"For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men."
She stood still, her hand nearly on the door handle. She nearly leapt when Lockhart's voice hissed:
"Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things."
Velma took a breath and knocked. "Sir, I should clear away," she said.
"Come in," Lockhart said, his voice back in its normal register.
She opened the door with her eyes cast down. Immediately, she heard, "I'm dressed now, Mrs. Barnes." She looked up and saw that he was.
He closed the Bible and placed it on the tray. "I think I'll go upstairs and begin working. I trust your husband was able to find the list of things I needed?" Sometime during the night before, Lockhart had left a list at their bedroom door when they awoke.
Velma nodded. "My husband has already placed them at the door upstairs."
"Very good. Thank you, Mrs. Barnes. Oh, one moment, Mrs. Barnes."
Velma had not yet moved.
"I hope I didn't offend you this morning with my state of undress," Lockhart said. "I should have known better. I think the lack of sleep and the last few days have put me in a strange state."
"Don't mention it, sir. It's all right," Velma said.
"It's just that, I saw you looking at me in the dresser mirror."
Velma's eyes widened and she looked back down. Mr. Lockhart approached her. "I suppose it's fair," he said. "I was looking at you last night. You see, your robe, when I first came into your house, was partially opened and I saw your left breast. I felt terrible about it and I realized I made you feel terrible this morning as well. Please accept my apologies."
"It's fine, sir. Don't mention it,' Velma said.
"You are a beautiful woman and I feel I've dishonored you and your husband."
"No, please don't think another thought about it."
She looked up at Mr. Lockhart. Their eyes locked.
"I won't if you won't."
"Deal, sir," she said, working her way out the door. Once in the hallway, Velma felt that hot rush from before, moving over her body before it centered below her below, between her legs. She then realized she forgot to take the tray. Inwardly, she cursed herself and turned to knock again when the door flew open. Mr. Lockhart opened his mouth as Velma said, "I'm so sorry, sir, I forgot the tray." He gestured toward the dresser. Quickly, Velma went to the tray and turned.
"Will there be anything else, Mr. Lockhart?" she asked, wanting to maintain servant civility but eager to leave the room.
"Are you all right, Mrs. Barnes?"
"Of course, Mr. Lockhart."
"Call me Thomas, or Tom, please. I never took to servants calling me Mr. Lockhart. My father was Mr. Lockhart. I'm just... Tom."
"Oh, I couldn't, sir."
"What if I insisted?"
"Very well... Tom."
Lockhart smiled at Velma. She felt herself melt on the inside. What was the effect this man, this stranger, had on her?
"I... suppose... you should call me Velma."
"Velma. What a beautiful name, for a beautiful woman."
Velma demurred, looking down at the tray.
"I've embarrassed you again, Velma."
"No, not at all. Thank you, sir. Tom."
"That will be all for now, Velma. Thank you," Lockhart said. And with that, he shifted his attention away from her, like the flip of an internal switch. Velma looked at him for a moment before nodding and leaving the room with the tray.
The door closed, Lockhart looked up and sighed before glancing down at his lower regions.
His erection pushed against the fabric of his dress pants. He bit his lip, closed his eyes and began rubbing himself until he could contain himself no longer. He unzipped his pants, letting them fall to his ankles. His erection sprang forth and immediately, Lockhart began stroking his ever-growing penis, moaning softly, moving his lips to form one word: Velma.
It only took him less than a minute to ejaculate, the thick white liquid spattering across the tiny night table beside the bed. He froze, his body locked in a spasm of delight as his penis worked automatically it seemed, coursing and pulsing until the last drop.
Lockhart breathed heavily, letting out a sigh before he looked down at the mess he'd made. His lips curled in disgust as he began to clean up the night table and his hands. His eyes went to Velma's body and he winced.
Chapter 4
The next day came and Velma awoke feeling happier than she'd felt for ages. Perhaps it was the fact that they now had money, thanks to their new tenant. Her thought immediately shifted to Lockhart and she found herself flashing back to yesterday morning and his state of undress. His cock. His ass. His broad, milk white back and legs. Those piercing blue eyes and thick wavy blonde hair.
She felt a moistness stirring in-between her legs and rose quickly. Lamont had already gotten up a few minutes earlier to shave and dress for the new day. She noticed he had a spring in his step since yesterday. He had even kissed Velma on the cheek before he rose from bed, something he hadn't done in quite some time.
Stirrings of lust aside, Velma felt comfort in knowing that just above her head, in the wonderfully furnished bedroom, was a tenant who had paid two months in advance! She just knew that Lockhart would likely be a long-term tenant, as long as she and Lamont did nothing to persuade him otherwise. She knew it was their job to keep him content and satisfied with his new surroundings.
