Chapter Two

“Dr. Christopher?”

Julius looked up from reading to see his assistant standing in the doorway of his study, her woolen dress somehow provocative despite the high collar and drab gray. “Yes, Grace?”

“Your next appointment is here.” Grace moved to the window and closed the drapes against the clouds of November clustering darkly outside. “I’ve let her into the examination room and told her to remove what clothes she needs to remove.”

“Thank you, Grace.” Julius smiled as he laid his science pamphlet aside. Every once in a while, Grace’s East End manner of speaking came to the fore. She’d only been with him for six months, but in that time, sheer determination on her part had softened her accent and uplifted her vocabulary. She’d also learned a great deal about the medical profession by mere observation and was quickly learning how to read beyond street signs and shop placards.

“I’ll give you a few moments to get ready before I begin.” She smiled sweetly. “But don’t be too long. I don’t want the patient to catch cold.” Her skirts swished as she exited.

Julius stood and stretched before heading downstairs, slipping quietly into the little room under the stairway. There he sat in an easy chair positioned before a small observation window, looking into the examination room. The “peephole”—as Grace called it—was cleverly disguised on the other side of the wall so as not to be detected by a patient.

In the examination room, Grace chatted with his patient, a wondrously voluptuous nineteen-year-old who had been most unequivocal about her virginal status. Which probably meant she had let a young man or two have a bit of fun—but only so far. Real virgins simply blushed and stammered when he queried them about such matters.

He unbuttoned the fly of his trousers and the fly of his drawers. He was only semi-hard, which wasn’t at all unusual as he had been reading Dr. Drysdale’s paper on germ theory, and, while the work had been most enlightening, it had not been arousing in the slightest. Seeing Grace stirred him. She had been sashaying around of late, swaying her hips invitingly. She had even begun to dress for dinner, the low-cut necklines of her gowns quite distracting. At night, in their bedroom, her desire for lascivious delights and her creativity in their exploration led to memories that refused to dissipate during the day.

Grace instructed the girl to lie down on the medical table and slide her heels in the metal stirrups. She had to spread her legs to do so, providing Julius a view of her glorious cunt, fringed in the same ginger-red curls as were on her head. Grace knew his letches all too well, and girls with coppery-red hair were one of them. Grace began her ministrations, all the while explaining what would be happening. First she would lubricate a sensitive area between the girl’s legs then massage the area in preparation for the real treatment—“Dr. Christopher’s special electro-mechanical vibrating device for the alleviation of symptoms of hysteria”. Grace always said that part with pride. Then she advised, if at any time the girl wanted to vocalize, she should feel very free to do so.

Julius liked it when the girls moaned and screamed. They had even set up a system of tubes and horns to capture the sounds so he could hear all when sequestered in the little room under the stairs.

He grabbed his cock, now rock-hard, mesmerized by Grace’s stroking of the girl, her fingers nimble and well-practiced. The girl flinched then calmed, the signal for Grace to begin the real treatment.

Julius stroked his shaft slowly.

Grace moved the cart housing the device closer to the table then grabbed the brass baton fitted with the phallic wooden peg. The baton concealed a small vibrating machine, she explained, which was the secret to the cure.

Grace bent over, knowing full well that Julius would be delighted by a view of her backside, and turned on the motor. The familiar and arousing whirring sound began.

He quickened his pace.

She pressed the phallus to the girl’s clit. The girl jerked and yelped then, after a calming word from Grace, merely writhed under the stimulation of the machine.

Grace bit her lower lip, sucking on it a moment before she flicked her tongue out to the side of her mouth, drawing it along her upper lip, wetting it. She kept a watchful gaze on the device under half-lidded eyes, her expression soft, the only emotion an eagerness for the girl’s success.

The girl screamed her climax.

Julius blinked. He missed it. He hadn’t been watching the girl. He had been watching Grace.

He still gripped his cock, suddenly waning in the shock of anti-climax. He chilled. He should still be hard. Was it age? He had never before felt the effects of age. Other men nearing fifty had such problems, but never he.

The girl must have come too quickly. It was a testament to Grace’s skill with his patients that the girl was relaxed enough to achieve her culmination in a matter of minutes.

He blinked again and the girl was dressing, Grace clearing away the equipment. The two chatted for a moment before Grace showed the girl out.

Julius stared through the peephole, disbelieving, dismayed by what had just transpired.

“Jules?” Grace’s voice at the door sparked a little thrill inside him. He squeezed his cock as it grew hard again.

She approached. “You’re still here.”

“I am.”

“She had her climax too quickly.”

“She did,” he sighed.

“Let me help you.”

Her words were a balm to his unrequited resolution. She knelt before him, ran her hands up his thighs. She uncurled his fingers still holding fast and pushed them aside.

And then her mouth was around him, hot and wet. He closed his eyes to block out the view of the examination room, letting the moment contain just him and Grace, lovely Grace, whose magical mouth was sucking, whose hot tongue was stroking. He leaned back into the chair.

He lay his hands on either side of her head, threading his fingers through her silky brown hair, letting her bobbing motions move his arms, letting her take him to a place he could not take himself.

Did he rely on her too much? A man shouldn’t rely on a woman. They were as inconstant in their hearts as they were capricious with their fashions, yet they somehow remained jealous of a man’s affections.

Grace’s attentions grew urgent, dragging him away from his thoughts to focus on his cock. He was almost there, he needed to stop thinking, stop thinking about her, about her mouth, her heat, let her take him there, let her take control—

He bucked up, spewing his seed in her swallowing throat. She continued sucking as he softened. She sat back on her heels and smiled up at him.

