Muybridge stood alone. The rooms on the first floor had been squalid; now their interior was simple and immaculate. The surrounding streets and alleyways teemed with the shiftless poor, the dispossessed and representatives of every tribe on earth, trying to scratch an existence outside the livid ghost of the old city wall. It was perfect. No one was known, and no one wanted to be. The seething carapace kept the clean, anonymous rooms shielded and safe.
The flat was carefully divided. The bedroom and parlour were Josephine’s; a small kitchen joined them to the long, open room beyond. A huge window jutted out of its centre into a blind courtyard. It worked as a skylight and made the room light and airy, even when it was full of gloomy machines and boxes. This was Muybridge’s studio and workshop; his darkroom was built in at the far end.
He had been there three times already, initially to meet Gull and one of his men, to be given the keys and instructions about the rooms, but also, more important, to be given a file on Josephine, as well as a small mirror and a handbell.
The next visit had been to supervise the arrival, unpacking, and assemblage of his equipment. Gull had been as good as his word and provided for everything; he had not baulked at the sets of expensive lenses or the intricate, handmade brass gearing systems. Muybridge now had all he needed; the secret in the shadow and atmosphere, which somehow lived and thrived in his photographs, was within probing distance. The new zoopraxiscope would be a very different machine from its forebears.
Muybridge’s third visit had focused on the most delicate element of the plan: the installation of Josephine. She had arrived in the middle of a spring downpour, with a companion and one of Gull’s servants. Muybridge had been irritated by the surgeon’s absence; surely such a crucial moment should be overseen by its instigator, especially in a case such as this? But it wasn’t to be. The servant had explained that the companion would be staying for a week or so, until Josephine “got to know the ropes of the place.” The servant introduced her to Muybridge and she curtsied, holding herself in a modest way, which he appreciated, but from a professional distance. He certainly had no intention of visiting the rooms while two females lived there, even if they did know their place.
The servant showed him that the rooms were well stocked, with every possible comfort provided for. “You’ll be snug as bugs in a rug,” the man said amiably. Muybridge gave him a withering stare, privately wondering if Gull recruited all of his staff from his list of ex-inmates. The impertinent fellow talked him through the basic details of the house, the most intriguing of which was a small, concealed compartment in the wall to the right of the kitchen door. Hanging inside was a thick, flat cosh made of leather. Its short but significant weight was achieved by the lead shot that filled its interior.
“Just in case, sir—we all ’ave ’em.”
“Is there a chance I’ll need to use it?” asked the alarmed Muybridge, who was beginning to have serious doubts about the whole business.
“No chance, sir. Some of ’em cut up rough, but not Josie; she’s good as gold.”
Nevertheless, the photographer resolved to always be careful. He would carry his trusty Colt pocket revolver with him at all times; who knew when it might be needed for protection, outside of the rooms or in?
Their first sittings began a little awkwardly. He found her silence uncanny and her eyes unnerving. Whenever he arrived and quietly let himself in, he would find the rooms full of birdsong, as if dozens of bright and active creatures were whistling with great joy. This would stop abruptly the moment she sensed his presence.
She had been alone in the rooms for the last three weeks and seemed calm and happy. She made him tea and he drank it in silence, stealing glances at her when she was not aware. Her savage beauty still amazed him. He had seen such perfection occasionally flare in the many primitive peoples he had visited and lived with; he had photographed an Aztec woman of magnificent sensuality in Mexico; he remembered two Modoc women whose striking appearances had remained with him long after his meeting with them had passed, their balanced symmetry accentuated inside their broad, flat faces.
But Josephine had something more. There was a glow of strength and dignity inside her ideal proportions, which made her every movement hypnotic to him. It soon dawned on him that this was attraction: His masculinity was being nudged awake by her, roused from a slumber he had been hitherto oblivious to; the part of his life he had long considered dead and shrivelled was wakened in her presence. How fat and stupid Flora had been in comparison to this demented vision, and how petty her vanities now revealed themselves to be. But still, it was better to put such thoughts out of his head; they could lead only to pain and confusion, as history had so deftly proven. Better to work, to trust the life he had invented, the one that paid him so handsomely and seemed to ask no price in return.
