Tempted (15 page)

“It's okay,” he said.

She reached for him. “Don’t!” he cried and she jerked back, chagrined and embarrassed. Slightly scared.

All her talk of experiments seemed stupid right now. He was a man, and he’d had years of this imposed exile. Years of flinching away from people and affection and touching.

What did I really think I was going to do?
she wondered.
Fix him? My conceit is embarrassing
.

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do,” she said. Suddenly she wished she had a tenth of the experience Stella or Jane or Bea did at Delilah's. Some idea of what she could do to make this right.

“Me neither,” he nearly barked, and embarrassed she pulled she sheet up over her body. Is this how they were going to end? Embarrassed and naked? Oh, it was so awful.

“No, Anne. Stop. Please.”

The grief in his voice froze her.

“Don’t… don’t cover up.”

“Then what should I do?” she cried.

“Lie back,” he told her. Commanded her, really.

And she did. She lay back on the bed while he stood apart from her. Watching her. This was what he wanted?

She blinked up at the ceiling, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

“Anne,” he sighed, and she glanced over at him. His penis was no longer soft and the way he touched himself… it was rough. Furious seeming.

The gentleness with which he'd touched her was absent. But it didn't seem to matter.

He was breathing hard, watching her with unfocused eyes.

“Touch yourself,” he groaned.

Her eyes flew wide. “How?” she asked.

“The way… the way I touched you earlier.”

Shaking, she put her hand back between her legs, and he groaned again.

“Yes,” he said. “Like that. Let me see.”

She swallowed down her fear and misgivings and splayed her legs open, which seemed to be what he liked.

“Yes,” he moaned. “Annie. Show me.”

She did. Or tried to. Her legs felt awkward and stiff, her body not quite her own. But guided by whatever clues she could glean from his face, she managed to create some kind of picture for him that worked until finally, in an ecstatic grand finale, he curled over himself, his hand a blur between his legs, his expression pained.

And then he clenched his eyes closed and covered himself with his hand as he jerked, his mouth open in a silent scream.

“Oh my god,” she cried. “Steven?”

Was this some sort of heart failure? A seizure?

Panting, he pitched forward on the bed, bracing himself with his hand. They were both panting. She realized she'd flung her hands out to catch him but stopped before touching him.

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice quiet.

“There's nothing... nothing to be sorry for.”

“It's not usually like that.”

“I don't...I wouldn't know.”

He sighed and leaned harder on the bed, and she shifted out of the way. He reached down to the floor for his handkerchief and he wiped his hands and stomach off and then reached for his pants, hitching them up to his waist. But he looked suddenly unsteady.

“Lie down,” she said.

“I don't—”

“Please. You...look like you're about to fall over.” He'd watched over her all night and most of the day—he must be exhausted. And what had just happened seemed to cost him a great deal.

“Okay,” he said. “Just...for a moment.”

He collapsed onto her bed, and since she was being careful not to touch him, there was nowhere to go but off the bed. Which was fine.

I need… a minute
, she thought.
Just… a minute to collect myself. To see who I am after… that.

She didn’t quite know how to reconcile how she felt right now.

She pulled the blanket out from under him and threw it over his body.

“I'll...I'll get up in a second,” he said.

“Stop, Steven. Rest. It's all right.”

A long, deep breath sighed out of him and he fell asleep right in front of her.

S
he dressed, made herself a little more to eat, then cleaned up her dishes. She watched the door to Elizabeth's room, willing it to open. Longing for someone to talk to.

And what would you say, exactly?
she asked herself.
How in the world would you put that remarkable and strange experience into words? What part of that was fit for polite company?

None of it.

And frankly, she felt as if she’d scandalized her tenant enough for a while.

She lit a lamp in the hallway, and quietly she climbed the steps to her shadowed room where Steven was sleeping across the bed. Filling the bed with his chest and his soft breaths. His blond hair across the pillow case.

“What did we do?” she whispered. Half wishing he’d wake up and talk to her, and half dreading it.

