by Molly Tanzer
This was why of late she had been warmest toward Henry in a crowd, or when there were things to distract her from her desire to do things like lick Henry’s earlobes or nibble on her prominent wrist bones. It was simply too difficult to be friendly and intimate when they were alone without betraying herself. In a crowd, however, she could lose herself.
Henry was busy with deliveries the rest of the afternoon. Just as Dorina was regretting her decision to be standoffish, Jonas returned with a few items for the party, and then Mr. Blake arrived early to see to the preparations.
The gathering went spectacularly well. The members were again all in attendance that evening, and the dinner, if possible, was more delicious. Once again, Dorina and Mr. Walmsley were exiled for a brief time before the entertainment began, but they were not sent on some errand; rather, they were sent ahead to the gallery where Mr. Blake had set everything up.
“I’ve never seen an ice sculpture before,” said Dorina, standing before the magnificent Chimera that had been wheeled in just before the guests began to arrive. The cold it radiated was intense.
“No?”
“We had some elaborate parties back in Swadlincote, but being rather provincial, we made do with more easily managed adornments.” Dorina smiled at her companion, who stood defiantly before the piece, leaning on his walking stick. Tonight, he looked exhausted as well as in pain, but had been putting on a brave face all evening. Poor fellow . . . she wondered if there was some way she could get him to sit down without insulting him. Hopefully, Mr. Blake had been considerate of everyone’s needs and planned for a seated affair. But for now . . .
“Ugh, I ate so much at supper. Thank goodness I’ve something loose to wear!” Dorina sighed. Normally she was not one to discuss her digestion with near-strangers, but it was as good an excuse as any to take a seat. “I simply must get off my feet . . .”
“Shall we take a seat?” A smile hovered at the corners of Mr. Walmsley’s lips. He knew she was trying to accommodate him, but apparently she’d made less of a hash of it than last time.
“Please,” she said, with overexaggerated relief.
“I’m pleased to see you again,” he said, after settling himself as comfortably as he could. “Not everyone is invited back a second time, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh yes. It’s what you say, what you do . . . here, but also afterward. Some people are just unsuitable.”
“I wonder why?”
Mr. Walmsley shrugged, winced. “Some people are hedonists in their fantasies, but haven’t the stomach for the lifestyle.”
Dorina had no idea whether she was truly up to snuff. She certainly liked to think so, but she would ponder that later. For now, she was deeply curious what Mr. Walmsley had done to prove himself worthy, for he seemed as receptive to pleasure as a pair of old boots.
“Perhaps that is also how they determine who gets to stay when they close the doors,” mused Dorina.
“You still don’t know?”
Dorina glanced at him. “No, why should I?”
“Given your friendship with the lady, I just assumed . . .”
“Oh, she tells me nothing,” said Dorina as lightly as she could, to bury her disappointment. “She scarcely believes I’m old enough to attend these meetings, much less understand anything deeper about their purpose.”
“So you do think there’s something more? Something . . . else?”
“I really couldn’t say.” Dorina felt like he was pushing her, but to what end, she couldn’t guess. She decided to turn it back onto him. “What do you suspect?”
“It could be anything. Drugs . . .”
“They don’t seem drugged.”
“No.” He chuckled. “Perhaps I’m wrong, and they’re just a dues-paying club. The most expensive ingredients or what have you go into their special drinks, so they’re all in there squabbling over whether or not to hike up the rates because of the price of saffron or pearl dust.” He leaned in close to her. “But I don’t think so,” he stage-whispered.
They didn’t have time to discuss the matter further, for the rest of the party joined them then, and the program commenced. It was exhilarating, even more delightful than their exploration of scent, and by the end of it Dorina felt intoxicated, even though she had barely sipped her wine at dinner.
After it ended, Dorina wished she’d drunk more, rather than less. Her stomach turned to a fluttery, flimsy thing when the guests began to depart. It was now or . . . not never, but definitely later, and she didn’t know how much longer she could go on without satisfying her lust for the divine creature who was just closing the door behind Dr. Sauber.