“I am going next door to set up the camera for your photograph,” he said, overpronouncing each slow syllable as if talking to a deaf person or a foreigner. “It will take one hour; then I will come for you, do you understand?”
She nodded and allowed a small smile to grace her lips. Muybridge felt the snag of it in his lungs, as if it were a slow shutter of great precision, catching a fast and out-of-focus world. He left the room in a daze and shut the door behind him, the room ricocheting with the chirps, whirrs, and clicks of the fast, invisible bats held apart from his company.
After the slightly jerky start, their first session had been brilliantly successful. She was one of the best sitters he had ever had, possessing the same stillness and distant focus that had made the Plains Indians such perfect subjects, but with a vibrancy that shone and showed the camera the great battery of power stored inside her. She sat without any guile of expression or artifice of intent: The camera simply loved her.
He did not think it proper or necessary to use any of the posthypnotic responses; the bell and the mirror stayed in their box. He processed the negatives before departing and was amazed at the clarity of her white face and black teeth. He said he would be back soon and she nodded. In truth, neither could be sure when he would return; his diary was stuffed with appointments, lectures, demonstrations, and meetings, and their moments at the studio would have to be stolen ones; she would be just another jigsaw piece in the multifaced puzzle of his identity. The principle of this arrangement appealed to him as much as the participation, but he suspected he would soon seek more time to truly appreciate and savour the theatre of it.
The second session was as successful as the first, but their third session was remarkable. He arrived at three in the afternoon, fitting her in between an important lunch and an evening lecture at the Royal Academy. When he arrived, he was mildly dismayed to find her in his studio, already preparing for the sitting. He had not known that she had been given keys to his room and felt uneasy about her open access to his possessions and most valuable instruments. But she instantly disarmed his vexation by curtsying and smiling, pointing questioningly to the framing chair where she would be fastened.
“Yes, just give me a moment to gather my thoughts and we shall begin,” he said distractedly.
She turned away to allow his mind free roam of the studio. She wore a simple white blouse, buttoned up to the neck, and a long, layered skirt of muted turquoise and greens. Her hair was pinned back and exclaimed the dynamic contours of her skull, neck, and face.
He prepared the plates and returned. She was seated in the chair, the box of unused instruments already lying next to her. Had he done this in the last sitting? Placed it so in rushing departure to remind himself of their usage? Or had she made the decision for him? He pondered this as he adjusted her head and tightened the head clamps, seeing her smooth skin dimple under the pressure. He framed the camera, focused it, and loaded the film.
“Josephine, the first image will be a static reference to the poses that come after it.”
Her eyes blinked in understanding, and he took the first photograph, observing her implacable exterior before changing the plates. He returned to the camera and paused for a moment, holding the pneumatic shutter bulb in his right hand and the bell in his left. He rang it twice.
Instantly, she contorted into a position of wretched exhaustion, as if frozen mid-nightmare. Her head twisted sideways, straining against the brace, and her mouth lolled open, eyes turned upwards under heavy, almost closed lids. The rest of her body slumped, sack-like, into the chair.
Muybridge was shocked by the speed of the transformation: So utterly different was the person before him, it was almost impossible to recognise her. Gone was the inner dynamo, with the outer beauty and gentle sanity he had begun to so enjoy. He quickly took the picture and rang the bell to return her, but to his horror, the ringing only heightened the pose. Her body twisted farther away from itself, as if a great rope had been wound around her and connected to a cruel windlass, which had been tightened against normality. There was a spiteful crack, and for a horrifying moment he thought one of her bones had shattered; his astonishment augmented as he realised it was the sound of the metal head brace snapping behind her neck. Not knowing what to do next, he did the only thing he could: He reloaded the camera and made the exposure. Her head was now loose and driven back, as if by a mighty force. He changed the plates again and picked up the bell. He had forgotten every instruction he had read about this procedure; he couldn’t be sure if another ringing would release her or turn her invisible winch more severely; opportunity and curiosity lay across from pity and aid, in equal measures on the other side of the turn. With an uncertain exhilaration that he did not care to name, he rang the bell again. She slumped forward like a dead weight against the leather belt of the seat; it pressed up under her breast, forcing out a great exclamation of air. She was totally inert. Muybridge stepped towards her, disappointment congealing into concern. He lifted her weight back into the vertical and was stunned at its solidity; she seemed to have changed density. Her subtle bones and gentle curves were cast in lead and granite, and when she opened her eyes, he saw a space in the universe he had never dreamt of. He distanced himself, stepping back as one of his long, shivering arms held her in place.
