The Harlot’s Pen (7 page)

“Meanwhile, I will back your expenses and await your report. Of course, you must not tell her I sent you. But write a brilliant series on your life as a high-class whore, and your literary future is assured.”

I was still horrified, but Mr. Older was already talking details. “You must send it all at once, not piecemeal, so I can review it in its entirety before making a decision. I know you can write, and I know you can think. And there’s nothing left for you here in San Francisco now. So, are you in?”

After about a minute I nodded. Fremont Older’s face split into a grin. “Now that’s my girl!” He shook my hand across the table. “You have signed on for a great adventure!”

I shook his hand, glorying in his approval, my head buzzing with confusion.

Only now, in the quiet, empty house, I wondered what on earth had I agreed to?

The Harlot’s Pen

A Serial in Parts

By. V. Strone

“All of the above, you must understand, were small potatoes compared to Spanish Kitty.”

Petaluma Press Democrat

Kate Lombard opened the door to a tall, dark-haired woman in a demure, gray dress. She looked her visitor up and down aggressively as the woman stood silently on the wide veranda that graced the shaded front of the house. No automobile, cart, or carriage stood in the broad drive between the rosebushes or in the stone-paved area before the lawn. Troy, her Aztec hairless dog, gave a short yip and turned away, uninterested. This wasn’t a new client to welcome.

It wasn’t often that a society lady knocked on Spanish Kitty’s door, except for the temperance ladies and the Saturday Afternoon Women’s Club members bent on reform. The lady looked right back at Kate, her eyes as dark as hers, her hair almost as black, and her lips, unrouged though they were, as full and luscious. “Good afternoon,” Kate said at last.

“And good afternoon to you, too, Miss Lombard. May I come in?”

Kate raised her eyebrows a bit, then stepped back from the door to allow her visitor passage. It was too warm for a wrap, and the visitor had none, but she did sport a straw hat with a gray ribbon that perfectly matched her dress. Kate’s own dress was merely a sheath of white muslin, with an overdress of light material, tied with a white, silk cord at the waist. It was after noon, but Kate didn’t usually dress until four, so her morning outfit served only to bridge the time between arising and the beginning of the work day. She felt the visitor’s eyes scan her from top to toe, taking in the easy gown and the open collar. Kate felt no urge to pull the cloth closed, and instead fought the impulse to open it further in defiance of the tired town moralists.

“You know my name, but I am at a loss for yours,” Kate said, seating herself at the edge of a large, graceful chair and motioning her visitor onto the settee across from her. Troy lay down at her feet, and Kate saw the woman’s eyes flicker to the unusual dog. Kate moved the empty glasses, sticky with cordial, away from the small table next to her.

“Miss Violetta Strone,” the woman said. “Lately of San Francisco.”

“Enchanted,” Kate replied, and Miss Strone’s lips twitched a bit at the tone.

In the silence, both women assessed each other. Finally, Miss Strone spoke. “You may well wonder as to the nature of my call.”

“Indeed,” Kate replied, still drily. She did not feel compelled to help Miss Strone in whatever lofty errand of salvation brought her to Spanish Kitty’s doorstep and beyond. “It was kind of you to admit me without inquiring,” Miss Strone added.

“And unlike me. But you were saying…”

“I do understand, and let me assure you I have not come to moralize or proselytize. In fact, my mission may surprise you.”

Kate stiffened slightly at the mention of a mission. In her long experience, no good came of anyone’s mission. She had been in business, or in the business if not in ownership, for twenty years, and she had limited interest in other peoples’ missions. “It undoubtedly will. But I must urge you to your point. If you have a pamphlet you wish to leave with me, or some other uplifting work, you may do so and be done.”

Since the end of the Great War, visitors to Spanish Kitty’s Resort at El Verano had become less formal and more open to conversation and pleasure. It was still rare that a lady visited alone, and rarer still that she came into the parlor. Kate didn’t mind being rude, but she knew well the risks attendant on offending society women unnecessarily. Even in permissive Sonoma, lawsuits to shut down women’s businesses were not unknown. However, her days were busy, and her nights…

“You are a woman of stature and directness,” Miss Strone interrupted her thoughts. “I want to work for you.”

