Blooming: Veronica

by Louisa Trent

  Veronica had promised to meet her lover that Tuesday on the pier with what amounted to extortion money.

  Ten dollars. She had sold herself for cheap. And now the mud press had sensationalized the affair, an unfortunate situation for any young woman, whose reputation was bound to suffer, but for a writer, such a public distraction could kill private inspiration. Writers needed peace and quiet to organize their thoughts. Fretting spelled the death knell for creativity.

  He would do anything to rescue her.

  Although a salacious piece like that might very well enhance an author’s career. Book sales could spike on the heels of the scandal. The American reading public did so enjoy having their moral standards outraged.

  He would do anything to contract that second book. And, naturally, rescue her as well.

  Talbot beat his editorial red pencil against the top corner of his messy desk. “Who found the couple in flagrante delicto down on the piers?”

  “Apparently, the writer of the article did, himself.”

  “Must I drag this information out of you, Higgins, word by word? Whose byline is it in Around Town and in the Know?”

  “Sidney Rowe.”

  The shark strikes again.

  Hmm. There might yet be a chance to nip this in the bud. Pay enough hush money to the right people, and the story might still stay local, confined to only area penny presses. Unless—

  He asked the unthinkable. “Has the Associated Press gotten wind of it yet?”

  “The telegraph wires are already abuzz, sir. News travels fast these days. East coast to west, Miss Cooper will become as infamous an author in this country as George Sand was in France.”

  “Good grief! George Sand! Are you saying, Higgins, that Miss Cooper was cross-dressing at the time of the assignation?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” Higgins sounded more than a little puzzled.

  Talbot explained. “Was Miss Cooper wearing male attire, as the Baroness Dudevant did in her authorial persona of George Sand, when Rowe discovered her in the compromising position on the dock?”

  At his employee’s continued blank stare, Talbot sliced a hand impatiently across the air, a maddened orchestral conductor with a crazed baton. “Never mind about that. What else do you know about this?”

  “According to my sources, Miss Cooper was in an alley, consorting like a common—”

  Higgins stopped to swipe his lenses. They had begun to fog up again. “Miss Cooper was consorting like a common prostitute. Harlot. Whore. Woman of the evening. Trollop. Slu—”

  “How dreadful.” Under cover of his desk, Talbot cuddled his hardened flesh. “Now, tell me, Higgins, man-to-man, what she was doing. I realize this is a delicate topic, but I must ask, only to apprise myself of the severity of her transgression. Leave nothing out.”

  His monotype setter squinted around Talbot’s office, no doubt confirming its emptiness before proceeding. “It is with the greatest reluctance that I must relate to you, sir, that the woman in question was on her knees at the man’s boots.”

  Talbot discreetly cupped the aching heaviness of his testicles. “Putting a shine on his leathers, was she?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I see.”

  And he did see, far better than did the circumspect Higgins, whose lenses fogged up at the mention of anything prurient.

  “Miss Cooper had her mouth on the man’s penis.” Higgins hissed the last through the space in his two front teeth, and the sibilant sound of the s went on and on, the steamy reminder of an unattended teakettle, wet like a woman’s aroused pussy.

  Talbot had already fisted himself, about to begin the all too familiar stroke, when a thought occurred to him and snapped him out of his masturbatory mood.

  As coincidence would have it, he and Rowe frequented the same brothel. Though, generally speaking, the shark arrived earlier in the evening than he.

  Ah, those burlesque reviews! How they did entice him. All those voluptuous showgirls prancing about at the Old Howard Theater in Scollay Square.

  It was his habit to go on Tuesdays, a slow night in the city, when the vice squad was less likely to raid red-light district establishments and force the scantily clad beauties to change their risqué dance moves to the “Boston version,” a tamer presentation of the same routine. Afterward, Talbot would proceed to his favorite North Street whorehouse.

  Because a gentleman without a mistress at his disposal must do something on a Tuesday night.

  How was it that Rowe had stumbled upon Miss Cooper with her lover on the docks on a Tuesday evening, the very night of the week Talbot knew for a fact the reporter kept a long-standing date with Miss Tilly, a appointment that literally kept the shark tied up for hours to a whorehouse bed?

