Fifty Shades of Sherlock Holmes (3 page)

He folded his hands behind his back as he
walked, surveying everything with the reserved amusement of Bacchus.
 
"I apologize for those two.
 
Sometimes the new members get carried
away."

Although he purposely kept his voice at a
low whisper, I thought I recognized something familiar in it.
 
I attempted to adjust my gown and pushed my
breasts back beneath the shoulder line.
 
He looked down at me through his impenetrable mask, but did not
speak.
 

"Who are you?" I said.
 

"I am called the Gatekeeper," he
said.
 
"This is my gathering, as it
has been since the previous Gatekeeper departed the world."

"So it was you who sent me the
invitation?" I said.
 
"Why did
you pick me?
 
How did you pick me?"

He did not speak, except to say, "Drink
with me."
 
The Gatekeeper snapped
his fingers and a nude servant girl came running toward him bearing a jug of
wine.
 
Her breasts were full enough that
they swung as she ran, and I saw that her skin was darker than anyone else's
present.
 
A smooth caramel color with
black hair worn tied back so that it hung over her buttocks.
 

The girl handed the jug to the Gatekeeper
and he held it out toward me.
 
I held up
my hand and said, "I am just now beginning to regain control of my
senses.
 
Thank you, though."

"Drink," he said flatly.
 

Terrified that I would be at the mercy of
the entire group if I refused their leader, I took the jug from him and tipped
it to my lips.
 
It was delicious, unlike
the absinthe from earlier.
 
Wine of the
sweetest nectar.
 
I wiped my mouth and
handed the jug back to the servant girl.
 
The Gatekeeper ran his fingers along the side of the girl's face and down
the side of her neck.
 
He pinched one of
her nipples and shook her breast until it wobbled.
 
"Thank you, princess.
 
That is all."
 

I watched the girl run away, her naked
figure soon swallowed up by the horde of costumes and drunken revelers.
 
"Why do you call her princess?
 
To mock her lowly station?"

"Of course not.
 
I call her princess because she is one.
 
Her father is the King of a small island I
encountered during my travels."

"What?
 
Is she your prisoner?"

"Of course not," he laughed.
 
"She is here to learn how to rule.
 
How to be free."

"By being your slave?"

"Yes."

I giggled at the madness of it all and
realized I'd drunk more wine than I'd meant to.
 
"The longer we speak, the less sense you make."
 

"To properly rule over others, one must
first learn to submit.
 
I am her master,
for now, but once I release her, she will have authority over an entire
civilization.
 
It falls to me to teach
her to obey, so that she might know what it means to make others do the
same."

"I could never allow such a
thing," I said.

"Of course you could.
 
You already do."

"Pardon me?"

"Look at your marriage.
 
Your husband keeps you caged behind walls of
extravagant homes and inside elegant dresses, but you are not free.
 
You are a prisoner while he travels the world
and you do not even realize it.
 
With
your husband, the injuries are subtle and never heal."
 
That is far worse, I think.
 
Far more foolish."

I moved to strike him across the face, but
he caught my wrist and bent it backwards until I cried out in pain, "Yes,
that's it, Countess.
 
Finally, a little
fire to ignite your dull spirit."

"Let go of me!" I demanded.
 

He only bent it farther back, "You will
not speak to me in such a way or I will break it.
 
Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," I gasped.
 
"Will you please let go of me?"

He instantly released my wrist and pulled me
close to him, embracing me in the warmth of his arms.
 
"Do you not see it, Countess?
 
With me, the rules are clearly defined and
the rewards, so much more than trinkets and baubles." He lifted my face to
his, "Do you know what it means to truly be loved?"

My eyes stung with the onset of tears at the
thought of my husband off sailing the seas without bothering so much as to
write.
 
"No, I do not," I
said.
 

"Come with me," he said.
 
He put my arm through his and we walked to
the farthest edge of the circle, where I soon heard the sharp crack of leather
on skin, followed by cries of delight.
 

We passed a makeshift archway constructed of
wooden beams that were painted gold and decorated with stars.
 
A naked man was tied by the wrists to the top
of the arch and hanging so that he could only stand on the tips of his
toes.
 
Behind him, the pixie cocked her
arm back and swung a riding crop at his backside.
 
The flat end of the crop smacked the man and
he threw his head back and moaned, "Thank you, mistress, may I have
another?"

The gatekeeper showed me the risen red welts
across the man's buttocks and said, "This one is learning to
surrender."
 
He wrapped his hand
gently around the pixie's shoulder and said, "And this one is learning to
take possession of what she desires."

I followed him to a wooden stool seated in
the grass with a flat wooden paddle lying on the seat.
 
He stopped me in front of it and said,
"Would you surrender, so that you might learn to possess?"

"I am not sure," I said.
 
I looked back at the man suspended from the
arch.
 
His welts appeared to be
painful.
 

"You will only be taken as far as you
desire to go, no further," the Gatekeeper said.
 
He squeezed both of my arms, "I assure
you, you will never feel more alive than when you are at the mercy of another,
so long as the other loves you."

"Do you?" I said.

He rubbed my lower lip with the pad of his
thumb and said, "More than you shall ever know."

