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MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.part1:
IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.
On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.
“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. “You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.
part2:
“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”
“Looking for lodgings.” {3} I answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”
“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.”
“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.”
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.”
“Why, what is there against him?”
“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas — an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.”
“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.
“No — I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors.”
“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.
“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”
“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?”
“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”
“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other channels.
As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.
“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible.”
“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion, “that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow’s temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.”
“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes — it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.”
“Very right too.”
“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.”
“Beating the subjects!”
“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.”
“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”
“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital.
part3:
It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by hoemoglobin, {4} and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.
“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about hoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?”
“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but practically —-”
“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.
“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.
“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.”
“Indeed!” I murmured.
“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’ test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”
His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.
“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised at his enthusiasm.
“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of new Orleans.
part4:
That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.
Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question, confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
part5:
That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.
Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question, confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
part6:
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way –
SHERLOCK HOLMES — his limits.
1. Knowledge of Literature. — Nil. 2. Philosophy. — Nil. 3. Astronomy. — Nil. 4. Politics. — Feeble. 5. Botany. — Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Geology. — Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Chemistry. — Profound. 8. Anatomy. — Accurate, but unsystematic. 9. Sensational Literature. — Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays the violin well. 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair. “If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,” I said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”
I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.
part7:
During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bed-room. He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I have to use this room as a place of business,” he said, “and these people are my clients.” Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point blank question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his own accord.
It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.
Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs — by each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed.
part8:
That all united should fail to enlighten the competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”
“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”
“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you have marked it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me though. It is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.”
“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for the article I wrote it myself.”
“You!”
“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical — so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.”
“And how?” I asked involuntarily.
“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first. Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.”
“And these other people?”
“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something, and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.”
“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?”
“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.”
“You were told, no doubt.”
“Nothing of the sort. I _knew_ you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, `Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”
“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.”
Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe.
part9:”No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”
“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?”
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,” he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.”
I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”
“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said, querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villany with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.”
I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought it best to change the topic.
“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked, pointing to a stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message.
“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I cannot verify his guess.”
The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair.
“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter.
Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”
“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for repairs.”
“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my companion.
“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right, sir.”
He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was gone.
CHAPTER III.
THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY {6}
I CONFESS that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction.
“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.
“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.
“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”
“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then with a smile, “Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of Marines?”
“No, indeed.”
“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow’s hand.
part 10:That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command. You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him — all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.”
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.
“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said just now that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong — look at this!” He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought.” {7}
“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is terrible!”
“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he remarked, calmly. “Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”
This is the letter which I read to him —-
“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES, — “There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and having cards in his pocket bearing the name of `Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his person. We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house; indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler. If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you will find me there. I have left everything _in statu quo_ until I hear from you. If you are unable to come I shall give you fuller details, and would esteem it a great kindness if you would favour me with your opinion. Yours faithfully, “TOBIAS GREGSON.”
“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked; “he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional — shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.”
I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely there is not a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”
“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather — that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times.”
“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.”
“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”
“But he begs you to help him.”
“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person. However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”
He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.
“Get your hat,” he said.
“You wish me to come?”
“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.
part 11:”You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,” I said at last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.
“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my finger; “this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much mistaken.”
“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred yards or so from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our journey upon foot.
Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two being occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and there a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.
I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil, but since the police had been coming and going over it, I was unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it. Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from me.
At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and wrung my companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to come,” he said, “I have had everything left untouched.”
“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. “If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this.”
“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective said evasively. “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him to look after this.”
Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. “With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be much for a third party to find out,” he said.
Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think we have done all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and I knew your taste for such things.”
“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“No, sir.”
“Nor Lestrade?”
“No, sir.”
“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which inconsequent remark he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed his astonishment.
A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these had obviously been closed for many weeks.
part 12:The other belonged to the dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires.
It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath. Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything, which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment.
All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing, unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban London.
Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and greeted my companion and myself.
“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats anything I have seen, and I am no chicken.”
“There is no clue?” said Gregson.
“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.
Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.
“Positive!” cried both detectives.
“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual — {8} presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year ‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
“No, sir.”
“Read it up — you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”
As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same far-away expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was the examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.
“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.
“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.”
“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is nothing more to be learned.”
Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.
“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”
He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered round him and gazed at it.
part 13:There could be no doubt that that circlet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.
“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows, they were complicated enough before.”
“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “There’s nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his pockets?”
“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163, by Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring, with masonic device. Gold pin — bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes. Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland, corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse, but loose money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition of Boccaccio’s `Decameron,’ with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the fly-leaf. Two letters — one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson.”
“At what address?”
“American Exchange, Strand — to be left till called for. They are both from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to return to New York.”
“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?”
“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had advertisements sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”
“Have you sent to Cleveland?”
“We telegraphed this morning.”
“How did you word your inquiries?”
“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be glad of any information which could help us.”
“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to be crucial?”
“I asked about Stangerson.”
“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case appears to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”
“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an offended voice.
Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene, rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.
part 14:”Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the highest importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a careful examination of the walls.”
The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his colleague.
“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now, stand there!”
He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.
“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.
I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was scrawled in blood-red letters a single word –
RACHE.
“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the air of a showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of the wall.”
“And what does it mean now that you _have_ found it?” asked Gregson in a depreciatory voice.
“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a woman named Rachel has something to do with it.

 

Part 15:

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.

IT was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.

“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all that is to be learned.”

“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”

“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning — I have Gregson’s word for that — it follows that it must have been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”

“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s height?”

“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”

“And his age?” I asked.

“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”

“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.

“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flakey — such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes — in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”

“And the florid face?” I asked.

“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”

I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men — if there were two men — into an empty house? What has become of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”

My companion smiled approvingly.

“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he said.

Part 16:

“There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent leathers {10} and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible — arm-in-arm, in all probability. When they got inside they walked up and down the room — or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”

This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand. “That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”

Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.

He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips,” he said.

“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.

“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”

Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the `White Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher — him who has the Holland Grove beat — and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’. Presently — maybe about two or a little after — I thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me.

Part 17:

I was a strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door —-”

“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion interrupted. “What did you do that for?”

Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost amazement upon his features.

“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it, Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still and so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for some one with me. I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but there wasn’t no sign of him nor of anyone else.”

“There was no one in the street?”

“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside, so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a candle flickerin’ on the mantelpiece — a red wax one — and by its light I saw —-”

“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried the kitchen door, and then —-”

John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to me that you knows a deal more than you should.”

Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable. “Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for that. Go on, though. What did you do next?”

Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified expression. “I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcher and two more to the spot.”

“Was the street empty then?”

“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”

“What do you mean?”

The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen many a drunk chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up agin the railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less help.”

“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He was an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in the station if we hadn’t been so took up.”

“His face — his dress — didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in impatiently.

“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up — me and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower part muffled round —-”

“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”

“We’d enough to do

Originally published here.

---

DAYANA

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Here we go…Same place, same time again…”

“I gave the kid what he asked me for and I gave him what he paid for. Why should I have cared if he was fourteen or forty? He would have found a way to get what he wanted from someone else anyway. So why not from me…?”

“You’re mumbling to yourself again…” a weathered and lanky woman with a smokers croak says.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” the suited in appearance partner replies, “I hear no voices in my head answering back yet…”

“I ignore the voices in mine,” the woman replies. “So you remember the plan for today?”

“Yeah…”

“Well tell me again Stallion,” the woman replies, “I want to make sure we get it right, this time.”

