Chapter 18: Cassie in Hartglade Pt II

Part II

CASSIE

It was true! Madame lived in a brothel! We went in, not through a public doorway but through a gate in the rear. Here we found ourselves in a walled garden with some stables near the gate and some paddocks where I saw Castor. He immediately recognised me and trotted over to be petted.

"Ah, Chuck's either here or around nearby," Madame commented.

Chuck! My Chuck! "Chuck's here?" I asked, feeling a fool for asking the obvious even before Madame asked me if I were deaf. I was so excited. My unpleasant morning was forgotten, as I was determined to make an impression on him, a good impression. Why did I feel like that about him? He was the only one who appeared to have given me the benefit of the doubt, I dreaded to think what would have happened at the orphanage if he'd not taken me. And after the way I'd treated him! At the time I didn't know how bad my reputation was.

I took a deep breath thinking back to that most marvellous episode in my whole life, when he had taken me, mastered me, loved me and shown me what it was like to be the object of a man's needs. How he had put so much into making me his. That had been a turning point in my life, it had confirmed what I had been hesitant about accepting for the previous few days, I belonged with Chuck.

I could hardly believe that he had condescended to accept me. Everyone knew what a bitch I had been. I didn't deserve him. And from what Madame said, I was still on probation. It hurt to think that I was not good enough to deserve him.

At least Madame had recognised my change of attitude, treating me in a more friendly manner. Now she confided, "Of course he's here. I have no idea what he's doing. I'm told he's been working fourteen hours a day to get so much more done before he gets back to the homestead and his women."

"His women?" I said to myself and realised I had spoken aloud.

"You don't think you're one of his?" Madame said teasingly. "I know he's been ignoring you and you know why. Yes, you play your cards right and give him no excuse to recall that little bitch that you were, and I'm sure he'll relent. BUT," she emphasised, "you just pay heed to me. That man comes first. I think you're the only one of his women not to have understood that."

Of course, I took in what she said, but I didn't understand the words, 'the only one of his women'. That was inferring that there was somebody else apart from Amina. No, it just must've been a slip of her tongue. I was still bound to do what she said and be less selfish. In fact I grasped the opportunity to show how sincere I was. "Yes," I pronounced eagerly, keen to prove myself. I know that I sounded like an excited schoolgirl, but what the hell! Madame should know I wanted to do my best.

"I've got his baby," I suddenly spurted out for no reason at all, patting my belly.

"We know you have," Madame smiled knowingly

"You knew?"

She laughed, "Of course. You didn't?" She sounded surprised.

"But I've never been sick in the mornings?"

Madame started laughing loudly, "Not everybody has morning sickness. You're lucky. Let's hope you're just as fortunate with your next few."

Wow, I was just getting used to the idea of having one baby and I shivered; it was quite scary the idea that I might have another one, even more.

Me? I'd never been interested in dolls, babies or the like; I hadn't been one of those silly girls in my classes at school. I never went crazy when girls who had left turned up again with one wrapped in her shawl. Yuck, it was really scary. I never was like the others wanting to hold a moving puking smell. Worse than that, twice one was thrust into my arms by doting relatives. All I saw was a likelihood of dropping the damn thing if it moved.

Quickly, I was brought back to the present as Madame was speaking, "It must be almost a couple of months now. You never noticed your periods had stopped?" She thought I was just keeping the news to myself, maybe until Chuck returned full time so I could tell him.

It's a thing with thin girls, it's a fact that they often have funny periods. I knew the friend of a cousin who was an anorexic, talking to her she told me she never had periods. "Er my periods, they've always been a bit erratic, it's my weight or something," I admitted.

Oh dammit! I used to be proud of my figure, but here and now was not the time to bring attention to my lack of weight. She latched onto it straightaway, "That weight of yours, well, not your weight, but your looks, we'll have to do something about that."

"I will, the women at The Breastworks, they... , this afternoon I'm going back ... they said..."

"Yes," agreed Madame, and I knew then that she was already aware of what they had said. How she knew I had no idea, but Madame appeared to know everything.

By this time we were sitting down on some carved wooden furniture outside on a patio. It was made up of wide flat slabs of slate that matched the roof of the building. The only difference was that these had brilliant dashes of orange, green and blue streaks running through them.