“Thank you, Grace.” With a gentle touch of a finger, he lifted her chin and kissed her, tasting himself on her tongue.

What would I do without you?

* * * * *

Grace lay in Julius’ bed, staring into the night, the spatter of rain against the windows badgering her thoughts. She turned onto her side and pulled the covers over her head.

The full effect of what had happened earlier that day was only now sinking in. Had Julius finally lost interest in his sexual experiments? Was he putting aside family practice altogether? And if so, did that mean he no longer needed her?

He had been, of late, reading about some new medical procedure, something about germs, had even recently purchased a shiny brass microscope. He spent quite a bit of time in his study with his new toy, offering gentle smiles when she joined him to enrich her reading skills with one of his scientific journals. She had interpreted these quiet moments as comfortable, domestic silence. But what if, instead, it was polite disregard for her presence?

Over the last six months, she had hoped Julius would not tire of her, yet deep down she had expected it. Like all men, he would eventually feel the relationship no longer exciting. And, for the first time with a man, Grace felt the sting of abandonment. Julius was so different from her other lovers. He had helped her so much with her education, been so patient with her presence in his house, had been so generous with his purse, lifting her from the oppression of abysmal poverty. He had truly been her savior.

She needed something to remember him by.

They had been sharing his bed at night for months now but it had never held any emotional meaning for them. The bedroom was only one of the rooms where they fucked. If Julius was in the mood for something unusual, he would poke her in the little room under the stairs where the strange erotic equipment was stored. Often he would shag her in the examination room after his final patient had left. Julius was simply insatiable and when the mood struck he would take her. She really only slept in his bed so he could wake up and satisfy his morning erection. The bedframe was huge, the mattress comfortable, the quilt warm, so there was never the need to spoon and cuddle like couples did on bleak cots under thin blankets in frigid East End hovels.

But she wouldn’t go back there again.

She had saved every penny from the wages Julius insisted on paying her, had taken care of the dresses he had purchased for her, had taken every opportunity to further her knowledge about the world around her. She would request he help her find a respectable position in another medical office, and, Julius being kind and generous as he was, would oblige.

And she would never tell him about his child.

He regularly supplied her with appliances of birth control and a calendar to chart her courses. He claimed it was out of mere medical curiosity, that he wanted to know what items inserted inside her body felt like—for both him and her—during intercourse. But surely a man of his age with legions of past lovers and a tendency toward medical experimentation would already know what it felt like to engage in sexual congress with a pessary inside his lover?

That evening, she had decided she would stop using birth control.

He wouldn’t know. Julius no longer watched her preparations, no longer inquired about her courses and had often remarked how imperceptible the various barriers were. From her work in his office, Grace learned how some women concealed their pregnancies, learned how the female body—and disposition—changed over nine months and beyond, learned the names of highly regarded midwives. Many of the patients complained about their husbands’ disinterest in their children. Grace could handle a baby on her own. She would gaze into her child’s blue eyes and remember what she and Julius had once shared.

The bedroom door opened, the dim light of an oil lamp illuminated Julius’ slender form. He set the lamp on the bedside table and removed his clothes, fastidiously placing each garment on his wooden valet stand. And then he was naked, the glow of the lamp gold against his pale skin. Grace would never tire of the sight of his nude body, sleek and muscular. It would be something she would surely miss.

He turned off the light and crawled under the covers, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight, sliding Grace toward him. She righted herself but as she shifted he pulled her against him, enveloping her in his arms. He hiked up her nightgown, his cock slack at first in the furrow of her buttocks but quickly growing hard. He didn’t take her immediately. They lay quietly, breathing to the same rhythm, his naked heat suffusing her with drowsy warmth, lulling her to doze off. When he wanted her, he would make the first move.

The heat of his palm cupping her mons startled her awake. He slid his finger through her slit, arousing her from her sleepy state, finding her clit and stroking gently. He rarely massaged her in such a way. He spent most of his working day inciting women to orgasm and Grace accepted that Julius would not perform such acts on her. She was capable of achieving her own climax. If a man touched her in such a way, it was because he held some romantic notion about her.

And Julius was not the type of man to give in to romantic notions.

Except right now, he was insisting quite adamantly that she climax.

He rubbed relentlessly as she flailed against him, trying desperately not to moan his name, instead murmuring approbations. It was too easy to fall under his sensual spell. His expert touch was unflinching, so she simply gave in. Desire pooled in her belly as he pressed harder, goading her forward with whispered encouragements, knowing every twitch of her body meant she was closer to the brink.

With a final jerk and a cry, she came against his hand. She closed her eyes and drew in a long breath, relaxing with each exhale. But suddenly Julius tugged off her nightgown, pushed her legs apart and slid inside her, thrusting with resolve until the queerest look came over his face and he slowed.

He gazed down at her, his expression soft, his lips parted. And then he bent over and kissed her.

She came at the touch of his mouth, came again when he deepened the union, tangling their tongues, his whiskers tickling her face. He rarely kissed her and this kiss was like nothing he had ever bestowed, a kiss full of the passion she felt, the passion she was certain he did not feel for her.

He broke free to quicken his pace, moments later slamming inside her with a growl, holding himself aloft as he came inside her. His chest heaved from exertion as he lay beside her, coiling an arm around her shoulder.

Grace stared at the ceiling, stunned. Their lovemaking had never been so profound.

She shouldn’t read too much into what had just happened. Surely Julius was simply expressing his gratitude for that afternoon’s release. She smiled as she burrowed into the crook of his arm. Rumor among some in her old neighborhood held that a child conceived amidst a woman’s pleasure would most certainly be a boy.

A boy with black hair and blue eyes to remember her Julius by.