Samantha followed Buckle through the busy city streets of Crescent City, marveling at each building as if it were the first built over three stories. They ran the gamut, from ramshackle little houses of rough timber to large halls, the exteriors carved from blocks of marble. Of the places Samantha had seen in the three months with the Calculus, Crescent City was the richest of them all.
Buckle stopped every half-block to ensure Samantha was still following, wrapping his arm around and dragging her away from the tallest buildings that had entranced her. Samantha followed, carried along by the by the near certainty that another miracle awaited discovery and, so far, had not been disappointed.
They walked from the port on the western edge through the center, passing from the outer to inner rings of the city, each richer than the one before. Buckle allowed her to gape at the concert hall in the city center, a marble palace of ornate reliefs decorating the ledges and balconies outside.
“I have never seen this,” Samantha said in halting English.
“Well, you wouldn’t have,” Buckle said. He checked his watch, careful to ensure Samantha didn’t see him.
“How is it builded?”
“A lot of stone and some very talented masons.”
Buckle tugged at Samantha’s arm and she gave in, continuing after but walking backwards to take in every detail. She stumbled over an uneven sidewalk and caught up with the skipper.
“I will live here?”
“Not here, exactly,” Buckle said. “This is the Granite District. We’re going to the east side.”
“East side…”
“I have a friend who might be able to give you a job,” said Buckle. “So you can save money for Athena City.”
“Athena City…”
“Right.”
Buckle kept Samantha on a steady march forward from one side of the city to the other, encountering the same rings as before but in reverse, each growing poorer at the same pace they had grown rich. In a middle-class neighborhood, they stopped as Samantha wondered at the latest miracle she had encountered just that afternoon.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing toward the structure and the lights that towered over.
“It’s a ballpark.”
“Ballpark…”
“Right,” he said. “Where they play baseball.”
“Baseball…”
Buckle turned and studied the girl. She repeated “baseball” over and over as if enjoying the way it came off her tongue. He shook his head and grinned.
“You never seen a baseball game?”
“Baseball game…”
“Yes or no?”
“No,” Samantha said.
Buckle checked the time and watched as people streamed into the park. He glanced at the ticket booths, laughing. Samantha stared up with quizzical eyes.
“You want to see a ballgame?”
“Ballgame…”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Samantha said.
“Well, alright then.” He led her to a booth and purchased two upper-deck tickets and guided her through the turnstiles. With a beer for Buckle and a box of popcorn for Samantha, they found their seats on the left field side.
“Baseball,” Samantha said.
“Yep.”
It was the top of the third and Crescent City was already down by two but by the fourth, Samantha leaned forward, studying the field like a seasoned fan. Even if she still had not grasped all the rules.
“How come the second base?” asked Samantha. “Base…”
“Ground rule double,” Buckle said. “It landed in the field before bouncing out.”
Samantha nodded and Buckle grinned, watching as the rule was added. She altered the scorecard in her program but even Buckle could not make out the notation she used. For three more innings Samantha sat silent, marking the score but eyes fixed on the field below until the seventh inning stretch.
“What job will I get?” she asked.
“Where?”
“Where we go.”
“The Oyster House,” Buckle said. “Well, you’ve done a fine job with the barky. I was thinking maybe Sergi might be able to use a girl to mop his bar.”
“Clean.”
“Exactly.” Buckle ruffled her hair and pulled her in for a sideways hug. “He’ll be able to pay you and then you’ll be on your way to Athena, yeah?”
Samantha nodded.
“And that’s what we want,” Buckle said. “We can’t afford to keep you on, things being as they are.”
“Yes,” Samantha said.
“Okay then,” said Buckle. He glanced at her empty box of popcorn. “I’m going to get a beer. You want more?”
Samantha nodded but her attention was divided. Take me out to the ballgame was over and the bottom of the seventh was about to begin. She picked up her program and pencil, ready to color the card with her idea of scoring.
Buckle grinned, watching her mark the strikeout with a chicken scratch in the margin. “I’ll be right back,” he said. Samantha nodded but with little interest to spare.
The Oyster House did not look like much from the outside, a two-story structure of rough timber in the center of the block. Those too drunk or too poor to pay for another slouched on benches on the porch outside, doubling Samantha’s trepidation as Buckle walked her forward.
“What is this?” she asked, pulling away from his hand.
“It’s my friend’s bar,” Buckle said. “I know it doesn’t look like much but he can pay you.”
Samantha stood, frozen in the street. Buckle pulled at an elbow but she would not budge. He circled around and pushed her off the unpaved road. He pulled a cardboard box from his bag, handing it to Samantha. She looked up in confusion.
“It’s a phone,” he said, pulling off the lid. The glass of the touch-screen gleamed under the street lamps. “Oka programmed it with our numbers, put a couple of songs on it, and loaded it with a hundred dollars to spend however.”
