The Pleasures of Bankruptcy

  Pierre le Valle

  The Pleasures of Bankruptcy

  Chapter I

  “You can easily see for yourself how I am situated, Mr. Freeman! I am perfectly solvent-if I could only collect the money owing to me. Business is bad just now, of course but it always has this time of year and I would really have no good reason for any complaint if only I could obtain what is due to me-for the lovely gowns and fine lingerie that I sell… to cover the beautiful, soft bodies of women and girls who never seem to give me or their overdue bills the least thought.”

  “Yes-to be sure… I understand that well enough.”

  The graying, heavy set man who sat beside Mrs. Rose Bolton at her office desk moistened his lips unconsciously and stirred vaguely in his chair as he listened to her final sentences.

  “Certainly,” he said — in a tone which caused Mrs. Bolton to raise her shapely, well poised head and glance at him in an enquiring manner. “Of course… lovely-feminine bodies must have rich, beautiful coverings-but not at the expense of a person like yourself, who is struggling to make a living by providing all this… er… underwear and all that.”

  “It never before struck me, Mrs. Bolton-but I suppose that the lingerie, panties, chemises, etc, are a far from negligible part of your business. I see these marvelous gowns in your showrooms, but I had not considered that these more intimate garments are also a specialty of the shop also-eh?”

  Even though Mrs. Bolton had noted an unusual inflection in the voice of her wealthy landlord as he referred to these articles of apparel usually hidden from view, the words in themselves had no particular reason to shock a woman who was in the business of selling these things daily. So her attractive coloring was not heightened by even a shade as she nodded assent with a smile.

  “Oh, yes…” she assured him. “We create gossamer thin garments of all kinds of — clothing the young aristocracy from the skin out… and it is amazing as well at very annoying to find how many of them are either reluctant or unable to pay their bills. It is as a result of this that I find myself compelled to postpone paying you the rent which has been long overdue. I have already explained to your agent… but perhaps you would care to look at my books and see for yourself exactly how I stand at the present time?”

  Mr. Freeman bent above the volumes she laid open on the desk before him-but it was with unseeing eyes that he regarded them. He seemed oddly indisposed to abandon the… to her… unimportant topic she had launched.

  “You-you build these undergarments right upon the bodies… which are to wear them?” he queried. “They are tried on-fitted to their wearers-just as you do with gowns and such things? These rooms of yours must have seen some delicious sights, Mrs. Bolton.”

  The pretty woman looked up at him once more, somewhat startled by his tone. She noted the Bush of color in his face and saw that his gray eyes were turned down- apparently to her lap-although the books to be thus examined were upon the desk.

  The dark green silk of her dress moulded her rounded thighs. The silk had mounted, too, as she sat there-and she realized that both her dimpled knees were well in view. She stirred somewhat embarrassedly and drew the dress downward to cover the bare flesh. And she essayed a laugh.

  “Why… pleasant enough, I suppose,” she said, trying to humor this dangerous creditor even though he was disposed to discuss subjects that were not decorous. “As for 'delicious'-that is hardly the word, is it-considering that only other women and girls could have been here?”

  “Of course…. no men, naturally not…” he replied, and he appeared to emphasize his words rather oddly. Rose Bolton thought. He hesitated a moment, before he resumed in a low and constrained voice:

  “I suppose you realize,” he went on, “that the actual presence would be willingly foregone by some men-pro-riding they could only watch some charming young maid or matron quite unwittingly revealed to them in such- er… suggestive disarray as trying on a chemise or a pair of step-ins.”

  He sighed heavily… in what might have been pity for the vicious instincts of mankind in general. Then he glanced covertly at the woman by his side-who was really flushed and quite startled by this time.

  “Why… some of them would even pay heavily,” he went on. “You have no idea what an attraction it would be to many a well-to-do man.”

  “They would pay with a jail term if they concealed themselves for such a purpose in my establishment,” said Rose firmly.

