The Pleasure Device
Regina Kammer
Harwell Heirs series, Book One
Helena Phillips is attending her first London Season to find a titled husband. There she meets the object of all she desires, Nicholas Ramsay. The irresistibly sexy doctor isn’t titled but from the moment Helena meets him, her life becomes a game of dangerous attraction and forbidden explorations.
When Helena refuses to renounce her newfound hunger for Nicholas, she’s forced to enroll in an experimental study to cure hysteria. Budding technology—a vibrating machine—is supposed to be the perfect cure for her, but Helena can’t shake the feeling that something is amiss.
Nicholas knows this “miracle cure” is nothing but a wicked ruse, cooked up by his nemesis. In order to prove his worth and his word, he will have to face his past, embrace his future and show her that pleasure is more profound with love.
Inside Scoop: Our devious doctor loves to explore his ladies’ sexuality. He enjoys bondage, spanking, vibrating toys and watching—especially when it’s multiple partners.
A Romantica® historical erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
The Pleasure Device
Regina Kammer
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my family—especially my parents—and friends for their enthusiastic and continued encouragement, and to my colleagues at RWA for their advice, knowledge and support.
Dedication
To Chris Baty for making me believe I could write a novel, and to my husband for reading every word.
Chapter One
London, May 1879
“Observe, gentlemen, how our subject is in the flaccid, or un-aroused state.”
Dr. Julius Christopher made note of the blasé tone of Dr. Waddington’s voice, seemingly completely unaffected by the circumstances in which he was instructing his audience. As if he had a pretty girl lying on a table with her legs splayed open before him every day.
Not bloody likely. Julius stifled a chuckle. Waddington catered to a much older, and less agitated, clientele.
His host inelegantly manhandled the privates of the female subject. “We have brought before you a young woman of the laboring classes—”
The girl on the table rolled her pretty brown eyes.
“Suffering from the anxieties of her circumstances. Tending toward drink and belligerence—”
Julius noted the girl exhibited no signs of anxiety or alcoholism, just a little exasperation.
“Thusly unable to control her desires, her intercourse with her fellow man approaches a manner most uncivilized—”
Intercourse preceded by proper seduction is a social equalizer. Any woman can respond in a “manner most uncivilized”.
“Her symptoms, therefore, are different from the symptoms of ladies of culture and breeding, more violent, frenzied, akin to madness. In other words base, like her class—”
Said the man violating the girl’s genitalia.
“But a fine subject nonetheless—”
Because she’s available and cheap.
“As this new remedy works the same on all women, regardless of class distinction.”
There were scattered murmurs of skepticism and admiration amongst Julius’ colleagues who were present.
“We have our brethren in France to thank for this new method of electro-therapy.”
The murmurs were now tinged with incredulity and gratitude. Julius had figured the ever-industrious Americans would have been the ones to congratulate instead.
The girl stared blankly at the ornate ceiling of the small medical room, giving Julius a chance to observe her. Most likely Waddington—or his housekeeper, rather—had promised a meal, some clothes, perhaps even a fashionable hat. Whatever it was, seeing a doctor in his office was probably much better than what she usually had to do for food or drink. Although as he studied her, he wondered if lying with her legs spread open, her feet in stirrups, her petticoats up to her waist, her arms strapped down at her sides and at least a dozen men observing her was better than letting a drunken sod spend between her thighs in a dark alley.
“Let me show you the exact locus of stimulation,” Waddington continued, inelegantly revealing the girl’s clitoris with his thumb and index finger. “It is a nerve with direct connection to the brain.” He touched the girl’s forehead. “Electricity will pass along the track of this nerve.” He traced the hypothetical path bisecting her torso. “Taking the place of nervous energy, producing a muscular contraction. By creating such a resolution in this area, we can calm the emotions.”
“But, Dr. Waddington,” said Dr. Dodsworth in his typical high-pitched, shaky whine, “we can do this with our hands.”
“Or with the pelvic douche,” added Dr. Hargreaves, his accent ridiculously far above the professional classes.
“Yes, yes,” agreed Waddington. “However, gentlemen, this device uses neither manual labor nor water pressure, but instead the most modern of energy sources.” He lifted a black cloth covering a shiny, two-tiered cart, unveiling a curious machine, an engine of sorts, housed on the lower shelf. “It uses electricity.”
There were murmurs of doubt and disbelief in the small theater.
Waddington took a long, thin cylindrical rod lying on the top tray of the cart next to him and held it up. “The device is connected to a dynamo-electric machine.” He indicated the cord attached to the engine at the base of the cart. “No more digital fatigue, gentlemen, and no more mess with water.”
Waddington indelicately smeared an oily substance on the girl’s privates. She flinched.
“See how contact to the area already excites the subject?”
The girl closed her eyes. Probably in acquiescence rather than anticipation.
“Now, gentlemen, observe.” Waddington reached for the engine. There was a sharp click, then a whirring sound. The rod in his hand began to oscillate.
