The Erotic Adventures of Ambrose Horne

by Chrissie Bentley

  As he whiled away the night, Horne and Mother Cassandra discussed the following day’s agenda. Horne was content to leave the actual planning to her; she was, after all, considerably more versed in the practical psychologies of sexuality than he and, besides, possessed an intimate awareness of the other residents’ proclivities. As he set off to bed for the night, Horne knew that the Prince would be in good hands; and, with it, the future prosperity of the community.

  Horne spent the following day amusing himself as best he could, riding in the morning, being ridden through the afternoon. Jacqueline was in her mid-40s; at best, she could be described as ‘well-preserved’, and first impressions revealed a woman who would be far more at home in a comfortable country residence, raising a brood of children for careers in finance and the lower leagues of government. All of which, it transpired, she had done. Now she had resolved to discover fresh pastures in life, those from which her demure timidity had obstructed her in the past.

  Horne was only too pleased to oblige. Her tastes were conventional, although she considered them the height of daring – ‘until I came here, I never even dreamed that a man might enter from that angle,’ she admitted, as Horne bent her over the dressing table, and fucked her from behind. Neither had she previously experienced the sweet caress of tongue to vulva; nor the sense-shattering glory of fellatio – and it was in that department, Mother Cassandra told Horne, that the woman’s education was most lacking. Indeed, the wily matriarch’s sole request as she arranged the tryst was that, at some stage in the proceedings, Horne allow the woman to sip the froth from his tankard, so that she might learn the true drunken beauty of unbridled lust.

  That moment arrived slowly, but all afternoon, it was as though an unspoken hurdle had been placed between the two lovers; the knowledge that, no matter what else transpired, their union would not be truly consummated until something had been experienced. Horne felt it in the very back of his mind, as he wondered the best approach to take with the woman; Jacqueline felt it in the pounding of her heart, as she gorged herself on Horne’s stamina and enthusiasm, but still found herself hungry for more.

  They had made love twice, and now lay exhausted and silent on the bed, Jacqueline’s fingers toying idly with the hair on Horne’s chest. She brushed one nipple; he moaned quietly and, encouraged, she began swirling one finger around the tiny nib.

  Unmoving still, his eyes closed tight, Horne continued to moan as Jacqueline’s fingers were replaced by her lips; first on one side, then the other. Emboldened further by his obvious delight in her actions, she raised herself on one arm and flicked a questing tongue elsewhere around his chest, noting with a quiet thrill how his pleasure sounded greater, the lower she moved.

  Of course she knew what he wanted to feel, where he hoped that her enquiries would ultimately lead her, but for that, she determined, he must wait. She nibbled his chest hair, nipped at his stomach, daringly dipped to his abdomen to kiss a mere fraction shy of the tip of his now stirring penis, then commenced a slow journey upwards again.

  Time and again she repeated that gentle tease, and every time her lips touched down a shade closer to his cock. It was erect now, and shifting with a will of its own, as if trying to anticipate the point where her mouth would graze next. But she was too quick for it, too smart, and besides, her long hair hung down to blind its one eye, and now she was free to move around without it seeing where she was going.

  She kissed his thighs and suckled his groin; her lips brushed his balls and she noted the deep sigh of pleasure that produced. The next time, her mouth opened gently over his sac, to suck briefly at the thin skin; the taste aroused her and she sucked a little harder, while one hand scrabbled at the flesh of Horne’s abdomen, then slipped down to grasp his shaft.

  His hips swivelled slightly as he gasped aloud. He had waited long enough. Raising his standard to her lips, she engulfed the head slowly, drawing it in to her mouth as her head sank lower. Still she moved slowly, languorously, gently. A treat like this was not for scoffing down in a mouthful, but to be savoured and enjoyed, luxuriously, lady-like. She sucked and her movements fell in time with his breathing.