Stallion sighs and then moves his head side to side cracking his neck. “I cross after the ‘Don’t Walk’ sign stops blinking, and I do this when the sun is just starting to touch the horizon,” he says, “you will stay on the other side and after I cross the intersection you will run to me just at the moment the sun disappears behind the mountain.”

They stop on the sidewalk at a street corner as a red 2009 Monte Carlo turns in front of them. The man notices a baby girl with dark curls sitting in the back seat of this car; he sees the pudgy cheeked girl smiling at him, a big cheesy grin showing her fresh front teeth. He smiles also, and reaches up to rub his cheek as if his smile feels alien on his face.

“She was a cutie,” the woman croaks.

“Sure was…” the man replies. “Do you think we would have had as cute a kid as that one?”

“Hell no,” the woman replies with a following raspy chuckle, “which is why I never had babies with your ugly ass.”

The man laughs as they cross the street, while the woman nudges him playfully.

“This isn’t going to work is it..?” The man sighs.

After a long pause and the crossing of another block the woman replies, “Try to be positive… it just might. We have nothing better to do than try something new every day.”

“Yeah..?”

The man takes his grimy white tee off and holds it scrunched up in his left hand. A couple more vehicles drive by and he doesn’t feel the least bit concern for being modest. The thought does cross his mind though- maybe tomorrow I’ll try walking down this street in my underwear. It’s been hot enough these last couple days, and no one seems to give us must notice anyways.

The sight of snow topped Mount Ranier looks larger than usual this day. This sleeping volcano looks like it’s erupting because of the way the clouds seem to come out from the summit. The rest of the bright blue sky looks bare and the sun continues to exert the unusual amount of heat that this part of Washington is not accustomed to. The adorable couple doesn’t seem to mind the heat too much, they like the change, for nearly any change is gratifying to them at this point.

“What were you saying earlier,” the woman asks, “what were you thinking about when you were mumbling?”

The man sighs and then moves some long strands of his stringy blond hair back behind his ear. At first his partner thought perhaps he didn’t hear her. He turns to her for a moment and looks into her squinting brown eyes, she smirks.

“I was just thinking about one of my last sales…some punk kid. You remember him, we called him Beaner.”

“Oh, yeah,” the woman replies, “he wanted to know who “our suppliers” were. And if I recall right, you told him…you old stupid ass.”

“Yeah… “

The woman sees something she doesn’t like in her partner’s expression, something that makes her very uncomfortable, something unbearable that she wants to go away.

“He was a dumb kid,” she says in an angry tone, “a spoiled brat from a rich family who is probably living the good life now somewhere. Society would accept a punk like him before us Stallion.”

“Yeah…”

“What the hell is the problem,” the woman growls. She stops walking and her partner stops a couple steps ahead of her. Stallion looks down at the ground as his partner shouts at him.

“We never really talk about why we’re here…” Stallion sighs.

“You know what..?” the woman feels frustrated and before she continues she starts coughing profusely, and then takes a breath. “Shit Stallion! I don’t even know why I am pissed right now, because I know exactly why we’re here now. This is a dream, and you are not even really here honey. I am laying down somewhere with you by my side, and we are probably strung out on meth. None of this is even real!”

“Yeah…I guess we did talk about this before.”

“Right,” the woman says in a tone of relief, “now I think that if we follow through with this plan today I’ll wake up, and…well, things will go back to normal again.”

“That’s a pleasant thought,” Stallion mumbles as he rubs his lips.

The woman glares at him for a moment and he doesn’t look up at her.

“Let’s go,” she growls.

Stallion starts moving forward again when she is by his side. A sudden breeze rushes by them and Stallion smiles at the cool feeling against his hot flesh.

“There’s the intersection ahead,” the woman says, “we still have plenty of time so let’s sit at the corner and try to get some dinner. I’m starving.”

“We don’t really need to eat do we,” Stallions asks. “This is just a dream after all.”

“Well I feel hungry here and now, and this is my dream, so I want some food. It’s a psychological thing, and if I don’t eat here maybe I’ll never wake up.”

“That’s far out…” Stallion says.

They reach the end of the street and the woman goes to the nearby shade of a tree whose branches are hanging over a fence. She sits down and watches as her partner pulls a cardboard sign out of the grocery cart. The letters on the sign are written out in bold black ink and the message says, “Trying to get home, please help with whatever you can – change, food, or water. Thank you & God Bless.” Stallion pushes the cart towards the shade where his partner is sitting and then he heads back out to the street corner with the sign in hand.

As the woman sits back, watching Stallion situate himself and hold the sign up high, she ponders; ‘no one gets used to us being here around the same time every day. No one thinks anything of it because this is a dream. We always get food, somehow. This is definitely a dream.’ She then goes onto doing what she has done before, she closes her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to wake up, trying to focus. She opens her eyes and then closes them again for a longer moment repeating over and over again in a whisper; “Wake up Darla! Wake up Darla! Open your damn eyes Darla! Snap the fuck out of it Darla! Wake up! Wake up!” She rubs her forehead with her right hand and then makes a fist proceeding to tap her forehead after every sentence she mumbles. “Wake up Darla!” (Tap) “Wake up Darla…”

Stallion never expects anyone to stop and give him anything, even though on the days before someone usually does. He turns to Darla to make sure that she is alright. He realizes that he is rather frightening in appearance, with his skeleton like build and his long spider like legs and arms. His dark tanned skin makes him look like the crispy living dead, and his long hair and graying blond beard constructs the kind of image of a psycho killer from a Rob Zombie movie. Stallion recognizes this, but he’s never cared to change his image. He’s never even known himself well enough to recognize that the reason he has never cared too much about personal hygiene in general is because most of the time he’s trying to hide. This is why he was such a piss poor dealer, till Darla came into his life. Darla started to break him in just enough to have him be loyal to her and no one else in every way. Darla’s selfishness is very simple when it comes to Stallion. When she saw him for the first time, (him hiding behind his thick beard and long hair,) she saw someone who would be easy to manipulate; someone who would love her…and just be there. At the present Darla cannot even be referred to as a weathered beauty, there is no beauty left on the outside, and very little left on the inside. Her eyes once had thick eyelashes that are mostly plucked out now, never to grow back because of all the poison she has taken into her worn body. Her once upon a time kissable lips are now badly chapped and thinner in appearance with premature lines coming out from the corners of her mouth. Her once smooth face now looks tarnished as if she had been stranded in a desert for years. Stallion loves her just the way she is though, scars and all. She had never been with a man like Stallion before. Her variety before him was big, strong and tattooed, and in an age before that she preferred her man to be tall and pretty. All she had discovered about men before Stallion, (starting with her Daddy,) was that every man will leave her disappointed, and in most experiences severely broken. When she met Stallion she was at a point where she didn’t expect anyone, male or female, to be able to satisfy her in anyway. This man is different though and although she would never admit it, not even to herself most of the time, everyday with Stallion is one of her better days. She always expects that the next day he will leave her unsatisfied in some way, even though the days before he always had her feeling accepted and special…he didn’t even need to try to, he just did.

About an hour goes by and Stallion’s sign is starting to hang low past his knees and nearly touching the pavement. The red Monte Carlo he saw earlier stops at a red light being only a couple feet from him. Stallion glances towards the vehicle and sees the same chubby faced girl sitting in the back seat, leaning forward so as to get a better view of him. She smiles like she did before, not seeming to be in the least bit disturbed by his appearance. She starts to laugh and shows her little red tongue as she does so. Stallion starts to chuckle as well, and he doesn’t understand it but his eyes start to well up with fresh tears. The passenger side window rolls down and Stallion walks up to the vehicle.

“Are you a veteran,” a woman’s voice asks.

