Page 39 of Sirens
He couldn’t readily blame her. The place begged to be explored through texture. The thick, lined wallpaper. The griton the plaster. The over-sanded banisters and well-worn door latches.
“You know, Madame Katz was quite the entrepreneur.” Maggie’s call echoed through the gloom as if it were an old friend. “Story goes, she had her girls slip laudanum into the drinks of unsuspecting workmen. Next thing they knew, they were waking up at sea halfway to Shanghai, the prisoners of the ship captain and at his dubious mercy.”
“Dubious mercy?” he mused. “I’ve never met anyone who talks like you.”
“That isn’t the flex you think it is.”
Always with the comebacks, this one.It was like she was afraid to say something real.
“Each room was rented by the hour,” she continued. “The madame ran a tight ship, let me tell you. She didn’t tolerate any funny business. Her enemies had a way of getting what was coming to them.”
“Funny business?” He arched a brow, a smile tugging at his lips despite his best efforts. “Wasn’t that basically her…business?”
“Har, har.”
“Shanghaied by seduction,” Trent said, his tone even as he pondered the cruel fates of those men. His own path to self-sufficiency had been paved by a workaholic father with a service record that shamed most of the Southwest. All the while Thomas Trenton McGarvey instilled in Trent the same work ethic and tendency to chase advancement and excellence.
If you do something, you do it perfectly, or why even start?
It was a question that ricocheted around his mind every day.
“I wonder how Madame Katz selected her victims?” she wondered aloud. “Did she pick men she didn’t like? You’d have to be pretty pissed to ruin someone’s life so effectively.”
Thoughts of men captured in ships and forced into work was just about the worst place his mind could go… “There’s something about history’s darker corners that’s just…compelling. It’s important that people don’t forget. The past isn’t romantic for everyone.”
“That’s why I do this. It’s like peeling back the layers of a forgotten world.” Maggie made her way across the hall to find which room he was inspecting. Her excitement was palpable, her energy infectious as she detailed every sordid tale she’d unearthed for her podcast.
“Murderous Madams” wasn’t just a catchy title—it was Maggie’s relentless pursuit of the truth, wrapped in the enigma of a past that refused to die quietly. He appreciated that about her, he realized. The fact that she didn’t want to sensationalize history but preserve it. To tell the stories people would rather keep hidden.
“Imagine the stories these walls could tell,” Trent said, running his fingers over a patch of exposed brick as if it might whisper its secrets to him. His gaze drifted to the skeleton of a bed, and he imagined Maggie spread out upon the sheets, her hair fanned across the pillows, creamy skin bare against the crimson velvet…
He shook off the vision, his face flaming. What the hell was wrong with him? He barely knew this woman, and here he was picturing her in some fantasy old-timey brothel he’d never even have been allowed into back in the day.
They continued their exploration, stepping lightly over the threshold of time, guided by the spirit of curiosity that seemed to bond them in a dance as old as the tales they chased. Trent found himself caught in a web woven of intrigue and attraction, spun by a woman who was as fearless in her search for truth as she was unknowingly adept at stirring his blood.
Trent couldn’t help but snicker as he followed Maggie, listening as she recounted the horror stories of life at sea, touching everything that caught her eye. Old picture frames. Shredded molding. Peels in the wallpaper that might hide a secret cubby in the wall.
“Scurvy-ridden sailors singing off-key shanties? No thanks,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ll understand if I don’t have a similar fascination with ships bearing cargo they ought not to.”
“Fucking A,” she agreed.
“Though I feel like HBO needs a show likeShanghaiing Sex Workers in the Gilded Age Pacific Northwest. I’d watch the shit out of that.”
Their laughter echoed through the hallways as they moved from room to room, the derelict beauty of the place weaving an enchanting spell around them. Then, tucked away in the corner of what used to be a lavish bedroom, Trent’s gaze fell upon an armoire, its wood darkened with age.
“Check this out,” he called to Maggie, pulling open the creaky cupboard and drawers to find mostly dust bunnies and dead flies. After wrestling with the latch on the cabinet, he uncovered a stack of yellowed pamphlets, their edges brittle to the touch.
“Is that what I think it is?” Maggie asked, peering over his shoulder with wide eyes.
“Madame Katz’s menu of…kittens and services,” he confirmed, a hint of heat creeping onto his cheeks as he read the titles aloud. “‘Miss Alice and the Privateer’s Prize’? ‘Miss Kitty and the Captain’s Kiss’—they sound like bad romance novels.”
“Or really good ones, depending on your taste,” Maggie countered, arching her brow playfully.
They stood side by side, flipping through the pages, their amusement growing louder with each absurdly named act. “Oh, look—’Martha and the Mariner’s Prayer.’ And they have pictures! Do you think it’s called that because she’s on herknees?” She nudged Trent with her elbow and gave him the Groucho Marx eyebrows. “Look. Swallowing is a dime extra. A whole dime! Can you imagine the taste back then?” She made a face.
Swallowing.
Something Trent was no longer capable of doing.
