The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [18]
The bill was somehow already on the table, and my stomach roiled when I saw that it was ten dollars, as much as I made in a week. I barely had enough to cover the cost and as I fumbled for the coins, Monique grasped my wrist. Her hand was warm and slightly moist. “Don’t listen to him, Ephie. Stay. Have some fun.”
I wanted very much to do as she suggested but Turk still had me under the arm. “I’m very sorry, Monique. You are lovely, but I must go. Perhaps another time.”
Before she could respond, Turk had dragged me from the table. “Get a move on, Carroll. We have to leave now.”
All the way across the floor, Turk looked around, as if waiting for someone to appear. He did not relax until the carriage had put some considerable distance between us and The Fatted Calf.
CHAPTER 4
I DID NOT ARRIVE AT the hospital until nine the next morning, at least one hour later than was customary. If not for my landlady, I might not have made it at all. It had taken her ten minutes of knocking on my door to rouse me and, after she had, it seemed as if the pounding had merely transferred itself to the inside of my skull. After I moaned that I was awake, Mrs. Mooney left me to struggle out of bed. When I finally made my appearance in the parlor, she peered at me over her spectacles in sympathetic reproach, as one would treat a favored pet that had uncharacteristically soiled the carpet. She insisted that I take coffee and a light breakfast, which I did only with Spartan will.
My memory of the previous night had taken on a preternatural aura. Although I was certain of the basic time line and some of the events remained clear, there were any number of particulars, especially in The Fatted Calf, that I could not be sure were actual occurrences or partially imagined. While I remembered with utter clarity the press of Monique’s breasts and thighs, my brief glimpse of the man in the bowler hat had evolved into phantasm. The notion that it had been Dr. Osler seemed preposterous, but I somehow could not expunge the vision of him from my mind.
The ride home remained a blur. Turk had spoken little, but rather had seemed weighed upon by a great burden. I had assured him that since we were now friends, he could confide in me, but he had merely glared and may have even called me a moron. After he dropped me at my rooms, I had no memory of how I made my way upstairs and into bed. I vowed never to drink to excess again, a vow I had made a number of times in the past, but never since I had arrived in Philadelphia.
My disquiet, however, went deeper than memories clouded by cheap champagne. Had Turk not forced me to leave, there was no doubt that I would have committed an indiscretion with Monique. I had wanted to desperately and, had I succumbed, I would have engaged in a monumentally foolhardy act. Men of my generation could not take such risks. When desperation overcame reason, those who resorted to prostitutes—or dancers in Bonhomme’s Paris Revue—did so at great peril. Disease was rampant and the protection that did exist, disgusting devices called condoms—thick, galvanized rubber monstrosities with a seam running down one side—were so unpleasant and unwieldy that few employed them. My one sexual experience had come during my tenure in Chicago and I had been lucky to escape unscathed.
Her name was Wanda. She was a Polish girl of eighteen, with blond braids and woeful eyes, the daughter of a patient. Our association began innocently enough—we visited the local arcade or took a streetcar to the lakefront and strolled under the stars. After about a month, she suggested that we return to my rooms. I was twenty-three years old; I allowed desire to overwhelm reason. Afterward, as we lay in bed together, I felt both an enormous feeling of well-being and a crippling rush of guilt.
I continued to see her, our time together consisting almost entirely of lovemaking. When I was with her, I could not restrain myself and as much as the release was ecstatic, it always left me wanting more. I didn’t love her, however, and when I was not with