“Josephine, are you all right? Can you hear me?”
The eyelids mercifully closed, and she seemed to soften into normal weight, falling into a detached slumber. He returned to the camera and collected his things, deciding against wakening her—it seemed safer to leave her undisturbed.
He gathered the plates and made his way to the darkroom. He processed them in an immersed daze, totally engaged by the images produced. He was beginning to understand what Gull had wanted from these sessions; tomorrow he would use the mirror.
Suddenly, he remembered his scheduled lecture at the academy. His memory jolted, and he rapidly put away the chemicals and set the glass negatives to drain, returning to the studio to help Josephine out of her confinement. But she was gone.
He walked quickly and quietly through the kitchen to her rooms. Her bedroom door was ajar, and he softly pushed it open. She lay diagonally across the small bed, a blanket draped from her knees to the floor. Her breath told him that she was deeply asleep, and he crept a little closer. The restraining belt had wrenched away some of the buttons of her blouse; it fell to one side as she slept, exposing the rich upper curve of her right breast. Her hair comb had fallen out and was on the pillow, precariously close to her eyes. He moved it to the bedside table and picked up the blanket, lingering for a moment to savour the view of her exposed shoulders and chest.
He gathered his things and quietly left the studio, the warm glow of self-sanctified chivalry brightening his view of the grubby streets outside.
The mirror session was less alarming than the bell sitting. Her body remained calm throughout, though her face went through a colourful dictionary of rictus. It spasmed into unbelievable contortions, each time returning to its natural beauty. Muybridge was fascinated; he had never seen anything like it before. His daily demonstrations and meetings began to bore him, and he felt himself yearning for more time with the exotic creature in front of his camera. He revelled in the seclusion, where nobody knew him or what he was doing; it was so utterly different from the hoards of ill-informed on whom he had spent so much precious time. Squirreled away with Josephine and his inventions, he was becoming happy again.
The zoopraxiscope had changed beyond recognition. He soon realised that the earlier models had been little more than clumsy toys to entertain a gawping crowd. True, they had demonstrated the possibility of movement being projected into the unsuspecting eye, the mechanical delusions of leaping horses and running figures, paintings becoming alive. But the new machines sought a very different quarry, one that entered the brain directly, through the spinning mirrors and measured, shuttered light, which bent and warped via the array of lenses. Peripheral sight was the causeway around the picture, flicking the optic nerve to erection.
He had tried it on himself repeatedly and felt the shadows infiltrate and pulse. They sought absorption in some part of the brain, and while they danced so, the uncanny was released. Every time he tilted the sunlight or lit the lamps or changed the lenses, he came a little closer; every time he put his head in the machine and cranked the brass gears, he felt the movement try to coalesce; every time his eyes were licked by crooked light, he felt the ghosts arrive.
After his first seizure, alone in the back of their small studio, he was more cautious. He had come out of the machine with a jolt, his legs going in and out of spasm. He remembered nothing, but when he awoke he was on the floor, with a split lip, a bleeding nose, and a torn shirt. He must have looked the way those villains had described him in courtrooms, all those years ago: dislocated, unwell, and raving. He had always felt sure that it was not the morbus comitialis that had ravaged him, but some other, sensitive, higher function of the brain that portrayed a similar effect. And now he had proved it, by finding a way to manufacture it from light.
When he had found his way out of the studio and into the kitchen, he must have been quite a sight; Josephine made a silent scream upon seeing him. His long, greying beard and white shirt were covered in blood, spread everywhere by his excessive perspiration. He tried to reassure her that he was all right, just a small accident. He poured water into the sink to wash, and she went back to her room and locked the door. Locked doors were good things, he thought, as he rinsed his chest. When not in the wilderness, he preferred to live and work behind them, constructing his instruments and carrying out his experiments behind their infallible security.
