12. IN THE NAME OF THE DADDY, THE BASTARD, AND THE HOLY WHORE
IN THE NAME OF THE DADDY, THE BASTARD, AND THE HOLY WHORE
This town had always been unforgiving to those who dared to step outside its rigid expectations. The streets of Butte, lined with worn-down houses and gossipy neighbors, didn’t leave much room for 'difference', and I had become the embodiment of that difference.
“She lost them both, and now look at her,” one woman would mutter as she passed by in the market. “A widow can’t be left alone for long. She’ll find another way to fill the hole in her heart.”
“Did you hear? That brothel of hers, The Oily Cat, they’re committing all sorts of devious acts.
I heard she’s got men holed up in there like rats in a trap,” another voice would hiss, harsher than the first. “She might’ve been a decent woman before, but now .
. . now she’s making deals with the devil himself. ”
If they thought shame would stop me, they didn’t understand the type of woman I’d become.
I found myself lingering outside the brothel, watching the empty street stretch into the dark while the lights inside The Oily Cat spilled onto the pavement.
The wind cut through my coat, but I barely noticed.
I remembered a time when John and I had walked these very streets, side by side, our arms brushing together as we shared laughter and dreams. Back then, we had been accepted; now I was nothing more than a figure of scorn.
As I stood lost in thought, a voice pulled me from my daydream. It was the familiar biting tone of a local resident, an older woman whose face seemed to have been etched by bitterness.
“Funny, isn’t it?” The woman sneered, crossing her arms with all the authority of a schoolmarm.
“You’re still here, running this place. I heard you were a good woman once.
But now? I can hardly look at you without thinking of all the men you’ve led astray.
How low you’ve sunk, Bernadette. Not that you care what anyone thinks, I suppose. ”
I gave her a cool smile, before I took a step forward, meeting the woman’s eyes directly, refusing to back down. “Low, am I?” I asked, my voice measured. “Funny, I don’t feel particularly low. In fact, I feel more alive than I ever have.”
The woman scoffed, “You’re nothing but a sinner, running this house of—”
“House of what?” I interrupted, arching an eyebrow, my lips curling into a small but wicked smile. “A house where women can take control of their own lives? Where we aren’t forced to bend to society’s expectations? A place where we can make our own choices?”
The woman flinched, but I wasn’t done. “You see, it’s easy to throw stones when you’re hiding behind a veil of respectability.
But I’m not the one whose husband needs to pay to sleep around, am I?
” I let the words settle for a moment before I moved closer, my voice just a shade sweeter.
“Funny, isn’t it, how judgmental people get when their own lives aren’t as perfect as they pretend? ”
I held my words back, letting the moment press against us, before I broke it.
“It must be exhausting to carry so much judgment around,” I said, my tone composed enough it almost felt like a compliment, “but I don’t have the energy for it.
Life’s too short.” I gave a slight shrug and walked away, leaving the woman behind with her own tangled thoughts.
I stepped into the warmth of the brothel, my heart racing with quiet triumph, my eyes scanning the room before I caught the familiar sight of Violet lounging with her long legs draped over the arm of the couch, as though the world had been designed for her comfort alone.
She held a glass of brandy in one hand, swirling it with idle elegance “You look pleased with yourself,” she chimed, eyes glinting.
I smiled, my earlier conversation fading into the background. “Just a little chat with the town’s moral compass,” I replied dryly, taking a seat at the bar.
Maeve glanced over from the far corner, where a pair of men were trying too hard to impress her. She barely gave them a nod.
“She’ll run home and pray for your soul,” Violet drawled.
I smirked. “She can pray all she wants. God stopped listening to prayers about me a long time ago.”
Elona let out a huff of laughter from her seat on the barstool. “If God ever did listen, I’d have been struck dead at least six times by now.”
“Seven,” Maeve corrected from across the room.
“I was being modest.” Elona tossed a peanut at Maeve, missing by a mile.
Maeve didn’t look up. “You were being delusional.”
Violet raised her glass. “To delusion. May it keep us charming and employed.”
I allowed myself a small smile as I slid behind the bar, offering Nell a quick five, which she graciously accepted.
The wood was warm from the gas lamps and the touch of too many desperate hands.
I wiped down a glass out of habit more than need, while over in the corner, someone played a lazy piano tune that didn’t match the mood, but didn’t ruin it either.
Then the front door creaked open on its stubborn hinges, letting in a gust of cool night air, and with it stepped a man in a fitted vest. He was tall and broad-shoulders, and his cheeks were tinged with a flush that might have come from whiskey, nerves, or maybe both.
He paused just inside the threshold and scanned the room like he wasn’t sure if he was brave or stupid for walking through our doors tonight.
Elona’s smile sharpened into something dangerous. “Oh, look,” she said, sliding off her stool with a feline grace, “tonight’s donation to the church of sin has arrived.”
He held his hat in one hand, the brim damp and misshapen, clutched tight as if it might shield him from whatever he’d just walked into.
I watched the subtle twitch of his fingers, the way his shoulders hovered somewhere between tension and defeat, and I could almost hear the thoughts rattling around in his head: Turn around.
Leave. You don’t belong here. But his feet told a different story.
Planted firm on the warped floorboards, they’d already made the choice his mind was too scared to voice.
Poor bastard didn’t even realize the hardest part wasn’t walking in, it was surviving what came next and Elona was already halfway to him.
“Evenin’, sugar,” she purred. “You look like you wandered in by mistake. Lost your way to confession, maybe?”
The man blinked, and his jaw shifted like he was about to speak, then thought better of it. Elona reached out and touched his chest, barely a graze, like she was testing the fabric of his vest for quality or searching for a heartbeat.
“Name’s Elona,” she said, though it hardly mattered. He wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, and if he did, he’d never say it aloud. Not to anyone that mattered.
After the money was exchanged, she took his hand and turned, leading him toward the stairs, the same way she might lead a dance partner to the floor.
They disappeared up the staircase, her laugh trailing behind them, while I returned to the bar, flipping over a chipped shot glass and filling it with my favorite whiskey.
Violet sipped on her brandy. “Think he’ll cry?”
Maeve, still in the corner, glanced up. “I'd bet my left tit on it.”
The piano faltered for a brief moment, its notes slipping uncertainly before pushing forward with a jagged, off-key tune that rang unevenly through the room.
Slowly, people began to trickle in—first just two at a time, then more and more, until the space was steadily filling with the sound of voices and movement.
Chairs scraped against the floor, voices overlapped in rising chatter, and the space came alive.
The piano shifted gears, breaking into a quicker, livelier melody that instantly put me in a good mood.
Finally, the night had found its rhythm.
That is until an unexpected sound cut through the music.
At first, it was soft, barely audible over the clink of glasses and the hollow piano.
But then became clearer—a sharp gasp trapped in his throat, followed by another, deeper sound that was impossible to ignore, and the bar fell into a particular hush only the guilty and the curious know well.
The sound filtered down from the ceiling, through the thin plaster, as a slow, dragging moan filled the silence.
Then a cry, high and bright, that shattered the silence completely.
Somewhere in the corner, someone let out a quiet chuckle, breaking the tension, while nearby, another person shifted uneasily on a barstool, the scrape of wood against the floor.
“Well,” Violet said, swirling her brandy again, “either she’s killing him, or saving him.
Maeve shrugged. “What’s the difference?” She asked casually, and that earned some nervous, wayward glances from the men sitting at the nearby tables, eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and caution.