HYSTERIA
by
Eva Gale
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Eva Gale on Smashwords
Hysteria
Copyright © 2009 by Eva Gale
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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HYSTERIA
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England, 1860
Mother tied my corset too tight again today. I try to blow out my stomach like a horse getting cinched, but she knows my trick and hoists her skirts up to dig her knobbled knee into my back while she pulls my laces taut.
She must get me ready for my Doctor appointment, and I cannot dare let my excitement show. So I lie abed and refuse my tea and only when she pinches my arms so tight that tears come to my eyes do I promise I’ll be good and do as she bids. But I dawdle and fuss until she swears that I’m the most horrid child and that she should have let Leery take me to the trolls.
I’m not a child, though I act it. I am five and twenty this December past.
I should be married at this advanced age but no man would have me for they all know madness runs deep in my family. My father speaks to specters like they were corporeal and his brother and their father before them. But my mother’s father did not care she would give him demented grandchildren. He did not care about his sickly daughter who would by miracle not die in giving birth to her only living child. The old fool only cared that his horses would be stock to the best stud in England.
And so I am worthless.
There are no horses anymore, my father gave them away to save his soul from Sheol when the Priests came to drive the demons from him. He now converses with Lucifer all the while mother is brandishing a hot iron toward my skin swearing she will burn me if I am not ready in time.
I would die without my weekly treatments, and if I showed the least bit of joy in them she would celebrate my recovery.
My hysteria runs deeper than a month’s worth of treatment can cure.
So I let her pinch me and I pretend to cry.
She yanks my dress down over my head so hard the buttons get tangled in my hair and though I shriek she does not pause a moment. She scolds and laughs and tells me I’m mad like my father.
I agree I am. I would have to be to so willingly go to what can only be my shame. But if I am shamed, then so are the others that sit next to me on the hard benches not meeting one another’s eyes. Not even when their names are quietly called do they look up, for they know what is to happen and cannot break their concentration of rebellion or relief would come all too quickly.
We sit on the bench, thighs pressed tight all of us hoping that we may last a half hour, or an hour full if dreams be made real.
Mother now pierces my scalp with pins and I jump like I should. If she only knew what a good girl I truly was.
Twenty minutes more and my skin flushes.
Maybe cook has spoilt milk I could sneak to keep my mind from straying but losing my stomach would not be acceptable, Doctor would send me home. I would find another way. This day I had my sight set on forty-five minutes.
Four full minutes longer than last.
My mind is singularly set on this and I will not falter. Not even when Doctor tsk tsk’s and threatens to manually treat me.
I close my eyes and my breath comes in shallow pants.
This will never do.
Mother pulls my earlobe and yells for me to pay attention and I obey. Oh, I do, I must, and at this moment she is the Blessed Madonna come to answer my prayers. She does not let go and I refrain from kissing her pocked cheek, and she directs me out the door and to the hall tree where my coat hangs.
Now I have made her more angry and it is all for good that I missed my breakfast. My hunger will keep my focus sharp and dull my need.
She does not bother to stop and put the coat on, or hers either, she loads me into the ramshackle coach like a crate of chickens for market and I dare not complain for fear I may have pushed her too far and she keep us home.
The horses clop down the cobblestones and I try my utmost to not let my thighs touch but they do and the tiniest quivers begin like a breeze ruffling feathers. I stomp on my mother’s toes and she screeches and drives her elbow into my side, taking my breath away.
I grunt with the sharp pain of trying to take a breath and feel the carriage sway left around a corner.
Only a few moments more.
I know their names, the girls that sit in that hopeful desolate room. I know them all and I would wager they know mine. Under my lashes I spy upon them and they me. I see the pursed mouths of the mothers, sisters or cousins that have been assigned the task of companion on these trips. Their pursed mouths and furrowed brows as they sit and lightly chat about if spring will come, how the hawker shorted them or the butcher turned the spoilt part down so that they would not see. But behind their eyes I see the curious shame. They are all mothers, they understand the mechanics, but not the need as they lie under their heaving husbands with tears in their hair.
No, it is more to my shame that I dance around my room the nights before treatment, I dare not touch myself those nights though I can hardly breathe without thinking on it. I only allow myself this persecution two nights after, and then I must make it hastily as possible. I cannot let anything detract, you see.
The carriage jerks to a halt and my voice catches. I fall against my mother and she buffets my shoulder and I feign to sit back down but she has grabbed my hand like a manacle and hauls me out. My feet hardly catch up with my body as she tows me inside the huge black door. We are timely, but not near soon enough for Lornea’s appointment is before mine and she has no self control.
