Regarding the Events of One Sherlock’s Scandalous St. Valentine’s Day

Christine Danse

Published by Christine Danse at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Christine Danse

Cover design by Christine Danse, using Artweaver and Picnik.com

Photograph of woman by Patryk Choiński, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1294218

Photograph of cog by Martin Walls, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/385418

Photographs used under this image license agreement: http://www.sxc.hu/help/7_2

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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I arrived home an hour late from work on Valentine's Day to find the door ajar, my wife missing, and a note waiting for me on the mantelpiece.

I was holding a bouquet of brilliant blue violets, Annette's favorite. I had picked them up from a small girl on the street corner during my rush home from the Sherlock office. Annette and I had reservations for dinner. I expected to come home to an angry wife. Instead, I found her gone.

A swarm of thoughts buzzed in my mind. Perhaps, in her anger, she had left me. This thought was chased by a wave of guilt and another, more frightening thought: that she had been kidnapped for ransom. Or perhaps she was playing a game. Perhaps she had simply left on an errand and absentmindedly left the door ajar behind her, as she was wont to do.

I approached the mantelpiece rather like it was a bristling mastiff ready to spring and bite me at any moment. With trepidation, I read the note. It simply read, Find me.

A game, then! A flood of relief and irritation washed all of the thoughts of fear and guilt from me. What a saucy, terrible girl. Perhaps I should have married a gentler, more obedient woman. I shook my head. No, no one could replace Annette in my heart. She had me by the drawstrings, I'm afraid.

The note was just that: a piece of paper torn from her stationary with words written in her peculiar shorthand. There was nothing else new or amiss on the mantelpiece. She evidently wanted me to use my Bell detective skills to find her. She was very clever. Though I was secure in my skills as a Sherlock, I actually worried that she might outwit me.

I took the note to the kitchen and cranked the dynamo lamp to better analyze it. I observed a tiny smudge of grease on the page. In the dimness of the sitting room, I had missed it at first. Indeed, on one of the torn back corners appeared a small spot that had the distinctive odor of engine grease. A quick trip upstairs to our bedroom confirmed my suspicion: My spare station keys were missing from their hiding spot. In their place was another note torn from her stationary. This one appeared to be a code of some sort. LTYN-7835.

I did not have time to decipher it. Without a doubt, she was at the police engine room. If she was discovered--with my unauthorized spare keys, nonetheless!--I could be out of a job. I took up my cane and the bouquet of violets and set off at once for Scotland Yard.

The Bell detectives had a contract with the station to operate the analytical engines at night, so it was not uncommon to find one or more Sherlocks loitering there, smoking pipes and reviewing casework by gaslight. Tonight, to my relief, I found the station windows dark and the door firmly locked. If Annette was here, then she had at least taken more care with securing this door than ours at home.

I found the engine room to be just as quiet and dark as the front room. However, when I approached the last of the three silent engines, I found that a halo of heat that bespoke very recent use still surrounded it. (The other two had already grown cold after the day's work.) I looked in the engine's punchcard slot and found that it was empty.

A closed box of punchcards had been left on the table nearby--recent case studies, most likely. I opened this, riffled through it with my index finger, and immediately located a card buried amongst the others that was still warm. On its subject line were the same letters and numbers on the note I had found: LTYN-7835. Seeing them this time, they struck me as more familiar, as if I had seen this code before or something quite like it.

Although the engines had been set up with steam power, they still retained their original crank handles. This was to my advantage, as I did not have the preapproval to use one tonight, and when powered by steam, they made considerable noise.

Crank-powered, the engine took twice as long as usual to make its calculation. At last--after nearly five minutes of cranking--a piece of paper appeared in the output bin. It read: Freight car LTYN-7835 registered Thomas Harrison departing London 22:00 arriving Paris 02:30.

A train to Paris! I dearly hoped she did not expect me to meet her there! After I found her, I would surely have to chide her about abusing my station as a Bell detective as well as her own as an Ada coder (for, no doubt, it was she who coded the punchcard). God only knew where she was now and what kind of danger she was putting herself in!

I went immediately to the train yard and picked my way through the rubble and tracks until I found a faded red freight car near the end of a rather long train. The white letters LTYN-7835 appeared along its side. The door was open but a foot.

