Madeleine

by Stephen Rawlings

  “Hi! I’m Carol, and these two are Maggie and Lo lei.”

  Maggie looked as if she might have a better claim to the blonde title, with her soft pale shoulder length hair, though Madeleine was unable to make the necessary check at the time, for Maggie sported bra and pants under an open wrapper. Her rather sharp features and thin mouth, even after her attempt to disguise it with generous application of scarlet lipstick, lent her a slightly vicious look.

  Lo Lei also showed a certain hardness, probably only to be expected from someone living in an establishment like this for any length of time. Her slight build and round features gave her a very girlish look, no doubt much appreciated by many of the patrons, but when she spoke, Madeleine put her age in the twenties rather than teens, and her background as British born Chinese rather than an immigrant from Hong Kong or Singapore. Maggie revealed herself as Liverpool Irish as soon as she spoke, probably come to the ‘Smoke’ at sixteen to get away from home, and taste the good life. That would have been two or three years back now, and it was the ‘life’ she had found, without the ‘good’.

  Carol herself was mid-twenties, large and powerful, without being much overweight; big breasts, big hips, a voluptuous woman that looked as if she could eat a man whole.

  “Bertha said you’re new to whoring, so I ‘spect you’re a discipline. Your feller think you’ve been stepping out of line, does he?” Madeleine didn’t feel like going into explanations, so just nodded, and left them to draw their own conclusions.

  “OK, here’s how it works. Once the punters start arriving, you have to be here, showing your wares. Actually, we mostly don’t bother to dress much anyway. One thing about this lousy place, at least Bertha keeps it warm and you can go about with your cunt nicely aired.” The others tittered dutifully at their leader’s wit, and she went on, “Once you’ve caught someone’s eye, you take him to your room. It’s all got ready for you. There’s a girl, Lizzie, a bit simple, but a good sort really, who makes sure you’ve got a good supply of clean towels for the punters each morning, and checks your stock of rubbers. You throw the towels in the basket, and put the johnnies in the jar on your dresser.”

  “Excuse me, but what are johnnies, and why does Bertha want them saved?”

  The two younger whores tittered again, but Carol silenced them with a look. “Take no notice of them,” she said, “they’re just showing their ignorance. Johnnies are what we call the used rubbers. You tie a knot in the neck to keep the spunk in, and put them in the jar.”

  Madeleine didn’t like to press her further, and let go of the question of why they should be saved up.

  “If it looks as if we’re busy, you pick up the phone as soon as your last punter is getting back into his pants, and Bertha will send another on his way, so that you’re not left waiting. She sorts out who gets which once there’s a queue, and you don’t have to come back and fish for customers, but if it’s slack, she’ll tell you to get back here and make it exciting for the punters. Anything else I can tell you?”

  “I think I get the picture. When do the punters start coming, and what hours do we work?”

  Carol continued to monopolise the conversation, the other two deferring to her leadership. “Well, there’s always a little trade from about twelve on as the fellers start on their lunch hours, and fit in a bit of R & R, and it builds up all afternoon. Then there’s a ‘happy hour’ as they fit in a quick one before they catch the train home to the wife and kids, and that merges into the evening trade, which builds up until about half ten, or eleven, but there’s plenty come right up to two or three in the morning. They get pretty awkward after about ten or so as they’re usually drunk and incapable, or drunk and rough, sometimes both.”

  “What about weekends? Do we have days off, to go out then?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” the bottle blonde spokes woman said, pityingly, “when your Old Man, or in Maggie’s case, Old Lady, puts you in here, you’re meant to spend your time earning, not lying about or spending their money in Harrods. We only get time off if there’s no punters or, if we’re lucky and Bertha’s in a good mood, when we get our monthlies, though she’s been known to bung us up with Tampax and send us anyone that’s into buggery. As to days out, we don’t get out by ourselves. Sometimes our pimp will take us out for a reward, if we’ve been earning good money, and Bertha’s been known to throw a party on a birthday, hers, or one of ours, but she always makes sure that big brute, Pete comes along to keep an eye on us. Ugh!”

