Accidentally turned into a horse by his lover (who’s a witch) a young lawyer's plan to defraud a billionaire goes wildly wrong. Destined to see the cruel crazy erotic world through equine eyes, finally he manages to escape to become an animal rights activist.
Retranslated and (liberally) adapted in today’s world (of London) from the original Latin of Lucius Apuleius (a Tunisian Roman citizen), which itself came from the Ancient Greek he wrote it in.
WARNING: The Greeks and Romans had no problem with 'adult themes' and outlooks on life (from 2,000 years ago!) which are sometimes very different from today's and may shock some readers to the core.
As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road. Take it."
"Golden Horse" is your fork.
Afraid of what lies on the very rocky road ahead? Then turn back.
Chapter 15 - Part 2
What? I wish you'd stop interrupting. How the hell should I know whether cucumbers calculate. It doesn't bloody matter! Shut up and let me get with the story. I'm losing the thread with all these constant interruptions.
Anyway. He knew how to bide his time and wait for the opportunity to present itself. He made sure that he was the life and soul of the welcoming party. It was he that made that charming little speech about the current state of the Church of England, how far standards had fallen etc etc. Not that anyone was listening, of course. They never do. They all had their noses right in the trough. And quite a trough it was as I recall. Yes, you're right, my dear. They were the caterers.
How clever of you to remember! Anyway. The weeks passed and the James Bond of Saffron Walden - yes, he most certainly was licensed to kill - gradually, skilfully, and with malice aforethought, wormed his way into the affections of the newly-weds. In no time at all, he was a stalwart at all their dinner parties, at all their meets and all their shoots. And thereby lay the root of all the trouble, the seeds of the whole terrible tragedy were already sown.'
At this tantalising cliff-hanger, the Captain suddenly stopped talking. I could only guess that his interloculutor was busy describing some sexual scenario, some erotic reminiscence. From where I was standing, the old perv did seem to be rubbing his suspiciously worn corduroys in a very incriminating spot. I cropped nonchalantly at a tuft of grass and tried not to think about the scrawny old git having sex. In about five minutes, and after some rather embarrassing groaning, the story continued.
'About a week ago, the luckless Piers had arranged a day's shoot. Not your run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden shoot, where the boys all stand in a line and wait for the pheasants to sail out in front of them. Oh, no. That would be far too ordinaire, especially with a fellow like Shotson to impress. Eh? Well, I suppose it is a bit happy families, Mr Shotson the hunter. Never thought of that. You should be on the stage, my dear. Well, I suppose that could part of the act, too, but I'm not sure it's allowed in public. Consenting adults, health and safety.... Anyway, the shoot envisaged by Piers - well, actually, it was created by a bespoke (and wildly expensive) marketing company in Pimlico - was a sort of back-to-nature, man-versus-beast, cave-man scenario. The idea was that each man would go off separately and shoot like mad all day, killing anything with feathers.
Eh? Song birds, too? Yes, why not? You're not turning all soppy on me, are you, Fanny? Joining Animal Aid? Sabotaging hunts? I should bloody hope not.
Anyway, the largest bag wins the prize. Not exactly rocket science, but poor Piers paid an arm an a leg to the trendy oik who dreamt it all up. I suppose he's used to the bottomless purses of those oligarch fellows. Wouldn't know a partridge from a pheasant, most of 'em.
So, the day dawned bight and sunny, as they say....'
Was I the only one who suspected a tragic shooting accident? I was almost disappointed by such an obvious dénouement, cheated and deflated by the commonplace. But as it turned out, the commando had eschewed the banal and contrived a much more elaborate death for his rival. There were no jammed rifles, no stray bullets. Trop ordinaire, as the captain himself might have said. Mr Shotson had somehow managed to import a wild boar from the Ardennes, which he had ordered to be released just at the right time and place, i.e. just when Piers was strolling past, gun cocked, scanning the sky. The boar had been starved for three days, injected with amal nitrate and tortured. It didn't take long for him to maul the boy to death. The murderer had, of course, expected voices to be raised in doubt and dissension: surely the last English wild boars had been hunted to extinction in the last century?
Shotson had pre-empted and forestalled such irritating realists, by discretely circulating privately-printed pamphlets, even newspaper articles, on this very subject - Wild boar to be re-introduced into the Essex countryside and Toddler savaged in Epping Forest.
I was pretty amazed by this very novel modus operandi. And I'm rather ashamed to admit that I was also pretty pleased to hear about Piers' untimely and undoubtedly agonizing demise. I had never liked the two-faced bastard. I also discovered that Schaudenfraude does marvels for the morale. I may be a horse, but at least I was alive! I danced a little celebratory jig and dreamed of a golden future as an international dressage champ. The Captain's interlocutor was apparently more circumspect about the plot and the whole wild-boar business.
