Well Isn’t this a treat?

Been working here on these streets for what...thirty, thirty one years now?

I ain’t never been invited by you reds to this big old corporate building for no interview.

Oh, I been well acquainted with some of you reds for a while, hell some of your kids are known to enter old Sue’s maison O’ fun from time to time, enjoying our oh so welcoming company.

Don’t let the name fool you darlin’ we do have fun, but it’s barely a ‘maison’.

More like a rat ridden motel than a home. The girls make due though, and they keep themselves presentable enough to make you rabid horn dogs bark with excitement and become loyal repeat customers.

Good boys, all of ya.

Truth be told, we’re the reason Tatama stays sane at all, given our current situation.

I’m guessing you want me to talk about Madam Orphelia. Can’t really see why else you’d bring me in, unless you were lookin’ to buy.

Oh honey, I’m retired though….

Anyway, About Orphelia!

That sweet old fool was always so hell bent on Getting that cop for what he did to her daughter.

You see Orphelia’s daughter Matilda was quite a hopeful idiot. Raised right at that old Maison.

You learn quickly living where we live, doing what we do. The poor girl was barely fifteen years old when our dear Mayor asked when she was gonna start “Workin’.” We don’t make it a habit to have girls that young working our Maison. We hate those dirty bastards that like to go after girls too young to know better.

But that scum bucket was determined to be her “First customer.”

So yeah sugar, we hid her.

The old fool would send some of you reds to our home to look around and see if she shows up, but baby, y’all were never gonna find her.

Our dear mayor kept looking for four years with no luck.

So he decided to get tricky.

He sent a new recruit undercover to our establishment, got him to apply to us as a janitor.

We thought “Ehh, he looks too young to be an official cleaner.”

I do say, y'all got us there. Still, the kid was a good worker.

Never talked.

Did his work with no complaints.

Truth be told I was… kinda sad when that boy left.

He was working there about… I’d say three months before he first saw her.

I remember because he asked me pretty desperately who she was when he saw her in the kitchen as he finished cleaning the dishes, prepping some chicken to fry for our workers before the arrival of our evening guests.

I remember his eyes, looking at her as if he saw the most beautiful painting he had ever seen, staring at her like he couldn’t even understand how someone so beautiful could actually exist.

I wondered many times if any man or woman ever saw me like that. I envied Matilda that day something fierce. Still do.

That boy was clever, always looking for an excuse to be near the kitchen, always making sure to say hi to her when he saw for those few seconds that she walked in and out of there.

We couldn’t pay him much, but he didn’t care. He was happy to sleep in a cot in the security room in the back.

I figure he forgot what he was even sent there for after about a year, since he never reported back to you folks about Matilda.

I think… nah I know… That boy fell in love with her.

He was young, just turned twenty years old and knew in his soul that he would never feel this way about any other girl.

He even turned down Rhonda, who offered him a freebie one night.

He only saw Matilda.

At first, she was annoyed by his stares. “You wanna stop staring at me Destin?” She told him one afternoon.

That boy was so ashamed he just apologized loudly and ran from the kitchen, trippin’ on his own mop bucket and falling hard to the floor like a brick.

He moaned in pain as he slowly started to get up, when he felt an arm grabbing his shoulder to assist him.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I just get nervous when you look at me a lot.”

He apologized again and told her that he’ll stop if she wants her too.

She looked at him and said, “No, it’s okay you can look at me, just look at other things too from time to time.”

And that’s when it began.

He’d always say hi, Give her a small present of some kind, a trinket, a flower.

It was always so sweet...