by Anne Bennett
Finch was making his way over to Levingstone to gloat over the fact that he had got entry to the place at last when the tantalising music began and Aggie danced on to the stage. Finch looked up and was mesmerised by the girl who seemed almost part of the music that she danced to in such an evocative way. He wasn’t able to take his eyes off her.
‘I bet he’ll ask for her tonight,’ Maggie said, and gave a shiver.
‘Levingstone won’t allow it, though, will he?’ Patsy asked.
‘Not for ordinary punters, no, but that Finch is used to getting his own way,’ Rita told her.
‘What’s he doing here anyroad?’ Patsy said. ‘The doorman told me recently that Levingstone left orders that he is not to be let in.’
‘Like I said, Finch is used to getting his own way.’
‘Christ! If he asks for Aggie she’s welcome to him,’ cos he looks a cruel bugger,’ Maggie said.
‘Yeah,’ Rita agreed. ‘Poor cow if he says he wants her.’
‘Yeah, well, don’t spend too much time feeling sorry for her,’ Hattie said. ‘When she is around most of the men barely notice us, and Levingstone don’t pay us to drape ourselves around the bars alone and drink ourselves stupid.’
‘Nowt else to do while she is performing,’ Brenda replied. ‘Come on, let’s have another. She can’t dance all bloody night and I reckon it will just whet their appetites for a bit of the other. We might all be really busy later on.’
Aggie finished her first stint and left the stage for her break just as Tony Finch was saying to Levingstone, ‘I want that little girl afterwards.’
Levingstone looked at the man that he detested and thought of his harsh, brutish hands groping Aggie’s body. ‘Not Aggie,’ he said. ‘She’s just a dancer tonight.’
‘What’re you talking about? When they are down here they are anyone’s, you know that.’
‘Not Aggie,’ Levingstone said firmly. ‘Not tonight. Now, any one of the other girls—’
‘I don’t want one of the other girls,’ the man said forcibly. ‘I want that little dancer and I mean to have her before I go home tonight.’
‘Aggie is different from the other girls.’
‘Course she isn’t,’ Finch said. ‘She is a whore like all the rest, or she wouldn’t be here.’
‘I am sorry,’ Levingstone said. ‘The answer is still no.’ He was watching Aggie making her way towards him, being stopped by this one and that who wanted to congratulate her. A glass of something was pressed into her hand.
Finch said, ‘You don’t seem to appreciate your position, Levingstone. A word in the right ear could have this place closed down and you out on the street, if not in prison. Where would your little princess be then? Destitute? Living on the streets? Course, I might take pity on her and take her for myself.’
Levingstone looked at the man and knew he meant every word. Aggie reached his side then, flushed with heady success. She smiled at him and his heart turned over. He couldn’t smile back, however, because he knew that somehow that night he had to break the news to her that the promises he made that she wouldn’t be expected to sleep with any of the punters yet, and certainly not on the nights she danced, were like so much dust beneath her feet. That night, as soon as the dancing was over, she would be given to Tony Finch for his pleasure, whatever it was.
Levingstone followed Aggie to the room at the back where she was going to change her shoes. It was almost the end of the break and she was still filled with exhilaration and slightly light-headed from the drinks she had had bought for her. Everyone, it seemed, had wanted to buy ‘the little dancer’ a drink. In the end Levingstone had put a stop to it before she was rendered incapable of dancing any more, but even so, he noticed her smile was a little lopsided.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Never better.’
‘You’ll be fine to dance?’
‘Of course.’
Levingstone wasn’t totally convinced, but there wasn’t time to go into it now. He had to break the news to her before the second part of her performance that there was further ‘entertaining’ she had to do. He also had to impress upon her that, however she felt, she had to please the man, because Tony Finch was a bad enemy to make.
When Levingstone told her, she just stared at him for a few minutes and he had to steel himself to keep looking into her eyes, which were clouded with reproach.
‘You said…’ she began at last. ‘You promised… it wasn’t to be this way.’
