Jessica Read online

  “I spoke to Sol outside, I want the gal, Jessica.”

  The giant gave an imbecilic smirk. “Ya have to buy a couple of drinks first.”

  “All right.” He asked the barman for two whiskies and sculled one after the other. Not a smart thing to do when he was already hung-over.

  “Looks like ya got a mighty powerful thirst, cowboy,” the barman said.

  “Yeah, I have, not for the drinks, though.”

  “Ah, the whores.” The man grinned showing tobacco stained teeth.

  “Jessica.”

  “Looks like an ice queen to me, cowboy. Clemmie, that’s the one with the brown curls.” The barman licked his lips. “She’s the one I’d buy.”

  “Well, I’m not you.”

  The barman snapped his fingers and a woman dressed in a low cut yellow gown that barely covered her bulging breasts, sashayed over. She was attractive in a flashy kind of way, but didn’t particularly appeal to him.

  “He wants Jessica,” the barman said.

  “You’d do better with Clemmie or Rosa.”

  “I want Jessica.”

  “Ten dollars.”

  “What!” That was far more expensive than what he had anticipated.

  “For an extra five you can stay the whole night with her, includes supper if you want it.”

  Ethan’s manhood started to harden in anticipation. What was it about the gal that aroused him so quickly? It was daylight robbery. Classy whores didn’t come cheap apparently, at least he wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel room.

  “She’s a bit on the troublesome side, though,” the woman said. “Sol didn’t have time to break her in.”

  “It’s Jessica or no-one.”

  “All right, it’s your money.”

  He pulled the bills out of his pocket and paid her.

  “This way.” She flounced off, her ample hips swaying as he followed her up the stairs. They stopped at a door near the end of the passageway.

  “In there, cowboy. You can be forceful with her if she won’t co-operate, only no real rough stuff, Sol won’t stand for it.” She wagged her finger at him. “Leave any bruises and you’ll have to pay extra.”

  She pushed the door open. “Jessica, you have a customer. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll behave yourself and give the man what he paid for. Oh, he’ll be staying the night.”

  Once the door closed with a loud click, he stared at Jessica. “Howdy,” he said, feeling like a gauche schoolboy. He had never forced himself on a woman and wouldn’t start now. He only wanted what he had paid for. “I’m Ethan.” He didn’t know why he said that. He had never introduced himself to a whore before.

  “Look, Jessica. I’ve just been let down by a woman who promised to marry me, so I’m looking for a little consolation.”

  Her eyes widened, darkened a little until the pale blue turned to sapphire. He peeled off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair, kicked off his boots, then stripped down to his drawers.

  Her hands fluttered at her chest. He stepped closer, shifted the trembling hands away from her open bodice and slowly undid the remaining buttons.

  “I…I can do it. You lie on the bed. I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.”

  He climbed into the bed and lay on the crisp white sheet, resting his head on the pillow as he watched her undo the buttons and let the gown shimmy to the floor. She wore a lace trimmed camisole with matching drawers.

  Slowly, gracefully, she drifted toward the bed and stood staring down at him. Her breasts were small, the dark outline of her nipples clearly visible. His gaze travelled downward, and his mouth dried up. He closed his eyes to better fantasize what he would find once she was naked. He would remove his own drawers once she joined him in bed.

  Chapter Three

  Ethan woke up slowly. He must have slept like the dead. Where the hell was he? The fog slowly lifted from his brain. Stretching out his hand he found the other side of the bed empty, the sheet cold to his touch, undisturbed.

  He shot up. Jessica was gone. Sonofabitch, so was his coat. The sneaky little whore had robbed him while he slept. Not to mention the money he had paid for services he didn’t receive.

  Rage surged through him. If I ever come across her again, I’ll wring her pretty little neck.

  He jumped out of bed and his head swam. Hunger, or too much liquor over the last few days? Fury at allowing himself to be duped? The temptation to ask for the money he’d paid out to be returned was great, except it would probably only get him a bullet in the back.

