Ghost Pains

"Please tell me all about your dream, Mrs. Jory."

"I don't know if I can. I fell off of a staircase and floated on the air."

"Oh? Dreams of an erotic nature often incorporate a feeling of flight."

"No, the dream wasn't erotic."

"I wager it was. Tell me, please."

"As I was falling ... somersaulting backward in slow motion ... a glass tube penetrated me ... rectally."

"Ah, you see?"

"It - it became like a living thing and branched through me."

"A tendril of sorts."

"It traveled up my spine, it forked in my chest ..." I hesitated to go on.

"Please, Mrs. Jory, I find this fascinating."

"They came out through my nipples."

"As glass tubes?"

"Yes."

"With fluid?"

"I don't know."

"And what then?"

"They curved down to my- my cleft."

"Indeed. And?"

"They penetrated me. They filled me."

"Oh, my. The circle round?"

"Are you mocking me, Mrs. Lear?"

"No, no, but do consider. Not erotic? Ms. Jory, in this dream, you were flying, you were penetrated, rectally, by a slender phallus ... Ahem." She took a deliberate breath. "Your arsehole, your nipples, and your "cleft," as you name it, were linked both internally and externally by the tendrils that grew out of it?"

"Yes."

"In arousal?"

"Yes."

"Would you say that, in a sense, you were fucked?"

"Yes."

"And did you have a little come?"

"Oh, god ... Yes."

"Excellent!"

/ / /

She was beside the bed again, just within my peripheral vision. I asked her what she meant, what could be excellent in so horrid a dream?

"Please sit up," she said.

That meant rolling over. Before moving, I groped as discreetly as possible for the presence of the thermometer.

"You are safe," Mrs. Lear observed. "It was removed once all the cups were applied."

With effort, as if pulling myself through a haze, I turned over and sat. Mrs. Lear watched me slide my bottom to the headboard and draw the bed sheets to cover my bare chest, waiting with clinical patience until I was settled.

"As well you know, Ms. Jory, many if not most dreams are mere gibberish, but some are lucid. Yours might well be prophetic." She lifted a cylindrical glass, much lighter than the others, like a test tube with a bulb at the closed end. "This one has a special application," she said. "Shall I give you a clue as to which part of the body it is intended?" She held up a second tube. "I have a pair."

I shook my head no, meaning I did not want to answer, but then nodded yes. The knowledge of their use came instinctively. My heart started racing.

"Are they familiar to you?" she asked.

Somehow I know what they are for, I said.

"And I bet a shilling that you are anticipating their application."

I'm alarmed at the thought of how much I anticipate them.

"Excellent again," said Mrs. Lear.

\ \ \

She sat beside me as she held the mouth of one of the slender tubes above the flame.

"Shall I restrain you first?"

"What do mean?"

"Shall I cuff your ankles and wrists? Bind you to the bed?"

Embarrassment bit my tongue as I thought of Greta. A thread of black smoke curled from the tip of the flame into the tube. Mrs. Lear tugged the sheet to uncover my breasts.

"Remain still, if you can," she said.

Taking hold of the closer nipple, she tugged, then flicked the erect nub to maximum arousal, and set the lip of the tube to the surrounding flesh. Instantly the vacuum drew my nipple in, a steady pull that puffed the ring of aureole and elongated the tip, a pull that reached my puss and ran through to my feet.

"You may touch your sex, if you like," said Mrs. Lear, "and I shall apply the second."

My hand slid down and pressed curled fingers between my parted legs.

"Climax, if you must."

I was feeling the climb to it already. My shaking caused the weight of the tubes to bounce, accentuating their weight.

"Oh my," said Mrs. Lear. She peered closely at the bottom of one tube, then smiled in her off-putting way. "We have expression." The word confused me, until she removed the tube, having to first to pry it from my distended breast, then held the glass before my eyes and jiggled the small amount of thin white fluid it now contained. "Ms. Jory, I believe that you are ready for Dr. Hoyle. In landmark time, I'd say."

She left me tucked in, exhausted. The cart clanked noisily as she wheeled it from my room. My thoughts were adrift on a blank body of water. At last, I slept soundly, until wakened by the ringtone of my cell.

