#{c:benji}

By far the worst part about running a house was having to deal with its finances. Peck could take the sex and the noise, and the late nights and early mornings. They could take the filth and the threat. What they could not abide was shopping.

They were low on food. They had been since that bloody raid, but normality was now returning to them, and coin with it. The extra funds from the Auction gave the last push needed for Peck to finally loosen their fist round their purse. The first order of business was to replenish their meagre stores; food, candles, booze, and raw materials for Peck’s pharmacy. Whilst they had charges at their disposal, Peck wouldn’t trust most of them with money, and the rest of them with food. It fell to them to go to the markets and to haggle, and purchase, and then lug about their wares.

Covent Garden had a wonderful mix, and made such dull jobs bearable. From the aroma of coffee beans, to sashes of silks, to rotting fish and fly-ridden mushrooms. Peck sauntered about the market with clear boredom, pausing only occasionally for a purchase. They did not often venture into the territory of other bawds and pimps; it could be seen as threatening.

They had just purchased a full bushel of apples, and were in the process of shoving the things into their already overfull bag and basket when one dropped, bruised itself against the cobbles, and rolled. It stopped right between the feet of another.

“Excuse me,” they sighed, tapping them on the shoulder with gloved fingers.

Catherine kept her head down when she entered the building. Whilst she had been careful in the Bawdy houses with whores, it was as she stepped into the Molly House that she felt true caution. It was being in places such as this that would see you swing. There would be no explaining this away, and no graceful bawd to whisk her away from prison this time. Still, she had a thought buzzing around her head like an errant fly, and she required the correct tool to swat it.

She had heard of the Molly House before, but it took probing from her models to receive the address of it. For all she knew the man she sought inside of it was dead - killed by the law, for loving one of his own sex. The mere thought of it sent shudders down her spine. But she hoped, hoped with all her might, that he had been saved of that fate. And she hoped that he may have the answers to some of her questions. That, and the ability to stay still for approximately twenty minutes.

Inside the House was less gaudy than she was expecting. In many ways it apeared quite normal, perhaps even plainer than the brothels she had sat in. Slowly, she lowered her hood, and looked about, hoping that her eyes would fall on the very man she met in that alley.

When they did not, she took several steps further, and peered her head round the door to the lounge.

The festivities were a tad too raucous for Catherine. There were too many bodies, too many faces, to much sound and noise. It was stifling, choking, and with each new murmur of speech, each new laugh of delight, each peal of applause, some loudness rose up within her in echo until it was in her eyes and her ears, and all the way into her fingertips. A tremble overcame her, and deep in the core of her body there was a great longing to leave, or to scream, or to otherwise avail herself of this horrific sense of too much.

In a quaking whisper she excused herself, hand pressed tight to her stomacher, and fled in quick steps to the nearest quiet place. An alley loomed before her, cast in shadow, and she darted inside to catch her breath. She did not hear that the snicket was already occupied, too loud was the rush of blood in her ears, and the wheeze of her breath. But she heard a squawk when she came upon them, two men hidden where the light did not touch them, and could barely apologise before one hurried his way past her and away into the night.

“I- Sorry, I-” Her breath came out of her in shuddering gasps, and the leant heavily against the wall, losing her focus on the man who remained as she forced herself to calm.