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  “Whit?”

  He heard Whit pouring himself a whiskey, and then his bare legs appeared under his own dressing gown, sitting down on the ottoman close by. “Yeah. Can’t sleep either.”

  “Is my horsehair mattress bothering you?” Huntley rotated his head so he could view Whit’s face, gently lit by the whale oil lantern.

  “No, no. The mattress is splendid. I just can’t take my mind off Belle. My new maid,” he added with some malice.

  “Your new maid? Since when did you lay claim to her? I could use a maid as well, especially since I own most of this entire house!”

  Whit frowned. Was it possible he was no longer joshing? “I laid claim to her, if you recall, when you literally told me I was welcome to have her, as long as I kept her away from you!”

  Exhaling violently, Huntley returned his head to the face-forward position, glaring at the couch’s arm. “Fine, then. See if I care! She’ll clean your bedroom only and will leave the rest of our messes on the ground. Hell, I was the one who took her captive.”

  “Come, come,” Whit soothed, and it sounded as though he had even reached a hand out to pet Huntley’s hair.

  Huntley actually would have liked that. His body had lately been crying out for human touch, and he was very, very sorry he’d overreacted to Whit’s stimulating medical massage. It was just the European way, and he’d misinterpreted it, and…“Hey,” Huntley mumbled. “Maybe that medical massage could help me sleep.” He even raised his head and looked at Whit. “You heard Sheriff Burney. I’m of no use if I haven’t slept in days.”

  Whit’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh, no doubt! I’m a firm believer in the regenerative power of sleep. I could see that morning before Battle Mountain, you had enjoyed a very unpolluted and invigorating rest. Let me go get my bottle of musk root oil.”

  Invigorating, Huntley thought as Whit went to fetch the oil. He remembered to disrobe from the waist up, so merely lifted his torso and removed the dressing gown sleeves from his arms. His fingers unknotted the belt, and he pressed his half-tumescent penis down between his legs, so it would lie flat against the silk of the gown, as it had been positioned that time Whit had attempted to stroke it.

  Replacing his chin atop his fist, he waited with increasing trepidation, thighs slightly spread, enjoying the enticing feel of his erection against the silk. He knew what he wanted. He hoped Whit would continue the massage and not leave off where Huntley had so unceremoniously put a stop to it. It was unthinkable, debauched, and depraved. But if it was medically sound…

  Whit returned to the room and sat down. “I took Belle to your store today.” Whit smeared the pool of musk root oil between Huntley’s shoulder blades. “She didn’t talk to anyone, but I wanted to purchase her some decent women’s clothing.”

  “Did Stephen Holt take care of you?” Huntley asked, referring to his assistant. Stephen Holt would have to take care of most everything when Huntley was out scouting for Indians. Gooseflesh rose again on his shoulders when Whit vigorously wriggled his fingers down his bicep and forearm. He loosened one arm, allowing the fingers to brush against the carpet. Whit lifted the hand into his lap to squirm each of his fingers in turn, causing Huntley’s cock to expand uncomfortably. But he kept his legs spread, exhausted and salacious after the day’s events.

  “Yes, we obtained some attractive clothing, but everyone still seemed to look upon Belle as an Indian woman. She looks very handsome with her hair done up in a kerchief. She’s quite exotic-looking, though. Not exactly the woman you expect to see coming from Missouri. She looks a bit of the Far East.”

  Huntley chuckled. “We can let everyone continue to think she’s Indian. No sense in having a huge rush of potential suitors banging down our door.” Our door. That sounded odd, yet pleasant.

  Huntley knew he couldn’t approach Belle with the same savoir faire, or lack of it, that he’d always approached squaws. He simply could not just grab her, fling her down on all fours, and screw her while grunting. No, Yankee women required wooing, little gifts, flattery. They required that one actually discover something of them personally, ask them petty questions about their parents, childhood, favorite toys and flowers—if Huntley could recall correctly, it had been so long since he had courted anyone.

  Whit moved back to Huntley’s shoulder blade, and when he slid his long fingers between skin and the loosened silk of the dressing gown, he deliberately tickled Huntley’s erect nipple.