Stallion shakes his head no, he avoids making eye contact with the driver and he also keeps his eyes from the giddy child who is chattering up a storm now. He doesn’t want to creep them out.

“Well here you go,” the driver says as she holds out a paper bag, “I ate half of a sandwich but there is another in here. I am not quite as hungry as I thought I was. Here is a bottle of water too.”

Stallion smiles with appreciation and takes the bag and bottle. The light changes as he pulls back from the car. The lady drives off before Stallion can say thank you.

He lowers his sign and starts heading towards where Darla is sitting. She looks up at him and smiles as he approaches.

“My hero, coming back from the hunt,” Darla says without humor in her tone. “What do we got here?” Stallion hands her the bag and she pulls out a half eaten turkey sandwich and another unwrapped one. “Oh, we have a good meal here Stallion.”

“Yeah…”

“You feel hungry?”

“Kind of,” Stallion sighs as he sits on the ground to the left of her.

Darla gives him the half eaten sandwich and then quickly unwraps the paper around the fresher one and takes a big bite out of it. Stallion hands her the bottle of water.

“Mmmm, this is good.”

“It’s almost time,” Stallion says as he nibbles on his sandwich.

“Mmmm,” Darla says as she scarves down the sandwich as quickly as possible, “we better hurry,” she says with her mouth stuffed full. She takes a large swig from the bottle.

Stallion takes a couple more bites out of his sandwich before he stands up again. They head towards the crosswalk and then stand there, waiting, like runners for the gunshot. They watch intently as the sun reaches the horizon just above the trees in the distance, as soon as the sun touches the horizon Stallion runs. A car zips by in front of him and he pauses momentarily, then another car coming from the opposite direction honks its horn and screeches to a halt, stopping inches from Stallion. He continues running, (his wrists flopping rather flamboyantly as he does so.) The next lane has no cars coming and Stallion reaches the other end of the street safely. He is ignoring the young man who is swearing at him loudly before revving up his engine and taking off, barely making the light. With a trembling hand Stallion takes another small bite from his sandwich, which is more like two pieces of bread with some lettuce now since most of its guts were squeezed out onto the street when he ran.

Darla smiles and gets ready to run also, they both look back up at the sun, waiting patiently for the orb to disappear from sight. The minutes go by like hours and Darla is rocking in place, rubbing her arms like a drug fiend. As the sun is nearly gone beyond the horizon Stallion starts to feel a familiar sensation and Darla feels the same. The sense is like being in a sailboat that is rocking with the waves that are slowly starting to grow larger. Stallion steadies himself by grabbing hold of the steel pole to his right. Darla spreads her legs and looks like she is balancing on an invisible surfboard. The last of the sun lowers and Darla runs, luckily at a time that the crosswalk displays a walking figure. She moves as if she is drunk, and she feels like a child who has spun around in circles multiple times. Staying in the crosswalk is no easy task for her now and reaching Stallion seems like a difficult challenge alone. He holds his hand out to her and at this point a familiar ringing starts up in their ears, and they both know that the tone will be painfully loud soon.

“Hurry,” Stallion groans.

Darla stumbles and falls to her knees, being merely inches from her partner. She holds her hand out to him and he steps away from the pole and grabs her wrist. He pulls her towards him and they both fall to the ground onto the concrete island near the other end of the intersection. Stallion holds her against his bony chest and then squints as the ringing sound intensifies.

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” he groans.

“Shut the fuck up,” Darla screeches as she closes her eyes.

They feel now like they are on a giant carrousel spinning out of control and in danger of falling out of.

“Let’s keep moving,” Stallion says.

“Right,” Darla replies.

They both try to crawl to the other side of the intersection, which is only across a smaller street, merely a few feet from them. They see no cars coming, but they don’t see much of anything since they don’t open their eyes for long, being too painful to do so. They know that they are heading in the right direction. Their crawl is more like a scoot across the pavement, a dragging of their legs as they claw at the concrete. The painful ringing in their ears intensifies and the vertigo does also. They feel as if they are dragging weights behind them, and their frustration grows with every subtle movement.

“We’re going to make it,” Darla shouts. “I’m going to wake up!”

“Keep reaching,” Stallion calls back to her. She is near his knees now as he is slightly in the lead. Stallion reaches out his left hand in front of him and feels cool grass to the touch. “I feel the other side. Keep moving.”

Darla has paused and is now grabbing the sides of her head in pain, lying on her back she groans. Stallion reaches back for her and grabs the strap of her tank top to help drag her along.

They both keep their eyes closed now as Stallion feels more grass in front of him. With his other hand he pulls Darla up next to him. He uses all the strength he can muster as Darla struggles to push off of the ground with her feet. Darla feels grass now also and she smiles with satisfaction. They both rest now and try to catch their breath. Stallion coughs and then turns to his side and throws up, spewing up mostly water and stomach acid. Darla is coughing profusely also. They open their eyes and the familiar feeling of disenchantment envelops them.

When before Darla would have cursed or wept, maybe even yelled at her partner and placed all of the blame on him…not this time. This time she just sits up without a sound, not even a groan of disappointment. Stallion doesn’t even sit up; he just stares up at the sky scratching his chest. He’s in no hurry to see what Darla sees now, for he can feel where they’re at now. Like what happens with most places we visit frequently, Stallion can just tell. With some unnamed sense he knows where he is at now. Like a frequent scent, or taste that one grows tired of, the place feels so bland. He thinks back on a time when he worked for a carpentry shop, he had worked there for years. His life had a routine back then that on most days he went through in autopilot. Every morning he drove down the same road at the same time, and whenever he entered into that shop everything was always the same. The smell, the placement of seats and tools, even the coffee stains near the old pot, all the same. His everyday life was groundhogs day back then. He remembers being at the point where he felt that he could go through a day’s work in that shop, maneuvering from place to place without even opening his eyes. The old carpentry shop became personified boredom to him, the memory of the place has a certain feel to it similar to the place he knows he’s at now.

“Do you want to try going the other way today, or maybe just napping here all day, hoping we wake up tomorrow somewhere else?” Stallion speaks in a passive and exhausted tone as he puts on his grimy white tee. 

Darla does not reply at first, she just stares down the long street, seeing the reddish orange taint in the sky where the sun will soon emerge. There are no cars on the street now, and they are sitting in the grass in front of a large steel fence. She knows that they are roughly near the center of this long street. In one direction there is the intersection where she recalls being only a short time ago, at the other end there is a large park across from another intersection. Where they are sitting now they cannot see either end of the street, just the familiar sight of what appears to be an endless row of old wooden telephone poles, and the large shadowy figures of trees in framing the street, going on for miles. Stallion sits up beside Darla and gazes out at the distant red taint in the sky.

“Maybe we can try going down one of the blocks again, but we’ll wait till the sun sets,” Stallion suggests, sounding unconvinced that this could work.

“We’ve done that before,” Darla sighs. “Maybe we can search the side of the road for some ruby slippers, and then I could just put them on and tap my way out of this nightmare.”

Stallion smiles and then rubs his wrist against her shoulder. “Maybe we could try that. I’m pretty sure we have not tried that yet.”

“I don’t feel like walking much today,” Darla says. “I think I’m just going to sleep.” She lays back and then assumes the fetal position on her right side.

Stallion looks down at her and watches her close her eyes. He stares at her for a while as the sun emerges. He starts to feel dreadfully sad, as he has days before while sitting in this same place. He feels frustrated, his mind tired. ‘Why can’t I think more clearly? What am I missing? It’s so hard to think…I must be drugged in some way. Maybe some psychic vampire is feeding off of me. I remember reading about them once. They feed off of people’s emotions instead of their blood, maybe one has me locked up in a room in some kind of coma. And they are just draining me. I hope they are not feeding off of Darla too. They must be…No, no, this is stupid. I’m stupid. Son of a bitch…!’

