Tipping the Velvet (43 page)

'Oh! What a thing to do!' But then, after a moment, she held to stop ourselves from laughing, to Diana's little parlour.

my head and pressed it. She didn't seem to be at all sorry Here, it was the work of a moment to open the bureau's about my swollen nose, then. She only said: 'Oh, turn secret drawer, then take the key to the rosewood trunk, and around, turn around quick, that I might do it to you!'

open that. Zena looked on, all the time casting fearful glances towards the door. When she saw the dildo, 365

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however, she coloured again, but seemed unable to tear her shoulders and gripped them hard. She opened her eyes, saw eyes from it. I felt a drunken surge of power and pride.

what I saw, and gave a squeal of fright. Instinctively, she

'Stand up,' I said - I sounded almost like Diana. 'Stand up, tried to rise, forgetful of the shaft which pinned her and fasten the buckles.'

sweating hips to mine. For a moment we floundered When she had done that, I led her to the looking-glass. I together inelegantly; she let out a burst of nervous laughter, winced, to see my face all red and swollen, and still with more jarring than her first thin shriek of fear.

crumbs of blood caught in its creases; but the sight of Zena At last she gave a wriggle; there was - monstrously distinct

-gazing at herself with the dildo jutting from her, placing a in the sudden silence, and horribly incriminating - a kind of hand upon the shaft of it, and swallowing, to feel the sucking sound; then she was free. She stood at the side of motion of the leather - proved more distracting than the the bed, the dildo bobbing before her. One of the ladies at bruise. At last I turned her and placed my hands upon her Diana's side said, 'She has a prick, after all!' And Diana shoulders, and nudged the head of the dildo between my answered: 'That prick is mine. These little sluts have stolen thighs. If my quim had had a tongue, it could not have been it!'

more eloquent; and if Zena's quim had had one, it would Her voice was thick - with drunkenness, perhaps; but also, I now have licked its lips.

think, with shock. I looked again at the wide and spilling She gave a cry. We stumbled to the bed and fell, crosswise, box, that she was so vain and jealous of, and felt a worm of upon the satin. My head hung from it - the blood rushed to satisfaction wriggle within me.

my cheek and made it ache - but now Zena had the shaft And I remembered, too, another room, a room I thought inside me and, as she began to wriggle and thrust, I found that I had carefully forgotten - a room where it was I who myself compelled to lift my mouth and kiss her.

stood speechless at the door, while my sweetheart shivered As I did so, I heard a noise, quite distinct, above the and blushed beside her lover. And the sight of Diana, in my shuddering of the bed-posts and the pounding of the pulse old place, made me smile.

inside my ears. I let my head fall, and opened my eyes. The It was the smile, I think, which deranged her at last. 'Maria,'

door of the room was open, and it was full of ladies' faces.

she said - for Maria was with her, too, along with Dickie And the face, pale with fury, at the centre of them all, was and Evelyn: perhaps they had all come to the bedroom to Diana's.

retrieve a dirty book - 'Maria, get Mrs Hooper. I want For a second I lay quite frozen; I saw what she must see -

Nancy's things brought here: she is leaving. And a dress for the open trunk, the tangle of limbs upon the bed, the Blake. They are both going back to the gutter, where I got pumping, leather-strapped arse (for Zena, alas, had her eyes them from.' Her voice was cold; as she took a step towards tight shut, and still thrust and panted even as her outraged me, however, it grew warmer. 'You little slut!' she said.

mistress gazed on). Then I placed my hands on Zena's

'You little trollop! You whore, you harlot, you strumpet, 367

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you bitch!' But they were words that she had used on me a Now Maria returned with Mrs Hooper. Mrs Hooper's eyes thousand times before, in lust or passion; and now, said in were bright. She held my old sailor's bag, that I had brought hate, they were curiously devoid of any sting.

from Mrs Milne's and cast into the furthest corner of my Beside me, however, Zena had begun to shake. As she did closet, and a rusty black dress, and a pair of thick-soled so, the dildo bobbed; and when Diana caught the motion boots. While the ladies all looked on, Diana threw the dress she gave a roar: Take that thing from your hips!' At once, and boots at Zena; then she dipped her hand fastidiously Zena fumbled with the straps; her fingers jumped so that into the sailor's bag, and pulled out a crumpled frock, and she could barely grasp the buckles, and I stepped to help some shoes, which she cast at me. The frock was one I had her. All the time we worked, Diana hurled abuses at her -

used to wear in my old life, and thought fine enough. Now she was a half-wit, a street-whore, a common little it was cold and slightly clammy to the touch, and its seams frigstress. The ladies at the door looked on, and laughed.

were rimmed with moth-dust.

