by Jana Petken
Jacob turned and made his way to the door, stood there, and watched the girl, the man, and Parker approach. His eyes followed the girl’s every small step. He willed her to look at him; stupid of him, he admitted, for it would lead to nothing. But he needed her to see him.
She walked past him with eyes that stared blindly ahead, and then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mercy climbed the stairs, sandwiched between Parker and the old man whose hands were already grabbing her buttocks. She felt physically sick. She was petrified and finally felt the taste of defeat. She had given advice to Julia, who would be going through her own hell right at this very moment, yet she too was failing in courage and finding it impossible to stop a tear from falling. She wiped it away quickly, afraid of being caught by Parker, who would later report her to Madame du Pont. She was supposed to be smiling and happy at the prospect of pleasuring the vulgar old man who was so close behind her she could hear his panting and smell his putrid breath.
They reached the bedroom, halfway down a long hallway. They entered, and Mercy sat on the bed as ordered. The man reached into his pocket and brought out a large sum of gold sovereigns. Mercy couldn’t see how many he gave to Parker, but she could see from her smiling face that Parker was pleased with the transaction.
“Enjoy, sir. You have a rare beauty and innocence in Mercy. As I told you, she is untouched, but she is very willing to please you and is honoured to lose her flower to a gentleman such as you.” She turned to the bed. “Is that not right, Mercy?”
“Yes, Missus Parker. I will make the gentleman very happy,” Mercy answered her meekly.
“I shall leave you and return in one hour, as arranged. Enjoy her,” Parker said, satisfied by Mercy’s answer.
The old man was not listening to Parker and had already begun to undo his trouser buttons.
Parker walked towards the open door. Before closing it, she threw Mercy a threatening look to remind her of what would happen should she not perform.
Mercy looked around the room and then up at the ceiling. Sparkling candlelit chandeliers spread across it like twinkling stars. Candles in ornate silver candlesticks were dotted around the room, on the walls, and on each bedside table. The entire ensemble of the room screamed passion and romance. Yet, like Julia, she wished she had the courage to kill herself.
Mercy moved farther up the bed and sank her body deeper into the mattress. She could not go through with this, she suddenly knew with a clarity that had been lost to her in all the dark and horrible days since her abduction. The man was forgotten. She was now seeing flashing, moving pictures in her mind’s eye. She was reminded yet again of her walk across London Bridge in her beautiful gown, the dirty rag being pressed over her mouth and nose by Eddie and Sam, the journey, putrid smells, and pain. She pictured Madame du Pont’s gloved finger inside her vagina, her naked body on display in front of so many people, including Sam and Eddie, and the shame of it, as strong now as it had been then.
She shuddered, remembering Sam’s and Eddie’s gleeful faces and their rough hands throwing her onto the floor, holding her there spreadeagled. She relived the endless days of watching the despair that surrounded her and then finally crying with the other girls.
She saw again the young woman’s throat being cut and realised then that she couldn’t even remember the poor girl’s name. Images of blood, screaming, and the callous tossing of the girl’s body onto a wheelbarrow as though she were cow dung were crushing her heart. She thought it might break altogether, yet she was conscious of the old man’s movements at the same time. His breath was quickening. He was fumbling with his trousers at his ankles now, moving as though he were racing against the clock.
She regained her senses, leaving past images behind and focusing on what was going on right now. The old man was stroking his cock and licking his lips, his glazed eyes staring at her with a blank expression. She knew and accepted now that she couldn’t bear it a moment longer, any of it.
She slid off the bed and stood on legs threatening to give way. This was the dreadful reality of her present situation. Stabbing pains in her head and nausea rising like a tidal wave were cursing her body, but her mind was in an even worst state. She looked longingly at the window. They were one floor up. She would gladly throw herself on the hard ground beneath and die with a cracked head rather than allow this old bugger to touch her. She could not allow her body to be used like this by a man who looked almost as old her Grandpa Carver. She couldn’t!
