No Woman's Land

This is a substantial rewrite of a decades oldⁱ pornographic story, and as such it'll be plenty blue. The original author is given as Lord John Thomas, which is likelyⁱⁱ a pseudonym. Other than the prurient interest, the reason I rewrite it is that it's actually pretty good, as a storyⁱⁱⁱ, and to encourage the practice of rewriting^iv.

Why I ran off is nobody's business, let's get that straight from the get-go - don't ask me and I won't have to smack ya. Fact is I ran off, and that's that.

At the time things were very different, half of London lay in ruins after the war, food was mostly there especially if you didn't care what you ate and every single nightfall had its very own sad despondence about it, different from all the others. Shades and shades and shades of blergh, one could get bladder stones from simply living in the Docklands.^v So I took off. Simple as that.

There was an advertising in the newspaper, "Come and Work in Australia!" Apparently they took just about anyone, or so the gentleman in their office made it appear once I started explaining about my year and a half worth of training in Child Care. As if you need training to do that, what is going on in the minds of people I wonder sometimes.

They were paying for the trip, and handed me a number of tickets. Very German like : ticket for the bus to the ship, ticket for the passage to Sydney, ticket for the train from there to some place called "Mud Tank" and about a page and a half of written explanations about how to proceed further west. I paid no mind at the time, tossed the lot into my one suitcase and that was that.

I don't remember anything else about that trip, fifty and more years ago, but I do remember the part towards the end, as we were approaching the Mud Tank and I was trying to make sense of the instructions. Turns out, they were about as clear as mud. You have to consider, things weren't then as they are now, and things weren't in Australia anything on par with what things were in England, that's for sure. One huge steam locomotive was pulling our train on rickety tracks, dumping ash and soot everywhere by the spoonful and out the window all you could see was God's pristine creation. I had seen more spiders than people for the ten hours of the trip so far, and I remember distinctly a knot that was coming up in my throat a lot. What do you want, silly lass of nineteen, hadn't been outside of London, what London, hadn't been outside of her street practically for all her life.

The train had one single passenger carriage, otherwise carried two dozen freighter loads of who knows what, machinery parts and large crates and barrels. The carriage had six compartments but we had all huddled together in one : me, a middle aged fat woman with two kids, a boy of around thirteen or fourteen and a girl of sixteen or so. And a man. A rough cut, unshaven, glinty eyed scoundrel made special for the gallows the likes of which I've not seen since. After about an hour of looking at each other like idiots, the woman finally said something.

"Pom eh?"
"Err yes. I’m over here to work as a children’s nanny."

After about another half hour, she deigned to continue.

"Didn’t they give you any advice on what to wear?"
"Wear? Why, I’m not dressed inappropriately am I?"

It had not even occured to me this would be a point anyone would ever raise. The few people I did see so far appeared to have mostly dressed by the procedure that every time they camped in the wild and the tent fell on them during the night, they'd sew together the sheets and that'd be their overalls for the next decade or so. Certainly the women were in not much better shape than men, and certainly this one sitting across for me, or her daughter sitting next to her could raise much objection to that observation. I don't even know what it was they were in fact wearing, nor could anyone without dissection.

I was a poor girl, still am, always was. Not the sort money sticks to. But I was doubly so then. My best clothes were on me back, a pair of smartly cut slacks - as women weren't yet wearing proper throusers, and nobody had heard of jeans yet - and a sort of tennis blouse, together about as sexy as soap wrappers. What was this woman on about ?

After another hefty pause, she offered again

"That depends where you’re actually going to, but this train doesn’t go anywhere that the stuff you’ve got on would be right for."
"I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean. I’m not showing any leg, or even anything else for that matter. What is it ?!"

It was incredible how quickly she spoke, considering how long it took her between lines. I remember wondering if they do this deliberately to stretch conversation over the many hours much like they'd stretch the marmelade to reach all the biscuits back home.