One of them - it might have been Evelyn - nodded to the Zena began at once to pull on the dreary black dress, and trunk, and called: 'Use the strap on her, Diana!' Diana the boots. I, however, kept my own frock in my hands, and curled her lip.

gazed at Diana, and swallowed.

'They will strap her well enough, at the reformatory,' she

'I'm not wearing this,' I said.

said; 'when she returns there.'

'You shall wear it,' she answered shortly, 'or be thrust naked At that, Zena fell to her knees and began to cry. Diana gave into Felicity Place.'

a sneer, and drew her foot away so that the tears should not

'Oh, thrust her naked, Diana!' said a woman at her back. It fall upon her sandal. Dickie - the necktie at her throat was a Lady from Llangollen, minus her topper.

pulled loose, the lilac at her lapel squashed flat, and

'I'm not putting it on,' I said again. Diana nodded. 'Very browning - said: 'Can't we see them fuck again? Diana, well,' she said, 'then I shall make you.' And while I was still make them do it, for our pleasure!'

too amazed to raise a hand in my defence, she had crossed But Diana shook her head; and the gaze that she turned on the room, torn the robe from my fingers, and lowered the me was as cold and as dead as the eye of a lantern, when hem of its skirts over my head. I writhed, then, and began to the flame inside has been quite put out. She said: 'They kick; she pushed me to the bed, held me fast upon it with have fucked their last in my house. They can fuck upon the one hand and, with the other, continued to tug the folds of streets, like dogs.'

cloth about me. I struggled more fiercely; soon there came Another lady, very drunk, said that, in that case, at least the rip of a broken hem.

they should have the thrill of watching us, from a window.

Hearing it, Diana gave a shout: 'Help me with her, can't But I looked only at Diana; and, for the first time in all that you? Maria! Mrs Hooper! You girl -' she meant Zena. 'Do terrible evening, I began to feel afraid.

you want to go back to that damn reformatory?'

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Instantly, there came upon me what felt like fifty hands, all cries. We reached the basement, and it grew colder; when pulling at the dress, all pinching me, all grasping at my Diana opened the door that led from the kitchen to the kicking legs. For an age, they seemed to be upon me. I grew garden at the rear of the house, the wind blew hard upon my hot and faint beneath the layers of wool. My swollen head weeping eyes, and made them sting. I said, 'You cannot, was knocked, and began to pulse and ache. Someone placed you cannot!' The cold was sobering me. I had had a vision, her thumb -I remember this very clearly - at the top of my of my chamber, my closet, my dressing-table, my linen; my thigh, in the slippery hollow of my groin. It might have cigarette case, my cuff-links, my walking-cane with the been Maria. It might have been Mrs Hooper, the silver tip; my suit of bone-coloured linen; my shoes, with housekeeper.

the leather so handsome and fine I had once put out my At last I lay panting upon the bed, the dress about me. The tongue and licked it. My watch, with the strap that secured shoes were placed upon my feet, and laced. 'Stand up!' said it to my wrist.

Diana; and when I had done so she caught me by the Diana pushed me forward, and I turned and grabbed her shoulder and propelled me from her bedroom, through the arm. 'Don't cast me from you, Diana!' I said. 'Let me stay!

parlour, and out into the darkened hall beyond. Behind me, I'll be good! Let me stay, and I'll pleasure you!' But as I the ladies followed, Mrs Hooper and Maria with Zena begged, she kept me marching, backwards; until at last we gripped between them. When I hesitated, Diana prodded me reached the high wooden gate, beside the carriage-house, at forwards, so that I almost stumbled and fell.