Stallion stands up and sees a silhouette of someone in the distance, heading his way; they are coming from the direction that leads to the park.

“Maybe I’ll try talking to a passerby again. I can do that…” Stallion mumbles, “I won’t freak them out this time. I won’t scare them. I’ll try talking to them, just casual conversation. The last time Darla and I spoke with someone on this road we tried following them down a street block…but the ringing started again, and that dizzy feeling…then we was here again….”

“Shut up…” Darla groans. “Quite, you’re fucking mumbling. Just lay your ass down and sleep Stallion. I don’t feel like trying anything today.”

“Maybe this one is like us,” Stallion says as he scratches his chest. “Maybe he’s trapped here too…”

“We tried that before with people Stallion,” Darla says in a muffled tone as she buries her face into her arm. “They thought we were crazy than and they will again.”

“It will be different this time…It could be…” Stallion whispers. “This person is different.”

“Hopefully this time whoever they are won’t beat your ass,” Darla says as she turns her head to one side trying to find comfort. “I remember you approached a group of teenagers once, and told them we were trapped on this road and needed help. They laughed at you. When you pushed the issue one of them shoved you and told you to “back the fuck off crazy old man!” If I recall correctly, it went something like that.

“Yeah…” Stallion looks down at the ground with an air of disappointment in his crazy blue eyes. “It went something like that…”

“Go to sleep Stallion.”

“I am going to talk to this guy,” he bites his bottom lip as he speaks and his eyes widen, “I have to try…Yeah… I have to try to get you out of here. I can’t stop trying.”

Stallion starts walking towards the approaching stranger, whose face he cannot see too well yet. The shadows from the trees to his right cross over the stranger as he walks. Only when he passes under a street lamp does Stallion see him more clearly. The man is wearing a green baseball cap and a blue jacket. His hands are in his jacket pockets and he is walking with a slouch, holding his shoulders up high as if his neck is cold.

Stallion stops walking, and he quickly turns his gaze away from the approaching stranger. He doesn’t want to creep him out. He decides to lean against an old fence post, trying to look casual, he just waits.

As the man draws nearer he shouts, “Hey there!” he quickens his pace, “Hey, mister!?” Stallion steps off from the fence post.

The stranger stops a few feet from Stallion and he looks up at him with a rise of two pronounced eyebrows.

“Hey there, can you help me with something, shouldn’t take long?”

Stallion doesn’t reply at first, and he resists looking back at Darla, who is still laying down, being hidden in the shadows a short ways back. Stallion nods.

“Great! Great…” The man replies in a kind voice. “Just this way,” the stranger says as he turns around and starts heading back the way he came.

Stallion feels hesitant but he follows behind anyways.

“Do you think maybe you could help me out with something after this,” Stallion asks in a passive tone.

“Yeah, sure man!” The stranger quickly replies. “I have a fairly large favor to ask of you so I’ll try to help you with whatever you need after.”

“So what’s wrong,” Stallion asks.

“I’ll show you, it’s my truck.”

“Okay…”

The two men walk for a few blocks and then the stranger turns towards the next block seeming to be about to head down this street. Stallion stops. The stranger stops also and looks back at him with a smile.

“You all right,” he asks with a turn of his head.

“Yeah,” Stallion replies. “You heading down this street?”

“No, not really,” the stranger says. “My trucks right there.” He points towards a dirty black Ford that is parked just off the side of the street in a small ditch with its backend facing down the turn.

“Alright,” Stallion replies. He doesn’t hear the ringing in his ears, nor does he feel dizzy in the least. “I can’t go too much further.”

“Okay…” the stranger says sounding a little confused. “I tell you what,” he says after a moment. “I’ll move my truck up to this point.”

“Okay…” Stallion is confused now, because he thought the problem was that the truck wouldn’t start.

Stallion watches the man head towards his vehicle. Before he gets in he looks around, seeming to be hoping no one else is near. He opens the driver’s side door and then slams it shut once he’s inside. In the next moment he starts the engine and then slowly drives up to where Stallion is standing. The truck stops a couple feet from Stallion and the stranger shuts the engine off. He gets out but doesn’t close the door behind him. He presses a button behind his seat and then pushes the seat forward exposing the back seat of his truck. Stallion sees a large red sleeping back in the back, that’s clearly not empty.

“Well this is what I need you to help me with,” the stranger says in frustration.

Stallion is confused, and as the man looks at him again he suspects that he has seen this stranger before. The man scowls and then rubs the side of his face.

“You look familiar,” the stranger says, “real familiar.”

Stallion looks into the man’s eyes and sees something he should have recognized sooner. The strangers eyes are dilated, his dark pupils fill the white of his eyes. The smell is obvious also.

“Yeah…I know you,” the stranger says. “Wow, I sure do.” He sounds humored. “You still working this street? After all these years…That’s crazy!”

“I think you might have me confused with somebody else…” Stallion says, sounding unsure.

“Ha! No way man! You don’t have a face that can be mistaken bro.”

Stallion does not reply, but he stares at the man in a more inquisitive manner now.

“You took my cherry man!” The stranger says, “I bought some junk from you back when I was kid. The place was not too far from where we are standing now. Damn, it’s been a long time! The last time I was here was years ago, and I am almost sure that the last person I talked to on this very street was you.”

Stallion’s eyes widen and the stranger takes a step back.

“Man, your eyes are still tweaky.” He laughs after saying this, a nervous chuckle.

“I remember you…” Stallion sighs before saying this. This sigh seems to drain all of his energy and his arms hang limp at his sides. He closes his eyes for a moment and then lowers his head so that his chin is touching his chest.

“You okay man?”

“Yeah…” Stallion says before raising his head and looking at the man again. “You look different.”

“You don’t look like you’ve changed much at all,” the man replies. “In fact…I think you were wearing the same clothes when I saw you last…”

“Yeah…” Stallion looks at the sleeping bag. “Whatever you need me to help you with, I will. I owe you kid…”

“Well alright than, cool,” the man says as he climbs into the back seat of his truck. He is hunched over now because of the small space. He beckons for Stallion to come closer. Stallion moves forward and leans into the vehicle.

“Now, don’t freak out now man,” the man says, “I was driving down a dirt road the other day. I was trying to take a shortcut on my way to visit my old buddy from high school. I saw this in the field and checked it out. I found her like this…I swear I didn’t do this…” he turns to Stallion now and is smiling. Beads of sweat are forming on his brow and he sounds like he is out of breath.

Stallion smells a less familiar scent now, something unlike the meth fiend who is talking to him now, something worse.

“What were you wanting to do with…this?” Stallion asks in a scratchy tone.

“Well,” the man chuckles again, “at first I was thinking…” he wipes some sweat from his face with the back of his hand, ” well I was thinking that I wanted to save the woman’s family from paying for a funeral…I mean I could tell that she is from a poor home. They’re probably some hillbillies that live out there deep in the Washington woods.” (Stallion looks down at the floor of the truck as the man is talking, and he sees some zip ties and a rusty ten pound weight. He turns his eyes to the cup holder on the driver’s side door and sees the top of a black cell phone also.) “So, I at first thought that maybe I would find a swamp and…you know get rid of this…sad mess.” He chuckles again. Stallion looks up at him now with his wide bright blue eyes.

“Why didn’t you do that,” Stallions asks.

