Page 9 of Blowing Off Steam

Rushy tried to grin. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Field’s accusatory glare told him otherwise. “Who was that who just came in here? Talking to your hooker? I…” He seemed confused then. “I’d best get back downstairs.” And he was gone before Rushy had a chance to respond.

Rushy didn’t care a damn who was talking to his whore. But he knew that Field did.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Our chef lit out for the gold mines.”

That was the first indication to Catalina that she should pause and eavesdrop. As a hooker, eavesdropping was one of her many assumed tasks, anyway, so she was used to it.

She peeked through the slit afforded by the hanging sheet to see her colleague Clara sitting on the stool sucking on a whiskey bottle. Catalina followed Clara’s bored gaze to the rickety cot and a sight that mesmerized her down to the ground.

Two luscious, athletic males sprawled in sheer erotic relaxation, the clothed one rocking into a relaxed and drunken happiness between the naked thighs of the one behind him. The naked one tickled the scalp of the clothed one, appearing to take great pleasure in the silken sensation between his fingers. The nude fellow was finely sculpted, and he licked his overly sensuous lips as though he wished nothing more than to take a bite from the side of the other fellow’s neck. The one with the enviable head of spiky dark hair seemed oblivious to his attentions, though, and had probably just stumbled in there when unable to navigate the cluttered, slippery hallway.

Catalina could see by the cap with the patent leather bill sticking out from under Clara’s butt that one of them was a steamer captain, and she knew they had lost their boat’s cook. When they mentioned cheese platters with anchovies, an idea began to formulate in Catalina’s brain. She had put together enough appetizer platters in her life and had not obtained her “voluptuous” figure by avoiding the Fremont House’s kitchen. So many women who made it across the plains just seemed to give up. It was a miraculous achievement making it all the way to California over the hellish plains. So why when they finally staggered into California did women abandon all hope—stop eating, combing their hair, attending to their health?

“No matter. I’m sure there are dozens of acceptable cooks downstairs right now, eager to work for such victorious sailors as us.”

So were these the sailors everyone downstairs was making such a rumpus over? Catalina hadn’t had a chance to see them, being stuck in her own cubbyhole pretending to be a disobedient schoolgirl for an oily swell with a gold-headed Malacca cane and a wide-brimmed planter’s hat. Catalina doubted this fellow had ever been a headmaster, but he spanked her with precision and had the dialogue memorized perfectly.

Ah, well. At least he didn’t smell like dead animals, or wear any on his head. Those mountain men were the worst, with six month’s worth of animal entrails encrusted on their persons.

And these two hale, lanky men now sprawled before her were fine. Catalina hadn’t had a chance to say turkey to a good-looking, fit fellow in months. Years, maybe. Sure, the West was chockablock with men—miners, most of them, the rest all flimflam men too lazy to even lift a gold pan. But when the odor was so overpowering one could not even breathe within ten feet of a man, or the explosions of lard so abundant one could not even find his member to sit upon, well. As the Fremont House’s premier prostitute, lately Catalina had been thinking she could move to a more hoity-toity institution in San Francisco.

But now, these bucks as fine as cream gravy presented a fresh opportunity. Even more so when the clothed one turned his face to the naked one. Catalina completely lost all interest in their cravat conversation when they kissed.

Wet and messy, they smeared their tongues together. Catalina had never actually felt weak in her knees, but she had to grip the post or she would’ve fallen face-first into the cell. She held her breath as they lustily corkscrewed their tongues together, feasting on each other’s mouths as though accustomed to it, though it was obvious that the naked sailor with the sandy hair was vastly proficient in kissing another man—the darker one might have just been too pickled.

Catalina had seen amorous, oiled men make a grab for each other if other females in the room were under the weather or too flat on the ground to help them out. Such fellows, overcome with prurience and whiskey, had even gone so far as to masturbate each other to completion, or take one another’s crusty, flabby tools into their mouths. But such couplings aroused Catalina’s interest about as much as the mountaineer who insisted she wear the head of a jaguar while screwing her. There were the molly boys, of course, but they were a breed unto themselves, absent of any hint of sex or manly attributes.

