Black Skies Ch. 02

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London, East End

December 2, 1853

Mathilda Fairbottom sat at her desk, gripping the daily newspaper tightly. The Russians had just destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope, leaving that part of the Black Sea coast open to invasion. The British and French had issued an ultimatum earlier threatening the Russians not to engage in any offensive action against the Turks. Tsar Nicholas, viewing the presence of Western military personnel as contravening these terms, called their bluff and took out a vital Turkish convey in a daring and successful offensive.

"Massacre at Sinop" read the news. The bellicose pro-war factions in England and France were probably going to use this event to pressure their governments into officially declaring war. Mathilda drooped in her seat. Tom was not likely to come back before Christmas after all.

"Good morning, miss Fairbutton," cried out a young Chinaman as he entered the classroom and took his seat. It felt wrong to correct him.

"Good morning, Ping," Mathilda struggled to put on a cheerful face. Soon, the rest of the eight Chinese, Indian, Malay and Lascar coolies filled the wooden classroom with dusky faces and toothy grins. She put aside the newspaper and adjusted her modest white bonnet, planting her plain, leather-bound bible on the desk. Her dull, brown-grey buttoned dress clung firmly around her small chest, made narrower by a tight corset. She always found it difficult to breath, but she wanted to make sure the heathen heard every word of the Good Book and received proper low-church Anglican doctrine. Today they would be finishing off Genesis 19.

"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground..."

Mathilda read the passage with hesitation. Please, don't make them ask any embarrassing questions, oh Lord. The laborers had their noses in cheap copies of the Bible, struggling to follow along.

"...And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly-"

"Miss Fairbutton?" interrupted shiny-headed Ping. Mathilda squeezed her eyes shut. I knew they were going to have trouble with this part.

"Why is it wrong that they want to know the angels? If an angel came down from heaven, surely we would want to greet him."

"Ping, to "know" someone in this case is to...uh...sigh...have sex with them."

Everyone in the room just nodded in understanding. Ping returned to his book, dropping the matter entirely.

Thank God we didn't have to dwell on that subject, Mathilda gulped, feeling tight in the chest again.

"Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof."

"Missus Fairbottom?" A swarthy hand shot up into the air. It was Abhilash, a mustachioed Hindoo this time.

Ohhh...Damn it!

"Is Lot a wicked man, Sahiba? If a woman offers herself to a crowd of men, she is a sinner, but if a man offers his daughters for the same purpose, is he not too unrighteous?"

Mathilda frowned. She often had difficulty with this part as well.

"Well, Timothy," she answered him, calling him by his Christian name. The others had not been baptized yet. "Lot is righteous because he is offering up what is precious to him in order to protect the emissaries of the Lord from harm."

Timothy accepted her answer with dissatisfaction. Mathilda finished Genesis 19 without any further interruptions, except to clarify what the sin of Sodomy was, which upset some of the coolies.

"China and India are full of millions of people! If we had sex only for conception, would not the world be filled with crowding and hunger? You complain that there are too many Chinamen and Hindoos already!"

"That is why we must control our urges, Yung. Look at me, I am nineteen, and I haven't been with a man." The room was filled with chuckles. She put her hands on her hips and wrinkled her nose at them in response.

"Let's just finish our lesson for today," she rolled her green eyes to mask her wounded pride.

All the coolies bowed their polite goodbyes as Mathilda locked the door and set foot on the cold, muddy London streets. A chill wind blew past her and she felt her cold returning. She pulled out a handkerchief and coughed into it as drops of smelly rain fell on her skin.

Oh no, I forgot to bring my umbrella!

Mathilda hastily began running down the street, hoping to get out of East End as soon as possible. The brown rain started pouring down, carrying the acid and pollution from Britain's black skies.

Mathilda made the mistake of trying to leap over a puddle. Her boot got caught on a loose brick and she tripped over, falling face-first into the waist-deep water.

"Oh!" She cried, shivering as she slowly got up. She was soaked to her feet. Her suffocating corset already made it hard to breathe, but the chill wind and her illness conspired to make each second unbearable. Her stride became an unsteady shuffle. She crossed her arms over her narrow chest, trying to warm herself up.

