattery,” she said. She could feel his mechanical hand buzzing gently as he cupped her ass, sending anticipatory pleasure through her limbs.  She kissed him and reached between them to grab at the bulge in his trousers. “Just want you.”

Taking off more clothing than necessary wasn’t important at the moment. Fancy unbutton’s Will’s fly and freed his growing cock from his trousers. She gathered up her skirts and climbed on top, already slick and ready for him--she was always ready for Will even as she couldn’t quite find the interest in her other customers.  She sighed happily as his cock slid up inside her, thick and full of youth.  She began to rock against him as he pulled off the glove he always wore to protect his gleaming brass hand, and felt his way under her skirts.

She was always surprised how warm the hand always was, powered by Will’s own nervous system.  He slid a smooth finger over her clit, the tiny gears working inside it causing his entire hand to vibrate against her most sensitive spot.  She closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure.

“I wish I could feel what you’re feeling,” Will said.  She glanced down at him, staring at her as she rode his cock, the warm buzzing of his hand thrilling her.

“It’s wonderful,” she admitted with a smile.

They bounced on the bed, raising cloud after cloud of dust, until Fancy peaked, her orgasm crashing through her.  Will pressed harder against her clit until she grabbed his hand and pulled him away, unable to take the strong sensations any more. He grabbed her by the hips, and toppled her, rolling as their bodies remained connected, so that she was on her back and he was on top. Will began to thrust quickly, growling as his own climax took him.  He held her by the hips and slammed roughly into her.  She wrapped her legs around his hips, forcing him deeper, wanting all of him.

It was always like this.

They collapsed gasping and holding each other tight.  Fancy stared up at the ceiling in wonder. She had a house. A house of her very own.

Next Chapter