Smyrma 1911 – Kat and Jerry

Chapter 22
 
In the Armenian mind, one plus one often added up to more than two. So it was, that when Artine brought Maisie and Kat together to share a house, it was not only the two girls who benefited, but all three
The house lay behind one of the fancy mansions fronting the bay. Here, the land was a mixture of, stables, workshops, a number of guerrilla gardens and a few old wooden houses. At their house, a few steps led up from the garden on to a veranda and from there a front door opened into a salon on either side of which was a bedroom.  At the rear was a kitchen and outside, the toilet.  The toilet was a hole in the ground, watched over by a pair of footpads, a pail of rainwater and a tin cup. This was everything a toilet needed.
 
Maisie’s valise was open on the divan. She was having trouble finding a suitable costume. She pulled out dresses, examining each with a critical eye. She was on stage that night, performing for the Mayor and his guests.
“If you like, you can borrow one of my costumes.” said Kat in her broad Scots accent.
Was she serious? thought Maisie. She couldn’t go on stage dressed in diaphanous trousers and a bustier with tassels at the nipples. Besides, she'd get lost those cups. She was a modest 34 B but Kat was at least…she didn’t like to imagine.  
Finally, she draped a blue dress over the arm of the divan and took the remaining dresses into her room. “Why do you suppose it is that they always make wardrobes just that little bit too small?” she called out.
“Don’t shout, please. My head feels like bell.” said Kat
“Serves you right. You should learn to control yourself. I’m never going to drink again.” said Maisie. “It’s because of drink that I’m not in Paris right now.” She strode back into the salon.
“How come? What happened?” said Kat.
She glanced at her friend. It would take too long to explain.  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell her but this was not the time.
“Forget the booze. That’s my advice. Just forget the booze.” she said.
“It’s all very well for you, but once I get a taste for something, I just can’t seem to stop.” said Kat.
Right, thought Maisie, shoes.  “Should I wear the blue satin ones with the low heels or should I wear the high-heel lace-up boots.
“Wear one of each,” advised Kat.
It was typical of Kat to joke even when she was well under the weather. She disregarded this advice. “I’m wearing the boots. I love them. It was the first thing I ever bought when I was in Paris. Well,” she corrected herself, “it was the first thing Bertrand ever bought me when I was in Paris. He was a Comte, did I tell you? He loved buying me things. Some of the things he wanted me to wear were, oh-la-la.”
“I go for the Barbary pirate look, myself,” said Kat. 
Maisie put the boots aside and took the rest into her room.  “Right, that’s me all done.” Before she put the valise away, she gave it a final inspection. She felt into a pocket stitched into the silk lining. “What’s this?” she said. It was a piece of paper, folded over on itself several times. She unfolded the paper, this way and that, till its contents were revealed, a spoonful of white powder. She looked at it. What was this? Then she remembered. It was something Bertrand had asked her to put in her purse one evening. A prescription for his friend, he’d said.”
“What’s it for?’” said Kat.
“I think it’s a kind of picks-me-up.”
Like medicine?”
“Yeah, like medicine” said Maisie.
“I could do with being picked-up. What’s it like. Do you drink it.? Is it fizzy? like champagne??” 
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Well what do you do with it?”
 “You suck it up your nose.”
Kat’s face split into a grin and Maisie heard how ridiculous she sounded. 
 “What with? A tampon?” suggested Kat. 
Their laughter erupted and the girls fell out onto the veranda. Kopek (a dog) eyed the scene. Two demented women in the throes of some strange human condition.  One dressed like Annie Oakley and the other in a long skirt and the top half of a belly-dancer’s ensemble. Once it was relatively quiet again, Kat said, 
“Do you mean like an elephant.?”
” No. Well yeah, I guess. Bertrand’s friend used to have a little gold tube to suck it up.”  
Kat had never heard of such shenanigans. What sort of medicine was this?
“What if I ain’t got a little gold tube?” Kat said this in Maisie’s Brooklyn accent.
“Well it doesn’t exactly have to be a wee gold tube, Missus. You just got to get it up there, somehow,” said Maisie sing Kat’s Scottish accent.
From outside,
“Miss Maisie, its after 5. Are you ready?” It was Artine
“Yes. I’m coming. I’m just finishing these laces” turning to Kat she said, “Are you going out tonight?”
“With this head?  No. Once I finish this sewing, I’m going tae ma bed. My headache’s getting worse.”
After Maisie had left, Kat finished mending her costume and tidied away her sewing box. Amongst things at the bottom of the box, she found a tiny spoon. Spoon in hand, she went to the medicine Maisie has left. She dipped the spoon into the powder, lifted it to her nose and sniffed. It was easy and painless. She dipped the spoon again and applied it to her other nostril. Almost immediately her sinuses unblocked. She took another dose then put her sewing box away. At that moment, Jerry arrived.
 
