Verboten

4.

You weep silently on the floor of your bedroom in your cotton chemise, hovering over your washbasin as you scrub your arms and legs with a washcloth and your new bar of soft lavender soap. It's well into the middle of the night, the saloon and the outdoors are quiet aside from the chirping of a scattering of active crickets and the loan croak of a bullfrog.

The man was decent; he wasn't rough, he didn't ask too much of you, he didn't look or smell like rotting meat but truthfully what pulled you through that interaction was the thought of the stranger. Having the ability to close your eyes and think about his intimate scent of withering rose, the way his calm and even breaths leave his parted lips and how his hair falls into his eyes is truly a gift. If you weren't so timid and insecure, you would thank him for the escape the next time you saw him but you know that won't be in the cards for you.

Your skin is reddened and splotchy from abrasive scouring, your tears blurring your eyes as you drag yourself to your feet and dry off before emptying the gray water and returning the basin to your washstand. You open up your tea tin from underneath your bed and drop in some silver and gold coins that you managed to lift off of your customer after he had fallen asleep, digging your fingers into your impressive stash for a sample taste of freedom before closing it up and tucking it away.

You toss and turn in bed, alternating between glancing at the full moon and checking your pocket watch every ten or twenty minutes before kicking your blankets away in frustration and climbing off of your mattress. You pull on a bloused bodice and a pair of boots before creaking open your bedroom door, glancing left and right then tip toeing down the hallway past the doorways of sleeping guests.

You pull in a deep breath before peering over the railing that opens up to the empty saloon; when you're confident that your father is in his quarters, you jog down the steps and exit the building, dropping your palms to your knees and panting your fright in and out through your nose.

Your breathing quiets and when you right yourself, you can make out the faint strumming of a guitar. Your heart pounds when you deliberate who would be playing music at this hour, but then the waitress's words rekindle in your memory about the stranger. They said he often stays up late to play his instrument and your wild curiosity has your feet walking towards the sound.

You pass several store fronts and businesses, the sound growing closer and closer with each step until your ears are sparked with another resonance; the raspy and melodic timbre of someone singing softly. You stiffen and just listen for a minute until the desire to see him is overwhelming and your fingers are gripping the wall as you peek around the corner of the hotel.

The stranger is perched at the top of the steps with his entire side profile in sight, his legs bent but still infinitely long in front of him. A cigarette burns on the step next to him and his hair is pushed back off of his forehead in a lazy sweep. His clothes are casual - more so than anything you've seen him dressed in thus far but not quite bed clothing, a pair of black trousers and a black dress shirt that's unbuttoned low beyond his chest to expose tattoos there.

His fingers move expertly across the strings of his instrument, his digits bare of rings but the cross drawn on the back of his hand is still shameless in the moonlight. His sleeves are pulled up to reveal several more pieces of art on his arm, his voice boils in his chest and seeps like honey from his lips, his eyes closed as if he can feel each word as it leaves his throat.

You duck back behind the wall again and lean your head against the wood to soak in his private moment, how beyond beautiful he sounds and how well-practiced he is. You had imagined on several occasions the way that his voice might sound; your estimation in no way holds a candle to the reality of it and now you feel ready to sell your soul to the devil to hear him speak just one sentence while he looks into your eyes. You study the lyrics that he chooses to sing and the pure marrow he pours into his art before you glance one more time around the corner.