/ / /

I fumbled to find it, then failed to recognize the name or the number, until the "K" in AnnaK cued the village pub, the Kelsea. The call had gone to voice mail by then. She left a message. Just checking in. She would like to talk. If I care for some company, I'm always welcome to drop by the pub, or she could drive up, visit at my convenience. Don't hesitate. "Hope you're well."

An area like this, with its small population, surely she knew Greta and Mrs. Lear, and surely they knew her. I could ask about her when I saw them next.

Or you could ask her.

The voice was as clear as if spoken aloud, and I decided to heed it. With effort, I got up, got dressed, found my keys, determined to get out, get some fresh air, dispel the last of the head fog and achey-ness left over from my illness. Meet this interesting woman. Get her view on the staff.

\ \ \

There were voices on the stairway, Mrs. Lear's and that of someone other than Greta, a voice of authority. I stood in the doorway as they reached the stairhead, where Mrs. Lear remained, as the other woman walked toward me. She wore a long coat and carried a large bag. Her eyeglasses seemed to reflect more light than was available in the hall.

"Mrs. Jory?" she said.

Her face had an icy beauty. The bag she carried was antique, a Gladstone.

"Doctor Hoyle," I said.

She nodded. I stepped back, tacitly inviting her into the room.

"Has your fever persisted?" she said.

"It's broken. I'm much better."

She placed her Gladstone on the floor, opened its jaws, reached in and withdrew a zippered case.

"I'm about to go out," I said.

She opened the case and assembled an antique syringe: a stainless steel frame, plunger and glass tube.

"Why are you doing that?"

She screwed on a needle that looked big enough in gauge to take punch samples of skin, then withdrew a measure of whitish fluid from a vial.

"What is that?"

"A natural relaxant."

She raised the syringe, tapped it to remove bubbles, and shot a brief jet of fluid into the air.

"This in your bum," she said. "Bend slightly and lift your shift, please."

As she approached — I'm not sure why — I turned, bent over the bed and gathered the shift around my hips.

"Knickers down."

She matter-of-factly worked my undies down with her free hand, then wiped a chill swab of alcohol over my right buttock. The jab of the needle made me jump and brought an order to hold still. An uncomfortable knot grew in the muscle as the drug went in.

"You will feel a bolus. It will dissipate quickly."

Dr. Hoyle withdrew the needle, pressed a ball of cotton to the puncture, and told me to hold it in place while she disassembled the syringe. The drug took effect almost immediately — a suffusing warmth. Her fingertips trailed across my bottom.

"You reacted when you first saw me, Mrs. Jory," she said. "What did you see?"

A chill swept through me, a physical shakiness and sense of disembodiment.

"It's just ... you were ... only just mentioned."

My vision blurred. I turned and sat as the room tilted.

Greta walked in and, behind her, Mrs. Lear. They crossed the slanting floor. Instinct said that I should be alarmed. Yet my puss was stirring. Words abandoned me.

While Dr. Hoyle observed, they took me by the arms and lifted me to my feet. My overexcited puss, already swollen and slick, began to throb.

"I believe you know that we treat sexual disorders particular to women, and do so in a medically novel fashion."

She paced in front of me as she spoke. This close, in starker light, her paper white face, — sharp cheekbones and large eyes, deep-set and dark in their sockets — lost its peculiar beauty and appeared disturbingly skeletal. The deep crennallations along her thin lips suggested the teeth behind them.

"Our treatments are experimental . . . always interesting." She picked up her bag and said, "You make an interesting subject, Mrs. Jory."

"But this is Clara's house," I said.

She stepped aside with a wave of her arm.

I was swept forward, out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs, the house reeling by, my thoughts in a swoon. They took me through an unfamiliar door inside the kitchen and down another flight of steps to the deep cellar, my bare feet slipping on smooth stone. At the bottom, Doctor Hoyle opened the final door, this one thick and heavy, swung on iron hinges. As they paused with me on the threshold, I could see, by the firelight inside, gleaming racks of flasks and tubing, and beyond them a small amphitheater, all bathed in shadow but for the stage, lit by an overhead lamp that shone directly upon an examination table from a century past, equipped with restraints. The room was a medical laboratory.

This won't be treatment, I thought. I'm an experiment.

/ / /

The room was warm, the air heavy. With the slightest flick of a boney finger, Doctor Hoyle indicated the stage. Mrs. Lear cranked the table to a near-vertical position. Greta removed my clothing.

