Katie slid her finger back up his shaft, tracing the line of his fly. Raising her head slightly, she sought out the buttons and unlocked his trousers – his cock leaped out almost comically, relishing its sudden freedom and pushing hot and naked against her chin. Her tongue flicked out to greet it, wrapping around the swollen head and tasting his juice. He was delicious. Slowly her lips closed over the very tip, suckling gently before she drew a little more of him in, mere fractions at a time, until finally she held the hot head enclosed in her loving, hungry mouth.
She wished there was more light in the cab than the faint glow of the dying sun; she wanted to finally look at the shaft she’d spent the last half an hour blindly toying with, admire its colour, its size, its unbelievable hardness. Instead, Katie’s eyes caught a flash of a milestone as they passed it. Thirty miles to go, and an idea flickered mischievously across her mind. She remembered several years before, fellating the young man she once believed she would marry and, afterwards, thrilling as he told her she’d just given him the greatest ten minutes of his life. Using the milestones as her gauge, she determined that Ambrose Horne was going to get the best ten miles of his life. At least.
He felt huge in her mouth but, with every passing minute (or mile), she seemed to be able to take more of him in, and crave even more. Katie had never mastered whatever trick it is that enables a girl to slide an entire cock into her mouth without the gag reflex exploding. But her mouth seemed to know exactly what to do, sucking him deeper and deeper until she felt her lips brush his pubic hair, her nose push into his balls.
Determined to make these moments last forever, to sear them into both her own and Ambrose Horne’s memory banks, Katie held him there for a moment, then let her lips slip slowly back up his cock, pausing every so often to allow her teeth to graze the taut skin, while her tongue languorously caressed him. Holding him between two fingers, she licked at his shaft, shifted slightly to suck lightly on his balls, and then returned to his prick, her fingers and thumb gently rubbing him as she engulfed it once again.
She bit gently then and, hearing him moan a little, allowed her teeth to roam free, gently closing up and down his cock, enjoying the sensation of him throbbing inside her mouth. Horne’s hands were both in her hair now, his breath was coming in ever-shorter, sharper pants and, as her lips closed over the thick, meaty ridge of his glans once more, to suck harder than she’d ever done before, she heard him groan lightly, a wordless herald of the orgasm that was rushing towards fulfilment.
She answered him with a moan that she hadn’t even known was there, the sound, she thought later, of a lover so completely lost in her partner’s pleasure that she herself was experiencing every thrill that he felt. She felt him tense, shudder and then the most incredible release, his hot cream flooding into her mouth.
She raised her head to swallow, then sank down again, as the spurting come subsided, to lap that away with her tongue, determined to devour every last delicious drop. Then, as she felt him soften, she sat up and kissed him on the cheek. Glancing out of the window, the sights and scenes of her own home village were just coming into view. ‘Welcome to Nether Winchington,’ she said. ‘Home sweet home.’
Horne met Lady Batsford for the first time the following morning at breakfast. She was in her early 50s, he guessed, but her eyes flashed and her smile curved with the tempting allure of a girl half her age. He wondered idly why, following the death of her husband, there had never been a second Lord Batsford; why she had chosen to live on alone in this vast rambling mansion, with just the staff for company. But, for now, her self-imposed solitude was her own business. If it had any bearing on this case, he would certainly uncover it in the fullness of time.
‘I read your letters, Lady Batsford, but I would like you to explain the circumstances once again, so that I might construct a full picture of the events.’
‘Certainly, Mr Horne. It is quite simple. I retire for bed, and when I awake ... another item has gone.’ She lay down an inventory of the stolen property, a collection of baubles and trinkets that, even had she not thoughtfully noted their value alongside them, would have left Horne staggered at the wealth she had invested in jewellery – and the stupidity with which she apparently left them just laying around the house.