  Mr. Freeman's mouth hardened a little at her reply.

  “Of course,” he said, “it's only because we're both of us grown up… and friends, I hope-that I have ventured to mention some of the proclivities of hot-blooded males-”

  Rose saw that he had stiffened in some displeasure… and she hastened to be cordial… for this powerful creditor must not be offended-especially at this time when she had such need of his forbearance. So she went very far-for her-in a quick attempt to restore his good humor.

  “I realize,” she murmured, “that you were just warning me of what might occur if I allowed the male escort of some fair visitor-supposed to be awaiting her quite respectably in the main reception room-any opportunity to roam about the dressing rooms to see what he might find…”

  “And I am no child-at thirty-five-to be surprised to hear of such a tendency in mankind. My own experience would lead me to believe it pretty common. I've had, Mr. Freeman, a warm-blooded husband-and another, a very near relative-and the latter especially has given me cause for great concern-and agitation!”

  “Ah! Your young son is visiting in the Middle West, I understand,” said her visitor apropos of nothing, but yet very significantly. “How old is he now?”

  Rose Bolton turned scarlet, and her keen distress was evident in her fine, liquid eyes.

  “Seventeen,” she replied in a low voice. “You-you know too much about the scarcity of my near relations, Mr. Freeman, and I should never have spoken as impulsively as I did-for I might have realized that you would jump to a quick conclusion.”

  “I wouldn't for the world have you think badly of my son Lester. He isn't at all bad really-” she went on fervently. “He's affectionate and fine-natured. But he was alone too much with his young mother-and you may guess more than I did about the blunderings of the newly awakened instincts of a young boy. I realize now that I looked on him as a child too long.”

  “So-what happened-?” enquired the man bluntly and with obvious eagerness. “Don't fear to tell me all about it. You know my friendship and also my reticence. And besides, I might be able to advise you… since you are a widow.”

  “I–I've told no one-I hardly think I could-” she said ashamedly and in a husky voice. “No, really… it would sound much worse than it really was-just his youthful, almost innocent instincts turned, unfortunately, in the only course available-and that a wrong one.”

  “I shall, of course, have to imagine the worst,” said he, firmly. “Since a widowed, healthy young woman is not quite self-controlled sometimes-and since moments will occur when the virile youth at hand will appear as a man rather than as a blood relative.”

  His lips were working, and a shadow of repressed passion passed across his face as he spoke.

  “Ohh… Oh, my God!” stammered the appalled Rose. “How dare you-I mean, who can you… no-no-no!”

  “Well then, why not confide in me?” he said quietly… in the hope that his accusation of the greater evil might draw forth a confession of the lesser… as he had deliberately planned.

  “You know,” he added coaxingly, “I have been a boy too-I suffered the hesitations of puberty-and have reason to recall its blunderings. Really, I think you need a man's advice-instead of banishing the lad from you- as you seem to have
done. Tell me-dear lady…”

  She raised her bushing, attractive face once more-startled anew by the almost affectionate appellation from a man she had considered as 'strictly business' and with whom her relations had hitherto been closely confined to business interviews.

  “I–I'm afraid I couldn't-” she faltered uneasily.

  His whole face and attitude hardened at her rebuff and be frowned sharply. “I have no wish to seek unwilling confidence or trust,” he said crisply-and mendaciously. “1 had thought to deserve some-but no matter-”

  Rose did not say-as she might quite truthfully have done-that he had never deserved anything of her except the rent, which he had been paid-and that other rent which was unhappily still due.

  Perturbed by the evident irritation of a man who held her so much in his power that her eviction and business loss could be forced if he so desired-yet overcome by shame at making him her confidante regarding episodes so intimate that she scarcely dared think of them even in solitude-she still hesitated, and then succumbed to what seemed the inevitable.

