It was his turn to lie down now, as he urged me to get on top of him. I thought for a moment I saw a curious, moustached face peering in, but the rain was falling harder than ever and it was hard to imagine that anyone might stand for long in that weather, even with a live sex show unveiling before their eyes.
A wicked thought struck me and I grabbed my eye mask, slipping it down over Jaap’s head to blindfold him. He smiled, clearly turned on by such a simple but kinky trick, and let me take charge. I began to feed his cock into me, gradually lowering myself down. I felt myself stretching wide, and the sensation was glorious. I rose and fell on him, controlling the pace, controlling the pleasure. The springs creaked gently beneath us as a bed which had only ever been intended for display purposes was finally christened in the most erotic fashion.
His hands were on my breasts, pressing them together, and he was muttering something I didn’t understand, though the meaning was clear enough. He was loving this moment, and so was I. I rode him harder, gripping his thick thighs with my knees, and when I reached a finger down to play with my own clit, my pleasure peaked unstoppably. I was still feeling the spasms gripping me when Jaap groaned and let out what I assumed to be some choice Dutch swear words as he came.
We slumped together for a moment, and when we pulled apart I almost expected to see someone standing on the pavement outside, applauding. But the street was empty, and if we’d had an audience, it had already disappeared.
That was my last night in the window. Crossing the line is fun, but you can only do it once. I asked Jaap to tell his uncle when he returned that I had been offered a job elsewhere. It was a lie, obviously, but a week later an opportunity arose to become a tour guide for English-speaking parties in one of the museums, and I took it. I went past the bed shop on my way back from work – or Jaap’s apartment, because even if we couldn’t have sex in public, that didn’t mean we couldn’t keep doing it in private – but I never saw another girl doing Wim’s special promotion work. And I always wondered whether anyone bought the display bed, and whether they ever had as much fun on it as I did.
The Intimate Diary of Martha Rae
Mark Farley
The following are extracts from the recently unearthed journal that was kept by one Martha Rae Carnero (1844–96), an Arizona-born girl of Mexican descent, sent by her family to the city of San Francisco at the age of eighteen, at the height of the Gold Rush. The text was kindly donated to us by the San Francisco Arts Library and Museum.
14 June 1862, San Francisco
“That’s a fine piece of ass you got yrself there, Mamma . . .”
“She’s one of the best girls in the city, Sir. She’ll treat you mighty fine too.”
“Uh-huh . .”
“Why, yes Sir. You wanna see the goods first? Ahm sure Miss Martha Rae would oblige the kind Sir a peek for thirty cents and a share of three fingers of liquor and some tobacco with her . . .”
“Come and lie with me, Miss Martha Rae.”
19 June 1862, San Francisco
I have taken upon writing a journal. If nothing else, but to document what has happened to me in the last few weeks and what will evidently lie ahead of me to those who survive me.
I arrived in San Francisco six months previous. Three weeks it took on the wagon trains from States afar. Word came to us of my grandmother’s ailing nature and an obliging sense of family duty fell upon me to tend to her needs and head to California. Funds were short as my grandfather hadn’t left her much so I went out to find work.
I write home on occasion and speak of my long hours at a bakery. I do not tell her of where I actually spend all of my time. I do not tell her of the Dew Drop Inn, where I twist and shimmy for all the local men folk and often do on a more private basis too.
But hey, it aint no deadfall. It’s a proper dance hall, upmarket an’ all and I certainly wouldn’t frequent what would be considered as a deadfall either. At least not like those places what you see on Pike Street or down by Pacific and Kearny. Bagnios haunted by ruffians and skanks and the abandoned that offer no entertainment. Just the sad relief for the desperate. And we sure aint as abandoned as those whores down at the Bull Run either, who happily come and shout their mouths and flash their handsomer wages at us on their nights off.
