Angel: an erotic short story

  Angel

  an erotic short story

  Victoria Dahl

  SHE SELLS PLEASURE FOR MONEY

  Working in a New Orleans brothel is the only life Melisande Angelle has ever known. The work means nothing to her, it’s only a way to stay fed and sheltered…until Bill Donnelly begins to visit and awakens something inside her she’s never felt before. Desire. She starts to view him as a man instead of a client, and his visits become more than transactions…for both of them.

  BUT HER HEART REMAINS UNTOUCHED

  After years of looking out for herself, Melisande is stunned to find that someone else might care for her. Men have never offered anything but pain, and she never even dreamed of more. So when Bill proposes a new path for both of them, can she find the courage to trust him with her body and her heart?

  * * *

  Learn more about Victoria Dahl’s books at www.VictoriaDahl.com

  This story is for Jif, because when she gave me the title, I knew I had to write it.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Sneak Peek of Harlot

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  Chapter 1

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  New Orleans, 1874

  Melisande draped a shawl over her head and wrapped it around her shoulders. With a glance in the small round mirror that hung on the back of her door, she tugged the blue wrap down to her forehead to protect herself from the bite of the winter air. That was what she told herself, anyway. Mostly the shawl would help shield her face from view. It might be Christmas morning, but that didn’t mean folks were feeling any more generous, especially not to a woman like her.

  She’d donned her most respectable gown, a serviceable gray wool that would likely do more to disguise her than the shawl would. No one would look at the street pigeon colors of her clothing and wonder if she was a whore, not unless they saw her leaving the brothel. But it was early and it was Christmas. This part of town would be quiet as church.

  Smiling at the folly of that comparison, she left her tiny room and tiptoed down the hall to keep from waking the others. She hoped some of the girls would get the extra sleep they’d earned. Some she simply didn’t want to deal with.

  In a few establishments where she’d worked, a holiday was cause for a celebration, however brief. The maids and the whores would work together in the kitchen to prepare something special for their midday meal, and for a day or two, those scents would fill the building and make it smell like a home. A girl could close her eyes and imagine she was back with her mother, safe and sound.

  But this house wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the worst place she’d worked, but it wasn’t the warmest. The girls here competed with each other for every last dime, and they locked up the food they’d bought for themselves like treasure. No one was going to chip in and help make jambalaya or a bûche de Noël, so the kitchen was empty when Melisande reached it, just as she’d hoped. In a whorehouse, breakfast wasn’t served until noon.

  She unlocked the back latch and slipped into the alley, closing the door softly behind her. Finally free, she took a deep breath, shocked by the ice of it. It’d been cold for three days, but she hadn’t been outside in two. The clean air filled her up as she inhaled. Not even a hint of cigar smoke or sweaty bodies here. Her breath steamed out when she sighed in relief.

  Just as she began to relax, she heard a scuff against the alley stones and spun toward the sound with a gasp, throwing a hand up in alarm.

  “I’m sorry,” a man said as he stood from the seat he’d taken on a crate next to the door. “It’s only me.”

  Me? The rising sun shone behind him, and all she could make out were wide shoulders on a big frame, a hat pulled low on his head in the cold.

  “It’s Bill,” he said, and she recognized his voice then, quiet and deep as it was. “Bill Donnelly.”

  “Bill,” she repeated, her tightened muscles losing some of their tension. Many of the customers she took to her bed scared her, but Bill wasn’t one of them. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d always been kind, as gentle as if she were his sweetheart. “I’m not…” She swallowed the last of her alarm down. “I’m not working right now.”

  “Of course not.” He stepped away from the wall and she could finally see his face, the broad planes and high cheekbones, skin ruddy from the wind. “It’s Christmas,” he said. Despite the cold, he doffed his hat, dipping his blond head in greeting.

  “Yes, well. It’ll be busy enough later.”

  “Tonight?” His frown of confusion charmed her. Part of the reason he made her feel safe was that he saw the good in the world. And in her.

  She smiled tiredly. “Plenty of men find all that time with family tedious. Tonight won’t be much different than any other night, holiday or not.”

  “I thought sure you’d have the day off.”

  It was her turn to be confused. “Then what are you doing here?”

  The red of his cheeks deepened. “This,” he said, and when he held out his hand, she saw a small box in the middle of his palm.

  Melisande stared at the wooden square until she was aware of the cold seeping through her boots and into the soles of her feet.

  “I knocked at the front door, but no one came. I figured a kitchen maid would be up and about soon enough.” When she didn’t respond, he raised his palm a little. “It’s a present.”

  “For me?” Melisande held her gloved hands close to her chest, fingers curled tight. She did not reach toward the box. “But why?”

  “I…” He shook his head. “Because I thought you’d like it. When I saw it, I thought of you.”

  A present for her. That made no sense. She watched it warily. “I don’t know if I should accept it.”

  His fingers lost their flatness then and curled in, shielding the gift. “Why?”

