His curiosity aroused, even as his cynicism blazed, Williams took the proffered paper, paused for a moment while he considered his choice, then hurriedly scribbled a few words on the page. He folded it and slipped it into the box. The old man smiled. ‘Until tomorrow, then.’
Williams nodded. ‘Yes, well that we will have to see, will we not?’
In fact, he bought the box that evening, hammering at the shuttered shop’s door until the old man finally descended the stairs, his nightcap flopping on his head, and a guttering candle barely illuminating the doorway. ‘I’ve come for the Wishing Box,’
‘I thought that might be it,’ the old man smiled as he slipped the proffered banknotes into a grubby pocket. ‘Do you mind if I ask what you wished for?’
Williams placed one arm around his shoulders, drew the bird-like frame close to his, and lowered his voice. ‘I asked for a blonde to offer me her arse,’ he whispered. ‘And on the top deck of an omnibus as we travelled up the Strand, the woman seated next to me and I fell into conversation ...’
‘I do not need to know any more,’ the old man said. ‘At my age, with my heart, even vicarious excitement can be too much. But I promise you two things. One, you have only begun to enjoy the Wishing Box’s bounty. And two, no request is beyond its powers.’ He winked. ‘Take it from one who knows.’
Lady H_____ sighed loudly, lazily stretched a long, shapely leg towards him and deftly hooked a foot around his neck. ‘And now the other one, Ambrose?’
‘Again?’ Horne feigned surprise, even as he clasped her ankle in both hands, and lowered his head to kiss it.
‘Yes, again.’ Lady H_____ smiled. ‘Because I only have two legs, that does not mean you cannot imagine I have more. And when I ask you to kiss them from tip to toe ... or, rather, from toe to tip ... then that is what I would hope you’d do.’ She moistened two fingertips with her tongue and touched them lightly to the tip of Horne’s erection, as it hung quivering alongside her. ‘After all, when you ask me to suck you, how would you feel if ...’
Her voice trailed away as his tongue slipped around and licked firmly up the length of her foot. Normally, she would admonish him for tickling her, and he knew it. But she bit her tongue, and her lip as well, knowing that this token disobedience was simply part of the game. Moments later, his gentle nuzzling resumed, around her ankle, across her calf, up towards the back of her knee ... another tickling spot, but one that she loved ... and then beyond, until she finally placed her palm on his forehead and propelled him back to the start. Up the snake, and down the chute, until she finally granted him the reward that his patience deserved. It was heavenly, but even more exciting was the knowledge that she still had another nine nights to go. And the last one would be the greatest of them all.
She lay back and her eyes focused on the Christmas tree that stood, resplendent beneath its ornamentation, in the far corner. Horne could humbug as much as he wished, and hiss noisily at the ostentatious displays that were so in vogue around London these days, but deep down, she knew, he was as excited by the festive season as any merry carol singer – perhaps more so, for it was the one time of the year when it seemed that the ceaseless demands on his time and expertise that devoured the rest of his year finally slowed, and he could relax back with the pursuits and interests that he never otherwise had the time to pursue.
How long ago, for example, did he begin working on that ship in a bottle? How many months since he had relaxed in an armchair with a book and a drink? And how many since he and she had simply been able to curl up together, and enjoy their love without the – admittedly, not unpleasant – sensation that, in the back of his mind, a troublesome case or a puzzling dilemma was gnawing at the bonds that still bound it?
Now, however, the client sheet was empty, and the doorbell lay silent, and Horne was free to do as he wished ... and hers to do with as she wished. Still, when the conversation turned, one night in early December, to what gift he would most like for Christmas, she was astonished to hear him say, ‘I’d like to celebrate Hanukah.’
‘But Ambrose, dear. You’re not Jewish.’
‘I didn’t say I was. But think of it. Christmas grants you but one gift, on one day, and then it’s all over. Hanukah offers you eight, over the course of as many days. A far more sensible way of doing things, I think.’
She laughed. ‘Eight presents in eight days. Well, I’ll tell you what. There are twelve days of Christmas. This year, my dearest Ambrose, you shall have a gift for each one of them.’
