It was late June of 1920 and it all began one morning in Lotte’s Dolphin Square flat when the telephone rang. It was Gracie from the club.
“Your Captain Buchann has booked you this afternoon so get your fanny down here on time.”
Claud often met her at the club, he said it was good cover.
Part One
It was late June of 1920 and it all began one morning in Lotte’s Dolphin Square flat when the telephone rang. It was Gracie from the club.
“Your Captain Buchann has booked you this afternoon so get your fanny down here on time.”
Claud often met her at the club, he said it was good cover that he could just walk in the front door as an ordinary client – the fact that she also gave him a good lay was totally irrelevant. Actually, they had first met at the club when he had recruited her as a source which raised the questions of how Claud had known about Lotte in the first place and just what was Gracie’s involvement with Claud.
Lotte and her fanny were at the club in plenty of time and she went into the smoke filled office to collect her little pink card for the job. Then she made her way upstairs to one of the opulent bedrooms and stripped off her short flapper dress. Today she wore a camisole top and French knickers underneath in pale blue satin and she lay back on the bed to await her client (or her case officer, depending on how one looked at it).
Claud turned out to be really eager and, after just one look at her, he stripped and joined her on the bed. They had really urgent, passionate sex and Lotte ensured that the taxpayers received their full money’s worth. There was a lot of rolling around; he began on top of her and then, when he began to flag, Lotte pushed him off and positioned herself impaled on his flagpole which she was soon able to raise to its full height. Claud was making a lot of noise as Lotte bounced up and down and brought herself to a loud orgasm before falling forward onto him and entwining her tongue with his.
Later, they lay peacefully in each other’s arms and, in a lovely endorphin fueled voice, Claud got down to what was supposed to be the point of their meeting.
“Did you happen to know Daphne Feltenup when you were at St Katarina’s?”
It would be a cliché to say that Lotte was stunned but it would also be true. She had not thought about Daffers for years and, despite the innocence of Claud’s question, it was pretty obvious that he knew she and Daffers had been at school at the same time. Lotte imagined the armies of Civil Servants who had been examining every shred of her life, probably from birth. Claud went on.
“The thing is that Daphne seems very busy in the wrong sort of circles. I don’t understand these Champagne Socialists; surely they must know they would all be shot if Lenin got his way. There is nothing concrete but your school chum’s name keeps popping in in connection with the Fabian Society, the Fenians and perhaps even the Comintern and she knows some very highly placed people.”
Lotte made it very clear that she and Daffers had never ever at any time been “chums” although they had been in the same year.
It seemed that Daffers was planning an exclusive party with the guestlist and venue known only to the *********** few and Claud thought it would be really useful to have someone at the party to make a note of those present. And if this, hypothetical person could also get herself invited to join the little group for future activities. this would also be absolutely super. But it would have to be someone whom Daffers knew and trusted.
At this point, gentle reader, I need to give you some background on the Roaring Twenties. The Great War had only ended in 1918 and the flower of British manhood had been lost in the mud and wire of the Western Front. Not a single family had escaped loss in that hell and, when the war ended, all those who could afford to do so went absolutely wild – especially the young who were known as the Bright Young Things. Champagne and cocaine were consumed in vast quantities and sex was varied and plentiful. The absolute highlight of this hedonistic life was the themed party. Members of the privileged elite would flood into a venue, usually announced at very short notice, and they would dance, drink and procreate for perhaps days at a time secure in the knowledge that no policeman would dare to interfere in the pleasures of his betters. Frankly, all those “cool” people who rave about the Swinging 1960s know nothing at all about excess.
Claud was good at his job and he knew his agent. Now that Lotte knew about what was going on, she would never be able to resist and if she could also be involved in writing secret notes and taking on sinister hoods from the Russian Steppes, that would just be the cherry on the cocktail.
Before they parted, Claud supplied Daffer’s address but that was hardly necessary. The London Aristocracy is a very small club where everyone keeps a little black book and someone as well connected as Lotte would certainly know someone who knew someone and where to find Daphne as well as the target’s favorite watering holes.
