A Wanton Tale Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowlegments

  Chapter 1 A Bawdy House

  Chapter 2 An Evil Exploitation

  Chapter 3 The Promise of Escape

  Chapter 4 In Search of Fresh Bait

  Chapter 5 Sophie’s Journey

  Chapter 6 Sophie Arrives

  Chapter 7 Mean Streets

  Chapter 8 Find Alice

  Chapter 9 The Rescue

  Chapter 10 The Confrontation

  Chapter 11 A Lesbian Encounter

  Chapter 12 Freedom

  Chapter 13 Dangerous Liaisons

  Chapter 14 A Rude Awakening

  Chapter 15 A Lucky Escape

  Chapter 16 Just Desserts

  Chapter 17 Trial and Retribution

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is

  purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  ‘Separate territories assigned to poverty. Removed from the sight of happier classes, poverty may struggle along as it can.’

  Friedrich Engels (1844)

  This book is dedicated to my late mother Trudy who was born in Westbourne Street. She has recounted vivid memories of these streets in Everton before they all came tumbling down.

  I also dedicate this book to the thousands of poor families who suffered from the Victorian legacy in the City of Liverpool. They witnessed the widening contrast between poverty and prosperity. The desperation experienced by them, led to a pathway of physical suffering and moral disorder. In Victorian Liverpool there were more than 8000 child prostitutes, this tale features the plight of just one, her name was Alice Boyle.

  Acknowlegments

  A very special thank you to my husband Mike who co-edited this book with me and helped with the historical research. My late mother Trudy’s recollection of the old streets has helped immensely in bringing my story to life.

  Wanton adj. 1. Licentious or immoral 2. Without motive provocation or Justification 3. Maliciously and unnecessarily cruel 4. Unrestrained 5. Playful or capricious 6. A licentious person esp. a woman 7. To behave in a wanton manner

  Chapter 1

  A Bawdy House

  Liverpool 1886

  ‘What did that woman want Ma?’ Asked Alice quizzically. Her mother’s face was drawn and pale. ‘I don’t like her, what did she want?’

  Lottie’s headache from her previous day’s drinking was beginning to fade, at the same time she was in no humour for her daughter’s insolent tone.

  ‘You will have to start liking her, she’s offered you a situation.’ She answered coldly, gripping tightly to the five pound note she had just been proffered. She had no intentions of telling her husband about her ‘windfall.’

  ‘When do I start with Mrs. Hale?’ Asked Alice, her face pale.

  ‘Tomorrow, we will go there. Mrs. Hale will take care of you.’ Said Lottie, ‘At heart she’s a nice woman. You will be in a lovely house with good friends and you’ll eat well.’ Her voice was faltering, she was trying to convince herself.

  ‘And the rest.’ Thought Lottie to herself as a shiver ran the length of her spine.

  Going home, Betsy made her way through the bustling streets of town and was met by her husband on the corner of Church Street. It would only be a short trip to the top of Duke Street and the welcome sight of their three storey house.

  Freddie was complaining that he had been made to wait on the street corner while Betsy had spoken to the girl’s mother. Betsy smirked at him, it had been a good day’s work and a fiver well spent, a good investment.

  ‘Didn’t want her seeing you on the doorstep you ugly bastard, her Ma would have chased us. She’s a fine looking girl, she’s ours now Freddie. We’ll break her in gently Freddie. I have a particular gentleman in mind, one or two in fact, who will pay handsome for her. But to start, same as the others, she can make herself useful around the house until she’s ready. She’ll be willing enough and tempted when she sees the money she can earn by flogging her wares.’

  The respectable facade of their Georgian property hid many secrets within its walls. Hers was not a high class brothel and nor was it a run down lodging house that hired out rooms. Not for her the festive atmosphere of the brothels of the city. At Betsy’s house the men didn’t come for a party, they came for sexual relief. At her place, the men could play out their fantasies. Above all, discretion prevailed. Not even the local bobby troubled them. He was paid off to turn a blind eye.

