If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

The true idea is for the sexes to dress as nearly alike as possible. . . . A young lady on Fifth Avenue dressed in male costume for years, traveled all over Europe and this country. She says it would have been impossible to have seen and known as much of life in woman’s attire, and to have felt the same independence and security. . . .

  There are many good reasons for adopting male costumes. First, it is the most convenient dress that can be invented; second, in it woman could secure equal wages with man for the same work; third, a concealment of sex would protect our young girls from those terrible outrages from brutal men reported in all our daily papers.

  “Well?” she said, when I’d finished.

  I’m not sure just changing clothes will remedy all those things,” I said, mindful of jeans-wearing women of the future. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a true argument about women’s rights in general,” she said. “Mrs. Stanton wore those horrible bloomer costumes enough years to find out.”

  “Yeah? Bloomers?”

  “Samuel, you haven’t said what you’d think of me in male dress.”

  “Well . . .” My eyes roamed over her, moving up from the tips of her small shoes peeking beneath the hem of her heavy, pleated, full-length skirt. I wondered whether she was cinched in just then by a corset. A cream-colored blouse—she called it a “waist”—was fronted by a bow that de-emphasized the swell of her breasts. The mass of black hair was pulled high and secured by combs. Her neck looked pale and slender and—had I already adopted the peep-show mentality of Victorians?—very sexy. I tried without success to imagine her slouching around in pants.

  “I like the way you look now,” I told her, “but everybody should have the right to be comfortable.”

  She’d blushed a little as I inspected her. Now she looked at me curiously. “It would be a blessing to dress differently at times, but it’s a rare man who’ll hear it.”

  “If you mean bloomers, I’m not sure—”

  “You big gossoon,” she said, rising and facing me. “Not bloomers, just . . .” She gestured to indicate her torso with a small movement of her hands. And blushed furiously.

  She was achingly provocative in the gaslight.

  I stood up too, no fool I.

  She moved into my arms and kissed me gently.

  “It’s my appearance you fancy, then, is it?” She leaned back, green sprites dancing in her eyes.

  “That’s it,” I replied, and kissed her again, not so gently. Her fingers tightened on my neck as our breathing quickened. My tongue touched her lips; they parted slightly, and with a sigh she pressed against me, soft and yielding, tasting like spring herbs. With almost frantic urgency I ran my hands upward over her hips and stiffly encased stomach—a corset, sure enough—and found the soft fullness of her breasts. She writhed against me for a moment and abruptly pulled away.

  “Not here,” she gasped.

  “Huh?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard right.

  “Not in this place,” she said, more controlled.

  I looked around. “But you live here.”

  She nodded, as if we agreed.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Not in this house, Samuel.”

  What was wrong? Timmy upstairs? No lovemaking in Fenian hideaways? None of the above, merely an excuse?

  “Cait,” I blurted, voice husky, “I love you.”

  Oh my God, I thought.

  She took one of my hands in both of hers and held it tightly. Backlit by the gaslight, I could see tiny reflections of myself in her eyes. Her lips curved in a soft, enigmatic smile.

  W. J. Hatton of San Francisco arrived the next Monday. He would escort us West. An Aussie immigrant, he and his brother had bought level ground in the Mission district, built a high wooden fence around it, and named it the Recreation Grounds. A large part of the Hattons’ business involved circus shows and athletic events. Probably because he owned the only enclosed ballpark on the Pacific Slope, W. J. Hatton had dreamed up the idea of inviting us to play there.

  It was impossible not to like Hatton. He was portly and freckled, with thinning sandy hair and a broad, quick grin. I shook his hand with the rest of our delegation. Within minutes he had Champion, who would be making the trip, laughing as if they were boyhood chums. Champion even decided to show him around Cincinnati himself, relieving me of the honor.

  Which left considerably more time to pack. I fell asleep under hot towels at the Gibson barbershop, then wandered around downtown for a while and purchased a state-of-the-art Magic Lantern for eight dollars. It was a primitive slide projector which, by means of a gas lamp and lens, transformed two-inch glass “chromatypes” into four-foot images. Twelve views came with it—“House of Parliament,” “Pyramids & Sphinx,” “Mosque of Mahomet,” and the like. For Timmy I bought another set: “The Little Gymnast,” “Yacht Under Full Sail,” and “Ah! Ha! Gold!” Catchy stuff.