Madame tinkled a little bell and ordered food from a pretty young lady who emerged and looked surprised to see her there. We resumed the conversation and I'm not so sure how much later, but she brought out a salad for Madame. In front of me was placed a large Lancashire hotpot, complete with dumplings. Dumplings! They'd make me so ... fat.

"They are to Chuck's own recipe. Normally they are served in a boeuf Bourguignon. But today the repas ouvrier is Lancashire hotpot."

"I don't understand."

"We have a chef who fancies himself in providing what he calls 'un menu Français'. The food is actually very good, the equal of anything found in a top hotel in your previous lifetime." I shivered a little at the very idea of referring to pre-regeneration times, and it wasn't by chance that I noticed Madame had dropped her voice. "The trouble is that many of our customers are Frontiersmen and like a 'real meal', not wanting to rise from the table until they're completely full. That's why he provides every day a repas ouvrier"

"A what ouvree-er, what's that?"

"You never studied French at school did you?"

I had, but I'm afraid I must have missed this bit.

She didn't wait for my reply, "A workman's lunch," she explained, "and 'boeuf Bourguignon' is simply the stew; but instead of the water, the chef throws in half a bottle of cheap red wine. You're honoured to have him make some dumplings for you, he wouldn't do that for any of the paying customers. But then he heard that you were one of Chuck's girls."

I took one mouthful of the stew. It was delicious, the crispy potato leaves on top were browned and obviously had some herbs or spices on that enhanced the flavour. I hardly dared put my fork into the dumpling. What would this do for my weight? The taste did remind me of the first day when we arrived at the homestead. I knew then that one of the things that I must do was to learn the recipe of how to make his dumplings. Since that time Chuck had never had time to make any food. Yes, I took another bite, it was really fluffy and tasty with the scrumptious gravy seeping in from the outer edges. That would show him. I would make dumplings for him, I vowed to myself.

As we finished there was a whispered exchange between Madame and the girl who came to ask us if we wanted anything else to eat. Madame simply had a little goats' cheese. I couldn't eat another bite of anything. As the dishes were cleared away, Madame asked, "Are you sure you've never been in a brothel before?" She really did have a wicked sense of humour. Of course I hadn't, and she knew I hadn't, but she asked in such a way as to make me think before I responded.

To me, it was an embarrassing question. What young woman likes to be asked a question like that? I hardly knew what to say. My dinner suddenly felt heavy in my stomach and, as if to confirm the fact, my hand strayed to my belly and I felt the enormous meal I'd just eaten.

A brothel! I suppose if a man thought of a brothel he would immediately think of enjoying the pleasures of a woman. That's not what a woman thinks of. Mention the idea of a brothel to any women and the first thing they feel is a sense of abhorrence. The idea that one woman can sleep with one man and then another for money, to say that it's distasteful is an understatement!

No, there are few women who can understand the female who adopts the life of a whore willingly. We all assume that anyone doing that sort of thing must be forced into it, and it conjures up ideas of girls being held down and raped. We think of white slavery and human trafficking, beatings and cigarette burns. It's enough to make anyone feel sick. Did Madame see my revulsion?

I think I showed Madame what I thought just by my reaction. "Don't be silly, girl, whoring is a profession as old as the hills. Whores are professionals, and many of them very astute businesswomen. I was a good whore when I worked on my back."

I hardly heard anything else that she said for a few minutes, because I was imagining this suave, sophisticated and confident, chique woman as a street prostitute.

She was teasing me.

Understanding my disbelief, she had no qualms about clarifying what she had said, "I was whoring for..." there was a pause as she stopped calculating and simply said, "yes, I was whoring for many years. I was good, one of the best. I had good punters and poor ones, but I hate to calculate the hundreds who have found their way in between these legs," she parted them briefly to emphasise the point. I sat, astounded! There were thing I just did not want to know, but she added so lackadaisically, "It's an honourable profession."

Honourable? Profession! What was she on about?

"Don't be stupid," Again she was anticipating not what I was about to say but what I was thinking.

If prostitution wasn't so bad for her as a, a prostitute, then there were the problems it caused with (what did they she call them?) her punters.

