The Green Ladies: Part 6-Lady Lillian

Hello, everyone! Here is the 6th part. Hope you enjoy!

 

 

The sanctuary was much the same as when Hawthorn last set foot in its marble halls. Same vines, same flowers, same feeling of perpetual otherworldliness. It would’ve made Hawthorn feel like he had left the Wilds and gone halfway to Heaven. But he knew better.

The Ladies were leading the crowds in two different directions. The group going to the right, being led by a Lady named Diana, where headed to where all the beauty products and spa baths were. The other group, led by a Green Lady named Ophelia were being led off to the left. This group was mostly men.

The blonde, Isolde, took him down a separate corridor to a set of gold-inlaid alabaster steps. They went up the stairs and stopped at a pair of grand white stone doors. Isolde knocked.

“Headmistress,” the Lady said.

“Yes?” The voice was patient and whimsically musical.

“I have the man with me. Mister Hawthorn.”

“Let him enter.”

The doors opened, and Hawthorn stepped in. They closed behind him, leaving Isolde out.

“You know, Hawthorn, it would be so much easier to call you by your first name,” said the Headmistress. Lady Lillian left her mirror and flashed her dazzling green eyes at the bounty hunter. Her hair, a deep, luscious crimson with a hint of fire in it, fell down her bare shoulders in flowing curls. Her heart melting smile gleamed at him, emanating the same light that shined off her perfect skin.

Hawthorn lit a cigarette. “Ain’t going to happen.”

She kept her smile. “Ah, too bad.” She decreased the distance between them and kept her gaze level with his, like a proud statue. “So, what brings the infamous bounty hunter, The Man That Never Sleeps, The Brute Killer, to my abode?” Her hand pressed against his rib, and slowly made its way over his midsection.

“That favor you promised me the last time our paths crossed.”

“Ah,” Her smile only gained magnitude. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“I’m sure you have.”

Her hand reached his belt buckle, then went slowly, agonizingly slowly, lower.

“And how can I fulfill it?” she said, her mouth just centimeters from his. He felt her warm breath on his face, her throat and neck craning.

“I need some medicine for my knee.”

Her hand left him. “Medicine? You decided that you’d have me repay my debt by giving you…medicine?”

“It hurts real bad.”

She crossed her arms and chuckled. “I must say. I was hoping for something a little more…enthralling.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“No, you’re not.”

She went to her massive cabinet. With a flick of a finger, the creamy oak piece of furniture opened to reveal shelf upon shelf of vials, bottles, and jars filled with liquids and creams colored every shade of the rainbow and beyond. She pulled one from the top shelf and handed it over to the bounty hunter.

“Obliged.”

“You’re welcome. Does that settle the debt?”

“Not quite.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Hawthorn shrugged. “Hey, considering I risked my hide to save your skin while this glorified whorehouse of yours was on fire and threatening to fall on my head, I think I’ve earned the liberty to milk this debt situation for a little longer.”

She gasped. “I resent that. It’s not a whorehouse. Never once have my girls solicited their bodies for anyone’s consumption or use in my halls.”

Hawthorn smirked. “Right. Key words being ‘in my halls.’”

Lillian flicked her hand in dismission. “It is true we explore the realms of pleasure here, but never illicitly or salaciously. And what we do, we do for more than monetary gain. My Ladies and I are of the belief that the body, though our vessel through this life it is, grows weary and rusty with time and worry. That being so, we provide services and products here that help to either stifle or lessen the effects,” she said as she sat and checked her complexion in her silver-framed mirror. She stood and then went to a nearby vault, filigreed with designs of golden vines and crimson leafing. She flicked her finger again and the handled spun on command, the vault door swinging open. Inside were an assortment of ingredients and herbs sealed inside airtight glass tubing and vials. The ingredients themselves varied from plants colored all sorts of strange shades while emitting dim ethereal light to find powders that glimmered like pixie dust. Lillian took a white cylinder made of porcelain and decorated with winding green vines.

“We call it ‘Opalescence.”

Hawthorn took it in his hand. “Let me guess, it helps us ‘discard’ our human

vessels, like you said.”

“Exactly. It allows the mind to separate from the body and experience a vast and unexplored array of sensations, transcending the limited prospects of our senses in their current state.”

“Hm. Bottled euphoria.”

She laughed a bit. “Bottled Euphoria, I like it, but it doesn’t quite grow the garden I want.”

Hawthorn gave the bottle back to her. “And in the midst of all this ‘transcendence’, you pocket a pretty little penny for it.”

“Well, yes. The ingredients aren’t exactly easy to acquire. But as I mentioned before, it’s for a noble cause.”

Hawthorn laughed. “Such a noble cause, without a doubt.  And what about the side business? The one that includes spreading your wings as a soiled dove. I’ve heard the talk in the barrelhouses of the towns you’ve left. Men boast of having goddesses visit them in the night, entangling them in passion for a high fee, only to have them vanish like mist in the morn, leaving them lovelorn and sighing and aching.”

Lillian went back to the mirror and kept her face straight in its reflection, occasionally snapping her finger, which then caused the mirror’s surface to ripple as if a stone had been skipped across its surface. The mirror would then enlarge its image of her, allowing her to check every pore and crease in her skin. “What my girls do outside my halls, if those are my girls you’re associates are gossiping about and not just stories meant to work as the inch marks on the measuring stick for comparing dick length, is their business.”

“I reckon that applies to you too,” Hawthorn said.

She stood and came close to him, letting her hands brush down his side to his hips. She gripped his belt and tugged; her red lips close to his chin. “Of course, it does.”

Hawthorn took the cigarette from his mouth. “You ever get sick of trying?”

