Orpheus and the Pearl & Nevermore Read Online Free Page A

flaunted it or brought it on herself. What
was she supposed to do? She was already three-quarters of the way
to being a eunuch; she bitterly thought how she might as well shave
her head and finish the job. She half turned back toward Dr.
Wallston, her eyes narrowed, her teeth clenched, and her voice just
a whisper. “What are you implying, doctor?”
    He was stammering and as flustered as she.
“Nothing. Please, doctor, I just think concealing your hair would
be more therapeutic at this time.”
    “ I see.” Catherine turned
away from him again. As with the buttons, to let down her hair
while facing him would be more whorish than anything she could
imagine or endure. She reached up and pulled out the pins and let
her hair fall. Dr. Wallston took the rather enormous flow of curls
and laid it on her back, then gathered in the strays locks and
gently smoothed down the soft and vibrant mass with his hands.
Catherine very deliberately kept herself from stiffening or
flinching at his very nearly inappropriate touch, but really, she
felt little inclined to bristle, for his touch was neither
suggestive, nor was it as awkward and tense as their verbal
exchange had just been. Instead, she could immediately feel how he
had successfully earned his reputation as a seducer, for his touch
was purely and simply comfortable, confident, and
natural.
    Equally comfortable was how he finished,
letting her hair alone before it became impossible to ignore the
inappropriateness of their position, leaving her with a calm and
pleasant memory instead of more embarrassment. She could feel him
fastening the lowermost hook, then working his way up, tucking her
hair in at each hook. When he was finished, she turned and he
offered her the gloves and the helmet. She put these on. There was
a mirror above the chest and she saw herself, how absurd she
looked, like some Medieval pageboy at a battle or tourney. All she
needed was a halberd or lance to complete the picture.
    Dr. Wallston checked his pocket watch. “Let
us go prepare to see the patient, doctor. It’s nearly time.”
     
    Dr. Wallston led Catherine into a hallway near the
back of the house where there was a pale blue curtain suspended on
the wall. The curtain did not reach the floor, but only hung down
about halfway. Dr. Wallston pulled the curtain aside, revealing a
window behind it, about a foot high and six feet wide, set at eye
level. This window looked into an immaculate, tiled room, almost
blinding in its total and extreme whiteness, for not only were the
tiles this color, but so was every other item in the room. On the
left side of the room was a door – or rather, an oval metal hatch
with a circular handle and round window in it, the kind of
watertight hatch they would have on board a ship, or on the new,
hellish weapon of war, the submarine. Catherine looked to the left
and saw that there was a door a few feet down the hall, and she
suspected the hatch and that door both connected to an anteroom to
allow access to the tiled laboratory. In the middle of the tiled
room was an enormous tub, standing about four feet high and also
made of white tiles. It was filled with a liquid which, if it were
not for the stark and complete whiteness of its surroundings, might
have also looked pure white, but which the contrast revealed to
have a touch of yellow in it, like cream or buttermilk. The surface
rippled and swirled slightly, as though there were currents or
motion under the surface, and very faint wisps of a yellowish steam
or fog drifted up from it. There was a metal grate in the ceiling
above the tub, into which the yellow vapor drifted. Also in the
room were a large table and cabinet by the wall, a smaller table
with towels on it by the tub, and a folding screen near the
back.
    Dr. Wallston pointed at the metal hatch, the
tub, then up at the grate. “We have to be extremely careful with
the revivification elixir and the vapors from it. It is a compound
of the most potent nerve