A/N: This is a 1920's, Prostitute!Madge AU. It's Rated E (MA) for sexual content, so if this combination of things isn't your cup of tea, you don't have to read it! Also, I have no knowledge of the lingerie of this time period and only a Google search worth of knowledge of brothels in California at that time. Please don't call me out on the historical facts. I had so much fun writing this one, I hope you guys enjoy it too! :)
San Francisco, 1924
"Where are you taking me Odair?" Gale demands for the fifth time that night. He tries to follow his friend's brisk walking speed on the sloped sidewalks.
"Somewhere special, just keep up," Finnick answers back ominously. Gale is confused but intrigued, and besides his friend is known for his ability to have a good time. So he walks alongside him, pacing down the streets of San Francisco.
It wasn't often that they got time off from the mines out in the valley. The two men are both working at a company, one that used to mine for gold decades ago but now in the 20's, mostly looked for silver and iron. But this weekend the nation is celebrating President's Day, and Finnick convinced Gale to drive into the city with him and really take some time off.
"Say, how do you know your way around so well?" he asks casually, having no perception of where they are on the map he briefly studied. The whole city looks the same to him - narrow streets and buildings build on windy, hilly roads at mid-height.
"Do you not remember anything I tell you?" Finnick asks rhetorically, shaking his head at his friend's forgetfulness. "I grew up in the Bay Area. My Ma's house is just ten blocks from here."
Gale recalls him mentioning that once, but he never expected it to stick. After a couple more minutes of walking and what he's led to believe is just Finnick's regular pace, he tries again. "Can you give me any hints?"
"How does your wallet feel tonight, Hawthorne?"
"Sturdy," he answers honestly. Both of them have sturdy wallets right now. The mining industry is doing spectacularly well, they're both making enough to send home and save a little bit for themselves.
"Alright, well then this should be fun," his friend grins, stopping in his tracks. They've arrived at what looks like a house, a big one with many floors.
Gale is confused as they walk up the steps, but once they make their way inside it's no longer any mystery where Finnick has taken him. He smells thick, sultry perfume and stands around cluelessly until a girl, clad in a short dress, asks to take his coat.
"Good evening, gentlemen," an older woman says, walking up to them and giving them a marketable smile. "My name is Madame Faye, your hostess for the evening."
"Thank you," Odair nods, beaming back at the woman brightly. Gale tries to catch his friend's eye to reject his proposition, but he knows that Finnick's mind is already five steps ahead.
"May I welcome you into the parlour, where our ladies are waiting?" Madame Faye asks cordially, motioning them into the main room where men and women socialize amongst each other. "Feel free to talk to them all before you make a decision. And if you so desire, you can take her upstairs, where I'm sure you'll find her at the least, entertaining."
"Finnick, I don't know if this is a good idea."
"What do you mean? When was the last time you were with a girl? Months at least, if not years," he points out. All the miners out in the valley are deprived of that kind of attention. "I've been here before, it's all safe and practical. Trust me."
"I don't know if I…"
"All of our girls here have special talents, besides the obvious of course," the matron laughs, gesturing out at crowd. "So pick whoever you'd like, even if they appear to be busy. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to serve to your needs."
She's referring to the band, the group of ladies all playing a smooth and sultry jazz tune. Gale looks around the room at all of the beautiful women, each milling about in their provocative dresses and seductive eyes. He realizes then that he's severely out of place, he's barely any good at approaching people to make friends, let alone proposition them to serve his sexual desires.
He turns to talk to Finnick, but his friend's already gone, making his way through the room and smiling at each girl he passes. So now Gale is stranded, staring blankly at the wall, uncomfortable with even the thought of asking these girls to take him upstairs.
So he paces toward the back of the room, where a lady is manning the bar and serving drinks. He orders a scotch on rocks, even though he doesn't like scotch, because it sounds like a classy order and he's trying to put away some anxiety.
The liquid is cold but it burns in his mouth sweetly. Gale downs the rest in one go.
He thinks he's a bit less jittery, but truthfully there's no good reason for why he's acting nervous in the first place. Gale has had his fair share of girls at home and in high school, but nothing quite like this. Something about a brothel makes it all much more intimidating, much more lewd.
