Celeste

by Roland Perry

  ‘I apologise,’ she said, shaking hands with Céleste, ‘Denise is called “Narelle” at work.’

  The madam paused, chuckled mirthlessly and added, ‘Also, you’re stunning and I don’t wish Denise to run away with you. She’s one of my best girls.’ The madam waved her hand at Fanny. ‘Find Narelle and bring her to me.’

  The madam eyed Céleste up and down. Her expression lightened a fraction.

  ‘How old are you, my dear?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Have you registered?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I think you should leave.’ The madam sighed. By doing this she was covering herself if Céleste was a police plant. Other brothels had been caught this way when police paid young girls to help expose the use of underage, unregistered prostitutes.

  Denise appeared wearing a pink satin dressing gown, filled with swansdown, and a transparent white shirt. As she opened her arms in delight to see Céleste, her gown fell open to reveal a petticoat embroidered in pink to cover her private parts. Denise hugged and kissed Céleste, happy to embrace her friend for the first time in a year.

  Pointing to her gold slippers, Denise said with exuberance, ‘The luxury surprises you, doesn’t it? Stay with me here and you’ll have it, too. I’ve never been happier. You’ll feel like a princess here.’

  Denise then explained the madam’s unwelcoming attitude. She assured Céleste that the madam was most impressed by her and that she wanted her to join the brothel. Céleste was starstruck as Denise led her up four flights of stairs, past a score of wood-panelled doors on each landing and into a bedroom. She was introduced there to three other sex workers. Céleste’s enthusiasm fell away when she saw the reaction on their faces. She realised that they recognised a rival in both beauty and charm. They were all in their late twenties, and off-duty looked a fatigued and forlorn threesome. They were in no mood to be excited over someone who might threaten their livelihood and future. This was a minor jolt for Céleste. Another came quickly when she was told she would have to see the Prefect of Police to register in her chosen trade. It was likely to be the tough but fair Monsieur Regnier again. This meant in turn that she would have to face her mother, who had to consent to this drastic move, which could have lifelong consequences, for it was far, far harder to get off the register than on it. Registering had its hurdles.

  Denise, enraptured to have her former lover close again, gave her more useful advice. ‘You know what Regnier is like. You must show strength as if you’re absolutely certain of your path. You want this life. There can be no turning back. If you express this, he can’t, under the law, stop you from doing what you want. If you show weakness, he’ll throw you back in Saint-Lazare until you see the “error” of your ways. Once you show that toughness, it only needs your mother to agree.’ Denise paused and stared at Céleste. ‘And she will agree. She long ago made her choice—for Vincent over you. You know she wants to see the back of you.’

  Céleste wrote to her mother, asking her to come to the prefecture’s office. Two days later Anne-Victoire appeared, this time at the appointed hour. Céleste had rehearsed the words she wished to say to her mother and delivered them with resolve.

  Despite what had gone before, Anne-Victoire was overwhelmed to learn that her daughter would become a prostitute of her own volition.

  ‘Are you mad, child?!’ Anne-Victoire asked. ‘Have you thought of the misery and infamy you’ll bring on yourself?’

  Céleste hung her head and bit her lip, but said nothing.

  ‘Look, my darling,’ her mother said, touching Céleste’s shoulders solicitously. ‘I know I’ve wronged you, but we can work this out. We can put everything right.’

  ‘No,’ Céleste mumbled and began to cry.

  ‘Come home,’ Anne-Victoire implored, ‘and I swear I shall break with Vincent.’

  Céleste didn’t believe her. ‘No,’ Céleste said again. ‘It’s too late.’

  Céleste was then taken alone before Monsieur Regnier. Again she had to summon strength. She looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I wish to be registered.’

  ‘What? Do you know what you’re saying? I have a good mind to send you back to prison.’

  ‘As you wish, Monsieur,’ Céleste said boldly, ‘but when I come out I shall come back again to ask you to have me registered.’

  ‘Has your mother agreed to this?’ Monsieur Regnier asked with indignation.

  ‘Yes, she has. She’s in the building. She agrees with this.’

