Dominique Grimaldi was propped up against his own bar when Heraud walked in. Of course, no one ever called him Dominique, or even Monsieur Grimaldi; the Corsican owner of the La Perle Noire was generally referred to as The Pirate. Not because he had spent any significant amount of time at sea, but because he kept two versions of his menu behind the counter and would raise or lower his prices depending on the customer.
Tonight he was apparently watching two sailors play backgammon further down the long bar of his establishment. At least that is what it looked like. But Heraud suspected it far more likely he was eyeing up the nearest young mariner’s ass. Personally, Heraud had nothing against fucking ass – he just preferred it attached to a woman.
“Good evening, Heraud,” said Grimaldi.
Heraud leaned a meaty buttock on a nearby stool. “How’s it going?”
The owner shrugged dramatically. ‘It goes. What are you drinking?”
The dusty bottles nestled on shelves across the back of the bar, hid a huge crack in the mirror. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not really here for a drink.”
“Come on,” huffed the Pirate. “Have a cognac before you go upstairs. It’s rude, you know. All my best customers have at least one drink first.”
“Your cognac costs more than the fuck, you thief.”
Grimaldi sighed as if he were a dark, hairy accordion collapsing its bellows. “Go on, mon brave. Have a drink with me. I’m lonely tonight. Anyway,” he said, turning in his stool to survey the empty barroom, “all the girls are busy.”
“Jesus Christ. Why don’t you get more of them?” Heraud lifted the rest of his bulk onto the stool, motioned to the flyblown woman behind the bar and ordered a Jaquet.
“Hey! If you’re not picky, take yourself down to Cholon and you can pick up something with leprosy for half the price.”
Heraud didn’t sip the Cognac. It was far too rough for that. He knocked it back in a single swallow and wheezed at the fumes that rose back up his gullet. He tapped his glass for another.
“So… what’s the news?” asked Grimaldi.
“Nothing. Same as always.”
For a while the two men sat in silence. The sailors’ game of backgammon had become contentious and the two were muttering threats at each other over the board.
“Hey, do you know that woman Souchet?”
Grimaldi lit a cigarette and squinted through the sulfurous smoke of the dying match. “Souchet? Robert? Didn’t he kick the bucket a while back? Pity. He was a decent man. Very nice to the girls, he was. Tipped too much, but still.”
“No, you idiot. His wife.”
The Corsican kinked his neck in a gesture of ambivalence. “I don’t meet the wives, Heraud. Just the husbands.”
“What do you know about her? Come on, this town is the size of a rattrap and you know everyone.”
“Who says?” replied the owner. There was a tinge of combativeness in his voice.
Heraud watched three men descend the back stairs and occupy a table near the door of the bar. He glanced at his watch and then dug into his pocket, pulling out a tightly rolled coil of Piastres. Licking his thumb, he pulled five of them off the roll. They snapped crispy as they came free and he slapped them down onto the bar in front of the Corsican. “What do you know about her?”
“Well, well. It must be a matter of importance.” Grimaldi flattened his palm over the bills and pulled them closer, pinning them to the polished wood with his empty brandy glass. “Why don’t you go upstairs and ask for Lien. She gives good head and,” the owner sneered, “her younger sister is Madame Souchet’s housemaid.”
* * *
The girl croaked and gagged as Heraud forced his cockhead into the back of her throat. Tears ran down her cheeks and her lip was split and bleeding slightly from the slap he’d given her earlier.
“The Pirate told me you could suck,” panted Heraud. “But I see, like everything else including his prices, he exaggerates. You don’t suck, you fucking whore, you’re just a headful of rotten teeth.”
If the girl said anything, it wasn’t intelligible. She had resigned herself to having her head tugged on and off the man’s cock by the hair and was simply praying that he’d come soon.
He did, with a shudder and a grunt, and proceeded to shove Lien’s head away like a toy that no longer worked, spattering her face and chest with cum. “Finally,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ. That was beyond mediocre.”
Ignoring him, Lien reached under the rickety bed, pulled out a chamber pot and sullenly spat his ejaculate into it.
Before she could even look up, the back of his hand had connected with her cheek. It snapped her head back, compromising her balance, and sent her sprawling sideways onto the floor.
“Fuck! You yellow bitches are such pigs. You have no manners at all,” he growled. He stuffed his cock back into his trousers and buttoned up his fly.
Lien didn’t cry. She inched away from Heraud and brought her hands up to her face, protecting herself from another blow.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Heraud took a fistful of her hair and dragged her to her feet by it, then pushed her onto the bed. “Look at me. Look at me and listen carefully.”
The girl began to whimper, which added to his impatience. He raised his hand to hit her again and she cringed.