Mother, as well as I, knows that Lornea is the quickest of the lot and deemed on her way to recovery. Lornea’s mind is too weak to withstand, and her sorrow at her lack of control is plain in her tears and she shuffles out of the room each week. Despite any sympathy shown she is inconsolable and I want to laugh at the reserved approval shown her.
May that I be cursed forevermore with this blessed disease.
I no more place my coat upon my arm than does Lornea open the door, the Doctor on her heels with his arm outstretched. Lornea’s cousin accepts his enthusiastic handshake and his voice booms of her cure and his true happiness for her continued mental health.
Lornea, poor lemming caught in the net. She should cry and show it for happiness, for that is all that is left to her.
The secretary calls my name and I watch the black and white tiles pass under me. I smell the iodine and under it the scent of Lornea’s release. It is familiar to me now as my own. I move behind the curtain. This is as much as I will give.
The Doctor walks in and locks the door behind him. I shiver but stand still.
“You should endeavor to become as well as Lornea,” he says as he straightens the sheet on the table.
God forbid.
I spy the horse in the corner and I can feel myself slip.
It is a man’s rod which sticks straight into the air like a proud fist and I wish to be strapped to it again. I have tried, and am left to wonder if the Doctor was in a foul mood the day he ordered me astride. Would that someone vex him such again. Sometimes when I touch myself I remember the rock and thrust of the mechanical device.
But I have slipped.
“Constance, I am too elated to be cross with a soul today, so let’s be about business,” he says as he pats the table.
I want to leash him like mother but it would not be for the same effect and so I employ what I have.
I pull my gloves off and place them on the dented wooden chair provided. I open the curtain more so that he knows when to assist me and I look behind me over my shoulder. He comes, as I know he will and his fingers apply to the buttons with efficiency. I peel the dress off and fold it precisely. My petticoats and drawers follow it and I am left in my corset, its cover and my stockings. Today I am hot and my nipples irritated so I untie the cover and fold it too. I look down and flush. They are as rigid as the mechanical horse’s rod and they give me away.
The Doctor beckons me to him and I pause to make a liar out of my body.
“Come now, you will never recover unless you incline yourself to treatment.”
I walk as slowly as I can to him and he shakes his head in apparent disapproval. I ease myself against the table and I’m glad Lornea’s heat has left it. The cold services me more. It is hard for me to set myself up while I wear the corset and the Doctor lifts me and carries my legs up.
His hands are warm on my hot skin and the cold table reminds me of my role.
“Lie back now, that’s it.”
I do and close my eyes, trying not to anticipate.
The clip of his shoes travels across the room and back. I hold my knees together tight and he rests his hand on them, easing them apart. Later they will fall at my sides, but now I only give him enough room to spread my nethers and the cold rubber spear pushes in, just the tip at first for the Doctor believes that patience will make for a more robust outcome. We are of one mind in this and I submit to the entry of his instrument.
The blunt head of the instrument stretches my sex and its icy chill is a stark opposition to my internal fires. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Slowly he penetrates me. He may think his action is generous and particularly gentle, but already I am agonized and fantasize he is pummeling my sex. My insides clench so tight around the rod pauses in its ascent and the Doctor nods his approval. I am not happy at all and I dig the nail of my thumb deep into the skin of my thigh where he cannot spy my movement.
“Breathe,” Doctor says blandly as he pushes the rod to its goal.
I do, in a great whoosh of breath that leaves my lungs surprising me with its ferocity.
Doctor looks at his timepiece and nods. “Good, good.”
There is no use of this. I need a new tack and I decide to empty my thoughts so as to make the rod demand a response from me. Alas the Doctor has impaled me with it now and I want to groan with my relief but I hold still. He begins to twist it inside me, clockwise and counter while he pushes in even strokes of ten. I know this rhythm, it was the first to send me to a fit, and I can tell he wants to be done with me already. But I have girded myself against this onslaught and I hold myself back.
“Relax.” His cool dry hand brushes the outside of my thigh and I jump. Doctor shakes his head.
I remember to breathe again as he slows his tempo. Slowly in and out, twisting up and down. He pauses, almost letting the tip slip outside my nether lips and my breath catches.
I am slick now. I can feel how my juices ease the pumping of the instrument but I want for more.
I close my eyes and decline my verbs. Amo, amas, amat, amamous, amatis, amant. I love…I need... I touch...
It gains me an iota of control for the moment, but there is a slight pause in rhythm and I open my eyes to see Doctor switching hands.
It takes everything within me to stay on the table and I measure my breathing.
Doctor’s other hand descends upon my nether lips and he starts to manually manipulate me.
I would be unaffected, but he knows what pushes me beyond my bounds. Doctor does not stop the slow insertion and withdrawal of the instrument, but adds to this delicious torment by cupping his hand around the base and rubbing my spot with the heel of his hand.