He shifted in his sleep, snoring slightly. His movement released a wave of warm-body and warm-sheet smell. It lanced her, that smell. It created a longing in her, to crawl into bed beside him. To touch him…

The conceit of her “experiment” seemed awful in this moment. Selfish.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed.

But even with her regret, she could not help but wish that what had happened between them had been somehow… right. And good.

Quite suddenly she realized she couldn’t stay here in this house any longer, waiting for him to wake up. Sitting downstairs and jumping at every sound, wondering what they were going to say to each other when he woke up.

It was cowardly, she understood that. And highly irregular. But what was one more irregular thing after the last few days?

Anne put on her coat, grabbed her cane and went out into the twilight, looking for some answers.

Delilah’s was closed. Pitch black from the outside. No lights. No piano. Nothing.

But the swinging door could not be locked.

“Hello?” she asked, pushing it open into the shadowy interior.

“We’re closed,” a man said, coming out from the back door near the staircase. The same back door she’d used last night. He carried a lamp over to the bar, where he lit a few extra candles. He was a big man with a beard and a mustache. The lamps and candles lit on the bar glowed in his red hair.

She’d seen him around town before, but didn’t know him.

“I'm here to see Stella,” she said, pleased that her voice did not reveal her nerves.

He looked up at her face and his entire demeanor changed. Softened. “Mrs. Denoe, I didn't know it was you.”

“It's all right,” she said. It would seem the events of last night had earned her some esteem, at least with the bartenders in town. “Is Stella available?”

“It's Sunday, and Delilah gave the girls some time off,” he said, bracing his strong arms against the bar. “What you did the other night...that was real brave.”

“Well.” She laughed awkwardly, unsure of what to say. “That’s kind.”

“Kind. Please. I saw soldiers in the war, decorated generals, that weren't that brave. The girls are upstairs. I'll go up and see if they're receiving callers.”

“Who you got down there, Kyle?” Delilah was standing on the balcony overlooking the dark bar. She carried a lamp and a stack of towels. She wore a plain shirtwaist and a dark skirt. And an apron. It was a shock seeing her like that.

All the glitter and feathers and barely contained carnality from last night—utterly gone.

She was just a woman. A regular woman getting some work done.

“It's me. Anne Denoe.”

“You here to see Doctor Madison?” Delilah asked Anne. “Because he’s in no shape.”

“No. I’m here to see Stella.”

If Delilah was surprised, she gave no indication of it. She only nodded. “Come on up. They're in the big parlor.” She pointed to a door on the far side of the hallway, then turned back the other way.

“The doctor,” Anne said, approaching the stairs. “Is he all right?”

“He'll be fine,” Delilah said. “This part for all its ugliness is the easy part. It's living without the chloroform that's going to be hard on him. Go on in and see Stella. It might make her feel better.”

“Is she low?” Anne asked.

“Low and scared and angry. They all are. We all are.” It wasn’t just the apron that made the madam seem so different. All of her hard edges were gone. The bright diamond shine was missing.

“That handsome soldier staying out with you?” she asked.

“Steven?” Anne asked, and then she remembered Steven had been here the other night. Touching this woman's wrist. She blushed so hard she nearly went dizzy. “Yes. He is.”

“I have his jacket. I'll bring it to you.” With that, the madam turned and left.

“Thank you,” Anne said to Kyle.

“Take this,” he said, and pushed a candle across the bar toward her. She took it, lifted her skirts and climbed the stairs.

Anne knocked on the closed door of the big parlor and a chorus of women said, “Come in.”

The door eased open under her hand, revealing a big room, lit with candles and lamps, filled with women lying on couches and sprawled in chairs, comfortable with each other in a way that Anne could barely understand.

They were not wearing the clothes they wore as they worked. Some wore nightgowns and wrappers. A few of the girls wore muslin day dresses. But all of them sat, sprawled against the seats. Across the settees. One of them, a blonde, had her foot on the table while she applied lacquer to her toes.

There was something about the scene, the utter comfort the women had with each other, the acceptance with which they seemed to treat each other, that made Anne so glad she'd come. She took a deep breath, her first since Steven had fallen asleep in her bed.

