Reformatory Girls Ch 16 Rebecca Lucie 03

From the city centre, having no better plan, Rebecca takes the underground to an area she's heard one of the girls who had worked for her mother speak of. Her first task is to find a room and, after scouting around, she enters a high building which bears the sign 'Rooms to Let'. On the counter of a dingy lobby rests a bell. She rings it, and an elderly woman with her eyes angled in different directions, emerges from a glass-paned door. She shows Rebecca up to a room which, had it been a person, would have been in a retirement home. The wallpaper is ancient and faded, the bed sags and the one chest of drawers is supported by a coverless book. She almost turns tail, but feels she must at least ask the price.

"Forty for one night or two-fifty for the week."

"You won't get cheaper," the woman adds, when Rebecca expresses disbelief. And, suspecting the woman is right, Rebecca pays for three nights.

Later, showered, rested, and sporting one of her new dresses, she takes herself off to the nearby Dog and Gun.

It is one of those old-fashioned London pubs, all plate-glass mirrors and padded, mahogany-backed bench seats. She buys herself a glass of wine and sits deep in the pub interior facing the door. Already there are customers sitting on high stools at the semi-circular bar. The door is continually opening to admit new arrivals, until the bartender emerges from behind the bar and wedges it open with a piece of wood.

The minutes pass; the level in Rebecca's wine glass dips. She wonders how long she will have to wait: if she'll have to waste the whole evening sipping wine she doesn't want.

Then a man enters, a big man wearing a Manchester United top, and strides up to the bar as though he owns the place. He gives a glance in Rebecca's direction, stares at her unapologetically, buys a pint of 'my usual' from the barman, and comes directly across. He's maybe thirty years old, with thick hairy forearms and calloused hands.

"Mind if I join you?" he asks.

Rebecca opens her palm to indicate that the seat is free, and the man sits down and takes a copious swig from his beer before wiping the froth from his lips with the back of his hand.

"That's better," he says. "You here on your own?"

"Seems so," Rebecca says.

"Not waiting for anyone in particular?"

"Not really," says Rebecca.

"Just waiting to see who turns up?"

"That's it," says Rebecca: already she is imagining, with some trepidation, the bulk of the man on top of her.

"Business or pleasure?" the man asks.

"Business," says Rebecca. "Strictly business."

"Good," says the man. "Always more straightforward that way. So how much do you charge?"

"It depends what you want," says Rebecca who, though she has studied prostitutes' adverts in newsagents and phone boxes still feels she is about to sit an exam she is ill-prepared for.

The man looks her up and down, licks his lips again and stares at her cleavage.

"The full works," he says.

"That's a hundred then," says Rebecca.

The man laughs:

"You're nice, but not that nice," he says. "I'll give you fifty."

"Seventy-five," says Rebecca.

"I'll give you sixty and that's it," says the man.

Rebecca nods:

"OK."

"Good," says the man. "Are you near here?"

"Just across the road."

Though they leave the pub together the man makes no attempt to put his arm around her or hold her hand. Instead he follows a step behind as she leads him across the road and through the lobby of the rooming house, past the glass-plated door and up the dingy staircase to her room. She is aware, from the way he hangs back on the stairs, of his eyes casing her legs under her dress.

Inside the room he is straight down to business, pulling a wallet from his back pocket and counting out three twenty-pound notes.

"What's you name?" he asks.

"Julia."

"Alright Julia," he says, handing her the money. "Let's see what sixty pounds buys me."

Rebecca tucks the money away in the top draw of the rickety chest, turns and faces him as steadily as she can. His manner is forthright enough - but she can't help but feel intimidated by his size. He could crush her in one hand if he had a mind to.

She grips the hem of her dress in both hands and in a single, flowing movement draws it over her head and tosses it lightly onto the solitary upright chair. There she stands in her bra and pants.

The man's expression changes: he makes a circular motion with his tongue around his lips then exhales.

"Boy oh boy," he says. "You are beautiful. Bit of a difference from some of the old boots you get around here."

"Thank you," says Rebecca. She debates whether to hold eye contact or look demurely down at the threadbare carpet: deciding on the former she holds his gaze, steadily, whilst she unhooks her bra. Both her bare breasts and her eyes speak a kind of defiance: 'you may be big' her body seems to say: 'but in the end my beauty will always vanquish you.'

