She extended her slender hand to Houdini. “Welcome at last,” she said. “Will you join me in something to drink? I’m having absinthe.” She gestured at a green bottle and a cut-crystal water pitcher on a tray beside her. “I remember you don’t drink spirits, but Martha can bring you anything you like; apple cider, coffee, tea, milk…?”
“Tea would be fine.” Houdini took a seat opposite her. “Two sugars. And in a glass, please.”
“Martha. Some tea for Mr. Houdini, served in a glass.”
The old woman made no reply, slipping away like the shadow of a crow when the sun goes behind a cloud. The magician never noticed her silent passage, so intent was he on the delicate young woman deftly preparing a drink on the low table between them. She poured a portion of the pale green liqueur into a tall stemmed glass and placed a silver absinthe spoon shaped like a miniature trowel across the rim. Centering a single sugar cube on the spoon, she slowly trickled a thin stream of water over it, a sly sweet rainfall dripping through the ornate perforations. Within the glass, the absinthe occluded, the emerald clarity misting into milky opalescence.
“The green fairy unfolds her cobweb wings,” Isis purred softly. She looked up, and was surprised to find Houdini’s gaze had strayed to a gleaming object on the mantel. At first, he assumed this to be a crystal ball but realized on prolonged inspection that it took the form of a human skull.
“Aztec,” Isis said, catching his eye. “Amazing work. Shaped from a single large quartz crystal. Done entirely with abrasives. They had no metal tools, you know.”
“Looks like blown glass.”
“Yes. It’s that perfect. Belongs in a museum.”
The cat-silent Martha arrived with the tea. She set down a tray and was gone before either of them noticed.
“Very quick,” Houdini said.
“Martha takes good care of me.”
Houdini dropped two sugar cubes in his glass, added a spoon, and poured the hot tea. Isis watched as he stirred and sipped.
“Interesting flavor,” he said.
“Herbal. My own blend. Mainly mint and sassafras. I pick and dry the plants myself every summer. When I visit my parents in New Hampshire.”
Houdini put down his glass. The strange taste remained in his mouth. “Your own recipe, huh?” Some secret agent. She might have slipped him a mickey. He thought of Lucrezia Borgia and put on an urgent face, an expression of discomfort calculated to make a request for the lavatory sound natural. Immediate regurgitation was the task at hand.
“Is it brewed too strong?” Isis reached across the table for his glass and took a long thoughtful sip. “No. Seems about right …” Her knowing eyes stared past his clumsy disguise. She took another sip. “Much too sweet, though …” Handing him back the glass. “Don’t you think?”
Houdini didn’t know what to think. He suddenly felt very thirsty and swallowed the rest of the tea. She looked so innocent, yet dressed with such confident sophistication. The intensity of her power terrified him. “I like it that way,” he said. “Sweet.”
Isis sipped her absinthe. “You’re in luck then…” She pushed a gleaming silver sugar bowl in his direction. Houdini fixed himself another glass of tea. “If you’re agreeable,” she continued, “I thought we might conduct the séance right here. Are you comfortable with that?”
“Right here is fine by me. What sort of séance did you have in mind?” Houdini immediately cursed himself for any unintended innuendo.
Isis stood, her sleek velvet gown sweeping down in a fluid rush to puddle about her feet on the floor. Her ironic smile announced a connoisseur’s appreciation of the double entendre. “It has nothing to do with the mind, my dear Osiris …” She picked the crystal skull off the mantel and sat back down with it cradled in her lap. “We are entering the realm of the spirit.”
“No cabinet…? No controls?” The magician did not attempt to hide his ironic smirk.
“No props, Osiris. This is not a sideshow.” She stroked the sacred Aztec skull and smiled. “All I ask is your concentration. Think of the one you wish to contact. Fill your mind with her presence.”
Houdini nodded and swallowed hard. Who said anything about “her”? A light film of sweat formed like dew on his forehead. How does she know so much? “And you?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice even. “What should I watch for?”
