Honey Beaumont

by Sara Bushway

  Loretta...

  "Well, hello there, cutie," a woman's voice called out.

  Honey rubbed the nastiness out of his eyes once more and looked around. It was a House, one of the nicest houses that ever existed, Honey guessed. Much like Beaumont's, there was a large staircase leading up the middle of the front room and a pair of doors below a fancy sign that read "Lounge" in beautiful script. The stairs were covered in scarlet carpet that extended down onto the polished-stone floor, as though celebrities should feel right at home walking up them. The long banisters were sculpted to look like the outstretched arms of a royal throne. Beautiful gold leaf inlays sparkled under the glittering chandelier. And on the stairs were no less than a dozen beautiful women, dressed and posed as princesses in procession, several of them leaning against the banisters in suggestive repose.

  Honey's mouth was agape. The bold colors and laces of their perfectly tailored dresses. The quality of their make-up and perfumes with their hair was done up in curls.

  Wow.

  A blonde beauty in royal blue descended the stairs and placed her hands on his shoulders, drawing them down his arms and taking his hands in hers.

  "You seem new to this. Why don't you come with me, and I'll show you how it's done?"

  Honey gasped and pulled away. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not actually, uh...looking for company," Honey said, taking a moment to recover. He smiled impishly at the beauty and then back at her coworkers. "Not that it isn't tempting." The girls all shared a laugh. It seemed even girls who knew they were beautiful enjoyed hearing it. "Actually, I was just stopping in to get out from the, uh..smoke from outside."

  "Smog," a girl in maroon corrected him from the stairs. "It's actually smog. Smoke comes from fire. Smog is outright pollution."

  The girls all nodded in agreement and relaxed a little more, taking on an appearance less like that of princesses in the throes of desire and more like teenage girls who were a bit bored.

  When Honey's eyes made their way back to the girl in blue, he realized that she was squinting at him, analyzing him. "Do I know you?" She asked.

  Honey shook his head. "No, miss. I've never been here, this House or even this area of town, before."

  Her face relaxed into a polite smile as she replied, "Oh. Well, then welcome to the South End of Roxana. This is Ferriment's House. I'm Annabelle."

  "Ferriment," Honey repeated. "What an unusual name."

  Annabelle nodded. Then, as if electrified by the thought, her eyes widened, and she grabbed onto his arm. "I know who you are!" She exclaimed, glancing back at the other girls. "It's-It's him! The boy from Beaumont's House!" She turned and looked at him, his face now a pale picture of horror. He had been so worried about Anastasia coming looking for him that he had never considered the full extent of Beaumont's reach if he found out Honey was no longer under his lady's protection.

  Oh, fates...

  The other girls rushed down to him, all atwitter and wanting to touch the boy. Annabelle giggled a little as she added, "We've all heard of you! You're the only working-boy for miles! My, you are cute!" The girls all purred in agreement, and Honey was relieved. Letting these girls get close was a bad idea if they sought to somehow take him back to the House he had escaped. Letting the girls fawn all over him because he had some notoriety? Well, that seemed just fine.

  Honey chuckled and pushed their hands away. "Now, now. I'm not a working boy anymore. I'm just a guy."

  Shock was across all of their faces. One spoke up. "You're...you're out?"

  Honey nodded, and the girls all shared incredulous looks. "It's alright," he said, trying to comfort them. "It's a long story, but yes, I am not longer in the business. I'm...moving on to better things...I hope."

  The girls gawked over him, telling him how brave he was and expressing well-wishes when a shrill voice called out from the top of the stairs. "Hey! This ain't no peep show! You can go on down the road if that's all you're here for! Girls! Back to work!"

  The flock of women around Honey dissipated and took their positions around the room. Though they hadn't so much as touched up their make-up, the girls all looked so different from just moments before. Honey spotted the woman atop the stairs as she began to descend them. She was unremarkable as appearances go. There wasn't a hint of shade on her cheeks or wax on her lips. And a dark dress that did not look as though it had been tailored for her because of the way it draped off of her arms and hips.