  With that, Regnier turned his back on Céleste and said to an attendant, ‘Take this girl to the Records.’

  In the registration room they wrote down her name, age, physical description, and even her body measurements. Céleste Vénard was now officially a prostitute; a woman who had the right to sell her body for sex under certain circumstances.

  She left the room and joined her mother. Anne-Victoire burst into tears and uttered, ‘May God forgive us!’ She then turned on her heel and walked away without even a kiss for her daughter.

  In that moment, Céleste let go of the tension she had been holding. She felt ‘all my love for my mother rush back. I wanted to run after her.’

  But the madam at Heaven’s Alternative had sent Denise with Céleste to make sure she kept her nerve. Denise witnessed Anne-Victoire waving down a cab, and Céleste hesitating at the front of the prefecture’s office. Denise went to her and put her arm around her.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’ve done,’ Céleste mumbled, near tears.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ Denise asked. ‘Do you want to go home and start all over again with your mother and Vincent? You’d make her unhappy, and yourself, too.’

  They watched as Anne-Victoire entered a cab.

  ‘Let her go,’ Denise urged. ‘You’ll never have to worry about Vincent or his type again!’

  They watched as the cab pulled away. Céleste felt a surge of remorse and guilt, and had to be supported by Denise all the way back to the brothel.

  ‘You’ll soon meet the most impressive gentlemen in all Paris,’ Denise told her. ‘One day you’ll be wealthy enough to have your own apartment . . .’

  These lovely fantasies weren’t enough to console Céleste. To take her mind off her pain, she was given the clothes and other items that would transform her from a struggling girl into a sexual siren. They included a white satin dress and matching shoes, along with a coral necklace.

  To Céleste, the clothes and adornments represented the gateway to a new life and potential riches, away from the poverty, abuse and deprivations of her background, which she despised so much. In reality her glittering new acquisitions were claimed by the madam to be worth 1100 francs, which would represent years of labour at her old employ as an embroiderer, and not much less in her new profession. Her joy would have been wiped away in an instant had she known.

  Céleste had just four francs in her purse.

  CHAPTER 7

  Musset, the Not So Magnificent

  Céleste was disillusioned with her new life within two months. She met several rich men but none wanted to be with her for more than a night of sex. Some were overly vigorous; others impotent or nearly so. Some talked a lot and seemed to need even her, a sixteen-year-old, as a sounding board, a type of amateur psychological counsellor. Still others were laconic and sullen and said little. There were many that wanted stimulation through such things as spanking or masturbation. A large number wanted fellatio and/or cunnilingus. Denise and the madam had to instruct her on how to handle other fetishes with the feet. And while ‘the customer was always right’ and had to be pleased, anal sex could be denied to the client. This caused some anguish here and there. Céleste was revolted by the thought of threesomes and foursomes and the odd orgy. But she noticed that the older working women indulged. She asked Denise why.

  ‘They reach the point where they have to oblige for the money. You should do this,’ Denise advised her with a cynical laugh, ‘because most clients are drun
k when they want it and they can’t get it up anyway. Then we must be sympathetic and jolly them.’

  Again, a lot of the gentlemen were very excited by lesbian acts. Denise talked her into this on occasions because the clients were usually voyeurs rather than participants. Céleste felt comfortable enough for this kind of exhibition. All a performance needed was plenty of fake orgasms, vigorous tongue movements, and lots of screaming ‘Oui! Oui! Oui!’ Strap-on wooden dildo action would rarely be demanded by a client, but when it was, the girls learned how to simulate hard action while not hurting each other. These shows appealed again to Céleste’s thespian tendencies.

  Denise, now eighteen, did not attempt to seduce Céleste as she had at Saint-Lazare for she had fallen in love with a respectable young man named Alex, whom she had met at a dance. She had kept secret her work in the brothel, knowing he would dump her if he knew about it. Céleste was happy for her and somewhat relieved that their past as lovers would be buried. But she was also confused. Denise let slip that she wished she had never been in the brothel now she had a ‘real’ lover. And yet meeting the right gentleman had been the lure for joining Heaven’s Alternative. Denise’s success drove home the complications of achieving any aim to snare a suitable partner.