And there doesn't seem to be any hope for him tonight, not when he's being such a moron and can't even make eye contact with a girl. So he walks away from the bar and stops to enjoy the music for a while before he leaves Finnick here for good, but that's when he sees her.
The pianist. She's seated in the corner of the room wearing a lacy white slip and a pearl necklace, and there's something about the way her golden hair tumbles onto her shoulders that makes Gale know that she's the most beautiful woman he'll ever meet. He's staring but she's looking at her music, so she doesn't notice him walking over, lured by her presence.
It's funny how quickly Gale can feel something. One minute he's socially uncomfortable, ready to leave and the next he's feeling tightness in his groin and he's pondering what his first words should be. It's irrational but it's present and now when he looks at her milky legs he only wants them wrapped around his waist, and when he glances at her nimble fingers he wants to know what they feel like when they're tugging at his length.
He wants to know her name. He wants her to learn his so he can hear what it sounds like between her lips.
He's working himself up thinking of the right way to approach her to differentiate himself from the rest of the hungry, seeking men (if there even is one) when he hears the piano track stop abruptly.
She standing up and looking at him. Her blue eyes meet his immediately and she smiles coyly.
"Libby, could you take over for me?" she says to a girl standing near, and as soon as she's replaced on the piano she starts walking towards Gale.
"Good evening, Sir."
He only gulps, hypnotized by her stare and the timbre of her voice. It's smooth like honey, not a single rough quality to it. "Good evening."
She puts her hand out for him to hold so he takes it and presses a lingering kiss to the back. An irrational part of his brain, the one that's driving his lust, wants to make a trail up to her collarbones and to suck on her skin, to taste it, but he withdraws his mouth and raises his head. The girl is staring at his lips, it must be a business strategy of sorts, because he's lured in.
"Shall we go upstairs?"
Gale can only nod. He follows her upwards and into a private room, hand locked in hers the whole time.
The room is dim, only lit by an old looking chandelier with an ambient yellow light. On the walls are provocative paintings, drawings of the female figure in lewd positions that Gale could only dream about seeing when he was a teenager. Now he's in a room plastered with them, and a pretty prostitute is taking off her chemise, leaving her in the silky lace dress that caught his eye in the first place.
He knows that sound has nothing to do with sight, but there's something about the absence of all the voices and laughter from downstairs that makes Gale able to study her more closely. Now, he sees the dusting of light brown freckles across her cheeks and the tint of green in her blue eyes.
"Is there something you'd like to be called? Master, Sir, a name?"
He wants her to call him Gale, nothing like the other options she's given him. But is it bad etiquette to use your first name, is that something she's used to with other men. He thinks about it, embarrassed by his inexperience. He probably should've asked Finnick for a rundown of brothel rules before they'd arrived.
"Call me Mr. Hawthorne," he tries, hoping that strikes a balance between personal and impersonal. She nods and smiles, memorizing the name in her head. "And do you have a name? Something I can call you?"
There's a moment of hesitation, then a reply. "Madge. You can call me Madge."
Gale ponders if this is an odd name for a whore. Stories that he heard all involved women with names of seduction and romance, like Rose or Cassandra that apparently belonged in the dark with the other ladies of the night. But Madge seems like the name of a girl he'd meet back at home, someone he could really know, and that thought comforts him in some way. It makes him feel more in place.
"Madge," he repeats, practicing rolling it off his tongue. "You're really beautiful," he blurts, not knowing what else to do but compliment her. "And you're amazing at playing the piano."
"Thank you," she responds eagerly, taking a couple steps closer to him. Maybe she's reading his words to be an advancement but they're really just truth. Gale feels silly for trying to start conversation with this woman that he'll be paying, so he puts that contention aside. "What would you like from me tonight, Mr. Hawthorne?"
"What do you offer?"
"It's five for a suck, ten for a fuck," she answers blatantly. "If you want anything special, prices can be negotiated."
"I do not know," he answers honestly, barely able to get past the visualization of Madge doing any of these things to him.
