Something Blue

Chapter 10

At the end of the day, women were the weaker sex. The frailer sex. She couldn't best a man in a fight or outrun him if he gave chase after her. But men were fatally weak in the groin, in more ways than one, and Vivian was a master of exploiting that weakness.

So it was with pride, not with shame, that Vivian strode the short but lonely stretch of dirt path to the establishment she owned, part and parcel. The fire that had burned her first saloon to the ground had made her stronger-- fueled her thirst for success. She had found this place within days. Bought it. Fixed it up. Made it her own. Her girls were safer here than they had been in the center of town-- less exposed to random acts of callous anger. If anyone attacked them here, they'd have to have intent. And anyone who had intent was already in her sights.

It was dusk when she arrived home, weary from her journey. Her trips to the cities were never fixed to a schedule. Sometimes she was gone for months. This time, she'd been gone for a mere three weeks. She'd intended to bring back a new girl, but she hadn't found anyone in a position to justify her interference. Sometimes it went that way, and it was never a disappointment. It was better not to find a girl at the very edge of her spiritual and physical endurance. At the end of the day... yes, it was better. Vivian did not hurt for employees.

Summer sunsets in this part of the world were a lovely thing-- pink and red and dusky green, whatever color God chose to paint Her majesty. Whatever was Her whim. Vivian enjoyed the sunset, but was not seduced by it. A master seductress could not be seduced. Instead, her ears were trained to the quiet woods around her. She was confident not stupid, and she had been attacked before. It was an attack that had left her penniless and dishonored, on her back while a man rutted over her, grunting a release into her young body that he paid for with pennies.

There was no attack that evening. Nothing but crickets and that glorious sunset to accompany her as she climbed the stairs to her home-- her tiny, inviolable corner of the world. She could hear tinny music from inside-- someone was playing the piano, and not very well. Voices and chatter. Glasses clinking. Men's rumbling voices and women giggling.

It was a gentle homecoming.

Inside, she found the place much as she had left it. There was really no way to distinguish one night from the next in this little town. Same customers, same degrees of drunk. Same drinks in their grubby hands. Same girls, same fake laughter. Same rotating outfits-- silk and lace and satin for the girls. Dirt- and sweat-stained cotton for the men.

The girls greeted her when she walked in-- a melodic chorus of welcome. The men greeted her as well-- less melodic. Less coherent. Less polite.

Vivian no longer considered herself lithe and beautiful, as she had once been. She wasn't an old woman, but her body was not the lovely thing it used to be. Her breasts had sagged, her curves shifting and growing. Everything she consumed seemed to drop, heavy and unwelcome, into her belly. Once upon a time she'd worn all her gluttonous indulgences in her ass and her chest, where they were nice to look at and fondle. Now she felt lopsided and ungainly.

Despite her evolving form, she knew she carried the allure of confidence and reputation. She didn't brag, and she rarely took clients anymore, but her reputation didn't need a hundred men spewing her praises. She was a woman with needs and occasionally she found a man to help her see to those needs. Her favorite, these days, with Sheriff Lee. The quiet ones were always the most alive in the bedroom. Something about all that pent up energy made them explosive and downright formidable between the sheets. But the sheriff wasn't her only partner, and word had gotten around--

Vivian Townsend was an expert in her own business.

So it was with confidence born of genuine success that she strode across the room, admired but unmolested, and sank onto a stool at the end of the bar. Cigar smoke tickled her nostrils as her boot heels echoed hollow against the pine wood floor, and the off-tune piano continued to play its pitiful, nostalgic tune in the background. She set her travel bag beside her as Caroline came to greet her.