[Carey Akin]

cheap scent, but
nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or
could be imagined as doing so. Only the proles used scent. In his mind the
smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication.
When he had gone with that woman it had been his first lapse in two
years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course,
but it was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to
break. It was dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be
caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not
more, if you had committed no other offence. And it was easy enough,
provided that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters
swarmed with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could even be
purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink.
Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet
for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery did
not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless and only
involved the women of a submerged and despised class. The unfo