"Would you like me to talk you through the details?" she mocks, raising an eyebrow. If it was anyone else questioning his sexual knowledge he'd be offended, but all he sees is fire and he doesn't mind at all. So he laughs and sits down on the wide bed, staring at his shoes.
"No, I just do not know. Can we just see where it goes and I'll pay you as it stands when it's over?"
"Is money a question?"
"No. I have the money, enough for all of it."
"Because it's 20 for the night. If you want me… for the whole night," she brings up with a hint of hesitation. Gale would gladly have her for the whole night if he could get himself together, but he's still such a nervous wreck.
So he shrugs and nods. "We'll just see."
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a miner."
"Ah. That explains the money," Madge laughs coyly. She's sat down beside him and he finds himself lost in her features again. Her lips aren't painted, they're naturally pink and flushed. Gale wants to taste them, he wants to suckle the bottom one until she moans and then bite down on it to her surprise.
"How much does it cost to just kiss you?" he asks suddenly, and Madge seems taken aback.
"Pardon?"
"On your menu of special items. How much is kissing?"
"It's not on the menu. But all you want to do is kiss me?" He assumes not many walk into a brothel just asking to join mouths.
"Maybe. Maybe more."
"Wouldn't you like to be pleased?"
It's such a strange question, one that Gale tries his best to answer frankly. "Yes. And I have no objection to however far things might escalate in this room. However, I think it would please me just as much if you were to kiss me as if you were to make love to me with no kissing. Does that make sense?"
"So you're lonely," Madge concludes, nodding her head and smiling. "That's okay. A lot of men are lonely too. Some just want to cuddle, we can just do that. And you can fondle my breasts."
"No, you still don't understand. It's not the act of kissing that I need, it's that I wouldn't care about whatever would be done to me, as long as it's done to me by you."
Her lips are parted as she sits there speechless. Gale is less anxious now that he's honest, and he feels comfortable being honest beside this one. Because she reacts in a way he understands, and he thinks that that attracts him to her even more.
"Do you understand what I mean, Madge?"
Madge thinks she understands what Mr. Hawthorne means. She's been at a failure to understand ever since she caught him gazing at her in the parlour, but she thinks that finally they might be on the same page.
She's not sure what possessed her into giving him her real name instead of the name Madame Faye told her to use, Mallory. Maybe it was the way he was studying her, with smoking grey eyes and a spark of lust that she barely sees within the confines of the brothel. Because Madge always associated a brothel with mere satisfaction, lonely men and women seeking to feel just a little less lonely just by touching bodies, by experiencing the skin against skin.
But he was looking her with something more, something that felt like intent and even though Madge has only been working as a whore for a couple months she'd never seen anything like him before, and it made her weak with emotions that she can't articulate.
There's a tangible danger in giving your real name: tracing first name to lastname, lastname to family and all the way to a girl's home. There are horror stories of women being stalked by their clients, but Madge felt a naive sense of trust.
But now in the room, the tables have turned. She'd gone from maintaining her composure and dealing the upper hand to being flustered by his insinuating questions.
"I understand," she promises, running her hands up and down his chest and leaning in closer. Madge needs to earn back dominance over Mr. Hawthorne, the only way she's been taught. So she presses her lips against his and begins to kiss him proper.
She moans into it, somewhat for show but also with provenance. Because the heat from his chest and the hint of liquor on his lips draws her in. The trace amounts of scotch are comically far from enough to become inhibited, but Madge swears that she's drunk, head swimming with a haze that's concentrated towards her brow.
They maneuver until he's lying on the bed, and Madge is looming over him. She almost instinctively reaches for his crotch, but the client asked for only kissing, and she doesn't want to disrespect that. So she keeps her hands on his chest and sometimes moves them to his jaw to feel his stubble. She knows she's lucky to have a young and handsome client. Most of them are old, sad adulterers looking for a reprieve from their mundane lives. Sometimes there are the younger men, the ones looking for a thrill or a way to satisfy their base desires.
But Mr. Hawthorne doesn't fit into either. She tries to categorize him but she can't. And on another note, he smells like soap and something else that causes her to squirm in the position she's in, straddling him and sitting in his lap.
"Madge, what do you like?" he asks abruptly, breaking the kiss.