Despite the odd quarrel though, I do think the Dew Drop is one of the more agreeable venues. It is not one of those places that house the sort that would give themselves away for a mere fifty cents. We serve very much the well-heeled gent along with a healthy mixture of Negroes and Mexicans too, mixing in amongst the thick cloud of cigar smoke. There are gamblers, pimps, sailors and miners. All rowdy and foul mouthed a bunch they are and sure, it can be a bawdy old place too. The upstairs bears no room for discretion or is ideal for a gent with a nervous disposition, as the area is an unkempt array of beds and strewn mattresses, arranged in quite the disorganised way and often there are up to ten of us entertaining at any one time. The girls that live here have their own rooms mind, higher up in the house they use but for us visitin’ girls, we use whatever facilities are at hand.
But one thing you can guarantee with the Dew Drop is that we will look after ya and make sure ya leave happy now, not like other places what slip Spanish Fly into your whiskey and lift your wallet. Places like the Bull Run!
22 June 1862, San Francisco
The house is run by Mamma Carter. At any one time, there are thirty of us girls hanging around on a busy Friday night. We all take turns to do dances and make up skits, jokes like, between the two of us. Mamma Carter is like another mother to me and I know she loves to hear it when I tell her. I love watching her get up and do a turn with Old Wayne on the upright. She once fancied herself as a touring singer and had desires on going all the way to New York, so she did. So, I often think it’s a damn shame that she aint gotta tune inside o’ her. Not that I would ever tell her that. Hell no. She is not a woman to be crossed. She’s a no-nonsense Mississippian lady, black as the dark night and as wide as the many schooners arriving in the bay. She takes absolutely no crap from nobody. She once punched a fellow straight in the face, just for questioning whether one of us was worth the dollar fifty she was asking of him to lie with us for a time.
“Aint no motherfucker gonna cheapen my girls . . .” she’d always say.
Then there is Lydia, who is kinda responsible for all of this in the first place, looking back. I was in the General Store on Main Street, almost pleading like, with the manager to offer me some work. She struck up conversation with me while I was feeling up the cantaloupes and wondering whether I could be affordin’ one. She is a few years more older than me, is Lydia.
Firstly, I was overwhelmed at how she was dressed. She looked so elegant in her long ruffled skirt and her fancy hat. She looked like she was on her way to the President’s inauguration or something. She smiled and pouted at me as I told her of my sick granny and that I was looking for work to get by. I immediately felt an urge to stroke her fabulous corset and she saw me looking at it,
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s beautiful. I’d love one just like it . . . You must live in a big house and be married to a Lord or sumthin’ . . .”
“Not exactly . . .”
She then proceeded to tell me about the Dew Drop and that I should come over and watch her dance some. I wasn’t sure immediately. I’d heard that these places were dens of iniquity, full of sinners and ne’er do wells but she did assure me that it was a respectable place, the men behaved themselves and perhaps I could meet the house Mamma and talk about work.
“Well, I’d be happy to show you now. I’m about to perform onstage . . .”
So right on we went and right there, next to the display of fresh produce, my whole world changed.
23 June 1862, San Francisco
I visited the Dew Drop a couple of times over the next few days. That first trip over the street, with Lydia leading me by the hand, was as unforgettable as they come. She sat me by the bar and disappeared behind t
he curtain as the patrons all looked my way, curious like. I was kinda uncomfortable at first, but I needn’t have been as their attentions were soon drawn to the stage, where my new acquaintance re-appeared to a hearty din and hollering. She’d lost the long frock coat and the fancy hat and had hitched and tied the front of her skirt up to her belly and also the back to the top of her cheeks to reveal her garters and pants. I caught a gasp in my throat and put a hand to my mouth as I caught sight of that pale flesh pillowing out the tops of her stockings for the first time. I had no idea right then how soon I would get so much closer to it.
The out of tune piano played in the corner at her requested nod and she skipped around the stage, with elegant turns and bends to the jazzy beat. She shimmied and shook the lacy ruffles on her bum and ran a finger lightly up her outstretched leg, to the side of her. Desire poured from that girl as she turned once and looked longingly out to the crowd and then another pirouette and a quiver of her blisters. She tossed her hair back and turned towards me, giving me the sorta look I’d never seen from anyone, let alone another woman. She took her breasts into her hands and squeezed them as she crouched down before everyone, grinding her hips and swinging them round.
