The Whip

by Kondazian, Karen

  In a short while, Charley staggered out under the bulky stack of boxes and headed for the Oriental Hotel. She couldn’t wait to tear them open and lift out the garments that had been wrapped in crisp frail tissue.

  She had taken a second floor room in the elegant hotel. There was a good long mirror in the room…she had insisted on that to the hotelkeeper. She needed a room which would proffer her a proper view of her new person.

  Taking a deep breath, she set about the complex task of dressing. It had been a long time since last she put on a dress, and it felt strange, almost indecent, this act of hers.

  Nonetheless, she cast off her whip clothes—her Texas hat, embroidered gauntlet gloves, coat of buffalo skin, worn leather boots, pleated shirt. She then removed her blue jean overalls that had been turned up at the bottom, worn over a pair of good pants with a wide leather belt. And lastly, her undergarments and the sweaty strips of binding around her breasts.

  She poured a standing pitcher of water into a basin and began to wash herself. The cool water felt reinvigorating on her grimy face. She then scrubbed away the darkness of the dirt branded on her body to reveal beneath, fine white skin.

  After drying off, she pulled on ruffled pantalettes, and then a long white chemise with bodice trimmed with delicate lace. Gazing at her reflection in the mirror, she stopped to touch herself gently…like the man she had become, courting the woman she once was and was now to become again.

  Snapping herself out of the daydream, she continued the course of her transformation. The rest would not be as easy.

  She pulled a pair of silk stockings up over her muscular calves. Next, the corset with all the hooks and ties in the back. She wrestled with it, trying to hold the thing on in front with one hand while fastening it in back. She tried to use the boot buttoner to hook the corset. It didn’t work. She tried hooking the corset on backwards, and then attempted to twist it around. It wouldn’t budge. She took the corset off, hooked it up, and tried to pull the pre-hooked corset over her head. She was stuck, and it took a few long life-threatening moments before she extricated herself. In disgust, she threw it out of the open window. The muslin curtains flew apart as the corset shot past and then closed again behind it.

  She pulled out a small bottle of whiskey from her belongings and downed a good long slug.

  Continuing to dress, she managed to hook a hoop skirt, fitting it around her now thickened waist. And then came the yards of dress, pretty polished-violet satin with fashionable leg-of-mutton sleeves and a deep bosom-revealing neckline. There were about forty tiny pearl buttons from top to bottom, mercifully located in the front. She fortified herself with another slug of whiskey and began to button. Her strong calloused fingers felt uncoordinated; the little buttons kept slipping from her before she could slide them through the delicate corded eyelets. Worse yet, she had to breathe shallow the whole time, keeping her stomach well in without benefit of a corset. She performed much of the operation by feel and then checked it in the mirror.

  She maneuvered a boot buttoner, doing up the many tiny buttons that fastened a pair of dainty boots. She then folded down her unsecured silk stockings over the top of the boots…a makeshift plan as the garters had been attached to the corset. The boots were tight. She’d not estimated the size well—her feet, like her waist, must have broadened since she last wore woman’s clothes.

  The room was getting dark. She lit the lantern by the bed. This was turning out to be much more difficult than she thought it would be. Did women do all this all the time? She could no longer imagine being such a creature. Tonight though, she was willing to go to the trouble.

  The irony of this moment, plus the image of herself in the mirror, made her laugh out loud, and the buttons on her dress seemed on the edge of explosion. God, another thing she had to keep in her mind…she had to remember not to laugh out loud this evening, or she would be standing there revealing herself in her undergarments.

  And this image that kept flitting and disappearing…of being pushed hard into a bed, or a wall, or the floor…with those green eyes above her. Enough. If she didn’t stop this day dreaming, it would be morning and she still would not have finished this damn dressing.

  Alright, now the hair. This wasn’t going to be easy either. She pinned a coiled rat into place at the nape of the neck with the jeweled combs. Good enough, she thought. And the color did seem to almost match her sun-streaked blonde; at least it did by lantern light. Next she wound her own length of hair around the rat to pin it in place. The rat fell out. She started again…nearly weeping in frustration. Then after much maneuvering, it stuck.

  Exhausted, she evaluated herself in the mirror. Holding the lantern in one hand, she leaned in close to examine her face, her fingers touching her sunburned cheeks with concern. She took some powder she’d bought and tried to cover her tanned, dry skin into a more fashionable feminine paleness. She accentuated her cheeks and lips with a little more rouge than was necessary. She then placed a black velvet bonnet trimmed with black ribbon and a black feather onto her head.

  In the dim light, if she didn’t look too close, she looked the part, she thought. She wondered if Edmund would think the same. She wondered if he’d even recognize her. Hell, she was actually wondering if she had misinterpreted his invitation. Did he even know that she was a woman or was this fantasy all in her head? She’d gone to a lot of trouble if that was the case.

  Next to her on the dresser, the small bottle of whiskey was almost empty. She finished it off. She sprinkled on a liberal dose of the rose-water that the sales clerk had thrown in as a present for “the lady.” Then, putting the bottle to her lips, Charley gargled some for good measure.