He resolved to be more careful in the future; he did not want Josephine to be alarmed again. He could not risk her inquisitiveness drawing her fingers to the workings of his delicate optics. The process of logging each variation of light, each arrangement of lens and shutter, and all the effects they subsequently produced in him was a protracted and systematic one. The large, heavy ledger sat in the desk in the corner of the room, a sturdy clasp keeping it shut. Soon, he would visit Gull with his findings, and he was looking forward to seeing the doctor’s expression when confronted with such significant research.
But he was not ready yet. America and Stanford were calling. His two years in England had flown by, and he still needed more time, but that was not an option—he had to return to his adopted homeland as soon as possible. He was musing on this when Josephine knocked on the door. He unlocked it and invited her in. She walked to the chair in front of the camera, touched it, and looked at him. He checked his watch.
“Yes. I do have time for a short sitting this afternoon.”
She actually seemed to enjoy these displays of malady. Even the cruellest of contortions only ever left her tired, and she was always ready for more. He admired this in her. She showed no fear or remorse, never complained or even tried to find a way to; she was so different from the scheming, selfish oaf he had married. He enjoyed her silent company and felt dismal at having to leave so soon with no return date set. He sighed and began to prepare for the exposure, clearing a few things from his workbench and putting them on shelves. He moved his version of the peripherscope from the back of the shelf to make room for a box of negatives. He felt her start behind him and turned to see her reaction.
“What’s wrong, Josephine?”
She pointed to his hand.
“What, this?” he said, holding the clockwork halo of glass and metal towards her.
Her eyes widened and she produced an expression she had not yet demonstrated, a cross between sexual hunger and shortsightedness, as if she was drawing the object towards her; he felt a little awkward. She approached, holding out her hands. He gave her the halo, and she placed it on her head, imitating the sound of its small clockwork motors while placing her flat right hand over her head and making a series of circles with it. Her actions reminded him of one half of a children’s game, one hand circling in front of the solar plexus, the other above the head, to demonstrate the pull of unity between separate coordination of the left and right brain. But this was not a game: She wanted him to operate it for her.
He saw no obvious difficulty in her request. Gull had evidently used it in her previous treatment, and its desirable consequences seemed to have given her pleasure. He took the peripherscope from her and wound the motors. Checking that the mirrors were not loose, he arranged it securely on her head. She returned to the chair with sauntering pleasure. The brass and glass shone in the sun from the bright window, against the darkness of her uplifted head. She was a crowned princess, awaiting her cloak of gold on some distant shore; he, her intrepid provider, the carrier of her inner riches.
They were both smiling when he pressed the tiny levers and set the machine in motion. The effect was instantaneous. Her body tightened and rippled into a firm contour of readiness, as if the nondescript clothing that she wore had somehow become magically tailored to cling to every line of her body. Her posture was catlike, with a salacious stealth that screamed her sexuality. Muybridge was frozen. She closed her heavy lids over smouldering eyes as wave upon wave of orgasm rushed through her body. Every guard, defence, and restraint was swept away from him. His erection was beyond his wildest memories, and it bayed in the constraint of his Scottish woollen trousers. Her sighs turned into mews, then roars. The chair broke, split apart by the energy being driven down through it and into the cringing floor. She stood, fists clenched and head thrown back, panting as the clockwork ran out and the photographer exploded with unbelievable pleasure inside the embarrassed dignity of his thick darkroom underwear.
They went to their own rooms without a word. He waited until he thought she must be asleep, and then he escaped, into an outside world blissfully ignorant of his appalling indiscretion, though he couldn’t help but think that some of the passing mob gave him looks that were all too knowing.
The three or four sessions that followed had been very formal and brief. He spent much of his time shut in the studio, working on the new device, which he had not yet named. Somehow, “zoopraxiscope” did not do his little miracle of reflection justice.
Josephine behaved with her usual decorum, as if the incident had never occurred; their formal and professional friendship seemed unaffected by the nameless incident. However, he had noticed with some disquiet that his version of the peripherscope had been moved from its exact place in his studio. Each time he had gone away she must have taken it, presumably to her room. It had always been returned before he came back, but he noticed the slight differences in its meticulous setting down. Nobody else would have spotted the variation: It takes a trained and scientific eye to observe the unmentioned. At first, he thought of scolding her, but that would mean admittance and knowledge of all, and he had no desire to tread that path again. He could have locked it away or taken it apart. In the end, he did nothing. It was easier to ignore her animal appetites and pretend that he did not know about the daily pilfering. At times, he even congratulated himself in letting her use it; another of his acts of uncalled-for kindness. Anyway, the instrument was no longer of much value to him. He had surpassed Gull’s little plaything; she could have it.