  What a gullible fool he had been. Nothing else for it, get some breakfast and head for home. His sexual desire had disappeared, just like Jessica.

  ~*~

  “Do you think they’ll kill us?” The soft wavering voice right up close to his ear brought Ethan back to the present. He was trussed up like a Christmas turkey in the bank of the Godforsaken town, of Lawson.

  “How would I know?” he growled. She still wore his coat. It hung on her slight frame, reaching almost to her knees. If his hands hadn’t been tied up he would have ripped it off her.

  “Where’s my money, you thieving little whore?”

  “I told you, I only took the coat.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I did. I only wanted something to cover the gown with. They ripped the top few buttons off my bodice and exposed my breasts. I couldn’t walk around like that.”

  “Don’t lie to me, the money was in the pocket.”

  “Well.” She gave a sudden smile, which turned mere prettiness into beauty, causing his breath to catch. “It’s still there then.”

  ~*~

  Jessica wondered why she cared what Ethan thought of her. If and when they were released by the bank robbers, their paths would never cross again. He would make sure they didn’t. Why did that make her sad? She couldn’t understand herself. Jessica Smith’s life would never get its happily ever after ending, so why cling to the hope it would. She closed her eyes to ward off these unsettling thoughts, and let her mind drift to another time, and another place.

  ~*~

  Jessica’s childhood years passed. Drudgery, poor food and brutal treatment took their toll, yet never completely broke her.

  Somehow she managed to survive with the help of Olaf. Without him she would have died, as sure as God made little green apples. She would have joined the growing number of unmarked graves in the side paddock.

  “You wet the bed,” Gerda shrilled at her one morning when she was about eleven years old. “You horrible little brat.”

  The cuff across the back of the head made her ears ring. “It…it wasn’t me.”

  “Your bed, your wet mattress, so don’t lie to me. Eleven years old, and still wetting the bed like a baby,” Gerda sneered.

  Several of the other girls in the long dormitory that slept fifteen girls snickered.

  “Jessica didn’t lie.” Amy, a thirteen-year-old red-head piped up. She would be leaving the orphanage once she turned fourteen. Sold off to the highest bidder. “One of the new kids done it, climbed into bed with her.”

  “Who?” Gerda’s bared teeth gave her the look of a snarling dog.

  “No, Amy, I did it,” Jessica said, not wanting to get the poor little new girl into trouble. By the looks of the child she wouldn’t survive the beating Gerda was sure to dish out. Another poor little lost soul destined for an unmarked grave. She couldn’t have it on her conscience.

  Gerda grabbed Jessica by one plait and slapped her several times across the face. The stinging blows would have felled her had the woman not been holding her by the hair. Even so the force rocked her back on her heels.

  “The laundry for you.” She gave Jessica’s hair a vicious tug. “You too.” She turned to Amy. “You’ll both work there until I say you can stop, or you die. Whichever comes first you insolent little bastards.”

  The laundry was the most detested and feared place of all to be working in. Jessica hid her terror. Quite a few girls had died there over the
years, scalded by boiling water or choked by the poisonous fumes belching out of the furnaces.

  They didn’t go directly to the laundry, Gerda marched them into a small room and Jessica trembled. This room was where she meted out the most severe punishment.

  She grabbed Amy by the hair and dragged her over to a narrow table. “Bend over and lift your skirt.” Amy did as she was asked. No-one dared defy an order like that. Gerda pulled the now sobbing girl’s drawers down to display her skinny, trembling ass.

  The whistling noise of the cane as it connected with bare flesh was even more fearsome than Amy’s screams. Gerda wielded the cane with as much force as she could muster. By the time a sobbing Amy was pushed off the table, her ass and the tops of her legs were bright red.

  “Now you.”

  Jessica wanted to run away, but had nowhere to go. Her punishment was the same as Amy’s, several vicious strokes of the cane. Where the two girls differed was Jessica made no sound, which enraged the woman even more.

