by Stan Mason
After several miles of fairly thick fog, the weather cleared. He found a free run of good driving conditions all the way to Manchester. In due course, he arrived at the depot and pulled to a halt close to the unloading bay. He locked the doors of his truck and made his way to Katy’s house. There was no other woman who interested him at this particular moment. Katy Morrell filled his mind and his heart. She was everything he wanted, consuming every thought in his head. However Purdy was to find out that life was not that simple. To his disappointment, she wasn’t at home. He hammered on the door unsuccessfully and then went to the rear of the property to see whether any lights were on. Not that darkness signified her absence for she might well be entertaining one of her clients in bed. Prostitution was one of those professions where one was able to work effectively with the light off. He gave up after a short while and walked towards the Red Light district of the city. She had to be somewhere within walking distance of the area. It took him nearly twenty minutes to find her. She was standing under a lamppost talking to a man with a weasel pock-marked face and they seemed to be arguing. Purdy stared at her from a distance with sheer admiration. She had a very trim figure and held her jacket draped over one shoulder. It was quite clear that she was wearing nothing under a thin cotton blouse and black skirt. When she went into a car with a client, her blouse fell open easily displaying a pair of firm delectable soft breasts which always influenced the men to drive faster to a destination where the sexual act would take place. The pencil skirt, which ended up well above her knees displayed a shapely pair of legs which fitted smartly into expensive high-heeled stiletto shoes. She was every inch a desirable woman! Even the cold weather of an early evening seemed to have no effect on her. The truck driver drooled as he stared at her body and then approached to make his presence felt.
‘Hi, Katy,’ he intruded, his macho body looming under the lamppost. ‘What’s going on? Is this weasel causing you problems?’
She stared at him in surprise. ‘Look, Jim, I’m in the middle of something here,’ she reproached him.
‘Who’s this?’ asked weasel-face, ostensibly uninitiated by the truck driver. ‘Is he your pimp?’
‘Who are you calling a pimp!’ growled Purdy menacingly.
‘Look, fella,’ continued the man, ‘I’m talking to the organ-grinder not his monkey, so butt out, will you! Nobody asked you to interfere!’
‘Oh, I’m the monkey, am I?’ challenged the truck driver calmly despite being insulted. ‘Well let me tell you a thing or two, chum! Your conversation with this lady just ended. She’s coming back with me. So who’s the monkey now?’
Weasel-face pulled his hand out of his pocket holding the shaft of a flick-knife. He pressed a button in the hilt and a vicious-looking blade shot out on a spring to its full length, the cold steel glistening under the light of the street lamp. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ he stated, ‘and I really don’t care but, if I was you, fella, I’d make tracks right now... and fast!’
Katy Morrell drew back from the light. She had witnessed many such fights before and she knew full well it didn’t pay to become involved. As a result, she made no attempt to prevent either of the contestants from injury. If they wanted to kill each other, it was better they did it without interference from her. Experience had taught her that if anyone wanted a scapegoat for the fight it was always blamed on the prostitute. She watched the two men shape up to each other with hatred showing in their eyes,, dancing around like two roosters trying to find a means of attacking the other. Effectively. Man was the hunter. He had to prove to everyone that he was macho... whatever that might mean. It proved only that some territorial instincts passed down from the earliest days of existence to haunt him in the present day. They were like wild animals using the slimmest reason to fight each other.
Purdy stared at the other man fearlessly. Then he reached forward and grasped the wrist holding the knife, squeezing tightly with a grip like a vice, at the same time lifting the man’s arm high into the air so that he screamed with pain and dropped the knife. Then the truck driver unleashed his other arm, with its fist clenched tightly, to drive it like a ramrod at the face of his opponent before letting the man’s arm drop. As contact was made, blood spurted all over the place. Weasel-face collapsed on the payment like a rag doll, snivelling and coughing as blood ran into his mouth and throat. The truck driver kicked the knife far into the darkness so that it wouldn’t be found before the light of day.
’Come on!’ he called out to Katy, moving towards her. ’Let’s get out of here! This area’s full of riff-raff these days.’ He took her by the arm and led her away.
’What the hell do you think you’re doing interfering in my business!’ she demanded furiously as they walked away at a pace from the scene of the incident. ‘He wasn’t causing trouble... not until you came, that is. We were just negotiating price, that’s all. You had no right to do that to him!’
‘He shouldn’t have pulled a knife on me. I get very upset when I’m threatened with violence... especially by a cretin like that. In my book, anyone who pulls a knife on someone gets what he deserves.’
‘I don’t need a minder on my pitch!’ she snapped. I can get around very well on my own territory. ‘Her eyes blazed with fury as they continued walking back to her place.
‘Let’s forget all that,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got news for you. Good news for a change. But wait ‘til we get inside. You’ll be very pleased.’