‘Oh no, not around the house,’ she corrected him, and her voice lowered a little. ‘That is the reason why I contacted you, with your ‘special’ reputation for, shall we say, more delicate matters. I sleep in my jewellery – as a child, I adored playing dress-up before bed, and always believed that if one looks beautiful while one sleeps, then one will dream beautifully as well.’
Horne smiled. ‘Does it work?’
‘It did until this awful business started. But that is why this matter is so delicate. For it is not simply a person entering my room and stealing these items. He – or she – is removing them from my actual physical person as I sleep.’ She shuddered and Horne phrased his next question as delicately as he could.
‘Have they ...?’
Lady Batsford was ahead of him. ‘Have they touched me inappropriately at any time? No, not that I am aware of. And believe me, Mr Horne, I think I would notice.’
Horne was silent for a moment, as his mind wrestled with this particular piece of information. ‘So you are a deep sleeper?’
‘Apparently so. Although I would never have said so in the past.’
Over the remainder of the morning, Horne spoke of every possible scenario that could facilitate the criminal in his actions – and every one, Lady Batsford, informed him had already been fully investigated by the local police. The turnover of household staff ruled out of the possibility of it being an ‘inside job’ – of the current staff, only Katie, the head parlour-maid, and one other girl, had been employed for more than a few months, although they, too, were relative newcomers, trusted only because of family ties. Katie grew up on the estate, a former gamekeeper’s grand-daughter; the other girl was Lady Batsford’s own niece, who didn’t arrive in the neighbourhood after the disappearances began
There was never any sign of a break-in or, for that matter, a break-out. Lady Batsford’s own love of the culinary arts, and her insistence on cooking many of her own meals, ruled out poison. And, when Horne jokingly suggested that the culprit might be a magpie, or some similarly acquisitive bird, he was astonished to discover that Lady Batsford herself had already conducted her own search for some form of feathered felon.
Going over Lady Batsford’s story in his room after dinner that evening, Horne confessed himself perplexed. Doodling at the bureau, his pen hurriedly sketching out the spurting penises, myriad breasts and bountiful buttocks that were his subconscious mind’s favoured means of relaxation, he knew that the answer lay within his grasp. But there was one piece of the puzzle missing, and the solution to this entire mystery lay in him finding it, wherever it lay.
Crossing the room, Horne rang the bell that connected to the servant’s quarters. Katie had been assigned to his needs for the duration of his stay, and she hurried to answer it.
‘I was wondering,’ he asked as she entered the room. ‘Does your mistress entertain visitors ... shall we say ‘outside’ of her normal social circle?’
Katie giggled. ‘Like a fancy man, or something?’
‘If you want to put it that way, yes.’
‘Well…’ the girl lowered her voice. ‘I shouldn’t really say anything; in fact, we’re not even supposed to know. But the Squire spends an awful lot of time here of an evening, at least three or four visits a week. And we are never to disturb them while they are together.’
‘Where do they hold these assignations?’
‘In the morning room. He arrives around seven and leaves around ten. My mistress says they are discussing private estate business.’
‘But the servants think there’s something else going on?’ Horne ventured.
‘Well, wouldn’t you?’ Katie laughed. ‘He’s married, you know, but the mistress is still a royal beauty,
and if you saw the Squire’s wife!’ Her voice trailed away. ‘But please don’t say anything to anyone. If they found out I’d said anything to you, there’d be hell to pay.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ Horne assured her. ‘But tell me, do the thefts coincide with the Squire’s visits?’
‘I really couldn’t say. He’s here so often, and the thefts are so random. Maybe they do ...’
‘Hmmm. And, finally, is he here now?’
She nodded and Horne dismissed her. It was time, he decided for a little snooping. Yet, when he returned to his room later that evening, he had to confess himself no wiser than he had been. Yes, the servants’ suspicions were confirmed; in the 40 minutes that Horne spent crouched in an outside flower bed, squinting through the one set of curtains that had not been drawn tightly, he had been gratified only to discover that his own first impressions of Lady Batsford, a 25-year-old girl trapped in the body of a 50-year-old woman, had not been mistaken.