  She pulled on her fancy gloves, picked up her black satin reticule, and tottered toward the door. She tried to walk through the narrow doorway, but her voluminous skirts prevented her. With an impatient sigh, she yanked them clear and stumbled out.

  Eighteen

  Charley turned onto Stockton Street. Her boot caught in the hem of her underslip. She would need to be careful in this monstrosity of a dress. She remembered Ben telling her about some poor girl who had been dragged two miles by runaway horses—her hoop skirt entangled in the steps of the coach, with her head and shoulders dragging on the ground to a ghastly end.

  As she walked toward the saloon, she noticed a tall man in front of her whose familiar walk took her breath away. Lee. Fuck. The shoulders, the back, they were the same. The color of his hair the same. He was drunk. She heard him speak to the gal beside him. His voice was rough and loud…it wasn’t Lee’s voice. It wasn’t him at all. She caught her breath. Enough. Enough.

  Some single men were eyeing her, a few made rude comments and one even grabbed her arm and offered her money. She resisted hard the impulse to spit in his face. She had to calm herself. What she needed was a cigar. She automatically reached for her coat pocket and instead, felt satin. Shit. Fucking dress. She should have remembered to put a cigar in her reticule. She’d have to get one from Edmund…if he was even there.

  At last she saw the sign.

  THE STOCKTON HOUSE SALOON

  14 STOCKTON STREET

  A FINE ESTABLISHMENT

  Beneath the sign was a hand-printed poster.

  The outside door to the establishment was open to the street, exposing a line of patrons waiting to see the famous head in the back room. Charley hesitated at the portal. She looked down at herself. As far as she could tell she looked every inch a woman—elegantly dressed, maybe even a little cheap. She gathered up the courage to proceed, at least to get through the front door. She must remind herself to sound the part as well.

  She entered and, as she had hoped, she saw Edmund there. He was sitting at a gaming table playing cards, a cigar clenched between his teeth. He noted the mysterious lady’s entrance. She panicked at the sight of him, losing her nerve. She turned back toward the door, then stopped in her tracks
, steeling herself. She turned and strode back. He’d just won the hand and was now raking in his winnings, standing up from the table.

  She was moving a little too quick for her command of feminine garb. The heel of her dainty boot caught in a floorboard and she tripped, falling headlong into a drunken miner’s arms. The miner caught her, breaking her fall.

  “Well, look what Providence sent me,” he said, licking his lips.

  Edmund stepped forward. “Thank you, sir, for your valiant rescue. But I believe the lady had another destination in mind.”

  Begrudging, the miner spat onto the sawdust floor and released her.

  Charley’s face was flushed. Edmund’s gaze met hers and the two sets of eyes slid into place, so that she could not look away without effort.

  “Well, well, well…look what a bath and a low-cut dress can do. It is you isn’t it?” Edmund gave a small smile and a wink.

  “I think it’s me. I wasn’t so sure when I looked in the mirror. Next time you can be the one who dresses up like a whore.”

  “Unlike you my dear, I’m afraid I don’t have the cleavage to titivate that dress. Come, my boy,” he whispered in her ear. “Let us peruse the famous head shall we?”

  He maneuvered her past the waiting line of patrons and to the man collecting the money. He whispered something in his ear and slipped a large bill into his hand. The man waved them both into the back room.

  Once inside, they approached a high table with observers gathered around it. On top of the table, in the place of honor, sat two liquid filled glass jars with peaked lid tops. The smaller one had the floating shriveled hand of Three-fingered Jack. In the larger one, sitting on the bottom of the jar, was the handsome head of Joaquin Murrieta—eyes staring out, mouth slightly agape, mustache intact.

  Edmund leaned over, peering closely at the head. “Lucky bugger. Drowning in gin. What a tribute. They pickled the Robin Hood of El Dorado in gin. He’s now and forever drunk and famous, traveling the countryside. You know they say success is the size of the hole a man leaves after he dies.”

  Charley could not take her eyes away from that face. Imagine ending up, head in a bottle, traveling across California.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, my dear,” Edmund said, “but the sight of all that gin has made me thirsty. Let’s get a drink.” He took her elbow and guided her out of the room.

  They went straight to the bar. Edmund ordered a bottle of whiskey and they downed several shots.

  “Shit, at least we know the old bugger is actually dead,” he said. “I once saw a miraculous revival. The corpse woke up during the funeral, much to the dismay of his friends and family.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” asked Charley, laughing.

  “You didn’t read about that? It was in all the local papers. You know how many people are pronounced dead prematurely? Just this year the old Duke of Wellington died and wasn’t buried until two months after his death…just in case. Hell, there’s even a group of concerned citizens called the Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive. You haven’t heard of them?

  Charley shook her head in disbelief.

  “The members place crowbars and shovels in the casket so the dead can dig their way out if they revive. Or sometimes they use a pipe that goes through the ground and into the casket for emergency communication. Then they hire servants to wait by the pipes and listen for calls for help. On the other hand, I’ve been told that wealthy families who want their dead to stay that way have a different option: coffins fitted with special nails that when hit, puncture capsules of poisoned gas.”

