Hysteria

by

Eva Gale

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Eva Gale on Smashwords

Hysteria

Copyright © 2009 by Eva Gale

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the
trademarked status and trademark owners of various products
referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without
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England, 1860

Mother tied my corset too tight again today. I try to
blow out my stomach like a horse getting cinched, but she knows my
trick and hoists her skirts up to dig her knobbled knee into my
back while she pulls my laces taut.

She must get me ready for my Doctor appointment, and
I cannot dare let my excitement show. So I lie abed and refuse my
tea and only when she pinches my arms so tight that tears come to
my eyes do I promise I’ll be good and do as she bids. But I dawdle
and fuss until she swears that I’m the most horrid child and that
she should have let Leery take me to the trolls.

I’m not a child, though I act it. I am five and
twenty this December past.

I should be married at this advanced age but no man
would have me for they all know madness runs deep in my family. My
father speaks to specters like they were corporeal and his brother
and their father before them. But my mother’s father did not care
she would give him demented grandchildren. He did not care about
his sickly daughter who would by miracle not die in giving birth to
her only living child. The old fool only cared that his horses
would be stock to the best stud in England.

And so I am worthless.

There are no horses anymore, my father gave them away
to save his soul from Sheol when the Priests came to drive the
demons from him. He now converses with Lucifer all the while mother
is brandishing a hot iron toward my skin swearing she will burn me
if I am not ready in time.

I would die without my weekly treatments, and if I
showed the least bit of joy in them she would celebrate my
recovery.

My hysteria runs deeper than a month’s worth of
treatment can cure.

So I let her pinch me and I pretend to cry.

She yanks my dress down over my head so hard the
buttons get tangled in my hair and though I shriek she does not
pause a moment. She scolds and laughs and tells me I’m mad like my
father.

I agree I am. I would have to be to so willingly go
to what can only be my shame. But if I am shamed, then so are the
others that sit next to me on the hard benches not meeting one
another’s eyes. Not even when their names are quietly called do
they look up, for they know what is to happen and cannot break
their concentration of rebellion or relief would come all too
quickly.

We sit on the bench, thighs pressed tight all of us
hoping that we may last a half hour, or an hour full if dreams be
made real.

Mother now pierces my scalp with pins and I jump like
I should. If she only knew what a good girl I truly was.

Twenty minutes more and my skin flushes.

Maybe cook has spoilt milk I could sneak to keep my
mind from straying but losing my stomach would not be acceptable,
Doctor would send me home. I would find another way. This day I had
my sight set on forty-five minutes.

Four full minutes longer than last.

My mind is singularly set on this and I will not
falter. Not even when Doctor tsk tsk’s and threatens to manually
treat me.

I close my eyes and my breath comes in shallow
pants.

This will never do.

Mother pulls my earlobe and yells for me to pay
attention and I obey. Oh, I do, I must, and at this moment she is
the Blessed Madonna come to answer my prayers. She does not let go
and I refrain from kissing her pocked cheek, and she directs me out
the door and to the hall tree where my coat hangs.

Now I have made her more angry and it is all for good
that I missed my breakfast. My hunger will keep my focus sharp and
dull my need.

She does not bother to stop and put the coat on, or
hers either, she loads me into the ramshackle coach like a crate of
chickens for market and I dare not complain for fear I may have
pushed her too far and she keep us home.

The horses clop down the cobblestones and I try my
utmost to not let my thighs touch but they do and the tiniest
quivers begin like a breeze ruffling feathers. I stomp on my
mother’s toes and she screeches and drives her elbow into my side,
taking my breath away.

I grunt with the sharp pain of trying to take a
breath and feel the carriage sway left around a corner.

Only a few moments more.

I know their names, the girls that sit in that
hopeful desolate room. I know them all and I would wager they know
mine. Under my lashes I spy upon them and they me. I see the pursed
mouths of the mothers, sisters or cousins that have been assigned
the task of companion on these trips. Their pursed mouths and
furrowed brows as they sit and lightly chat about if spring will
come, how the hawker shorted them or the butcher turned the spoilt
part down so that they would not see. But behind their eyes I see
the curious shame. They are all mothers, they understand the
mechanics, but not the need as they lie under their heaving
husbands with tears in their hair.

No, it is more to my shame that I dance around my
room the nights before treatment, I dare not touch myself those
nights though I can hardly breathe without thinking on it. I only
allow myself this persecution two nights after, and then I must
make it hastily as possible. I cannot let anything detract, you
see.

The carriage jerks to a halt and my voice catches. I
fall against my mother and she buffets my shoulder and I feign to
sit back down but she has grabbed my hand like a manacle and hauls
me out. My feet hardly catch up with my body as she tows me inside
the huge black door. We are timely, but not near soon enough for
Lornea’s appointment is before mine and she has no self
control.

