A New York Haunting: Pt. 02

The October morning was cold, but they swiftly grew warm with the vigorous exercise. Anders matched his stroke to Rob's in the seat before him, even as he registered the passing scenery. The ripples of the Scalpel's wake receded behind them on the blue ribbon of the river, cutting between hills of blazing autumn foliage.

They passed various watercraft: other rowing shells, small sailboats, fishing boats, and a modest sized passenger steamboat. Among the trees to starboard, the gaudy roller coaster and Ferris wheel of Fort George Amusement Park became visible. Soon, warehouses in the Bronx appeared to port. Passing under the arches of Washington Street bridge, they flew alongside the waterfront Harlem River Speedway, the controversial project funded with taxpayer money, but commandeered by wealthy men to race their pedigreed horses and buggies.

In the past, Anders had fortified the rhythm of rowing by chanting to himself various anatomical facts about the muscles bunching in his arms and legs with each stroke. Today, however, the sounds of the four seats sliding back and forth on the tracks, the motions of the oars in the locks, and the rushing water under the hull all coalesced into a repeating internal chorus: Ondine Van der Veen ... Ondine Van der Veen ... Ondine Van der Veen.

Where was Ondine at this moment? Was she studying in some opulent room in that Fifth Avenue mansion? Was she attending some social function at the side of her aunt? Was she meeting the strange man in Central Park? What the devil had she purchased from him?! Anders thought about Dr. Schuller and his plan to review his notes on the case. What had she revealed in her sessions with the psychoanalyst? Would he again ask him to follow her? Would the man indeed send a telegram to Sigmund Freud?

After two hours of strenuous exertion, Anders returned to the boathouse in a calmer state. He remained for a while after his crewmates departed, crouching under the upside-down shell on its rack to tighten the screws on his seat's slide tracks. When he at last boarded the southbound train, he sank into a seat in contented exhaustion. Apart from studying, he had one more item on his agenda later that afternoon --- a recurring one hour "job" every or every other Saturday. Ironically, it was a position he had come by through his association with the rowing club.

*****

One afternoon two years ago, after finishing their rowing training, Anders and his comrades were heading up the hill from the boathouse, when a male voice hailed them. "Hello there!" Turning, they beheld a man sitting at an easel on the hillside overlooking the river --- a paint-daubed pallete on one forearm and a brush in his other hand. As artists were occasionally seen along the riverside, nothing remarkable was there about this sight.

The man motioned towards Anders with the paintbrush. "May I have a word with you, sir? It will take but a moment."

The friends exchanged looks. Anders checked his pocket watch --- fifteen minutes before the El train arrived. There was nothing worrisome about the man's appearance: mid-thirties, balding, a pince-nez on his nose. Waving for his crewmates to continue without him, he approached the artist. Upon his canvas was a fine rendition of the river with a coxless four rowing shell in the foreground.

"Wow!" Anders murmured.

The man smiled. "Thank you. My name is George Bridgman. I'm an instructor at the Art Students League of New York." He set down the pallete and brush and patted his waistcoat pockets, producing a small calling card which he handed to Anders.

A glance down showed the man's name and title in a simple script. "My name is Anders Røkke," he replied. They shook hands.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Røkke. I noticed you and your teammates rowing and hauling out your boat. Forgive my bluntness --- you have an excellent physique. Such a form would be of much value to artists. Indeed, my purpose in detaining you is to offer you a position as a studio model at the school."

Anders' eyebrows lifted. In a moment, he collected himself to respond, "You are very kind, sir. But I'm in school and have little time for another position."

"It would only be an hour a week or every other week," Mr. Bridgman clarified. He then mentioned a sum of money for compensation that made Anders' brows hike even further.

The man nodded. "Yes, the modeling position is for a life drawing class." To Anders' uncomprehending expression, the man added, "Nude."

He was too taken aback to reply. As a syllable stuttered in his open mouth, Mr. Bridgman smiled again and said, "Think about it. If you're interested, you can find me at the address on the card."

