Mattie Johnson

There are two ways I could begin this story, and they would appeal to two very different audiences.

 

‘Mattie Johnson was widely renowned as the greatest whore in Newtown,’ is one option, though I fear it might put off more discerning readers and attract those with little interest in serious literature.

 

‘Mattie Johnson had a passion for steam trains,’ is the other option – again an opening likely to scare off discerning readers and attract entirely the wrong sort.

 

But this story is about whores as much as it is about steam trains. For Mattie Johnson was the daughter of one of the first engine drivers, there at the dawn of the age of steam. From the age of 11 she could strip an engine down to its component parts and put it back together again – fixing any problems she encountered as she did so.

 

But revolutionary though the first days of steam were, they were also deeply conservative, and when her father died, killed by a runaway train, there was no work to be had for a girl engineer. The only career open to her was the oldest profession, so it was not engines that she stripped every night from the tender age of 15.

 

Not that Mattie complained.The Newtown whorehouse was well run and above board. The girls made a healthy profit, saving for their retirements and not forced to work excessive hours. Indeed, because Mattie only needed to work at night, she was able to retain her interest in trains and spent every daylight hour helping out at the local railway.

 

Mattie was not just an engineer, though. She had a business brain. She saw that the single line that ran through the town, connecting it to BigTown, would not be enough. The goods being produced by the town’s new factories were in high demand. The factories, in turn, were desperate for more coal, more raw materials. She foresaw the need for at least five additional lines, to connect Newtown to the nearest sea port and at least four other nearby towns.

 

But she also knew that there was little money to be made investing in railways. Her father had told her all about the failing companies that had sprung up with the new technologies, she had herself witnessed the fall of half a dozen fledgling enterprises.

But there was money in steam all the same. To be exact, there was money in steam engines. Any railway, whether or not it was doomed to failure, needed trains. And there weren’t enough being made. It was a rare skill and a business that needed substantial investment to get off the ground.

 

So rather than squander their earnings on gin and babies, as was the norm in their profession, Mattie persuaded her fellow whores  to pool resources to found Girls of Steam, a company that she would run, building rail engines and selling them to the new rail companies.

 

Mattie had all the right connections, a business head and engineering skills. With the money the girls had saved they had enough to turn the rear of the whorehouse into an engine yard. In their spare time, which was most of the day, Mattie taught her fellow whores the basics of engineering and within a matter of months their company had built its first train.

 

The girls had a lucky break. The director of one of the new rail companies became a regular customer of Sally J, who persuaded the man, by means of kisses in every place imaginable, to purchase the trains he required from Girls of Steam.

 

Their first sale proved an important showcase for the high quality of their engines, which soon gained a reputation for reliability and ease of use. Companies were equally attracted by the competitive prices, enabled by the fact that the girls were combining two jobs, and the ‘additional services’ offered by the company.

In no time at all Girls of Steam was outselling all of its rivals and had become a thriving company, almost as popular as the whorehouse.

 

One consequence of the girls’ day job is that no matter how hard they washed before their night shift they were always sweaty, greasy and dirty, but there is a certain type of man who is attracted to sweaty, greasy girls with the muscles and energy of a navy and it just so happened that the men of New Town were of that persuasion, and consequently flocked to the whorehouse in even greater numbers. In no time at all both businesses were positively booming.

 

The only people to complain were the girls’ rival train builders. Their biggest rival, Hot Stuff Engines survived, having a hard-earned reputation throughout the industry, though even they struggled. Their trains were good, their prices were fair, but their ‘additional services’ were alas lacking in comparison. Still, they managed the rivalry in good spirit and rather than use underhand tactics to win back trade, they issued a challenge. The upcoming contract for the Coastal Railway Company would be decided by a race. Whichever company’s train travelled the distance of the newly-built line the fastest would win the contract.

 

The race became a great entertainment for the town and a public holiday was declared. Both trains were given the same amount of coal and every other effort was taken to ensure neither train enjoyed any advantage over the other and at 12.00 noon precisely the Mayor dropped his handkerchief, signifying that the race should begin. With two enormous bursts of steam, the trains clunked into gear, before speeding away.

 

Both trains were soon travelling at admirable speed, and neither engine seemed under any strain at all. The girls had to work hard to keep up with their rivals as they shovelled coal onto the fiery furnace of the engine, but managed to keep up. After ten miles there was barely a feather’s breadth to separate the two trains. It was going to be quite a race.

 

However, as the trains neared Newtown a problem became apparent. Both trains travelling far faster than anticipated and consequently both were running short of coal. Unless both trains slowed to snails pace the trains were going to run out of fuel and stop short of the station – which would be a major embarrassment to both companies and could cost them both the lucrative contract.

 

The men from Hot Stuff had an idea. They removed their clothes, throwing them on the fire and enabling a burst of speed that took them ahead of their rival.

 

“Well, it’s not as if nobody’s ever seen us naked,” Mattie said, and the girls removed their clothes, including their undergarments, and threw them onto the furnace. A cloud of steam signalled that they were back on course and their train crept into the lead.

 

Distracted only momentarily by the unexpected nude show, the wily old mechanics searched around for possible sources of fuel and found a bag of oily rags, they had used over the years to clean the engines. These were thrown onto the fire and their engine sneaked back into the lead.

 

It so happened that the girls had, over the years, collected several sacks full of ‘used’ handkerchiefs, left behind by satisfied customers. These they threw onto the fire just as the two trains approached the final leg of the journey, and the crowds massed at the station witnessed the girls’ train overtake its rival on the final stretch, as the fire greedily consumed the soiled kerchiefs.

 

Naked, oil-black and sweaty, the whores emerged from the train to the cheers of the men of the town, before these were silenced and dragged away by their wives.

 

The men of the rival company were gracious in defeat and each man hugged each of the victorious women in turn, in some cases for several minutes at a time, before makeshift clothing was found to cover all the participants.

 

News of the race, and the whore-ran company, led to national interest in the trains of both the whores and of their plucky challengers, and Girls of Steam and HotStuff were soon overrun with orders.

 

Alas, so successful was the train company that the whorehouse closed for business, but at least there was a regular train service now to the whorehouses in the nearby towns and, for all the men and boys in the town, the image of the dozen naked, blackened, sweaty whores dancing a jig of joy along the station platform, as they celebrated their win, will remain in their memory long after most other events have long been forgotten.