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Faces in the Street: The Working Girl
Overhead, it looked like a brown snake that trailed through the prairie, making its way into the foothills of Colorado. In some areas, clusters of buildings lined the sides of the snake. On some of the buildings, people scattered around like tumbleweeds in the streets, some on horses, some in wagons, some on foot in cowboy boots. One particular pair, a very feminine pair at that, seemed to be less covered in grime than the others.
She had been walking this street for a long time. She was a working girl.
The street stunk of horse manure and outhouses. Human waste lay among the avenue, mixed with yesterday’s garbage. Her boots would be caked in dust and mud and other things she’d rather not describe at the end of the day but she would clean them off every night so they looked shinier than usual in the morning. She moved to Denver with the frenzy of the gold strikes. Miners came by train, horse, or foot from all over the country with a crazy look in their eyes. They passed through Denver on their way to the Rockies, trading, eatin, spittin and generally makin a mess of things. And they all had one driving motivation in their mind, gold, silver or whatever else you could scrounge out of the ground and exchange for a buck. It was their ticket to happiness, to an easy life.
This thought kept them trudging through Denver in the high altitude, all the way up to Central City, and that was just the starting point. Striking it rich, this thought consumed the recent out-of-state imports. Well, actually, there was perhaps another thought in their minds as well. One that involved taking car of a man’s “basic needs.” This one revolved around the intersection of a lady’s legs and the beautiful mysteries it held.
And so she walked among them. In camps and forts, in rest stops and saloons. “Looking for a good time?” she would ask, rouge painted on her cheeks, decked out in a black corset, splashy over-garments that showed off her bosom. Some would deny the temptation she carried with her like a last minute accessory. She was sexy without fully intending or noticing that she was sexy. She walked like a woman when women were still supposed to walk like little ladies.
The faithful men remembered the less flashy comforts of being next to their wives back home in small towns and country homes. Many of them had kids, little kids they hadn’t seen for months and years, biding their time until one of their claims struck it rich. They carried letters from their wives and smelled them at night to remember. They didn’t want her to help them forget.
Others of the men deeply wanted to forget; they left thoughts of their wives and families wherever it was they left them to come chase this pipe dream in the first place. This was the West and it had some unexplainable power to make men feel freer than they had ever been. The air, the mountains, the godlessness of the land, it was like the Garden of Eden to them. She was their Eve, enlightenment, forgiveness; it was only a couple bucks a way. They would take her up on her offer, in dark corners behind buildings, in wagons, in sparsely populated bedrooms. She would give them what they needed and she would take her payment upon delivery.
In her opinion, she didn’t much fancy their looks or their skills with women…sexually that is. But just as any dutiful Christian daughter would, she earned her money without complaint and mailed most of it home to her family.
She imagined her parents back home opening envelope after envelope full of cash. Her father would be tinkering around outside with whatever decided it should be broken, her mother sewing or rolling out a piecrust. “That girl sure is earning a lot there in Denver,” her father would say. “There must be lots of fancy people there that need seamstresses.”
“Yes dear, I’m quite happy that she’s settling in nicely in Denver.” Her mother would reply eyes down on her rolling pin, “Oh! But a single woman in that uncivilized place!”
“She’s a big girl, been doing a grown man’s work on the farm ever since she was eight. And look at her now. She’s a working girl.”
[m1] That’s exactly what her mother was worried about. She was worried women in these places resorted to in order to earn a buck. She wondered what her daughter was doing with these men; the ones that wanted to forget their wives and become wild just like the mountains. Or she wondered if she really was just a seamstress, sewing and mending the things or rich people. Her husband noticed the worry lining her face and furrowing her brow.[m2]
“Don’t fret sweetheart, she is doing just fine out there. Just think, our little country girl, all grown up and working in the city. If only her grandma had gotten to see her, she’d be melting with pride.”
Her mother would keep her eyes fixed on her piecrust, and thought that his mother would very much not like to see her grandbaby in the profession she was almost certain that she was in. But just as any dutiful Christian wife would, she allowed her husband to believe that their daughter was simply a tailor.
What her father didn’t know was all the tailoring that she was doing was tailoring her body to the needs of her paying clients. Whether that be on her side or in her bottom, kissing men who’s breath stunk of whiskey, tobacco and rotting taste buds, sucking lips cracked with the dust of the mines, and handling the big, the small, the thin and the thick… men to their utmost satisfaction.
