“Your card is...... the eight of spades!”
The girl peered impassively over her yashmak, reached into the cleavage of her harem top and pulled out a playing card, turning it towards the imagined audience with a theatrical flourish. She looked at it. “It’s the Queen of Diamonds, you dummy, Gregg Gillstrom! That’s so it! I’ve had it with this stupid idea. It’s just some lame plan to get me into this stupid slave girl costume. I’m going.” Samantha Wallace pulled off the scarf she was wearing across her face and grabbed her coat from the back of a chair.
“Hang on, Sam.” Gregg was rummaging around in a pile of playing cards trying to work out what had gone wrong. “Look you can’t go. What about the show?”
“If you think I’m standing on stage while you lose rabbits in hats, turn water into water, or fail to find the flags of all nations in a hollow tube then you’ve got another think coming.” By now Samantha had knotted the scarf around her neck to hide the two hopeful hickeys that Gregg had managed to inflict before she’d insisted they get on with rehearsing. “Not one of these tricks has worked. This is so a waste of time.” She pulled on her short camel coat. Now she was wishing she’d worn something longer; the filmy fabric of her harem trousers looked incongruous beneath it. The limits of style were not, however, going to discourage her from leaving right away as she grabbed the rest of her things, and exchanged the curly toed silk slippers for her trainers. “I should have stayed on the cheer leading team. Just get yourself a life Gregg Gillstrom. And another girlfriend!”
The door to his room slammed as she left, Gregg sank glumly down on his bed and looked at the pile of conjuring paraphernalia that he had failed to make work. She was right, of course. There was no way he was going to be performing this weekend. He ran his hands through his ginger hair, feeling more of a failure than ever. Irritated, he flicked the playing card across the room; it hit the top hat standing on the pile of superhero comics on his desk and disturbed the small switch on the brim. With an audible “sproing” a bunch of artificial flowers sprang up and stood quivering. “Oh shit,” said Gregg to no one in particular and headed off to find himself a beer by way of consolation.
+++++ +++++ +++++
A week later, he was still feeling glum about the evening and its outcome – or lack of it. He was down near the harbour when he saw Sam, laughing and chatting with a bunch of friends. He caught her scowl as she noticed him. That, and the giggles from her friends, was sufficient to deter him from crossing the street in any hope of a reconciliation.
As much to avoid the group as anything else, he stepped into the small junk shop down near the lighthouse. He’d picked up a few props there in the past. He’d even found a very dog-eared 1857, first edition of “The Magician’s Own Book” even though he hadn’t been able to find the $100 they’d wanted for it. The shop’s owner nodded as Gregg peered into the dark piles of accumulated pottery, odd bits of furniture, old clothes and the occasional picture frame. Wedged under a small table was a round, pot bellied, ragged, wicker basket. Gregg pulled it out. He pulled the top open and peered inside. There was a dusty turban, a small bamboo musical pipe and a coil of rope.
Perhaps, Gregg thought, some version of the Indian Rope Trick might convince Sam of his competence. “How much for the basket?” he said.
The owner peered across, not even bothering to get up. “Five bucks should do it,” he said.
“OK” said Gregg pulling a five from his bill fold. If nothing else the basket would look good on his desk next to the Neville Maskelyne poster.
+++++ +++++ +++++
Back in his room, Gregg examined the contents of his purchase. He knocked the dust off of the turban and perched it on his head. It was a bit large and kept slipping down over his forehead but it certainly had theatrical possibilities, Gregg thought, especially with the enormous red glass ‘jewel’ that was set at the front of it. He could imagine himself doing an act as “The Sultan” or something similar.
He rummaged through the basket and piled the rest of its contents on his desk. The bamboo pipe could be encouraged to give a low whistling note or two but music wasn’t really Gregg’s strong point. The rope was as dusty as the turban had been. Its ends had been neatly whipped with twine and then waxed. Gregg uncoiled it. It was a couple of metres long but there seemed nothing remarkable about it.
Gregg looked into the basked to see if there was anything else. Right at the bottom, it looked like there was some sort of magazine and, sitting on top of it, about the size of his fist, a small brown paper packet. He took them out. There was nothing else in the basket but his two final finds seemed more curious than the rest.
First there was the magazine. It had been face down in the basket. He turned it over. To Gregg’s amusement, given the acrimonious nature of his breakup with Samantha, the magazine’s cover featured a girl in cheer-leader uniform. She was helplessly tied across the back of a chair; her mouth gagged with a thick, knotted, cloth, and her skirt flipped up to show a pair of pert buttocks and white panties. “Captive College Cuties” the magazine’s title ran, “Bondage in the Locker Room”.
Furtively, Gregg flipped through the magazine, enjoying on one level the pictures of the hapless heroine and, on another, the fantasy of doing something very similar to Sam. As he saw what had been done to some of the other unfortunates in the magazine, he was having similar thoughts about her friends as well. He slipped the magazine into the middle of his pile of comic books between a copy of Doctor Strange and Mandrake the Magician for future close examination.
Gregg turned his attention to the small brown packet. It was made of some heavy almost waxy paper that had been folded origami style into a box like container. As he opened it he was greeted by a pungent, herbal odour that he recognised instantly. He hadn’t smelt anything that good since a very cool party a few months before. There was more here than they had shared between twenty people. For five bucks it looked like he had got a very good deal indeed. If he had noticed the faded writing on the inside of the packet it wouldn’t have meant anything to him. He wouldn’t have understood it. In fact he probably wouldn’t have known whether the script was in Arabic, Urdu, or (as it actually was) Hindi.
The herbal contents of the packet seemed like an ideal way to cheer himself up as he reached for a packet of papers and a small strip of card. It took him no time to roll a very meaty spliff. He placed it down carefully while he slipped a CD into his player.
The sounds of Morcheeba spilled out of the speakers as he lit the spliff. Taking a first deep drag convinced him that it was very good stuff indeed.
© Freddie Clegg 2009
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
It was like no other spliff he’d ever had.
He was riding a roller coaster but it was inside him. The world was still there but inside him streaks of light spread out from the back of his eyes and wound their way around the inside of his skull. Although he was still staring out at the room, beyond it, but within him, the chains of dimension unfroze their links to fracture a spectrum of light in colours that had no name. Each link exploded in a pyrotechnic blaze of expanding nodules of space and time giving synaesthesian existence to the numbers of the universe.
He was out of his head but still inside it and it wasn’t at all clear if it was pleasant or not.
In terms of conventional time, he sat for hours on the floor of his room, his back against his bed his gaze fixed straight ahead. In terms of unconventional time, the space was bending so that the closer he got to now, the sooner it was to where he needed to be the later he found his place.
Then came sensation. The certainty of breathing followed by the curious sensation of the tiny snakes surging through his veins and arteries, swimming their way against the pumping flow of his blood or riding the surging red tide, seeking out each corner of himself and carrying with them the re-colouring of his inner being to a psychedelic, swirling, fractal, spinning pattern of yellows greens and browns where what had once been red and purple.
And then he was still. Alone in his room. Except for Doctor Strange and Mandrake The Magician. And Samantha. She was suspended above them, hanging in a cradle of rope, in her cheerleaders uniform, and football player’s armour with helmet and shoulder pads. She span slowly in her rope cocoon as Strange and Mandrake conjured pulses of light from the air, spinning in orbits around the struggling girl, while the snakes coursed through Gregg’s body. “Welcome, Swami,” Strange said. “Be careful how you use your skills.”
Chapter 3: You Get What You Give
Gregg’s recovery was slow. First the surreal visions faded, replaced by a flowing mix of colours like a chromatic tide. Then the colours in their turn became paler merging into a monochromatic glow which slowly gave way to a fuzzily perceived view of the room about him.
Eventually he became aware once more of his ability to move his own limbs. Stiff and aching from being sat in one place for, he didn’t know how long, it took him all his effort to lever himself, unsteadily, to his feet.
His primary feeling was hunger, an overwhelming need to eat, almost anything. Looking for something fast, hot and bulky, he found a pack of pre-prepared spaghetti and meat balls in the freezer. It was the work of minutes in the microwave to deliver a steaming plateful.
