The Other Adonis

by Frank Deford

  “I don’t know. Just a wail. Maybe it’s a name. I’m not sure. And Bucky doesn’t even know he did that. And Dr. Winston won’t help.”

  “Hey, come on, Joc—what do you expect? You stalk her, you break into her office.”

  “She’s written me that letter, hasn’t she?” Jocelyn had trumped him, and he frowned. “You don’t have to protect her, Hugh.”

  He reached down then, and took Jocelyn’s hand, wending his way out, through the parlor, only stopping at the door. “Please,” he said, “just promise me you’ll call me before you try anything else with Nina.”

  Jocelyn patted the hand that held her left hand with her right. “Oh, I’m jealous, Hugh. Here I am, telling you about stuff that can change the world—about life itself—and all you’re worried about is…her.”

  Well, he couldn’t disagree. “You pegged me from the first, Joc. I loved Nina the second I laid eyes on her.” But quickly then, he let go of her and dashed away, turning back only to wag a finger. “And don’t you say it.”

  But Jocelyn merely grinned, and she certainly did say it. “Double Ones,” she cooed devilishly, but without a doubt in her mind.

  20

  How fresh Nina was! How invigorated merely by anticipation. Why, she had come wide awake at five-thirty, but relaxed, rarin’ to go. She was waiting in her office, prepared for Constance, even though she arrived a few minutes early herself. “I told you, Doctor, I’m an early riser,” she exclaimed.

  Nina tried not to dwell on Constance’s outfit—plain gray slacks, with open-toed, white shoes, a bright appliquéd beaded blouse and large turquoise earrings. Rather, they exchanged compliments on how stylish they both looked. Nina was herself in a simple tan suit, with a buttoned blue blouse. With air conditioning, she was usually quite comfortable in that, but the excitement heated her up, so she slipped off her jacket, taking the seat opposite Constance—the lights off, the one candle burning between them.

  And Constance was absolutely right about herself. If Bucky had been an easy subject for hypnosis, Constance was the model. “Relax,” cooed Nina, “relax all your muscles. Feel that relaxation moving down your body. Your neck is sooo relaxed, and now your shoulders, your arms…” It seemed to Nina that Constance was already gone, but she played out the litany: “…your wrist, your hands, your fingers, all so relaxed. You feel so pleasant, so relaxed—you’re going into a sleep. Oh, what a fine, natural sleep. Deeper and deeper…”

  Constance’s breathing was slower, almost regulated—the classic give-away that she had fallen into a trance. To be certain, Nina asked her to raise her right arm. It drifted up, and Nina took it. A floppy nothing. Then, she sought to induce what is called limb catalepsy—wherein the hypnotist suggests that the arm is rigid and will not move without permission. “Your arm is growing stiff, hard—completely firm,” Nina said, and instantly, she could feel Constance’s arm tighten. “Why, your arm is locked so tight you can’t even move it, can you?”

  Constance shook her head, but her empty eyes gazed straight ahead. “Fine, fine,” whispered Nina softly. “Now, I’m going to count down, and when I reach ‘one,’ then you’ll be able to relax your arm, and you’ll drop it into your lap, and there it will join the rest of your body in this deep, wonderful sleep…. Three… two… one.” The arm promptly came down, even as the rest of Constance collapsed into Nina’s authority. “You are so light. You are drifting back… back…”

  Immediately, Nina returned Constance to when she first met Carl Rawlings, and immediately Constance came with her. It was all so easy. Yes, there they were at the Smith-Amherst mixer, and he approaches her, and she finds him cute, and they dance and talk. She even likes him enough to permit him a serious goodnight kiss. Carl is an ambitious young man, already intent on becoming a doctor. She admires that. She allows him to deflower her the Saturday night after the big Amherst-Williams football game. “Deflower” is the actual word Constance uses.

  On rolls Constance’s tale of romance. By the end of her sophomore year, she and Carl have decided to get married. It’s all so pat, especially inasmuch as Constance talks about it clinically. Nina, in fact, is getting bored. She decides to jump ahead to Bucky. “So, now you’ve married Carl, you’re working at the advertising agency in Philadelphia, and one day in September—”

  Nina doesn’t even get a chance to go on. Constance breaks into a smile. She starts to glow. She comes utterly alive. Constance barely changed her tone when Carl deflowered her. Now, Bucky merely steps into her office and she tingles. Constance is atwitter.

