CHAPTER 1
Dick coughed and spat a disgusting blob of greenish mucus, missing my boot by a bare inch. "This is it, pardner!"
I was stunned beyond words. My eyes searched the old, rotting house standing in front of me. Window shutters, once obviously night sky blue now faded, were hanging off as if the place itself had just been beaten by a hurricane. The sickly pale blue paint was chipping off the façade. A few steps that led up to the porch looked like they might not be able to sustain our mutual weight and would collapse in a desperate cry of breaking wood. The railing that surrounded the dusty porch was just as beaten and lacking in color as the rest of the house. I would not dare touch it, let alone lean against it. A rocking chair swayed gently, as if someone had just gotten out of it and ran inside at the sound of the approaching car. A narrow bed of dry and wilted flowers and low bushes surrounded the house, making the entire thing look pathetic and spooky. The place had not been taken care of in years if not decades.
Even the dog lying at the door seemed dusty. A skinny black lab whose face was frosted with years rested on its side and for a moment I thought it was dead. Until that is, it opened its eyes and I wished it hadn't. What was supposed to be white in them was deep red as if after a wild night of drinking, the irises, normally brown in labs were milky bluish, with yellowy puss slowly oozing out onto its face. "Shit!" I exclaimed before I was able to restrain myself.
"You've got to be kidding me!" I whispered to my companion, a sixty-something farmhand, who worked on my grandfather's estate. He was a tall with long, spidery legs and leathery, sun burnt arms and face, deeply scared by the wrinkles of his age, hard life and heavy work. He had an odd looking face with huge potato for a nose and thin, almost non-existent lips that were always sucking on a cigarette. Dick was not the smartest of men, you understand, but he was kind and usually cheerful. Despite his skinny frame one could tell that his body was strong and capable of performing hard labor. I had seen grown men wince in surprise when they shook his big hand, their fingers taking a few seconds before the color returned to them, blood almost stopped by the powerful squeeze.
"Nope, ain't foolin' ya, boy!" Dick said happily, looking at the house as if it was his pride and joy, a golden mansion rather than a shack, which looked as if it was to fall apart at the first powerful thrust of the wind.
"You're telling me this is it?" I asked incredulously, now getting nervous at the thought of what I'd gotten myself into. "The famous bordello?"
"I reckon so." Smiled Dick and pushed his cowboy hat further up his forehead, exposing a mop of surprisingly black hair, knotted from the lack of care. I could never figure out how the hat remained on his big head, despite me only noticing Dick pushing it back, never down.
"But, this... Oh my god, Dick... This looks nasty!" I managed, trying to keep my voice down in case someone was actually inside as Dick expected and might overhear me. If this is what the exterior looked like, I didn't want to see the inside of the house, I most certainly didn't want to know what kind of whores worked here.
"Yep," nodded Dick, "I reckon ya might be right 'bout that. But, trus' me!" he leaned forward in a conspiratory fashion, blowing gray cigarette smoke in my face and I caught a whiff of stale whiskey breath. I closed my eyes and tried hard not to make a face. Like I said, Dick was always kind to everyone; it wouldn't do to insult him.
"C'mon, boy." He playfully smacked me on the back, making me feel like I've just been hit by a baseball bat. "It looks much better inside, b'live me."
I waited for the old man to climb the stairs, fearful that they would collapse. For all I knew there was an endless pit underneath the house, the spookiness of it having brought out my childhood fears from years ago.
I thought of an old house at the far end of the street where we lived when I was a child. Ugly and unkempt, windows always dark, no mail or packages were ever delivered and only rarely did we see an old man Platt poke his big-nosed and pock-marked face out, usually only to yell and point a finger at the kids who were playing too close to the house for his comfort. We used to make up stories of witches and vampires gathering in his place, old Platt probably being one of them himself. We'd play dare and make each other run up the porch of the old house, knock on the rotting doors, throw stones in the windows, and hang up signs like 'I DIED ON THE CROSS NEXT TO JESUS'. That last one has gotten us neighborhood kids in a lot of trouble. It wasn't that we were reprimanded for being mean to the old man. We committed blasphemy and quite a few of us were left with stinging behinds after the carpet beaters and belts have recited their smacking tunes that evening.