He sat down opposite it and picked up a fork. As he sat struggling with the decision to pursue meat or pasta first he became aware that the pasta was moving. Not in any random, purposeless way, you understand but deliberately as though possessed of a collective intelligence. Slowly the strands began to rearrange themselves from the tangled knot that the bowl had contained to a series of neat coils. Gradually the plate took on the look of a ship’s tomato-ey sauced foc’sl, its ropes coiled neatly in readiness for use.
Gregg shook his head; uncertain as to whether or not this meant that the spaghetti was good to eat and equally unsure if it meant that the effects of the spliff had not, in fact, quite worn off yet. His attempt to push the thoughts of the obsessively neat pasta from his mind were interrupted by a curious sensation from his feet.
He looked down. His shoelaces were unravelling themselves from his shoe in the same way that the spaghetti had uncoiled itself. Now two lengths of pale cord had laid themselves out in straight lines beside his feet.
Disbelieving, he shook his head, trying to clear his mind of whatever residual hallucinogen remained. As he did so the end of one of the laces picked itself up from the floor, pointed its end at Gregg for a moment before slowly threading itself back into his shoes. With a similar show of reluctance the other lace followed.
It was impossible Gregg, thought to himself. Of course it was; but so was the obsessively neatly coiled spaghetti. And that was still where it had left itself, on his plate.
There had to be, Gregg felt, a rational explanation. He stared across at the knot of cables below the television. Now there, he said to himself, is a muddle that needs to be sorted out.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the wires began to move unplugging themselves from the wall sockets, twisting and fretting until they were free of each other, obeying his will but not needing specific instruction as though each had a Gregg-given-goal to achieve, slipping past each other like snakes.
Snakes. Was that what this was about? The vision of the snakes?
He shook his head still feeling as though this must be a drug driven delusion. He looked once more at the symbols on the paper wrapping, they still meant nothing to him but from between the two layers of brown paper slipped a third, white piece. On it was a sketch, two snakes wound around one another surrounding a geometric symbol that looked like something he knew. He recognised the symbol; it was the deep red stone set in the centre of the old turban. Underneath the drawing, in English, it said, ‘Swami Pradesh’.
The words meant nothing to Gregg and his usual. He turned to his usual sources of information, Google and Wikipedia, but even they failed to help beyond identifying it as a term first used by the English of the leader of an Indian sect given to magical practices. Both appeared to point to the one source, Hiram B. Heron’s ‘Treading The Raj - Travels In A Far Country’, published in 1833 as the only documentary evidence. The only other fact that he was able to discover was that the Swami Pradesh whatever else he or they did, were rumoured to be the originators of snake charming and the Indian rope trick and that the Swami possessed a jewel of deep red that had hypnotic powers.
It wasn’t hard for Gregg to link it all together in his mind. Drug fuelled delusion or not, there had to be some sort of link and he really had to follow up the clues. The one good thing was that when he checked the College’s on-line index, much to his surprise, Heron’s book was available in the College’s library.
Maria Barber was proud of her position. Although she was still only in her second year as a student librarian she was given almost free rein in the running of the college library. She had built up a position of trust with the college and she didn’t see why she should put that at risk simply because some over-eager student was keen to get their hands on some volume or other.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The book is on our controlled list. That means I can’t issue it without a signed authorisation from your tutor.”
“Well, let me study it here then,” Gregg was particularly anxious to get hold of the volume and to read the accounts of travels in the foothills of the Himalayas that told of the many legends and magical practices of the peoples there.
Maria shook her head firmly. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just not allowed. You can look at the index card if you like. ‘Controlled Issue : Not for reference or lending without Tutor approval’ it says. I couldn’t possibly. Sorry.”
It didn’t look to Maria like he believed her but that didn’t matter. As far as she was concerned the issue was more than a simple bureaucratic nicety. It was a shame in some ways. He was a charming boy. In fact very charming and that curious red jewel he was playing with was certainly eye catching. Very.
****** ****** ****** ******
Maria Barber awoke suddenly. She realised she was in the store room at the back of the library but she couldn’t for the life of her remember how she had go there. As she went to get up she realised that something very strange had been going on. She was half undressed, her blouse unbuttoned, her skirt unzipped and pulled down around her knees. Her hair was awry, loosened from its confining bun and hanging around her bared shoulders and neck where bite marks paid testament to passionate activities of which she had no recollection. Her first thought was that someone might discover her. She could only imagine how such appalling behaviour would be viewed by the college staff and she couldn’t think of a convincing account for what had very evidently happened. She scrambled to her feet pulling up her skirt and buttoning her blouse as quickly as she could. Luckily she had a scarf in her hand bag to hide the marks on her neck. Her efforts with her hair failed to create a convincing result but within a minute or two she felt herself presentable and began surreptitiously to make her way out of the storeroom and back to her desk. No one seemed to have noticed that she had been gone and she knew she wouldn’t mention it to anyone. Besides, she had quite forgotten about the book on the controlled list, the charming boy and his fascinating red jewel.
****** ****** ****** ******
Gregg sat in his flat clutching the book, surprised with his success and very surprised with himself for the manner in which he had achieved it. He could hardly believe what he had done. He was normally someone that just went along with things. Bu this time, just that as soon as the librarian had suggested that he couldn’t have the book, he knew that he would do everything in his power to get it. More than that, he had suddenly known that he had the power, a power that he had not suspected before. It was an extraordinary sensation; suddenly discovering he had unimagined powers and unknown desires.
He allowed himself a smirk of satisfaction. Whatever had driven him to behave as he had, the stuck up Ms Barber had provided an amusing interlude – with the emphasis on lewd – and he was pretty sure that even if she did remember anything about his visit she’d certainly be too embarrassed to say anything. It was, though, he felt, rather like looking at another person. As though his personality had been transformed by his dope trip; a lasting impact that he had never expected.
Gregg Gillstrom put aside thoughts of Maria Barber and the strange visions of his spliff-fuelled dreams and returned to the book. He found what he was looking for. The account of the Swami Pradesh agreed with the little he had learned from Wikipedia but added some important additional data.
It spoke of the hypnotic power of the red jewel in the middle of the Swami’s turban. Gregg had already discovered the suggestive effect of a twinkling jewel and he now suspected that the contents of the small basket had some connection to the Swami. Gregg could testify to the power of the jewel. The fifteen minutes he had spent in lusting play with the librarian’s body, when moments before she had been denying him a book, had been great fun. The soft pale skin of her breasts had run silkily beneath his questing fingers and the flesh of her thighs had been no less pleasurable. And it had all been down to a few passes of the jewel before her eyes. He hadn’t known that it would hypnotise her, actually he had never tried to hypnotise anyone, but it had worked even so. The jewel seemed to know what was required of it and he had known to use it.
The book also described the jewel’s twin, an identically cut emerald. Together the two were the cult symbols of the sect. The book told of the debauched way that the Swami Pradesh’s followers had pursued women in a drug-fuelled predatory fashion, slaking their thirst for flesh with the power of potions, hypnosis and magic. They had terrified local women and the mem-sahibs of the colonial powers alike, abducting them and forcing them into sexual orgies. Gregg smiled. He hadn’t realised that, when he had felt so driven to amuse himself with the librarian’s body, his urges were so much in tune with those whose jewel he now possessed.
Heron’s words went on to tell of the sect’s reputed magical powers that gave them control over snakes. They were the first to show snake charming, the book said. It claimed they could turn snakes into ropes and conjure them just as snakes were charmed allowing them to perform the famous Indian Rope Trick. The whole thing was associated with the Swami of the Snake.
Gregg went on reading for hours until he finally fell asleep in the chair. It was only the sound of the radio crackling into life that woke him; stiff and aching from the uncomfortable position in which he had spent the night.
He put the book away in the drawer of his desk, feeling curiously energised and entirely unrepentant about his treatment of the librarian. As he walked in to college he had to pass the library. As he reached the steps that led up to the entrance, Maria Barber walked up to and right past him, obviously not recognising him at all. Gregg chuckled and turned to watch her go up into the library. He knew why she had that jaunty scarf around her neck.