The man chuckles nervously again and says, “Ah, man…I had been on the road for a while. I was tweaking out when I came across…this, and well, I originally intended to just toss her into some swamp but…” He laughs more, sounding a little more hysterical this time. Stallion continues to stare at him.

“But what..?”

“Well I had sex with her man, instead…” he looks at Stallion for a moment, while chewing on the inside of his right cheek for a painfully long moment. He then bursts into laughter again and says, “Man, I tell you, those eyes of yours! So anyways, I decided to drive her back to my place after I…”(he turns his head to the right, stretching his neck out far he does three slow and long nods of his head), “you know, after I did the deed.” (Stallion continues to stare at him.) “You know maybe you can come by my new place sometime, and we can catch up man…You still with that girl? What was her name?”

Stallion continues to stare at this old acquaintance. He was not caring too much for the conversation they were just having and he cares even less for the change of conversation to involving Darla. He is suddenly feeling very much awake in these moments. His mind does not feel like his thought processes travel from place to place through a thick sludge. He notices now that the wheels in his head have been oiled, and they are turning at a much smoother and faster pace. His engine is revved, adrenaline pumping, and he knows that he must act fast….somehow everything is starting to make some kind of sense. The man stares back into his eyes trying to hold back another outburst of laughter. He tries to widen his stare, trying to outdo Stallion’s wide glare. Droplets of sweat are coming down from the sides of his face now.

“Soooo,” the man says, “you ready?” He pulls back the flap on the sleeping bag and reveals the woman inside.

Stallion glances down and sees what appears to be a fifty something year old woman. Her eyes are closed, and her bottom lip hangs down grotesquely. Some dry blood comes from her hanging bottom lip and goes down to her swollen neck. Stallion doesn’t need to see anymore, and he turns his eyes back up to the man’s face.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I was wondering if you could help me dispose of the body,” the man says in a strangely nonchalant tone. “If I go to the police now they’d think I killed her.”

Stallion nods and says, “Okay. The man smiles and in the next moment Stallion grabs the cell phone from the cup holder and then slams the door shut. The man stares with a confused expression on his face as Stallion runs onto the main street heading in the opposite direction of where Darla is laying.

Stallion feels his heart trying to pound out of his chest but he keeps moving as fast as his scrawny legs will take him. He flips the phone open and dials 911. He looks back as he brings the phone up to his ear. He sees the truck turning in his direction, moving slowly. Someone answers his call and he starts spewing out his location before the officer on the line can ask him any questions.

The man in the truck takes his hat off and throws it onto the passenger seat, and then he cracks his neck and swears. “Damn it old man, you said you were going to help me.” He steps on the gas.

“Yes, she’s dead! He asked me to help him dispose of the body,” Stallion shouts to the officer on the line, “I’m sure she is dead, yes. Please hurry!” Stallion closes the phone and drops it to the ground as he hears the truck speeding up onto his tail.

“Why are you running,” the driver shouts out his window as he is only a couple feet from Stallion now. “I didn’t kill her!”

Stallion steps off to the side of the street and then jumps over a small ditch. The truck zips by him, being merely inches from running over him. Stallion’s ears start to ring and the familiar feeling of vertigo hits him hard, causing him to fall to the ground, being only a couple feet from the street.

“I can’t go now…” Stallion moans, “I have to get Darla.”

The truck turns around and then pulls up to the place where Stallion jumped out from the street. The driver gets out with haste (leaving his vehicle running,) he then jumps over the small ditch. He scans the area in front of him but doesn’t see Stallion.

“Where are you man?” The man asks, “You said you were going to help me. Come on man, come out! I’ll help you. I know you’re behind that tree.” There are many trees in front of the man, but he doesn’t know that Stallion is behind the one closest to him.

Stallion jumps up from the ground and then pops out right in front of the man. Stallion feels less afraid when he sees the looks of fear in the killer’s eyes, (he had just scared the piss out of him.) He shoves the man back, knocking him onto his ass as he runs past.

Once Stallion is back onto the street the ringing in his ears ceases and he has his balance again. He gets into the man’s truck and then slams the door. He sees the man getting up from the ground and looking back at him with that same frightened expression on his face. Stallion switches gears and then takes off in the killer’s truck. He doesn’t have to drive much farther up the street to reach Darla, who is rising up from where she was lying.

“Get in,” Stallion shouts out as he reaches across and opens the passenger side door for her.

“What the hell are you doing,” Darla shouts.

“Trying something different,” Stallion replies, “hurry up!”

Darla gets in and closes her door as Stallion steps on the gas again. He looks in the rearview mirror and sees the killer running in the middle of the street behind them.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Darla says, “and can you slow down please?”

Stallion eases his foot off of the gas and says, “I ran into Beaner. He’s changed a lot. He’s a killer, and he fucks dead people.” (Stallion sounds out of breath as he says this and Darla just stares at him in silence.) “Look back there,” he says after a violent cough, “see for yourself.”

Darla turns to look in the backseat, and in the next moment she shouts, “Oh, my God! Oh my God!”

“Yeah…” Stallion sighs, “I know.”

After a series of swears and then taking a moment to catch her breath Darla asks, “So what are we going to do now.”

“I’m going to try to drive to the end of this street with the hope that we can get out this time.”

“Okay…” Darla says. “Why do you think this will work?”

They see the street lights ahead and Stallion no longer sees the man running in his rearview mirror, he’s too far back. The sun is just starting to emerge from the horizon.

“I remember when we got trapped here. It all came back to me when I was talking with that sick kid…he actually looks like he may be about forty now… I have to make up for what I did wrong so long ago. This is my redemptive action, or some shit like that.”

“Redemptive action…” Darla repeats. “What if this doesn’t work? Your talking crazy Stallion…this is a dream, I tell you…This is my dream!”

“Well then, I’m guessing once this truck passes the threshold it will be empty. The truck will crash, I expect… We will wake up tomorrow morning in the same place we always end up in.”

“And…” Darla shakes her head, “and then what? I mean what about all this?! What about the body and the sicko who did this?”

Stallion feels like saying, ‘this is your dream, so why don’t “you” tell me’, but instead he says “I called the police. I think all this shit will be resolved soon, the cops are on their way.” He turns to Darla with an awkward smile of assurance.

They draw closer to the street lights and the sun is more than halfway surfaced from the horizon. Darla continues to stare at Stallion, thinking that he seems so different in these moments. He seems more awake. He seems alive. She turns to the sight of the approaching intersection and sees that the light has just turned green.

“Here we go,” Stallion whispers.

Darla reaches over and grabs his right hand. She then clears her throat and says, “I love you, you know.”

They drive under the green light with no traffic coming from any direction at the moment; the truck clears through the intersection in a matter of seconds. In a couple moments the vehicle veers off to the left, crossing over a few lanes and then crashing into a large wooden sign that says, “Point Defiance Park.”

 

“Here we go…again.” Stallion smiles as he views the fading stars above.

 

Originally published here.