Disgust crossed her face, and she swallowed the bile still rising in her throat. Her eyes were drawn to the man’s flaccid old cock, smaller and uglier than she imagined a cock to be, twisting in and out of the man’s palm and tobacco-stained fingers. She realised that her facial expressions were mirroring her thoughts, something they had been repeatedly warned to hide. She remembered Parker’s words: “This is the first and most important rule. Always appear amenable to and pleasured by the gentleman who is taking you.”
Mercy stood in front of the loathsome man and tried to delay the inevitable. She had to think fast. She smiled but felt her lips trembling with the effort to hide her true thoughts, which she felt must be clearly written on her face. He was repugnant to her, and she was sure he saw her revulsion.
“Would you like a sip of champagne before we begin?” The words rang out at an accelerated pace from her mouth and sounded strange. She’d been trying so hard to mimic the other girls’ posh speech. “It would be such a shame not to drink a toast to our union. Maybe you wouldn’t mind celebrating with me. I am your virgin. You have the honour of breaking me in. It would please me very much. And it looks inviting, does it not?”
He looked at her, not really seeing her, Mercy thought. He was still stroking himself, but his cock was not growing hard, and this was obviously vexing him no end.
She tried again. “Maybe some champagne would relax you. I can give you a massage. Or I could hold your cock for a while and make you want me.”
“Shut up, girl! I don’t give a damn what would please you or not!” he finally shouted impatiently. “I’m not here for small talk or for drink. Get your bloody clothes off; I haven’t got all night. You’re here to please me, not the other way around. There’s a lot more girls downstairs, and I intend to shove my cock into as many of them as I can this night. I don’t have time for the likes of you taking your time about it. You should be ready for me by now.”
“Ready?” Mercy said stupidly.
“Yes, that’s right. Ready. Get your garments off. Strip. Strip fast. I’ll give you the back of my hand if you make me lose my hard-on!”
Mercy stood mesmerised by the way his eyes suddenly glazed over again. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. His hand was moving faster, and his cock was jumping around in his palm. He was cursing. He wasn’t even noticing her. He was moaning, but he was also angry because it wouldn’t get hard, her instincts told her. He was going to take his anger out on her!
She suddenly found her sanity through the power of fear. She began to disrobe by pulling one arm out of a puffed sleeve and then reaching for the other. Her fingers trembled. She continued to tell herself that even though she was doing as he demanded, the slower she undressed, the more time she would have to think about how to get out. She looked at the door. He stood between her and the exit she so craved.
The old man approached her, cock slightly swollen and more solid now. She stared at it and involuntarily took a step backwards. The man moved towards her with angry strides, threw her onto the bed, and ripped the bodice of her dress. He pulled down the top of her corset to release her breasts and nipples, which were now completely visible from top to bottom. “Don’t you dare mock me, bitch,” he sneered at her. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know your teasing little games. You want me for longer to get more money out me for your whore madam.”
With these words, he pounced, one leg on either side of her hips, straddling her like one would a horse. His heavy weight knocked
the air out of her. His hands went to her breasts. He gripped and painfully pulled them towards him. He fondled them, squeezed them, pulling at her nipples until Mercy moaned with pain and humiliation, which spurred him on even more. She looked down at her waist, where his cock rested. It still wasn’t hard. His upper body then leaned towards her until his face was inches from her own. He didn’t kiss her; instead, his head moved again until his mouth reached one of her nipples. She watched him as he sucked it as a baby would a mother’s teat. Then he bit into it. Mercy finally screamed with terror, “Oh God, help me!”
“You like that, girl, don’t you?”
Mercy’s desperation grew, as did the man’s cock. He dismounted and threw her skirts up to cover her face. He tore at the hooped underskirt, and it shimmied down to her ankles. He tossed it over his shoulder and reached for her bloomers. She lay silent and felt his awkward movements as he straddled her once again. She felt his fumbling hands on her upper thighs, attempting to spread them, whilst she tried with all her strength to keep them closed. He was going to enter her!
