Chapter One

Nineteen thirty nine was a year for holding the breath. It was a time of edginess, tension and bravado. How mouths worked in thoughtless unison, shouting what should, must, and could be done. How mouthpieces engineered their own deaths and those of others, then dug the mass graves of bravado. The world would go mad, and sexuality would cast its quirky shadow over a planet, where opportunity for man’s strange thirsts could be satiated.

September brought the news everyone anticipated, that the insane hoped for and the rational dreaded. Britain would sort the Boche out. Les Anglais would kick the German butt out of Poland - well eventually.

The French bolstered themselves for the inevitable, the last fiasco still fresh in their minds, and the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian debacle still not forgot. In that uncertain environment Martha cast her net. At eighteen years old she felt ready for anything, prepared to take on the world, if not the German army.

Lingerie called her. Women’s flighty night wear and titillating underwear, caught her imagination. Silks and lace sang her future, cottons and flannel discarded, thrown to the winds of misfortune and vapidity.

She appeared one morning at nine, stood in the open doorway to Fred McCall’s office all legs and curves. He looked up smiled politely and asked as you do, temperature rising. “Can I help you?”

Scrubbed, hair flame red, make-up minimal and dressed in a cheap cotton dress she replied. “I’d like a job please.”

Already taken by her femininity and in no rush to usher her away he parlayed. “That’s a good place to start. What do you want to do?”

“Design your lingerie.”

“And you are presumably qualified?”

“No. But if I work for you, you can train me.” She smiled and seized his heart, as well as another organ. “You can do that? Can’t you?”

“I could indeed. But you would have to show me ability in art and design first.”

“I have my School Certificate and Higher School Certificate with distinction. My artistic ability is excellent.”

“Have you those certificates today?”

She reached into the bust line of her dress and pulled two pieces of folded paper from her bra cup and handed the warm documents to McCall.

He read them. “Yes. Good. What else can you do for me, besides design.”

“I can make tea and coffee and sit on your lap when you want me to.”

Fred nearly choked. “Quite. Admirable. Loyal. I mean can you use a sowing machine?”

“I can stitch by hand.”

“I will have to think about it, what is your name?”

“Martha Bell sir. I also speak four languages fluently.”

“Do you by God. Now that could be useful. Not just pretty eh, but bright with it.”

“Pretty? Really?” She questioned surprised as she exhibited the curves of Aphrodite, her face a steal from Vanity Fair.

“Now I have something in mind, so if you could divulge your vital statistics?”

“Not sure sir. Perhaps you might measure me?”

A slick sprang to life, damping his palms.

Tape removed from a desk he said. “I can get one of the ladies to do this if you’d rather.”

“Nope,” she said adamant. “I can see you are a gentleman.”

Trembling slightly he began at her bust. She raised her arms, boobs lifting too. The dress lay open to the breasts giving Fred a view of her squeezed cleavage, the division enticing, the bosom creamy smooth. He leant around her, her cheap scent a touch overwhelming. Tape against her back he drew the ends together at the junction of cleavage. “Thirty eight,” he decided. “And we will have to do something about that perfume my dear.”

The waist proved easier though Fred was on his knees by then, staring at the shadow of what he knew to be her pubic mound. “Twenty three.” He coughed.

“Thirty seven,” he decided having run his hands over her rump to settle the tape, the woman not seeming to mind one bit.

“I don’t wear knickers,” Martha informed him.

“Any particular reason?” Fred asked out of politeness.

“Can’t afford any,” she replied with unexpected honesty.

“What colour would you like Martha?”

Surprised she replied. “It would just be nice to have some.”

He opened the door and shouted. “Lily. Bring me half dozen pairs of pastel knickers. The briefs I think. Medium probably. Oh and two teas on a tray.”

“What colour?” echoed back.

“What comes to hand woman. Mix them up eh?”

Martha sat and drank the tea and talked about her life. Six pairs of pants sat on Fred’s desk.

“No parents then?”

She shook her head and lied. “Orphan. But some very nice people brought me up. Then when I was sixteen I went to college. Lucky I was. I come from there to see if you could give me a job.”

“Why Laurens?”

She smiled again, totally disarming him. “Why not?”

“Can I put a pair of those pants on now Mister McCall? Only it’s a bit drafty down below.”

