by AnonYMous
When I pulled my shift over my head and stood naked before him he turned his head away. 'Put yer bloody shift on,' he shouted. “Ave yer got no shame, showing all yer got like that? Wot d'yer fink this is, a broffel?'
This was my first experience of lower class prudery. Later, as time went by, I was to learn that Adam was no exception to the idea prevalent amongst the poor that it wasn't decent to expose your private parts to anyone however intimate the relationship had become. In all the time I was with Adam I never saw him naked; he always undressed with his back to me and held the front of his shirt over his private parts until he got into bed.
Wasting no time on kisses or caresses, he pulled me roughly under him. He was what you might call a 'knee-elbow lover'. Taking most of his weight on his forearms he crouched over me and viciously thrust deep into my giny saying, “Old yer breaf when I pass yer 'eart.'
In spite of the rough manner of his entry into my soft underparts, it was good to feel the warm full flesh of a man inside me again. The deep probings of his aggressive cock began to arouse my passions but the warm, sensual feeling wasn't to last for very long, for in less than two minutes his frantic stabbing brought him to a head. Gasping for breath, he flopped down on me.
Bitterly disappointed, I said with feeling, 'Is that the best you can do for a girl?'
Without any warning I was stunned by a stinging blow across the mouth from the back of his hand. 'Shut yer mouf, you stupid cunt,' he growled, 'or I'll shut it for yer.'
I could hear the slumbering anger beneath the surface of Adam's words the following morning when he bid me rise and dress. 'Come on, woman, there's work to do.'
He was determined to bring me down a peg or two to keep his own self esteem. The difference in our education and speech irritated and belittled him. His constant harping on what he called my 'la-di-da' speech and genteel manners exposed his sense of inferiority with those who had the advantages that he associated with the self-assured gentry. What he wanted from me was admiring respect.
It was obvious that if our intimate relationship was to continue he would have to be top dog and I his subservient woman. It would be difficult for me to play such a role but it would be easier for me than have us both tearing each other to pieces in constant bickering. A long day of sullen resentment was not a happy prospect so I decided to put the matter to rights immediately.
Standing before him with eyes downcast in an attitude of meekness and submission bare-footed and wearing only my shift, I murmured in an apologetic voice, Adam, I'm sorry for what I said last night. Please forgive me.'
The angry resentment he felt was still boiling up inside him and had to come out. He scowled at me. 'Yer're a tight-arsed, snooty bitch and I won't stand for it so yer'd better knuckle dahn and mind yer tongue.'
He waved his fist in front of my face. 'Yer fink yer're better than me- don't yer?'
'No, Adam, I don't,' I protested.
Stuck for words, he mumbled hesitantly, 'Mind yer place-or I'll wallop the 'ide off yer.'
By the time we arrived at Covent Garden, Adam was his usual lively, agreeable self. It was hard work helping him push the barrow through dismal streets and into gloomy courtyards to get the sales for the fruit and vegetables. Despite the drizzling rain that soaked us to the skin, he remained talkative and entertaining, doing his best to bring good cheer and laughter to the pale, pinched-up faces of the women who came out from crumbling houses to buy our vegetables. Their thin, tawdry dresses gave them little protection against the cold wind and rain.
I was dog tired at the end of the day and ready for bed but Adam insisted on us having another evening at 'The Half Moon' tavern. The cosy atmosphere and warm welcome I received from Florrie soon revived my spirits.
Sitting next to Tom Biggs was a little dwarf. He was so hideous and grotesque that I couldn't take my eyes off him. I tried to concentrate on the conversation between Adam and Tom, but became increasingly uneasy as the fixed staring eyes that bulged from the monstrous head of the dwarf followed all my movements. He never took his eyes off me from the moment I sat down in a chair opposite him. The diabolical grin on his fat lips unnerved me every time I glanced at him.
Adam seeing the dwarfs interest in me, gave him a push and said, 'Take yer eyes off 'er, yer randy little bastard. Anyway she'd get nuffink from your short stick.'
The dwarf turned with his heavy head lolling to one side. 'My short stick 'as pleased a lot of women.' Sticking out a thick, wet tongue at Adam, 'Yer know what they say, “Long and thin, goes right in but it's short and thick wot does the trick.”'