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L.L Brunk

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www.gosexydate.com

 

I spent most of the day looking forward to the evening’s party at Mimi Rogers house. The night before I’d gotten reasonably wasted at a business party and had done something that I’d thought was unthinkable. My husband and I were great flirts but we’d never done anything more than heighten our own sense of arousal in teasing others, but last night we’d had a little test to see if I could get someone to make a pass a me using only body language.
Of course, the body language had been amplified by a silk sheath dress worn without underwear. A girl, Josie, who I’d started talking to, had caught me a little off guard. I had no idea she was with the man who joined us, but by the time the evening ended, she’d become very aggressive that her finger had gotten between my legs. She’d used the cover of a dark booth to show me her man’s cock and it’d been the nicest cock I’d seen for a long time. Not that my husband has an ugly cock or anything. It’s perfectly nice and he uses it very well, but this thing was just shy of being a monster. Most women won’t want to tell you this but the fact is after you’ve had two kids things are never as tight down there. I still keep up exercises, but I’ve got to tell you that this cock was so thick that I couldn’t close my fingers around it and I haven’t got small hands.
Anyway, the invitation was made, I’d had a little too much to drink, the opportunity presented itself and I slid down on it. I’d sent all afternoon wondering if I’d been imagining the feeling of that big head slipping all the way down into me. It went up higher than I could have imagined. I think that if I’d put my hand on my stomach I could have felt it inside me. I’d just settled on it when my husband waved at me from across the room and I’d hastily moved aside, pulling it out of me. I hoped I hadn’t hurt the poor guy with my rapid dismount.
My hubby Jack had wasted no time in getting my legs over his ears in the back of our car and had joyfully busted me for having another cock in my pussy. To say he was thrilled would be understating it. He fucked me wildly in the car and then again, when we got home, and his language made me blush. Apparently, he’d been nursing fantasies, wicked, dirty fantasies of seeing me with other men.
The party tonight was at our neighbors. Mimi Rogers was a good friend and she was one of the neighbors I liked best. We live in an old area of town and the neighborhood only gets together a couple of times a year. It was Mardi Gras time and everyone would be going masked. I knew that Bill and Josie would be there. Josie had told me the things she and her man wanted to do to me and they’d pretty much corresponded with my husband’s fantasies, so I spent the afternoon in an erotic bliss. The party was in four hours but I spent the afternoon wet.
My husband hadn’t mentioned our experience this morning before he went off to play golf and I guess I was a little worried that his enthusiasm had been the product of too much drink. Even stranger he hadn’t asked me who owned the cock that had been up my pussy, he’d just expressed disappointment that there wasn’t any cum in me. I’d been horny all day but a little worried, I mean wasn’t it odd for Jack to have fantasies about me being with other men?
I dropped off the kids at my mothers and came back to prepare for the party. We’d picked up simple costumes, Jack was going as a gladiator and I was going as Cleopatra. I had a halter with a kind of bra built in that fit me nicely, sequined all over and a skirt with a big medallion in the front. The skirt was just above my knees, and hung off my hips. I thought about wearing no underwear but I felt uncomfortable at the last minute and slipped on a t-back pair. We both had eye masks that we put on just as we rang the doorbell. Mimi’s house is the largest on the block, and is laid out so that the two wings surround their pool. The party would probably have sixty or seventy people there. Mimi was at the front door. She was about forty and she’d had her boobs done last year. Now she only wore clothes that showed them off and tonight I was sure I could see nipples through her lace toga. Normally Jack and I would immediately split up but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him at all about last night’s experience, so I steered him over towards a corner.
‘Sweetheart I want to talk about last night.’
He grinned. ‘We had a great time didn’t we?’
‘Well yes, but don’t you want to know exactly what happened?’
‘If you want to tell me. I’m hoping that you’ll give me a repeat and that this time I can watch, though if that doesn’t work for you I understand.’
‘Jack, of course I want you to be there. It just happened so suddenly and Josie..’
He held up his hand, ‘Oh it was Josie. I understand now. After work last week, a few of us went for a drink. She made no secret of telling everyone how hot she thought you were.’
‘I wish you’d told me. I didn’t even know who she was. I guess she’s dating Bill.’
He looked at me. ‘Is that who.’
‘It was just for a second. I, well I was moving across the bench seat in a booth in front of him and I just sat back and Josie was holding him. It was literally just a few seconds.’
‘Why only a few seconds?’
‘Well that was when I saw you wave and I just pulled off.’
‘Wow, that was it? You were very discreet. I can’t imagine anyone had any idea.’
‘So what do we do now?’ I had no idea what he’d say, but I was glad I’d worn underwear because I could feel myself getting wet as I’d told him the details.
‘What we do is flirt as usual, but we look for people who might be up to joining us. A couple would be good, but so would a guy or two.’
‘Or two? I don’t know about two. I don’t know if I could handle two.’
He leaned in close and I could feel his breath on my ear. ‘I think that your pussy was so wet last night that you could have done a troop. And of course a couple of loads of cum in you would make you even wetter.’
I shivered a little.
He leaned in close and put his hand under my breast. ‘I’d love to see people playing with your tits.’
He knew exactly what to say to me. I adored having my breasts touched. I was completely lost in my thoughts and I was shocked to feel a hand on my shoulder. It was Mimi.
‘If I didn’t know that you were an old married couple I’d swear you two were talking about sex.’
I laughed. This wasn’t the first time I’d been surprised by Mimi’s perceptive eye. ‘Well maybe we were, Mimi.’ I felt a little daring and I pushed my finger against her lacy toga. ‘Is that a nipple there?’
It stiffened immediately. Mimi said, ‘Why you naughty thing. I don’t think it was that obvious.’
Jack kissed me on the neck and said he was off to mingle. ‘Have fun. If you want to find me just look for the big sword.’
We both watched him walk away. ‘Nice legs.’ Mimi said. She turned to me. ‘So who are you going to flirt with tonight?’
I leaned close to her. ‘Well I think I started with you.’ I brushed my arm along the side of her breast. ‘But I think I’ll go over to Goldilocks and that bear. He looks like a big bear. Maybe I’ll grab a little bear ass.’ As I turned away, I felt her cup one of my cheeks. Maybe she was always this flirty too and I’d never noticed it before. I stopped one of the female elves running around with trays of punch and went over to Goldilocks.
I adjusted my mask ‘Did you find one that was just right?’
Goldilocks turned to me and said, ‘What?’ Maybe she was distracted. Or a little slow on the uptake.
‘You know someone to eat who was not too hot and not too cold.’
She laughed. ‘Oh Mr. Bear here threatened to eat me for breaking his chair, but I showed him my goldilocks and he calmed down.’ She flipped up the front of her short plaid skirt and I saw a flash of blond fuzz.
The Bear nodded his head and then it popped up a little. ‘This costume was a bad idea.’ It was my neighbor Rob from the next street over. ‘I think this costume belonged to a real bear.’ He paused. ‘And he died giving it up. It’s pretty hot and rank in here.’
Goldilocks laughed. ‘He’s been bitching all night. I said if he complained anymore I’d send him back to his wife.’
I’d thought Goldilocks was his wife. Now I realized it was Gloria. Cute little Gloria, who had the biggest natural boobs I’d ever seen in a bathing suit. She was wearing a little shirt tied above her waist. She must have had a huge bra on. I said to the Bear.
‘Why don’t you take off your clothes? You’d be a lot cooler.’
‘Oh and go bear?’
Gloria chuckled. She led him by the hand. ‘Come on. I’ll help get you out of the suit. Cleopatra you can stand guard.’
