This will make more sense if you have read the previous part of Justine.
You are going to have to be patient with this one. There’s a slow build-up.
South of France, present, night-time…
She stared, then, stared out of the window at the sky, just slightly illuminated by a half moon through clouds; looking at the stars— so many more than she was used from the orange city skies, her mind exhausted, but still too unsettled to even begin to believe in sleep as an option.
Stefan— Sir Stephen. Did he really want to … to rape her? She had to force herself to put the words together that way in her mind.
Would he really be happy to see her thrashed, naked, until she screamed? See the others— the fat one, say— bugger her against her will?
But again, those weren’t the questions, were they? Because she knew the answers to those; unacceptable, ludicrous, plain crazy answers, but she knew them, had heard them uttered, accepted as questions that could be asked, even, in the first place, then heard them, in open forum, body language of all six of them casual, comfortable with the way everything was going, heard them confirmed.
Yes, they wanted to do those things to her; those and a whole host of other things implied by the few specifics that had been mentioned, no doubt.
Yes, they clearly felt no discomfort or even awkwardness in talking to her— a young woman, about perpetrating such heinous crimes, with her as their victim.
And she; she had not run screaming from the room; had not since ‘phoned Ulya, ‘phoned the police; had not packed her bags to leave, even.
No, she had sat with them, as the horror and weirdness had built up, in her mind, into an almost out-of-body experience, as she had asked them, if not in calm tones, then at least in quiet and conversational mode (for her voice had been fluttery, weak, breathless, hesitant, pathetic, almost from the start; her only strength had been in persistence), asked them all the questions. So that now she knew— at least in outline, what they intended for her.
The strange thing was, that although nothing had happened; nothing at all (not the slightest ‘incident’ for several days, in fact), that Justine felt, in her body, as if she was, already, in their hands. As if the conversation, the questions, the answers, had been just one long way of her saying Yes.
Or was it her quiet, pitiful exit, when they had all wished her ‘Bonne nuit’ as they usually did, when she had bobbed her little curtsey at them, as she usually did; when she had acted as if nothing outrageous had been said, and simply, knees shaking, biting her lip, come up to bed; as she normally did.
Had that been the Yes?
The idea was as crazy as all the rest, only more immediate. Had she, in fact said the word Yes to them? Said it out loud? Said ‘Yes, please’?
A part of her felt she might well have done, but chosen not to remember it, to save her sanity. The larger part of her was sure— almost certain, at the least— that she had done no such thing; that she had not, would not, accept that they could make her their slave.
She couldn’t! Wouldn’t! Would she?
The shivers got bad, then, and the stars multiplied as tears filled her eyes.
London, then Paris, Beirut, Vienna, finally southern France— the previous year…
It turned out that the demand from the families Sir Stephen had described, for a girl of Justine’s age— coming as she did from the right background, with so many accomplishments, all her languages, music, dance— was rather hot, and within weeks, Justine had a job in London for one family, followed by another in Paris, another in Beirut, and then another in Vienna— by mid January she was virtually full-time.
As Sir Stephen had suggested, the work was easy— these families had domestic staff, so she wasn’t asked to do any chores, and they chose to spend actual time with their children when they could, so she was really only needed as a stopgap.
It wasn’t stimulating work, but it was easy, and well paid, and she got to practice her French— many of these families spoke French better than English, and she tutored the children in French and English, too.
As well, there were the fathers. In each home, she felt the fathers noticing her— noticing her as a sexual being. She did nothing, really, to encourage this— nothing significant, at least, and certainly tried not to let on that she realised when they looked at her, how they looked at her, even though she was at all times highly aware of these inspections, and became fascinated with the way her insides squirmed when she knew these men were looking at her in that way— sexually…
Only one of them ever tried anything, and, whether she in reality would have let him do anything, when she had felt his touch, she was unprepared, and could not help but squeak, before freezing, mortified, at which he had simply shrugged, smiled easily at her, and moved on— leaving her feeling very complicated indeed.