She let go of his belt with a bat of her eyes and returned to her seat. “What can I say, you’re an exotic specimen. And the only man to ever tell me ‘no’. Now you answer one of my questions: why do you need heeling salve? Got shot in the chase? Stabbed in a sabre duel?”

 “I fell off my horse.”

“I was being serious.”

“So was I. Which reminds me, I could use some of that sleeping potion that ya’ll carry.”

“Which one?”

“The one that’ll knock a man out for a week.”

 “What? Is the Man That Never Sleeps having bad dreams?”

“Kind of.”

She went to her cabinet and pulled out another vial. She gave it to him, sighing. “Oh, Hawthorn. It would be nice if you could think of other, more pleasurable ways for me to make up the debt. It could be an adventure.”

Hawthorn stuffed the potions into his satchel. “I’ve had enough adventures to last a few lifetimes.”

She made a pouty face. “Well, at least let me show you around so you can see what I’ve done since I rebuilt the place. After all, I wouldn’t have been able to

continue my business without your daring rescue.”

Hawthorn decided to humor her. Best not to upset the hostess too much. “Alright.”

She led him down the stairs and to the halls. Vines wrapped the pillars, their verdant limbs adorned with flower buds. The halls themselves were immaculate, with intricate designs carved into the roof and the tops of the pillars portraying plants and animals. Elaborately vivid friezes depicted scenes of nature, war, and love. Cowboys fighting the Ankari. Buffalo roaming the planes, and more.

“What do you think, so far?” Lillian asked.

“It definitely looks better when it ain’t charred black.”

“I’m so flattered by your artistic eye.”

They reached the bathrooms. The steam was thick and warm, covering everything in a moist haze. An aroma, whose power was somewhere between strong and overwhelming, washed over Hawthorn’s body as he came in. It smelled of honey and lavender mixed with some spice he could not pinpoint. Men preoccupied the baths, while the green gowned women massaged their backs and shoulders or fed them fruits on silver platters. They talked about trends in the mercantile realms with the Old World, Travis politics, stock prices for cattle, recent raids on the Gravesend Trail, along with art, music, and other high-brow prattle. He saw several of the maids poring bottles of Opalescence into the baths. The honeyed aroma emanated from those pools. The men in them wore looks saying they were flying free and high over hazy mountaintops, their eyes like wide and white dinner plates or blissfully closed as their heads rested on the side, inane grins spread across their slack-muscled faces like the lazy brushstroke of a mediocre painter, obscuring their visages, disfiguring them,

while the maids whispered in their ears and caressed and massaged their necks, temples, shoulders.

“See? As legitimate as can be,” said Lillian beside him.

Hawthorn grunted his disbelief.

“Perhaps you would like to take a dip in the Opalescence? Loose yourself a bit,”

“No thanks. I like my mind where it is.”

Then he heard shouting. One of the customers had gotten hold one of the girls. The girl was protesting, trying to kick him off. The man wasn’t having it. And he had a gleam in his eyes Hawthorn had seen before. The bounty hunter drew one of his pistols when, suddenly, one of Lillian’s gigantic vines came reaching through

one of the grand windows. The violator screamed as the vine wrapped around his waist and yanked him high into the air. All his flailing made him look like a rag doll gone maniacal. Hawthorn watched with mesmerized interest as the vine tossed the man out of the window. His high and helpless scream faded into the distance.

“I see the Sanctuary’s still got a good ear.” Hawthorn said, watching the rag doll man disappear.

“Oh, yes. No one harms my girls under my eyes. Or the Sanctuary’s.”

“You made that clear. You’re not worried someone’ll come looking for him?”

“I doubt anyone wants to scrutinize a floating island with lethal flora.”

“Isn’t that what you said last time?”

She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “I have it handled. Now, back to our talk…”

Suddenly Lillian was behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. Her chest was pressed against his back; he felt her breasts through his shirt. She spoke in his ear. Her voice was mesmerizingly clear and mellifluous, yet hypnotically deep and sensual, with every movement of sound in her throat forming an enchantment that flittered delicately from the very tip her tongue. It beckoned, like a siren song, promising immense pleasure and ultimate satisfaction to every lust-filled fantasy a man’s mind could conjure. So alluring and absorbing, like the sweetest and most spellbinding of melodies, it would make any man’s worries instantly lift from his shoulders, only to replace any thought of pain or guilt with mad and insatiable desire, thus enslaving him to her will.

“Come and take me into your embrace, hunter. Make me feel your hard

body. I will give you my warmth. Take comfort in me, and I will soothe the pains from your flesh, cure the sufferings of your mind, and remove the sorrows in your heart.” Every word had come smooth and lyrical, infused with delicate and enriching enticement. Hawthorn felt a rush of cold heat wash over the whole of his body, stinging his skin like needles, yet thrumming with a deep and quick pulse of erotic desire. He felt loose and unburdened, the weight coming off his back and falling to the floor in velvety sheets. He was relaxed, and he felt he could trust the welcome in her words, and that he could throw himself into her arms and he’d never want anything else again. Her voice went darker and sultrier in its tones; like the yearnful growls of a female panther at night. “Drink and be drunk on me,” she said, a faint but enthralling groan ending each syllable.

Those last words would have been the final push for any other man, make him melt like butter beneath the desert sun right into Lillian’s pretty hands. But

Hawthorn went as rigid and solid as stone at their sound. He spoke. “Last time I got drunk on something, I ended up in a fight with ten other men. By the time I came to my senses, nine of them were dead, and the tenth wished he were.”

Softly, but firmly, he took her hands from his waist. He took a long drag from his cigarette, looked her in her astonished and disappointed face, then walked down the hall, same as he had entered it.