  “I hear this voice. I don’t recognize it, but it is so perfect. The voice. I’m sitting at my desk, listening.” Constance perks up; she is almost like some animal, cocking its ears. “I have on a white summer dress, with little violets all over it, and now I’m shaking. I don’t know why. It’s just this new voice. But there is something in it—the way the words come, the tone. I don’t know why. But I’m enthralled. And I’m nervous. I’m thinking: I better go to the lavatory. I start to get up, but here he comes to the door.”

  Nina leans forward. Hypnotic subjects can respond in one of two distinct ways. Either they observe themselves in action, out of their own skin, so to speak, or they more or less perform as actors. Constance would do both. She would start to act out a scene. When she met Carl at the dance, for example, she actually held out her hand to Nina, shook it, and said, “Hi Carl, I’m Constance Bauer.”

  Now though, she has shifted to the other posture, watching herself from a distance—almost as if it’s a home movie in her mind’s eye. She sees another man introduce her to Bucky. She sees herself catch her breath. But suddenly, then, she places a hand across her breast and speaks to Nina—well, parenthetically. “You’re not going to believe this, but my nipples have gone hard. Just from meeting this strange man. I’m so embarrassed. Thank God nobody can tell. But I’m so confused. I’m actually thinking about making love to him—right here, right now, right in my office. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” But even as she puzzles, she is beaming. And then, before Nina can ask anything else, Constance announces, in a very distinct voice, “It’s all silver.”

  Nina is excited. “Silver? What is silver?”

  “Everything is silver. Somehow, the whole world is silver.”

  But Nina has no chance to ask more, for Constance rolls on, talking about the absolute thrall she finds herself in every time Bucky is in her presence. And she can tell he feels the same. She knows. Somehow, she even knows that Bucky is seeing silver, too.

  And now they’re at Bookbinders, and she is on the verge of confessing her love. But she can’t. She is waiting for him to speak first. After all, just suppose she had it wrong. Maybe she is so overpowered by Bucky that she only imagines that he must love her too. She is a married woman. She can’t blurt out this incredible secret. Anyway, he will. Surely, he will.

  But he doesn’t.

  And so the next day, he comes to her office and tells her that he’s going to New York. And as soon as he leaves, she cries. And, before Nina now, Constance cries. It is fascinating. But, of course, it only confirms what Nina has already come to know, that Bucky and Constance have some powerful attraction for one another. Okay. But is there anything more?

  So, Nina thinks, go girl. Let’s see if we can hit the jackpot right here, now. She has rehearsed what she would say if they ever got to this point, so here goes: “Maybe you’ve loved someone like Bucky before.” Constance shakes her head vigorously. “Maybe, Constance, maybe. We do forget things. Sit back again, Constance. Try to go back now. You are so light. You can go back further than you’ve ever imagined. I’m going to count backwards, and when I finish, maybe you will be somewhere else. Maybe you can find someone else you loved. Back then.”

  Constance obeys. She closes her eyes. She is so peaceful; numb even, in a way. “Five,” says Nina. “Four, three, two, one—”
>
  Nina barely gets the “one” out before Constance rears up in her seat, elbows out, knuckles pressed upon her waist, a sneer upon her face. She snaps, “So, what would it be, love?”

  And in no more than that instant, just like that, Nina knows that Constance is no longer Constance. Furthermore, Nina is fairly certain that she is a man—her pose, her tone, her manner—and Nina also thinks she has heard an accent. It sounds British. Constance is apparently into some form of what the reincarnationists call xenoglossy—speaking a strange dialect. So, what would it be, love? Six words, and Nina is sure of this. And Nina is thrilled. And Nina is scared. She ventures, “We were talking about love.”

  Constance cocks her head. No, stop: Nina can’t even think of her as Constance anymore. This is a man before her. The Man cocks his head. “Eh?” he says. “’Tis funny how you talk. Where be you from?”

  Nina says, “America.”

  The Man appears altogether puzzled by that. “Pray, where would that be?”

