IPB-128 White Slave by Author Unknown


Chapter 1


Margaret Sorenson spilled another quarter-cup of Spic 'n Span into the 
plastic wash bucket and swirled it around with her delicate hand, 
feeling the grit instantly dissolve into sterile suds. She churned the 
suds to life and dipped her scrub brush into the hot soapy water to 
continue the humble task of scrubbing years of accumulated wax from the 
yellowed floor of her landlord's kitchen. Her modest red and white 
checkered house dress, still speckled with furniture polish from 
yesterday's house cleaning, pulled across her lap to expose her slim 
thighs. Margaret poked a finger to tuck a strand of blonde hair behind 
her nape-tied scarf and, wiping a purling drop of sweat from her 
unwrinkled brow with a swipe of her sudsy hand, sat up to admire the 
rewards of her plebeian task. In an arm's stretch semi-circle around 
her, an oasis of white glistened in a desert of sandy yellow. Another 
two hours of sweating and scrubbing and backache, and she would have 
worked off one week's rent here at her Geary Street apartment in 
downtown San Francisco. But the thirty-eight year old woman refused to 
complain; at least she had a roof over her head, which was a lot more 
than many women in her situation could brag of.

The proud Swede had seen many an unfortunate woman in the social 
security collection lines. Single women, many not over forty, bent and 
stunted from malnutrition and medical neglect, a hive of buzzing, 
scraggly children at each side, pulling on her work-wearied body, each 
claiming a part of a mother who hadn't the energy left to enjoy her 
blessing of motherhood. And in the welfare lines too ... unkempt, dirty 
hair, worn-down heels on blistering over-sized shoes bought for a 
quarter at St. Vincent de Paul's. The poverty and humility brought 
tears to Margaret's eyes. No, she would never resort to such poverty, 
even now in her widowed years. She would work off her debts with honest 
physical labor and not complain how many backaching hours it took to 
satisfy Roger Blasser's insistent demands.

After all, as landlord's go, he had been sympathetic enough to 
appreciate her dour situation since Sandor was killed in the 
construction accident down south of Market Street. Then, too, her 
poverty was only a temporary inconvenience; the union lawyers were 
working overtime trying to get a court date to settle the lawsuit 
involving Sandor Sorenson's needless death in the explosion that 
rocketed him twenty feet in the air to crash on the steel beams still 
loaded on the flat-bed truck below. When the case was finally settled, 
the union lawyers anticipated a $500,000 settlement for his death, plus 
another $100,000 for her trauma and personal loss; that didn't include 
either of Sandor's two life insurance policies that would come due in 
two months.


End of Page 1. See ipb-128.txt for full story.