"Anna?" I called, softly, as I approached. I had spied at least one guard strolling through the yard with a hand torch and did not fancy meeting him. I waited until I was at the door before I called out again. "Anna, are you there?"

"Jeremy! Is that you?" came her voice, so small and sweet, from the darkness within.

I was relieved and angered. "Annette, I have no energy to play these games! I was looking forward to a nice, pleasant dinner out with you. Come out at once before we are caught and I lose my job!"

"Oh, Jeremy. I'm sorry you're upset. But I can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm bound," she said.

At those words, I hoisted the train door open wide enough to admit myself and leaped inside like a mad thing. I could see her only barely. She was on the ground against one of the walls with her legs stretched out, slumped so low that she was nearly lying.

"Wait!" she said, as I began to stride toward her. "You will need to light the lamp first so that you can see. There."

I looked down and saw a gas lamp only a few feet away. When I stooped toward the thing, my hand brushed a box of Lucifers on the ground next to it. After I had fumbled the light on, I turned to my wife (eyes watering from the acrid smoke of the Lucifer) and was nearly breathless as I took in my first real view of her.

Her dark ringlets floated all about her head like a doll's, and her face was made up as sweet and innocent as one. She wore a corset; my favorite, the black one with fair lace. The mound of her breasts curved from the top of this, as soft and fair as baby's flesh. She wore her patent leather buckle boots, polished to a shine. But that was all.

She wore no shirt, no dress, no undergarments. She was naked from her waist to her shins--all smooth, alabaster skin. Her legs were splayed open, displaying the voluptuous, white curves of her womanhood. She had shaved.

I believe I must have blanched a solid shade of white. She smiled at me. "Are those for me?" she asked, and I realized she meant the bouquet of violets, which I had left on the ground next to the lamp.

When I began to approach her again, she said, "Wait!" but I ignored her this time. I reached for her wrists, which were bound to a rope that hung from the freight car's ceiling, but I had hardly touched the massive knots before something struck me soundly and sharply against the shin. I cried out and recoiled several feet.

A small steamdroid brandished a metal baton at me with obvious menace. I recognized it as Annette's gardening droid, though it was not holding its usual tools. "What is the meaning of this!" I cried.

"I asked you to wait," she said. "It will not let you unbind me yet."

I struggled for words. "Your droid-- I don't-- When will it?"

"When I am pleased," she said, pinning me with her dark eyes. How she exerted such a powerful presence clothed only in a corset and boots, bound by her wrists on the ground, was beyond my understanding.

"I don't understand. Do you mean..." I found the word so profane and absurd. "...sexually?" Annette was a very rude girl with the mind and spirit of an adventuress. Alarmingly, she seemed to enjoy the act of intercourse more than I. "Will it not let me touch you?" I asked, eyeing the droid. It stood on its four squat little legs at her side, something akin to a large, angry crab. I was not keen on being bludgeoned again.

"No," she said. "Not until I am satisfied."

My exasperation was obvious. "If I cannot touch you, then how can I satisfy you?"

"My physician said it is important for a woman's health for her to experience paroxysm. He kindly sold me the apparatus that can trigger it."

I stared at her as if she was daft. At that moment, the hiss and rumble of the train's engine reached our car, which lurched. The train was departing for Paris!

Immediately, I sprang for her again. I was met with a cry of "Watch out!" and another smack from the steamdroid's baton. This time, it struck my left forearm.

"Ow!" I howled, cradling my limb. "Woman, you're crazy! What do you want me to do?"

"Drop your pants and hold yourself."

I sputtered, "Excuse me?"

"I won't give it the order to treat me until you drop your pants and hold yourself."

I realized that the "it" she was referring to was the droid. It occurred to me then that the baton it held was crudely phallic in shape. I began to object, but the car lurched again as it began to move. Annette was stubborn--very stubborn--and I knew that if I did not submit to her demand, we would soon be in Paris.

I nearly fell over while dropping my trousers. "Sit, you silly thing!" she said. The car shook, I lost my balance, and I found that I had no choice but to fall into a sitting position on the floor of the car. Indeed, I landed just in time to catch the gaslamp, which bounced and began to tip onto its side.

