The Spoils of Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

seemed.
    â€˜I’ll take good care of him,’ she told John’s friend.
    â€˜She’s all right,’ said the man. ‘You’ll have a fine time with her.’
    John smiled and raised his chin, causing Fanny to wonder if she had somehow misjudged him. ‘Should I go up, then?’ he asked her. His eyes met hers with a direct look that came from a determined man, rather than the squirming inexperienced boy she had assumed.
    â€˜Please do. I’ll follow right behind you.’ Holding the five-dollar bill tightly, she ran out to the privy, and resoaked the sponge in the jar of vinegar. The viscous fluid adhering to it floated off, and she pushed it back for a second time.
    John was quite startlingly different from his friend. He asked her politely to remove her clothes, while he lay on the bed, slowly unbuckling his belt. He handled his organ without self-consciousness, until it was big and rigid. ‘I intend to enjoy this,’ he said thickly. ‘Come here.’
    She was unsure how to position herself, with him already prone. ‘Straddle me,’ he ordered.
    He was immediately transformed into a wholly different creature from the mild young man strumming the piano. As she lowered herself, he bucked violently, entering her further than she would have thought possible. He clutched her hips tightly, forcing her to join his rhythm, on and on, with his eyes closed and his lips clenched. She hurt, somewhere beyond the sponge. He was striking something tender, not intended for such treatment. She whimpered and tried to escape. ‘No!’ he grated.
    It went on for years, or so it seemed. He shouted, and there was a rush of fluid, but he did not stop immediately. But at last it was over. He pushed her aside and rolled away.
    Fanny got off the bed and tried to find words of reproach. He had cared nothing for her, simply seeing her as a piece of flesh to fit around his own. He had become a mindless animal, intent only on his own gratification. It was insulting. It had a brutality to it that she had never anticipated.
    Drawing a deep steadying breath, she pulled on her clothes. ‘You were rough, sir,’ she said.
    He looked at her with eyes wide. ‘I was not. What are you saying?’
    She shook her head wordlessly.
    â€˜Rough is when a man strikes you with his belt. When he ties your hands and turns you onto your face. Rough is when he drives himself into your throat hard enough to choke you. Are you so innocent, then? If so, you have entered into a dangerous game. You thought to earn good money in a sweet and simple embrace, where you might find some pleasure for yourself. So wrong, my dear. Men will find wives for the sweet and simple business. For the darker passions, they come to girls such as you. What else did you expect?’
    She shook her head again, and pointed to the money box. ‘Five dollars, if you please,’ she choked.
    He quickly complied, and she thanked him. His words were filling her head, breeding horrors and terrors that she could not begin to address. She couldn’t wait to be rid of him, to be free to tell Carola what he had said and how he had used her.
    Carola! Surely she must have finished with the dark-haired man. Perhaps he had been as beastly as John had been – or even worse. Perhaps men were habitually cruel and vile, as John had implied, and in no time they would be torn and injured too severely to recover. Perhaps they would be killed! The Maria Monk book came to mind, with freshly ominous implications.
    What else did you expect?
rang in her ears, through everything else. Had she and Carola both been unforgivably naïve and foolish, then? Had they failed to see the dangers in front of them? Was the whole business over before it had properly begun? Would her parents take her back again, if she begged them? She would milk cows and hoe bean rows for the rest of her life without complaint, if so.
    Downstairs, two more men had