Yet he could not so easily ignore the image of her that afternoon; it tugged at his consciousness each time they met, and it always had the same physical effect on him. After a while, he stopped trying to restrain the memory and its attendant arousal, choosing instead to reclassify it as the normal reaction of a particularly healthy and virile fifty-two-year-old man.
He had begun the process of packing away his things. Josephine knew that he was leaving but that he would visit again upon his return. She had seemed genuinely downhearted at the news of his departure, but perhaps that was just her reaction to the prospect of being separated from the peripherscope.
He had contacted Gull, telling the doctor of his progress and sending the previous batches of pictures to him; the last batch would be picked up the next day by one of his men. But he was hesitant—he could not find it in himself to pack his new invention away, to stop testing it; he certainly did not want to leave it behind. He had had another fit while operating it and was getting butterflies about using it again; he was so close, it was madness to stop now, but he couldn’t continue alone—he needed a guinea pig. Then he heard movement next door and the idea came full circle. Gull would be delighted.
He cleared all appointments for two days and brought provisions to the rooms so that he would not have to go out. In the corner of the studio he set up the camp bed the maid had previously used. All he had to do now was convince Josephine to help.
He arrived very early the first day; she was still sleeping while he made tea and toast in the kitchen. She heard the early kettle boil and came to see what was happening at this time of day. Her hair was tousled, and she wore a heavy hospital dressing gown over her nightdress.
“Good morning, Josephine!” he said to the blinking ex-slave yawning before him. “I have made you some toast and brought us some excellent marmalade.”
Such hospitality was alien to her, and the gaiety of his breakfast making was beyond expectation; she regarded him, and his culinary efforts, with a wary delight.
“These are my last few days before I go away. I have only one important piece of work to finish and I wanted to show it to you later, because I think you might like it. Now, come and sit down.”
He drew a chair out for her to sit, then went to his side of the table and started buttering the toast. “You will like this marmalade; it’s come all the way from Oxford. Some people, myself included, believe it to be the only thing of any value that has been produced by that city!”
The joke was beyond her, and she sipped her tea. He pushed the toast towards her as she looked blankly at him, his scruffy beard full of sharp crumbs that caught her eye.
“I have a gift for you!” he said suddenly, bounding across to the wide-open studio as she looked from him to the food and back again. She was not fully awake, and the marmalade and gifts were causing her the exact amount of confusion he had been aiming for. He returned, grinning, with one arm behind his back.
“I want to give you this; I know you like it.”
He thrust the brown paper parcel in her face and she frowned as she accepted it. Two days before, he had taken the peripherscope from its normal place, wrapped it up in thick brown paper, and placed it in a drawer. Now she held it in both hands, turning it, feeling its obvious form. She immediately knew what it was and started to pick at the string.
“Oh no, not here—it’s yours now. Take it to your room; you can open it there.”
She was suspicious, delighted, and confused. Unable to convey all three emotions at once, she beamed at him and crunched into her toast.
“After breakfast, I will show you my new machine; it’s a bit like that one, only better,” he said, jabbing a prurient finger at the parcel.
She finished her breakfast and went to dress, while he prepared his nameless device. He had moved its component parts around so that she might lie down on the table with her head between the reflecting mechanisms. He had brought the sunlight to the machine with the aid of three parabolic mirrors. It was less smelly and irksome than using the oil lamps, and the day was very much brighter than had been the case in recent weeks.
She was at the door, observing his joyful demonstration. “See? It works just like the other device; these little mirrors spin around, cupping the light from over there. There are lenses all over, look!” He was pointing and fluttering his hands over the polished wood and brass; the sunlight glinted in the lenses. “There are two disc shutters and a rotating drum shutter back here. It’s all controlled by this crank, which I shall turn for a few moments. So what do you think? Are you ready?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded and sat on the table, swinging her legs up to lie flat. He positioned her head and put a simple, thin restraining band across her forehead.
“Excellent! Let’s begin. Ready?” Her eyes blinked “yes.”
