by Louisa Trent
I stopped shielding my eyes from him.
“The use of punishment…was this as a child in the orphanage, Emma?”
“No. Never. Not until I turned eighteen. The dance master said I had great promise. He tried everything to get me to attend to my lessons at the barre. But my head was always in the clouds. And, I was often recalcitrant. Only discipline worked with me.”
“Which was best?”
I sighed. “After the lesson and I had changed into my usual clothing, he would call me to his office, where he would instruct me to raise my gown and send my drawers to my ankles. The tangle of cheap cotton unmentionables would never fail to hogtie me.”
“How did defenselessness feel to you?”
“I liked it.” I licked my lips again. “Liked being restrained. It made me feel – secure. I felt the same when you tied me to the wall behind the tub.”
“I suspected as much. Go on. Tell me the rest.”
“Then my dance master would charge me with rounding over his mahogany desk, my bottom raised up high. Embarrassing.” I groaned. “Enormously exciting too.”
“And you liked what form of discipline the most?”
“All of it. Especially when he employed the rod and the whip.”
“Only across the buttocks?”
“Well, yes, but at times, I turned toward it, and the whip would accidently graze my chest, across my nipples to be exact, which by that point were enormous and erect, and showing plainly through my thin cotton gown, I suppose from the pain.”
“No undergarments?”
“No need. I was always so skinny. You know, as a child. A delayed maturation, I guess. Even at nineteen, when I finally began to mature, I could still dispense with a corset altogether. A good thing, as I had not the sum required to invest in one. Expensive contraptions. Only lately have I been able to afford one. Another good thing, as my bosom grew and I do need one now. To go without would court scandal.”
“Go without.”
Had I misheard him? “Pardon, sir?”
“I will have no restrictions placed on your lush body.”
“What about…” I swallowed. “Shifting. My breasts will shift, sir, under my camisoles when I walk. When I do anything.”
“Good.”
“People will notice. Men will notice.”
“Your body is a natural wonder, a damn work of art. Take pride in your form. Show it off.”
My heart pounded so as I admitted my terrible need in rambling fashion. “Anyway…I would purposefully get in the way of a special flogger he would use if I were especially lazy at my lesson that day. I never learned the name of the contraption, but the whip had these far-reaching multiple leather strips attached to the end. I would turn myself toward the thongs so they would strike my chest. The sensation was a tickle of sorts, only sharper. I would cry out and not entirely in pain.”
“Did he make any breaks in the flesh? Any shallow rips? Tears?”
Not at all put off by the thought, I shivered uncontrollably. “No. Just bruising that would last until the next time my steps were not learned sufficiently well.
“He was a strict master, then.”
“Yes, but I learned so much under his tutelage, sir. I could never resent him or his methods. Indeed, I came to enjoy his style.” I swallowed hard. “There was nothing carnal about it, I assure you.”
My rescuer laughed. “There was everything carnal about it. And you responded. Nothing for which to apologize. Perhaps you will someday find another hard task master, someone who will use the rod and whip on you, just like your dance master once did, and you will gasp your delight all over again.”
My tears of guilt?
Promptly dried on my face.
My rescuer had not scorned my need, not in any way. Neither had he ridiculed me for finding that sort of thing pleasurable. Instead, he considered the need worthy of satisfaction and told me so. Not only that, he had presented me with hope of finding such a hard task master again.
In relating the story, a terrible weight lifted from my shoulders:
He had not found me disgusting. What was more, seeing me happy apparently meant something to him.
I thought perhaps I already had found my hard task master. In him. If he would only admit as much to himself. Even reliving the experience through my telling him of it was pleasant. Did he find it so, as well?
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered.
“No need to thank me, Emma. I am here for you. For now, up onto a seated position on the bed, with your back against the headboard. Spread your knees wide for your first lesson in masturbation. You will find yourself less tense as a result of learning how it is done.”
My confidence returning, I scrambled to do as he said, shuffling the pillows about until I was propped up in a seated position. Only when he was satisfied with my positioning did he retire to the foot of the bed. Presumably, to see if I had followed his instructions and had done everything just so. Like my dance master, my rescuer had perfectionist tendencies.
“The lesson is an easy one,” he said, his voice a disembodied presence from the darkness. “Without my telling you how, do what pleases you, Emma. But first, your hose must go. Garters too. Everything off.”
I hung my head. Struggled to breathe. My confidence?
Plummeted.
“Sir, I…”
“You need to learn how to do this, Emma, all by yourself. No instruction. Consider it a gift to yourself.”
I was most reluctant. Only the thought of pleasing him motivated me. Pleasing him would please me.
I removed my garters first, then rolled my still damp black stockings down and off.
As a can-can dancer, I was used to performing with a gleaming spotlight directed at me. This was different. For one thing, I was totally naked now. And this was no act. I was not in greasepaint or costume and I had no character props, no fake name and foreign nationality to hide behind. I could not pretend to be someone else.
Especially not a virginal bride on her wedding night.
