I followed Pen into the dancehall and the joint was overflowing with women. I think nearly every dancer and bar girl in El Paso was in our ballroom that night. When I walked in the door, the women started clapping. I blushed, gave them a little wave and walked over to the small bandstand to join the Hombres. The cigar and cigarette smoke must have been thick in the room that night, because my eyes were starting to water. I wiped my eyes with the back of my left hand as I slung my guitar around my neck then held up my hand for some silence. When the crowd quieted down, I told them how I felt.
"Thank you, Ladies, for the good wishes and get well notes and cards you sent me while I was convalescing. I hope that I can thank each of you in person in the next few days."
I could have stopped right there and still have gotten my message across, but that wouldn't be very Ty, would it? Of course not! So I threw in a little something extra.
"I just thought of a song that might express how I feel. I haven't practiced this with the Hombres, so forgive me if it's a trifle rough."
I found me a chord I thought was close and whacked it once. The song was almost a cappella anyway.
Love me tender,
Love me sweet,
Never let me go.
You have made my life complete,
And I love you so.
Love Me Tender might have been old fashioned by 1977, but in 1877 it was one of the most romantic things these women had ever heard. I walked around as I sang and tried to make sure that I acknowledged every woman in the room. You can feel however you wish about how the ladies made their living, but you couldn't for a minute deny that the majority of them were fine people.
Since I had the ladies all misty-eyed already, I nodded to the Hombres and called out "Kiss and Say Goodbye." The boys smiled as I emoted the opening monologue, then backed up Miguel Calderon as he nailed the singing portion with his clear quavering tenor voice. After that, we piled on a few more love songs. We had the chicks all swooning for love by the time we took our ten-thirty break.
I was beginning to feel a little frayed around the edges, so I took my break in my office. I was sitting at my desk with my feet up, when Belle and Conchita walked in. Belle shut and locked the door behind them, then gave me a big grin as she nudged Conchita towards my desk.
"You were amazing tonight, My Sweet, I do believe that every woman out there tonight left in love with you," Belle said teasingly.
I returned her grin and shrugged.
"That's all well and good, as long as the two women in here right now love me, too."
"No need to worry about that, is there Connie?"
Conchita nodded emphatically as she blushed a dusky rose color. Conchita loved the nickname Connie that Belle had hung on her, so we had all started calling her that.
Connie looked so sweet standing there that I had to stand up and kiss her. By kiss, I don't mean a peck on the cheek either; I mean a serious lover's kiss. We'd shared more than a few of those already, when she was sitting with me as I convalesced at the jail. Connie loved to kiss and she was damned good at it. Her lips were the softest I'd ever felt, and she had an active little tongue once she got going. I didn't do any more than kiss her, because she still worked for me. That was good in a way, because it let the anticipation build for both of us. I think she and Belle were under no such constraints, but if they were it was none of my business.
I finally made it up to the El Paso Hotel Saturday morning to check on the progress Belle had made sitting in for me. I couldn't believe how much had been done in the last eight or nine days. Except for the draperies for the windows in Belle's piano bar, everything was shipshape for our grand opening coming up on the first week of September.
Belle's piano bar was the most amazing room in the club. She'd installed dark cherry wainscoting on the base of the walls, up to a height of about thirty inches, and painted the upper walls pure white. She'd found some nice pieces of art to hang, and even had some statuary scattered in two of the corners. Centered along the wall opposite the bar was a gleaming black, baby grand piano. The room seated about fifty without any crowding, and double that when the partition was rolled back to open up the dining room.
The new sauna and massage rooms were nearly completed as well. It looked as if we'd be in fine shape for our opening in ten days as far as the facilities went. I was also confident about the kitchen and downstairs restaurant. Miranda was working as a waitress now along with Maria, and Miranda's mother, Alisia, was helping in the kitchen. I had even talked Anna into being the restaurant's hostess. Anna was a class act and charming as heck, so I thought she'd be perfect for the job.