"What?" she asks demandingly, not understanding his mind games.
"Sexually. What do you like being done to you?"
"Are you like this with all your whores?" she asks on another tangent.
"As in…"
"Showering them with compliments, treating them like your own wife. Does the idea of matrimony get you off?"
"No, I've never been with other whores," he admits. "I didn't know it was irregular to ask questions."
"Most of my clients haven't really been talkers," Madge replies casually. There have been a couple men, the ones who ask for scenarios and confirmation that have been more vocal. Otherwise the business exchanges have been silent, a rump in the dark that was over as soon as it started. At least for them.
They stare at each other for awhile, and she keeps trying to figure him out. If he's never been with a whore before he sure knows how to rile one up. And he has other experience. She can tell by the possessive hold on her hips and the way his mouth moves.
"But answer me Madge, what do you like when a man is with you?"
Madge the girl, not Madge the prostitute, is too shy to answer him out loud. But he just keeps going with his provocative words.
"Do you like it when he plays with your breasts? Sucking on your nipples and squeezing them gently?" Her breathing is irregular. She can't believe that they're both fully clothed. "Or cunnilignus? Does the image of a man's head between your thighs rile you up?"
"Yes," she replies justly. Maybe a franker tone will win her the upper hand. But she highly doubts it, considering the heat that's spreading from her cunt and up her stomach.
"Okay, how much is that?"
"All oral favours are five," she answers routinely. But she never fathomed before the concept of a man wanting to pay for the giving end. Boys that she's been with have found the idea of cunnilingus to be unsettling, clients have been particularly against it especially because she's a whore.
Nevertheless Mr. Hawthorne sits up and picks her up off of his lap, putting her on the edge of the bed facing sideways. He's standing on the ground in front of her, kissing down her neck and nipping at her collarbones in a way that make her gasp, she didn't know that a man could be so desperate for lust but so commanding in action all at the same time. When he reaches for her negligee and tries to get it over her head, it comes off with no resistance. He growls at the lingerie that she's been hiding underneath, just a pretty pair of underwear.
He trails kisses all the way down her pale stomach, deliberately neglecting her breasts and barely touching her mound. Instead he goes all the way down to her thighs, licking and sucking on the sensitive flesh around her heat. His tongue is like velvet, and Madge yearns to know what it feels like lapping at her little clit.
Mr. Hawthorne bites her inner thigh playfully while smiling smugly to himself, and Madge would usually now tell the man that he's not to leave marks on her body. But she doesn't know if she wants him to stop, nor does she know how to speak when she's holding her breath.
Slowly he ascends to her pantyline, rubbing his face against her lace covered mound and dragging the underwear down with his teeth. He's in full control, Madge can't even try to fight it anymore. She has no defense strategy, no means to recover from his spell. It's shameful, the pleasure she's capable of anticipating even in this wretched place. Working at Madame Faye's brothel was circumstantial, something she saw as a duty that rose out of necessity. But the fact of her moans and her wetness have been presented, and she doesn't know how to comprehend the fact that she's feeling genuine pleasure in an act whose pleasure has been worked out of her.
"You're soaking," he states plainly, eyes glued to the source of her wetness.
"I know," is her only response. Madge obviously knows that she's slick with desire, doesn't need him rubbing it in. Her face turns red with embarrassment, heating up.
And then he dives in, latching his mouth onto her cunt and sucking out the nectar. She screams of genuine pleasure, something she rarely does, and feels her legs trembling around his face. He eats her out with no abandon and hums lowly to signify his own satisfaction.
The pressure of his lips and the shapes that he's drawing with his tongue are perfect, and Madge scorns herself once again for letting herself feel this way. His hands are cupping her ass from under and kneading slowly, and she would almost mistaken the movement for lethargic if his mouth wasn't going to town.
"Oh, Mr. Hawthorne…" she moans breathily, but he stops his ministrations for one second while his face barely leaves her pussy lips. He looks up from that enticing angle and pierces her with his grey gaze.
"Call me Gale. Please?"
And she would never refuse that kind of plea. She calls him by what she assumes is his first name, chanting it over and over as he proceeds in her unravelling.
