Chapter 6

The next morning we had breakfast and managed to do our morning workout without any sexual activity. After a quick shower and over a cup of coffee for me and tea for Eve, she resumed her tale.

“Mary’s death was an eye opener for me in more ways than one; not only was I going to have to get used to the fact that people I love were going to die long before I would, I also had to deal with the fact that people all around me were going to grow old and I would not. I had been in business for over seventy years and although the girls never stayed around too long at some point someone would hang around long enough or talk among themselves enough that they would realize that I wasn’t getting any older. So after a couple of more years, after things had gotten back to normal after the cholera epidemic had run its course and business was once again booming, I decided to sell the business to one of my best girls. Her payments would provide me with a sizeable cash flow for a number of years while I decided what to do next.

It was one of my former regular clients that provided me with the answer. One day, not too long after my “retirement” I received a note, delivered by the man’s coachman, inviting me to an evening of good food, pleasant conversation and lustful activities. Intrigued, I replied in the positive. I was to meet him, formally dressed, in the lobby of one of the fanciest hotels in the city at six o’clock the following evening. As a highly regarded member of the financial community, he was used to making deals and getting what he wanted. Over a cocktail before dinner, he looked me in the eye and said,

“Let’s get the business arrangements over with so we can enjoy ourselves tonight. He slipped an envelope out of his coat pocket and casually placed it on the table in front of me. After a quick glance, I discreetly placed the envelope into my bag. After a scrumptious meal and an after dinner brandy, we adjourned to his previously booked room for the evening. We had sex several times that night. Between sessions while he recuperated I found out more than I really wanted to know about him. He was from Connecticut; he was involved in an arranged marriage to a girl from Boston who was from old money, he worked for his father in law, splitting his time between Boston and New York. His wife had just given birth to their first child, a boy he called JP who was the light of his life.

“Oh, no, I thought, not again; I had promised myself that I would not get mixed up with another married man. I was just about to tell him so, when he said, rather bluntly, that this was nothing more than a business deal, it was just sex for sex’s sake and that I should not infer any emotional attachments to our affair.”

‘That being said, I’d like to see you again from time to time when I’m in town. If you don’t mind I’d like to tell a couple of my business associates about our relationship, which I’m sure will lead to some additional contacts for you. Now, I think it’s time for you to leave. I’ll have my coachman take you home.’

“With that he reached for his wallet, pulled out a twenty and placed it on the night stand. I should have been furious with him. He had just treated me as some kind of cheap whore; but I realized later that it was just his way of showing me that I was not in his class and that nothing would ever come of our affair.

“In the coach on the ride home I took out the envelope and counted the money, with the twenty from before there was over three hundred dollars. I’d have to work all week for that kind of money. True to his word, I began receiving more “callers” at my home. Some were young, others were old, a few were single but most were married, but all had one thing in common; they were all rich and powerful. I was earning more money in a week than I was when I had the house with the girls working for me. I was also careful to project the image of myself as growing a little older as my new clientele aged.

“I worked steadily for the next ten years. I watched my accounts in the Bank of New York and my investments held by my client’s merchant banking firm grow substantially. But I was getting bored with life in New York. One of my clients had told me about how different life was in San Francisco and that if at all possible I should visit there before I died. Little did he know how long that would be. I had remembered the Captain telling me how nice the city was; that it was big, but still small in character.

“With the decision made, I packed the things that I treasured the most, mementos of my life with the Captain and Mary; made arrangements with my bankers; closed up the house and began my journey west.

“I did not wish to travel by boat, remembering how the Captain had died, so I bought a ticket on the train from New York to Independence, Missouri. From there I would travel as a member of a wagon train along the Oregon Trail and then on to San Francisco. In Independence, against the advice of several of the locals, I bought a wagon called a Prairie Schooner and a team of horses. Because it was still too cold to travel, we stayed in Independence for a month which gave me the opportunity to learn how to handle a wagon and a team of horses. Since I was a single woman and would be doing all the work that the men were doing I figured I’d better dress like a man. I bought several pair of long pants, a few heavy cotton shirts and a pair of boots. I also bought a pistol and a rifle. The man who sold me the weapons instructed me in their use. By the time we were ready to travel I could hold my own in any situation.