"Look my dear, out here, men are men, and there ain’t many women, but the ones that are here be of two kinds. You can be either a whore or else be treated with respect like one of the family. It's your choice to make, but for the most part you can make it only once. So I guess you looking after children will want to be thought of as a family girl, respectable that is. Well... dressed in pants you ain't gonna be respectable any. Unless you can shear sheep, swear, and fight as good as a man, that is. Unless that you’re gonna’ get one hell of a hard time, and you'll be doing a whole lot o' cryin' is all I have to say."
"So you think I should wear a dress or skirt?"
"Depends on what kind of dresses you've got?"
"I’ve got some in my case, but I can hardly open that now, you know, with that fellow sitting there."
"Don’t you mind me missy, I won’t take no notice of what you’ve got in your case."

This was the first time I had heard the man speak. He had a melodious voice, almost cheerful. It gave me a pang of regret because he didn't sound anything at all like the scoundrel I had him pegged for.

"Aw pay him no mind, these Aussie men are like kittens when they're on there own. It’s only when they get together in a group, and especially if it should happen in a bar, that they become a public nuisance. You get your case down, and let’s take a look at what you’ve got."

I lifted my case down from off the rack above our heads, and placed it on the space on the seat in between me and the man.

"See, that’s the first thing you’ll notice. If you’d have been in a frock, the second you stood up, you’d have seen the men coming in from miles around to lift that case down for you."
"While the train is going ?"
"Yes while the train is going or staying or flying, it's just how things are around here. Dear lord you're worse than this one over here", she said looking at her daughter with... perhaps not contempt, but certainly displeasure. "Now listen here, if you're after giving lip I've enough of it as it is and know where to get more any time I should fancy. I just figgered I'd say something so you don't end up hoist on a pole by the time for next Mass, that's all. Don't mind me and carry on with your business if you're such a bushwhackin' bloody American girl and that's all I am going to say!" and with that she gave a sniff and pointedly looked out the window, taking in the fascinating succession of trees and slow rotation of distant mountains.
"I'm from London", I retorted, confused by her outburst. What in the world was this woman on about ?!

As time went on, the silence around and the knot in my throat slowly ground me down, and I offered a plaintive

"I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't mean no disrespect." She looked at me somewhat blankly. "Please, tell me again." I offered meekly.

After a while she finally formed a response.

"I guess you could be right, for all this helping business men be more trouble than its worth. But never-the-less, it just shows the difference what you wear makes to how you’re treated."
"But if that’s all this is about, I’m used to doing my own lifting and carrying."
"The knife bein' sharp is not just about cuttin' the bread straight, hen. It's also about having the bread to cut in the first place. You’ll find a lot of men will be very rude if you're neither man nor woman to them."
"What’s she expect? Bloody lesbian!"

That came out of the cheerful, melodious bird sitting right next to me and it gave me a jolt. He sounded downright angry, like some guy collecting his fury to get himself well whipped up for a bar brawl.

"Hey you! Watch that foul mouth of yours, I’ve got young’uns in here."
"Well, what’s she expect? There ain’t enough of it to go around out here in the outback, and when you get some silly no-skirt-Doris whose got all the goods, and don’t know what she's doin' with it... it’s a sin against God, so help me."
"That’s as maybe, but there’s no need for bad language."
"I’m sorry for the truth, lady, but it hasta be said. An' I'll wager that there young’un of yours knows what she’s a sitting on!"

And with that he’d nodded towards the young girl. She didn’t blush or appear to be phased by this crude remark. On the contrary, I remember like the day : she actually eased her legs wider apart, and edged the hem of her dress just a little higher towards her knee.

"My Doris has been brought-up right, and I’m sure when her time comes, she’ll do her duty and make someone a good wife. But don’t you go assuming this here girl is any less a woman, just cos’ she’s wearing pants. She's just new is all."

