A third entry from me for the Winter Holiday competition. It turned out a tad longer than anticipated, so rather than opt for the First Time category, I might plump for Novels and Novellas (6 points in the Survivor contest if I put it in N&N). We'll see where it ends up.
OK, in this one, John -- a twenty-two year old virgin -- stumps up cash for a visit to a brothel. When he gets there he gets a surprise, a very pleasant Christmas present.
You might find [more] errors and typos [than usual!] in this piece. Sorry, but due to the deadline for the comp. and the fact I didn't start this until a couple of days ago, it might come across as a draft rather than a finished product. Again, apologies if that's the case, but I do hope you enjoy my offering all the same.
As per usual ... feedback! Send feedback.
OK, I'll STFU now and get this down the wire to Laurel.
GA -- Langkawi, Malaysia -- 6th December 2012.
John Elphinstone had second thoughts, pinprick darts of doubt. Should he go through with it? Sitting in his flat on the outskirts of Guildford, as he sipped his morning coffee, even as he doubted he knew, deep down, despite the fear, that he'd pick up the phone and make the call. John examined, yet again, the scrap of paper with the phone number scrawled across it. His stomach flipped with excitement, sexual anticipation tickling deep in his viscera and tingling in his balls when he thought about the potential that number held.
It had been a whim, scribbling the number onto the back of an old ATM receipt. He'd seen the columns of adverts amid the lurid pictures of half naked women when he'd picked up the newspaper -- if
The Daily Sport
deserved that appellation, the scandalous, near pornographic rag of titillation -- and, after his eyed had scanned the columns of carnal promise, while a curiously dark sensation fluttered in the pit of his stomach, John saw the dialling code of his own area leap from the page.
Exclusive service offered
, he read.
Elegant lady in luxurious surroundings
.
Two numbers were also given. One being a mobile, with the second showing a landline prefix code of: 01252. John, with a deliciously wicked slither of excitement and fear and sexual arousal sliding through his guts, committed the six remaining digits of the phone number to memory. Feigning nonchalance as the train rattled and shook, carrying him homeward from his job in London, he left it a full three minutes before jotting the number onto the blank reverse side of an ATM receipt he found in his wallet.
Now, at midmorning on Christmas Eve, with four days of holiday between him and the daily commute, he sat in the flat and contemplated his persistent virginity.
"It's getting ridiculous," he muttered to himself. Eying the ATM receipt again he steeled his resolve. "Elegant lady," he murmured, enjoying the mental images that description conjured in his head. That single word,
Lady,
put him in mind of a classy, sophisticated woman, more mature in years, finely ripened and experienced enough to unveil the mysteries of the flesh to one so callow and naive as himself.
At the age of twenty-two, John had somehow hung on to his virgin status, or rather his virginity had clung to him like a nasty rash. He'd tried, oh how he'd tried to slough off the chrysalis of that pure state and emerge from the cocoon; but something always went wrong. He didn't think of himself as bad looking, but he was neither here nor there, no Brad Pitt, sure, but not the Elephant Man either. Nondescript, bland, the sort of man who would make a good real-life spy, the grey man nobody noticed in a pub or on the bus. Unfortunately women didn't notice him for the same reason.
John failed to attract women with looks or presence, but his main problem wasn't a lack of personality, it had more to do with projection. He lacked self-confidence, and this shortcoming, to which he was blind himself, had come about because of his shyness and lack of daring. This in turn meant failure to find a girlfriend through a series of embarrassing, tongue-tied encounters that, by the time he hit his twenties, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. John expected to be knocked back in his attempts to chat up the ladies, and as a result, he was.
His hand trembled as he reached for his mobile phone.
***
Jenny Standing parked outside the One-Stop and, once inside, bought cigarettes and a lottery ticket. The girl behind the counter smiled from beneath the seasonal, infuriatingly ubiquitous, red cap trimmed with white faux fur.
"Happy Christmas," the cashier said, smiling as she took the ten pound note from Jenny's fingers.
Jenny could have snorted right in the girl's face as she passed over the money and waited for her change. She didn't get it, couldn't understand why people got so fucking crazy over Christmas. When she'd been a kid it had been different, of course, but now, with her fortieth birthday looming, with no husband, no kids, and working at what she didn't even class as a real job, Jenny felt the weight of anxiety over her future settle even heavier on her shoulders than usual.
