Ch-2 The Criminals

 Developing Jackie's problem: It is not simply a matter of never having an orgasm, Jackie's problem is that she is quite numb to herself.  She exists to please others. Jackie is prone to fawning over the "needs" of others forgetting about herself entirely. Pleasure never occurred to her because survival was paramount. Survival is not achieved with personal pleasure it is achieved by pleasing others and the relevance you obtain by building an identity around being needed. Also point to the experience of dissociation during what should be trauma. (sexual encounters) 

 

Note: Discovering Jackie's numbness in chapter 1 would perhaps be stronger if we watched this revelation within the Bordeaux to reveal itself right before our very eyes. rather than something that had been discovered previously, we experience the humiliation with Jackie. Thus it will create a "buzz" in the Bordeaux and have consequences thus driving and developing in ch. 2 and beyond. then, she gives up, humiliated...then she meets James...

Re-work Ch.1 with this change

    It wasn't pain Jackie was feeling exactly. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate and find words for the sensation between her legs.  Jackie would not have chosen for the Judge to be inside her and there were certainly other things she would prefer to be doing. Working at the Bordeaux was a job and it had never really occurred to her that anything was amiss to have never found personal release while having sex with her customers. 

    Sandra had said it was the most intense pleasure in the world and could not be mistaken for anything else. She swore that once you felt it you would never ever be able to get enough of it! 

    But the rythmic in and out, in and out simply felt like pressure and Jackie drifted in thought. What exactly was pleasure? She neither liked nor disliked what the Judge was doing, it was just simply something that was happening.  Save for the crushing feeling of having an enormous person atop her Jackie would not describe anything she was feeling as pleasure, at least according to how Sandra described it. The judge smelled like pipe tobacco and vanilla. That was "pleasant" but pleasure? What did pleasure feel like?  What was pleasure?  Was it like food when it tasted especially good or opening a gift? 

She must have drifted in the thought on the quandary so much that the Judge stopped full what he was doing and stared down at her, " Are you all right right Jackie? Does this feel good to you?  Don't you like it?" 

It was not so much a question of compassion so much as a prompt for her participation. She had drifted so far in her thoughts she had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.

"Oh yes!" she moaned back on cue and tickled the Judges beard. She pulled him deeply back into her and remembered her part. "Oh yes! More...oh God!"  Back and forth, in and out of her body she thrust him back into his rhythm until he lost himself in the bliss of it all once again. 

She remembered to wince and coo on cue. She had learned to mimic the sounds that the other girls made from the halls of the Bordeaux. Growing up, she had heard her mothers sounds when she entertained men while Jackie hid under the bed when she was a girl.  

Jackie and the Judge hollered together until his body relented in stillness atop her and all was silent. A familiar wave of gratitude washed over Jackie for finishing another client for the day. The Judge rolled over after a moment and patted his sweat laden red face with his silken kerchief. "You are the sweetest girl I know, Jackie."

She beamed at him as he he rose and dressed. He really was an agreeable man. "You know, I'd marry you if I wasn't already!"  Jackie laughed genuinely!  She rose and wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed his bald head while he sat in his chair stepping into his shoes.

"That reminds me, I have something for you." He handed Jackie a box in gold wrapping. She sat on her bed and opened it carefully. The Judge smiled as he watched the wonder in her eyes and laughed, "You remind me of my niece."

Jackie smiled back at him, he was so good to her. She lifted the lid and pulled out an ornate glass snow globe.  It was on a stand made of clouds shaped from carved porcelain embossed in silver and rose colored paint. Inside was a ballerina on her toes reaching fervently to something just beyond the glass, something just out of reach. There was a look that would have been hard to describe if Jackie tried. 

"It's beautiful!" Jackie had never received such a lavish gift and she set it on the vanity she shared with Sadie. Then he gave her what she really wanted.

 "And of course, you can never get enough of these!" And he handed her another magazine to add to her collection that lined the windowsill. 

"You are too good to me!" She exclaimed as she beamed, looking down at the cover.

"For my little reader." And he kissed her cheek. She blushed as she always did when he said this, for my little reader. The truth was, Jackie couldn't read, though she had never told the Judge, and he had brought her so many magazines believing she could read, that she thought it best she say nothing but thank him.