They walked on in silence, both of them nursing different attitudes to the incident. She knew there had been a few fights taking place on occasion in the Red Light district where one person had been knifed or shot. Those were the hazards of being a woman of the streets and one had to be prepared to face them. As soon as they entered the house, Purdy sat on the bed, opened his arms widely, stretching them out at full length, in jubilation. ‘I’m free!’ he told her. ‘Free!’
She stared at him blankly. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Free!’ he repeated. ‘My wife’s left me and the bank’s off my back. They’ve taken the house to pay my debts. I haven’t a responsibility in the world. How great is that?’
‘What’s so great about it?’ she challenged, ‘You’re still living like the rest of us. Life’s a bitch!’
‘I was talking about the future... you and me!’ he went on. ‘The two of us!’
‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she responded, shaking her head from side to side.
‘The other night you told me to come back and used all my masculine energy on you. You told me I was the only man who could satisfy you. The only man in the world.’
‘I might have said something like that. So what?’
‘Well now my wife’s gone, I can stay here. The two of us living together like bugs in a rug. I’ve still got the lorry so I can do local deliveries in Manchester or Liverpool and get back here every night. We could give it a try.’
She frowned staring at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. ‘Is this a scheme you’ve been planning, Jim, or is it some kind of a joke?’
‘I’m serious,’ he told her earnestly. ‘Wendy and I are no more. She’s gone back to live with her mother in Bolton. ‘ He paused for a moment and his face indicated that he suddenly realised the reason for her reluctant attitude. ‘Ah, you think I only want to do it temporarily because my wife might come back and I’ll change my mind. Well that’s not going to happen. You see the bank’s got the deeds and the keys to my house and they’re going to sell it. There’s no place for her to come back to. We’re finished!’
‘What are you trying to tell me, Jim, because it’s not getting through to me? Are you telling me you want to marry me, live with me or what?’
‘I thought we might shack up together to see how things pan out,’ he explained with a broad grin on his face. ‘You know, have a bit of fun... live it up a l
ittle!’
She turned away from him in anger, slapping her thigh furiously. ‘And for that reason you lost me a good, maybe regular, client so you could tell me this!’
He was most surprised at her attitude. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. That’s why I broke you up with that weasel-faced cretin. You could give up the game and we could settle down together. You’d like it. I know you would.’
‘Would I really!’ she snarled. ‘How the hell would you know whether I’d like it or not? I haven’t seen you for donkey’s year. You stay at my place for one hour and thin it’s a great idea to hitch up with me. Can you give me any reason why I should want to live with a loser like you?’
He squared up his shoulders as if to present an argument which had no means of being challenged. ‘Because I’m the only man who can satisfy you. You told me that yourself.’
‘Give me strength!’ she shouted, stomping up and down the room like a spoilt child, twisting the fingers of one hand with those of the other. ‘You may look down on me for being a prostitute but I’m proud of my profession. I suppose you think of it as selling my flesh, selling myself or something sordid like that. Well you’re wrong. My job is to satisfy men and I do it well. I’m not a sleazy good-for-nothing whore. I’m a professional! And if you think the job’s only about sex and money you’re wrong about that as well. Prostitutes offer the community a tremendous service... one which is never appreciated. Not only that but they save the taxpayers’ money more than any other profession or institute in the country!’
‘How do you make that out?’ he asked in amusement, ignoring her tirade as a feminine reaction to his proposition.
She puffed out her cheeks and inhaled deeply. ‘Because if it wasn’t for us a number of crimes, including murder and rape, would rocket sky-high. You’d need more police which would cost the taxpayers money and vandalism would run riot. Men would be tramping the streets to rape women. You have no idea what it’s like out there, do you? We relieve the frustration of men who either can’t control themselves or they can’t get enough sex at home. If they could, we’d soon be out of business. And if we weren’t around, they have to find other ways of getting it out of their system. There wouldn’t be a woman in this country who’d dared to go out at night for fear of being raped.’ She blew out her cheeks again as she began to calm down. ‘And you’d want me to give it up so that you can shack up with me for a few weeks. Well all I can say is get on your bike! You’d soon make it up with your wife and I’d be left like a stranded seal. I’m not a lonely hearts counsellor putting together other people’s lives when they fall apart,’
‘Why don’t you give me a kiss?’ he ventured, passing off her anger as mere rhetoric. ‘When women say ‘No!’ they really mean ‘Yes!’ You know it and I know it. So come on! How about a kiss for starters.’
‘There must be something wrong with your hearing,’ she countered angrily. She poured herself a drink from a bottle on a side table. ‘The longest I want to be with a man is one night,’ She swallowed the contents of the glass. ‘One night. That’s all! I don’t want to cook for a man or wash dishes or his clothes or keep seeing him day after day. As I said, I’m a professional. I’m not the housewife type. Not a domestic animal!’
He helped himself to a drink from the same bottle and lay back on the bed. ‘Looks like I got it all wrong,’ he said lamely, realising that his plan was doomed. ‘But that’s the way it goes. Everyone hit’s a man when he’s down. My wife, my bank manager, and now you. I’ve been waiting to hit the bottom so that I know the only way is up. And now the police are looking for me as well.’