© Freddie Clegg 2009
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Chapter 5: High Time, Cymbelline
He was dreaming; that much Gregg was certain of. Dreams were rarely relaxing these days. They had taken on strange abstract look with kaleidoscopic sets of colours and shapes that seemed to twist his mind with their looping, pulsing, dissolving flows. Occasionally he would find himself confronted with some individual or other but, in his dreams, none had spoken to him. Until now.
He was in a long corridor, white and cool but with a clear sense of heat beyond its walls. The stonework was pierced, decorative. Bas-relief carvings line the walls, elaborate scenes featuring improbable sexual antics featured at every turn.
At the far end of the corridor he saw two figures both dressed in Indian costume. One, the man, beckoned him. The other, the woman stood quietly beside him.
From beside them another two figures emerged. To their left Dr Strange, looking just as Steve Ditko had imagined him, stood square on to the corridor, arms folded across his chest, eyebrows raised in scepticism as Gregg approached. To their right, Mandrake, top hat in hand, stared down the corridor in silent thought.
“Swami?” Gregg was convinced that that was who his dream host was.
The man nodded, acknowledging Gregg’s question.
Gregg went closer until the Swami held up his hand to stop. “The question is, Gillstrom, what are you going to do about the girl, Samantha? Disrespect has been shown. She has failed to know her place as a handmaiden, as dasa.”
Gregg realised at once the Swami was right. He couldn’t believe that he had forgotten her insults and the way that she had ignored him. Sam needed to be shown the error of her ways; to be convinced of the power of the Swami. He was about to thank the Swami for his guidance when Strange lifted up his hands sending two shimmering globes of light along the corridor towards Gregg. As they passed him the walls of the corridor dissolved with a soft hissing noise and he was laying, sweat soaked, in his own bed.
He rolled over with a groan. These night time excursions were proving to be exhausting. He got up in search of a drink and almost fell back into bed. He went to put the glass down on the table beside his bed and, as he did so, knocked a magazine to the floor. He picked it up and it fell open at the pictures of the bound and gagged cheerleader. He had a very good idea of what to do next.
***** ***** ****** ******
Samantha Wallace was in a hurry. She had, she reckoned, about twenty minutes to get back to her room from class, change, and then get over to the gym. She hadn’t found it easy to persuade them to let her try out for the cheerleading team but in the end they’d given in and said she could have a chance. She still had the uniform that she’d been leant when she’d first discussed it, before she’d decided to waste all that time with that looser, Gilstrom.
The last thing Sam wanted to see as she got back to her room was Gregg in the corridor outside. “I’ve got no time,” she said, as she went to rush past him. “I’ve got a chance to try out for the cheer leading team. I can’t stop.”
“I thought we might have a talk,” Gregg said.
Sam was having none of it. “I don’t think so, even if I had the time. Why don’t you do what you magicians are supposed to be so good at – just disappear!”
Gregg clenched his teeth for a moment but then regained his calm. Sam was opening the door to her room. “I wanted to show you this,” he said, turning the ruby over in his hand so that it caught the sunlight shining in through the large window beside him.
“I’m not interest... oh, that’s .. that...” Sam stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes captivated by the jewel. As Gregg turned it in the light he could see at once, from the glazed look in her eyes and the way her mouth dropped open slackly, that she was under its power.
“Why don’t we go inside?” he said.
“Of course, yes, if you like,” Sam replied compliantly, all thoughts about her try-out for the cheerleaders gone.
Gregg smiled at her obedience; the hypnotic power of the jewel was only too evident. He sat down in her armchair without waiting to be asked. She stood silently in the centre of the room, hands by her sides waiting for his instructions. Gregg looked at her appraisingly. She had a good body, even if the sweater and jeans she was wearing didn’t really show it off.
“You need to change, I think,” he said. “Why don’t you undress. And just for my amusement, do it nice and slowly.”
Samantha’s hand went to the buckle of her belt almost without hesitation. Gregg enjoyed her instant submission. The look on her face was blank. She stared ahead of her at the wall opposite. As she lowered her trousers around her ankles there was perhaps something deep inside her that questioned her actions. A look of dismay crossed her face momentarily as though she could not entirely believe what she was doing.
Her sweater and tee-shirt followed her trousers, socks and trainers onto the floor. Gregg enjoyed the prospect of her standing, quite still, dressed only in her bra and panties, for a few minutes. Sam’s obedient stillness was impressive but Gregg could also see the resistance inside her, the sense of a tightening spring somewhere in her psyche that was fighting the way was behaving. “Why don’t you put on your uniform?” he said, in an attempt to defuse the growing restlessness inside her.
“Yes, Swami,” she replied, going to a drawer and taking out the short, flared, yellow and blue skirt and the identically coloured sweat top. She put them on. Her demeanour became a little more relaxed as she dressed. Gregg was concerned that the effects of the jewel seemed to lessen as the subject was asked to do more difficult things. Reinforcement was needed.
He’d intended to leave her here, instructed to remain, until the effects wore off but he now felt that this might not achieve his objective of keeping her from the try-out.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the power of the Swami came to his aid. The cord of Sam’s telephone unplugged itself from the wall and snaked magically across the floor to wind itself around Sam’s ankles. Surprised by tightness of the cable around her legs, Sam started but did not try to resist. Gregg, seeing what was needed walked across to her, lifted her up and laid her down again on the couch. He drew her arms behind her back slowly. As he did so more cables arrived, one threading itself around her wrists, another pulling her elbows together, a third cinching her knees and thighs tightly. Her socks slithered up onto the couch from the floor and made their way to her head. Gregg had only to stroke the side of her face to have her open her mouth to accept the gag as the socks crammed pushed themselves inside. Finally a scarf arrived, winding itself around her face, knotting itself behind her head to keep the socks wadded in place. Gregg stood back, amused and amazed; delighted by the way in which the Swami’s power seemed to have recreated one of his favourite pictures from the magazine he had found in the basket.
The sight of her, trussed and helpless on the couch reawakened in Gregg the feelings of lustful compulsion that were so familiar to him. This though wasn’t the time, he said to himself, choking back the desire to push her short skirt up over her waist and tear his way into her panties. He swallowed and calmed himself. It was too risky here, and now.
“There,” he said quietly to his captive. “You can stay there now.”
While Sam had seemed resistant to being compelled to do something that she had not wanted to do, she was not trying to escape from her bonds. No doubt that will come later, Gregg thought, but it was clear that she would be staying here in her room until well after the try-out was over. Gregg patted Sam fondly on the head, as you might a pet dog, and left her.
© Freddie Clegg 2009
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Sylvia Armitage, the college administrator, was enjoying a quiet afternoon. She had posted the new accommodation allocations. Of course there would be the usual problems with people that didn’t want to change but it was impossible, she told herself, to do the job without upsetting somebody. There would be the usual queue of students complaining, she knew, but they would simply have to put up with it. It couldn’t be done any other way.
Mrs Armitage was something of a legend on the campus. Still very attractive for her years, she combined a flirtatious manner towards the staff with displays of complete indifference to the students. She had a reputation as having been a bit of a ball breaker and certainly there was no sign of a Mr Armitage these days. It didn’t worry Sylvia, she just got on with her job.
“I’m sorry Mr Gillstrom, there’s really nothing I can do about it.” Sylvia smiled up at Greg from her desk, closing the folder marked ‘Study Allocations’ firmly.
“But I’ve had a room to myself for a year or more, Mrs Armitage. I really don’t want to have to share a study,” Gregg was seriously upset by the prospect of having a flatmate.
“Well, no one does, Mr Gillstrom, I’m sure you realise that. And once places have been allocated, I really can’t change them.”
Greg was unconvinced but he knew how to make sure. He took the red jewel from his pocket. It caught the light from the window, drawing Sylvia’s gaze towards it. “That’s a very striking ruby,” she began. Her eyes, glazed over as Greg turned the jewel backward and forward, until she was sitting, passively, staring straight ahead of her, making no attempt to move.
Gregg picked up the Study Allocations folder and found his own room. Mrs Armitage made no move to stop him. There were plenty of other rooms that didn’t seem to be allocated a room share. He wagged an admonishing finger at the blankly staring Mrs Armitage. “Naughty, naughty,” he said. “You could have changed things couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said in a curiously flat tone, “I suppose that I could have.”
