"Well," I commented, "I'll say it gave me a stand I wasn't expecting."
She giggled, tucked the covers around me, kissed me on the cheek, and turned out the lights.
"Sleep tight, honey. I'll wake you in the afternoon."
She departed, leaving me alone to drowsily review the stupendous transition which twenty-four hours had wrought in my life. Last night, a hard, narrow cot in the drab and comfortless ward of a reformatory.
Tonight, the soft luxury of a beautiful bed with the seductive caress of silk and fine linen about my body and all around me the material evidences of a life of ease, gaiety, and luxury. Gradually my thoughts became hazy and I drifted off into a pleasant, dreamless slumber from which I did not awaken until nine or ten hours later.
CHAPTER 6
A week slipped by quickly, each night a pleasant repetition, without any notable variations, of the one I have described. This was time enough to assure Madame Lafronde that the experiment was a success.
The continued approval with which my semi-nude appearance was received by patrons, together with certain other indications, was proof that I really constituted an attraction which was imparting a new popularity to the resort.
But it was not Madame Lafronde's intention to limit my activities to exhibitional purposes. She was already being importuned by gentlemen whose interest in me was not to be resigned to mere optical satisfaction and the subtle old procuress was but biding the time necessary for these gentlemen's inflamed fancies to get the best of their financial perspectives. I was being reserved for the sensual delectation of a half-dozen or so of her most exacting and best-paying customers.
To the rest, including the general run of parlour guests, I was to remain only a visual aphrodisiac.
Into the ample pockets of my brocade jacket these more or less credulous victims of my enticements and beguilings poured their silver, eagerly taking advantage of such opportunities as I permitted them to fondle me tentatively or superficially, bought my cigars and cigarettes, tipped me generously for every trifling service, sighed, and generally visited a bedroom with one of my companions where, doubtless, evoking visions of my naked legs and other presumed charms, they ravished me by proxy.
Of the patrons I subsequently served in a more intimate fashion, five developed into "steadies," that is, became exclusively mine, and came with more or less regularity. A sixth, no other than the gentlemanly Mr.
Hayden, kept his promise to Hester and either by virtue of genuine affection for her or actuated by a kindly sentiment to avoid wounded feelings, insisted upon having both of us with him at the same time and maintained an attitude of strict impartiality.
I think Hester's generous spirit would not have resented a surrender of her priority to me, but though Mr. Hayden was one of the nicest men I ever met, I was glad that his instincts of gallantry saved me from being placed in the light of having distracted his attention from one who was beyond doubt my best and sincerest friend. I have never found another such.
Patrons like Mr. Hayden, unfortunately always in a minority, were the bright and redeeming features of a life otherwise vicious and degrading. They were the ones who, regardless of a girl's lost social status, always treated her with respectful consideration. Generous in recompensing the efforts which were made to please them, they never exacted arduous or debasing services, nor were they addicted to unnatural vices which went beyond the pale of those sexual practices ordinarily considered acceptable and legitimate.
To my lot fell the patronage of a Mr. Heeley, a gentleman of this desirable category though with the minor disadvantage of being much older and less attractive physically than Mr. Hayden. There was a Mr.
Thomas, middle-aged and wealthy, who had garnered his fortune in Ceylon and who always had some interesting story to tell. There was Mr. Castle and Mr. Wainwright, both of whom were addicted to eccentricities of a peculiar and disagreeable nature. At first I protested to Madame Lafronde that these two gentlemen were personages non grata with me and insinuated that I would not be loathe to dispense with their attentions. It was unequivocally impressed upon me that my inclinations were quite secondary to those of wealthy patrons. "Do whatever they want within the limits of endurance. Satisfy their whims, fancies, even their aberrations if possible as long as they are willing to pay accordingly. Humour them, please them, get the money and keep them coming back as long as you can!" This was the unwritten law in the world of prostitution.
Mr. Hayden was, I think, about thirty years old. I could easily have become really infatuated with this pleasant-spoken, educated, and cultured gentleman. We never knew exactly who he was with reference to his place in the outside world, nor even indeed that his name was really Hayden, for it was not unusual that gentlemen frequenting such places of entertainment as that provided by Madame Lafronde prudently concealed their identities under fictitious names.
Nevertheless, there was no doubt that he was of the real gentility.
I liked him very much and I think the affection was reciprocated to an even greater extent than was ever manifested, but he was of that conscientious, kind-hearted type, disposed to go out of the way even at personal inconvenience to avoid causing pain to others and he knew that Hester adored him.
To Mr. Hayden fell the honour, if such it might be styled, of initiating me into the real service of which I was now a recruit. My absence from the salon accounted for the numerous inquiries with the old alibi "a bad time of the month, don't you know." Hester and I and Mr. Hayden enjoyed a little dinner by ourselves and thereafter repaired to Hester's room, where we disported ourselves light-heartedly for an hour, romping and tumbling over the bed in good-natured abandon as the wine we had imbibed warmed our blood and attuned our receptive senses to lecherous ideas.
Mr. Hayden was a healthy, vigorous young man, a splendid example of physical perfection. The sight of his clean-cut, well-kept body, and the magnificently rigid and well-formed member which was disclosed when he undressed sent the blood surging through my veins. I did not know by what procedure he intended to make use of two women at the same time, but imagined that he would probably take us in turn, maybe changing from one to the other at intervals.
I waited expectantly for Hester to take the initiative. Inside, I was fairly burning up. Though I had bathed most carefully but a short while before, my cunny was wet with anticipation, my clitoris swollen and pulsing. In excuse of this ardour was the fact that I had not been with a man for three long years and during this sterile period there had been no outlet for my passions except the one provided by my own nimble fingers, an occasional wet dream and, as I have related, the orgasm effected by Hester's so-called massage.
We lay down on the bed on either side of our male companion, Hester and I both naked except for our slips, hose and shoes, which we intended to leave on until done with our play and ready for sleep. Mr.
Hayden caressed us impartially for awhile, passing his hands over our breasts, fingering the nipples until they stood up stiffly, and finally a hand drifted down over each of the two cunnies. The contact of his warm hand as it lay over mine with one of the fingers pressed lightly within the cleft produced in me an effect which was almost sufficient to put my orgiastic mechanism into immediate action. I literally had to "clench" my nerves and strain my willpower to keep from coming. Had he let his finger linger there a bit longer, or had he imparted the slightest friction, my efforts to restrain orgasm would have failed then and there.
But he removed it after a short interval without apparently having observed my delicate condition, and straightening out on his back he drew Hester across his body where, by urging her forward bit by bit, he eventually got her straddled across his chest with her knees doubled beneath her on either side of him. Her dark auburn curls were right at his chin and it required no great imagination to divine that her cunny was going to be licked French fashion.