I took my eyes off the dwarf just for an instant and in that fleeting moment he had disappeared from view. Looking around the tavern to see where he had gone, I became aware of something crawling up my leg. My searching fingers found a hand half way up my thigh. Letting out an outraged yell, I flung myself backwards toppling over onto the floor. Scrambling to my feet amidst a roar of laughter, I caught sight of the dwarfs head rising above the table, and thumped it hard with a clenched fist.
Florrie intervened and with a comforting arm around my shoulders ushered me behind the bar and poured out a glass of brandy.
'Here you are, luv, drink this. That bloody dwarf, you never know what he is going to do next.'
To my disgust Adam and Tom were splitting their sides with laughter. When they saw me looking at the dwarf with an excess of loathing they hooted even louder. To everybody's amusement the dwarf climbed onto the table and, with tongue lolling out, 'cunt thumbed' me with a thumb folded into his fist. In triumph at my discomfort his fat little legs danced a mad Irish jig to the accompaniment of Adam and Tom's hand clapping.
The landlord, with a scowling face, gestured for me to get back to my seat and I was about to do so when Florrie muttered, 'Don't take any notice of him. Stay where you are.'
Pig Face, as Florrie so aptly named him, was a big bully of a man with a florid complexion. His scanty crop of hair was plastered over the top of his head in a vain effort to hide a bald patch.
With some harsh words he was ordering Sniffler, the little waif who helped out at the back of the bar, to bring more glasses. Sniffler had obviously got her name because she was constantly sniffing a wet nose. For something to say, I asked Florrie if she and Sniffler slept on the premises.
'Yes, we share a room upstairs. That way I can protect her from Pig Face. Poor little sod, she's never had a chance. Born in the Poor House and kicked out to fend for herself when she was twelve, she knew nothing of the world outside and was scared stiff when I found her, curled up in the doorway. I brought her in and gave her some hot soup. We needed some help so I persuaded Pig Face to let her stay and she's been with us now about twelve months.'
She shot a quick look at her boss and her voice dropped to a whisper. 'You wouldn't think it looking at that belly of his but he's a right randy sod. He's always at her. She never complains because she's frightened he will chuck her out into the street. I've caught him more than once having his way with her in a cupboard. Yesterday he had her bent over on the stairs and was ramming it into her like a street dog with a bitch.' She sighed. 'I do my best, but you can't have your eyes everywhere, can you?'
'What about you?' I asked. 'Doesn't he try it on with you?'
Florrie snorted, 'Just let him try; he will get what he got last time.'
'What was that?' I asked with a laugh.
'Well, it was like this. I was born and bred in Chelmsford.'
'So that's why you don't talk cockney,' I exclaimed.
T couldn't, luv-even if I tried. The doctor taught me how to speak proper and I've done so ever since.'
'What doctor?' I asked.
'Well, I was going to tell you if only you would stop interrupting. When I was twelve I got work as a serving maid with a Dr Huddle. Although he had a wife he crept into my bed the first night I was there saying, “Huddle wants a cuddle.” You couldn't help laughing at the things he said. He was always coming out with comic remarks like tha
t and, mind you, always with a straight face.'
'Well go on,' I said, interrupting her again. 'What happened?'
'To tell you the truth I was frightened out of my wits. Being a virgin and in the flower of my youth, as you might say, what with his wife asleep downstairs and him up with me, I didn't know what to do. I put up a struggle but he got it in me just the same. It hurt a bit at first but not all that much.'
She broke off for a moment to serve some drinks then came back to me. 'Where was I? Oh, yes. He was a handsome forty at the time and very clean about his person-if you know what I mean. I was big for my age, a grown up girl before I was fourteen and that's when I started to get as much pleasure from it as he did.'
As she seemed to have run out of words, I asked, 'How long did it go on for?'
'Oh! Let me see. I was twenty-three when he collapsed all of a heap on the kitchen floor one day. His heart gave out I think. About eleven years I would say. The day after they buried him, his widow had a stand up row with me and kicked me out, bag and baggage. You see she had known all along what was happening but never let on until after her husband had died. He had always given me a shilling every time he did it and as I never spent any of it I had quite a bit put by for me when I needed it.'
