Vanessa's many talents far exceeded what had been expected of her, and as a result, she was kept busy enough to go weeks without leaving the house. She proved herself a remarkable seamstress, as her own garment proved, was quick and thorough with the wash and the meals, and was a very quick learner for whatever else they asked her to do. She hummed and sang old tunes from memory while doing laundry, and the women taught her new ditties that they sang along with her. Since the ladies had their linens washed quite frequently – usually after entertaining at most three clients in her room – Vanessa could keep her things quite ridiculously clean as well. Sewing, cooking, cleaning, scrubbing, carrying; through the day, she worked on tasks, happy to do so, for the girls came to respect her.

It helped that her appearance became more 'normal'. She'd filed her teeth down well, and though she had trouble chewing, no one noticed. Her ears were covered at all times and she kept herself clean and presentable. Watching the women about her, she mimicked their graceful, swaying walk. And with the help of a back brace she'd fashioned for herself out of old corset boning, she walked upright during the day. Certainly, the brace hurt, but with the hood covering her hump one would think her a normal girl, if a very tall one.

Actually, she appeared to be not normal, but rather beautiful. By the time she'd earned the Madame's trust and was allowed out to fetch items with the house's money, she'd learned the poise and posture enough to walk on the streets, head up, without obvious deformity. But she still drew stares.

She could hear their comments, with her covered but still keen ears, and they were saying good things, if sometimes catty and jealous things. They weren't saying she was ugly, they were marveling at her beauty. Vanessa didn't know what to make of it, but it filled her heart with excitement.

Upon returning to the house, hands full of groceries and toiletries, she was beaming and blushing. Madame saw her on her way in and questioned her.

"The people were saying I'm pretty," Vanessa explained, tracing the wood grain with a bare toe. "People usually say I'm ugly."

Madame nodded. "You're hiding the ugly parts and showing the pretty parts – it's an illusion, dear. Everything here," she noted, sweeping her arms to gesture at the house, at the other girls, "is an illusion. Beauty is an illusion. And beauty is dangerous unless you have control."

Vanessa was confused, and set down the bags for a moment. "Control over the way you look?"

"Control over the situation, over others," Madame corrected, bringing a long-stemmed cigarette to her lips. "Beauty can be a woman's only weapon against men. If you aren't careful, your looks are giving men control over you. In this house, we are beautiful because it gives us a way to live, and we have control because this is our house and we control what goes on in our house, though we give the men who come in the illusion that they have control. Do you understand?"

"Sort of. But why would looking nice give someone control over other people? And what kind of control? Why is it bad if someone else has control?"

"Domination! Pain, silly! If a woman controls her environment, she is safe because she can keep men from dominating her. A woman who is not in control, her life is worth nothing to anyone. She is cattle. Others can treat her like cattle. You are young, you haven't experienced this yet. May you never, but you probably will."

"I lived in a barn once. I ate pig slop," Vanessa interjected haughtily.

"You misunderstand my definition of cattle, darling." Madame Valentina chuckled to herself softly, sadly. "Simply put, never trust a man; you can only seldom trust a woman. Now go on, continue with your chores; I may tell you more, one day, when you have learned more about the sexes."

Vanessa did as told, but along the way wondered what to make of all that. She wanted to dismiss it, but nevertheless, her subsequent trips out were not as enjoyable. Glancing at the faces around her, she couldn't help but wonder if those people, when they looked at her, were thinking about stealing money from her, or making her do THEIR chores, or something like that. Because, as Madame said, pretty girls were susceptible to that sort of thing, or so she understood.

Trust and respect earned aside, Vanessa still avoided the customers. It was easy to do, since the men were usually drunk from the nearby saloons, and thoroughly distracted.

She was never to make eye contact or say a word with them, never to venture into the front room during evenings, always to duck aside if a client were nearby. This made sense to her, because she was not as beautiful as the women with fancy hair-dos and intricate, full dresses. Her lips were not painted bright red, nor her eyes lined with black and colored powders. As Madame put it, she didn't know the 'art of entertaining a man,' and that she had a place in the house because she did not. But Vanessa felt a jealousy, that her 'place' in the house was so unglamorous.

She interacted with the women of the house all the time; they were like friends, telling her stories about what customers had given them for being 'their favorite,' bragging about what rich or famous person they'd had as a client. They seemed to truly be grateful for Madame having 'found' them, that the house was a place where they could live safer and richer than anywhere else. However, they did at times seem worn out, bedraggled, and sometimes were quiet and withdrawn as though remembering something sadly. When in such a depression, the ladies tended to cut off from Vanessa. Janice and Lola had, on separate occasions, become very angry with her for no reason she could fathom, yelling and crying at her about nothing she understood.

More often than this, the women treated Vanessa with an affection, calling her a 'girl,' where they called themselves 'women' or 'ladies.' Certainly, Vanessa was taller than them all, by a few inches or a foot, depending upon the lady, but still she was little to the rest. They referred to her as 'little one,' 'kid,' 'girl' with affection. She did not know what 'angel' or 'virgin' meant, but they said those towards her as well.

OXO

A man whom the ladies referred to as 'Father' visited one day and gifted 'his favorite,' Trin, with a thick book. "This book ain't for women like us," she explained, smiling, as she handed the thick, leather-bound volume to Vanessa. Recognizing it as something of great worth, Vanessa happily accepted it.

The book was titled "Bible" and had no obvious author, save some titled names. It was long, a very long story, with no clear plot, but she recognized some things from what she'd heard at school, and from Greta. Clearly, this took place on the planet from before, the planet Earth, not Gunsmoke – the animals and greenery and water just didn't exist as it was written! The volume was useful in learning some terms she'd not been able to understand previously. For instance, she learned that angels were alien beings of beauty but without gender, mostly good things. And she found that 'virgin' was the word for women who had not had sexual intercourse before, and had no children. 'Lie with' and 'know' and such were used as euphemisms for the act of intercourse, though the act wasn't always used to make children in the story. Strange, because that was Vanessa's understanding – men and women have sex, they have a child, and that's what a family is. And everybody knew that nobody could die and have their body brought back to life days later. Obviously.

How odd; what an odd story.

Having little to offer Vanessa in the way of learning, really, she finished the book over a weekend and thought it largely a waste of pages. Flipping through her own journal, she frowned to see that the pages were full from her time in Carcasses, that she hadn't added a thing to it, but could, if she weren't out of pages. Oh, and this Bible book, it had so many pages, over 1,200 pages, all thin but strong. And it was an impressive ten by twelve inches, compared to her pathetic journal's four by five. With such a thick volume, she could get all over the medical knowledge in her mind down on paper!

She left the volume out on her little dresser, frowning at it in thought, until she was called out for chores once more.