by Louisa Trent
Sometimes, even after they were found and housed and served three meals a day at the asylum, orphans continued to wear signs of their neglect into adulthood – on their faces, on their bodies, in their furtive manner…in their overcompensation for not feeling “good enough”.
This man’s clothing was finely-tailored, his deportment that of a gentleman. Still, I wondered. In the stark planes and lines on his face, he wore the look of someone well-acquainted with doing without. Had he gone hungry as a child…for food…for love?
Had he been an orphan?
“Remove yourself from my path at once, sir.”
For a certainty, he brought out the hidden outspoken in me. If only I could hang onto the knack after ridding myself of him...
Amazed by his lack of concern, I looked at him askance. “You take this so lightly. What of your reputation, sir? How can you be so complacent about your respectability? What if I went and tattled on you?”
“You will do nothing of the kind. Yours is an empty threat,” he rebuked. “You would never cause a scene. Never go to someone and complain. Deliberately seeking out attention is not your style.”
Style?
He misjudged me. I had no style. Style implied conscious selection, deliberately choosing and discarding attire and other areas of judgment based on individual taste and preference. I had never developed any of that. My mother had hired my maid when I just turned eight.
Irene.
She was now quite elderly, seventy-five if she were a day, and thickly bespeckled, poor dear. Nevertheless, she ordered all my apparel down to the modest cotton drawers any cloistered nun would feel comfortable wearing. Irene also handpicked and laid-out my clothing every day of the week before dressing my hair.
As both tasks made her feel useful, I never protested her influence over me. Though deaf as a haddock and nearly blind, Irene sensed things, especially negative undercurrents. I lived in abject terror of unintentionally hurting her feelings by revealing my true opinions of my too-tightly arranged hair…an unfashionable braided coronet…and my sedate wardrobe…grays and blacks, with outdated white fichus draped around my neck for the questionable purpose of ornamentation. Tonight, she had dispensed with even that frippery.
Yes, I mourned the deaths of my parents and always would. But manifesting that sadness in my wardrobe only intensified my gloom. I would do anything to lift my melancholy…
Except fire Irene.
At any rate, he was wrong about me having style but correct about me never knowingly causing a scene. Too impolite.
The stranger moved in on me, herding me like a docile sheep away from the bank of windows by the locked door and cornering me…well…in a corner, where he switched off the anteroom’s single dim sconce.
Fear should have risen up in me then. Tonight, that protective impulse remained dormant. I took comfort in the dark. Darkness guaranteed my blushing face would remain my secret. I was too old for the betraying flushes that heated my skin, as they did now.
“You want to be here,” he accused. “Admit it. You only went up on your high horse because it was the expected thing to do.”
My mouth twisted. What he said…could possibly be true. I was not about to tell him so, however. Far too frank.
“So – now that we cleared all that up – what say you? Open to an escapade, little peeper?”
Good heavens! What a proposal. And was I open to it?
Without having the information on what an escapade entailed, how would I decide?
Despite my chagrin and annoyance and all the rest of my reservations, I pushed forward. And not completely because I was curious, though I was, but not enough to venture into unknown territory. No, something else drove me here:
An instinct for survival.
This audacious gentleman might lift me out of myself. Or, minimally, out of the doldrums in which I was presently mired. My spirits were dangerously low.
Another thought – if one’s actions could not be seen, did they truly count? Were they even real in the dark?
In the dark, I might continue to be who I was now. Possibly, I might even be more. Perhaps, I could also be wicked and funny and daring and audacious. What a miraculous transformation!
The air stirred as he dipped his head to mine. He whispered against my ear, “I have never met a woman quite like you, truly an original.”
A skittish old maid…an original?
I thought not. “You must not get out enough, sir. Women like me are a dime a dozen.”
Those of my ilk made for laughable stereotypes, all of us printed from much the same brittle plate. And harkening back to the question of style – wearing kid gloves with a woman seemed far from his style. A careless handling could hurt me.
So what, and what of it?
I was near desperate. Considering my recent detachment from life, hurt would be an improvement. Far better than the dreadful numbness I had been subject to of late. One thing to be shy and tongue-tied, another thing never to go out, except to charitable functions. There had to be more. Was the occasional brush with pleasure too much to ask?
“I have never known someone so self-possessed,” he continued. “You not only know how to play the game, I suspect you would best me at it. That is a one of a kind woman, an original by definition. I tell you…already this evening, you have taken me down a peg or two, a painfully singular experience.”
My latent curiosity got the best of me. “How so, sir?”
“Females are always enamored with me. Most keel over in a swoon when they encounter my make. Not you.”
His make? Make of what? And when had I encountered it?
Most ladies I knew carried smelling salts in their reticules, refused to go anywhere without them. Me? I had never owned any. May my cast-iron constitution remain in good stead here! Swooning would be so impolite…
Still –
“Pray reserve judgment for later, sir. Your make may yet bring me to my knees.”
He unbuttoned his coat. To show off his trousers? Why? Was he inordinately proud of their tailoring? Is that what he meant by make?
