The Incident at Last Home

No matter how much she tried to stare at the little knots in her hair, though, what Virginia Alice invariably focused on were Riley's feet. Bare, and smaller than she expected. Not overly small, but not comically large either. Riley had pretty feet, with a nice arch to them, toes that were neither too long nor too short. Like the rest of Riley, they were in need of some tending, and the more the brunette paced the more Virginia Alice felt the urge bubbling up inside of her to say-

"Would you like a bath?"

Riley stopped and stared at her, and then at the tub.

"I'd had it about halfway filled 'fore you came in," she said eagerly. "It'll've cooled some by now, but if'n I fill it the rest of the way from the boiler, it'll get back to steamy right quick."

Riley stared at the copper tub. Excitement tempered with fear. "I ain't taken a bath in..."

Virginia Alice grabbed her bucket and popped up, headed for the door, and stopped when Riley grabbed her upper arm again. Emit and Jesse would grab her there from time to time, but Riley's grip felt wholly different; strong without the hurt.

"Remember," the taller woman cautioned. "It ain't shaped right. They're gonna ask."

"...What is it shaped like?"

Riley stared back at her. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I ain't never really thought much past 'wrong'."

"I'll think a' something," Virginia Alice said with a smile.

***

Riley remained dressed, albeit barefoot, while Virginia Alice bustled in and out of the room, fearful that a passerby might peek in. Once the last trip was complete and the door was locked, Riley hesitantly reached for the buttons of her shirt.

"What did you tell 'em?" she asked, as she slowly worked from the neck down.

"I made somethin' up. Really, though, I just made a face when they asked me, and that was enough."

Riley approached her and fixed her with a stare. "I need to know exactly."

"I said it had scars and was bent wrong," the blonde said, swallowing hard. After a long second, she added, "an' might have been a piece missin' from the end."

Riley nodded slowly and looked the shaking girl over again. She didn't like the fear in her eyes, but some things couldn't be helped. In exchange for the answer, Riley offered the tilt of her unblemished lips upwards, which seemed to settle the girl a little more.

Riley turned back to the tub and pulled the tails of her shirt from inside of her pants. "I ain't... I ain't really talked to anyone straight for a long while."

Virginia Alice poured in the last bucket of water and thought. "What about yer friends?"

Riley scoffed, and the curve of her lip was extra sharp. "None 'a mine. They're more like... guides."

The little blonde nodded and stepped back, eyes cast down.

Riley groaned, one eye pinched shut, as she freed her breasts little by little from their bondage. It was one thing to deal with the constant discomfort of having them wrapped so tightly all the time, but that was a dull thing. Wrapping them hurt more, but unwrapping them hurt the most. Riley groaned as she dropped the once-white bandage and massaged her breasts, not in search of stimulation but to encourage blood flow. The flesh was ribbed and imprinted with the crisscross pattern of the sweat-stained bandings, and Virginia Alice immediately scurried around the tub to grab the long dirty cloth.

Riley felt the whore's eyes on her like a lamp near the skin as she stood beside the tub. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even been partially naked in front of anyone else. She hissed when one foot hit the steaming water. The rest of her followed close behind, her sounds growing more contented, and by the time her back hit the high wall of the tub Virginia Alice was practically bouncing around in nervous anxiety.

"How'd you make me?" Riley asked, surprising the girl still clutching the rough cotton bindings in her hands.

"What's that now?" The little blonde stopped cold for a few seconds, and then puttered back and forth aimlessly. "Soap. Soap and... Clean rags and... That's what I should be doing."

"I been a boy since Kansas City, and ain't no one given me a second look." She brought cupped palms full of water to her face and sighed as she scrubbed. "I passed as a boy even back home when it suited me, but you made me with barely an eye in my direction.."

Again the shorter woman fell mute, and instead fetched the stool and set it next to the tub. She sat for a moment arranging the rags and soap in her lap before looking back. "I reckon no one looks past that scar, but you're right pretty all around it," she said, and then immediately blushed. "First thing I saw."

"I got me a whole town in Missouri," Riley grunted, "and one very disappointed father might take issue with that."

Virginia Alice dunked the rag in the warm water and tipped a little of the white powder onto it. Riley stared fearfully at the strip of cloth.