My knees fall to my sides and slick pulses start to overpower my fortitude.
“Almost.”
No…please no, but I can’t stop them. The spasm overtakes my body and I bite my tongue.
Doctor grunts his approval and slips the instrument out of me before I am even done and I want to kick him.
“You took long today Constance and I fear my ability to cure you with my treatments.”
Fear spears me. No, he cannot deny me my treatment. I would go mad for sure.
Doctor walks the instrument over to a glass jar with blue liquid and drops it in. “There is another Doctor I feel may help you more. His treatments are a bit different and I feel he could greatly improve your…disposition.”
Trepidation and excitement war within me.
“He has just graduated medical school, and his name is Doctor Drake. Will you consent to his treatment? I will stay, of course, while he examines you.”
He pins me with his expectation. “Yes sir,” I say as my mind imagines who this Doctor is and what he will do to me. I am no fool, I know it is my familiarity with Doctor that enables my treatments and I justly fear how much a new Doctor may change my appointment outcomes.
Doctor nods. “Right then. I’m proud of your pursuit of health and I will inform Doctor Drake that you will allow his treatment of you.” He pauses, brows drawn together. “You know if you manipulate yourself you run the risk of deformation of your sex. I have warned you before.” Doctor walks to the door and slips out, leaving me stunned immobile on the table.
I ease myself up onto my elbows and slide off. The room is now chilly or maybe it is my languor. My clothes are coarse on my skin as I dress myself and I wonder if I will sleep for the next seven days.
And I know him to be a liar for if it would deform me so I would be by now.
#
On the evenings after treatments I find it hard to keep from falling asleep during my dinner. Most times mother expects me to take dinner in my room now, maybe so that I am not a continual embarrassment to her.
Mayhap Mother should seek treatment herself. She thinks it for my demented thoughts and I do not turn her eyes towards any truth or she would not hesitate to thwart my ease. If it be for demented thoughts, verily she has twice as many as I and might need to be seen thrice weekly! She would be mortified and it serves her right for she is as twisted as a hundred year tree.
Tonight I run from the carriage to my room and slam the door behind me, turning the key fiercely in its lock then turn and rest on the door.
It is all I can do but to strip my clothes off now and complete what the Doctor had not time for. Three paroxysms and he knows it. Wither he stopped to coerce my compliance in his idea for another Doctor I care not. He would have had my approval no matter, but now I am left not fully eased.
I do not have an instrument myself, only what God gave me, and I cannot produce the same effect. Still desirable, but most definitely not the same. But tonight it will not matter. Imagining what new ways this Doctor Drake will treat me will suffice it all. The worst that can happen is that he is disfigured in some way, but still it matters naught. My only goal is paroxysm and if he can produce it than that is all that matters, even if he be hunchbacked with six fingers.
My button is throbbing between my legs at the thought of it all and my drawers are steel bindings that keep it from me.
Fie! Where is that damned maid when I need her?
I push off from the wall and ring for Clarice, then unlock the door. I spin myself on the bedposts and relish how the bumps of wood slip under my hands. I have heard they make tools such as the same for instruments of personal use. Perhaps they are thick and smooth and knobbled. Perhaps the new Doctor would advise I purchase one. Oh, how I wish it were so. But it would still not suffice. I cannot do for myself the same way in which the Doctor does for me.
And how might it be moreso with a man as nature intended.
Such is not my path, and I know it, I do not fool myself. But I am a woman, and I know my body and mind and I cannot help sometimes but to wish even though it cannot be.
Yet I still do.
The door bursts open and my Mother rages in, calling me all kinds of a foul child and devious. She pummels my shoulders and I do not hide my face from her. I stand straight and hold my chin high. She pauses at my boldness but rips the key from my hands and collects herself. She goes on to say she is ashamed at my need for a new Doctor and swears that this is the last season I will have treatment. I do not doubt her, but I restrain myself and listen. Doctor told her of his idea, and she will not allow me food on the days I go for my visits. Fine. My self control has grown immeasurably and I have no doubt I can withstand her siege.
Mother turns on her heel, storms out of my room slamming the door behind her and I hear the click of the lock.
Last year had she done this I would have cried, railed at the door and mayhap bled my fingernails at the lock. But I know better now. Nothing will sway her. She believes her actions to be for my good and what parent with such pure motives ever rescinded their sentence?
Not that I care anymore. I can withstand.
I sit on the edge of my bed for a moment and try to find a shard of remorse within me. Even one mote so I can chastise myself for being the wretched child my mother calls me, but I cannot. If I had to confess all for my soul’s sake I would not tell of one sin, for I am all together too glad of my situation.