  Huntley sighed. He did not want to overreact again, leap up and jam his elbow into Whit’s jaw. No, he needed to let Whit know that whatever physician’s techniques he chose to utilize, it was fine with him. Now Whit massaged and even pinched the sensitive nipple, and Huntley raised his torso a fraction of an inch to give him more space.

  “Well, that Steve Holt character was overly interested in her, even if he did think she was an Indian,” Whit said calmly. It obviously did not have the same effect on him, rubbing another man’s nipple in a circular pattern. That was good. Doctors were no doubt oblivious to the same techniques practiced over and over again. “But once she gets up the grit to start speaking to people—she’ll have to start ordering her own produce, for example, or merely purchase a dozen eggs—they’ll soon find out. I recommend that either one of us sticks close by her at all times.”

  “What about when we’re off on campaign? You want to accompany us on the next one to the Merced River and close to your beloved Ahwahnee Valley. Don’t let Bud know that, when you find him. I don’t need him going off all half-cocked ahead of time, randomly beheading Indians in his zeal.”

  Whit’s powerful hands swept down the plane of Huntley’s lower back, the thumbs describing knotted patterns and releasing painfully exquisite rushes of blood down the backs of his legs. Whit had to vault himself off the ottoman a few inches to put his weight into this procedure. “I plan,” he said huskily, “on bringing Belle on campaign with us.”

  Huntley’s eyes popped open. He barely noticed Whit slithering loose the gown’s belt from his hips, drawing the silk down to expose his uplifted ass to the brisk winter air. Now Whit could view his throbbing prick, so elongated it felt like a block of wood, the heat nearly burning his inner thighs. “What benefit is there in bringing her along?”

  Whit massaged the globes of his ass, almost lovingly rotating the mounds, the pads of his thumbs coming so dangerously close to the sensitive opening of his asshole Huntley could feel his testicles twitching, expanding. He felt so hot he was sure steam was rising from his body. But he wasn’t becoming sleepier. Just drunker and lustier. “I can see great benefit,” Whit said nonchalantly. “She knows the area, knows the mountains. She can help us scout. The main problem standing in our way is, how willing will she be to help us discover her brethren?”

  “I can see that being a major obstacle,” Huntley agreed breathlessly. “What benefit is there for her, helping us find Indian sign?” Whit stroked a thumb directly against his furrowed asshole, and he mindlessly gasped, raising his hips slightly off the silk, urging himself toward the pleasuring hands.

  Whit’s voice quieted. He sounded almost drunk himself. “That will be the problem. We can only hope that she agrees that it’s best for all Indians if they just turn themselves in. They’ll be rubbed out eventually anyway, and this way, the government provides for them.”

  Apparently, Whit continued with a few more sentences, but Huntley didn’t hear them. One stroking hand delved between his thighs to encase his balls in a hot, oily hand. As Whit fondled his balls with a blunt manipulation, Huntley kept telling himself it was part of the medical massage treatment. Lifting his hips, he subtly humped the silk of the dressing gown, gooseflesh rising on the crests of his ass as Whit dribbled oil directly to his testicles. Huntley sighed with approval and spread his thighs even further apart as he humped the couch, the rubbing of the silk against his cock bringing him halfway to the brink of orgasm.

  What was Whit saying? Laudanum? “Laudanum?” Huntley gasped. Whit titillate
d his full sac so expertly with his right hand, while his oily left thumb continued to rotate creamily against his asshole. God’s holy trousers. Was bringing him off part of the medical plan? If so, Huntley would go with it. Whit was a physician. Maybe he knew by some secret indicators that Huntley was bucking to go, hot as a monkey, and right now all he could think was Please touch my cock. Please touch my cock. For God’s sake, touch my cock.

  It wasn’t shameful, part of a sodomite’s repertoire. It was a medical necessity, to get his blood flowing properly again.