Spreadeagled on the chaises-longues, the Squire himself was no great lover. But Lady Batsford surely made his every fantasy come true, as she rode his face to a shuddering climax, then turned her body and brought him to one of his own, using nothing more than the pressure and texture of her tongue on his swollen glans.
Three times, her voracious mouth coaxed her partner’s manhood back to full bloom, and three times she dispatched it again with feats of erotic imagination that Horne himself had only experienced on a handful of occasions. And, when the Squire finally took his leave, at ten on the button, he did indeed depart, dressing smartly and marching out to the carriage that waited patiently in the driveway.
So, Lady Batsford had not told him every episode that occurred during the course of the mysterious thefts. But it was an episode that did not, so far as Horne could surmise, have any bearing on the thefts themselves. As he prepared himself for bed that night, he glanced down at his notebook. His doodles, customarily so broad and detailed, looked like dots.
A good night’s sleep did not clear the furrows from Horne’s brow and, as Katie drew his bath the following morning, he remained so perplexed that he scarcely even registered the fact that she was speaking to him. Not until he actually plunged himself into the tub and discovered the water to be icy cold, did her warning of ‘the range is down, you may just want a quick flannel bath’ sink into his head and, by then, it was too late.
Gritting his teeth, he determined to complete his ablutions – he had bathed in far worse than this in his time, and been grateful for it. But, when he stepped out from behind the screen, naked and shivering, to find Katie still making up his bed, her peal of laughter certainly took him aback. ‘Oh, Mr Horne! Two nights ago, you gave me a tree limb. This morning, you barely have a button mushroom!’
Horne looked down. In the bitter cold to which it had just been exposed, his manhood had indeed retreated to dimensions that were, indeed, worthy of such derision, although the expression on Katie’s face made it apparent that she had suddenly realised her own words were scarcely those of a respectful parlour-maid. ‘I am so sorry ... it just took me so by surprise’ – astonished, Horne saw the girl was on the verge of tears; astonished, too, he felt something stirring in the back of his mind.
First things first. ‘My dear. After the delights that we shared on my journey here, I hardly think you need to stand on ceremony around me. You gave to me a gift that any man would value as highly as any treasure, a physical joy that the most ardent lover would be hard pressed to surpass.’
Still naked, still shivering, he held her to his body, but the warmth that flooded back into his frozen extremities, that brought a little more life back to his most shrunken parts, was not the result of mere physical contact. It was a mental thrill that refreshed Horne’s body and, as he reached for his clothing, he felt his voice trembling with the renewed thrill of the hunt. ‘My dear, I wonder if you would be willing to take a short walk with me?’
Dressed and breakfasted, and walking the estate together, Horne delighted in the girl’s chatter about her own childhood on these grounds; how, as she passed through her early teens, she had learned to love every field, every copse, every inch of the land; and how, even in adulthood, she was able to point out the kind of things that the sharpest eyes might otherwise have missed.
But not the sharpest mind. While Katie was merrily recalling the adventures that she and her sisters used to have in the Fairy Field, where every morning gave birth to a new magical ring of mushrooms and toadstools, Horne was on his knees in the still dew-damp grass, examining the many forms of fungi that sprang from the soil and, when Katie paused to look quizzically at him, he smiled broadly. ‘Something you said earlier brought an idea to mind. And I was just remembering how much your mistress likes her mushrooms.’
He said no more on the subject to Katie; nor, once they returned to the mansion, to his hostess. Alone in the morning room with Lady Batsford, however, he did not intend beating around any other bushes. ‘You have never mentioned your relationship with the Squire to any investigators, I assume?’
Lady Batsford blushed crimson. ‘I have no relationship with the Squire beyond any that is appropriate within our social positions.’
‘Positions, yes,’ Horne replied, smilingly. ‘Social, on the other hand. Well, maybe country folk enjoy a very different understanding of etiquette to that with which I am familiar. And, were it able to speak, I wonder whether the ‘fainting couch’ upon which you are now seated would be willing to vouchsafe your story?’
