Blooming: Veronica

by Louisa Trent

  Now that he thought about it, the feelings she inspired in him confused him the same way these shifting walls confused him. Oftentimes, her mercurial mind puzzled him, just like this dungeon.

  She had lost him tonight, so he had come downstairs to the dungeon to sort things out.

  He loved her. At least as he defined the word. To him, love meant devotion. The same devotion he applied to his mechanical inventions he now applied to her. Springs and levers, weights and cylinders, pistons and valves—they made sense to him. But the inner workings of people often escaped him.

  Veronica’s suggestion of an open marriage baffled him completely.

  And so he had escaped down here, where the walls shifted but where the barred windows on the oak doors offered him a wide glimpse of the activities that went on within the cells. Would that his bride’s unfathomable mind came with a similar window for him to peep through.

  The corridors twisted and turned, and Talbot wandered them aimlessly, nodding at several leather-clad dungeon guards as he looked, then discarded, every activity offered.

  Usually, he was easy to please. But tonight, nothing held his attention, not even the orgy he passed. Too many writhing bodies for his tastes. Were they snakes or people, vipers or lovers?

  His search ended at a dimly lit cell. It was mercifully quiet in there, no screaming damsels in distress, no cracking whips to be heard. Lit only by candle sconce on the wall, a hooded prostitute lay naked on a thumbscrew rack, her arms cuffed together above her head with chains, her legs splayed and tethered to the rough wooden table beneath her.

  After turning over the sign outside to read OCCUPIED, he entered the cell, locking the door behind him.

  Rather a dramatic departure for him. For years, he had acted the role of onlooker, not participant. The best he could do under the circumstance was to offer up an unrehearsed hello.

  No answer.

  “Can you speak?” he asked.

  She shook her head in the negative.

  “Gagged?”

  This time, she nodded.

  An anonymous female in a spread-eagle position, her head covered to remove her identity and humanity, unable to chat, her lithe body naked and there for the taking, no bonds except metal, no commitment beyond ejaculate—a near perfect fantasy woman for a man who preferred the company of machines to people.

  She had nice breasts too, small and round as apples. Her pussy was shaven, but light curls under her arms told him she was fair. Some gentlemen preferred blondes. He preferred a metallic sheen in his consorts.

  Except for one. But he would not think of Veronica now.

  “I would like to do a few things to you. Tinkering,” he said politely. “Like so.”

  He covered an uptilted nipple with a palm, and the flesh remained soft with disinterest.

  Mirroring his own ennui.

  He swept his hand over her tight body, then dipped two fingers between her thighs.

  Regrettably dry.

  As was his flaccid cock.

  The prostitute and he had much in common.

  “Lubrication oils are in order,” he said and strolled over to a well-equipped table nearby. Machinery required grease to make the parts spin, women the same.

  Here, surrounded by all manner of primitive torture devices, he was in his element. At a glance, he knew the task each tool in the assortment would perform. Would that people, particularly women, were as easy to understand!

  Why had she mentioned ménages when their marriage had just taken on an orderly existence?

  After anointing his fingers with oil, he returned to the whore.

  “Just a diddling,” he told her softly.

  At her nod, Talbot began to pet her until she was rolling her hips, her bottom lifting from the table. Her nipples had gone nicely taut.

  Apply some grease, crank the engine, and pistons invariably fire.

  Soon from beneath the hood came the favorable, if muffled, sounds of climax.

  And he was just as flaccid as before.

  After scrubbing off his hands—he always took precautions—he got himself out, rubbed some oil over his shaft, and began the usual stroke.

  He stopped when he was too sore to continue.

  His erection was still nowhere in sight.

  “It was very nice to meet you…er…” He looked at her nametag posted on the front of the rack. “Desiree. And I shall be sure to tell Alfred you give good service.”

  He left the same way he entered, but his life had altered.

  The establishment offered everything a voyeur would ever want. Unfortunately, he no longer wanted any of them.

  He only wanted his wife.

  Back at their opulent brothel room, his bride had fallen asleep. After removing his clothing, Talbot lit several lamps to make sure she could see him, and then proceeded to awaken her.

  “Veronica!”

  “Hmm?”

  “Look at me.”

  “Oh, bother,” she grumbled, but did.

  Her greedy glance landed on his swiftly rising cock.

  “No! Not there. Look at my bad leg.”

  “I have seen your bed leg before. In your laboratory or workroom, or whatever you care to call your mad-scientist laboratory. Either give me a better incentive to stay awake or allow me to go back to sleep.”

  “You saw my leg from the back,” he said stubbornly. “And steam got in the way.”

  “What is the object of this exercise? I already know your leg is withered, sir.”

  “You have yet to ask me how it happened.”

  Her hair a mess around her face, she sat up, folded her arms around her knees. “If I ask you, can I then return to sleep? I was having a lovely dream.”

  “Return to sleep after looking at my leg, and you might have nightmares.”

  “Oh, please…” She looked at his leg. “Hardly nightmare material. Perhaps a bad dream for your pain, but no more than that. How did it happen?”

  “The Civil War.”