Then turning towards me,

"See what I mean? And as I told you, on their own they’re like little kittens. But you get a bunch of them together, and there’s no telling what they’ll do to you. You have to be more careful out here see. The coppers are few and far between, one can live out his entire life to be an old man and never see one. And precious good that'll do you, for even should you find one, it’ll still be a man you've found."
"But why would he think I’m a lesbian?"
"He’s a man, he's too busy downing the gin to keep track of what words mean."
"Be careful, he’ll hear you."
"He can hear all he wants, it's God's honest truth, it is. If they watered less and went to Church once in a while then he'd know what a lesbian is plenty, the good book is fulla them. Anyway girl, lets see what you’ve got that would be suitable for you to wear while your traveling."

With that she started rummaging through the clothes in my case, the man opposite was taking an interest, and I guess trying to get a look at the underwear being lifted out onto the seat. The lady asked me where exactly I was traveling to, and when I told her, she looked very concerned. She gave me some very stern warnings about not venturing out of the confines of the house I was working in without an escort of some kind. She explained that women were even rarer in that part of the country than they are in the sheep rearing area where she comes from. She also said there are more whores in that part of the country than respectable women.

"You see the mining companies ship them out on a rota basis to keep the miners from returning back to civilisation, in case they realise what they’re missing, and don’t come back to the mine. If that's where you're going a lot depends on you looking modest, ye hear ?"

Then suddenly a look of horror came to her face.

"If you’re going out to the Jennywren mine... why that means you’ll be getting off this train at Arnold’s crossing to catch the land train?"
"Yes. Why, is that a problem?"
"My god girl, who made your travel arrangements?"
"It was all sorted by the travel agent of the hiring company in London."
"Well either that agent never heard of this place in his life or else he had some plans for you."
"But what’s wrong, I don’t understand?"
"Well, they should have told you about what clothes to wear, or more to the point, what not to wear in the first place. But that aside, letting you come out here on your own, especially having to make a stop at that hell hole. I’d stop over with you myself until the road train comes, but that would mean me and the young’uns having an overnight stay there, and I honestly wouldn’t want to risk that with a girl of her age."
"What is it you’re so worried about?"
"There are lots of stories going around about things that have happened to women who’ve had to make stopovers there. Oh, nothings ever gone to court or been proven, but all the same, there’s no smoke without some fire."

Then she turned to the man opposite,

"Where are you headed for?"
"Same place as the little miss Lesbian."
"So you’ll be getting off with her."
"Guess so."
"Well how about you do something good for once in your no good life? Maybe then God will smile on you, and you might just make-up for being a waster."
"Who are you calling a waster?"
"Well there’s only you here, so I guess I must mean you."

The man let out a bah and turned away. The woman turned to me,

"Look girl, I’d feel a lot happier if we could get this fella to maybe make believe you’re his daughter."
"His daughter?"
"Yes, daughter. That might make the men think you’ve got someone to protect you. Maybe they'd figure you're just stupid, rather than give you the whole trouble and strife treatment free of charge."
"Well yes, I see, but what’s the chance of him agreeing? Or even if he does agree, who’s to say he’ll keep his word?"
"She's right Mrs Bossy Boots. Why the hell would I agree to tuck her under my wing?"
"How about she does something nice for you ?"
"Like what'd that be ?"
"How about she lets you see her dressed in just her panties and bra? You can Barclay's all you want to a live model for once."

The man about swallowed his tongue, and I was more than a bit shaken by her remark. She turned back to me, and spoke quietly in my ear.

"You’ve got to get changed into a frock before you get out of the train, there's no two ways about it. So he's gonna get a look whether you want him to or not. If you make a deal you're just getting paid for the raspberry tart.^vi"
"But my knickers are only little ones and you can half see through the material! And my bra ? What bra. I've no bra!" I replied in a frantic whisper.
"Who taught you how to dress, you silly goose. What did you think, clothes are there on a woman just because she got bored one day with nothing better to do than layer stuff on herself ?" then after a pause, "Well, even so. Letting him get a close-up look has got to be better than what'll happen to you if the men over there think you’re on your own."