When Anders rejoined his classmates at the train station, he replied to their queries with, "He offered me a position modeling for artists." Naturally, his friends responded by soundly teasing him and punching his sore upper arms. Thank God he hadn't mentioned to them it was nude modeling!

But the offer remained much on his mind the next several days. The money was excellent for essentially doing nothing. It would only take an hour. And perhaps he might even be able to study from a book while he posed during the class.

The next weekend, he sought out Mr. Bridgman at the Art Students League's address on the card, discovering it to be in the American Fine Arts Building not far from the medical school. When Anders further learned from the art instructor that the students in the class would all be male, his mind was made up. It was not that he was ashamed of being seen naked, but he feared the sight of females staring at his body might rouse him. Moreover, Bridgman was agreeable to arranging poses that could accommodate a textbook propped on a stand next to him.

His first modeling session was the following Saturday. In preparation, he bathed and frigged (just in case) in his room at the boardinghouse before setting off for the art class. In a small antechamber adjacent to the classroom, he shed his garments and slipped on the provided, plain linen robe. With his anatomy textbook under his arm, he nervously entered the classroom. Some two dozen men were milling about their easels, chatting amongst themselves as they sharpened pencils and prepared paper.

Mr. Bridgman beckoned him to an elevated platform at the front of the room and modeled the desired pose himself upon a simple wooden stool. Nodding, Anders opened his book on an adjacent small table. With a quiet clearing of his throat, he untied the robe and shrugged it off.

As directed, he sat on the stool, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, in the attitude of one deep in thought. It was a tactful pose for a beginner --- sitting as he was in side-profile, his privates were essentially out of sight of the students, whose expressions as they worked were reassuringly serious and entirely impersonal. For an hour he read while Mr. Bridgman walked among the artists, providing instruction and encouragement.

After that first class, Anders was adaptable to a variety of poses without embarrassment. He continued in this strange work throughout medical school, although he never breathed a word of it to anyone --- neither Dr. Mullenix, nor Izzy Feinberg, nor his rowing mates, nor Fulton Fordyce, whom he still saw occasionally.

*****

The clack clack of the train on the tracks and the subtle motion of the carriage was making Anders drowsy, and he had to remind himself to remain alert enough not to miss his station. An endless stream of brick buildings flashed by the windows, their sides covered with electrical and painted advertising signs in various states of deterioration. The large advertisements were cleverly placed to be at eye level and easily read from the moving, elevated train.

When they presently stopped at a station, he noticed one such sign visible through the windows on the opposite side of the train carriage, and he could not help grinning at the accidentally suggestive sight.

It was an advertisement for Heinz 57 that covered the entire brick side of a ten-story building. At the top were the words: A FEW OF HEINZ 57 GOOD THINGS FOR THE TABLE. Under that was a list of Heinz 57 products. The word HEINZ was inside the outline of an enormous, horizontal pickle that must have been at least 50 feet long. It was an advertisement he had seen before on a building near Broadway, and he recalled that at night, green electric light bulbs illuminated the outline of the pickle and the word HEINZ.

A young woman sitting in a seat on the other side of the aisle was directly in Anders' sight line such that the colossal phallic pickle outline in the background was pointed at her mouth. Did he simply have an unusually lascivious mind to make the bawdy connection? Or could puritanical reformers like Anthony Comstock be correct about the epidemic of sexual material in the city? This was certainly not the first advertisement Anders had seen featuring imagery that could be construed as erotic. Were these calculated appeals to viewers' sexual desires, or were they unwitting reflections of the artists' own unconscious urges?

When the female passenger's head turned slightly, and her gaze met his, he realized he was still slyly smiling at the suggestive juxtaposition. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned away coldly. He endeavored to compose himself lest she summon the conductor and have him ejected for rude conduct.

By-and-by, he was back in his room at the boardinghouse, resolved upon studying for a couple hours before heading for the Art Students League.

But, as he sat at his desk, Anders felt his mind wandering. Rising, he crossed to the dresser and picked up Ondine's stocking. He reviewed the strange events of the past week connected to the psychoanalysis clinic and struggled to understand his reaction to the dark-haired girl.

