Tipping the Velvet

by Sarah Waters

  ‘It is not true of Indian girls,’ said another lady then. ‘But it is of the Turks. They are bred like it, that they might pleasure themselves in the seraglio.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Maria, stroking her beard.

  ‘Yes, it is certainly so.’

  ‘But it is true also of our own poor girls!’ said someone else. ‘They are brought up twenty to a bed. The continual frotting makes their clitorises grow. I know that for a fact.’

  ‘What rubbish!’ said the Sappho with the cigar.

  ‘I can assure you it is not rubbish,’ answered the first lady hotly. ‘And if we only had a girl from the slums amongst us now, I would pull her drawers down and show you the proof!’

  There was laughter at her words, and then the room grew rather quiet. I looked at Diana; and as I did so, she slowly turned her head to gaze at me. ‘I wonder...’ she said thoughtfully, and one or two other ladies began to study me, as she did. My stomach gave a subtle kind of lurch. I thought, She wouldn‘t! And as I thought it, a quite different lady said: ‘But Diana, you have just the creature we need! Your maid was a slum-girl, wasn’t she? Didn’t you have her from a prison or a home? You know what the women get up to in prison, don’t you? I should think they must frot until their parts are the size of mushrooms!’

  Diana turned her eyes from me, and drew on her pink-tipped fag; and then she smiled. ‘Mrs Hooper!’ she called. ‘Where is Blake?’

  ‘She is in the kitchen, ma’am,’ answered the housekeeper from her station at the bowl of wine. ‘She is loading her tray.’

  ‘Go and fetch her.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  Mrs Hooper went. The ladies looked at one another, and then at Diana. She stood very calm and steady beside the bust of cold Antinous; but when she raised her glass to her lip, I saw that her hand was trembling slightly. I shifted from one foot to the other, my briefly flaring lust all faded. In a moment, Mrs Hooper had returned, with Zena. When Diana called to her, Zena walked blinkingly into the centre of the room. The ladies parted to let her pass, then stepped together again at the back of her.

  Diana said, ‘We have been wondering about you, Blake.’

  Zena blinked again. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘We have been wondering about your time at the reformatory.’ Now Zena coloured. ‘We have been wondering how you filled your hours. We thought there must be some little occupation, to which you turned your idle fingers, in your solitary cell.’

  Zena hesitated. Then she said, ‘Please, m’m, do you mean, sewing bags?’

  At that, the ladies gave a roar of laughter, which made Zena flinch, and blush worse than ever, and put a hand to her throat. Diana said, very slowly, ‘No, child, I did not mean sewing bags. I meant, that we thought you must have turned frigstress, in your little cell. That you must have frigged yourself until your cunt was sore. That you must have frigged yourself so long and so hard, you frigged yourself a cock. We think you must have a cock, Blake, in your drawers. We want you to lift your skirt, and let us see it!’

  Now the ladies laughed again. Zena looked at them, and then at Diana. ‘Please, m’m,’ she said, beginning to shake, ’I don’t know what you mean!’

  Diana stepped towards her. ‘I think you do,’ she said. She had picked up the book that Dickie had given her, and now she opened it, and held it oppressively close to Zena’s face, so that Zena flinched again. ‘We have been reading a book full of stories of girls like you,’ she said. ‘And now, what are you suggesting? That the doctor who wrote this book - this book that Miss Reynolds gave me, for my birthday - is a fool?’

  ‘No, m’m!’

  ‘Well then. The doctor says you have a cock. Come along, lift your skirts! Good gracious, girl, we only want to look at you — !’

  She had put her hand upon Zena’s skirt, and I could see the other ladies, all gripped, in their turn, by her wildness, making ready to assist her. The sight made me sick. I stepped out of the shadows and said, ‘Leave her, Diana! For God’s sake, leave her alone!’

  The room fell silent at once. Zena gazed at me in fright, and Diana turned, and blinked. She said: ‘You wish to raise the skirt yourself?’

  ‘I want you to leave Blake be! Go on, Blake,’ I nodded to Zena. ‘Go on back to the kitchen.’

  ‘You stay where you are!’ cried Diana to her. ‘And as for you,’ she said, fixing me with one narrow, black, glittering eye, ‘do you think you are mistress here, to give orders to my servants? Why, you are a servant! What is it to you, if I ask my girl to bare her backside for me? You have bared yours for me, often enough! Get back behind your velvet curtain! Perhaps, when we have finished with little Blake, we shall all take turns upon Antinous.’