Gregg made the alterations himself but he certainly wasn’t finished with Mrs Armitage. “I think you owe me a little repayment for my inconvenience,” he said. “Why don’t we go through there?”
Gregg pointed to Sylvia’s stationery cupboard and Mrs Armitage got slowly to her feet and walked towards it. Gregg was able to enjoy the tightness of her skirt as she stepped by him and he gave her an encouraging pat on the backside.
Inside the stationery closet, Gregg wasted no time in bending Sylvia forward over a shelf. She made no objection as he reached around her to unfasten the belt of her skirt or as he unzipped it at the back to let it fall to the floor around her ankles. Gregg was breathing heavily, standing close up against her, feeling the swell of her buttocks beneath her panty hose as he ran his hands across her. He leant forward and hissed in her ear, “Open your blouse, bitch, and pull down your knickers.”
“Yes, Sir,” Sylvia muttered, obeying him readily but with rather mechanical movements.
Gregg, aroused as much by her compliance as by her nakedness, chuckled as he unfastened his own trousers and pressed his stiffening cock into the fleshy cleft between Sylvia’s buttocks. As he pushed forward against her and penetrated her cunt, she reacted with little more than a soft, “Mmm,” but Gregg was by now determined that she should pay for making his life more difficult than it could have been. His hands found her breasts, pulling aside the cups of her brassiere, his fingers sought out her nipples, squeezing and pinching and changing her quiet noises to ones of pain and discomfort.
Finally he came, his jism spurting into her and then, as he pulled back, running out of her cunt to slide down the inside of her thighs. Gregg grabbed Mrs Armitage by one nipple and pulled her around to face him. “Kneel down, slut,” he ordered. “And lick me off.”
“Yes, sir,” Sylvia said, her face as blankly submissive as before. She got to her knees doing as he had told her until he was satisfied and told her to stop.
Gregg looked down at Sylvia Armitage as she knelt on the floor of the stationery closet with her blouse open, tits hanging out of her ripped bra, her skirt, tights and panties around her ankles and her face streaked with his cum, Gregg felt he had been adequately repaid. “Thanks Mrs Armitage,” he said. “I am glad that we managed to work that out.”
He left the administrators office, with his hand in one pocket stroking the ruby red jewel. Its power could not be questioned, now, Gregg knew and it was obviously his destiny to use it the strength that the Swami Pradesh had given him. And as for the sexual desire that seemed to be part of that strength; well, he was happy to reap the benefits of that too.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Chapter 7: An Exceptional Exhibit
The City Museum was hardly the equal of the Smithsonian but Aaron Rodwell, the museum’s director, did try to put on exhibitions that would capture the popular imagination. One hundred and fifty years since the death of Hiram B. Heron was hardly the most important of anniversaries, he knew, but at least it was something to promote. And at least Rodwell knew he had come up with the ideal, eye-catching, centre piece to pull in the crowds. Maxine Connor, the museum’s curator, probably wouldn’t approve, of course.
By celebrating Heron, Rodwell knew he would earn some kudos with the College. Heron had been one of its founding fathers, so anything with a Heron association found favour with the Faculty. Luckily, the director discovered, Heron had left a bequest of his ethnographic collection to the museum. They’d never really bothered to look at it before but when they’d gone through the boxes in the museum’s warehouse they’d found a curious collection of specimens and artefacts from Heron’s Indian expeditions and, in one small velvet lined wooden box, the largest emerald that the director had ever seen.
“It must be priceless,” Maxine Connor had said, peering in awe at the great green gem and the item had at once become the focus of the exhibition in Rodwell’s mind.
“I know just how to display it,” Rodwell smirked. Maxine looked at him cautiously. She knew to be wary when Rodwell started on one of his enthusiasms. The only good side of them was they tended to divert his attention from his attempts to corner her in one corner or other of the museum’s archives, in the hope that his advances might finally be returned. “You’ve seen all those stuffed snakes that Heron collected? I think a jewel in a snake pit has the right ‘Indiana Jones’ flavour for a display that would get the public in – and television too.”
“Can’t see people getting excited by a lot of stuffed snakes,” the curator said sniffily, resistant as ever to the Director’s ideas of ‘exciting’ displays for the public. Her own ideas on exhibitions tended to the academic rather than the popular. She admitted that you had to make things accessible to as wide an audience as possible but that didn’t seem to be any reason to demean the value of scholarship to her.
“No, indeed, Maxine, but suppose they were real snakes? Suppose I had prevailed upon my colleagues at the City Zoo to loan us a case of highly poisonous Indian snakes for a tableau of how Heron must have come across the jewel.”
“I don’t remember reading anything about that in his journals, Director.”
“No? Well it’s more of an interpretation, if you like. Something that could have happened...”
“Oh,” said Maxine, nodding knowingly, “Fiction.”
“It will bring in visitors,” Aaron Rodwell responded. “I’ve arranged it, you just need to work out the rest of the exhibits. Unless, you’re afraid of snakes, of course. Is that the sort of girly thing you suffer from?” Rodwell smiled in a way that seemed calculated to antagonise Maxine.
For her part, Maxine, convinced that Rodwell’s rudeness was the product of his feelings of intellectual inferiority, bit her tongue.
****** ***** ******
Gregg was walking to college on his usual route. He still kept having these curious memory lapses that coincided with the most disturbing dreams but he tried not to let them interfere with his studies, or with his new found interest in his acquisitions from the shop on the harbour.
The two banners outside the museum said, “Into The East – The Explorations of Hiram B Heron”. Gregg stopped, surprised that the author of the book he had been reading should suddenly be the subject of an exhibition here. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d been inside the museum – when he was a kid probably – and his main recollection was of tall glass cases and endless rows of pottery, glass and wooden items that had little meaning for him.
A picture of the be-whiskered Heron stared down from the left hand banner while on the right hand banner was a picture of something that Gregg found even more interesting, a great green jewel that was cut, as far as Gregg could tell, in just the same way as the red one that he possessed.
Gregg stepped into the museum’s foyer and picked up a flyer for the exhibition. It had the dates. It had the times. It even had the invitation, “See the Great Heron Emerald in the Pit of Vipers”. Gregg’s first thought was that the exhibition might be worth a look, if only to see if he could learn more about the Swami. It was only as he carried on reading the flyer as he walked towards the college that he thought, “If that’s an emerald; can the thing I’ve got possibly be a ruby?”
As he looked at the picture he felt himself being taken over by the feelings of lust and greed that he had felt when confronted by Mrs Armitage and the girl in the Library. It was no ordinary sense of desire; it was a compulsion, an overwhelming certainty confronting him that he would have the jewel.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
It was only the third day of the exhibition. Gregg was trying to appear nonchalant as he walked up to the ticket desk and paid his ten dollar entrance fee. He told himself that he was there because he was interested in Heron, but he knew the reason that he was really there. He was trying to work out how he might steal the emerald. But then he thought, “I’m not planning to steal it, simply to return it to its rightful owner, the heir to the Swami’s world. Me.”
The exhibition was one that Gregg would have steered well clear of before his purchase. The museum had tried to make the collection interesting but the truth was that Heron had collected an awful lot of very dull things. The culmination of the show was, though another matter.
In a room that had been decorated to make it appear like the inside of a Maharajah’s palace, the walls hung with velvet drapes, tied back with great loops of silken cords. There was a sunken area behind a barrier designed to stop visitors from falling into it. In the centre of the pit a slim pillar held aloft a green jewel that was, as far as Gregg could tell, the twin of his own red one. For the discouragement of those that might seek to inspect it closer, around the base of the column a dozen or more snakes slithered across the floor of the pit. “Viperidae : Crotalinae : Gloydius : Himalayanus (Himalayan Pit Viper)”, a sign on the barrier rail said. “Loaned by City Zoological Society. Warning – Snakes Are dangerous”
They certainly looked dangerous, Gregg thought, a bit like a Copperhead but not as colourful. It was as Gregg was looking at them that he was suddenly aware of them looking back at him. All of them were peering directly at him. Gregg looked around himself. There was no one else in the room apart from a bored looking security guard lolling on a chair beneath one of the displays. Gregg looked back into the pit. The snakes were still looking back at him. As he stared back at them they formed themselves into two groups and slid off to either side leaving a clear path between Gregg and the jewel. Gregg astonished by the behaviour of the snakes could only look on dumbly. The guard coughed and stirred in his chair. Gregg knew that this wasn’t the time to do anything. He hadn’t thought about how he was going to steal the jewel but it did look as if the snakes weren’t going to be the obstacle. He stared at the jewel for a few minutes more before turning away. As he did so and as two other people entered the room, remarking loudly on the ostentation of the architecture, the snakes resumed their patrol of the base of the pillar, leaving Gregg once again puzzled by the powers he seemed to have acquired.
