Carnal Machines

by D. L. King

  I collapsed on the counterpane, gasping like a fish out of water. Mr. Friday was rolling down his sleeves, helping the silent girl to her feet, straightening her clothes. I wondered if she’d be able to walk or if they’d have to fetch a hansom cab and make her sit on a cushion all the way home.

  “That all went rather well, didn’t it?” said Mr. Friday.

  Victoria stood by the door, as expressionless as ever. I wondered if she were a bit simple and whether Mr. Friday was a cad, taking advantage of a poor defenseless idiot girl. But surely she would have shrieked and shrieked…

  The spell of domination was wearing off, like the morning after a champagne debauch. I looked down at myself. My poor body was a right old mess, clearly marked by the string, and I looked as if I’d been captured and tortured by Her Majesty’s Royal Mail. Suddenly, I was furious and found my tongue.

  “Just look at me!”

  Mr. Friday jumped as if he’d been shot.

  “I thought you didn’t speak English.” He looked as if he had a bad smell right under his nose.

  “I’ll want paid extra for this, I can tell you!” I squawked, twisting to examine my striped legs.

  Mr. Friday sighed and addressed the china dogs on the mantelpiece.

  “Why must they always open their mouths? It does so ruin everything when they talk.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the way I speak.” I bristled with indignation. Talking back to a gent was likely to get me fired, but I’d had about enough of the high jinks and kinks at Mrs. James’s bordello. My skin was a mess and I felt like knocking Mr. Friday’s smug block off.

  “Nuffink wrong with the way aee speak?”

  He was mocking me, making fun of my Peckham accent. Could I help that I wasn’t from a well-to-do home? Would I be lying there all trussed up like a prize Christmas turkey if I was? With one monumental, painful effort I freed my wrists and picked up a pillow and aimed it at the professor’s sanctimonious head. He promptly ducked and it hit Miss Iron Derriere squarely in the face. Oops. She staggered back and let out a vicious hiss. I thought she called me a bad name and I picked up another feathery missile. The second pillow flew through the air with twice the force of the first. To my horror, the girl’s head twisted sharply to one side with a loud crack. I had broken her neck. It would be the gallows for me. Then—good lord—steam began to issue from the neck of her costume. She slowly slid to the floor, legs sticking out before her, like a collapsed marionette. I watched in horrified fascination then jumped as there was a loud bang and her head flew off! A quantity of small brass objects like the mechanism of a clock clattered to the floor. Cogs, springs and levers scattered to the corners of the room. The headless girl twitched violently like the monster from Miss Shelley’s lurid tale.

  “What is going on?”

  An outraged Mrs. James threw open the door, all baleful glare and crackling bombazine. Victoria let out another terrible hiss, shook in a final mechanical spasm then was still.

  “Professor Higgins, I really must insist that you make less noise! My other gentlemen…”

  Mr. Friday crouched on the rug beside the broken clockwork girl. I stalked past him and out of the room as he continued to mutter to himself.

  “She was the perfect girl. They always spoil everything when they talk….”

  Then I realized I had seen his face in the newspapers. He was that geezer who lured a poor defenseless flower seller from her pitch at Covent Garden and tried to turn her into a duchess. Mad as a hatter.

  DR. MULLALEY’S CURE

  Delilah Devlin

  I’d been warned that the doctor was a bit eccentric; that he dabbled in machinery and had been ostracized by others in his profession for the lengths he went to please his patients.

  “You’ll never find another employer,” I was told. “Not once they see your only reference is Doctor Mullaley.” The mad Irishman. The charlatan who promised cures to bored housewives and whose waiting room hadn’t been empty since I arrived for my first day’s work. If I hadn’t already been turned away at every other respectable physician’s practice, I might have heeded the advice. However, those warnings only served to stir my interest.

  I was intensely curious about the nature of the doctor’s cures and even more so about the conditions he treated, but they were only spoken of in whispers and never in the presence of an unmarried woman. This made me wonder why he’d hired me, not that I complained. One glance at his tall rangy frame, frosty blue eyes and dark, slicked-back hair, and my misgivings evaporated.