  Talbot had a nose for these things, and he knew there was more to this story than met the eye. Mixed metaphors aside, someone had to have tipped off the reporter in advance, causing Rowe to cancel his Tuesday evening entertainment and lie in wait for Miss Cooper and her lover down at the docks.

  Would his hunch play out?

  He would soon know. Coincidently, today was Tuesday.

  Talbot tossed his red pencil aside. “Thank you, Higgins. I believe I have a more complete picture now—”

  Ignoring his boss’s dismissal, Higgins continued merrily along. “I have it on good authority that Miss Cooper’s bosom was near to toppling from her neckline.”

  “Really? Her bosom, you say?”

  “Toppling right out. Nearly. Just about. Her bosom, that is. Milkmaid plump, the flesh as pale as cream.”

  Talbot squirmed in his seat. “No need for further elaboration.”

  With the unbridled relish of the pure at heart, Higgins’s narration kept rolling. “Miss Cooper’s blue eyes were closed, but her lips were open and red as a cherry as she took the man’s penis into her mouth.”

  Robert McDougal was the man under discussion. Who else could the lady have been with but the dockworker?

  In the warmth of the summer’s day, Talbot had removed his sack coat. Sweat rolled down his back and dampened his white linen shirt under his black waistcoat. As he had never been good with people, he hollered, “Enough! That will be all.”

  Higgins backed up to the door. “Forgive my intrusion, sir. I spoke out of turn. My only excuse is that the scandal is all anyone is talking about.”

  Talbot took a labored breath. “Perhaps we should both return to work.”

  “Right you are, sir.” Higgins raced off.

  Leaving Talbot with an erection that refused to soften.

  His fascination for Miss Cooper, a fixation that had developed upon reading her book, was inappropriate to say the least. And trying to convince himself he only wished to mentor her talent was hypocritical at best. He wanted to learn everything there was to know about the woman behind the words.

  Talbot tunneled his arms back into the sleeves of his coat. Then, heaving himself to his feet, took his topper from the hat tree, jammed it down on his head, and hurried from the publishing house he had built from nothing. He walked resolutely to his destination, Pearl—owing to her luminescent handle—tapping the brick sidewalk as he mulled over his course of action.

  Miss Veronica Cooper had made an error in judgment predicated on her youth and innocence. Driven by a burgeoning sexual appetite, she had fallen in love, not with a flesh-and-blood man, but with love itself.

  A woman as intelligent as Miss Cooper should have known better. She should have known the anatomical difference between her loins and her heart and not mistaken horniness for affection. He could only suppose she had done so to appease her gently bred conscience. Raising the base to the sublime excused a bout of randy sex when randy sex required no excuse.

  And the uncouth longshoreman had taken advantage, which made Miss Cooper’s lover not only unfashionably dressed but a cad.

  Talbot could hardly say which infuriated him more.

  Chapter Six

  Earlier than was his standard practice o
n a Tuesday evening, Talbot knocked on the flaking front door of a rundown brick building, a former North End fish warehouse. Mrs. Mansard, a portly madam of indeterminate years with a painted face and a surly manner—no prostitute with a heart of gold here—met him at the threshold with a cunning look. “Here for the usual, sir?”

  “Not this evening, thank you. This evening I would prefer a three-way coupling with Miss Tilly. Mr. Sidney Rowe recommended her to me.”

  The madam’s double chin waddled as she nodded toward the staircase. “Just your good fortune, that gentleman is visiting with her now. Boudoir 4. Knock twice, so Tilly will know to expect another gentleman caller, and then enter.” Mrs. Mansard guffawed. “The room and the whore.”

  Talbot grimaced at the dreadful double entendre, then, tossing his walking stick from one hand to the other, climbed the steep steps. After rapping once on the door of boudoir 4 and then again, he entered an exceedingly small but serviceable bedchamber where a black-corseted prostitute flogged a bare-arsed Rowe with a red velvet rope. Presumably, this was the whore’s attempt to arouse her client before restraining him to the bed.