“It was a warm spring day, the sky was bright blue with a couple of puffy white clouds in the distance, when the leader of our wagon train yelled out, “Wagons Ho” and waved us westward. Anyone who tells you that traveling west by covered wagon is romantic doesn’t know what they are talking about. It was six months of back breaking, boring travel, punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Day after day, the routine was always the same; wake up at sunrise, hitch up the horses and head westward. The weather was unpredictable. For days on end the sun would beat down on us, making the ground bone dry, which we turned into great clouds of dust. Or it would rain for several days in a row, making the trail slick with mud and me and everyone else drenched to the bone. And yet we pressed on, ever forward, always towards the setting sun; only stopping at pre-determined locations or when it started getting dark.

“We crossed swollen rivers, climbed steep mountain passes, and watched as Indian Hunting Parties watched us from a distance. Contrary to popular belief, most of settlers that died making their way westward died from disease, accidental drownings, hypothermia, being run over by a wagon, and gun mishaps; not from Indian attacks.

“Because of the lack of privacy and the lack of eligible men, I had to control my sexual urges. Only occasionally would I “entertain” one of the hardened wranglers who provided the wagon train with fresh meat and some protection. When the rest of the train was fast asleep after a long day of travel, we would meet outside my wagon and sneak away from the circled wagons with a couple of bed rolls. I think I scared off several of my lovers with the ferocity of my love making. They just weren’t used to being treated like a piece of meat for my satisfaction, which left them totally exhausted and practically useless the following day.

“We finally had a couple day lay over when we reached Fort Hall in present day Idaho. It was there that I joined several fellow travelers from our wagon train, along with a few other travelers who were waiting at Fort Hall for travelers heading to California. Our smaller group set out on the less traveled southern trail, southwest towards the Humboldt River Valley. We traveled close to the river as it winded its way through what it is now the State of Nevada. When the river finally came to an end, we started the hardest part of our journey; we had to cross the deadly “Forty Mile Desert” before reaching the Carson River.”

“That must have been a scary experience.”

“It was, for ten days we had to be completely self-sufficient. We had to carry enough water for ourselves and the horses; there was no firewood for cooking, just dried up plants and small bushes; and we had to survive the extreme temperature changes. During the day the temperature would soar to well over one hundred degrees; but at night when the sun went down the temperature would plunge into the fifties. We traveled mostly at night. We’d start out a couple of hours before sunset, travel through the night, until the sun was fully up the next day. That’s when we would search for a place to camp, out of the sun if possible, until the sun began to set. The trail was fairly easy to follow; we just stayed in the wheel ruts created by previous wagon trains. Along the trail lay the sun-bleached bones of horses that didn’t make it, along with the occasional abandoned broken down wagon which had been stripped clean of any useable parts.

“Just when we began to feel that we couldn’t go on; we reached the Carson River which marked the end of the Forty Mile Desert. After a two day stop over along the banks of the river, we started west once again. Our last obstacle, the Sierra Nevada Mountain range loomed in the distance. The route became increasingly more difficult as we climbed through the foothills. We were saved the ordeal of climbing over the crest of the mountains by following a series of valleys which meandered through the range. Finally, after a week of travel, we reached the end of the mountain range. As each wagon crested the last hill, the driver and his family took in the sight of the wide flatlands that opened up below them.

“Soon we were heading across those flat lands, the newly acquired territory of California, heading to Fort Sutter along the Sacramento River. When we reached the fort, we heard the news that gold had been discovered at Sutter’s Mill not too far from there. Hundreds of men were at the fort, all had come south from the Oregon Territory and were trying to buy picks, shovels and supplies, all with the idea that they were going to try their hand at prospecting for gold.

