Trolley No. 1852 (5 page)

What an intriguing and ultimately macabre
old legend!

With more iron clatter and a swoosh, the
previously unrelieved darkness broke—much to my commendation—as
Trolley No. 1852 at last exited the deleterious tunnel and now
roved down more dim, tenement-lined streets. Looking behind me, I
noted that the overhead power-cables were no longer in evidence,
and we seemed to be traveling along railways so long out of use
that their heavy wooden ledgers had gone to rot. I could only
assume that batteries now provided the trolley its propulsion, for
how else could this be without the connexion of the overhead
electricity cables?

“Almost there,” Erwin whispered.

Through more stone
archways the sullen car delved; archways in the most decrepit brick
walls; block-rimmed
maws
 agape and garlanded by
sickly ivy. Next, we crept through a series of grotesque yet
captivating courtyards of what could only be abandoned edifices,
each bizarrely interconnected by narrower archways. This was the
old city, no doubt, one of several urban nooks left to disrepair
and rendered tenantless via the contagion of outside squalor and
ruination; truly we were traveling amid the very bowels of New
York. Grainy wedges of moonlight cast a feeble pallor over all as
broken statues watched the trolley from neglected sconces and rats
scurried about fieldstone tiles and garbage-filled fountain basins.
But it was in one of these eldritch inner-courtyards that the
trolley suddenly slowed, jostled, then squealed to a
stop…

I looked about, nearly at a loss for words.
This courtyard stood in no less disintegration than the others:
festooned by ivy, verminous with weeds. Rotten fabrics hung from
the stone rails of second-, third-, and fourth-story verandas,
while numerous once-fine marble statues stood armless, headless,
and stained by lichens and bird-waste.

“What
is
this place, Erwin?” I
whispered.

“This is it,” he told me. “Don’t be fooled
by how it looks outside; I think they do it on purpose.”

I could only imagine he meant a deliberate
subterfuge was at hand, to throw off suspicions of the uninvited,
for who would think that any desirous activity could possibly take
place behind so unkempt and dismal a facade?

Erwin and I were the last
in line as the passengers all stood up to file in utter silence off
the car. When I happened a glance to my pocket-watch, I saw that it
was 4:12 a.m. As the queue moved down the aisle, however, I took
notice, first, of the trolley’s position; it had stopped mid-yard,
yet the rusted tracks continued forward to disappear beneath a
great iron-beamed and rivet-studded door set solidly within yet
another wide stone arch. Was it the shifting moonlight or my
strained imagination that made me believe I saw traces of an oily,
ill-coloured mist leaking through the door’s seams? What I noticed
next must’ve been still another trick of poor-light: my glimpse
forward, past the slowly descending line of debarking passengers,
threw my gaze onto the motionless form of the motorman, who
remained in his piloting cubby, his broad back to us, and his hand
on the vehicle’s controller handle—his
hand,
I say…

My stomach knotted.

His hand, though I only
glimpsed it for a moment, appeared as no hand at all but a cluster
of rather stout worms wrapped about the controller handle’s end.
Just as disturbing as the morphology of the hand was its
colour:
a bloodless
white splotched with ill-toned green…

When a stiff chill passed, I realised it
must either be dirtied utility gloves or some regrettable genetic
malady.

The line dwindled; before I stepped off, my
gaze felt preternaturally summoned to my left. There I spied the
capped conductor staring right at me through the mask-like deadpan
facial expression…

Gads!

I deboarded in haste and
hurried up to Erwin who was following the others in. A rotten,
wood-plank sign hung upon the transom of worm-eaten but
iron-strapped door. The letters on the sign appeared branded in
char:
1852 Club.

Torches, not electric bulbs, lit an
expansive and ornately decor’d atrium which borrowed much from the
greater Georgian period; clearly, this place must once have been an
exorbitant hotel. Swirling dark mosaic tile-work could be seen in
the gaps between Old World throw rugs; a marble fountain gushed
crystalline water through the mouth of a horned cherub. Pilastered
walls surrounded all; while great winding staircases rose upward
from each end, to the first of three splendidly railed stair-halls
which steeply overlooked the atrium below.