“Nothing.” She closed her eyes. “I am nothing. I wish to lose myself. To let go… . My only desire is to serve as your conduit, oh my lord, Osiris …”
Houdini squirmed. A tumult of conflicting emotions raged within. He felt in awe of this young woman. He feared her. God help him, he desired her. The shame engendered by his lust burned with intensified heat, fueled by a desperate yearning to communicate with his dead mother. At heart, he was a sucker. He longed to believe. At the same time, a cold, cynical eye watched to see what sort of “ectoplasm” she conjured. She had to be good, working in the firelight. Most mediums demanded complete darkness to manage their trickery.
At length, he relaxed. Time ticked on. Isis sat motionless, a center of calm. Her hands stroked the incredible carving she held like a pet. Rosy light glimmered on her serene features. Houdini thought she looked like the carvings of saints he’d seen in European cathedrals. He felt his mother’s beatific presence surging within his breast.
A violent tremor seized Isis. Her back arched from the force of the spasms. She clung to the crystal skull as her body trembled and ropelike tendons appeared on her straining neck. A rasping raven-croak rattled out of her throat.
Here it comes, Houdini thought, watching her with his raptor’s intensity. What came was something the magician never expected.
His mother’s voice burst from Isis in a guttural rush of rapid-fire German, the pent-up words escaping like steam through a safety valve. “Ehrie.… Mein Ehrie… . Kannest du mich horen, mein geliebter Sohn?”
“Mama…?” Houdini’s emotions overcame his reason. She called him by his childhood nickname. “Bist du das, Mama?”
“Aber. Ja, ja … ich bin bei dir, Ehrie. Ich werde immer bei dir sein.”
Overwhelmed by a joyous flood of love, Houdini found it difficult to speak. The voice was his mother’s, exact to her slight Hungarian accent. He asked if she could see him. She told him she no longer had sight and tried to describe empathy beyond understanding. She remained with him always, her spirit linked to his. It was impossible to explain with words. How can you tell a blind man what “blue” is? She knew danger surrounded her son like an angry cloud. She had to warn him. Danger, Ehrie …
He asked if she’d tried to use Lady Doyle as a medium. Isis relaxed. She smiled and spoke with Cecilia Weiss’s voice, quoting an old country folk saying he remembered his mama telling him as a small child in Appleton, Wisconsin. Something about how you can teach a dog to roll over but only a cow gives milk. Houdini had never been sure exactly what it meant.
If he didn’t look at Isis, he felt his mother there in the room beside him. The intensity of his love coursed through him like a narcotic. He wanted so badly to believe in the illusion. Watching Isis, he marveled at the simplicity of her performance. His logical nature insisted on thinking of it as performance and illusion. The voice sounded perfect. She’d done her homework, the nuance and details all right on the money.
Isis sagged. The German she spoke slowed and slurred into an unintelligible growl, like a distant radio station fading out of reception.
No! Don’t go, Mama! Houdini reached across the table and grasped the delicate hands clutching the crystal skull. “Blieb, Mama! Bitte geh nicht fort!”
Opal Crosby Fletcher opened those clear jade eyes that seemed to see so much. “Oh, dear,” she said in her own voice, sweet and pure as a child. “How very powerful.”
Houdini blinked, his face etched with grief. The pain in his eyes seemed almost palpable. “Ma…?” His mouth hung open after the first despairing syllable.
“What’s wrong?” Isis stood up. “Are you all right?”<
br />
The magician cursed himself. The moment he began to doubt, his mother was lost to him. “I’m to blame,” he said, tears starting in his eyes.
Isis came around the low table and knelt before him. She took hold of his hands. “There’s no blame,” she said. “Only fear …”
“All my fault,” he blubbered, tears streaming, his breath coming in hysterical gasps.
“Don’t …”
The magician’s overloaded emotions got the best of him. He slid off the chair and collapsed sobbing into her arms. She hugged him, crooning soft noises, and he wept helplessly on her breast.
“There now… . Let it out…” She gently massaged his temple. “Let all the poison and fear flow out.”