The rest of Gregg’s visit combined the pursuit of his quest for knowledge about Hiram B. Heron and his desire to decide on a way to rob the museum of the jewel. There was CCTV, of course, and the guard but the museum seemed to be putting most of its faith in the dissuasive powers of a dozen pit vipers. The other thing in his favour was that exhibition didn’t seem to be the hit that seemed to be Aaron Rodwell had intended. Gregg overheard the guard talking into his radio, “If my relief is late again, I’m going to be pissed. She’s supposed to be here at five thirty. She’s been five – ten minutes late every day.”
“Thanks,” Gregg thought to himself. “It’s nice to know there’s a routine.”
Gregg found it hard to leave. Almost as though the emerald was holding him back, keeping him in the museum. He finally broke away. As he approached the exit, a woman burst through the revolving doors, practically falling into his arms. She was about thirty, he guessed, with long dark hair that she had tied back in a pony tail, studious looking wearing small glasses.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said.
“That’s all right,” Gregg responded politely, not sorry to have been thrown against her and trying to fight off the waves of Swami triggered lust that he could feel rising. “My fault.” He was anxious to get away in case she noticed his boner and remembered him when it came to the aftermath of the robbery that he was well into planning in his mind. He untangled himself from the woman and dived for the revolving doors.
“What a polite, young man,” Maxine thought as she watched Gregg disappear down the museums front steps. “Nice buns too!” she caught herself muttering before reminding herself that she had work to do and that idle speculation about the sexual attractiveness of museum visitors was almost certainly not part of her job description. “I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before though.”
© Freddie Clegg 2010
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
Chapter 9: A Night At The Museum
It had taken Gregg a great deal of time to work out just how to commit the crime. In the end he decided that his best approach was simply to be as brazen as possible, relying on the powers of the ruby and the apparently mystical insights of the Swami Pradesh.
Accordingly, he arrived at the museum shortly before closing time, dressed in a splendid gold braided coat and wearing his turban and the Swami’s ruby. The girl on the entrance desk said, “I’m sorry, sir, we’re closed. The last visitors have gone for tonight and we’re not allowing any more admissions until tomorrow. If you can come back at 10 o’clock in the morning the exhibition will be open again.”
Gregg looked closely at the girl. “Sharon” the badge on her shirt said she was called. He breathed slowly, trying to fend off the feelings of sexual desire that were mounting inside him. He could see she had a good figure, a pair of well rounded breasts and a trim waist. It was all he could do to stop himself vaulting the entrance desk and taking her there and then but his mission was more important and he confined himself to staring piercingly into her eyes and saying, “Thank you, Sharon, but I think I will go in anyway.”
She looked puzzled for a moment, then caught sight of the red jewel in the middle of Gregg’s forehead. Her eyes glazed over. “Of course, Sir,” she said in a flat monotone. “I’ll just lock up then.”
“Please do,” said Gregg softly, “and then come back here.”
Gregg watched as she walked across to bolt the museum’s front door. “Good legs, tight skirt, very agreeable,” he thought, still fighting against the sexual desires that threatened to disrupt his plans. Sharon was soon back in her place behind the desk.
“Now, Sharon,” Gregg said, suddenly aware that he could achieve his next objective in the simplest of ways. “You will do just as I say, won’t you?”
“Of course, Sir, I will do just as you say,” Sharon’s gaze was fixed on the jewel, her eyes wide and unblinking.
“Then sit in your chair. You have been tied there, your hands behind your back.” Sharon’s hands flew to obey his instructions her arms suddenly rigid as if locked in place. “Ropes around your belly and your chest pull you back against the chair.”
“Oh!” muttered Sharon as she threw herself backwards against the seat back.
“Ropes around your knees and across your lap hold you there, more around your ankles fix them to the chair legs.”
Again Sharon moved mimicking the effects of ropes pulling her hard against the chair. She was struggling against ropes that only existed in her hypnotised mind but they were no less effective for that as she twisted and turned trying to free herself on her imagined bonds.
“Now, I’m sorry Sharon, but I must keep you quiet too,” Gregg was enjoying himself. The girl’s struggles and stiff posture showed off her breasts to good advantage and the sense of power he had over her helplessly reacting to his hypnotic commands only added to the fun. He held up an imaginary strip of cloth.
“No, please,” Sharon begged struggling to turn around to look at his empty hand, “please don’t gag me, I’ll keep, arrnghh, mmmph!!!”
Sharon spluttered as the imaginary gag stretched her mouth open wide and filled it. She struggled and shook her head. “ARRNG!!” Helng!” she whimpered as Gregg watched amused at her reaction to his suggestion, her mouth wide open like some animated version of a sex doll. It was hard for Gregg to tear himself away but he knew there was more work to do if he was to succeed.
The museum was indeed deserted as he made his way to the Hiram Heron exhibit, passing the reconstructed skeleton of a dinosaur based on fossils found on the outskirts of the town and the a Ford Model T that had been one of the first vehicles that the town had known.
As he emerged into the room with the snake pit, the security guard – a woman this time – looked up at him. “Hey, what are you doing here?” she called, reaching down to the holster that she carried on her broad leather belt.
Gregg stood silent and impassive as the guard turned towards him. Confident in the power of the jewel as a result of his encounter with Sharon, he had no doubt that the guard would succumb to his charms as well. “Please don’t be alarmed,” he said calmingly. “I mean you no harm.”
Sally Grundy would find it difficult to explain what happened next when her boss and the police interviewed her. All she remembered was seeing this bright red light and feeling a sense of intense calm. She was aware of the man’s voice but not really what he said. She knew just what she had to do. She needed no urging to remove her skirt and unbutton her uniform shirt, nor did the man do any more than nod to indicate she should take her cuffs from the pouch on her belt and fasten them around her wrists behind her back.
Gregg watched, amused by his power and appreciative of the view as the girl stripped and cuffed herself. She wasn’t as slim as Sharon. Obviously the long days sitting around on guard duty hadn’t helped her. She looked like she was fonder of doughnuts than exercise but it made for some very pleasant handfuls as Gregg took the opportunity to feel her up on the pretext of searching her. She didn’t resist of course. Gregg left her sprawled on the floor of the room.
He looked into the pit. The snakes looked up at him and then, as if knowing his desire, moved to each side, allowing him a clear path to the emerald. He leapt the low wall of the snake enclosure, strode across the pit under the watchful eyes of the vipers, picked up the jewel and returned to where Sally was sitting waiting, patiently for him to return. Appealing though the thought of more play with the chubby guard was, Gregg knew that he needed to be on his way and he felt he ought to make Sally more secure than just cuffing her wrists. He was trying to decide what to do when he noticed the cords tying back the room’s velvet drapes. No sooner had he noticed them than they began to unravel themselves from the curtains, snaking their way across the floor to wrap and twisting themselves around Sally’s ankles and thighs.
With little more than the thought, “she needs to be helpless”, the ropes knotted themselves into place hogtieing the handcuffed guard. The thought “and silent too” summoned more ropes, knotting themselves so that the knots forced into her mouth as they tied themselves across her face would gag Sally. Gregg, still conscious of the tightrope he was walking between his sexual arousal and the need to escape with the jewel, allowed himself an amused grope of the now helpless guard and then left with his new acquisition.