  Because it felt like a trick. She shook her head.

  “You need to think about it?”

  She took a step back, watching him. She couldn’t think what to do or why the decision felt important. “I’m on my way to mass, so I can’t stay longer.”

  “Whores go to church?” he asked, his eyebrows flying high.

  Melisande ducked her head, shoulders hitching up in shock. “Some of us do,” she bit out.

  “I’m sorry,” Bill said before she’d even finished her words. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Didn’t mean what? That I’m a whore? Or that God can’t love me?”

  “Melisande…I’m sorry. Just take this.” He grasped her hand and turned it over to set the gift there. “Last time I was here, you said your family’s gone, and I worried there’d be no one to wish you a merry Christmas. That’s all. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

  She looked down at her hand and the box he’d brought for her. Had she told him she didn’t have family? She must have, lying in bed with him after sex. He had that effect on her. She couldn’t guess why, but she liked him. He wasn’t like the others.

  The truth was that her mother was still alive, but Melisande had walked away from her years ago. Her mother had turned Melisande into a prostitute at age thirteen. It had taken her until seventeen to realize she’d rather have no mother at all than one who’d made her into this.

  She had an aunt somewhere, and cousins, but they were respectable folk, too clean for a girl like Melisande.

  “I have to go,” she said softly, still looking at the box.

  “I could walk you, if you like.”

  That shocked her
far more than the gift. She aimed a frown at him. “You’d walk a whore to church?”

  He pressed his lips together. He was a solemn man, not easily given to smiles, and his big size had made her nervous the first time he’d visited her. He looked gravely serious now. “I was only surprised you’d want to go. I gave up on church a long time ago. I figured you had, too. But I’ll keep you company if you’ll have me. Maybe you’d rather be alone.”

  She honestly wasn’t sure if she’d rather be alone. When she was working, she craved solitude. An hour to herself with no one else’s body getting mixed up with hers. But when she was alone, that felt lonely, because not one soul in this world loved her.

  That was why she still went to church when she could.

  “You could walk me,” she said impulsively. “If you wanted. But you shouldn’t come in. I can’t be with a man. Not there.”

  The tension in his jaw fell away. “All right. Thank you.”

  She turned to lead the way toward the church, frowning that he’d thanked her as if it were an honor to escort a woman like her anywhere. But he made it feel like an honor. He kept pace with her, his hands clasped respectfully behind his back as if to signal that he wouldn’t touch her. She could feel the looks he stole from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t say a word.

  They stepped into the sunlight of the street, but it didn’t do much to fight the cold. Melisande was sure her nose was reddening and she tried not to feel self-conscious about it. His pale Irish cheeks were still marked with pink from the brisk wind.

  She’d always liked his coloring. Golden hair and white skin and dark brown eyes. His paleness seemed a complement to her brown skin. His hand spread over her hip made her skin glow with warmth. Strange that she saw that in him when other white men’s skin looked like sickness and death trying to claim her.

  “Aren’t you spending Christmas with your brother?” she asked. He’d mentioned an older brother once.

  “He’s run off to California. I expect he’ll disappear as sure as my other brothers have. One to Mexico. One back to Ireland. He was born here same as me, but after Ma died, he couldn’t wait to get back to the homeland.”

  “So there’s no one to wish you a merry Christmas either?”

  “No, but I don’t mind the quiet. It’s nice.”

  It was nice, walking through the streets with him, the buildings getting smaller and simpler as they went. The bricks of the walkways more steady under their feet. Everything smelled clean today, woodsmoke and spices clearing out her worries every time she breathed in.

  They were at the church before she wanted them to be, and suddenly they were surrounded by noise and traffic and too many people.

  Melisande hesitated at the iron railing of the churchyard, not wanting their interlude to end quite yet. “You could come in,” she offered. “Separately. Sit up front with the other white folks.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  “Why?” She hadn’t expected that.

  “Because I’d like to. Unless you’d rather I leave.”

  It would be best to send him away. She knew that. Any encouragement at all and some men would decide they weren’t just paying customers but men with rights to you. She’d seen it happen with other girls. She should send Bill away with a simple thank-you and leave it at that.

  But if she sent him away, she’d be alone as soon as mass was done. She’d go back to her room and do her laundry and make her bed and be back to whoring by suppertime.

  “Won’t you get cold?” she asked.

  He shrugged and tugged his hat lower, so Melisande nodded farewell and climbed the steps to the church.

  She crossed herself with holy water from the font, then said a quick prayer and genuflected before entering the very last row of pews. She always sat in the last row, now matter how empty or crowded the church was. Tugging the shawl down to cover her forehead again, she dropped her head and opened the hand she’d clasped around the little box.

  It was a fairly quiet morning. Most of this church’s congregation had already attended midnight mass before joining their families for réveillon. But Melisande hadn’t been free to attend a Christmas Eve mass since she was a little girl. She was always too busy working.