the far end of the garden. There was a smaller door set into Now, at last, I began to weep. I said, 'Diana, you cannot the gate, and now Diana stepped to pull it open; beyond mean this -!' But her gaze was cold. She seized me, and seemed perfect blackness. She took Zena from Mrs Hooper, pinched me, and made me walk faster. Down we went - all and held her by the neck. 'Show your face in Felicity Place flushed and panting and fantastically costumed as we were -

again,' she said, 'or remind me of your creeping, miserable down through the centre of that tall house, in a great jagged little existence by any word or deed, and I shall keep my spiral, like a tableau of the damned heading for hell. We promise, and return you to that gaol, and make sure you passed the drawing-room: there were some ladies there still, stay there, till you rot. Do you understand?' Zena nodded.

lolling upon the cushions, and when they saw us they She was thrust into the square of darkness, and swallowed called, What were we doing? And a lady in our party by it. Then Diana turned for me.

answered, that Diana had caught her boy and her maid in She said: The same applies to you, you trollop.' She pushed her own bed, and was throwing them out - they must be me to the doorway, but here I held fast to the gate, and sure to come and watch it.

begged her. 'Please, Diana! Let me only collect my things!'

And so, the lower we went, the greater came the press of I looked past her, to Dickie, and Maria: the gazes they ladies at my back, and the louder the laughter and the ribald turned upon me were livid and blurred, with the wine and 371

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with the chase, and held not one soft spark of sympathy. I
PART THREE

looked at all the ogling ladies in their fluttering costumes.

Chapter 15

'Help me, can't you?' I cried to them. 'Help me, for God's You might think that, having sunk so low already, I should sake! How many times have you not gazed at me and not have scrupled to have banged upon the door that had wanted me! How many times have you not come to say been closed on me, or even tried to scale the gate, to plead how handsome I am, how much you envy Diana the owning with my old mistress from the top of it. Perhaps I of me. Any one of you might have me now! Any one of considered such things, in the moments that I stood, you! Only, don't let her put me into the street, into the dark, stunned and snivelling, in that dark and lonely alley. But I without a coin on me! Oh! Dam' you all for a set of bitches, had seen the look that Diana had turned on me - a look that if you let her do such a thing, to me!'

was devoid of any fire, kind or lustful. Worse, I had seen So I cried out, weeping all the time I spoke, then turning to the expressions upon the faces of her friends. How could I wipe my running nose on the sleeve of my cheap frock. My go to them, and ever hope to walk before them again, cheek felt twice its ordinary size, and my hair was matted handsome and proud?

where I had lain upon it; and at last, the ladies turned their The thought made me weep still harder; I might have sat eyes from me in a kind of boredom - and I knew myself and wept before that gate, perhaps, till dawn. But after a done for. My hands slid from the gate, Diana pushed me, moment there came a movement at my side, and I looked and I stumbled into the alleyway beyond. Behind me came up to see Zena standing there, with her hands across her my sailor's bag, to land with a smack on the cobbles at my breast, her face very pale. In all my agony, I had forgotten feet.

her. Now I said, 'Oh, Zena! What an end to it all! What are I raised my eyes from it to look once more upon Diana's we to do?'

house. The windows of the drawing-room were rosy with

'What are we to do?' she answered: she sounded not at all light, and ladies were already picking their way across the like her old self. 'What are we to do? I know what I should grass towards them. I caught a glimpse of Mrs Hooper; of do. I should leave you here, and hope that woman comes Dickie, fixing her monocle to her watery eye; of Maria; and back for you, and takes you in and treats you nasty. It's all of Diana. A few strands of her dark hair had come loose you deserve!'

from their pins, and the wind was whipping them about her

'Oh, she won't come back for me - will she?'

cheeks. Her housekeeper said something to her, and she

'No, of course she won't; nor for me, either. See where all laughed. Then she closed the door, and turned the key in it; your soft talk has landed us! Out in the dark, on the coldest and the lights and the laughter of Felicity Place were lost to night in January, with not a hat nor even a pair of drawers; me, for ever.

nor even a handkerchief! I wish I was in gaol. You have lost me my place, you have lost me my character. You have 373

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lost me my seven pounds' wages, what I was keeping for She had bent to the bag, and was squinting into it. 'I mean the colonies - oh! What a fool I was, to let you kiss me!

for us to sell them.'

What a fool you was, to think the mistress wouldn't - oh! I

'Sell them?' Sell my guardsman's uniform, and my Oxford could hit you!'

bags? 'I don't know ..."