Chapter 3

"This is the wild west portion of my narrative," Snake pronounced. "No longer the boomtown that had made it a city with the gold strikes of 1849, San Francisco had become a place of trade and banking. While captain and crew enjoyed the decadent opulence of the finest whorehouses in the world or the cheap bars chock full of cheap whores for the low rung sailors during the few days they stayed docked before heading south—including Cat and Dent enjoying their first threesome with a woman..."

"It was a foursome with that delicious New Orleans Quadroon Monique Duquesne," Cat interrupted nostalgically. Snake chuckled at the interruption and let his Japanese angel continue. "Such an elegant creature nearly as tall as Dent with café au lait skin, skin as soft as cream, with that French Creole accent adding to her seductive presence, she spoke like a lady in public and like the coarsest streetwalker in bed. As soon as we spotted her lounging with the other prostitutes in the parlor of the house of ill repute and I saw the twinkling of her eyes contrasting with the much more dulled and jaded eyes of her colleagues, I practically dragged Dent to her. He of course wanted some buxom blonde to remind him of hearth and home I suppose."

"What?" Dent resists Cat's urging pull. "You suggested this early hour to catch the best pickings and that's the blonde."

"That fat sow?" Cat grumbles. "She's stuffed into that corset like a sausage. She's a cow, Dent, and she'll perform like one. Look at the creature straight ahead. Her body needs no restraints. Firm and buoyant on top with two handfuls of perfection, lithe and lean torso and full strong hips and butt and powerful thighs, she's built for sex. And look at her eyes. She's alive, Dent, not like the rest of the dead souls here. Buy her, Dent. Buy her for all five days and bring the kid to fill her ass while you fill her cunt."

Finally giving up on a taste of home, he lets his eyes be caught by the Quadroon's hazel eyes and lets her enchant him. As they approach the lithesome form laying on her side on the red velvet loveseat, the Madam meets them.

"My newest girl," says the overdressed and over painted plump Madam, her eyes cold, businesslike and jaded from too many johns in her life, the small smile not reflected in those eyes. "She's a wild mustang not too agreeable to being saddled."

"Perfect," smiles Dent. "How much for five days."

"Five days?" the Madam responds, stunned.

"She's to stay with us in my suite at the Royal Arms."

"That's ... not possible," the Madam frowns. "I am heavily invested in her and she would escape."

"You keep her on premises all day and night?" asks Dent continuing to stare into the lively eyes of the Quadroon who seems unaffected by being negotiated for like a piece of meat.

"No, she has done escort duty to the opera and to a party and afterward to the gentlemen's chambers."

"And what assures you of her return?"

"My son Matthew observes her. He is both guard to my ladies and my eyes."

"He observes her in her purchaser's private chambers?" asks Dent.

"No. He watches outside on the street."

"Poor man," Cat chimes in. The Madam ignores the oriental "boy."

"We can't have that," Dent agrees. "But we can have a room for him. We have two beds and only need one."

"I need him," the Madam argues. "I can't be without him for five days."

"You hold something of mine I value greatly," the Quadroon finally speaks, her voice as sexy as the rest of her. "You have my strongbox which holds all my money and my memories. It holds most importantly my communications with my child and his grandmother."

"You have one hundred dollars in silver or gold?" asks the Madam and Dent nods without batting an eye. Only the Quadroon shows surprise. "My dear," the Madam explains to her, "It will be five days and five nights; ten times ten is my figuring on the cost of your absence. Let's see what value you hold."

As they climb the staircase to her room Monique Duquesne finally exchanges her name with Dent's and Ryo's. Unlike the Madam, she notices the Asian and in fact has a brief dialogue regarding hometowns.

"Please wait outside a moment while I open it," Monique requests. "I wish to keep its opening secret."

They agree and moments later the leaden box's lid holds to the two feet cube by a sturdy hinge. Cash and pearls and jewels and paper and daguerreotypes fill the box. Monique pulls out an image of a child of five in the arms of a beautiful Caucasian woman of indeterminate age but with a look of maturity. "His name is Johnny and I am here to provide for him. Madam may be stern and possessive but she is generous with percentages. Much more than I could find in Nouvelle Orleans."

"I can afford to be generous," says the Madam, the compliment of her girl bringing the smile a little more to her eyes. "I have the most attractive and skilled group of girls on the Barbary Coast."

"You're kidding," Cat can't help saying. Though all the women she had seen were pretty, even the fat sow, they lacked any spark except Monique and looked rather weather beaten.

