Eugenia's Embrace

"In here," Dawn said, opening a door on one side of the hallway.

Eugenia stepped into a small room of darkness. She looked around her. "It looks like a closet," she said. "Why did you want to show this to me?"

Dawn sprinkled a cough with a quiet laugh. "It's not just a closet. Watch."

Eugenia did watch and gasped in disbelief as Dawn pulled on a tasseled rope, opening drapes, to reveal a small window behind it. Then Eugenia gasped further when she saw what this window revealed. She was looking into a room of mirrors… the walls and ceiling completely covered by one continuous mirror, except where a lighted g

as light flickered behind a brightly decorated Japanese light on each wall. She continued to watch in silence as Aimee and Denise walked into this room, a room that didn't even hold a bed, but only a large, red silken-fabric covered mat stretched out on the floor.

"Is that… ?" Eugenia began, then was interrupted by Dawn's soft laughter at her side.

"Yes. That's our two Oriental girls' room. Extra special, isn't it?"

"It's beautiful," Eugenia answered, but looked questionably at Dawn. "But why this window?"

"Men pay almost their full month's earnings in gold to watch through this window."

Eugenia was beginning slowly to understand as her eyes searched through the window once again. Aimee and Denise were placing jars of something on each side of their mat, smiling widely at one another while taking their small, scooting steps across the carpet around the mat—a carpet of white that looked like some type of animal's fur.

"What do the men watch?" she asked, almost shyly, afraid that she might already know the answer.

"There are many different things to see," Dawn said, covering her mouth, coughing into her handkerchief. "But the main attraction is when Aimee and Denise let the man watch them apply perfumed oils from the Orient all over each other's bodies, in the most seductive manner. And if the man has more gold dust to spare, he can enter this room and let the girls spread the oils on him, then have them both do what he pleases for the remainder of the night."

"The girls actually don't mind being watched by strangers?"

"It's what they're here for."

"I must say. It is something different," Eugenia said, walking away from the window and on out into the hall. She wasn't as shocked as she would have been several months earlier.

Dawn pulled the drapes shut, then shut the door behind her. "One day, you'll have to let the girls give you a massage and apply the ointment to your body," Dawn said, lifting her skirts, heading for the staircase once again.

"Do you mean you've… ?" Eugenia stammered, lifting her own skirts and stepping downward.

Dawn laughed softly, eyeing Eugenia with a trace of a twinkle in her blue eyes. "Yes, my dear," she answered. "Before I became ill, I let these two beautiful girls send my mind into a million different worlds by their skilled fingers."

Eugenia's thoughts went to Alison, wondering also about her.

"But now," Dawn added. "The grand tour of the first floor of our establishment. First the kitchen."

Eugenia followed Dawn, her eyes searching for Key the moment they entered the room of mouthwatering aromas. Then she saw him. He looked so tiny in comparison to a buxom lady by his side, and it was quite obvious that they were disagreeing about something by the quickness of their chatter. But Eugenia laughed to herself, not understanding a word being spoken. Key's foreign tongue of Japanese was being applied, to mix with the broken Spanish of the dark-skinned lady.

"God! What do we have here?" Dawn exclaimed. "The beginning of a civil war between cooks?" She started to walk toward them to put a stop to it, but was stopped by Eugenia.

"Let's leave them be," Eugenia whispered, smiling. "They'll have to learn to settle their own differences if they're going to work together."

Dawn shook her head in agreement. "Of course. You're right," she said.

"Whatever they're brewing in those pots, it's got to taste good," Eugenia said, eyeing the many pots and pans on the large, wood-burning kitchen stove. Steam and smoke were rising so thick from them that it looked like the thickness of a morning fog over Eugenia's mountain.

"We serve only the finest food in our establishment," Dawn bragged further. "Come. I'll show off the dining room."

The room was only one closed door away from the kitchen. Eugenia was again taken aback when she pushed her way through the swinging door. Like her bedroom furniture, the long, narrow dining table was of dark red wine mahogany with many matching chairs pushed neatly beneath it. And to enhance the atmosphere of the room, another large chandelier hung from the ceiling over the table, reflecting softly onto the rose-decorated wallpaper, even though several candles were placed in cut glass candleholders on each end of the table.

"Quite beautiful." Eugenia sighed.

"Over here, Eugenia," Dawn said, walking to a window. "See that small house in back?"

Eugenia peered outward onto a small one-storied white house. "Yes, I see," she answered. "What about it? Who lives there?"