He slapped her covered head a couple of times and then said, “Bloody fucker, get up for me. Come on; don’t do this to me, you bastard. Get up there!” He let go of her thighs to stroke his cock again. Mercy pulled the crumpled skirt off her face until it lay just below her chin in a bundle of folds. She had endured the horror until now, but her mind was continually screaming, “Enough, enough!” She thought once again of death and the comforting peace it would bring. She twisted her head to the side whilst listening to his loud panting and soft moaning.
For the moment, she was forgotten. She was just a body with a hole to poke and prod; that she knew, but nonetheless she was mystified at the man’s actions, his difficulties, and the ugliness of the sexual act.
She saw the lighted candle sitting in its silver ornately decorated candlestick on the bedside table and concentrated on its light. Suddenly, she stretched out her arm and wrapped her hand around the base. It was heavy.
The old man was concentrating on holding her thighs open, staring at her vagina, and trying to guide himself inside her, still without success. She was not only revolted now but was also filled with hatred and rage. She was possessed by a demon and silently thanked evil for coming to her aid. No more, she thought. No more!
She tightened her grip on the candlestick, the lighted candle shaking precariously atop it. With all her strength, she smashed the object across the side of his face. His head rolled backwards and then forwards. He swayed drunkenly, still straddling her. He seemed disoriented for a second but remained conscious enough to curse her whilst punching her small face.
Mercy’s nose exploded with blood and pain. He put his hand to the open wound on the side of his forehead, and she hit him again, this time catching him just at the centre of his balding hairline. His eyes rolled. He moaned. She smashed the candlestick against his head for the third time, and his body lopped to the side and fell unconscious, head first onto the pillow. He would want to kill her, Mercy thought. She couldn’t stop now.
The candle lay on top of the bedcovers, which were bursting into flames, but the bloodied candlestick was still firmly in her grasp. She sat up and managed to break free of him by unravelling his legs, still straddling her in an awkward position. She clenched the candlestick even tighter and rained it down on his face, her own face receiving the blood splatter coming from his wounds. She was now straddling him, raising and lowering the candlestick, each time hitting him harder and with more rage than the time before. She stopped, out of breath, and for the first time noticing that a fire was spreading from the bedcovers and licking the bottom edges of her dress.
She jumped off the bed and quickly peeled her clothes off until only the corset remained. Instead of trying to put the fire out, she lit the four-poster bed curtains with her gown and then threw the flaming bundle at the window curtains in order to spread it farther. Both sets of curtains ignited. The room was bathed in a bright orange glow.
Mercy was crying with fear, shock, and the knowledge of what she’d just done. She stood in the middle of the room in a blackened and bloodied corset, displaying her full breasts. She tucked them in with trembling hands as best she could and for the first time really looked at the man she’d just murdered. He no longer had a face. His head looked like a fleshy squashed tomato. She had done that. She had bashed his skull in. She had killed this man!
Smoke was filling the room. The flames were growing higher and spreading until she could barely see. Her eyes watered, and she was blinded by smoke and stinging tears coursing down her face. She heard the glass explode in the windows and automatically shielded her face with her arms. Glass shattered into shards. Some hit her, stabbing her bare arms and upper chest as they flew across the room.
She felt no pain. She was a dead woman, no matter what happened now. She would die in this fire or at the end of a rope – or worse, by Madame du Pont’s own hands.
She sat near the door. The smoke was filling her lungs, and she coughed. She didn’t care. Let the fire take me, she thought. She coughed again and wondered how it would feel to die. Her father had taken his life because he didn’t want to go on living without her mother. She was now going kill herself too, because even if she could escape this place, she could never go home and allow Big Joe to marry her, defile her, and force her to do what the old man on the burning bed had wanted her to do.