“Ah, little peeper. You on your knees at my boots – the thought stops my heart.”
His tone was witty, as it would be for light banter, and so I laughed as if I understood his meaning, which I did not, but which was probably risqué.
And so what if it was? Should I get all huffy and slap his face?
I had no one to disgrace anymore by unseemly behavior – my parents were both gone. Apart from that, I had money to burn, a reputation I cared nothing about, and was entrenched in melancholy. Once again – what did I have to lose?
My pervasive sadness. It had begun to recede already.
I started working out a scenario that might let me have my cake and eat it too.
As we had not exchanged names, he might think me a recent widow, and with good cause. Bless her heart! Irene’s selection for tonight’s gala consisted of a severe gown of paramatta silk, not far removed from the clothing of deep mourning. And I was indeed mourning – the loss of my parents, not a spouse. If he thought it was widow’s weeds I wore, he would never learn the error of his mistake from me. I planned never to see him again.
Even I, of limited – as in none – experience understood an escapade meant temporary. On a trysting scale, an escapade fell below an assignation as far as permanence went. Immediately following tonight, he would forget my features, which were nondescript and completely unmemorable. On the other hand, his face would remain indelibly imprinted in my brain. I would know his tawny-streaked fair-haired good looks anywhere.
I too was fair – pale hair, pale skin, pale personality. But where he was golden, I was ghostly, hardly even there. People generally gazed right through me to rest their sights on anyone else.
No one saw through this man. This man stopped people in their tracks, left them wishing to know what he kept hidden. His air of mystery had certainly worked on me.
“Please, little peeper, stay
.”
Well this was an odd turn of events. A man actually asking me to stay?
“Consider the blow to my conceit if you leave so soon, little peeper. Allow me to bask in your indifference a little while longer.”
“Basking can only be done in sunlight,” I acerbically replied. “This room is pitch-black.”
“I was trying for poetry.”
“Your confession to vanity was more accurate.”
“You saw me.” In the dark, he seemed to strut. “How could I not be vain? Though – looks are unimportant.”
“Of course. Completely unimportant. It is all about honor and courtesy, intangibles like that. A person’s worth is not measured by looks at all.”
He guffawed. “Yes, they are.”
“Indeed,” I agreed, twittering too. “And I will do you one better – a person’s worth is measured completely by appearance. How one looks, how one speaks, how one conducts oneself in public are all that matters.”
He pulled me close. Such was the potency of his charm that I, who had never fainted in my life, came close to swooning then.
“My make is the stuff of legend,” he growled. “Do you not agree?”
I, of all people, understood an orphan’s heightened sensitivity, their protection of possessions. These children owned so very little. They prized their meager belongings, even if they only amounted in value to that of a rock and a stick they played with. Orphans hoarded everything, hid food and scraps of ribbon and cloth as if they were the crown jewels.
In fear of hurting him, I would never insult his clothing, a subject which was obviously important to him. My apathetic opinion of his tailoring would remain my secret. Building up an orphan was the way to go, not tearing them down.
“Sir, your make is truly beyond compare.”
In the middle of my exaggeration, he placed my gloved hand over the trousers he was so inordinately proud of. I reflexively closed my fingers around my findings – an enormous bulge as hard and steep as the Alps.
“Mountainous, eh?”
Taken aback, I could only whisper, “Definitely no molehill.” What did he have in there?
For the purpose of properly filling out a sagging bodice, I had been known to pad my bosom upon occasion, a decoy to draw male attention. If that was a lure stuffed inside his pants it was working.
My attention was fully drawn
“You feel swollen, sir. Anything I can do to help with that?”
He moaned.
I had caused that strangled noise deep in his chest. Me! That torturous sound proved a woman of a certain age was not necessarily all “dried up”. Tonight was turning out to be an evening of firsts.
Not all of them pleasant. Some were downright alarming.
To put it bluntly…my underarms, where light blond hair whorled in disarray, moistened. As had another place. A rather odd place. And not simply moistened either. The never explored void between my thighs had gone startlingly fluid.
Incontinence sprang to mind. Had I peed myself?
I had heard of older women going soggy with laughter or even a sneeze. But those were matrons who had birthed one or more children. None of those causes applied to me. So why the sudden drizzly weather down below?
Regardless of my advanced years, everything was still in its right place…more or less…and presumably my innards worked as they should. Everything was as usual, apart from…
“My goodness, but my drawers are wet.”
Chapter Four
And there it was, my first humiliating blunder of the evening. Just when I was doing so well too…
I had meant to keep the wetness lament strictly to myself. Instead, upset over entering my dotage, I blurted it out as if hardening of the arteries had befallen me. Not a shout, a soft utterance only, but loud enough for a certain fair-haired gentleman to overhear and condemn me as a clumsy nitwit.
Apparently, he thought differently. First a wink, now he was laughing conspiratorially under his breath. Not at me, though. With me. And that made all the difference.