  While I was out, a thin letter from Twain arrived, postmarked Buffalo. His message was short and to the point.

  Sam’l,

  When I read that your red-shanked band would be journeying to California I regretted changing my plans. I’d trade my back teeth to sit down with you in Frisco’s Heaven on the half shell, the Occidental Hotel, over champagne & oysters. You can have my portion this once.

  Just before I sat down to write, a dispatch came off the wire to wit: Freddy is offering Avitor stock at a bargain $25 each thousand shares. Will I chaff this away? I guess not! I’ll take a flyer on Freddy’s flyer! Carve out 40,000 shares immediately on arriving if the price is steady. Wire me first if it’s gone higher. I advise you to plunge also. Hope you re willing to be my Western agent Hearty thanks.

  Wedding schemes thicken like cement. If it weren’t for sweet Livy, I’d die from the planning. Don’t forget—you must come!

  Regards,

  SLC

  Inside was a thousand-dollar draft. I went to my bank on Fourth, requested my account total, learned that I had $6,347. How, I wondered, would O’Donovan react when he returned to enforce his mid-September ultimatum and discovered I had left? On a morbid impulse I took out a safe-deposit box in Cait’s name and placed in it twenty-five hundred dollars in gold, instructing that in the absence of further communication from me she was to receive it in three months’ time. Figuring the five hundred I carried plus what Brainard owed me would be plenty for the trip, I obtained a letter of credit payable to Wells Fargo for the balance of my money and Twain’s draft.

  O’Donovan would have to work like hell to get a cent of it. And if something happened to me, Cait could shape her life as she wished. Feeling a bit silly, I wondered what it was about this trip that made me so spooky.

  The afternoon dragged. The Gibson room was expensive to keep while I was away, so I stored my few possessions at Andy’s. I packed and repacked my gladstone restlessly.

  Cait hosted an elaborate farewell dinner that evening, serving us baked chicken. Andy was there, and, to my surprise, so was Sweasy. Cait wore her yellow dress, the one of the quilt. She was excitedly happy, almost giddy. And coquettish, too, clearly enjoying her role as the only woman among us. Sweasy, on his Sunday-best behavior, called her “Miss Cait” and treated her reverentially. Since the kidnapping he’d been cautiously polite to me; that evening he was almost cordial. They talked about old times in Newark. Timmy and I played catch when we grew bored. With the bottle of Catawba Andy had brought, we toasted each other and the trip West.

  “To your brave American game,” Cait said gaily, raising her glass. Andy grinned. I sensed a breakthrough in sibling relations.

  “To the Irish,” proposed Sweasy, adding, with a glance at me, “and their allies.”

  For dessert I provided ice cream with late-season strawberries packed in ice. When it grew dark we watched lantern slides. Timmy sat on my lap, marveling at the bright-tinted images. Sweasy promised to bring him slides of California. Andy, not to be outdone, hinted broadly that a stereoptican viewer might lie in Timmy�
�s future.

  “You’ll spoil him, the lot of you,” Cait protested, unconvincingly. She was glowing at Timmy’s excitement.

  When we stood up to get our coats from the foyer, Cait touched my arm and whispered, “Come back—with a cab.”

  I almost said “What?” but she had turned away.

  After the others dropped me at the Gibson, I hired a carriage and directed the driver to the boardinghouse. Cait emerged with wool blankets and a large handbag.

  “Top down?” She pulled the blankets around us and moved close.

  “What about Timmy?”

  “He’s being watched.” She pressed her cheek to my shoulder.

  “O’Donovan’s back?”

  She squeezed my arm. “Not hardly.”

  The driver lowered the cab’s top and took us through dim streets beneath a full, blood-orange moon. The night was extraordinarily clear following afternoon winds. We gazed up at a canopy of stars.