‘It wasn’t,’ Levingstone said. ‘It wasn’t how I had it planned, either.’
‘Then why?’
‘The man is too powerful and influential for me to refuse.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Tony Finch, the man I was talking to at the bar when you came off stage.’
Aggie’s lips curled. ‘Ah God, not him,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t care for him at all. His eyes stick out and they are too close together as well. They were on me all the time, even when he spoke to others, or others spoke to him. I felt almost as if I was standing naked before him.’
‘In his mind’s eye you probably were,’ Levingstone said. ‘Anyway, however you feel about him, he wants you, and no one else will do.’
‘Alan, please don’t make me do this.’
Levingstone shook his head. ‘I have no choice. He has threatened to expose this place unless I let him have you tonight, and then we are all in one bloody awful mess. I could be imprisoned and so could many of the girls here, if they didn’t manage to escape first, and there is nowhere to run to anyway except the streets. As for you, well, Tony thinks he might take you for himself and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.’
‘So I haven’t any choice in this, have I?’
‘In all honesty, Aggie, no, you haven’t. To save yourself as well as the rest of us, you must go with this man tonight and endeavour to please him. I am putting you in room ten. It is the one reserved for special customers and all will be ready for you.’ And then, as Aggie continued to look at him without speaking, he cried out desperately, ‘Come on, Aggie, there is no other option.’
‘I know that,’ she said brokenly. ‘I’m not a fool, but don’t expect me to be leaping about with joy about it.’ She looked at him with her eyes brimming with tears as she continued, ‘My skin crawls at the thought of what I am expected to do with this man, but I will do my level best.’
Levingstone felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach at the look in Aggie’s eyes. He said, ‘I’m so sorry, Aggie. If there was anything I could do to make this easier for you, then I would do it.’
‘You can,’ Aggie said, before panic overwhelmed her completely. ‘Pour me a large glass of gin.’
‘Do you think that wise?’
‘None of this is wise,’ Aggie said. ‘My heart is jumping about all over the place at the thought of it, and the roof of my mouth is so dry that it hurts to swallow. Getting drunk is the only way to deal with it.’
At last Aggie was finished. The last strains of music drained away, as she curtsied to the audience. The applause was thunderous. Her eyes sought Levingstone. She saw he was at the bar and was forcing himself to stay there, but his whole face looked bleak and sad.
Then she saw Finch making his way towards her through the people clustered around the bar, holding aloft a full bottle of gin and two glasses. When he reached her he used the stage as a table, poured them a glass each and said, ‘Shall we go up? I am not in the mood to wait much longer.’
Aggie began to tremble. She took a hefty gulp from her glass before allowing herself to be propelled upstairs to the room assigned to her. Levingstone watched her go and felt a sudden pang of loss. He knew that though she had so far remained virtually unsullied from the trade she was caught up in, that situation was going to change, and rapidly. By allowing Finch to take Aggie, he was setting a precedent. From that moment, she would be common property in the club.
ELEVEN
If Aggie hadn’t bee
n so frightened of what lay before her, she would have been surprised by the opulence of the room that had been prepared for her. Her feet sank into the thick carpet; the bed was a four-poster, with the drapes tied back to show the dark red velvet coverlet and the crimson sheets. But all Aggie could remember was Lily’s advice to drink enough that she didn’t care what was done to her.
Aggie doubted that there was sufficient alcohol in the world to make her not care that she was in this bedroom with a man she didn’t know or care for and that she would have to submit to anything he wanted. The idea made her feel sick. She drank deeply of the gin and poured herself another, hoping it would at least stop her teeth from chattering, because she was certain that if Finch noticed he would be vexed.
Finch, however, was too consumed with lust for Aggie to notice.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What are we waiting for?’
Aggie barely had time to down her drink in one long swallow before Finch lifted her roughly in his arms, dumped her onto the bed and began tearing the clothes from her. Aggie helped him, frightened he would rip the costume in his haste, but Finch misinterpreted this. He smiled nastily as he said, ‘You little whore. You can’t get enough, can you?’