  “Yes, Belle has asked me for laudanum…”

  The finger was inserted slightly into his anus while the palm assiduously massaged his balls, slithering down to grasp his penis. The fingers described orgasmic ecstasies of tiny figure eights, intricate calligraphy of Arabic symbols that felt like the mouths of eight prostitutes lapping at his prick. Instantly a flood of semen rushed up his prick just shy of exploding out the head, and Huntley heard himself gasp loudly. Raising his pelvis from contact with the couch, he held himself up on all fours as though begging to be fucked.

  His cock now free to spring upward, nearly slapping up against his abdomen in its rigid state, Whit lustily wrapped his hand around it, reaching around Huntley’s raised hips as he came to his knees on the couch behind him. Whit pumped his cock with abandon like a piston, squirming his fingers in all manner of luscious patterns while Huntley fucked the hand in midair. He bucked like an untamed mustang, gasping and exhaling, completely randy and open. He heard his voice like some disembodied specter, uttering unspeakable things such as, “Frig me, god damn it. Frig me!”

  Whit wedged his own clothed erection into the cleft of Huntley’s ass as he vigorously masturbated his friend, his fist making obscene squishing sounds as he squeezed and stimulated the entire length of it. Huntley pumped his hips into the wanton fist, his arms trembling with the tension of being brought nearly to the brink of orgasm a hundred times in one minute, only to have Whit ease off, slide the hand back down to fondle his balls, leaving his cock bobbing, oozing drops of semen from the tip.

  “Frig me, you bastard,” Huntley commanded.

  Whit’s voice was irritatingly calm and soothing, close to Huntley’s ear as he coiled his torso over Huntley’s hunched body. “Oh yes,” Whit said smoothly. “Oh yeah. Do it.” He clapped his fist around the penis again and pumped in earnest while muttering profane and lewd filth that seemed impossible, coming from such an upstanding physician. “Oh yes. Do it. Come for me, you big, beautiful buck of a man.”

  Huntley was nearly out of his mind with lust. Later on, all he recalled gasping was, “Bring me off. Frig me. Do it, bastard!”

  In turn, Whit’s filthy talk brought Huntley to the very apex of salaciousness. “Good Lord, your big, fat donkey’s prick is about to explode in my hand. That’s it, Huntley, that’s it. Do it. Discharge your load, drain yourself of all tension, just climax all over my hand. Spill your delicious seed. Yes, oh, God, that’s good…”

  Huntley’s brain became a complete blank when he exploded in orgasm. It didn’t matter that another man was humping him fully clothed, wedging that monstrous prick into the cleft of his ass so firmly he could feel the bulbous head of it against his asshole. Huntley spewed stream after stream of hot jism into the oily fist, so explosive he could hear the surge of seed splashing into the burgundy velvet of the couch. Whit squeezed and released his pulsating prick with an expert’s precision, diddling his burgeoning ball sac with the other palm, rubbing the sperm into his throbbing balls. He seemed to know exactly when it had become too much, when the ecstasy crossed over into agony, for he eased up on his pumping of his cock, and his trifling with his balls slowed.

  “God,” Huntley gasped. “Stop. Stop.” He had to forcibly remove the red man’s palm from his prick, and he nearly collapsed on his front. But he found a few shreds of energy, enough to raise him to his feet, his dressing gown pooling on the couch as he stepped clear of it and staggered to his desk. His penis felt like a goddamned third leg, slapping against his thigh as he reeled.

  His head was still spinning when he downed an entire glass of whiskey. He remembered that in a few hours he was supposed to meet Colonel Barbour. Goddamn it. Now he had to get up the gumption to turn to his friend and face him, reminding himself that it was merely a medical procedure, designed to redirect the flow of his blood and to ease tension. It certainly had eased the tension in his loins, but now that it was over, the embarrassment at having been so intimate was causing more tension in his head.

  Whit leaned back on the couch, most likely carelessly sitting in a puddle of semen, his arms stretched out across the back of the couch. He smiled with the glow of conquest and achievement, although his own massive donkey’s prick bulged the lap of his trousers. He didn’t seem to care, beaming upon Huntley as though he were a successful experiment. “That was a most impressive display. I’m sure you’ll sleep like a baby now. I usually perform that technique on hysterical women—you’d be amazed how their temperament evens out, and they become docile and pleasant.”

