"Alms, alms!" the woman pleaded with passer-by, holding out a grubby hand as she begged.
The piemaker narrowed her eyes, slamming the door on her way out of her shop. "'Alms, alms,'" she mocked, taking each end of her rag in either hand as she wrapped it around the other woman's neck. "How many times 'ave a told you I'll not 'ave trash from the gutter 'anging about' my establishment?"
She sounded almost bored, like she was tired of having this discussion and was having it purely out of habit.
"Not just a penny, dearie?" The rag grew tighter around her neck at the use of a pet name. "Or a pie? One o' them pies that give the stomach cramps to half the neighborhood?" She could hear the irritated sigh that escaped the piemaker's nostrils, blowing her hair. "Come on, dearie… Have a heart, dear." She groped awkwardly at the other woman's left breast as she leaned over her, making a gesture towards the heart that she'd just implied the piemaker lacked.
"Off. Off with you," she drawled, still sounding bored. She shrugged violently, forcing the beggar's grubby hand away from her breast. She watched where the beggar was looking… At the house above her meat-pie shop. All of a sudden, her voice grew very cold, certain and angry. "Or you'll get a kick on yer rump that'll make yer teeth chatter." She drew the rag angrily away from the other woman's neck, almost violently and in a way that promised pain.
The beggar scrambled to her feet, glaring at the piemaker. She stepped closer, getting right in the other woman's face and breathing heavily. "Stuck up fiend." The piemaker rolled her eyes and looked away, still bored. "You and your fancy airs…"
The piemaker drew the rag taut again, pushing it against the beggar's mouth in a silent threat as she glared coldly.
The beggar scuttled around the courtyard of the pie shop, her eyes darting madly as she looked around. The piemaker, however, walked calmly, almost sauntering, towards the gate. She stood, waiting, until the beggar saw the gate and rushed to it. Their eyes met again, the beggar's cool crystal blue ones and the piemaker's fiery chocolate ones.
She stumbled just far enough away to watch the piemaker saunter up the stairs to the shop upstairs. She stayed close enough to watch what happened between the man who lived there and the piemaker who seemed to hold such disdain for her.
Her eyes grew wide when she saw the baker suddenly pinned against the bay window, her short black bob and firm body a harsh contrast to the perfect glass. The window was big enough so that she could see the clear above the woman's head and all the way past her waist.
She saw pale hands grip the tiny waist firmly, slamming her into it again so that the glass shook in its frame. The spindly fingers of one of the hands tangled in the jet black bob and soon an equally pale face came into view, lunging for the baker's.
Then the pale fingers of the other hand were tangling in the bob as well before she was only able to see the piemaker's head and shoulders. The man's was now visible above the baker's head, his crisp white shirt and his black tie stark against the white. The piemaker's head was now moving quickly, up and down, as the man's facial expression changed from anger to pure pleasure.
When the piemaker made her way back down the stairs shortly after, her short, raven hair was still mussed from where the beggar had seen the man grip her head. And she was grinning wildly, her lipstick smudged and faded.
She didn't even yell at the beggar woman, still lurking nearby. She just smiled, deliriously happy, as she stumbled back into her shop.