(Jerry has just visited a coffee shop where he has smoked his first 'nargile', a hubble-bubble water pipe, of 'Turkish tobacco.')
 
Chapter 24
Maisie was no sooner through the door that night when Kat pounced on her.
“Oh, Maisie, thank god you’re here. I’ve done a terrible thing.” said Kat.  Maisie had just arrived back from her night at the Huck. 
“Calm down, Kat. “
“I think I’ve done something terrible.”
“What happened” insisted Maisie unlacing her boots. “You ain’t set fire to the place, have you?” 
“No. That would have been better.”
“You ain’t killed anyone?”
“I’m not sure.”
“For Pete’s sake, Kat,” said Maisie “Will you tell me what’s happened?”
“Well, just after you left, Jerry came.”
“What for?” asked Maisie.
“He ‘was lost.”
“Was Tom with him?”
“No. He was lost, too.” Kat bit the side of her lip and paced on to the veranda. Kopek was still there. He looked hang-dog and she looked hang-Kat. They looked morosely at one another. She came back and sat on a chair and clasped her hands on her knees.
” Well,” she said, “when he came, I said did he want tea or anything. He said ‘no’, he’d just been to the tea shop,
I said let’s sit here for a minute but as soon as I sat down he lunged at me. He just threw himself at me, grabbed me and put his arm around my neck.”
“Fresh.” said Maisie.
“Yeah, sort of. But he wasn’t as chatty as he was before. Different. I looked at him and he had this funny look in his eyes.”
“You mean, funny, ha ha, or funny, let’s get out of here.?”
“I don’t know. I thought he was flirting.  Well there we were sitting side by side on the divan, so I looked at him and all of a sudden.”
“What did he do?”
 “He shoved his face into my bustier. 
“What? What did you do?”
“Well, it wasn’t like it was the first time I’d been there, know what I mean? and I thought, ‘he is a millionaire, maybe I shouldn’t’ be too hasty.”
“No arguing with that.” said Maisie. “Did he say anything?
“No, he just kind of laughed and mumbled. I don’t know. But he seemed to be enjoying himself. It was kind of nice, friendly like, a sort of a house-warming present. Anyway, to be honest, so was I.”
“Yeah. I get the picture. Then what?”
“Well, as I said. He was a millionaire and he did seem very keen, so I kinda pushed my hand down to his trousers and felt for his cock.”
“Kat!”
“Yeah, well.” she reflected. “But when I had his thing in my hand it started growing. I could feel it. It just got bigger and bigger. I thought it was never going to stop. I could have taken his pulse.” 
Maisie was leaning forward. “What next?”
“I gave it a little stroke to see where it ended. In fact, I checked it a couple of times.”
“And where did it end?” asked Maisie
“I never did find out”
“Well, I’ll be!” said Maisie.
“Anyway, as this is going on what I didn’t realise that I..” she paused.
“What?”
 “I didn’t realise that I’d been, kind of, raking over my own flower bed.”
Maisie looked at Kat. “You mean?”
” Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”  Kat blurted out. She stopped and looked toward her bedroom. Then she leant closer to Maisie, took her hand and said, “And I can’t remember anything else.”
“What do you mean you can’t remember anything else. You’re sprawled on the divan with a man you hardly know, you’ve got his John Thomas in your hand, he’s got his face in your tits, and you can’t remember what happened next!”
“No. Honest. I really don’t. My mind just seemed to, kinda, go to sleep.”
“She went to sleep!” announced Maisie to the room.
Outside Kopek took notice. He recognised this tone of human voice. It was generally telling him to get off the divan or some such misdemeanour.
“All I know was, after all that fumbling about, I was feeling all warm and snug, like” said Kat.
“Was he warm and snug too.?” said Maisie.
Kat did not reply immediately, “But that’s not the worst bit. See?”   She moved to the mirror and picked up a hair brush. Maisie got up and stood behind her friend. They looked at each other in the mirror. Maisie said nothing. “There’s a bit in the middle that’s a bit foggy. I don’t rightly know what happened. The only next thing I remember is, we was in the bedroom and I was sitting on top of him, like a wee jockey, and none of us had a stitch on.  I was astride him and he was inside me. An’ all I can remember was how I just couldn’t stop myself. I bounced on him till my brain went on fire. After that, I fell on top of him and pounded away till I was totally banjacksed. All I could see was the last sparks of a catherine wheel.
“You really did that!”
“Yes.” Said Kat. The silence rolled around the room like thunder.
“After a wee minute I rolled off and looked at him. He was just lying there, staring at the ceiling.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was dead.” Kat confirmed.
“Dead?” You mean you killed him?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
 “You fucked him to death?” cried Maisie.
“I don’t know how it happened. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean it”
Maisie looked to Kat’s bedroom door. “Where is he now?”
“He went home.”
“He went home?” screamed Maisie. Kopek had heard enough. This was no place for a self-respecting dog. He left in search of chickens. 
“You just told me you killed him.” 
“He wasn’t actually dead, dead.” said Kat. “He came around after a while. He seemed a bit confused. So, I gave him some coffee and he went off to find his friend.”
Maisie went to bed and laughed herself to sleep.
 