I allowed Erwin to take
the lead; he and most of the others seemed nearly at home here, and
all walked at once to a long, fringe-linened banquet table which
sat heaped with fresh fruits and (much to
my
displeasure) ice-filled bins
loaded with half-shelled oysters. It was to the latter that most of
the men repaired, greedily slurping down the hideous, lumpen things
one after another. As I most infrangibly
detested
all shellfish—most
especially oysters, which made me think of grey phlegm—I made every
attempt to appear at ease while sampling some tidbits of fruits and
a glass of some superb vegetable juice. Eventually to Erwin I
whispered, “So… where are the, uh—”

“The girls? Before you know it,” he promised
with a guilty grin, “they’ll be all about.”

Only moments after he’d made this assurance,
every face turned upward at the detection of svelte motion. Upon
the fourth stair-hall my gaze held, on the stunning woman who’d
just appeared: a raven-haired, Cleopatra-faced figure whose
voluptuous curves and thrusting bosom were made even more
pronounced by a diaphanous, black evening dress.

“That’s her,” Erwin sighed in awe. “Miss
Aheb…”

Ensconced torches burned
to either side as this shimmering
vision
of feminine beauty leaned
over the carven rail and smiled.

“Welcome, gentlemen, all of you,” issued a
lilting and vaguely accented voice. The words echoed. “Your
presence is much appreciated and, as you will soon see, the very
exclusive 1852 Club will do everything in its power to reward you
for the privilege your esteemed presence…”

What an odd thing to
announce… as denotations such as “esteemed” and “privileged” hardly
described this lot of respectful yet otherwise brawny and likely
not-well-educated working-classers. I struggled to identify the
seductive woman’s sweetly flowing accent; yet I’ll admit that the
mere sight of her compacted beauty filched my breath. There was
something about her mien, her very
deportment.
Even at this precipitous
distance, her physique’s details seemed to gleam via some supernal
clarity, as though an incorporeal magnifier hung invisibly before
her: the poreless white valley of her bosom, the relief of the
papillae of her magnificent breasts, the diamond-like sparkle of
perfect teeth within the titillant smile—
all
of these traits seemed
amalgamated into a single focus which left every man below
speechless and irretrievably enraptured.

Erwin elbowed me. “What did I tell you,
huh?”

“I’ll confess,” I said, still staring up,
“that I dismissed your description earlier as the stuff of
exaggeration, but now… I stand corrected.”

Her voice swirled downward, a spiriferous
aural wraith; and from the painfully seductrene lips, warm words
flowed, “and, now, my good and vital men, may you go forth in the
natural pursuit of your pleasure as is the gracious will of our
benefactors…”

The room hushed in the lovely echo’s wake
but I frowned. Even the clearly distracted Erwin seemed flummoxed
by the words.

“What d’ya s’pose she means by that?” Erwin
said in a wee voice.

Benefactors?
I wondered. “You’ve got me. ‘Natural pursuit’
notwithstanding, I sorely doubt that her reference to ‘benefactors’
can be a spiritual reference, nor a reference to the popular
Judeo-Christian God, no, not in a whorehouse.”

I paused to chuckle at my ever-guilt-ridden
friend but when I re-glanced upward?

Miss Aheb was gone.

A modest murmuring of approval rose in the
room—at once—as a procession of over a dozen women moved
soft-footedly down the curved, plushly carpeted staircase. I’ve
already intimated that my own natural impulses with regard to
sexual attraction must be relatively inactive compared to most men;
yet, the registration of this drove of encroaching sprites (all
without a stitch on, mind you) caused an undeniable stirring, shall
we say, southwardly of the belt. The well-brawned patronage was
already dispersing as this bevy of long-legged, high-bosomed, and
pertly nippled women came off the stairs.

Erwin, a smile so long it contorted his
face, made to approach them but I clutched his sleeve in a sudden
self-consciousness.

“Gads, Erwin! I’ve never been to a place
like this before. What should I do?”

