Like a Wisp of Steam, Thomas Roche [list of e readers txt] 📗

The daguerrographer managed to keep his oar-strokes smooth, but he turned startled, stricken eyes on her. "I buh-beg your...?"

"I find puzzles most abominably boring." Amelia smiled, scooping up a handful of water and letting it trickle through her long fingers. "Ah, you see, I'm determined to be naughty.

You must tell me a story. I want one this afternoon, of your own invention, for my very own."

"Oh, of, of course. Well..." Dodgson cleared his throat, his brow knitting. "There were once thuh-three luh-little girls who lived in a well..."

"Not a children's story," Amelia said quickly. "A story for ... grown-ups." She smiled again and bit her finger. "If you know what I mean..."

Dodgson stared at her, blushing furiously. Then he laughed, a loud laugh that might have been meant to cover up embarrassment, but which also seemed to have a great deal of pleasure in it.

He isn't sure if I'm serious quite yet, she thought. But he would be. Because she was. The world truly was different now. Victoria was dead, and the tides of the world were fast changing.

Hysterical Friction

Thomas S. Roche

Victoria Barker shifted nervously in her seat in the waiting room. She could hear her husband's booming voice as he spoke to Dr. Fitzmartin.

"She's a wreck," Arthur Barker was saying. "If I knew what to do, Charles, I wouldn't be coming to you. At the best of times, you see, she's rather a jittery woman. But lately it's nerve-wracking to be around her! The slightest little thing might set her off!"

Victoria heard the low, seductive rumble of Dr. Fitzmartin's voice. Dr. Charles Fitzmartin was a dear, dear friend of Victoria's father, as well as the family doctor. In fact, Victoria had had quite a crush on him when she was younger, though she never would have admitted it, then or now.

"Describe her symptoms, Arthur. Tell me what you mean when you say something sets Victoria off."

Victoria quivered with sudden nervousness as her memories came flooding back to her. It was as if she were mentally predicting what her husband was about to say. She remembered the nervousness, the depression, her tendency to fly into a rage about the slightest things. It had been months—perhaps years—since she'd felt normal. Truth be told, she never felt normal any more—certainly not since the marriage. For a time Victoria had thought it was the stress of running the household. But now she knew it had to be more than that. It was like some horrible nervous disease, eating away at her.

But what Arthur told Charles was this: "She's so damn nervous all the time." Arthur seemed to be struggling with a difficult description. Then, all of a sudden, he burst out with,

"She's like a cat that's been buggered something fierce!

Pardon my French."

There was a long pause as Charles Fitzmartin assessed the meaning of Arthur's salty phrase. Dear Arthur's time in the service had left him with a profound vocabulary of rather off-color phrases, though of course he would never have used such language in his wife's presence. But then again, Arthur's booming voice always carried much further than he realized, so Victoria had certainly heard more than her fair share of his naughty talk. Truth be told, she thought it was kind of appealing, in a masculine sort of way. One of the few things she found masculine about Arthur. As a matter of fact, it caused a curious sensation to grow near the back of her brain— but of course that was unacceptable. Victoria ignored the sensation, feeling her hands shake as she did. It simply wouldn't do to be thinking of things like that at any time—least of all when she was at the doctor's to be treated for this profound nervous illness that seemed to be taking her over.

Despair flowed through Victoria and she began to whimper nervously, as if in prequel to a burst of tears.

"Bugger?" came the calm voice of Dr. Charles Fitzmartin, in quizzical response to Arthur's rather earthy assessment of his wife's condition. "A cat that's been buggered, you say?"

There was a long silence.

"Oh, for the love of God, Charles, you're not implying—you can't possibly mean—certainly—that's not at all what I meant!

Such a thing would be totally unthinkable, even you have to admit!" Arthur lowered his voice, which was terribly unusual.

But he was unable to lower it so much that Victoria didn't understand what he said. "Not that I haven't—I mean, Charles, you have to understand, I've been in the army, and on numerous hunting expeditions, it's simply not proper to do it the usual way and risk certain ... conditions. But with my wife? Never! Well, what I'm saying is, Victoria would never go for such a thing and you really oughtn't to make such assumptions from everything I say, do you hear me?"

Dr. Fitzmartin laughed. "Of course, Arthur. I meant no offense. I wasn't implying your relations with Victoria were unnatural. Of course such a thing is unthinkable."

Victoria burst into tears, choking back sobs as she quivered uncontrollably in the hard-backed chair.

It was then that the sobbing Victoria noticed Dr. Fitzmartin's assistant—Chloe was her name, wasn't it? Clara, Chloe, something like that. Her last name was Waters, or Rivers, or something similar. The young woman had been moving about the room restlessly—rearranging things and dusting the furniture, that sort of thing. And the girl—Chloe, Clara, Carla—kept pausing in her work to glance over at Victoria and offer a faint, nervous little smile. The first few times it happened Victoria had thought nothing of it. She thought it was just the friendly gesture of a concerned health professional. But as Victoria's breast quivered with the unstoppable onset of tears, she noticed that this time the receptionist—Chloe, Clara, Catherine—was not looking away.

She looked about to say something, but did not.

Victoria took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes as the receptionist returned to her filing. Victoria noticed for the first time that the starched white dress the girl was wearing was just a shade too tight for