The Reluctant Stripper

by Lady Alice McCloud

  Thrift gave a single, miserable nod and hung her head, not from shame but in order to hide the relief flowing through her. Evidently Quigley had not reported the matter as suspicious, nor challenged the Bureau for sending two girls to subvert him, as she had supposed, but merely told a friend, perhaps a neighbour in the apartment block, or simply a café acquaintance. With the threat of exposure gone, or at least put back, nothing else seemed to matter, and she felt curiously serene as M’selle went on.

  ‘So, not only did you make an assignation without my permission or paying your cut, but you used Georgette’s name. Were you seeking a patron? Answer truthfully.’

  ‘No,’ Thrift mumbled, immediately echoed by echo.

  ‘That I rather doubt,’ M’selle Laroche responded, ‘so you will be punished for lying as well as deception, both of you, on stage. However, I think it would be best if the two of you were somewhere else for a while, and the punishment will be administered when you return, which should give you ample time to reflect on your sins. By good fortune an opportunity has arisen. Mimi Caze has agreed to perform here, and as part of the arrangement I am to supply two girls for the same period...’

  ‘What!?’ Georgette interrupted. ‘This pair of little sluts get to perform at Baudelaire’s while I’m stuck here being pushed about by Mimi Caze!’

  ‘Enough!’ M’selle Laroche snapped. ‘Pierre, spank her, hard.’

  Georgette gave a squeal of shock, but Pierre had reacted with impressive speed and already held her by one wrist. She tried to fight, kicking, scratching and even biting, but she was no match for a man so huge, nor so stolid. He simply ignored her efforts, seating himself on one of several straight backed chairs and pulling her firmly down across his knees. Her pantalettes were so brief that most of her bottom was already bulging from the opening, simply because she’d been turned over, but he pulled them down anyway, to leave her cheeks and the cleft between full exposed, the dark spot of her anus on clear view as well as the pouted, hairy lips of her cunt.

  She was still wailing, swearing and fighting with all her strength as Pierre began to spank her, his huge hand rising and falling, to cup almost her entire bottom with every smack, and to send thick ripples through the softness of her flesh. Even as her bottom began to go red she wouldn’t give in, howling out her anguish and spitting threats, only aimed not at Pierre, nor at M’selle Laroche, but at Thrift.

  ‘You two may go,’ M’selle Laroche said to Thrift and Coco, ‘but you are to be in the foyer at three o’clock to greet M’selle Caze, without fail. Her escort will take you back to Baudelaire’s with him.’

  Both girls nodded and they left together, walking away down the corridor in hangdog silence as Georgette’s screams and threats faded slowly behind them along with the fleshy smacks generated by Pierre’s hand landing on her bottom.

  Paris, Baudelaire’s, April 22nd 2010

  Thrift stood at the centre of the stage, stark naked, her clothes in an untidy pile around her feet, her face downcast in shame that was still only partially feigned. The audience at Baudelaire’s was three times the size of that at Salon L’Huître Rose, and quite evidently of a higher social status, although such matters were never easy to assess in France. There were also several foreigners; officials from the Germanic states in their elaborate and colourful uniforms, a group of Chinese merchants in their brilliant silks, even two who appeared to be Soviet commissars, but so far as she could see there was only one person from the British Empire. That person was Godfrey Quigley.

  He had watched Thrift’s striptease in open fascination, occasionally passing a comment to the man beside him, possibly an agent from the Bureau, possibly the man who had tipped M’selle Laroche off about Thrift’s visit to the Avenue Emile Zola. It was a dangerous situation, but one she might just possibly be able to take advantage of, and as the music came to an end she threw him a single, shy glance from beneath her fringe. As she ducked to gather up her clothes, scooping them together as hurriedly as she could in her confusion and embarrassment, she forced herself to turn a little, ensuring that Quigley, and others, were rewarded with a briefly but hopefully tantalising glimpse of the rear view of her sex lips and her anus.

