Bones gave her a jaded look and then let it rip. “You know what your problem is, Justina? You’re in desperate need of a good shag.”
I downed a gulp of gin to cover the laugh that forced its way out. God, if I’d thought that once, I’d thought it a thousand times!
She let out an outraged huff. Bones ignored it.
“Not that I’m offering you one myself, mind. My days as a whore ended back in the seventeen hundreds.”
The gin was abruptly sucked back into my lungs as I gasped. He did not just tell my mother about his former profession; sweet Jesus, let me have heard incorrectly! I hadn’t, and Bones went right on.
“…but I have a friend who owes me a favor and he could be persuaded to…Kitten, are you all right?”
I’d stopped breathing as soon as he casually admitted to his prior occupation. Add that to the liquid stuck in my lungs, and no, I wasn’t all right.
My mother was oblivious. A torrent of insults erupted from her throat. “Filthy, degenerate, molesting sodomite—”
“Isn’t this a proper flashback to her childhood? You’re more concerned with yourself than your daughter, bloody woman; can’t you see she’s choking?”
Bones pounded me on my back as I coughed to expel the gin from my windpipe. The first breath seared me when it came. My eyes watered profusely, but at least I was able to take in another painful one, and then another.
Reassured that I was breathing again, Bones picked up where my mother left off.
“Sodomite’s incorrect, Justina. Women were my clients, not men. Just wanted to clear that up; I’d hate to have you think something false of me. ’Course, if you don’t trust my recommendation for a shag, I reckon your daughter’s friend Juan might be up for the arduous task of—”
