The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [109]
“Blackmoor! How much for you eating the shit of me, blackmoor?” Dario winced, as if the shouting drunkard were addressing him instead of Awa. “Not, not story. You eating the shit of me, me paying, me watching, girl watching. How much?”
“No fucking charge for what I’ll give you,” Awa heard herself say, and she was already halfway across the tavern when a great Dutch shadow fell over her. Awa felt her hand extend to kill Monique, and then Merritt and Dario and everyone else in the tavern, and then she would burn the building down, and if Chloé didn’t like it she would kill her, too. Then she caught herself and yanked her hand back, her fingers almost brushing Monique’s arm.
“Upstairs, Awa. My room,” Monique said softly, then, raising her voice and turning to Merritt, “Oi, Saxon! Don’t know bout on your gloomy native rock but ’ere bouts we got laws gainst doin nastiness with blackamoors.”
“Me wanting not fucking it!” Merritt protested loudly, addressing the other patrons as much as the brothel’s nominal bouncer. “No, not fucking blackmoor!”
Awa heard him spit as she went up the rickety stairs, and had a single other voice joined in or even laughed she would have wheeled around, murdered them all, then brought them back so that she might murder them a second time, but no one else spoke or chuckled, and she went down the second-story hallway to Monique’s room. It was locked. Fuck this, and fuck them, and Awa was storming back down the hall when Monique appeared, and she looked so miserable and tired that Awa’s rage began to steam off her, and she let herself be led back into Monique’s room.
“That fucking asshole! Who the fuck does he think he is?!” Awa drained the drink Monique offered and slapped the clay mug back into her friend’s palm. “I don’t have to take that shit!”
“No,” agreed Monique, refilling the mug and drinking it herself. “Ya don’t ’ave to take that shit—only if ya wanna stay under this roof, aye?”
“So that’s how it is?” Awa took the bottle from Monique’s hand when the cup was not refilled and stalked around the room. The bed was nice and soft, by the look of it, and there was a table against one wall with scales and canisters on it, a trunk underneath it and a chair beside that, but otherwise the room was empty save for the clothes strewn about the place, frilly things far too small and delicate for Monique to ever fit into. “Some fucking loudmouth idiot over me.”
“Ya got a real tidy thing goin on here,” said Monique, sitting down on her bed. “ We got a real tidy thing goin on here. We don’t ’ave ta take the shit, but we will if we like it as it is, if we wanna keep it as it is. Understand?”
“Easy for you to say, without some squinty piece of shit taking that tone with you!” Awa took another long pull on the bottle.
“Right, right, I forgot, it weren’t me gettin zero fuckin credit for this affair while that ginger-lout I pay ta embezzle my fuckin bar inta his belly gets the praise an’ Christ knows ’ow many tips an’ perks for bein born with a prick. Weren’t me gettin the short end, was some other Low Country cunt.” Monique sighed. “Ya gonna bring that bottle back here or am I gonna ’ave ta chase ya down?”
“So I just take it? When some shit-eyed bastard talks that fucking way to me, I just bend over and take it?” Awa returned the bottle, the fiery gutrot matching her acidic mood.
“Smallest, softest cock you’ll ever take is the ones what come out they mouths,” said Monique. “For any of us it’d be hard, but for those sisters of our circumstances this’s good as it’ll ever get, believe you me. Not many places in this wide, wonderful world the Lord made for us’ll tolerate a fuckin blackamoor witch, an’ dyke besides, sittin up most nights gettin her business tended by the fairest fanny in fuckin Paris. No?”
Awa looked at Monique, and smiled the slightest bit. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t.”
“So maybe turnin the other cheek when some greasy Saxon runs ’is gob ain’t too steep a price for the ass I found ya, especially when said ass is chargin triple what she oughta from that particular greasy