The Gift of Girls (2 page)

I hurried in a circle giving out drinks, wiggling without even meaning to, and, when I reached the Australian, I watched him scoop in another pile of chips.

‘That’s amazing,’ I said.

‘It’s easy when you know how,’ he replied.

I watched him refill his glass with Coke. As he looked up, our eyes met.

‘Will you teach me?’ I asked breathlessly.

He laughed. ‘Listen, babe, no one gives away their system, not for anything,’ he said.

‘Please, I’m desperate.’

He pushed back his shaggy mop of dirty-blonde hair and his blue eyes ran over my features. ‘Why are you so desperate?’ he asked.

I told him that I had to support myself through university, that I was working unpaid in an accountant’s office, that if he told me I’d never breathe a word to anyone. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘I’ll do anything.’

He looked at my breasts, my trembling inflamed lips, and he looked long and hard into my nervous eyes. ‘Anything?’ he asked.

The noise in the casino seemed to fade to silence. The lights had dimmed. There was only the Australian looking at me with sea-blue eyes in a nest of wrinkles, a smile on his leathery face. When you say to a girl at school you’ll do
anything
if she’ll let you read her essay, or let you borrow her new ra-ra skirt, it doesn’t mean the same as when you say you’ll do anything for a man in a creased linen suit in a casino at 1.30 in the morning.

‘Anything?’ he said again.

I bit my lip and nodded my head.

I was conscious of what I was doing but in a subconscious sort of way, if that makes sense. What I mean is, I hadn’t thought it through. It just seemed as if there was something inevitable about it, there was no alternative, it was the right thing to do at that moment.

‘What time do you finish?’ he asked.

‘Another half an hour.’

‘I’ll play on till then and then we’ll get a taxi back to my hotel. All right?’

I nodded again.

My heart was thumping like a drum as I raced off with the empty tray. I couldn’t believe what I had done, that I’d bitten my lip and nodded my head, that I’d agreed. It was absurd. It was outrageous. It was shameful. Girls like me don’t do that sort of thing. They don’t even think about such things. But I had been given an impossible choice: condemn myself to poverty or take a chance, nod my head, and agree to do
anything
.

I trotted back to the bar and refilled the tray. As I moved through the casino the enormity of what I was contemplating didn’t seem real. It was like being back on stage in
Cabaret
. I was parading about in a corset and black stockings, my legs tapered in stilettos, my breasts pumped up like an ad for Wonderbra. I was in costume and a costume makes you feel safe, hidden. It makes you feel that you are playing a role. It wasn’t me but the actress in me that had looked back into the Australian’s eyes and silently agreed to his proposal.

In my head there were two voices. One was saying: I can’t do this, I’ll never do this. The other was saying: You must do this. You must do this. You nodded your head. You must do this.

The flush on my neck burned like a brand, my blood like fire in my veins. If anyone ever found out I’d feel mortified. And yet, and yet, I could see all the advantages, and the disadvantages reminded me for some
reason
of Sister Benedict in chapel quoting the parable of the ten talents: the good servants who had taken the cash gift from their master and doubled their money had
done the right thing
, while the servant who had ignored the opportunity and hidden his solitary talent in the desert had the coin taken from him when the master returned.

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath
.

It was chilling. When opportunity comes knocking you have to be dressed and ready for it. Surely that’s what Matthew in verse 25 was trying to tell me.

My armpits were tingling and damp. I felt breathless in the tight corset. I couldn’t focus on anyone or see anything except the picture in my mind of a girl in a bizarre black costume in a small bare room listening to the sound of an iron knocker rapping on a bolted door. Opportunity’s here. Are you going to let me in?

The last thirty minutes at work always dragged but time that night was racing, the minutes ticking me closer to the moment when I threw back the door, the sound of knocking an echo coming closer and closer.

You must do this. You must do this. You nodded your head. You must do this
.

There were a few more slaps on my bottom, a few more creased bank notes shoved down my pants, and suddenly, instead of changing out of my casino clothes, I was pushing my arms into a floor-length raincoat that I buttoned up to my throat.

I can’t do this, I’ll never do this
.