"But some of them, the men who use women like that, they're married?" That was a stupid assertion. There was no marriage. I knew it the moment the words were out of my mouth.

She ignored my faux pas, thank goodness. "Many of them have a partner of course, sometimes two."

"But diseases and..." I added.

"Diseases? All my girls are clean, they'll take no diseases back to their home bed."

"But it's wrong, cheating on their woman," I wanted to say 'wife', but remembered in time.

"Cheating? Oh you mean their partners?" She laughed, "What has it to do with them? We're in Hartglade now. I'm sure your Chuck would tell you, if you really wanted to know, if he were with one of my girls."

"He wouldn't, would he?"

"Wouldn't? Wouldn't what? Wouldn't tell you, or wouldn't take one of the girls to bed? You really are a silly little fifteen-year-old, with your head in the sand. You don't understand men at all. There you are, at the homestead, living the life of Riley. And here's Chuck, working more than twelve hours a day. He's a man. For two weeks he's been too busy to even think of any leisure time, but he's a man with the needs of a man."

"You mean he... ?"

"Would you have a man at your homestead who didn't have the aptitude to want a round of man-woman sex? You can't expect such a man to go without for long when his personal bed mates aren't around."

She looked accusingly at me, "And it's not just men, is it? Just look at the way that you've been, trying to entice him into your bed. A woman doesn't act like you acted just because she likes her man, you were gagging for it*, you were trying to get him to shag you every opportunity you had. We all saw you, wide-kneed and shaking your bum at him, pity you had no tits with which to entice him."

"But at the homestead we would do ANYTHING for him, anything he wanted. There's no need for him to use a PROSTITUTE," I said this with as much feeling as I could muster. It was all wrong.

"But he's not at home is he?" Madame announced with resignation, and then she began to laugh, and followed that up by identifying one word I had pronounced, "Anything?" she asked, still amused.

"Yes, anything," I confirmed.

"Now just you think very carefully, you know what anything means?

"Of course I do, I'd do anything for him."

"You'd let you man have an afternoon with a whore if he wanted?"

"But he doesn't need to use a whore."

"Typical!" she spat with a hint of contempt. "You just haven't answered my question. If you would do ANYTHING for your man, you would condone his using a whore, not only that, but if that was what he wanted you would be pleased that he got satisfied away from home."

She let that sink in for a minute, "No, Cassandra DeWitt" I'd never heard that name ever on Pionova before, maybe Chuck had said it or more likely inferred that he was aware of it, but its use shocked me. "Are you prepared to put your selfishness behind you and deny your man what he wants?"

I thought I was intelligent and could use words to achieve my ends, but Madame had me beaten hands down. It was only hesitantly that I had to agree that Chuck's needs should be uppermost. "I'd not stop my man," I said haltingly, but..."

"Good, we're finally getting through to you. Now, I shall tell you that your man is with one of the whores. But I also will tell you that he doesn't go around willy-nilly fucking one a night, or even half a dozen when he comes in, just because they are there and he can. You know, he could do that if you wanted. When I'm not here he has free run of the House."

"He doesn't?" Chuck, No! I was still reeling from being told he used whores. I couldn't see where this was getting us, but I was more than a bit disappointed that Chuck used a brothel.

Madame patted me on the arm, "The affection, the adoration that both of you have back at the homestead for your man is nothing like the adulation that Beth holds for him."

"Beth?" I tried not to let the jealousy show. Who was Beth?

"Beth?" I repeated, in bewilderment.

There was silence only broken when Madame started to explain, "Beth holds her man in the greatest respect."

That hurt, Madame using the possessive form, 'her man'.

"It might interest you to know that all the girls here respect Chuck. Beth adores him, you've only got to look at her to see the adulation she exudes when he's around."

So! I thought with contempt, he impresses a prostitute! Great deal!

"He has a thing for Beth, too."

I think when I heard that, tears must have appeared in the corner of my eye as the man I had a thing for, the man who I really wanted, didn't want anything to do with me but he could sleep with a whore!

"It's good for Beth, too," I heard.

So what! I said nothing.

"It's good when a man treats his girls well and shows that he cares. Of course it's easier for Chuck, as he only has one working girl in my House."

Working girl, he has her in the house? What does that mean? It can't! "Chuck? He runs a prostitute?"

