Chapter 7: A brisk awakening

Martha swept into May’s suite at eight o’clock. The doctor was due for his weekly visit, and was expected at nine. Martha anticipated a battle. However, to her surprise she only saw Edith, who was making the bed. Edith looked up, and shrugged her shoulders.

Martha eventually found May in the kitchen. She was there chatting with the shocked cook. Chatting with staff?! Martha was astounded. And then, she noticed what her mistress was wearing.

“Mum, are those bloomers?” Martha asked, knowing the answer, but questioning either her mistress’s sanity or her own.

“Yes! Well, Turkish trousers to be exact,” May said excitedly, pulling at the colorful patterned fabric. “Countess Olenski gave them to me. They are a revelation.”

“I suppose they would be fine around the house, if you like, Mum,” Martha said, humoring her unstable mistress.

“They are going to be fantastic for riding,” May said, as she bit into a biscuit.

“Riding, Mum?” Martha asked, afraid for the answer.

“If my husband asks, tell him I took a coupé to the spa,” May said, as she placed a short-brimmed, flat-top hat on her braided hair, and strode toward the back door.

A bay gelding was waiting for May at the alley fence. A black boy, dressed in an ill-fitting stable uniform, nervously held the reins.

“I got the one you wanted, Ma’am,” the boy said, his voice cracking.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” May said, handing him a silver dollar. The boy lit up at the sight of a week’s pay in his palm. “If anyone asks, I told you I’d thrash you if didn’t do as you were told. Now, help me up.”

Jimmy offered his interlocked hands as a step stool, and May swung herself onto the saddle. Her complete confidence suddenly waned. She had not ridden astride since she was twelve years old. Even then, it was scandalous. But, her father allowed it — no, encouraged it — until she bled for the first time. After puberty, it was skirts and side-saddle, and no more racing with Dad.

May walked the horse down the patchwork of brick and dirt alleyways that ran behind the grandest manors, and the grandest outhouses, in all of New York City. When she reached Fifty-Ninth Street, she trotted the bay between a milk dolly and an ice wagon, then shot into Central Park. Only two-thirds finished, the Park was still considered unsafe by many, especially for a woman, alone. Her husband, like many others, had argued that the Park should be fenced, and only people of society should be allowed to enter. Tammany Hall had won out, and common people were allowed to frequent the Park. In part because of that, May had only seen the Carriage Way, until now. The balance of the park was new to her.

She tucked her braid into her blouse and trotted along the bridal path. The oft-used phrase, “once you learn how to ride a horse, you never forget,” proved true. Though, the muscles in her calves, thighs, and buttocks complained of a faulty memory. When she saw a mounted policeman, or a society man, she would duck off the path to avoid a confrontation. The farther north May got in the Park, the less finished it was and the fewer people she saw. She brought the bay to a gallop, and for a stretch, a canter.

Air filled May’s lungs, and blood filled her muscles, in a way she had not felt since she was a child. She exited the Park at the swampy northeast corner onto the rutted dirt road that, in theory, was Fifth Avenue. Just a couple miles from her home, this country lane had nothing in common with the Fifth Avenue that she lived on. She weaved through some shanties, chicken coops, and sheep pens, until the road opened up again. For a moment, she flashed back to riding on this part of the Island with her father.

She jogged over to Park Avenue, which was far more developed than Fifth. She trotted along it, trying to look as much like a man as she could, until she finally reached the Countess Olenski’s mansion. Robert, the dark, handsome doorman, did a double-take.

“Well, aren’t you going to help a lady,” May said with a laugh.

“I think the Countess will be very pleased,”Robert said, flashing his brilliant smile, as he steadied the horse. May dismounted and strode up the grand stairs, two at a time.

Chapter 8: The Countess’s journey

May greeted Mary, the Irish maid, with a European kiss.

“Can I offer madam any help, this morning?” Mary asked with hungry eyes.

“I think I would like that, very much, Mary, but later,” May said. “The Countess hinted that I might be ready for the Therapy Garden today. Is she, here?”

“I saw her in the library. I’ll be in the Therapy Room this morning, perhaps I’ll see you, Mum,” Mary said, her brogue lingering on ‘see.’