That notion gave me pause.

"Right. Have you stopped catching flies in your mouth yet?" she spoke to the man again.
"What you on about?"
"I bet you heard what she just told me?"
"What’s that then?"
"Once she takes that blouse off, her titties will be showing plain as day, like any proper slut's. And when she takes her pants down... well... let's just say there's not going to be much in the way there, either. You’ll get a real eyeful, now have a heart. If she gets changed now, in front of you, will you agree to kid-on she’s your kin?"
"She got knickers on at least, don't she ?"
"Sort-of."

The man hissed and went silent for a space. Then,

"It's a deal, but only like this : that she takes everything off. Boots, everything, not a stitch of cloth or anything on her. Stark naked like the day she was born."

I gave him a look of horror, but he continued

"And she gives me her knickers, for keepsakes."

There was silence. The woman was looking at me. The man was looking out the window, apparently paying me no mind. The little boy was gazing with his mouth agape. After a while, her daughter broke the silence

"Mommy, please make the slut go naked in front of everyone. Please!"
"Shush, you!" answered her mother. Then she turned towards me "Well come on then, you heard the man. Take everything off your back and give him your knickers for a keepsake."
"And no covering anything either" spoke the man. "She's got to do what I tell her to and stand like I say or you can forget it".

I was beet red, I could feel the heat coming off my face and chest. That knot that had been bothering me all day was choking me. I didn't know what to do.

"Like for instance right now, missy. Stand right there in the middle." said the man, and pointed. His voice was oddly melodic again, I thought, and I was somehow mesmerised. I couldn't help but think that if I just did what they told me to then everything will turn out alright. Perhaps they'll like me, even. So I stood up from my seat and went where he pointed, facing him. He just looked at me, and waited. I was paralysed.

After a while, the woman stood up behind me, and lifted my blouse over my head like you would a child's when preparing to give them a bath. The man gave a gasp. The little kid scurried and seat himself in my old seat.

"Hey you!" yelled his mother. Then turning to her daughter "Pick him up and go to the other compartment, the both of you".

Her eyes glared angrily.
"But mother!"
"No buts!"
"But I want to see her all naked!"
"Go! This is grown-up business here, and you're not a grown up yet."
"I bleed just as well as anyone!" the girl protested. Her mother simply grabbed her by the hair, lifted her off her seat and threw her in the general direction of her brother. She caught her balance, grabbed the kid and went out the door. There we were, in the silence : me, the man and my benefactor. My good Samaritan.

"Take your boots off!" I heard. My hands were still above my head, were the blouse left them. I bent over to undo my boots.
"Turn a little this way, let's see those juicy titties better" I heard. So I turned a little that way.
"Let me help you with those socks", the man said. Put your foot right here", he said slapping his leg. So I did, and he peeled my sock off and folded it neatly on the seat next to him, and then we did the same with the other foot.

I was standing there, barefoot in the ancient train compartment, topless, unable to move. I looked away from the man's gaze, towards the door, and sure enough there they were : the little kid with his mouth handing open, the mischevious girl giving me a triumphant look, as if to say "You're nothing like me, you're nothing but a slut. I'm a respectable girl and will be a wife soon. You're a whore and will be a whore for the rest of your life."

"Take off your pants" I heard. I was stuck. After a while I felt the woman's hands reach from behind, undo my belt. My slacks fell to the ground, and I stepped out of them.

"Holy Moly! Jus' look at her!" said the man. I looked down, and I saw my juices were running freely. My panties were soaked, completely soaked. They might as well not have been there at all. Then he stood up, suddenly.

"W... What are you going to do?" I stuttered.

"You promised me your panties. So I’m just gonna take them from you." he said.

I looked over my shoulder to the woman to see if I was going to get any kind of support or help in keeping him off, but as our eyes met, she just said.

