A Victorian Adventure, involving a Templar Treasure and a
Jinniyah
, plus Sex, Violence and cheap Brandy.
*
I was close to coming. Lucy was riding me, long stokes, root to tip, in an energetic Saint George. She was nearly there, too. I could see it in her face, that unfocused look she'd get. The iron headboard started to bang against the wall. So close ...
thump – thump – thump
... and she began to cry out to the rhythm, "Yes! ... Yes! ... Yes!" until I drove upward to meet her in a wrenching thrust and we erupted together. Exhausted, we subsided back onto the bed, and the hot magma of our mingled fluids oozed into the spaces between us.
Whew. Only a week before, I had, at nineteen, never enjoyed more than a few furtive gropes with the fair sex. Now I lay on a lumpy bed in a broken down London knock-shop, with a naked girl sleeping on my chest, her pussy still twitching on my peggo as she dreamt. The year was 1871, and I still remember thinking that this was all Dick Burton's fault – which in a way it was.
Not directly, of course. When I was a much younger lad at Oxford, he had come round and given us a singularly exciting talk. But it certainly wasn't about how he had, when he himself was a boy, slipped away with his brother to spend his pocket money in the brothels of Naples. No, he'd spoken of other adventures, such as his penetration of the forbidden city of Mecca. By the time he was done speaking, I was ready to go exploring myself.
For a day or two, anyway. To be perfectly honest, the notion of entering a stronghold of enemies as Sir Richard did, wherein a misstep means death ... well, really. The very thought made my knees go weak. Still does. In the event, it was some years before I'd even made it east of Reading. However, thanks to him, I discovered an interest in far-away places.
Interest turned to study, which, being that I was notably lazy, was a novelty for me. Eventually I graduated, but I soon found that a working knowledge of the people and languages of central Asia had not prepared me for the sort of stodgy employment my uncle offered in the pottery-ware industry. Which was why, on a meagre allowance and at loose ends, I soon found myself back at my college, visiting an old friend.
Roland St Clair was an elderly don who was curator of the Arthur Arbuckle Oriental Museum. This was no more than a few rooms of antiquities to which the other alumni were fond of donating oddments and oddities - mostly weapons and remarkably rude statuettes. There was so much of the stuff that poor Rollo could never seem to keep track of it all.
It was just like old times. I spent an enjoyable evening, drinking port and half-heartedly helping sort papers (well, mostly I was admiring the amazing variety of pornographic drawings and marginal graffiti). And then – and let this be a lesson to lazy lads everywhere - I, Thornton Cox, thereby secured long life and fortune. While rummaging through the hodgepodge, I noticed some loose parchments and an odd map written in Aramaic. As I slowly deciphered them I found they concerned the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon - and their lost treasure.
The story goes that, around 1300, the King of France quarrelled with the church over both power and money. The rich Templars were accused of "licentious behaviour" and heresies. The pope himself, their patron, was taken hostage and accused of a multitude of unlikely crimes, including heresy, sorcery, and - my favourite - of "keeping a small tame demon in his ring, which would appear at night and conduct unspeakable depravities with the pontiff in the papal bed". To make a long and nasty story short, the pope met a bad end and the Templars were broken, and the remnants of the order disappeared, along with the greater part of their gold.
Rollo helped translate some key bits, and when we were done, we sat staring at one another. According to what we had just read, the documents had been handed from one secret Grand Master to the next, over many generations, until the chain had been broken in Paris during the Terror. They told how, when the knights first went to ground, they hid the bulk of their treasure deep under a church - in the heart of London.
Rollo fairly goggled. "I know that place. Right behind is ... it's in a little square near where ..." He fell silent, and I waited, until he continued. "I met a girl there ... it was years ago," his face had reddened noticeably, "when I was a student. My friend and I found this, ah, house – it was built right up behind this very church." He flapped the pages for emphasis. "Anyway, I fell in love there. Lola." Another pause, then, "I went back all that summer, whenever I had the money." His blush deepened. "I offered to marry her, but she just laughed, and said she didn't think her mother would approve."
I coughed, and brought him back to the matter at hand. According to the documents, a group of Templar servants (referred to as 'Black Mantles') were sworn to guard the treasure. Presumably, they might be doing so still, if any of this was true - and if the loot hadn't been plundered long ago. We agreed that I should go and find out, to which end Rollo staked me some guineas. I also sold my grandfather's gold watch to acquire a roughly used American Navy Colt, and added a Pathan knife from Rollo's collection for my boot top. A coward knows better than most men: better safe than sorry.
Mid-morning, two days later, I was in the City, scouting out the church. It squatted in a quiet square, overlooked by time - and by the faithful, to judge by the old cleric's small flock. The crypt was open to view, for the price of a few pence into the poor box, and I was able to give the place a close inspection.
