Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 17

Exclusive for Steemit - serialisation of Cruel and Unusual – my second novel

Episodes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

“There will be other evenings, Jack. I seem to think that Miss March, Juliette, is as enamoured with you as you seem to be with her. Good night Jack.” Sir Matthew clasped Jack’s hand and shook it with genuine fondness.

Jack waved as he mounted the steps up to his front door and let himself into his house. However, once inside, he made his way through the house to the back door where he let himself out again.

Through the door in the wall that separated his garden from the back alley he slinked. He went past the other doors in the row, cautious and swift, keeping to the shadows where he could. Then he made his way out of the better area and into the seedier parts of the city. Not far in distance, but a whole world away in privilege.

With his hat pulled down and the collar of his cloak pulled up about his ears, he watched those that were hidden from the society that knew theatres and soirees – the society that embraced him and his profession – he watched from the shadows and he saw deprivation combated by drunkenness and wantonness fed by lust.

He had seen these types of people before, when he treated them at the Workhouse, when at last, their bodies had given in to the ravages of illness and they could no longer scrape together the few pennies it took to subsist in these places. At last, he saw the cause of the alcohol-induced and sexually transmitted diseases – this is how some people lived in a day by day and hand to mouth existence.

He moved on, toward a quieter area and he found a semblance of peace even in the midst of the squalor.

He looked up to the sky in between the crowded buildings and the sky was bright with stars. On a whim, he moved from his vantage point and out into a more open area. A breeze caught his white scarf and he tucked it inside his cloak so that it wouldn’t draw attention to him.

The breeze was helping to clear some of the smog and he looked up to see the sky again. The full May moon - or ‘Hare Moon’ - shone down upon him and he studied the face of it. He thought that the moon was not a pure white after all, it was more a very pale blue and it seemed to have eyes and an open mouth - as though something had surprised it.

A pale misty light surrounded the moon, almost like it was draped with a veil of the thinnest chiffon imaginable. Jack was lost in the beauty and the simplicity of the scene above him.

Jack was aware in the back of his mind that he had an erection.

Just then his elbow was touched, bringing his consciousness back to the filth and squalor he was surrounded by. He looked around to see who had disturbed him.

A very pretty face peered up at him. The girl was very tiny, but not a child – her curvaceous body proved that. Her breasts peeped up over her corset and were less than covered by the blouse she wore, their paleness shining with a hypnotising luminescence to rival the moonlight. Unusual for inhabitants of these slums, her face was clean and unmarked by dirt or bruises.

The effect was spoiled somewhat when she opened her mouth to speak. The unmistakable local dialect tumbled forth from her pretty mouth and quite broke the spell that she had cast over Jack.

“Ere mister, want some company, do yer?” she asked and looked up into his eyes in as close an impression of coyness as he supposed she could manage.

Jack only then noticed her sway as she stood.

“No, go away.”

She looked once more at his face, seeming to study him and then she lowered her gaze down to his groin. Her hand whipped out from her side and she felt his erection through his trousers.

“What the devil!” Jack exclaimed, knocking her hand away.

She placed both fists on her hips, faced him square on and said: “I don’t offer twice, mister. It seemed to me that you weren’t quite sure what I meant. I hope you’re under no such illusion now?”

“I…” Jack stammered. His gaze rested on the tops of her breasts once more and his mouth opened and closed without sound.

“Yeah, I thought as much. Listen to me,” her voice was no longer soft and imploring, she seemed more real somehow. This was no act; this was how she was for most of the time. Jack didn’t need this explaining to him, he realised as soon as she began talking. “I’m clean, I am. I was brought up proper and I don’t do too bad for myself. I got a proper lodgin’ an’ everythin’. I charges a bit more, you see, but I’m bloody worth it, I can tell yer!”

“Yes, I am quite sure that you are, but…”

“Well if you’re lookin’ for better, you’ll have to go a long way from Whitechapel mister, cos there ain’t no better ‘ere. An’ from what I felt just then, it’d be an uncomfortable long journey, if you get my meaning.” Her eyes never left his and he got the impression that she was telling him the truth not just for his benefit, but because she was the best and she was damned proud of that fact.

After a moment of pause, he replied, “Yes, I do get your meaning. What I meant was that I had no intentions…”

“Yeah, I know, you’re a proper gentleman you are. Come on, love,” she said as she took hold of his arm and began to guide him back the way he had wandered. She turned down an alley and almost at once turned again to a door that was not locked. Inside, there was a hall with seven doors and a staircase. She led him down the hall, past the staircase, to the very end door, directly opposite the one that they had entered the building by.

Inside, the room was not very dirty - she had not been lying. The bed was made, the floor swept and a fire in the grate kept the room from getting damp, though he did notice that a slight breeze blew through a broken window. Jack took a look around and once satisfied, closed the door behind him.