The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (38 page)

And
then?

Then
he is desperate to figure out how to make photographs project on a wall in a
sequence so that the persistence of vision will make each image a whole, make
images move and dance like life itself. Indeed, designs for such a gizmo dance
through his newly stimulated mind. Flip the images like a deck of cards? Or wrap
a roll of photographic paper on a spool and spin it? And if such a feat could
be done? Why, the story of civilization could be told in pictures. The mighty empires
of Europe and the East. America’s hardscrabble story, every sacrifice and
adventure and great love. How many thrilling stories could be shown in pictures
if only one could figure out how to make static images come alive.

Dr.
Mortimer’s cure is a rousing success. Daniel can think more clearly than he has
in days. In years! His heart throbs with a glowing pleasure, and thoughts of
sin swell in his mind. A happy side effect, according to Dr. Mortimer, encouraged
by healthful radiance. He could take care of his vile need at once, for a red
light glows in a little window on the third story of a commercial building two
doors down. But Daniel J. Watkins does not pay for it.

Where
is his mistress? He must see her at once.

He
dashes downtown to Sutter Street, barges into the Parisian Mansion. There he
finds Zhu and Jessie Malone conferring in the parlor, Li’l Lucy weeping.
Several other sporting gals stand around with troubled faces. The ugly little
Peruvian maid watches from the sidelines with a look of smug triumph.

“Please,
Miss Malone,” Li’l Lucy cries. “Give me a chance. Just one more chance.”

“Your
jig is up, Li’l Lucy,” Jessie says. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you, neither,
because I did. I’ve warned you over and over till I’m blue in the face. I’ll
not have a poxy girl at the Parisian Mansion. The biz is the biz.”

“We
can try to treat her symptoms,” Zhu argues. “The disease goes into remission.
It’s not her fault, Miss Malone.”

“And
whose fault is it, then, may I ask?” Jessie snaps her fingers, and the Peruvian
maid scurries over with a goblet of champagne.

“I
was just saying today to a fine lady that you’re fair, Miss Malone. Don’t make
me regret those words.”

“She
knows she gotta douche, and she don’t do it. She ties one on and passes out.”

“Please,
Miss Malone,” Li’l Lucy whimpers. “Please.”

“Have
you heard about a method of protection called condoms?’ Zhu says. “The girls
should use them. You could practically eliminate your problems with disease,
not to mention pregnancy.”

“Missy,
if this is one of your gadgets from six hundred years in the future, I am sure
we cannot just go down to Kepler’s Sundries and pick up a few.”

“Actually,
you can,” Zhu says. “I read an article in
The Argonaut
just yesterday. I
know you loved newfangled things, Miss Malone, and this is the latest thing in
the French brothels. Really, I don’t know why you don’t already use them as a
regular practice in your business. My spirit Muse tells me that condoms have
been around since the 1700s.”

“Sure
and what is this thing, exactly, and what’s it made of?”

Daniel
listens closely, his face heating up at his mistress’s frank talk.

“A
condom is like a glove or a sheath that slips over the gentleman’s member and
catches his bodily discharge. His person doesn’t touch her and his discharge doesn’t
enter her,” Zhu says with nary a blush or a giggle, though all the sporting
gals present burst into uproarious laughter. “In your Now, unfortunately, the
thing is made of sheep’s intestine.”

“Sheep’s
intestine!” Jessie sputters. “If you think any one of my gentlemen is gonna put
a sheep’s intestine on his jockey, you’re nutty, missy.”

Daniel
can tolerate no more delay. “Mistress, I need to see you.” To Jessie, “Is there
a room we may use?”

“Sure
and take Li’l Lucy’s room. She ain’t needin’ it no more.”

“Please,
Miss Malone,” Li’l Lucy wails and falls on her knees. She crawls to Jessie,
reaching up for Jessie’s hands. “Please, please.”

Daniel
wants no more of this sordid little drama. He seizes Zhu’s elbow, leading her
upstairs. She points out Li’l Lucy’s room, and he practically drags her there.
The room is frilly and cheap, reeking of lilac cologne, cigarette smoke, spilt
whiskey, and other odors he’d rather not identify. He locks the door.

