I replied no and peered past him, searching the photographs to see if one depicted such an act; I’d have much to learn to suit my new employment. Some showed women seated atop men whose penises were visible where they entered the women; another showed several men and women joined in diverse manners through their mouths and private parts. So this was what he wanted.
“Open your lips,” said Albert. He pulled himself forward till his pink staff approached my face. He halted his buttocks upon my ribs, limiting my space for breathing. “Lift your head,” he instructed. And then, as my face came toward him, he pushed his choking length into my throat.
I did nothing but accept it. Several times he pulled his member outward, then pushed it to the back of my throat again. He laughed with pleasure. I struggled not to close my teeth or use my tongue to shove him away. Ten dollars today and twenty dollars a month, my mind intoned. I wanted to cry out. Each time my throat was hit, I fought against a retch.
He moaned, tilting his torso backward. “Ah! Marvelous!”
A bitter gorge rose from my stomach, tasting like beer. Suddenly it increased and poured over his swollen part.
He removed himself and huffed. “That’s rather unexpected!” Grabbing his shirt from the floor, he wiped the vomit away from himself and from my wet neck. His face reddened, but his member neither shrank nor shriveled. “Let’s try the usual way, then,” he said optimistically. “I’ll fetch a rubber.”
Through my raw throat I thanked him. I’d never seen a rubber, but I knew what they were for, and knew he’d likely obtained his illegally. By the time he’d located one in the kitchen cupboard and brought it to the bedroom, he was trying to unfurl the sack over a flagging penis.
A moment of quiet followed. I lay on the bed; he stood at its foot, tilting slightly from inebriation. Gesturing with his head to his bowed member, he said, “Don’t take this as an insult. You’ve got such creamy skin. Lovely hips. Nice full breasts poking from that contraption you insist on continuing to wear.”
As if wounded vanity was my main concern. I sighed as he reached for a bottle beside the bed.
“A little brandy should help.” He pulled out the cork and took one gulp and another, shook his head at the force of the liquor, then set down the bottle. He gave a snort at noticing his suspenders on the floor and lifted them. “Bondage always arouses me,” he said convivially. “Let’s get your arms above you.”
How casually he would make me helpless! I shook my head. This I would not do.
“Your arms,” he repeated. “Simply put them over your head. I’ll manage the rest. Have you tried this? It raises my fever, I’ll tell you.” He stepped around the bed frame toward its top, his red suspenders in his hands, his face bright with an energy I’d seen in it before. All at once I perceived it as a degree of selfishness that was verging on brutality.
The ribald nudes on the walls mocked my fear. But if I allowed him to fasten my arms to the bed frame, how would I get free? What if he decided to keep me tied there a good while, to maintain his ill-gotten arousal, and Charlotte woke and cried?
What might this person do to my baby, whether now or later, when she grew?
That was a price she would not pay.
I reached an arm to the floor, grabbed my skirt, and found my small penknife in the pocket. In seconds the blade was open in my hand.
“Do—not—dare,” I intoned. I got to my knees and gestured with the knife while gathering clothes with my free arm. “Keep away. I’m leaving.”
He gave a bark-like laugh and moved closer. “You’re jesting! Give that knife over to me!” A line of sweat appeared above his upper lip. “You can’t go. How else will you survive with your baby? It’s true you’re not much of a lover, but I’ll train you!” His tone was a sort of greedy pleading. His eyes focused on my breasts, and he reached a hand as if to pull one from my corset. “Gorgeous! And your tasty milk!”
In seconds my clothes were gathered. Into the kitchen I ran, gesturing behind me with my pointy knife. Dropping my clothes, I tried to pull on my skirt with one hand. My corset had vomit at its edge.
“Lilli! Come, Lilli.” He couldn’t see how serious were my fear and fury. He followed me.
My sleeping baby gave forth a snort and began to wriggle her limbs. In a glimmer of nightmarish hilarity, I perceived that Charlotte contains the word harlot. She opened her eyes slightly, then fully. She stared at me and Albert.
“Don’t come closer,” I warned, waving the penknife.
But Albert continued to approach. “Stop, stop!” he said. “This is all unnecessary.”
He reached an arm to halt my waving one, and that was his mistake. For as I pulled my arm away, the knife’s blade crossed his palm. A smear of blood appeared, ran down his raised forearm, and dripped from his elbow to the floor.
“My God! What have you done?”
He stood naked, a rubber dangling from him. I stammered a moment as he grabbed a dishtowel from a hook and swabbed his palm. His face looked baffled, as if all had been good fun till this.
In those precious seconds, I got my skirt hooked and my bodice partly fastened. Then I scooped up my squalling baby and our valise and ran to the door, where I grabbed my boots from the rug and stepped into them. The door was easy to unlock. I thumped down flight after flight of stairs, clutching everything to me and praying not to trip on untied laces. Behind me he called, “But Miss de Jong! You can’t leave!”
I did.
*
When my staccato steps finally reached the cobblestone street, Charlotte began to scream. She batted at her face, smearing it with tears and mucus. I straightened up our belongings, then walked from crowded streets to smaller and smaller ones, winding farther and farther north, leaving behind the main thoroughfares until I faced a narrow alley leading between two squat row-houses. By this time, Charlotte had fallen asleep in my shawl from the strain of crying.
I followed the alley to an abandoned lot. It was bordered by the windowless, stuccoed walls of houses and overfilled by two enormous pear trees, long neglected, nearly as tall as the buildings. No doubt these were the remnants of an orchard. The trees were leafy and gnarled, their branches carrying hundreds of nascent fruits. I spread a cloth in their ample shade, noting with relief the maiden-hair ferns, periwinkle, and wild geranium that grew there—old acquaintances that had occupied swaths of Germantown in summer.
Charlotte remained sleeping when I placed her on a cloth. I sat blankly, unable to stay with any one thought. I reached to pick an unripe pear from the dirt and held it upright before me.
I wanted to see the star inside. My knife was in my pocket. After wiping its slight smear of blood onto a cloth, I cut the pear through its middle to make two pieces, top and bottom.
“What is an apple?” Johan had asked me in the kitchen as he’d cut open an apple in this way.
I’d shrugged. “A tasty fruit.”
He shook his head. “A red house with no door and a star inside.”