The man's gaze fastens on her bare breasts, then travels up and down her body. Rebecca, who is starting to enjoy this little moment of stand-off, hooks her thumbs into the elastic of her pants, draws it away from her hips, and starts to slide it downwards.

"Wait," says the man: "let me."

She moves her arms to her side and waits, as the man kneels down, his face level with the flimsy triangle of her pants. Slowly, savouring each millimetre of revelation, he draws down the elastic, sliding the fabric down, over her pudenda, over her thighs and knees until it has fallen to her ankles. That done he lifts each of her feet in turn, removing the panties altogether, rendering her nakedness complete.

He eyeballs the triangle of her trimmed pubic hair: then he presses his face between her legs and begins to lick.

"Mmm," says Rebecca, as his tongue works away round her cunt lips, over her clitoris, over the entrance to her vagina. The man pauses, inhales deeply, then repositions himself and lifts and spreads one of her legs, giving himself better access to her cunt. She can smell herself, the scent of her own juices rising to her nostrils, pungent and strong.

Abruptly the man stands up and begin taking off all his clothes. Naked, he is hairy as a bear.

"Your turn," he says. And when Rebecca doesn't immediately respond he points down to his dick, which is neither limp nor erect, but somewhere in between.

"Get licking then," he says.

So Rebecca in her turn sinks to her knees and for the second time that day takes a man's penis into her mouth.

This one is much more responsive. Within seconds the man is hard, and a small tussle ensues during which Rebecca, for fear of choking, tries to pull back and the man, with his strong hands clamped to the back of her head, tries to stay firmly in her mouth.

"Hold my balls," the man instructs. "That's it, give them a good kneading. Harder, you won't hurt me."

His balls are as big and hairy as she'd expected. Gripping from underneath with her small hand she rolls them around, tugs them and squeezes them, judging from the man's exclamations what he likes most, creating with him a feedback loop which intensifies his pleasure, until with a groan he pulls away, free of her mouth.

"Stop," he says gasping, "or I'll shoot down your throat. Have you got a rubber?"

Rebecca, prepared, pulls a condom from under the pillow and offers it to him.

"You put it on," he says.

She tears the strip off the foil packet. The man is bigger than George, and Rebecca, not yet having mastered this essential skill, fumbles as she tries to roll it over him, until he sighs impatiently and takes over the task himself.

"Lie on the bed," he says.

Rebecca does as bidden, and draws her legs open. The man gives her a last appreciative look, the look of a diver eyeing the sea before he takes the plunge, then heaves himself on top of her, works his penis inside her, slides his hands under her buttocks and pulls her against him until he can sink his penis no further.

Once positioned to his satisfaction he begins to work himself backwards and forwards, like a man doing press-ups, working out in the gym. His heavy groans grow more frequent - and in no time he is digging his fingers into her buttocks, whereupon he lets out a long cry and to the accompaniment of a powerful bodily convulsion empties himself deep inside her.

"Ah, good, good, good," he exclaims, as the tension ebbs from his body and he starts to sag.

Mercifully he has the wherewithal to roll off her before she is crushed; lying beside her he lays his arm across her chest with one hand resting loosely over her breast. Rebecca, breathing freely again, looks down over him, a felled Goliath, with a feeling which is part relief, part disgust and part triumph.

For a while they lie on the narrow, sagging bed. Then the man begins to come round.

"All right?" he enquires.

"Fine," she says: "You?"

"I'm good."

A little later he props himself on one elbow:

"You're new to this aren't you?"

"Does it show?" she asks. "Fumbling with the condom I suppose."

"That and other things," the man says.

"Like what?" she asks, intrigued.

"Well, you need to be a bit more proactive," the man says. "Like, when you're sucking a man's dick, play with his balls. Don't wait to be asked: there isn't a man on God's earth who doesn't enjoy it. And, maybe put one of your fingers up his arse."

"I'm not sure I want to go putting my fingers up everyone's shitty arsehole," says Rebecca.

"It's up to you," the man shrugs. "But the more you do the more a man will like it, and the more likely he'll be to come back. You don't have to shove it all the way in: just round his opening: that's the most sensitive part."

"OK," says Rebecca. "Would you like me to do that to you now?"

The man hesitates, clearly considering:

"No," he says: "I'm spent for now. Next time."

"Make sure you wash your arsehole next time then," she says.

The man grunts and laughs.

"I like you," he says.

"I like you too," says Rebecca.

