The hour sped by and almost before I realized it I was going down the long stairway which led to the outer offices and freedom.
My benefactress was waiting in the superintendent's office and greeted me with a motherly embrace in keeping with our reserved relationship. The superintendent conducted us to the outer door and as it closed behind us I paused to glance back, hardly able to believe that my freedom was an actual fact. As I did so, Madame Lafronde shook my arm.
"Come on, girl! This damn place gives me the willies!" she exclaimed as she hurried me down the steps to the street. She signalled a taxi and within a few moments the institution which had been my home for nearly three years receded in the distance and became at last only a disagreeable memory.
Within the taxi, Madame Lafronde relaxed, and leaning back against the cushions she extracted a packet of cigarettes from her purse. After proffering me a cigarette which, unaccustomed to their use, I declined, she lit one and puffed away abstractedly.
The taxi, in accordance with her indications, after travelling a dozen blocks, slowed up and came to a stop. But we had not reached our ultimate destination. A few steps away, waiting near the curb, was a large black limousine. As we approached it on foot, a chauffeur sprang out and opened the rear compartment and to my surprise and delight, Hester stepped out and flung her arms about me. She was beautifully gowned and her face was radiant with sincere joy at seeing me. I had always thought Hester pretty, but I was hardly prepared for the change a splendid wardrobe wrought in her appearance.
We did not tarry long and soon, ensconced in the luxurious privacy of the big car, were again winding rapidly through the streets, Hester and I babbling excitedly while Lafronde placidly blew long streamers of smoke through her nostrils, interrupting us occasionally with some questions or observation.
"Let's see your legs, my dear."
I giggled nervously as she coolly raised my skirts and eyed my legs appraisingly.
"Um-m, very good, my dear, very nice legs, indeed. I was afraid Hester might have exaggerated a little… and how about your bubbies, let's see what they're like…" and an inquisitive and bejewelled hand passed over my chest and after a brief exploration was withdrawn. "Ah, yes; very nice legs and very nice bubbles. A fortune in them, my dear, if you are wise."
The ride ended before the portals of a large brownstone mansion in a quiet street and shortly thereafter I was ushered into my new home. It was a place of quiet elegance, soft plush carpets and tapestried walls. I gazed about in wonder. There was nothing visible to the eye to mark these circumspectly luxurious premises as an atelier of prostitution, but I was soon to learn that things are not always as they seem, and that within these sedate walls dramas of licentiousness such as I had never seen were of nightly occurrence.
And thus did I cross the threshold of a new life, and the doors of the past closed behind me.
CHAPTER 5
A small but furnished alcove with a tiled bath in connection was waiting for me, and after I had examined it Madame Lafronde left Hester and me together, saying that she would have a talk with me later in the afternoon.
A maid appeared with a luncheon tray and as I ate, plying Hester with questions between bites, I learned that Madame Lafronde's "family comprised eight other girls in addition to Hester and myself. I would meet them later; they did not get up until after twelve, which accounted for the silence and absence of movement I had already noted.
When Madame Lafronde returned, her first request was that I strip myself entirely so that she could examine my body. I did so with some embarrassment, for though I had often enough exposed myself to boys and men, the impersonal, appraising eyes of this strange old lady filled me with a nervous dread that I might be found wanting in some essential.
I was small of stature and feared that the absence of clothing might accentuate the possible defect. However, to my vast relief, she gave every evidence of satisfaction and nodded her head approvingly as I turned around and around in obedience to her indications. When I had replaced my clothing she shot question after question at me, until every phase of my early and subsequent sexual life had been revealed.
To her questions I endeavoured to give frank and truthful answers, regardless of the embarrassment which some of them evoked.
"Now, my dear," she said, when the interrogating had been concluded,
"I want you to know that we're all one big, happy family here. There must be no jealousy or friction or petty animosities between girls. Our gentlemen are very nice, but men are men, and a pretty, new face always distracts their attention from older ones. I have a plan in mind which fits you as though you were made for it. If you handle it rightly you'll be helping the other girls as well as yourself, and instead of being jealous of you they'll all have reason to be grateful. We're all here to make money and as it must come from the gentlemen our aim is to get them to spend it and then come back and spend some more.
Never forget that."
And Madame Lafronde explained the unique role I was to play, a role which to a more mature mind than mine would have at once revealed the astuteness and subtlety of the guiding genius behind this lucrative business and which accounted for its success, measured in terms of gold. Madame Lafronde was nobody's fool.
In brief, she proposed to dangle my youthful prettiness before the jaded eves of the clientele as a sort of visual aperitif, much as water was placed before the thirsting Tantalus, in view, but just beyond reach, the psychological effect of which would be to so whet their passions that they would in the end, perforce, satisfy themselves with such feminine fruit as was within their reach.
I was to tantalize masculine passion while leaving to others the duty of satisfying them. This with respect to the regular "parlour clientele.
Exceptions would be made privately with certain special patrons who were always able and disposed to pay well for favouritism.
Things were not as they had been before the war, explained Madame Lafronde. Even this profitable business had suffered from the falling economic barometer, and too many of the gentlemen who dropped in were inclined to pass the evening sociably in the parlour. Of course, between liquors consumed, tips to the girls, and various other sources of minor revenues, their presence was desirable, but the real profits of the business were garnered in the bedrooms, not in the parlour. It was a case of a bird in a bedroom being worth five in the parlour.
As a sort of stimulant designed to inspire blase gentlemen with an irresistible urge to make use of the bedroom service, I was to be rigged up in an enticingly juvenile fashion and paraded constantly before their eyes in a semi-nude state. Various pretexts and artifices would ostensibly account for my presence and movements. I would carry a tray of cigars and cigarettes, serve drinks, and be available for general services and accommodations with but one single exception. I would joke and chat with patrons, tell a naughty story now and then, even permit them to fondle me within certain limits, but, because of my youth (I was to be only fifteen years old!) my services were not to be expected in a professional capacity.
I gasped at hearing that I was to play the part of a fifteen-year-old, but Madame Lafronde insisted that it would not be difficult in view of my small body and the fact that certain artifices in costume, hairdressing and other details would be employed to help out the illusion.
The first step was to call in a barber who trimmed my hair so that it hung just below my ears. It was naturally wavy, and when the work was finished it was quite apparent that Madame Lafronde had not erred in assuming that short curls would lend a peculiarly childish effect to my face. I gazed in the mirror with genuine surprise at the transfiguration.