In Which Innocence is found in work and in work is found revived passion.
Innocence had achieved her independence: she had at last found a bedsit and a job that paid well enough for her to afford the rent. Honore had loaned her the money necessary to pay the deposit on her new home, but she hoped that with overtime she'd be able to repay her eventually. It was a very small bedsit - much smaller than what she'd been accustomed to in Labia or Wonderground - but at least when she shut the front door she was in her own territory, not shared with her sister or anyone else. The bedsit was a single room dominated by a single bed, with only enough room to squeeze past the wash basin, shower, cooker and integral wardrobe. The view from the window over the streets of Congress didn't excite Innocence's imagination much at all being mostly of the main road fourteen stories below and the tower blocks opposite.
The job she'd got was at the Fierzehn, a city centre night club. It wasn't one of the poshest or most fashionable night clubs in the city, but it was nonetheless very impressive, featuring dance floors on several levels, several fuck rooms, cafeteria and several bars. She'd been taken on as a barmaid, but at first she was worried that the night club's topless policy for its female staff might mean that she would be expected to do more than merely serve alcohol. Fortunately, the policy existed more for fashion reasons than for any sexual purposes, and Innocence was able to hide her groin under shorts or skirts.
She also wore a pair of flat shoes to take the weight off her ankles while standing for several hours behind the bar. Not all the other bar staff felt inclined to limit their freedom of dress to just being topless: one or two were totally naked while most wore very revealing thongs that basically were only large enough to hide a sanitary towel. All staff however wore sensible shoes. The work was undeniably tiring and long. Her work began just after eleven in the evening and continued to between six and seven in the morning.
The hours were not kind to Innocence. She went to bed at the same time as most people were waking up, fortunately sufficiently exhausted not to be disturbed by the sun penetrating through the thin curtains to her bedsit or by the roar of the city traffic. She would wake up late in the afternoon and prepare breakfast and while away the hours in shopping for necessities, sitting in launderettes and watching programmes on the television she had precariously placed on a chair at the base of her bed.
Different nights of the night club had different themes and attracted correspondingly different audiences. Most nights were for the benefit of the young - mostly in their teens or twenties - who had come for the purposes of dancing and socialising. Innocence felt most comfortable on these days, as the customers were usually more intent on stalking the dance floor than hanging around the bar. Occasionally, a woman or a man might sit on a stool on the bar all evening and try to attract Innocence's attention and persuade her to come to the fuck room with him or her. Innocence was scarcely at all excited by the propositions, but even if she had, her fear of revealing the penis she had hidden from sight would have put her off accepting the offer. And in any case she was usually far too busy serving at the bar to be spared for very long.
The fuck rooms weredark plush roomshousing a large mattress covering every inch of the floor, and where the lights were so dim that Innocence often bumped into lovemaking couples whenever she ventured in, as she had to do to collect the glasses which against the express orders of the management often found their way into these rooms. It was very dangerous to have glass in a place full of naked flailing bodies, who may or may not take advantage of the free condoms that were available in several exotic flavours and designs.
The nights when the fuck rooms were most full was on the Singles and Divorced Nights, as they were called, where older men and women - often in their forties and fifties - gathered in embarrassingly young clothes revealing far too much flesh for the express purpose of finding partners. On these evenings there were often quite a few unaccompanied men or women (but mostly men) who would sit on the bar stool and make embarrassing conversation usually about how beautiful Innocence's breasts were, why didn't she take off her shorts and did she fancy a quick fuck. Or maybe a long one. On those nights the fuck rooms were at their most overflowing and the dance floors at their most correspondingly empty. Couples often seemed unconcerned about where they should fuck and who might be watching. There would be copulating couples on the sofas, or on the carpet, or just standing up against the bar supporting themselves as their partners thrust away at their vagina or anus with penis or dildo.
The management did nothing to dissuade such activity, indeed it featured edited highlights from fuck films broadcasting from the banks of television screens or projected onto the dance floor. There was usually a floor act of some kind during the evening, featuring striptease, bizarre sex and audience participation. This usually came on fairly late in the morning, by which time the audience had thinned out, with the express purpose of enticing the remainder to stay on, drink more and forget about going to work the following day. Innocence found the floor shows some respite from work as most people who weren't already in the fuck rooms were no longer interested in buying drinks and those who might be pestering her for her attention were engrossed elsewhere. Innocence had to marvel at the skills of the performers, who seemed to be able to do things with their genitals that she'd never believed possible.
The other nights were generally preferable, even though Innocence was quite conscious of not being amongst the most fashionable of the people there. She had no intention of shaving off her head or her eyebrows, although she'd taken on the fashion of wearing a beret or other small cap on her head. She also didn't wish to shave her groin as so many others did and revealed enough of that area to demonstrate that they had (even if the actual lips of the cunt or the flesh of the penis were hidden). Not all the young fashionable people were quite as extreme as Twelve in their dress, although there were enough of them tending towards her particular style. Some still had quite long hair like Innocence - enough for her not to feel an utter fashion pariah. Many didn't even reveal their nipples, perhaps thinking that this was a degree of nudity beyond that which they'd be comfortable with. Or perhaps because they weren't especially happy with the shape of their breasts. The breasts and penises which Innocence did see promenaded all night were of all kinds and not all could be described in kindly terms.
After work, Innocence would join the early morning commuters at the underground station, most of whom were engrossed in the newspapers and not at all interested in looking at her, as she sat with her legs crossed wearing an overcoat over her otherwise nearly naked body. She would study the travellers opposite her with interest, aware that even those looking directly at her were really still too tired to actually see her. With only the rare exception, these people were not on their way to well-paid jobs, and they were correspondingly poorly dressed and very rarely particularly fashionable. Although Innocence wasn't paid at all well, she knew that she was earning substantially more than most of these others mostly in recognition of her unsociable working hours, and it must be admitted, for her physical beauty. It would not do for a night club like the Fierzehn to employ unattractive bar staff: the custom would probably shift elsewhere if they did.
There was one evening of the week when the night club didn't require Innocence to work behind the night club, because it was generally felt she'd look and behave rather out of place, and this was the Hard Core Night. It wasn't known as that because the sex was any harder than any other night. In fact, as far as sex went it was the Singles and Divorced evening that had the most hard core sex. The reason for the name was to describe the music which was basically faster, louder and more insistent than that of any other night. Innocence's fairly tame appearance would seem somewhat out of place amongst the rather bizarre and sometimes aggressive clothes worn by the clientéle. Her reluctance to bare her crotch was also thought a little out of place.
However, one of the usual staff - a girl whose face was normally covered by a veil and her feet by large boots, but wore nothing else - was feeling somewhat poorly that night. The manager suggested when he phoned Innocence that it might have something to do with all the drugs she took, and Innocence didn't find this at all unlikely. She'd often felt uncomfortable working next to someone whose body looked like a ravaged pin-cushion. So, she was persuaded to come in, but not to wear anything less than a very skimpy short dress which revealed her buttocks, but not thankfully her precious crotch. In fact, Innocence rather troubled herself that it might reveal more of a bulge than she was particularly happy with.
She really didn't enjoy the music that was playing, if music could be a word she'd normally ascribe to the thundering percussion, screeching samples and high-pitched wails. The audience however were totally immersed in it and the sweat that poured off their naked or nearly naked bodies. Indeed, there was rather more flesh on display than usual, if a lot of it was very pale and quite unwholesome looking. Far more heads were shaved than usual, although there was a general contempt for shaved crotches, underarms or eyebrows. Many of the men had surgery to give them breasts that looked incongruous on otherwise normally masculine bodies.
