streets without the companionship of the fairer sex. Handsome, well-bred, well-dressed, and intelligent, too. Oh, how my heart pounds!” She used his hand to demonstrate if not how hard her heart was pounding then how soft was her left breast.
Matthew’s flag had unfurled and was rapidly rising. He thought that if this went much further he was going to lose all professional account of himself.
One of the other customers was telling a joke and both the women laughed as if they hadn’t heard about the farmer’s daughter and the brush salesman a hundred times. Becca Black strummed and sang and Polly Blossom regarded Matthew as if he were Eros embodied, which he knew must be part of her own professional wiles for he certainly wasn’t all that.
Madam Blossom ceased her faux swooning to watch like a hawk as the two men chose their paramours of the half-hour and put coins into a white ceramic bowl on a table beside Becca Black, who did not pause in her playing. One of the men either was mad or had terrible eyesight, as he’d chosen the white-wigged giantess; well, perhaps he craved what was nearly about to explode from her scarf and pantaloons. They went up the stairs chatting and laughing, leaving the spurned girl-a slim brown-haired doxy with sharp features under a heavy pancake of rouge and white powder-to lean back in her chair bored to the soul and rapidly stir the air around her face with a black fan as if dissipating the odors of manly musk and bad breath.
“Master Corbett,” said Polly, again all smile and flirtation, “I regret I cannot offer myself for commerce tonight, as I might wish to, but I am under Eve’s curse. Might I suggest that Nicole over there would be an excellent companion? Nicole! Please sit up straight and show your good breeding, my dear.” Nicole obeyed, with a frozen grin. “Or I have a very pleasant and highly intelligent young blond, newly arrived from London just last week, almost a virgin so fresh is she, so supple and dewy. But if it’s experience you wish, and a certain exotic charm, I also have a dark-fleshed gypsy with-I’m told-the firm grip of a sixteen-year-old and sure to delight. What is your pleasure, sir?”
“I…” Matthew’s nerves betrayed him by making his voice crack. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I do have a request.” She watched him intently, with perhaps a little hard flint back in those eyes somewhere. “I’d like to be introduced to-”
“Goddamn, what a night!” said a waspish feminine voice as someone came down the stairs. “That bastard Baiter’s got a cock enough for three men!”
“Hold your tongue, missy!” At once Madam Blossom had risen to her feet in a show of indignation. “We have a gentleman on the floor!”
Matthew stood up as well, for on the stairs was the young prostitute that he’d last seen hanging on Andrew Kippering at the Thorn Bush. Her dark hair, a shade of brown so deep it was almost black, was brushed back from her forehead and gathered behind with a crimson ribbon. She wore, as was the custom of ladies both high and low, white face powder and her eyebrows were drawn as thin black arches. As he’d noted at the Thorn Bush, she was about twenty years old and not unattractive, for her features were well-defined and her expression catlike with a sexual cunning. She wore the pantaloon outfit but had a flimsy violet robe thrown about her shoulders and drawn over her breasts. Her ebony eyes found Matthew but remained vacant. She said in an affected voice, “My regrets, sir. I was simply remarkin’ of what happens when a giant sausage is shoved into a silk purse.”
“No apologies necessary,” Matthew told Grace Hester, before the madam of the house could speak. “I understand that not all sausages are created equal, but all silk purses have a bottom. So my regrets to you that a so-called gentleman has no concept of physical volume.”
There was a silence. Becca Black’s music had ceased on an off-key note.
Grace Hester frowned. “Who the hell are you?” she asked. “A gibberin’ loon?”
“Hush!” Polly snapped, and then her tone softened though her eyes had become as hard as her reputation. “This is Master Matthew Corbett, my dear. A magistrate’s clerk and well-known young man about town. He featured prominently in a recent article in the Earwig, so he may be considered somewhat of a celebrity and we are honored to-”
Grace yawned and winced as she rubbed her crotch.
“Honored to have him visit us,” Polly finished. “These young ladies!” she said to Matthew with a sad shake of her head. “They just don’t know good manners anymore.”
