Grushenka had roused her anger, and she'd know when it was time to stop. The girl customer looked on, highly amused. While she still laughed about the business of wetting the carpet, a gleam of perverted passion glowed in her eyes and a feeling of satisfaction crept through her loins. “Oh, if father would only buy some serf girls,” she thought, “I'd beat them myself-but with a good leather whip, not with a wet towel.” She herself had felt the switch and the strap not so many years ago when her father was still poor and she was the hired maid of a rich market woman. And how often the leather whip had cut her young breasts! In recollection, she caressed her full breasts with both hands, reassuring herself that those times were over forever.
Meanwhile Madame Brenna had finished her job and had motioned her customer out of the cabinet and into a tub. Grushenka let herself fall from the chair, and, lying on her stomach, felt her sore buttocks With careful fingers. This indulgence, however, was short lived. Madame Brenna soon was back again and made her clean up the room. Taking her roughly by the arm, she dried her face with a handkerchief and tied up her ruffled hair. “Not another sob,” she said, “Or I'll start again. Pull yourself together and go after your work. You see,” she added maliciously, “that's what comes of getting the biggest man in the neighborhood to squeeze it into you; you can't even hold your water.” Grushenka subdued her sobs. Under Madame Brenna's orders, she carried hot water for re-filling the tubs, she cleaned out a tub and so on. While Grushenka's back hung heavy with pain, she was given no time to sulk and mope. Furthermore, she soon had to take care of a customer of another kind. A middle-aged woman of a motherly type selected her; a woman with kind eyes and ruddy complexion, more stout than fat, more big than tall. While she undressed her, Grushenka admired her firm flesh, her large hard breasts, her muscular legs. The woman stroked Grushenka's head, called her all kinds of sweet names, complimented her on her lovely features and body and did not seem the least bit jealous of her beauty. After she was naked, she asked Grushenka to wash her love nest. When this was duly done she said, “Now, my sweet darling, please be a dear and wash me there again, only this time, use your own sweet tongue. You see, my old man hasn't touched me in over five years. I don't know whether he could find his way anymore, if he wanted to, and I can't help craving some excitement. You see, every so often it tickles me down there and so I come here once a week to have my little hot-house regaled with the apt play of a tongue like yours. And remember, I enjoy it most when a girl is willing and beautiful as you are.” With this, she moved Grushenka's head, carefully and with caresses, between her big thighs.
Grushenka started the job. She had plenty of operating field before her. The woman spread her big legs wide open; the small part of the belly, both sides of the cleft, the over-developed Venus Hill received soft kisses and slow ticklings with the tongue while Grushenka's well-formed hands gently took hold of the buttocks.
Grushenka took the. large, long lips of the grotto in her mouth alternately and caressed them with her lips and tongue, even biting them tenderly. Then she turned her efforts toward the main object, namely the large but juicy fruit of love, which lay, waiting to be devoured. The woman lay still except that her fingers tried to tickle Grushenka's ears, but Grushenka shook them off. When, however, the tongue nipped the limp stem of that great fruit, flicked around it and pressed and massaged it with stronger strokes, the tiny twig began to stand up and take notice. Now the woman changed her behavior.
She began to heave and to toss with passion, and her sweet words turned into sharp curses. Grushenka could not make out what she whispered so hoarsely, but words like 'take that damned thing away,' or 'you lousy old son-of-a-bitch,' frequently turned up in this randy monologue. When finally she reached her climax, the woman closed her strong legs behind Grushenka's head, drawing her so tightly towards her as to almost suffocate the poor girl. Releasing her, she sat up on the table, scratched her fat belly thoughtfully and muttered more to herself than to Grushenka: “It's a shame for an old woman and a mother of a grown up daughter- but what can you do?” Soon she sat in her tub, a respectable elderly woman with kind looks and refined behavior. Grushenka received a good tip from her.
Grushenka soon was greeted with many sarcastic remarks from the other customers and girls wherever she passed. Her first patroness had told the story of her making water on the floor and all the women considered it a huge joke. This same patroness annoyed and vexed her again when she was through with her bath. After she had been dried-an operation during which she found many faults with Grushenka and during which she pinched her with her sharp fingernails under the arms and in the sensitive flesh of the breasts (of which she was jealous)-she had another one of her striking ideas. “You little brat!” she snapped at Grushenka. “Do you know what you are good for! As a chamber pot!
Come, sit down on the floor and I will make water in your mouth.”
Grushenka did not obey. She brought a chamber pot from the corner and put it down. The girl clutched Grushenka's hair around the Venus' Hill and, raising her right hand, threatened to hit her.
But Grushenka remained firm, “I shall yell for Madame Brenna,” she said, and stood her ground. The girl wavered. “What else do you do all day long,” she retorted, “but wash out women with that fat, insolent tongue of yours? Why should you, you of all people, refuse to drink a little water?” Grushenka struggled free and went to the other side of the massage table. “I believe, Mademoiselle,” she said, “that another girl can serve you better than I can. May I call another one?” The girl shrugged her shoulders. “No! No!” she muttered, and had herself dressed without another word. Ready to go, she took a ruble's worth of coins out of her purse. Grushenka reached for them, but the girl had decided to give them to her in another manner.
“Wait,” she said. “Lie down on the table and open up. I'll put them inside you as a cork to stop the leak.” Grushenka did as she was told, hoping thus to get rid of her tormentor more quickly. She held her orifice open as wide as possible so as not to get hurt when the silver was slipped in. The girl, who already had her gloves on, opened the slit with two fingers and for a moment examined this finely made love nest. The lips were rosy and oval, the opening lay deeper than her own and in close neighborhood to the clearly visible back entrance. The sheath seemed narrow, and the tickler, being near the entrance, raised its head freshly. “What a treasure trove,” she thought, “Really, I never would make love to a woman, but this one-” Grushenka moved nervously. Her tender parts lay open to the aggression of this patroness whom one could not trust. The girl slipped the coins in, first the small silver coins, which had a higher value, then the big copper coins worth one or two kopecks. She had quite some fun when these pieces did not go in so easily, while Grushenka trembled anxiously, not hurt, but afraid of what might still come. Finished, the girl slapped Grushenka with her gloved hand over the open orifice. Grushenka jerked her legs together and jumped from the table, while the girl laughingly remarked from the door: “Keep it there and you'll never go broke.” During the many weeks which Grushenka worked in the women's department, she found out that women are crueler and meaner than men. The women had no humor or fun on their minds; they wanted only to be satisfied, utterly, selfishly.
They complained without cause, and, having power over their attendants, they tormented and vexed them without reason and often very unexpectedly. They might be very nice and considerate to Grushenka and all of a sudden pinch her or call for Madame Brenna to punish her. They tipped not half as well as the men did, and called attention to it heavily when they parted with a few kopecks. None of them ever kissed her or made love to her, while many requested that she bring their elderly ticklers to the climax. Grushenka did not mind that. She soon learned to work her tongue over their bodies and their love nests in a routine way, hardly considering what she was doing and faking passion and eagerness when she felt that her patronesses were about to spend. But what got her nervous was that she never knew when Madame Brenna would find fault with her and punish her. The punishments were of all kinds. Madame Brenna would whip her soles with a leather strap when she had not moved with enough alacrity; she would hit her breasts with a switch when a customer complained that she had admired herself in the mirror; she would tie stinging nettles on the inside of Grushenka's thighs or on her bare buttocks when she was tired or drowsy. While none of the women customers made love to her, they always liked to rub their thick fingers in her sheath, not in a friendly and teasing way, but roughly, . as if they wanted to enlarge her wonderfully small passage.