Mother, as well as I, knows that Lornea is the
quickest of the lot and deemed on her way to recovery. Lornea’s
mind is too weak to withstand, and her sorrow at her lack of
control is plain in her tears and she shuffles out of the room each
week. Despite any sympathy shown she is inconsolable and I want to
laugh at the reserved approval shown her.

May that I be cursed forevermore with this blessed
disease.

I no more place my coat upon my arm than does Lornea
open the door, the Doctor on her heels with his arm outstretched.
Lornea’s cousin accepts his enthusiastic handshake and his voice
booms of her cure and his true happiness for her continued mental
health.

Lornea, poor lemming caught in the net. She should
cry and show it for happiness, for that is all that is left to
her.

The secretary calls my name and I watch the black and
white tiles pass under me. I smell the iodine and under it the
scent of Lornea’s release. It is familiar to me now as my own. I
move behind the curtain. This is as much as I will give.

The Doctor walks in and locks the door behind him. I
shiver but stand still.

“You should endeavor to become as well as Lornea,” he
says as he straightens the sheet on the table.

God forbid.

I spy the horse in the corner and I can feel myself
slip.

It is a man’s rod which sticks straight into the air
like a proud fist and I wish to be strapped to it again. I have
tried, and am left to wonder if the Doctor was in a foul mood the
day he ordered me astride. Would that someone vex him such again.
Sometimes when I touch myself I remember the rock and thrust of the
mechanical device.

But I have slipped.

“Constance, I am too elated to be cross with a soul
today, so let’s be about business,” he says as he pats the
table.

I want to leash him like mother but it would not be
for the same effect and so I employ what I have.

I pull my gloves off and place them on the dented
wooden chair provided. I open the curtain more so that he knows
when to assist me and I look behind me over my shoulder. He comes,
as I know he will and his fingers apply to the buttons with
efficiency. I peel the dress off and fold it precisely. My
petticoats and drawers follow it and I am left in my corset, its
cover and my stockings. Today I am hot and my nipples irritated so
I untie the cover and fold it too. I look down and flush. They are
as rigid as the mechanical horse’s rod and they give me away.

The Doctor beckons me to him and I pause to make a
liar out of my body.

“Come now, you will never recover unless you incline
yourself to treatment.”

I walk as slowly as I can to him and he shakes his
head in apparent disapproval. I ease myself against the table and
I’m glad Lornea’s heat has left it. The cold services me more. It
is hard for me to set myself up while I wear the corset and the
Doctor lifts me and carries my legs up.

His hands are warm on my hot skin and the cold table
reminds me of my role.

“Lie back now, that’s it.”

I do and close my eyes, trying not to anticipate.

The clip of his shoes travels across the room and
back. I hold my knees together tight and he rests his hand on them,
easing them apart. Later they will fall at my sides, but now I only
give him enough room to spread my nethers and the cold rubber spear
pushes in, just the tip at first for the Doctor believes that
patience will make for a more robust outcome. We are of one mind in
this and I submit to the entry of his instrument.

The blunt head of the instrument stretches my sex and
its icy chill is a stark opposition to my internal fires. I
wouldn’t have it any other way. Slowly he penetrates me. He may
think his action is generous and particularly gentle, but already I
am agonized and fantasize he is pummeling my sex. My insides clench
so tight around the rod pauses in its ascent and the Doctor nods
his approval. I am not happy at all and I dig the nail of my thumb
deep into the skin of my thigh where he cannot spy my movement.

“Breathe,” Doctor says blandly as he pushes the rod
to its goal.

I do, in a great whoosh of breath that leaves my
lungs surprising me with its ferocity.

Doctor looks at his timepiece and nods. “Good,
good.”

There is no use of this. I need a new tack and I
decide to empty my thoughts so as to make the rod demand a response
from me. Alas the Doctor has impaled me with it now and I want to
groan with my relief but I hold still. He begins to twist it inside
me, clockwise and counter while he pushes in even strokes of ten. I
know this rhythm, it was the first to send me to a fit, and I can
tell he wants to be done with me already. But I have girded myself
against this onslaught and I hold myself back.

“Relax.” His cool dry hand brushes the outside of my
thigh and I jump. Doctor shakes his head.

I remember to breathe again as he slows his tempo.
Slowly in and out, twisting up and down. He pauses, almost letting
the tip slip outside my nether lips and my breath catches.

I am slick now. I can feel how my juices ease the
pumping of the instrument but I want for more.

I close my eyes and decline my verbs. Amo, amas,
amat, amamous, amatis, amant. I love…I need... I touch...

It gains me an iota of control for the moment, but
there is a slight pause in rhythm and I open my eyes to see Doctor
switching hands.

It takes everything within me to stay on the table
and I measure my breathing.