'I can't help it if it sounds like something from Midsomer Murders, whatever that might be. I'm simply telling you what happened. You can like it or lump it. Yes, yes, of course, you silly bitch. That was the whole point of the exercise. As soon as hubby was safe in the family vault - yes, there was a Hello! exclusive - the murderer did everything to get into the four-poster of Mrs Grieving Widow, Mrs butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-knickers, hioty-toity Ffiona Middleton. If she thought that she could survive a week without sex, she's even more stupid than I thought.
It doesn't matter how I know all about her sex-drive. I just do. And it really isn't important or relevant. I wish you'd let me carry on without all these silly questions.
So. She gives her suitor the constant ice-maiden brush-off. We knew she meant business when she actually refused front row tickets to Paris Fashion Week and the Pomeranian final at Crufts. And before we know it, she's doing an impression of Mother Theresa-meets-Ophelia, moping about the house and talking about suicide, chastity and the eternal hereafter in the arms of Piers.
Well, I've never really gone in for God much myself and I can't say that there was ever much concern with him up at the big house. Just the usual Midnight Mass to keep the rector on-side. But all at once, Sophie Found God. A rather sickly, Gothic God, but God all the same. Her bedroom was soon full of the melancholy paraphernalia of Anglo-Catholicism. Candles, incense, rosaries, garish pictures of the Crucifixion and the latest Pope, plastic statues of the BVM and St Michael. She was constantly praying, genuflecting and fasting. Fasting with a capital F. Soon even her doddery old confessor got the message that she was trying to starve herself to death, but he seemed powerless to dissuade her. Who knows? Maybe he was hoping to nurture a new saint, a new martyr with which to rouse the gentry from their Godless slumber.
Eh? Well, maybe you're right. I'd forgotten that particular scandal. All over the papers at the time: Vicar preys on anorexic teens.
Anyway, whatever the reason, Father Powicke was distinctly non-plussed when Ffiona's parents suddenly burst in on the scene. Sophie's father? Oh, but you must remember him, my dear. I think he was even on your books for a while. V peculiar tastes in the bedroom department. Swaggering brute of a man, estates somewhere in North Yorkshire. Tipped to be Moseley's successor in the good old days. She's rather different, of course. Cousin of the Mitfords, as I recall. Pretty as them and as naughty. Well, now you come to mention it, we did have a short dalliance once upon a time. In Bristol, of all places. Now, now. Less of the green-eyed monster. It was all over years ago and of course she wasn't a patch on you. How could she be?
Stop. Stop right there. I refuse to discuss the matter any further. Subject fermé. My sexual past has no bearing whatsoever on Ffiona's final hours. And I refuse to be distracted by you. Or anybody else.'
With these firm words, the Captain looked sternly in my direction. This was a bit weird, because it was just as if he could read my mind. I was indeed itching to hear about his steamy affair with Sophie's Mama, a dame formidable if ever there was one. I'd met the old battle axe, of course - as much as a horse can be said ever to have met anyone - and I'm not so sure that she'd have been a whole lot of fun in the sack. Unless, she was a sort of Edwina Currie dominatrix (with riding crop). But Colonel Watson was adamant. No more diversions, no more digressions and absolutely no more interruptions.
The old boy brought chapter three to a quick close. The father bullied his daughter into submission and dragged her off to Sunday lunch at the Savoy. The hunger strike was forgotten, the priest was dismissed with a sizeable flea in his ear and the room was re-decorated in Farrow and Ball Eau de Nil. I had thought that this was the end of the story, and a happy-ish ending after all. But I then remembered the Colonel's first words all those hours ago. Ffiona was dead and I had yet to hear why. Once again, I felt the pricking of tears and turned towards the old soldier for the next instalment. Right on cue, he cleared his throat and began as dramatically as Lawrence Olivier impersonating Sir John Geilgud.
'At this crucial point in our story, a new and altogether more sinister character takes centre stage. Jennifer Hyde White.'
This said, the old geezer suddenly fell silent once more. To allow us time to digest and to consider this astonishing revelation. The story-teller was clearly enjoying himself, enjoying playing with his audience and keeping them, as it were, on the edge of their seats (in my case, on the edge of the lawn). And I was certainly all agog to hear what happened next.