  She discovered that she could change his own rhythm with the slightest movement; raise him to a peak where his breaths were like small yelps, then lower him again, until he could have been gently sleeping. And, when the first clot of moisture appeared on her tongue, she did not leap away and squeal as she had in the past, but remained at her post, at his post, drawing the juices out of his body, feeling them flowing and flooding her mouth. They mixed with her saliva. Loosening her lips slightly, she allowed the cocktail to dribble out, swamping his shaft in fresh fluids – his eyes now opening, Horne saw the gentle flow engulf his dick and, for a moment, it seemed the most arousing sight he had ever seen.

  Jacqueline’s own motions had changed now. No longer sucking, she was licking at his shaft, retrieving the delicious fluids she had allowed to slip away. Her eyes sought out Horne’s, held them firm. He read gratitude in their brown sparkle. But he also discerned hunger. He envied the woman’s next conquest.

  Mother Cassandra was awaiting him in her office, to detail the first day of the Prince’s education. ‘The first and the last,’ she sighed exasperatedly. The Prince himself had lived up to her every expectation; even the show of outrage and disgust with which he first greeted the suggestion that they ‘play with poo’, as he childishly put it, was so transparent as to be laughable; a case of superficial decorum that was swiftly chased away.

  But a cloud hung over his sport nevertheless, one that he finally acknowledged with the bitter complaint, ‘why do I feel so wretchedly ill?’ The slight cold with which he’d come down a few days back was worsening; by the time he was put to bed, there was even talk of summoning his doctor from London and, by daybreak, there was no question that they needed to.

  A rider was dispatched to the station; the Royal train placed at the messenger’s disposal. By nightfall, the doctor and his own vast retinue of healers and advisors had descended upon the small hotel to which the Prince had been surreptitiously removed; by morning, the entire party had returned to London, with their Royal charge’s delirious insistence that he wanted to stay and play with more poo put down to the ravages of fever.

  Two weeks later, the Prince was dead, felled by a virulent pneumonia. Around the same time, curiously enough, the community’s own doctor was able to pronounce his own pneumonic patient cured, and congratulate himself on the foresight that had insisted upon quarantining the unfortunate sufferer.

  ‘Just a drop of his phlegm, or the touch of his sweat, and we might have endured a veritable epidemic,’ the doctor pronounced as he gave Mother Cassandra the news. ‘And I shudder to think what might have transpired from any more intimate contact.’

  Mother Cassandra smiled and thanked him, then turned to the silently watching Horne. She fixed him with a troubled stare. ‘Did we do wrong?’

  Horne shook his head. ‘The Prince was already ailing when he arrived here, he said it himself on several occasions. There are pestilent vapours aplenty in London. Whatever felled the ox was as likely inhaled there as any place else.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she shrugged. ‘And so we turn to other matters. The governors and I have considered your offer of new premises and I believe they will meet our needs perfectly. Your financial bequest, too, is as gratefully accepted as it is overwhelmingly generous. We have but one request in return.’ Horne inclined his head inquisitively. ‘If it is in my power ...’

  ‘We would be grateful if you would accept an advisory position at the helm of our organisation. We feel we have been perhaps naïve in our desire to maintain our present position, and that we can only benefit from your more worldly experiences.’ She stepped forward and clutched his arm. ‘I, in particular, would consider it an extraordinary favour.’

  ‘Advisory, eh?’ Horne laughed. ‘With, perhaps, some practical frills thrown in on top?’

  She kissed him h
ard. ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Then I accept,’ said Horne.

  The Strange Case of Artistic Licentiousness

  Lizzie hated it the first time it happened. She choked, she spluttered, she spat and, when she raised her hand to her mouth to wipe it away, it stretched stringy and sticky like congealed rice-pudding.

  Ambrose Horne looked horrified as well ... less by what he’d done, of course, than by her reaction to it. All he knew was what she told him; that she was never going to let any man do that again. Ever.

  That was then, this was now. She felt him coming long before it happened, felt his balls tighten and his cock ... somehow it felt as though it had grown another half inch, as it tensed and stiffened even further. Her hand on his stomach registered the tautness of his muscles; she shifted slightly, gripped his shaft and began jerking it.

  Raising her eyes, she saw that his were closed tightly. But his breath was coming in loud gasps and she started sucking harder, drawing his juices up ... up ... up ... and then release, a hot flood that coated the inside of her mouth, pooled on her tongue. Lizzie moved her head back a little, swallowed hard and then allowed her tongue to lick up his manhood, lapping up the overflow.