“You want another?”
“No, monsieur,” whispered Lien.
“Then stop blubbering and look at me.”
With a face burdened by both fear and loathing, Lien turned her face towards Heraud. She didn’t look at him straight on, but rather with a wary, sideways glance.
“Your sister works for Madam Souchet, doesn’t she?”
Lien sucked on her bleeding lip and nodded.
“And what does she do there?”
“I…I don’t really know.”
Heraud, who still had a grip on a generous hank of the girl’s long black mane, gave it a sharp tug. “She’s a housemaid, you lying little cunt.”
“Yes, monsieur. Yes. She’s the housemaid.”
It was by this method Heraud discovered that, if his own countrymen and women enjoyed indulging in a little gossip, the Saigonese fairly reveled in it. By the end of his visit, there was very little Heraud did not know about the plantation, the house and the private life of Claire Souchet, including the fact that her brother-in-law had just arrived from France.
Perhaps with the right incentive, mused Heraud, pushing the whore face first over the side of the bed and unbuttoning his trousers again, Madame Souchet might be persuaded to go back to France with her relative.
Getting grittier and more ominous by the sentence..
Thank you! That was rather difficult to write. I can’t honestly say I enjoy writing anyone that ugly. But, it suits him as a character.
At this rate, I think lurking has changed into stalking.
Heraud is rather heinous, but I can always cling to the idea that the more evil the character, the more satisfying their demise might be.
Fine drawing and revelation of this character, Rgrl–you make him so despicably real. And I think the dialog throughout this story is remarkable; it rings so true to character, whether it’s this ugly group of men, or Claire and Etienne, or even Claire’s internal voice. Again, I am enjoying and admiring this story deeply.
I love this series. I keep watching my emails for the next installment. Thanks so much. Love the pictures of the old houses, too, as they stimulate my imagination that much more.
Thank you! I’m glad you’re liking it. I’m never sure if the images help give the mood, or distract because they are not exactly representational.
RG, brilliant characterization, I hate bullies, racists, ignorant individuals, I won’t call them pigs as this would insult the entire Porcine species.
Well done, he raised my heckles.
I hope that whatever evil plan that he come up with, backfires and he is covered in merde. 😀
Warm hugs,
Paul.
I agree with Paul – we don’t want to insult pigs here, rather smart creatures that they are. I find that all the nasty words I could use for him also apply to things I…well, don’t really mind half as much as I do Heraud. I’ll depend instead on VAST understatement: what a jerk!
I really like the images as it gives me something to build upon when imagining the scene… it’s like layering your characters over it 🙂 I am hopeful this ugly man meets a painful end with a hefty dose of humility.
The link at the bottom right of this page “http://remittancegirl.com/madwoman/the-madwoman-of-thu-duc-part-7/” erroneously points to “Lacunae →” when I’m sure it should point to “The Madwoman of Thu Duc – Part 8 →”.
Since you say you post in hope of comment on the texts, let me say that I love your writing and I don’t care if you ever finish any of the various series. Personally when, as often happens, I can’t get started at the beginning of a book I open to a random page and just read, if the book is worth it I find I can circle back to the beginning eventually. Consequently I always seem to have multiple slices of multiple texts running around my head. Plainly this runs counter to the author’s intention but it is the way my mind/attention functions.
I think I’ve read all your posted stories. I find myself returning multiple times to Karaoke Night(Hers&His), also Click. To me click is magnificent but as an exploration of what is going on in the head of a rapist it suffers, I think, from a motivation to have the first part (violence & trauma) psychologically explain the second (rape) part. This is no doubt true to life in many circumstances, but misses the truly awful point that the second part can and does happen without the first part all the time. I can’t see the world from the perspective of a woman, what you are approaching in reverse in click, but from the male perspective there is just a part of us “Lizard Brain” that isn’t civilized on this subject. This is understandable in an evolutionary sense but disturbing when one attempts to honestly self examine.
Thanks Much
Henry
Hmmm. How odd. The links are working okay for me. They’re auto generated.
I don’t dispute that it does, Henry. But I’m not writing a psychological portrait of any given rapist. I’m writing a story about one single man, and his circumstances, and what happens to him. It’s just a story about one individual. It doesn’t seek to excuse or even explain his actions, and certainly doesn’t seek to comment on the capacity to rape in any general way.
I try hard never to write generalities. And, as I said in my manifesto, I just write stories. Just fiction. I don’t seek to educate, or provide anything other that a single, specific fictional narrative.
A great story, so well written that I long desperately for more. It is particularly interesting because after two visits to Hanoi where I lectured at the university, I have a great liking for Vietnam, the Vietnamese and their history.