The Bathhouse
My name is Erik. I’ve worked in the bathhouse in the city’s residential district for about five years now. While most of the attendants clean the towels, tend to the temperature of the water, and serve the clientele drink and refreshments, I often attend to more … intimate requests. My customers include bored nobility, wealthy visitors and other people of means. They seek me out as someone who caters with discretion, and is a cut above the those who work at the Regal Maid.
There are several of us scattered throughout the city. A few others even work here in the bath house. Our well-being and security are governed by a patron who shall remain nameless. We function as a courtesans’ guild, but without the charter and recognition.
Miss Meadow came into the bathhouse a few years ago. A slip of a thing who barely stood to my shoulders, she came to me informed and with purpose. She knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask.
There are those who enter the bath house, the Alexis Baily’s and Isolde Garibaldi’s of the world who draw attention by their beauty and presence. Conversation often stops. People stare in desire or jealousy.
Meadow was not one of them.
She would often be at the bath house some time before I or others even realized she was there. It was a disconcerting feeling because I like to show some deference to my regulars. Perhaps given some attention and care one could consider her pretty and an abstract sort of fashion, but there was nothing about her that drew much attention, except perhaps for her tattoos.
Her arms, shoulders, and back were inked in the most remarkable fashion. In a few instances, small scars had been incorporated into the designs to create a third dimension to the art. Most of them appeared to be dragons, serpents, and other fantastic creatures. I asked her once about them, and she responded with a smirk that horses and flowers were so blasé. I left the matter at that.
She could be quite the conversationalist when she put her mind to it. She was schooled, bright, and intelligent. There was a point in time when a few of the socialites would join her in the bath, and their laughter and hushed whispers echoed regularly.
The Wilkes affair, ended all of it.
After that, she remained quite alone for some time. She still came to me regularly, though there was a detached loneliness to her. She was a good client, and I must say she had remarkable control of her body.
This brings me to the latest incident, which happened last month.
The Wilkes affair was quietly becoming a distant memory, yet Miss Meadow still sat alone in the corner. She seemed particularly morose today, and had not sought my attentions.
Bruce came in with his usual entourage. The first son of a minor noble who stood to inherit a rather large estate, Bruce was handsome, loud and arrogant. His entourage consisted of other minor nobles, cousins, friends, and others who wished to garner as much favor as possible. It’s often not what you know, but who you know in this world after all. His bodyguard Kern sat outside the water, looking as bored as usual.
Bruce and his entourage occupied one section of the pool. Miss Meadow sat in the other. I had privately hoped Miss Meadow would join them, but there were words exchanged. Suddenly, the boisterous conversion quieted, and Bruce assumed a most venomous expression. A couple of the ladies sitting with Bruce whispered in conspiratorial delight. Sadly, I hadn’t caught what was said, but I did hear what followed.
“I think you heard me the first time Bryce”, Miss Meadow said, deliberately mispronouncing his name. Bruce’s venomous expression garnished a smile. He looked up at Kern and said with obvious delight, “Kern my friend, please remove the boorish cunt from my presence”
Kern looked up grinning, his boredom replaced with malicious purpose. I thought to intervene, but Kern was rather large. I was no warrior so instead, directed another attendant to fetch the guard.
Kern walked around the pool to where Miss Meadow sat. She seemed oddly detached from the situation. With a delighted sneer, Kern reached down and grabbed Miss Meadow’s hair. My gut twisted a bit, watching this unfold. The guards would arrive much to late to save Miss Meadow from being accosted.
What Miss Meadow did was so fast, I was entirely unsure of what transpired. She twisted, her right arm flashed out, and it appeared as if she poked Kern in the throat.
The effect was rather telling. Kern staggered back, eyes bulging, suddenly unable to breathe. He made a horrible gagging sound as Miss Meadow leapt naked out of the pool. As Kern struggled, she struck him three, perhaps four times in the side and back. It was if Kern was a marionette whose strings had been cut. His body simply went limp, and he went down with a hard smack as his face hit the tiles.
Miss Meadow stood over Kern for a moment searching, before reaching and unsheathing a large knife from Kern’s belt. Then with an unsettling casualness, she walked around the pool to where Bruce sat.
A few of Bruce’s entourage immediately hopped out of the pool and fled. Bruce seemed transfixed to his position in fear. Then Miss Meadow hopped into the pool in front of Bruce, holding the knife.
I didn’t hear what Miss Meadow said. It was whispered quietly in Bruce’s ear as she ran the point of the knife on his face. All I know is that Bruce turned very pale and relieved himself in the pool.
The guards came about ten minutes later. I and several others spoke to them. No charges were pressed, and Bruce hasn’t shown his face in the bath house since.
Miss Meadow still comes to me regularly, the detached loneliness ever present. She pays well, and I treat her with the respect, intimacy and deference my profession requires. But the idle curiosity of the nature her background and the tattoos has been replaced by an underlying current of wariness.