May went to the changing room. With her simple trousers, bodice, and blouse, she was naked and in a robe within moments. These clothes make so much sense, she smiled to herself.

She made her way to the library, where, as Mary had indicated, she found the Countess. Anne was sitting with a patient named, Jennie. Jen and her husband were English, in New York in the employ of the British Hudson Bay Company. May had only met her at the spa in the last couple of days. May had found the pretty, curvy Jen to be charming and quite funny. But now, seeing her with Anne, May felt a surprising pang of jealousy.

“Ah! May!” Anne said, standing to embrace and kiss May. Jen did the same.

“A pleasure meeting you, again,” Jennie said. “I hope you’ll excuse me. I’m meeting someone in the Therapy Garden.” She said it almost desperately, and rushed from the room.

May sat with the Countess. “Do you think I might learn what goes on in the Therapy Garden, today?” May asked.

“I think so,” Anne said with a smile. “You have progressed quickly, May. I can see it in how you walk. I can see it in your smile. I can see it in your quiet countenance. There is a peace. Yes?”

“Oh my heavens, yes!” May answered. “I’m not sure what helped most. The exercise, the sunshine, the meditation, the waters, the conversations with you and the other guests, the …touching. Maybe it is all of it. But, I feel as though parts of me that had fallen away, have been reattached.”

“I am so very happy to hear that, May. So very happy. You have recovered your former self. Then we are, indeed, ready for the next step. And that is to find your new self. A self that will never again fall victim to that sad, mean, prudish, women-fearing world out there.”

Arranged on the table in front of them was an array of books. An atlas was open to a map of the Mediterranean. “I am going to explain, as best I can, what the Therapy Garden can do for you. To do that, I need to tell you my own story.”

Anne sat, in her royal blue robe, with a strong, straight back. With a sincere, but practiced, cadence, she shared her life. May found herself distracted by Anne’s kissable lips, and the feminine thigh that appeared from under the blue silk. But, her attention snapped back, as Anne’s words began to sink in.

“And that’s when I knew I was pregnant —“

May was now locked-in. Anne explained how a very ill-chosen dalliance with a society dandy had resulted in a pregnancy. Anne’s mother and father put all the blame on her, and they were both petrified that she would be ostracized because of the shame of her daughter.

And, so it was that eighteen-year-old Anne was shipped to an Anglican convent in the middle-of-nowhere England. “I stared out at the rolling hills of Wantage for eight months, certain that my life was ruined, while my transient beau was living it up, here in New York, at society parties. He never wrote me. Not even once.”

Anne gave birth to Charles, and nursed him for twelve weeks, before he went to the breast of a wet nurse at the St. Mary’s orphanage. Anne then set out on what was to be a brief tour of a few European cities. This was more to add to the ruse covering her out-of-wedlock shame, than it was to entertain or edify her.

London was choked with soot and proved to be a huge disappointment. From there, it was Paris. Though about the same size as New York, it was otherwise incomparable. It was extraordinarily beautiful, clean, and organized.

The beauty of Paris lifted Anne’s spirits. There, she also had a guide: the dashing Count Olenski. An acquaintance of her father from the fur trade, he was a widower. But, he was hardly dour. On the contrary he was full of life. Despite his class and title, he was also bohemian in his habits and tastes. He showed Anne the Louvre and Versailles, but he also showed her the dance halls and art studios of Montmartre.

If Anne’s father had assigned the Count the duty of protector of his daughter, it did not show. He seduced Anne within days of her arrival. And, he shared her with a friend, within days of that. May reacted with shock.

“Oh, yes, May,” Anne said with a smile. “I adored every moment. He — and eventually they — made love to me in ways I had never imagined. They were kind, and very focused on my pleasure, but also demanding. They also had an inkling about how to avoid getting a girl pregnant.”

Anne smiled as she pointed to various spots on the map. “From Paris, we traveled to Vienna, and then Venice. At first I was his ‘niece.’ But, eventually we traveled as husband and wife.”

Anne reassured her father via letter that she was in good care as her trip lengthened and lengthened. Florence, Rome and Athens followed. The art and beauty, and the libertine sex, of the trip opened Anne’s mind and heart.

“It was in Athens that I acquired this,” Anne said as she opened one of the leather bound books. “The first in my collection.” It was authored and illustrated by Elephantis, and amounted to a sexual manual, of sorts. It showed men and women, in every conceivable sexual position and combination. May was both excited, and astounded, by what she saw.