Lady Batsford’s mouth hung open in shock. ‘You spied.’
‘I investigated. I deduced. I did nothing that I told you I would not be doing when you gave me your permission to conduct a thorough search of the premises. Now, if we might concern ourselves with some particulars, there are several details with which I would like to acquaint myself, before going any further.’
Hesitantly at first, but with increasing fervour as her explanation wore on, Lady Batsford explained how the Squire had long been a welcome and regular visitor at the mansion, to discuss local affairs with her husband. Following Lord Batsford’s death five years ago, the meetings had continued and, as they did so, so a certain fission developed between the lonely widow and the frustrated cuckold, one that was only amplified as the evenings wore on and, his inhibitions loosened by wine, the Squire began reminiscing about his years in India, a dashing young horseman with an eye for both local ladies and the local literature. ‘For the two,’ he had told her, ‘can quickly be persuaded to go hand in hand.’
It was within the pages of the Randama Satrani, a well-illustrated medieval Hindu treatise on oral sex, that the Squire first learned of the many delights with which two lovers are able to pleasure one another; delights, sad to say, that his lady wife had little taste for. But Lady Batsford, out of politeness as much as anything else, had asked what kind of delights they might be, and quickly discovered them to live wholly up to that billing. ‘For the past three years, therefore, we have been enjoying them to their fullest extent. Does that answer your question?’
‘It goes some way towards answering it,’ Horne replied. ‘I will not ask you to detail those pleasures – I am no stranger to that book myself. However, I do find myself wondering whether your pleasures ever go beyond the tastes and textures of the human body, to any artificial, or perhaps herbal aids?’
Lady Batsford shook her head. ‘We experimented in that manner on several occasions long ago.’ She lowered her voice almost conspiratorially. ‘But God gave the body a flavour that we might enjoy it. There is no need to sugar the tea. Now please, will you tell me what is on your mind?’
Horne smiled. ‘I think by this evening, it will be my pleasure to do just that.’
The detective’s next visit was to see the Squire. He had no need to introduce himself. Lady Batsford had already informed her lover of her distinguished guest; how natural, then, for that guest to pay his own respects to one of the most eminent gentlemen in the county. Now they sat in the Squ
ire’s so tastefully furnished study, its walls jammed with beautifully leather-bound books, its dark furnishings radiating a sultry silence that was almost permeable. The brandy was good, the cigars were delicious and the Squire was indeed engaging company.
‘Lady Batsford tells me you served in India, as indeed did I,’ Horne ventured. He named his regiment. ‘We spent our time in Nawanagar, at the palace of the young Ranji.’ The name of the sub-continent’s most distinguished cricketer and best-loved Prince brought a smile to the Squire’s eyes. ‘I, too, served there, but under the boy’s father. Fine times, high times.’
‘Loving times,’ agreed Horne. ‘You sampled the, as we used to call them, local traditions?’
‘Sampled them?’ The Squire laughed. ‘My dear boy, I brought the best of them home with me.’ Rising, he took from the shelf a clearly dog-eared Randama Satrani, its manifold illustrations so frequently circled in ink that the surrounding native text was all but obliterated.
‘Ah, The Ballads of the Questing Tongue. I translated an edition of this into English while I was at Cambridge,’ Horne told him. ‘Very illuminating reading.’
The Squire laughed. ‘Dickens is for reading. Hardy is for reading. The Randama Satrani is for doing.’ Horne laughed back, and remembered the first time he had offered a lady a ‘pearl tiara’ – then sprayed his seed across her neck. But he was also scanning the other books on the jovial Squire’s shelf, a mixed bag of sexual treatises that ranged from A Rake’s Progress Through the Lost Women of London – a regularly updated directory of the city’s whores and their specialties; to some uninformed ‘scientific’ treatises on mating traditions in the China Seas.
The Erotic Memoirs of Ambrose Horne Page 5