Embarrassingly, I was already erect from the sight of her. She smiled broadly, evidently pleased at this reaction. Oh, that look! Dark embers burned in those irises. Forget dinner, forget Paris, forget the silly droid with its bludgeoning stick--right then, I only wanted to kneel over her low, curved form, grasp that rope in my hands, and thrust myself between those welcomingly parted legs!

Her eyes traveled from my cock to my face. Her expression was patiently impatient. I opened my mouth to object--I could almost feel her around me, under me--but thought better of it as the car jolted and brought me back to my predicament. I hesitated, then wrapped my hand around my cock and looked at her. I tried to pretend I was merely holding it to guide it into her wet flesh.

Apparently, it was not enough for Annette. "Don't just sit there. Jerk it," she said.

I was alarmed. "That's obscene! My palms will grow fur!"

"Of course they won't! Now, try it. Pretend you are milking a cow."

I muttered that I had never milked a cow in my life, and didn't believe that it was anything like this, anyway. I looked down at my member in my hand, remembering how my mother had chastised me if ever I had reached below my waist. Yet, I was in such a bind, I had no choice.

I went slowly at first and very loosely, believing that perhaps the act would not truly count as long as I was barely gripping it. The light touch recalled to me Annette's hand brushing over my cock, teasingly. I remembered thinking that she was such a saucy girl, waking me from a doze like that. In the memory, I stirred and rubbed my thumb over her generous lower lip; she licked it, quickly and lightly. Her dark eyes sparkled from beneath a fringe of curly hair.

Reflexively, I began to squeeze my shaft. My eyes, which had closed, now sprang open again in horror mingled with a sudden, urgent pleasure. A gasp escaped from me.

"Much better," she crooned. She must have then made some signal to the little steamdroid, for it trundled toward her and a buzzing noise was suddenly audible over the sounds of the train. It was the baton. It was vibrating.

With horror and obscene interest, I watched as the droid lowered the baton to her feminine parts. She watched it hungrily, and as it drew closer, she bit her lip in a most alluring way. A moment later, the character of the vibration changed as the rounded metal tip pressed into the mound between her legs. With that, her eyes closed and her back arched.

"Don't...stop," she groaned, pelvis tilting.

Indeed, how could I? Maybe if I was a better man, a stronger man, a more commanding man, I would have kicked the little steamdroid aside. It was only the garden variety. I could have gotten her a new one. Then, I could have made love with her until she howled. I would not remove the wrist restraints. That would be her punishment for defying me.

However, I did none of these things. Obediently, I began to stroke my cock--slowly at first and then with increasing speed. This is for a purpose, I told myself, sternly. Could I help that my body was responding to some primal urge that I could not control?

She was watching me now. Her jaw moved soundlessly, and she licked her parted lips, apparently unsure of what to do with her beautiful, bow-shaped mouth. The droid's baton rubbed rhythmically against her. There were wet noises.

No, I could not have stopped, even if I had wanted to. She had awakened a hunger in me, a hunger that was being fed by the sight of her naked curves, the voyeuristic pleasure of watching that metal instrument rub her into a state of sexual hysteria, the tantalizing feeling of indulging in a forbidden act, and the exquisite pleasure of my own hand...

My cock was alive with a fire. Every nerve in my body sang, and I pumped my hand vigorously, squeezing now with every stroke. Unconsciously, I began to adopt the droid's rhythm.

Her breath grew deeper and quicker, and so did mine. Unconsciously, I began to thrust my pelvis back and forth.

"Oh, yes," she sighed, her legs inching wider as she strained forward. The baton slid across her lips slickly, easily. Her hands flexed and curled above the rope that bound her wrists. "You are such a dirty, debased man." She made the words sound sultry. I would have laughed, but moaned instead. "Yes, yes, yes," she groaned.

I will admit that I watched with more anticipation than horror as the steamdroid began to slide the length of the baton against her lips and, little by little, the end of it slid into her a little more with each stroke. My pelvis tilted forward of its own accord, straining, as if somehow I could transpose my cock with that vibrating mechanical contraption. I could feel her in my mind, yes, closing around me, hot and wet and soft. I shut my eyes. My hand pumped.