  The way he says that. It is not, Nina thinks, just British English. That is the accent, yes, but it is…where has she heard someone talk like this? Wait. Yes. Shakespeare. The Man sounds as if he is in some Shakespeare play. Is The Man Shakespearean? Maybe “America” wasn’t yet commonly used then. Nina’s mind is racing. Virginia! Surely, all the British were familiar with Virginia. She tells him, “Virginia. I’m from Virginia.”

  “Ah,” says The Man. “I was myself thinking of making sail to Virginia.”

  “You were?” Nina has clicked. The Man leans closer, for they are both straining to pick up the nuances in their respective strange dialects.

  “Aye. ’Twas only weeks ago, towards the last o’ thirty-four.”

  “Sixteen thirty-four?”

  The Man snorts. “Are you daft, love? Would you think: 1434? Eleven thirty-four? Would you have me Methuselah? What, but 1634, in the reign of our Charles?” The Man leans back in disgust, momentarily scratching his crotch before folding his arms akimbo. “Marry, I wouldn’t be talking to such a fool were she not so pleasant a thing to gaze upon.”

  Hmm, Nina thinks, and she flirts back. “Surely, I’m too old to waste such flattery.”

  The Man sits forward again, a leer in his eye. Nina doesn’t even see Constance anymore, doesn’t even see her turquoise earrings framing that lecherous grin. He chuckles, “’Tis the best fucks, I’ve found, are often enough you older ones.”

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “Oh, you’d be a lady, too?”

  “More a lady than you’re accustomed to, I’ll warrant.” (I’ll warrant, Nina thinks. Did I actually say, “I’ll warrant?” Never in my life have I said “I’ll warrant.” But if trying to sound like Shakespeare helps…)

  Suddenly, though, The Man sticks out his hand. “’Tis the ones pose as ladies are often the best fucks, too,” he declares, and with that, The Man’s hand is upon Nina’s breast.

  She is too shocked to respond right away. She just looks down at it—the hand, there. It is, after all, still Constance Rawlings’s hand, even if it is The Man operating it. Nina remains frozen, staring. But the hand is not functioning like every other man’s hand that she has allowed to intrude upon her breasts. No, this one is darting about, fingering her bra. It is, Nina decides, a very confused hand, altogether lacking the bravado its owner has otherwise evidenced so far. Anyway, enough; she grabs the hand and throws it back to its owner. “I’m not one of your strumpets,” Nina snaps.

  The Man is not discouraged, it seems. Only puzzled. He merely points now to Nina’s chest. “Zounds, what have you within?”

  Nina tries to fathom his meaning. Then, quite decorously now, The Man sticks his finger closer to her breasts—but this time, it is clear, in curiosity rather than lust. And now Nina understands. The (rattled) Man has never encountered a bra before. Men may act with women the same in 1635 as they do now, but in 1635 bras are still almost three centuries yet to come. So Nina offers a bit of a smile, even, helpfully, pulls her blouse over just a smidgen to reveal the edge of the undergarment. “It’s called a brassiere,” she says. “French.”

  The Man shakes his head, with a what-will-they-think-of-next expression. “The bloody frogs. Soon, I warrant, they’ll wrap chains round your cunt.”

  Before she knows what she has done, Nina has reached out and slapped The Man square across his face. The turquoise earrings shake. Immediately, Nina is horrified. Would this bring Constance out of her trance? But there is no need to fret. The Man only holds his cheek and laughs. “A wild bitch you are for one calls herself a lady.”

  Nina, relieved, gets a little coquettish. “A lady accepts no familiarities if she doesn’t even know the gentleman’s name.”

  The Man howls at that. “A gentleman you would have me? Ah, ’tis Cecil Wainwright, my duchess, for ere I be a gentleman, you only be short a queen.”

  And, so saying, he bows to her from his seat.

  “So, Cecil, is it?” (Nina pronounces it, as he did: Sess-ull.) “You were telling me how you almost set sail to Virginia.”

  “Yes, duchess, ’twas a bit of trouble suggested that.” He stops abruptly.

  “What manner of trouble?”

  “’Tis my affair.”

  “Don’t worry, Cecil. I’ll tell no one.”

  “Aye, and were you to, ’twould be the last.” Nina recoils a bit at that ominous charge. “For I would do no less to you as I did to her.”