We wandered over to one of the cabanas. The bear said, ‘If you see an animal trainer with a top hat warn me.’ We took another round of drinks off the roving tray. The cabana was open, though only one of the blinds was drawn. There were groups of people around the pool. Goldilocks went to the back of the bear and he gave her directions about finding the zipper. When the suit came off, I could see why he was hot; he was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. I looked back across the pool and saw a bear trainer looking around. It was definitely Rob’s wife, who would have been better dressed as a shrew. She turned back towards the house. I opened the door to give the bear a warning and was stopped cold by the sight of Goldilocks on her knees, Mr. Bear’s cock in her mouth. ‘Oops excuse me. But there is a trainer looking around she just went back into the house.’
Goldilocks looked up. ‘ We can finish this later.’ She turned to me ‘Help me get his costume back on.’
I peeked back through the door. I could see the trainer moving through the room, but then I saw her head up the stairs. ‘She’s going upstairs. You sure you don’t want to finish?’
Goldilocks looked at me ‘Sam? I thought that was you.’
Rob was turned towards me. His cock was throbbing. Goldilocks turned her back to us and said, ‘Come on just a quickie.’ She flipped up her skirt and I saw her pink slit. Rob looked at me and bent over, sticking his cock in. Her pussy was obviously wet because he made a squishy noise as he pulled out. I watched them fuck for a few minutes, my eyes on the door. He came quickly and then he stepped into the suit. I stood behind him while Goldilocks ran to the bathroom and I helped him into the suit. His cock was still a little hard. Goldilocks came back into the room and I quickly bent down, taking his wet cock in my mouth, sucking off her juices, pulling that last little bit of cum out. I stood up.
‘Let’s go. Mr. Bear you’d better leave first.’
We watched from the door as he made his way across the patio. He looked like a very stealthy bear. Goldilocks stood beside me. ‘I didn’t know you played around. I thought you just teased. Thanks for being cool.’
I lifted up my mask. ‘I want to see your tits.’
Goldilocks said, ‘Wow you are different than I thought.’ She untied her shirt and reached behind to undo the bra. I helped her out of it. ‘You need to not wear a bra in that shirt.’ Her boobs were huge. I lifted one of them. She had pink hard little nipples and her areolas were smaller than I would have thought. I lifted one breast to my mouth and sucked her nipple. And then I juggled them a little, enjoying their weight. I felt her hands under mine and then she was peeling one of my halter straps down, exposing one of my breasts. She touched her tongue to its tip and then sucked hard. I felt a gush of moisture and I lifted her mask. This was the second woman I’d kissed. She tasted of honey and cinnamon and I felt her boob press against mine. I looked up and saw someone I recognized as her husband walking onto the patio.
‘You’re hubby is looking around.’ He turned and went back inside. When I turned back, she had the shirt tied.
‘He definitely wouldn’t mind catching us kissing.’ She laughed. I put my breast away. We went out onto the patio and wandered into the house. Most of the people had their masks off now and I saw Josie against the wall talking to Jack. I wondered what they were saying. Goldilocks was still beside me. We walked up to Jack and Josie.
Josie was dressed as a harem girl, her huge boobs encase by a tiny bra. I said, ‘Nice outfit you’re almost wearing.’ I reached over and moved one of the triangles. A hard nipple popped out. I pinched it and then moved the triangle back. Goldilocks hadn’t said a word.
Josie said, ‘We were just talking about you.’ She looked at me speculatively. ‘Your husband is very enthusiastic about the project you and I talked about last night.’
I know I blushed and I felt Goldilocks gaze on me. She said, ‘This has to do with sex doesn’t it?’
Josie looked at her with interest, and I think noticed her chest for the first time. ‘Wow you have really huge boobs.’
Goldilocks stuck her chest out. ‘I do, don’t I.’ She looked around to see who was watching and, satisfied, unbuttoned to expose one. Jack’s eyes bugged out. She put it away.
I said, ‘I caught Goldilocks here blowing someone and I helped her out. I want you both to know that I had someone’s cock in my mouth and then sucked her titty. But I haven’t found any men to fuck me.’
Goldilocks said, ‘Oh I want to be there. I’ve got a strap-on. I’ll fuck you. When are you going to do this?’
Jack said, ‘We’re thinking about an hour from now.’
Goldilocks said, ‘How about my husband? I know he’d be happy to oblige.’
I’d flirted with Dan a few times in the past. He had nice hands. I nodded.
Josie said, ‘Well then that’s it.’ She leaned in close and said, ‘I can’t wait to get you properly fucked.’ I felt a shiver up my body. Goldilocks left to find her husband and Josie went off to collect Bill.
I leaned into Jack. ‘Are you happy?’
He grinned at me. ‘Oh yes. Not as happy as I will be in a couple of hours.’
‘Don’t you think it’s funny that all of a sudden we’re planning having sex with others?’
‘Oh I wasn’t planning on having sex with anyone else.’
I looked at him. ‘I don’t think that’s fair. I want to watch you getting fucked too. I want to fuck you while you’re eating Josie’s pussy.’
I hadn’t realized Mimi was behind me when I said that. She grabbed me by the elbow. ‘I can’t believe you swing.’
I turned, ‘Oh we were just kidding. You know how we love to tease.’ I realized she was slightly drunk, so maybe she wouldn’t think anything of it. She grabbed me around the waist.
‘I’ll believe you if you let me check you.’
I said, ‘Sweetheart, I always get wet when I flirt. That’s why I flirt. It arouses me. I love that feeling of making people want to fuck me, I love knowing they want to fuck me even before they know they want to fuck me.’ I saw that her toga had come a little undone. She shifted her leg and I saw a little drip on her thigh. ‘Mimi you’ve got cum on your leg.’
She looked down and giggled. ‘Yes I do. I’m a little drunk and I think I got carried away. Would you help me upstairs?’
I nodded at Jack and she leaned into me. She stumbled a couple of times but I got her to her bedroom, locking the door while I got her settled. She sat in a chair while I folded the bed down, saying only, ‘Damn I didn’t think I had that much to drink.’ When she stood up she was naked and she had a very distinct trail of cum on her leg. I lay her down and she said, ‘Can you get a washcloth for me? I’d hate Johnny to come to bed and find all that cum on me, even though I know he got some tonight too.’
I went and got a warm washcloth and wiped her leg. She spread her legs apart. ‘Don’t forget that part honey.’
Her pussy had been shaved and was very pink. There was a lot of cum oozing out. I said, ‘You’ve got a lot inside you. Are you sure you don’t want to go the bathroom?’
‘I need to go to sleep. A lot of cum. Yeah, three loads. I got fucked good tonight.’
I leaned down and licked the top of her pussy. She moaned and I said, ‘I have to get back downstairs.’ I stuck a finger up and felt her wet, and then pulled it out. It was covered in cum. I gave her a last wipe and then went to the bathroom to wash my hands. She leaned towards me, her boobs in my face, her nipples long and pink. ‘When I’m sober I want to lick you. It’ll be fun.’
When I went back downstairs, Jack was waiting. ‘Let’s go get ready.’
We walked down the street, holding hands. I ran upstairs and had a shower, and then I put on a teddy and a dressing gown. There didn’t seem any point to getting dressed. Jack had a drink waiting for me and then he ran to shower as well. Bill and Josie were the first at the door. She had a little travel bag, but she put it on a table and threw her arms around my neck. ‘Are you ready for this? All these hands on you?’
‘Actually I’m a little scared. Shouldn’t I use condoms?’
‘Good idea. I brought a big box, I know Bill was just tested before he started work, but I don’t know about the other couple.’
‘Mmm. I guess it depends on how promiscuous they are. I know Gloria has been fucking Rob as well as her husband, and I guess one doesn’t know whom they’re fucking. I know Jack was talking about having loads of cum in me but maybe on me will do.’
Jack and Bill were talking over a drink and the bell rang again. Goldilocks was there along with her husband Dan. She slipped into the door and motioned to me. ‘Rob is outside in his car. I told him we were coming over to play but I didn’t know if you wanted another cock. If I don’t wave to him he’s just going to drive home.’
Josie said, ‘That’s perfect.’ She noticed the concern on my face. ‘If you’re not up to it I’m sure the rest of us can make use of him.’
I shrugged and said to Gloria, ‘Sure, why not.’ I looked at Josie. ‘I had him in my mouth for a brief second. He’s a nice size.’