He looked at her cautiously. ‘An offer like that would be hard to refuse,’ he said slowly. ‘Except I know you too well. What sting is in thy tale tonight, my scorpion?’
She feigned insult. ‘For that, you will be lucky to be given a piece of coal.’ Then her expression softened. ‘No, I stand by my offer. Twelve days and twelve gifts. And each shall be the fulfilment of one delectable sexual fantasy.’
‘I’m still not sure I trust you,’ he teased. ‘Your fantasies or mine?’
She placed a finger on his lips. ‘For that, you will need to wait and see. But I’m hoping, by the end of the twelve days, you will be able to say that they were both yours and mine.’
She was no longer certain whose fantasy this was. It certainly started out as hers, as he slowly undressed her, removing her stockings with deferent care, murmuring breaths of delight and praise as the warm glow of her legs was revealed inch by inch, stroking her flesh with gentle fingertips, calling her ‘my lady’ and begging her indulgence. But the painstaking enthusiasm with which he bestowed his kisses upon her legs, her calves, her thighs ... especially her thighs ... suggested that ownership might have subtly shifted since then.
His lips were above her knee now, sucking gently at her flesh, teasing at the inner softness, his breath taunting her nerve-ends. With a shock of sheer delight, she realised that she was touching herself, one hand soft between her thighs, parting her pussy lips, stretching them wide, inviting her lover to transfer his kisses there. If Horne noticed, however, he did not succumb; his tongue flicked hard towards her groin, then he shifted his weight and transferred his attentions to her other leg, to her other foot.
She sighed again, disappointed now, but thrilled beyond words. This called for drastic action. Shifting herself forward on her hips, twisting herself into position, she curled both legs around Horne’s torso, and manually dragged him away from the toe he was sucking so softly. He did not resist, simply allowed her to position him as she wished and, as she murmured her most urgent need through fevered breaths ... ‘Lick me, Ambrose’ ... he touched the tip of his tongue to her prick-hard clitoris, as it boldly thrust out from within her folds.
Her body arched in ecstasy. This was what love-making was truly about, the inch-by-inch sensations that raised the excitement to unbearable heights – and then brought them crashing back down to everyday mundanity as four gentle knocks on the door shattered her reveille. Of all the signals that she had devised among her staff ... the three slow knocks that apprised her of a potentially tiresome caller, the five rapid touches that spoke of her husband’s return, the double thud with which Horne announced his presence ... this was one that she least welcomed. ‘It’s for you, dear.’
Horne had already stood, was arranging his gown around his naked body. There was no need to disguise more than that from the servants; they knew the nature of his trade as intimately as they knew that of his relationship with their mistress – had, on occasion, even shared in his investigations. He glanced at Lady H_____, to ensure that she was ‘decent’, then quietly bade the visitor enter.
‘A message, Mr Horne ... your Ladyship.’ Nancy, the day maid, curtseyed slightly, more out of habit (her last employer was a stickler for decorum) than need. She stepped forward and Lady H_____, watching from the bed, smiled as the girl’s eyes flickered towards the erection that Horne’s hastily draped covering had no hope of disguising. One of Horne’s forthcoming gifts ... was it the third day or the fourth? She needed to dou
ble-check her list ... required a saucy surrogate, a woman who might step into Lady H_____’s own role, and seduce Horne as her mistress herself might. She would have to speak to Nancy later.
Horne was reading the note that Nancy handed him, his face serious, his lips tight. ‘Normally, my dear, I would ignore this summons. But Doctor Bowles is a good man, and I owe him several favours. Common courtesy, not to mention common sense, dictates that I take my leave, my Lady. I do not believe this will take too much time.’
He turned to dress ... Nancy was still hovering, quietly watching. ‘You may leave us now,’ Lady H_____ spoke sharply. And then, softening her tone, ‘but once Mr Horne has departed, I would like you to return.’
Nancy snapped out of the trance into which she had evidently fallen. ‘I’m sorry, my Lady. I’ll wait outside.’
‘A sweet girl,’ Lady H_____ smiled as the door closed.
