Chapter 3 Madame Lou

 The low lights in the parlor glowed ember against the velvet couches and swaths of fabric that lay against the doorway. Smoke rose from Andre Banes cigarette as he sat cross-legged  across from Madame Lou.  

Lou missed the mark of being pretty.  Even in her younger days, before she owned her own establishment and was only a plain whore, men bed her reluctantly...at first.  She minded what her own madame had told her in earnest "Ya going to have be smart and learn tricks, Lou...because you're not gonna make it on ya looks!"  And that was just what she had done.  She learned what men liked, helped the madame do odd jobs nobody else would do and she paid attention to everything!

She learned that there were two kinds of arousal; the kind where men sat back and chose women they wanted, the pretty one the soft one the one that made them feel warm and ready. This was lust.  But, when it was time, and the door was closed, it was a different kind of hunger which was usually raw ugly and dank at least if it was any good.  Lou understood. Men needed safe places to be like animals. She probably understood this more than the men themselves.

She scarred their memories with images and sounds. While in these acts she watched herself from their perspective, put herself in their skin when she moved.  A small woman, Lou took control of men three times her size. Her room was a place where pleasure and pain were dangerously and wonderfully proportionate. Lou could get a grown man to scream and emerge from the room smiling and booking a session with her the following week.  Lou had discovered a goldmine.  

She had saved, kept records and learned that men were foolishly loose lipped when they knew they were about to come...and here was where her real fortune lie. She always kept record of poignant things her patrons said. Investment stock, political scandal, affairs, secrets of any kind...she collected them all and cashed in on her knowledge when she could. 

In fact it was Lous use of a mans secret which allowed her to her to afford her Bordeaux.  

The selling owner had been one of her most faithful patrons and had an appetite for pretty young men.  Prostitution was illegal but most cops turned a blind eye as many were patrons or had friends who were.  But providing homosexual services would not be ignored!  Lou had helped a man and secretly arranged private services between he and a man Lou had known and befriended. Lou had kept it between the two of them for year or so. But when the patron decided to sell one of his properties, Lou went to see it.  It was a fine property in a less than savory part of town, properly priced with good bones detailed embellishments.  Lou made an anonymous offer which was low and it was of course rejected.  But Lou pressed and requested a meeting with the relator and the owner (her former patron).

When seeing Lou enter the room, the mans face went sheet white.  He began to fumble his words but Lou took control right away and said that the man "Had such a familiar face..." and that she "Must know him from somewhere, but can't quite get a handle on it." Then, she winked at him and in five minutes was the proud owner of a 10 room mansion at ten percent below the asking price of the house.

From then on she was Madame Lou.