Kate sat back, startled. Girls often came to her, maybe once a month, to the back door of her Resort, seeking work. They were usually young, fresh, furtive, and often newly deflowered. They had no other source of funds, they had little knowledge of men, and could only converse in banalities. Some acted cocky, trying to impress, and others were clearly terrified and desperate. She rarely hired them, but took them in for a week, fed them, let them earn a wage in her kitchen, and sent them on their way. She did not, in her opinion, run a whorehouse. She ran a salon. Never in her career, either in San Francisco or here in her El Verano Resort near the city of Sonoma, had a lady so approached her.

“You must be joking, Miss Strone, though it is an amusing joke, at that.”

“I am not,” Miss Strone replied evenly. “I am obviously not a practiced courtesan, but I can converse better than most. I am widely read, and I can cook, too. I am not a virgin—I expect that in your business such a statement will not be overbold—and I am prepared to work very hard for you. I am not from this area, and I am not known here, so I have no reputation to hold me back.”

“Nor references to vouchsafe your truthfulness. I do not take on spies, moles, or other infiltrators. What are you really, Miss Strone? A reformer in plain clothing? A spy for a lawyer after a fee? And be honest with me, or I will escort you to the door.”

The woman appeared to think for a moment. She did not seem anxious or frightened, nor was she brazen or falsely tough. She seemed to think that Kate’s request was reasonable and should be granted. “I am being truthful. I wish to work in your salon for perhaps one or two months. I will give you good value.”

Kate rose. “Thank you, Miss Strone. It was a pleasure meeting you. I will see you out.” Miss Strone stayed seated, and for the first time color rose in her face. Kate continued to stand, her mouth pressed in a line. The dog stood with her, his smooth, warm and hairless skin pressed against her leg. There was something truly strange about this Miss Violetta Strone, and Kate felt a surge of nerves. “I am waiting.”

Violetta Strone sighed and reached into her leather bag. She pulled out a pamphlet.
Here it comes,
Kate thought. The suffrage pamphlet, the moral guide, the Save Your Soul leaflet. Miss Strone handed it to Kate, who took it reluctantly.
The Rape of the Working Woman, by V. Strone.
Kate looked at Miss Strone. “You are the writer?” Miss Strone nodded, her color rising more. She was almost pretty when she flushed, Kate thought. She looked at the pamphlet in her hand and unwillingly opened it. It seemed to be a set of verses, perhaps ten pages long. Words like
rapine
and
violation
jumped out at her. “Quite a title. Guaranteed to open minds and hearts.”

Miss Strone looked up sharply. “It does so indeed. And the
Petaluma Argus
published much of it. It tells the truth of the life of a woman forced to work at the mercy of men. That life is not easy.” Miss Strone had the decency to look embarrassed at Kate’s laugh. “But you are a powerful woman, Miss Lombard. Powerful with connections to powerful men. Men who make or break the conditions of women’s work. Such conditions can be changed.”

“And you want to change them here? Under my roof?” Kate laughed, her mirth brittle and harsh. “Go, Miss Strone. Take your poetry with you. And leave my salon alone.”

Miss Strone gathered herself up. “Please. At least read it. And think about what I ask. I would only want to work, like any other denizen of this salon, and be entertaining. I would be ever so careful not to disturb the peace of your establishment.”

“Peace! You have clearly no idea what you are talking about!”

“It is likely you are right, Miss Lombard. But I can only know if you allow me to learn. I cannot write in ignorance. If the story of a prostitute is only presented through the judgmental lens of moralizing men, then the crusade that has shut the houses of San Francisco will continue unabated. The closing of houses throws women into the streets at the mercy of the criminal class, or floods the cheapened labor force, earning pittance at the cannery and the sweatshop!”

Miss Strone gasped for breath after her impassioned speech, but Kate only raised an eyebrow. “I am staying at the inn off Linden Street, close to here,” Miss Strone murmured. “Please think about it. Keep the pamphlet.”

Miss Strone stood up and brushed past Kate as she left the cool shade of the house. But she looked over her shoulder one last time, just as Kate looked up from reading her pamphlet. Though their eyes met, Kate did not acknowledge Miss Strone, as she was drawn back into the rhythmic verse before her.