  As she fled the stage she was thinking fast. Quigley would presumably be at the reception afterwards, allowing her to talk to him, possibly to make a second assignation. With luck and skill she might be able to get him alone on the streets of Paris, although she had no clear plan for what to do with him if she did. She already knew she was incapable of killing him in cold blood, while to render him unconscious was easy enough save that she would then have to get him clear of the city and back to England, a formidable problem.

  Baudelaire’s had private dressing rooms, allowing her to think clearly without interruption as she washed and dressed in what had become to her almost a uniform, an abbreviated corset and a pair of flounced pantalettes, in this case both a rich, deep red and with shoes and a garter belt to match, along with black stockings and a trim of black lace. A glance in the mirror showed that she certainly looked alluring, even by the standards of her fellow strippers, although there was still a quiet, British voice in the back of her head telling her that what she looked like was a disgraceful little slut who deserved an eternity of very hard, bare bottom spankings, preferably delivered in public as her appalling behaviour was read out to the crowd.

  A large, red silk flower and new lipstick put the final touches to her look and she made her way out from the backstage area to the main salon. Everything was bigger than at L’Huître Rose, newer, gaudier and evidently more expensive, while there were at least twice as many girls, not all of whom she’d even had a chance to speak to since her arrival. Some she greeted by name, others with passing nods, but she made a point of ignoring the few men who had come out early, not wishing to be trapped into conversation when Quigley himself was sure to appear with the bulk of the audience. Sure enough, he was among the first few, his evening dress immaculate and thoroughly British despite his affected decadence, his face round and rosy as he favoured her with an avuncular smile.

  ‘Ah, Georgette, my dear,’ he greeted her, ‘or is it Chastity, as you were announced on stage? Anyway, I see you’ve come up in the world. Baudelaire’s, eh? Well done!’

  He had come close as he spoke, and took a friendly squeeze of her bottom, at which Thrift managed a giggle, although there was nothing false about the heat of her blushes as she remembered how he’d handled her and Coco at his apartment.

  ‘I am using Chastity as a stage name,’ she quickly explained, ‘to suit my routine. I am on an exchange for Mimi Caze.’

  ‘Ah, the divine M’selle Caze!’ he answered. ‘Now there is a young lady I would like to give the treatment you and your little blonde friend so enjoyed. Champagne?’

  He had fielded two glasses of the wine from a passing waiter and handed one to Thrift, sipping thoughtfully at the other with a faraway expression on his face. Thrift guessed that he was thinking of Mimi Caze, who every man she had met, from the bargees to Quigley himself seemed to regard as a nonpareil. It was impossible not to feel a touch of envy, and yet an idea had begun to form in her head.

  ‘I know M’selle Caze well,’ she lied. ‘She is lovely, isn’t she?’

  ‘Divine,’ he responded, ‘a true artist, with beauty, skill, enthusiasm, and something besides, that strange, vital spark which lifts the greats above the rest of us.’

  From the way he was speaking it was plain he assumed Thrift would agree, and that the possibility that she would be jealous, or merely puzzled, had never entered his head.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed, thinking furiously in an effort to work out how best to turn the situation to her advantage, ‘and you say you would like to enjoy her, to spank her, perhaps, and rather more?’

  ‘But naturally,’ he responded. ‘What man would turn down the pleasure of Mimi Caze? He would have to be
mad. No, not mad, but dead, for not even a lunatic could fail to be stirred by her. And yet you seem to imply that such things might be possible?’

  ‘They might,’ Thrift said cautiously. ‘Yes. I think I can say that it is possible that I might be able to arrange an assignation with M’selle Caze, for a small consideration.’

  Quigley’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘But what of Monsieur Mazoyères?

  Thrift attempted a coy simper as she frantically tried to remember who Monsieur Mazoyères was before memory came to her rescue.

  ‘The Vice-President, is,’ she told him, ‘shall we say, overly presidential and insufficiently vicious for her tastes.’

  ‘He is?’ Quigley asked, evidently fascinated. ‘I had heard he rogers her senseless every evening?’

  ‘So he does,’ Thrift replied, extemporising frantically, ‘but she likes... other things, things he cannot provide.’

  ‘Such as? Tell me more!’

