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Sex Wars
A Novel of the Turbulent Post-Civil War Period
By Marge Piercy HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Marge Piercy
All right reserved. ISBN: 0060789832
Chapter One
Victoria was reading the enormous book their landlady on Greene Street kept in her parlor. She was lying in bed with her temporary lover, Charlie, who was sleeping in on his back, snoring lightly. She doubted anybody else had bothered with the book, for some pages were still uncut -- the Orations of Demosthenes, a great Greek speaker Victoria had begun to dream about since she and her sister arrived in New York. She could see him clearly at times and once in a while she began to hear his voice addressing her, a deep, resonant voice that thrilled her. She had seen visions and heard voices since she was a child. The same was true of her sister Tennessee, but Tennie was willing to fake it on demand, while Victoria refused. She considered herself chosen for some high magnificent fate. If life so far had been hard and sordid at times, she knew it was all about to change. She could feel it. Her voices strengthened her. They made her special in spite of her troubles.
A telegram from her husband Colonel James Blood lay on the night table. In two days, he was joining the sisters in New York. She knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of her Claflin clan found them. Money, they always needed money. Her father Buck had taken her on the revival circuit since she was old enough to stand, project her voice and fascinate a crowd; then Tennie with her clairvoyant act had taken over. The family cooked up patent medicines and practiced magnetic healing. Both sisters were good at the laying on of hands, which might prove useful if their plans, worked out in the Midwest, came to fruition -- as they must. The sisters and James had carefully studied Cornelius Vanderbilt, as much as they could learn from a distance. He was their best hope.
Charlie was stirring. She put the leather-bound book beside the bed, half pushing it under. He was a reporter on the Sun whom she had run into at a spiritualist meeting. He was a good informant on the city -- the Tweed ring, the flavor of the different newspapers, the scandals, where the wealthy lived, rode in their carriages, ate. He had served as a correspondent the last year of the Civil War, but now he reported on politics. His limp ginger hair falling over his high forehead, he snuggled into the pillows with a wide yawn that showed his plentiful gold teeth. She was not tremendously moved by Charlie -- as a lover he lacked talent -- but he had much to teach her. She wanted to keep him as a friend. When she was sure she had his attention, she touched the telegram and sighed heavily.
"What's wrong? Bad news in the telegram?"
She handed it to Charlie, saying nothing.
"Oh, rot. That is bad news. But maybe you can get away sometimes? There are some very pleasant houses of assignation I use sometimes."
"Let me see how things work out. Perhaps after a while. Especially if I introduce you as a friend, or as someone interested in Tennessee. That would make things easier for us."
She had not lied. If she told the truth, that she and James believed in free love, her lack of sexual interest might hurt Charlie's feelings. She genuinely liked him, but there was no spark. He was too plodding a lover, with -- as was the case with so many men -- no understanding of a woman's body. They did not know how to find, let alone stimulate, a woman's spot for pleasure.
Fortunately, he had to run off to work. Tennie was waiting in the hall for him to leave. "Listen, I met the most wonderful woman last night." Tennie looked absolutely radiant. Her beauty was quite different from Victoria's own -- not that she was vain, but being beautiful had clear advantages. Victoria's face was chiseled, refined. Her hair was dark and her complexion fair. Tennie was voluptuous and high-colored, with auburn hair and a figure men always wanted to get their hands on. All seven Claflin children had different appearances, although there was no doubt with their hyperreligious mother Roxanne that Buck was the father. He wasn't faithful, but Victoria was certain their mother was. Roxanne might be considered touched, as people said, but she had managed to feed them all under hellish circumstances, and she had loved them in her own way. She had never denied their gifts. Nor had Buck. He simply exploited them.
"So tell me about this woman." Victoria sat on her bed, mending a peacock blue frock of Tennie's. Victoria liked to wear black while her sister went in for vivid colors. Victoria sewed well -- in fact she had tried to make a living at it in San Francisco, but it paid so poorly, she had gone on the stage instead. Tennie paced back and forth in her chemise, crinoline and corset that pushed her breasts high -- up and out.
"Annie Wood. She runs an elegant whorehouse on Thirty-fourth Street. Only the real toffs go there. She's getting rich fast, because the toffs talk about the stocks and their investments. Annie chats them up and has her girls do the same, then she invests. It's a place the girls are treated swell, Vickie. You have to meet her. She's sharp."
"Maybe today. The Colonel is coming tomorrow." Victoria's second husband had been a real colonel in the Union army during the Civil War, and he had the wounds to show for it. He had returned from the wars scarred both inwardly and outwardly, uncomfortable in his life and no longer able to enjoy sex with his wife. He had come to see Victoria in her professional capacity as a magnetic healer about his headaches and had confessed his problems to her. The moment he had walked into the parlor where she was receiving patients, she had jumped as if something hot had been driven into her . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from Sex Wars by Marge Piercy Copyright © 2005 by Marge Piercy. Excerpted by permission.
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