Anne and the Count returned to Paris, where they ended the charade and actually married. Anne’s parents journeyed to Paris for a secular wedding. Neither was pleased that she was marrying a man nearly twice her age, though her mother thought having a Count in the family would improve her reputation back in New York.

“Things changed for us after the marriage,” Anne explained. “Not immediately, but too soon for me. A man, even a man as libertine as the Count, becomes much less willing to share, when who he is sharing is his wife and, perhaps, the future mother of his children.”

They spent less time in the open and experimental Montmartre, and less time at those kinds of parties with those kinds of friends, in the country, until they spent no time at all. Not that the Count, himself, demurred from such activities. After four years of marriage, Anne was little more than a house manager and hostess.

She took a lover, as was almost an expectation in Paris society. He was a man not unlike the Count, and she tired of him quickly. She took another lover, a woman artist and sculptor, who was not of her class. This was less expected. Still, after an extended affair, Anne found herself longing to escape.

At seven years of marriage, and childless, Anne told the Count that she wanted to go on another extended trip, as they had done when they were first together. He consented, begrudgingly, and they retraced many of their steps. When they got to Venice, Anne pressed to head further east, rather than head to Rome. After a two-day row, the two parted at the Venice train station. The Count headed west, while Anne climbed aboard a train to Istanbul.

Anne’s became even more animated as she recounted her journey into the unknown. She leveraged the Count and her father’s network of associates, along with the connections of her artist friends, to find landing places in each place she visited. She turned the pages of the atlas, pointing out towns and places of interest. She embraced all the art and culture she encountered, but she always drifted toward the erotic.

She opened another book titled Tuhfet Ul-Mulk. It was an Ottoman, illustrated erotic manuscript. A collection of loosely connected stories depicted erotic encounters of all kinds. “When I found the books, and the art, I typically found the practitioners,” Anne said with a smile. “I explored my body and my sensual spirit in whole new ways. And, I did so on my own, without the Count’s direction.”

She pulled out multiple versions of A Thousand and One Nights. “Baghdad was extraordinary!” Then Alfiye va Shalfiye, from Persia. “Such a beautiful and sensual people.” She shared an album of illustrations of Afghan, and Indian, temples. She had a whole book of drawings from the Khajuraho temples. “It was a Hindi sect, centered on becoming one with their primary god, through sexual meditation.” She flipped through several other books, including the Thawathotsamat from Thailand, and ukiyo-e woodblocks from Japan.

“I did not return to Paris for four years. The Count had largely moved on, and I did not blame him. We agreed to live amicably, but with few expectations of one another. I also arrived to a pile of mail. In that pile I learned of my mother’s passing. Most shocking of all I found a letter from England.”

“Wait … Charles?” May asked.

“Yes! One of the St. Mary’s nuns wrote me. He had left the orphanage. He was working on a farm. I returned to the English Midlands, and found a strapping fourteen year-old man-boy. I took him back to Paris with me. That finished the Count and me. He had no interest in having a bastard under his roof. We went through an annulment. I moved into a townhouse. I opened a small spa for women and dreamed of doing something like this. It was my father’s illness that brought me back to New York.”

Anne sat back with an embarrassed smile. “I haven’t talked this much in a long time!”

She arranged the books and journals into a neat pile and slid them in May’s direction. “We are going to visit the Therapy Garden in a few minutes. You will likely be shocked; most patients are. After our visit, I will insist that spend time with these artifacts. And, I ask that you reflect on what you have seen, with days in the meditation room. Am I clear?”

“I…I…think so.”

Chapter Nine: Behind the screen

The solarium was warm and bright, as usual. It was largely empty of people, however, on this morning. Anne led May past the fountains, and the pool, until they came to the long paneled screen that divided the Therapy Garden from the rest of the solarium. They walked along side it, toward a carved door.

May had noted the ornate, Persian style of the screens in other visits to the solarium. Though, she had never been this close to them, for this long, before. She realized that the carved patterns were made up of tiny figurines. Like some of the images from the Hindu temples that Anne had shown her back in the library, the figures were men and women connected in a variety of sexual configurations.

