Horne had never previously fathomed a guess at her weight. But he was willing, now, to wager that she came close to doubling his; and, despite himself, Horne felt panic flutter in his chest.
He fought against the girl’s movements, but his struggles seemed only to translate themselves in her mind as further wild stimulation. Her legs parted, releasing him from one death grip – he took a breath and the dildo slipped out of his grasp and rolled onto the floor ... there to be joined, a split-second later, by the tangled mass of their own flesh, as Catherine’s entire body rose up in one deft, liquid movement and, with a shock that jarred every bone in his body, and expelled all the air he had just inhaled, threw Horne onto his back.
Catherine’s loins pressed hard against his face, smothering him in the juices that flowed as though from a standpipe. Or a waterfall. She was climaxing, he knew that – but more than that, she was ejaculating, too, a great stream of hot liquid that filled his mouth, his nostrils, his throat ... that choked his air passages so that he could neither cough nor swallow ... His brain was screaming in anger and horror, but he could neither make a sound, nor hear one for the thunderous rush of blood in his ears.
And then suddenly, miraculously, he was free, he could breathe, and Catherine was lying exhausted beside him, her breath still exploding loudly from her lungs.
Horne, too, was motionless. It seemed impossible ... or, at least, implausible. But, for a moment there, he had truly believed he was dying, simultaneously drowning and suffocating ... But, as his mind cleared, and assumed once again its customary objectivity, he also had to admit that Catherine’s orgasm was among the most impressive, the most uninhibited, and the most glorious he had ever witnessed. Indeed, if there was a single lesson left that he might teach her, he himself needed return to school, simply to discover what it was.
He told her as much as they sat sipping tea in the parlour; that she was, without doubt, the most gifted pupil he had ever tutored, and that, were she to treat her future husband to even a fraction of what she had granted Horne today ... he allowed his voice to trail away, allowing Catherine to fill in her own happy ending. Either he would be one of the luckiest men in the world – or she would be one of the most unusual widows.
It took him a few moments, once Catherine had departed, to collect up the three dildos they had used – one of them, astonishingly, lay on quite the opposite side of the room to where they had been – and, briefly, Horne worried that they might have been damaged ... chipped, perhaps, or scratched ... during their adventures. But no, the workmanship remained untarnished and, with a quick rinse and a polish, they looked as good as new.
He had deduced much from the afternoon’s session. Though he had barely replaced half the dildos in their appointed places within one another, earlier in the afternoon, still each now possessed its own distinctive centre of gravity – a surprisingly valuable consideration to which few conventional dildo manufacturers ever gave any thought. Clearly, who ever designed these delightful items had an understanding of the female (and, were one so inclined, the male) physiognomy that travelled far beyond the simple art of sticking it in and moving it around. Once this was all over, Horne mused, he would endeavour to seek out that designer and compare notes. He felt they might both learn much from the experience.
Once this was all over. That, however, lay away in some distant and still, Horne frowned, unimaginable future. For, though he had long ago discerned the various means by which he could accomplish his quest – a battery of manoeuvres that encompassed everything from inserting an indiscreet lady into the Prince’s boudoir, to bribing the Royal tailor – none truly satisfied him. There were too many elements that could go askew, too many human frailties to negotiate and, ultimately, too much red tape to try and scythe through – travel to the prince’s kingdom included.
He wondered, fleetingly, how Holmes might have dealt with such a matter – the real Holmes, that is, not the absurdly exaggerated caricature that the wretched Doctor Watson portrayed in the popular press. For the first time, Horne felt a pang of sadness as he thought of the events reported in that morning’s press; he and Holmes had met only infrequently, and never under the most conducive of circumstances. But, even if they did not approve of one another’s methods, they respected the intellect that lay behind them and, at the end of the day, they were brothers in arms, fellow crusaders against the sickness and evil that would otherwise have trampled untrammelled across modern society.
Horne shuddered, too, at the memory of his own brush with death, and he realised that that, too, contributed to his current melancholy. The actual cause of his so-narrowly averted demise might have been very (very, very) different to the fate that swallowed Holmes, but the fear that slammed Horne’s mind as he realised he might have already breathed his last was surely identical to that which Holmes experienced, as he went down (what an ironic turn of phrase) for the final time.
Two days had passed, days during which the only element of his quest that Horne had accomplished was to replace all 29 of the dildos neatly inside one another – and then resist the temptation to take them all out and try again.
There was, so far as he knew, no time limit on his assignment. For his own peace of mind, however, Horne wanted to complete it as quickly as possible, and he was already making inquiries around the various shipping agents in the city, to discover whether a journey to the Prince’s homeland was even possible – some nations, for all their outward shows of friendliness and accord, remained as closed to their supposed allies as they were to their lifelong foes.