  She gritted her teeth so tightly her jaw ached, it stopped the screams from shooting out of her mouth, though. I won’t cry. I won’t. Several times the cane fell on her ass. The pain was excruciating. She felt it, the moment her flesh was ripped open. At least it stopped the flogging.

  Gerda pulled up her drawers before dragging her off the table by the hair. Jessica fell to the floor but a couple of kicks soon got her to her feet. Her ass throbbed, and if the open wound bled on to her drawers, no doubt she would be punished again.

  “Now, you will learn, even if I have to flog it into you. No-one defies Gerda.”

  Grabbing Amy’s red plait and Jessica’s blonde one, she dragged the trembling girls down a long dingy hallway and out through a side door. Her relentless grip and long stride had both girls running to keep up.

  They were shoved into the brick laundry. A wall of stifling heat from the fires burning under the coppers, hit them like a body blow. Jessica caught her breath, perspiration broke out on her forehead within seconds.

  A hatchet faced crone supervised three girls who listlessly transferred scolding sheets from three huge coppers with the aid of sticks. The hot sheets were then dumped into troughs of cold water. Jessica jumped back as steam shot upward.

  Like an evil witch, the crone stabbed a bony finger at them and growled. “Get over there and stir the lard for candles and soap.”

  “Make sure you give them the worst jobs, Ethel. If they don’t work hard, let me know and I’ll deal with them.” Gerda minced off.

  The nauseating stench from the back of the building made her eyes water yet Jessica took up a stick without complaint, and started stirring the boiling mixture, Amy did likewise. How could a person endure working under such extreme conditions? If they wanted to survive there was no choice.

  A week of sheer drudgery crawled by. Jessica’s arms ached, her hands became chafed and red, she kept doggedly working, though, didn’t dare do anything else. Where she got the strength from she couldn’t even hazard a guess. Hatred most likely. She yelped when a splatter of hot, melted lard landed on her hand.

  “I’m going to kill Gerda,” Amy kept saying. “I’m not staying here much longer; we’ll die if we do.”

  “I know. What can we do?”

  “Escape from this place.”

  “How?” There was nothing Jessica wanted more than to get away from this cruelty and servitude, although she didn’t want to throw her life away. She had plans for the future. One day she would be rich, and would buy the orphanage and turn it into a nice place for homeless children. “They’ll kill us if we get caught.”

  Stop talking Ethel yelled.

  “I don’t aim to get caught,” Amy muttered, when Ethel’s attention was diverted to one of the other girls who was ironing. The laundry did the washing for the orphanage, also two hotels and a high-class brothel, for which the matron was well paid.

  Over the next couple of weeks, Jessica struck up a guarded friendship with Amy, brought on by the necessity of helping each other survive this purgatory. The other laundry girls were older, pale faced, with sunken eyes, too beaten down and fearful to do anything else except obey Ethel’s screeched instructions.

  They had a fifteen-minute break for lunch, bread spread with dripping and a mug of almost cold broth. Jessica had lost weight; she could tell as her grey dress now hung on her tiny frame.

  Les, a pimple faced youth, always picked up and dropped off the linen from the brothel in a large cane basket on wheels. A few times she had watched Amy fluttering her eyelashes or smiling at him when Ethel wasn’t looking.

  This one particular day, Ethel was out at the clothesline instructing a new girl on how she liked the sheets pegged out when he arrived. He would drop the soiled linen off and pick up the laundered things.

  “Howdy handsome,” Amy said. “Would you like to kiss me?”

  Embarrassed red ran up his neck and face as he vigorously nodded his head.

  After he trundled off with the clean laundry, Jessica turned on her friend. “What did you say that for?”

  “Because he’s our way out of here. He won’t risk helping us if he doesn’t think he’ll get something out of it.”

  “What if we get caught, Amy?” Tremors of apprehension ran through her. It was a dangerous plan.

  “He could get both of us out.”

  “No, it couldn’t work. We should wait. There will be other chances.” Jessica pleaded with her friend.

  “No, I can’t.” She was shocked to see tears forming in Amy’s eyes. “I can’t do this anymore. I’d rather be dead.”