"It ain't gonna bite," Virginia Alice said. "But-"

Riley reached over abruptly, grabbed the cloth and fixed Virginia Alice with a suspicious stare. She rolled her shoulders inwards, curling forward, as she ran the fabric over her front. Back and forth across her torso, and down between her legs, while trying to keep as much of her upper body underneath the water as possible.

"But what?" Riley asked.

Virginia Alice blinked for a moment, and then shook with a start. "Oh. um... 'It ain't gonna bite but I might' is a... it's something I find myself sayin' often enough when I'm givin' a bath."

"Do they not feed you enough?"

"What?" Virginia Alice laughed, nervously, and then quickly quieted at Riley's uncomprehending expression. "No. No, it's just..."

"Do they want you to bite..." Riley worked her tongue around in her mouth sourly, and pointed down between her legs.

"No! Never. No teeth. That's like to get your eye blacked."

"That's what I thought," Riley said, as she continued to rub down her legs. Underneath the bubbles, the water turned a muddy gray. "You know, you'd think that after hidin' as one for this long I'd know more about men but..." She drifted off and shook her head. "What I've really learned is that they see what they want to see."

Virginia Alice cleared her throat, and Riley stared at her open hand distrustingly. "I can get yer back better," the little blonde said. "Easier than havin' you bend yerself all 'round."

Riley held onto the cloth for a few more seconds before surrendering it.

"What do they wanna see?"

Riley shuddered as the soft cloth ran smoothly across her back. "Different things. Walt wants a... a disciple. Tector wants me to fail. Hugo wants a friend." After a minute she stopped feeling the cloth between them and just focused on the feeling of the hand pressing into her back. She wrapped her arms behind her thighs and hugged her knees to her chest. "Funny thing is, they get there all on their own. Something'll happen and they're all lookin' to me, and I freeze. I never know what to say... 'least not right away.

"And while I'm standin' there, mute, tryin' to figure it out, they start answerin' for me. Filling in the silence with whatever they expect. How I'm 'bout to draw down on some kid for spillin' a shot 'a whiskey."

The sensation of the moving hand slowed to a stop. "Have you killed folks?" the blonde asked quietly.

"Yeah," Riley said, swallowing hard. "Some. I think."

Slow, wide circles across her back. Riley sighed in relief.

"I don't like it. Killin' folk."

"But you did it 'cuz you had to?"

Riley nodded.

Virginia Alice ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. "What were... I mean... Do you owe them down there? Is that why yer ridin' with 'em?"

Riley's eyes darted around the room, roving while she searched for a better reason than the truth.

"I'm lookin' for a man," she said eventually. "Killed my brother. Mama too, sick as she was. I set off after him, but lost the trail pretty quick. Then one day I'm sittin in a saloon thinkin' about givin' up and I hear his name on the wind. It's like a sign. Some idiot's talkin' about him like he knows 'im."

"And that was Walt?"

Riley nodded. "Are you... friendly... with him?"

"He's been inside me," Virginia Alice said softly. "Most of 'em have. You learn a thing or two about a man when he's in that... when he's..." She gestured toward herself and twisted her lips uncomfortably.

"I wouldn't know," Riley said, resting her chin on her knees. "I've never... "

"Well," the shorter woman said, speaking into the awkward pause, "I've had hands on me since I was... well, since always, I think."

Riley shivered as the gentle touch circling on her back widened. Sliding around to the sides of her ribs as it traveled up and down.

"So Walt knows the... the man? The one yer lookin' for?"

Riley's lips tightened. "He said a lot of names. People he knew. Talked about 'em all like they were his friends. Everyone at that table was cheatin', and I think Walt knew they were winnin' too much, so he tried to scare the others into not drawin' on 'im, but... that didn't work. I killed a... a young man. A boy." She looked down and paused. "Walt tells it like a grand gunfight, but the truth was that it was gunsmoke and panic. People running. Walt pissed hisself. That part don't usually make it to the retell."

The cloth brushed down past Riley's waist, near the top of her buttocks, and she shivered.

"I don't know why I'm tellin' you this," she said, looking sideways. "I shouldn't. For all I know, you're like to turn us in for the reward money."

Virginia Alice reached into the water, took Riley's wrist, and lifted her arm up. "Keep that there," she muttered, posing the arm, before she wrung out the cloth and added a little more soap to it. "And don't you worry about me. I don't leave, and the law don't come here."

"Ever?"

The little blonde shook her head. "Had a Marshal come through here once. That was... winter before last."