I unbutton my dress and take off all but my corset and drawers. My bindings are too tight to find any measure of comfort but I smile as I lie down and pull the covers over me.
I do not care of my discomfort, I am all too happy I confess. Excitement pours through me igniting every energy within me.
Six nights and seven days.
I smile and close my eyes. I cannot wait.
My hand snakes down between my thighs as if it is of its own mind and slides open my nether lips which are still wet from the doctor’s ministrations. I want to laugh at his stern admonitions. How I will deform myself. I wanted to laugh in is face. If it were to deform me than he would have seen the consequence of it by now.
I flick my bud and the quiver radiates throughout my limbs and I tighten my legs so the sharpness of its bite lingers. Slowly I stroke myself to the beat of my heart and clench the muscles of my nethers. My excitement is now sure, and my fingers slip slide around my sex, pausing over my pearl to tease. My corset abrades my aroused nipples and now they throb along with my pearl. Both together serve to make me frantic with wanting to paroxysm. But I hold myself off; it is how I trained myself to such control after all. Now though it is fully shredded by the imaginations of a new Doctor, and what treatment he may employ on my body.
I roll onto my stomach swiftly so the edge of passion leaves me. It works for a moment, but my fingers are now frantic thinking of the Doctor ordering me onto the horse and the renewed storm of passion pounds at my body. I brush my pearl and it is a done thing. Lightening shatters over me and pulses through my veins, ebbing as my breath reenters my body.
I lie here, my hands still between my legs, my cheek pressed to the sheet and am in awe of the power of my orgasm. How languid I now feel only serves as counterpoint to my previous frenzy.
It will be the new Doctors unspoken challenge to live up to my daydreams. My eyelids burn and feel heavy and I fall asleep.
#
Like a bride about to be taken to wife, I sit and wait for my name to be called. Mother is outside taking air and if I have slept mere hours this week past it is an exaggeration. I am nervousness and excitement warring together and if any Doctor can beckon a pleasure fit from my taut body he would likely be able to raise Lazarus from the grave also.
I have not been this anxious since my first therapy and I cannot calm myself. And shallow I may be, but I am concerned about the person of this new Doctor. If he is too handsome by far I am as unlikely to have relief as if he were grotesque, neither a good outcome.
At least Mother let me bathe last night and I am as appealing as I can make myself. Not that it will matter, but I would not have a Doctor repulsed to treat me. It is one thing that eases my mind some, but all that I cannot control threatens to bring me to tears.
Doctor opens the door and calls my name. I startle and jump, snatching my wandering mind back from its terrors. His voice is polite, but had he bellowed it, it would not have affected me less.
I swallow and try to stand up but catch my heel and totter. At the last moment I right myself and manage to bring my feet under me enough to walk to the door as Doctor pushed it open all the way before me so I can walk in.
Like a panicked rabbit I search the room for the new Doctor, but it is the same room with the same scent. The old curtains hung from the ceiling with a chair behind it. For once I would love to see them taken down and washed. Black and white tile floors and plaster walls that would do well with some sort of decoration and an examination table in the center like a sacrificial alter.
And today, I do feel like lamb being led to the slaughter.
“Doctor Drake will be here momentarily. You can undress behind the curtain as usual.”
I nod silently and do as I’m told, happy to take direction. At the same time I worry. I trust Doctor, only I cannot help but feel anxious. I will be meeting Doctor Drake all but naked. I do as I’m bid anyway and take my clothes off.
As I am behind the curtain the door opens and closes with a soft click and I listen ever so hard to the tempo of the footsteps that have entered the room. They are not shuffling or mincing, but gentle and sure and I take a breath I didn’t realize I held but I can’t let go of the curtain. Now I know why a confession behind a screen is so appealing for I would much rather not see this Doctor Drake face to face.
“Constance, Doctor Drake is here to see you.”
I clutch the curtain.
“Constance?”
I clear my throat and slowly poke my head out keeping the curtain around me as a wrap. Doctor Drake has his broad shouldered back to me, but turns.
He is strikingly handsome. His face is chiseled, a large jaw with dimples in his cheeks, his hair a dark chestnut smooth waves and golden flecks. But his eyes strike me the hardest. They are a dark brown, almost black as a moonless night but they are lit from within with a curious gaze which he levels on me. I look away but feel his eyes on me like a warm breeze on a spring day.
I do not want Doctor Drake’s treatment now. I want to leave, now, I wish I’d never come but I am caught and must be brave.
“Come Constance, let me help you,” Doctor Drake says.
His voice rolled over me like a hot flush on a summer’s day. I want to run, to make my feet fly under me, to leave to never come back. Never once did Doctor make me feel like a puddle with only his voice. Doctor is sterile and cold, but capable. My treatment with him has been more work on his part, and he has never provoked more than a professional reaction from me.