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 "It's a half past seven! Where have you been?" Mrs. Melby scowled at James from under her glasses. She expected an answer and James should not have felt obliged to give one, except for the truth of what he had been doing, which he was afraid she might see.  

"Meow..." Even Shelby cried a scorn and they both waited on James for a reply.

"I worked late at the office." James still had his briefcase.  

"There's soup in the kitchen, I don't suppose you're wanting something more?  I made a roasted chicken..."

Mrs. Melby had made a roasted chicken three nights ago.  James had smelled it then. She had been trying to serve it as a fresh roasted chicken ever since and James certainly wasn't going to pay the price of fresh chicken for a third day roast. 

"I think not, Mrs. Melby.  Thank you." She took his disinterest as a scorn and handed him a paper from her tablet of expenses.

"Anyway here's your bill for the month." It was making sense now.  Her last chance at selling her old chicken and charging him on his monthly bill had passed.  She was resigned to charge him only his base rate for the month with no extra charges, a thing she hated.

James took his bill and headed up stairs but he was stopped by another invitation "Drinks and cards in the parlor at eight James?" She was relentless.  Although in her defense, a drink or two was something James indulged from time to time, especially when cards were in play.

"I have work tonight Mrs. Melby, thank you." James climbed the stairs.

 Mrs. Melby watched him narrowly.  "Two and a half hours overtime and still you're not done?"

She was keen, and James had no immediate recovery for her accusation. He was only left feeling uncomfortable for  her pressing, because he had not done overtime at all and she was treading dreadfully close to revealing him with her inquiries.

"A man must do what a man must do Mrs. Melby." She stared hard at him and he stared back. Why did she care so much? 

She must have seen his discomfort because eventually she added "Well, if you happen to finish soon, you know there is a place for you at the table."

His room was a welcome haven.  No more interrogating questions! He spread his ledger and notebook open on his desk and began the quarterly review that he had offered to finish. It really was good luck to have the work.  It was seldom he or any of the other gents had the opportunity to standout while pushing numbers downstairs. He ought to make good use of the chance to make a good impression.  He opened the file and read the name atop and his eyes followed the earning annual sums column to the far right. There it was, six figures. Whoever he was, this Andre Bane was a six figure man. Opportunity indeed!

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Suddenly the door opened without a knock and smoke billowed in from a lit cigarette. "Sandra's pregnant!" Bridgette's tits were still unrestrained beneath her dress as and they swayed just above her waistline as she burst into Jackie and Sadie's room.

"Get out of her with that smoke, Bridgette! It stinks! You know Lou hates that!" Sadie took the cigarette from Bridgette's hand and extinguished it. 

Sadie was not surprised at the news but Jackie was stunned! "Pregnant?  I wonder if it's the Constables!" 

"You think Sheba?" Rife with sarcasm, Bridgette rolled her eyes. "No doubt the officer had her so hot he convinced her not to use her precautions!!" Bridgette took some rose cream off of Sadie's vanity, pulled the top of her dress down completely to the cinch at the waist and let her breast hang as she rubbed them generously with Sadie's cream. Her nipples tightened as she kneaded them shamelessly.

Sadie took her cream back. "I paid good money for that rose cream, and it's certainly not bringing those old sacs back to life! Anyway, yes I was just going to tell Jackie. Sandra is pregnant."

"A baby?" Jackie sounded excited.

But the room fell silent. Bridgette put her dress on properly and lit another cigarette. "It isn't like that, Sheba." There was a hint of sincerity in Bridgette's voice.

Jackie looked confused by the silence and looked to Sadie who walked over and sat beside her. "Lou's going to get rid of it."

"Get rid of it?" Jackie protested, " But Sandra and the Constable...he loves her!"

Brigette laughed a cruel kind of cackle, "He loves to fuck her Jackie, he don't love her."

Jackie shook her head in rebellion to the idea, "But what if he does love her? You see how he is with her!  Twice a week! Sometimes three!"

"Because he got the same problem as her. They can't get enough of it. Take Sandra away and he's still gonna have an appetite! He just likes her cause she keeps up. And she thinks he keeps coming back for it cause she's a dummy like you who can't tell the difference tween love and a good hard fuck!"