With that he sat upon the stool and pulled
me across his lap, so that I was lying on my stomach and my hands were touching
the grass.
 
With one hand he flipped my
gown's skirt up over my waist and he said, "Do you trust me?"

I was only wearing light cotton bloomers
beneath the skirt and shouted, "I do not know you−"

Before I finished speaking, the paddle
cracked me across the right side of my buttocks.
 
I winced at the stinging pain and he said
again, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes!" I said.
 

I felt him slide my bloomers down to expose my
naked buttocks to all the world.
 
He
rubbed and squeezed each fleshy cheek with his hands and then lowered his
masked face to my backside and I felt his lips caress the place where the
paddle has struck.
 
I knew he was
unmasked, and I tried to turn around to see who he was, but he struck me again
on the opposite side.
 
"I did not
permit you to look at me," he said.
 

"I am sorry!" I cried out.
 

"You are forgiven," he said.
 
With that, his lips touched that injured area
as well.
 
With the skin raised and
sensitive, his kisses felt like warm velvet against me.
 
He kissed me again and again there, then
pursed his lips together and blew gently across the surface of my buttocks.
 
As he blew, he spread my legs slightly and
began to stroke my sex with his thumb.
 
I
felt myself getting wet as he touched me, and could not bring myself to
care.
 

I blame the wine, I blame the absinthe, I
blame him and his damned words, but even now, I feel myself stirring at the
thought of his fingers stroking the delicate folds of skin where none had ever
taken the time to touch me.
 

Copulation with my husband was more like a
military exercise, where he decided it was time to fornicate and promptly bent
me over and had his way with me.
 
My own
pleasure was never an issue.
 
When he
needed extra lubrication, he simply spit on his tackle and stuck it inside
me.
 

With the Gatekeeper, it was different.
 
He listened to my breathing, knowing what I
liked and wanted more of.
 
He rubbed me
and tickled and slid his fingers inside of my sex until I felt myself opening
to him.
 
He tossed the paddle aside and
used his other hand to spread my arsecheeks and tickle the tight ribbed hole
between them.
 
Then, to my astonishment,
he moistened his fingers from the leaking font of my vagina and slid his
fingers into both of my orifices, filling me up from beneath until I cried out
and bit his arm.
 

"You are mine now," he said.
 

"Yes," I said.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, I am yours!"

"You are my whore, my saint, my bride,
and my intoxicant.
 
You are now, and
forever will be, mine to possess."

Then I could not contain myself.
 
I slapped his hand away and tore at his robes
in a frenzy.
 
I needed more than his
fingers.
 
I needed to feel his hot member
deep inside of me.
 
When I unfurled his
robe and grabbed his organ, it was already rigid and standing up.
 
I hoisted my skirt and climbed onto him,
amazed at how slippery I was.
 
He slid
into me and I grabbed him by the back of the neck, feeling his cock budge up
against the walls of my cunt.
 

I rode him like an animal, biting at his
neck and trying to wrest that cursed mask from his face.
 
He pinned my arms to my sides and stood up,
holding me against him in the air as he slammed into me.
 
I felt the first hot spurt of his mettle into
me as thick and strong as a raging stream.
 
It leaked out of me even as he filled me up with it over and over.
 

He gasped aloud and cried out as I clung to
him, wanting it to never end.
 
But it
did.
 

~***~

"What
happened, then?" Holmes said.

The Countess
turned toward the fireplace and said, "He lowered me to the ground and
stared at me for a long while, as if wanting to speak.
 
I reached for his mask, and he let me get
close enough to put my hands on it, then pushed me away.
 

'Please,'
I begged him.
 
'For
all you have done to me this evening, please at least let me know who you are.'
But he refused.
 

'With that he
summoned the servant girl, the naked princess, and told her to take me
away.
 
I begged him to let me stay, but
he scolded me and told me,
'Get home,
silly Countess.
 
Back to your meaningless
existence where you sit pining for a man who does not deserve it.'
 
And that is how I left him."
 

Holmes closed his
eyes and rubbed his index finger against his temple, as he always did when the
gears of his brain were turning rapidly.
 
Finally, he looked once more at the Countess and said, "What is it
you would like me to do?"

"I want you
find him.
 
Find this man who calls
himself the Gatekeeper."

"To what
end?" Holmes said.

This gave her
pause.
 
Her lower lip quivered slightly
and she said, "Since that night I have thought of nothing else.
 
Either he must take me back or I shall poison
myself.
 
I am his, as he said I would be."

The Countess
began weeping then, overcome by the weight of the revelation she'd made to
us.
 
Holmes scowled and got out of his
chair to both get away from the woman's mewling and to find something to offer
her to wipe her face.
 
He came around to
where I was standing and said, "Why the devil are you still standing
here?"

I pointed down in
embarrassment, and Holmes looked at my protruding member and said,
"Ah."
 
He leaned close to my
ear, "How long will it take you to abuse yourself sufficiently?"

"Sorry?"
I said.

"I can
distract her long enough for you to hurry into your bedroom and stimulate
yourself so that you might return and escort her back downstairs?"

"I'm not
going to do that!" I hissed.