Cassidy St. Claire and The Fountain of Youth Parts I, II, & III

by A. H. Rousseau

  “It's not an issue for me. Everyone needs someone to listen now and then, and we have quite a trip ahead of us. Plenty of time.”

  Gideon made eye contact with Cassidy and smiled and easy smile that just touched his eyes. “Zeke was taller than me. Blonde. The most piercing blue eyes that I had ever seen. I swear, they were nearly white. His mother was German and he looked German. That's, I suppose, unimportant. We were in a room in the school at night. Some other boys had figured out what we were and had followed us, I assume. I don't think we had even kissed when four boys burst in and attacked us. They called us names and hit us. The oldest boy, this thug who had been forced to stay in school late because he kept failing,” Gideon spoke with undisguised contempt, “decided that since we were girls... we should get taken like girls. So two boys held me down on my stomach and he undid the front of his trousers, then took them off. He came down behind me but, I don't know, I assume his hand slipped, something happened and he slammed his face into the back of my head. It hurt for both of us, and his nose started bleeding. I could feel it dripping on the back of my neck. He stood up to hold it. And then, everyone stopped. No one said anything. No one moved. They all just stood there, looking at each other.

  “It was as though, at that moment, they realized how strange and unnatural the situation that they had created was. They all became... shaken... uncomfortable. The one who had tried to push inside me ran off without his pants. It was so odd, the boys couldn't even look at me or Zeke after that. It was as though we had somehow defeated them. I... I don't know. I felt terrified almost all the time afterward, so it certainly didn't feel like a victory at the time. I felt like I had simply gotten lucky.

  I ran into the eldest ten years later. I was working as a security and intelligence attaché for a senator and just found myself back in the old town. I stopped into a barber for a shave, and there he was. Waiting for a hair cut. I barely recognized him. He was fat and half bald. Ten years looked like thirty. He looked miserable. There was a large stain of something on his shirt. I remember that very clearly. I couldn't help but notice it. What surprised me was that I didn't feel good about it. I didn't feel good seeing him that way. I didn't even realize that I had done so. But right then, I knew that I had long since forgiven him.”

  “You're a better man than I,” replied Cassidy. “I could not forgive.”

  “I didn't forgive for Christian reasons. I forgave for myself. I needed to forgive. I couldn't hate them. I hated myself enough already.”

  “What happened to Zeke?”

  “Oh,” Gideon replied with a wistful and loving smile. “The last I heard he got married and had children. He's a doctor somewhere outside of New York City. We last exchanged correspondence where he spoke excitedly about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  “Married? That's odd.”

  “Pfft. No it's not. Most of the men I know have been married or are married. We are very good at blending in. Also, even when I knew Zeke, he was not the kind to be an affirmed bachelor. I'm fine enough with the label. But Zeke wanted children. He wanted a family. Unfortunately a woman was necessary for this.” Gideon chuckled. “So, he has it. I'm sure that he's a pillar of his community. I'm sure that everyone looks up to him.” Gideon paused and choked up ever so slightly. “I'm sure he has some secret lover, who probably wants to be with him as much as I did.”

  Cassidy and Gideon sat there, across from one another, both just looking down at the table.

  “So... I want you to know how much I understand,” Gideon continued. “I know that you cannot hide as I can, but I understand.”

  Cassidy nodded. “You'll be able to get married soon,” she said. “I know it. Maybe not you, but definitely the next generation.”

  Gideon smiled. “Your unbridled optimism stands in odd contrast to your toxic cynicism,” he said.

  Cassidy smiled in return. “One keeps the other in check,” she said.

  ---

  Anna sat alone at her workstation. A bright light beamed down from above as she thumbed through papers and adjusted valves on a large assortment of glass chemistry equipment. Doctor Hoffman walked around a wall of cabinets to her, his goggles down.

  “Miss Brown, do you remember where the results of last night's flow experiments were put?”

  “Folder B-12, page two-hundred and thirty-two. Second table. The results were thirty-seven-point-six-six milliliters per minute,” Anna replied without looking up from her work.