The carpenters were just finishing up fabricating an easy to disassemble stage across one end of the first floor ballroom. The ballroom was a large space, fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long. I envisioned having a small stage for the house band and a larger stage for other types of entertainment. I'd truly love to put on some type of stage show at least two nights a week, if we could draw the crowds to make it worthwhile.
The ballroom opened up onto the back patio via three sets of double doors, so I had a couple of open but roofed bars built out there to service the crowds we would hopefully draw. After some discussion, the partners agreed that the first floor restaurant and ballroom should be open to the general public, unless the gent's club was using them. The first floor would still be up-scale and require proper dress and comportment from our patrons.
We effectively blocked the stairs to the second floor by moving the registration counter over to the base of them. To get past the desk, you had to be a member of the club. A man and a woman would be at the desk around the clock to take care of anything a member might need. I figured those to be two of the most important jobs in the place.
One of the men's positions was already filled by this guy Pen knew. He was a super snobby Englishman that exactly fit the image we were trying to establish. Talking to the little shit, you'd think he was royalty, but Pen said he was an out of work second rate Shakespearian actor. Pen said his real name was Ray Jarvis, but he insisted on calling himself Mister Jarveaux (pronounced Jar-vey). Even Belle was impressed by how snotty he acted. Me? I loved the guy and called him Jeeves. I was the only one who could get away with something like that. Belle said it was because Mister Jarveaux was a little light in the loafers and had a crush on me. Go figure.
Once again, I took a lengthy afternoon nap, and as she had the day before, Belle provided the type of wake up service Seth Thomas could never match.
That night at the cantina found me feeling almost up to speed. I took a thirty minute break around nine and worked through until one-thirty in the morning.
Sunday morning, I managed to talk my way onto Melosa, instead of riding to Mass in Belle's carriage. I was lucky in that Belle had a covey of women going with her, including Molly, Naomi and Conchita. I followed along behind the carriage as Jose drove it to Hector's rancho to pick up Maria and his sister Miranda. If I wasn't doing much else, I sure was helping increase the attendance at mass.
For the first time since I first rode her, Melosa was not her usual happy self. It took about half a dozen songs and some serious apologizing by me before her step had any bounce in it.
That morning, I saw Feleena for the first time in two weeks. She actually acted as if she was concerned that I had been injured. I nodded politely, thanked her and then asked where her boyfriend was. She told me that George was on important business for his father up in Austin. She didn't elaborate and I didn't ask her any more about George. I was certain that George was filing a claim for the mineral rights to the salt flats in the name of his maternal grandfather, George B. Zimpleman, because it fit in the history I knew. The filing of that claim and Howard's attempts to enforce it were the final provocations that led to the Salt War.
Feleena sure spent a lot of time checking out the women standing around me. The women were unfailingly polite to her, but in a way formal enough for her to catch how little they were intimidated by her beauty. Miranda summed up Feleena perfectly after she walked away.
"She is so beautiful on the outside, but I think her heart is a lump of coal."
After Mass, I told the women I was taking Melosa for some exercise, and away we rode. Jose was taking Conchita, Molly and Naomi home, then he was taking Belle to the Lopez-Calis hacienda.
Melosa and I meandered along the river for about forty-five minutes, then headed for dinner with Hector and all the women. I spent the time I was riding around trying to remember more El Paso history and the events that unfolded in September and October of 1877. As I recalled, Howard would start trying to enforce his rights to the salt in early September, by riding into San Elizario and demanding payment for some salt a few Mexicans had brought back from there. All hell broke out after that, as Howard was assaulted and thrown in the local hoosegow, on the orders of Louis Cardis, the head of the anti-salt faction and Howard's bitter rival.
Howard agreed to quit his claim to the salt and some of his cronies posted a twelve thousand dollar bond as a guarantee for his word. Howard never returned to his judgeship after that day. Instead, he holed up on his ranch, waited for the Texas Rangers to show up, and plotted his revenge against Cardis.
I shook those thoughts out of my head temporarily and sat down to enjoy a marvelous dinner that Hector had prepared to celebrate Juanita and Emilio's engagement. With all the people there, it was catch-as-catch-can for finding a seat. I ended up out on the porch with Joaquin and Jose Colon. Maria and Miranda were sitting one to a side next to Belle in the parlor, while the happy couple, their children, Anna, Hector and Ramona all sat at the dining room table. I couldn't resist giving Joaquin the business about him being next at the gallows after Emilio. Joaquin Just grinned.