Anne had been coming to Delilah’s once a month—with the doctor at first, and then later as the doctor's addiction grew, on her own, to check the women for signs of pregnancy or disease.

While she wouldn't say they were very close, she and the women of Delilah's, there was a certain kinship. A mutual kindness between her and a few of the women.

At first she didn’t see Stella, but the girl stood up from the chaise longue she shared with another girl and crossed the room toward her. Crying as she came. Her red hair was pulled back in a braid that made her look so young. She was young.

Too young. Far too young for all that she’d been through.

“Mrs. Denoe,” she said. Her face was swollen and bruised, her eyes red. She’d been crying for a while.

“Please, Stella, call me Anne.”

“Anne,” Stella sighed and they reached for each other, hugging each other hard.

“Are you all right?” Anne asked into the girl's shoulder. Stella’s arms were like ropes across her back—she could barely breathe.

“Sore,” the girl said. “My face is sore. And my ears.”

“Mine too,” Anne said.

“I thought—” Stella swallowed. Anne felt it against her shoulder.

“I thought we were going to die,” Anne whispered. It was easier to say it now because she'd said it to Steven. The words not quite so shocking. The memory not quite so sharp.

“So did I.” Stella sobbed. “Thank you for coming in that room with me.”

“Bravest thing I ever seen,” Janey, the girl with dark hair, said.

Plenty of the girls in the room nodded in agreement. “You want a drink?” Janey asked. “Delilah gave us the day and night off and a bottle of the good whiskey.”

“We got tea too,” said Rose, the pretty blonde with the accent that reminded Anne of home. “If you’d like.”

It seemed wrong to compound the sins of the day with whiskey drinking, but Anne wasn't sure she had the courage to ask what she needed to ask.

“It ain't a hard question,” Janey said.

“Don’t let her bother you,” Stella whispered, pushing Anne further into the room. “She likes to be shocking.”

I do too
, Anne thought, her blood heating with thoughts of Steven.

“I'll have a little whiskey in my tea,” Anne said, which for some reason made the girls cheer.

She and Stella crossed the room together, and the other girl that had been sitting with Stella on the chaise stood and gave Anne her spot. Anne smiled her thanks.

“Sugar?” Rose asked, the smell of hot tea filling the air as the girl poured from a lovely teapot.

“Please.”

“We'd have lemon cake for you but Stella ate it all,” Janey said, pouring whiskey into the tea cup once Rose was finished.

“I'm sad,” Stella said, sticking her tongue out at Jane. “I eat when I'm sad.”

Anne smiled at Stella. “So do I. Well, when I'm nervous.”

“I swear, if we'd actually had food during the war I would be the size of a house,” Stella said with a watery smile.

Rose handed her the tea cup and Anne took a sip. “Thank you, this is quite fine,” she said.

“Well, try to manage your shock, would you?” Janey asked.

“Jane,” Stella sighed. “Don't be difficult.”

Around her the women argued about whether or not Jane was difficult and whether or not she could stop being that way.

Anne smiled into her tea cup. This... this was exactly what she needed. Talk was diversion. She wished she could convince Steven of that.

“So,” Rose said, her blue eyes twinkling. “That handsome soldier who carried you outta here—”

“Steven?” Anne asked. She felt her heart pound in her throat.
Now
, she thought. Ask them now.
What's normal between a man and a woman in bed? Should it seem so one-sided? Does it always look like the man is having a heart attack? Is it so taxing they always fall immediately asleep afterward? Did I do something wrong?

“Rose,” Janey said in a warning voice.

“What?” Rose shrugged. “I'm just making conversation and all.”

“Gossip, you mean,” Janey said.

Instead of looking chagrined, Rose looked angry. “We spent the entire day talking about Sam Garrity and how none of us could help him. Excuse me for wanting to talk about something cheerful for change.”

“You never liked Sam,” Stella said, tears welling in her eyes again.

“No one liked Sam,” Janey said.

“I did,” Anne said. “I liked him quite a bit.”

Stella reached over and patted her hand. And it wasn't quite like having her sister here, but it was close. And it was fine.