He pushed against the crank and the machine spun into motion. By the third turn, he had found his rhythm. The lenses turned into glowing, spinning spheres, stretching, chewing, sphinctering, and splitting the now invented light, which drilled into the sides of the black, responsive eyes, as the shutters chopped and shaved pulses of shadow, brilliance, and darkness. For the first time, the machine hummed. He looked back and forth from it to her face and body, which remained motionless, and to his half-hunter pocket watch, propped up on the shelf nearby. After three minutes, he began to slow down, eventually bringing the machine to a stop. He removed the head strap and helped her to sit up. She was breathing normally, her eyes looked normal, and there wasn’t the faintest trace of any effect. He gave her some water and asked her to walk around the room, which she did while drinking. He was mildly perplexed; there should have been some effect. He consulted his logbook, made a few minor adjustments, and said, “Could we try again, please?”
She nodded with a shrug and climbed back into the device. He cranked it into action again, this time for five minutes. He was perspiring under his tight, itching collar and cuffs. He sat her up again. Nothing. He asked her to lie down and close her eyes, expecting at least dizziness to manifest. She fell asleep. He gently but irritably shook her awake. “One last try, please. Just one.”
They went back to the table. He fastened the strap and cranked again. Eight minutes later, he stopped: The machine was a failure. It worked only for him; she was totally impervious to its influence. It did nothing. He dismissed her with great irritation and sat, gloomily staring at the ridiculous hand-built tangle of disappointment.
He sat until it started to get dark; then he dragged himself together, snatched up his topcoat and hat, and left, slamming the door and waking her again in his exit. He stomped the gritty and dissolute streets for hours, walking in circles, trying to exhaust his rage and fathom what had gone wrong. He stopped at a public house and quietened it for a long moment with his wrong, brooding entrance. He made his way to the bar and ordered Nelson’s Blood from the surprised barman; men of Muybridge’s class were never seen in such neighbourhoods, and certainly not drinking concoctions as potent as the admiral’s blood. Of course, unbeknownst to his unwilling bar fellows, he had been in much rougher establishments than theirs: from the shabby beer halls of the Arctic to the decrepit ratholes of Guatemala, to the gambling house of the Yukon, decorated with icicles of human blood. But he had never drunk alone in a public house in England. Here it was improper; the chronic barriers of position and wealth forbade the fluidity he found everywhere else.
The second drink hit, stirring some mirth out of the sediment of his gloom. Everybody in the cramped, overvarnished rooms of the pub was intensely aware of the gaunt, scraggly-bearded man with crazed prophet’s eyes, who had started talking to himself and grinning into his drink. He was oblivious to them all.
His mind wandered to an earlier time and place, where he had consumed a weighty amount of the potent black-rum-and-port mixture, with a man who had since become an infamous figure, even to those on this miserable rock. They had been in Cheyenne, in the wild Dakota Territories, distinguishing themselves by making loud toasts to the Bard and to Scholarly Conduct, to the Fine Arts and Chivalry. The saloon had been full of armed riffraff; many there with a price on their heads had ignored them and refused to be stirred by their conduct. Muybridge’s drinking companion that day had been John Henry Holliday, the notorious gambler and gunfighter who had made the London newspapers a year earlier, when he and the Earp brothers had staged a magnificently theatrical gunfight in the little-known and appropriately named town of Tombstone. Muybridge was sure that “Doc” Holliday had done most of the killing and maiming on that day, and he wished he had been there to see it, maybe photograph the heroes afterwards.
He shoved his hand into his topcoat’s inside pocket, looking for more money but finding instead the loaded Colt pistol. It was getting like the old days, he slurred to himself. He now had the appetite for a bit of gunplay. Then, with all the rhyme and reason of an amateur drinker, his thought switched to Josephine, to her passive and inert reaction today, to her electric performance with his copy of Gull’s device. Her pliant and sensual magnetism seemed a much better option than shooting the worthless clientele of the Roebuck.
He pulled himself up and made for the door. No one caught his eye, and the pub breathed out when he was gone. He sobered on his way back, getting lost twice and deciding never to drink publicly again, especially with a charged revolver. He stopped over a gurgling drain and emptied the bullets out of the gun; they fell like brass comets into the speeding firmament below.