The question flabbergasted
him. “Do? Come on! You pick a dish and go with her, man!” and then
he walked briskly to the feminine congregation and its sea of
wanton grins. I remained, standing nervously and watching couples
pair off. The girls seemed to swoop upon the men with a hearty
enthusiasm; but, lo, none “swooped” toward me. Never much of a
ladies’ man, I expected as much; these younger and much more
masculine specimens easily overshadowed my thin-limbed form. I
would always tell myself that what manly attributes nature had left
me lacking in was more than made up for in my superior intellectual
capacity, but what a facile consolation that was now! In a
whorehouse, with no whore showing the least bit of interest in me!
Erwin was latched onto and led summarily up the stairs by a
doe-eyed, plushly curved girl with a head full of shining black
tousles.
Good for you,
I thought with some bitterness. Within the merest of minutes,
the men were arm in arm with each of these delectable women whose
bare bottoms I was left to peer forlornly at as they each in turn
took their partners up the steps. I felt akin to the perfect ass,
but just as it seemed that all the denuded girls had found their
match, my arm was snatched by a short, voracious thing with beaming
green eyes and nary an ounce of excess fat on her splendid little
body. “I’ve got you now!” she exclaimed and quickly hauled me
toward the stairs. “My name’s Ammi, but don’t bother telling me
yours. In a place like this?” and she laughed.

The sight of her, and the feel of her hot
hand about my wrist, left my tongue sufficiently tied. Instead, my
eyes drunk up the vision of her gleaming white nudity; the compact
buttocks flexing with each step up; the seductively trim waist and
adorable bellybutton. Already my groin was tightening…

“Don’t talk much, I see,”
she commented and now we were on the first landing where a statue
of, I believe, Tycho Brahe, telescope in hand, seemed to cast an
approving eye my way. “But we’re not much about talk here at the
club—” Her hand slid up my arm. “We’re all about
doing.
”

Finally, my powers of speech were
re-afforded to me. “You’re, uh, quite a delight, Ammi. I, um—”

Her hand brazenly cradled my rump as we
stepped up to the second landing. “Oh, don’t be so nervous. I’m
going to show you a great time!”

Patrons ahead of us
disappeared behind various doors. Ammi took me sprightly along the
carpeted hall, almost
bounding
with each step. She approached a door and
simultaneously slid her hand across my groin, whereupon I came
close to lifting off my heels.

She paused at the door,
turning to me with a scolding grin. “Shame on you, sir. There’s no
reason to do
that,
you know. Not
here!
”

It was only then,
receiving my first frontal look at her, that I became apprised of
the extent of Ammi’s
diversity.
To call her a “colourful” girl would be a howling
understatement: her hair was a long silken coppery red while
obsidian-black eyebrows adorned her forehead. The abundant hair of
her pubic area, however, shined blond as sunlit wheat. Breasts the
circumference of tangerines sat erect on her chest. Only after
fathoming this full glance at her did I recollect her odd
remark.

“Pardon me, but I don’t
know what you mean. There’s no reason to do
what?
”

Her hand found my groin
again, and played there ever intently. “This
package,
sir, can’t all be you,” she
giggled. “Oh, I know how men sometimes stuff socks and whatnot in
their briefs to make themselves look bigger to the ladies
but—really!—in a brothel, sir, the truth is always out once the
breeches are down.”

I stared in utter
bewilderment. “
Socks,
did you say? Really, miss—I can’t imagine what—”

“Come on!” she exclaimed, opened the door,
and pulled me in.

The door itself was a
marvel: nine panels, and hung within a stunning embrasured frame
that I knew at a glance to be pure Federal Period. The bed-chamber
impressed me even more, as I’d always been one to revel in the
designs of the past rather than those of tasteless modernity. “A
genuine William and Mary poster bed!” I gasped. The black-oak
bedstead was a work of carven art. A Chippendale half-table sat
beside the splendid bed, while opposite stood a grand armoire that
could only be a genuine Hepplewhite. My host’s delightful breasts
bobbed as she closed the door, then strode toward me. She grabbed
my hand and pulled, and said as if to a naughty toddler, “You’re
a
bad boy,
sir.
Ammi might have to punish you with a spanking for what you’ve
done.”