The grey sky turned black, and the rain came down so hard it stung. People had cleared the streets and were staying indoors for the duration of the storm. Mathilda walked down the empty slum streets, miserable. At this rate, she wouldn't be home for another two hours. Her feet squished inside her wet boots.

She looked to the side. All the buildings, even the poorest ones, had some kind of heat inside.

A door to a medicine shop opened. A middle-aged Chinaman with a thin mustache and spectacles and a round Manchu hat looked at her and made a gesture with his hand. She stopped and looked down. She was ankle deep in dirty water. Her white bonnet was soaked and brown, clinging to her messy, unkempt hair. She plodded her way over to the man's shop, back bent.

"Please, take off your shoes," came the accented English.

Mathilda shrugged, then knelt over to untie her laces. She had done missionary work inside people's homes before. She had wondered why the Eastern races were so meticulous about this point when they lived in such squalor. But at least the medicine shop was clean. She would hate to track mud across the wooden floor.

She stepped out of her boots onto her wet, muddied stockings. The proprietor of the shop looked and frowned. He grabbed a dry linen cloth and peeled her wet stockings off. She flinched at the sudden and inappropriate contact, but her feet wanted to get out of them anyway, so she didn't stop him. He quickly patted her feet and calves dry.

"Thank you." Even Christ washed his disciples' feet, I suppose.

He gestured to a low bench by the wall. She slapped her moist feet against the wooden floor and sat down on it.

Squish. Her wet dress had a lot of moisture in it, and her thighs were so cold and numb, they barely registered the sensation of sitting down. The middle-aged man gave a frown, then walked over to his tea kettle. He offered her a cup of Jade Oolong, something very similar to what Mathilda used to drink, but quite robust and fragrant. She thanked him and took the small cylinder cup in her hands.

"Hmm," she hummed. I'm a little warmer now. She glanced at the window to the pouring rain still outside. But I have to go back out to that.

"Come," the strange man said unexpectedly. "I have fire."

He pointed at a small door in the middle of the wall. It didn't go all the way to the floor, so it looked like a cabinet door. Was he going to bring her a lamp?

He tugged on her sleeve and gestured more impatiently.

"Okay! Okay!"

Pushy...

He brought the little dripping wet girl over to the door and opened it, revealing that it was an actual door to a separate room. He brought a stool underneath it, and crawled through the narrow space.

"Come inside," he gestured, once inside. Mathilda curiously blinked, wondering why he didn't have a proper door, but the room was lit orange and emanated heat. She couldn't change her clothes, so she would have to dry them.

The man turned his head and spoke a few words in Chinese. To her surprise and dismay, Mathilda saw another Chinaman in there, cooking something over a stove. He seemed to be a laborer judging by his tanned, muscular appearance and sleeveless vest.

The first man came back and closed the door. "No let heat out."

Mathilda nervously walked over to the fire, taking note of two beds, carved out from plain wood. They had two pillows. Those couldn't be comfortable. Did people live in here?

The second man scooted backward, giving Mathilda space by the coal stove. She sat in front of the stove's coal port, relishing in the warmth of the fire. She put her delicate white hands out, drying them.

At this rate, I can dry my dress out too, just by sitting here

Mathilda sat Indian-style in front of the stove, alternating between facing it and turning her back towards it, drying out both sides of her dress.

Hmph. She fidgeted in frustration as she found it impossible to dry her corset or undergarments in this manner. She didn't want to draw undue attention to herself, but this was getting annoying.

Mathilda finally took off her soiled bonnet and let her hair out of her tight bun. The sight of her wet brown hair swirling and cascading down to her back, briefly exposing her white neck was enough to draw the men's attention. The proprietor openly gawked at her while the more intimidating man gave her a brief glance before wordlessly turning back to his wok.

"It's not rude of me to let my hair down, is it?" She asked the two, diffusing the situation.

"Oh no! No, no," replied the shopkeeper.

Mathilda turned to the taller man. He said nothing, but stirred his wok with a ladle.

The girl sniffed, taking in the aroma she had been trying to ignore.