He pressed the vibrating wand against the girl’s “locus of stimulation”.
The girl gasped in shock, her face registering utter surprise. She moaned and writhed, flailing against her bindings. Her pelvis jerked upward toward the vibrating wand as if wanting more, an action that elicited scattered cries of appreciation in the room.
Julius had to suppress a smile as her body lifted and tensed for several seconds before she screamed and crashed back down onto the table.
She opened her eyes, the reality of the drab room and its banal occupants causing her to blush. It was rather charming.
“Et voilà, gentlemen!” exclaimed the very gratified Dr. Waddington. “Mere seconds to achieve the hysterical paroxysm. Faster than any hand among you, and even faster than any other device you have available in your offices.”
Julius smiled to himself. His colleague had absolutely no idea what he had just done to the very pretty young lass before them. But Julius knew, and the stiffness in his trousers was annoying evidence. For the last few years, he had wondered why the men of the medical profession had never made the connection between the ill-termed “hysterical paroxysm” and sexual culmination. It was simply bizarre and most unscientific.
“Dr. Waddington,” he began, his voice tinged with the utmost of respect, “in your opinion is there any connection between what a woman feels in a state of sexual pleasure and what she feels when this procedure is performed upon her?”
There were muffled gasps of mortification in the room.
“My dear Dr. Christopher,” said the hoary Waddington with authority, “we all know that a woman cannot possibly feel sexual pleasure in the absence of penetration.”
There was, apparently, a consensus of agreement among those in attendance.
“Thank you, doctor,” replied Julius with sincere politeness. “Of course, I
had forgotten that fact. You have presented to us a most useful treatment for hysteria. I think my colleagues will agree that this device will enable us to see so many more patients. And with the modern world changing as it does every day, we will have so many more patients to treat.”
As his fellow doctors voiced their concurrence, Julius smiled along, satisfied in the knowledge that he could now procure a new toy from France with which to pleasure women, and, in effect, to elicit his own.
* * * * *
Telling one’s valet to take the afternoon off was a pleasure more men should experience, Nicholas Ramsay mused as he relaxed in his steaming bath, looking forward to being undisturbed for hours. Undisturbed, yes, but continually occupied.
He had been in London for several weeks already, practically ignoring the mountain of books and papers he had brought back with him from the Edinburgh Medical School, a selection of which mocked him as they lay neatly stacked on the floor next to the tub. It was high time he undertook a serious review of current practices in family medicine.
He lifted his head from the curved rim and watched minuscule bubbles forming on his skin, floating along his thigh under the water. Gaseous exchange.
Respiration.
He let out a long exhale. His life was finally on course. He could breathe easy.
And much of it was due to his patron—and lover—Lady Foxley-Graham. Lavinia had helped him tremendously upon his return to Britain, reacquainting him with civilization, recommending him to Edinburgh, arranging a good set of rooms in London, insisting on finding him a position with another doctor before he struck out on his own. She was also rather resolute that he avail himself of the opportunities of the Season to garner a wife, “a fine young woman who will bolster you in your career, Nicky.” Meaning not necessarily someone who was overly clever or very beautiful. Mere convivial matrimony.
Was it too much to ask for a true meeting of minds? Mutual physical desire?
He grunted and let his head rest on the cool porcelain, staring blankly at the lines of the varnished dark wood paneling truncated by a length of molding. Bath-time was the perfect time to take a respite from the dread of peacocking amongst the upper crust. He had left that life behind years ago and did not look forward to mingling with men and women of the ton who kept their sordid secrets well-hidden. It was bad enough he had his own blasted scandal to conceal.
He shifted his head to gaze up at the plaster ceiling before finding his wits and jolting his attention back to the pile of medical journals on the floor. His new life wasn’t going to start with him pouting and pining about the past. No. He had a profession and the possibility of a wife with whom he would start a family, a new family, a proper family. And to support that family in a manner befitting his station, he would have to be the best damn doctor in London.
He grabbed the first journal on his stack. “November ’78,” he grumbled. Already six months old and probably filled with news and notes he had by now gleaned some other way. He let out a sigh, then methodically leafed through the pages.
The article on page twenty-six piqued his interest. “Clinical and Therapeutic Treatments of Hysteria”. Hysteria “is a disease which affects the higher classes in a disproportionate degree” afflicting only the female of the species, but occurring more frequently in “unmarried women and those who are unhappily married”. Causes included “sexual excesses…especially masturbation”. Nicholas chuckled to himself. If all that were the case, then his own lover must certainly “suffer” the same ailment.
He read on. The women thus plagued took on any number of symptoms from paralysis of the limbs to convulsions to religious delusions. Nicholas had to admit that he was still rather new to the profession, but surely a disease that rendered a woman paralyzed was far different than one that rendered a woman delusional? He turned the page. The section on treatments included illustrations. His eyes widened.