  ‘To be spanked, for one thing,’ Thrift responded, but his expression remained puzzled and she was forced to continue to rising desperation, ‘and... and I really should not say this, but to enjoy her most private delight, which is... which is to treated like a baby, er... to be put in towelling... a nappy, that is, and changed, and... and spanked when she piddles herself.’

  Just saying the words had left her blushing crimson, but Quigley no longer looked puzzled. Instead he was nodding thoughtfully, while the edges of his mouth had curved up into a faint, knowing smile.

  ‘Ah, ha, I see,’ he said, ‘and you felt that I, perhaps, might be able to supply her needs?’

  ‘You spank so well,’ Thrift admitted, ‘and I thought, perhaps...’

  She trailed off, leaving him to imagine what he might be able to do with Mimi Caze in nappies, turned across his knee. A vein in his temple had begun to throb before he replied to her.

  ‘Well, her tastes and mine are not entirely congruent, perhaps, but a gentleman should always do his best to accommodate a lady, and she will require a consideration, naturally. Shortly I hope to be a very rich man indeed, but, for the moment, might she be tempted by a thousand francs?’

  ‘If you answer her needs,’ Thrift told him.

  ‘Of that,’ he assured her, ‘you may be certain. Splendid, splendid, and you will make the arrangements?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thrift promised, ‘although naturally we will need to be discreet.’

  ‘You can rely on me,’ he promised.

  ‘No doubt,’ she said, ‘but when Coco and I entertained you in your apartment you must have mentioned what had happened to somebody. That somebody told M’selle Laroche at Salon L’Huître Rose.’

  ‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘but then I must point out that you had not asked me to keep the matter to myself. I do hope there were no unpleasant consequences?’

  His tone suggested that he hoped exactly the opposite, but Thrift carried on anyway, hoping to prick his conscience.

  ‘We are going to be punished, Coco and I, quite severely, on stage in front of an audience.’

  ‘Spanked?’ he asked, not even bothering to hide his delight.

  ‘Perhaps, but probably not,’ Thrift admitted, blushing. ‘M’selle Laroche likes to give girls enemas.’

  ‘Indeed?’ he asked, a trifle disappointed but still with interest. ‘I am sorry.’

  The tone of his voice was contrite enough, but his eyes suggested that he was anything but sorry.

  ‘Sometimes a girl is even made to expel her enema into another’s mouth,’ Thrift said, desperate to excite at least some sympathy.

  He merely raised his eyebrows, then took a sudden gulp of Champagne, emptying his glass.

  ‘And we have to mop up afterwards,’ Thrift added, ‘still in the nude.’

  ‘The French have an obsession with menial tasks done naked,’ he responded, ‘but good heavens, you have given me quite an appetite. The rooms here are very well appointed, if perhaps...?’

  He left the question unfinished, but he had extended an arm. Thrift took it, unsure of her real feelings but knowing it was best to play along. One of the senior girls was nearby, and Thrift quickly made arrangements, taking a ticket and a key in return for Quigley’s payment of a fifty franc note.For all her experiences she still felt intensely ashamed for prostituting herself so blatantly, and yet nobody else took the slightest notice of them as they left the salon, save for a few envious glances directed at Quigley by other men.

  Thrift had already learnt the layout at Baudelaire’s, with which Quigley seemed to be familiar in any case, and they soon found themselves in a fine room looking out over the street from the third story. The brilliantly lit Tour Eiffel rose over the houses opposite, seeming to Thrift like a gigantic cock, an image that fitted perfectly with her experiences of France. It was also what she was going to be getting, very shortly, or at least, once her bottom had been warmed, because instead of going to the bed, as most men would have done, Quigley had sat down on a straight backed chair with his knees extended to make a lap.

  ‘I think you know what to do, my dear,’ he remarked, patting one leg.

  She nodded, almost as familiar with the onset of the classic, British spanking routine as he was himself. Crossing to where he sat, she draped herself across his knees, her hands and feet braced apart on the floor, her head and breasts and hair dangling down, her bottom raised for spanking. He chuckled to find her so compliant and so well accustomed to the humiliating posture, his hand settling on the seat of her pantalettes.