  Edmund grabbed the whiskey bottle and filled both their glasses again. He kept rambling on with great gusto.

  “It’s all true. I swear it. I myself prefer the Bateson Revival Device—you know, Bateson’s Belfry? It’s an iron bell mounted on the lid of the casket just above the dead man’s head. The bell’s connected to a cord placed in the dead man’s hand so that the least tremor will sound the alarm. I have no idea if it’s saved anyone’s neck, but it’s made old man Bateson a rich man. My hand to God, I wish I could come up with something that clever.”

  Charley was so drunk that she could barely stop laughing long enough to speak. She felt one of the little pearl buttons pop.

  Edmund poured another round and raised his glass to hers.

  “Ah death, here’s to you dark lady. You know, perhaps the best cure for the fear of death as my old friend Will Hazlitt once said, ‘…is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern—why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?’”

  Charley was surprised at how serious he had just become. She put a comforting hand on top of his.

  He pulled his hand away. As quick as his mood had turned serious, it turned back again.

  “Well enough about death and dying my dear…here’s to fucking.”

  He downed his drink in one clean shot. “Now come with me. Let’s stroll.”

  He held out his elbow and she took it. He drew his arm in closer, drawing her to his side, so that her arm was pressed against his body.

  They strolled side by side through the dusky, narrow streets. He pulled her into a darkened alleyway, backed her up against the wall of a building, leaned in close, his lips almost touching hers. He pressed his body against her so that she could feel him through the dress, through the crinolines, through her skin. He bent toward the curve of her neck, kissing her where just inside the skin and fragile pipe of cartilage the moan lay, curled inside, waiting.

  She was silent for a moment, and then…the moan escaped at long last from the bottom of her throat. When he began to undo the tiny buttons of her dress, she stopped him, took his hand and led him down the street towards her hotel.

  Nineteen

  At the door of her room, Charley realized with some amusement that her whip clothes were left scattered all over the bed.

  She stepped in and closed the door, leaving Edmund alone and laughing in surprise outside in the hall. He knocked.

  She called through the closed door. “Wait…wait a moment.”

  “I’ve waited for you forever. I’ll wait as long as you like, my girl.”

  She stumbled around in the dark, kicking and pushing the clothing under the bed. Not that it mattered, but for some reason she just didn’t want to break the illusion of this game they were playing.

  Moments later, with a semblance of nonchalance, she opened the door to admit Edmund, closing it behind him.

  In the darkness, he struck a match, illuminating his beguiled and intoxicated face. He looked over the flame at her and then turned to light the candle by the bed. She reached out and stopped him. She took his hand in hers and blew out the match.

  “You are an amazing puzzle, my girl. The last thing I would have expected from you is modesty.”

  He then seized her and roamed her body until he found the line of buttons. He bit off the top one and spat it onto the ground. He then began to undo the rest of the tiny pearl buttons. He was used to undressing a lady.

  Charley laughed out loud in her drunkenness. It seemed he was better at those damn buttons than she was.

  He skillfully continued to lift, unhook and untie. They lost their balance and fell onto the bed. He was again laughing and he was kissing her breasts and he was sucking on her nipple so hard, stretching it toward him using his teeth, that it hurt.

  They went on like that, their two bodies colliding with a pleasure that was part pain. Together, they achieved a kind of passion that Charley had not felt before. She cared less than she had with Byron but…she followed wherever Edmund led, and she gasped as she broke open to new, unfamiliar sensations.

  Soon afterward Edmund was sound asleep. Lulled by the stillness of the room and the sound of his deep breathing
, she drifted into a brief shallow sleep herself.

  In the moonlight she dressed once again in her riding clothes, white strips of cotton bound around her breasts—her hat, gloves and boots in their familiar place. She collected from the floor all of the night’s costumes, and stuffed them into her saddle bags. She watched Edmund for a moment as he lay there. He looked somehow like a young boy, his arms wrapped around his body protectively.

  As she opened the door to leave, a soft voice from the bed murmured, “See you in Hangtown, Charley.”

  Twenty

  It had been over a month and Charley hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Edmund. Strange what a little mystery can do for a man…puts him in your head like a tune that won’t go away…drives you mad. She had been looking for him in every coach she drove, in every swing station she stopped at and in every saloon she downed a whiskey. She had not realized how remarkable it would feel to have someone else know her secret.

  One rainy night, Charley walked into the Hangtown Saloon, and by God there he was. Finally. She sauntered over to his table, whiskey in hand.

  Edmund looked up from his cards, not missing a beat. “Well, well, look who’s here. If it isn’t my favorite whip…Stagecoach Charley. How’re the horses treating you, m’boy?”

  “Got a mind of their own, them horses sometimes,” she said. She looked down into her glass, trying to hide the annoying blush on her face. “If it weren’t for me keepin ’em in rein, they’d take off to—”

  “Frisco, perchance?”

  She let out a chuckle.

  “You know, I’ve an inkling to head to Frisco again this week,” Edmund said. “Place I go sometimes. Dora’s? You’d like it there, m’boy. Stop in sometime. Friday night, payday night is quite…spectacular.”