They stood me against the leather surface and ran a strap across my upper chest. Gears clacking, Mrs. Lear cranked the table to full horizontal. The chest strap was loosened and I was repositioned so that my feet wouldn't hang off of the end of the table. Straps were cinched across my head, arms and shoulders, forearms, stomach, thighs, knees and ankles.

Immobilized, I remembered that I was able to speak.

"I'm not sick," I said.

"Come, now."

"I had a fever, but it's passed."

"The diagnosis is mine to make."

Greta daubed a circle of oil around each of my nipples. Oh!

Wary of what the doctor might answer, I said, "What diagnosis? You haven't examined me."

"I have had a full report from Head Matron, corroborated by a trusted member of the nursing staff." She put a glove on her left hand. "And I shall make my examination now."

My breasts had already begun to tingle.

"What did Greta put on me?"

"It has a dual purpose. It sensitizes, then acts as a sealing agent for the suction."

"Is this your - is this how you treat addiction, with bondage and -?"

"Your treatment is not for addiction, Mrs. Jory."

"Then - tell me what you think is wrong!"

"Your ability to climax requires imaginary elements of pain and fear."

"No, I - Greta -"

"Without torment, you are frigid."

"That's - that's absurd. That's wrong. It's -"

Greta placed an anesthetic mask over my face. My voice became muffled, even to me.

"Wha'sss the suc-suction do?" I was fading.

"Express your rarified milk."

But, why?

As I slipped into unconsciousness, I heard, "You make ... an exquisite o-pee-om," and felt alternating tugs of mechanical sucking begin their milking.

\ \ \

Knocking. Three taps. Again. It woke me.

A woman said through the bedroom door, "Hello? Mrs. Jory? It's Anna, from The Kelsea. I've called twice. May I come in?"

The handle turned. A vaguely familiar face looked in.

"Mrs. Jory? Are you awake?"

She crossed the room with a look of concern. Her fingers touched my forehead and jumped away, as if scorched. She placed a cooling palm to my cheek.

"How long have you been feverish, do you know?"

I didn't.

"Are you able to respond?"

Yes.

She looked around, then said, "All right, let's get your temp down."

Circling the room, she turned off the space heater, then opened the window curtains and the casements. A breeze filled the room. It carried a faint chill of dew that cleansed the body wherever skin lay exposed.

Anna sat with me again and unbuttoned the top of my nightgown. From somewhere she produced a basin of water and a washcloth. After wiping me down and patting me dry, she covered my body and knelt by the bed, taking my hand and pressing it between hers.

"Forgive me," she said. "I would've warned you. I wanted to at the pub, if I thought you could believe ..."

You know them?

She held up fingers successively. "Have you meet one? Two? Three?"

Three.

"We must leave soon."

I felt able to move. The fresh air had washed the room of its opiate smells and traces of phantasmagoria.

I said, "Thank you, Anna."

She kissed the back of my hand. "We'll put away everything, just as it was when you arrived. And you shall never touch that poison again, understood?"

"Yes."

"C'mon, get up and let's get you away from this unhealthy place."

"Yes. But, surely we two together —"

"You've met three. There is a fourth. We must go."

/ / /

I dressed. We put away the lacquer box and the journal and the lapping women, hung the nightgown, folded the linen. Once I was packed, we locked the outer door and dropped the skeleton key through the mail slot. Mine was the only auto in the drive.

"My friend dropped me off," Anna said. We loaded the boot. She opened the right side. "I thought you would allow me to drive?"

I was mostly silent along the way. We passed hedges in blurred monotony. Anna understood my silence and intermittently took my hand.

I said, "Where is Clara?"

Anna said, "We'll exchange stories. When you're ready."

"You said there's a fourth." She didn't reply and I said, "You've stayed there. You've met them."

"I have visited, yes."

"Did they... Were they real to you?"

She squeezed my hand. "When you're ready," she said.

And at that point, all at once — at last — I let go of the tensions built by the house. Inside and out, I went lax, even in thought. I might have nodded off while Anna was humming. It became music, lovely music, the lullaby of a guardian, reassuring, with a touch of melancholy. I woke up before we reached the Kelsea and said, "I don't know your friend's name."

"We've been friends forever. She rescued me," Anna said. "And I rescued her. Look there." She indicated my blouse. A damp spot, somewhat smaller than a fist, had formed around one of my nipples.

"The name of my friend," Anna said, "is Angel."

End