  Stomping over to the couch, Huntley whipped the soiled dressing gown from under Whit’s ass. “Well, maybe it works the opposite on men. Go practice on women some more, if that pleases you!”

  As he stormed naked through the foyer to the staircase that led to the second story, it struck Huntley. While that might have been a legitimate medical technique, it was evident that Dr. Whitney was a frenzied bugger, a satyr with an unusual interest in things of a sexual nature. Perhaps he’d even been booted out of New York for his overzealous interest in such things.

  Crumbling the stained gown and tossing it into a corner of his bedroom, Huntley at last stood still. God’s holy trousers. He had just commanded Whit to practice his technique on women! What a gump!

  He was shoving Whit directly into Belle’s lusty arms.

  Chapter Eight

  “So, Dr. Whitney. Please tell me more about this treatment for womb hysteria.”

  This time, the doctor didn’t seem abashed. Perhaps because they were better acquainted now, he merely nodded and tugged the blanket closer around Belle’s shoulders. She had just swam in the Agua Fria Creek to revitalize her blood, and probably to erase all evidence of her past filthy life with those “devils in the forest,” as she’d heard men term Indians when visiting Major Ashbury’s trading post. They sat now on the bank, Belle nude under the blanket, and the doctor said, “Whit. Please call me Whit. My first name is Whitman. I know, I know—what a horrible gag for my parents to play on me. Whitman Whitney, Holy Mother of Joseph.”

  “But they both contain Whit, so it’s very memorable,” Belle said.

  “Exactly. So you would be interested in knowing more about womb hysteria?”

  “Well. I think I already know too much about it, if you know what I mean. The physician back in Missouri diagnosed me with womb hysteria and said the best solution was to get pregnant. My husband told him that he discovered my Chinese pillow book, so the physician told me that women actually desire maternity, not sex.”

  Whit leaned back on his palms laughing, his handsome face open and serene. His competence gave Belle great comfort and security. Perhaps that feeling was enhanced by the bottle of laudanum he had given her yesterday. “Yes, that’s the excuse many doctors give for when they don’t wish to ‘waste’ the time and effort on the treatment. Maternity or marriage—your physician’s way of saying ‘sex’— does not always cure the hysterical disease. The treatment espoused by Hippocrates is the only thing proven to work.” Whit assumed an air of confidentiality as he leaned in closer to her. “Why do you think almost all patients return for more treatments? Many doctors have taken up the practice because it’s the most prevalent female disease, so there is never any shortage of patients. But the doctors really detest doing it. I, however, am quite fascinated by studying the various women’s different responses to the treatment. Back in New York I was sought-after for my skills.”

  In fact, Belle felt
so at ease she even ventured to say, “Perhaps you were so sought-after because there is something taboo, and therefore exciting, in displaying one’s most intimate self to such a handsome physician. A handsome half-caste physician. You must admit, there is quite the forbidden thrill of having a man who ten years ago might have been your servant putting his hands on you.”

  Whit didn’t appear angry at having been reminded of this. In fact, he readily agreed with her. “Yes, I had several patients who were very nearly overwhelmed with womb hysteria. Their poor, haggard husbands would bring them to my office looking as though the devil himself had been tossing them about to the four corners of the world, as though they hadn’t slept in weeks. Some husbands would be begging me to correct the problem. Some of these women…well, let’s just say they enthusiastically flung themselves on my table, quite hysterical, spewing obscene filth that would shock a courtier. Many doctors believe that is the disease talking, but I think the hysteria just brought out that aspect of a woman that had been deeply hidden for many years. And yes, some patients would be specifically begging for my ‘red man’s hands’ to be placed upon them, or my ‘colored’ hands.” Whit shrugged modestly. “Perhaps consorting with the forbidden is the secret fantasy of some ladies. It’s unfortunate it has to be such a deeply buried secret, for as a half-caste I’ve found no one willing to be openly courted.”

  Belle frowned. “Even though you’re an esteemed physician?”

  “Yes. Even then.” Whit paused. “It was a choice I made when I determined to be the first colored physician in America. I knew there would be prices to pay. Now, about that Chinese pillow book you had.”