She was pretty damned focusable. Her face was the face of an innocent angel, blue eyes shining with Virginity complexion like fresh-washed gossamer, unplucked cherry lips hair of spun gold cascading over the ripe curve of her, shoulders. The half-moon tops of her breasts rose out of the black lace like untouched melons just come of age. Her waist was as narrow as the neck of a choir boy. The cheeks of her derrière were round and plump as unsullied doves, And the legs in the black net stockings were long and slender candles melting into virtuous motion. Yes, an angel from heaven, pure and chaste and undefiled!
She danced over to me and sighed in my ear, her breath warm as sunshine and light as morning dew. “What kinda crap is this, you mothah?” she whispered. “This ain’t supposed to be no circus! I was lined up to do a single. Whatsa idea of musclin’ in?”
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
That’s pretty clever painting him gold,” one of the guests remarked. “I wonder what they’re going to do?” He clanged his spoon against his bourbon glass. “On with the show.”
“W1ih your permission, gentlemen.” The blonde pulled a finishing school accent out of left field and curtsied. “I hope you know how to use that thing!” She gritted her teeth in my ear.
“I’ve had it for quite a few years,” I told her sarcastically. “I think I’ve got the hang of it by now.”
“It’s not the hang of it these Johns are interested in.” She shot me a nasty look. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she hissed. “Let’s start with the train bit.”
“The train bit?”
“Choo-choo-choo-choo.” The blonde stooped over, put her hands on her knees and looked at me over her shoulder. “Choo-choo-choo-choo,” she urged.
“Choo-choo-choo-choo.” I picked up the hint. “Choo-choo.” I bent over, put my hands on her hips and followed her lead. “Choo-choo.”
The men around the table applauded as we picked up steam. The angelic blonde kept the engine in low gear. She circled the table slowly, shaking her breasts provocatively in each man’s face by turn. Bent over as she was, they almost but not quite fell out of the one-piece foundation garment. Eyes bounced like pinballs trying to follow the game of hide-and-seek her delicate pink nipples were playing with the ebony lace.
Finally she paused and reached behind her. There was a hidden clasp there, and when she released it the back part of the one-piece garment fell away altogether. Her alabaster nether-cheeks quivered and then, remarkably, she rotated them one at a time, then together, but in opposite directions.
“I’m a little choo-choo train,” she singsonged. “I’m an engine with a tender behind.”
The distinguished male audience roared with glee and approval.
“Choo-choo. Choo-choo!” She circled the table again, picking up steam until her bare derrière was flushed. I followed behind, trying not to block the view. “Mr. Engineer, stoke my engine,” she ordered, standing in one place, still bent over with her whole body moving.
I came up behind her and did as she commanded.
“Choo-choo!” She moved a step forward. “More coal!” I obliged. “Choo-choo!”
A step at a time, we circled the table in that fashion. Finally, she went into reverse. I coupled onto her caboose firmly. “Choo-choo-choo-choo! All aboard! Choo-choo-choo-choo!” The engine was really huffing and the train picked up speed. Finally the whistle sounded—-“Whoo-whoo! Whoo-whoo!”—and we pulled into the station together, braking to a halt that all but melted my shovel and left her furnace steaming.
“That’s real railroading!” One of the guests led the applause and the rest followed suit.
“It’s too bad the President left,” another remarked. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
“Hey, Stud, you’re pretty good,” the blonde said grudgingly, and a little breathlessly.
“My name’s Steve. Steve Victor.”
“I’m Heavenly.”
“You sure are!” I wasn’t exactly unaffected myself.
“No, I mean that’s my name. Heavenly. Heavenly Dayze.”
“My pleasure.”
“Is our business.” A Heavenly smile said she was over her pique. “We’d better get on with the show. The natives are getting restless. Let’s do the covered wagon routine next.”
We did the “covered wagon routine,” ending as you might expect with all the “wagons” pulled into a circle. Then we did the Battle of Gettysburg with me playing Pickett and Heavenly bearing the brunt of the “Charge.” “Steamboat ’Round the Bend” found her hips chugging like paddle wheels and her legs flailing water as I sailed her up the Mississippi. For the grand finale, I sank her. Like a good captain, I went down with my ship.
A coterie of half-dressed ladies of pleasure came dancing into the room as we finished and we retired, our part in the proceedings over. I followed Heavenly to a small room on the second floor of the large house in which the party was taking place. Here, through outwardly casual but actually careful questioning, I pieced together some facts about my new situation.
The year was 1868, the date May 16th. The place in which I found myself was the most exclusive and plush bordello in Washington, D.C. The occasion was a discreet celebration by the supporters of President Andrew Johnson. That very morning Johnson’s enemies had suffered a serious setback when an attempt to remove him from office had failed in the Senate by one vote. The anti-Johnson forces had managed a ten-day recess and at the end of the ten days other impeachment charges against Johnson would be voted upon, but as of this evening, his supporters had reason to rejoice in the knowledge that they had just enough “Nays” to maintain their boy in office.
I’d been jumped from the Spanish Inquisition into a moment in American history that was a real cliffhanger. On May 26th, 1868, just ten days from now, in an instance of unparalleled drama, the U.S. Senate would come to a verdict which would affect the nation for a hundred years and more to come. The implications of that verdict would be more far-reaching than those who reached it would ever have dreamed.
The men who tried to impeach Johnson, the men who are the villains in the history books, while some of them were doubtless playing politics, were nevertheless championing impeachment for the cause of black equality. Speaker-of-the-House Thaddeus Stevens, Senator Charles Sumner, and the other “Radical Republicans” who supported them against Johnson, were calling for legislation in the 1860s which would be delayed for a hundred years. The one man most responsible for that delay was President Andrew Johnson, successor to Abraham Lincoln, a Southerner who made no secret of his belief that blacks could never be equal to whites, a master politician who used the presidential veto to block every effort to redress the grievances of former black slaves.
This day, May 16th, 1868, President Johnson had almost come a cropper. Masterminded by Thaddeus Stevens, a plan to impeach the President had reached the first of its two climaxes this day. Presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States, the Senate had formed itself into a tribunal and, after hearing the evidence, had voted on one of the articles of impeachment.
Fifty-four Senators, representing twenty-seven states, took part in the proceedings. A two-thirds majority, thirty-six votes, was required to depose the President. Twelve of the Senators were pro-Southern Democrats like Johnson and their votes were pledged to his support. Of the remaining forty-two votes, six had announced in advance that they would vote with the Southern bloc. Until the last moment one other Senator, Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, had refused to commit his vote. Also, two days before the vote was taken, Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, one of the six Republicans for acquittal, had suffered a stroke and his life hung by a thread. If he died before the vote could be taken, the Iowa legislature had pledged itself to immediately replace him with a Senator who would vote against Johnson.