The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,39
open as the legs that called it home.
13
At the bottom end of Stammer, before the alleys were eaten up by breweries and mills, The Rose Quarter blossomed around the banks of the Kirra Canal. The Kirra was a Dwarven-designed channel used to flush the scum from the manufacturing plants out of Sunder City and off to who-the-hell-cares.
The Rose was once the theater district, specializing in live music and opera. Now, the only performances were intimate engagements with a single audience member (or a couple, if that was your thing and you were willing to pay extra).
It was still mid-week but there were enough people on the street to call it a crowd. The footpaths were filled with every kind of clientele from the sheepish middle-aged men to hungry-faced boys and girls with bouquets of bills crushed in their fists. Curious couples from out of town giggled in each other’s ears and pointed up at the big mommas who hung their breasts proudly over the banisters like bait for little fish.
Paper petals fell on the street. They used to be real. They used to be red. Now they were a sick, poison pink and as cheap as five minutes with the hand that threw them.
When I’d first walked down this way as a teenager, fresh from the walls of Weatherly, the temptation to throw my wages into every window was too much to resist.
It’s one strange step into madness to know that Elves and Angels exist, but it’s quite another trip to sleep with one. Knowing that my first Sunder pay-check could buy my way into bed with a Banshee or Wendigo, my virgin heart could barely handle it. Each piece of a dream stood bare, in red windows, beckoning me in. Witches, Nymphs and wild Half-Giants. For a fee, you could plunge yourself into the depths of an Elemental Faery or risk your sanity lying with a Succubus.
I wish I could say that it had never sat right with me: paying for the privilege of a night with a strange lady, but you should know by now that I’m not that noble. With whiskey for blood and untested desire, I’d exchanged a week’s worth of bronze for a few sad minutes with a little, blonde Elf who looked better under the window light than on the bed in the back room. Her skin was cold. Her eyes were colder. Before I knew it, I was back out on the street, sad and empty-handed, with nothing to show but a stain on my trousers.
It was hardly the sexual highlight of my young life, but like all first times, the memory has gained a kind of erotic power over the years. When a woman’s hand touches my body, and her skin feels cold, the embarrassment and excitement of that first encounter creeps back out into the light.
The actress suggested that I start my search at The Heroine: a business-minded brothel a street away from the crowded courtyards. No buxom harlots hanging from balconies here, just a mean-looking madam and her snarling piece of muscle.
The muscle was a leather-wrapped Ogre with a sharp ring on every finger and a Dragon-bone through his nose. The madam was a thick-hipped Dwarf with a face like an old pumpkin under make-up.
Both sets of lazy eyes looked me over as I approached the stoop.
“I’m here to see Gabrielle.”
“Two bronze leaf for half an hour.”
The tiny madam spoke with the over-pronounced dialect of someone trying to climb up a class or two.
“I just want to talk to her.”
“That’s the price for talking, sunshine. Anything else is extra.”
The flexing beast beside her convinced me not to try to haggle. I handed off the bronze and the charming pair parted so I could squeeze inside.
“Take him to Gabs,” the Dwarf threw over her shoulder to another of her species. The second Dwarf was pinned into pink undergarments that barely covered the things they were supposed to.
A narrow hallway cut through the house with a series of open doorways on either side. Each room was hidden behind a sheer curtain or set of beads that covered little of the visuals and nothing of the noise. The wallpaper was mustard yellow with little red Gryphons, and the lampshades were stenciled with tiny stars. That’s the secret to these places: keep the light at a simmering level so you never know where you really are, what you’re really touching, and whether it was really worth your money.