Sadie loved smoking opium. It was as though your mind were a slate covered in complex mathematical equations. And then it was just wiped clean. It was as though a hunter had fired tranquilizer darts at the thoughts in her head and they fell to the bottom of her brain, comatose, and went to sleep.
It made her absurdly affectionate. She would lie next to George and stare at her with her eyes half-closed and say sweet things. One afternoon she was particularly extravagant: “You are a darling thing, George. How was it that you were born? You aren’t supposed to have a brain filled with excellent thoughts. And yet you do. You are a wee little philosopher. And you were born and nobody wanted you. How in the world are you?” George started to laugh and agreed to smoke with her. The two women found themselves stoned and naked in each other’s arms.
George tied a dildo around her hips with a large black ribbon. The black bow was tied above the crack of her ass. Sadie seemed to find this delightful. George climbed on top of Sadie’s body and allowed the dildo to enter her ever so gently at first. When it was over, George lay on the bed with her arms propped behind her head and her chest stretched out so it looked flat. And her dildo was still pointing straight up in the air.
It was the first time Sadie had been penetrated so deeply by another person. She had felt her body anticipating the orgasm that was to come, like a rabbit in a magician’s hat, waiting, waiting, waiting to leap out. She was surprised by the intensity of it when it finally occurred.
* * *
In the morning, Sadie looked at George. There was something quite elegant about the way she looked wearing her dildo while she still slept. It was as though Sadie were looking at a unicorn, an enchanted creature standing in the room in her bare feet. What type of babies would the two of them have together? Would they be tiny wooden puppets?
She laughed at the ingenuity and absurdity of her own thoughts. But what she was most delighted about was that she had had sex and was free of commitment and consequence. Her sex life was off to an excellent start. She got out of bed and went to wash up in the bathroom.
George woke up and saw Sadie’s boots on the floor. She couldn’t believe Sadie’s boots were on the floor where she had taken them off and left them. She picked up Sadie’s cloak and wrapped herself in it and inhaled deeply. The smell of Sadie was all around her.
When she recollected the events from the night before, a frisson possessed her whole body. She could remember every detail about it as though it were happening right then and there. She kept replaying a moment where Sadie undid her corset and took off the chemise under it and her breasts were right there and they were so beautiful and full and perfect. And George had been staring at innumerable breasts her whole life, but she had never been so bedazzled by a pair. She had reached out for them and put one in her mouth and then the next one.
As she was going about her tasks for the day, she found herself daydreaming about Sadie. She looked out the frost-covered window as though she were looking through a wedding veil. She imagined she and Sadie going on adventures together. They were not adventures she had even been to on her own. They weren’t the type of activity poor people engaged in. Everyone in the Squalid Mile was too busy, their lives too frenetic, for them to indulge in these leisure moments. If they managed to have a day off, they would drink themselves into a stupor and messily try to have sex before passing out.
She imagined them dressed in finery on the side of a ship waving to the masses as it pulled out to Europe. She pictured them on a rowboat in a pond. She was paddling the boat while Sadie sat under a parasol reading poetry out loud. She imagined the two of them on horses. George had never been on a horse before, but in the fantasy she rode perfectly. They were at a fast clip, bowing their heads to avoid branches. The wind was in Sadie’s hair and it whipped everywhere, totally encircling her face at one point so it looked wrapped in a dark cocoon.
She imagined them having tea at a fancy restaurant where the walls were covered in pastoral murals of angels and naked children. And they selected macarons from a tiered tray and drank tea with flowers at the bottom that bloomed like tiny octopuses. And George knew all the correct manners.
George thought their lovemaking meant they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. Sadie was wondering who she would make love to next.
CHAPTER 29
The Price of Sugar
When the lawyer walked into her bakery one fall morning almost a year after Louis’s death, Mary Robespierre considered it possible Louis had decided to help her. He might have left something for her in his will. He might have made some legal protection for her, for the day when Marie found out about their arrangement.
But Louis had not thought about her, and now Marie Antoine was making as many spending cuts as she could. The lawyer handed her his papers. He informed her the factory was rescinding the lease for the bakery. Her contract with Louis was being broken.
“I believe Marie Antoine will be willing to honor an arrangement her father made.”
“She will be doing no such thing.”
The bakery was now in the possession of the Antoine factory and the baker would have to report to the foreman. This was patently unfair. The reason the bakery was so successful was because of what she had done with it. She had built it from scratch.
* * *
Mary presented herself to the foreman. She asked to be able to speak to Marie Antoine, but she was told that was not possible. Marie Antoine had given everyone explicit instructions—she did not want to see anyone who was disgruntled. And there were many of them. That was why she didn’t make any exceptions. It didn’t matter how many fingers Mary Robespierre cut off and tied ribbons around and sent her way, she would not get a meeting.
It always irked the foreman when he watched Mary Robespierre enter into the factory. This former factory worker arrived with her cakes and acted as though she were beholden to no one. She was so proud of her cakes and was only concerned what people thought of them. She didn’t care whatsoever what people thought of her.
The foreman was quite pleased when he received the notice that Mary Robespierre was not to run the bakery independently. He wanted to punish Mary Robespierre. He wanted to punish her for being so dour and not smiling at him. He felt a surge of excitement at the prospect of destroying this girl. She was so ambitious. He could not wait to see her expression when she found she was at his mercy.
“Will the bakery still be under my direction?”
“I’m looking for a new baker.”
Mary almost jumped at this news and was visibly flustered. “I put everything into this bakery. I built it from scratch. It has been successful. It will be more successful. I haven’t done anything wrong. I did have an arrangement with Louis Antoine that I would not pay the rent for several months until the bakery got on its feet.”