  However, my curiosity about the man and his practice wasn’t to be satisfied at that moment because the doctor waved me toward the reception desk where I worked at fitting in patients who walked in without an appointment, a task I found akin to cinching in the waist of a corset. There was only so much ribbon one could pull before something gave.

  That something was the inimitable Mrs. Davies. She arrived in a dudgeon, cheeks flushed, eyes a little wild. It was a very balmy afternoon, and the painstaking curls at the sides of her cheeks had wilted and were stretching toward her jaw like earthworms. I couldn’t help staring while she tapped the counter with her finger insisting her needs were of the highest import. If she didn’t receive a treatment that afternoon, somebody would hear about it.

  At wit’s end, I gave her a false smile, said I’d find the doctor and escaped down the corridor to the treatment rooms.

  The corridor was as handsomely appointed as the waiting room with rich oak paneling below the rail, and burgundy brocade above it. But gaslight sconces were placed so far apart that shadows loomed between the doorways.

  I paused at the first room to listen, hoping to hear the low timbre of the doctor’s voice. Faint moans came through the door, but since they didn’t have an urgent edge, I hurried to the next and pressed my ear against the wood.

  Hands curved over my shoulder. “Pardon me, Nurse Percy.” The doctor firmly pushed me to the side and strode into the room.

  Glancing around his tall frame, I spotted Mrs. Headley, who lay on a table that tilted with the lower half split in two.

  My jaw sagged as I noted that while she was clothed in a sacklike gown, Mrs. Headley lay bared from the waist down, her legs strapped to the split “legs” of the table. Her fingers dug into padded handles at the sides. Most curious, there was a long, slender trough running from a tank latched to the ceiling, very like a toilet’s reservoir. The trough emptied into a funnel, which ran into a tube. The tube passed through a device with turning wheels that clicked like a clock’s inner gears and then ended at a nozzle that spurted water in rhythmic pulses toward the juncture of Mrs. Headley’s thighs.

  How odd, I thought.

  Mrs. Headley moaned. Her gaze roved restlessly until she lighted on the doctor. “Please, Raymond, I can’t take much more. I’m very sure I’m ready for the next stage of my treatment.”

  The doctor stood between me and Mrs. Headley so I couldn’t see what he did, but then he aimed a frown over his shoulder. When he turned back, I entered the room and shut the door behind me, staying quiet as a mouse. He turned off the nozzle. The rhythmic splashes stopped, but wet slurping sounds filled the silence.

  “I feel…nearly…oh, the agony…oh, doctor!” Mrs. Headley gave a choked little scream, her upper body arching on the table before settling again. Her flushed cheeks shone with sweat, but the smile she gave the doctor was so filled with gratitude I felt a stirring of something akin to pride for the doctor’s skill.

  However, pride wasn’t what tightened the feminine parts of me. Somehow, just knowing where the doctor’s hands were made the room feel quite warm.

  Doctor Mullaley pulled down his patient’s gown, patted her hand and turned, drawing up short when he spotted me standing in front of the door. He jerked his chin to indicate I should precede him.

  Feeling nervous and a little embarrassed by what I’d witnessed, I stepped into the hall and wrung my hands. “I wouldn’t have interrupted, doctor,” I blurted, �
��but there’s a woman at the reception desk demanding an appointment. Frankly, I thought she’d push right past me to find you if I hadn’t said I would go.”

  “Let me guess, Mrs. Davies?”

  I nodded.

  He sighed and looked up and down the hallway. “I have another hydropathy machine in the treatment room at the end of the hallway. While you were spying, did you happen to notice what I did to turn it off?”

  “The hose from the reservoir? Yes.”

  “The reverse turns it on. Take Mrs. Davies there. Find her a gown and help her out of her clothes. Start the machine. I’ll be along when the others have finished their treatments.” He gave me a narrowed glance that seemed to note my appearance for the first time. “After you’ve settled her, find me. I think you might work out after all.”

