The Flower Arrangement. Adelaide Cole

      I came into the Riggs household in the winter of 1903, when I was seventeen years old. I’d done nicely selling flowers in the London markets for a year, but a cold, wet summer had wreaked havoc on all the farmers, and I couldn’t buy any decent blooms to sell. The big sellers snatched them up and left the rest of us with naught. Sachets of dried lavender and hyssop hardly paid the rent. I resorted to dirty char work, which paid little. I could barely pay for my room and certainly had no money to heat it. Then my luck changed. I had sold roses and sweet pea in Covent Garden Market with a girl named Margaret, and it was thanks to her that I found a new undertaking. Margaret had been hired to cook for a household, and she brought me there.

      After Margaret left Covent Garden we still had a pint together sometimes. She knew that I was on my own and she thought me a hardworking girl, which I was, and she knew I needed a better wage. In fact, I considered my industriousness my best quality, alongside pretty, brown curls, of course. She gave me a stellar reference when Missus Riggs began looking for a live-in house servant. I am forever grateful. Being taken into that household changed my fortune.

      I hadn’t wanted to return to the countryside, where I had some family. A village was no place for an independent girl. I would be expected to marry and that would be that. I simply knew that I would lose all the pleasures and freedoms of my life. I’d likely be treated as a maid, but without the earnings!

      I was happy in London. The working girls in the city markets were a delight, and we were truly family to one another. The city wasn’t without its perils, and some surely fell to those hazards, but I was careful in every way. I had lost my mother to pneumonia, and my brother had left the city to apprentice as a stonemason. Our father had abandoned us many years before. I suffered losses to be sure, but on the other hand I was free to decide my life quite by myself. I could make my own successes—and failures!—and I had only myself to answer to. I needn’t worry about a family reputation, or of pleasing others.

      I tried to be careful and clever, as a girl had to be in order to avoid the dangers and pitfalls of the city. I’d seen other girls led into drink and drugs, disease, begging and even prostitution. I was determined to stay independent and childless. I wanted a better life, and I needed to secure savings for my goal: a flower shop of my own. The world was opening up to women, and I knew I had a chance.

      I had advantages. I was pretty. I had big green eyes and a lovely ivory skin tone. I had a good, round bosom, which I took advantage of for flower selling. And my beauty wasn’t just good for my livelihood, but for fun as well! Like my girlfriends, I loved a romp with the lads. I enjoyed lifting my skirts for a hot, wet fuck with a handsome boy.

      Delicious! We working girls could do such things. We didn’t have family reputations to concern ourselves with, but we had to have our wits about us in every way. Who knew that my job in the Riggs household would combine two of my talents: flowers and a good fuck.

      So I was introduced to the household by Margaret. Missus Riggs was involved in charitable causes about town, and she needed to have the house kept up. Her three small children were looked after by the nanny, Olive. We three working girls shared a room beside the kitchen, which suited us nicely. Our small space was warm and clean and I had nothing to complain about. Margaret and Olive were chatty, and the household was a friendly place and there was enough to eat. We were lucky, indeed. I cleaned, did the washing, ran errands, served meals and dealt with the tradesmen. It was a lovely house on a quiet, tree-lined street, and I dreamed of living like that one day. I knew I could if I applied myself and worked hard.

      Master Riggs was an officer in the Royal Navy. He had served abroad and now was stationed in London. I saw him occasionally, as he came and went, and only by a glance when I served the meals. He cut a powerful figure in uniform, and was a handsome man. I liked to sneak a look at him. His starched white shirts fell off his shoulder blades and emphasized strong shoulders; and I could see the shape of his slim ass under his trousers. He had deep blue eyes and thick, dark hair. But in any case, I answered to Margaret or the Missus and my path crossed little with his.

      Doing chores, I imagined running my hands over hard muscles...his hands squeezing my ass...his full lips on mine...undoing his trousers and taking his hard cock into my mouth. I would take a deep breath, squeeze my pulsing cunt between my thighs and beat a rug very hard to relieve myself of such frustration. “What energy you have, my girl!” said Margaret, standing at the kitchen window, seeing me return inside with freshly beaten carpets.

      Sometimes, on an evening out, I would stop by one of my lads in a pub in the market. I’d twirl a soft, brown curl with my finger, and run my tongue over my open lips just enough to encourage a sweaty romp in his room. We would roll about, his sweaty flesh to mine. I imagined it was Master Riggs caressing and squeezing my tits....and that it was his cock diving into the warm, pink flesh of my pussy.

      The devil makes work of idle hands, and over the months those excursions allowed me to stay out of any trouble and concentrate on work. And I wasn’t only drawn to Master Riggs, but I also had to keep myself from the handsome tradesmen who came to and fro. A simple effort with the fat butcher and the scrawny milkman, but by the summertime it was not so easy to leave off the virile carpenter who was around the yard for days on end, with his shirt off and the summer sun making sweat glisten off firm, undulating muscle.

      “Why did you close the curtains, Emma?” Cook asked, looking at me as though I were mad. “It’s not even midday. Besides, summer sun is fleeting.”

      “Sorry, Margaret,” I replied. “I was dusting there. I must have forgotten to open them again,” I replied. Why, indeed? I could hardly tell her that the sight of the olive-toned flesh of the half-naked tradesman in the yard was making me lose my breath, could I?

      Time passed like that, and I was proud of my work. By the time autumn turned to winter I was given more responsibility and a raise in my salary from the Missus. I saved my earnings and envisioned a day when I might have my shop. The idea even began to regularly occupy my thoughts. My own shop! Such independence!

      One gray and wet autumn afternoon I was sweeping the floors and polishing woodwork in the Master’s study, when he came in. “Good afternoon, sir,” I said, continuing my work.

      “Yes...good day, Emma...” he replied in a preoccupied way. He stood in the doorway, seeming to look at his own feet. My heart began to beat hard as I felt his presence on the red Persian carpet. The sounds amplified in my head, of the rain hitting the windowpanes and of my heart beating. Silly girl, I thought, he’s taking no notice of you. No need for such theatrics! I continued my work.

      Then I heard the door close and the key turn in the lock. I stole a quick glance and saw that he was inside. Indeed, he was preoccupied with something. He went to his desk. Where was everyone? I wondered. In fact, the Missus was at the dressmaker’s, and Cook would have been quite occupied at that hour with lunch preparations. The children were at the park with Nanny. I realized that Master Riggs and I were quite alone.

      But when I gathered my things and turned to leave, I turned and found him looking straight into my eyes. Our eyes locked together for the first time ever, but he was quite silent. “Uh...” I stammered out. “Can I do something for you, sir?”