He turned the key very slowly and entered the apartment without a whisper. He crept back towards his camp bed, trying not to make a sound. He did not want to wake her, to let her see him tipsy after she had seen him in defeat.
As he dragged off his coat and unlaced his boots, he heard a noise that made the hair stand up all over his body. Something was scratching in the rooms. This was no faint animal, no rat or mouse scrabbling for figments of foods; something else was clawing nearby. He patted the walls, finding his way to the shelves. He found the simple tin candelabra and matches, lit its three stubs of candles, and peered through the rooms. The scratching stopped. He was totally sober, with an icy wire inside his spine. He waited, and the clawing began again. He heard wood splinter and rip, and he pushed the hushed light towards it. It stopped again, but he saw a mass on the kitchen floor. It was Josephine’s dark body against the black floor. She was naked and lay very still, staring with unblinking eyes at the flaking ceiling. He brought his light close to her to ward off the unseen creature that scraped in the room. He knelt and touched her arm; it felt very cool, as if she had been out of bed for hours. He held the light high above his head to scan the room and keep the thing at bay; hot wax spilt and splashed across her face. There was no reaction.
“Josephine?” he whispered urgently. “Josephine!”
He touched her neck and felt no pulse. He bent over and put his hairy, impudent ear between her breasts: There was no heartbeat. She was dead. He sank back like a sullen, wet sack, into the collapsed quiet of the rooms and the world. Then the clawing started again. He spun the candles towards it and saw her left hand, frantically digging a pit in the floorboards. The nails were broken and the fingertips bloodied, but the old wood yielded under their insistence. He looked again at her set, dead face; she was elsewhere, but the floor was being eaten away by the live hand’s independent labour. Then silence fell again. He dared not breathe, waiting for the hellish tattoo to start again, wondering fearfully at the life force that sustained its momentum.
As he watched, he realised that her body was slowly coming out of its coma. It warmed and connected to the arm that was still working, the hand continuing to scratch with a violent motion, as if it contained her entire will. Its furious work had lasted for only a few minutes, but they had been the longest he had ever endured. Gull’s words about the hand’s strength came back to him, as did the insane, frail woman who had gutted herself, and the fact that the doctor had named Josephine as his most successful patient. The context of her success brought a sudden, inexplicable chill to his skin.
Gull’s questionable ethics were in the half-lit kitchen with them, two slumped figures caged in a night of fear and guilt. Had his machine produced this? What would he tell Sir William about his prized patient?
She was sleeping normally now, the black curves of her body glistening in a thin layer of sweat. He decided not to move or wake her and instead crept towards her bedroom on all fours, pushing the light before him and trying to keep it away from his beard, which brushed the floor; he intended to fetch a blanket to cover her modesty. It briefly occurred to him that it would be more natural for him to be naked too: His animal posture would then complement hers; if nothing else, it would make an excellent series of photographs, two beasts crawling in one small enclosure. All manner of naked people could be caught thus, in fragments of motion; a zoo of measured humanity.
He was about to stand when he heard movement behind him. She was across the room in a moment, standing over him, her scent overpowering, a purple musk of mammalian heat. Her eyes were luminous and locked on his. She suddenly lashed out at the candles, kicking them across the room. Now it was only her eyes that illuminated the shrunken space. She pushed her face into his, grabbing his hair and throat with massive force. He gasped but was powerless to react. Her strength had become superhuman, and all his instincts told him that, if she decided to, she could snap his neck in a moment. Their noses were crushed together, the glowing eyes staring point-blank into his. He could see nothing but the unfocused light; he felt nauseous and terrified. He tried to close his eyes, but it made him feel worse; the thin skin shrivelled under the intensity, and the glow passed straight through.
They remained meshed together in the hideous coupling for only a few minutes, but for him it felt like suffocating hours. Suddenly, she fell away, peeling off into sleep on the cold, barren floor.
He pawed at his eyes, which felt bruised inside. He was drained and trembling; it had all happened so quickly, each incident taking only moments, enormous quantities of focused energy burning for a few minutes. A few minutes. The spell of clawing had been shorter than the intense staring of her eyes…a few minutes! The sequence of minutes she spent in his machine: three, five, eight. It had worked, but it had been delayed! The flash of understanding and triumph was instantly snatched away by the thought of the next attack: He had only a few moments to escape or defend himself before she woke again and launched a full eight-minute strike.