As Gregg left the museum, Sharon was still in her place, “tied” against the chair in the entrance lobby. He went over to her and reached forward to stroke her breasts as she looked up at him, wide mouthed and with pleading eyes. “Silly girl,” Gregg said as he moved closer to her. “I gagged you with tape.”
In an instant, Sharon’s mouth snapped shut, her lips clamped together and her whimpering grunts replaced by a muffled “Mmmmm!!!”
Gregg laughed and pushed her skirt up around her waist before deciding there really wasn’t time for any more play. He pressed his lips against her imaginarily taped shut ones, and left her still struggling, happy to have the Heron emerald in his pocket.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
It was hard for Gregg to come to terms with the fact that he had succeeded in his intentions, even though the emerald now sat in a small padded box in his room. His cock still craved the satisfaction of the women he had encountered as if only congress with Sally or Sharon would complete the act.
The reports of the robbery only gave him passing amusement. On the local TV news the news readers were claiming that the witnesses could hardly remember anything but that they were agreed that the robbery had been carried out by a strange eastern figure, more than six foot tall and dark skinned. Gregg at five feet six and with his sandy, freckled complexion, couldn’t understand how they were possibly referring to him. He wanted to stand up on the top of his apartment block and yell, “It’s me you fools, me!”
****** ***** ****** *****
Maxine Connor was feeling smug. Of course, she had derived a certain glee from Aaron Rodwell’s fury at the robbery and the subsequent criticism he had received over the security arrangements but now she felt she was on the trail of an answer to the question of how the Heron emerald had been stolen.
Her smugness at Rodwell’s discomfort hadn’t lasted long though. The same day she was called into his office and fired. “You’re the curator,” Rodwell had said. “The trustees are looking for a scapegoat and it certainly isn’t going to be me. You should have made better security arrangements. I’m sorry, Maxine, you’ll have to go.”
Maxine thought of a dozen clever things to say after she left his office in stunned silence but it was too late. All she could do, she thought, would be to find the real culprit and, since she was not so naive as to imagine that would get her job back, and get her revenge on Rodwell for his treatment of her.
The answer to the first question, she was certain, had something to do with another incident, one at the college library.
Nothing had been made public about the actual circumstances of the museum robbery. The guard and poor Sharon had remembered almost nothing about what had happened, beyond their descriptions of their assailant but Maxine had been there when they had found the guard, half stripped of her uniform, and she had seen how confused Sharon had been about the whole incident. She was also interested by the fact that it was only the Heron jewel that had been taken. There were plenty of other artefacts every bit as valuable in the museum and the thief would have had free run of the place after dealing with the two girls but it was all untouched.
There were no real details either about the library incident and the only reason that she knew anything about it was because she occasionally met up with some of the girls from the library for a coffee or lunch. It all had something to do with Maria Barber. Normally Maria was a studious girl, more interested in cataloguing some of the early editions that the library held than dealing with those that came to use the library, but there was something strange, almost abstracted, about her of late. The others had all been convinced that she had a boyfriend. Maria had denied it in a flustered way. Maxine thought it had something to do with the disappearance of the library’s copy of Heron’s book. The library had only discovered that it was missing when Maxine had tried to arrange for it to be loaned to the museum for the exhibition. Maria and the other assistants had had some uncomfortable discussions with the Chief Librarian and Maria had seemed very upset about it all. She had confided in Maxine that there was one afternoon where she really couldn’t remember what had happened during her shift. It was then that Maxine realised she had seen a ginger haired, freckle faced, lad emerging from the library on that afternoon, and that he had been the same student that she had collided with at the museum.
****** ****** ****** ******
Gregg had at least found one way to capitalise on his new found gifts. If he couldn’t get credit for his robbery be could at least reinvigorate his magic career, even if Samantha Wallace was still proving resistant to his efforts to entice her back as his assistant. (Gregg had been disappointed to discover that his hypnotic powers seemed useless when it came to telephone calls.)
He’d come up with the idea of busking a few tricks in the big square outside the college’s main building as a way of at least getting a bit of an audience that he might translate into something more ambitious. He’d found that since his experiences with the Swami’s hashish or whatever it was, he had a surprising ability to read hidden cards. His skill at the trick that had finally caused Samantha to throw in the towel was now such that he was able to astonish the group of students standing around his pitch at the side of the main steps.
“There’s no one here that’ll sit down to a game of poker with you,” one of them called with a grin, giving Gregg a considerable sense of satisfaction.
“If you think that was good perhaps I can further astound you with this,” Gregg said producing a small clay pot. “Does anyone have a neck tie?”
One of the girls in the audience, pulled the tie from her boyfriend’s neck saying, “Here try this,” as she tossed it to him.
“Thank you,” said Gregg coiling it up in the pot. “Now watch closely.” He took a tin whistle and blew a few notes over the pot. The audience fell silent as the tie stretched itself skywards. Gregg looked nonchalant as the audience tried to see how the trick was done, peering upwards to see if there were wires or if the tie was somehow being pulled up in some way from above. A buzz of puzzled astonishment ran around the crowd but there was more to come as the tie appeared to climb up itself forming into a ball of cloth before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“Hey, that was my tie!” called the girl’s boyfriend over the startled hush of the rest of the crowd.
“Do not worry, sir,” said Gregg. He clicked his fingers and the tie reappeared in his hand to the applause of the crowd. Gregg handed it back to the amusement of the girl and her boyfriend and calls of “How did you do that?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not difficult,” Gregg said with a smile. “It’s just magic. But that’s all for now.”
Another round of applause followed his wave to the crowd and Gregg started to pack his things back into the case he had brought with him as the crowd started to disperse, all of them discussing how he might have done the final trick.
“That’s very impressive,” a husky, female voice said.
Gregg looked up to see a very attractive thirty-something woman talking to him.
“You’ve got a remarkable gift.”
Gregg looked at her, thinking to himself that she had some remarkable gifts too. She was smartly dressed in a well cut suit that made the most of her figure and a skirt that made it clear her legs were shapely too. He could feel the sexual lust that had driven his encounters with Sharon and the others rising up to take over in a way that he thought was risky here in the middle of the college square. “It’s just magic,” he said disarmingly, “that’s what magicians do.”
“Mmm,” the woman said in a way that seemed to echo his own arousal. She ran her tongue across her lips, shining them in a way that no lip gloss ever could. “Well, I’m impressed,” she said holding out her hand. “Maxine Connor,”
Gregg shook it carefully, making every effort to control the desire to drag her towards him, to wrench off her jacket and to throw her to the ground in the square, with her skirt up around her waist, there and then. “Ah, well, pleased to meet you,” he said, with a hoarse cough “Gregg Gilstrom. Look, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”And he did. He had a lecture but apart from that his cock was already rigid in his trousers and there was no telling what would happen if he stayed where he was. “Nice to, err, meet you.” He scuttled off.
Maxine was disappointed at the way he dashed away but she knew now that this was the person she had seen in the museum and by the library and that somehow he was linked to the disappearance of the Heron jewel and the book. There was more than that though. Somehow in his presence her goals had changed. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to find the person who had stolen the emerald, now she wanted to use its power, his power, to revenge herself on Rodwell and the rest of the fools that she had to deal with every day. She would find out how to get in touch with this magician.
****** ****** ****** *****
“Oh, Maxine, you know I’m not supposed to give out that sort of information.” Sylvia Armitage was feeling uncomfortable, partly because she was being put in a difficult spot and partly because she really hadn’t expected Maxine to be the sort of girl that would get a crush on one of the students.
“Oh come on, Sylvie, what harm can it do. I only want to give him a call. He’s ever so cute but you know what some of these students are, they need a girl to chase them sometimes.”
Sylvia relented, she didn’t know why, but she felt she really ought to help Maxine out. “Well, don’t ever tell anyone I told you.” She scribbled down an address and a telephone number. “You owe me one after this.”
“Any time you want an introduction to any of our old fossils, just call,” Maxine responded jokily as she picked up Sylvia’s note. “Thanks, ever so.”
