Strange Dominion

by Lyons, Amanda M.

  As it turned out, Prabble learned there was no London School of Medicine.

  The mayor came up with an idea. They’d send someone in to see exactly what these treatments involved. They sent the sheriff over to Madame Le Guin’s House of Sin and Taffy—so named because in the afternoons, the girls pulled taffy for the local sweet shop to make extra money. Madame Le Guin felt it gave the establishment a certain amount of respectability. Plus she was a sucker for a good piece of taffy.

  “Interesting,” Madame Le Guin said, dropping her body onto a velvet settee that strained under her weight. “I was thinking about sending one of my girls out there. I hear one of the symptoms is a tendency to cause trouble. I’ve been having some problems with Celeste lately. She refuses to pull taffy, sleeping all afternoon. And some of her customers have been complaining. One of her best customers claims she bit him.”

  The sheriff squirmed in his seat and adjusted himself. “Bit him? Where?”

  “Upstairs in her room. Where else?”

  “Never mind,” the sheriff said. “I have an idea. Do you think your girls could get me all dolled up?”

  She laughed. “Honey, have you ever seen some of my girls in the daylight? If they can doll themselves up, they can doll anybody up. You’ll have to go to Harvey’s Hair Emporium and get a good close shave first. Then we’ll get you fixed up. Why? What’s your plan?”

  “I’ll go out there as a woman with Female Hysteria problems. Then I’ll pay him the dollar for the treatment and see what goes on inside that wagon.”

  “Good idea. You can take my butler Andre to be your husband. We’ll find out what’s going on out there for sure. Let me see those tonics they’re selling.”

  He showed her the bottle. She opened the big one and took a swig. “Whew! Honey, that stuff is powerful enough to take the paint off the shingles! Damn! I gotta get me some of that. You suppose he sells it without the treatments? Because I don’t need no treatments. But the tonics would be good. Sure beats that hooch we sell in here.”

  “Give that back to me,” the sheriff said, snatching the bottle from her.

  The sheriff let the mayor and Prabble in on the plan. The girls at Miss Le Guin’s had a great time dressing the sheriff up in one of the Mistress’s dresses. They got him into a blonde wig, plenty of makeup, and even found a pair of ladies’ shoes for him. The best part was getting him out of his long johns and into a corset and bloomers and shaving his legs. They all giggled madly. It was a whole lot more fun than pulling taffy.

  They took the mayor’s carriage and headed out to the wagons with Andre driving. While the sheriff sat outside, Andre went inside to consult with the good doctor.

  “I’m new to town,” he explained. “My name is Jackson Rollings. I was speaking with my neighbor, Mr. Prabble, and he was telling me about your treatments for his wife. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Female Hysteria, but it makes a lot of sense. I’m kind of ashamed to say this, but my wife has a tendency to cause trouble. She also has problems with excessive facial hair. If I don’t take her to the barbershop every day for a close shave, she looks like a man. I don’t know what to do. I’ve taken her over my knee and spanked her many times.”

  “Well, as entertaining as that may be for you, Mr. Rollings, it just doesn’t work,” Dr. Lumpkin said. “This is an illness that must be handled with a combination of treatment and medication.” He explained the charges to him.

  “That will be fine. I just want my sweet Betsy back!”

  “Well, bring her in. Then you wait outside in the wagon. It happens I have an opening right now. I can give her the first treatment.”

  Andre gave him the money, took the bottles of elixir, and went back to the wagon. Mistress Le Guin was waiting for them back in town.

  “You’re on, sheriff. He can see you right now.” Andre helped him down from the wagon, gave him a little kiss on the cheek and sent him along with a pat on the backside.

  “Hello, Mrs. Rollings, I’m Dr. Lumpkin,” the doctor said. “Your husband says you’re not feeling well. He’s asked me to see if I can help with my treatments. I believe you have a condition called Female Hysteria. It’s my specialty. I’m treating several women in the area.”

  “Oh? Who?” the sheriff asked in his best female voice.

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am. Doctor/patient confidentiality and all. But several of them. Some right in your own neighborhood.”