  This was part of the reason Céleste became bored and depressed by the daily unromantic transactional activity. Unlike Denise, she had not met anyone she remotely fancied. Where were the men of quality? Those who might sweep her off her feet and beg her to marry them? So far, she had had the wrong types, who either fell about her like love-struck puppies or were sophisticated in manner but utterly indifferent. Some wished to impress her with their manhood by waggling it in front of her as if that alone would make her swoon. This soon became tiresome, especially as the girls were instructed by the madam to make approving noises about the men’s equipment, even if some searching was needed to find it in the more hirsute crutches.

  Just as she was beginning to regret the choice she’d made, she was ushered into a salon to meet a thin-faced, delicately handsome, fair-haired and blue-eyed man. Céleste guessed that despite his drawn, sad face, he was probably just thirty, which was accurate. She saw him as ghostly, from his thin, pale cheeks, accentuated by a long, narrow nose, to his feline fingers.

  He was seated on a sofa when she entered. He ignored her at first and rang the bell hard. Denise appeared and he ordered his favourite drink, a mixture of absinthe, cognac, English beer and egg yolk. When Denise left he looked up at Céleste with a hint of contempt and asked where she came from. Céleste was becoming used to this careless and arrogant manner from the supposed gentlemen of the aristocracy. She ignored the question.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ the man said, with more than a hint of a temper. When she refused to respond, he swore at her and repeated his question.

  ‘Do I ask who you are,’ she said, ‘or where you come from?’

  Céleste was defiant, telling him she didn’t have a birth certificate, if he wanted to see one. Denise appeared with his drink and departed. The man looked curiously at Céleste. After a pause he demanded, though not harshly, ‘Stay here, I wish it.’

  But Céleste had had enough. She bustled out and went straight to the madam in her book-lined office to complain, with Denise present. But the madam was phlegmatic, saying that she regarded the man as her best friend. He often stayed for more than a week at a time. The madam smiled knowingly, paused and remarked, ‘That man is one of the greatest men of letters of this century.’

  Céleste was astonished but pretended not to be impressed. ‘Then I’d advise him to write less well and talk better.’

  Denise spoke up, explaining that the man was the outstanding poet and playwright Alfred de Musset.

  ‘Don’t you recall?’ Denise asked. ‘I told you about him and his grand love affair with the novelist George Sand.1 Now he’s in a relationship with the famous actress Rachel.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Sand, the one you’d love to have an affair with. The one who rejected him for their surgeon, and he never really got over it.’

  Denise blushed and nodded.

  ‘That may explain his rudeness to a degree,’ Céleste said, ‘but it doesn’t excuse his behaviour. It’s not my fault that he’s become a woman-hater because of rejection. I pity Rachel.’

  The madam said defensively, ‘He wrote the first modern French dramas.’

  ‘He . . . he seemed somewhat haughty.’

  ‘Both his parents are descended from distinguished families,’ the madam added. ‘His father is an esteemed writer of history and travel.’

  ‘He wrote a poem, Rolla, about a prostitute,’ Denise proffered, ‘and a debauched member of the bourgeoisie.’

  ‘The girl he had in mind was from an elite place,’ the madam said, ‘not a low-class brothel that the poem indicated. You see, the man in the poem is of course him. The girl of whom he writes was one of my employees, here in this place. He was hiding the fact, but not so well.’ The madam paused. ‘His choice of female five years ago when he wrote that poem was uncannily like you, especially your general beauty and your wonderful skin. His choice is now you.’

  ‘But he’s never seen me!’

  ‘Oh he has, I assure you, but he was perhaps too shy to make an advance. Now he wishes to make your acquaintance.’

  They could hear Musset ringing a bell for attention again. It was prolonged and demanding. Eventual wealth, not artistic brilliance, was what Céleste had signed on for as a prostitute. Denise advised her not to go back but she was intrigued to view this ‘great genius’.