“I’m done for the night.” Grace continued down the stairs, walking with a noticeable hitch in her roll. She had no pretense of being a gentlelady; she was all foul temper and crudities. “Somebody get me a fuckin’ drink.”
“Get yourself your own fucking drink,” answered the mistress of the house, as the masks of civility began to crack. “You already owe me two shillings for your liquor. When are you going to pay?”
The girl shrugged and passed Matthew and Polly, heading for a sideboard on which stood three open bottles of wine and a few glasses. Suddenly there was a yawp of female laughter from upstairs followed by an incomprehensible shout from a man. Becca Black returned to her gittern, this time playing a more stately and intricate tune that had no words. Matthew was impressed by her musical talents and he wondered what her story might be; but he was here for Grace Hester’s tale, and it was time to work toward his aim.
“That wine’s for the customers,” Polly said, advancing toward the girl before a bottle could be tipped. “You’ll pay me what you owe, or you’ll have more than a pain in the puss.”
“Pardon me,” Matthew spoke up, before these two cats began to scratch. “The lady may have my glass.” They turned as one to glare at him, as if he were the lowest creature ever born. “I am afforded a free glass of wine, am I not? If so, the lady may have mine.”
Polly Blossom, to her credit, was quick to swing between her roles of whore-warden and flirtatious businesswoman. It was, Matthew thought, the key to her success. She lowered her eyes demurely. “How gracious of you, sir. How kind. We thank you.”
Grace didn’t thank anyone. She loaded up a glass and drank most of it down before Matthew could withdraw a silver shilling from his pocket.
“I’ll take this girl,” he said, holding out the coin. “And to ease her discomfort, I’ll pay an extra half- shilling.”
“I’m done, I said,” Grace replied, without even offering him a look.
“We do have more suitable ladies, Master Corbett.” Even as she spoke, Polly Blossom had her eyes fixed on the coin. “I have a very pretty maiden of seventeen, lately arrived from Amsterdam.”
“That ugly bitch saw seventeen ten years ago,” said Grace as she licked the empty glass with an extraordinarily long tongue.
“This girl,” Matthew said. “One shilling for thirty minutes. Plus two groats for the trouble.”
Suddenly Polly’s eyes narrowed as she smelled a rat. “Very extravagant, aren’t you, sir? Why may I ask do you wish this particular companion, when I offer so many other choices?”
“She appeals to me.” Matthew ignored the girl’s dark chortle. The next thing he said surprised him when it came out: “I prefer the wicked ones.”
“Well, there’s plenty of wickedness to go around here, sir,” said Polly, and with a smooth motion she took a step toward him and put her hand firmly on his crotch. Before Matthew could jump back, the woman had taken stock of his package. “He’s normal,” she told Grace. “A shilling and two groats would make a nice end to your evening.”
“Hell!” Becca Black rumbled. “Pay me de money and you ain’t never seen such wickedness!”
Matthew doubted he would live through that much. He kept his hand outstretched with the shilling in his palm. Grace was busy pouring herself another glass.
The light of avarice shone in Polly’s eyes, yet she did show concern for her charges. “Go ahead and do him as your last trick,” she told the girl. “I’ll get you some extra ointment in the morning.”
Grace drank the second glass empty and slammed it down so hard Matthew thought it might shatter. Then she turned her black-eyed, feline gaze upon him and pulled up a crooked grin. “As you please, sir.” Her voice was a mockery of manners. “I won’t feel you down there, anyways.”
With a forefinger, Polly directed Matthew to the money bowl, where he added his coins to the collection. As Matthew followed Grace up the stairs, Polly called out sharply, “Make sure you give Master Corbett his money’s worth! The customer always comes first in this house!”
No comment was given from the sullen whore. She continued up the stairs, leading Matthew into a candlelit corridor with four doors on either side and one at the far end. In gilded frames on the walls hung scandalous drawings of such fevered intertwinings that a blush heated Matthew’s cheeks. Another Turkish lamp on a small