"Is that duck?" She asked, wondering why the stone-faced man wasn't talking. Idiot! He probably doesn't speak English, she chided herself.

He stuck his hand in the wok and ripped off a leg. Without looking, he handed it to her. She had no choice but to take the hot meat in her hands and blow on it.

"Uh, thank you," she replied. His gesture actually struck her as a little rude, but her caution disappeared as soon as she took a bite of the rich, fatty meat. There were probably five or six spices she never heard of before infused into that duck leg.

"Mmm," she moaned, before realizing how base and vulgar she sounded. She flushed, eating the rest of the leg in silence, self-conscious about her complete lack of table manners.

The two Chinamen ignored her and ladled out the soup into their bowls, slurping it down noisily. More appalling than their own table manners was the lack of chivalry on display here.

"Can I have some?" She finally asked, almost indignant. Do they not know how to treat a lady?

The bigger, brawnier and clean-shaven man had the bigger appetite and had cleaned out his bowl of duck soup first. He had even eaten the bones. He poured a second serving from the wok into his empty bowl, then handed it to her.

"We don' have anymo' bow's," the shopkeeper explained while eating.

Mathilda crinkled her nose and stared at the two men with her emerald eyes. Neither of them were looking at her. She then glanced at the lacquered bowl resting in the man's tan hand. She was so desperately hungry all of a sudden.

"Thank you," she took the meal with her hands. She rotated it so she wouldn't bring her lips to where his were, then slowly brought the soup to her lips.

She took a deep sip, relishing the star anise and garlic and rice wine. The salty broth felt amazing down her sore throat. Despite the confines of her corset, she greedily finished it all up, not regretting it at all.

She looked down at the rest of the duck meat in her now soup-free bowl. Sensing her problem, the laborer handed her his chopsticks to separate the meat from the bone.

She took the sticks curiously and poked at the meat with it, one in each hand. This finally brought a laugh from the quiet man, as she looked like a small child.

"Well I've never used them before!" She snapped, furrowing her brows and pouting. He took them and inserted them between the fingers of her right hand. He wiggled her index finger to get the top stick to move, demonstrating the pincer action. It was then she realized how much bigger his hands were.

Oh no, I'm eating a meal with two heathens. I even forgot to say Grace! She clapped her hands together and recited a quick prayer followed by an apology. The two men regarded her even more strangely.

"Looks like I have my work cut out here converting you two," she laughed.

"No thank you," the shopkeeper said matter-of-factly and without irony. Mathilda pouted again, though secretly she vowed to convert the whole of Chinatown. It would at least fix up their eating habits.

Mathilda ate the rest of her duck so slowly that the laborer lost his patience and started feeding her so he could have his bowl back. "Hey! I was just getting the hang of it," she protested. But in the end, all three finished their meal and were lounging.

Eating the broth cleared up some of the mucus in Mathilda's throat, and she started coughing. She hacked up her green-yellow product into her handkerchief and put it back into her pocket, but not before blowing her nose as well. It was the Chinamen's turn to look at her with disgust.

"What? I have a cold. <>cough cough<>," she stared back, wide-eyed and a little insecure.

"Your clothes...Are they still wet?"

"Yes, but I'm not taking them off in front of you!" She laughed.

"Your sickness will get worse."

"I'll be fine." Mathilda shot the shopkeeper a playful glance, making a small smirk. She was 25% certain at this point that at least one of them was attracted to her. And though she wasn't serious about it, she hoped it wasn't the old one.

The shopkeeper left to grab something from the corner, returning to the stove to hand it to his friend, who took out a piece of folded paper from his pocket. He unwrapped it, revealing a clump of a dark tarry substance. He tore off a piece and fit it into the pipe's chamber, handing it back to the shopkeep.

The older Chinese man took a folded cone of paper and stuck it in the stove, lighting the corner. With it, he lit the sticky stuff as he inhaled, causing it to glow orange. He took long drag and held it, handing the hot pipe back to the laborer, who did the same.

Mathilda watched the process in fascination. Her parents had sheltered her so much from vice that she didn't know what was going on. She assumed it was tobacco like her father smoked.

