“Is this alright for you?”
Jack nodded, lying stiff as she lifted his arm and gently washed away the grime. A single tear rolled from his eye when she carefully placed his hand back on the bed. She handled him like breakable glass, the kind that had already shattered and been glued back together too many times.
Myrtle was so gentle, the bath didn’t hurt. But her softness and patience made it one of the most painful experiences of his life.
The following week, Jack found the strength to stand without falling. He limped to the toilet and often stopped at the window, staring over the soap smudges to watch the street below. The faceless parade of bodies moved through their lives with unfamiliar purpose and a business he had never seen before. Much like the way Myrtle moved about her days, always preparing, always recovering, always coming and going.
Jack didn’t know where she went when she left, but she always came back. Dependable, like the moon that consistently follows the sun.
The flat was a single room with a toilet down the hall and a copper tub wedged into the corner behind a makeshift curtain. The walls were thin enough to hear the neighbors arguing and babies crying. Jack recognized the constant percussion of poverty and preferred it over the untrustworthy boom of power.
Myrtle’s home was old and worn, but warm. Like her.
He watched her routine, finding comfort in its patterns. She left after dark, dressed in clothes that revealed more than they concealed, and returned just before sunrise, slower than the night before. Sometimes her makeup smeared and her red lipstick wore off, but she always smiled when she saw him, even when he pretended to be asleep.
One night, when Myrtle came home moving as if her back were sore, and her joints ached, Jack watched her through his barely parted eyelashes. She hung her threadbare coat by the matted fur collar on the peg by the door and set the kettle on the burner to warm.
She peeled off her dress and her stockings, standing in the dim light by the stove in nothing but her undergarments. Ribbons and straps framed her skin, but that wasn’t what made Jack stare.
Those garments were meant to distract the eye and lure the gaze to lush curves. But Jack saw the truth. He recognized the markings underneath the tattered lace for what they were.
Fingerprints.
As she turned to the stove, lifting the kettle off the burner, he opened his eyes. Bruises on her thighs. Red marks circling her wrists. A bite wound on her shoulder, dark as a plum.
After adding the hot water to the room-temperature water in the tub, she added a splash of jasmine and unhooked her bra. Her breasts drooped against her ribs, soft and tired. The curve of her hips sagged where flesh was usually plump.
But her age detracted nothing from her beauty. Not for Jack.
Her stomach was marked by a long scar, raised and pale, stretching from her navel to her pelvis like a crude signature. Realizing what might have left such a mark, Jack turned his gaze away, but his concern was inescapable by that point. Someone had cut her open and sewn her back together without much care for what remained inside.
What had they taken? What had it cost her?
He forced himself to look as she lowered herself into the tub with a soft hiss. Once submerged in the tub, she rested her head on the ledge and shut her eyes, reminding Jack of the churches he and his mother used to visit.
Like statues of the Virgin Mary, there was pained sorrow etched in Myrtle’s tired beauty. But also pure tenderness. A quiet resilience, so perfect and feminine, that neither time nor struggle could ever wash it away. Holy and wounded, somehow, Myrtle was more beautiful because of her past suffering. Sacred.
“I know you’re awake,” she said without opening her eyes.
Jack’s breath caught.
“It’s alright, love. Nothing you haven’t seen before, I expect.”
He didn’t know how to respond, and he didn’t want to lie, so he asked, “Do they hurt you?”
“Who?”
“The person who makes you take it. Whoever…bruised you.”
Myrtle laughed, soft and weary. “Makes me?” She turned to look at him, wet hair clinging to her neck. “No one makes me do anything, love. This is my body. My choice. And that’s my money hidden in the tin…well, let’s just say I keep every pound I earn.”
“But…” He thought of his own experiences and flinched away from the memories. “So you let them hurt you?”
“Some of them get rough. Comes with the territory.” She shrugged, water trickling down her shoulders. “I set my own prices. I choose my own clients. And every pound I earn gets hidden until I need it.”
“Hidden?”
She opened her eyes and met his stare. After a long moment, she said, “Under the floorboard.”