" Bridgette!" Sadie yelled

"It's true, Sadie and you know it." Sadie quieted down and let Bridgette say the words to Jackie she didn't want to. "No man wants to marry girls like us. Not the judge or the Constable or any of the Lawyers or Sailors.  Do yourself a favor Jackie, quit telling yourself stories, the worst hurt your going to have is going to come from believing anything your imagination is telling you!"

"Married? Is one of you girls thinking they will get married?" Tap-step, Tap-step. Madame Lou's voice had come from nowhere. It was clear that since she had climbed the stairs without a sound, she had meant to listen to their conversation. No doubt curious any gossip she may need to be privy to.

 The room fell silent, but Jackie's mind raced. She picked up one of her magazines like she was reading. She flipped desperately through the pages, looking for the happy sections showing men and women holding hands happily. 

"Bridgette, you have a client waiting."  Lou stood by the door with a silent command for her exit.

 Bridgette took a deep inhale from the the cigarette which she had smoked all the way down to the end. She dipped her fingers into Sadie's rose cream and rubbed it between her legs. "Duty calls, girls." She winked and gave a crooked toothy grin and was gone. Lou Followed after her down the stairs to meet her client and a special set of keys for the kind of meeting Bridgette had scheduled. Sadie and Jackie listened until the tap-step had disappeared. 

Jackie lay fixated at her magazine.  Her eyes settled on a man gazing at a woman. He looked excited to see her while she gazed back at him. It was exactly the way the Constable looked at Sandra. Exactly! Jackie took a heavy breath of relief as she stared down at the evidence in the picture. Proof!  It did exist!

A twinge of protection came over Sadie in Jackie's honor, as it often did "Bridgette's been at it too long, Jackie. But Lou's right, a whore house is no place for a child."

"Sadie, why not at least let the baby live?  Maybe the Constable will see the baby and have a change of heart..."  Sadie's eyes fixed hard on Jackie. "And what if he doesn't? What then?" Sadie ran the story like an old script she had memorized. "Sandra's gonna fall in love with that baby and Lou will have to turn them both out on the street...or..." Sadie went cold silent a moment and dropped her chin, forcing the rest out. "Or Lou will have to pull that baby from her and find it a home with decent parents." 

"Well that wouldn't be so bad!" Jackie interjected hopefully, "At least the baby could live!" But Sadie's voice rose it utter rejection of Jackie's misunderstanding. "No, Jackie! You don't want to see a  tiny baby pulled from it's mothers breast. It's an unnatural kind of cry from both mother and child. It's a wail you never get outta your head..." At this, Sadie was near to tears and Jackie knew to press no further. Sadie had worked the Bordeaux nearly fifteen years and while this Jackie's first time to witness a pregnant prostitute getting forced into an abortion, Sadie had seen it a dozen times.

"Maybe the Constable will pay Lou's portion for her.  At least we can ask him. If he pays her portion it means he loves her, at least give him the choice!" 

"Oh Jackie!" Sadie kissed Jackie's sweet head like a child. "And then what? He marries her and takes her to church on Sunday?" Sadie raised the question with tenderness and paused while Jackie ran the scenario in her head. "Even if the constable did love Sandra and even if they married he would be fired as an officer, the scandal would never end!" Sadie looked down at the picture Jackie had opened to in her magazine. Sadie closed the pages and brushed the hopeful youngsters hair from her face. "Portions can be paid, but we'll never come clean for what we've here done, Jackie."

It was true that a girls portion could be paid; the debt owed to Lou and the Bordeaux. It meant that she was free to go, to live as she pleased.  But leaving the Bordeaux was a difficult choice and few of the girls chose to ever leave. Not that the girls loved their vocation of sex work, but leaving brought about problems of its own. Though there were times the girls didn't like it but they obeyed. Having a place at Madame Lou's Bordeaux was the best work in the city for any woman working the bed.

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James had been up excruciatingly late. Having run the numbers on the file three times and still found the client owing James had wanted to be absolutely certain of his work. It seemed Andre Bane owed a considerable sum for the years taxes. No wonder Mr. Talbert took comfort in James taking the file. It was awful and James was grateful not to have to deliver the bad news to this Mr. Bane himself.

Monday morning had come and James rose on schedule, in spite of his lack of sleep. It was imperative that the part line running through his hair was perfectly straight. He would not be made to look a fool on first impression for a cattywampus part. Nor for the likes of an unpressed suit or shoes poorly shined. His placed his watch and glasses from the bureau onto his wrist and face. Aftershave. Finally, he sat down to his ledger at a small desk beside the bed of his small room. He added his wages to a growing line of sums on the page.  Subtracted an amount of ten dollars and wrote a check for his rent and taking it, his briefcase and coat he left his room and went downstairs.