Madam manages to ignore the boy, but Monique giggles. "I shopped around before choosing Madam Dolly." Noticing Madam's shock, she rephrases, "I mean my ex-master Henri shopped around. Instead of haggard old whores mixed with ripe young beauties unskilled at giving men pleasure and getting little compensation from the money they generated for their Madams, he discovered a group of veterans of abundant skill if a bit jaded and all at least somewhat attractive and with fair recompense so he sold me to her."

"And I have a group of young fillies in training," Madam adds. "My son Luke handles them next door. They deal with the youngest and the oldest clients and provide special requests for my clients who want 'virgins.' And even though they cost less in Luke's house, I charge quite a bit more for their visits to mine. Their tighter womanhood and a bit of fake blood creates the proper illusion to please the man." Everyone chuckles. The Madam sighs. "Alright, five days it is."

When Ryo supplies the silver payment from "his" shoulder bag, the Madam notices with surprise. Handing the coins to Dent, Dent hands them to the Madam who gives Monique half, fifty dollars. That surprises everyone. "We'll make use of your room while you're gone," the Madam explains.

"Still," Monique says while dropping the coins into her strongbox. "Quite a bit more than a third."

The Madam gently lifts the Quadroon's head by her chin and looks into her eyes. "You're my best girl already my wild Monique. Those fools who ignore your exquisite body because of your skin color miss out on the ride of their life. And those who choose you come back for more and more often than usual. Call it a bonus, my beauty. You plan to send your boy to school?"

"I do," says Monique with a tear in her eye. "I may be biased, but others have noticed he's a particularly smart and clever boy."

"He has good genes," Madam smiles completely.

Unused to such compliments, Monique looks away shyly. "I must prepare," she says.

The others leave her to pack. As they descend the staircase, Madam asks Dent, "Perhaps a taste of one of my other ladies free of charge? I notice you took an interest in Sadey."

"Sadey?" Dent asks.

Having come to the bottom of the stairs she gestures at the voluptuous blonde. Dent chuckles at Ryo's frown. "I believe I will be in need of all my energies to tame that wild Quadroon," he answers. "But maybe my boy might want to relieve his virginity with such a specimen of female pulchritude."

Separating him from the Madam, Cat whispers, "She's fair and heavy breasted, everything I'm not. If you want a taste of what you're missing just go ahead. Don't put it on me."

"Ryo, if you're worried I think less of you because you're not of my race, just know you're the most ... wonderful creature I have ever encountered. No one comes near to the joy I find being around you. But ... I am an adventurer. I like to sample variety. You know that."

"I know you won't enjoy her, and it's not because she's not me. You've sampled your kind before and you will upon your return home. If you preferred fatties I would never have caught your eye even before I opened my mouth. You like your women slender, their flesh taut and well maintained. I don't want you being disgusted."

"You think she'll be that disgusting to me?"

"She's a tub of lard sewn up in a corset. Think about this. She lets loose that sausage skin and flows out like a shapeless whale and you'd rather flee than fuck her. What will she think of herself? It's a hard enough life without disappointing a handsome man such as you."

After a smile and a nod and gentle pat on the head, appearing a condescending gesture from man to boy, he approaches the Madam. "Perhaps my boy isn't ready yet to become a man. Though we appreciate the generous gesture, we will not need the blonde beauty's services."

Both the blonde and the Madam look relieved. Despite the presence of Chinese prostitutes amongst her girls, Chinese men, or any man of color seem to disgust them. "White people," Cat thinks, "they're worse than Japanese."

The simple yet elegant carmine red dress Monique wears as she descends the staircase like a princess has none of the frills typical of dresses at the time except for a crimson ribbon above and one below her derriere that gives focus to its rich expanse like a bustle but it is all her real flesh being defined. Though its length hides her ankles, the dress exposes plenty of firm cleavage at the top, her skin at chest and face smooth and soft and unblemished. Keeping the simple elegance going, she wears just enough makeup to enhance her big eyes and longish rounded nose and wide mouth with sensuous full but not thick lips on her narrow face, her raven tresses piled on top of her head in a loosely held twist.

"Magnificent," says Dent.

Ryo can only nod in agreement, the beauty leaving her breathless. When the gorgeous Quadroon reaches the main floor, Ryo finally speaks. "I'll take that," he/she says, removing the carpet bag from Monique's hand.

"It's heavy," Monique warns.

"I'm stronger than I look," says Ryo with a smile.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you mon peitit homme?" says Monique.

Ryo smiles mischievously. "To the brim."

Stepping out of the hansom cab at the fancy hotel with the fancy doorman in suitable splendor opening the door and bowing, Monique comments, "Mon Dieu." And when they finally reach the top floor and Dent opens it for her to enter and she sees the large and elegantly appointed suite she says, "Foutez-moi."