Some moments he slows down. He licks around her core and makes her shiver and whimper, laughing cruelly at her impatience. But then sometimes, and for the most times, he's diligent. He laps at her wetness and traces every figure known to man and that's what is sending her towards complexion.
It doesn't take much longer after that. He arrives at his final destination, her swollen little clitoris that's been merely teased thus far, and sucks hard. Madge cries out in ecstasy, allow this man, this Gale, to cater to her wanton desires and finish her completely. She always thought that she would like to die old, but if someone were to tell her that this right now was the end, Madge doesn't think she'd mind.
When she's ridden the orgasm out she's exasperated but not completely finished. It's unfair, Gale still has his fucking trousers on.
"You're beautiful," he repeats again, rising to match her eye level. "I like it when you say my name."
She reaches out to hook around his neck and kiss him, she tastes herself on his mouth and doesn't mind at all. Madge is done keeping tabs on what he owes her and feeling guilty for her pleasure, because she wants him in every way.
The others girls would call her naive and stupid for feeling deeper things for any client. Maybe she is naive and stupid, but none of that matters right now.
Gale Hawthorne is fire, and she'll gladly let him burn her.
He's entranced. Gone is the girl who hesitated to kiss him, all that remains is a tempting siren luring him towards the depths. Madge is kissing him fervently, stripping him of his clothes and what remaining composure he had. Gale knows that she's practiced, that her reactions may be acted out and planned like a performance, but he hopes that even a shred of it is inspired by himself.
Madge's hand comes around his shaft when his pants come off, and she gasps at his reaction which is a hiss and a groan. She tugs on it and just observes him. He's sitting with his head against the wall and she kneeling between his legs in curiousity. She looks so fucking innocent Gale can barely begin to fathom the things that she does to his cock.
"So, Mr. Hawthorne, have you come to a decision?" she asks blithely, mocking their previous interaction. "Will it be a suck? Or a fuck?"
He doesn't even bother to give her a verbal answer, pulling her up to where he is and opting for the choice that brings her more distinct pleasure. Madge laughs at his eagerness, keeping her hand on his length and rubbing it against her heat.
It's then that he chooses to acknowledge her breasts, taking one into his mouth and sucking lightly. She moans his name again, which shoots straight to his cock, but her nipples harden up under his touch. He repeats his actions with the other one as Madge continues to tease his head against her entrance. He's so hard it hurts, but something in him is still able to remain rational, to resist the urge to throw her down and fuck her proper.
"Gale," she starts, asking for his approval. "Are you ready?"
He nods and she starts her descent, slow and meticulous as she melts around his shaft. There's no sound of breathing as they're both holding it in, but when finally he's all the way inside Gale groans loudly. She feels like heaven, her walls are clenching him tight and they're pulsating in anticipating.
They're both hesitant to move, Gale wants to make sure she's accustomed to the size, to keep her safe. But when Madge starts wiggling on his cock and signaling for more with her jagged breath, he knows what to do. His hands tighten around her hips and his hips begin to meet hers in a calculated rhythm.
At this point, everything is just pleasure. There are no games or surprise; for some reason he feels this woman is familiar to him and that he isn't discovering her body for the first time. His brain and his ears are murky with lust, so all Gale can do is stare at her face and watch the way she expresses her satisfaction like a silent film. Her lips part sometimes, and other times she bites the bottom one. Her eyes are are never open though and he doesn't blame her, Gale just hopes that whatever she's visualizing behind those eyelids resembles him.
For a couple more minutes he's able to stand being ridden, when truthfully he wants to be on top and let Madge lay down in her pleasure. So he flips them over so that her head rests on the pillow, he reinserts herself and really begins to see to her.
"Oh!" Madge gasps at the newfound angle. "Oh my god, Gale, you're so good."
The girl throws her head back in pleasure, which leaves her neck deliciously exposed for Gale to exploit. He latches onto it, sucking and torturing the skin behind her ear until her verbal encouragement increases in volume and her legs that are wrapped around him hold him tighter to her body. If she's faking it, she must be an excellent actress. That's why Gale doubts it, he knows that the sensations are mutual.