"Ah yes, mi amigo, that is true. Yet, never will a man go so happily to the gallows as I, if Anna accepts my proposal."
After dinner, Maria, Miranda and Belle took a walk down by the river. Man, I was dying to sneak along and peek, because Miranda gave me a wink that let me know something was up. I stuck around, however, and talked to Hector and Joaquin about how to head off the looming violence over the salt flats. We jawed the subject to death, and the only thing we came up with was Anna throwing my name out to the Chicano community if they needed or wanted a mediator.
I rode away from the hacienda about thirty minutes later. Belle and the M&Ms had not returned from their walk when I departed. I left because I had some thinking to do and I didn't need any distractions while doing it. I was whistling tunelessly, deep in thought, as we headed back to town. We hadn't covered half a mile before Melosa just stopped dead in the middle of the road and turned her head to look at me. I looked back at her in confusion, until it dawned on me that she didn't like tuneless whistling.
"All right, all ready, I'll sing if you move your spoiled ass," I grumbled.
Melosa snorted, but didn't budge until I started practicing Johnny Cash's version of 'Streets of Laredo'. I was going to introduce that song about a dying young cowboy soon, and then I was going to do my damnedest to insure George Howard ended up as that cowboy, "wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay."
I was in bed taking a siesta when Belle came busting into my room. Instead of waking me with a nice little hummer as she had been doing, she shucked off her clothes and crawled on top of me. When I flopped over onto my back, she immediately straddled me and buried my groggy but hard Johnson in one swift plunge. Belle's little blonde nest was soaking wet, and her insides were hot and slick. When she was seated the way she wanted to be, she sighed, leaned forward and laid her head on my chest.
"I don't suppose you knew anything about what those two vixens had planned for me today?" She asked rhetorically.
I laughed and stroked her perfect little ass.
"I knew they were planning on getting you alone and jumping you, but I didn't figure it would be on a Sunday while Maria's parents and Miranda's brother were around. What happened anyway?"
Belle sat up and gave me a dreamy look.
"Those two are so bad! They had a blanket hidden behind that big cottonwood tree, and a little nest made in the soft grass. Before I knew it, they had me down on that blanket with Maria sitting on my face and Miranda attached to my little muffin like a leech. When Maria had her climax, they switched places."
Belle was bouncing on my Johnson as if it were a pogo stick as she related her afternoon. Damn, wasn't that about the sexiest thing you've ever heard? I know it was to me.
That evening after supper, Molly told Belle and me that she and Clem had decided not to pursue a relationship. Surprisingly, Clem brought the subject up before Molly could. It seems old Clem was smitten by Ling Huang's younger sister, Li Chen, one of the masseuses from San Francisco that Chong had promised to find for the gentleman's club. According to Clem, Li felt the same attraction for him, even though she was ten years younger than him.
After the three of us finished the dishes from supper, Belle told me to go entertain Molly for a while so she could practice on Molly's piano. Molly blushed that bright pink again, but almost wrenched my shoulder from its socket, dragging me to my room.
It turns out that Molly hadn't been intimate with Clem, so she had over a month's worth of pent up need for me to take care of. After a spirited bout of mutual licking and sucking, we moved into the main event. As soon as I was buried in her, I began to tell Molly how good Belle was with her tongue. Molly, who loved the hell out of oral sex, groaned when I said that. I tried to get Molly to spend the night with us, but she said she wasn't quite ready for that yet.
By Monday morning, I was feeling much better about my prospects, because the motor skills in my right hand started to return to normal.
After my usual Monday meeting with Pen, Belle and I started interviewing women to staff the gentleman's club. I'd filled Belle in on what I thought we needed. She laughed and kissed me when I said we needed about twenty more women just like her: smart, beautiful and talented.
