Devil's Workshop

She was tall and lanky, with big hands and blunt fingernails. Her hair was stringy and pulled back from her wide forehead, emphasizing her eyes, which were set too far apart. She stood at the corner outside the Whistle and Flute, waiting for a man to come along and give her a coin she could spend on a bed for the night. Or on a pint of gin.

Jack watched her from across the street until he began to feel the old familiar call, that special burning sensation in his fingertips and across his shoulders. He waited for a cab to pass by, then made his unhurried way across the street. She watched him coming, and her face rearranged itself from a sullen scowl to something she apparently thought was sexy, lowering her eyelids and pouting her lips, a half smile fighting with her arched eyebrows. Jack thought she looked more like a jester than a seductress, but he appreciated the effort. He stepped over a mound of steaming horseshit and hopped up onto the curb next to her.

“Good evening,” he said.

She affected a disinterested attitude, looking away in the other direction as if she had no idea who he might be talking to. He was amused by her attempt at subtlety. She played the game as if there were no transaction in their future, as if she were simply a woman and he a man.

He tried again. “I have sixpence here for you if you wish it.”

“I don’t go nowhere for less than half a crown.”

He laughed out loud and was startled to hear that there was no anger in the sound of it. His laugh was genuine and robust and free of malice. He looked at the girl, this weathered, big-boned woman, and he smiled at her. And there was nothing in his smile to frighten her, nothing that gave her any indication that she was looking at a god or a monster. He was simply a man, like so many other men she had known in her unfortunate life.

“Shouldn’t you be worried?”

“Worried about what, love?”

“They never caught Saucy Jack.”

“You don’t scare me. I know a good man when I see one, and you ain’t no Saucy Jack. And you ain’t gonna bargain me down.”

“I thank you,” he said.

“For what?” she said. “I ain’t done nothin’. Not yet, at least.”

“For the marvelous birthday gift you’ve bestowed. You have shown me something I did not know until this very moment. I suspected it, but I didn’t realize it for a certainty. And I am a changed man.”

“Your birthday? Well, bless you, but the price ain’t changed none, birthday or no birthday. I got my standards.”