  ‘So,’ he said as he began to fondle her bottom, ‘M’selle Caze. Do I dare to ask if you and she...?’

  Again he left his question unfinished, but his voice was thick with lust and there was no mistaking his implication. Thrift hesitated, eager to lead him on but unsure what she could get away with when her acquaintance with Mimi Caze extended to having received a single, haughty nod in the foyer at L’Huître Rose. Yet it was enough, at least for generalisation, especially when upended across her questioner’s knee.

  ‘She... she spanks me,’ Thrift tried, knowing it was what he wanted to hear.

  ‘Go on,’ he urged, still caressing Thrift’s bottom through her pantalettes.

  ‘She spanks me,’ Thrift repeated, desperately trying to get her thoughts in order and to ignore the touch of his hand and the gentle pats on her bottom. ‘Just to show me who’s boss, I think. She does it to the other girls too, in front of each other, but it’s usually me.’

  ‘On the bare?’ he asked and he had taken a grip of Thrift’s pantalettes.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, now getting into her role, ‘always on the bare. She... she likes to take our pantalettes down herself, and...’

  Thrift broke off as he gave her pantalettes a tug, pulling them away just far enough to show off the slit of her bottom, then further, the frilly crimson material eased down over the full globe of her cheeks and settled around her thighs to leave her bare behind.

  ‘Carry on,’ he told her as he once more began to stroke and smack at her cheeks.

  ‘She pulls our pantalettes down, always,’ Thrift went on, ‘and right off, at the end, and she won’t let us have them back, so we have to go around bare bottomed, so everyone can see we’ve been spanked, not just the other girls, but M’selle Laroche, and Pierre the doorman. She even made me suck his penis.’

  She gave a low groan as she finished, unable to hold back her rising arousal any more. He was tracing patterns on her bottom with his fingers, moving ever closer to the sensitive slit between her cheeks and the bulge of her quim. She could feel the shape of his cock through his trousers, pressing to her thigh, while her own sex felt wet and ready.

  ‘Spank me,’ she whispered.

  ‘In good time,’ he replied. ‘So, if M’selle Caze is such a martinette with you and the other girls, who spanks her,
and how is it that you know she likes it, and being put in a nappy.’

  ‘M’selle Laroche spanks her,’ Thrift answered automatically. ‘She owns L’Huître Rose. She spanks us all. She puts Mimi in her nappy too, sometimes, and me.’

  It was the only excuse she could think of, blurted out on the spur of the moment, but Quigley showed no surprise at all.

  ‘I thought as much,’ he said, ‘so, let me see, a little spanking first.’

  As he spoke he had began to smack Thrift’s bottom, hard enough to make her gasp and set her legs kicking as she fought to cope with the sudden, stinging pain. He had taken a grip on her waist as well, holding her firmly in position as he spanked her, peppering her bottom with increasingly hard blows until she was wriggling in his grip and begging him to slow down. In the end he did, but at exactly the wrong moment for her, just when her pain had begun to give way to full blown arousal and her pleas had grown hoarse and changed in tone, asking not for less, but more.

  ‘Now,’ he said, applying a final hard slap to her burning pink bottom, ‘into the bathroom with you and fetch a towel, a big one.’

  Thrift made a face as she realised that she herself was to be put into an improvised nappy, her lower lip pushing out into a pout of resignation. Yet there was nothing she could do but obey, walking into the bathroom to find the biggest towel she could, a white one as soft and fluffy as any real nappy. Returning to the bedroom, she held it up for his inspection. He nodded.

  ‘That should do, but whoever heard of a baby in such exotic drawers, to say nothing of a corset and stockings. Strip, naked, but you may leave the flower in your hair.’

  Reluctantly, Thrift began to strip out of her finery, all the while trying to console herself that at least, for once, she was the architect of her own humiliation and that in a sense she deserved her fate. At the very least it was ironic that she should pretend that Mimi Caze liked to be put in nappies only to end up in one herself, but that knowledge did nothing to reduce her shame and sense of foolishness as she went nude.