I know not what I was feeling inside but it had to be released. I slowly ran my hands up and down my thighs through ma dress as I was still perched on that stool, right as a large black woman appeared (Mamma, I guessed) and caught me looking upon Lydia, with what I can only rationally describe as a filthridden craving for her body.
She disappeared once more as another girl stumbled from the exit, all dishevelled and with a gent doin’ up his breeches. The woman behind the bar raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my composure, corrected myself and headed for the door, panting inside with shame. As I lay in my bedroom that night, I could not stop thinking about the heady display of sensuality onstage and how much I wanted her for myself. Before dropping asleep, I ached upon myself furiously as I replayed in my head how Lydia licked her lips and pointed my way and how I sat there entranced, deeply in love.
The next day, I had to return to see Lydia. It was a lot quieter a time and Mamma Carter nodded my way and tapped a forlorn body slumped at the bar, who turned and beamed my way in surprise. She skipped over to me and gave me a tight hug.
“Child, I was so worried about you . . . You didn’t even bid me a farewell . . .”
I apologised profusely, made my polite excuse and fell at her insistence that I visit her room at once and let her dress me. Looking back, I never thought to question the intimacy we had almost immediately between one another, and how we quickly became in the habit of lying like lovers do. Boy, that girl touched me like no other man does or had at that point either and quenches a need I have, deep-rooted in my bones an’ all. I told her of this and she gasped at my inexperience. I blushed as she looked at me right in the eyes, deadly serious.
“I aint ever been with no man before, Lydia. Help me.”
I was intrigued about her world because of this and soon realised that I wanted to be with her and embody her world alongside her. I took her hands in both of mine as our fulsome, naked forms perched on the end of her bed. I pleaded entirely with conviction to my new friend, “Teach me how to dance, Lydia . . . and show me how to make love . . .”
That night, Lydia granted my wish and made a woman out of me. She penetrated me with her fingers and broke my insides. I lay on my back and bucked wildly in pleasure on her flowery eiderdown. We lay after and I told her about the pain. She explained that I was like a bottle of wine that needed to be uncorked, in order to be savoured and then drunk.
The next day, I started in the bar alongside Lydia, waiting . . . eager to be drank.
25 June 1862, San Francisco
I guess it helped at how pleasant my first gentleman was. We were dancing close with patrons and receiving gropes and intrusions in return for an evening’s access to liquor and tobacco as normal. Mamma Carter gave me a light shirt to wear with fancy garters and black stockings. She always insisted we showed class and covered ourselves onstage and in the bar, but as far as anywhere else went, it was anything goes.
I peeled for two gents, subtly mind, and earned myself fifty cents. I had asked the second if he desired to retire behind one of the partitions with me to go further into the matter, but he declined. Not before he took liberties, mind. Him snatching himself a taste of me from down below, regardless. We both knew he shouldn’t, but I was new and eager and didn’t know any better. He flicked his digit on my button for a few seconds as we both stood there and he dipped it into my bowl, before bringing it up to his moustached lips for a smell. What made me do it, I don’t know but I felt the need to sink to my knees. I took him in my mouth for the first time ever. I remembered the way that Lydia had shown me the night before as she suckled on one of my fingers and I wouldn’t let him go until he was done, just like she had.
An hour later, during an interval between dances, this fancy gent strides up. He had a high plug hat, curled hair and a crimson frock coat. He looked quite the felonious dandy, if I do say so. His white, ruffled shirt peeked from a fancy waistcoat, which I unbuttoned, as I lay him down on one of the beds upstairs. I crawled on top and giggled as I took my time in revealing what he had to offer me underneath. Lydia was two beds across being done over from behind by this Mexican fella. She winked at me and I felt re-assured my friend was close by. I stroked his waxed moustache and ran my fingers through the hair on his bare chest as I sank down on his hardness.