“I think we ought to do it soon,” said Henry.
“What?” said Dorina. She was hanging back by the foot of the stairs, steadying herself on the balustrade.
“The interview,” said Henry. “Dr. Sauber seems most eager to talk to you, and I can’t have him staying so late every time we meet. I need my rest.”
“Oh, of course . . . any time, really.”
Henry cocked her head at Dorina. “Are you quite all right?”
She was showing her hand too soon. “Only a little . . . overcome.” She didn’t want to say anything about drink; it was an easy way for Henry to dodge her impending pass. Tired was also bad; it suggested bed, but not in the way she had in mind. “You of course are an old hand at such remarkable displays and delights, but I am still quite the novice.”
“A natural reaction,” said Henry. “Well, perhaps you ought to scurry home.”
“Don’t send me home,” said Dorina, stepping forward, away from the safety of the railing. “Please. At least, not yet.”
Her tone must have conveyed something, for Lady Henry paused before nodding. “Let’s have a drink,” she proposed. “I’m sure there’s a half-bot of champagne left around somewhere.”
“I don’t want any more to drink,” said Dorina, taking another step forward. Her hands were shaking; she was tingling all over. “I want . . .”
“Shall I call for the carriage?” Jonas poked his head in. Dorina could have killed him in that moment, remorselessly and quickly, if she’d had a pistol or some other dangerous implement at hand.
“Not yet,” said Henry quickly, barely looking over her shoulder at her valet and friend.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, and withdrew.
It had broken the tension, but it had also broken Dorina’s hold over Henry’s attention.
“Dorina,” she said firmly, “I think you and I ought to have a talk.”
“A talk?”
“Yes.” Henry had gone so white that she looked almost ill, with her too-fair hair and her refusal to wear any rouge. Her blue eyes, normally so bright, looked paler, like the sky on a very hot day in the country. “Dorina . . . dear heart . . .”
“Call me that again,” moaned Dorina, closing the gap between them. Grabbing Henry’s hands, she raised one to her lips and kissed the back of it. “Oh, Harry, let me hear it from your lips once more.”
“Dorina,” she said firmly, extracting herself from Dorina’s grasp. “You must stop this.”
That was not at all the reaction Dorina had expected. “Stop what?”
“This madness. We cannot . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t think you understand how bad an idea it would be for us to . . .”
“To what?” asked Dorina, trying to sound playful, but her mouth was so very dry all of a sudden. “I just want you to call me dear heart again.”
“Dorina—please.”
It hit Dorina then. She was being rejected.
She had never been rejected—really rejected—in her life! It was outrageous, incomprehensible. All she’d ever had to do before was butter up a girl, and from there everything had been easy enough. Just nature taking its course.
This wasn’t how she’d expected her night to end. Henry had been so increasingly awkward, anxious to get her attention. Dorina had sensed she was ripe for the
picking, but she must have been deluding herself. And rather than Henry’s denial putting her off, Dorina felt more desperate than ever, perhaps because she couldn’t anticipate any relief from her passion, only more long days wanting, waiting . . .
“No?” Her voice sounded small, especially in Henry’s big, high-ceilinged foyer.
“I’m far too old for you, for one,” said Henry gently.
“I don’t care about that,” said Dorina, more fiercely now. “Who cares about that? Not I!”
“And there are other things . . .”
“Tell me!”
“I can’t.” The regret in Henry’s face . . . Dorina wanted to kiss it away, make her smile.
“Do you like me? That way?” she demanded.
“It’s not important . . .”
“It is to me!”
“Dorina . . .”
Dorina felt a surge of hope. Henry couldn’t say she didn’t like her!
Dorina reached out, placing a trembling palm on either side of Henry’s narrow face, and drew it slowly, so slowly, toward her own. Kissing the older woman, she drank in the taste of her, vaguely gingery—no surprise there. As she lapped at Henry’s mouth, Henry groaned, her lips parting; Dorina took the opportunity to plunge her tongue into the dark cavity, exploring. Finally, Henry yielded, and wrapping her arms around Dorina, she drew her closer, embracing her, all bones and tweed against Dorina’s flesh and silk.
