Yseult and Apolline were clearly sisters, perhaps even twins, equally slim and pert, with sharp, almost elfin faces topped by tumbles of dense black curls. They also wore corsets of identical design, Yseult’s scarlet, Apolline’s emerald green, but both cut to leave their breasts bare and do more to display their bottoms, bellies and hips than to conceal. Yseult was bare legged, Apolline is a pair of knee length woollen stockings the same bright colour as her corset.
Narcisse was dark, her skin a warm chocolate colour, while she certainly deserved to be called beautiful even beside her friends. She also carried an air of easy languor, and swayed as she walked up to join Georgette in a slow inspection of Thrift’s figure and face. Her skin smelt of some exotic preparation and her hair was decorated with a single, large bloom of a vivid yellow colour. She wore a set of combinations, plain and loose, the rear panel undone to show two tiny, hard, black bottom cheeks within.
Coco was much the smallest of the girls, less than five feet tall, the only blonde and the only one with full breasts, at least by comparison with the others and relative to her tiny frame. She was full of energy and mischief, bouncing up from the bed on which she’d been lying, stark naked but for a pair of red and green striped stockings, first walking behind Narcisse for a pace to mock the dark girl’s languid movements, then to take a double handful of Thrift’s bottom cheeks and squeeze. Thrift squeaked in surprise and Coco jumped away, laughing.
‘Ignore her,’ Georgette advised. ‘She is an idiot. Or if you ask me very nicely, I might punish her for you.’
‘That’s alright, really,’ Thrift said quickly, sure that the offer would prove to be a trap and that she, not Coco, would be the one who ended up being spanked, or given whatever other treatment Georgette used as discipline for the other girls.
Georgette responded with a sly smile, then stood back to fold her arms across her chest and give Thrift a last look before speaking.
‘You are different, that is certain. Now look, we will get along very well as long as you know your place, which is at the bottom, at least for now. What have you got in your case?’
‘Just a few clothes,’ Thrift admitted.
‘Let me see.’
Thrift put her case down on the nearest bed and opened it as the girls clustered around. The beautiful garments she had bought in Meaux were on the top, each carefully folded and wrapped in tissue paper. Georgette immediately pulled out the black silk drawers, holding them up for inspection.
‘Oh, you’ve even bought me a present, how very kind!’
‘Um...,’ Thrift managed, then stopped, knowing the inevitable result of any protest on her part.
‘How lovely!’ Georgette went on. ‘A little large, of course – which we’ll discuss presently – but ever so fine, and Madame Moreau can alter them to fit. Oh, and a chemise to match, and petticoats! I will look like Mimi Caze! Look, girls, she has new stockings too, six pairs, one for each of us. How thoughtful you are, Udders!’
Thrift drew a heavy sigh, watching as her beautiful new clothes were distributed among the girls. The slightest protest, she was sure, would lead to a spanking, or worse, and her clothes would be taken anyway. Yet at least the girls were not openly antagonistic to her, as she had half expected, and once they had finished pillaging the contents of her case she put a cautious question to Georgette.
‘You mentioned that my name might be suitable on stage. You are actresses, I presume, but I am to be an usherette, or on reception perhaps. Do you know?’
Georgette looked up from her inspection of her new underwear.
‘You will do your stint as usherette, yes, but you will be taking your turn like the rest of us, surely?’
‘My turn?’ Thrift queried.
‘On stage,’ Georgette told her, ‘stripping.’
Thrift stood at the centre of the stage at L’Huître Rose, bathed in light of lurid magenta. Never, in a life filled with humiliating incidents, had she felt so embarrassed. To be spanked, even in public, to be made to go in the nude, to suck men’s cocks or lick women’s cunts, even to offer her own sex for penetration, and her anus, all of it was essentially passive and required only her surrender. Now she had to strip, fully nude, deliberately teasing the audience with the gradual removal of her clothes until she stood stark naked before them, on parade to over two hundred people, men and women too, which was worse.