  They walked together inconspicuously through the side streets. They slipped up Wood Street and cut through Slater Street, wary as they went until they arrived at the steps of their bawdy house. In town, they had enemies, truly a pair with something to hide, they walked up the steps with a determined stride. The dimly lit hall’s only source of natural illumination was from the fan light above the front door. It was one of very few houses that had wall to wall carpet, wall mounted gas lights enhanced the red flock wallpaper, like velvet to touch.

  Betsy was always sure to be in the house when clients were due. That way she controlled the girls, the business and, above all, the money.

  They were met by Mary, the girl who was leaving them. Alice would take her place. She put her finger to her lips to warn them to be quiet. A man known as ‘the judge’ had come early for his appointment and was already with Lily.

  ‘His money …? Asked Betsy, squinting her eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the girl, ‘he tipped up to me as soon as he came through the door, here you are Aunty.’ Said Mary as she offered the quid.

  ‘Good girl Mary.’

  Mary knew the rules. Any punter, no matter how well known he was, paid ten shillings to Betsy before they went to the room. Some, who’s needs were more perverted, paid a pound or even more. The girls received three shillings from Betsy for each client and for a special service they received five. Any tips from the punters were their’s to keep.

  She was going to miss the pretty Irish girl when she went. She was a good, hard working, girl and honest. ‘Pity she was wasn’t interested in earning money.’ Thought Betsy.

  Betsy shot Freddie a fierce look when he clumsily slammed the front door behind him. ‘Shush, Shhh.’ She held her finger to her red painted mouth. Freddie was afraid of the wrath of her tongue and regretted the noise.

  Freddie knew that one of the golden rules of the house was quiet and another was that no other man should be seen nor heard. It frightened the clients, just the thought that there was another man on the premises would send the punter running. Men wanted privacy for their sexual practices without the fear of robbery and intimidation.

  Now, clearly, in charge, Betsy stifled a cackle as she led her puny husband into the parlour. Mary had lit all the fires and tidied, they were thankful. Although it was April, it was a cold, windy day. Betsy took her customary seat by the window on a low backed comfortable chair. Its position, just angled slightly to the window. It was here that Betsy sat on ‘punter watch’, keeping a look out for the clients and mentally adding up takings by counting the steady flow of arriving ‘guests.’

  Betsy threw off her cloak and unpinned her hat, avoiding the over mantle mirror. She never liked what she saw gazing back from the looking glass. She looked much older than forty and had started selling her own scrawny body in the 1850’s when she was barely twelve. Her deep crow’s feet and lined mouth ‘through smoking’ were clogged with stale pan stick paint.

  She began to relax, her beady eyes lit up at the thought of a drink. There was quite an array of decanters on their dark wood sideboard. She always offered her clients a drink if they had to wait a little while for the girls. For
herself, she preferred gin in the day and brandy by night and the brandy was never the cheap stuff.

  ‘Pour me a nice drink then Freddie, we have cause to celebrate, then make yourself scarce. Not upstairs Freddie.’ She commanded.

  Mary took Freddie’s coat. He knew there must be no sign of a man in the parlour. With a flick of the wrist he took off his bowler hat, sending it spinning through the air aiming for the chaise longue where it landed perfectly. This always irritated Betsy, not just because he, too frequently, forgot it but because it was her couch. This was where she spent many a languid hour sprawled out as she drank and smoked a cigar. She had sharp ears, never missing a trick. She watched all the comings and goings, every tick of the clock. Her mind was a mental book keeper’s column, counting every shilling that came her way.

  Freddie enthusiastically poured out two large measures into their best cut glass tumblers only adding a trace of water from the pitcher. They chinked their glasses and raised them in honour of Alice Boyle. ‘To the new girl, may she do us proud, Alice here’s to your health!’

  ‘Indeed.’ Added Betsy with a sinister smile.