* * * *

Well, that could not have gone worse, Violetta thought as she hurried along Solano Avenue. She felt her cheeks burn as she recalled Miss Lombard’s disdain. “You, work for me? I’m afraid you have no idea what nonsense you’re speaking.” And that dog—he reminded her of a giant, gray rat.

The dusty street widened, and the buildings on Solano Avenue became more numerous as Violetta approached her inn. The wide, shaded porch looked inviting, with its scattering of woven wicker rockers and low tables, and a glass of lemonade would have been very welcome, but Violetta walked quickly past the stooped man at the receiving desk and straight up the broad staircase to her room. She shut the door behind her and breathed a sigh of frustration. First she took off her straw hat, then loosened the collar of her dress, now damp with sweat, and fanned herself with the hat. The little breeze she could create didn’t do much to cool her, as the heat came from within.

She had had such high hopes for the encounter. She had assured herself that she had a fail-proof plan, and yet she had not managed it well. Once again, she had gone off half-cocked, without thinking through her strategy. Relying on her beauty, her quick wit, and her innate intelligence had gotten her far in her youth, but now as a woman nearing thirty, she needed more. And it got her nowhere with the madam of a salon. Surely she should have anticipated that.

Planning, careful strategy, Miss Bary had emphasized the need for these above all. Knowing the enemy, the stakes, the route to a favorable outcome, Violetta had disregarded all of these lessons. Miss Bary had worked for two weeks in a cannery just to be able to speak with authority on the labor conditions for women there. Violetta had only read a few old newspaper articles on the pitch of the do-gooders urging the prostitutes off the streets and into factories, articles obviously deeply meaningless to her in her quest.

Violetta closed her eyes. In the weeks after meeting with Mr. Older, she had tried to consider all of the angles of the absurd task she had undertaken. Years ago she had been left at the altar, hiding a shame that could ruin her. Then she had lived in sin with a man who had fled to Argentina when the opportunity presented itself. Now she was hoping to masquerade as a prostitute in order to write the definitive series that would cement her reputation—but whether as an immoral fool or as a serious journalist remained to be seen.

She snorted with disgust. What blinders she had worn for the past month that even allowed her to consider such an assignment? She imagined Fremont Older leaning back in his chair, laughing in amusement that she would be willing to become a whore—a whore!—to write an article.

And yet, in her heart there was a part of her that relished the idea, the same part that was excited to flout the marriage laws in the name of revolution, that had gleefully allowed her fiancé privileges that no sane woman would have allowed… Her heart was excited, but her head mocked her heart and reminded her that if she succeeded, or if she failed, she would have completed her ruin nonetheless.

She had committed herself to this adventure, and it had to work. After all, her father had died for championing the rights of women, and if she couldn’t convince Spanish Kitty to take her on, how could she even think of persuading her high-rolling readers to her cause?

She sat alone at her little table, a candle lighting her dinner of boiled meat and a lumpy but delicious dish of cornmeal and little, hot, green peppers. The spiciness made her drink more of the landlord’s fine ale than she was accustomed to, and she rose a little woozily from her table at meal’s end. She dreaded the slow climb back to her room in the fading light of early summer, unwilling to face the heat of the second floor. Sonoma was far enough from the San Francisco Bay to have real summers, not the foggy coolness that June in San Francisco always brought, and Violetta had long forgotten how to survive in anything other than a brisk, salt air breeze.

Instead, she walked out onto the porch and took a wicker rocking chair that was unoccupied, next to a dozing woman with gray tendrils escaping her bun in the heat. As she rocked gently she thought about what Fremont Older had told her about Kate Lombard, Spanish Kitty. She had been a fancy girl in San Francisco, but about ten years ago she had moved up to Sonoma, and opened her salon, or Resort, as she called it, in El Verano, near the town of Sonoma. She was as beautiful as Fremont Older had suggested, as tall as Violetta, and according to him, she had entertained every important man in the northern half of the state of California. The gracious house, the exotic dog, the careless housedress of meticulously soft weave, all spoke of influence and success.