  “Her?”

  “The one brought on the trouble.”

  “Where?”

  He pauses, but only for an instant. Cecil will talk to Nina. And he does: “In Norfolk, whence I hail from.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Bess.” And then a sigh. “’Twas a shame what came to pass betwixt us.”

  “Which was?”

  “The lust we shared.”

  “Ah,” said Nina. “Was Bess pretty?”

  “Prettier’n you, duchess, and you’re fairer’n most, e’en despite your years.” Nina nods; well, it is, after all, a compliment. “There wasn’t a man in all Norfolk wouldn’t say Bess wasn’t the loveliest in the county. But she wasn’t to have anything to do with a mere farmer’s son such as I.”

  “But Bess did?”

  “God’s wounds, she threw herself upon me.”

  “Women do that to you, don’t they, Cecil?”

  Oh, how he loves hearing that. “’Tis a bloody curse to be as fair as God fashioned me,” he declares, unabashed.

  “Your vanity is a match for your visage,” Nina cracks back.

  “I only mouth what the lasses lavish upon my ears.” He holds out his hands in some form of supplication. “Pray be as honest as is your wont to be tart: in all of your Virginia, have you ever seen another man so advantaged by beauty?”

  Nina smiles her agreement, sure that with Cecil, flattery can take her far. “So, ’twas that charm that Bess could not resist?” He nods, smugly. “Vowed she had to save herself for some noble husband, but she could not help but give herself unto me.” He shrugs. “In truth, ’twas as easy as this hard.” Cecil points to his crotch. What an insufferable, boorish ass, Nina thinks. But she must restrain herself and keep playing to his conceit. Besides she is almost sure what follows next, and yes: “Too soon then, Bess tells me she is with child.”

  “And you wouldn’t marry such a pretty thing?”

  Cecil shakes his head in disbelief. “Are you mad? I would take such a prize in a nonce and spend the rest of my life at leisure—for Bess’s father is as grand a landowner as graces Norfolk. But he would have run me through had he but known I had run through his daughter, in my fashion.”

  “And so?”

  “We met, where oft we did, in a quiet meadow by a little creek there that runs to the River Wensun. And there Bess told me
of her plans to wed a certain gentleman’s son of a neighboring estate—he now at home on leave as an officer in one of His Majesty’s regiments.”

  “Did the officer know Bess was pregnant by you—by another?”

  Cecil shakes his head. “No. ’Twas her scheme to accept the marriage, allow him to have his way with her, and then advise him ’twas he had put the bun in her oven.”

  “Such a scheme would allow you to escape the father’s punishment,” Nina said.

  “Aye, but it enraged me, for I loved her.”

  “You loved Bess, truly?”

  “Though I may have poked her, ’twas not without affection.”

  “And so?”

  “And so we argued, and when she bid me farewell, I sought to claim my prize one more time, but she wouldn’t allow me that liberty—for now she was savin’ her precious self for His Majesty’s lieutenant. And I became a fury, I did.” Cecil lowered his head—although whether expressing remorse or affecting it, Nina could not be sure. “My rage o’ercame me. And before I knew what ere possessed me, I had killed the lass I loved.”

  The revelation comes, at last, so quickly. Nina holds her breath, in shock. Cecil raises his head, to stare at her. “I have told ye, now. God forgive me, I had to confess my awful sin to one other, but should ye breathe a word….” He shakes a menacing finger at Nina.

  “I have pledged my confidence,” Nina replies, solemnly—fearfully, too.

  “I meant not to harm so much as a golden hair upon her head. I swear to you,” Cecil says, looking at his hands.

  “You strangled her?”

  “Before I knew what I had done, she was lifeless in my grasp.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Gently—gently as we had embraced so many times upon that same greensward, I allowed her body to fall upon the ground, and I but stared at it—with as much love as regret.”

  “And then?”

  “I carried poor Bess to the stream there, hit her noggin with a rock—for she could feel nothing now, angel that I had made her—and laid her down, so that when she was discovered, it would appear that she had tripped and fallen, hit her crown and drowned there. But oh…” All of a sudden, Cecil drops his head into his hands, holding it in despair. “But, ohhh my. The Lord knows how to punish the unjust, does he not?”