  “Who’s Pete, then?” Madeleine asked, wondering at the disgust in Carol’s expression, the first sign of emotion in her otherwise matter-of-fact discourse.

  “You’ll meet him soon enough, Bertha always lets him have a free go at any new girl, as well as his other treats. He’s a very nasty piece of work. He stands by during business hours to deal with any trouble makers, drunks and the like. He’s got a nasty vicious streak in him, and can make your skin creep just by looking at you.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie agreed, “he gets his kicks from making you crawl. There’s nothing turns him on like having a woman afraid of him. And they’re right to be afraid. He has some nasty ways of hurting you and, so long as he doesn’t mark you, or stop you doing business, Bertha lets him do what he likes to us.”

  Lo Lei said nothing, but her shudder was eloquent corroboration of the others’ assessment of Pete’s charms. Madeleine realised that there could be unpleasantness to come, over and above the endless procession of pricks she was going to have pummelling her body and no doubt her other orifices too, over the next week or more.

  “Anyway,” Carol continued, “if you’re here to pay off a debt, you’ll have no time to go out, or anything else, you’ll be too busy trying to earn the cash to get you out of here, and Bertha will see that you do.”

  As she was digesting this cheerless prospect, Bertha reappeared.

  “Nearly twelve,” she announced, “and the punters will be starting any time now. Get yourself a few less clothes, so the dog can see the rabbit.”

  With a feeling of degradation at her position, she stripped down to a satin ‘body’ and high heeled pumps.

  “Very tasty,” said Maggie, “the customers will go for that, but you want a bit more make-up.” Madeleine sat submissively as her face was attended to with bright lipstick and eye liner. Feeling the complete whore now, she sat with the others, listlessly turning a fashion magazine she had read three months ago, and awaiting her first customer.

  Within minutes the lunchtime punters started to arrive. With flashing thighs and bouncing boobs, Maggie and Carol quickly hooked a fish each. A reserved younger man had come especially to make use of Lo Lei and went off with her to her room. By the time that the next two punters arrived, Carol and Maggie had expeditiously drained their first prizes and swept in to bear off their second courses. Distasteful though it was, Madeleine realised she would never pay off her debt if she didn’t make an effort to entice some customers herself. After all, what was the point in being reticent when, by the time she got out of here she was going to have been screwed by over a hundred assorted males in every conceivable fashion? There was no room for self respect in a brothel, and she cast it aside and began to put her self about a bit. She unbuttoned the crotch of the ‘body’ to allow a glimpse of her glossy thicket, and slipped one shoulder strap down until a pink nipple jutted over the top. Within minutes she was leading a large and perspiring middle aged man to her place of work for the next week or so, her bed.

  It was no great deal. She quickly got his pants off and a rubber on, her ‘body’ up to her waist, and his body up to the hilt in hers. It was over in seconds, he was obviously too excited by a woman of her quality to last longer, and it would have been no sweat if it hadn’t been for Madame R’s diabolic douche. As it was even this short pounding of her scalded pussy was painful in the extreme, and she shuddered as she realised how a day of abrasion from coarse male pubic hair, and bludgeoning by uncaring bodies, was going to leave her a
lready sore vulva. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but she gritted her teeth, wiped herself off with a towel, and put the ‘johnny’ in the jar, as directed, before going back to the lounge to swing a bare boob at the next susceptible client.

  Soon things became so busy she didn’t have to swallow her pride and compete for custom. As each client pulled up his zip and left, she picked up the phone and said, “Next!” while rubbing some KY jelly between her labia to soothe her throbbing slit, and ease the entry of the next brute male.

  By the time the mid day rush had subsided, she’d clocked up eight in just over two hours. A good start, she thought, considering the first twenty minutes she’d sat like a dummy, and let the other girls snap up all the trade, but her complacency was soon shattered.

  “You’re going to have to buck your ideas up if you want to make the grade here,” Bertha told her, when she came into the room during the afternoon respite, “I’ve had to give three of your lot a refund, so you’ve only earned a hundred over your keep so far. They said you showed about as much enthusiasm as a wet lettuce, and kept trying to get their weight off you, instead of pushing yourself onto their pricks.”