  “Oh my,” the sheriff said.

  “Okay then, I’ll just go behind the curtain for a moment. I’ll need you to slip your bloomers off. Then stand with your back to the table. Lean against it, hold on and open your legs very wide. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  The sheriff chuckled as he took off the bloomers and assumed the position. Dr. Lumpkin had some surprises waiting for him. He checked the back of his skirt to make sure his gun was in place.

  “Ready!” he called out sweetly.

  The doctor returned to the room. He had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Okay, Mrs. Rollings. I’m going to kneel before you and put my hands up your skirt. At first it may feel a little uncomfortable, but I want you to just go with your feelings. I’ll be performing some . . . manipulations, and I think after a few moments you’ll find yourself enjoying them. Do you understand? You don’t have to do anything. Just stand there and let yourself go.”

  “Okay,” the sheriff said.

  Dr. Lumpkin reached under the hem of the skirt. “My, you’re a big woman, Mrs. Rollings. Very well built for a female.”

  “Um, I grew up on a farm. I had no brothers, so my sisters and I did a lot of chores. We’re all very large boned, I’m afraid. You don’t know how I wish I was tiny and dainty!”

  “Well, no matter. Let’s see what we can do for your Female Hysteria. I’m going to be touching you now, Mrs. Rollings.”

  There was the click as the trigger of a Colt 45 was pulled back. Dr. Lumpkin felt the cold barrel on his forehead.

  “You’d better be telling me to turn my head and cough, Doc. Otherwise we’ve got a problem here,” the sheriff said in his own voice. “Now get your hands out from under my skirt and reach for the sky.”

  Dr. Lumpkin was taken to jail. Quincey Waterstockle was arrested briefly, but released when Dr. Lumpkin admitted he was the only one who actually performed the treatments. The mayor announced that Dr. Lumpkin would stand trial for practicing medicine without a license and twenty-three counts of adultery. Twenty-four if you count his attempted molesting of the sheriff.

  When the trial came up, the courthouse was filled. A circuit court judge was brought in and rumors spread through the town that if found guilty, the penalty would be hanging. Nearly every woman in the town was there in defense of the doctor, sitting in the back of the courtroom behind their husbands. Without his treatments, they’d reverted back to their old ways. Their husbands told them to stay home, but there they were—causing trouble again.

  There was no jury, because they couldn’t find people to serve on a jury of his peers—twelve fake doctors who molested men’s wives and then got charged them for it—so the Honorable Judge Ernest T. Farquhar served as both judge and jury.

  The first witness was Frederick Prabble, who described the original meeting and the treatments his wife was undergoing to the best of his knowledge. He described the sounds he heard from outside the wagon. And he explained about the two bottles of medicine and the chart—one special bottle of medicine for the time of her monthly complaints. He also presented the letter from England stating there was no such thing as the London School of Medicine. However, when cross-examined, he was forced to admit that since his wife had started taking the treatments, she was a much better woman to live with.

  The second witness was Sherriff Marian Bickerson, who testified he’d disguised himself as a woman and gone to see Dr. Lumpkin with Female Hysteria symptoms. He described having to remove his bloomers and stand there with his legs spread wide apart while the Doctor reached hi
s hands underneath his skirt and told him to relax. On cross examination, he wasn’t able to give any more details about the treatment, because it was stopped when the sheriff put a gun to the doctor’s head and arrested him. He was also forced to testify that since treatments had started, his wife Roxanne was vastly improved.

  “Well, young man,” the judge said to Lumpkin. “On the basis of what I’ve just heard, I’m inclined to find you guilty and let the fine gentlemen of Bee Sting string you up. Shame on you for touching their wives and then charging them for it. And for all that talk about their monthly and such. Fine talk in front of gentlemen.”

  Several woman in the back of the courtroom fainted dead away and had to be revived. “No!” several others shouted. “Release him! We want our treatments back!”

  Dr. Lumpkin, acting in his own defense, requested a two-month long recess. He’d remain in jail, but would be allowed to send and receive mail to put together his defense. The judge agreed. In jail, he wouldn’t be getting his hands on anybody’s wife.