  Hoffman stared at her. Anna paid him no mind. He stared for a moment longer before managing words. “Thank you, Miss Brown.” With that, Hoffman walked away.

  ---

  George woke up in his bed, grumbling and wiping at his face. He breathed in deeply and looked around his small room. Claudette walked out of the washroom, naked except for a towel around her hair.

  “You missed the hot water,” she said with a smile.

  “What time is it?” George asked.

  “About eight,” replied Claudette walking over to George, her voluptuous body tilting erotically from side-to-side as she walked. George watched her with a flat, unsure gaze. “For a virgin, you were pretty good,” said Claudette.

  “How... I'm... How did you know I was a virgin?” he asked.

  “It's not hard. Anyone with experience can tell.”

  “Have you been with a lot of men?”

  “My fair share. Not an army, or anything!”

  “How good were they?”

  “By and large, not bad. I...” she leaned in and whispered. “I generally stick to married men, myself.”

  George's eyes widened in surprise. “You seduce married men?!”

  “Please. Seduce is a nonsense word. There is no such thing as seduction. That's just something made up by people who get caught. You either want it or you don't. If you don't, unless someone holds you down, you aren't going to do it. I simply make my intentions known. I don't seduce anyone. I've been turned down by loads of men. Did I fail to seduce them? No. Not at all. They just didn't want me.”

  George thought on that for a moment. “Does that hurt? I mean, them not wanting you?”

  “Umm,” Claudette shrugged. “Not particularly. In a way it does.”

  “Also, aren't... do you think they were... um... attracted to men?”

  “Ha! Why assume that?”

  “Well, men always want it. Why would they say no?”

  “First,” Claudette began, drying her hair. “Men don't always want it, and any woman who assumes that is setting themselves up for some serious disappointment. They always want it with women that they want. Women are the same thing. They always want it with the men that they want. That's where all the problems come in. Men and women both want a very small amount of each other, while everyone else is angry.”

  George again pondered. “I can't believe that anyone would ever turn you down,” he said.

  “Why?” asked Claudette, obviously interested.

  “Well... you are, um... you... are very beautiful.” George blushed as he said this.

  Claudette smiled. “Thank you,” she replied.

  “And why would you... be interested in me?”

  Claudette looked back confused. “You're rather good-looking, George. I think there are many women who would feel similarly.”

  “Oh no,” said George. “I know for a fact that most women would prefer to be left alone by people like me. The last thing they need or want is another man chasing them around.”

  “You have an odd idea of the lives that women lead. We get bothered sometimes, but we can pick those guys out. Men like you, we're totally fine with you talking to us. You're not dangerous. You're not rude.”

  “Yeah, but I'm still just another guy. I'm not going to be that. If they want me, they'll come get me. Like you did.”

  This comment obviously made Claudette uncomfortable. “George...” she paused. “This is a unique environment. What I did, not every woman, or even most women, would do. They don't think t
hey are allowed to. There could be dozens of women desperately hoping that you will talk to them, and every day that you don't, you make them sad. Out there is different, George.”

  “Maybe. But I'd rather make a mistake passively than make a mistake actively.”

  Claudette thought for a moment before forcing a smile. “Well, how about we go and find something to eat?”

  George smiled. “Yeah. I would like that,” he said.

  ---

  Cassidy looked out the window of the observation car as it rolled through the outskirts of New Orleans. A powerful sorrow hung on her face. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as the color of New Orleans started to make itself known. Jebediah walked in from their car.

  “Are you about ready?” he asked. “The station is in a few minutes.”

  Cassidy looked up, happy to see him talking to her. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Very good. Gideon and I are waiting for you in the car.”

  Cassidy nodded. Jebediah turned and walked out. Cassidy eyes fell to the floor as she thought. She sighed then quickly rose from her chair and walked confidently into her car.