"No," Riley said, turning enough to expose the scarred side of her face. "I mean... you never leave?"

Virginia Alice paused and shook her head. "I try sometimes, but... they find me." The smile was back quickly. "There we go," she said, as she worked the soapy rag around each of Riley's fingers, cradling the wrist while she gently scrubbed at the knuckles. Riley tilted her head and watched her attendant keenly. She liked the press of the girl's fingers under her own as the other hand worked away on her knuckles and between her fingers, to patches of skin no one had ever touched before. She watched Virginia Alice lick her lips again, and take a deep breath. "How many men do you think you've killed?"

"Maybe four," Riley said cautiously. "Probably four. Maybe seven. It's a lot harder to tell what's happenin' when everyone starts shootin' all at once, and we don't usually stick around long enough to see who gets back up."

"Most men come through here are miners," Virginia Alice said. "They dig down the road a ways, get paid, and then dissent on this place like a horde a' locusts." She laid Riley's arm down into the water, and then grabbed her stool. "But the other ones, the ones come like you did on their way west, they can't wait to brag about how many men they put underground. They always know exactly how many, or the number's too high for them to count."

This time, Riley lifted her arm on her own and held it in the air for her. "That sounds raw," Riley said, squinting. "Like maybe I ought'a be giving you this here bath."

The shorter woman shook her head, and this time she raised Riley's arm when she was done as she moved in and over Riley's shoulder. Across the top of Riley's chest. Riley was aware that these were areas she herself had already cleaned, and she knew Virginia Alice knew that, too, but she let it happen anyway.

"Wouldn't be right," she said eventually, evasively. "Mind if I ask about you passin' as a man before?"

Riley blinked and leaned back. "Back home?"

The girl nodded.

"Weren't really my doin', 'least not at first. My pa had me an' my brother helpin' him take some cattle up to Whitfield, few days away. I was already dressin' to help so it wasn't much of a leap for folks to think I was a boy once my hair was tucked up in the hat. I preferred it that way on the trail, too. Got better prices, treated nicer 'n such, so I dropped my voice, started actin' like my brother. Anyway, we get there and some farmer claps his back and says he's a lucky man to have two hardworking sons to help him." Riley sank a little deeper in the water. The hypnotic movements of that hand softened her tired muscles and wore the edge off of her defenses.

"I guess he figured the folks back home had already written me off, so there weren't much to lose in that regard. He hauled me behind a pen a bit later and took his hunting knife to my hair 'til there weren't no need for the hat. Took a bit of my scalp as well." Her fingers went to a bald patch behind her right ear. "Ma didn't like it, but she didn't say nothin'. My Pa was never so mad as the day I came out a girl, except for maybe after the Doc said Mama wasn't up for no more babies after my brother made her bleed something vicious on his way out." Virginia Alice made her way up Riley's neck, drawing a low moan from the woman in the tub with her clever thumbs. "So he told me from now on I was to pretend to be the younger boy whenever we was out of town and if I was ever found out he'd beat me 'til I weren't good for nothin'."

"Your daddy don't seem so far off from them downstairs."

Riley grunted in agreement before thinking, and then realized she had no counter argument. It should have bothered her more, but those hands were working her neck into butter and it was true enough that she couldn't muster any anger to fight it.

"He weren't all bad. Bad lot, some might say, catchin' a girl that got scarred up and wouldn't fetch nothin' once she were grown."

"That happened when you were small?" Virginia Alice said softly, coaxingly almost.

"Not this thing." Riley slid her fingers down the worst of the scar on her cheek. "This bit here." Her wet fingers came to the edge of her jaw where the skin was lighter along the bone. "It used to be worse, puffy and dark but it faded. Plus it got some fearsome competition now so you can't hardly notice it. This one," her touch went back to the biggest gash, "my Pa put there after he woke up drunk and remembered his real son and wife were in the ground and I was the only one he got left." Her shoulders were next, rolled smooth under the bumps of the girl's knuckes the way her mother used to treat bread dough. "So I left, swore I'd bring him back the man who killed his family and we'd be even for all that he'd suffered havin' me as a daughter."

"Naw." Virginia Alice whispered as she came around front, rag in hand, fresh soap applied.