  “That was ages ago. How old are you, anyway? Tell me, and then I shall have nightmares.”

  “Very funny. Thirty-nine this year.”

  “You must have been a boy when it happened. Children did battle way back then?”

  “I have never been a child, not in the way you mean. And I was not involved in the actual fighting. I was inside a tent, tending to a piece of machinery. I like to tinker. Always have. It was a small printing press. At the time, I was a journeyman for a newspaper. We knew the tent was fodder for cannonballs, and as turf and canvas exploded around us, everyone deserted.”

  “Except you.”

  “Yes.” He hung his head.

  “Not another word. Let me guess. You refused to leave the equipment.”

  “I rescued every piece.”

  “If you expect me to say that was heroic, you will wait an eternity. You were mad to stay.”

  “I thought you more than anyone would understand.”

  “I understand you are an idiot to place yourself in harm’s way over a printing press.”

  “But that is how strongly I felt about the power of words.”

  “That makes you a double idiot. There are plenty of words in the world, but only one Talbot Bowdoin. You could have been killed. I am very glad you were not. Even double idiots have a right to live. And do not think a few purple scars will get you off the hook in regards to my conjugal rights, for they will not. Now come to bed. And you had better not stink of whore.”

  “I washed.”

  “You were with a whore!”

  “Not like you mean. I did touch her, though.”

  “Leave this room at once.”

  “I touched her for research purposes only.”

  “You may use that rationale once and once only. Go on,” she grumbled. “Next, you will want to tell me why. Since my sleep has already been disturbed, I might just as well listen. I am fond of made-up bedtime stories.”

  “I touched her because I had to know if my recen
t strong reaction to sexual congress was particular only to you, that you alone could inspire my arousal. Safe to say from my lack of response with the wench that you do.”

  “Is your impotency supposed to make me feel cherished?”

  “No, this is.” After dousing the bright lamps, he crawled into bed and lay down naked behind her. She was warm in his arms and soft, her body pliable. He could tell she had forgiven his research and was not opposed to having marital relations. As for himself, his highly interested cock butted the back of her thigh, the crease where leg meets buttock.

  But this was not about sex any more than the fiasco downstairs in the dungeon was about sex, and so he willed his erection to go limp and said, “Yes and no,” into her bare shoulder.

  “Yes and no what?”

  “Those are the answers I should have given to your questions.”

  “What questions?”

  “Will I agree to a ménage? No. Is this marriage about more than sex? Yes. And I intend to prove it. No intercourse tonight.”

  “What? Why am I being punished for your wrongdoing?”

  Over her screech, he continued. “Furthermore, please be apprised of the following.”

  In preparation for his rehearsed speech, he cleared his throat. “Pursuant to my proposal of conducting an ordinary marriage, I shall tell you these facts: I was deeply jealous during Alfred’s fitting; this room’s peepholes are sealed closed; I would happily kill your first lover, that dock rat, Robert, for hurting you; and I would be deeply gratified if in the future you touched me anywhere you like wherever you like, kicks in the seat of my trousers not excluded.”

  He took a deep breath. “There! I believe that covers all my points. Here I am, stripped bare and weak, telling you of my devotion. I am committed to you, Veronica, and to making our marriage a success in the conventional sense of the word. I shall work toward that goal with every fiber of my being, putting forth all due diligence to make it a reality.”

  Within the loose circle of his arms, she turned to face him. “And to think I once called you a romantic. Instead, I find I married an attorney. To keep everything legal, I must tell you at this time I cannot return your—”

  He tenderly covered her lips with a finger before she could say more. “Hush. No need for you to make any undying vows of devotion in return. The full onus is on me here. I simply wanted to set my side of the equation straight. All I ask is that you leave your mind and heart open to the possibility of having a real marriage, a civilized and normal union like everyone else.” He picked up her hand and kissed each finger. “I should like to try, anyway. We begin with a courtship.”

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “No sexual intercourse,” he spelled out for her again. “We shall spend the time getting to know each other, as other couples do. Platonically.”

  “We are not ‘other couples.’ We are ourselves. And I enjoy the sexual aspect of our marriage.”

  “And you shall enjoy it again too. Later. After our courtship.”

  “You left here a pervert and returned to me a monk. Wait till I get my hands on that whore you touched.”

  “I am adamant about the courtship. There is no guarantee of success. I have never been devoted to anyone before, never felt anything so deeply for another. Machinery, yes. Ideas, yes. The written word, yes. But not a person.”

  She sighed. “I cannot bear you children.”

  “So long as you can bear me. I am insufferable at times.”

  “Yes and yes,” she answered and yawned.

  He yawned too.

  Sleep claimed first her and then started to claim him. His last thoughts before succumbing was that, at almost forty years of age and after leading an irregular life, he was finally becoming just like everyone else.

  Boringly normal.

  A cause of celebration, he mused drowsily and slipped off into oblivion.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  In the weeks subsequent to her husband’s fervent declaration of devotion, he proved himself an ardent suitor with the sensitivity of a poet. His courtship had all the earmarks of a military campaign, only he shot gifts at her, not bullets. Every waking hour, he attended to her.