'What did you do when she kicked you out? Come to London?'
'Yes, that's right. I had never been anywhere but Chelmsford and I had always wanted to see London. That's when I met Fred. Oh, he was a lovely man, was Fred. A wonder in bed and a wonder with his tattoo needle. That's how I got all the tattoo pictures on me. I'll show you them some time. You will be amazed. I'm a living work of art. It wouldn't be decent,' she said with a giggle, 'but sometime I would like to walk around stark naked so that everybody could admire Fred's pictures.'
She came to an abrupt stop when Pig Face brushed past me, nipping my bum as he went by. 'That's just like him, the dirty old sod,' said Florrie. 'This was Fred's regular drinking place and after he died I came to work here. Pig Face's wife was still alive then, but that didn't stop him trying to get his hand up my skirt. He didn't get very far because I pushed my thumbs into his eyeballs and kneed him hard in the nutmegs. He never tried it on again after that.'
Awakening before Adam the following morning, I found myself cuddled to him with a hand on his crotch. I don't know how long I had been in that position but he was firm and sticking up proudly. It jerked each time my fingers stroked. Each twitch of his cock brought a tremor to my giny and sent a thrilling spasm of desire through my burning flesh.
His eyes were still closed in sleep as I eased under him and guided him into me. In this drowsiness he lay heavy on me but that's the way I wanted it. After all those months without ever feeling the full weight of a man on me it was good to feel the hard muscular belly pressing into mine. Twining my legs around his, I levered my hips upwards, forcing my giny hard up against him. Swooning with joyful bliss my swiggling buttocks raised my fevered passions to the dizzy heights of fulfillment.
Adam was fully awake by this time and in his usual crouched position driving himself deep into me. I lay back with languid limbs, in blissful submission, as he savaged my throbbing giny and rose again to join him in a thunderous whirling storm that left us clasped tight against each other.
Clinging to him in warm contentment, I opened my tear-smeared eyes to find him smiling at me with tender amusement and, for the first time since we had met, received a fond kiss on the lips. A kiss that opened the flood gates of my affections, but he pulled away when I reached out to caress his lips with loving fingers and rolled out of bed to pull on his trousers impatiently, as if ashamed of showing the soft underside of his nature.
It didn't happen all that often but whenever I awoke before Adam my persuasive caresses soon had him ripe and ready for loving. With his head clouded in sleep I could take full advantage of his drowsiness to have it my way. My clinging legs held him close to me until my giny tensed and I lay back, all passion spent.
It was only on such mornings that we got together as lovers should, allowing the deep longing of the flesh for union with someone of the opposite sex to reach fulfilment. It seems contradictory but, after I had risen in joy and happiness to achieve the sensual bliss that follows desire satisfied, I welcomed the onslaught of his aggressive lust. Satiated with sensual warmth I submitted willingly to the rapist that is in all men and opened my thighs wider to further his passions. Clinging to him after he had emptied his loins into me I would await the tender kiss of gratitude that was my reward for awakening him with loving caresses.
It was about this time that I discovered who was living in the cupboard on our landing. I can only assume that in better days, when the house was occupied by a family with servants, it had been used to store bedding. It protruded into our room to a depth of about three feet.
Adam was having an evening out with Tom Biggs and had left me to my own devices. As I sat mending a small tear in my skirt, my concentration was disturbed by scraping and scratching sounds coming from the space taken up by the cupboard. Often during the night I heard rats scuffling under the floorboards but this was altogether different. Coming out onto the landing I cautiously opened one of the doors of the cupboard to find a ragged boy about eight-years-old, smeared in oil and grime, scraping away at a piece of copper by the light of a tallow candle. He was squatting on a straw-filled mattress which covered most of the floor of the cupboard. His clothing was tattered and torn and between his open legs was a basket of odds and ends; bones, copper nails, pieces of coal and a filthy variety of other curious objects. I was about to ask him what he was doing there when a girl of about ten or eleven rudely pushed past me to sit down beside her brother.
'Wot d'you want?' she demanded of me.
'Nothing. I heard a scraping noise and wondered where it was coming from. How long have you been living in this cupboard?'
'Wot's it to you?' she said and pulled the door to.
