This is rated T+. There's no smut, but there is discussion of sexual encounters. There's also bad language here, as anger and alcohol loosen tongues.
Warning: Prior to events and disputes being resolved, there is a lot of anger and harsh, hurtful things said in this story. The first chapter especially is not "nice".
The characters in this story are pushed to some extremes by the circumstances and emotions of the events. Nonetheless, I hope you find the characterisation appropriate.
This story links "A Working Man's Paradise" with any of my fictions in which Phryne and Jack have started a relationship. Basically, what you need to know is:
*Phryne had been sleeping with Cec and Bert as part of a casual but loving relationship.
*The three of them ended the relationship when it became apparent that Phryne was serious about pursuing a relationship with Jack.
*Phryne and Jack are now in a relationship.
*Jack doesn't know about Phryne's past romance with the two cabbies.
A huge "thank you" to Firebird9 who started me off on "what will happen when Bert, Cec and Phryne stop sleeping together (A Working Man's Paradise) as Phryne grows more serious about a relationship with Jack?"; provided ideas and some strings of dialogue; and read the whole thing despite the fact that it was typed at 4am by a sleep-deprived nutter.
It started with a hand on Phryne's elbow in the all but empty Ladies Lounge of the Metropolitan Hotel at 5:30 on a Friday evening.
"Hello Jack! I thought you weren't coming?" Phryne asked when Jack appeared beside her chair as she was midway through discussing a recent case. On the other side of the table, Bert and Cec were each making their way through their fifth schooner of the night ahead of the six o'clock swill. Cec lifted his glass in greeting, while Bert, having hit the hard liquor earlier, only offered a minute nod to the policeman.
"Miss Fisher, I need to speak to you. Alone." Jack eyes flicked over Bert and Cec. Phryne didn't fail to notice the scowl that crossed Bert's face when the back of Jack's fingers accidently brushed against the side of Phryne's breast as he grasped her elbow.
"What's wrong?" she asked, trying to read Jack's expression. He was frowning, but that was nothing new. They were halfway through a long, difficult case surrounding a man who'd been found dead and headless in the Yarra, but that was hardly something that needed to be discussed away from the two cabbies.
Jack's eyes flicked over to Bert and Cec again, clearly unwilling to say more in front of them.
Unfortunately, Bert was nine-tenths drunk and not in the mood to let this perceived insult slide. "What's wrong, don't want to talk in front of the plebs?"
"Bert…" Phryne started, but Bert shoved back his chair and stood in one angry movement.
"Calm down, Mr Johnson," Jack's voice was level but there was an undercurrent of warning that Bert chose to ignore completely.
"Too good for us, mate? Don't wanna sit down at the same table an' talk? Well I say you can get out."
"C'mon, let it go," Cec said, standing and laying a restraining hand on Bert's shoulder. But what seemed to be months of simmering resentment was suddenly boiling to the surface here in the Ladies Lounge.
Bert stepped around the table and stormed toward Jack with his jaw set ready for a fight. "Enjoy oppressing the working man, do ya? Well you're not welcome here, mate."
At that, Jack finally bit back. "I believe that's up to Miss Fisher…Bert." He glanced over at Cec. "I suggest you take your friend home, Mr Yates, before he gets himself in trouble. I'd hate to have to teach a grown man some manners."
Cec's jaw twitched as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it down and grabbed Bert's arm, sweeping up their hats from the table and pushing the unsteady older man towards the pub door.
"Sorry, Miss. Thanks for the beer. We'll see you tomorrow about that job." Cec steered Bert towards the doorway, but the older man refused to leave without one last insult shouted back at the policeman.
"How's it feel, knowing I got there first, copper?"
The silence before the storm settled over the room and the blood drained from Phryne's face. As if from underwater, she heard Jack speak beside her, his voice low and dangerous: "What did you just say?"
Oh Christ, no no no…
If Phryne had been able to convince Jack to leave with her right then, maybe the night would have ended differently. And Cec, to give him credit, was trying to pull Bert away: was muttering things about don't be an arse and leave it, mate and think how Miss Phryne will feel. But Bert was too riled up to stop now, and the words kept exploding from him without a thought about the repercussions.
"You heard me. How's it feel to know you're the runner up?" Bert's face was twisted in triumph as he spat the words at Jack.
Phryne almost couldn't bear to look at Jack as reluctant understanding began to dawn on his face.
Bert almost looked ashamed behind the drunken anger as he turned towards Phryne. "I've gotta say, I never thought I'd see the day when a good Collingwood girl would stoop so low as to get involved with a bloody policeman."
"That's enough, Bert!" she snapped, appealing wordlessly to Cec to drag the man away before things got any worse.
But it was too late, as Bert broke free from Cec's grip and sneered at Jack. "I've come between those sweet thighs more ways than your useless bour…bourgeois mind can imagine. It was my cock she was writhin' on…my name she moaned…long before you bloody well came into the picture."
Jack's fist came out of nowhere. One minute, he was facing Bert across the room and the next second Bert was flat on his back, blood pouring from his mouth as Cec tried to hold Jack back from taking another swing.