He also knows that he isn't going to last much longer after this. His sac is tightening and it's getting harder to keep a normal breath.
"Madge, I'm close," he says, which causes her to open her eyes. The eye contact just builds onto the intensity, adds to the energy between them right now.
"Pull out," she suggests in a breathless whisper, wrapping her hands around his neck to keep his face close for now. He nods obediently as he pummels into her for those final moments, relishing in every thrust and memorizing each noise.
When he feels his orgasm bursting through he unsheathes his cock, stroking it to completion. Gale comes all over her pale belly, moaning erratically and cursing her name. Her name, Madge, which is synonymous with nirvana at this point. It plays in his head and it fits like a puzzle piece.
Gale moves from on top of her and lets her reach over to the night table, where a customary towel waits in the drawer. She wipes her mid-section and then puts back on her negligee, all while giving him a coy smile.
But then reality starts to set in, the reality of their predicament.
She's like this with her men. He isn't special to her, probably never will be and this was nothing but an exchange of money for goods. He feels like he conned himself into making an emotional connection with a person whose real name he doesn't even know.
"What are you thinking about?" she asks as she studies him. He's furrowed his brow pensively and is staring at the ceiling. Gale only has a sheet draped over his lower body, and Madge thinks he looks rather delicious, rather sexy still.
"How much of that was real?"
"What?"
"How much of what you just did was real? I'm just curious as to how much you need to compensate and how much comes naturally."
And that's when she realizes that she's nothing more than a prostitute to him. All of his emotion was not directed towards her, she was just a vessel for him to inflict it on. But she doesn't even care for her dignity anymore, not when she just experienced all of that. Maybe she'll find some truth.
"All of it," she claims, but he still gives her a look of skepticism. "It was all real."
But she only gets silence in return. It stings like iodine so she retracts.
"Nevermind. I don't know why I confessed that to you. You clearly won't care about me when the sun rises, so I suppose you can pay me and be on your way."
"Wait, what?" Gale snaps, looking back at her again. "No, I thought that it was you that wouldn't care about me."
"How is that possible? The way you treat me, speak to me. The things you did to me…"
"...were different?"
"I think so," is her reply, it's the best she can do for now. She's still trying to decipher the emotions and unpack them in a clear way. But she can't right now, not when Gale is still staring at her with metallic eyes.
Maybe he'll realize that she's as confused as he may as well be, that she is uncertain and scared of the implications too.
"Did you always want to work as you do?"
It's a non sequitur, but Madge thinks about her answer nonetheless. "No. I wanted to be a pianist. But it's hard to get into. I guess following your dreams doesn't always work out."
"But you're so good at it."
"But, I suppose that doesn't matter at all when everyone else is better," she states with sarcasm and a little self-deprecation. "Madame Faye let me play when she realized I could do that too. She's good to me and pays me well."
"Madge?"
"Mhm?"
"Is that your real name?"
"Yes."
"Okay," is his response, followed by a breath of relief. "I don't really know how to deal with myself right now. I think that you mean more to me than... what that was."
"Me as well," she admits, sitting upright. "I don't know what that means, though."
"Don't you want to find out?"
It scares her but she does. Maybe she wants him to take her out on a real date, maybe they're only compatible in the bedroom. But she's curious. And Madge knows that he is too, so she nods.
He gets dressed quickly after that, leaving the question of their status looming in the air. Madge only has a pair of panties to slip on. Gale was her only customer of the night and it's already rather late - their meeting took longer than the average she anticipated.
"Do you have a last name?" he asks out of curiosity once he's in all his clothes. "One that I can know."
"Yes," is her answer. "It's Undersee."
"Madge Undersee," he smiles, nodding his head and taking a step closer to her. He runs his hands through her wavy hair and gives her a chaste kiss. "I'll come back around here. Tomorrow afternoon, surely you'll be free then right?"
She nods and kisses him back, aware of the irony of an innocent kiss. The circumstances and premonitions were all wrong, but maybe this is the start of something good. Something worth holding onto.
A/N: Oh, my classic combination of borderline pornography and a customary happy ending. I feel like this story should have a sad ending, but I just didn't want to write it, I'm weak!
Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you so much for reading!
