“Wh-wh-why red on the lips?” he asked.
“To advertise they know how to use their mouth.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, moistening them, drawing a slight gasp from him. “It feels very, very good.”
He understood then what she was referring to-his wives claimed he was very good at it. He couldn’t believe he had anything in common with a whore. Maybe she was just repeating a rumor. “You-have you ever- you know- been with a whore?”
“I had a lover, a beautiful young officer, whose mother had been a whore.” Her voice turned bitter as she draped the scarf about his neck, trying to cover his man’s apple. “She should have been a whore herself. She was well suited for it: ambitious, heartless, and very talented. She could make you feel like you were about to turn inside out.”
“What happened to her?”
She caught his hand and pressed it to her scar. “This happened to her. After I was scarred she couldn’t bear to touch me, look me in the face.”
“Why?” He traced the scar on her face. “‘It’s like an exotic piece of jewelry. It becomes you.”
In a sudden angry move, she pulled her shirt off and turned her back to him. revealing a mass of puckered skin and silvery scars. At some point she had been badly burned. “Look at me! I’m repulsive!”
He ran a hand over the wounded skin. His fingertips reported only warm flesh and solid muscle, the ugliness of the burn invisible to the touch. “No. You’re not repulsive.”
She turned-her eyes luminescent with unshed tears- and kissed him. Apples flavored her mouth. He retreated. She advanced. They ended sprawled in the hay, no more room for him to retreat, and she on top of him, her groin pressed against him instead of her hand, rocking suggestively. They fitted together as if molded from one flesh, only her trousers and his walking robe and underclothes between their bare skin.
“Show me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Show me how beautiful I am.”
“No!” He pushed at her shoulders. ‘’You’re taking me back to my wives. You promised. I won’t be unfaithful to them.“
She laughed, seemed about to say something, and then shook her head. “I won’t push you. my love.
This will all be over soon, and you’ll see that you can trust me.”
He snorted as she retreated then, drawing her shirt back on.
“We’ll pad the front of your shirt a little, to make it look like you’re hiding breasts.” Cira glanced at him and laughed. “And we’ll have to put the lip paint back on again too.”
Three hours later, they started into the town of Sarahs Bend. Cira would have liked to wait until they heard the steam whistle of the packet docking at the landing, but was afraid they might miss the boat. A weak sun had burned off part of the fog, revealing the edge of town within rifle shot; Cira still insisted that he ride the big roan while she led it.
Sarahs Bend was much larger than his hometown of Heron Landing. There were several blocks of paved streets flanked with tall, narrow but deep, brick buildings. The first floors were storefronts, while the upper floors were obviously residences of the store owners. Some of the buildings were four stories tall, casting shadows onto the cobblestones. The edges of their roofs sparkled oddly in the sunlight.
“City people hang laundry on their roofs,” Cira explained when Jerin asked about it. “People embed broken bottles into the roof parapets, to discourage husband raids.”
He noticed then that the storefronts also had cast-iron gates that could be padlocked shut at night.
It surprised him how many types of stores there were. Besides two mercantiles, there were stores for apothecaries, books, dry goods, shoes, tailors, watchmakers, and more. Each carried the name of the family that ran it and then symbolic signage for the illiterate; he recognized all but one.
“What do they sell there?” Jerin pointed to a gas lamp with three blue glass globes. The stone building lacked the glass front of the rest; while the front door stood open, heavily armed women guarded the entrance. Customers came and went, but they carried items neither in nor out. “Is it a bank?”
“Hush, don’t point,” Cira murmured, and then clucked the roan to speed them past the store.
“What is it?” Jerin whispered.
“Pay it no mind.”
He’d heard that tone enough in his life to realize it was a crib. He looked back to study the fortresslike building. He never thought such a thing would be on a Main Street corner, its gas lamp bright in the overcast morning so it couldn’t be missed. How many men were inside? A dozen narrow windows cut into the thick stone of the first story. One window per man? Iron bars covered the larger windows of the second story. A short railing lined the roof with sharpened iron points. He knew that they were there to keep out women, but they would work to keep men in. The trickle of women in and out of the building was constant-each representing a forced coupling.
His breakfast churned in his stomach. “Cira, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Now?” Whatever she saw on his face convinced her. She guided the roan into a narrow alley.
His breakfast came up while Cira kept his hair and clothes out of the way.
“That’s where I’m going to end up.” He moaned. “In a place just like that. Locked in and drugged.”
“That is not going to happen to you. You’re getting home and it will be just like nothing happened.”
“Ren won’t be able to take me back. No one is ever going to believe that nothing happened to me.”
More bread came up, and then his stomach was empty, but his body continued to heave.
Cira rubbed his back soothingly, patiently waiting for him to recover. “Ren will believe you. If she loves you, she will trust you and believe what you tell her to be the truth, even if you were gone for years.”
He shook his head. “Her mothers wouldn’t let her offer for me for weeks-they might force her to give me back to my sisters.”
“Jerin.” Cira straightened him up and wiped his face. “I swear to you, you will never be in a crib. I can guarantee that you’re clean. I might seem like a river trash, but I come from a powerful, old family. The Queens will take my word.”
He thought of all the fine belongings in her saddlebag, everything that indicated that she was much more than what she seemed. “Really?”
“And I am not poor either. If need be, I have the money to pay your brother’s price and marry you.”
“All by yourself?”
“We can start a new trend. One wife per husband.”
He laughed at the ridiculousness of her plan.
The loud roar of the packet’s whistle came from the river.
“Come on. Dry your tears and put on a smile. We’re almost home free. Just a little more, and we’ll be safe on the river.”
It was odd to be among people and not be the center of attention. He and Cira moved through the crowd waiting on the landing without anyone noticing them. Amazingly, the flimsy disguise was working.
Women would glance his direction, see the bright boa that Cira had him wave lazily about, gather in the lack of veil and the painted face, and lose interest in him.
They almost made it.
A few feet from the gangplank, Cira took a sudden deep breath, and hands caught Jerin tight from behind.
“Not a word!” growled a familiar voice. “A single noise, missy, and we’ll pop you where you stand.”
“Ya should pop her anyhow, stealing ‘im away like that!” Dossy whined.
He swung about. They had a revolver tight to Cira’s spine. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”
“Or what, little boy?” Bert sneered. “Ya cry?”
“I’ll tell your bosses that you raped me. Oh, it was awful! You dirty, infected crib sleaze took me again and again. They’re paying for clean and untouched. I’ll be sure to convince them you’re pulling a double cross. Selling used goods!”
“Shut ya mouth!” Bert jerked her gun back, swinging the butt around to strike him with it.
“Bert!” Fen snapped, catching her hand. “Don’t you dare, shithead! Unharmed and untouched, they said!”
“So what do we do?” Bert asked.
“Give them both to the bosses. Let them work it out,” Fen said.
Jerin glanced around them. The other women on the landing looked on but made no move to interfere.