At length, his pathetic sniveling came to a stop. He dried his eyes with his handkerchief and blew his nose. “She was really here,” he said in wonderment. “My sainted mother …”
Isis felt him tremble and averted a second onslaught of crying by kneading the knotted muscles in the back of his neck. Her fingers felt remarkably strong for someone who looked so frail. “She’s always with you. Every minute of every day,” Isis murmured softly in his ear. “There’s no death or separation in the realm of the spirit.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Houdini sighed. He closed his eyes. “You’ve got magic fingers. Thought my head was gonna bust apart.”
“Belief is all there is. It’s all that stands between us and nothingness.” Isis eased her hands under his jacket collar. “Here. Take off your coat. You’ll be more comfortable that way.” There was no complaint as she eased him out of his rumpled worsted jacket. At her direction, he moved to the center of the thick wool carpet, stretching out on his stomach among the swirling multicolored arabesques. She slipped off his shoes and knelt beside him. “Feel better…?” She worked her fingers up and down the bunched muscles along his spine.
“God, yes …” He surrendered to her gentle, powerful massage. How did she know him so well? She somehow anticipated his thoughts, expressing concern for his every need. Her touch seemed nothing short of enchanted, all his tension dispelled by her skillful manipulation. And she must have a good heart. Why else would Mama choose her as a medium?
Houdini moaned aloud with pure animal pleasure as Isis went to work on his taut shoulders. Conflicting thoughts crowded his consciousness. Maybe she’s faking. Gotta keep a healthy skepticism alive. Even so, how can her motives be impure when she had Mama’s blessed voice so perfectly right? Every inflection. His nickname. Every …
Houdini drifted off into a deep, dreamless slumber. For the briefest moment, he fought the impulse to sleep, a strong survival instinct warning him of the danger inherent in unconsciousness. Unable to resist as a rising tide of darkness flowed around him, he felt drugged, numb; his limbs leaden, his mind a blur. Even the distant crooning of Isis worked as a soporific. Letting go completely, the magician disappeared in the black sea of night.
He had no idea how long he was out. Opening his eyes, he experienced a sudden surge of panic when the world remained dark. He reached up and touched a silken mask bound across his eyes.
“Don’t take it off.” By the sound of her voice, Isis spoke from the far end of the library. “Not yet. I’ll tell you when.”
Houdini lay quite still, wondering what made him obey her gentle command. Something else was different. He wore a silk robe. Feeling the smooth cool fabric against his bare limbs brought the incredible realization that she had undressed him while he slept. “What have you done with my clothes?” he demanded.
“Don’t worry, Osiris, they’re safe. Martha is ironing out all those wrinkles.” Her musical voice sounded closer now. “You looked so uncomfortable, sleeping completely dressed like that.”
Houdini sniffed. The air smelled strangely fragrant with incense. He thought of frankincense and myrrh and remembered the smells in the European churches he’d visited; thick aromatic white smoke streaming from the swinging censer. Another odd smell, sweet and oleaginous, he recognized as melting wax. What the hell was going on here?
“All right,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “you can take off the mask now.”
The magician pulled the band of cloth from his eyes, blinking in wonderment and disbelief. At first, he thought he saw stars. Hundreds of candles had been arranged around the commodious room, their tiny flames bright as a flight of fireflies in the gloom. Glittering on every possible level and surface; on the floor, on chair seats and tabletops, staggered along bookshelves, in a line over the mantel; they transformed the formal library with their mysterious dazzle.
Propped on his elbows, taking it all in, Houdini watched Isis approach from the far end of the room, her face startlingly painted. The left side gleamed chalk white (white as a geisha, white as a clown, white as death) while the right side had been done in vivid green, like the absinthe she drank earlier. The colors met in a straight line dividing her features down the bridge of her nose from forehead to chin. Both shocking and weirdly beautiful, the whole effect framed by a glossy oval of black hair gleaming with candlelight. The bizarre makeup distracted his attention from the diaphanous chartreuse chiton she wore.
She swept toward him, a carved wooden casket the size of a cigar box in her hands, her limber body clearly visible through the sheer apple-green fabric. He caught his breath at the sight of her rose-tipped breasts and the small, dark delta of her sex.