  I nodded, blushing beneath his approval, and walked on air back to the reception room. Even Mrs. Davies’s rude behavior as she complained all the way down the hallway couldn’t dampen my mood. She didn’t relent while I undressed her until it came to her corset. Claiming I’d scratched her, she slapped my hands away, saying she’d manage the garment on her own. Not that she really needed one; any garment constructed to shape her enormous belly would have required true engineering genius.

  When it came to setting up the hydropathy machine, Mrs. Davies showed me exactly where the nozzle needed to be placed for “maximum efficacy.” That lesson left me blushing because I set the nozzle to squirt at the knot at the top of her sex.

  With Mrs. Davies quiet at last, I went in search of the doctor.

  I followed the sound of grinding gears and whistling pistons to another treatment room. Inside, the patient lay with her gown scrunched around her middle. Clamps with wire tethers were attached to her nipples. Her legs were spread and elevated, and another device pressed against her sex.

  The doctor glanced up as I entered. “There you are. See the lever on the side of the machine?” He pointed to a large tin box with dials and gauges on the front and from whence the devices at the woman’s nipples and sex were connected.

  I nodded, spying the lever at the side.

  “Throw it up to start the current.”

  The moment I did, a curious humming sounded from between the patient’s legs. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she moaned around the gag tied behind her head.

  I glanced at the doctor, a question in my eyes.

  He bent toward my ear. “She thinks it’s sinful to make noises when she culminates.”

  “Culiminates?”

  The corners of his shocking blue eyes crinkled. “Nurse Percy, has the mister never culminated when in the throes of his husbandly duties?”

  My mouth dropped. “I’ve never married or witnessed a man’s …culmination. Are you telling me a woman can too?”

  His gaze honed on my expression. “For the sake of your apprenticeship, I think it will be my duty to demonstrate my cures.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Just what sort of conditions are you treating, sir?”

  The doctor checked the gauges, gave the woman a pat on her hand, then waved me toward the door. “Step outside.”

  In the hallway, he stood close with his hands held behind him. Mine, I clutched against my belly as I listened to him describe the many illnesses of the body and mind that occurred when a woman didn’t release the noxious poisons boiling inside her. If a husband wasn’t willing or able to assist, then a woman sought the help of a doctor who specialized in such things.

  “And these machines…?”

  He brought his hands forward, and I noted the length and thickness of those digits. “The machines save my hands from aching after endless pelvic massages.”

  That was a term I had heard before. I’d even attempted to perform it on myself a time or two, but I’d given up frustrated just before I’d discovered the mystery that lay at the end of the quest.

  “Doctor, I am unmarried but hope to be some day. I cannot allow you to directly…massage…that region,” I hissed.

  His lips twitched. “Which is not a problem, dear nurse. I have designed devices meant to assure a woman’s sensibilities aren’t violated. Stay after work, and I will demonstrate them all.”

  The rest of the day passed in a blur as I learned to apply the devices to other women’s tender breasts and nether regions, all the while admitting a deepening sensitivity in my own body.

  When at last the office closed, the doctor led me into the treatment room that held the widest array of machinery, including one device still covered in a tarp in a corner. My glance must have lingered there.

  “Something I’m developing,” he murmured, “but I’m looking for a volunteer to test it.”

  When I opened my mouth, he shook his head. “You’re unmarried. This machine would shred your maidenhead.”

  After all I’d witnessed this day, I thought there wasn’t a blush left in me, but my face heated.

  His fingers trailed my cheek. “There’s a gown on the table that I’d like you to wear. When you’re ready, just open the door.” With that, he left.

  The gown was a thin, dove-gray silk. I passed my hand beneath it and realized my whole body would be visible. Still, I didn’t hesitate to remove my clothing. He was a physician after all. I would do this in the name of my education and the furtherance of science.