May felt her pulse quicken and her breath shorten as she and Anne knocked at an opening in the barrier. The screen slid open and they were greeted by a tall, dark man — an East Indian May had seen around the house, but not met before. She was also greeted with the sound of ecstatic moans.

On an out-sized ottoman next to a gurgling fountain, May saw the pretty blonde, Susanne.

“My God,” May gasped. Anne took her by the arm to steady her.

“She’s fine,” Anne said. “I assure you.”

Susanne was straddled over a naked Robert, who was thrusting his horse-worthy cock into her from below. That was shocking enough, but a caramel-colored man with jet black hair knelt behind Susanne, and he was filling her other hole. May was horrified, but Susanne’s face implied there was nothing to fear. The man behind her braced his thrusting with a handful of her famous blonde hair.

Susanne looked toward the glass ceiling above, her mouth agape. “Aaaahhhh! Aaaaahhhhhhh!! Yes. Yes! Yes!!” She groaned.

The moans of another caught May’s attention. Jennie was on all fours on a chaise lounge. None other than Charles was behind her. “Oh, yes, lad,” Jen groaned in her English accent. “Slow, but deep, wins the race,” she laughed. She stared straight at May, her brilliant blue eyes burning with desire. Charles stared at May, as well, as he grasped Jen’s hourglass waist and moved in the long, steady strokes that she demanded. May surged with excitement. Did they want her to join them?

Little red haired Mary was in a reverse carnal embrace with a patient on a day bed not far from Jen and Charles. May had never seen anything like it. Mary lapped hungrily at the core of the other woman, as the woman did to Mary, from below.

On the marble that surrounded a small pool, three bodies lay connected, mouth to genitalia, in a Daisy chain circle. One was the tall Indian man, one was a beautiful Persian girl who worked at the Spa, and one was a patient May knew to be the sister of the mayor. The sights, sounds, and smells of the couplings and triplings in front of her, made May dizzy. Anne sensed this and led May to a chair.

“What are you feeling, May?” Anne asked. Though, she wasn’t really asking. She knew.

“I want to join them,” May sighed, tears in her eyes.

“You aren’t yet ready, May. But…,” Anne said, nodding toward the sash of May’s robe. May met Anne’s gaze. Anne reached down and pulled the sash.

“Go,” Anne said.

May ran her hands under the silk fabric, moving them over her body. She imitated what she saw as best she could with her own fingers. If Charles cupped Jen’s breast, May did the same to herself. When Robert pinched Susanne’s nipples, she pinched her own. As Mary probed her partner’s pussy with her tongue, May’s fingers found their way inside her own wet lips.

In front of May, Jen now tightly clenched her petty blue eyes. Charles had closed his eyes, as well. They were clearly moving toward a shared climax. Jen’s moans increased in volume and frequency, in direct response to the force and pace of Charles’s thrusts. May’s fingers matched their rhythm.

“Deeper! Take it! Take it! Fill meeeeeee!” Susanne’s ecstatic babbling pulled May’s eyes away from Jen and Charles. May had no idea how Susanne was enduring this double impaling. It was frightening, but also exciting. Susanne was clearly loving what Robert and the other were doing to her. What must it feel like? To be filled like that? Front and back? In that moment, with fingers in her pussy and on her swollen nub, May realized that she wanted to find out.

May slid down the chair and looked toward the sun’s rays that filtered through the skylights. The feverish groans of Susanne, the joyous moans from Jen, and the lilting laughter of Mary filled her ears. The murmurs of the unfamiliar voices, and bodies slamming together filled in behind, providing a sensual wall of sound that enveloped May, as if she was being embraced by the lot of them.

“Yessss!” “Sweet God!” “Fecking jeezus!” All three of her friends shouted over one another as May added her own ecstatic voice to the sexual cacophony.

“Aaaahhh!” May moaned as she contracted around her own fingers and writhed in pleasure. As her tremors subsided, she looked at her friends. Jen had collapsed onto her belly. She smiled vacantly, still overcome. Susanne extracted herself from the tangle of dark men. She knelt on the ottoman with a look of triumph. Mary and her patient had reoriented themselves, and lay kissing one another.

“I love this,” May whispered to herself.

“I knew you would,” Anne said from behind her.

To be continued…