Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [22]
Mary blushed at the words, but the clerk passed the woman as if he hadn't heard. He walked by Mary too, then paused, and looked back at her.
She stood a little straighter, pushing out her small chest but trying to suck in her stomach. She began to shake. Just this once, she promised herself, just this once. When all this was over, she'd find another way to earn her bread: there had to be something to make, or mend, or sell.
Now the clerk had taken hold of her sleeve and was pulling her into the light. She wanted to turn her hot face to the wall. She wondered whether he'd start with a compliment, or a request that she might not understand. She wondered when to mention that her rate was two shillings.
'Ninepence.' The man said it calmly, as if he were standing at a gingerbread stall.
And though she could feel tears pricking her eyes, what could Mary say but yes? If she refused this cully, who was to say when she'd get another?
They stood in the shadows. It was all very peculiar, Mary thought. It wasn't like the other times. This was no rape; she was letting it happen, making it happen, in fact. She helped the clerk unbutton his thin breeches; she wanted it over fast. His long sleeves full of papers creaked awkwardly. He looked down at his yard, and so did she. It was the first time she'd actually seen one close-up; the thought started a giggle in her throat. Such a pale, peeled thing it was. The clerk put her hand on it so she started to rub it, as if cleaning a plate, and all of a sudden she felt it growing like a marrow in her hand. Such power she tasted, then!
But he hauled up her skirts as if he was running out of time, and kneed her legs apart, and pressed himself into her, and all at once Mary was a helpless child again. It didn't hurt, exactly; it was just dry and heavy, like a weight she had to carry inside her. The worn papery smell of the man surrounded her. She held onto the shoulders of his plain coat; she bore his thrusts, staggering a little on the cobbles. When panic rose up in her throat she kept her mind on the goal: the crown for Ma Slattery—five shillings, ten sixpences, sixty pennies.
Then with a scalding gush inside it seemed to be over. The clerk leaned his head on her shoulder for a moment, and his legs buckled and swayed. Mary despised him, and almost pitied him too, until he pulled away, straightened up, and reached for his purse.
Nine pennies; she dropped them into the pocket that hung inside her waist seam. There; she'd done it. It wasn't the end of the world. She'd got paid for the thing instead of having it snatched. Her head suddenly ached with tears.
After the clerk came a carpenter, very sawdusty, and then a soldier in an old uniform, and then an old fellow who smelled as if he'd never had a bath, and thanked her afterwards. What they all had in common was a terrible, rutting need. Like that saying of Doll's when she was drunk: Cunny draws cully like a dog to a bone.
Between customers there were long stretches of waiting. Mary's thighs were sticky. Her stomach ached. By midnight she'd earned three shillings and she was beginning to acquire a stroller's arrogance. She could do it; she had something any man would pay for.
But then the girl in the brown wig stalked over. 'Treating time, my dear,' she announced.
Mary stared at her. Inside her muff, her hands knotted round each other.
'Didn't Doll Higgins tell you our custom?' said the girl pleasantly. Behind her, the others were lining up, arms crossed. 'First-timers always treat.'
They took every penny she had in her purse; she didn't dare hide any, because she had a feeling they would know. She didn't cry