Worse still was that she was expected to dance, something she had never been good at, while both the girls who had already finished their acts had obviously been thoroughly trained. Georgette herself had gone on first, to perform a slow, elegant striptease that had held the audience spellbound and left them cheering and calling for more. Coco had followed, with a piece of comic burlesque as rude as it was funny, to set the audience laughing and leave them more aroused still.
They seemed to have no restraint whatsoever. In the front row was an middle-aged gentleman with a waxed moustache who was seated between two women, both very much younger and both with their dresses open to show off their bare breasts. Another woman was openly squeezing her partner’s crotch, while in the central box, M’selle Laroche actually appeared to be masturbating the two men sat to either side of her.
The music began and Thrift swallowed hard, completely at a loss for what to do, save that she had to remove her clothes. Dancing was out of the question, her muscles barely able to respond, while her fingers were shaking uncontrollably and her face was hot and red with a blush that went all the way down to her chest. She wore only her underwear, a mixture of garments cobbled together more or less at random from her own belongings and what she could find in the wardrobes and chests backstage; white stockings, a pair of ill matched petticoats, a plain white corset with a single suspender strap still in place, a pair of split seam drawers so tattered she wouldn’t have bothered to give them to the servants and a chemise far too small to hold in her ample breasts.
Somebody in the audience laughed, making Thrift’s blushes hotter still, but her hands had gone to the buttons of her chemise. She tweaked one open, her eyes closed to shut out the awful sight of the people watching her, her shame raging in her head for all that she had only put a little cleavage on show. Yet the button was open and her hands found the next automatically, slipping it loose to allow the strain on her chemise to pull it open. A third button and the chemise hung loose, held over her nipples only because the sides were tucked into her corset. One small motion and her breasts would be bare, but there was no going back, her fingers already on the scrap of lace that was all that separated her naked bosom from the lecherous gaze of so many eyes.
Unable to stop herself, she tugged the material free and let her chemise fall open, showing off the full, plump globes of her breasts. Her shaking had grown worse, so strong in her jaw that she could no longer close her mouth, but her hands continued to work, fumbling at the fastenings of her underwear, the embarrassment of stopping to stand like a fool in front of so many people now worse than that of going naked.
Her corset came next, the laces tugged loose and the catches at the front opened until the sides came free to allow her to drop it to the floor and step away. For all that her chemise no longer concealed anything she found herself unable to take it off and instead began to unfasten the cords of her petticoats, her eyes fixed on the bare boards of the stage as one and then the next came open and fell to her feet, leaving her standing in a puddle of cheap cotton made coloured by the lights.
She hesitated, still reluctant to shrug off her chemise and yet painfully aware that her drawers were all that separated her from a yet more intimate exposure. It had to be done, but any delay could only be good and she found herself removing her stockings, each peeled clumsily down from beneath the legs of her drawers and discarded on stage. With just two articles remaining it had to be her chemise, which she peeled off down one arm at a time in what she knew was a pathetic imitation o
f one of Georgette’s moves.
That left her drawers, but she was unable to do it with her face to the audience, the display of her bottom bad enough but nothing to the prospect of exposing her cunt. She turned her back, her fingers shaking so badly that for a moment she found herself unable to get a grip on the drawstrings that held her splitters closed. Then the knot was loose, her drawers supported only by the shape of her hips, then falling slowly down to expose the full, split globe of her bare bottom to the audience.
She was shaking terribly, with tears of shame and failure coursing down her face, both for her nudity and what she knew was a truly wretched performance in comparison to the other girls. Yet the audience had begun to clap and cheer, calling out their approval and whistling in merriment and pleasure. She turned her head, astonished, to find more people than not on their feet in appreciation, and for all her misgivings a smile spread slowly across her face. One of the single men near the front threw a rose onto the stage, then another. Thrift turned round, giving them the display of her belly and the light fuzz of hair on her quim, amazed by their response. Even M’selle Laroche was on her feet, flanked by two gentlemen, one fat, one thin, but each with an engorged cock and a set of balls protruding from the fly of his evening dress, and as she caught Thrift’s eye she gave an approving nod.
