He climbs the narrow wooden stairs. Although he has learned where whores can be found in America, he still feels nervous. He wonders what Mummy would say. What Dora would say. Dora...her pretty yellow curls, her sweet white muslin dresses...and then the curve of her bosom under her bodice...He shakes his head to clear his mind. It's profane to think of her here.
He reaches the top of the stairs and looks around. There is the parlor. He enters and looks around at the women reading, gossiping, waiting. Some idly sip whiskey. Some are mending. He sees a blonde one, her fine sharp features remind him of a cat, and he feels a flicker of lust in his groin. He goes to her and tells he he's "settled the bill downstairs."
"Fine," she tells him briskly. Her voice has that strange twang that American voices so often have. She turns and walks out the door, without looking to see if he's coming. She's wearing a dressing gown belted loosely over her body, which looks thin and nervous and strong. He slips his hand into his trousers pocket and surreptitiously strokes his cock through his pocket.
She stops at a door and turns quickly to see him. He is slow to draw his hand out of his pocket, and she notices. A small smile plays over her lips. She opens the door and gestures him in. The usual narrow bed, wash basin, chair, lamp. It is still day, so she doesn't light the lamp, but it is late and the summer sun lights the room only dimly. In this late afternoon glow, her face looks a little softer, curvier.
"Well, then." He never quite knows what to say at this part. So he says little. He places his hat on the chair and quickly strips off his coat. He moves his braces down his shoulders, unbuttons his trousers, takes out his cock, which is already red and aching. He's been waiting for this for several days. No whores on the lake, and whilst the hunting was good now he needs relief. He may want to do her twice.
He turns to her and to her surprise she is not lying on the bed, on her back, with her dressing gown open, the way whores do. He frowns and looks meaningfully at the bed. "Hadn't you better...?" But she is looking back at him, bold, as if she's seen something she wants and although she didn't know five minutes ago that she wanted it, she will have it.
She walks towards him so quickly that he moves a hand to push her away, but she drops to her knees and he's off balance. He sways, touches the end of the iron bedframe for balance, and then he feels it, dear God, the woman has taken his prick into her mouth and she is sucking on it. He groans, almost in pain, because this teasing warm wet sucking is like nothing he has ever felt, it's not like a cunt, he can feel her teeth and her lips and he didn't know women did this. He shoves his hips forward, cramming her, cramming her mouth, this whore, who is rubbing his arse as if she knows that it will make him spend faster, and of course she knows, she's a whore, she does this all the time, and the idea that she will do this all day, every day, to countless men, but for him it is the first time, makes him insane with lust. He grabs her head and realizes that it's not so different at all, it's just fucking, fucking a whore's mouth. And he spends, cums, spurts in her, knowing it's going down her throat and dear God, she is going to swallow it. He's so dizzy with orgasm that he almost falls over but he grasps her head and holds her to him and thrusts one last good time, and then he shoves her away from him, so she has to break her fall with her hands. He leans against the wall and closes his eyes, shame and pleasure burning inside, and he hears a man murmuring, "oh God, my God, ahh, ahhh" and he realizes that the man is himself. His knees bend and he slides down the wall. He puts his head on his knees, gasping for breath, a fragment of language on his lips.
World without end. Amen.
Sometime later he realizes that she's left,and the room is dark. Can he have fallen asleep? He fumbles for his matches, strikes one, does some more fumbling with his watch, and sees that he has. His trousers are still open. He rises and washes himself, buttons himself up. "Right then," he mutters. And he goes out into the hallway.
I am waiting in the room. I don't like this, any part of this. I wish that it had not come to this. But I am a whore now, and I await my first customer. I'm dressed--am I dressed? I'm wearing my corset, and its garters, and stockings, and shoes. "Men like to see us dressed this way," one of the older whores told me. "It's better for a new girl who doesn't have any regulars. You'll get customers this way."
But I feel so exposed. I try to read, a little poetry, take my mind away from this sordid place. Can I remember any the Greek I once learned? What use will Greek be to me here? Maybe French. I hear the other girls refer to "French" sometimes and I don't think they mean the same thing I do by the word. For that matter, "Greek" doesn't seem to mean the same thing here that it does to me either.
A young man stumbles in, the same one we saw pick Suzanne earlier. He's flushed. I liked the way he looked before, clean and blond. But now he doesn't look so nice somehow. I can't describe it. He goes to the bar and orders whiskey. He drinks it down all at once, and orders another. He glances around the room. I think he's looking for Suzanne, but she's with another customer now. Then he sees me.