The colour drained from my face as I moved like a shadow through the casino to the main doors. The Australian was waiting outside. He didn’t speak and neither did I. He stopped a cruising cab. He opened the door and stood back, gazing at me like the master judging the servant with the solitary unused talent.

I hesitated. I was on the banks of the Rubicon. Once I crossed the raging river there was no way back. This was my last chance to say no, to apologise, to rush off and find another taxi to take me home.

Kate, another girl who finished at two, ran down the casino steps to where her boyfriend was waiting in his car. She gave me a wave as if in encouragement and, as I waved back, I stepped into the taxi’s dark interior. I was on autopilot. I wasn’t making my own decisions. They were being made by some power outside myself. I sat in the corner of the seat trembling and silent, my fingers laced together in my lap, like a prisoner in the dock.

My companion introduced himself. His name was Sandy Cunningham. It was all very formal. Magdalena Wallace, I said. He patted my knee as you would pat a restless pony. It was all so weird and all so easy.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with making it with a sixth-former from the local grammar school on the bottom field; heavens, the third-year girls were at it like rabbits. But Sandy was a man, an adult, and I really had no idea how I had come to be sitting there in a taxi with him and how I should behave now I was there.

‘You’re not nervous, are you?’ he asked me.

I blushed. ‘No …’ I paused. ‘Yes, I am a bit.’

He patted my knee again. ‘I can have the taxi drop me, then you can go home,’ he suggested. He looked into my eyes. My pulse was racing. There was a throbbing in my temples. A tightness across my chest. I felt like a reprieved prisoner and, now I was free, I wasn’t sure what to do with my freedom. I watched the shop lights race by, a few late-night couples wandering home, a drunk sitting in the gutter drinking from a bottle wrapped in a bag.

There are in life few moments that are of the essence, direction-making or changing, few decisions that determine who we are and what we might become. This was one of those moments, one of those decisions. It was as
if
sitting in that taxi in high heels and fishnets there were two girls, the me I thought I was and the me I really am. Freud says we are all someone else underneath, and the real person underneath has different feelings. The feeling I had as the black cab slowed outside a hotel in Kensington was that if I didn’t take this opportunity to learn the system I would have an entire lifetime to look back and regret it.

The taxi stopped.

‘We’re here,’ I said.

‘Remember, anything,’ he said.

I nodded and bit my inflamed lip.

The uniformed desk clerk gave Sandy that man-of-the-world sort of grin as we entered the soft light of the foyer. I felt like shouting, ‘I’ve never done this before,’ but that would have been childish and, anyway, the moment had passed. I was standing facing the row of three lifts watching the numbers rise and fall and trying to work out square roots as they shifted and changed.

The silver doors in the middle lift pinged and, as they whispered open, it felt as if a rock were being rolled away from the mouth of a cave. It was like the beginning of an adventure. Once I entered the cave I would be setting out on a journey.

I paused. Like the two girls I had imagined in the taxi, I was one person outside the lift. I would be another if I entered.

‘Shall we?’ he said.

As the lift was about to close, Sandy put his arm in the space. The doors shuddered impatiently, then opened again. There was still time to make an excuse and leave, but dire straits call for desperate measures. Sandy Cunningham knew how to beat the system and I entered the mirrored cubicle thirsting for knowledge. He pressed 7: the fourth prime number; VII in Roman numerals; the Hindus invented it and the Arabs shaped it. There was a girl at school who had the number tattooed on her
bottom
after sleeping with seven boys in three days at Glastonbury during the rock festival. Seven is said to be a lucky number and my stomach lurched as we glided through the void, our reflections captured in the glass, a girl with pink cheeks and a floor-length raincoat, a man in a creased linen suit, a puzzled look on his sunny features.

Up through the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. The doors opened and I followed him along the corridor with its dimly lit floor lights and trays of half-eaten snacks from room service abandoned outside locked rooms. The hour was late. Insomniacs listened to the soft hum of televisions; you could see a flicker of blue light below some of the doors. We turned a corner and, as we reached room 713, I felt a pang of regret that it was this room and not one of the others, although that was silly. In theory I believed in lucky numbers, but unlucky numbers are an invention of the devil.