  "What do we have here?" she asked, approaching Honey. "Is a lonely little working-boy looking for work? Can't make it on your own on the corner?"

  Honey was shocked by her vaguely-offensive tone. "N-no," he stuttered. His mind raced as he argued with himself that work was work but that he could never go back to this again, not if he ever wanted to make anything of himself. He had come too far to come back, no matter how nice these girls were."

  The woman folded her arms and cocked a crooked eyebrow at him. "Oh. So, you just came in to harass my girls? Not good enough for you?"

  Honey shook his head. "No, ma'am! I just...stopped in to rest for a moment. I couldn't hardly see your marker out there through the smo..smog."

  The woman sighed in exasperation. "This is what I get. I could have ended up in a shit-hole House out in the middle of nowhere or this beautiful mansion in this hellhole of a town. Woe is me." With that, she turned and started back up the stairs, only stopping long enough to look over her shoulder and add, "Take a minute to breathe, wipe the steel out of your eyes, and then get out."

  "Thank you," Honey called out after her, which was met with the cold gesture of a raised middle finger.

  He couldn't imagine what he had said or done to anger the lady of the House, but he decided it was best for him to leave and bid the girls farewell.

  *****

  The moment he heard the doors close behind him, his mind was flooded with thoughts about how he couldn't return to that life. He would never look down on those who still worked in Houses. There was nothing wrong with it but, to Honey, going back to that life would be like telling Beaumont that he had been right about him all along. That he was a worthless little dick who was lucky to have a roof over his head and a coin in his pocket. He couldn't go back to it, not if there was even a little bit of hope left for a better life for himself and anyone else he could help.

  He brought his arm up to his face, as he had done before so that he might breathe through his sleeve and ingest less of the fumes around him, and continued down the road. He passed a building that had no signs or lights on, assuming that it was either abandoned or a place where people sold flesh or drugs without permission from the government bodies. Soon after, he started to hear music coming from a building with pink lights all over the outside and the sign with the silhouetted dancer painted on it that he had seen from up the road. The sign above the establishment read, "Sacred Mounds." It took him a moment to find the door, which had been painted the same pink-ish orange as the rest of the outside walls, but once he did, he slipped inside, unsure of what he was walking into.

  The loud music and smell of clashing perfumes were an assault on Honey's senses. He was used to having a record playing nearby when he had danced in the lounge, but it was nothing like this. It sounded as though the music was being played through many record-players all over the place, and they had all been turned up so loud that the vibrations of the bells were muddling the music. He looked up and down the short hallway that opened up to the loud lounge, taking in the pale orange walls streaked with nicotine stains and little else. Two men stood beside the entry at the other end of the hall, both looking like has-been bodybuilders and both looking very bored. Honey straightened and gathered his confidence.

  He wondered about how much they charged per day or per hour as he began his approach. The men looked well-kept but not wealthy by any means, their plain black t-shirts tucked into tight blue-jeans that draped over sleek black shoes that shined as though waterproof.

  Beer-proof, Honey corrected himself in h
is mind. Smart muscle.

  One of the men met Honey a few feet from the entrance and held up a hand. Honey stopped, unsure of what to expect, and the man circled around behind him and began to pat him down.

  "Woah!" Honey exclaimed, turning and pulling away from the man. "I don't know what's going on here, but I ain't selling!"

  The man put his hand up again. "Woah Woah Woah!" the man replied. "Look here. I just have to pat you down to make sure you're not packing."

  Honey's heart raced. "P-packing? Packing what?"

  Is that slang? Honey thought. What does that mean? Packing? Like stuffing to look bigger? I don't stuff!

  "Heat," the man replied. "You know...weapons? There are no weapons allowed in the bar."

  "Bar?" Honey asked. "This is a bar?"

  The other door-guard came over and shared a laugh with his cohort. "Yeah. You know, a titty-bar. There are titties all over the place in there, just waitin' for you to come in and take a look!"