‘Very,’ Horne replied. ‘Bold, too. I wonder whom she acquired that trait from?’
Lady H_____ preened, despite herself. ‘As I have always said, Ambrose, employing staff is like purchasing furniture. It has to blend into the household as though it has always been a part of it. I can take no credit for Nancy’s attributes, beyond encouraging those of which I approve.’
‘As you say, my Lady.’ He bowed comically, stepped forward to kiss her, then smartly turned and left the room. Through the closed door, Lady H_____ heard his low tones pass a pleasantry with Nancy; a very pleasant pleasantry, to judge from the shocked giggle that peeled out in its wake, and the becoming crimson glow that suffused the girl’s cheeks as she re-entered the bedchamber.
‘Mr Horne is not giving you a hard time, is he?’ Lady H_____ chuckled.
‘Oh no, your Lady.’
‘Good, because I was rather hoping that you might join me in giving him an even harder one. Come, sit. And, please, no more of the ‘my Lady’ business. While we speak of these matters, I would rather you think of me as your sister.’
‘It’s the damnedest thing, Horne.’ Doctor Bowles tapped an ember from his pipe into the ornate ashtray on his desk, then replaced the stem in his mouth. ‘The man’s symptoms are clearly physical, but their cause ... I don’t know. I am confident, he is neither a druggie nor a drunkard. He has neither been poisoned nor infected. If I had any faith whatsoever in those new-fangled brain doctors, I would have recommended my patient to them. But no man, no matter how sick, should be subjected to their brand of skulduggery, not until every other avenue has been thoroughly pursued.’
Horne, seated in an armchair in the Doctor’s comfortable study, glanced again at the case notes that lay on his lap. ‘I agree with you, Bowles. But, in all my years of study, I have never come across a case like this. Not in any medical sense, anyway.’
Bowles frowned. ‘Could you be a little more precise?’
Horne grimaced. ‘I suppose I ought to. Do you know the expression, regrettably crude though it is, “I’m going to fuck my brains out”?’
Bowles nodded. ‘Although it’s a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to use it myself.’
‘Well, without actually examining the patient myself, I read here of the same total physical lassitude, the same mental torpor, the same nervous paralysis. The crucial difference being, those sensations should be but a momentary thing, a few minutes at the most, the pleasantries of post-coital afterglow. Yet the patient ...’ he looked again at the case notes ... ‘this Williams fellow, has been complaining of them for three weeks.’
‘And, as if to confound the matter further, the only relief he receives is during the sexual act itself, whereupon he feels all the normal stimuli and sensations for as long as it lasts ...’
‘Then relapses the moment it’s over.’ Horne was silent for a moment. ‘He has been checked for all the usual sexual diseases?’
‘And all the unusual ones as well ... all that I was able to reference, anyway.’ He passed Horne another sheaf of paperwork. The detective scanned it, paused for a moment and then shook his head. ‘Very thorough work, Bowles, very thorough indeed. If you have omitted any test, it certainly isn’t anything I have ever come in contact with.’
Bowles consulted the elegant timepiece that hung from a silver chain on his waistcoat. ‘Allow me to call for my driver, then, and you shall examine the wretched soul yourself.’
Williams was awaiting them in his drawing room. As the carriage drew to a halt on the street outside, Horne saw the curtains drawn slightly apart, and a face – wan and grey – gaze out at the street.
Bowles was all business and brusqueness. Williams had barely opened the front door and the doctor was bustling in, and driving his host back into the drawing room. ‘A colleague of mine wishes to examine you,’ he announced imperiously, then stepped towards the window and drew the curtains tighter. ‘Remove your shirt.’
Horne stepped forward. ‘Please, there’s no reason for that. I’d just like to talk. Bowles, could you perhaps arrange for us to be bought some tea?’
Williams stood. ‘I’ll do it.’ But Horne placed a restraining hand on his arm. ‘I’m certain the good doctor knows the rudiments of tea-making. He prescribes it to enough of his patients, after all.’ He smiled, as though to soften the condemnation, but it was true – too many doctors, faced with complaints they could not identify, simply sent the patient home with instructions to have a nice cup of tea. For a moment, it appeared Bowles might protest, but he caught Horne’s eye and, instinctively understanding the situation, hastened from the room, delivering one final disgruntled ‘harrumph’, as though to maintain appearances.