Her head came back sharply. ‘The police? What have they got to do with it?’
‘It was an accident,’ he confessed. ‘I knocked down that man on the motorway. He was standing out there in the heavy rain where he shouldn’t have been. There was this diversion, you see. I decided I had to get to Manchester fast...’
‘Not the accident they broadcast on the radio and television!’ she gasped interrupting him in his flow. ‘You were the driver who killed him? The police are searching high and low for you.’
He shrugged his shoulders aimlessly. ‘It was an accident,’ he bleated.
‘An accident maybe,’ she scolded, ‘but you didn’t stop afterwards, did you? You killed a special constable in the police force. You really stirred up a hornet’s nest.’
‘You won’t tell anyone, will you!’ he pleaded, realising his foolishness in confiding in her.
She returned her glass to the side table and clambered on to the bed pulling his head to her bosom. ‘Oh, Jim, you’re such a fool!’ she said with a calmness that soothed him form head to toe. ‘I didn’t know you were involved in that accident. Here, let me ease it from your mind!’ She rubbed his head into her breasts encouraging him to feel an urge of sexual excitement within him. ‘I tell you what. I’ll spend the night with you but you’ll have to pay me because you lost me a client. We’ll stay here together all night.’ She climbed off the bed to undress quickly and then moved back adopting a seductive pose.
He leaned forward and grabbed her naked body impatiently. ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment all the way from London,’ he admitted candidly, pulling her down towards him on the bed. ‘You don’t know what this means to me.’
She laughed as she began to pull off his clothes. ‘All the way from London,’ she giggled. ‘That’s a long way to stay horny!’
They exploded with laughter before she eluded his grasp and got off the bed. ‘I’ve got an idea. Because you’ve been a naughty boy, I’m going to whip you. She produced a short black whip which she brandished above his body.
‘Great!’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘I’ve never been whipped before. Wendy would have had a fit if I asked her to whip me.’
Katy was about to touch his body with the tip of the whip but then halted the action. ‘Let me get one thing straight, Jim Purdy. We never mention the names of other women in my house. If you can’t forget your wife, you won’t be able to concentrate. And it you don’t do that, nothing will work.’
‘Concentrate!’ he laughed toying with the word. ‘I heard a joke about that the other day. A man was making love to his wife one night and doing a pretty poor job of it. After fifteen minutes of trying, they couldn’t get going properly. ‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’ asked his wife. ‘I can’t help it,’ he told her. ‘I just can’t think of anyone!’ He roared with amusement at his own joke but stopped sharply as the whip lashed playfully at his body.
‘We’ll have none of that!’ cautioned the prostitute. ‘I want your whole attention! She started flicking him with the whip gently in sensitive parts of his body ignoring the sounds of pain and pleasure he released. The truck driver was doomed to suffer a great deal of punishment that night and he was going to enjoy every second of it... at the hands of a real professional!
On the following morning, Katy woke up just before the driver. She got up and he opened his eyes to watch her dressing.
‘I thought all prostitutes staying in bed until the afternoon,’ he commented.
‘Not always,’ she responded. ‘I have things to do today. Important things. And you have to get down to the depot to unload your lorry, otherwise you won’t get paid.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ he swore as he glanced at his wristwatch and leapt out of bed. ‘I should have been down there half-an-hour ago.’ He lifted his trousers and jumped into them before putting on his socks and shoes.
‘You can make yourself some breakfast, if you like,’ she said flatly, ‘but you’ll want to get to your lorry first, I’m sure. The lorry... the real love of your life! As for me, I’m off! Catch you later! Don’t worry about the money you owe me. I’ve already taken it from your trouser pocket. A woman’s got to live you know.’ Without further hesitation, she opened the door and left.
Purdy muttered a few exple
tives to himself for being late. After tying up his shoelaces, he pulled his sweater over his head. As he did so, a small object struck him. It was Katy’s wristwatch which had caught in a threads of his pullover. He had the option of leaving it in the room for her to find but he decided to chase after her in case she needed it, She was walking swiftly at the top of the road as he left the house. He followed, gradually gaining on her the further they progressed., He was almost within hailing distance when Katy arrived the police station. However instead of walking past it, as he expected, she went inside. Purdy stopped in his tracks realising that he had told her about the accident on the motorway. Prostitutes normally kept their distance from the police unless they made a special deal with them... usually to be left alone by the law in exchange for information. No doubt Katy was giving them some very useful information about him. He began to panic and started to run back to his truck at the depot, Katy didn’t know the registration number of his vehicle but she did know the depot where he was making the delivery. That was where they had met the last time he was in Manchester. If he moved sharply he could return to London before they unloaded his vehicle and no one would be the wiser. Bitch! She had made love to him at night and had ‘shopped’ him to the police in the morning! It was impossible to trust anyone these days!