Aggie didn’t bother answering. She told herself it didn’t matter what he thought or what he said. In a little while he would be finished and it would all be over. But when she felt him grabbing handfuls of her flesh roughly with his hard and vicious hands, she couldn’t help giving little yelps of pain.
‘Shut up, you sodding little trollop,’ Finch demanded.
‘You’re hurting me.’
Finch smiled. ‘I haven’t started yet,’ he said, and transferred his attention to her breasts, pummelling them mercilessly. She bit her lips to prevent her groans of pain, knowing they might annoy him further. She couldn’t help crying out, though, when he began to bite her bruised breasts, especially when he attacked her nipples. She tried to push him away from her then, but though her efforts were futile, they annoyed him none the less.
‘You are supposed to please me in all ways,’ he sneered at the weeping girl as he began to strip. ‘Didn’t Levingstone tell you that? He wouldn’t like it, I’m sure, if I had to complain about your lack of enthusiasm.’
He wouldn’t either, Aggie knew. Hadn’t he told her as much? She let her hands fall to her sides and Finch, now naked, launched himself on top of her. She had been sleeping with Levingstone for some time and it was always a pleasurable experience, but Finch had hurt and frightened her so she was tense, and when he thrust himself inside her, she thought she would die with the pain of it. She let out a shout, but the next moment Finch clamped one hand over her mouth as he began to bite and suck at her neck causing her excruciating pain.
Aggie thought it would go on for ever – Finch jabbing inside her, his teeth clamping on her neck and the pulsating pain burning like a furnace inside her. Tears trickled relentlessly down her cheeks. She was hurting so much and feeling so wretched and distressed that there was no room left for shame.
That came later, when Finch eventually gave one last almighty shove and let out a cry, so releasing his hold on Aggie’s sore neck, much to her relief. For a moment he lay still on top of her as if spent and then began to roll away, and she wriggled from underneath him, sat up and then very gingerly got to her feet.
‘That was good in the end and I will tell Levingstone so,’ Finch said. ‘You were as tight as any virgin I have had the pleasure of bedding.’
Aggie said nothing. She ached or throbbed almost everywhere. She was having trouble staying on her feet and she longed to sink back on the bed, but there was no way she was going any nearer to Finch. Then he swung his legs from the bed and began to dress.
‘Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?’ Finch said. ‘Or do you want another dose before I leave you?’
Aggie couldn’t prevent the shudder that shook her whole body and Finch saw it too and it amused him. ‘Till tomorrow then,’ he said. ‘Though I might have to wait in a long line when I tell the other punters what a little goer you are.’
Aggie stared at him, horrified. It was bad enough that he had had sex with her and abused her so badly, without it being broadcast throughout the club. She mentally shrank from suffering the same the following night and was terrified that then there might be a succession of men who would want to do the same thing to her.
Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment and Finch saw this as he leaned towards her. ‘Don’t look like some vestal virgin who has just had her maidenhead taken from her,’ he sneered. ‘You are a whore and knew well enough what it was all about.’
Aggie continued to stare as Finch got to his feet. He made to kiss her, but she recoiled. ‘Naughty, naughty,’ he said grimly. ‘I may make you pay for that little act of defiance tomorrow evening.’
Prickles of alarm ran all through Aggie, mixed with the self-disgust and degradation that she felt steeped in. Before the door had fully closed behind Finch, she was vomiting into the bowl of the lavatory in the little room that led off the bedroom. Then she staggered back into the bedroom, stopping only to pick up the bottle of gin as she sank on the bed.
She was bone-weary and needed sleep. Her whole body craved it, but there was little chance of it unless she could blot out the images crowding into her brain. She knew only one way to do that, and she lifted the bottle to her lips.