“Of course. They are yours now.”

Without a care she grabbed the top pair, placed her feet through the holes and hoisted them in front of Fred, the man treated to exquisite svelte thighs.

She turned held her skirt up and stated. “Perfect fit aren’t they?” Fred presented with the knickers seemingly moulded to her hips.

“Oh,” she announced settling the hem. “That’s a bit of quality there. My bits feel nice and comfy now.”

Laurens Adaptations Limited, employed her, her multi-lingual tongue, her uncanny ability to quickly adapt to just about any global language impressing them beyond words. On joining, she already spoke fluent French, German, Italian and Dutch. One look at her budding figure hiding beneath the drab veil of poverty had clinched it, convinced Fred McCall that she was her man, or woman. Yes very much woman. From there on the smooth glide of lustrous underwear courted her skin, her intimacy, delved and toyed with a rapidly maturing need.

“Paris,” McCall suggested some months later, or rather commanded. “I want you in Paris, Martha.” And he meant exactly what he said.

Fred had primitive notions on how to court a lady, and Martha was no lady anyway. She was a naïve waif, who had been promoted to the lofty heights of model and sales executive. She was his protégé, his nurturing, his perfect arse, his nubile youth to shag. Or so he hoped.

Martha met him with a wonderful innocence, bright hazel eyes, lashes licked by mascara, smiled a consummate decency. She promoted her I have never been touched, never even fondled, never felt a man’s shaft heavy between her legs, expression. How Fred loved her. How Fred wanted to defend her virtue, steal her affinity, hold her close, and fuck the delicious arse off her. Fred was a man of honour. Honour to his bank balance, and his prick, and all for forgetting his wife. And he did manage to forget her, when he was with Martha.

The man, stretched a pin-striped suit, waistcoat drawn over a pot belly, trousers tight to roly-poly thighs and a rotund behind, gazed at his aide de camp with sheer lust. The girl he would dash to the French capital, sat legs crossed before him, expensive dress embracing thighs, waist, and bust. The neckline remained polite, buttoned to the throat, Fred only able to ponder on the succulent cleavage that he knew lie within.

“Paris will fall to German hands surely?” she stated, rather than asked. “Won’t we be a bit out on a limb over there?”

“Never!” pomposity assured her. “The Maginot Line will stop those blockheads in their tracks. Oh, our French friends have learned their lesson as far as the square heads are concerned. Let me assure you.”

“They’ll be in Warsaw by Christmas,” she argued. “Where then?”

Fred chuckled, his mirth frivolous, keen, demeaning. “Let the man worry about the enemy,” he said condescendingly, although he didn’t mean to. “And the woman concern herself with the finer garments in life. Namely our market in the pretentious quarter of Paree.” He sounded Paris as a Frenchman might, complete with nasal inflection.

“I don’t fancy a bayonet up the arse,” she stabbed, surprising him with the vulgarity.

“It’s not a bayonet I had in mind,” he muttered, the papers in shaking hands shuffled noisily.

Martha smiled that disarming smile, that probing I have just read your filthy mind, knowing smile. “Sorry. Was I a little crude for you?” Her London accent, not quite cockney, but close, tugged at his lust strings as it always did. He often imagined her whispering sweet nothings in his ear, her language filthy, her voice earthy lust itself.

He smiled, hoping to disarm her. He failed. Martha could pin his guilt to the notice board any day of the week, including the Sunday service announcement. She knew just how to drag the blush to his culpable cheeks, giving him away.

“I thought it apt considering the situation,” she ventured further. “You know, men in uniform, trenches, trying to kill each other.”

“Your turn of phrase was of no importance, with respect to the manner it was said, of course.” Fred fidgeted. “But even if the Boche does manage to overrun the Maginot Line, the whole French army, all eight hundred thousand of them; and launch its bully boy tactics on Paris, then I vow to protect your arse, Martha.”

“How sweet,” she replied, quite taken. “You will fight the whole German army for me?”

The man grinned. “Not exactly. Not that you are unworthy of such gallantry. Oh that I were a knight in shining armour. But alas, I am a trifle over the hero hill for that.” Fred strolled to the large office window. He gazed out on the London street. “I only meant that I will ensure a rapid retreat, should such an unlikely event take place.”