  For two months, each night, a different one of the women showed up at the window of the jail with supper for the doctor. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, freshly baked pies, fluffy layer cakes, while their husbands made do with whatever they managed to toss on the table for them. They cried more, slept less, fainted more and were generally more disagreeable. A few of the husbands even got together and discussed a plan to bust Lumpkin out and set up his practice in a secret location.

  When the two months ended, Dr. Lumpkin needed help to carry the many letters, books, and packages he’d accumulated into the courthouse.

  “Well,” said Judge Farquhar when everyone was assembled. “A man’s got a right to a defense. Even a man like you. And I’m here to listen.”

  “I’m prepared,” Lumpkin replied. “However, I would ask any gentleman whose wife has succumbed to the symptoms of Feminine Hysteria once again to please remove her from the room. This could get embarrassing and I wouldn’t want to see them have to endure it.”

  “We’re staying where we are,” said Clementine Askew, rising to her feet and speaking on behalf of the women of Bee Sting. “Anything you have to say can be said in front of us. After all, it was our skirts you put your hands up.”

  “Then first I’d like to present the work of Dr. Edward Tilt, which includes a list of seventy-five symptoms known to be associated with Feminine Hysteria as well as the work of Dr. Pierre Briquet of France, who comes to similar conclusions. I would ask that Your Honor read through the lists. Perhaps he sees some that apply to his own wife. Certainly the men of Bee Sting did. Symptoms which Mr. Prabble and Sherriff Bickerson have testified improved with my treatments.”

  The judge put on his reading glasses and went over the pages Lumpkin had the books open to. His right eyebrow rose, but he said nothing. He slid the books aside.

  “I’d like to study that material further at my leisure,” he said.

  “In addition, I present the fine work of English physician Thomas Sydenham who estimated that hysteria was the most common disease after fever, accounting for a sixth of all human maladies. According to him, among women, there is rarely one who is wholly free from them."

  He passed that information to the judge, who piled it with the rest.

  Lumpkin turned and addressed the crowd in the courtroom. “And now, ladies, once again, I’m going to ask you to leave the room. This next part of my presentation is very sensitive and I fear that many of you won’t be able to take it.”

  Clementine Askew stood with her arms folded across her chest, her huge feathered hat bending forward so it appeared she was casting him an evil eye. “We’re staying,” she said. The other ladies nodded in agreement.

  Lumpkin sighed and set to work opening a box on the defense table. “With all due respect to the ladies present, I wonder if any of you know exactly how taxing it is on the doctor’s body to perform these treatments. Most last one hour. Some longer. And I’m now seeing several patients per day. Why, at the end of the day, I’m lucky I can pick up a knife and fork to fix myself dinner! Most doctors who perform these treatments have the same problem. Terrible pain in the hands and wrists.”

  “Now, I must object to that, son,” Judge Farquhar said. “You aren’t a doctor, and don’t you go referring to yourself as one.”

  “I’ll get to that,” Lumpkin said. “In due time. Well, in 1869, a man named George Taylor came up with a steam machine that would do the job better and quicker. And save a lot of work for doctors.” He held up a metal object that vaguely resembled a large orb. It was cumbersome and appeared to be complicated to use.

  “Known as “The Manipulator”, this is the object he invented. It is meant to be placed into a table. A woman would lie on top of it and position the orb over her . . .”

  There was a loud scream in the back of the room and three women fainted dead away. They had to be carried out.

  “But it was inconvenient, and most of all, hotter than Hades itself on those delicate parts. There were advances. In the early 1880’s, a British doctor named Joseph Mortimer patented this device based on the work of a Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville. It was known as “Granville’s Hammer”. It was more portable but still unwieldy, due to its forty-pound battery. Doctor Granville himself disapproved of using his invention to treat hysterical women. He used it to treat muscular disorders on men. But many of Granville’s fellow doctors who could afford them were eager to pass the time-consuming task of giving women treatments for Feminine Hysteria off to a machine. Why, this machine can do in five or ten minutes what takes me over an hour to do!” He held the object up for all to see. It resembled a large metal male organ. “The purpose of the machine is to cause a physician assisted hysterical paroxysm—or release through a spasm—in the patient. This is meant to insert inside a woman’s . . .”

