A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) (18 page)

“
Nigh on ten years. Sometimes I wonder whether we would have stayed together otherwise. I often think it's our regard for the culture that has bonded us for so long like this.”

I remembered that conversation for a long time afterward. Some might have perceived that Flo was getting everything she wanted, i.e. other men and still the love of the one man she really wanted. Seemed idyllic. I saw that she was in fact just a woman who wanted to procreate, just like most of us. It had never been a consideration for me because the possibility was small, but, I could see why she looked so sad sometimes. I also remembered that day because later, as we slumbered, Mark crawled into her bedroom and pulled me out of bed into his arms, forcing me to keep my whispers until we were out of the room. Once in his bedroom, it wasn't long before we were in coitus. And by that, I mean frantically making love with kissing and touching, not the disconnected fucking we'd previously engaged in. That was the first time I was disloyal to Flo. There were so many times after that, I couldn't possibly count them. I was never given the chance to question him. I just knew the sex with him was unreal. He had the largest cock of any man I had ever met and he was notorious for it at the Lodge. All the women wanted him; just because of the sight of it if nothing else. His appetite seemed to know no bounds. He threw me around the bed and we performed the most marvellous acrobatics. But, I did not love him. I couldn't force myself to even if I tried. My default setting with him was that, together, we were simply a well-oiled fucking machine. Our bodies, just clicked. But I hated that he smoked. I hated that he spent too much time at the gym. I hated that he was happy to enslave Florence, who just wanted his babies. His habits, tastes and customs angered me but I desired him all the more because of it. I just pushed my morals to the back of my mind and told myself it was pleasure, that was all it was, and what Flo never knew would not hurt her.

*              *              *

I wanted to take part in one of the re-enactments on one of the nights where everyone was in period dress. My chosen outfit was that of a servant girl; a plain dress in a clay-brown colour. Simple white frills poked out from beneath the collar and long sleeves and the empire line only accentuated my full bosom. I enjoyed the way the garment clung to my waist and how the heavy-duty, poor cloth swathed the bumps of my body beneath. I wore cotton shoes but decided that outfit was actually preferable to most modern creations. I was comfortable but still womanly. It was bizarre. My undergarments were a delicate cotton camisole and large bloomers. It's funny how different you feel in certain outfits. The mind is a powerful thing.

I wandered the L
odge as per usual. Flo knew of my desire to be part of one of the role-plays and she fetched me to the banqueting hall, where a large group of people were waiting for me. A lot of the others were much more extravagantly dressed than I and Flo was wearing a black silk dress with cream lace trim and dozens of petticoats beneath. Her small breasts were pushed so far out to represent the equally modest bottom that men might never see.

She signalled to Mark, who wore fu
ll Duke regalia (including powdered white wig), and he spoke loudly, “This is the slave who claims she didn't steal food from under our noses for the poor. We know otherwise.”

“
Punishment must be dealt,” indiscriminate voices suggested.

“
It must,” Mark said, and he took me willingly.

I was bent over and a birch rod was extracted from a drawer.

“Do you agree to be punished?” Mark asked.

“
Yes,” I said.

The dress
swishing at my feet was a comfort. I felt protected by it.

He struck
his weapon against my behind, over the cloth, but the bouquet of lethal slim twigs still turned my insides out. He thrashed me for some minutes more, all the while with me gasping and begging for him to stop. The jeers and the hissing of the crowd filled my ears enough to make me forget the pain.

When he finished thrashing me, which had been
sharp but bearable, he insisted, “I will show her how forgiving I can be. I'll take her to the basement and savage her behind.”

I sensed there was more to the scene but Mark had decided to draw me away from the crowd. I looked Flo in the eye as we moved off and she seemed to agree to his notion with a nod. We went down some steps and into a cellar of sorts. Once inside, he threw off his wig and grasped me in his arms. He kissed me deeply and groaned.

“I think I'm falling even more deeply in love with you, Lottie.”

“
You can love Lottie as much as you like. Outside of this place, I'm Charlotte,” I stated.

“
No, Charlotte, you know what I mean. I love all of you. I really see you, you know.”

“
No, Mark, you only think you do.”

He grasped my backside through the dress and I gasped. I kissed him back and he began tugging at my dress to lift it up. He dug his hands beneath the bloomers and ventured toward my womb. He was so methodical with his
long, literate fingers and always knew just how to tantalise me. He bit my lip and asked, “You don't even love me a little?”

“
No,” I restated. This seemed to incense him. He worked me harder to mock my desire. As I was pushed back against the cold, concrete walls, I was reminded of the burn against my backside. I orgasmed intensely and he kept on rubbing so that a few smaller orgasms were drawn out on the backend of that one. It took a few minutes to gather myself.

I pulled my dress down and moved toward the door of that dank chamber.
He seemed irate because of my refusal to please him in return and tried to block my way.

“
This has gone too far, Mark. I am going to tell her now.”

“
She knows.”

“
We'll see,” and I snapped his hand away, reminding him just how strong I was.

“
You're not leaving,” he said.

“
I am, Mark.
I am
.” We both knew that I really was leaving, too. There was no other way.

“
You can't,” he begged.

“
I'm a cancer survivor, Mark. Did Flo tell you that? Did she tell you anything about my life before this place?”