  With a furtive glance around to make sure no-one saw, Jessica squeezed her friend’s hand. “I won’t come with you, but I swear. I won’t betray you.”

  “Thanks.”

  They rarely spoke to each other outside the laundry in case Gerda found out they were friends.

  ~*~

  Two days later, Jessica was marched out of the laundry and sent back to work with Olaf amongst the roses.

  “My leetle Jessica.” He gave her a quick hug when they were alone in the hot house. “You look so sick.”

  “It was awful, Olaf.” She blinked back tears. “I thought I would die there.”

  “I know.” He patted her head. “No-one else could vork quick, and be gentle with the roses like you. Peoples complained about crushed blooms, not enough petals for scents. I make sure things go bad.” He chuckled. “So, I get my leetle Jessica back.”

  “Thank you, I’ll never forget your kindness.”

  He handed her a cheese sandwich and she wolfed it down.

  That night at supper Amy wasn’t there. Had something happened to her? Had she escaped? Or had she died?

  Matron stomped up to the head of the table. Grim faced, she hovered over the children like a demented witch. “Has anyone seen Amy Jones?”

  “No.” Jessica joined the chorus of voices.

  “What about you, Smith?” Gerda marched toward her. “The wretched girl has disappeared.”

  The shocked gasps were quickly silenced. No-one walked out of the orphanage unless the matron sold them or hired them out.

  “If anyone knows anything they better speak up now or…” The rest of Gerda’s sentence hung ominously over the now silent room.

  A search was instigated, but Amy was never found. Matron didn’t call the police in case the abuse of the children came to their notice, or some of her illegal activities were discovered. She was making a lot of money out of the orphanage, and didn’t want to risk losing it.

  Chapter Four

  When Jessica was thirteen, she was bought by Myrtle Craven, an elderly widow who wanted a companion. Olaf had died a few months earlier, and his wife had been forced out of the cottage. The new gardener was a surly, lazy man who expected her to do most of the work, so she was glad to leave.

  “Come along,” Mrs. Craven said. “I’ve no time to dally around. Thank you, Matron. I hope I won’t be sorry about doing this, but with my poor husband not
even cold in his grave.” She sniffed. “And my son living in New York, I just cannot cope on my own.” She dabbed her eyes on a lace trimmed handkerchief.

  “All the girls from here are trained to be obedient and hard working. I pride myself on that. If she misbehaves, send her back,” Matron said.

  Jessica, inwardly trembling, forced herself not to let her fear show. Anything was better than the orphanage, and Mrs. Craven was well dressed and appeared kindly. She had rosy red cheeks, and tufts of white fluffy hair stuck out from under her black bonnet.

  As she walked out of the orphanage with Mrs. Craven Jessica didn’t look back at the dark, cold place that had been home for thirteen long and miserable years. She had never ever been allowed to venture outside the high stone walls.

  Out in the street, a coach awaited them. The coachman helped them both climb inside and closed the door.

  “Is this all you have?” Mrs. Craven asked, glancing at the pitiful bundle of clothes Jessica clutched in her hand – two pairs of drawers, a nightgown and a faded blue blouse.

  “Yes, that and what I’m wearing.” She grimaced at her old brown skirt and cream colored blouse.

  “I used to be a seamstress before I met my husband. You can have a couple of my old gowns. I’ll teach you how to alter them to fit.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say. The woman seemed kindly, and she prayed this would be so. Still, nothing could be worse than the orphanage.

  “Do you remember your family, my dear?”

  “No, I was dumped on the orphanage doorstep as a new-born.”

  “Your mother probably had you out of wedlock. So many young women are ruined because of a man’s lust. You be vigilant, my girl, and don’t fall for the lies of some silver-tongued man.”

  “I won’t, I’ll be very careful.”

  The road was crowded with carriages, buggies and quite a number of single horsemen also. She peered out the window with interest.

  They passed numerous shops full of merchandise the like of which she had never seen before. Ladies in pretty gowns paraded along the street, well dressed gentlemen also.