‘Oh I’ll think you’ll find that all sizes are welcome.’
I felt a shiver start at my toes at the things we might get up to.
Josie looked at the guest bedroom that was off our living room. ‘We need about ten minutes to get things arranged. Why don’t you get a pitcher of ice water and glasses,’ she grinned. ‘Take your time.’
I went into the kitchen on shaky legs and made a pitcher of margaritas and one of ice water. I took as long as I could and then Jack came into the kitchen for me. ‘We’re ready for you.’
‘Jack I’m so nervous. Maybe this is too much too fast.’
He held my face in his hands and kissed my eyes. ‘Any time you get uncomfortable you say ‘rascal’ to me and I’ll get everyone to go home. Josie says she’s going to take things very slow.’
I went into the room. The furniture had been moved to the side and the king size mattress from the guest room had been moved into the center of the floor. Sheets and pillows had been arranged. The lights were off but a dozen large candles had been positioned around the room. Josie and Gloria were sitting on the mattress their legs curled underneath. The men were nowhere in sight. They patted the bed. ‘We’re going to give you a massage.’ I took off my robe, folded it on the sofa, and sat on the bed. Gloria lifted my teddy off me and motioned me to lie down, covering me with a small towel. The next ten minutes passed in a flash. First, they relaxed my back and shoulders, rubbing me with almond oil and then there were four hands rubbing my butt, pulling my cheeks apart. My calves were massaged and then my inner thighs, I could feel myself getting wetter. When they turned me over I had a glimpse of naked flesh; they had both stripped, and Josie tied a blindfold over my eyes. I felt each breast being massaged by two hands and then I felt a heavy weight dragged over my breast and felt a hard nipple rub against mine. There was a lot of giggling and then I felt breasts all over me; on my stomach on my thighs. It must have been Gloria’s huge boob that lay between my thighs and her hand nipple that danced over my clit. Two hands were rubbing my breasts and then on legs and then I knew there were more hands, and fingers were touching my mouth and my eyes and my nipples and then a finger was inside me. It was almost too much. I felt both my legs lifted and each was being rubbed with long strokes and then my legs were separated and I felt hot breath on my pussy.
A tongue lapped me, then there was movement, and my legs were lifted so my but was off the mattress and another tongue was probing deep inside me. I gasped and then a mouth was on my clit, lapping and sucking, at the same time that the tongue was deep inside. I felt the deep welling of my orgasm, but before I could come, the tongue disappeared and I felt something warm at my entrance. An incredible fullness and a cock slid inside me. It must be Bill because I felt that stretch again. This time I put one hand on my stomach and felt his cock poke up inside. God he was huge. The mouth on my clit was still there, even with that monster cock going in and out of me and now I couldn’t hold back and an orgasm ripped through me. I clenched down on the cock, which started pumping me harder. I came so hard I thought I was going to pass out.
The lips disappeared and everyone was quiet for a minute, but then the cock started moving again and I felt my nipples sucked and pulled. I wanted to concentrate on the feeling of this amazing cock, but now my legs were being flipped and I was moved to a doggie position. I felt Bill’s hands on my hips and felt him pull his tool all the way out. I waited for him to push back in and he did, filling me up. He started moving deeply inside me and I tightened up. I reached behind to grab his balls and felt them tight and heavy against his cock. I moved my head up, surprised to feel another cock at my mouth. Like a baby with a pacifier I latched on, sucking it inside my mouth. The sensation of Bill fucking me put me in another space. I realized that this fucking would go on as long as I liked and that for once I didn’t have to worry that my lover would come before I’d finished. I started to really enjoy the mystery cock, but then there were fingers underneath us and I felt someone touch my clit. Bill sped up his pumping and I could tell he was about to cum. I reached under the mystery cock, past the balls and found a tight little hole. I let some saliva coat the finger and then I slipped it in. The cock in my mouth started to leak a little and I redoubled my efforts. Bill started cumming and I wondered if he was wearing a condom, but then I felt myself leaking around his cock and knew he’d splashed his semen into my cunt. I started cumming at the thought and felt my mouth fill with jism.
I swallowed and then rolled to my side. The blindfold was taken off my eyes and a glass of water appeared. I was parched. I looked around. Jack was sitting in a chair, his cock completely hard. Bill was at the end of the bed and Rob lay back, a little cum leaking from his cock.
Gloria and Joie were sitting back on their haunches smiling. ‘That was fabulous.’ I said.
‘Are you ready for more?’
I nodded. ‘Dan lay down here.’ Dan had been in the shadows and now he came forward. His cock was shorter than any of the others but it was definitely the thickest and it turned up at the end. He lay down and Josie leaned over him, sucking him briefly. She unrolled a condom onto his cock. ‘Now Sam, mount this thick cock.’
I got onto my hands and knees and moved over him. Josie held his cock up and I squatted down. It was much thicker than Bill’s and felt wonderful. I moved a little and then Josie was on her knees over his face and I saw her lower her pussy to his lips. ‘Oh that feels good’ She leaned forward to kiss me and I put my arms around her, lifting her boobs with my hands. I moved up and down on Dan’s cock and then I felt Jack beside me. I broke my kiss with Josie and felt his mouth on mine. He moved behind me and I felt a finger up my ass and some lube. Surely he wasn’t. and then an incredible feeling of fullness. He was up my ass, moving very slowly. I put my hands on Josie’s shoulders, only to feel Gloria step between us, her pussy at my face level. I stuck out my tongue and tasted her. That same taste of honey and cinnamon that I remembered from earlier. I felt Josie’s fingers beside her clit and I sucked it in. That had distracted me from the other sensations, but now Jack and Dan were moving together and all of the sensations were just too much and I started cumming again. This time there was no pause for me and the movement just continued through my orgasm. Amazingly, I just kept on cumming. At one point Gloria started cumming too and my mouth was drenched in her liquid. She gushed on me and then I felt her hands on my tits, rubbing her juice into me.
I was almost relieved when both men shouted their orgasms. I felt the pressure of Jack’s cum fill my ass, and then they were both out of me. I flopped over. God I’d been fucked.
Bill appeared with a bunch of washcloths and cleaned me off. I sat up and said, ‘Well that was amazing.’
Gloria laughed. ‘Oh its not over sweetie. I want you to suck my tits, then I want them titty fucked by every cock in the room, and then I want to use my strap on. But first, Bill you’re up to bat.’
I scooted over while Bill lay down. Gloria insisted that I hold his cock for her. It was just as big up close and she obligingly leaned back on her hands so I could lick and kiss them both as they joined. Jack lay down next to me and I did the same for him and Josie. It was great to see him fill her and then I lay back and watched them fuck. After a few minutes, I felt Rob curl next to me and it seemed only companionable to position myself so his cock could fill my pussy. I didn’t think I had another orgasm in me, but watching Jack and then Gloria’s huge tits bobbing started to work on me and Rob’s cock found exactly the right spot. Soon the room filled with the sounds of women orgasming and I was treated to the sight of Dan’s cock being fed alternately to each of our willing mouths.
We fucked in every conceivable position for three more hours. I brought both Gloria and Josie to screaming orgasms and Gloria fucked my pussy and then my ass with her strap-on while the men sucked as many titties as they could find.
At the end, the men had barely enough energy replace the mattress on the bed. Jack waited until everyone had left and then he gave me his final gift. He lay me down on our bed and got between my legs, talking to my pussy telling her how much he loved her, kissing her and cleaning her with his tongue. What a night!

 

 

www.GoSexyDate.com

Originally published here.

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Tarisa

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