If only Chéri spoke more English and looked more trustworthy, they might have head some interesting points to make about sleeping with people of the same gender and sin, hiding things and dealing with poverty in the family as a sex worker.

This might have helped Loretta reflect on a few interesting points and maybe encouraged some shared consciousness among them, sparking new ideas.

Instead, they said “butter”.

And apparently the word for “as well” was too much. Chéri accepted their language skills were sad and moved on. “Bon appetit.” They responded, curious about the translation, but having no idea how to say it.

Chéri shook their head “Beurre.” And made the gesture of smearing it on the slice. “Avec confiture?” Now, that was too much to ask, but maybe Ruby knew about butter and jam. It felt a little farfetched, but this was a brothel, they could hope for some luxury after all!

The curious look, at least, was something she as a former teacher could appreciate.

“Good appetite.”

She wasn’t sure if that was the direct translation, but it was close enough to her.

Again, he repeated the cold sound but … was not cold? Something on bread … ice-ing? Icing?

“Icing?” she guessed aloud.

She supposed that was one way to make a cake. She tilted her head at the further vocabulary, but went to check if the ice box had (luckily for Chéri!) any butter … for icing. She was in luck, and took it out … then passed Chéri by with it in hand to head for the cabinet with sugar in it.

That, Chéri understood. They laughed.

“Bon.” They corrected “Bon Apetit.”

That, they were sure, was going to be understood reasonably well.

Chéri wrinkled their nose. Aisinghe? What could that possibly be? Not butter, definitely. Butter wasn’t complicated. Butter understood. But, somehow, they thought, it wasn’t being understood.

No until Ruby handed it over. “Beurre!” They jumped up victoriously, smearing the first aboundant slab of it on their bread, proud that she had understood. “Beurre!” They repeated, biting into it.

As Ruby started to pass them by, it was snatched from her hand. She blinked, looked over, tilted her head … then saw.

“Oh! Brr!” she decided. “Butter!”

Well, that saved her some measuring and mixing. That made things a lot simpler, in fact. She put a hand on her hip, smiled, and shook her head. Fair enough.

Ruby picked up the remaining slice and bit into hers, unbuttered. Some jam would have been nice, but one of the girls got real finicky if she mixed crumbs from the knife into said jam. Much as she liked Chéri – Chéri was a potential witness to the dastardly deed she did when no one was looking.

So she ate in silence, quietly pondering about every man she’d never seen herself who’d gone through the Diamond Pony doors. Were those the sodomites? What if Chéri truly was there just to keep the women safe?

She kind of felt protective over Chéri.

“Beurre. Butter.” Chéri repeated, laughing a little bit at them both, over the frustration of the language and concentrating now on the fact that they had the chance to actually eat something they wanted just because they wished to -something they thought they had lost-.

Chéri ate with a joy that was hard to hide because of it and a gratitude towards life and chance. That rubbed onto Ruby, making her too object of their joy.

Chéri didn’t find hard to make friends and didn’t find hard to identify Ruby as a keen spirit, though something disturbed them “Ruby no butter?” they wondered, bending their head to the side. Was she trying to be delicate? Leaving more for them? They weren’t eating all of it and they weren’t sure Ruby could like them as much as butter.

There were subtleties in the pronunciation that she couldn’t quite churn her mouth into, but she got what it was now.

“Ouie! Yes!” she laughed. “Brr! Butter!”

When Chéri asked directly about the butter, Ruby shuddered but let out an uncomfortable sound that had, at least, the cadence of a laugh.

“Yes. Ruby no butter,” she repeated. “I,” she thumbed at herself with her non-bread holding hand, “don’t,” she shook her head, “like it.”

Then, she glanced to the half of her slice left and Chéri. After a narrowing of her eyes, she decided that yes: yes, she could do this.

Ruby, dainty, painted Ruby, used her right thumb to pack the rest of the slice entirely into her left cheek and chew with a blissed out look. She’d have to redo her lipstick and wipe her hand, but something about pressed bread just tasted better.