"Well you did agree."
"Now go kneel on that seat" he pointed. "Face the wall".

I climbed in the middle seat.

"Push your bum up in the air", he said. "Round it nicely like that. Lower the small of your back. There you go".

Then I felt his hands on my hips, grabing hold of my panties and dragging them down my hips. And then my entire body jolted as I felt his coarse, caloused finger on my lower lips.

"Hey!" I said softly without turning my head. "I never agreed to that..."
"Never mind agreed", he answered whimsically, "question is if you like it or not."
"She looks like she's liking it alright", volunteered the woman from far, far back, many miles upon miles away in the back somewhere. "Hey miss, would you like him to stop ? Would you ?"

I made no answer. My body was all aflame, somehow, for this total stranger. My insides were beginning to throb down there, and as I kneeled there still with my bottom up in the air I felt myself sort of reclining back into his finger and sliding myself up and down on it.

"Sorry missus, but you’ll have to look out the window for a while. This here Doris is too far gone, I’m gonna have to give her a good seeing to, otherwise she’ll be dropping her knickers for the first bloke that touches her."
"You have her knickers, don't go forgetting that now", said the woman. "As for me, I've seen the ram on the farm enough for two lives, pay me no mind."

There was no sign of anyone getting my opinion; I was just the one he was thinking of fucking! I didn't look, but I felt his manhood kiss my lips and then the next breath he was buried in me to the hilt. He reached around and grabbed at my breast, gave two or three pumps and then I felt his hot, searing juice flooding me. The man collapsed on his seat and I was left there, bum high in the air, so unsatisfied.

I was no virgin by then, of course, but I hadn't had so very much of it yet, and I guess I never had had a good fucking just yet. I didn't realise, then, that this isn't how it's supposed to go at all. After a pause while I gathered my wits and my breath, and the dull aching in my loins subsided to a sort of low, glazy hum, the woman spoke again

"Alright missy, let's get you cleaned up. This is what you do, you get a handkerchief like this" and she held one of my hankies from my trunk, "then you twist it around your two fingers like this, and squeeze it in like this" she said displaying the maneuver for my benefit and then sticking her finger inside me like she would be cleaning a fish. "Now clamp down! Hard!" she said, and then extracted the soaked thing from within my vagina. "There you go, good as new", she said.
"Should I be getting dressed now ?" I asked faintly, with raspy breath.
"Naw honey, I very much doubt he's done with you yet", she answered.
"Damn straight" the man blurted out, "I'm not done with you. Not by a damn sight. There's at least two hours still to go of this ride, and believe you me missy you'll be riding the whole way. Jus' let me catch my breath a little bit and you'll see."

I settled limply in my seat, with my legs curled under me.

"Now listen here", the man interjected, "the deal was no hiding anything. Spread your legs wide so your everything is in plain view, you hear ?"
Just then, the girl opened the door and stuck her head in
"Mum, Tommy's asleep in the other compartment, may I please come in and watch ? Please !"
"Eh... what the hell. You're going to have to learn all about it sometime anyway. Better learn from another's experience, as they say."

With that, the young shit gave me a triumphant look and sat herself right across from me. I pushed my panties down my ankles and handed them off to the man, then spread my legs like he wanted. You could see anything of mine, and plainly at that. He sniffed my knickers and tucked them away in his pocket. A minute later his pants bulged again, so he stood up, dropped his pants, grabbed my legs like you please, hooked my knee over his shoulder and began to pound me like I were a side of beef.

It was a little painful at first, but soon something deep inside was awakened by the power of his thrusts. My eyes were rolling in my head without me and my whole head was bobbing of its own accord on the seat. The little shit reclined, scooted her bum lower and lifted her foot on my seat, then spent her time trying to get her boot in my mouth. After a while, she turned to her mother and went

"Look mum, she is licking the soles of my boots. The slut".

Just as she was saying that something happened to me for my first time in my life, like an explosion down there.