She was not ashamed of her father anymore. She understood him now. She empathised with his decision. The fear of death was far outweighed by the pain and suffering life would surely bring. Her life was over …
Mercy’s eyes were closing. Continuous coughing interrupted her breathing. She gulped more smoke into her lungs and then suddenly looked at the door. She had just remembered.
“Julia!” she screamed. My God, where is Julia? She couldn’t leave her alone to die in this place! She crawled to the door and turned the poker-hot door handle. Skin from her palm stuck to it and left her with a burned open wound. The pain brought tears. She coughed again and slithered out of the room on all fours.
Opening the door brought smoke into the hallway with her. Sparks followed and flew into the air, setting ablaze the ornamental curtains which were frilled across the ceiling, pulled back, and bordering the long hallway’s walls. She had to get to her feet. She felt herself clinging to the wall. Her breath was laboured, but she rose slowly, using one hand at a time, until she was fully upright. Her face was bloodied. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She dismissed the pain in her palm. She saw hazy golden candlelight on the same silver candlesticks in brackets all along the hallway. She reached one and threw it at some more ornate curtains, draped across the hall’s breadth like curtains on a stage. They lit up the hallway. She reached another candle and did the same to curtains farther down the hall. Death would have to wait, she decided. She was going to burn the entire bloody house down.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jacob’s enthusiasm for the night ahead had waned. The emerald-eyed woman had gone but had left him with his desire for her intact and, if anything, growing stronger. He cursed his foolishness. Had he approached her the minute he’d seen her, he would have laid claim. Instead, he’d spent too much time staring at her and in his enthusiasm had left the salon in order to find Madame du Pont, forgetting that Parker was still there working in Madame du Pont’s absence.
He was as virile as a young bull, and the little vixen had left him cursed with unreleased tension that was now paining his cock. Yet he wanted no one else. Should he take some other woman for the sake of sexual release, it would be like partaking in a corked bottle of wine: disappointing and bitter tasting, instead of a vintage reserve of which one savoured every delicious sip. He was not that desperate, just cursed with a mysterious emptiness. He had not only desired her; he had wanted to hear her speak. He’d also wanted to ask the reason for her transparent misery, which had seemingly gone unnoticed by the man who had taken her. She was a misfi
t and no more belonged here than he did in England. The way she had continually pulled up the front of her bodice, albeit unconsciously, had not gone unnoticed by him either. It was troubling. Was she an innocent or a very good actress?
He casually cast his eyes around the salon, thinned out by the absence of women and men who had climbed the stairs already. His companions were nowhere in sight. He smiled. They deserved a good time. God knew they all did after the long weeks at sea. Even conversation tended to diminish towards the end of the voyage.
He brought his thoughts back to the room and the present. The women who sprawled seductively on the vacant couches were surrounded by men who had no doubt reserved them and who were now forced to respect the house rules. There was no touching, kissing, or engaging in any type of lewd conversation, at least in public. Under the watchful eyes of Madame du Pont and Parker, such behaviour was known to lead to an immediate termination of membership. Many a man had been chastised by Madame du Pont’s tongue, followed by a shredded membership and all future invitations rescinded. “I supply class; therefore, I expect class” was clearly written on each membership document.
He had often wondered at the gall of the woman. She, with her dictatorial rules, managed to manipulate every man who came here into boyish subservience. Jacob found the polite conversations, the delicate manners of men – whom he suspected were chomping at the bit to tear a woman’s clothes off – and the virginal pretence of some of the women amusing. Everyone knew that the virgins and younger women were taken first whilst the experienced women sank steadily to the bottom of the pile and eventually disappeared altogether.
He was not bored yet, but neither was he particularly interested in the goings-on around him anymore. Of course, he could approach Madame du Pont right now and reserve the emerald-eyed beauty for later, but the thought of following the old man galled him and filled him with uncharacteristic jealousy. He was a hypocrite. He knew that to be true, for on occasion he had taken a woman upstairs late in the night, well aware that someone else had used her earlier.