  We passed Pike’s Opera House downtown. Cait told me that Junius Booth had been booed from the stage there after his younger brother had killed Lincoln. We crossed the Miami Canal, gleaming like milk in the moonlight, and ascended Mt. Adams to the observatory, where we looked down at the shining river and the boats’ lights twinkling along the landing. Then out to Spring Grove Road, a tree-lined thoroughfare where the fast set enjoyed racing their high-wheeled “suicide gigs.” Moving at medium speed, trees blurring at the edges of my vision, moon burning overhead, Cait’s hair flowing in the night wind—it was romantic beyond anything in my life. And I knew it. Even then.

  Her fingers touched my cheek. I crushed her against me, my face buried in her hair. We kissed until we couldn’t breathe.

  Her lips brushed my ear, the words coming as softly as night shadows. “Yes, Samuel.”

  I carried her up the winding stairs at Gasthaus zur Rose. Helga’s head emerged from a doorway and swiftly withdrew. In the attic room I turned the lamp low.

  “It’s lovely,” Cait said, her voice throaty.

  “Come here.”

  “Put the light out.”

  I turned the key until only a glow remained. “Okay?”

  She came slowly forward. “I want to please you.”

  I knew then that I had died and was in heaven. There was no other explanation. We melted together.

  Long minutes later, stymied by an impenetrable personal security system of hooks and straps and buttons and stays, I leaned back on the bed. “And I thought bras were tough.”

  “What?” Cait reached behind her back.

  “Never mind.”

  “Here, unfasten these . . . and these . . . and this . . . now leave for a moment.”

  “Leave?”

  She laughed nervously. “Go outside for a moment,” she said, starting to blush. “I’m going to be wicked for you.”

  Wicked? Was any of this happening?

  In the hall, wearing only my pants, I heard faint sounds from the washstand, and finally a creak from the bed. I opened the door. Wearing a silk nightdress, Cait perched on the edge of the bed, bare feet tucked together, hair down over her shoulders. She looked up, green eyes luminous in the scant light.

  “May I enter, your ladyship?”

  “Do you notice . . . differences?” She sounded self-conscious.

  “Cait, I can scarcely see you.”

  “Come closer.”

  “What’s that . . . scent?” I’d almost said smell.

  “Hagan’s Magnolia Balm,” she said. “Is it nice?”

  I’d seen the slogan, of course; it was everywhere: “Fresh as a maiden’s blush,” it would transform a “rustic country girl into a city belle.” The fragrance was flowery, faintly cloying.

  I sat beside her. “Very nice.”

  “But that isn’t what I meant. Look at me.”

  I looked.

  “My face, Samuel, my eyes.”

  They seemed a bit smudgy. “What have you done?”

  “Remember the magazines you brought? Well, according to Godey’s Ladies Book, mascara is a wicked influence.”

  So she’d gotten some for this night. I started to tell her she didn’t need mascara or anything else, but then let it pass and kissed her. Now my hands encountered no buttons or layers of rigid fabric. Just sheer silk and the soft contours of her.

  She responded eagerly to my mouth and hands, but stiffened when I tried to remove the nightdress. It occurred to me later that she’d concealed herself all her life. In society’s view only “low” women derived pleasure from sex. Husbands sated their lust—swiftly, presumably, and in missionary position in total darkness—upon nigh-comatose wives.

  I wasn’t into that at all.

  But I went slowly. At first. Until I found the strings securing the nightdress and pulled it away. Over her gasps I said, “I want to please you, too.”

  “Samuel . . . I . . . oh . . . you mustn’t . . . SAMUEL! . . .”

  I’m not sure she knew about orgasms. When hers happened it shook her violently. She clung to me, quaking, half sobbing afterward, her hair tangled, mascara smeared, feeling at first, I think, utterly debased. I wrapped the silk around her, held and kissed her, whispered to her.

  “I’ve denied myself for so long.” Her voice was low, almost a groan. Then, astonishing me, “Love me again, Samuel.”