"Bloody hell, she's just pissed all over me!" screamed the man in utter disbelief.
"That's not piss, you silly sod."
"Oh ye ? What is it then ?"
"That is London Mist."

1. I'd give a link to the source, but unfortunately you can't practically link usenet in the web and I don't particularly wish to encourage the retarded practice of the numerous, dubious, nameless websites which simply copy everything and present it as "their" content, on the grounds that "their" readership is too stupid to either notice anything or know anything prior. And no, it's not just Literotica doing it, everyone's doing it, it's the GFY business model. Which, much like the WF business model, stinks.

   Can't the web get anything right, I wonder ? Think about it, of all the numerous countless endless shit happening on :80, none is either very good or very important. Http is like the new TV or something, and this observation is perhaps important even without following it up to its obvious conclusion (namely, that anything which attracts a large mass of the people is by that very fact broken and unworthy. Only shit attracts most flies, after all. [↩]

2. The actual lord John Thomas, Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd was at the time of this story's writing either a High Court Judge (hence the barony) or else a Lord Justice of Appeal. Meanwhile the man's career has progressed, and a couple months back was appointed to succeed as Lord Chief Justice, with a life peerage. It seems improbable, if not impossible, that he would be the actual author of this writ. Perhaps a more adventurous apellant may summon the courage to ask him sometime.

   There's also a John Thomas of Arkansas, executive director of Ozark Camp and Conference Center, a youth camp and retreat center. This seems more likely, but not very much, as it'd be indeed rare for a guy from Arkansas to have mastered the English language quite to the degree displayed in this piece.

   In all likeliness, it's just some anon Briton who decided to use that name in commemoration of whatever ruling of the judge which was somehow relevant to him, and that's that. You can perhaps contact him at lord_john_thomas@hotmail.com, provided hotmail is still a thing. [↩]

3. Contemporary ultraspecialisation has rendered the general population incapable of appreciating things in terms of other things, which is how we end up with clearly delineated terrorists and freedom fighters, as well as incredibly bad pornography. It's not supposed to tell the story of how Alice gets fucked, after all, is it ? It's not literature, it's porn!!

   Well... not quite. People are still people, stories are still stories, and literature still rules it all. The purely waspish divide between what everyone everywhere cares about (sex) and what everyone everwhere talks about (advertisements) is, in my considered opinion, the cause and reason of the cultural collapse of the US. [↩]

4. Which has been pretty much driven out of existence by the US obsessive implementation of a bad French idea, namely copyrights, much like the Middle East has been driven out of habitability by the US obsessive implementation of another bad French idea, namely its foreign policy. In fact, if you are looking for the methods through which the cultural collapse of the US has been enacted into civilisational collapse, the thing topping the list pretty much is "obsessively implementing bad French ideas". C'est la vie.

   Anyway, most of literature (which word pointedly excludes any author on the NYT list for the past five or more decades) is the product of rewriting. El Curioso Impertinente is not the work of Cervantes, it was merely rewritten by Cervantes, as it had been rewritten before, numerous times by numerous people. This process, of constantly rewriting the story, by multiple hands, is both the only manner in which creative writing can be effectually taught (and no, if your "creative writing" class does not include a "rewrite King Lear to make paedophillia look good" you're wasting your money on the tuition, and are learning no writing and nothing creative) and effectually enacted.

   No literature was ever created by its author. We, humanity generally, don't give a shit about the obscure nonsense produced by idle, marginal hands. Stories become literature once we are well familiar with them, which is why people care about Shakespeare's excellent rewrite of an ancient Romanian folk tale, and people don't read your shitty "creative" blog. Learn to rewrite, you might start to matter in the dialogue of minds that creates the substance of literature. And if your friend doesn't offer to rewrite your writing, they're not your literary friend. [↩]

5. This early usage being, of course, what inspired the later government paperwork, or so Watson says. [↩]
6. Fart. [↩]