Constansa's father left Lafayette when he was passed over for the Embrace is favor of his cousin Edgar, merely because his father was not of the family. This slight drove a wedge between them and he paid them back by taking a wife outside of the family, and an American wife at that. Unfortunately, he could not totally escape his past and soon fell to hold habits. On one of the family trips to Biloxi, his wife caught him molesting ten year old Constansa and tried to flee with her daughter. With nowhere else to turn, he called on his family, who was able to abduct his cousin easily and left their Houma kin to dispose of his wife.
Léon hid his precious daughter until he was sure that no reprecussions were to follow and then moved to Biloxi permanently. Unfortunately, the need to sever many of his former contacts meant that he had to leave his business behind and the two were left destitute. In order to survive, he prostituted his daughter out to the rich, priveleged men who came to the city for their recreation and the soldiers who sought a reprieve from their sexless lifestyle. This proved so profitable, that any search for another line of work ceased and he happily lived off of Constansa until word of his enterprise fell on the wrong ears and he was murdered in 1919.
Unfortunately, Constansa was hidden away at the time and her hopeful rescuers were not able to find her. When her father didn't come to fetch her, she almost starved, but was finally able to muster the will to leave the small room and look for a means to support herself. Of course, she fell on the only thing she knew. As time passed, she did well for herself, learning her lessons even if they were hard, and cousin Beranger, who had been searching for her since word of her father's death reached him, finally found her and set her up in a nice place where she could work her trade respectively, complimenting her on how she'd managed and the life she'd made.
With support, she was able to establish the brothel she still operates, which deals mostly in the mundane fare, despite her cousin's helpful suggestions for diversification. She has also been brought back into the fold of the family, which has been something of a relief to her. Its depravity puts her own life into a sane perspective and she finds it comforting. She uses the intelligence she gains from her girls and her blackmail operations to support their efforts and keep them informed on the Camarilla and Giovanni movements in the city. She even encouraged the marriage of her only son to Emma Prejean, securing his place in the family and sealing the rift.
Despite the comfort she's drawn from knowledge of her ancestry and the years of hardening and building of will, Constansa still suffers, on a deep psychological level, from the belief that she is nothing more than an object of sexual desire and she draws the majority of her self-esteem still from being exploited. This is the main reason she has not retired from active prostitution to run the brothel. The more humiliation and degrading her tricks are, the more comforting they are to her, leading her to persue some rather excessive risks, though she'd never require her girls to do the same.
Personally, Constansa seems quite confident and very considerate of the needs of others. Little outside of the bedroom lends the impression that she suffers at all from a lack of self-esteem. Unfortunately, those who do learn of this find her easy to manipulate based on her needs. Some, like Beranger, are considerate enough not to push her buttons but others, like her son, are all too ready to exploit them.
She is quite close to Beranger, though they don't see each other very often. The years of working together and the man's compassionate depravity have endeared him to her greatly and she is fairly certain that he is the father of her son, from one of their semi-frequent trysts. Her feelings for her grandson are more ambiguous. She dislikes Sevis' manner immensely, but his easy sadism attracts her incredibly and they've had several liaisons which have left her in extremely poor shape. She is also afraid of Raoul's (or Beranger's) response, should he learn of them.
Raoul earns the lion's share of her affection and she is unable to see any wrong in him, despite his abuse of her over the years. She is fond of his wife, but is very confused by his acceptance of her Embrace. She has put this in the back of her mind for the most part, and instead concentrates on her love of her grandchildren. She is distant to the rest of the family, but likes them on principle.
She's had precious little interaction with the Camarilla or kindred in generally to have many feelings, and her understanding of what it all means is incomplete, at best. She is, however, tending to Alan Parker, the Biloxi Prince's childe, and has been able to get quite a bit of information out of him, which she passed back to Lafayette and New Orleans. She is slowly learning, through him, what the big picture is but is growing hampered by the pity she feels for the Ventrue. Her relatives worry that she might betray them and have taken to monitoring her flow of information carefully.
Constansa's minimal influence is through her more powerful clients, but this is tenuous. She knows better than to resort to actual blackmail, preferring to couch her requests as personal favors and keep them as vague and modest as possible. Still, explicit or no, just the asking is usually enough to get her customers to consider the consequences of being outted and they usually comply without much trouble.