  I pulled her on top of me. In the dimness her body was pale and smooth as a living statue, opalescent, beautiful in its nakedness, her full breasts and hips wonderfully curved, her skin firm and soft wherever I touched. Before long I neither knew nor cared where her body ended and mine began. On the verge of coming, I muttered, “Should we be careful? I’m about to—”

  “I want you.” She braced her hands on my chest and moved her hips fiercely in an age-old rhythm, sucking me into the core of her, yearning for me, straining, demanding me, reaching, taking . . . all. . . .

  The explosion blew Cincinnati off the globe.

  When the fallout had settled and we lay wrapped around each other, she whispered something that sounded like “time in graw latt.”

  “Huh?”

  “Táim in grá leat,” she repeated softly. “In the old language it means, ‘I’m in love with you.’”

  I stayed silent for a moment. It did for my soul what no amount of Hagan’s Magnolia Balm would ever do for anybody.

  “Anyone particular in mind?”

  She burrowed her nose in my neck. “For a certainty.”

  “Could you tell me? In the new language?”

  “Sure and I could.”

  Only when I threatened to tickle her did she do it.

  “I love you, Samuel.”

  In the gray light of dawn I cut a small piece of fabric from inside the hem of her yellow dress and put it in the back of my watchcase. I wanted to see it each day on the trip. As I climbed back in bed she reached for me.

  “You’ve made me a wanton already.”

  “Excellent!” I raised the covers to look at her.

  “No, Samuel!”

  She gave in reluctantly—and briefly—only when I argued that a lover’s body was good, not evil, to look upon. And Cait’s was good indeed, though slenderer than the Rubenesque proportions in vogue. A dusting of freckles ran down from her shoulders to splash the tops of her breasts. Long thighs, now pressed firmly together—perhaps her sexiest feature, although the matter would certainly require further research—gave way to molded calves and small, high-arched feet. God, she was a work of art, a treasure.

  “You’re not ashamed of me?”

  I bent and kissed a vaguely heart-shaped freckle near one pelvic bone.

  “Cait, you should be bronzed.”

  That was too much for her, and she tugged the cover up. I lost myself again in her hair and skin, contours and crevices, the textures and tastes of her.

  “You’re immodest,” she murmured, moving her hands and lips over me with increasing urgency.

  By the time we were through, light streamed in the window, casting ger
anium shadows on the floor.

  “How can I go away for a whole month now?” I groaned, then raised up on one elbow with an inspiration. “Cait, how about you and Timmy coming?”

  “No tickets,” she said drowsily.

  “I’m serious,” I said, excited. “We could follow the team by a couple of days, no problem. Timmy’d love seeing it all. So would you!”

  “He’s not well enough yet, Samuel. Remember what the doctor said about the danger of a recurrence?” She smiled, a trifle wistfully. “It’s sweet to think of such a journey, but I cannot go.”

  “Your work?”

  “That,” she said, “and there is you.”

  “Me?”

  She turned to me, the jade eyes probing mine. “I’m frightened by your going, but I’ve sensed how you need this journey.”

  “You have?”

  “I think it’s connected with the purpose you seek, Samuel. Or that you believe it’s connected. Which is the same.”

  “What if my purpose is simply to be with you?”

  “If so,” she said softly, “then we’ll discover that very thing.” She took my hand. “Won’t we?”

  A crowd of club members and well-wishers had jammed the Indianapolis & Lafayette dock by the time we arrived. The nine was there: Harry trying to stop his kids from dodging around piles of luggage; George laughing with reporters; Gould with his family; Brainard and Waterman looking sleepy; Oak Taylor, fresh-scrubbed and eager.

  Timmy ran to Andy, and we followed. Heads swiveled as men ogled Cait and women scrutinized her. Mac and Allison, standing with Andy, were as tongue-tied as if meeting a princess.

  “I was thinking you’d vanished again,” Andy said accusingly.

  “No way,” I said. “Important business.”

  “Going off with Mother and leaving me home,” said Timmy.

  Cait’s cheeks turned crimson.

  “Ain’t that a dinger,” Andy said. Mac and Allison gave me disbelieving stares.

  The wife of one of the club officers appeared to pin miniature red stockings on our jackets. She had fashioned the emblems herself. “This is to show Western ladies,” she announced, “that our nine possesses no shortage of admirers in the Queen City!”