Nevertheless, she knew that she was being recognised as a nubile female, that she was in some way ‘on the sexual radar’ of these serious and wealthy businessmen, senior civil servants, judges and doctors, and she preened to herself a little— masturbated, too, fantasising about the possibilities— although she knew that she would die of shame if anything actually happened.
The mothers, too, were hyper-vigilant— Justine had to be very careful not to let them even think that they had seen anything. Even so, two of the women made excuses to cut short her tenure, and she was sure that in both cases there was jealousy involved— even without the slightest cause for it.
When the weather improved, the households of the set gradually begin to spend more time in the south of France, and Justine went too, working for one family for a month, another for a couple of weeks.
Sir Stephen had not exaggerated— it seemed there were too many families for her to really remember, all connected in one way or another through the property business, or through family, or through old country links— sometimes all three— and they were in and out of each other’s houses, their children sleeping over, camping in the gardens of their refurbished chateaux, their modern villas.
The warmer it got, the less the children needed— or wanted— her watching them, but the parents still wanted her around, were still happy to pay.
It got easier and harder with the men, then. Every house had at least one pool— some of them three or more (natural swimming lake, half-olympic sport pool, indoor lap-pool, kidney or heart-shaped lounging pool, hypermodern glass-sided infinity pool — you name it), and Justine— both a swimmer and a believer in tanning, was often in a swimsuit, sometimes a bikini, all day, her figure on show without her needing to do anything.
Picture: Justine in a swimsuit
She learned to keep her eyes down— if she caught their gazes, things could be awkward, but if she looked demurely at the floor, she knew that they could look at her as greedily as they wanted— and as she had accepted to herself that she wanted them to, without anything actually happening, she was quietly pleased.
It was beginning to be a little of an obsession with her, wondering if, before the summer was out, one of them would find a way to proposition her, and if she would find it possible to say ‘yes’— not just freeze like a silly little almost virgin (for although she had technically ‘had sex’, the experience had been so underwhelming, so embarrassing for both parties that she wasn’t even sure if it counted as actually having ‘done the deed’).
Nothing happened, though— in the run up to the trade show they all seemed to be too busy to think, let alone seduce the au-pair, and even Justine was pressed into service as a waitress for the non-stop drinks parties that seemed a key feature of the business that was done.
For these, she was made to wear the little waitress dresses that the other staff wore (it reduces confusion, chérie— please don’t make a fuss), and because she was actually rather good at it (the dance training helped), she began to be out ‘on loan’ to families that she didn’t even know as it got really busy.
Picture: Justine as a waitress
As a ‘waitress’, and with the drink flowing, she began to attract more direct attention from men— not from ‘her’ men— the fathers of families— but from the drunker, more boorish types at the parties. These men emphatically did not make her feel sexy— she hated their drunken, stupid ways and the half-brazen, half-frightened way they tried to grope her. She always made a huge fuss whenever this happened (some of the girls didn’t— some were not much better than prostitutes, she realised with a frisson)— and was gratified to find that the men from her families would generally take swift and decisive action, quietly seeing to it that the man responsible ‘remembered’ that he had to leave and arranging transport for him— there was never any fuss, and afterward the host would often come to find her, to ask her if she was OK.
She felt protected, cared for— even if it was all just a little tribalistic— often there would be a sharp question about whether there had been any actual sex; ‘these xxx pigs, always after our virgins!’ would be a typical comment, which she found strange, but didn’t question— she knew that many from the old eastern bloc were nationalists of one sort or another, that many of them were more or less out-and-out racists, and put it down to that.
And then, the show was over, and the season changed. It seemed that most of the families would now go elsewhere— either back the the old countries, or to the tropics, or further South. They were bored with France.
She had some offers— a Greek Island, a Sicilian castle, the Black Sea, and wasn’t sure— after all there were only a couple of months until she would be in Paris— perhaps she would spend some of her money and travel for a while…
And then Sir Stephen had come to talk to her. She’d seen him around, of course, over the previous month— he’d been friendly enough— but busy, like all the rest; she’d thanked him effusively for introducing her to all this work, tried to talk to him, been slightly piqued when he had excused himself— a presentation to deliver to the Chinese delegation from Shenzen.
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