  Miss Tilly had her work cut out for her.

  Still mostly flaccid, the limp flesh of Rowe’s cock curved like a newborn mouse, pink, bald, and tiny.

  Obviously, the reporter was not fit to be tied.

  In direct contrast to Talbot, whose fury knew no bounds. As to the proportions of his member, his male appendage measured just shy of a ruler. His size had made intercourse in the past decidedly difficult. So much so, even professionals balked at accommodating his sum and substance. His hearty appetite made for an additional burden. Perhaps one would not have been objectionable, but both required a tremendous amount of forbearance from a partner, male and female alike. Considering his invariable disappointment with coupling, persuading away initial reluctance seemed too much of an effort for very little compensation. If ejaculation was all that resulted from the exercise, he could manage all by himself…with the occasional visit to Sonya. And too, being an uninvolved spectator, a detached onlooker rather than a participant, suited his temperament. He had always gotten along much better with machinery than people, anyway.

  Now what?

  Years of abstinence from actual sexual interaction with another human being left him in a unique quandary. He no longer knew how to proceed. Or whom to seduce.

  Not the whore. A shrewd businesswoman, Miss Tilly was in the profession for the money, not the compliments. Rowe looked more promising a target to charm. But how?

  Hmm. What would the flamboyant—and rumored sodomite—Irish playwright Oscar Wilde do?

  Improvising, Talbot placed an ink-stained hand on his hip, a move that opened his coat and showed off his rig. “Is a threesome agreeable?”

  The reporter’s heavy-lidded gaze glued itself to Talbot’s inseam, the spot where his manly make rubbed against wool and testified that his size could sell tickets to the big top.

  The attention of his audience duly captured, Talbot pirouetted in a circle to show off his commendably tight backside.

  So this is how a bull at a stud market feels.

  Not every day did Talbot put his ass up for grabs.

  He did no more to attract Rowe. Why overstate a case already won?

  “A threesome is most agreeable,” Rowe said, proving even an insipid shark could have excellent taste in men.

  “I feel like I know you from somewhere,” Miss Tilly piped up. “A fool’s folly. Had we met before, sir, I would never have forgotten you.”

  Talbot would wager she had spoken those same words before. But no matter. Without further ado, the whore crawled over to the foot of the bed and reached for the placard on Talbot’s trousers, which caused him to jerk back and away with a shudder.

  Gad! Talbot’s belly fell to the floor. He had ruined the setup!

  Rowe knew he had been had. Hiding the evidence of his impotence with two fingers, he called Talbot on his blunder. “What are you really after, Bowdoin?”

  “I heard about the disrespectful piece you did on Miss Cooper in Around Town and in the Know, and I thought a lesson in good journalism was long overdue.”

  “Limp-legged cripple. Blow me.”

  “What? Not even a kiss first?”

  As his shudder would confirm, Talbot avoided all occasions of physical contact. He made an exception here.

  Talbot loosened his necktie, stowed his stick over his arm, and pumped the air with his fists. “Shall we go a round or two and see who ends up on the floor sucking cock?”

  A female voice screeched, “No bloodshed in here. Vice will shut us down. Take it outside, boys.”

  Talbot had forgotten all about the whore. An eyewitness would never do. What he needed to learn from Rowe he needed to learn in private.

  He hooked Pearl’s iridescent handle around the shark’s neck. A press on one of several side levers, and the automaton locked in place. Unable to free himself, the mud slinger came along peacefully.

  Outside, Talbot released his prisoner.

  Not even a thank-you did he get in return. In fact, for Talbot’s act of charity, Rowe insulted him again, this time with a sneered epithet of “Hopping Giles” flung in his face.

  Talbot had heard it all before and more wittily done. St. Giles was the patron of the infirm. The expression fit, but only in part. And he did not suffer fools gladly.

  A tussle between two adjacent buildings ensued. Several blows struck, a knee applied to some floppy genitalia—the target was hopelessly small but Talbot’s aim was true—and he made quick work of gaining the upper hand.