  The more so when he added with ominous sternness: “Now as regards this rent overdue…”

  “Ohh! Indeed, I'll tell you,” she quavered hurriedly as he paused. “I realise it is a kindly interest that prompts you to wish to know-and that you hope to be helpful. It is only that Lester began to-have too much curiosity about-about my person. At first just little things.”

  “Would it bother you to go into detail-from the very beginning?” he asked-showing her a face which seemed to be full of kindly interest. “I would like to know exactly what occurred. Things that were unimportant in your eyes might be of great significance to me.

  Rose Bolton, with a great effort of self-control, tried to banish the notion that perhaps her landlord was moved by curiosity to hear from her own lips those domestic indecencies which had eventually so alarmed her.

  She simply had to banish it in order to be able to go on at all. Surely Mr. Freeman, hard though he sometimes seemed, really had benevolent thoughts and hoped to be genuinely helpful. In any event, she concluded helplessly that his firmly expressed wish had been equivalent to a command.

  “Lester was only thirteen… a mere child-when his father died,” she murmured. “I had been in the habit of bathing him almost up to that time-you know mothers so often fail to realize or dislike to admit that a child is growing up? I discontinued the practice of bathing him because of — well — rather disturbing symptoms he displayed…”

  “It got stiff-when you touched it?” suggested the man interestedly.

  “Really. Mr. Freeman — ” stammered Rose, blushing hotly, and turning her head away in embarrassment.

  “Oh! We're adults-and either you're telling me-or else you aren't-” he insisted ominously. And as she still remained silent, he rose and reached for his hat and coat.

  “My lawyer,” he began, “will see you tomorrow.”

  It was as curt a threat as possible, and under ordinary conditions Rose's pride would have asserted itself in a flare of contempt. But at the moment she was threatened by the peril of financial ruin-from which this man only could possibly save her.

  “Please don't be angry, Mr. Freeman,” she pleaded. “It is not easy for a mother to speak of such things, as you must know. But try and have patience with me-and I will tell you what…”

  “Quite plainly and simply-without any unnecessary kind of prudery,” he remarked, seating himself once more.

  It was an affirmation which held within itself an order. Rose shivered a little, and paled noticeably. She was not used, in her pride as a young and handsome woman, to just accepting meekly such an attitude as this man's. Then, too, there was no longer any doubt in her mind that it was a lascivious curiosity which prompted him to wish to penetrate her hitherto private life to such an extent.

  Yet — heaven help her — it seemed that she must minister to that seemingly benevolent yet actual perverse and insistent curiosity. It was too late to retreat. She could not afford to pay the price of financial ruin for the privilege of personal reticence.

  “Yes-I will tell you-” she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.

  “Everything-in plain words-not balking like a child at the facts…” were phrases which she heard dimly in his low toned but insistent reply.

  She bowed her finely poised head. She was unable to avoid his meaning-that he wished her narrative to be spiced with a certain crudity-nor could she escape compliance. And all her breeding and refinement merely served to make her task the harder.

  “So you bathed the boy-when he was already thirteen?” prompted Freeman. “Naked, of course. And what had your late husband-the boy's father-to say to that?”

  “He-my husband used to laugh about it,” she faltered. “And he said I was babying Lester too much-that he was too big to be bathed by a woman. Of course he knew there was no thought of intentional indecency in it. But he began asking me queer, disturbing questions about it…”

  “Such as…?” murmured Mr. Freeman, as she paused nervously.

  “Well-whether-”

  She swallowed and took the plunge. This man had to be placated, even at the expense of her womanly and motherly instincts.

  “Whether any hair was beginning to grow about his — about Lester's-private parts?” she whispered falteringly. “And whether his soft little-thing… showed any signs of excitement-growing stiff-when I bathed him. And whether I took it in my fingers to wash and dry it — and whether it swelled up and hardened as I handled it? Very embarrassing questions like these… and some others.”

