“Come in last week. Phillipa has been selling me as strange. Reckon at this rate, I’ll pay her back what it cost to bring me here in another week. Or would have if she hadn’t lost the place. No telling about the new owner.”
“Tell me if you feel any pain or tenderness.”
Butler watched Doc press his fingers here and there into her abdomen above her pubis.
“What’s he a-doin’?” Billy Templeton wondered, bending over the bed and squinting.
“Checking for lumps or other trouble. Get back, Private. Don’t make a pest of yourself. The rest of you men, don’t be obnoxious.”
“He really is crazy like they say, ain’t he?” Gina remarked. She shifted her head, uncertain brown eyes fixing on Butler.
“It’s called the fatigue. Happened a lot to soldiers in the war. Butler’s case is severe,” Doc explained as he straightened and reached for his bag. “Have you been feeling nervous, out of sorts? Jittery?”
“Ain’t been sleeping, Doc. Seems like I can’t ’thout I take a swig of laudanum.”
“I’d say it’s the hysteria. Probably brought on by the stress of relocating and working in a new place. How long has it been since you’ve had a release?”
“What’s a release? I pee and shit fine.”
“That delightful tingling down in your privates after good sex. What we call a paroxysm.”
“Been a while, Doc. You’re the first as has ever asked.”
“Why’s he worried about that?” Jimmy Peterson wondered where he hovered near the door.
Butler explained. “That spasm of the female organs releases the pressures inside a woman. Supposed to be most pleasant.”
Gina shot him a wary glance. “Who’s he talking to?”
“People he imagines in his head.” Doc settled on the bed beside her. “You’ve never been treated for hysteria?”
“No, sir.”
“But you’ve heard about it. Probably from the other girls.”
She nodded.
Doc told her, “When I was in medical school I read a report by a doctor named George Taylor who claimed that one out of four women suffers from hysteria at some point or another.” Reaching between her legs he began to massage her. “It used to be called the ‘Widow’s disease,’ and was thought to be the result of sexual relations being cut off.”
Gina laughed. “As many johnnys as I’ve drained the last couple of days, that ain’t me.”
“But like a widow you haven’t released the tension that builds up in the female loins, either.” Doc paused. “And don’t ask me how it works, Gina. There’s a lot about medicine we just don’t know yet.”
“Corporal, step back, please. Don’t crowd, the room’s already small enough.” Butler glared at Pettigrew.
Gina swiveled her head, staring uneasily around the room.
“Don’t worry about Butler,” Doc told her. “He’s harmless. And his imaginary soldiers are even more harmless than he is.”
She chuckled, closing her legs and almost trapping Doc’s hand.
“Just lie back and relax,” Doc told her. “Clear your mind and think of something pleasant.”
“You sure I shouldn’t be charging your brother, Doc? Generally someone’s paying when a man watches me get my cunny rubbed.”
“Might not be a bad idea,” Doc told her with a grin. “Given all the men he says he’s got locked inside that head of his, you’d make a fortune.”
“Ah, now!” Corporal Pettigrew groaned and shook his head.
“It’s all right, Miss Gina,” Butler said, waving the men back. “We’re like surgical assistants. We’re all learning to be medical men now that the war’s over.”
“Butler,” Doc told him, “you could help by packing up my case and remaining silent while Gina concentrates on healing herself.”
Butler placed a finger to his lips to silence the men, and slipped around Frank Thompson to replace Doc’s instruments.
Tightening the case straps, he crouched on the floor and considered everything they still had to do. This was the last of the girls in Phillipa’s parlor house. Doc had had to douse one with mercury when he’d discovered a discharge and prescribed a vinegar douche for another with pernicious odor.
“We all getting practiced at woman’s medicine,” Kershaw said behind his ear.
“All the better for you to take care of your wife when you get home, Sergeant,” he whispered, hoping Kershaw could hear.
On the bed, Gina finally gasped and tensed, her hips rising as Doc’s stimulation brought on the paroxysm. When she’d relaxed, Doc stood.
“Feeling better?” he asked as he turned to wash his hands in the small porcelain basin.
“Been a while,” she told him.
“The sensation of pressure should be gone.” Doc gave her a reassuring smile as Gina pulled her gown down. “If it isn’t, send word and I’ll come back. If it’s bad, and I’m not around, you can conjure your own relief. Or have one of the girls do it for you.”
“You mean…” She blinked. “Ain’t that sinful? Agin’ the Bible or something?”
“Not if it’s for medical needs,” Doc told her. “If it was sinful, God wouldn’t have designed a woman’s system the way He did when He made Eve from Adam’s rib.”
Doc met Butler’s eyes and led the way out into the hallway with its sconce lamps, thick Persian rug, and varnished-pine wainscoting.
“The men are still fascinated,” Butler told him. “We’ve learned so much. A man never gives much thought to how different women are from men.”
“Are they, Butler? How many times have we heard the story that a young man who bottles up his semen and does not find relief will go crazy?”
“You think that’s what happened to me?” Butler blinked. “Are you making fun of the fact that I’ve never lain with a woman, Philip?”
Doc stopped short at the head of the stairs. “I wasn’t aware that you’d never … And no, I’m not making fun of you.”
“C’est merde! Reckon he gonna be thinking on dat something fierce now, Cap’n,” Kershaw whispered behind his ear. “Doc dun got a twist in his tail when it come to driving us outta yor head.”
Carrying Doc’s case, Butler followed his brother down the creaking stairs and into the foyer. Bill Phillips, the “professor” who played the piano and saw to keeping order for Phillipa, beckoned him into the parlor.
Phillipa, a buxom woman