“This is wrong,” she murmured into Dorina’s mouth. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I really couldn’t disagree more,” answered Dorina, and pulling away from their first wonderful embrace, she led the older woman by the hand to her own bedroom.
Ever since her first orgasm, Dorina had chased the next one, and the next, and the next. No encounter had ever sated her, not really, not wholly. Simply put, a tumble with another girl was one of her favorite things in the world, only a hair below discovering a new artist, and well above almond-paste croissants—meaning, among the ranks of things she could never get enough of. But that night, when at last they fell apart, Dorina felt as if she might understand what satisfaction meant, and she fell deeply, happily asleep, her limbs tangled with Henry’s.
She had odd dreams. Lost in a maze, she wandered, thirsty and alone. Someone was calling to her, but in a language she could not understand. Maddeningly, she sensed if she could only comprehend the words they would tell her how to escape, but as hard as she listened, the language was beyond her. At some point she cried out, half-waking in frustration, but Henry’s arms found her, and her warm body pressed close lulled Dorina into a deeper, dreamless slumber.
The next morning she awoke in an empty bed. The covers had been thrown aside, and there was still an indentation where Henry had slept. Dorina stretched luxuriously, like a cat in the sun, and after rolling around a few times to make sure she wouldn’t fall back asleep, she got up.
There was a note on the dresser:
I’ve gone out with Jonas. Beth knows you’ll want breakfast. Make yourself at home. I’ve sent word to your uncle you’ve stayed the night, so don’t feel like you must hurry back.
—Harry
Dorina tried not to feel hurt that the missive was so brief, and didn’t mention anything about . . . well, anything. Then again, what would her lover have written, really?
Someone had left a dressing gown for her, and Dorina belted it around herself before ringing the bell for Beth. Then she lounged about, picking up Lady Henry’s belongings, smelling her perfumes, poking around her fantastic bathroom while she waited. It wasn’t long before Beth brought up a tray with tea, toast, and a nicely done egg.
“Lady Henry said to tell you she won’t be long,” said Beth, her face betraying no surprise at Dorina’s having stayed the night, and in her mistress’s bed.
“Thank you, Beth,” said Dorina. “When did she go out?”
“Oh, not an hour ago.”
After breakfast, Dorina put on the skirt and shirtwaist she’d worn yesterday, which had been neatly pressed for her, and wandered downstairs. She was starting to become impatient for Henry’s return—felt a bit injured, truth be told, that Henry hadn’t woken her before going out.
Dorina smiled to herself. Usually she was the one who disappeared conveniently after a rendezvous.
The remains of the party had been cleared away from the salon, and the dining room was neat and tidy. Truly bored, Dorina was just crossing the foyer into the library when there was a knock at the door.
She opened it and to her surprise, it was Hyacinth Travers. She was dressed in a fashionable walking suit in the most delicious charcoal gray, with blue silk accents and agate buttons; Dorina instantly coveted it. She had a brown paper parcel under her arm, and was in the process of shifting it into her hand when she noticed Dorina.
“Dorina!” she exclaimed. She seemed alarmed, not just surprised . . . but then her eyes narrowed, and she laughed a little laugh. “I wasn’t expecting you . . . but why I wasn’t, I don’t know.”
“Ma’am?” said Beth, from behind her.
“It’s Miss Travers,” called Dorina over her shoulder, then turning back, said, “Will you come in? Henry isn’t here right now.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, I’m on my way in to the office . . . just passing by. I had something of Henry’s I was returning.” For some reason, Miss Travers seemed rather reluctant to give it over.
“I’ll take it up to her study,” offered Dorina. “She should be home any minute.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Miss Travers relinquished the parcel. “Thank you, Dorina. I’m sorry I can’t stay . . . next time?”
“Next time,” Dorina agreed.