  “You know very well my cunt’s sore. I can’t bear it when they just bang into me without thinking.”

  “You can’t bear it! You damn well have to bear it. I don’t care if your cunt’s bleeding, you’re going to make it work for its living, or I’ll make you sorry. I know Madame doesn’t want your arse marked, but there’s plenty of ways of making a girl feel sorry for herself without beating her bottom, as you’ll very soon find out if you don’t get your act together.” And with that Bertha rolled her puce covered bulk out the door, leaving her threats behind for Madeleine to think on.

  Those thoughts were far from happy. She hadn’t thought it was going to be easy, but now the immediate future looked bleak indeed. All she’d got for a hard afternoon grind on her working bed, was a bruised and sore body, worse than Madame had left it, a miserable hundred towards her debt and sundry unspecified, but none the less very real, threats from Bertha, to say nothing about the blow to her pride. Three of her customers rated her pretty low, even as a whore. Oh, and eight ‘johnnies’ in a jar.

  When the early evening customers began to arrive, she set about attracting them with flagrant and degrading use of her body and when she had them safely in her room, put herself out to give them satisfaction, thrusting up her hips to meet their brutal lunges, squeezing with her vaginal muscles to bring them off as quickly as possible, while making them think she was reacting with passion to their unwelcome penetrations. All the while she tried to conceal the fact that she was gritting her teeth to try and absorb the pain they were causing her, and hoping they would be so naive as to mistake her groans of anguish for moans of pleasure.

  It came as a welcome relief when two of her ten customers that first night wanted to use her mouth, at least it meant her scalded labia spent a grateful quarter hour without the torture of being pounded by a wiry haired pubic bush. Not so welcome, the pair who arrived late in the evening. Bertha herself showed them in.

  “Two for the price of one,” she announced, “and mind you look after these two properly. Anything they want they get, or I’ll see you afterwards.”

  What they wanted, among other things, was buggery. They used her mouth in turn, each holding her cruelly by a fist wound in her hair, while his fellow plugged her from behind. They rammed themselves in dry. It was excruciating, and as the tearing penises thrust, unlubricated, through her stretched sphincter, she screamed around the other member stuffing her mouth, writhing on the bed where they’d placed her on her hands and knees, seeking vainly to shake off the atrocious assault on her anus. They let themselves out, leaving her collapsed and sobbing. A minute or two later, Bertha came back.

  “You’ll get nothing for those two,” she said, “in fact, I’m fining you two tricks for that little tantrum, Miss, plus a taste of strap. Hold out your hand.”

  It was no good arguing with Bertha in this mood. Miserably she held out her left hand, palm upwards. Bertha hefted the thick oily strap she held. It was eighteen inches long, an inch and a half wide and getting on for a quarter of an inch thick. The leather was heavy and hard, but made flexible by saddle soap and elbow grease. The thought crossed her mind that the regular residents of Bertha’s establishment might well be set to nourish and polish this black snake as an exercise in discipline, and a warning of punishments to come.

  The thought crossed her mind, but did not stay, being driven out by the impact of the first atrocious blow. It smacked across her tender palm, bruising the soft flesh and sending a shock of pain up her arm. Her hand was knocked down by the force of the impact, and she grabbed it with her right, clasping them both to her chest, as if to give them comfort from the soft pillows of her breasts.

  “Get it out,” grated Bertha, “and keep it there until I’ve finished with you, or you’ll be sorry.”

  She was sorry now, but could believe that Bertha could make her even sorrier, if she failed to obey. Trembling all over with the effort of will required to face that awful strap again, she extended her left palm, now fiery red and throbbing, and again Bertha savaged it with her strap. “Now the right,” she commanded, as the smack of leather and gasp of pain registered the second welting of the left hand.

  Again the superhuman effort required to obey, and two more blows of the strap were rewarded with grunts and gasps, and the right hand was reduced to the same bruised condition. As Madeleine stood moaning softly, her hands thrust under her armpits, Bertha addressed her again.