But it would be Monday before he received any kind of response, which left the weekend yawning ahead of him, just begging to be filled. So, when an actress of his acquaintance invited him to attend the London opening of her latest play, alongside the ever-alluring Jessie Bond in a revival of Burnand and Solomon’s Pickwick, Horne accepted with an alacrity that surprised even her. ‘It’s an operetta,’ she reminded him. ‘Not an orgy.’ But it was also a distraction and, after the last few days, he needed one desperately.
And he received one. It started as a bustle of excitement towards the back of the theatre, a hum of excited voices and the sound of several hundred seated people getting to their feet; then reached a crescendo as the Master of Ceremonies appeared on the stage and, in his most decorously stentorian tones, requested that the audience be upstanding for Her Ladyship, the Right Honourable Magdalena deB_____.
Horne rose with the throng. ‘At least,’ he mused, ‘I am finally to catch sight of the female for whom all my travails are ...’ – and he gasped, for walking proudly, steadfastly, down the aisle of the theatre was none other than the girl – the pupil – whom he knew as Catherine – of course, when he was employed in that most intimate of his many capacities, the true identity of his scholars was never revealed, and Horne himself possessed sufficient discretion never to try and deduce it.
How radiant she looked – as always, he thought. And how much more composed than the portrait that now flashed in his mind, of the last time he had seen her, writhing in the embrace of the most spectacular orgasm, three separate orifices spread wide in search of pleasure. He stared ... she caught his eye for a second, but looked away quickly, a faint blush playing at her cheeks. And Horne, for the first time since this entire wretched business commenced, knew the true meaning of relief.
Apologising profusely to the people seated around him, Horne pushed his way past them to the aisle, then raced towards the exit. Hailing a cab, he gave the driver breathless instructions – ‘Scotland Yard, on the double.’ If he hurried ... he checked his timepiece so many times on the journey ... he would catch Toynbee before the old warhorse left for the evening.
In fact, he only just made it; the Inspector was himself preparing to climb aboard a cab as Horne half-leaped, half-fell from his still moving vehicle and, throwing the driver all the change he could pull from one pocket, deftly boarded the other carriage while Toynbee stood staring in amazement.
�
�Horne?’ Toynbee’s face was a mask of confusion. ‘Confound it, man, are you to be murdered? Bankrupted? Beaten by the husband of one of your less well-advised conquests?’
Horne raised a hand, begged a moment’s respite while he caught his breath. ‘It is about the marriage, Inspector ... or the prospects of marriage that you asked me to inquire discreetly into.’
Toynbee relaxed his expression of alarm. ‘What of it?’
‘Would I be correct in assuming, as you might inadvertently have insinuated several days ago, that the lady in question is of the family of ...’ – he lowered his voice, and spoke the name of Catherine’s noble lineage.
Toynbee nodded. ‘Let us say that she is not not of that house.’
‘And would I also be correct in assuming, were the measurements of the suitor to be unforthcoming, that the capacities of his intended might, if sufficient evidence could be accumulated, suffice in their stead?’
Again, Toynbee nodded. ‘But what nature that evidence might assume is beyond me,’ he murmured – and then snapped back in his seat, as though dealt a physical blow, as Horne replied, ‘the evidence of mine own eyes, Inspector. And, allow me further to add, it is evidence that came close to costing me my own life.’
‘I assume,’ Toynbee spoke slowly, ‘that you are not in a position to divulge how you came by this evidence, or even what the nature of it might be?’
‘I regret that I am not,’ Horne responded. ‘But, suffice to say, if the marriage should go ahead, and basing my deductions upon the gifts given by the Prince, and those naturally present in Her Ladyship, I do not believe there is any question whatsoever on the suitability of his dowry. In whatever context he may intend it.’
Toynbee raised his eyebrows. ‘I will convey your findings to the appropriate parties first thing in the morning,’ he said. ‘And now, my dear fellow, I believe we have cause to celebrate – you for cracking what was assuredly a dashed perplexing case, and I for finally being able to get back to some real police work. There is a certain club in Holborn to which I habitually retire at times like this. I know, my dear Horne, that you share my love of all that is bizarre, and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day life. If you would permit me to instruct my driver accordingly, I think you will find it most conducive to your own tastes.’
Horne smiled. ‘If it is the club that I am thinking of, I think that a very welcome notion. After all, it is often said that, when one falls off a horse, one should climb back in the saddle immediately. I took what you might term a particularly nasty fall in the course of my researches. To avoid any kind of lingering after-shock, or subsequent phobia, it would do me a power of good to remount at the earliest possible moment.’
Toynbee laughed. ‘That’s what I admire about you, Horne.’ He slapped the detective on the back. ‘There’s no problem you cannot lick.’
Horne gazed at him coolly. ‘Indeed there isn’t, Inspector. Indeed there isn’t.’
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The Erotic Memoirs of Ambrose Horne Page 11