“What
is it?” she snaps. “I was in the middle of business.”

“You
were in the middle of the brothel’s business, my angel. I want you now.”

She
stares at him, astonished. “Want me for what?’

He
shucks off his jacket and vest and drops his trousers, his manly virtue tumescent.
By God, he shall spill his precious bodily fluids any moment. “Need you ask?”

She
shakes her head. “Well! You never ask me. I come from a Now where there’s
precious little romance or tenderness. And since I’ve come to your Now, so help
me, I want romance. I want tenderness. And you. You’re such a brute. Such a man
of your times.”

“I
shall buy you candy and flowers, if that’s what you want,” he growls, advancing
on her.

“Candy
and flowers.” She gives an exasperated little laugh. “In all this time, it’s always
the same. I don’t why I let you get away with it, but I do. It’s like the
Gilded Age Project has subverted me. You wait till you’re stinking and then you
launch your attack. You never ask me,” she repeats, her tone accusing.

“I’m
not stinking now,” he says imperiously.

She
regards him curiously, taking her time.

Those
slanting green eyes of hers, the bright green irises not at all like Mama’s
deep sea eyes. Quite alien, they are. Which suddenly excites him more than he’s
ever felt toward her before. Toward any woman. “I need you, my angel.”
You
never ask me.
Well, he’s turning over a new leaf. “And I’m asking you. May
I please have the pleasure of your company? You know how much I adore you.”

He’s
hoping she will laugh and rip off her jacket, but she doesn’t. No, she sidles
toward the door, clearly contemplating escape. “This isn’t supposed to be
happening. None of this is supposed to be happening! Muse?” she speaks to her
infernal spirit. “What are the probabilities of this happening?
Why?
”

He
can stand it no longer! He has been a gentleman—sort of—and he is definitely not
stinking. He seizes her, tears off her jacket and shirtwaist, ripping the silk.
She silently struggles—or perhaps she abets him—but he is invincible, he is a
god. She is a tiny writhing thing in his hands. He spins her around, seizes the
laces of her corset, rips apart the knot, and pulls and pulls as tightly as he
can. She gasps in pain.

They
want to feel pain
. Oh, this is splendid! He can circle her
entire waist with his two hands. He whirls her around, presses her down on Li’l
Lucy’s bed. She is wide-eyed, distraught with lust, in a trance of sinful
ecstasy.

“Please,
miss, may I?” He tears down her bloomers, her hands on his. Is she resisting
him or assisting him? He doesn’t know or care. “I know you hate it, but you
must help me now.”

And
he takes her, feeling every sensation as he’s never felt the sensations of the
carnal act before. Divine plant of the goddess! Sacrament! He plunges, he rocks,
strange-smelling sweat filming his skin. He hears her gasping, feels her moving
beneath him. The dreadful moment of sexual transport overcomes him like a
seizure, an epilepsy of sensuality, a small death.

He
rises off her and falls back on the bed, spent for the moment. How he hates
that spent feeling. And her? She leaps up, reaches urgently behind her and
tears open the too-tight laces. She gasps again. No matter, he thinks, no
matter. She’s a woman. She isn’t supposed to like it.

“Damn
you, Daniel,” she says. “When I’m around you, it’s like I’m possessed.”

“Thank
you, my angel,” he says ironically and now she does laugh, a little bitterly. The
quick heave of his breath subsides, and the fingers of a headache squeeze the
backs of his eyes. The supreme brilliance of the cure is beginning to fade.

Fade!
He could weep with disappointment. He wants this exultation never to end. He
sits up, hands shaking, and retrieves his jacket. Ah, the vials, the clever
silver spoon. Trembling and weak, he uncaps a vial, dips the spoon. Unsure of
his technique, he awkwardly inserts the spoon into his nostril and inhales as
vigorously as he can.

She
watches him, openmouthed. No doubt she’s never seen such strange behavior
before. Well, tit for tat. She engages in some mighty strange behavior herself.