“In such an event, I should imagine there will be a lot of people making a rapid retreat, Mr McCall.”

“You won’t go?” he inquired a little aggrieved.

“I never said that.” Martha stood, her five feet nine inches at full effect, heels adding another inch and a half. “I think the trip would be quite an adventure.”

Smug, Fred concurred. “My thoughts exactly. Quite breath taking.”

“Breath taking,” he repeated, drooling over the roll of those delectable haunches as she made for the exit.

“Best suite, in the best hotel,” he promised.

“Best make it adjoining rooms,” She suggested, Fred inhaling sharply. “If they have such things in France. I have no wish to be alone in a foreign country, with the Wehrmacht kicking in the door at any moment.” Pausing she added with barely concealed fervour. “What a thought.”

Martha gazed at the floor, before long lashes lifted meaningfully. She met his anticipation with. “Breath taking.”

Fred rubbed moist hands together. “Quite.”

“To know you are close by, when I take a bath,” she added, the tease deliberate.

His heart thumped with possibility. “Yes,” he agreed. “Of course.”

“You do understand,” she continued, hammering home nails of expectation. “I don’t wish to push myself upon you. And I certainly don’t want to compromise your position. But you hear of goings on in foreign countries. I have no longing to end up a white slave in Arabia. Chained and abused.”

Hot beneath the collar, he smiled at her naiveté. “You have no worries there, my dear. I’m sure the Foreign Legion would rush all available troops from Marseilles to your rescue.”

She smiled, and feeling a little warm herself, said. “I know I am yet unfledged by your standards, but please understand, I have fears like any woman. I would be happier if suitable arrangements could be agreed.”

Fred swallowed, his gaze on her bosom, the unhurried rise and fall mesmerising. “I wouldn’t call you unfledged by anyone’s standards,” he said finally. “I would describe you as appropriately developed in every way. Outstanding in some.”

She smiled and whispered purposefully. “Breath taking?”

Martha tossed the worsted dress she had worn onto her bed, the price of it unjustifiable in her mind. Fred had insisted, told her in no uncertain terms that she had to look the part. She scratched at her belly, the mark from the waistband evident and annoying. She stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling, legs parted. “Like being in a bloody cocoon,” she whispered. “My hips feel wrung.”

The leggy girl padded barefoot to the scullery, those wrung hips equally gripped by creamy silk French Knickers, legs bare, unadorned. She reached for the tap, stooping, firm bosom trembling, seeking escape, barely contained by laced cups.

She smiled, a tumbler of water inches from full lips. “Still,” she muttered. “At least he can’t pinch his bit of bum, the randy sod.”

She drank, curious eyes finding her fogged reflection in a tatty chipped mirror. She lay her head to one side, the young woman studying her face. “Irresistible, aren’t you, Martha dear? Bloody breath taking.”

A sneer lingered between pinched lips and wrinkled nose. “Every god damn man in the world is just aching to take you out.”

Her gaze fell to the ludicrous balance of breasts. “Nice tits though.”

Fingertips scratched at a scalp aching to feel the invigorating sprint of hot water. Auburn curls bounced unruly to her shoulders, jigged against smooth if scant flesh about pronounced collar bones.

“Friendly,” she concluded. “If I had a dad, he’d probably pinch me bum too.”

Glass laid down, Martha rose to tiptoe and pranced to the boudoir of her one room, the roll of hips pronounced. “Dad? Daddy? Father? Pater? Where art thou?” she called.

“Art thou in heaven? Art thou in hell? We seek him here. We seek him there. We seek the desperado everywhere.”

She dropped to a thin sprung mattress, curls strewn haphazard across a white linen sheet. “Who was he mother? Why the big secret? Surely you know who crept into your bed that night, all those years ago. Surely you felt something!” she giggled.

A teapot squatted dark brown, cheap and chipped. Alongside, rested a dainty bone china cup without saucer. Martha eyed the kettle close by. She stretched out an arm, the fingers wiggling. “Abracadabra!” she called, begging the gas to light itself.

Various items hung from a line strung across the room, close to a small open window. Pants, knickers, stockings, chemise and bra, swung to a light breeze, forlorn, uninteresting, lacking the fullness of body that made them what they might be.