  “Do you think that was a suitable punishment for your fault?” she asked. Madeleine nodded miserably, not wishing to appear to disagree and thus risk further strap.

  “Well, you’re wrong, my girl,” Bertha informed her, “that was no punishment, that was just a small demonstration of what the strap can do, so that you can think about it for a couple of days. I can’t afford to have you out of action tonight and Saturday, they’re our busiest days, but come Sunday, you’ll spread your legs and get the strap on your cunt as an encouragement for the others. They’ll work all the better for seeing what this little number does for a woman’s working parts.” With that she left the room. Two minutes later the next man came in, demanding attention. She used her sore and stiffening hands to get his penis out and fix the rubber.

  Later, much later, she crawled into the same bed on which she’d serviced so many piggish men. There were sixteen ‘johnnies’ in the jar, and the equivalent wear and tear in her vagina but, thanks to Bertha’s creative accountancy, she was only credited with nine scored. Despite her bruised body and aching hands, she was so exhausted she fell asleep at once.

  Morning brought Maggie with a mug of tea. A strange young woman, part in need of companionship, part jealous of Madelaine’s maturity and looks, she perched on the wash basin and peed, carrying on a desultory conversation as a copious golden stream flooded the basin.

  “God, I needed that,” she said, wiping between her legs with the hem of her slip, “that fat cow, Carol, is hogging the bathroom, soaking in the tub and using up all the hot water. And she kept me awake all night, snoring like a pig. The doors between the rooms are paper thin. I can hear her wanking most nights, too.”

  Madeleine had noticed the communicating doors, and was curious. “Do all the rooms go into the next?” she asked.

  “Well, they come in pairs. You’re lucky, you’ve got no-one next door right now. I have to put up with Carol’s noise, and Lo Lei is next to Bertha. Madam arranged that little ploy so that she can call her in at night to lick her fat cunt. At least Carol and I don’t have to do that, but I’m sorry for Lo Lei, she’s quite nice really, even if she’s a bit sly.”

  “So what happens at the weekend, then?” Madeleine enquired.

  “Sundays we get most of the day off, but today we’re lucky to be left alone up to mid-day. You need to get yourself loose on a Saturday, it gets real busy round here especia
lly if there’s a couple of clubs playing at home, like they are today. There’ll be some can’t wait to get their rocks off before the match, and a lot more after, and all lousy with beer, and stinking of Tandoori. There’s sure to be a mad rush around ten or eleven as the lads from the North want to get laid in a hurry, before they have to catch the coaches home.”

  Madeleine registered astonishment. “Football fans!” she said, incredulously, “I didn’t think Bertha took any one like that. I thought she only took men with money in their pockets.”

  “Oh, they have to have money, but otherwise she’s not fussy. After all,” said Maggie bitterly, “she doesn’t have to service the drunken bastards, does she? It’s we poor suckers have to take the abuse, not to mention the shit and the vomit. Actually,” she went on, “they don’t even have to have cash, Bertha takes credit cards. You know, all major cards accepted, just like Harrods.”

  “Credit cards in a brothel! You’re pulling my leg.”

  “God’s truth, I promise you. She has this caff called the Friar Tuck, and she puts them down as dinners and business lunches.”

  “Friar Tuck!” Madeleine found she seemed to be repeating everything Maggie said just now, “What sort of a name is that?”

  “Very appropriate, actually.” Maggie replied, “try swapping the first letters. It’s a dump really, but the turnover is something quite amazing. I think she uses it for tax purposes to account for all the cash she puts in the bank, and give her some sort of legitimate source of income.”

  So that was it then, she was working for a greasy spoon. And now she could look forward to a mass of drunken, foul mouthed football fans, pawing her over and vomiting over her, if not worse.

  Before those delights though, she had a visitor. Without knocking, the ‘bouncer’, Pete, pushed open the door and walked in as she was standing at the basin washing, a genuine ‘whore’s bath’ as she observed to herself, wryly.