The parlor was a bustle as always. A boarding house was a mixture of things changing and staying the same.  Fruit and oatmeal was always served for breakfast and one could help themselves to it. For an extra cost on Fridays there was Bacon and eggs, which James never indulged. 

The house-cat was always sure to purr up against him, sullying his pant leg with fur.  She was a long haired Taby, apparently unusual.  He did not like cats and resented that it was kept on the premises. The cat, Shelby, was the talkative and hated to be ignore, not unlike her owner Mrs. Melby the boarding house keeper, also a redhead.

As one of the longer staying tenants James had wanted to make a case for ridding the house of the cat altogether. There was sometimes a smell of scat in the parlor, a dead mouse on the porch and fur...always fur everywhere! A widow, Mrs. Melby loved the cat and talked to it which James found ridiculous.  He pitied Mrs. Melby and knew that she would never let the cat go. So in place of complaining, he silently resented the thing and kept quiet on the matter.

"Noticed your light on very late last night, James..." She leered from across the room expectantly waiting for a response which he never gave.  

Mrs. Melby loved to fuss over the tenants and was terribly nosey. She considered their comings and goings very much her business, as it was "her house".  She pushed the boundaries of inquiry quite regularly.

"Would you like a slice of cake today James?" Mrs. Melby asked, knowing well his reply.

"No thank you Mrs. Melby" It was always his answer but never stopped her from trying.

She was always asking if they wanted coffee or cake, which seemed a cordiality but it came with an upcharge and she kept record of extra charges on her notepad kept in her apron.

The first time she had asked him he had accepted, and after a days of saying yes please, he was given a bill for a weeks worth of slices which he had thought he was being served out of kindness.  Although he was surprised by the bill, he paid it without an outward fuss. Afterall, nothing was free and it was silly of him to forget.  He was a moderate man for good reason and although it was a sting it was a rather good reminder. 

Like James, there were tenants that had been there for a year or two, There was Mr. Calvin who was older than anyone and mostly sat on the porch and made small talk.  He greeted other tenants as they came and went. He was good for a chat, the kind James didn't mind, weather and that sort of thing.  He often asked James about stocks and interest rates, as James was in finance, and they would both comment about the goings on in the paper on Sundays. 

Then there was William.  He received a reduced rate for keeping the grounds and was always busily keeping to some task or another; hedging shrubs, fixing pipes a fresh coat of paint. William ate Mrs. Melby's cake at no extra cost, so long as it was a day off or two from being fresh.

Most people came and went by weeks or months. This always changed the landscape of the house, for better and for worse. There were flamboyant musicians who sometimes passed through and every variety of traveling salesman.  There were opinionated politicians who drank late into the evenings and ranted with other tenants about this and that. James mostly kept to himself.  It would be wasted time to blather on about things he was impartial to with people he would likely never see again.

James finished his oats and excused himself from the table at no extra cost that morning. He left for work with enough time to walk and bypass the fare for bus. A Monday morning free of deficit! The air was crisp and fresh.

The walk to work took him ten minutes at most. He took the side streets to cut time which also meant a more quiet walk down ally's and private quarters.  He kept his head tucked under his hat and his collar up to keep to himself.  Walking through the neighborhoods, he often encountered an open window or a private conversation of a tenant therein. It was the guiltiest pleasure he had and one he could hardly admit to himself that he enjoyed and it was always awkward to make eye contact.

He emerged at the city center park and climbed the stairs of the accounting firm he worked for precisely at five to eight as always.

His desk was set in monochromatic rows of desks.  James sat, turned on the lamp, and placing a work visor on his forehead he set to his file of numbers.

It was only minutes later that Mr. Talbert arrived, "Good morning James. I hope you have finished the file."  James rose from his desk with the file in his hand. 

"Yes, Mr. Talbert. Only, might I have a word with you in private?" James was aware of the leering looks of his co-workers curiously watching and most likely listening to the conversation.

Mr. Talbert motioned to the lobby and he and James walked together, speaking lowly. "If this is about the sum owing my boy, I am perfectly aware. You will not find much happens here that I am unaware of."