Thrift curtsied, gathered up her discarded underwear and fled, ignoring the calls for her to come back on stage. The backs were cool and dim after the heat and glare of the stage, but she found her body prickling with sweat and her head dizzy for her experience. An old fashioned porcelain basin stood against one wall, from which she splashed water onto her face, looking up to find Georgette beside her, still naked but for ankle length black boots and a pair of stockings. The tall girl’s gaze was anything but friendly.
‘Roses!?’ Georgette spat. ‘On your first night? You’ll pay for that, Udders!’
‘I didn’t mean...,’ Thrift began, only to break off with a gasp of shock and pain as Georgette caught her across the face with an open handed slap.
‘You didn’t mean to, indeed!’ Georgette mocked. ‘Oh, of course not! I suppose that was all real. Do you think I’m naive? Do you think I’m stupid? Seven years I’ve been stripping, and believe me I’ve seen it all, every little trick. Oh you’re good, that’s for sure, with your oh-so-shy manner and your reluctance and your hangdog expression. I can see why M’selle took you on, but that’s not going to save you, believe me. What about poor Narcisse, who has to go on next? How is she supposed to follow that?’
‘Narcisse is beautiful,’ Thrift managed, still rubbing at her cheek.
‘Beauty they take for granted,’ Georgette answered her. ‘What they really like is to see a girl make a fool of herself, which is why Coco is so good, or better still, a girl who doesn’t really want to strip, and what better than some snotty, self-absorbed, English bitch!’
Her voice had risen as she spoke and Thrift threw her hands up to shield her face, only to catch not one slap but two, delivered in quick succession across her naked breasts, then a third across her face as she instinctively shielded her chest. Georgette laughed and turned away, ignoring Thrift as she opened a chest of drawers to select a brilliant blue corset and a pair of pantalettes in the same colour.
With Georgette gone, Thrift was left shaking and confused, biting her lip against the stinging pain of the slaps and wondering what was going to happen to her later. If Georgette’s behaviour was anything to go by it was sure to be harsh, but while going to M’selle Laroche might postpone her fate it was also likely to make it worse in the long run, especially if Georgette got spanked.
Telling herself that it could hardly be worse than the sort of things she’d had done to her by the other girls at training college, she splashed more water on her face and chest, dried herself and clambered back into her underwear. There were plenty of dresses in the wardrobes, and although most were vulgar to a degree she eventually managed to find something in green satin that if hardly respectable did at least cover her up.
She was hungry, and knew she was entitled to help herself from a buffet set out in the little restaurant that joined onto the foyer. In return she was expected to mingle with those patrons who had paid for the privilege, with the implication that should she so desire she could accept what M’selle Laroche had referred to as tips, evidently in return for sexual favours. With no need of money, and not wishing to prostitute herself unless it were absolutely necessary, Thrift had meant to go upstairs after the show instead, but now reasoned that the audience would be watching Narcisse strip, allowing her to grab a bite to eat and a glass of something without being accosted.
Not many people were about backstage, and Thrift was soon in the restaurant, a glass of Champagne in one hand as she wolfed down meat pastries and little sweet tarts decorated with preserved fruit. As she had hoped, she had the room to herself, and had soon managed to fill her belly with delicacies and pour a second glass of Champagne. At the sound of applause she hastened to leave, only to find her retreat cut off by M’selle Laroche herself, along with the two gentlemen who’d been sharing her box.
‘Ah, Chastity, there you are,’ M’selle Laroche began as Thrift bobbed a curtsey. ‘You performed very prettily tonight. These two gentlemen are Monsieur Brochon and Monsieur Corgoloin. Both are directors and shareholders, very important people who I am sure you would wish to please.’