  Crouched atop Rowe, Talbot clamped Pearl across the reporter’s windpipe. “Who put you up to the story you wrote on Miss Veronica Cooper?” He lightened his hold so the reporter could speak.

  “No one put me up to it. The scandal made for good copy.”

  “Someone tipped you off. Tell me who, or breathe your last breath.”

  The reporter wheezed, “Robert McDougal was the rat. He told me where to find them together. Fancy that—the lady’s own lover was my informer.”

  As Rowe had no way of knowing of Talbot’s familiarity with the rat, gained through his voyeuristic activities, he pretended no prior knowledge. “Why would this…this… What was the name again?”

  “Robert McDougal.”

  “Ah, yes. Why would this McDougal have besmirched the lady’s reputation?”

  “Could be, he had an ax to grind with the lady. Could be he wanted to ruin her. You and I will never know for sure, seeing how McDougal sneaked out of his boardinghouse in the dead of night owing money, then skipped town.” Rowe gasped a ragged breath. “Rumor has it McDougal left Miss Cooper in the family way. That story should bring in some sales.”

  “Your form of mudslinging makes me sick, makes me want to puke. Sensationalized, irresponsible journalism hawked on street corners destroys lives.”

  Rowe probed his bruised jaw. “So?”

  “So this—” With a southerly reach between their bodies, Talbot coaxed some interest into the reporter’s deflated cock, rubbing his hand up and down the shriveled flesh until limp turned rigid.

  “A word of advice, sweetheart,” Talbot purred while continuing to milk Rowe’s erection. “Next time you visit this brothel, try a male whore on for size. A pretty boy might be able to get a rise out of you without a whip.”

  When Rowe spurted, Talbot dropped his hold on the shark and stumbled to his feet. “If I see another story written in your scandal sheet on Miss Cooper, any sort of story, I give you my word, I will send a tip to your publisher about you and me, a tell-all about jerking you off in this very alley, a makeup fuck after a lover’s quarrel inside a whorehouse. For the right amount of cash, I am confident Miss Tilly will be happy to substantiate our heated exchange.”

  “A story like that could ruin you, Bowdoin.”

  “That goes both ways.” Talbot shrugged. “See you behind bars, sweetheart.”

  After blowing the r
eporter a kiss, Talbot limped away.

  Hours spent sparring at the Boston Athletic Association and rowing on the Charles River kept his upper body toned and the rest of him reasonably fit—despite his old war injuries. And Pearl’s assistance had gone a long way to help. All in all, the scuffle had barely winded him. And though one of Rowe’s wildly thrown punches had partially sealed his eye, Talbot could still read the handwriting on the wall.

  For whatever the reason, Robert McDougal had deliberately set out to destroy Miss Cooper.

  Just as determined to see that attempt fail, Talbot crossed Boston Common to Beacon Hill. At Number 5 Chestnut Street, he picked up the brass doorknocker and let it drop back in place.

  A maidservant answered the summons. “Yes, sir?”

  “Mr. Talbot Bowdoin to see Mr. Cooper.”

  “Have you an appointment, sir?” With barely concealed contempt, she looked him up and down.

  And found him wanting.

  Must have been his bloodied face and tattered tailoring.

  “No appointment,” Talbot said imperiously. “But I assure you, refusing me entry will jeopardize your position in this household.”

  A superior attitude trumped an inferior appearance every time, a lesson Talbot had learned long ago.

  The maid gestured him to a wooden bench. “Please wait here in the hall. I will inform Mr. Cooper of your presence, sir.”

  After slinging Pearl over his arm, Talbot took a seat and did some thinking.

  For a certainty, Miss Cooper had lost her virginity. No surprise there as Talbot had peeped at the author after her book signing. At the time, he had applauded her loss of innocence. After all, her hymen had prevented her from becoming the mistress of someone more suitable.

  For instance, Talbot himself.

  Not that he differed that much from Robert McDougal. In fact, their backgrounds were most likely amazingly similar, rats being rats whether they clawed their way up from brothels or docks. Regardless of the origins, poverty was poverty the same the world over. Starting off poor in life either twisted a man’s gut or sharpened his mind.