  Freddie grinned childishly as he pointed up to the ceiling. They could hear Lily’s scolding voice which sounded clipped and admonishing. The room they used on the first floor was towards the front of the house. This allowed the noises of the business not to disturb the clients waiting in the parlour. Similarly, the room on the ground floor was not under the upstairs room. Betsy insisted on absolute discretion for her clients and knew to command movements with perfect precision.

  Betsy and Freddie could hear ‘the judge’ cry out as, yet again, Lily’s cane struck home on his buttocks. They both smiled.

  The judge had arrived early and was now totally nude, except for his socks. Lying on the bed, he watched Lily take off her clothes. Once she was naked she ordered him to turn over. Straight away she raised her cane and, with little force, she whacked his bare bottom. He squealed in anticipation then she scolded him.

  ‘That was nothing. When I really whack, you will know how bad you’ve been. I will cane your bottom without mercy. You will scream and cry, sob and beg, tell me how sorry you are and how you will do better, but I will keep hitting you until your cheeks are the colour of a ripe plum.’

  ‘I am not frightened.’ Acted the judge who knew his part in this scene too well, he just couldn’t get enough of the fiery red head.

  ‘Oh yes you are,’ said Lily. The judge was lying face down, she then pushed a pillow under the naked man’s stomach, his bottom was raised. She slowly tethered his wrists and ankles to the posts of the bed. ‘I want you to begin to think about how you can stop being bad.’

  ‘I hate you.’

  She knelt at her client’s side, putting a hand on his back to steady herself. Satisfied, she brought the cane back and swung it, hard, into Judge Rees’s bottom. A welt began to appear square in the middle of his flesh. The cane seemed to sink into his bottom only to spring up and be ready for the next swing.

  ‘That must really smart.’ She giggled.

  He whimpered as he anticipated the next strike. Lily then struck him hard across his upper thighs making him cry out again.

  ‘No noise. You know the rules.’ Ordered Lily, stuffing the crotch of her drawers in his mouth. She then began to strike him moderately hard. Her blows were random on his back side, from his thighs to his waist. She raised few bruises but it burned his backside to a very dark red shine.

  Lily didn’t say much during the punishment, just striking him once every minute or so. Soon Judge Rees was wailing with the pain of it.

  She knew the signs and watched as the muscles of his bottom alternately tensed and relaxed. He began to grind his hips, he was rubbing himself into the bed.

  His face became more red and his movements more intense. She brought the cane down one more time as the man forced himself down, groaning with pleasure.

  Lily was impressed with his endurance but knew when to stop and began to stroke his deeply reddened flesh. She slowly untied him and they exchanged a smile.

  She secretly loved the dominance. She wondered why men like the judge came to be treated this way. In one of her more rational moments Betsy thought that it was because he, and others like him, were always in the dominant position at home and at work. They needed the relief that this perversion gave them. In a lighter moment Lily even wondered why he always left his socks on!

  For Betsy and Freddie, the sound from the bedroom above was music to their ears. For Betsy it meant a good fee from the punter, she was sure he’d come back for more. As for Freddie, it would normally have signified gratification of his own perversion. He enjoyed watching the antics in the two rooms. He had fashioned spy holes so that he could watch the girls at work.

  Betsy allowed him to move around the house, he knew every floorboard. He knew which one squeaked and which one didn’t and just where to put his feet in order to slither about the house unheard. It wasn’t unknown for Betsy to allow a punter, if that was his wish, to pay to watch others in the bedrooms.

  Betsy’s careful control of the comings and goings would sometimes disturb their own world and they didn’t mind one bit. Both knew that any inconvenience was for the sake of the smooth running of their ‘professional’ establishment.

  If a client came too early she would usher them into the parlour. She offered a drink and a chair beside the fire. At first the conversation was stilted, some didn’t speak at all and few of them made good eye contact. As they relaxed she engaged them in conversation, learning of a particular fantasy they may be happy to play out, for a price, of course!

  It was in this way that she learned of those perverts who had a penchant for young girls. The evil crone knew that was where the big money lay, particularly now the age of consent was sixteen. Alice being only twelve was an added bonus.