Ah,
the bitter sting in his nose, on his tongue, and the bitter fluid gathering in
the back of his throat. And then that sweet bloom of power, the radiance of
health.

“Daniel,”
she cries, “what in hell are you doing to yourself now?”

“Tut
tut, watch your language, miss.” He does not like that prudish expression on
her face, doesn’t like it at all. “I went to Dr. Mortimer for the cure.”

“The
cure?”

“The
cure for dipsomania. I shall be a slave to drink no more.” His eye wanders to
Li’l Lucy’s nightstand, to a carafe of whiskey. He takes out the stopper,
sniffs. Dreadful booze the whore swills, but he tips the carafe anyway,
floating a taste on his tongue, which has suddenly gone quite dry. Ah, just the
slightest touch of relief. The divine plant of the Incas is too strong for the
evils of rotgut. Still, the effect is very nice, a soothing counterpoint to his
jumpy nerves. He puts the carafe down. That’s right. He can put the drink down
anytime he wants to. He is cured.

“And
what is this cure?” she insists in that tone of hers.

“It
is the divine plant of the Incas. Dr. Mortimer says the scientific name for it
is cocaine.”

She
claps her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. You can’t. You mustn’t!” She strides up
to him, bold as you please, and holds out her hand. “Give me the vial. Give it
to me right now.”

“I
should say not!”

She
tears off the remnants of her shirtwaist, exclaiming over the rough treatment
he gave the garment, shifts her eyes to the side, muttering in her strange way
to her infernal spirit. “Which is it, Muse? Am I supposed to rescue Wing Sing
from the tongs or rescue him from himself? Calculate the probabilities, damn
you! Tell me what to do!”

Oh,
splendid. She is quite insane, well, he’s already established that. After all
her scolding about the drink, the ciggies, the buttery feasts, now she scolds
him about his very salvation? It’s too much. Too much.

He
splashes water on his face from Li’l Lucy’s wash basin, pulls on his clothes,
and heads out the door without saying goodbye as she exclaims over a button he
tore off her jacket. The second spoonful of the cure produces somewhat less of
an effect than his glorious first taste at Dr. Mortimer’s clinic. Still, it’s a
fine feeling, this exuberance. Encouraged, though ever so slightly
disappointed, he strides through the parlor, past the little drama he witnessed
on his way in, still unconcluded. By God, weeping whores.

Daniel
J. Watkins will not linger in a sordid place like the Parisian Mansion. This is
a place for the weak among men, the ones who exhaust their precious essence on
degraded creatures like Li’l Lucy. He will do no such thing. He heads out,
striding vigorously down Market Street, bound for the ferry to Sausalito. Invincible
once more, clear-headed and powerful. He knows what he must do. He must
confront that bastard Harvey, once and for all.

“Daniel!
Daniel!”

Zhu
hurries after him. Her face is flushed, the black ribbons of her Newport hat
streaming behind her. She wears her mauve silk, his favorite dress, which is
most becoming with her golden skin, black hair, and emerald-green eyes. With a
sudden pang, he realizes he does adore her. But the realization does not
overwhelm him in a maudlin way like when he’s stinking and dwelling on the lack
in his life. No indeed, in some peculiar fashion he cannot quite explain, Zhu
Wong has changed his life. Changed him irrevocably. Perhaps her entreaties are
what inspired him to seek the cure. And his fate—this great fate he felt so
powerfully on the Overland train—has subtly altered.

But
how? Everything seems to be shifting and changing all around him.

That
she clings to this lunacy about being from the distant far future has a certain
charm, an insouciance. Yet her lunacy is not the raving of the savagely ill, whom
he has seen in Paris, but rather is supported by her quick intelligence, an
extraordinary knowledge of things a woman should not rightly know about, and,
of course, her clever accoutrements. The mollie knife. Her spirit voice, which
he’s beginning to suspect is not a spirit at all, but some scientific invention
he hasn’t heard about.

He
pauses, permitting her to catch up.

“Where
are you going in this state?” she demands.

“To
Sausalito. It’s high time Mr. Harvey squared his account with me.”

“You’d
better not go while
you’re
so high.”