I was myself here, an unloved and unlovable orphan girl now grown up. There was no place for me to retreat from that truth, no place to hide as I did what I wished to do, everything I wished to do…
…until my throat was screamed hoarse and I toppled into a boneless and satiated sleep, naked on the bed.
When I next awakened, sometime later during the night, I found myself still stark naked and lying atop the rumpled covers. My knees were bent up and spread an exaggerated degree, an immodest pose in which I never ever slept. Indeed, it was that peculiarity in positioning that most likely awakened me. No other reason was immediately apparent to me – the room was toasty warm and I was an unusually sound sleeper. And, what was most odd, I had landed face-down on the bed after my lesson in masturbation. And now I was not on my belly.
Was it him then? Had Mr. Simmons turned me over onto my back and stretched out my legs as I dozed? He might have done so without my awareness. There was the residual alcohol in my system to consider and my ability to sleep through anything.
I could well imagine him arranging me. The care he must have taken in making sure I was fully exposed to his gaze as he stood at the foot of the bed. How he looked his fill while I slept, on naked and open.
Had he touched me? Stroked me? Ran his fingers over my inert form…my breasts. Belly. Between my legs?
Smiling, and keeping my thighs split wide, I returned to an even more blissful slumber than before.
Chapter Nine
Two weeks later, I found myself in the gaming room. At this point in my new career, I was practically an old hand at my hostessing duties, one of which was to wear beautiful clothing. Not a hard row to hoe. After buying second-hand since my orphanage days, I acclimated fairly quickly to wearing gorgeous new ensembles, all professionally designed and tailored.
A dressmaker fitted me exactingly for every new gown, a long drawn-out process. That Mr. Simmons watched from the sidelines during each appoint
ment, displaying no impatience whatsoever as the seamstress nipped and tucked and snipped and adjusted. His attention to detail was much like my own. And being a bit of a showoff, I certainly enjoyed his undivided attention.
Not that I had asked him to stay or even to send the dressmaker in the first place or had expected such luxury. I would have made do at consignment shops in town as I always had. But he had insisted and who was I to object to his pampering…
Calling me downstairs to his office a few mornings after my arrival, he introduced me to Mrs. Barrows, a modiste of acclaim both far and wide. Joint fashion discussions between the three of us ensued, and were a regular occurrence thereafter. There were four seasons in a year, and I was expected to make an impression in all of them.
And yes, my opinions about style did count for something.
Mr. Simmons was definitely authoritarian in temperament. I would be lying if I said he was not of a dominant inclination. With that conceded, he did have a sense of fairness. I was granted a say in every article of clothing made for me. Sometimes, he even went along with my opinion…
Save when it came to certain undergarments. He was a stickler on those. No more patched cotton drawers for me! And ‘plain’ was not a word he recognized. Though phrases including the word ‘tasteful were oft-repeated. He had rather strong ideas about what a hostess at a gambling den should and should not wear “to keep the place looking classy.”
Quite an eye-opener, all of this. I had never before monopolized anyone’s interest for such an extended length of time. Any length of time, actually. Previously, I had always been no more than an afterthought. For that reason alone, I had come to anticipate neglectful treatment. Or, at least, how to fend for myself. As a consequence, I thought nothing of having to vocally assert my rights, arguing for or against something, as I had with Milton.
Now, with Mr. Simmons, we discussed. Everything.
When I spoke, he listened. Sometimes, he even went along with what I had to say.
Not about undergarments though. Those were not open to discussion – he always had the last word there – but about more general topics. And because he really did believe in equal rights for all, he even kept his promise and attended suffragette rallies. Not many men or women supported the cause as strongly as he. With his money pouch. With his goodwill. With his participation and volunteering at meetings. I could just go on and on…
Anyway…to ensure I projected the right image to his wealthy clientele, he would take a seat behind his office desk and say nothing during the dressmaking proceedings, rising up out of his chair only to tug at an errant dart on one of the gowns under order or to note a crooked pleat on a camisole or to stress to Mrs. Barrows the importance of sparing no expense in doing it “right.”
He had a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong, both in fashion and in the treatment of his staff. All subjects, actually. Particularly if the subject under discussion was me.
Mrs. Barrows, the modiste, must have concluded at the start of our appointments that the owner of the gaming den was also my lover. Disappointingly, he was not. But I could see where she would make such a mistake: Even when I stripped down to skin for a fitting of new undergarments, he refused her efforts in getting him to step out of the room for propriety’s sake.
And another thing – his strong views on anything that might restrict my lungs must have seemed odd to her.
“Dancers must breathe freely,” he told her, even though I no longer did, dance that is.
For some reason, he seemed confident I would perform again. Somewhere, someday.
A woman of tact and diplomacy, the modiste said nothing about the impropriety of his specific ordering of my unmentionables – pantalettes and petticoats and camisoles. No corsets. Although, she must certainly have wondered over the nature of our relationship then. That she would surely gossip about us following the fittings was immaterial to him.
Immaterial to me as well. Such was the way in France, Madame had explained before sending me off to learn ballet from one of her acquaintances, a retired teacher from the Paris Opera Ballet. Naked dancers were not only ogled by wealthy patrons in practice rooms, they were propositioned there.