  Her words seemed to press upon my aching head - and then, as if my head were made of glass, it seemed to shatter. I put my hand to the garland of wilting flowers at my throat, and tore it from me. Then I did the same with the sable wig, and flung it to the floor. My hair was oiled flat to my head, my cheeks were flushed with wine and anger — I must have looked terrible. But I didn’t feel terrible: I felt filled with power and with light. I said, ‘You shall not talk to me in such a way. How dare you talk to me like that!’

  Beside Diana, Dickie rolled her eyes. ‘Really Diana,’ she said, ‘what a bore this is!’

  ‘What a bore!’ I turned to her. ‘Look at you, you old cow, dressed up in a satin shirt like a boy of seventeen. Dorian Gray? You look more like the bleedin’ portrait, after Dorian has made a few trips down the docks!’

  Dickie twitched, then grew pale. Several of the ladies laughed, and one of them was Maria. ‘My dear boy - !’ she began.

  ‘Don’t “dear boy” me, you ugly bitch!’ I said to her then. ‘You’re as bad as her, in your Turkish trousers. What are you, looking for your harem? No wonder they are off fucking each other with their enormous parts, if they have you as their master. You have had your fingers all over me, for a year and a half; but if a real girl was ever to uncover her tit and put it in your hand, you would have to ring for your maid, for her to show you what to do with it!’

  ‘That’s enough!’ This was Diana. She was gazing at me, white-faced and furious, but still terribly calm. Now she turned and addressed the group of goggling ladies. She said: ‘Nancy thinks it amusing, sometimes, to kick her little heels; and sometimes, of course, it is. But not tonight. Tonight, I’m afraid, it is only tiresome.’ She looked at me again, but spoke, still, as if to her guests. ‘She will go upstairs,’ she said levelly, ‘until she is sorry. Then she will apologise to the ladies she has upset. And then, I shall think of some little punishment for her.’ Her gaze flicked over the remains of my costume. ‘Something suitably Roman, perhaps.’

  ‘Roman?’ I answered. ‘Well, you should know about that. How old are you today? You were there, weren’t you, at Hadrian’s palace?’

  It was a mild enough insult, after all that I had said. But as I said it, there came a titter from the crowd. It was only a small one; but if there was ever anyone who could not bear to be tittered at, that person was Diana. I think she would rather have been shot between the eyes. Now, hearing that stifled laugh, she grew even paler. She took a step towards me, and raised her hand; she did it so quickly, I had time only to catch the flash of something dark at the end of her arm - then there came what seemed to be a small explosion at my cheek.

  She had still held Dickie’s book, all this time; and now she had struck me with it.

  I gave a cry, and staggered. When I put a hand to my face, I found blood upon it - from my nose, but also from a gash beneath my eye, where the edge of the leather-bound spine had caught it. I reached for a shoulder or an arm, against which to steady myself; but now all the ladies shrank away from me, and I almost stumbled. I looked once at Diana. She also had reeled, after dealing me the blow; but Evelyn was beside her with her arm about her waist. She said nothing to me; and I, at last, was quite incapable of speech. I think I coughed, or snorted. There came a splatter of blood upon the Turkey rug
, that made the ladies draw even further from me, and give little moues of surprise and disgust. Then I turned, and staggered from the room.

  At the door stood Maria’s whippet, Satin, and when he saw me he barked. Maria had set him there, with a dog’s head of papier mâché fixed to each side of his collar, to represent the hound that stood on guard at the gate of Hades.

  The marble floor of the hall, as I have said, we had scattered with roses: it was terribly hard to cross it, in bare feet, with my ringing head and my hand at my cheek. Before I had reached the staircase, I heard a step behind me, and a bang. I turned to see Zena there: Diana had sent her from the room in my wake, then had the door shut on us. She gazed at me, then came to put a hand upon my arm: ‘Oh, miss ...’

  And I - who had saved her from Diana’s wildness only, as it seemed to me then, to have that wildness turned upon myself — I shook her from me. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ I cried. Then I ran from her, to my own room, and closed the door.