James shifted. He was grateful he wouldn't have to explain and handed the file to Mr. Talbert who, to James surprise only looked at the file. "I would like you to take the file to our client, James. And please collect the deficit and return it upstairs along with the fee for services rendered will you?"

It was not a question at all and James did not have the option for saying no. Mr. Talbert knew about the deficit all along? It was true that very little was out of his view and he must have also understood James' hunger for opportunity in the company and Mr. Talbert was going to take full advantage to cash in on this by sending James to do the work he did not want to do himself. To deliver word to a client that not only had the financial advising company neglected to keep him in a neutral tax standing.  But he was now owing to the federal government, and still being billed for his services.  James would be seen as not only the messenger but the preparer of the document and he shuddered to think how Mr. Bane might respond.  Money men were not known for their patience and understanding.

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Jackie could ignore many things. Words of slight, lascivious ranting of a Sailors tongue a whap from Madame Lou's cane.  None of those things could shake her Sunny countenance. But every Friday she was visited by a certain darkness that she couldn't put off. It was a thing she couldn't describe well when she explained it to Sadie.

 All the girls in the Bordeaux knew what a wicked hand felt like. Madame Lou didn't allow abuse and most who broke the rule knew that they had straight away and were escorted out. A drunken slap or forceful pin to the floor of a woman was obvious and the girls were not shy to cry out when it did. But the patron that Jackie would see this Friday and every other was a craftsman when it came to inflicting pain so covert, riding the edge of perverse shame so delicately that even Madame Lou could not quite get a straight answer from girls as to what exactly he was doing to inflict such worry of each girl he visited and fixated on. Madame Lou could not quite understand it, he was slick, very rich and handsome with a fit body and broad shoulders.  He had gone though a fixation with some of the girl and now he was hot on Jackie. The first time he had seen Jackie she seemed fine, but from one week to the next his visits brought about the strangest weight in the house and it had happened the same way to the other girls before.  It made Lou more curious than she had ever been and she wondered to herself just what his charming man, Andre Bane, was doing to her girls behind closed doors.

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Most of the prostitution in the city was dirty street work that brought disease and sickness. If a girl did get work in a house of pleasure, most were run poorly and shut down for rats, bed-mites and passing syphilis.  As it was, Madame Lou took sixty percent of what the girls made and called it payment for room and Board.  It also included Doctors visits and dental work which sounded generous, but it also meant the girls could not elect out of certain treatments like having teeth pulled or abortions.  Lou ran a tight ship, and what she said was law at the Bordeaux.  

 

But Lou was first and foremost a business woman and presented only top tier delights to generously paying customers. The Bordeaux was professionally cleaned every week, the sheets were laundered regularly.  There was fresh milk and bread available for the girls to eat.  Lou served steak on Sunday when the Bordeaux was closed and all the patrons were home with their wives playing house and attending church. There was another advantage to closing the Brothel on Sunday, because the girls went to the market and had little resistance to spend whatever money they had leftover on lace and chocolate.  

Many girls dreamed of a life outside of bed work but had only ideas and dreams of one day leaving...not actual plans.

Lou kept record of every man that came through. She made her rules clear.  For the girls; they were to used protection creams and say yes to men's pleasures.  For the men, there was to be no rough play or abuse to the girls.  The Bordeaux was a house of pleasure, and while some of the men had a certain proclivity something a bit more...diabolical, it had to be arranged by Lou herself with a strict understanding of the rules of engagement. Lou liked Brigette the best, not because she was pretty or kind, but because she was shrewd and could be trusted not to steal when Lou left her in charge of the street girls.  There was a grotesque look about Bridgette.  Her eyes were abnormally large and miss-sized, her lips were fat and she had crooked teeth and a shrill voice that cackled when she laughed. One might look at her and think how ugly she was, but Lou knew the darkest part of a man.  She knew the things men think when they look at an ugly girl.  The minds of men had no secrets to Madame Lou and at the Bordeaux she provided every kind of pleasure.  

 The girls knew better than to pull tricks on the street, Lou had a way of knowing when a girls had been freshly sexed; when they were aroused and when they had come. The girls minded Lous rules because all of them had worked outside the Bordeaux before, and none wanted to return to live outside of the comforts Lou provided, no matter how strict or scrupulous she could be.