On the face of it, poor old Jenny was the least likely character in a murder story. And she was about as centre-stage as a deaf-mute slug. This might sound harsh, but I can assure you that I speak from experience: she had been pretty much a fixture during by brief stay at Dowsett Manor. The obligatory ugly best friend, she worshipped darling Woney and would do anything for her. In return, the generous Fiona would sometimes allow a spot of recreational Sapphism (at which bountiful largesse, the benighted Miss Hyde White would literally swoon with gratitude and miss her long awaited orgasm in a fug of hyper-tension). At times of even greater generosity, Piers himself would wade manfully in and join the girls. Aroused by the sight of ugly Betty lapping and sucking his new wife's pudenda, at the very moment of orgasm, he would push her roughly away and thrust joyously inside Madame's nicely primed fanny. On other occasions, he would arrange the girls on top of one another, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, hardened nipple to hardened nipple, and take it in turns to penetrate one or the other. In one place or the other. While the girls tongued messily. Recalling such scenes, I felt myself harden and lengthen. Oh, how regretted the lack of hands! In lieu of a much needed wank,
I threw myself on the grass and rubbed up and down. It was only then that it occurred to me that there were at least some advantages to being a horse. One heard and saw so much more than the average man. Had I appeared at Dowsett Manor in my usual shape, as Luke Johnson, commoner of Grays Inn, I should surely never have witnessed such antics. Neither would I have heard the story that the Colonel was now telling. The thought of the Colonel suddenly recalled me to the present and I realized that I had missed something important. I wiped myself as best as I could, stood up rather shakily and tuned in once more to the extraordinary conversation.
"I've just told you! Why don't you ever listen? God save us, woman! The ugly girl worked at the Royal Infirmary and had access to everything. It was a synch to get the dopamine. I suppose it was all her idea. I doubt that Ffiona would have had the brains to think of anything so subtle. Not that it would have helped her in court. You see, it was Ffiona herself who did the actual blinding. Eh? Oh, no, no, no! Nothing so prosaic. She stabbed his eyes out with the sharp end of a Lourdes Crucifix. Repeatedly. It really was a most frenzied attack. She'd obviously lost her mind - not that there was much to lose –
If you'd just listen, I'll tell you what happened next.'
And I'll tell you, dear reader. The baddy lay blinded on the marital bed - (lured by Ffiona's promises of a night of love) - deep in a drugged sleep and, as yet, blissfully unaware of the hideous attack. Jennifer, the brains behind the whole scheme, had planned a secret elopement and a new life with darling Woney in the Costa del Sol. She had apparently even bought the (first class) tickets (on Ffiona's card). Ffiona herself had no such plans. Before the sun was up, she had hanged herself, leaving a note explaining everything and expressing her last and only hope: reunion with Piers.
'So what do you think about that?'
This was, indeed, a very good question, but I couldn't of course hear Fanny's reply. After about five minutes of inconsequential small talk, the Colonel finally made his farewells. A heavy silence fell. My companion heaved himself up off the bench and went inside the house. I felt unable to move, rooted to the spot and paralysed by what I'd just heard.
What a story! How I longed to tell the other horses. I'm sure that they'd be as amazed and horrified as I was. I was also itching to tell Danny and even the pervy old vet with his sinister test-tubes. Of course I could do nothing of the sort. I was forced to wait in frustrated silence until - inevitably- the story broke and was splashed all over the tabloids. The public loved it. They lapped it up. It had all the ingredients of the best murder stories: sex, money and class.
What with the post-mortem, the inquest and the trial, it took some months before poor Ffiona was actually buried. I hated to think of her lying alone in some coroner's deep freeze, toe tagged and head shaved. Her life certainly hadn't panned as she hoped. But I like to think that she's finally re-united with Piers. Much as I disliked him, it was all she wanted and it wasn't really so much to ask.
Mr Shotson - Simon - decided to take a leaf from Ffiona's book and starve himself to death. It took a horribly long time and ended in an agonizing period of stomach cramps and prolonged vomiting. My experiences in Essex made me almost pity the sick bastard. It would surely have been easier for him to shoot himself - he certainly had enough weapons to choose from - but I guess that he felt the need to suffer. Jennifer was sent to Holloway, which - knowing her proclivities - may not have been such a bad end. I like to think of her as the play-thing of a peroxide moll from Leyton.
And what, you ask, happened to us? Despite the Colonel's preliminary re-assurances, the estate was wound-up remarkably quickly. The main beneficiary was a sheep farmer from Darwin. Crossing continents held no appeal for the elderly Australian, but an injection of much needed cash certainly did. The house, the stud and all the horses were quickly sold. No questions asked. Some, I fear, particularly the little donkey, ended up at the knackers. I was luckier than that. Marginally.
2017 Mimi L. Thompson
Chapter 16 will be published tomorrow
For previous chapters (some of which are posted as nsfw because of 'adult themed' content not photographs) please visit my blog page. Your support is much appreciated and comments are most welcome
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