In spite of his world travels and long experience in show business, the magician was in reality quite naive and unsophisticated in carnal matters—a bit of a prude, if the truth be known—a man who had never once visited a brothel or cheated on his wife, not even stolen a single kiss from the legion of chorus girls he’d worked with over the years. He never used profanity and blushed when told off-color jokes. The utter novelty of the lust gripping him added greatly to his excitement.
Isis settled beside him, seeming to float. The pale, transparent green gown wafted about her like tangible smoke. “Relax,” she said, opening the carved lid of the sandalwood box and removing a blue orb-shaped flask. She poured a small amount of warm, scented oil into her cupped hand, smoothing it across his chest with gentle circular motions. Houdini sighed and closed his eyes. “Good … good … ,” she purred. “Just relax …”
Her touch felt different from when she massaged him earlier. More a caress this time. Her fingertips lightly traced the tepid oil over his flesh, circling his nipples, which tightened like tiny wrinkled raisins in anticipation. When she pinched them, an electric shock shuddered through his body all the way to his arching toes.
She hummed as she stroked him, a throaty, aimless melody more a low animal moan than anything musical. The magician drifted in the primal sound. His body tingled with pleasure. It felt so good. He never wanted it to stop. Her hands swirled across his abdomen, spreading a scented sheen of oil. She moved down over his thighs and his body glistened in the candlelight. All resistance ebbed away, any thought of protest vanished, he surrendered to her completely.
“Stay still,” she whispered, smoothing oil along his erection. Both her hands urged its straining length up inside as, straddling his loins, she lowered herself upon him. He opened his eyes with an astonished gasp. Seeing her without the gossamer gown added to his pleasure: her slender, girlish waist and the nubile uplift of young breasts. Bucking upward, he reached out his arms to draw her into a grateful embrace. “Be still,” she repeated. This time it was an order.
She pushed his hands away, forcing his arms to rest along his sides. Making him lie inert, his head back against the bold Moroccan pillow she had settled there while he slept, she rose and fell above him, rose and fell, rose and fell, all in a slow, steady rhythm much more natural than the usual energetic frenzy of his marital coupling.
Houdini had never made love in this manner before, the woman riding on top. At first, he felt odd remaining so quiescent, the passive partner for once in his life. Gradual delight overcame his reluctance. He closed his eyes
again, letting go at last of any impulse to dominate, feeling the moist, sliding motion become an undulant, rippling grip unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
Opening his eyes, he saw Isis with her head bent back, her hands on her breasts, the rosy nipples caught between grasping fingers. She no longer moved. Her pelvis pressed tightly against him, vaginal muscles contracting in some totally inexplicable manner.
Again, his eyes closed. Not even his wildest adolescent dreams had imagined such sensations. Sex never ranked as a high priority in his life. He knew only the tender moments shared with Bess, but didn’t think of them now or of his wife. Houdini had been transported beyond thinking.
The magician heard Isis moan and looked up at her reddened neck and grimacing, painted face. She started to climax, the contractions grown so powerful they almost forced him from her body. Her moaning built to a wild animal howl as a pulsing flow of warm fluid fountained out of her vagina, flooding around him onto his belly. Utter delirious astonishment triggered the beginning spasms of his orgasm. He groaned in mindless ecstasy.
At this moment, Isis groped blindly in the sandalwood box beside her, feeling for a carved ivory dildo, greased with Vaseline, its hollow interior filled with heated milk. Taking hold of the smooth, slippery shaft, she reached behind her and pushed its full length into Houdini’s rectum. The magician screamed as he came and came and came, his back arching, his brain skyrocketing into exploding pyrotechnic oblivion.
15
ASK ME NO QUESTIONS
POE SMILED AT SIR ARTHUR Conan Doyle. Much more than the mere ghost of a smile, a mocking irony twisted the misty lips; the sardonic arching of his bushy tangled eyebrows suggested eternal cynicism. Sir Arthur thought those eyebrows resembled nothing so much as fat black caterpillars crawling across the poet’s high-domed forehead. An unfortunate comparison putting him immediately in mind of worm-eaten corpses wrapped in grave-tattered winding sheets.
Nevermore Page 14