‘An altogether exploitive system’ was Mr. Simmons’s comment when I explained all this to him.
“She needs clothing to be worn for practice, as well,” Mr. Simmons instructed Mrs. Barrows. “Abbreviated skirts that end here,” he said, pulling up on my petticoats. “Hem them well above the knee. Also, form-hugging shirtwaists, styled much like a camisole, thin material and scantily designed. She must be able to move freely.”
“But, sir,” the modiste explained, “no corset will spell disaster. Without bones and stays, her full bosom will bob up and down during the strenuous activity you describe.”
He allowed a shrug to serve as his reply.
And so, I had a whole new set of practice tutus to wear designed just for me…though I had no show for which to audition, never mind practice for.
The just completed gown I wore this evening was a flattering shade of silver-blue, a color that shimmered under the elaborate chandeliers and made me feel like a fairytale princess. Though certainly provocative, the style provided more coverage than my old costumes. Nevertheless, the gown clung to my curves like a second skin.
That was its intended purpose. My role here at the gambling den was to entice customers into spending enormous sums in card games and other forms of illicit entertainment. One cannot dress like a cloistered nun and accomplish that feat.
I stepped up to the task at hand with a suave-looking gentleman of undetermined but obviously aristocratic origins. “Sir – the American roulette table differs from the European. If you would kindly allow me to guide you through the differences before you place your bet.”
“Kind of you. I game all the time in Monaco, where betting on various games of chance is legal. Unfortunately – just as it is in most of America now, European gambling is against the law…”
He glanced at my name card. “…Miss Jones.”
To make a clean break with my cancan past, I had decided during my first week in my new position to drop the stage name of DuPont and use my adoptive name of Jones. Frankly, I was tired of the duplicity and Mr. Simmons agreed. Indeed, he encouraged me to embrace my past.
As I was explaining the differences in the American roulette wheel in comparison to the European to the den’s new client, another staff member, Clarissa, caught my eye.
After smiling at me, she mouthed, “See you outside in ten minutes.”
Seven days a week, I arrived downstairs to work my shift at five p.m. on the nose, the exact time the gambling den opened its doors for business. There was no cashing out for me, as I never came into contact with actual money as some girls did, so I finished up precisely at one in the morning. Then, during our main break in duties at exactly seven o’clock – Mathew was absurdly strict with me about eating healthy meals at regular times – Clarissa would meet me in the gardens and we would chat. About anything and everything.
Having a friend was wonderful. Unlike at the dancehall, where I thought myself better than the rest of the girls, I went out of my way to be sociable here. Consequently, I learned the ins-and-outs of my new career faster than I would have ordinarily done. There was so much information to acquire, not only about gambling, but about the culture and unstated house expectations.
As it turned out, I was not the only woman working at the den. Some of us whored in palatial back rooms, and some of us did not. Those who did not dealt cards, spun the roulette wheel, handed out “fresh” dice to those superstitious about using used models, and served drinks balanced on fancy gold-leaf trays.
I walked new members through the den, explaining how membership dues worked and what benefits they received for the expenditure. After showing off the crown jewel of the establishment – the sumptuous dining room – I gave them a tour of where whores gathered to meet and greet potential clients. Unlike at les
s discreet establishments, our girls were neither nude nor clad only in dressing gowns in their main sitting room. Our prostitutes wore very nice tea gowns while they waited for their prince charming to come along and lead them into one of the boudoirs in back for an hour or so. Had I not already known what the girls did for a living, I would have guessed they supported themselves through other means. At times, I was even mistaken for one of them.
“Care to go into one of the back rooms with me Miss Emma,” I was asked on more than one occasion.
The first time this happened, the gentleman – an illustrious Boston politician – became quite indignant when I refused his courtship. So much so, one of the girls had to ring for help – emergency buzzers were installed under all chairs for just such an occurrence.
The overly eager client was pulled off me en route to a boudoir. As I protested his companionship – my raised knee at the ready to strike – Mr. Simmons burst onto the scene and interceded on my behalf.
I was forced to yank my boss off my would-be assailant before Mr. Simmons did him serious harm. Alas, my strength soon gave out and he lunged for the club member all over again.
Unable to dissuade him through my limited physicality, I next tried reason. “You cannot murder this man.”
“Why the hell not?” Mr. Simmons raged, shaking the poor man within an inch of his life.
Mr. Simmons was a bit of a hothead.
“You have on your good leathers, remember, sir? No murders done without rubber boots on your feet. That is the rule. They wash off so tidily afterwards.”
At that, the club member looked at us both askance, shook free, and ran off in horror…after throwing his key to the front door away.
Who could blame him?
Mr. Simmons, when provoked, was a fearsome sight to behold.
Frankly, I was not overly upset with the member. Though his had hardly been an honest mistake, there were extenuating circumstances. By design, Mr. Simmons made very little distinction at the gambling den between whores and the rest of us. It did get confusing…
Clarissa, my new friend, explained how it went the following night. After finishing our delicious repast, she and I linked elbows and took a promenade around the circumference of the garden, during which she filled me on the details. I did so love details…