Maxine didn’t like misleading Sylvia but she didn’t want to tell anyone about her real theories until she had given herself the chance to find out a bit more. Besides there was something very arousing about this strange, freckled faced young man; there were other With Gregg’s address and mobile number she felt she was making progress.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Chapter 11: The Emerald Concubine
Gregg Gilstrom unlocked the door of his room and slid gratefully inside. It had been a day of boring lectures but he felt he had to keep up appearances. There was still a great deal of fuss being made about the museum robbery – largely as a result of the director insisting that everyone was to blame except him and while he resented the fact that he wasn’t getting the credit, he was quite happy to be avoiding the attentions of the police.
As soon as the door closed behind him, he knew something wasn’t right, something was different. As soon as he clicked the light on he saw what it was. There, stretched out on his couch, looking up at him provocatively, was the woman he had seen in the square the day before, Maxine Connor.
“Hello, Gregg,” she said in the same husky tone she had used the day before. “I’d hoped you be home soon.”
Gregg wasn’t at all sure what to do. The jewel he used to hypnotise his victims was locked securely in his desk. His crotch, no respecter of difficulties of opportunity, was telling him that he had to have this woman, but he knew that there would be problems if he did anything there in his room. On the other hand he thought, as he took in the shape of her stretched out legs and the dark cleft of her cleavage that was clear in the V of her jacket, her intentions looked anything but modest. “Err, how did you get in?” he said. “I thought I’d left the room locked.”
“You did,” Maxine responded, making no attempt to explain herself. “But surely, a magician knows there are no solid doors?” Gregg felt discomforted by the woman’s manner. She sat up and patted the seat beside her to indicate that he should sit down. “Now why don’t you tell me just how you did that trick with the tie?”
Gregg tried to recover his composure. He shook his head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” he said. “It’s an unwritten rule. A magician never explains his tricks.”
Maxine smiled and put her head on one side. Her long hair fell loosely across her shoulder. “No, of course. I understand. Let me guess though. Was it some form of hypnosis of the audience, perhaps with the Swami’s ruby? Or was it something even more remarkable; the real Indian rope trick?”
Gregg’s jaw dropped open at the mention of the Swami. He stared at Maxine without saying anything and then sat down beside her.
“Hiram Heron wasn’t the only one that wrote about the Swami and his followers,” Maxine went on. “It’s surprising what you can find out in the museum and the library with a little research. He really was an interesting man, the Swami. He had the British administration worried for a while, there was talk of very strange events in Pradesh. That ruby of his was a powerful jewel if you believe everything that was written.”
“Very interesting,” Gregg said trying to recover his thoughts. “But why would you think I would be interested in this Indian Swami?”
“Someone interested in magic? Of course you’d be interested in the origins of the Indian rope trick! And if it wasn’t actually a trick? Well, imagine that.”
Actually, Gregg hadn’t really considered the implications of the power that the trick presented. He had been too amused by the hypnotic power of the jewel and the opportunities it had presented to fulfil the sexual drives that consumed him. Its use to acquire the emerald had been almost incidental. He felt embarrassed that he hadn’t thought that it might be of any other use but on the other hand he was intrigued by what the woman was suggesting. Of course he might become the world’s most famous magician but that was hardly the heritage of the Swami; for him only infamous would do.
“So,” Maxine went on, “you possess the Swami’s ruby, and you have acquired the secrets of the cult of snakes. I’m not sure how you did that but it’s obvious to me that is what is behind the trick. And I think you took Saradamani’s emerald.”
“What makes you think that?” Gregg responded warily. “And why Saradamani’s emerald? I’ve not heard anyone call it that.”
“Sloppy research! Trivialised exhibits! Poor scholarship!” Maxine exploded. “That fool Rodwell is incapable of any academic rigour. He doesn’t understand what is behind Heron’s work; the fear that the British had for the Swami and his cult; the certainty that the Raj would have collapsed under drug fuelled sexual excess at his hands, if things hadn’t turned out differently.”
Gregg was surprised by her outburst. The alluring woman on his couch had been transformed into a spitting, vengeful, vixen. He wasn’t sure which he found more desirable.
Maxine calmed down as swiftly as she had become angered. “Do you really not know about the emerald?” she said, the question of whether Gregg had taken it evidently not needing an answer.
Gregg shook his head.
“It was - is, as I suspect you guessed, the twin of the ruby. To the Swami’s followers it signified cunning, guile and trickery while the ruby symbolised lust, appetite and power. The Swami always wore the ruby in his turban. The emerald was worn by his favourite concubine - Saradamani. It was she that stood by the Swami until the very end when he was besieged by British troops in the old Allahabad fort.”
“Interesting,” said Gregg, but I am not sure where this is taking us.”
Maxine sat up. She unfastened a button of her jacket. It was obvious to Gregg that she was wearing nothing beneath it. “I thought you should have your own avaruddha Stree, your own ‘lesser wife’ as they say,” she said
The sexual urges of youth, amplified by the influence of the changes that the Swami’s hashish – or whatever it was – had wreaked upon his mind, pushed him towards Maxine. She didn’t resist him as he straddled her and pushed her back on the couch, diving with his mouth for her neck and pushing his hands eagerly inside her jacket. She responded, gripping him around the neck and pulling him down upon her. “Why should I worry?” panted Gregg, his cock stiffening by the moment. “Your research must have told you I can have any woman I want. Why should I want a concubine?”
“Because of this,” she said. Her hand flew to the fly of his trousers drawing down the zip slowly. “Your ruby can compel women to obey, but can it compel them to be active, engaged, vigorous partners?” She laughed as Gregg’s cock sprang free of his trousers, stiffening thickly in her hands. “You can have your ruby slaves for lust, but you need your emerald concubine for pleasure.”
Gregg looked sceptical for a moment.
“Wait,” said Maxine, “let me tell you about some of my other research. In the grounds of what was the Swami’s palace is a temple. The walls are covered with carvings which illustrate some exciting and interesting sexual positions. Heron made drawings of them. They were never published; too explicit even for the academic journals of the day. I found them. Perhaps we should try them out? After all, I am sure the Swami did.”
Gregg smiled and licked his lips. It seemed like a very good idea. “Just in the interests of academic study, then,” he said.
“Of course,” Maxine responded as she reached for his crotch.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Chapter 12: Dinner Under The Dinosaur
Maxine had proved herself an ingenious and athletic sexual partner. Gregg, with his very limited experience of sexual congress found her techniques simultaneously stimulating and satisfying. After satisfying orgasms for both of them – his as a result of her skill, experience and research; hers as a result of his youthful vigour and abandon – the two sank back in sweat soaked exhaustion.
Maxine leant across him. "There’s only one thing," she said with a conspiratorial air. "I’d like you to help me with something."
Gregg at first looked suspicious of Maxine’s proposal but as she outlined her determination to get her revenge on of her boss, Gregg found himself more engaged. Revenge was a desire he could understand and the actions she proposed appealed to his newly acquired enthusiasm for anarchy.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
In the control room for the CCTV network that Aaron Rodwell had installed after the theft of the emerald, the guard was sitting with his feet on the console. He was feeling that there was little to be done tonight while Rodwell and the Trustees were dining in the Museum’s hall. It was an opportunity for a quiet shift watching something more diverting on his PC. He didn’t notice the way in which the CCTV cameras were swinging around without his involvement and he certainly didn’t see how it was being done as the cables that ran from them responded to some unseen hand and snaked around the camera’s, pulling them out of line until they were no longer pointing into the hall.
Gregg and Maxine were standing in the shadows at one end of the great hall of the museum. At the other end of hall, Aaron Rodwell was holding forth to a group of the trustees and their wives as they sat at dining tables clustered around the feet of the museum’s reconstructed Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil. "Welcome," he said in a booming voice, that echoed through the cast iron girders of the museum’s ornate, early twentieth century roof. "Welcome to this year’s Dinosaur Dinner," he continued. "I hope that you have all enjoyed the meal and now I hope you will excuse me if I say a few words of thanks to you all."
It was all Maxine could do to keep herself silent as Rodwell went on. "Your wealth endows the museum," he said, patronisingly. "And I must say the presence of your wives here tonight graces the museum too – bringing with them as splendid an exhibition of jewellery as the museum has ever exhibited." His audience laughed politely. "I trust that we have now overcome your concerns about the security here in the museum. I can assure you that they were the result of the irresponsible actions of one of our staff who is no longer in her post. This is the start of a new era for the museum."