That's what the 'famous bordello' reminded me of, a place of horrors and pain, desperation and hopelessness. I didn't want to enter it; my mind screamed out, telling me to leave. Leave now and never come back.
"Boy?" Dick's raspy voice jerked me back into reality and I sighed heavily. My feet felt like they were made of led and my steps were heavy with dread as I followed.
"Oh, come on, now. It's different inside, you'll see." Laughed the old man with ash on his cigarette dangerously long, threatening to break off and fall on his shirt at any given moment. He lifted his hand in order to smack my back again. "I bet you'll like it." He said after I waved at him, ducking the blow.
"I bet I won't." I said under the breath, but Dick obviously heard me as he turned around and for the first time since I had known him his face had a somber, almost intelligent appearance.
"One more thing, boy." He said, his hand knotted into a fist, hanging in the air as if ready to knock on the door. "No talk about god, like you do."
"What?" I was appalled. "You have never heard me..."
Dick nodded impatiently. "Well," his eyes nervously flickered between the old dog on the porch and me. "What I mean is don't even say 'Oh God'. Ya tend to say that a lot."
Sure I say that, but doesn't everyone?
"I reckon that wouldn't be appreciated in here. After all, this is a whorehouse." He smiled and good old Dick face full of mischief was back. Finally remembering his almost smoked out cigarette, he pulled it out of his mouth, tossing it over the railing into the dust. Another mucus spit followed, expertly avoiding the dog and me, landing somewhere close to the cigarette butt.
My brows shot up in surprise and amazement. If this bizarre thing became any more bizarre, I would be out of there in a second flat. Offending Dick or not, I began not caring.
His big, leathery fist gently rapped on the doorframe and before the knuckles met the old wood for the third time, a figure appeared behind the mosquito net, which I had only just realized was in place of glass. The woman looked old and dried out. A wild mess of fire red hair sat on top of her head, pressed together by invisible pins, barely holding it in place. She looked so old I was afraid she wouldn't be able to speak. Even if I couldn't see her face clearly because of the dusty old net, her eyes were visible in almost every detail. Big and black as charcoal stones they shone as if belonging to a young girl. I took a step back, when quick as a snake, Dick's arm shot out behind him and he grabbed onto my shirt, preventing me to move, let alone think about the escape.
"Dicky!" she croaked like a crow and pushed the door open, finally revealing herself to us.
I sighed in relief and my heart slowed down a bit. The dust and muckiness of the net must have made her appear completely different than what she really was. She was certainly no spring chicken, by a quick glance I estimated her to be in her fifties. A bizarre electric blue painted around her eyes made them look even bigger and blacker than they really were. Her hips were wide and her breasts heavy, but the waist was tiny as if she was a girl of sixteen. Despite the cruel makeup it was evident that she had been a true beauty once.
"Come in." She said and stepped aside.
"Ma'am." Said Dick and again pushed his hat even further up his forehead.
I nodded shyly and followed. I felt like a schoolboy who was just about to lose his virginity, not a man of twenty-five, experienced in sex if not love.
"And who do we have here?" She caught my arm and spun me towards her. I looked after Dick who had already turned the corner. I was surprised to see a beautiful Persian rug covering the neatly cared for wooden floor, which poked out on the edges of the hall. A gigantic plant pot held an explosion of huge green leaves, between which peeked tiny delicate buds and opened flowers of hot red, almost pink. The walls were covered with beige, clean wallpaper, decorated with small picture frames containing old, yellowed photographs of nineteenth century cowboys holding guns and pistols. Nice touch, went through my mind.
A playful piano tune surged through the air from the room into which Dick had disappeared moments ago. I looked at the woman and was surprised to see that her hair was neatly gathered at the top of her head, not a strand out of place. She wore a low cut olive green velvet dress, which tightly enveloped her bosom, waist and hips, only to fall down her legs in wide rich waves, its hem brushing against the carpet. A black choker studded with what looked like diamonds encircled her long and delicate neck, a big emerald-colored tear hanging off in the middle almost touching her collarbones.
She was dressed like an extra in the movies about the old west. Well, talking about satisfying somebody's fetish! Old farts like Dick were probably all crazy for it.
"Well?" she said as if becoming impatient waiting for an answer, her eyebrows high on the forehead, her face studious.
