Ladies In The Parlor by Jim Tully Page B

tell you he’d come back again?”
    “Yes,—tomorrow night.”
    “Well,” said Alice, with advice that was useless, “string him along.”
    “I will,” said Leora.
    They moved closer to June, while the other girls were still debating what to sing next.
    “Let’s have FRANKIE AND JOHNNIE,” Selma suggested.
    June began,

    Frankie she sits in her crib house,
    Beneath the electric fan,
    Telling her little sister,
    To beware of the gawdam man
    He’ll do you wrong, just as sure as you’re born .

Chapter 13
    June, like Leora, had been born in poverty.
    Her playground had been a junkyard in Cleveland. At nine years of age, she lost a dime near a railroad station. A man saw her crying and gave her a quarter. It gave her an idea. Whenever possible she would pretend she lost money in a public place and cry as if her heart would break. The ruse never failed to work.
    Seduced at thirteen, she was in a whorehouse at sixteen. She was now twenty-one; though she claimed to be eighteen.
    More forward than Leora, she was not as intuitive. That which Leora sensed without knowing, June had learned through experience. She had to lose the dime before she learned that crying might evoke the pity of man. Upon her first entrance into a sporting-house, she had trusted a man for the night’s entertainment. She had seen him often before, and he had spent money freely. When he had gone the next morning, with a promise to return, the landlady asked her for a division of the night’s profits—or five dollars.
    “He told me he would bring it to me tonight,” returned June.
    “I can’t wait on a man’s word… I want my share now.”
    For several days June expected him. The man never returned. Then the landlady said, “It’s worse than payin’ for a dead horse. They’ll only pay for a thing like that before they get it.”
    June trusted men no more.
    She was fond of Leora, who, at that time, was unaware that one woman could become overfond of another.
    There was something whimsical about her that appealed to Leora.
    One quiet evening at dusk, before the men began to arrive, the two girls sat in the parlor watching the blaze in the fireplace. She had told Leora of a handsome man she had entertained a half dozen times some months before. She recalled the pleasant hours with longing, and then said, almost to herself, “I wonder what his name was.”
    She rose suddenly and kissed Leora on the mouth.
    Leora was slightly flustered.
    “Some day I’m going to get out of all this.”
    “Then what?” asked the practical Leora.
    “I don’t know and don’t give a damn—I’m damned sick of sellin’ my body.”
    “You don’t sell it—you just loan it for a while.”
    June looked surprised. “That’s right, you do get it back, don’t you—I never thought of that.” She was silent again before saying, “Then why do these damn-fool dames always talk about selling their bodies?”
    “They’ve got to talk about something,” replied Leora.
    “Anyhow,” continued June, “I’ve been in houses five years, and that’s enough—I’ve been here a year and a half, and Mother doesn’t want a girl in the house over two years . .. the men get tired of them—and I don’t blame them either— I don’t know why in the hell they like us as long as they do—what the devil are we—sometimes I feel sorry for the poor bastards who come up stairs with me . . . but what the hell—if I don’t hook them, they will me.”
    “Were you ever in love?” asked Leora.
    June rubbed her firm breasts for a moment before answering slowly, “May—be—once—almost.”
    “Who?” asked Leora.
    “A damn fool whose name I never knew.” She rested her deep blue eyes on Leora, then said, “Damn him anyhow—what a hard bastard he was.” She smiled faintly, “And I thought I was hard.” Her voice rose, “Why he was so God-damned hard the iron rattled in his pockets—there wasn’t anything between us—not that he knew—the night he left he