As for his oddness, the state of undress and some of the things he said... the way he looked at her... Velma dismissed it quickly. People with money could afford to be odd. Besides, Thomas... Tom... Mr. Lockhart wasn't the first white man who had shown interest in Velma. If it wasn't a former employer pinching her ass or making suggestive talk to her, it was a family member or a houseguest. Velma had never had any kind of relations with anyone other than Lamont and a young man she knew as a teenager who had taken her virginity one warm night in May.
But Velma felt an attraction to men: powerful men, wealthy men, men who were secure in themselves. She had surmised Lamont was such a man. After all, a butler with a small fortune in savings who parlayed it into real estate. In his role as a butler and valet, he commanded respect from those subordinate to him and those he worked for. He was reliable, efficient and smart. The pitfalls into which they had stumbled would make any strong, powerful or wise man plumb the depths of despair.
She felt sorry for Lamont. Sorry for his predicament and sorry for the way she usually treated him: with quiet contempt. Velma felt herself growing a little anxious, even more so when she stepped into the hall dressed and listened for sound upstairs and heard none.
At noon, the bell in the drawing room rang. Velma hurried upstairs, eager to please the tenant despite the strangeness of his arrival and first morning in their house. After all, he had rescued them from the absolute poverty with his arrival. She wanted to keep him happy, no matter what.
She found Mr. Lockhart up and fully dressed. He sat at the table in the middle of the sitting room with Velma's Bible open before him. He looked up at Velma as she entered. She was concerned to see that he looked tired and worn.
"Velma, you wouldn't happen to have a concordance, would you?" Lockhart asked.
Velma shook her head. She had no idea what a concordance was, but she knew that whatever it was, she was sure neither she nor Lamont possessed such a thing.
Lockhart began to instruct Velma as to what he needed for her to purchase for him. A comb, a brush, razor blades, a toothbrush, nightshirts... things that Velma suspected he had carried in his case, but apparently such wasn't the case as these were the things he said he desperately needed this afternoon.
After providing him with a late breakfast/early lunch, Velma hurried out to buy the things Lockhart requested.
It was such a good feeling to have money in her purse again, money that she and Lamont had earned!
&n
bsp; Velma purchased the comb, brush and razor blades from the barbershop two blocks from their house. It had been the barbershop Lamont frequented until Velma began shaving and trimming his hair to save money. It was a dark and smelly shop, reeking faintly of reefer, so Velma hurried to make her purchases for Lockhart.
The strange man who served her was one of the barbers, a man of foreign descent, judging from an accent, which she couldn't place. The barber was determined to regale Velma with the latest details of the Hangman's murder spree, the same details Lamont had tried to tell her the night before until she turned her back to him in bed and closed her eyes.
Velma was polite but as soon as the barber gave her change and handed her the bag with her purchases, she nodded and left the store quickly. She just didn't want to think of anything morbid when she was feeling so much better, the best she'd felt in a very long time.
Velma returned to the house and presented her purchases to Lockhart. He smiled at her, pleased, and thanked her warmly. Velma smiled back, pleased that she had done well for her tenant. She then offered to tidy up his room and suddenly, the smiling, warm face darkened and he frowned, looking more than a little perturbed.
"Velma, please wait until tonight to do such things," he said quickly. "I prefer to stay home all day for study. My courses are at night, after the lights are lit. Please bear with me, Velma, if I seem unlike any tenant you've had before. I ask that you -- and your husband -- understand that I mustn't be disturbed when studying or conducting my experiments." He stopped, his mouth remaining opening for a moment before he closed it. "It's a matter of utmost urgency. A matter of life and death, even."
Velma nodded. "Of course. Whatever you want, sir... Tom." And she resigned herself to have no issue whatsoever with his preferences, no matter how odd they seemed. Velma was a true woman in that way. She had infinite tolerance for the strange things of men.
Velma returned downstairs to be greeted with a pleasant surprise. Carter had come in and was talking with Lamont in the front room on the first floor. She arrived just in time to see Lamont handing Carter some money.
Carter's young face beamed, pleased to have helped two dear people, but also to get some money back in the process and also to hear about Lamont and Velma's good news -- a wonderful, though strange, new tenant.
"Tom said he doesn't want me to tidy his room until he goes out tonight for his studies," she said, sitting down across from the men.
Lamont looked at her funny for a moment, then let it pass. Tom? Carter, dutifully suited for his work, noticed Lamont's expression... and the fact that Velma was on a first-name basis with the new tenant.
Velma's mind was elsewhere, seeking comfort in knowing Lockhart was upstairs eating the breakfast she was actually proud of in how well it turned out.