Thrift gave another curtsey, despite the sinking feeling in her stomach. Monsieur Brochon took a glass of red wine, Monsieur Corgoloin a measure of absinthe, before turning their attention to Thrift. Both were beaming at her, Monsieur Brochon from among the sweaty folds of a face the shape of a pumpkin and not dissimilar in colour, Monsieur Corgoloin in the manner of an underfed ghoul eyeing its prey. Even before the start of Thrift’s striptease they had both had their cocks out, and as they began to make conversation she found herself hoping that M’selle Laroche had managed to bring both off in her hands.
M’selle Laroche quickly excused herself as the room began to fill up, and Thrift found herself alone with the two men. Both were attentive, but didn’t seem in any great urgency to molest her, and she gradually relaxed. A third glass of Champagne and she was even congratulating herself. She was now secure, safely ensconced in L’Huître Rose as a stripper, surely not something the French Bureau were likely to suspect, and yet just the sort of place Godfrey Quigley might frequent.
She had memorised his face from the photographs in her rectule, and found herself looking around to see if he was among those taking their refreshment and talking to the girls, five of who were now in the restaurant. There was no sign of him, but Monsieur Brochon noticed that her attention has begun to wander.
‘It seems that our little English rosebud has matters other than food and drink on her mind, Albert,’ he remarked to his companion, chuckling. ‘Note how she eyes the men, no doubt wondering which are stallions and which are geldings. Perhaps it is time we showed her that we ourselves are not short of mettle, eh?’
‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ Thrift said hastily.
‘Not at all, my rosebud,’ Monsieur Brochon assured her, with Monsieur Corgoloin nodding agreement. ‘A young thing like you is sure to have a good appetite for Adam’s arsenal, and you might well be forgiven for thinking that Albert and I are past our best. In fact, I think you’ll find we know a trick or two that the young bucks won’t, while Fleurette has given us both quite an appetite.’
Thrift blushed, thinking of their erect cocks protruding from their evening clothes. Evidently M’selle Laroche hadn’t finished them off, presumably on purpose. She swallowed and threw another glance around the room, seeking escape. This time her eyes met those of Georgette, who returned a vindictive glare. Evidently her choice lay between pleasuring the two men and submitting herself to the girls. Neither choice was ideal, but while the first filled her with disgust and shame for her inevitable respon
se the outcome was at least predictable, while the second was frightening, for all that the prospect of what they might do made her sex tighten and her nipples grow stiff.
‘She is intrigued, you see,’ Monsieur Brochon chuckled.
The blush on Thrift’s face grew abruptly hotter as she realised that he had noticed the sudden and involuntary erection of her nipples, drawing the obvious conclusion, but also the wrong one. She stammered something about the warmth of the room, but he merely laughed, even Monsieur Corgoloin giving a dry cluck that presumably indicated amusement. Monsieur Brochon swallowed most of his wine at a gulp, then spoke again.
‘Come, Albert. She has my dander up, shy little thing that she is. Let’s have our sport.’
He extended one chubby arm, a gesture immediately copied by Monsieur Corgoloin. Neither man seemed to have even considered the possibility that Thrift might refuse their company, but she accepted their arms anyway, burning with consternation for her predicament but not daring to refuse the offer when the alternative was probably a spanking from M’selle Laroche and definitely both pain and humiliation at the hands of the other girls.
As she was led from the room she reflected that the two men would no doubt expect to sleep with her, perhaps even take her to some apartment or townhouse where she could be used at leisure. That way she would escape the girls and ingratiate herself with M’selle Laroche, thus gaining a stay of execution at the very least, perhaps better if one man or the other were to take her as his lover. She forced a smile, which grew brighter if even less convincing as they encounter M’selle Laroche in the foyer.
The Reluctant Stripper Page 9