Though she was curious why Miss Travers had seemed so awkward, the package quickly claimed her attention. It was a book, that was obvious—a slender hardback volume. The paper had slipped a bit, for Miss Travers hadn’t tied it up with string, and as Dorina walked it upstairs to Henry’s study, she saw the corner of the cover. Bound in gilded leather, illustrated with winding vines and flowers, and printed with black ink so bright it looked almost wet, it was astonishingly beautiful, and Dorina found she couldn’t resist peeking at the title. “On the Summoning of Demons,” she read aloud as she traced her fingers over the embossed letters.
No wonder it had been wrapped in brown paper! Surely this book was not meant to be seen by just anyone’s eyes. If it was a joke, many wouldn’t think it a funny one—why, how Evadne had reacted to the conversation topic in the National Gallery!
While Dorina felt a sense of guilt over opening the package, she was unable to resist her curiosity. Henry had never mentioned demons again, never ever, not after their conversation that day at Kew. Could she have been putting her off? Did Henry really believe in magical beings?
She opened the book. The first few pages were blank. There was neither dedication nor epigraph, neither author nor title page. When it began, it began as such:
Pity the believer who doubts, the skeptic who would believe, the convict of life embarking alone in the night, under a sky no longer illuminated by the consoling beacons of ancient faith. Such is the natural state of man when it first becomes known to him that demons exist. They are neither metaphors, nor evil agents of the Devil, nor good angels sent by God to guide man, as some have imagined. They are both more and less than any of that—they are creatures of will and temper, of want and ruin, of charm and hunger, of pique and cunning as we mere mortals are, and yet fundamentally different.
For those men who would know more of their race, for his own purpose, I have written this book . . .
Dorina settled into Henry’s chair behind her desk, entranced. The style settled down after a bit, she was pleased to note, and it became even more engaging.
According to the golden book, demons inhabited another world, one separate from that of men. Like humans, they possessed their own inner lives, their own politics, their own laws and desires and needs and hopes and rages. But unlike humans, they w
ere able—with help—to cross between the worlds, at least in part. Only their minds, or at least fragments of them, were able to endure the strain of crossing over.
They were similar to us, declared the book, yet fundamentally different. Demons were possessed of reason, and had moral and ethical concerns. But, cautioned the unknown author, these concerns were not as men’s; their ideas of morality were not necessarily congruent with men’s, nor was their conception of evil, or justice. Like humans, demons were neither wicked nor good; each of them was unique and made independent decisions about how to live its life. Some had no interest in humanity and our world; others were obsessed with us, fascinated by our art, our culture, our politics, our desires. Still others took that obsession further, attempting to meddle in our world to please themselves—or as a means to meddle in their own.
A demon that resided partially in the world of men was weakened in its own, more vulnerable to the sorts of rare but serious diseases that affect their race . . . or more commonly, to attack by one of its fellows. These attacks could be carried out either in their world or in ours, and were often deadly, for demons could be grievously wounded, even killed. While it was more difficult to snuff out their light, it could be done, and such attempts were usually made when a demon was reeling from the trauma of being severed from a human with whom it had struck a bargain. And yet, for some of their race, the ones fascinated by men, the risk was worth it to touch our minds and live with us—just as the risk of persecution, discovery, and even death was worth it for some men.
Dorina turned page after page, intrigued by this information, though she was not entirely convinced of the truth of it. The author admitted that his or her own knowledge of the subject was necessarily limited, which made her suspect much of the information was really just guesswork. Then again, the author did allege that contact with demons was inherently and absolutely dangerous—to speak directly with a demon would essentially cook the human brain, destroy the body. That would account for many gaps in men’s knowledge . . . a natural, or rather supernatural, deterrent. Apparently, when a human communicated through a medium, which was the only way humans could speak with their race, he or she ran the risk of shattering the self completely. Few over the centuries had tried; fewer had succeeded. Fewer still succeeded in the long term; the temptation to go further, to learn more, was always present, and if it was not resisted, self-destruction was the inevitable result.