But this Doctor Drake—I do not know if my feet will obey his order.
I take a trembling breath and grip the curtain with both fists.
Doctor Drake sees my hold tighten and walks in his gentle way towards me, like he is trying to convince a cat out of a tree. My heart beats louder in my breast with every step closer he takes, until I can see his eyes are a dark chocolate brown, and they are securely focused on me.
“Would you let me help you?”
I cannot tear my eyes away from his, and I mutely nod.
His smile lights his face and I bask in it, drinking it down like the finest brandy. He does not take my hand, but instead pulls the curtain from me and offers the table with a sweep of his arm. I walk over like the meekest of lambs.
Mother has tied my corset tight again today and I wince as the steel jabs into my hip while I ease myself up onto the table.
Doctor comes over to me with a clipboard and a pen in his hand. “I have spoken with Doctor Drake and we feel that if today goes well, he should take over your therapy from now onward if you agree.” He looks at me expectantly and I nod again, which seems to be the only response I can muster. “Would it make you feel more comfortable if I stayed?”
No? Yes? Doctor is so like a patient teacher, and I am afraid I will shame myself if he watches me with Doctor Drake. I muster a voice, “I would be agreeable to a private treatment today.”
Doctor shows no judgment of my decision and leaves the room, taking all of my air with him. Even though Doctor Drake is across the room, I can feel him as if he stands right next to me and his presence is a tangible thing pressing the air out of my lungs.
“Allow me to touch you?”
“Yes,” I say with a rasp.
His hand is warm and dry, soft even, but his firm touch is authoritative and my body follows the pressure with which he leads me to lie down. I begin to tremble, shaking that I cannot control but I am not afraid.
Everything I have come to know about my treatments is rendered useless.
Doctor Drake lays his hand on my stomach, “Take slow deep breaths.”
He does not move his hand and I obey him, my shudders calming and finally ending.
“Good,” Doctor Drake says, as he gathers up my shift, lifting it above my knees and then higher. I startle and go to pull it back down, but catch myself and stretch my fingers at my sides.
His touch is not seductive, but assured and I tell myself to calm down. If only he were older, more haggard, as not as handsome as he is, all would be well. He would not raise these lightening feelings within me and I would go happily on my way a content-- a most content patient.
The table starts to warm with my body heat, and Doctor Drake places my legs further apart making the cool air chill my nethers. My breath catches and my nipples chafe against my corset.
“Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a place that relaxes you,” Doctor Drake says so calm and smooth, knowing somehow I will do his bidding even though I would be more pleased to watch the expressions of his face.
He looks at me, like a father asking obedience of his child and I yield.
My eyes close and although I try to think of a place that is comforting to me, I fear I cannot. For this place, this room, is all of the comfort I have in this life. And so I imagine myself on this very table as I am now, but with a man such as Doctor Drake loving me, the woman, who hides inside Constance the patient.
His warm purposeful hands are sure and solid, moving up to my sex and parting my slit. Cool air is a sharp change and not unwelcome. His hands pull away and a stab of fear pierces me, that I am ugly or disfigured in some way, but he takes my legs and places them on either side of the table so that my calves hang down and I am fully opened to him.
It is a very vulnerable position and I open my eyes to make sure of Doctor Drake, and he gives me a reassuring smile. “Close your eyes again,” he says, soothingly and I obey returning to my very real day dream.
His hands return to my sex and they open me more fully than before. His fingers brush my pearl and my nipples stiffen as if they were attached.
Doctor Drake’s hands leave me again, and I watch him as he walks to the apothecary, opens it up and brings back a jar of what seems to be a liquid.
“Constance, close your eyes.” I glance at the jar again.
“Lubricant. It will ease the way, like grease for the skids of a ship.”
My heart patters in my chest and I close my eyes straight away. I’m so absorbed in anticipation, I think I hear him chuckle.
I hear the cork come of the jar and cold oil pours over my sex, trailing down between my legs and to my spine. It’s a lovely slick feeling, cool and warming almost immediately and his hands cover me just as I accustom myself to the experience.
His one hand presses on my abdomen, low, right above my pubic bone and his other hand covers my mound fitting it like a glove as his thumb enters my slickened sex and grips the top of my bone from the inside. He begins to rub his thumb in a circle and it is all I can do to not leap or melt, the feelings are too confusing to separate. One thing I am sure of, he would not need lubricant now.
The web of his hand rubs my pearl, his thumb probes my insides and the hand that presses remains sure and still, bracing me against the table as the tremors begin to radiate out, even down to my toes.
A moan slips out from my lips and I raise my arms to cover my eyes even though I have not opened them.