Beside the various herbal and medicinal remedies, diet modifications and cold showers, were the “localized” treatments to the patient’s pelvic area. One engraving showed the “douche” therapy—a woman in a hip bath with a strong jet of water aimed between her legs. Another showed a physician massaging a female patient, his hand at her crotch.
Nicholas was incredulous. The doctor was stimulating the patient to orgasm. Even he, a neophyte, could see that.
He put the journal down and let his head relax against the back of the tub, wondering if he himself could perform such a treatment. He could, he supposed, but not without his cock growing to full stand as it had just by reading a damn medical journal.
He grabbed his erection.
Good God. He would probably spend in his trousers if he had to perform such a remedy.
Waves rippled across the top of the water as he distractedly played with his shaft.
Especially if his patient were a delicious ginger-haired girl with green eyes, gazing up at him in wonder, her face flushed, her chest heaving as his skillful fingers produced magnificent sensations previously unbeknownst to her.
Christ, the thought made him so very, utterly hard. His attention to his needy cock was in earnest now, turning ripples into rhythmic churning. It was probably because he hadn’t fucked Lavinia or even masturbated for two days that his errant prick was behaving as such. Surely it wasn’t reading about what the journal said was a normal medical procedure.
He watched as he pulled the prepuce over the glans, newly intrigued by the mundane yet stimulating act, fascinated that the pleasure he was bringing to himself was, while not considered thoroughly proper in men of his class, certainly tolerated as long as it did not become obsessive.
His movements became more determined and vigorous, sloshing bathwater up the sides of the tub.
It was rather unfair that the female sex was taught that such self-pleasuring was immoral and damaging. No wonder the result was a delusional disease.
A delusional disease suffered by most women of his class, women who would lie still under their husbands during the marital act, women who would flee in terror at the idea of orgiastic delight. Women who would never, ever touch themselves.
Christ! The thought almost made him flaccid until the image of the enraptured ginger-haired girl lolling and moaning under his ministrations strengthened his conviction that surely there was a woman who had discovered the joys of lubricious solitary satisfaction. A woman for whom physical pleasure elicited not shame, but such wondrous contentment as to provoke her to seek out sensual gratification.
He had to find that woman.
His hips bucked up, splashing water over the edge of the tub, as he groaned his satisfaction. He held on to his prick as he continued to spasm, jetting his semen into the water.
Yes, he exhaled, it is a fine thing to spend an afternoon in private indulgence.
* * * * *
Helena Phillips slowly pulled up her cambric nightdress under the sheets. She wanted to touch herself. No, that wasn’t right. She needed to touch herself, a need so strong she couldn’t wait to excuse herself after luncheon to go upstairs, pleading a headache, needing rest before the social obligations of the evening. The urge had never been so insistent. She had ignored the reasons until they had surged forth while she lingered in front of the cheval glass staring at her nude figure before dressing for bed.
The fate of the family rested upon her shoulders and she was nervous.
Not scared, no. It wasn’t fear that rattled her, more like trepidation and dread. While she had been prepared for marriage all her life, and by fourteen knew it had to be to a titled man—an earl at the very least—the reality of it was settling in. She was being introduced to men at every turn, some attractive, some not so much, some old, some young, some interesting, some tedious. Of course, she had confidence in her desirability to the men of the aristocracy. Mama had assured her she was by far the most beautiful debutante in London that Season and Papa had assured her his industrial fortune made her by far the wealthiest. But she didn’t want a husband who
wanted her for beauty and wealth. She wanted a husband who would be her best friend, who would ask her opinion, who would converse intelligently about the latest scientific discoveries, who would make her laugh.
When they heard such “nonsense”, her parents would chastise her for daydreaming too much, for reading too much, for laughing aloud too much. They would complain she was far too clever and far too curious about the world around her for any duke or earl.
Helena worried she would end up with a man who was not curious about the world around her.
What if he wasn’t very clever?
What if he wasn’t very witty?
What if he was thoroughly boring?
Did she have to marry such a man? Make empty chitchat at breakfast? Pretend fondness at soirées? Keep her children silent when he was in his study?
Did she really have to share a bed with such a man?
Helena knew nothing of the marriage bed but could tell not all husbands and wives shared the same level of satisfying intimate camaraderie as her parents. Some wives looked utterly frustrated.
If it came to that, Helena knew how to relieve her own frustrations. But what if her thoroughly boring husband forbade her to touch herself?
She knew it was wrong to touch herself. Well, no one had actually told her so. The mistresses at her finishing school avoided the subject. Besides, they were too busy telling her how to hold a cup and saucer or how to curtsy to a dance partner. But she had heard from some of her friends that to touch the area reserved for the husband was unchaste and he would know just as he would know if she were a virgin or not. Then there were the stories of girls who went mad from hysteria, a peculiar disease that only struck those who went against this moral code and touched themselves…there. The disease marked them for life as trollops and strumpets, no better than gin-soaked streetwalkers. And no gentleman, especially not a peer, would ever want to marry such a girl.
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