The general sense of good feeling allowed her to file Lockhart away in her mind. She would get up in a few minutes and begin work on dinner.
"Please say you'll stay and have dinner with us," she said to Carter. Carter was young and not one to turn down a meal. After all the times he had brought food for them, he didn't want to deny them the opportunity to demonstrate largesse now that they had money.
Velma felt a warm fondness for Carter. Although she was only slightly over a decade older than the detective, she felt a maternal instinct toward him. Velma had never had children, for she was unable to, but the feelings of maternity were still strong in her. She had surmised that they were there to make her a good servant and not a mother.
Still, she was in a good mood that made her pleased with everything around her. So much so that when Lamont began asking Carter about the Hangman murders, she found herself listening with a modicum of interest.
That morning, Lamont purchased a morning paper for the first time in a long time, poring over the three pages devoted to the Hangman's crimes. The fiend was the talk of Charleston and from Carter's additional commentary, the talk of the entire southeastern seaboard!
Lamont read from the paper to Carter and Velma, while Carter offered up the connective tissue of details only detectives or law enforcement officials could give that made the story even more gripping and lurid.
"Is it true, Carter," Lamont asked. "That the police have information they're not sharing with the public?"
"Anybody saying that doesn't know what they're talking about," Carter said plainly. A look of uneasy disgust came over his face. "The police have a lack of clues, if anything."
"Why do you say that?" Velma found herself asking. Carter smiled at her. He took his job seriously. Law and justice were two components that made up the very fiber of Carter's being.
"Well, I've recently been brought in on the case, what with my experience in criminology and forensics. The fact is, we're stumped and this whole Hangman mess has put us all in an uproar. You should have seen the poor guy who was on street patrol when that last one happened down at the Battery."
"Say what?" Lamont said with a jolt. "There was a policeman down there when it happened?"
"Within a few yards, even," Carter said grimly. No such fact had been relayed in the morning paper. "The officer heard a scream, but any street patrolman will tell you screams aren't so uncommon in that part of town. People always fighting and going at each other in such places."
"Have you seen the notes the Hangman leaves behind?" Lamont said, leaning forward. Velma found herself leaning forward as well.
The papers and the public were all in a frenzy over the notes left at the crime scenes. Each had been pinned to the victims, written in red ink that resembled blood with a fine hand, signed "The Hangman."
Lamont's eyes were wide with anticipation, waiting for more.
"Yes, sir," Carter said. "Quite a business card." Lamont laughed, struck with morbid delight at Carter's dark joke.
Velma frowned. "That's nothing to joke about," she said to the men.
"You're right," Carter apologized. "Detectives get a little grim sometimes, even when we joke. I'll never forget those notes and what this bastard did to those people. It's not human. Whoever did this is more animal than man. I'll tell you, I had a hard time sleeping after I got put on this here case." Carter rose. "Well, I shouldn't keep any more of your time. You've got a business to run."
"Oh, please say you'll stay and have dinner with us," Velma protested.
"Rain check on that one, Velma, if you don't mind. Besides, I need to grab a quick bite before I head back to the office. Always on the job, especially with the madness going on with this case."
When Carter reached the door, he turned around and attempted to ask nonchalantly, "I don't suppose Dalia will be coming around any time soon, will she?"
Lamont smiled. He loved his daughter, but saw her so little. He nodded sadly. "Afraid not," he said. Her grandma keeps her tied tight to that big apron string of hers. It was months before I heard the last of her going on about the week Dalia spent with us last year."
"Sorry to hear that," Carter said. And he was. "See you folks later."
After Lamont saw Carter to the door, he smirked at Velma. "Looks like Detective Carter likes my Dalia."
Velma scoffed. While she didn't dislike Dalia, she could care less for Lamont's former mother-in-law and the way in which she care for her granddaughter. Basically, Dalia could do whatever she wanted, as long as it was in line with the old woman's wishes.
"Carter's too young to be thinking about girls at this point." Velma said with a click of her tongue. "Besides, who'd want to marry a policeman?"
"Yeah, you're probably right," Lamont agreed. "Times are changing, I guess. It was just the way he asked about her. You see how anxious he was trying not to be. I dare say he came over here just to ask that question."
The street lamps turned on at five o'clock promptly. Mr. Lockhart went out and some time after he left the house, two packages arrived addressed to Velma. They contained clothes, but it was clear at first inspection to Velma that these were not new clothes.
In fact, it appeared they wer
e purchased from a second-hand store. This seemed strange to Velma, what with the bankroll of cash her tenant carried on his person. Her tenant, she thought to herself. I mean, our tenant.
Sugar in Her Bowl Page 5