  A man stood up in the second row. “Now, see here, Lumpkin. If that’s what your so-called treatments involve, I can do that to my wife myself! And believe me, I can last more than five or ten minutes!” A few men in the audience chuckled loudly. Two more women fainted.

  “If that were true, your wife wouldn’t be coming to see me three times a week, sir,” Lumpkin replied. The crowd broke up with laughter.

  The judge banged his gavel. “I will have order in this court. What goes on between a man and his wife at those most intimate times is not what’s under discussion here, Mr. Lumpkin. What is under discussion is why a man would pose as a doctor and touch other women’s wives. And then charge their husbands for it!”

  “Which brings me to my last piece of evidence, Your Honor. My diploma, as a fellow at the London Academy of Medicine, as well as several reference letters from other doctors stating that I’ve been involved in the study of Feminine Hysteria, including one from the well-known Sigmund Freud, who has himself treated women for this condition, although our methods are very different. So, I’d appreciate it if you used Dr. Lumpkin in the future. You will also note that several doctors have described using exactly the same treatment I’ve been performing. In great detail.”

  The room got noisy again. Everyone was talking at once. The judge banged his gavel. “I’ll take those letters. I’d like to read about those treatments.”

  Lumpkin continued. “For your further information, with the advent of electricity, I’m hearing that a new version of this device, now known as a “vibrator” is being developed as we speak in Racine, Wisconsin. A device that can be used so a woman can perform her own treatments at home. There is a great deal of controversy in the medical community regarding this new machine. Many feel women will overindulge in its use.”

  “And maybe replace their husbands!” A man yelled out. “Well, my wife can forget about it, because I don’t care if they’re on the cover of the Sears Catalog, I ain’t buying her one!” Other men shouted in agreement.

  “Don’t be so sure, sir,” Lumpkin said. “Why, I predict that one day every house will have one of these—maybe severa
l.”

  “Not my house,” the man said. “It’s immoral and disgusting. And my wife ain’t having one! Not now, not never!”

  The judge banged his gavel again. “Mr.- or rather Dr. Lumpkin, you’ve given me a lot of material to study before I can arrive at a decision. But I have one last question for you. Why have you left so many towns in the past?”

  “For the same reason I’m here now, your Honor. Husbands who are afraid of me and what I represent. Rumors, innuendo. And so Quincey and I have been travelling west. Our idea was to end up in California. Something tells me there will be many women in California in need of our services.”

  “They’re probably will be,” a man in the crowd said. “Everybody in California is crazy. And it’s only going to get worse as more go there.” There was more laughter.

  The judge rapped the gavel. “All right, enough of this rabble. Court is dismissed. Dr. Lumpkin, you’ll return to your cell. I’ll be taking possession of those . . . objects on behalf of the Territory of Oklahoma. I’ll be reading all this material as well as examining these items. Court will convene at nine in the morning in three days’ time when I will render my verdict.”

  “Tell us now!” a man shouted. “He’s guilty! Those things are against God and nature! A woman with a good husband has no need for such an item. If she spends her time doing her chores and taking care of her family, she has no time for such nonsense! And the best way to handle a troublesome wife is by taking a switch to her over your knee! That’ll take care of her Feminine Hysteria. And a switch don’t cost nothing!”

  “You’re damn right!” another man said. “I ain’t paying a man to do what a husband should be doing for his wife. And I sure ain’t letting a machine do it!”

  The discussion continued outside the courthouse, but all the men in Bee Sting, Oklahoma were in agreement. Their wives didn’t need a doctor or a mechanical device. They also agreed that they could service their wives for longer than five or ten minutes. Nearby, their wives covered their faces and giggled.

  Three days later, Dr. Lumpkin woke to the sound of hammers. Outside his window, he could see men building a gallows. He swallowed hard. If the judge found him guilty, he would be taken directly there and hung. They didn’t waste a lot of time in Bee Sting, Oklahoma.