Gregg looked at Maxine who was scowling at Rodwell’s ingratiating tone and the fact that it was her that was being blamed. "It certainly is," Gregg said. "Let’s crash the party," he went on as Aaron Rodwell began moving between the tables offering brandy and port to the assembled group.
Aaron Rodwell’s first sight of Gregg and Maxine was as they emerged from the shadow of the great dinosaur skeleton. Gregg commanded immediate attention in his swami’s turban with the great red jewel and the magnificent gold kurta he wore over his pajama trousers. Beside him stood Maxine in her lehenga choli, a shawl drawn over her head and across her face and wearing the Heron emerald in her navel.
"What do you want?" Rodwell said. "Who are you and what are you," he pointed at Maxine, "doing with that emerald?"
"Please do not trouble yourselves," Gregg responded in his most placatory tone. "Perhaps I should explain myself to you all."
The assembled diners turned towards him. As each caught sight of the Swami’s great ruby in Gregg’s turban they felt a curious calm fall over them and a sense that time itself had slowed to a snail’s pace. The group, including Rodwell, fell silent, gazing at Gregg blankly.
"Oh, now that is a good trick," Maxine exclaimed realising that the group was completely under Gregg’s influence. "Can you really do anything with them that you want?"
"I think so," Gregg smiled, "but first I think you want to relieve these ladies of their jewellery."
"Of course. Since Mr Rodwell believes he has solved the problems of the museum’s security, I think we should show that he is wrong. Purely in the interests of a scientific demonstration, of course."
Maxine giggled as she moved to the tables, going to each woman in turn, stripping them of necklaces, bracelets, rings, watches and jewelled hair grips.
The women sat quite still, staring at where they had first seen Gregg’s ruby, silent and passive as Maxine went from one to another. She followed that with a pillaging of their handbags, removing credit cards, cash, some highly expensive mobile phones the occasional jewelled lipstick case or the small gold, enamel or engraved boxes that no doubt held a recreational line or two of coke. The pile of her spoils grew in the middle of the table as she turned to the men, removing their wallets, cash, Rolexes, gold money clips and the other trappings of wealth. She finished with Aaaron Rodwell who was standing motionless beside the dinosaur skeleton.
"A tidy pile," Gregg remarked. "Do you think you have embarrassed Rodwell enough?"
"Well," Maxine began, pleased with the results of their escapade, "not quite. Could you convince him to stand on the table and drop his trousers before his guests wake up? He was always keen for me to see what was inside his pants – perhaps he feels the same way about the wives of the trustees?"
"Oh, I think so," said Gregg as he waved at Rodwell who responded by following his gesture towards the diner’s table, climbing on, lowering his trousers and then, with a wave of Gregg’s hand standing with his arse pushed out and one finger put coquettishly to his lips.
Maxine giggled. This was even better than the haul of jewellery, she thought, gathering up her spoils in a tablecloth. "I think the trustees should join in too, don’t you?"
Gregg looked at her. She was evidently determined to get every last drop of revenge that she could from the situation. "Why not?" he said and clicked his fingers bringing the gaze of the diners upon him. He thought for a moment of what would most amuse Maxine and without a word being spoken the assembled group began undressing until all were naked and the men and women were embracing in various carnal positions. Heads were pushed between legs, hands groped breasts, mouths swallowed cocks, tongues found themselves at feet. Gregg was particularly fascinated by the way in which his power had worked. He was becoming used to the idea that the thought drove the actions of his victims but in this case he had simply thought that each should get together with their lover. What was obvious was that for some of them the term "lover" did not cover the partner that they had arrived with. Whatever the fall out of this particular event, Gregg felt, Maxine’s desire for the humiliation of the trustees and Rodwell in particular was being well satisfied.
His sense of smug satisfaction and Maxine’s feelings of triumph didn’t last long however.
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"This is the Police!" The shout, from outside the building, distorted by the amplification of a loud hailer shattered the silence of the museum. They stared at one another in panic, stunned that they had somehow been discovered.
"Come out with your hands up!"
They looked up to see searchlights playing on every window of the hall. As Gregg looked out he caught sight of an officer in a SWAT vest, running along a roof opposite, carrying what looked worryingly like a high powered rifle. "How can they have found out? How are they here? What are we going to do?" Gregg’s bravado and suave self confidence had dissolved in a fit of panic. Drips of sweat were forming on his forehead beneath his turban.
"Don’t worry. Be calm," Maxine urged. "Come on, you’re the magician, all you have to do is to make us disappear."
Gregg looked at her for a moment as if she was mad but then calmed himself. "Of course!" he exclaimed. Remembering what he had read in Hiram Heron’s memoirs, he took the pipe and coil of rope from the basket he was carrying. Laying the rope in the middle of the hall, he played a few notes on the pipe and the rope began to climb towards the roof, acquiring a length that it had seemed not possess. It became rigid. "Come on," he said sticking the basket and pipe under his arm and taking Maxine by the hand, "Cling on to me." She grabbed her knotted cloth of spoils and did as he asked.
He started to climb the rope. Soon the two of them were twenty feet from the floor of the museum, level with the head of the dinosaur. Gregg following Heron’s account of the trick, began to pull up the rope from beneath them. Maxine watched in astonishment as the two of them hung in the air supported by nothing.
Gregg shook the last few feet of rope and called in a loud voice, "Abracadabra!"
At the far end of the room a group of police offers burst in. All they saw was a blinding flash by the dinosaur’s head and a cloud of purple smoke, slowly dispersing into the rafters of the hall. Of their quarry there was no sign.
There was no explanation for the naked group of trustees, although that made an amusing story for the papers the following day when the police reported what they had found. They had arrived after a concerned citizen had reported lights on in the museum and of course after the recent robbery no one was taking any chances. It wasn’t clear what had happened. There was property missing and the trustees had evidently been involved in some sort of orgy but none of them seemed to be able to give a clear account of what had happened or why they were where they were. After a thorough search of the building Rodwell was led away for further questioning.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
Gregg & Maxine had disappeared. They were no longer in the museum. But, thought Gregg to himself, where were they?
Where do things go to when they disappear? If something has gone, where has it gone to?
Gregg was beginning to wish that he had paid more attention during Philosophy 101.
He wanted to get back but if you don’t know where you are how can you know where back is? Certainly he didn’t want to be back in the museum.
"Where are we?" Maxine whispered.
"I don’t know. We disappeared."
"But you must know where we are. I mean you’re the magician, you’re the Swami. When you made that tie disappear you got it back. Where was that?"
Gregg’s eyes were slowly becoming accustomed to the dark. Where ever they were, they were twisted over at a strange angle; as if they were laying on a dark slope. "I don’t know," he muttered back. "I palmed the tie, so I’d have the original to give back. It was another one that disappeared, I’ve never found out where things go."
"Terrific," whispered Maxine.
As the two of them lay together on the strangely sloping floor curious beams of blue light began to play across the space. "Oh, great," thought Gregg, "I really need another trip right now."
Maxine giggled. Gregg looked at her with a scowl. "What’s so funny?" he said.
"You know where we are?" she said. "This isn’t some metaphysical plane. We’re in the roof space – those lights are the search lights shining up under the edge of the tiles. We must have ‘disappeared’ by passing through the ceiling somehow."
Gregg realised she was right. He crept over to where one of the beams had been shining through and, sure enough, he could see down onto the courtyard of the museum where a group of police were busily packing up to pull out. "Excellent!" he said. "Now all we have to do is get down off the roof, once they’ve gone."
"That can’t be difficult for a magician of your powers, Swami," Maxine said. "But we’ve probably got an hour or two to kill until everyone’s gone." She slid her hand along Gregg’s thigh. "Why don’t we try out another of the positions from those carvings? Just to keep ourselves amused," she said.
"Sounds like a magical idea to me," Gregg replied with an enthusiastic grin that Maxine couldn’t see. "Just be careful we don’t fall, though, I’m not sure I could conjure up a soft landing quickly enough if I’m as distracted as I expect to be."
THE END
© Freddie Clegg 2009
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission.
All characters fictitious
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
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