“
No,” he admitted.

“
Well, then, you now know that someone like me never minces their words.”

I made my
way out and he didn't try to stop me.

Back at their house, Flo and I were alone. I started, “Flo, did you realise Mark and I have been sleeping together?”

“
Yes,” she said.

“
And it doesn't bother you?” I was a little impassioned. Surely she must have noticed.

“
No. As long as I know about it. It's fine.”

I knew the real truth
would wreck Florence. Mark had previously suggested we marry and he had conjured all kinds of dreamy possibilities for us both, but I knew deep down I did not love him and that a relationship of any sort was not what I wanted. I tried to convince him that it wasn't love we shared. I told him that Flo was his intended and that she wanted his babies. However, infatuation had taken him.

“
He mentioned marriage. He mentioned babies.”

“
What?” she asked.

“
Yes, with me. It's gone too far, Flo. I don't love him. I never gave my heart to him. Never. He drew all those possibilities himself.”

“
This is just fantasy,” she said.

“
Ask him,” I suggested.

We called Mark to the
room and he stood uncomfortably between us.

“
Mark, Charlotte says that you as good as proposed marriage to her?”

His stony face and re
fusal to respond gave away his thoughts.

“
Listen Flo, she's going to leave us. She told me earlier. If you push this, she will go. And where will that leave
us
?”

Flo considered the possibilities and
seemed dumbfounded.

“
This
has
been threatening to come to a head for some time…” she trailed off.

“
I don't know if all this is me, I really don't,” I said.

“
You know this is more
you
than it is us,” Mark interjected.

“
Mark, how dare you? How dare you? You act like one person with me and another with Flo and another with other people outside of this house. You hypocrite!”

“
Please, can you give us a minute?” Flo asked me.

I went down to the kitchen and poured myself a scotch to take
the edge off my anger.

I left almost ten months after first meeting Florence and I could still hear the shouting from their house for some days after, haunting my ear canals as though droplets of Florence's very phlegm had infected me.

It had gone a little something like this:

Florence: “I thought you were my friend, Lottie.”

Me:
“I am. I'm so sorry. I just thought it was sex and that pleasing him would please you. I wanted to put a stop to it as soon as I realised that it's not me he loves.”

Mark:
“You're a liar! Lottie, you know you and I are meant to be.”

Me:
“We're not. You belong to Florence.”

Florence
: “He's no good to anyone.”

Me:
“You should both work it out.”

Them:
“Time to go Lottie.”

There was
no way to make it better between them. Three was definitely a crowd, as the saying goes. I guess Florence was a woman who had held out hope that Mark would change, and Mark was a man who was driven by passions so blindly that he did not see the reality of a woman's wants. For them, it didn't seem like bridging the gap between their lifestyle and parenthood was possible, not with Mark's deeply embedded working class roots and the denial of his true self that came with that. He was not a true disciple of BDSM because he gained pleasure from real shame (he hid it well but I often saw it in his eyes) and only true love could bridge that. I didn't know if that was what he and Flo shared. I knew I should never try to get in touch with them ever again.

I had been in
Nottingham for three years by that point, and yet I felt I had so far accomplished nothing.

*              *              *

After that, I stopped going to the meetings at the Lodge and returned to my former life of sobriety. I suppose for the first time in my life I actually felt lonely. I had some girlfriends at work who I conversed with and went to the cinema with, but I really hadn't realised how attached I'd become to Florence and Mark's company, not to mention our jaunts to the Lodge.

I
did not know I was sorely missed by the members until I accidentally bumped into one in town one day. I often saw familiar faces around in those days but did not know exactly where I recognised them from. All the people I came into contact with, whether at work or at the Lodge, blurred into one. I was obviously memorable enough to this lady, who said her husband really missed my sessions in the Whip Room. I said I had decided not to attend anymore after getting involved in a complex relationship within the group that had turned sour. She asked whether I might agree to service her husband now and again and gave me her number. That was when it all began.

My
“service” and its reputation spread and I found men in fact preferred one-on-one sessions, without the interruptions of spectators at the Lodge. Most of the time, penetrative sex was off the cards. This was about what I could provide them that their wives maybe felt uneasy about. Some men even liked to talk for the most part, telling me about their day or issues they were finding stressful. An objective ear is sometimes so hard to find and yet such a comfort. It also became clear to me that the wives of these men did not want to dominate their husbands but were perhaps desperate to tell them that they needed to up their game in the bedroom at home. I often spoke to the wives separately and it would all be done very accommodatingly and discreetly so as not to ruin the ego of these fellows. A lot of women sent their husbands to me as a birthday or anniversary surprise. I earned money, or donations, as most of us liked to term them. I was earning enough to put a deposit down on a loft apartment on Canal Street in the same building Alex used to live in, and I moved in, also furnishing it with my own earnings. An Ikea truck blocked the road for almost an entire day.

You see, what it was, was t
hat within the confines of the Lodge anything did indeed go. Every art of seduction and pleasure was accepted. But back home, these couples must have felt a little helpless without the setting, the encouragement of their peers or even perhaps the organised manner with which gadgets and props were provided in that realm. The question was, how to have a good sex life without all that rigmarole? My answer always came: be honest with each other and take your time.