  But in the evenings, she slept alone.

  He brushed her hair, he embraced her, he kissed her cheek, but all were dismally chaste.

  In her frustration, Veronica wrote like a fiend, directing all her pent-up sexual need into her manuscript.

  During yet another idyllic summer picnic in a bucolic meadow overrun with fragrant wild flowers on his North Shore estate, as the bids chirped overhead in a clear blue sky, the bees buzzed in the sunshine, her husband finally stopped sucking her bare toes long enough to ask, “How is the writing progressing, my darling?”

  “Rather well, I think. Only a short story, but it is just about completed. All I need write is ‘The End.’”

  “Did you share anything about us in the book, anything…er…of a sexual nature?”

  “Hardly.” They never did anything sexual to share, not since their wildly sexual honeymoon. Thus far, his idea of domestic bliss was anything but exhilarating. Tranquil, yes. Peaceful, oh, Lord, yes. And though she often gritted her teeth with restlessness, the very dullness of her life had sparked her inner imagination.

  “Your first book was semiautobiographical,” he prompted. “This one I take it is not?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. The book is pure fantasy.”

  Her husband tenderly picked up her other foot. After more devoted tickling, rubbing, massaging, and sucking, he said, “When you sell this book to your publisher…”

  “Not when. If. If this books sells to my publisher. I am not entirely sure that it will.”

  “As I was saying—when your new book sells, I shan’t handle your finances. I leave that responsibility to you.”

  “But my father always took charge of the business end of things.”

  “I am not your father, my darling.”

  “Arrogant, disdainful, domineering ogre. You need not remind me of that. Papa holds me in affection, while you hold me accountable.”

  “True. It is because I respect you and your abilities that I refuse to shelter you from the hard realities. You cannot seek independence and then shirk the road that will lead you there. You must take responsibilities for making your own decisions. Finances are part of those decisions. Here on out, you will learn how to budget your own wealth. Now, may I read the manuscript?”

  “Of course!”

  “When?”

  “Soon. I value your opinion, all the more so because you are not in the publishing business yourself.”

  “About that—”

  The perfect setting, the buzzing bees, the chirping birds, the scent of wildflowers, the warmth of the sun, all her husband’s foot tickling…her absolute boredom…brought on a jaw-cracking yawn.

  “Hold that discussion for later, would you, Mr. Bowdoin? I feel too drowsy at the moment. All this talk of finances has quite worn me out. I am such a scatterbrain about money. Tell me whatever you need to tell me later, would you?” Another yawn, and she was curling up on the soft cashmere blanket and was soon fast asleep.

  That same evening, she read over the short story one last time, scrawled “The End” at the bottom of the last page, and brought the result of all her hard work downstairs.

  One of Mr. Bowdoin’s finest traits was dependability, which also made him a creature of habit. At this point in their marriage, she had some basic familiarity with his schedule, which primarily consisted of his entertaining her in the day and working on his inventions in the basement until he retired alone in his bedroom for the evening. This meant she would find his library empty.

  Thinking to surprise him, she tiptoed inside and strolled around the interior, stopping here and there to examine a title on a book’s spine. Her husband’s collection was extensive, containing everything from the weighty tomes of great literature to slender volumes of easy reads, and so it took h
er quite a bit to arrive at his mahogany desk over in one corner.

  With one last hug, she placed the unbound manuscript on his desk. Despite her restlessness, her achy need for the kind of raw passion her husband seemed unwilling to provide, she still greatly valued his honest opinion, and she would appreciate his comments. Still, she had meant this as her wedding present to him. He was the one who had encouraged her to return to writing. He was the one who had provided her with the time and sanctuary to heal so that she could write again. Her new book belonged rightly to him.

  She had just dropped her new work by his old-fashioned inkwell when an opened envelope and a letter bearing her father’s distinctively crisp handwriting brought her up short. Looking for news of dear Papa, she had no thought of invading her husband’s privacy, but lifted the single sheet of paper and immediately started reading.

  Dear Mr. Bowdoin,

  I am heartened to hear my daughter is happy again and has returned to her writing with a new vigor. Both speak of your publisher’s influence on her. Your steadfast determination not to allow her talent to go fallow impressed me, which is why I agreed to your marriage. I am sure you are extremely happy to be releasing her next book at your company, Summer Street Press. I know that was your intent all along.

  I remain forever gratefully in your debt,

  Her father’s name, scrawled in his unique style of penmanship, closed the correspondence.

  At first, she simply stood there, the letter in her hand, the ramifications not sinking in straightaway. At the realization that Talbot Bowdoin had wed her as a business acquisition, she gasped.

  How could he treat her so shabbily? And how could her father have allowed it?

  The three men in her life—her father, her first lover, and now her husband—had used her as a means to their own ends.

  Papa, at least, had meant well. She had been in a misery of grief, near suicidal with sadness, and her father, who did love her, would have agreed to anything to see her restored to some semblance of happiness and respectability. She forgave his error in judgment because his heart had been in the right place.