Horne seated himself and gestured for the hovering Williams to do the same. ‘I do apologise for my introduction,’ he said softly. ‘The doctor is a wonderful man and a skilled practitioner. But any bedside manners he might possess are quite forgotten in every other room of the house.’
Williams forced a smile. ‘Normally, I would not even have consulted him. But I feel myself so constricted by this malaise, so unable to stir myself to any task, if my life is not to fall apart around my ears, I needed to seek advice some place.’
‘And that is how you feel all the time?’ Horne asked. ‘As though you have been wrapped in gauze, and dosed with camphor?’
‘Exactly. As if I could simply lie at rest forever. It’s an exultant sensation; if I could close my eyes and clear my mind, it is as if nothing else in the whole world need concern me. But, of course, one cannot do that. I have – at least, I pray that I still have – a job to attend to, a household to maintain, a social calendar to abide by ...’
‘Yes, your social calendar. Sexual activity, I believe, is the only pursuit that rouses you from this state?’
Williams attempted a lecherous grin. ‘Thank God, yes. If I lost that interest as well, then I’d know I was dead.’
‘And how do you go about arranging these assignations?’
Williams studied him cautiously. ‘I have a vivid imagination, Mr Horne. I picture the activity I wish to sample, and then go in search of it. I rarely need travel more than a few miles from my home.’
‘Describe these activities, if you will.’
Williams sat silently for a moment. ‘I would sound boastful, were I to do so. Or perhaps even degenerate – even you, Mr Horne, with all your renown in these areas, might look at me with new eyes, were you to be fully familiarized with the scenes that I conjure in my mind, and then live out in my chambers barely have I thought of them.’
‘Try me,’ Horne challenged. ‘I think you will find that my own tastes and interests are broad enough to ensure that I will not be shocked.’
And so Williams spoke, of bondage and brutality, of asphyxia and coprophilia, and every one of them miraculously initiated by a stranger whom he happened to encounter within hours of having the thought in the first place. ‘It is as though I walk the streets with a great sandwich board strapped to my body – “Stop me for ...” – oh, name your perversion. If there is a pleasure to be derived from the human body
, then I have derived it, and never at my own conscious initiation. Even ...’ his voice trailed away.
‘Even?’ queried Horne firmly.
‘I was going to say, even the one night that I take no pleasure in remembering, I cannot say that I was wholly the instigator. Other forces led me to that place, and arranged the circumstance. All I needed do was enter.’
Horne raised his eyebrows. ‘Enter where?’
‘The lazaretto,’ Williams said softly. ‘I wished to experience sex with the grotesquely diseased. I passed the building, a back door was wide open and, just paces away from me, a woman whom the dark shadows rendered the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. You would not even have guessed her affliction to see her in candlelight.’ He looked up, his eyes imploring. ‘Only when she took me in her arms could I detect the cruel ravages of her vile disease, and though my conscious mind wishes it could erase the memory, my inner soul still thrills at the imprint that the experience left upon me.’
‘An imprint heavy enough to burden your soul, and perhaps manifest itself in another manner entirely?’ Horne ventured, but Williams shook his head. ‘No, my malaise began long before then. I speak of just three nights past. I have been suffering for nigh on three weeks.’
‘You spoke of other forces. Do you believe, or even consider it possible, that you are somehow bewitched? Or perhaps the plaything of some malevolent power?’
Again Williams shook his head. ‘There is no witchcraft here, nor malevolence. Indeed, were it not for the honour that you do me by asking me these questions, you with so much knowledge of the matters of which we speak, I would scarcely even be having this conversation. My sexuality is the one thing which relieves my symptoms, it can scarcely be the cause of them, too.’
Horne nodded, as though in agreement. The flaws in the man’s argument could be exercised on another occasion. ‘This ability that you exercise, the sandwich board, as you so vividly describe it. To what do you ascribe it?’
The Erotic Return of Ambrose Horne Page 8