Suddenly, she cried out, and my gaze lit upon her as the droid thrust the baton into her again, and again, all the way to its handle. She clawed at the rope that bound her. Her knees were bent and her lower back was lifting off of the floor as she pushed into the thrusts.

Like a dream, all of the elements of the scene came together for me--the lamplight, throwing shadows over Annette's curves; Annette, straining against her bonds; me, head tilted back, hand working feverishly around my cock. All the while, we raced toward Paris. I began to moan thinly.

"Finish for me, finish for me," she said, breathlessly. "Now, please!"

This elicited a more guttural noise from me. My breathing was ragged now. In my intense excitement, I lost my rhythm, and my hand moved spastically up and down. The fast, quick, irregularity brought a new level of stimulation. I felt my body and mind moving toward a black brink. My eyes were screwed shut. My entire body arched and jerked. I was so very, very close.

Annette cried out again, this time throatily, and that was enough to push me over the edge. A wave of sensation broke over me. I grit my teeth, riding in the wake of that wave, hand still working my member until I hissed with pain and leaned forward heavily, gasping.

My gaze traveled across the floor of the car, following a trail of my own seed until it came to rest on Annette, who writhed feverishly, impaling herself against the steamdroid's baton. Her breast heaved, and she vocalized wordlessly.

Suddenly, her body stilled and relaxed against the floor. The steamdroid's thrusts did not stop, but slowed. "Lick me," she begged.

I grimaced as I released my worn cock and crawled across the floor to her side. I could smell her sex and see how very wet she was. Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed hazily at me, strands of hair trailing haphazardly over her forehead.

I hesitated for a long moment to watch the vibrating rod slide in and out of her--that divine, living art of her lips encircling a shining girth of metal--then lowered my face to her clitoris and stroked it with my tongue. I tasted her salt and the brass of the baton. Cunnilingus is another act that Annette had introduced me to--unwillingly at first, on my part. I cannot say I remained unwilling.

She groaned exquisitely, and I could feel the movement of the instrument in and out of her. I licked her with sure strokes, intermittently sucking, so that she wriggled under me in pleasure. Her breath came in huffs, and she began to mutter incoherently.

Suddenly, she convulsed under me, panted, and went still. I sat up, while the steamdroid continued its motion, and presently she said something I did not understand. It stopped and withdrew.

I spoke her name quietly, questioningly. "Yes?" she asked, breathless but sparkling as she looked up at me.

"Are you satisfied?" I asked, raising one hand to trail over the curve of her silky breast.

"Quite, my love," she said, smiling in a tired, content fashion. "Now, would you mind untying these?"

"I ought to leave you in them, though I am not keen on traveling to Paris," I said, frowning. I worked the knots loose, muttering, "I will not ask how you got into this in the first place." Because I did not ask, she did not tell. Once freed, she massaged her wrists, then kissed me sweetly on the cheek and went to a shadowed corner of the car. She returned in her walking dress, carrying a portmanteau; into this, she placed the steamdroid, after having casually wiped the baton with the hem of her dress.

"Yes?" she asked, looking up at me boldly, because I stared.

I shook my head, speechless. "I love you," was the only thing I could think of to say.

She rose to meet me and pressed her lips against mine. "I love you, too," she purred, her mouth close to mine.

We doused the lamp and left it, with the rope and the bouquet of violets, in the car. We tumbled from the train, and I had the distinct pleasure of carrying that portmanteau with the droid for an hour and half all the way home.

Falling into bed with her that night, exhausted, sore, and inexplicably content, I can't say that I regretted the whole affair. No, I can't say that at all.

###

About the author:

Christine Danse is a native Floridian, a rather rare species of hominid with an aversion to the sun and a love of air conditioning. She has been writing stories of fantasy and the paranormal since she was old enough to hold a pen, and she has been telling them even longer. She is particularly fond of shape-shifters and strange steampunk, although she has yet to write a story that involves both. (The excitement might cause her to spontaneously combust.) She lives in Ft. Lauderdale with her dog, Bait; her best friend, Rhianna; and the two talking cats from whom they rent.

Connect with Me Online:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/dansedesirable

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My home page: http://www.christinedanse.com

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Table of Contents

Regarding the Events of One Sherlock’s Scandalous St. Valentine’s Day