"Are you taking medicine?" She asked curiously.

"You can say that. It cures pain...and sorrow," the shopkeep said, letting a cloud of white smoke escape his mouth.

Mathilda thought of her own body. The cold and rain had irritated her joints to a degree. No one likes having pain.

She stared at the two men with wide green eyes. Once again, she'd have to ask. This time, she wasn't as offended by their lack of offering.

"Can I try some?" she asked nervously, twiddling her fingers and looking away.

Immediately the pipe was lain in her hands, with the mouthpiece already pointed toward her lips. She wiped the mouthpiece with her shirt. Not wanting to seem frivolous, she suppressed her hesitation and took a tentative drag.

Coughing.

"Breathe deeper. Hold it in. No waste."

She took a second hit of the sickly sweet smoke, letting it fill up her small lungs before she handed the pipe back. Like he told her to, Mathilda held it in until her chest felt hot. She puffed her cheeks before letting it all out in one big sigh.

It didn't seem to do anything except make her feel a little bit warmer, though it could have just been her sitting too close to the furnace. She scooched away a bit.

The men took their hits and she was handed the pipe again. Oh, well I guess....

She looked at the pipe before figuring she needed more. She wiped the mouthpiece again before taking another lungful. It didn't sting as much this time. She let the smoke out, amused at how creamy white it was.

By this time, the two veteran smokers were already lying on their sides, smiling dumbly. Being a first-timer, Mathilda didn't feel the effects as hard, and started to wonder if this was a vice, seeing how the two seemed to be intoxicated.

She was gingerly, almost tenderly handed her third pipe. She accepted it without much ado, and inhaled again. Her skin felt hot as her blood vessels began to dilate, filling her with a cozy warmth. This time, she tried to see how long she could hold it in.

She looked up at the low ceiling with a dreamy daze. It was easy to forget how grey and dingy the world was outside in the warm snugness of this little den. Her cheeks began puffing up again, and the smoke escaped her mouth before she realized she was exhaling. She leaned back, almost falling over, in order to stretch out her legs. Feeling the blood circulate again in that part of her body felt remarkably good.

Feeling comfort and pleasure wash over her legs only made her realize how uncomfortable her chest was. She undid the bottom lace of her corset, letting the sides of the corset part a little, but that only brought a little relief.

"Don't look," she asked the man in the middle, who could speak English. He carried her message on to his friend in Chinese before taking another hit. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in her.

Seeing that their heads were turned, Mathilda sat back up and undid the buttons on her dress, withdrawing her arms from the sleeves. She pushed the top half of her dress to the floor, exposing her chemisette and corset. She pulled the corset off her body, letting her chest finally breathe free. She glanced down at her wet undershirt, figuring she might as well take it off too.

Mathilda's pale breasts and pink nipples were briefly visible before she quickly buttoned her dress back on. She turned her back and kept an eye on the two while she did so.

Free and dry, her torso felt marvelous now. But if she was going to remove one wet undergarment, why not them all? Her knickers and garterbelt were soaked too. She giddily took them off too, impressed by her own boldness. She carefully lay each piece next to the furnace to dry.

"Okay, I'm finished," she said, taking the pipe again. She was completely naked underneath her grey-brown dress, though that still covered her from neck to ankle. Still, she felt great having the warm air caress her bare skin underneath her now loose dress. And she was drying her wet clothes too. She beamed at how clever and resourceful she was being.

She drew her next hit lying down, in the same manner as the other two. She had forgotten to clean the mouthpiece off in her excitement. Smoking while lying on her side was much more relaxing. Her body felt flushed all over, and the smoke seemed to be making playful little patterns in the air this time.

Without getting up, Mathilda crawled over to the big, muscular laborer, tapping his sleeveless arm with the pipe. He took it and made a grateful nod before taking a big gulp of smoke. He looked down at the chamber afterwards, noticing it was almost empty, and broke off another piece of the stuff from his supply to refill. He handed it to the shopkeep, who skipped his turn and let Mathilda have the fresh hit, holding it to her mouth in one hand while lighting it with the other.