A persistent disquiet possessed him at the lingering image of the immense pickle pointing at the female train passenger's mouth, and he could not help thinking about Ondine's plush pink mouth that he had admired by the fountain. Past memories nudged his conscious mind, offering themselves up as data points in his quest for self-possession.

Chapter 9. SIMONE

1895

A momentous year, and not only on account of the tragedy that befell his father in the fall. Months earlier, Anders was in his freshman year at the University of Rochester, still intent upon being a chemist. Several noteworthy events had already transpired that spring.

For one, his friend Fulton Fordyce had been sent down from Yale in early April. Given his usual loquacious nature, Fulton was surprisingly recalcitrant on the subject of his suspension. When asked the reason, he scowled and said, "It's all a damned misunderstanding about an exam. My father is appealing to the dean."

Although happy to have his longtime comrade back in Rochester, the demands of Anders' continuing coursework obliged him to resist most of Fulton's bored petitions to join him in seeking diversion.

The second event was Fulton's older sister Edith marrying the scion of a Rochester banking family --- the wedding ceremony with its two hundred guests took place in the garden behind the mansion. The Røkkes had not been invited, but Anders watched some of the festivities from the cottage porch ... in the company of the florist's assistant, a buxom young woman bubbling with observations and commentary about the fancy weddings she had seen. He scarcely marked her words until the bride and groom sealed their vows with a kiss, upon which the girl proposed they follow their example.

His eager look met her mischievous gaze, and they rose to their feet from the porch step. Anders glanced around, then led them behind the cottage from whence they could not be seen.

Mimicking the bridal couple, they leaned towards each other and chastely pressed their lips together. But they did not straighten. As the kiss continued with elucidating lip parting and sipping motions, he instinctually reached for her. To his excitement, she returned the embrace, pressing herself against his body. For a fleeting, jubilant moment, his hand cupped a breast --- at least, he felt a round protrusion muffled by layers of undergarments, corset, dress, and apron.

At this juncture, the sound of approaching footsteps terminated the intriguing experiment. It was none other than the florist, seeking out her assistant. The rest of the afternoon, Anders monitored the activity in the garden but saw the girl no more.

For some time now, he had been consumed with amorous urges --- indeed, outside of his studies, lewd and romantic musings seemed to occupy the whole of his mind. How he longed to be initiated into the mysteries of Eros! How he longed to achieve that rite of passage into manhood already attained by Fulton --- a triumph that his friend never let him forget with his incessant teasing and boasting.

Anders had to remind himself it was easy enough for a young man of the Fordyce family to simply buy what he wanted, and such was precisely the means by which Fulton had accomplished it. But his friend had been quick to brag, "She was no street chippie --- she was a tip-top champagner. Golden hair and bubs out to here." Evidently there was in town an exclusive brothel, or 'girlery' as Fulton called it, patronized by the wealthy gentlemen of Rochester.

The circumstances of Fulton's achievement to some extent mitigated Anders' envy of his friend but did nothing to lessen his yearning to experience the exercise himself. He supposed he could follow Fulton's example, but the prospect of paying an anonymous woman to let him put his cock inside her did not rest easy with him. It was incompatible both with his frugal budget and his romantic vision of the act. What he longed for was a partner with whom he shared a mutual attraction and regard --- a partner who shared his curiosity about Venus' gifts.

Between his all-male classes and his part-time work at the Kodak laboratory, he encountered a limited number of women. There were occasional shopgirls and secretaries, as well as maids in the Fordyce household and neighboring mansions. But if there was among them a kindred sexual spirit, he detected no sign of her. Indeed, all the young ladies to whom he had been attracted let him know either subtly or directly that they were matrimony-bent and brooked no wayward deviations from society's stringent courtship rules --- no liberties would they permit before marriage.

No resentment did Anders feel about their stipulations, knowing the repercussions for lost virtue were far more severe for females than for males --- if there were any repercussions for males at all. He certainly was not ready for marriage and had not met a girl who had caused him to reconsider that stance. Thus, he accepted a kiss on the cheek here and a squeeze of the hand there without pressing them any further.