I went back to my sewing, intrigued at the thought that Adam and I had neighbours who lived practically in our room. More in a sense of fun than anything else, I knocked three times on the wall that was the back of their cupboard. In less than a minute there was a knock on our door.
'Come in,' I shouted.
The door swung open and there she stood, bristling with indignation. 'Wot the 'ell d'yer want now?' she asked, prepared to do battle with me.
She was completely disarmed when I took two apples from our fruit sack and offered them to her. Viewing the apples with a stark, hungry look she licked her lips and slowly moved towards them. When she was within reaching distance she grabbed the apples and stepped backwards and took a bite out of one of them. Munching away she looked at me doubtfully. 'Wot's yer name?' she asked through a mouth full of apple.
'Dara-what's yours?'
'Polly Barnes.'
And your brother?' I asked.
'Peter. You frightened 'im when you came on 'im suddenly like that. You're a bit of a nosey parker, ain't yer?'
I laughed. 'Bring him in here and I will give him an apple.'
She banged on the wall and shouted, 'Peter, come in 'ere.'
When he appeared in the doorway I offered him an apple and asked what he was doing with the bits and pieces he had in his basket.
'Sortin' 'em aht,' he mumbled as he chewed on the apple.
'We're “mud larks",' said Polly in the way of an explanation.
'What the hell is a “mud lark”?' I asked.
'Cor. Where've you been? Mean ter say yer never 'eard of mud larks?' I shook my head. Alright, tell me what you do when you are mudlarking.'
'Well! Everyday we search in the mud by the riverside for coppah, nails, coal, old iron, bones-anyfink that we can get a penny or two for. Las' week Peter fahnd a shillin' an' I pulled aht a baby's shawl. We got thrupence for it-it was a good 'un-that's arter I'd washed it.'
As the weeks went by we became good friends. On the nights that Adam was out I would often sit in their cupboard helping to sort out and cl
ean the pieces of copper and iron. Everyday they were down by the river banks, up to their knees in mud and floating scum, searching the dregs of the tide.
They had previously lived with their mother and her man in the room now occupied by Adam and me. When their mother died the man just got up and walked out on them. They had no money for rent so they sought sanctuary in the landing cupboard and since then had made a precarious living as mud larks. I took them under my wing, giving them what I could in the way of fruit and vegetables and occasionally buying them meat pies. They always looked lean and hungry even with the extra food I gave them.
Polly was always trying to sell various little items to the people in the house. She knew them all and was brutally frank in her descriptions of the characters who slept and fed in this dingy warren of a place. First she warned me about the man in the attic above us.
“E's a thievin' bastard,' she said. 'Nothin's safe when 'e's arahnd. 'E'd take the pennies off a dead man's eyes, 'e would.'
In the room below us lived a 'tosher' with a wife and six children. A tosher's work was extremely dangerous. They were often bitten on the hands and face by rats as they scavenged with seven foot long poles for anything of value in the sewers that flowed into the Thames. Some of them suffocated in the poisonous vapours that arose from the foul sewage. The risk of being crushed by the roof of a sewer falling on them was always there and so was the danger of being sucked down in the perilous quagmires of mud and sewerage where the floor had collapsed. There were terrible stories of toshers' skeletons being found picked clean of skin and flesh.
Upstairs there was a married couple not yet fifteen, who Polly said had just moved in. At that time there was a well-known dubious church in the East End which married youngsters for sevenpence and no questions asked, provided both partners were over fourteen-years-old.
According to Polly, a drunken Irishman rented the basement cellar and charged beggars, prostitutes, thieving vagabonds and the like, twopence for a night's rest on the stone floor. Most of the other rooms were occupied by large families sleeping as many as ten in a room. Of them all, the worst was a dirty old cadger in filthy rags, who slept on the landing or wherever he could find a place to lie down. His melancholy face was pitted with smallpox marks. Even the corners of his eyebrows seemed eaten away by the awful disease. He was forever getting into trouble for groping one of the dozen or so little girls that swarmed all over the buildings. He would lie and wait in dark corners on the stairs and jump on them, getting his hands on their private parts before they had time to scream. Then he scuttled down the stairs and into the busy street before anybody had time to catch him.