Rather than be appalled by something I could not take back, I laughed right along with him. Me, of all people, laughing freely with a complete stranger over wet drawers. This was new. Whatever possessed me?
Him. I was possessed by him. In such a limited period of time and after a ridiculously shallow acquaintance, during which not even names had been exchanged.
I found I liked it like that.
My social life – such as it was – revolved around attending various philanthropic functions, all highly structured and formalized, with the usual handshakes and curtseys delivered during receiving line introductions. There existed not a freewheeling moment during any of them. Duties and rules governed me there as they did everywhere else. And, considering my reclusive nature, it was just as well they did, what with my lack of small talk.
All of these activities had but one raison d’être, and that was collecting money. That was it, what I did with my life. There was no need for me to acquire one of those vulgar pastimes called “making a living” due to my being well-fixed – filthy rich in impolite terms. Lots of inherited money came my way upon the tragic deaths of both my parents.
A large bank roll, combined with long-standing social standing, allowed me the freedom to indulge in anything outside these strictly choreographed events…if I had a mind to.
I never did.
What? Take the jump into the social unknown and leave myself open to ridicule that would have me racing for the sanctuary of my home, with all the drapes drawn. Where would the orphans be then?
Either out on the street or continuing to live in overcrowded conditions in the Red-light District.
I was not glib or witty or adept with people, and I never would be. I had been a solitary only child and now I was a solitary adult. I was a walking cliché and I expected no sympathy. Especially not now.
Tonight, a previously unknown fit of recklessness had seized me. I was in its unshakeable grip and I was enjoying myself enormously. So much so that before succumbing evermore to my sedate “maiden lady” state, I had a sudden mind to misbehave. Should I take the great flying leap into the fray of sweaty humanity? Should I indulge those hitherto unknown needs that had accountably taken over my thoughts now?
Yes!
All I needed was a male with a heart-stopping wink and a dazzling smile to partner me in...what was that term again he had used with such facility?
An escapade.
Yes, and there was something else too.
Domination. That was it! Why did that word conjure up such pleasantly naughty sensations?
“Wet, eh?” he offered after his appreciative chuckling had subsided. “You have me to thank for that.”
The conceit! As if he’d had something to do with my wet drawers, I thought, smirking to myself in the dark. The sheer arrogance of the man was not to be believed.
What was his knowing and self-satisfied air all about?
Even in the dark, I was aware of his posturing. Why he was positively gloating, his face shining like one of those new electric bulbs!
Then, the truth made itself known to me, and I just wanted to hang my head, and slink away.
In the narrow context he employed, domination meant he would hold carnal sway over me, that he would have the power to make me swoon, the power to make me wet myself down below where a lady of virtue should never, ever, be wet, never mind speak of in polite conversation, even accidentally.
Where was the harm in accepting his offer?
It was not as though we would have a relationship of any kind. He would not be my lover nor would I be his mistress. An engagement…marriage…were out of the question. Naturally. Heaven forbid that gentlemen wed anonymous ladies they took into dark anterooms during charity soirees. The very idea was outlandish. Gentlemen wed ladies of unblemished characters to bear their sons. The womb must be kept pure for inheritance purposes.
But that was not what he had suggested. His offer wa
s for an escapade, a mastery over me of short duration.
Why not?
After these grief-fraught last months, anything that would get me to forget sadness for even a few minutes sounded wondrous. A brief escapade might even cure me. Or, at least keep me from taking an overdose of laudanum. Even on a limited basis, I needed to rejoin the world of the living. Severe melancholy such as mine was unhealthy.
I sighed. Not unhealthy. Deadly.
For a single evening, I would have this, I decided. Here and now, for this one moment in the passage of time, I would choose life, in all its entanglements.
And with every self-imposed restriction removed, with propriety forgotten, and with all thoughts of a respectable future stomped upon, I promptly began to enjoy myself all over again.
“My admission surprises you, sir. This leads me to believe you have never before succeeded in making a woman…wet. If so, perhaps you require more practice. I volunteer.”
As I had learned from successfully collecting donations from wealthy skinflints during the course of my charity work…when all else fails, much could be said for finding a person’s Achilles’ heel and turning that weakness back on them.
Here was my chance to use my slip of the tongue for the brazen seduction of a susceptible man. Here was my opportunity to be the driving force behind this escapade, to make it happen on my own narrow terms. After all, he had proven himself interested or he would not have been here with me, in a tiny and empty anteroom off a brownstone’s main drawing room.
Not my anteroom. Not my drawing room. The palatial residence belonged not to me but to a member of our charitable committee, a tightwad who squeezed every penny until it squeaked, but whom I managed to harangue into lending the building committee his home for an evening in lieu of a monetary donation. He would of course get credit for his generosity in my next society page interview, and this would bring paying customers flooding to his Beacon Hill apothecary shop.
In life as in commerce, one hand washed the other.
I extracted my arm from this stranger’s grip, blinked back some humiliated-driven moisture hovering on the edge my tear duct, and got on with it.