Bert's common sense was long gone and he goaded Jack with bloody teeth. "Yeah, big tough man, and I'll bet you expect her to lie there quietly and do what she's told, you oppressive scab. We were happy before you came along."
Jack pointed at Bert, his face tight with rarely seen fury. "You're drunk and a liar, Mr Johnson. Now get the hell out!"
Climbing to his feet, Bert wiped the blood from his mouth. "It's true. Tell 'im…Cec…Miss. Tell 'im the truth about how we've all been spendin' our time."
Despite the anger now clouding his senses, Jack caught the salient word from Bert's tirade. "All? What exactly are you saying, you son of a bitch?"
Bert grinned drunkenly. "Yeah, that's right. There's nothin' Miss Fisher likes better than Cec fillin' 'er mouth while I fuck 'er from behind. A woman like this needs real men and we've taken her in every position we could think of and a few more besides…and she liked it…"
"Christ, Bert, shut up, would ya? Let's go." His face aflame with embarrassment, Cec grabbed Bert by his coat and finally managed to haul him out the door and into the street.
The noise drifting from the public bar was the only sound in the room as the seconds ticked by.
Tentatively, Phryne reached one hand towards Jack's shoulder. "Jack, please…"
His voice was hard and unforgiving as he cut her off without looking at her. "I think you should go home, don't you? Goodnight, Miss Fisher."
Without so much as a backward glance, he stalked out of the pub, his words ringing in Phryne's ears.
()()
Phryne wasn't sure how she got home from the Metropolitan. When she lurched through her own front door, sobbing like her heart would break, it was Mr Butler who caught her in his arms and led her to sit down on the lounge. Latching on to the closest thing she'd had to a father figure in a long time, Phryne poured out the whole sordid story, her voice cracking as she detailed the hurtful things she was sure Jack must be thinking about her.
Setting normal employer-employee distance aside for the moment, Mr Butler wrapped an arm around Phryne and rocked her gently until her sobs began to lessen as exhaustion took over. Over his time in the Fisher household, he'd grown to see both Dot and Phryne as almost like family, and he'd be damned if he'd sit by stiffly while Phryne was in such distress.
When Phryne's eyes began to close and her tears faded to hiccups, Mr Butler stepped into the hall to shout upstairs for Dot. With the girl's help, he herded Miss Fisher up the stairs and into her bedroom before leaving Dot to coach the woman through changing for bed and brushing her teeth.
Dot came downstairs twenty minutes later and slumped into a kitchen chair, tear tracks marring her own pale face. Mr Butler set a cup of tea down in front of her and Dot gratefully drank, her hands shaking as she set the cup back on the saucer.
"What happened to her? I've never seen Miss so upset. She wouldn't talk to me…just kept staring into space like she wasn't even awake." Dot bit at her thumbnail, her face creased in concern. "Does this have something to do with the Inspector?"
Mr Butler sighed and sat beside Dot, suddenly feeling his age like never before. "I'm afraid Miss Fisher had a disagreement with Inspector Robinson over her interactions with Mr Johnson and Mr Yates."
"Oh." Dot's cheeks coloured in a blush. Living in the same house, on the same floor, and being responsible for stripping the bedsheets for laundry day, Dot was well aware of the sort of things Bert and Cec had got up to with Miss Fisher in the privacy of her mistress's bedroom…and in the bathroom. And the parlour. And occasionally the hallway. But she was equally aware of how deeply Miss Fisher cared for Inspector Robinson. Whatever confrontation was happening between the four of them, it could not be good.
()()
Jack found the next nearest pub and pushed his way to the bar at ten minutes to six. He quickly downed two doubles of whiskey and a pint of VB just before the barman called for last drinks. Taking his refilled glasses with him, he shouldered his way to a table in the corner and set about drowning his anger and sorrows. His scowl and clear determination to drink himself into a coma kept the pub's other inhabitants at a distance.
Phryne…Phryne had had sex with…oh God, with both those men. With both of them at the same time! The two cabbies had probably laughed at Jack behind his back.
He glared at his empty whiskey glasses as he slammed them down on the table. He couldn't shake Bert's words from his mind. A non-stop loop of awful scenes danced across his imagination to turn his stomach – Phryne on her back with Bert's head between her legs. Cec kissing Phryne while she straddled his lap. Phryne on her knees in front of Bert, her mouth enveloping him as Cec palmed her breasts and bit her neck.
Fuck!
Did Phryne do the same things with him that she'd done with them? That sweet, dazed look that crossed her face when Jack fingered her – had she made the same face for Cec? Did Bert teach her that particular knee-weakening trick she had of closing her throat around a man's cock? Had Phryne whispered Bert and Cec's names with that same loving breathiness that she'd whispered "Jack" late last night?
Why hadn't she TOLD him?
The pint glass was empty in five gulps and Jack swept out into the street to seek trouble or alcohol. Preferably both.
When he stumbled into his kitchen an hour later, Jack dropped his hat and overcoat carelessly on the floor and pulled a bottle of cut-rate rum from the back of the cupboard. The first mouthful made his eyes water, but the more he drank, the easier the liquor went down. At some point he must have slid down to the floor, because he was slouched on the cold floorboards when the bottle gave up its last drop.