After that, there was no stopping me. Even Mamma commented on my confidence. She thought I was gonna “run a mile, as soon as any fella revealed it to me”, which kinda made me laugh. Lydia and I were like partners in crime and were soon becoming popular as we could offer something that most girls could not. Each other. We’d perform together as often as we could, if nothing for the fun of it. We’d just goof around like we do in private half the time, cavortin’ together onstage in nuthin’ but our basques and slippers, playing up to the coarse suggesting from the patrons in attendance. We’d tease them by unhooking one another’s lacing upon our backs before digging a knee into our partner’s back and pulling tightly on the laces. They’d go mad, thinking we were gonna strip all the way for ’em.
We are such teases.
26 June 1862, San Francisco
Mamma Carter is sending me to the naval stores at the Presidio to dance for the officers this week. It will be the first time I have contributed to her long standing arrangement with the soldiers. An arrangement that keeps the house protected and in favour. That, to me is enough of a sacrifice. I can see the pain in Mamma’s eyes when “one of her childs go away” and always try to assure her. Mamma sends a different girl each week and it has finally come down to me. I have tended to avoided this task thus far, on account of my popularity on the dance floor. But secretly, I think it has to do with her favouring of me. Normally, just the one lass is taken over on the wagon, but when they have a fancy occasion two go over. Thankfully, it is such this night and I get to go with my Lydia.
“Tell me more about what happens at the garrison?” I ask her, as we both soaked in the tin bath at 4am, our heads soaked in whiskey and our ears ringing from the night’s rowdy din.
“Well, I went that one time with Daisy. We rubbed each other on the chest as they whoop away in the background, while abusing themselves and sipping gin.”
She tossed her dark curls over her shoulder and continued to suck on her own thumb. The gleeful look in her eyes was very intriguing indeed.
30 June 1862, San Francisco
As we waited in Mamma Carter’s room and twittered between one another about the sudden departure another girl took upon, she waddled in and tossed at us each a new herring bone corset each.
“That’s for youse girls to keep a hold of. Look after them, mind.” We both cooed excited at her and effused gratitudes upon her mountainous frame.
“Now, don’t let those fellas maul you much, ya hear? Look after, yo’selves a
little . . .” she continued.
“Yes, Ma!” we both trilled.
“The cart’s here . . . Go and change, be gone with ya . . . Look respectful now. I gotta reputation to uphold here . . .”
A few hours later, the cart arrived at the Presidio. I took in the warm smell of the recently planted eucalyptus, along with the pine and cypress trees as we rode by the cemetery. I commented to Lydia on the former’s soothing nature to one’s nose. She feigned boredom and replied that journey was so arduous, wishing for a different mode of transport altogether. I humoured her and longed to hold her, as our ride rocked from side to side.
Despite the lurid descriptions I’d received about happenings at the garrison from the other girls, we were treated as respected ladies as we were escorted down from our mode of journey by the armed hand on offer. We pulled up our long skirts and the heels that we were not used to wearing, which made a clacking sound on the much harder ground of the parade square. In that instant, a more highlighted sense of opulence came over me and inside the building was no different. From the lush fabrics to the antiquities and glorious furniture, me and Lydia were transported to a whole different world entirely. We were ushered into a smoky room and a number of gentlemen in uniform, who all turned and bowed in our direction. They were a lot different to the soldiers we saw out on Main Street and Broadway. They wore fancy tabards and cut trousers and exuded a sense of seniority, for sure. Many were ordained with a number of medals, sashes and other signs of achievement. Some wore hats, some hadn’t.
Lydia took my hand and led me into the throng and towards the bar they had in the corner of the room. She instantly greeted and introduced me to a Lieutenant, who nodded respectfully again in my vicinity, to which I replied in curtsey. I tried to waft away the amount of smoke in my face as Lydia took my hand and put a healthy glass of whiskey into it. It was easily four or five fingers and soon I found myself swaying on the spot, not long after I had been handed another. By this time, there were two hands behind me groping at my bits and folds. A number of times, I remember Lydia smacking hands away from my behind, only to replace them with her own.
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