"Fucking Christmas," she muttered to herself before offering the young woman behind the counter one of her professional smiles. Jenny could turn it on when she had to, in her line of work the charm was expected, part and parcel of the trade. Not that many of the men she serviced cared what went on in her private life; they just wanted her for her looks and her body. The guests, as they were euphemistically known, who visited the house -- a large detached near-mansion of a place in affluent Surrey -- didn't even know her real name, let alone what went on inside her head.
Most of the punters would be at home with wives and families in readiness for Christmas Eve parties, and the day ahead for Jenny would more than likely be a washout, but Avril had asked her to come in, so there she was, buying her fags on the way to work.
"I need a girl to come in," Avril had said. "Would you mind? I it would be absolutely tiresome with one of the others. You know what they can get like. It would be a miserable day with one or them, a constant litany of complaints about working Christmas Eve." Avril had grinned and added, "And we could have a couple of drinks if things are quiet. Have ourselves an office party as it were."
Jenny loved the way Avril spoke, her drawling diction told of a moneyed background and expensive education. A world apart from foster homes and comprehensive schools Jenny had endured.
Two years earlier, when Jenny first started at Avril's house, the matronly woman with her large bosom and honey-blonde hair -- Dyed of course, darling, but you know the saying about blondes having more fun -- candidly revealed the reason she engaged in the trade she did. "I simply adore cock," Avril had said. "A friend of my father's, a very wicked man ..." she added, eyes gleaming with devilment at the memory. Avril had even squirmed a little in her seat as she went on. "Just remembering gives me tingles," she said. "Anyway, a friend of Daddy's seduced me on my twenty-first birthday, darling. He fucked my virgin cunt and then, over the next year or so, used me as little more than his sex slave. No love in it whatsoever, not on his part anyway, bit of course I was smitten with him ... And the filthy things the bugger did with me ... What he
made
me do ... God it was an exciting, horny time."
Jenny, feeling obliged to reveal a little of her life's history after Avril's crude recollections, had replied with, "I got into the game when I got behind with rent. A neighbour of mine in the block of flats I ended up in told me about how I could make some money." Jenny shrugged as if her introduction into a life on the bash was of no consequence at all. "You know how it is, Av." She regarded the other woman for a moment and then barked a laugh. "Or maybe you don't. Not with your background." Jenny lit a cigarette and continued. "Anyway, I worked out of this shitty flat in Colchester. I was nineteen when I went on the game. It was actually one of the punters who suggested I do some escorting. He said I could earn a lot more than I was making in a pokey flat on a scrubbers estate." She lifted her shoulders in another shrug. "And here I am now working for you." Jenny gestured with a sweeping arm at the opulence of her surroundings, "Working in a decent house, for you, Av."
Avril smiled at Jenny. "Thank you," she said. "I'm pleased you think it's a decent house. I do try." She chuckled then, adding, "I wonder what Daddy would say if her were alive to comment on my little hobby? I don't doubt he'd be surprised to know I've invested some of his fortune in a house of ill repute."
Now, two years later and Jenny still worked at the house. She did escort work a couple of evenings a week. It paid well, exceptionally fucking well, truth be told; plus she got wined and dined and saw a bit of how the other half lived.
Avril, at forty-three, despite running the house, still worked when the fancy took her. OK, she might not be willowy and winsome any longer, but she still attracted the eyes of men who liked their women ripe and rubicund. Not every day, she didn't swan around in stockings and corset and lethal heels no matter how sexy and rude those garments made her feel every day, these days she was content to play the Madam, answering the phone and greeting the guests at the door, calming the nervous and making it clear to the more boisterous that she wasn't a woman to be trifled with. Sometimes though, when in a dirty frame of mind, she enjoyed dressing for sex and riding some anonymous young bloke's big cock.
Avril had asked Jenny to come in because she knew the woman didn't have anywhere to go or anyone to be with that Christmas. "You could always stay over with me." She'd invited, knowing Jenny had no one at home who would be waiting for her. Just like Avril herself in fact, and to stave off a lonely Christmas Eve, she invited Jenny to stay for the duration.
Jenny had shrugged and accepted with little comment when Avril had asked her to work and extended the offer to stay over. She hadn't anything better to do after all, and she knew from experience that Avril would be decent company. They could crack open a few bottles of wine and get merrily sloshed together.
"Thanks, Av," Jenny had replied, warming to the idea. But when she'd woken up that morning the reminder that, despite Avril's invitation, she was still all alone, with middle age charging towards her like Santa's fucking sleigh, loomed large.
And the bloody weather didn't help her mood either.
Out of habit from long years of practice, Jenny smiled at the One-Stop cashier. "And a happy Christmas to you too," she said brightly.