He scrambled to get up, his legs sliding wildly from under him. Dragging himself to his feet, he collided into the sink, sending a small wooden dryer of crockery crashing to the floor next to the prone sleeper. Cups and plates shattered and spun as he grabbed the door handle to the outside stairs and his escape. It was locked. The keys were in his discarded coat, somewhere in the studio, but where? Where had he dropped them on his drunken return? There was some moonlight, and he stumbled about in it, frantically searching. He heard her stir in her proximate sleep but did not dare to stop and look. He found the coat and thrust his hands into the pockets, fingers rattling for the keys. He was at the door when he found the empty gun. He had twisted the coat inside out, and it clung to his arms. He savagely pulled at it and made it worse. No keys could be found, and his hands were trapped inside the knotted lining. Then she moved.
He screamed as she flung herself at him. Her eyes had dimmed to beyond darkness; no whites could be seen at all. She was a pure, muscular shadow. He tried to cover his throat, but she had no interest in that; it would not be the focus of her prolonged assault. She clawed at his trousers and dragged him to the floor by the ripping waistband, tearing the thick cloth and sturdy undergarments away. He kicked his legs and feebly half-punched at her head with the hand that was not entangled in the coat. She brought one fist pistoning up into his face, and his head snapped back from the sickening force, blood and stars hurtling in all directions. She dashed back to her target. He dared not strike her again: Another such blow would finish him. He waited for her to slash through his abdomen wall, but that was not her target either. She grasped his skulking manhood and threw the last remnants of its covering across the room. Gripping its base with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, cradling his balls with the others, her left hand worked underneath him, and she violently pushed her index finger deep into his anus. Now he was struggling involuntarily. She pushed her finger against his prostate and squeezed with her other hand. His erection reared up, startled and automatic from its cringing sleep. He stopped fighting and fell back, realising what her true target was. She twisted round without loosening her grip. She was over him and lowered the power of her glistening body onto his triumphant, astonished cock. Her hands leapt upwards and grabbed his throat and squeezed while she pumped violently against him. He felt himself continue to grow inside her, expanding to colossal proportions. The pleasure was beating back the outrage and he gave in. He felt the brittle china edge of the broken saucer cut into his rump just before he erupted for the first time. She did not let go, but rode him into the floor, cracking cuts and welts into his skin until the full eight minutes were exhausted. Then she stood up, dripping slowly across the kitchen to her room, quietly shutting the door. He heard the key turn softly in the lock. He tried to get up again, scooping what was left of his pride and his clothing to cover his genitals, which still looked surprised, though this time by the abrupt interruption. He finally peeled the ball of cloth from his arm and found the key to escape. Shaking, he turned his topcoat the right way out, put it on, and limped away.
Making a charge against her was completely impossible; he would be a laughingstock. It was bad enough trying to tell Gull, who looked at him as if he was an idiot. He gave the incredulous doctor an edited account of her violent, mad, animal behavior. Gull calmed him condescendingly and had his wounds tended to by one of the male nurses. Six hours later, when Muybridge was rested and recovered, Gull sent him back to the rooms with two of the hospital’s stoutest men. His crossing was in forty-eight hours and he had to retrieve his property and get it to Liverpool in time to make the boat. He had reloaded the Colt, and he gripped it firmly in his pocket as they entered the scene of the crime, but Josephine had gone, and she had taken all the expensive cameras and everything else that was portable and of any value. His machine was the only item left untouched; it stood in exactly the same position as when she had last been inside it. He did not have time to dismantle it now.
“Please, take great care in crating that up for me.”
“Yes, of course, sir. But Sir William said you were to keep the rooms for your next visit.”
Was he mad? Did Gull seriously imagine that he would take on another of his monsters? He could not wait to see the back of these rooms of deceit and pain. He collected what was left of his possessions and put the logbook with them in the trunk that the men carried away. The long sea crossing suddenly began to seem like a blessing after this. He could rest and heal in its progress, removing the dismal and nightmarish memories of the last twenty-four hours. They left and he locked up behind them. He kept the keys. The stitches in his buttocks and back pulled and twinged as they walked towards the waiting carriage. His instrument had worked; now he had to find a function for its genius.