This is all too soon but I am devoid of the power to control my response to his glorious hands that are bringing me further to the stars than I have ever traveled.
“Good,” Doctor Drake says under his breath. Not a whisper of a lover, but I imagine it so.
Suddenly his hands change and he slips two fingers inside me, but still bracing me on the table and I need it when his fingers start to rub up towards the hand that is on my stomach, as if they would touch were my body not between them. Amidst this explosion of sensation he starts to press upon my pearl and alternately rubbing it. I feel full and slick and known and the slow heady pulses grow stronger, overtaking my lower body in a paroxysm more powerful than I have ever had. I gasp and pant as they undulate through me.
“Do you need another?”
God, what kind of question to ask.
My mind is so fractured into sparkling pleasure pieces I cannot answer right away. Of course I do, but moreso I want to think about why my mind, after all of my training, has betrayed me.
I fear to open my eyes and let Doctor Drake see my soul, and so I wait. I wait for my heart to stop pounding and for the need to keen to flee. For my legs to be a functioning part of my body again so I can stand straight and walk out of this room with the shred of dignity I have left.
“Constance?”
How evil of me would it be to enjoy the thread of worry in Doctor Drake’s voice?
I open my eyes and meet his molten brown ones so very concerned and staring into mine. He smells clean and crisp and so warm. My heart leaps, but I know what I see is care for a patient and that knowledge makes my answer easier.
“That will be all Doctor Drake.”
He blinks at my words, but nods and backs up enough so that I can sit up and manage to work myself off the table. My legs are still trembling, but I place them very carefully one in front of the other and escape behind the curtain.
I hear him as I dress, his courteous footsteps not too loud, respectful of my turmoil. As I pull my shirtwaist together to button it he asks, “I would like to see you again next week Miss Gerald.”
I do not answer, I cannot, but my body thrills at the thought.
“Miss Gerald?” Doctor Drake pauses in his task and quiet looms.
I snap the curtain back and hold my chin up. “That would be acceptable.” And I try not to run as I walk past him and out the door, knowing all the while that I will not return.
* * * * *
Chapter Two
It has been a fortnight since my last treatment and a fortnight since I last ate a full meal. A fortnight since I bathed, a fortnight since I have left my room, a fortnight since I have spoken to another human being.
My sin was refusing to go for treatment. With everything that is in me I want to. I do. But I cannot bear to have every human touch in my life be an empty one. My soul cannot withstand anymore, and so I accept my punishment for it is far more tolerable.
Mother brings me milk and bread and allows the door to be unlocked so the maid may take away the chamber pot.
In turn, I wear nothing but a chemise and wrap day and night. I had rubbed myself into a frenzy whenever I pleased. I would have gladly accepted my fate for life had I been able to pleasure myself so, but the devious thrill of self ministrations soured all too soon and I had not even desired to after the first few days of wild abandon.
Now I wile my hours pacing the room wondering how I can get out, and even if I could. Where would I go? How would I live? It’s easy to judge decisions when the observer has options. But I have none. I am nothing if not a realist. I had to be to survive my mother and father. So I know what lay ahead of me if I am able to escape. I would end up a street person. A soiled dove. I laugh, and sound none too sane even to my own ears. Wouldn’t that be a twist of fate.
Someone knocks at the door and I stop, my bare toes rolling up the rug. Mother would let herself in. Mother would unlock the door for the maid. Father hasn’t found his way to my door for years.
“I demand you let me enter.”
It was Dr. Drake’s voice. The air around me grew chill.
Someone came stomping up the stairs.
“I told you she is not available and you do not have my permission to roam about my house, sir!” mother screeched.
“You will open this door for me, Madam. And you will do it now,” Doctor Drake said, his voice growling and venomous.
I run to the window and bang the sash upwards with my shoulder but the nails mother has closed it with bite and tear into my skin.
“Miss Gerald, are you within?” Doctor Drake asks.
“It is the maid’s quarters, sir! Now leave my house immediately!”
My hand flies to my mouth. I gasp and my throat feels as if a yarn ball is stuck in it.
I heave myself at the sash again, seeing the blood trail down my arm but not feeling it.
“Miss Gerald, I am coming in.”
The door starts to rattle on its hinges, as if it is being dashed with a battering ram.
I run to the dresser and pick up my brush and start to bang it against the glass panes. I know where they will take me, and there I will not go alive.
The panels of the door start to break and my mothers screams can be heard throughout the house.
I take the brush into both hands and lift it over my head bringing it down with all of the strength I have left, and the glass shatters under my force, crashing in knife like shards all around me.