  “And you told him…”

  “I'm afraid I wasn't always candid with my husband about these and a few other episodes,” she confessed. “You see, I fancied there were morbid motives behind his queries…”

  “And another thing-it is hard for a mother to admit that her child is no longer a child-or that he is passing beyond the need of her ministrations and her supervision. So I clung jealously to my prerogatives in regard to Lester's person as well as in other fields. I led Mr. Bolton to believe-by scoffing rather than by direct denials-that Lester remained quite unmoved by my fingering when I washed and dried his body.”

  “I let him think, too, that the boy was always permitted to wash his private parts himself,” she faltered- with downcast eyes.

  “His little tool-his prick and balls?” queried her visitor insistently. In his gray eyes was an imperative order to the dismayed woman to compel her tongue to use words such as she had never before uttered.

  She turned her gaze downward to the twisting fingers in her lap. Her pallor yielded to a rising tide of color. Her tongue hesitated and her enunciation was thick as she forced herself to attempt what the man desired. But at the same time she was conscious, to her amazement and horror, that she thrilled strangely to the necessity of adopting the vocabulary of a chorus girl or prostitute to satisfy the demands of this man who held her in his power.

  Rose felt almost as if she were prostituting herself bodily to his desires as she whispered-so softly that he had to stoop to catch the words:

  “His prick and balls-I used to bathe them myself- but I let his father think that Lester attended to this part of his ablutions. But I did it-and I pretended not to notice when-when his little prick hardened up and expanded and thrust out in pink capped extension,” she said almost casually.

  She raised dark, glazed eyes upwards. And she saw that the man was in a silent, flushed ecstasy as he listened to her.

  Chapter II

  And then this handsome, healthy widow… for years accustomed to think of her sexual life as wholly a thing of the past-in spite of her relative youth — vibrated furiously if ashamedly, in rhythm to the vibration of her libertine tyrant. Her voice grew clearer, ever though it was still tremulous. She cleared her throat that he might hear better. She almost reveled in her shame as she told him…

  “Lester's cock would be persistently stiff when I had finished drying it. There was never any
thing said about it between us. Though at first he had seemed terribly self-conscious about its notable display whenever he was to be bathed. But as I continued to show a matter of fact attitude regarding his-his hard-ons-he presently lost his shame concerning them, and even seemed to gloat over showing himself before me in this state.”

  “Insistently I told myself that it was a matter over which an affectionate mother need have no concern- that it was just the natural effect of the forces of nature bubbling up in the body of an adolescent, and that my boy-man required more assiduous care from his mother than ever before.”

  “I thought that it would be better to keep him from dwelling too much on these changes in his body-by being or seeming to be-casual and even playful about them. Later, I thought, I could instruct him more fully in the significance of these same carnal manifestations-but not now-oh, not now… while he was still my little baby boy…”

  “I was in error-as I have realized since-” She cleared her throat again-and suddenly started in quick astonishment. Francis Freeman saw that she had at last noticed the evident signs of his own carnal agitation.

  In silence, but breathing hoarsely and with her lovely bosom rising and falling tumultuously. Rose Bolton suddenly clenched her hands upon her lap till the knuckles were white. Here was the undeniable evidence that she was prostituting herself to the desires of the male-that she was touching him with the fingers of her words-just as she had touched a younger male with the fingers of her hand-and in the same regions.

  Snatching her eyes at last from the spectacle which he made no effort to conceal from her, she hurried on with her tale. Her words came stumblingly at times — and ever and again her lovely eyes, drawn by a force stronger than her own will, strayed down surreptitiously for a glance at his nether person-an action which not only delighted but emboldened Freeman.

  “Go on…” he said, as she paused and hesitated- and she said, eyes still downcast:

  “Yes! I blundered. I made the mistake of thinking that all possibility of any real indecencies or even strange impulses were obliterated by the fact that we were mother and youthful son. And we played games-largely of his own invention-after his bath. I was glad to see him so playful and merry, and I introduced my own variations into our innocent frolic.”