She laughed. "I suppose if truth be known I run her for him. She's a good little earner. She will repay his investment very quickly."

"Chuck makes money out of prostitution?"

"I've been doing that for most of my life, no harm in that, there's no law against it. In fact it's not only condoned but looked on favourably here. Bloody hell, girl! What else is there for the Frontiersmen to spend their money on?"

My Chuck, he had a whore!

"Grow up. And no, he didn't WANT a whore. Beth was sort of thrown on him." Madame twisted her eyes round almost accusingly, "Just like he ended up with you, but this time he ended up with a whore, one of my girls here. It was simply because she arrived and I had no ready cash to pay for her."

I was still looking askance at Madame, I should blame her, damned whore that she was! I suppose I should have expected nothing less from a woman like her, despite all her airs and graces.

"And take a look of your face. You and I, we have spelt out the facts of life before. Do I have to explain again?" She lowered her voice and I knew that this was related to regeneration. Where was I going wrong? What couldn't I see?

I listened, and then it began to make sense. Anybody who arrived on Pionova and couldn't fit in, they left. Nobody knew what happened to them, never heard of again. Madame had sussed it out that they just returned to their state of limbo at death, went to Heaven or Hell, or they came back as an insect, if you believed Buddhism. If they had any life at all it was as an unseen ghost. I reckoned it was the 'life hereafter' and what was that. Where had I been destined for when I had been on my way to crashdive from the top of that viaduct?

Chuck had stepped in, and even though he hadn't wanted to, had saved this girl. And, typical Chuck, he felt a sense of responsibility for her. Damn him and his fine ideals!

I was almost in tears. Don't ask me why, it was one of those emotional days. And don't say PMT! I had just had so much thrown at me.

It took me a good twenty minutes to settle down, "Come along, let's show you around my social club. You know Chuck designed it and oversaw its building?"

"I didn't know it was a brothel." I muttered. I had seen it being built when I was in the orphanage, years ago. It seemed now, a different age.

"No, we don't have big red neon signs or a red lamp hanging over the windows." Madame thought that was funny.

"You're a very intelligent girl let down by your own stupidity, but you ought to know what's going on here. You know, once you have come to terms with the fact that you've been given a second chance to live, and that this chance has obligations, then you might make a good partner for Chuck. You might not know it but he speaks highly of your expertise, but he's damned if he'll give you any responsibility until you take on your own responsibilities."

"What do you mean?"

"Chuck is here because of the professional skills he has to offer. He works day and night to bring Hartglade into the modern era. What are you here for? Why were you fortunate enough to have been selected? Personally I have no idea, but my common sense tells me that while THEY were recovering a valuable professional to build a new town here with plenty of innovations, THEY saw you and just brought you along for the ride, kill two birds with one stone. Can you think of any other reason?"

She took a deep breath, "And why did they bring you along? Simply because you have a pair of ovaries and a womb, your sole purpose here is to have one fuck every couple of years and churn out babies to increase numbers. If you help satisfy the male ego in your man, so much the better. If your man gets his own back on you for your excesses, then that's better still. But you and I know that that isn't enough for him, don't we? And it wouldn't be enough for you either. To be a complete woman you need to feel some satisfaction with what you're doing for your man, don't you?"

Madame really got down to the basics. I knew in my heart that she was right; but the trouble was, part of my brain was still functioning like that of a young school kid. I wanted to be whisked away by a knight on a white horse and everything would be like it was in fairy books.

I could see that Madame understood me. "It's difficult," she commiserated. "My girls come to the brothel at the minimum age of twenty, and they find it difficult to grow up. I don't know how you manage, coming here at the age of twelve and thrust into the deep end on your own?"

I was still reeling. As we walked along a carpeted area she showed me around the rooms as if this were just a hotel that she ran or owned. She treated the tour in THIS place so normally I tried not to reveal my shocked reaction.

"The social club doesn't open at lunch times, but here is a separate entrance for the club members' dining room." She indicated a door that was closed. "That's open for lunches, it's where your meal came from," she dropped in passing. "It's open for diners now. The club as such, with girls in attendance, it's closed until three o'clock, we can have a look there later. First we'll show you the other areas that open earlier."