  "But we have to check you for weapons first," the other added. "It's policy."

  Honey nodded in understanding. "Right. Packing. No, I'm not packing." He walked back over, embarrassed by his overreaction, and turned away from the men to resume the search.

  The guard began to pat him down again. "Believe me, feelin' up dudes is not how I like to spend my time, but these girls got nobody else."

  "And the manager's a fuckin' sleaze," the other added.

  "That's a shame," Honey said. "It seems like nobody in the pleasure business can seem to catch a break."

  The guard finished his search and scoffed. "Nah, it ain't as bad as all that. This isn't the pleasure business. This is just entertainment."

  Honey turned and looked up at the man. "Entertainment?"

  Both of the guards waved him on into the bar area. "Take a look for yourself. And kid, don't fall in love. They look like angels, but they act like vampires. Remember that."

  Honey nodded, though he was unsure of what the men meant. Of course, the girls would be beautiful. All girls were beautiful in their own way, just the same as anyone can choose to be good or bad. He chose not to engage the men and made his way out to where the music and stinky perfumes all got louder.

  He passed the bar area, where several men were drinking beer and chatting up the bartender, an exotic, dark-haired beauty who seemed to bask in their attention so long as they dropped coins into her tip vase. This made Honey feel a little more at home in the strange establishment. Paying to enjoy someone's company, whether it was sexual in nature or not, was nothing new to him.

  She must be quite a story-teller, Honey thought, to have them so enthralled that they are not interested in the...titties...Do titties mean 'girls,' or..does it mean dancers? What a strange word. It sounds like a type of candy.

  He waved to the bartender and received one in kind along with a more genuine smile than the other men sitting at the bar had. Moments later, Honey realized what titties were.

  "Oh my," Honey muttered as he stepped into the main lounge. There were three stages with catwalks that jutted toward the middle of the room where there was ample seating for dozens of people, though only a few seats were taken around each of the stages. On each stage was a girl dancing in what could hardly be called lingerie as it barely covered much of anything. The men were right. The girls were gorgeous in their thickly painted make-up and their beautifully quaffed hair. They looked like goddesses dancing in their own realm, their lights and props perfectly on theme with the scraps of sparkly material they wore. Honey watched for the rest of the song, the music playing so loud that he could feel it vibrating in his chest. The stages all had these short tubes installed around the edges where patrons could drop coins or stacks of coins in, and they did. It looked like a tube held about ten coins before the bottom dropped out and emptied the tube. When the music stopped, all of the tubes on all three stages emptied, a mechanism that both surprised and amazed Honey. How much easier life would have been at Beaumont's House if clients could just drop coins into a tube that would collect the money for him when they entered the bedroom.

  He clapped and whistled when the girls finished their performances, which drew the attention of all in the lounge. The girls seemed to take it with a note of humor, beaming as they bowed toward and then away from the small crowd before disappearing backstage. The men stared at him with narrowed glances, seemingly disturbed by Honey's behavior.

  "Oh. Sorry," Honey said, blushing a bit from his social faux pas. He looked around the room again and spotted waitresses serving drinks in little more than what bathing suits covered. They zipped around the room, delivering alcoholic drinks in short glasses, and occasionally sat in a patron's lap to giggle and ask them if they were having a good time or to discuss the dancers who had just finished up. Honey spotted one who was zipping away from the stages with a tray of empty glasses and jogged to her to ensure he would cross her path.

  "Excuse me."

  She stopped and groaned, "Sir, I'm not part of the entertainment. I'm just a waitress. You can get a private dance or a lap dance or whatever from one of the other girls. I'll even get you one. Blonde? Redhead? Chunky?"

  "N-no thanks, ma'am," Honey said. "Actually, I'm looking for a job. Which girl would I talk to about that?"

  The girl's eyes widened, and her smile returned. "Actually, she's a he. I'll go get him for you."