“I had a decision to make, should I continue on my way to San Francisco or should I follow my instincts which were telling me that the real fortune to be made was not from mining for gold, but by servicing the wants and needs of the miners. When the wagon train set out on the final leg of its trip, I broke away from the train and headed east towards the gold fields along with hundreds of men.

“So you became one of the “Forty-niners.”

“Yes, but I never mined for gold. When I got to the gold fields, I found a tent city along with about twenty wooden buildings. Most of the buildings were clustered together along a dirt road forming the nucleus of a town. There were several hardware stores, a barber shop, an assessor’s office, a jail, a couple of saloons and a stable. There was one building currently under construction. It was a simple wood structure two stories high with a covered porch, a couple windows and a door in the front. It had a staircase that ran along the side of the building up to a door on the second floor. There was a backdoor that led to a small porch, from which a person could gaze across the valley and the river than ran through it. A small stream ran along the back of the property which appeared to be the source of fresh water for the town.

“I drove my team to the side of the building and climbed down. A carpenter was finishing the railing of the staircase.

‘Hey, who’s the boss around here?’

‘You’re looking at ‘em, buddy.’

‘I’m looking to either buy a building or have one built.’

‘You’re in luck, this building just happens to be available for sale. The guy I was building it for got into a gun fight last night; he lost.’

‘How much you want for it?’ I asked as he descended the stairs.

He walked up to me and looking up into my eyes said, ‘Sorry miss, I didn’t know you were a woman. There aren’t too many women here in Grand View and none as pretty as you, ‘ he said tipping his hat.

He thought for a moment; ‘Since he paid me for the materials in advance, I can give it to you for five hundred dollars as is; anything you want done inside would be extra.’

‘Show me around inside.’

He led me through the front door. Inside the front half of the building was one large room. He opened the door to a second room which was similar to the first. The second floor was split into several smaller rooms and included a kitchen with a pot belly stove. ‘It would make a fine living space for the next couple of years if the gold rush lasted that long, ‘ I thought.

‘I’ll give you your five hundred dollars for the building but that will include a couple of interior additions. One, I want you to build a simple bar in front of the back wall of the front room and some shelving on the wall and behind the bar. In the back room I want a small room built next to the back door and a second stove installed for heat back there. I’ll buy the stove you install it.

‘I don’t think so; I’ll need some more money for that.’

“I began to unbutton several of the buttons of my shirt.” ‘What if I throw in some extra incentives instead?’

‘What kind of incentives?’ He said admiring my unencumbered cleavage.

‘Well, how does no charge customer service sound?’

‘What kind of business are you in?’

‘This is going to be the future home of ‘Eve’s Garden of Eden’ bar and whore house; I’m Eve.’

“I led him to the back room where I force him against the wall, undid his belt and pulled down his pants. Then I got down on my knees and gave him my best blow job. When he was fully recovered from that experience, I dropped my pants and bending over gave him free access to my already dripping pussy. It had been a long time with no sex for me and I just couldn’t wait to have that big fella firmly buried inside of me. He didn’t disappoint me. By the time he was finished he had brought me to three intense orgasms; I was completely sated for the moment at least.

“The next morning I became the new owner of the building and after another week of interior improvements, I was open for business. It didn’t take long for word to spread throughout the town that a house of prostitution had opened for business. Since my first order of whisky had not yet arrived, I used the front room as a waiting room, while I entertained my guests in the back room. I had brought with me my bed and bedding from the house in New York and had hung curtains to separate the bed area from the rest of the room. By the end of the first day I was exhausted but happy. I also knew that I was going to have to do something about the hygiene of my customers. Most of the men had been out here panning or mining for gold for at least the last several months and had not been with a woman or had used soap and water for that matter. If I was going to survive this experience I would have to change that.