  ---

  Cassidy stepped out onto the busy station platform. Dozens of people bustled about the noise, steam, din, and golden sun. The sounds of shipping rang out in the distance as the thick smell of the day's seafood catch hung in the air. Gideon, and finally Jebediah, stepped off the train behind her.

  “Alright, Jebediah,” said Cassidy. “Your show. Lead the way.”

  Jebediah nodded and walked down the platform toward the exit. The three of the threaded their way through the thick crowd out of the train station and down onto the brick-paved street. Carriage clopped all about as street-side vendors sold their wares.

  “I'm surprised. This place is unbelievably busy. I had no idea it was this large,” said Cassidy.

  “This isn't New Orleans,” said Jebediah.

  “What? It's not?”

  “No. This place is called Algiers. I believe that it is legally part of New Orleans, but practically it is another town. New Orleans sits on the other side of the river and will necessitate a ferry ride. Unless my men here are also dead, the ferry will be waiting for us.”

  The trio walked through the cluttered streets. The sounds of commerce echoed around them as they came to the end of the road, looking out over the end of the Mississippi River. Lining up and down the river were ships of all shapes and sizes: steam ships, sailing ships, riverboats in their glorious opulence. Pillars of smoke reached hundreds of feet into the sky as cargo was loaded and unloaded, passengers clomped over gangplanks, horses whinnied, naval bells rang, and crowds flowed around Cassidy, Gideon, and Jebediah like a river.

  “You two wait here for a moment. I need to go see if our ride is ready,” said Jebediah. The two nodded as he pushed off through the crowd. Cassidy literally spun around in her place taking in the epic spectacle of New Orleans docks. The sheer magnitude of the commerce running up and down the mighty river was overwhelming.

  “I'm glad that we're away from him for a moment,” said Gideon.

  “What?” Cassidy asked, snapped back into awareness.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Ames, again.”

  “Oh, Gideon—”

  “No, it's not an attack, so don't get defensive. I just wanted to point out that you shouldn't blame him for Roger.”

  “What made you think of that?” asked Cassidy.

  “I get the feeling that you've been quietly blaming him for this entire trip, even as you became a bit more friendly with him. And your assault had as much to do with that pent-up anger as it did with what he said.”

  Cassidy nodded. “I suspect it did have at least something to do with it.”

  “You shouldn't judge him. I can't tell you to not be angry, because I think that you should be, but don't be angry at Mr. Ames. Everyone trusted Harker. Everyone.”

  “To me, that just means that everyone in the Department is an idiot and a poor judge of character,” Cassidy said snidely.

  “You didn't see anything wrong with him,” retorted Gideon.

  “First, I didn't trust him. And moreover, I had a very short time with him. If it had been years, I would have sniffed him out.”

  “I think you underestimate his abilities.”

  “I think you underestimate my ability to distrust everyone.”

  “You seem to trust me well enough?”

  “Shouldn't I?”

  “Well, yes, I think that you should, but you don't know that. You don't know what I am actually like. Only I know that.”

  “And I have a rather good idea. You're not exactly an impenetrable person. I'm sure there's a part of you that fancies yourself a super, secret agent who moves through the shadows like some sort of specter, but everything you are, except for that one thing you keep decently well-hidden, is rather out in the open. And that's a good thing! People like that are good. No, you can't trick people or manipulate them, but you've already said you don't want to do that. You are the best person you could be for what you want.”

  Gideon furrowed his brow in thought as Cassidy began to look around again. “Well, thank you, I suppose. But this has gone far off the topic I wanted to discuss. Roger was trusted by everyone, not just Jebediah. Even if we assume that you could have discovered his duplicity, that simply makes you rare. Others couldn't. I... that is to say... let's say that Mr. Ames suspected something, what could he do about it? Raise these concerns? That would have achieved little more than cause a possible wave of paranoia throughout the department. Without something more than a gut feeling, his investigations would have caused more harm than good.”

  “Now that I completely disagree with. The good would have been a deep traitor being caught.”

