parlor.
“Of course, I told you about the meeting last month. I haven't seen Jack Reed around since then,” Lilith sniffed, furiously shoveling sugar into her coffee, “but Hanlon has been scurrying about like a fly drawn to horse manure.”
“Your father is racing against the clock. Mine had no choice; at eighteen my money was mine. I just timed out in McLean.” A rare sigh from Esther startled Lilith. Her friend petted the kitten's neck and added, “Nine months is a long time, Lilith. We were only in McLean for four and look what they managed to do to us.”
In many ways, Lilith couldn't quite remember what they had managed to do. The electric treatment she'd received at the hands of Dr. Maurice Scott had been shameful. Only seventeen and understanding little of her reproductive and sexual parts, Lilith had not understood what he meant when he described her “obvious hysteria” and need to reach “hysterical paroxysm.”
His methods for doing so, however, became quite clear when he used a hand-held electric cylinder and used it to, as he described it, “cleanse” her of her hysterical buildup. She knew now, after reading medical journals at Wellesley, that the doctor manually stimulated her clitoris to achieve orgasm, releasing her so-called hysteria. The pelvic massage, he assured her, was the only medical treatment that could cure her; if she didn't achieve orgasm, he would need to move on to a more extreme procedure.
Esther's treatment, however, had been far worse.
He'd simply removed her clitoris.
They'd confided in each other, sharing abutting rooms at the hospital, having few words to describe what was done. Esther hadn't known the medical term for the body part Dr. Scott removed, telling Lilith he'd removed her vagina, an image that haunted Lilith's dreams for years.
Daily sessions of hysterical paroxysm treatment left Lilith anxious and overstimulated, worsening as Dr. Scott added ancillary treatments to release her bladder and bowels, enemas in conjunction with a vibrating chair that he would not unstrap her from if she lost continence.
Constant vigilance had been her only protection.
And then she had lost even that, going incontinent in one incongruous moment on his examination table, no enemas involved. He had applied the electric vibrator to her for the ninth day in a row and, within five minutes, a sudden rush of fluid came out of her, spilling over the sides.
“Oh, heavens!” he'd shouted, rushing to grab a towel. A portly man in his 50s, Dr. Scott's walrus mustache covered the frown she knew lay buried.
And from that day on, Lilith had been tormented by the episodes. The next day her grandfather had set her free, having worked the legal system to her advantage, and shortly after set up the trust fund. If only he'd trusted her at eighteen.
No amount of money, though, had saved Esther from Dr. Scott's treatment. Over the years, through careful study of medical journals and whispers of gossip, Lilith had learned of other specialists, the new “gynecologists” who treated women's sexual organs as if they were the source of mental disease.
It drove her mad.
Yet the shame lingered.
She shook herself from the memory. “Nine months, yes, but grandfather's provisions are ironclad. I am not worried.”
“You should be. He isn't right,” Esther answered, pointing to her head. “Something is missing.”
“A soul?” Lilith shivered.
“Certainly a sense of humor. My father said he was the most boring wealthy man he'd ever met.” Esther shook her head. “And my father was a Quaker. The pot calling the kettle – ”
“A rat.”
“Is the rat out of town this week?” Esther asked, eyebrows raised. She looked as if she were being shocked by an electric lamp.
“Yes.”
“Well, my dear, when the rat's away, the cat can play.”
“So now I'm a cat?” Lilith scrunched her face into a look of confusion.
“No, but you have a big cat, a lion of a man, who is game for you.”
“So what confounding torture do you have for me today?” he teased, licking the curved flesh of her earlobe, soft and pliant as flesh in other regions of her body he couldn't wait to know well. The shiver his simple words elicited in her made a strong, sturdy warmth flood through him and he hardened, a sudden and fierce need in full bloom.
“A bicycle ride to the edge of town, I thought, should do the trick,” she announced, her blue eyes filled with twinkle and mirth. But James saw more there, irises tinged with concern and regret. He would leave for Chile soon. She could not accompany