Wei Yen hung up his garments, wrinkling her pretty little nose each time and sing-songing something in Chinese, laughing softly as she did so. Lewrie preferred to think that they were jokes. When he was bare to the world, she indicated that he should get into the tub. He slid down into the extremely hot water, wincing on his way down, and found a bench to sit on by the side.
Wei Yen walked with mincing little steps to the other side of the tub and disrobed down to a very thin nankeen under-grown, which she slipped back off her shoulders as he watched, entranced.
She was a little bit of perfection. Middling shoulders, slim neck, creamy skin the color of pale ochre wheat. The silk robe she had worn had concealed the springy young bounty of her breasts that stood up firm and proud and straight-ahead fitf gether, shadowing a dark cleft he wanted to dive into. There was the slightest bit of stockiness around her rib cage, but the' waist was wasp-thin as a doll's, and her belly was so firm and flat, with a ridge of what he hoped would prove to be damned talented muscle down the center, leading to…
"Shaved?" he asked the room as she came toward him. She slid down into the tub with him gracefully, and came to his side. If she had seemed maidenly shy and tender before, it had been a theatric, for she became an unleashed tiger. She sat straddling him on the bench seat, reaching down to seize his member, which sprang awake as the Brigade of Guards in a twinkling. They slopped around in the tub, splashing water everywhere. She almost let him enter her, then slid away from him until she had him roaring in frustration.
But no. He had to leave the tub, sit on another damned stool while she soaped him from head to toes and scrubbed him clean with a sponge, sliding away from his soapy embraces and laughing all the while. Back into the tub for a cleansing soak, and then she was toweling him dry, letting him towel her dry. Then they gathered up their clothing and went up a back stairway to a private chamber.
He came to his senses just long enough to remember his condom, and then they were delightfully engaged, at long last, both making noises more usually associated with Iroquois massacres. "Father's wrong, ya know!" he said between gasps. "Bengali women have nothing on you, my dear!"
He lay utterly spent at long last, used up far further than he could ever remember, while the girl stroked him and kissed him, working him over with a small towel, and loosing her long dark hair that spread like a cloak to cover them both. She'd come unpinned somewhere in the second bout whilst teaching him an entirely novel manner, wrists and one ankle behind his neck as he sat on the edge of the bed clasping her small bottom like holding two small melons.
Her teasing fingers, and the moist warmth of the towel, strayed to his member, and it flickered with renewed interest.
"You wan' 'gin, qua?' she said with a gasp of wonder.
"Again? After that?" he chuckled. "Well, in a few, perhaps."
"No wan' 'gin, soon you go, qua," she said in a soothing whisper. " 'Nudda man, he wan', I got go. You stay, 'nudda one silla. You wan' chai, mao tail Wan' eat 'gin? Allee same at:Ua."
"I stay," Alan replied. "Mao tai, you and me both, right?" – She gave him a kiss and slid out of bed to slip on her un-dergown, open the door and call for one of the maid-servants.
While they drank and recuperated, he quizzed her as much as he was able. He learned that she had once been one of those little maids, purchased from a peasant family far to the north when the crops failed. Girl children could always be sold to support poor families. It was a prime reason to keep them, instead of putting them to death at birth: as a hedge against an uncertain future.
They were just about to partake of another spell of amour when Alan got down to his real questions, and the reason he had chosen her instead of one of the others who had no pidgin or English.
"Does a red-headed man ever come here?"
"Red? Wha' red?"
"Like this pillow tassel. Red," Alan prodded. "Dull, like ginger."
"Aw fo'n debbil red ha'," she tittered.
"Pale skin, like yours. He has a thin beard." Alan had to make a partial mask over his lower face with both hands. "Not long. Short, ginger-colored beard."
"Him debbil!" the girl shuddered.
"He comes here?" And she nodded her assent. "Did he come here tonight?"
"Him mak nudda guhl 'night," Wei Yen said, looking thankful. "Debbil, him! Mak wan' li'l guhl, no wan' olio guhl, my. Las' yea', him wan' my, no so olio. 'Night, him wan' new li'l guhl Yi."
"So he did come here tonight!" Lewrie exulted. "And is he still here? Right now?"
"Him heah. Him ba' man debbil! Hu't, my! Hu't Yi allee same!"
"What does he do?"
The girl could find no words, so she forced him onto his back and began to slap the air over his chest. "Dat!" She bit at his nipples. "Dat!" She pretended to slap and choke him. "Dat!" Teeth took hold of his shoulder and neck. "Dat!" she told him, biting lightly.
"Jesus Christ, what a monster," Lewrie agreed as she sat back up.
"Whi' lak dead, him!" Wei Yen shuddered once more. "Bear' mak sclatch. No wan' guhl, wan' bebbee. No wan' bebbee guhl him on top! Him wan'…" She slipped off to one side of the bed, knelt with her head on the pillow, arms held behind her back as though they would be tied if with Choundas, then slapped her rump.
"Wan' go ba' place, allee same guhl place."
"The pervert!" Lewrie growled. "What an utterly rotten bastard!"
" 'Otten bassah'?" Wei Yen said, sitting up once again.
"Rotten," Lewrie corrected.
"Lotten bassah," the girl parroted, then said it to herself several times, trying "pervert" on for addition to her vocabulary as well.
"Well, you're not with him now, you're with me. And I'm not a rotten bastard, or a pervert," Lewrie assured her, drawing her down to him. "Well, not much of one, anyway."
Then there came a muffled scream from down the hallway, and a series of yelps. Wei Yen stiffened in his arms, burying her face in the pillows. "It him, red ha' fo'n debbil!"
"He's still here!" Lewrie said, starting off the bed, almost dragging the frightened Wei Yen with him. "Oh, what luck!"
More wails of terror and pain, hiccupy little strangling wails such as a very young girl, one even younger than Wei Yen, would make. The sound of cuffs or blows, perhaps, preceding each new outcry.
Lewrie went to the door and opened it to hear better, even as Wei Yen tried to drag him back. He saw another door open, saw Captain Jacques Sicard lumbering to the noise as the madam and one of her bully-bucks came up the stairs from the front of the bordello, their sing-song voices sounding anything but musical. Sicard was rapping on the door, whispering "Guillaume!"
Lewrie ducked back as Sicard began to remonstrate with the madam, opening a purse to pay her off for whatever damage or harm his man was causing. Another door opened, only a couple of rooms beyond his own, and a distinguished Chinese gentleman emerged, drawn to the commotion. He stopped in his tracks, though, and squinted his eyes, when he saw Lewrie, just shutting his door.
"You no go, him hu't!" Wei Yen rasped, dragging him back into the room completely and slamming the door with her behind. "Ver' ba' man, him! Wei Yen mak you contentee, no silla, you stay 'way!"
"What are they saying?" Alan asked, trying to shake the little baggage loose from her death-grip on his body and find his stockings.
"Him pay muchee silla, muchee tael cash fo' Yi," Wei Yen translated. "Olio woman Ma she say fo'n debbil go, him, no comee back. Is good!"
Doors opened. Voices rumbled in Chinese, pidgin and French as Lewrie began to dress, much against his better judgement. Wei Yen was trying her damnedest to coax him back into bed with her. But he'd had his fun, expensive as it had been, even if it had been Twigg's money. He had to be ready to shadow Choundas once he left the brothel.