  “Assuming he was caught, which is a big assumption. Mr. Ames didn't know at the time. Roger had been with the department for fifteen years. He was a power player. He came from humble roots, humble stock, and climbed his way up. He represented everything that we think of America as.”

  Cassidy nodded and put her hands in her pockets. “Fair enough,” she said. “You don't need to defend him anymore. I'm not proud of what I did.”

  “I know that, but I worry that you're not proud because you feel you failed yourself in some way, failed an idea you have of yourself, as opposed to having insulted a good man.”

  A flash of concern washed over Cassidy's face as she looked out over the busy river.

  “Because he is a good man. Yesterday, I saw his faults. I saw him act like a child. And it actually just made me feel more strongly that he is a good man.”

  Cassidy nodded. “And what of me?”

  Gideon thought for a moment. “Describing you as good or bad would, I think, do your complexity a disservice.”

  “Wow!” Cassidy chortled. “That was an immensely skillful dodge.”

  Gideon smiled. “I mean it. You are a good person. You are one of the most violently good people I have ever met. You do not let anything stand in the way of your beliefs.” Gideon paused to think again. “I think that you should be careful, though, because sometimes you may be wrong.”

  Cassidy nodded, letting a hint of choking up show through. “Wise words,” she said.

  Gideon breathed deeply. “They damn well better be. I've been thinking about what I was going to say for the past twelve hours.”

  “Well, you went and made me feel much worse, so... mission accomplished.”

  “Please, I didn't mean to—”

  “Alright,” said Jebediah, walking up from the crowd. “We are ready to go. The ferry currently docked over there at the end of the tracks is our ferry. It will leave as soon as we are on board. I am exceptionally pleased to say that our men down here are still alive and await our arrival on the other side of the river.” Jebediah sighed loudly. “Things are getting better.”

  ---

  The boots clomped over the gangplank, the wood flexing slightly as the feet fell. Cassidy, Gideon
, and Jebediah all walked onto the ferry and Jebediah stepped over to a short, private conference with a crewman who nodded then waved the plank up. The trio walked up to the front of the ferry as it slowly pulled away from the dock and out into the river, waiting for a riverboat to cross on its way north.

  “Jebediah?” Cassidy asked as she leaned on the rail, the breeze off the river moving her hair delicately around her head and face.

  “Hm?” he replied.

  “What's the population around here?”

  “Oh, quarter-million, or thereabouts.”

  “I would have actually supposed larger,” she said.

  “It acts larger than it officially is because of all the traffic up and down the river.”

  “I'm assuming you spent time here as well.”

  Jebediah nodded. “Yes. We made a significant effort after the war. It's a sad thing to see how much of it went to waste. It's been over fifteen years and so much is still... just... nothing. Absolutely nothing. I fear that the South will never recover.”

  Cassidy nodded, her eyes moving about in thought. “Do you wish the war had gone otherwise?” she asked, probing.

  “Oh, lord no. No. Again, it's not well known outside of diplomatic circles, but the institution of slavery was a black mark on America in the eyes of other nations. Britain and France especially were beginning to see the United States as two nations: one north, one south. Unification had to occur, if for no other reason than our international relationships. We had to stop being these United States and become the United States to be seen as a true world player.”

  Cassidy said nothing for a moment as everyone just looked out over the river and the hustle and bustle of the boats and barges. “I was more interested in the moral aspects,” she finally said.

  “Oh, I apologize. I assumed that... well, yes. Morally, it was... repugnant. Any nation that claims to be predicated on freedom could not allow such a thing to continue. And that is the entirety of my opinion. I have been forced into many an argument with those who immediately take umbrage with such a proclamation, so I've taken to making the statement and then saying nothing more. If someone disagrees with you on this subject, they are already lost. There is no possible argument that can be made to sway them, so it's not worth bothering. They are driven by patriotic fervor for whatever the hell they seem to think the South is and are thus completely impenetrable to the argument that men are men are men, and all men should be treated as such.” Jebediah paused. “And also women. As in, all men and women are men and women, and should be treated as such.”