He pushed it into her hands and she accepted, pulling the device from its plastic bed and poking it awake. A menu appeared, waiting further instructions. Samantha pushed the icons and watched as new things flashed over the screen. Buckle reclaimed the box and pushed the phone against her chest.
“You’ll figure it out. And everything’s going to be okay. Okay?” he asked, guilt plain in his eyes. “I promise. I wouldn’t leave you otherwise.”
She had been staring into the middle-distance, not seeing anything for a long moment when she blinked, and glanced to him for reassurance. Buckle nodded, adding a smile. He steered her toward the front doors, guiding her past the drunks.
“Just let me do the talking, yeah?” asked Buckle.
It was a light afternoon crowd inside and Buckle found his way to the bar with ease. He waved down the bartender and leaned forward. “Joe. I need to see Sergi.”
Joe shrugged and walked away. He poured a draught and pressed a button under the bar. A minute later Sergi Romanov appeared, a little man with a tilted nose and black rat eyes. He poked Buckle in the ribs from behind with the barrel of a long pistol, laughing when Buckle recognized his face.
“There you are, you fucking pirate,” Sergi said. “I wondered if you’d been put into the vacuum for Christ’s sake.”
“Bad year,” Buckle said, leaning in for a quick hug. The men slapped each other’s backs twice and let go, taking a quick step back after. “Stuck around New Normandy.”
“Shit,” Sergi said. “You should have contacted me. I always need something.”
“In debt to you,” said Buckle. “No. I’m actually here about another thing.”
Sergi turned his attention to Samantha for the first time and she shrank under his piercing look. Sergi laughed.
“I’m not paying you for finding me another girl,” he said.
“She ain’t that kind,” said Buckle. “She’s honest and looking for honest work. With a mop maybe.”
Sergi looked Samantha over. He smiled a lopsided grin full of crooked teeth.
“If she’s such a sweetie, Jonas, why give her up?” he asked.
“Only so many times the barky needs cleaning,” Buckle said. “And she doesn’t have any other skills. You know how it goes, yeah?”
Samantha glanced toward Buckle with sad eyes. The three months aboard the Calculus had thinned her rounded figure. Her pregnancy weight had gone along with a little more she didn’t know she could spare. Samantha remained plain. There was little anyone could do about her heritage. But Oka had tenderly plucked her eyebrows and trimmed her hair above the shoulders, and they had transformed the farm girl from Gelassenheit into a passable facsimile of a shipper.
“She work the trade?” Sergi asked.
“Like I said, honest work.” Buckle put an arm around Samantha’s shoulders, pulling her close. “You don’t need an extra mop, fine. I’ll take her elsewhere.”
“Now hold on,” Sergi said. “Just asking a fair question. You act like I’m pimping your kin.”
“Want to see her land on her feet is all,” Buckle said.
“Why here?” asked Sergi. “You don’t seem like you want to part with the girl.”
“She’s on her way to Athena,” Buckle said. “This is as close as our circuit takes us.”
“I hear ya,” Sergi said. He scratched the day’s stubble on his chin. “I hear ya. Well, at least her looks won’t send the customers running. Tell you what, I’ll take her on, hundred a day plus room and board. As a favor to you.”
“No trade?”
“No trade,” Sergi said. He held a hand up in solemn oath. “But I’ve heard you’re bonded these days.”
Samantha watched as the men leaned in to discuss the status of Buckle’s ship, speaking too quickly for her to understand. She watched them talk until deciding that she could glean no meaning from their conversation and turned her attention to the bar.
A second floor ringed the first, a balcony over which girls leaned, beckoning up potential customers. A half dozen ceiling fans turned with just enough purpose to whisk away clouds of smoke from the busy tables. It wasn’t the worst place she had seen but it wasn’t the best either.
“Samantha,” Buckle said. “Sergi’s going to take care of you. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, voice quiet in the din.
“Hey,” he said. He held her face with a hand and kissed her on the forehead, the strands of his beard tickling her nose. “If you want to get to Athena, this is for the best, yeah?”
“Okay.”
“We’ll check up on you next time we’re this way,” he said. Buckle pressed four fifty-dollar coins into her hand and closed her fingers around them. He looked up at Sergi. “I’ll see your boys at the port.”
Sergi nodded and followed Buckle with his eyes until the skipper disappeared through the sandblasted glass doors. He turned to Samantha with a frown that pulled at his thin lips. “Might as well get you settled,” he said. “Come on.”
Sergi led Samantha up a staircase, past lines of drunken men, each reaching out for a feel. They stank of liquor, sweat, and sex and Samantha braced herself against the acrid mixture, slapping away the groping hands. They came too many and too fast and some could not be deflected, goosing her rear or grabbing at a breast. Sergi pushed through the crowd, Samantha quick enough behind that she tread on his heels following him to the second floor. They passed a series of doors behind which creaked springs.
“These rooms,” Sergi said, throwing a thumb over a shoulder. “I want them cleaned three times a day. Fresh sheets, I don’t care how little come, got it?”