  She returned to him; he continued to be obnoxious, saying, ‘In this house everyone obeys me; you will do the same!’

  Céleste was hurt and thought about leaving again when he rang for drinks. She only wanted something ‘soft’, which caused Musset to swear again. This time Fanny brought sugared water for her and the absinthe mixture for him. He filled two glasses with the alcohol, but she shook her head when he offered one to her. When he pressed her to take it, she grabbed the glass and threw the contents in the fireplace.

  ‘Arh! You are disobedient!’ he said, taking her hand and twirling her around. ‘I like that, too!’

  Musset took some gold coins from a jacket pocket and promised them to her if she took the absinthe. She refused a second time.

  ‘What a charming character,’ he said with a laugh. ‘As impervious to fear as to self-interest. Never mind. I like you this way.’

  He invited her to sit next to him on the sofa and to tell him her story. He was patronising, telling her she had been ‘unhappy and persecuted’, just like the others in the brothel. The generalisation may have been true, but Céleste did not appreciate his blasé comment.

  ‘Tell me frankly,’ he said, his arrogance and narcissism continuing. ‘Do you like me?’

  ‘I dislike you intensely,’ Céleste replied.

  ‘Then you’re not like all the others. They’re mad about me, or so they say.’

  She maintained her defiance and said nothing.

  ‘I can’t bear them,’ he added with contempt, ‘but you seem original to me. And I like you.’

  He offered her the gold coins again, saying, ‘You haven’t earned it, but I give it to you.’

  Céleste refused.

  ‘Leave me!’ he ordered as he reached again for the absinthe bottle.

  She made her exit, her self-possession and dignity intact. She was disappointed by the experience. Despite being semi-literate and not knowing Musset’s works, she respected artists, especially playwrights and poets, who created the melodramas she loved so much. But his behaviour and abuse of alcohol upset her. She wondered why such a talent would drink himself into depression and anger, and visit brothels. It was another reality check concerning the complexity of human behaviour, not dissimilar to her mother’s choice of Vincent over her. She was fast understanding that not all matters were black and white, as sometimes depicted on the stage.

  The madam knew that Musset was attra
cted to Céleste, so she urged her to be with him. Céleste said she would not put up with his attitude. She asked how she should deal with it. The madam suggested she be herself, without offending him; she should stand her ground. But the piece of advice that resonated for Céleste was that she would ‘learn much’ from him. Flawed as he was, Musset was of the class and style of men she aspired to infiltrate; and he was in the business of creativity and drama that appealed to her most. She had always been moved by the glitter, romance and inspiration of the theatre.

  So Céleste gave in. Musset’s requirements seemed odd at first. He dressed in a purple satin gown and matching slippers and sat on a chair in his favourite boudoir. He made her stand in front of the half-open curtains at the windows that gave the brothel’s best view of the apartment rooftops in the area. He made himself tipsy, if not drunk, with his beloved absinthe. So far there had been no physical contact. It was as if he were appreciating the sensual view before savouring it. Musset asked her to take off all her clothes, not in a strip as such, but in a steady way, as if he was interested in every hand gesture, every lithe body movement. It was as if he was assessing her through the five senses. He had heard her laugh and speak, occasionally vehemently; he had bought her the most expensive perfume in the Paris stores; he admired her beauty. There was only the senses of taste and touch remaining.

  Musset admired her alabaster skin as if it were a garment, which caused Céleste mixed emotions. She accepted the compliments, but no one had ever been so obsessed about any part of her. Then he touched her arms and neck and face. He was gentle, but it frightened her just a fraction. She did not know where this was going. He stood and touched her breasts. He kissed them gently at first, then he sucked her nipples, still with her standing, motionless. When she went to touch his arms, he put her hands back by her side. Musset sat on the sofa again and examined her pubic hair. He touched it as if he were combing it. Then he leaned forward and pushed his tongue around her vagina. This tickled her. She stifled a laugh, and he half looked up but not completely because he was intent on his new focus. Céleste put her hands on his head, holding on as she stood on tip-toe to avoid the sensation that amused rather than titillated. Musset removed her hands from his head.