  Horne’s hand ran roughly through his hair. ‘My dear,’ he breathed. ‘That was amazing.’

  She smiled back at him. Yes, it was, wasn’t it, although she could not still the tiny voice in the back of her head that couldn’t help but chime in. ‘I can’t believe you did that again. I thought you said ...’

  ‘... that I’d never do it again.’ They were lying back on the bed now, her head nestled against his chest, looking down at Horne’s cock, soft and quiet now, drained by the evening’s activities. ‘I really didn’t think I would want to. But I think it was the surprise as much as anything. You never warned me it was coming, and I wasn’t even thinking about it.’

  Horne hugged her closer to him, then chuckled deeply. ‘Well, it means we won’t be needing this, then.’ Rolling onto his side, he reached for a bowl of liquid that lay on his bedside cabinet. The sweet aroma of absinthe rose as the contents were disturbed by his movement.

  Lizzie looked at him curiously. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh, just a little something I concocted in my laboratory,’ Horne said airily. ‘I suppose you could say it prevents sudden flooding. And the taste really is rather agreeable.’

  Lizzie took it from him, sniffed and then touched her tongue to it. ‘Not bad,’ she agreed. ‘But I have to say, I’ve decided that the real thing tastes even better.’ She kissed him; then, from her side of the bed, picked up a tiny painting in an ornate, golden frame, a young man wreathed in the allegorical flames of passionate love. ‘Anyone you know?’

  Horne took the miniature from her. ‘Not unless I was living with the Duchess of Lauderdale, 300 years ago,’ he smiled. ‘No, it’s a memento from a case I was working on recently. I keep meaning to take it down to my museum, but I rather enjoy having the old chap around. I like the motto in the flames. ‘He becomes cold, who does not burn’.’

  Lizzie rolled on top of him. ‘We’d better start rubbing some sticks together, then,’ she replied. ‘I’ll rub, you bring the stick.’ Her hand reached between their bodies and grasped his already-hardening penis. ‘Ah, I see you already have.’

  Three weeks had now passed since Horne first encountered the burning man, weeks in which his powers of deduction had been stretched to their utmost limits; and, even now, the great detective was uncertain what pleased him most – the knowledge that he had cracked another case? Or the fact that, in so doing, he had averted a crisis that might have toppled the Christian religion itself. He liked to think it was the first; but the fierce Protestant beliefs that were instilled within him during childhood, and which still dwelled in his heart, believed otherwise. For why else had he taken on the case in the first place, if not to defend his own personal faith?

  Well, there was an easy answer to that question. Because, as he said late in the very first day of his investigations, what he had just read was either the most incredible story he had ever encountered, or the most preposterous. ‘Unfortunately,’ he continued, ‘at this stage I am unable to tell you which of those responses I would care to lean towards.’

  He looked up from the sheath – nay, the mountain – of papers that was arrayed across his desk, his eyes squinting from perusing the minuscule scribblings that coated every page, and braced himself for the tempest that he knew was brewing on the other side of the table.

  It was not long in arriving. Rising to his feet, the tiny man’s fury flashed from behind his spectacles. ‘And your response, sir, simply reinforces his own belief, that the information I have stumbled upon here not only undermines the very fabric upon which society has been erected, but cuts to the very soul of man’s role in the universe itself.’

  Horne flinched – the gesture felt a little more theatrical than he would have preferred, but he rightly assumed that his assailant would not notice that. A little humility might soothe the ruffled temper. ‘I apologise, Mr Rowand. I had no intention of offending you. I merely mean to remind you that you have spent many months ...’

  ‘Years,’ his visitor brusquely interjected.

  ‘Again, I apologise. Many years at this study, whereas I am simply a novice, passing an unschooled eye over your findings. It is highly unlikely that what has become apparent to you would be so glaringly obvious to me – for if it were, then surely our roles would be reversed, and I would be the former Vice-President of the Acadehis for the Arts, whereas you would be a simple jobbing detective.’