 
 
Chapter 25
“Thank god, Tom, thank god, I’ve found you.” Jerry had been frantic in his search for Tom.
“I was looking for you too.  After we got separated, I went back to the hubble-bubble shop looking for you.” said Tom.
“Couldn’t find my way back, but I found Maisie and Kat’s house. I thought they would tell me the way back. I can’t tell you what I’ve just been through.”
“Steady on, old boy. You’re pale as milk. What’s happened"
“I’ll tell you what’s happened. I’ve been to Hell and back. That’s what’s happened.”
“You’re not making any sense, old boy.”
“I went back, and she’d invited me in.”
“Who invited you in?”
“Kat. Maisie had gone. Everyone had gone. It was just her and me. As I said before, I felt a little light-headed, discombobulated. Anyway, she invited me in and she took me through to the salon. 
As I went to sit down, I tripped on the carpet and went flying headlong towards her. I managed to twist myself around and ended up crashing down on the divan beside her.” Jerry stopped to gather his thoughts. “Then she looked at me and I looked at her rand then I looked at her bosom.  And that’s when I fainted.”
“You did what? What do you mean, you fainted.” said Tom?
“I passed out.”
“What happened then?”
“I don’t remember. I just told you. I think she kissed me. Or maybe I kissed her?  I don’t remember.”
“All this kissing? You must remember something?”
“Not a thing. Not a bally thing. All I know is that I woke up and found myself in her bedroom.”
“Well, you old dog.”
“Dog, be bowed. I was terrified. She was sitting on top of me. With no clothes on!” Jerry recalled. “Stark naked!”
“Stark naked! Ye Gods!”
“And I was naked too!”
“No socks or shoes?”
“No. And she fell on me like, like, like an accordion. Kept making gurgling noises. I didn’t know what to do.
“What did you do?”
“I hid. I pretended to be asleep, as if it were a bad dream.”
“What then?”
“Then she fell on top of me, still making all these strange noises, and started to suffocate me. It was horrible, Tom. I thought I was going to die. Don’t leave me again, Tom. I don’t ever leave me alone with that woman again.”