  When I was dressed in nothing but the gown, I opened the door a crack and peeked into the hallway. He stood with his back to the door. I cleared my throat, and he turned to meet my one-eyed glance. “I’m sure you’re lovely in that gown, but I promise not to ravage you,” he said, his voice a lovely rumble. “Open the door, Nurse Percy.”

  Taking a deep breath, I stood to the side and let him enter then locked the door behind him even though I knew there wasn’t anyone else about.

  “Lie on the table, please.”

  His brusque voice, the professional one devoid of amusement, was back. This was the voice that reassured the most skittish of his patients. His actions were just as clinical and brusque as he ran straps around my thighs and set my hands on cushioned squabs with a warning to keep them there.

  As docile a lamb as any of his patients, I let out a quiet gasp when he pulled up the gown, showing care as he freed it from the straps before smoothing it up my thighs to bunch at my hips. I managed to remain silent when he parted the table’s divide and thus my thighs, even though he came to stand between them and fingered the dark hair that cloaked my Venus mound.

  “I thought it would be coarse,” he said, “as curly as your hair is.”

  My blush deepened, but I didn’t attempt a retort as he didn’t seem to require one. He parted my folds and swirled his fingers around the opening. “To stimulate you, my dear. I want your pretty little nubbin to come out and play.”

  “But you didn’t do this before you started the machines for Mrs. Davies or Mrs. Smith.”

  “Before I designed my devices, all my treatments began with direct stimulation,” he said, sliding his fingers between my folds to capture the moisture then smooth it around and around. “But my hands tired, and I could only handle so many patients a day. The demand grew, and I knew I had to do something or see them find physicians who might have less care for their sensibilities.”

  “Your machines provide a service, I know. I’ve seen the transformations. Even Mrs. Davies left cooing like a dove.”

  He flashed me a grin, and then his gaze dropped between my legs again. “There she is. A little shy this one, but a lovely dark pink. Have you ever seen your love knot?”

  “That’s what it’s called?” I said, jerking when his thumb rubbed it.

  “It’s called many unsavory things and a couple of medical terms that aren’t flattering at all, but for you Nurse Percy, it’s a love knot. You’re very sensitive. I’ll be sure to adjust the nozzle burst to something softer than I would for a woman who has had hers tweaked by a lover a time or two.”

  “You really shouldn’t say such things to me.”

  His eye
s narrowed as he studied my face. “Nurse Percy, I’m your employer, and my business is one that requires civility and discretion when dealing with patients. However, you will need to accustom yourself to frank terminology. You will hear it now and again from some of the ladies’ own mouths. They cannot help themselves when they are…culminating.”

  I swallowed hard, still so aware of where his fingers trailed and of the fact that liquid flowed from inside my body, which he used to swirl over my folds and that sensitive, swelling nubbin he seemed to be fascinated with.

  Something like a cramp tightened my belly and my hips curved. “Doctor?”

  “Yes, dear. Let’s begin.”

  He brought the hose down over his shoulder and took a seat on a stool, which placed his face very near the juncture of my thighs. While my eyes widened in shock, that maddening tension began to curl around my womb. Not an unpleasant sensation, but breathtaking nonetheless.

  He’d removed his jacket, his shirt and undershirt. With his broad, lightly furred chest bare, he met my questioning gaze. “The water will splash. And I wish to be close enough to gauge the efficacy of the treatment.”

  The very word Mrs. Davies had used, and now I knew where she had heard it first. Strangely, that both reassured and dismayed me. He wasn’t treating me any differently than any number of women. Therefore, the humor he’d shared with me, as though inviting me into his confidence, wasn’t special at all.

  Rather than think about how foolish I was, I concentrated on the sensations he produced, the warmth that built beneath the stir of his fingertips, the deep curling desperation in my womb.

  The nozzle was lowered to just above my sex, and then he turned the ring at the base that released the water. The more he turned it, the narrower the stream and the harsher the pulse that beat against my love knot.