Several such encounters left him struggling to make sense of Nature's plan. There were females who engaged in relations for money, and there were females who did so to fulfill their supposed matrimonial duties. Were there no females who partook purely for the sensual rewards? Did women feel sensual pleasure as men did? The encounter with the florist's assistant --- as rudimentary and truncated as it had been --- hinted at wondrous possibilities, and Anders' bawdy aspirations were tentatively refurbished.

In his thwarted yearnings, he found consolation in the solitude of his room with his French postcards and fertile imagination. After all, he had a long-standing collegial relationship with his left hand --- one that he was dubious of being easily surpassed by an awkward transactional encounter with a stranger.

One afternoon in early May, Anders was walking home from campus when he noticed something unusual as he neared the Fordyce residence. Veering from the sidewalk to head across the grounds for the cottage at the back, he observed a collection of white fabric items decorating the branches of an oak and several shrubs at the side of the mansion.

Approaching the tree, he realized they were dainty women's undergarments. The fine cotton and elaborate lace suggested they belonged to Fulton's mother or sister, but Anders could not fathom how they came to be in the garden. Even as he stared at them in bewilderment, a breeze dislodged one from the tree and sent it drifting down to land on a rosebush next to him.

A scraping noise sounded from the house above.

Stepping back and casting his gaze upwards, he could see several other garments strewn over the shingled roof of the one-story sun parlour built onto the side of the manse. The scraping noise no doubt had come from the raised sash of a second-story window overlooking the roof. A maid in a black dress, white apron, and little white cap was leaning out of the window and wielding a broom as she attempted to retrieve the garments.

"Hold on!" Anders called as she began to climb out onto the steep roof.

She paused and looked down at him.

He shrugged out of his knapsack and suit jacket. "I'll help you!" Jumping to catch a lower limb of the oak, he hauled himself up onto the bough. From branch to branch he ascended, rescuing the stranded laundry from the foliage, eventually swinging from the tree onto the sun parlour roof.

The maid watched him from the open window, and as he crossed the sloping surface to hand her the clothes, two things were immediately apparent. Firstly, he did not recognize this auburn-haired young woman (and he knew all the servants in the Fordyce household). Secondly, sitting as she was, partially straddling the windowsill with one foot on the frame and the other in the house behind her, the separation of her legs and upraised knee afforded Anders an almost unobstructed view under her skirts. He swallowed, scarcely able to believe his eyes.

Framed by her bunched white petticoats, black thread stockings covered her slim calves from the ankle-high black boots to the lace-adorned hem of her knee-length drawers. As he crawled about, gathering the remaining clothes from the shingles and gutter, he repeatedly stole glances at the thrilling sight of the fully exposed crotch of her drawers. Once, Fulton and he had sneaked a look at a pair of his older sister's drawers in a laundry basket, and he knew the female undergarment to be fashioned with an open seam in the crotch, evidently to allow the wearer to tend to Nature's call without pulling them down.

In the present case, the edges of the slit in the maid's drawers overlapped, but through the thin white cotton, a darker patch was visible ... her cunny hair, it must be! His pulse sounded in his ears. In a moment, she stretched behind her into the house to deposit the garments inside and with the motion, the fabric edges spread an inch or so open to expose reddish-brown hair rimming a vertical pink line. Anders' foot slipped on the shingles, and he almost fell upon his face as he gaped at the glorious sight.

When she again faced him, she shifted position, removing her foot from the sill. Her skirts dropped down, ending the miraculous vision. Expelling an agitated breath, he reasoned it was just as well --- it would have been hard to climb back down the tree with the limb sprouting in his trousers. But as he handed her the last of the garments and alerted her to the clothing still in the garden, she invited him to descend by way of the stairs.

"Erm ---" He cleared his throat as he climbed through the window after her, covertly adjusting his stirring organ in his trousers. "Are you new here? I haven't seen you before." Inside, they were in an elegant bedroom.