The door jamb gives way, throwing wood splinters into the room. Doctor Drake rushes in followed by the billowing banshee that is my mother. I look down to the lawn and know that I cannot jump out the small opening of the broken pane, but I claw at the window more, and it turns red under my attack.
Doctor Drake rips a sheet off of my bed and runs at me almost as mad as my mother behind him.
“My God, my God! What have you done?” he yells, at my or myself, I do not know. He wraps my hands up in the sheet and I stare at him, his words ringing in my ears as if he is speaking in another language.
Mother jumps at him from behind and flails at his head looking like a monkey I saw at a zoo when I was a child, and I begin to laugh that crazy laugh I did before.
Doctor Drake turns away from me and takes both of mother’s arms, bending them and twisting them behind her. She is screaming still but not flailing and he shoves her into a wall. “Shut up you heathen whore,” he yells to her.
My eyes make their way back to the window and I think that maybe if I just lept…
Dr. Drake leaps at me, bringing me down to the floor and I scream and scratch at his face, grabbing his hair and yanking with all my might. I will not go to an asylum. Never.
“Calm! Calm!” he whispers harshly into my ear, and I realize that he is on top of me, pinning me down, his cheek to mine and I freeze.
“Calm,” he says again.
Now I am panting under him like a hunted fox, and I can do naught but listen.
“I am not going to bring you to an asylum.”
How did he know my thoughts? I do not believe him. Mother can have me committed with a whim and I know that she will not tolerate this vulgar display. If father were not head of the house and needed to maintain her financial freedom (it is very easy to get a crazy man to sign any papers she wishes) she would have him in a room next to mine.
I take a deep breath and start to buck under him.
“I promise. I promise,” he says.
“How?” My voice is so ill used it comes out hoarse.
I felt him pause. “You were screaming for me to not take you to the asylum.”
I did not know. And he knew I had not realized. “No, how did you know she had me locked in here.”
“You did not make your appointment. I came to check on you, and when I found the house you were pacing in the window like a ghost.”
I nodded.
“We must go. I will take you to the hospital. Do not say a word. Do you understand?”
Again I nodded.
He raised himself off of me, kneeled at my side and wrapped the sheet around my bloodied hands and the rest around my shoulders. He helped me up, and whisked me out of the room, but paused and took account of my mother sobbing on my bed.
“She is now my ward. You give up all rights to her and if you so much as look her way, I will have you and your husband judged unfit and sent to an asylum where you both belong.”
And just like that, he saved me.
* * * * *
Chapter Three
Two years later . . .
I kneel in the warm spring ground and dig a hand full of Epsom salts into the soil around the roses, not caring that my dress would be soiled. Soon they would cover the porch roof with a carpet of dark pink flowers, their heavy scent wafting into every room of the house. I will bring their almost thornless blossoms in buy the handfuls and place them all over the house. Such a prize was worth the scolding of Mrs. Rhodes.
Joseph comes silently around the corner of the house. “Tsk tsk. You know you should put a rug under your knees.”
“Doctor Drake, you scared me.”
He reaches down and draws me up. “No more Doctor Drake. You are to be my wife. Please, call me Joseph.”
I worry my lip with my teeth. In my mind I have called him many things, including Joseph, but I’m afraid the spell would be broken if they leave my lips.
Silence pauses pregnant between us.
“One more day, Joseph.”
His smile would have made the roses bloom. I know it did so for my heart.
“Yes, one more day.” He gazed at my lips and heat flamed my cheeks.
I knew what he thought, for I had thought the same. He had not touched me in those ways in two years. It would have gone against principal for I had become his ward, but now we both remembered. He knew my body, but I had no knowledge of his. In one night, I would know him, flesh to flesh. The slow throb between my legs had been building and had he felt between them now my body would have given my secrets away. How I had fantasized about Joseph night after night. How I remembered his hands working my nethers into a crescendo, or how his shaft would differ from the machines he had used on me. How I wanted to explore his body and know it, the way he knew mine. To see if his shaft would make me orgasm just the same.
He held my hand in his and I stroked his fingertip with my own. His eyes drew mine and his pupils darkened as I met his.
Yes, he knew.
He cleared his throat and took a step back, breaking our connection.
“I will see you tomorrow.”
I nodded. I was not capable of much more, either.
#
I wait on the bed for him. He had asked that I undress and await him there and so I did. The fire burned casting a glow over the room, and I lay under the coverlet trembling with anticipation.
The door opened and he shut it behind him quickly.
He still wore his dark blue velveteen wedding jacket and I drank in his beauty. His wide dark eyes, his broad shoulders. His hands.
He comes and stands at the end of the bed and I hold my breath within me. He captures my gaze as he starts to take off his coat. He unties his cravat, takes off is vest, and slips out of his shirt. I could not have taken my eyes off of him had my life been threatened.