  He paused, as though momentarily puzzled by something. ‘Former Vice-President,’ he said slowly, emphasising the first word. ‘Why is that?’

  Rowand sneered. ‘I was removed from his situation for the same reason, and by the same people, as I have been removed from every other position I ever held in society. Because the truth is a dangerous weapon in the hands of one such as I, and only by destroying his reputation can anybody hope to silence the threat.’

  ‘I see.’ Horne folded his hands in front of his face, and contemplated his visitor. On the face of it, the man was quite mad; indeed, Horne had been apprised of that fact on so many occasions that, when he was finally introduced to the Right Honourable B.N. Rowand, he was surprised to find the gentleman alone, and not accompanied by a band of white-coated attendants.

  Neither had anything he learned this afternoon altered that opinion. Except ... except, Horne learned long ago never to accept anything on face value, and that included a man’s sanity. Clearly, he believed in what he was saying and, equally clearly, he believed he had the proof to back it up. Horne’s task, as he saw it, was to ascertain just how valid those proofs were, and then deliver that information to the Fleet Street proprietor who had commissioned him to investigate the matter to begin with.

  ‘I realise, old chap, that art history isn’t quite up your alley,’ the newspaperman blustered brightly. ‘But, quite honestly, I didn’t know who else to turn to.’

  Horne smiled. ‘Everything is up my alley if somebody places it there,’ he replied; and, besides, he wasn’t totally ignorant on the subject – three years studying composition under the great Hindu eroticist Lakshmi Kanpur (many of the finest Indian painters were female) had taught him a great deal more than many people would expect. However, even he had to concede defeat when faced by the sheer wealth of scholarship that Rowand had amassed. Defeat and despair.

  Rowand’s case was, on the face of it, simple. A decade ago, inspecting a newly discovered portrait by the 17th century British artist, Isaac Oliver, Rowand’s attention was drawn to a tiny, seemingly irrelevant, doodle a little to the left of the sitter’s head, as though she were wearing an especially ornate ear-ring. At the time, he dismissed it; considered it nothing more than the poorly-erased remnants of some background object that Oliver subsequently decided to forego. There was, after all, nothing unusual in that – if you look closely enough, some of the most beloved p
aintings in the world are littered with similar flaws and erasures.

  Something about this particular symbol stuck in Rowand’s mind, however, not because it was especially significant, but because – try as the man might – he could not imagine what Oliver had been attempting to paint. And then, he spotted it again, on another of Oliver’s canvases. And another and another.

  Oliver specialised in miniatures; it only followed, therefore, that the symbols Rowand was discovering were so tiny as to escape all but the most practised eye – how many times, he seethed, had he attempted to interest his colleagues in his discovery, only for them to prove totally incapable of seeing the things. Rowand saw them, however; painstakingly copied them onto paper and, for the past ten years, he had dedicated his spare time to solving their history.

  He had succeeded, too – although he sometimes wished he hadn’t. ‘Each symbol, you see, is a monogram,’ he explained, ‘three, sometimes four Greek letters that, in isolation, mean nothing. Should we rearrange them, however, a very unexpected text appears’ – or, at least, the suggestion of an unexpected text, a string of initials, abbreviations and the like which, according to Rowand, cast incontrovertible doubt upon tenet that man now held Holy.

  The authorship of the Bible, the lineage of the Saviour, the infallibility of God and, almost as an afterthought, the legal veracity of the Church of England – all were, apparently, discussed and revealed in the cryptograms. But, whereas these conclusions fascinated Rowand, they perplexed Horne. For who was Oliver, that he would know such things to begin with?

  ‘Who indeed?’ Lady H_____ could not remember the last occasion upon which she had discovered Horne to be so distracted, so mechanical in his love-making. The feeling, however, was mutual. In the past, Horne would have sworn that no problem was so all-consuming that an evening in the arms of one of his oldest lady-friends could not chase it from his mind. Tonight, however, even as he lunged towards a less than powerful climax, his mind was tracing and retracing the mysterious symbols that he had spent the afternoon studying, and going back and forth across the life of the mysterious Isaac Oliver.