Conchita was, unsurprisingly, the first woman to show up for an interview. She was also the first one we hired. Connie was going to be Belle's assistant in running the piano bar.
I was very pleased with the majority of the women who showed up for an interview. Belle and Big Liz had invited women they thought would fit into the new place and by and large, their referrals were excellent. The vindictive side of me wanted to gloat that a good number of the women we hired were from Riverboat Bill's Longhorn Saloon. We ended up hiring twenty-two women, all of them sharp cookies. The women were excited about having a job with more to it than dancing and screwing. Our girls were going to wait tables, dance, tend bar, man the front desk and generally provide companionship to the club members. If in the course of their evening, they agreed to take a member upstairs to one of the rooms, that was their business.
The interviews and hirings went much faster than I'd expected, so I had a free couple of hours in the afternoon. I filled that time by taking a trip over to the gunsmiths to use his pistol range. My right arm was well on the way to being back to normal, and I wanted to see how badly the injury had affected my pistol skills.
I fired off about fifty rounds right handed, and by the end of my session, I was almost as sharp as ever. The little exercise convinced me that I was ready to head over to the Lazy H and execute the search warrant that Marshal Cahill sent me. I had been giving that some thought recently, and had even discussed it with Sheriff Faulkner.
Matt suggested that I use three or four of his auxiliary deputies to form my posse. I was going to take him up on that idea later that week. In addition, I was going to deputize Pedro Diaz and a couple of other vaqueros from his rancho. Pedro worked for Wilfredo Acevedo, the owner of the El Paso Hotel, so I didn't think getting the men would be a problem.
While I was busy at the gunsmith's, Belle visited Naomi Singleton to discuss my idea of some sort of uniform for the girls who would work at the gent's club. I wasn't going to introduce something as scandalous as a bunny costume, but I did want something unique and sexy for this era. I even described to Belle the can-can dancer outfits that the women wore in the Folies Bergere from my previous life, as visions of a Rockettes like chorus line high kicked in my head.
On Tuesday, we were right back at the hotel, as I had been dragooned into helping hang the draperies in Belle's piano bar. The drapes were a deep regal indigo color, two layers thick and hung to the floor. When they were closed, they did a remarkable job of darkening the room.
When the drapes were up, the El Paso Gentlemen's Club was finally completed. All that remained to do for our opening was to stock the bars with liquor.
Belle insisted we go back to my room for an early siesta, and I didn't kick up a fuss about it. I thought she had a little lovin' on her mind to celebrate finishing the club. Turns out that I was partially right; Belle did have lovin' on her mind, but the reason wasn't the club. I figured that out as soon as we walked into the room and found a beautifully naked Maria sprawled out invitingly on top of our bed. Belle pushed me into the room, but stayed at the door by herself.
"You owe our sweetie the birthday present you promised her," Belle said over her shoulder as she walked back out the door.
I turned around and looked at Maria again. In all the excitement of the last couple of weeks, I'd forgotten all about Maria's birthday. Well, it did pass by right after I was shot, but I was still embarrassed I'd missed it. Thankfully I'd bought her a gift over a month ago, not that it appeared as if she wanted it right this minute.
"Happy Birthday, Corazón, I'm sorry I didn't remember it last week when it happened."
Maria smiled and held her arms open to me.
"That's okay, Tyler, I told everyone not to mention it to you until you were well. Belle says you are back to normal now, and said I could have you all to myself today."
I spent the next couple of hours trying to make up for my forgetfulness. I did everything I could think of to her, as she huffed from one orgasm to the next. She was so sweetly hot and responsive, it was as if it was my birthday and she was my present.
After a good solid hour of very satisfying loving, we cuddled up and talked. Maria was dreamy-eyed as she told me that she couldn't wait until we were all living together. She had supreme confidence in Belle making everything work out. Maria actually loved the idea of being a part of a family with more than one wife, and she said Miranda felt the same way. I had been wondering when she'd work her cousin into the equation. When I asked her about that, she just smiled and said I should talk to Belle.
I was, indeed, going to talk to Belle, but that conversation would
have to wait as Maria crawled up onto me and pressed her hot, sweet
lips against mine...