Belinda Sue snorted and shook her head. “The ones who got snap in their garters, anyhow. And that’s the only sort Penelope would ever let cross this hallowed threshold. She didn’t do business with common folks.”
“She had a reputation to uphold,” Daisy said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
Cordelia could understand a reputation better than just about anyone else. She knew all the ways it could build you up and even more ways it could break you. She valued a good reputation above all else, because once you had a good one, it could carry you places you could never get to on your own.
“I certainly understand the need to be respectable.” Cordelia tapped a finger to her lips. “But what did the running of this place have to do with y’all?”
“She was our madam.” Daisy lifted her chin as pride radiated through her voice. “We’re the best in the business.”
There was that word again. “Madam.” But this time, instead of finding it strange and mildly amusing, a pit opened in Cordelia’s stomach. Deep and endless. It was just beginning to dawn on her that “madam” probably wasn’t just a South Texas way of saying “female landlord.”
She cleared away the lump of panic that had seen fit to settle in her throat. “What kind of business do you do?”
Belinda Sue took on a more serious expression. “Well now, the proper term these days is ‘sex worker.’ But what we do is provide a community service—”
“For pay,” Daisy interjected.
Belinda Sue nodded. “For pay. But a community service at heart. We service the husbands in all the nearby counties so their wives can get on with other doings.”
“Other. Doings,” Cordelia said, not quite sure how her jaw was still working when it had dropped clear on down to her feet. Mr. Arbuckle Jenkins had some serious explaining to do.
“Quilting bees, book clubs, canning jams, you know.” Daisy twirled her wrist. “All those hobbies many of the respectable ladies in town like doing in peace without having their randy husbands pawing after them at all hours of the day. Of course, we don’t mess with the husbands whose wives don’t wholeheartedly approve. We have some single clients too, but most our visitors are married.”
“So the husbands come and see y’all?” Cordelia’s voice squeaked on the last syllable. This was fine. She was not a cartoon dog casually drinking coffee while the room burned around her. This was. Just. Fine.
“Not all at once,” Daisy said. “Unless they pay extra, but we haven’t had any requests like that in oh”—a dreamy smile overtook her face as she sifted through her memories—“maybe twenty years. Not since Earl Cruiser died. Isn’t that right, Belinda Sue?”
“God rest his soul.” Belinda Sue closed her eyes and pointed to the sky before directing her gaze back to Cordelia. “For the most part, we have our regulars and routines. We each offer a specialty. Daisy is our sweetheart. She handles the men who like to be cooed and coddled and treated like the center of the universe.”
Daisy threw Belinda Sue a mischievous grin. “I’ve always been real good at spoiling babies, and what are men, if not just a bunch of overgrown babies?”
“Indeed.” Belinda Sue grinned back. “And I tend to the men who like it when a woman has what I refer to as a firmer hand, if you know what I mean.”
“Or a whip,” Daisy said brightly. “They like that too.”
Cordelia pressed her fingers into her temples. This couldn’tbe happening. She couldn’t be having a civilized conversation about whips with a group of senior ladies. They should be wrapping their furniture in plastic and having dinner at four o’clock, not satisfying the sexual appetites of old married men who didn’t want to bother their wives.
“I’m sure they do,” Cordelia said absently. She leaned forward, cradling her forehead against her knees.
Belinda Sue rubbed her hand up and down Cordelia’s spine. “It’s not as bad as all that now. You’ll get fifteen percent of whatever we make, and you’ll only have to get out the shotgun once or twice a month.”
“Even less than that now that Jimmy Dodge Buck got himself into the AA,” Daisy said. “He used to have a real mean temper when he drank, nothing Miss Penelope couldn’t handle, but that’s all behind him now.”
“My momma’s in the AA too.” Cordelia couldn’t think of what else to say as she tried to wrap her mind around the situation.
They expected her to know how to hold a shotgun, for crying out loud. She was Texas down to her bones, but she wasn’tthatkind of Texas. She lifted her head and shifted her gaze between Daisy and Belinda Sue. They wore matching nervous expressions.
As she glanced away from them, her lungs tying themselves in knots, her gaze settled on Arline, whose head tipped forward as she lightly snored, though her watery eyes remained open and fixed on the surrounding open plains. Cordelia couldn’t tell if Arline was asleep or just completely uninterested in the discussion at hand.
“She’s awake.” Belinda Sue nodded toward Arline. “She just breathes like that.”
“Oh. Of course.” Cordelia’s cheeks pinkened at having been caught staring. She tried to recover by changing the subject. “And what is it you do, Arline?”
Arline didn’t so much as blink.
“It’s not personal,” Belinda Sue said. “Arline doesn’t talk much.”
“Only when she’s got something important to say,” Daisy said.
