Harlots

Hello, pa.

‐ see you soon, Mr. Benjamin. ‐ thank you, kitty.

I've got Harris's list.

Give it back!

Give it back!

You shouldn't be reading that, you virgin.

Give it back, stop!

Let's see what's in here about you girls.

Here's yours, Fanny.

"Miss Fanny lambert."

The very thing in winter for those who love

a fat, jolly girl,

a fine, bouncing crummy wench,

"and not amiss in summer, barring perspiration."

Does it say I stink?

Perspire doesn't mean stink.

Yeah, it does.

Here's kitty's.

I've read mine already.

I'm appealing.

Appalling‐ ‐ read mine.

No, Emily, wait your turn.

"Betsey Fletcher, Russell street."

This girl is new upon the town,

"having been debauched not six months ago."

She's one of Nancy's girls.

What's in there for Nancy?

Fanny, kitty, you're both wanted.

Culls are waiting.

"Nancy birch, Russell street."

"When flagellation is required,"

she acquits herself to the entire satisfaction

"of her cull."

Read your sister's.

"Miss Charlotte Wells."

"Her extravagance would scatter the fortune"

of any but the most ambitious keeper.

But her eyes dart delight.

Her bosom enchants to rapture,

"and her wit makes her the very meteor of the hour."

I'll be in there next year.

I doubt it.

You ma keeps you cosseted up like a baby.

She's waiting for the right cull.

Better get a move on.

‐ you're losing your shine. ‐ what, like you have?

Read mine.

"Miss Emily Lacey."

A wretched piece,

nasty, disagreeable,

Snuffy letch

"without even one good quality."

It doesn't say that.

"Walks like a parrot..."

"And swears like a drunken drab."

When the time comes, i hope your quim splits.

Emily Lacey!

All of you.

I've got an officer out there with such hard prickstand

he can hardly walk.

Mr. gibbon's arrived to ponder the riddle of the female,

and you're all sitting in here

on your goods like pecking hens.

Take me to the circle of bliss!

Emily, go and service Mr. Holland before he expires.

Eat fast.

Scrub up.

Stop vexing my best girl.

I need you to play.

She's as pure as the snow on St. Paul's.

What's your price, so I may have her?

You're a valued patron, Mr. gibbon,

so you'll pardon my candor

when I tell you you'll mount that harpsichord

before you have my daughter.

Clawing your way up in the world?

I'm soon taking a fine new house,

in soho.

Greek street.

When we're settled there,

I'll be taking sealed bids for Lucy's virginity.

Twenty‐ five pounds to have her now.

Sealed bids.

As I did for Charlotte, my older daughter.

She is one of the brightest stars in London's firmament.

And I intend no less for Lucy.

Miss lambert, at last.

Fanny, the lieutenant would Cherish a voyage

on your peaks.

At your service.

I'll give you thirty pounds to have her,

now on that stool.

That's out of the question.

‐ forty. ‐ I know her value.

Fifty.

Fifty pounds.

Lucy?

What is keeping miss Carter?

What a hell‐ bound spider you are.

I'm clawing my way upwards in the world, Mr. gibbon,

not down.

"At Lydia Quigley's house of earthly delights,"

Michelangelo himself could not do justice

"to the perfect alabaster of miss pettifer's bosom."

The musk, madame.

That's most gratifying.

I'm sure I don't deserve it.

The French piece.

Read hers.

"Miss d'aubigne, golden square, soho."

It says here you're dead behind the eyes!

Charles?

Morte derrière les yeux.

I want eager zeal, comprends?

Or you'll go to the pimps of cheapside

and you won't be smiling then!

She says that from now on,

she'll be the very spirit of joy.

We're rehearsing a tableau, mama.

Diana, bathing with her nymphs; Look.

The Duke of cumberland is bringing his retinue

after the play.

Make sure he gets anything he wants.

Where are you going?

To watch the sport in covent garden.

"This radiant, young votary of Venus"

possesses between her lithesome legs

"a gateway to the temple of bliss..."

That's me.

I'm bliss, I'm radiant...

I'm sunk in lust and lechery.

What is the cost to my soul?

Five shillings.

Go home to your wife, ned.

Cleanse these streets

with the fire and purity in our hearts!

The fornicators, the adulterers, the abusers of themselves,

the child‐ stealers, and all the abominations of sodom...

They have taken our great city and sunk it

in the vilest sin.

God lights his righteous fire tonight.

The burning of the harlots!

Burning!

Margaret!

They're coming for us!

We will cleanse these streets

with a fire of purity.

It is god's work we do tonight.

Let us pray that we do it well.

They've never touched us, all the years we've been here.

I'll hold them off.

Open the door in the name of the king!

Wait a while!

Why wake Christian people in the middle of the night?

Feel god's righteous fire!

Burn, harlots!

Burn, you sinners!

Will you walk with me?

If we seem a couple, they might not arrest me.

I'm sorry.

Please, Mr. oswald!

Jacob, son.

Up to the attic and hide.

Open the door!

It pains me to tell you that the constables have come.

I haven't finished yet‐ ‐ curse you!

I need to get you out.

What is it, what is it, what do we do?

Go out the back, lieutenant.

Get these on.

Who dares interfere with an englishman’s right

to go whoring?

Mr. Holland,

set yourself straight!

Think of the safety of these girls!

We should run, let's run!

No‐ ‐ if you run, you'll be rape‐ fodder!

Go to Charlotte

and tell her what's happening.

Get yourself straight, girls.

Open the door!

Open the door.

Margaret Wells, i am charging you

under the disorderly houses act of 1752,

that you do keep an obscene and bawdy house‐ ‐.

You lie, and your warrant is a trumped‐ up sham!

Get your hands off my tenants!

Charlotte...

Howard!

I've ridden hard to be with you.

Now you must ride harder.

How I have pined for you.

Night after night, all alone!