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“Because I’ve been texting you for half an hour and calling for the past ten minutes.”
Oh shit. “Um, I think I left my phone charging upstairs? Sorry!”
“Can’t imagine why you’d be distracted.” She grins at Odai.
“Neither can I,” Odai says and turns my head around again to kiss me like I wished. He even uses a tiny swirl of his forked tongue, and I am extra glad for my hoodie, because I think my cock just twitched.
“I was trying to get a hold of you,” Cas says loudly to get our attentions, “to see if you wanted to join us for lunch.”
“Us?” I look back at her.
“Ta da!” SJ pops up from behind Cas, bubbly as ever. “Come on, you two! Let’s eat!”
Odai
I find Cas and SJ’s company pleasant. They are a loving couple, openly affectionate, with SJ snuggled close against Cas on their side of the booth where we are having lunch. Watching them seems to entice Jeffrey to sit similarly close against me.
I like that very much too.
Instead of telling only Jeffrey the ideas I have been working on, I tell them all. Some of it is simple marketing tactics that promote cross-shopping. People who take the tour will be given coupons for the local eateries, something even the chain stores should see the appeal of. Others we can be more creative with, like the neighboring hotel.
As I explain my ideas, every interjection or exclamation from SJ draws Jeffrey’s eyes to her with a unique adoration. Not attraction, but he is enamored with her. Her vivacity. Her… femininity perhaps? He admires and idolizes her but is uncertain why.
I think I might know. Reading others’ desires is my specialty, and even more so, drawing those desires out so my owner might ask to have them fulfilled. To be certain, I will have to watch and wait.
“The hotel was a hotel?” Jeffrey questions as I continue to explain one of my more essential partnership ideas. “I thought Mattie owned it and used it for the brothel?”
“She did, but rooms could be booked normally as well,” I clarify, “and it had several famous guests. If some people take offence to the specific history of Madame Mattie’s, why not add focus on other historical aspects of the neighborhood? The Amore already has a good relationship with you and highlighting their history will benefit them as well.”
“I love that idea!” Jeffrey says.
“What sort of famous people stayed there?” SJ bounces in her seat, leaving the last of her fries forgotten, as most of our food is finished now.
Jeffrey wanted me to experience a cheeseburger and suggested we have lunch at a nearby diner. We are several blocks from Madame Mattie’s, in a neighborhood I might have once recognized but that is completely foreign to me now.
I focus on the positive and everything new I can experience in this time. Such as my western cheeseburger, with bacon, BBQ sauce, and onion rings.
“Walt Whitman was one guest,” I say, remembering when The Amore was called The Nightingale, “William Frederick Cody, Sarah Bernhardt—”
“Sarah Bernhardt?” Jeffrey clutches my arm. “Really? That’s incredible!”
“Um, who is she?” Cas asks, throwing one arm over the back of the booth toward SJ, which encourages her to scoot closer without their eyes even having to meet. “I know Whitman, and I know that Cody guy is Buffalo Bill.”
“Sarah Bernhardt is only, like, the first real modern celebrity!” Jeffrey gushes. “She was amazing. An actress, fashion icon, artist. She did everything and gave no shits about what people thought of her. She really stayed at The Amore once?” he returns to me.
“She did, during one of her first American tours. She was an inspiration to Mattie as well.”
“Well duh! That makes so much sense! She was everything Mattie strived to be. Independent, powerful, her own businesswoman. She played Hamlet in Hamlet!” Jeffrey says to Cas and SJ even more excitably. “Women did not do that back then!”
“Someone has a girl crush.” SJ giggles, not knowing perhaps that Jeffrey has a “girl crush” on her.
“She also wore trousers offstage,” I add, “even when it was illegal for women to do so.”
“It was illegal for women to wear pants?” Cas gapes. “I would have died. Like, bury me in a potato sack before you get me in a dress.”
SJ giggles again, being in a dress herself today, offset with a wide-brimmed hat and what appear to be combat boots, which women would not have worn the last time I was awake, except for possibly someone like Bernhardt.
“She was a bi icon before that was kosher too,” Jeffrey says. “It’s so cool she stayed at The Amore.” He rocks against me, and the lean is… nice. “I really love the idea of doing something with the hotel that centers on other historical events and people. The research and deep diving will be so much fun!”