These sailors were glorious, clean, masculine animals. When the sandy one started humping the darker one, his muscular thighs clamped around his partner’s unsuspecting hips, Catalina was so overcome with carnal appetite she literally swooned into the room in a couple of stumbling steps.

Luckily the men didn’t break their kiss, but Clara turned a blasé head to her and said, “Where are you going?” Clara was one of the broken ones who’d crossed the plains, and not even an apple pie with a pitcher of milk could rouse her into excitement.

Shaking her head urgently, Catalina made hushing motions with her hands and backed out of the room quickly.

Stumbling down the stairs, she had to go through the Fremont House saloon to reach the street. The celebration was in full blast now, some of her fellow bawdy house employees displaying their commodities for all comers to maul. Catalina managed to make it almost to the street by telling the girls she had to go to Brannan’s store for “supplies,” but Brannan himself waylaid her at the door, stepping brutally on the arm of a brawling miner who grappled on the floor with another miner.

“Catalina! Just who I was looking for. These two steamer heroes we’re feting would be very interested in meeting you. I told them you’re our finest upper-drawer gal, and—”

Catalina pressed her palms to Brannan’s waistcoat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brannan, but I simply must run to your store for”—she looked shiftily from side to side—“you know. Supplies.” When Brannan didn’t seem to comprehend, she added, “Female supplies. Rags.”

Brannan backed away as though she were dying of contagious consumption, holding up both hands in surrender. “Okay, then!” he cried heartily. “We shall see you back here in, say…Thirty minutes?”

“Yes, thirty minutes should do it!” Catalina assured him.

Sprinting into the street, Catalina threaded her way between many red-shirted future miners trying to sell whatever they could—old San Francisco newspapers, a comb, a battered coat—to get money to buy mining supplies. Someone was setting up for a bull-and-bear fight, a cruel and senseless exhibition. The poor bear was cramped inside a tiny cage not big enough to stand up in to weaken his muscles for the unfair “fight” ahead. Catalina was glad to dive into Brannan’s store and up the stairs that led to her private apartment. This building, like most on Front Street, had been warped and nearly ruined by the Great Flood of 1850, but the fortitude of Brannan and Sacramento residents had rebuilt.

She had planned on making a break for several months now, to go to San Francisco and seek out a better establishment where she didn’t sit in piles of puke when visiting the backhouse. Brannan would rage at her for running away, so she couldn’t utilize his connections—no Mark Hopkins or Collis Huntington for her. As Brannan was very miserly, there was no hope in asking for his help in bettering her life. He would never want her to leave Sacramento, as she was his most popular whore, but it would have cost money to give the girls better living quarters.

So she already had one valise packed with memorabilia—a daguerreotype of her two sisters, among other items—she had dragged with her through the Oklahoma Territory. She had only to fill the other valise with newer items of daily toilette use and put them both by the door, the most important item being a fancy embroidered rebozo scarf. She would wear that later, under cover of night.

Returning to the Fremont House, she spied the headmaster jawing a couple of whores who did not fit his pupil requirements, their faces being sallow and pockmarked. His beaver-like face lit up, and he tipped his planter’s hat when he saw her approach. “Hey there! It’s my star student, Miss Evangeline.”

Taking his arm, Catalina said, “Yes, and Miss Evangeline needs some more scolding, Headmaster Smith. I’m afraid she’s just gone and done a horrible and vicious thing. I do believe she’s fixing to run away from home.”

“Well, now!” Headmaster Smith cried brightly, already steering her toward the back staircase. She did not want the two famous sailors to see her, so she hurried the demented teacher along by pressing the shelf of her buoyant bosom against his forearm. He waved his cane about as if it were a magical fairy-tale wand. “Your parents are good friends of mine and would get extremely angry if I allowed that to happen. Might this punishment require more spanking of your uplifted rump as I fling you over my lap? Perhaps even some titty-spanking thrown in for good measure.”