So Lotte just happened to be having a drink at The Ritz Hotel one evening and who should she bump into but her old school pal? Lotte explained that she was here to meet a chap but the absolute louse seemed to have stood her up so she was all alone for the evening. Of course Daffers was not alone and she immediately introduced Lotte to the Honorable Chinless Wonder and the three of them shared a table. Lotte knew that she must secure her invitation to the secret party quickly before Chinless dragged his prize off to bed.
So out came all the school reminiscences and the two girls were soon in fits of giggles at the outrages of the egregious Gym Mistress and also at amazing Saturday afternoons in the Sports Pavilion. You see, the Pav was on the opposite side of the sports field from the school so, if a group of girls went out there to, say, drink lemonade, they would have a clear view of anyone walking across the field from the school and they would be free to….but that’s another story and not for tender ears.
Daphne asked how Lotte was doing and poor Lotte explained that she was a bit down in the dumps due to man trouble. What she really needed was a way of meeting a better class of fly buttons and having some fun.
“Oh, you poor thing. You absolutely must come to my little party. All a bit hush hush but give me your number and I’ll let you have all the details.”
The phone call came on a Thursday evening and gave twenty four hours’ notice.
“You need to get yourself to No 24 Brunel Lane, Whitechapel. It all kicks off tomorrow night when it gets dark. It could end in the small hours of Monday morning.”
Lotte phoned Claud with the information and then sat at her desk with a map of London. These parties normally took place in large houses, sometimes on estates outside the city. Lotte had never been anywhere near Whitechapel in her life; the map showed lots of really tiny lanes and alleys. All Lotte knew about Whitechapel was that it had been the hunting ground of Jack The Ripper who had never been caught.
She took a cab to the next street from Brunel Lane and walked the rest of the way. She was wearing her plainest raincoat but it must have been obvious even to the scrawny dogs who watched her that she did not belong here. The streets were cobbled with stone gulleys down the center to carry away the effluent. It was an industrial area which was very run down. The street lighting was minimal and she passed many factories and workshops which had their battered wooden gates chained shut. She noticed a few other people in couples or small groups who were obviously heading for the same place as herself.
The gate of No 24 was barred shut but it had a small door cut into the big gate, large enough for one person to step through into the dim light coming from the yard within. Two dark suited men were stationed at the door and they checked names as each person entered. People, most dressed for a party, were milling around in the yard and spilling out of the workshop which had the double doors wide open. Beneath her raincoat, Lotte wore a sheer dress down to just above her knees. Her dress was silver grey and cut in straight lines to conceal her curves. The fashion of the day was “boyish” so obviously curved hips were out and her bust was bound down flat by a bandeau bra. Her dark hair was cut short and cheekily curled inwards at the ends to frame her exceedingly pretty face.
Daphne was bustling around among a small group who were obviously the small team in charge of events. Quite soon, Daphne trilled out for everyone to come into the workshop and the door to the outside was swung shut. Lotte noticed that an extensive bar had been set up on trestle tables down one whole side of the space.
“So many thanks to all of you for coming. Welcome to Daphne’s Dungeon. Here we indulge our darkest, deepest fantasies and, if there is anything you have not yet tried, now is the time.”
She waved her hands towards various doors in the heavily stained brick wall behind her.
“Through there we have many different chambers and many engines of torture and bondage. If you need anything (wink wink) to enliven your senses just go up the stairs to the gantry and see Miles in the Accounts Office. You won’t want to spoil your street clothes so you are required to leave them here in your individual heaps. That ensures that no little cameras will find their way beyond this point. As you enter the next area you will find an array of leather and black rubber so that you are suitably attired or you may wish to remain open and available. We have set up electrical heaters so clothing is really surplus to requirements. You will see friends coming among you with little baskets for you each to choose a card. The cards are marked DOM and SUB so that we each know our place. You will find tables with food and drink throughout the facility. And now enjoy yourselves.”
Everyone stood where they were and disrobed. Some people shed their clothes with eagerness while others were hesitant but this was overcome by massive peer pressure,
“Don’t be a baby….For goodness sake just join in…come on, you’ll love it”.
Lotte did not have much trouble in exposing her charms. She knew that she was beautiful and it would have been selfish to keep the glorious sight to herself. When she looked at the card which she had drawn, she found that she was a submissive which fitted in well with what she often did at the club although she had been looking forward to squeezing a few scrotums and hearing the screams. Once again her mind went back to the Sports Pav at St Kat’s where various rituals had taken place for the girls to show off how brave they were. It had been on that timber floor that Lotte had first writhed around naked grunting into her scarf gag and inarticulately demanding to be freed. It seemed that Daphne (who had drawn a DOM card) also remembered those games.