"I don't feel bad for it. He was my brother, too. I loved 'im. I hate the man who killed 'im, and my ma. He took my future, too. Pa woulda left it all to my brother, and he woulda let me stay on to help since no one wanted to marry a girl with no hair and a bad habit of ridin' like a boy. 'Cause I took to that right quick and wouldn't give up for nothin'." Riley laughed softly, a foreign sensation but one she had missed. The rumble of it through her chest felt like Virginia Alice's fingers were inside, working their magic on her ribs so she could finally breathe again. "Besides, I never grew into being a woman." She looked down at herself and frowned. "Though I still gotta tie 'em down all the same. They... bounce different when I ride."

Virginia Alice cleared her throat as she held the cloth in her hand. "Do you mind if I... um..."

She shook her head and reflexively crossed her arms over her chest. "I already got 'em." Riley shut her mouth tight then, realizing only then how she'd been going on and on about things there were no one's business but her own.

The little blonde nodded and moved straight down to Riley's thigh, which Riley had also already gotten, but this time she said nothing. She allowed it to happen, letting that comfort in again. She'd never realized how someone else's touch could help her feel like all those worries might not be as heavy as they seemed. The floral scent of the soap was still strong despite the fact that most of the bubbles had dissipated, and Riley blushed when she realized the water wasn't quite cloudy enough to hide her completely.

If Virginia Alice had noticed, she was doing a better job of covering her reaction. Riley found herself torn between relaxing and watching the girls hands run over her bent legs from ankle to thigh and back again.

"I never did take a horse." Virginia Alice stared down, eyes intent on her task. "When I run from 'em," she said, answering Riley's questioning look. "I don't much know how to, but I bet it hurts mighty if you ain't bound up proper."

Riley nodded slowly, unsure how to answer her. "Maybe that's why you keep getting y'self caught." The brief stiffening of the gentle hand on her leg was enough for Riley to call herself another kind of fool. "I mean, you can't get too far without one."

"I guess. But they made right sure I don't know two things about horses." She shifted her focus to Riley's other leg, the same hypnotic pattern back and forth, the cloth swishing closer to parts of her that made Riley want to leap out of her skin. "I try to watch sometimes, but Emit always knows when I got my eye too close to anything that ain't a cock or a glass needs carryin'."

Her grip found Riley's ankle and slowly pulled one foot from the tub, balancing the limb on the rim. A brief pause, while the girl moved her stool to the end of the tub, before Riley barely bit back a groan as Virginia Alice went to work on her feet. The pressure, that had felt so good on her fingers, neck, and shoulders, increased, pressing the trail ache from the soles of her feet and stretching her toes from the pinch of her boots. The blonde hummed something soft as Riley closed her eyes, head held by the high back of the tub.

"Maybe next time I'll try passin' for a boy, throw 'em off my trail."

Riley grunted in affirmation before she registered the comment. She cracked her eyes open and looked at the pretty thing working the rag around the hard skin of her heel. "I don't think anyone's gonna go about mistakin' you for a boy, Virginia Alice."

The blonde shrugged the idea away and smiled in a way that made Riley want to return it. "I never get far enough to need to anyway."

"How many times you tried to get loose?"

"Twelve, and I don't rightly count them in the first year. I barely made it out of town and my legs were too short to give 'em any kind of trouble."

Riley gave a low whistle. "And they ain't chained you to the wall yet?"

Virginia Alice froze, wide blue eyes meeting Riley's. The moment hung heavy before the girl shook her head and busied herself at Riley's foot again. All comfort in the touch was gone; her motions devolved into short, jerking swipes of the cloth.

Riley pulled her leg back into the tub and leaned forward, grabbing the girl's hands. "I'm sorry. That was a right stupid thing t'say."

Virginia Alice didn't meet her eyes for a minute. She took a shuddering breath before giving Riley a smile that stank of practice. "S'okay. I don't take no offense."

"No, it was unkind. I'm sorry if they treat you that bad."

Virgina Alice straightened her shoulders, but stopped trying to pull her hands away from Riley's. "It ain't s'bad for me. After Emit broke my nose when I was just a mite, right after they bought me, they realized they better not mark me up too bad before they made their money back." She slipped a hand from under Riley's and touched a barely-seen bump on the bridge of her nose. "Last time I ran I took Avasa, the injun' girl, with me. She gets th' worst of it here by a yard, an' she been chained up in the shed ever since." Suddenly she twisted her head around. "Oh Lord, I hope Walt ain't messin' with her."