  And sat there wretched, in the darkness, nursing my oozing cheek. Below me, after a few more minutes of silence, there came the sound of the piano; and then came laughter, and then shouts. They were carrying on their revelling, without me! I could not credit it. The sport with Zena, the insults, the blow and the bleeding nose - these seemed only to have made the marvellous party more gay and marvellous still.

  If only Diana had sent her guests home. If only I had placed my head beneath my pillow, and forgotten them. If only I had not grown miserable, and peevish, and vengeful, at the sound of their fun.

  If only Zena had not forgiven me my harshness in the hall — had not come creeping to my door, to ask me, was I very hurt, and was there anything that she could do, to comfort me.

  When I heard her knock, I flinched: I was sure it must be Diana, seeking me out to torture me or — perhaps, who knew? — to caress me. When I saw that it was Zena, I stared.

  ‘Miss,’ she said. She had a candle in her hand, and its flame dipped and fluttered, sending shadows dancing crazily about the walls. ‘I couldn’t go up, knowing you was here all bruised and bleeding - and all, oh! all on my account!

  I sighed. ‘Come in,’ I said, ‘and close the door.’ And when she had done that, and stepped nearer to me, I put my head in my hands and groaned. ‘Oh Zena,’ I said, ‘what a night! What a night!’

  She set down her candle. ‘I’ve got a cloth,’ she said, ‘with a little bit of ice in it. If you’ll just - permit me -’ I lifted my head, and she placed the cloth against my cheek, so that I winced. ‘What a corker of an eye you’ll have!’ she said. Then, in a different tone: ‘What a devil that woman is!’ She began to wipe away the blood that was crusted about my nostril - lowering herself upon the bed, at my side, and placing her free hand upon my shoulder to brace herself against me, as she did so.

  Gradually, however, I became aware that she was trembling. ‘It’s the cold, miss,’ she said. ‘Only the cold and, well, the bit of fright I had downstairs ...’ But as she said it, I felt her shudder harder than ever, and she began to weep. ‘The truth is,’ she said through her tears, ‘I could not bear the thought of lying up there in my own room, with them wicked ladies roaming about the place. I thought, that they might come and have another go at me ...”

  ‘There now,’ I said. I took the cloth from her and placed it on the floor. Then I drew the counterpane from the bed, and set it about her shoulders. ‘You shall stay here with me, where the ladies cannot get you ...’ I put my arm around her, and her head came against my ear. She still wore her servant’s cap; now I took the pins from it and drew it from her, and her hair fell to her shoulders. It was scented with burning roses, and with the spice from the wine, Smelling it, with Zena warm against my shoulder, I began suddenly to feel drunker than I had all night. Perhaps it was only that my head was reeling, from the force. of Diana’s blow.

  I swallowed. Zena put a handkerchief to her nose, and grew a little stiller. There came, from the floors below, the sound of running feet, a furious thundering upon the piano, and a scream of laughter.

  ‘Just listen to them!’ I said, growing bitter again. ‘Partying like anything! They have forgotten all about us, sitting miserable up here ...’

  ‘Oh, I hope they have!’

  ‘Of course they have. We might be doing anything, it wouldn’ t matter to them! Why, we might be having a party of our own!’ She blew her nose, then giggled. My head gave a sort of tilt. I said: ‘Zena! Why shouldn’t we have a party, just the two of us! How many bottles of champagne are there left, in the kitchen?’

  ‘There are loads of ’em.’

  ‘Well, then. Just you run down and fetch us one.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know ...’

  ‘Go on, you shan’t be seen. They are all in the drawing-room, and you can go by the back stairs. And if anyone does see you, and asks, you can say you are fetching it for me. Which is true.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Go on! Take your candle!’ I rose, then took hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet; and she - infected at last by my new recklessness - gave another giggle, put her fingers to her lips, then tip-toed from the room. While she was gone I lit a lamp, but kept it turned very low. She had left her cap upon the bed: I picked it up and set it on my own head, and when she returned five minutes later and saw me wearing it she laughed out loud.

  She carried a dewy bottle and a glass. ‘Did you see any ladies?’ I asked her.

  ‘I saw a couple, but they never saw me. They were at the scullery door and - oh! they was kissing the guts out of each other!’