When Lotte made her way through the first door, she found that some people were swapping their cards for ones more to their liking but Lotte kept hers and she browsed the extremely impractical clothing on offer. Eventually she settled for a black collar and a ridiculously short leather skirt which exposed more than it covered.
Almost at once her shoulder was gripped by a male in tight leather trousers and nothing else. She recognized the young Viscount Weymouth but said nothing.
“Here’s a beauty crying out for some punishment.”
She worked hard to keep from rolling her eyes at the quality of the dialogue and found herself dragged to a bondage frame in the shape of an X. She permitted him to buckle her into the leather cuffs and anklets and saw him pick up a many tailed whip. Lotte knew from experience that a whipping would soon bring on an orgasm as her dark kink came to the surface but she could not help wondering if Lord Weymouth knew what this would cost him at the club.
The whip was more for show than serious punishment and the short leather tails really had little effect apart from warming her up a little but she was not amused when the Viscount just wandered off and left her secured to the frame. She yelled her displeasure and Daphne appeared at her side.
“And what would our little vixen do in order to be freed, I wonder.”
Keeping to her role, Lotte promised that she would show her gratitude to anyone who could set her free from her cruel bondage and it was not long before the two of them were on a mattress on the floor. Both of them were naked but Daphne had bound Lotte’s hands behind her back leaving only her tongue with which to work on her “mistress”. Daphne made full use of her hands and both of them were soon shiny with perspiration and howling in orgasm to the delight of the audience who had gathered around them.
Of course Daphne, as the hostess, had limited time to spend with Lotte but she thought it amusing to leave Lotte with her wrists firmly bound. This state of affairs lasted for quite some time during which Lotte was very thoroughly fucked by several men and also used by a few women. With her fingers pretty much out of the game, Lotte found that she was making full use of her mouth or, more correctly, the male species was using her mouth to the benefit of their dangly bits.
Lotte had lost her skirt very early on in the process and there did not seem much point in replacing it even if her hands had not been bound. Fortunately, things did calm down a bit and Lotte found someone she knew, Bunty Cavendish, to take her around the food and drink tables. Bunty kept Lotte with her wrists bound and she kept her on a lead but she did hand feed her slave with food and drink chosen by the mistress, not the slave.
Lotte was required to pay Bunty by attending to her nipples with her tongue and, very gently, with her teeth.
Sin can be very tiring and, just like Romans at an orgy, several players ended up reclining on mattresses just chatting. This was where Lotte worked very hard in Claud’s cause and she really hoped that his gratitude would take the form of a very fat bundle of banknotes. Given the circumstances, this gentle period of chat was not entirely innocent and hands and lips were roaming and exploring with various levels of vigor. Certainly, at one point, Lotte discovered a much more literal meaning of the phrase, “Bishop’s staff”.
The weekend passed with a sort of rhythm of athletic sin, pause for breath and alcoholic haze. Lotte spent one extended period face down with wrists and ankles bound together and a gag in her mouth as partygoers celebrated all around her and even stepped over her as if she were the family dog sleeping on the rug. Cocaine was snorted freely; in the 1920s nobody would have known the phrase, “doing a line” as the drug was placed on the back of the hand and then sniffed up into the nostrils. Lotte had seen the ruin which the drug can inflict and she stuck to alcohol.
A few hours before sunrise on Monday morning, pretty much everyone was asleep and some people had even dressed. Bit by bit the party broke up and a very bleary eyed Lotte exited a cab in Dolphin Square at around 6am.
She slept until just before 11am when she awoke with a hangover and took a shower then she sat at her desk and wrote up some notes for Claud including lots of names and also who was in company with whom. When that was done, Lotte was in need of food and a normal person might go into the kitchen and prepare something but Lotte dressed and set out in search of a meal.
Part Two
Lotte did not really pay much attention to the black van which drew up to the kerb beside her but she did pay attention to the uniformed Constable who left the vehicle and stood barring her way. Immediately two men in raincoats caught her up from behind and stood either side of her. One of the men confirmed her name and then told her that she was under arrest.