He shoved a key card into the lock and a green light indicated when the mechanism was ready. He turned the handle and I entered a vast luxurious suite which surprised me: he clearly made a fortune playing the system, I thought. We made our way through the living room with its sofas and baskets of fruit into the bedroom with its enormous bed, leather armchairs, a television and pink lampshades that gave the room a pastel glow.

He closed and locked the door.

‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ I said, the words escaping from me in a terrible rush.

‘Neither have I,’ he replied and he knew I didn’t know what he meant. He smiled. ‘I’ve never told anyone the system, not anyone, not ever.’

That made me feel better. It made me feel that what I was going to get was worth what I was going to give, although what exactly I’d be expected to give I wasn’t sure. It seemed as if I was being inducted into some wonderful secret, something esoteric and divine, and it
didn
’t seem quite so disgraceful as he peeled off my long raincoat, put his arms around me and kissed me on the lips.

I was quite shocked by this, although I’m not sure why. I had pictured myself lying back on a bed, eyes pressed tightly shut, Sandy Cunningham bouncing away on top of me. I was going to give my best, I always do, but kissing just felt weird and I pressed back half-heartedly at first and with somewhat more enthusiasm when I realised it really wasn’t so bad.

His fingers began the long task of unlacing the corset. It came away in his hands and I sighed with a sense of release as he placed it over the arm of the leather armchair. He kissed my neck and shoulders, my collarbones, then bent to unclasp my stockings. He rolled them down my legs and I slipped out of my shoes. He unsnapped the garter belt and studied this strange harness before placing it with the corset. He did everything slowly, undressing me as you would open a surprise parcel, and it occurred to me that this was the difference between a man and a boy. Boys want to do everything so quickly they leave a girl feeling that it’s all a bit of a waste of time.

Sandy was like a scientist doing research on my lips, my chin, my neck. My breasts were throbbing painfully, my nipples prickling with pins and needles. I had the odd feeling that I wanted him to bite me, bite me hard, but he didn’t: he took my nipples in his mouth, one at a time, and suckled on them like an infant. They popped out and became hard and the pins and needles went away. Slowly, slowly, he kissed my rib cage and the hollow of my stomach. He went down on his knees and, as he carefully lowered my knickers, a shower of £5 and £10 notes scattered like leaves around our feet.

‘Blimey, must be fifty quid here,’ he said.

‘That’s because it’s Saturday.’ My voice was a whisper. I was naked, stark naked with a strange man just about
old
enough to be my father. He was on his knees sniffing and licking at my pussy and I couldn’t understand why I was so aroused, why I was so wet. What I was doing was out of character, so unacceptable, so absurd and outrageous, it was shamefully, lusciously exciting. My body was sheathed in perspiration. After six long hours trudging around the casino having my bum spanked I felt totally and wantonly alive.

I arched my back and pushed out my breasts. I cupped the back of Sandy’s head and pushed his face into the wet gash of my open pussy. I sighed as the lips of my labia parted and his tongue wormed its way between my legs.

Sister Benedict had always implied that I had the potential to be wicked, and being wicked, I realised, was liberating. All through my life I had been imprisoned by views and opinions that didn’t belong to me. I was a gymnast. I was a bird. I wanted to be free. I wanted to fly. I had sat through a million exams and now I was in a strange room with a strange man holding the cheeks of my bottom and lapping at my pussy.

It was so unlike me, so depraved and intimate I would never be able to tell anyone, not even Melissa, who claimed to have done it all by the time she was fourteen. But I was sure she had never done this, never stood boldly naked with a man’s long tongue like a key opening the secrets between her legs, her breasts on fire, her reflection captured in the dark face of the television screen. I was an intern at Roche-Marshall in the City of London and soon I would know
the system
.

A moment of doubt pricked my mind: I remembered reading in a book by Jean Rhys or Anaïs Nin that a girl should always make sure she is paid before the act, not after. But Sandy Cunningham seemed an honourable type and I was too absorbed to do anything but enjoy the feeling of my own warm juices turning sticky on my thighs, the sharp jolts of pleasure as contractions zipped like electricity through my tummy. I was remotely aware
that
my sense of shame and embarrassment made the sensation more intense, more thrilling. I was a bad girl, and being bad after always trying to be good was liberating.