Everyone knew that Finch had taken Aggie up to the room that night. There were few who hadn’t a measure of sympathy for her, for they had heard from some of the street girls what he was capable of even, they said, before he had gone to the university. So when Rita spotted Finch leaving the club, she went back to the dormitories the girls shared, tidied herself up and made herself respectable before going to see if Aggie was all right.
Aggie had fallen into a drunken stupor naked across the bed and Rita could see her whole body was bruised and battered. There were teeth marks all over it, and scratches where Finch’s nails had caught her. She was at a loss to know what to do and in the end she went for her friend Patsy to ask her advice.
When Patsy saw Aggie she was as appalled as Rita had been.
‘Poor cow!’ Patsy burst out. ‘God, that bloody man should be locked up.’
‘I agree,’ Rita said. ‘Don’t blame her, getting drunk either, but she has to be wakened and we’ll do what we can to try and get her semi-respectable before Levingstone comes looking for her in the morning.’
After the girls had finished with the punters they usually retired to the dormitories they shared with the others. However, Levingstone wanted Aggie to continue to share his bed and so he would expect to find her in bed beside him when he woke the next morning.
When she wasn’t, he assumed that she had already risen and he went in search of her, but when it was apparent she was nowhere in his own private apartments, and neither Bessie nor Mary had seen her either, he went down to the club to look for her.
By then Rita and Patsy had done their best, but they couldn’t work miracles and knew Aggie was in no fit state to be up. In fact she couldn’t stand and had been sick many times in the bowl they had prudently placed within her reach.
Aggie had seemed unaware of their ministrations as they’d bathed her injuries and put salve on, and then clothed her in one of Rita’s own nightdresses that buttoned to the neck. So when Levingstone entered the room the next morning, this was what he saw, with Rita and Patsy still in attendance.
He took in Aggie’s white, pallid face, the black smudges beneath her eyes and the fact that she was still in bed, and said, ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
The eyes Aggie turned on him were vacant, glazed and slightly bloodshot. Her mouth was slack and her inane smile crooked, and he knew that she was extremely drunk. She made no attempt to answer him. In fact, she was so far gone he wasn’t sure whether she had heard or understood what he had said. He drew Patsy and Rita away from the bed and looked to them for some explanation.
‘She took a dr
op too much,’ Rita said. ‘I come in after Finch left late last night to see if she was all right, like, and found her in a bit of a state. She’d been sick and that, and so I fetched Patsy to give me a hand to clean her up and that’s all I know.’
‘I’ve never seen her this drunk before.’
‘She’ll get over it, though,’ Patsy told him. ‘Look, it were her first time, weren’t it? Well, from what I hear, Finch ain’t your kind and considerate gentlemanly sort.’
‘No,’ Levingstone admitted, ‘he is anything but a gentleman. I didn’t want it, not for Aggie. I said she wasn’t ready. Maybe I should find Finch and have a word with him.’
That was the last thing that Rita and Patsy wanted before they had been able to talk to Aggie. Rita said hurriedly, ‘You don’t know what happened, though, do you?’
‘Yeah,’ Patsy put in. ‘He could have done nothing wrong at all, and Aggie just felt she couldn’t cope with it and so blotted it all out in the only way she knew.’
‘And it would never do to offend Finch,’ Rita said warningly. ‘Why not wait until Aggie is more herself and you can ask her what happened?’
‘You really think that’s best?’
Rita and Patsy both nodded. ‘Let her sleep it off, I would,’ Patsy said.
Levingstone shrugged. ‘All right. I will be guided by you two.’
And Patsy and Rita sighed inwardly in relief.
Early that evening, before they went down to the club, Rita and Patsy bathed Aggie’s injuries again, applied more salve and then looked at her in frustration.
‘’Tisn’t good enough, is it?’ Patsy said. ‘If Levingstone sees the state of Aggie, there is no way on earth we or anyone else will be able to stop him going for Finch.’
‘And he will see it, won’t he?’ Rita said morosely. ‘For all we have done, a blind man on a galloping horse would see those marks on her neck.’