"I'd better be making my way," says the man, rising heavily to his feet and starting to dress. "I could put you in my pocket and take you home."

"Could you?" smiles Rebecca.

"I could: only the missus would have something to say," the man chuckles.

"I'm Mick," he says, ready to leave. "If you ever want any building work doing, ask for me. Everyone knows me around here."

She follows him to the door, where he gives her a hug which almost crushes the life out of her, and a peck on the cheek.

"Take care Julia," he says. "I'll see you around."

"I hope so Mick," she replies.

"Did that really happen?" Rebecca asks herself. It is an hour later and she is lying in her new bed having washed away all traces of Mick in the shower. Just two hours ago she was drinking wine in the Dog and Gun. Now only the three banknotes exist to confirm, like the snowman's scarf, that it hasn't all been a fantasy or a dream.

"Is that really all there is to it?" she puts another question to herself. An intimation of her own power stirs like an uncoiling serpent in her loins. No wonder girls were queuing up to work for her mother: why would any girl want to do anything else? Why work in a shop or a factory, wearing yourself out for a pitiful wage? She remembers a snatch of conversation she once had with Lily, one of her mother's house girls. Lily had been given a gold necklace by one of the men: a younger Rebecca was asking if it was the most valuable thing in the world. Lily, a touch intoxicated, had laughed, then whispered in Rebecca's ear:

"Gold isn't the most valuable thing in the world. Nor diamonds."

"So what is?" Rebecca had asked.

Giggling, her voice almost inaudible, Lily had whispered:

"The most valuable thing in the world is what a girl keeps between her legs."

Rebecca may hate her mother for sending her to Windsor: but she is starting to see that her mother, along with Lily and the other girls, were right about certain things. At Windsor she had been reviled and made to feel powerless and abject. Now she is valued and wanted; now, being valued and wanted, she has power.

"Fuck you: fuck all of you," she says to everyone and everything connected with Windsor School.

The next evening it is a younger man, a lad, really, not much older than herself. He wants to talk; he wants to know about her; he wants to tell her about himself. Several times she glances up at the pub clock, wanting to move things on.

His name is Ralph and he's a student. He wants to buy her a drink but she stays his hand.

"Let's make a move," she says, friendly but firm. "'Time is money' and all that."

Unlike Mick he puts his arm around her when they leave.

Out in the street he wants to buy cigarettes, so they walk a short way up the main road.

"I like you," he tells her, for the second or third time. He has a simple, puppy-dog earnestness about him that Rebecca half likes and half finds infuriating.

Outside the tobacconists she spots a cash machine, and wondering if he needs any money she draws his attention to it.

"No, I don't think so?" he says. "Should I?"

"No," says Rebecca. "Only you haven't asked how much I charge."

"Charge?" asks Ralph. "Charge for what?"

Rebecca gets a sudden sinking feeling.

"For sex of course," she says. "What did you think?"

"You want me to pay you?" Ralph exclaims - and Rebecca can see that he is genuinely surprised.

"I thought that was obvious," says Rebecca.

"Not to me," says Ralph. "I thought we were getting on really well. I don't pay for sex."

"And I don't give it away," says Rebecca, angry now, wondering if she has wasted the entire evening. "How am I supposed to live?"

"Is that what you do?" Ralph asks. "You're, like, a prostitute?"

"If that's what you want to call me," says Rebecca.

"I never knew - I thought you liked me," says Ralph, hurt, his mouth creasing into a pout.

"I do like you," says Rebecca, trying to curb her anger, and hoping something might be salvaged from the encounter: "but I still have to charge for sex. Look - because I like you I'll let you do it for a discount: sixty pounds instead of seventy-five."

"It wouldn't be the same," says Ralph. "Besides, I don't just want to have sex with you - I want to have a relationship, get to know you, take you home to meet my family."

"Sorry Ralph I don't do relationships," says Rebecca.

"Well - couldn't we just go for a walk?"

"Ralph - I've wasted enough of my evening already: do you want to fuck me or not?"

"Not for money."

"Then go and fuck yourself," Rebecca says: and she has the satisfaction of watching his silly puppy-dog face crumple before she turns on her heels.

So now what? Back to the Dog and Gun to start again? It was nearly full when she left and she doubts she'll get a seat. Give up on the evening and go home? She slows to a halt next to an alleyway to mull it over when two men reeking of beer lurch by. One of them stops to leer at her cleavage.

"Here love," he says. "How much for a quickie in the alleyway?"