Slowly he divests his clothes and I stare transfixed. I looked him over like a horse I would purchase and I revel in not being the one undressed and at a disadvantage.
He is brazen in his nakedness and ego and stands there, letting me look at him all that I wish. I start at his eyes and work my way down to the shaft that hangs heavy and long between his legs. My hand, as if doesn’t belong to me, reaches out on its own accord to touch it. It is hot and smooth under my fingertips, and I glance up to watch his face. His mouth is tight, almost a grimace, but he stands like a statue, allowing me my explorations. I encircle him with my hand and slowly draw down to the base of him and his breath hitches, but he still does not move. This time I drag my fingertip down his length to his sac and weigh him in the cup of my hand. I run my fingers back up and around the plum shaped tip. The muscles in his thighs twitch and he arches toward me.
I flip the sheet back and sit on the edge of the bed and stare and the length of him which bobs at my face. A bead of moisture weeps at his tip, and I wonder if my tongue can touch this part of him. I want to, but I fear myself too brazen and instead I press my finger to the tear and bring it to my mouth.
Its salty bland taste spread over her tongue and I close my eyes.
In a breath he is on top of me, covering me head to toe. His weight sinks me into the mattress and I might have been scared had I not been so relieved. Our skin is hot and its own thing. I feel him everywhere and he is touching all of me and yet not in the place in me that wants him most. I don’t know what is right, but I lift my thighs over his hips and pull him in closer if that can even be possible. His hand presses between us and down to my nethers. My desire is apparent, and he remembers my body well, stroking me ever so lightly on my pearl. I suck my lip into my mouth and lift my hips higher. All these years of wanting something that I could not comprehend and now I am about to be brought into understanding.
A moan escapes my lips and he pushes his erection into me until it cannot go further and like a gas lamp popping on I realize how treatment was a vain attempt simulating something no machine can duplicate.
He pistons me like the machine, but it’s not the same at all. His skin is hot, his breathing is all I can hear until my heart beats to his metronome. His arms, rippling with strength are columns around me and he is filling me over and over again until I’m spinning in pleasure beneath him. It shatters around me and over me and as soon as I calm I want it again immediately. So I cling to him, and am in ecstasy and hell. Ecstasy, for I have found heaven. Hell, because I now know that all the treatment in the world would never have cured me. It would only have served to show the vast chasm that lay between the two.
Everything overwhelms me and my throat begins to tighten. Tears fall into my hair. I cannot help them.
He must feel them because he pauses and the pad of his thumb brushes my cheek.
“Are you not well pleasured?” he whispers into my ear.
“I am.” And I wind my arms up around his neck.
“Why the tears?”
It is nothing—anymore. This is a new beginning. I kiss his lips, and he opens his mouth and touches his tongue to mine. I pull him down closer and thrill at how many ways he is inside me. He pulls away and breaks our kiss, panting as he gathers himself. I am not unaffected, either and I grind myself into him.
He closes his eyes and arches into me and I can feel him swell, filling me even more than before. All of his weight shifts onto his knees and his hands grip under my things, bringing them up wider, tighter. I clench the sheets under me and all I can hear is our frantic breaths and the slippery sound of our joining. One, two, three and with a final thrust that pushes me back to the headboard he climaxes, hot seed swelling me and sending me into one of my own. My muscles milk what is left in him and he lurches over me, spent, wet hair sticking to his flushed relaxed face. He rests on the soft of my stomach and I comb his hair away from his eyes with my fingers.
“I love you.” He picks his head up and looks intently into my eyes, making sure I hear him.
“You don’t have to.” It’s the first time any person has said such to me, and had he not been weighing me down I would have fled at his words.
“When you did not come back for treatment those years ago. That is when I knew you were more than a patient.”
I shift my weight. “You had not said so.”
“I wanted…I wanted you to develop feelings for me apart from your treatment.”
It explained much.
“And after you took me from that place?”
“Even more.” He pulled out of me and I missed his absence immediately. He crawled up beside me and stroked my cheek where my tears were. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
“If I am, it is because of the hope you gave me.” The scent of our loving was strong on him and I must admit it was something I savored.
“Are you happy now?” His voice was growing soft with tiredness. He pulled me into him tightly and pulled the coverlet over us.
“More than ever.” I snuggled into the crook of his arms, safer and more loved than I had ever been in my life.
He snored softly into my hair as the candle burned out. I tried to imagine a life without his gentle caring presence around me, protecting me, loving me quietly with actions of everyday loyalty.
I reached up and touched his shoulder. His eyes fluttered open, heavy with sleep.
“I love you, too.”
* * * * *
Formatted for Smashwords by B10 Mediaworx
http://b10mediaworx.com