Normally, in Lotte’s experience, a really cutting remark can put most people on the back foot but she was powerless to keep herself from being loaded into the back of the Paddy Wagon with the steel door slammed behind her. It was an uncomfortable journey as she was bumped around on her hard, metal bench seat. Panic was beginning to rise a little but she knew she had broken no laws. Nobody would find any trace of cocaine on her or in her flat and she could not think what else this could be about.
To Lotte’s alarm, when the door of the van was opened she found herself in a large enclosed space which she sensed was not a Police Station. The three police officers must have all ridden in the cab of the van and they stood watching as women in uniform dragged Lotte out of the van and handcuffed her hands behind her. Lotte now protested loudly and she did not co operate but the women grabbed an arm each and dragged her through large iron doors and into a large hall with windows set very high up just beneath the roof. The space was poorly lit and furnished in dark oak with benches along the sides and down the middle and high desks at the far end.
A few women of obviously poor repute sat shackled to some of the benches and uniformed wardresses were going about their business. When Lotte demanded to know where she was, she was informed that this was Holloway Prison. She found herself standing before one of the high desks which had a wardress looking down at her. She was still being firmly held by the arms and one of the detectives stood beside her and addressed the bench.
“Miss Charlotte Hardy-Worthitt. Charged under Section One of the Official Secrets Act 1909.”
WHAT? Lotte was working FOR the secret state and she had not been charged with anything. She began to protest very loudly until the wardress behind the desk told her to shut up. No-one had ever spoken to Lotte like that. The detective told her with obvious glee in his voice that, having been charged under the Official Secrets Act it was not in the National Interest for her case to be discussed in open court. As you know, gentle reader, Lotte had memorized Claud’s number and she demanded to be allowed a telephone call but, it seemed that this also was not deemed to be in the National Interest.
Various paperwork was completed between the detective and the wardress and then the police left her to the mercies of the hard faced prison wardresses two of whom dragged her into a small cell with its own high window of translucent glass. Her handcuffs were removed so that her little bag could be taken from her shoulder and it was upended onto a small table in front of her. She was still being held by the upper arm.
A wardress sorted through Lotte’s personal possessions with an expression of disdain reserving special contempt for her French Letters. She held up between two fingers the small, black semiautomatic pistol which Lotte always carried and for which she had a license under the new Firearms Act of 1920. She also went through her purse and counted her notes and change. When this humiliating process was complete, all was shoveled back into the bag which was laid on the table and her jewelry was forcibly removed as she refused to hand it over.
“Undress.”
Lotte stood stock still. Last night, she had freely stripped naked in front of around fifty people but she would not assist in this process at all. With well practiced skill, the two wardresses removed every stitch of Lotte’s clothing causing several bruises in the process. Lotte could not cover herself as she was again gripped by the arms and marched into a large communal shower room although she was the only occupant. One of her jailors turned on a tap and Lotte was held beneath the freezing spray as they twisted her this way and that. She was screaming out Claud’s number and demanding that it be telephoned but she was totally ignored.
Eventually the water was turned off and the hands released her at which point she sort of curled up while still standing in a defensive position. She was handed a coarse hand towel with which she dried herself and then a rough, woolen dress was taken from a shelf together with a pair of white cotton bloomers. There not being any other option, Lotte dressed and was forcibly taken through heavy doors, locked grills and along corridors. The place was full of screams and shouting in guttural street language which, to Lotte, was indecipherable. She kept her head in her hands and was on the verge of tears. They walked along a stone corridor where the doorways were low and arched and they came to a door which looked like any other. One of her two escorts turned a key and Lotte was pushed into the cell with the door slammed behind her.
She sat down on the iron mattress with its soiled, thin mattress and wept helplessly.
Lotte was convinced that one telephone call to Claud would end this nightmare but it seemed that nobody would make the call. Her mind could not comprehend the situation where an English well born lady can be locked up without any due process and without even being told what she was accused of doing. She had no idea what Section One of the wretched act said apart from it being somehow about spies.