“Okay,” she said.
“I run a clean place here,” Sergi said. “I don’t want no one saying they made it on filthy sheets.”
“Okay.”
Sergi spun on his heel. “Tell me they taught you more than ‘Okay’.”
“Yes,” she said.
His face was not the kind that held a smile with ease. The effect of seeing all his teeth, some brown and dying, disconcerted Samantha and she fought the urge to step backward.
“A woman of few words,” he said. “Wish there were more.”
Sergi unlocked the last door, motioning her inside. It was a bare room with a dozen bunks and lockers between. There were no windows–the little light coming from dimmed LED lamps. Where they were on, pools of warm light spilled onto the rough floors. Sergi walked through the near darkness with the practice of a blind man, checking each mattress for an occupant.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a bottom bunk. “You can get sheets and a pillow from the closet. You’re responsible for washing them, too, by the way. Twice a week. Now sit.”
Samantha did as she was told, clutching her satchel tight against her chest. Sergi unbuckled his gray flannel slacks and dropped them to his ankles. Through the slit in his briefs, he pulled his penis, holding it out.
“You know what to do,” he said. He waved it like a limp worm, gripping Samantha’s shoulder and pulling her close. “Come on.”
Samantha recoiled. “No,” she said.
“I know you fucked Buckle,” he said. “The least you can do is give Uncle Serg a little suck. There’s more money if you do.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
Sergi remained as he was, limp dick hanging in the air, studying Samantha’s face. He released her shoulder and pushed it back inside, grinning. “Okay,” he said. “You want to be a good girl, fine. But if you fuck any customers you owe me forty percent, understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Morning, early evening, and once at night, that’s when you clean,” he said. He turned at the door, shooting Samantha a final look. “And I’ll be checking your work. Welcome to the Oyster House, girl.”
Samantha remembered her father being fond of the word whore, applying it with abandon to any woman whose dress fit ill or elicited perhaps too much attention from a man that wasn’t her husband. It was always accompanied by a sneer and the impression that the target should be ashamed. Surrounded by actual whores with bonafides so certain they used it to address one another, Samantha felt the severity of the curse deflating somewhat.
Jasmine, Savannah, and Rose may have each worn too much makeup. And their dresses revealed parts of their bodies that Samantha would never think of showing to a man who wasn’t her husband. But they were fair and kind to her in all the ways Jacob had never been. Whores they were indeed but each was a markedly better person than her father.
Jasmine dabbed at Samantha’s lips with a square of toilet paper rubbing away the crimson gloss. Rose and Savannah tugged at her hair moving it here and there as Samantha sat frozen in a wooden chair like a life-sized doll.
“You have a pretty face,” Jasmine said. “But this red is too deep for your pale coloring. You’re more of a Spring.”
“I do not know what you mean,” Samantha said.
Jasmine loomed over, hammy fists on pudgy sides, her face contorted in thought. Everyone but Samantha wore little more than their underthings, originally white but turned tan with months of constant use and sub-par laundering.
Rose stepped between them, grabbing Samantha’s hair and bunching it atop the girl’s head. Her head lolled from side to side as she examined the shape of Samantha’s face. “Have you ever thought about cutting it?” she asked. “I think you’d look fantastic in a bob.”
“No,” Samantha said, avoiding Rose’s deep blue eyes. The contrast between them and her fiery red hair gave Rose a piercing look.
“The shape of your face is much better with a shorter cut,” Rose said. “But we’ll see what we can do.”
“We might want to pluck her eyebrows too,” Savannah said. “They’ve kind of turned into one big one.”
“We can’t make her too pretty,” said Jasmine, running a black finger along Samantha’s cheek to clean away some lipstick she missed before. “We don’t want Sergi interested.”
The girls giggled but with a worrying undertone Samantha couldn’t miss. Her eyes darted for an explanation but none was forthcoming. Savannah leaned in with tweezers.
“This might sting,” she said, fetching away a hair. Samantha jerked. “You’ll get used to it.”
“How good is your English?” asked Jasmine.
“Okay,” said Samantha. She winced as Savannah struck again.
“You’re new,” Jasmine said. “So I’ll tell you something each of us had to learn on our own. Sergi might seem like your friend at first but he’s not.”
“He’s a dog,” said Rose.
“Uh huh,” said Savannah.
“He’s only interested in girls for two reasons,” Jasmine said. “To fuck us or to sell us. And he doesn’t care which.”
Samantha nodded and Savannah fetched out another hair, earning her a suspicious glance.
“I’m just giving you fair warning,” Jasmine said. She picked another color from her box and held up Samantha’s face for application.
“Thank you,” Samantha said.
“For what?”
“For this. For telling me.”
Jasmine grinned. “I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes the rest of us have. You seem too sweet to get turned out onto the floor.”
This post uses art generated by GPT Image 2 based on prompts created by Claude based on the story above.