Phryne. How could she do this? Not…not the sex….he knew she'd had plenty of dalliances and he'd promised her, truthfully, that he understood her right to sleep with whomever she pleased. He never wanted to try and tame her, not when her wild and wonderful nature was what he'd fallen in love with. But surely, sometime after Jack had finally fallen into bed with her, Phryne must have realised that he needed to know that she'd slept with two of the most regular men in her life.
An internal voice asked him why Phryne owed him such information when men all over the city regularly slept with scores of women without a second thought, but…before they'd slept together, Phryne and Jack had had an honest discussion about the sort of relationship they wanted. Jack had admitted that he couldn't stand the idea of sharing her, and likewise, he didn't expect her to share him with anyone else either. She'd agreed without a moment's hesitation and Jack had felt like he'd finally found happiness.
But she'd never mentioned that she'd been sleeping with a pair of communist trouble makers while Jack had been patiently courting her.
With a wordless shout, Jack threw the empty bottle across the room where it shattered in a satisfying explosion of flying glass. Using the kitchen table, Jack hauled himself to his feet and pulled a half-forgotten bottle of port from a drawer.
()()
Jack woke slowly, dizziness competing for nausea as he blinked, wondering what had roused him.
The grain of the floorboards loomed large in front of his face where he lay on the ground. The early morning sun refracted off shards of glass that sparkled like so many diamonds across the kitchen floor. Then someone moved and a pair of shiny black leather shoes filled Jack's vision.
Tobias Butler sighed. He'd taken the Inspector's address from Phryne's address book and set out just after dawn. Perhaps it wasn't his place to get involved in…whatever this mess was…but he couldn't stand idly by and watch his employer and her lover self-destruct. Not when the happiness they clearly felt together was such a rare and precious thing.
Letting himself in with the spare key that Jack had entrusted to Phryne, Mr Butler had made his way through the silent house with its mausoleum of artefacts of a failed marriage. Passing the tarnished photo frames and dusty piano in the front room, he'd finally found the Inspector passed out in the middle of a scene of self-implosion. The dark-haired man was lying in a puddle of spilled booze and piss, looking for all the world like a young boy lost in the world.
Mr Butler felt a stab of emotion as he looked at the man who bore such a resemblance to his own son, lost in the mud of the Somme some twelve years ago.
"Come on, Inspector. Time to face the world." His shoes crunched on glass as he crouched down and shook the man's shoulder. Jack came to with a groan, his eyes blinking at nothing as he tried to orientate his thoughts.
It took a few minutes, but eventually Tobias managed to lever Jack off the floor and into a kitchen chair. The normally proud man stank of stale alcohol, urine and tobacco smoke; his hair wild and his face dull.
Tobias poured the Inspector a glass of water and made them each a cup of strong, sweet milky tea, then sat in non-judgmental silence, ready to wait as long as it took for the Inspector to be ready to talk.
Their cups were almost empty when a gravelly voice reached out for help.
"What should I do? How do I face her, knowing I'm nothing to her when she's everything to me?"
Tobias shook his head and reached out to rest a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder. When the younger man finally raised his head, there were tear tracks through the grime on his cheeks.
"All I can say is that if you truly believe you mean nothing to Miss Fisher then, well, you're a far bigger fool than I ever took you for, Jack Robinson. That young woman loves you with a strength of heart I've rarely seen in my sixty-two years on this earth. And if you feel the same way about her, you need to go and see her. Don't let the past drive you apart out of some misguided sense of pride or hurt."
Jack took a deep, stuttering breath and wiped the moisture from his eyes with the back of his hand. To Mr Butler's surprise, strong fingers reached out and grabbed his own in a squeeze of thanks.
"Alright then," Mr Butler said. "Before you go anywhere, I think we need to start with a bath and a shave, don't you?"
Author's Note: To put Jack, Bert and Cec's drinking in perspective, here's some information about alcohol in Australia: A Victorian schooner is 425mL/15 fl oz, while a pint is 570mL/20 fl oz. The average Australian beer is around 4.5 – 6% alcohol by volume: VB (Victoria Bitter) is 4.9%.
From as early as 1915 (South Australia) to as late as 1967 (South Australia again), reforms designed to keep the home front "morally upright" and disciplined and reduce alcoholism and violence meant that pubs (formerly open until around 11:30pm) were required by law to close at 6pm Monday to Saturday and to stay closed on Sundays. This meant that working class men who were at work from 9am to 5pm had only a one hour period after work in which to legally drink. As a result, workers drank as much as possible before the pub had to close, because at 6pm any empty glasses they had from earlier could be refilled one last time in what was called the "six o'clock swill".
A "scab" was a strike breaker – basically the worst possible insult amongst working men, ESPECIALLY said to Jack, who had been part of the Policemen's Strike.
And "pleb" is an insult to the working classes – the sort of word you spit from between your teeth as if you wouldn't go near the person with a forty-foot pole.