  She knew the prayers and all the hymns by heart, so she normally closed her eyes and lost herself in the incense and music, but today she looked at the box in her hand, turning it over and over as she gave her responses to the priest.

  There were no marks on it, no decorations. It was light, cheap wood with a simple lid. Maybe Bill had made it himself. He was a ship builder. Good with his hands.

  She was afraid to open it.

  Her favorite Christmas hymn began, and she raised her head and sang along about the grace of the infant Jesus. They’d take communion soon, but she’d stay in her seat as she always did, hoping that no one noticed.

  She’d never been ex-communicated. She was still a member of the church, baptized at birth. Her aunt had even made sure she was confirmed at thirteen. Twenty-two days after Melisande’s confirmation, her mother had sold her to a man for fifty dollars. A fortune, really. The going price for a pretty little girl’s virginity.

  Still, Melisande thought maybe God still loved her. She thought she could feel that when she sat beneath the paintings and the stained glass and the crucified savior. The priests, however, would be a different story. They wouldn’t show kindness if they realized who she was, so she stayed far from their eyes and kept her prayers quiet.

  She didn’t much believe in the church and its rules, anyway. She just wanted to feel a little love while she was here. A little peace.

  When Melisande opened her eyes, the box was still there in her hand. Nothing about it had changed.

  Bill was too kind to play a trick on her, wasn’t he? From the first, he’d called her “miss” instead of “girl.” When she’d told him her name, he’d asked if it was all right for him to use it, and when he had, he’d never said it with anything but tenderness.

  She’d never felt dirty with him, not even afterward when she’d cleaned up and taken the money he offered.

  “Amen,” she whispered along with hundreds of other sinners in the church, then she slipped off her gloves and eased the lid off the box.

  It was just a ball of white linen inside, as far as she could tell. She tipped the box and the fabric rolled out. Inside the cheap linen, she found a ribbon with a pendant attached to it.

  Not something expensive. And not a garish paste jewel set in tin. Hanging from a simple black ribbon was a polished circle of shell. Only as wide as her thumb, it shone pink and white and silver even in the candlelight of the church. Etched into that smooth surface was a bird, its tiny wings outstretched in flight.

  Tears pricked her eyes. She cupped the shell carefully in her hand and went to her knees as everyone around her knelt in prayer.

  Why had Bill thought of her when he’d looked at this? It was a delicate thing. Sweet and pure. Nothing like her. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she murmured Latin words she didn’t understand, her heavy heart trying valiantly to find its way up to God.

  What could Bill want from her? Why had he thought of her at all?

  By the time mass ended, she’d managed to dry her eyes and find some of the solace she’d come for. Before she rose, she tied the ribbon around her neck. The shell felt cool against her skin, nestling itself into the hollow of her throat.

  More than an hour had passed. She knew he wouldn’t be waiting for her when she stepped outside, but she looked for him anyway. He wasn’t there.

  She swallowed down her hurt like she had a thousand others and set her shoulders back. It didn’t matter that he was gone. She didn’t need a man to escort her home. She’d never had company before. One little gift didn’t change anything.

  Melisande took one final breath, drawing in the last bit of incense that floated through the doors, then stepped down to the street below.

  Chapter 2

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  She passed the iron gate where he’d said good-bye and looked around just in case, but he was still gone. Of course he was.

  After she touched the now-warm circle of shell at her throat one last time, she slipped on her gloves with a nod. It was cold. He’d moved along. He would come by tonight and buy an hour of her time, and she’d thank him then.

  A rumble of conversation and footsteps alerted her to the crowd of people emptying the church behind her. Melisande ducked her head and hurried toward the quiet side street to disappear.

  “Melisande?”

  She skidded to a halt and spun to see Bill stepping out from the shadows of a small house.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to be seen meeting me,” he explained. Then his gaze fell to the necklace, and his serious mouth turned up in a smile. “You opened it.”

  Though she couldn’t feel it through her glove, she touched the necklace once more, blushing at the pleasure in his warm brown eyes. “It’s so pretty,” she whispered, her throat thick with emotion again.

  “You like it?” He seemed so young when his eyes rose hopefully to her face that she remembered he was only a few years older than her. Twenty-six, if she recalled correctly. He always seemed so much older, but in that moment she saw the boy beneath the hardened man, and the girl hidden deep inside her fluttered with happiness. “It’s not much,” he said when she didn’t answer, but that wasn’t true at all.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  His eyes crinkled with pleasure. “It looks just how I thought it would on you.”

  She wished she had a mirror so she could see the pale shell against her skin, see what he pictured when he thought of her. Strange that he would think of that instead of what they’d done in bed.

  He tipped his head toward the next street. “A shop’s selling warm gingerbread around the corner. The smell has been driving me crazy. Mind if we stopped for a piece?”

  People were passing them now, hurrying home to start preparing their Christmas dinners. No one even glanced in her direction. They had families to get back to.