That ten foot stretch of thin cord suggested more to Martha than just a support for her washed linen. A light rap on the door snatched the girl from any insidious furtherance of those wistful thoughts. “It’s not locked,” she shouted fully aware of who called.

The door opened cautiously a bespectacled narrow face appearing about the jam. “I hope you are decent,” the visitor said, her voice dropped to an almost whisper.

“Am I ever not?” Martha asked indignant.

“Only most of the time,” Anna Cooke, Martha’s only true friend told her. The young woman scrutinised a sprawled Martha. “Bra. Pants. Nowt else. See what I mean?”

“Fred wants me to go to Paris,” Martha countered, changing the subject.

“Is he mad! France will be next on Hitler’s list.”

“He’s going in the opposite direction,” Martha argued. “Why turn around. It’s Poland he wanted, and Poland he’s getting. So why turn around for France?”

“Habit,” Anna suggested pushing Martha’s legs aside, then planting her narrow butt beside. “Maybe it’ll be third time lucky for Germany and they will annex France.”

“Third?”

“Yes Martha. Franco Prussian war eighteen seventy to seventy one. World War One. And what comes next.”

“Perhaps I should turn Fred down then,” Martha pondered unsure.

“Maybe you should screw a really good deal out of him. Sort of danger money,” Anna suggested.

“I think it’s a really good screw he’s looking for, with me.”

Anna looked thunderstruck. “He can’t be serious! Oh for God’s sake! He’s forty if he’s a bloody day. Not to mention stumpy and three stone overweight. What the hell does he think you’ll see in him?”

“Money,” Martha suggested. “He seems to think I’m a money grabber. That I’d drop them for a few quid, and a good time in Paris.”

“And?”

“I might with the right bloke.”

“And?”

“Fred’s not the right bloke.”

“Thank the fuck for that.”

“Language Anna. Fuck is not fitting for a librarian. Your mouth should know better.”

“It’s the company I keep,” she riposted.

“So what are you going to do in Paris, apart from run that is?”

“It’s a marketing exercise. Fred hopes to engage the French with Lauren lingerie.”

“Right. There is one way you could keep his hands off you without fear of retaliation.”

“What’s that?”

“Take a chaperone.”

Martha studied her, eyes drilling, comprehension a few seconds away. “You, you mean!”

“Keep you safe wouldn’t I? I mean it’s really quite acceptable.”

Martha lay, staring at the ceiling, watching a small spider navigate the ceiling rose. “I wonder what Fred will say.”

“Will?”

“Hmmm. Will.”

“Don’t give the randy bugger any option. You’ll soon find out what his true purpose is.”

Fred McCall was arrogant and conceited enough to see Anna as a bonus to his duplicitous plans. Beneath the heavy rimmed glasses lay an acceptable face, one which his father, master of coarseness would have relayed as ‘why worry about the mantle when stoking the fire’. His mind played with the notion of three in a bed, neither women able to ignore his charm, nor his wallet.

There was one problem though. He had every intention of introducing Martha to his other business, one which he hoped she would warm to if not whole heartedly and initially agree to. Anna’s inclusion on the trip might cause difficulties in that area, with a pair not so easily swayed as one. He could just hear Anna’s thin voice, ‘Oh my God! What are you thinking!’ But there again she might surprise him. Every woman has a libido somewhere, and the librarian’s might just be frustrated enough to jump at his saucy kit and caboodle.

Friday arrived, Fred having said no more about the trip. He had neither agreed nor disagreed, though the need to know why Martha felt she required a nursemaid boiled gently beneath the surface. He understood. He just didn’t want to accept his part as fat middle aged sleaze ball.

He studied his face in a mirror, shaving soap obscuring the lower part. A sigh wheezed in unison with a heartfelt grimace. ‘Who am I kidding,’ he asked of no one. Those girls must be laughing themselves silly.’

So it was a different Fred McCall that met Martha that morning. “Miss Bell,” he hailed. “May I have five minutes of your time please.”

His face offered no clue as she closed the office door.

“Passport, Martha. Do you and Anna possess passports?”

“She went to Italy last year, so I guess she must have. Me? No. Sorry.”

“No worries. I will acquire the necessary paperwork for you to sign. I am looking at leaving at the end of the month.”