Chapter 9 - A Kept Woman
Lizzie settled in to her new life easily. It was like, even though her body was used in a way she would not otherwise choose, her mind remained hers, alone and untouched. No longer was there unceasing anxiety of how to pay for the tiniest things, a bed or a meal.
There was a communal kitchen used by the girls and the two men who worked on the premises. Madam, a well-kept lady of about fifty, was also a frequent visitor. She appeared almost motherly in the way she approached the running of her establishment, or perhaps like a boarding school mistress. She knew all the girls by name; she would stand for no nonsense. There were no drugs on her premises and while they all shared a drink or two, before or after work, to help get in the mood, there was no all-night bingeing or slovenly behaviour.
She said, “Other places may tolerate this, but I will not.” For those who did not like her way she said there were plenty other establishments they could go to.
She told them to act with pride, it was the world’s oldest profession and one to be proud of; it met the needs of men. Her clients were valued customers who must be provided with a good, honest service.
There were strict rules around the money. While the girls were free to take tips and these were theirs to keep, the fee for service was paid to the Madam or her duty manager in advance. She took her share, the house took a share, the pimps, who she called ‘house men’, were paid theirs and each week the balance was passed over for the girls to each use how they liked. The house fee covered the food, the drinks and the rooms where they gave the service.
She insisted that there be no favourites, all the girls could have their regular customers, but they must also take an equal share of the new ones and, while they could go with the house men when they chose, this was not to be exclusive or take away from their availability to their clients.
Most of the girls were young, not much older than Rebecca, a few were older. Some had their own rooms here, others lived away, but they all would often gather for a meal and a chat.
They were all required to take off at least one night each week, and they could choose which other nights they worked, as agreed with Madam, and written in a book.
All were required to use contraception, previously it had been limited to condoms and diaphragms, but now this new pill was available, they were encouraged, but not forced, to use this. Madam called it personal responsibility. Lizzie chose to take the pill, but insisted her customers also wore a condom.
They all had a health check each week, done by another experienced person here, and they needed to tell Madam at once if they thought they had caught anything. She also made them all pay a regular visit to the doctor, whose visits she arranged each month. It seemed remarkably orderly and far from Lizzie’s image of a seedy brothel. She knew she was lucky; there were many places that were not so good.
Rebecca, who she now called Becky, and she were like sisters, she was another Julie, someone who could be a friend for life. Rebecca had told her some stories of her early life, her father had also died young, but her mother had taken up with another man who she did not like and who had tried to molest her when her mother was not looking.
They both really liked Robbie and spent regular time with him, but it was not a jealous relationship, even though secretly Lizzie could feel herself a smitten by him, but they all knew the rules; kindness, affection but not exclusive love in this house. Those wanting that must move on.
One Monday night, a quiet night which both Lizzie and Robbie had off, she had spent a full night with him. It was really lovely, mostly they just talked, slept and cuddled together, with little Catherine lying in the corner in her pram.
She gathered her courage and told him about the night when she was raped, a thing no-one else except Julie had been told by her, not even Becky. She could feel anger in him about it. When she finished the telling he held her close, stroked her hair and said bad things happen in life and afterwards people have to move on with their lives like she was doing. She felt better and less bitter for his knowing; his strength was hers.
He told about his life before here, he had been a soldier in Korea, and watched two mates get blown apart. At first he had a death wish, wanting to kill all of them. But, as the months went by, he came to understand that he must not feed this hatred. It was a cancer; killing begetting more killing. Then he knew then he did not want to kill people anymore. So, as soon as a chance came, he demobbed.
He had come back to his home in Melbourne, but after life in the army he found it hard to settle into civilian life and do a regular job in some city firm, he needed life on the edge. He had stumbled into this work. He had always liked and enjoyed women, both their company and their pleasures. He loved all the girls and tried to give to them equally but, he had to admit, he had some special favourites, like her and Becky, even if he tried not to let it show.
In the small hours, when the only sound they could hear was each other’s breathing, they made love with great tenderness; it was as if they were lost together in a place beyond all known worlds.
As they lay together, after, she asked Robbie if he had ever been in love with only one special woman, so that all he wanted to do was to be with that person.
Robbie told her that before he went to fight there had been a girl like that; he would not say her name. For all those months away fighting he had stayed true and imagined she was too. He had stayed in the barracks and remembered her and desired only her when his friends asked him to come with them when they went with other women. But when he came back from his first tour of duty he found she was with another man. Then he realised he was not special to her the way he had thought. So from then on he had taken his pleasures where they came, and enjoyed many women. But, each time, a part of him was kept, held back, lest he give himself too fully to another and not have it returned.
Then he said something which made Lizzie feel very special, “When I am with you, there is nobody else. That part of me, the part that stayed back before, it is not there anymore. All of me is lost in these moments with you.”
Lizzie said in return, “I have not been with anyone else that I cared for so I cannot judge, but when I am here with you everything else stops being real, there is only here and now, and I never want it to end. I cannot imagine feeling way that with someone else.”
At the end of their night Lizzie told him that if she ever had another baby she would like the father to be a person just like him, she was so glad he had been her first man after that awful night.
He replied, “If I become a father, I want someone just like you to be the mother.”
Secretly she just wanted to go away with him, for them to have a life where it was just the two of them, and from these words she knew a part of him would have liked that too. But it was not to be, at least not in this time and place.
One day she visited Sylvia, Evie’s old friend, to ask where Evie was buried. Sylvia walked with her to show her the grave. Sylvia said it was a disgrace; this man who had got all Evie’s money had not even paid for a decent funeral or a proper headstone. A tiny plaque lay on the ground, with a few dead flowers that Sylvia and other friends had brought.
Lizzie found the undertaker and gave him one hundred pounds of her money to make a proper headstone from white marble. She would have done more but that was the limit of her spare money just then; perhaps she could do more when she had more.
A month went by; Lizzie felt that, once again, that she had found a new home. It was like she had felt with dear Evie. She had taken the name Luscious Lizzie, as her working name and now she had a regular following of repeat customers who booked her at least once a week.
She did not think much about what she did, her work; it was just an act that her body went through. When it was done, at the end of each night she showered and washed herself, this was now also part of her act, symbolically washing these memories away.
Catherine was now smiling at her when she woke up. Each night,
once she was finished, she would wake her baby to enjoy a bright smile and give her lots of kisses. Sometimes, when she smiled at her, Catherine chortled with delight.
She now had three hundred pounds saved away and felt rich; others spent their money on clothes and finery, she spent only what she needed and saved the rest; the memory of her poverty was still too close to be wasteful and rely on good fortune.