  I imagined her standing in the shadows, watching them. I went to her and took the bottle, then peeled away the lead wrapper from its neck. ‘You’ve shaken it up,’ I said. ‘It’ll go off with a real bang!’ She put her hands over her ears, and shut her eyes. I felt the cork squirm in the glass for a second; then it leapt from my fingers, and I gave a yell: ‘Quick! Quick! Bring a glass!’ A creamy fountain of foam had risen from the neck of the bottle, and now drenched my fingers and soaked my legs - I was still, of course, clad in the little white toga. Zena seized the glass from the tray and held it, giggling again, beneath the spurting wine.

  We went and sat upon the bed, Zena with the glass in her hands, me sipping from the frothing bottle. When she drank, she coughed; but I filled her glass again and said: ‘Drink up! Just like those cows downstairs.’ And she drank, and drank again, until her cheeks were red. I felt my own head grow giddier with every sip I took, and the pulse at my swollen face grow thicker. At last I said, ‘Oh! How it hurts!’, and Zena set down her glass to put her fingers, very gently, upon my cheek. When she had held them there for a second or two, I took her hand in my own, and leaned and kissed her.

  She didn’t draw away until I made to lie upon the bed and pull her with me. Then she said: ‘Oh, we cannot! What if Mrs Lethaby should come?’

  ‘She won’t. She is leaving me, as a kind of punishment.’ I touched her knee, and then her thigh, through the layers of her skirts.

  ‘We cannot ...’ she said again; but this time, her voice was fainter. And when I tugged at her frock and said, ‘Come on, take this off — or shall I tear the buttons?’ she gave a drunken sort of laugh: ‘You shall do no such thing! Help me nicely, now.’

  Naked she was very thin, and strangely coloured: flaming crimson at the cheeks, a coarser red from her elbows to her fingertips, and palely white - almost bluish-white - on her torso, upper arms, and thighs. The hair between her legs - you can never guess at that kind of thing in advance - was quite ginger.

  When I dipped my lips to it, she gave a squeal: ‘Oh! What a thing to do!’ But then, after a moment, she held my head and pressed it. She didn’t seem to be at all sorry about my swollen nose, then. She only said: ‘Oh, turn around, turn around quick, that I might do it to you!’

  After that, I pulled the counterpane over us, and we drank more champagne, taking turns to sip from the bottle. I put my hand upon her. I said: ‘Did you used
to frig yourself in the reformat’ry?’ She gave me a slap, saying, ‘Oh, you are as bad as them downstairs! I nearly died!’ She pushed the blanket back, and squinted at her quim. ‘To think of me with a cock! What an idea!’

  ‘What an idea? Oh, Zena, I should love to see you with one! I should love -’ I sat up. ‘Zena, I should love to see you in Diana’s dildo!’

  ‘That thing? She’s made you filthy! I should die with shame, before I ever tried such a thing!’ Her lashes fluttered.

  I said, ‘You are blushing! You’ve fancied it, haven’t you? You’ve fancied a bit of that kind of sport - don’t tell me you haven’t!’

  ‘Really, a girl like me!’ But she was redder than ever, and would not gaze at me. I caught hold of her hand, and pulled her up.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You have got me all hot for it. Diana will never know.’

  ‘Oh!’

  I pulled her to the door, then peered into the corridor outside. The music and laughter from downstairs was fainter, but still loud and rather furious. Zena fell against me, and put her arms around my waist; then we staggered together, quite naked, and with our hands before our faces to stop ourselves from laughing, to Diana’s little parlour.

  Here, it was the work of a moment to open the bureau’s secret drawer, then take the key to the rosewood trunk, and open that. Zena looked on, all the time casting fearful glances towards the door. When she saw the dildo, however, she coloured again, but seemed unable to tear her eyes from it. I felt a drunken surge of power and pride. ‘Stand up,’ I said — I sounded almost like Diana. ‘Stand up, and fasten the buckles.’

  When she had done that, I led her to the looking-glass. I winced, to see my face all red and swollen, and still with crumbs of blood caught in its creases; but the sight of Zena - gazing at herself with the dildo jutting from her, placing a hand upon the shaft of it, and swallowing, to feel the motion of the leather - proved more distracting than the bruise. At last I turned her and placed my hands upon her shoulders, and nudged the head of the dildo between my thighs. If my quim had had a tongue, it could not have been more eloquent; and if Zena’s quim had had one, it would now have licked its lips.