'In your dreams', she's about to say, followed by some expletive: but instead, still only intending it as a rebuttal, she throws out a stupid figure:

"Sixty pounds. Each."

To her surprise the two men hold a hurried conversation, and before she can protest that she wasn't serious the man who spoke to her is nodding his head and thrusting a clutch of banknotes into her hand.

"This'll do," he says, ushering her a few paces into the alleyway.

"We can't do it here," hisses Rebecca.

"'S alright," says the man. "My mate'll stand guard."

The alley is narrow and bounded by high, windowless buildings. Dustbins stand in recesses: it is hardly inviting: but it is empty of people, and with the man's companion blocking the entrance does offer some privacy - though the sounds of traffic and footsteps passing so close are disconcerting.

But it's too late now: the man has her backed-up against a wall and is pawing at her tits; and, afraid of getting her dress torn, she quickly hitches her dress up to her thighs to distract his attention towards what is below. He clearly likes what he sees, for he unbuttons his trousers and drops them, along with his boxer shorts. Rebecca is surprised to see he is already fully erect. Quickly she extracts a condom from her bag and rolls it down over his prick.

"Let's have your knickers off love," says the man, who is rocking backwards and forwards. So Rebecca steps out of her knickers and, with her dress hitched up, and the night air circling her bare thighs and bottom, and the foetid smells of the alley in her nostrils, stands waiting.

The man, she's happy enough to discover, isn't interested in foreplay. Instead he presses up to her, lifts one of her legs, squats slightly, and presses the tip of his dick up against her vagina. It's an awkward position: he's too tall, or she's too small. She tries standing on tiptoes, leaning slightly, raising her other leg until she almost overbalances. The man manages to engage her opening, squats again, pokes and pushes: then, with a desperate lunge that causes her to cry out, he grabs her buttocks, lifts her clean off the ground and, by pressing her against the wall and thrusting upwards at the same moment forces his penis inside her.

Rebecca clings to his shoulders, praying he won't topple. The brick of the wall presses against her back. She feels as though she's at the mercy of some lumbering beast, like when she sat on top of an elephant once as a child. But the man seems to have the drunk's unnatural strength: he holds her wedged against the wall, her weight supported by his shoulders and groin, and begins to hump. The sounds he makes are more like those of a snarling dog than a human, and for a moment Rebecca has a sense of the absurdity, not just of the moment but of the whole sorry pantomime of human existence. Then the man is climaxing inside her: with a final strangled groan his arms and legs go limp.

He slumps back against the opposite wall, his eyes glazed, his trousers pooled stupidly round his feet. Rebecca, still clinging to his neck, slides down until she is standing on terra firma again, the man's penis half in and half out of her. She grips it, mindful of the danger of the condom slipping off, and tugs herself free. She brushes herself down, shakes out her knickers and is about to put them back on when the man, still groggy in the aftermath of his orgasm, raises his hand.

"Hang on," he mutters. "Tom."

The figure blocking the alleyway half turns it's head.

"Tom," says the man again: "Are you having a go?"

The head shakes decisively and turns back to face the street.

"It's on me," the man persists."

This time only the back of Tom's head is visible as it shakes.

"OK love," says the man. And Rebecca is allowed to step into her knickers again. She is happy to leave; but thinks surely something, some word or gesture or acknowledgement of what has taken place, is required. The man, though, seems lost in his own reveries. And Rebecca feels nothing: not pity, not contempt, and not so much connection as she might have had with a bus driver taking her fare, or a ticket-collector. As a parting gesture she takes hold of his trousers and hauls them up to his knees:

"Here," she says. "Pull these up before you get arrested."

Then she is out of the alley, past Tom, who stares at her expressionlessly, and away down the street and into the sanctuary of her room.

That night she hears shouting and arguing; at one point something heavy clatters into the far side of her wall. In the morning she contemplates the fragility of both her door and its lock and when she goes out she takes all her money with her.

She spends the day shopping, investing in another dress, a skirt, and a range of make-up, eyeliner, lip-stick and other accessories. By seven o'clock she is back in the Dog and Gun again, determined there will be no more misunderstandings such as she had had with Ralph the previous evening. Minutes pass: she sips her wine, no longer anxious, confident that before long someone will approach her. She places her wine glass down on the heavy, circular table in front of her and suddenly there are two figures, one either side of her, hemming her in, preventing her from moving.