When Lotte had pulled herself together sufficiently to take in her surroundings she found that the bricks of the cell walls were all visible and either painted black or simply covered in the grime of ages. She had a gazunder (because it goes under the bed) for bodily use and the grimy window was set high in the wall. It was divided into small squares. The door was iron with a peephole through which she could see the yellow light of the corridor. The noise never stopped – shouting, doors slamming, keys jangling.
Lotte was only brought out of her cell once in every twenty four hours to slop out her pot into the lavatory at the end of the corridor. She heard the other inmates lined up every morning to perform this task but Lotte never joined them. It seemed that she was being kept especially isolated. Twice a day a tin plate bearing bread would be brought together with a tin water jug and tin mug. Every time that Lotte saw a wardress, she pleaded for someone to phone Claud’s number but she was not even given a reply; they might as well not have heard her. Claud had impressed upon her very firmly that she must NEVER under any circumstances tell ANYONE that she was on the payroll because, if she did, they would deny her and she would be entirely on her own. But she hoped that just getting someone to make the phone call without saying whose number it was would be acceptable.
She spent her days and nights curled up on her bed somewhere between sleep and waking and trying not to be overwhelmed by terror. Given that the niceties of English law did not seem to apply to her could they keep her here for life? Could they hang her “in the National Interest”? She had lost all track of how many days had passed.
One day, after weeks? Months? How could one tell? Two wardresses stood in her cell doorway and ordered her to go with them. She was neither handcuffed nor held but one wardress walked ahead and the other behind. The journey was a baffling mix of corridors, doors and iron grills but it ended in the same small room where she had been before – well it looked like the same room. She recognized her bag and the small pile of her clothing with her watch, rings, necklace and bracelet beside the clothing.
“You’re being released. Get dressed.”
No apology, no explanation but Lotte dressed as fast as possible lest they change their mind. She could not think; her days of boredom and terror had frozen her mind and it simply would not perform.
Suddenly, with no real idea of how it had happened, she was standing in the street with the Gothic prison gate behind her. There were birds singing and the sun was shining. She walked with no idea of where she was going but suddenly there was a man walking beside her.
“Well done old gal. Proud of you, played an absolute blinder.”
She stopped and stared up at him. Then she yelled at full volume.
“Claud, you absolute and total bastard! You pig! You total Shit! How could you do that to me?”
He took the abuse and then, gently said that they should find a cab. The cab dropped them near to the club and they went in by the servant’s door. It seemed that Albert knew Claud. They went up to one of the bedrooms and Lotte took a shower although she had to put on the same clothes as she had shed for she had no others.
By the time she came out of the shower, there was a tray of afternoon tea on the low table.
It turned out that she had been in Holloway for five days. Claud’s friends knew that one of the staff in Holloway was hooked into the same network as Daffers but they kept her there as she was a useful channel of false information. While Lotte had been incarcerated it had been all over the prison that she was a dangerous traitor and the Secret Service was working desperately to find concrete evidence on which to lock her up for good. Of course all this was absolutely Top Secret which guaranteed that everybody knew it. After five days, the Department reluctantly admitted that it could find nothing which would stand up in court so they were forced, very much against their will, to release her. All this would find its way back to Daffers and her chums and it would raise their trust in Lotte.
Under cover of looking for evidence against Lotte, they had searched her flat and found the notes which she had written after the party and for which Claud was very grateful. Lotte was not at all happy about fifteen stone Special Branch officers going all over her flat because she knew the search would have been carried out in earnest to keep up the fiction that she was a suspect. She hoped that the Special Branch approved of her choice of lingerie.
As Lotte began to cool down after her righteous anger, she allowed Claud to kiss her gently and to hold her but they went no farther than that. He did withdraw from an inside pocket a pleasantly fat brown envelope for her as he explained that he dare not tell her what he was doing as her reaction to her imprisonment had to be completely genuine.
Claud knew about Lotte giving out his telephone number but he was really proud of her for giving no details. Of course the prison had written the number down and Special Branch had reported back that they had traced it as a number used by the Comintern.
Lotte would never quite trust Claud completely after this episode and it had been a sort of coming of age in that she now understood that she was playing a very high stakes game.
But, on the positive side, it was not very long before Daphne invited Lotte to lunch and said how sorry she had been to hear of what had happened to her.
“I heard you beat the sods. Well done. You must meet a few friends of mine; you would get on really well with them.”