  Honey nodded and folded his hands in front of him, trying to look more like someone who was worthy of a decent dish-washing job and less like someone who did not belong there. He looked around, taking in the unusual construction of the lounge. There weren't any moldings or special carvings. It looked as though, without the furniture and ugly paint job, this place could have been a dozen different things. It was basic and cheap looking.

  Perhaps the manager couldn't afford better. If this place looks like this in the afternoon, I bet they make some serious coin at night when day-workers come in to relax.

  The waitress returned, followed by a short, stocky man in a white hat and suit over a pink shirt who looked a little disheveled as he waddled to keep up with her. She nodded down to him and zoomed off before the man could reply, which seemed to confuse and irritate him.

  "Yeah, whatever! Go make money!" He called out after her. He turned his attention to Honey and grunt. "No, they're not for sale, just their performances. We don't do that here."

  "Oh no, sir. You have me all wrong," Honey said through nervous chuckles. "I-uh, I'm actually looking for work. Do you have an opening for something in the kitchen?"

  The man seemed surprised by Honey's question. "You? Want to work here?" Honey nodded. The man let out a wry laugh and started to walk away. He looked over his shoulder. "Boy, unless you can work that pole as good as the tail that just did, I ain't got nothin' for ya."

  Honey sighed, feeling his optimism deflate a little, but then--

  "Wait! I can dance!"

  The man turned. "You? You can dance?" Honey nodded.

  The manager grinned. "Alrighty then, skinny-boy. Get up on there and dance like you mean to make me money!" He pointed out the far-left stage, which was devoid of patrons. It had already been emptied of coins and swept, awaiting the next dancer. "Well, go on. She's a-waitin' for ya! Here! I'll get Lenny to get some dancing music cued up."

  Honey's heart raced, but a wide grin spread across his face ear to ear as he sauntered up to the stage and climbed up. "I doubt that it will be a song that I know, but I'll try my best."

  "No worries, kid. You don't have to rock it perfectly this first time. You just have to show me that you've got enough rhythm to be taught by my girls." The little man sat down in the front row and gazed up at Honey. "Alright. Get ready."

  Honey took a few moments to stretch, having been a little out of practice as of the past few months, and poised himself against the pole. A slow, heavy beat began to play, and a single spotlight radiated down on him and the pole, highlighting him against the black curtain behind the stage. The little man leered, bu
t Honey was unfazed. The stage, the blinding light, a shiny pole. This was his sanctuary in the hell that was the House. This was where he thrived.

  He danced against the pole, feeling the music run over his skin and through his veins. It felt a bit strange, dancing in shoes with such a low heel. He felt short, but the only drove him to make his performance more noticeable. The music picked up, and Honey found himself so lost in the beat and the light that in a moment of passion, he performed a power-slide down the cat-walk and ripped the button-up shirt from his body, sending buttons flying and then bouncing down the strip of stage. The way the light caught those little black buttons only enhanced the dramatic effect of the buttons bouncing and egged him on further. Honey wasn't sure if it was the music or his lack of an outlet for so long, but at different points during his erotic dance, he found himself crawling around on stage like a stalking tiger. Then climbing the pole and sliding down while up-side-down, which made his undershirt ride up, and when it stopped, he encouraged it with his hand. Then writhing and gyrating on the stage in tune with the beat, as though he might be caught in some dirty slow-motion picture where his lover had been edited out. And more. Whatever felt natural, his body did on its own, like it was meant to do it. When the song ended, and the spotlight was accompanied by the other lights on-stage, he felt tired and also disappointed that it was over. It made him wonder if this was what his clients sometimes felt when he had to shoo them out at the end of the hour.

  The little man looked speechless. His eyes were wide and his mouth agape. "Kid, you've got some skills. Where do you come from?"

  "I don't know." Honey's instincts were still sitting in the driver’s seat. He started to formulate a lie about how he had been living in Roxana his whole life, but even as a thought, the lie began to burn through him. He decided to go with honesty. "I mean...I came from a House."