With a thrill, I soon found the insignificant tomb that was described as hiding the entrance. It seemed much too easy. As far as I could tell the spot was undisturbed, but it could well have been robbed four hundred years past. Or, it could all be a complicated hoax, of course. I half expected to hear from behind me the helpless laughter of one or another of my fellow ne'er-do-well graduates.
There was one way to find out, and I was actually considering opening the passage, then and there, when I heard heavy footsteps on the stone stairway. A large, rough looking individual came down into the gloom and stumped over to ask if I needed assistance. His manner suggested that I had best be looking for help with the way out. I took the hint and hastily left both crypt and church.
Well - the good news was that, if that brute was a guard, then there ought to be something worth guarding. I circled around by way of several winding alleys until I found what I was after. The small brothel Rollo had remembered was still there, snuggled incongruously against the north wall of the church. Our plan was that, if I were to find the church protected, I might perhaps be able to tunnel from this establishment's basement through to the crypt. I had counted the steps when visiting that dank place, and so I knew I would have to dig downward about fifteen feet, as well as some thirty feet sideways. Quite simple, really.
I actually hesitated at the doorway before stepping inside, having never before entered such a house. At that hour, it was as quiet inside the brothel as it had been in the church. I went up a stairway and, at the top, nearly collided with a large and amply endowed woman in her fifties, who proved to be the madam – one Lola, as it happened. As coached by Rollo I presented myself to her to as an aspiring young rake from the country. I would, I explained, require company and a modest room, away from her regular trade, during my visit to the city. Specifically, a room with private access to the cellars - so as to secure a few cases of wine, I said.
God knows what she thought of my story, but I was shown a shabby room on the ground floor. It held a low dressing table backed by a cracked mirror, and a well-worn bed in a deep alcove beyond. The room's only merit was that, hidden behind a curtain, there was a stairway down to a windowless back storeroom. It was perfect. It took the better part of my resources to secure it, after which I immediately set out to gather digging tools.
Returning that evening with a lamp and short handled shovel, I slipped into my room to find a young woman, clad only in a camisole shirt and bloomers, washing her hair in a basin. Somehow I had forgotten my stated purpose for lodging in this place. The girl glanced up and smiled, and then continued on with her task, while I stood blushing. While wringing her long tresses, she introduced herself as Lucy. She was about my own age, with a pretty round face and a petite hourglass figure that had no need of corset. I could see so much of her milky skin that my cock began to harden, to my further embarrassment.
As Lucy dried her hair, her every move a tease, I fidgeted and shuffled. All the while she soberly studied my face; then at last she stated, "You're a virgin."
Dear God, I thought, was it that obvious? I opened my mouth, intending to deny my innocence. Instead I said nothing. Lucy simply nodded to acknowledge my unsaid confession, and assured me she meant no offence. Stepping closer she added that she would feel privileged to relieve me of my burden. With this she tossed aside her towel and slowly unbuttoned her camisole.
For my part I did nothing but continue to stare stupidly, while her fingers worked their way down to reveal in their wake more and more cleavage. When she was done, she looked coyly down at the four-inch gap between the linen shirt panels, and then back at me as if to ask whether I thought she should continue. I mutely nodded my assent, and she grasped the lapels of the garment and arched her back to shrug it off. I beheld at last her delightful breasts, full and capped with plump red nipples. We were still standing some feet apart, and now she beckoned me nearer, inviting me with her posture to reach out and feel them. Hesitantly I did so, ever so carefully, as though they might be damaged by my touch. She responded by thrusting herself forward so that in catching her I found myself roughly gripping two handfuls of firm flesh. She sighed, and wriggled a little.
By that time I needed no further encouragement. I began to grope in earnest, if without skill. She pulled back. "Patience, luv!" Although she was plying her trade, she was also clearly enjoying the opportunity to tutor such a neophyte. She turned away and stepped to the bed, glancing over her shoulder to invite me along. I followed as if in a trance, and when she sat, I dropped beside her. Lifting one of her fine breasts with her hand and gazing down at it with evident approval, she suggested I now kiss it. Eagerly I bent forward and kissed that smooth flesh – and then she fell back, and I upon her, and my lust at last took command of my senses. I showered her face and chest with kisses aplenty, while she nimbly unclasped my breaches and removed her bloomers. Before I knew it, she was guiding my peggo between her legs, and I felt myself engulfed in her cunnie. I could not think of why I had not tried this sooner. Actually, I couldn't think at all. On top of her, now, I began to thrust wildly, and, with a gentle laugh, she eased me back to a sustainable pace.