  Before 1885, the age of consent had been thirteen. ‘Thanks to the interfering busy body and over privileged bitch, Josephine Butler, the unobtainable just became that much more expensive.’ Thought Betsy.

  Similarly, the cunning madam encouraged the girls to report any requests from their clients. She had learned never to say ‘no’ to anything, with the only exception of any particular act that might cause permanent injury to one of her girls or the client. Her accepted level of depravity boiled down to simply ‘How much will you pay?’ She was careful though, she knew that unwanted attention from the law would ruin her. She walked a careful ‘tightrope’ of keeping the pounding ‘Peeler’ on her side.

  There was no expense spared in the furnishings and decor of the bedrooms used by the clients. Carpeted throughout, the first floor room even boasted a four poster bed which dominated the room. Good quality heavy drapes and curtains completed the decoration in both rooms. Tethers, canes and even whips, were discreetly hidden in the wardrobes.

  Betsy ‘looked after’ the three young women who worked for her. Lily, Lou and Ellen all lodged in the garret on the top floor. The large attic room was a far cry from the opulence of downstairs. There was one mean fireplace. Sloping ceilings made it easy to bang your head and it was at the foot of the stairs leading to it that the luxurious carpet had stopped.

  It was cold and damp in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer but it was better than where they had come from. All three girls came from Emily Place. The cheap cottages from which they came were disease ridden and dilapidated. The old back to back dwellings had been built for seamen in Napoleonic times and had seen better days.

  The girls had, in the past, worn ragged clothes and had walked barefoot with matted hair, their nakedness covered by stolen coats. The notorious court dwellings were in stark contrast to where they were sitting right now and they were grateful. They knew that there were worse ways of earning a living.

  Each of the girls had a bed of their own, the bedding was clean without bugs or fleas. Betsy provided each of them with a jug and bowl, towels and lavender scented soap. She had bought privacy screens for
them which came from the expanding Chinese community, not far from the house. They were hand painted and a decorative means of cordoning off their bed space, to give them a little ‘room’ of their own.

  Ellen and Lou were up there waiting for their next punters. ‘She’ll be about finished now with the spanking judge.’ Said Lou with a titter. ‘Couldn’t do it meself, not without burstin’ out laughin’.’

  ‘You say that Lou but you take it somewhere where she won’t. We all have our tricks.’ Laughed Ellen.

  ‘Don’t know why you’re laughin’, she’s laughin’ all the way to the post office, she’s a thrifty little cow is Lily, savin’ money all the time, doesn’t spend much on herself and gives nothin’ to her hard up family.’ Said Ellen seriously.

  ‘And mine are not gettin’ a sausage off me anymore, you better not crack on Lou , Lily’s got ambitions and is savin’ for a place of her own.

  They went quiet when Betsy called up to Lou. ‘Are you there Lou? The Old Sea Dog’s ‘ere for you. Come down now, he’s in the back room on the bed taking off his wooden leg.’ She quipped.

  ‘I’ll be down sharpish Aunty.’ Said Lou a little reluctantly as she adjusted her low cut dress, revealing most of her breasts. Her gaudy glass earrings and necklace glimmered in the lamplight. With a flourish of her hand she dabbed on some cheap perfume with the stopper of the moulded glass bottle.

  Freddie knew the old man was waiting for Lou and was sitting in the back kitchen, today’s spectacle would be too good to miss. He was enthralled by the grotesque sight of the lame old seaman with the buxom, raven haired girl. ‘The Old Sea Dog’, nicknamed Jack, was always a little drunk. ‘He was legless in more ways than one.’ Thought Freddie, he had watched them many a time.

  Freddie’s sharp ears knew every creak of the stairs, he could hear Lou’s steps on the first floor landing and flew into the back kitchen. There was a row of copper pots on a shelf across the wall adjoining the downstairs ‘bedroom’. It was behind the big pan that he had cut through a ‘spy hole,’ a perfect match to his height. The spy hole was lined up with the brass bed, Freddie enjoyed peering through to watch the action, it was better than any theatre show.