The Darling Strumpet. Gillian Bagwell

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СКАЧАТЬ Nell lied. “Only I was to meet her this morning and I’ve missed her.” She wondered if the girls’ good spirits would extend to a loan. “Tip me a dace, will you? I’ve not had a bite this morning and I’m fair clemmed.”

      “Faith, if I had the tuppence, I would,” said Deb. “But we’ve just spent the last of our rhino on drink and we’ve not worked yet today.”

      “Not yet,” agreed Molly. “But the day is like to prove a golden one. I’ve ne’er seen crowds like this.”

      “Aye, there’s plenty of darby to be made today,” Deb nodded. Her eyes flickered to a party of sailors moving down the opposite side of the road and with a nudge she drew Molly’s attention to the prospect of business.

      “We’d best be off,” Molly said, and she and Deb were already moving toward their prey.

      “If you see Rose …,” Nell cried after them.

      “We’ll tell her, poppet,” Molly called back, and they were gone.

      The crowds were growing, and it was becoming harder by the minute for Nell to see beyond the bodies towering above her. What she needed was somewhere with a better view.

      She looked around for a vantage point. A brewer’s wagon stood on the side of the street, its bed packed with a crowd of lads, undoubtedly apprentices given liberty for the day. Surely it could accommodate another small body.

      “Oy!” Nell called up. “Room for one more?”

      “Aye, love, the more the merrier,” called a dark-haired lad, and hands reached down to pull her up. The view from here was much better.

      “Drink?”

      Nell turned to see a red-haired boy holding out a mug. He was not more than fourteen or so, and freckles stood out in his pale, anxious face. She took the mug and drank, and he smiled shyly, his blue eyes shining.

      “How long have you been here?” Nell asked, keeping an eye on the crowd.

      “Since last night,” he answered. “We brought my father’s wagon and made merry ’til late, then slept ’til the sun woke us.”

      Nell had been hearing music in the distance since she had neared the Strand. The fiddler’s music floated on the air from the east, she could see a man with a tabor and pipe to the west, only the top notes of his tune reaching her ears, and now she saw a hurdy-gurdy player approaching, the keening drone of his instrument cutting through the noise of the crowd.

      “Look!” she cried in delight. A tiny dark monkey capered along before the man, diminutive cap in hand. The crowds parted to make way for the pair, and as the boys beside her laughed and clapped, the man and his little partner stopped in front of the wagon. He waved a salute and began to play a jig. The monkey skipped and frolicked before him, to the vast entertainment of the crowd.

      “Look at him! Just like a little man!” Nell cried. People were tossing coins into the man’s hat, which he had thrown onto the ground before him, and Nell laughed as the monkey scampered after an errant farthing and popped it into the hat.

      “Here,” the ginger-haired boy said. He fished in a pocket inside his coat. She watched with interest as he withdrew a small handful of coins and picked one out.

      “You give it to him,” he said, holding out a coin as he pocketed the rest of the money. Nell could tell that he was proud for her to see that he had money to spend for an entertainment such as this.

      “Hist!” she called to the monkey and held up the shiny coin, shrieking with laughter as the monkey clambered up a wheel of the wagon, took the coin from her fingers, and bobbed her a little bow before leaping back down and resuming its dance.

      Laughing, she turned to the boy and found him staring at her, naked longing in his eyes. He wanted her. She had seen that look before from men and boys of late and had ignored it. But today was different. Her stomach was turning over from lack of food, and she had no money. Molly and Deb had spoken of the wealth to be had from the day’s revelries. Maybe she could reap some of that wealth. Sixpence would buy food and drink, with money left over.

      She stepped nearer to the boy and felt him catch his breath as she looked up at him.

      “I’ll let you fuck me for sixpence,” she whispered. He gaped at her and for a moment she thought he was going to run away. But then, striving to look self-possessed, he nodded.

      “I know where,” she said. “Follow me.”

      HALF AFRAID THAT SHE WOULD LOSE HER PREY AND HALF WONDERING what had possessed her to speak so boldly, Nell darted through the crowds with the boy after her to the alley where she had spent the night. Slops from chamber pots emptied out of windows reeked in the sunshine, but the passage was deserted, save for a dead dog sprawled in the mud. Nell dodged under the staircase beneath which she had slept. The pile of straw was not very clean, but it would do. The boy glanced nervously behind him, then followed her.

      With the boy so close, panting in anticipation, Nell felt a twinge of fear. For all the banter and jokes she had heard about the act, she had no real idea what it would be like. Would it hurt? Would she bleed? Could she get with child her first time? What if she did it so poorly that her ignorance showed? She wished she had considered the matter more carefully.

      Her belly rumbled with hunger again. Why had she not simply asked the boy to buy her something to eat? But it was too late now, she thought. She pushed away her misgivings and flopped onto her back. The boy clambered on top of her, fumbling with the flies of his breeches, and heaved himself between her legs, thrusting against her blindly. He didn’t know what to do any more than she did, she realised. She reached down and grasped him, amazed at the aliveness of the hard member, like a puppy nosing desperately to nurse, and struggled to help him find the place.

      The boy thrust hard, groaning like an animal in distress, and Nell gasped as he entered her. It hurt. Forcing too big a thing into too small a space, an edge of her skin pinched uncomfortably. Was this how it was meant to be? Surely not. Yet maybe to him it felt different.

      She had little time to consider, as the boy’s movements grew faster, and with a strangled moan, he bucked convulsively and then stopped, pushed as far into her as he could go. He stayed there a moment, gasping, and then Nell felt a trickle of wetness down the inside of her thigh, and knew that he must have spent.

      The boy looked down at her, with an expression that mingled jubilation with shame and surprise. He withdrew and did not look at Nell as he buttoned up his breeches and straightened his clothes. She grabbed a handful of straw to wipe the stickiness from between her legs. The smell of it rose sharp and shameful to her nose, and she wanted to retch. The boy reached into his pocket and counted out six pennies.

      “I must go,” he said, and almost hitting his head on the low stairs, he ducked out and scurried away.

      Nell looked at the coins. Sixpence. She felt a surge of power and joy. She had done it. It had not been so bad. And now she had money. She could do as she liked. And she decided that first and immediately, she would get something good to eat.

      She used her shift to wipe as much of the remaining mess as she could from her thighs and hands, and then knotted the coins into its hem. She hurried back toward the Strand, her new wealth banging pleasantly against her calf.

      The smell of food hung heavy in the air, СКАЧАТЬ