Sunday 29 March 2009

An amazing device.... and some terrible consequences

And so readers, as my carriage heads London-ward, I can recount the fantastic secret that I uncovered at Bertie's - a secret both repulsive and financially invigorating.

On Friday night I waited grimly in my chambers, listening for the first footfall upon the Parquet. Like clockwork, Bertie slipped from his room and passed by mine towards a destination of unknown pleasures. This time, however, I was to be granted a ringside seat.

I removed myself from my bedroom window (yes! adventurous Augustus!) and passed along the ledge (damned pidgeons!) before making myself above the scullery window. I then grappled a drainpipe down to ground level. There, ensconsed among the shrubbery in my silks, I made good my observance.

However, as yet, my observance was limited to a hubbub of debate between two out-of-sight gentlemen. A curtain obstructed my view, so I interred myself through the open window and hid there behind said drapery. The debate continued within and I pulled aside the curtain for further instruction.

The scene I took in before me was of such a surprising and complex nature that it took some moments for my rivetted brain to assemble the elements into a continuous whole. The room was large and brightly-lit by some unknown source, sparely-furnished but for a chaise longue that sat in the middle of the room, and some equipment which I will describe further. These environs lent the following scene a surgical clarity.

On the chase longue sat two gentlemen. One I recognised as the old school pal of Berties, the fellow who I had last seen at the house of fallen women in Marylebone. This chap was blind drunk, and was entreating upon a fellow by his side in a most unbecoming manner.

This other wore smart tweeds and had an air of responsibility. He remained stony-faced and provided the odd clipped reply, his deeply-muscled features contorted into an expression of barely-hidden distaste. Clearly he would not be there, were it not for some uncontrollable drive within him.

This drive I surmised to be pertaining to the scene on the other side of the room. There I saw Bertie, standing like some factory foreman intent upon the management of an unholy machination that stood before him. It was bronze in nature, and stood ten foot high, some five feet across. Its purpose was not yet apparant, but clues included strong leather straps which suggested human ensnarement. The construction was clearly steam-powered, as Bertie was shovelling coal into a furnace connected.

After adjusting a number of devices about the machine for some minutes, Bertie seemed satisfied and walked over to the group at the chaise longue for a short briefing. I saw the respectable man's eyes twinkle with evident pleasure at whatever was discussed.

Bertie then removed himself from the room and was gone for some four minutes. He returned with a fallen woman, naked and clearly purloined on the streets of Brighton earlier that evening. The woman showed her evident disatisfaction with the scene and pulled a sarcastic face at the two on the chaise longue. However, she leant herself to being enslaved within the machine with no struggle.

There followed some moments of calm, as if before the storm: the two gentlemen stood and calmly walked over to watch; Bertie again checked a number of instruments upon the machine; the harlot waited with vacant eyes.

Then Bertie pushed a switch and the following scene unfolded:

The machine slowly started churning into action - the rack upon which the slattern was stretched undulated with an alarming rhythm, bending her spine this way and that. 14 arched prongs then slowly ejected from poles at each side, which splayed out to the side before bending back inwards toward the streetwalker. At the end of each was a delicate-looking porcelain hand.

The machine then started to spin around as if on a highly powered fulcrum. It was then then that it became apparent that both sides of the woman were exposed by the machine, and as she span around, the porcelain hands landed delicate spanks upon her person. Her buttocks, thighs, abdomen, arms and breasts all received these thwacks as she circulated, looking on, somewhat bemused.

The gentlemen analysed the scene, Bertie with no little pride at his marvelous contraption. And it was then that I took a number of photographs with the digital camera I had upon me. One thing confused me, however - the respectable gent, although interested by the technology showed no satisfaction for the scene itself.

After some ten minutes, the scene seemed to be reaching a climax, and the tiny hands began to strike the maiden with such an alacrity that she began to wince noticeably. Finally, the machine ran out of steam and slowed to a finish.

The maiden was removed from the machine looking a little tired, was handed some coins and then pointed towards the room from whence she came.

Then the respectable gent took into some deep conversation with Bertie, and a heated debate ensued. Finally, Bertie held aloft his hands and accepted the gent's entreaty.

The machine was fired up again. By this point, Bertie's school chum headed back over to the chaise longue where he fell asleep immediately. When the machine was revved up, the respectable gent began to undress. And, dressed down to his long johns, he clambered aboard the machine. Bertie tied him in.

Again, the machine started up, and the spinning, undulating and spanking went into operation. But the gent looked disatisfied and barked orders at Bertie: 'More!', 'Faster!' were the words I made out over the machine's deafening judder. Bertie adjusted dials and increased the machine's ferocity, a barrage of slaps reigning down upon the gentleman, whose specialist interests were now becoming apparent.

But still, the gent shouted for further engagement from the contraption and so Bertie pushed it further. Only now, as the porcelain hands barraged the gent horribly across his black and blue body, did he look at peace. It was then that I noticed that the man's skin was not just being spanked by the hands - they were slashing into his sinning flesh.

A torrent of cuts appeared across his body, bloody gashes forming, particularly across his buttocks and thighs. And yet as Bertie desperately tried to stop the contraption, blood flinging across him, the gent remained in silent serenity. So horror-struck was I that I could barely hold the camera before me to record the scene.

Finally, the machine's hands sliced right through the gent's jugular and he let go one final gasp of satisfaction.

It was at this point that I thought it wise to remove myself from the room, and made my way back to my chambers. There, I quickly dashed off a letter of my financial demands (substantially more than I had previously hoped for) and packed. I slid my black-mail under Bertie's bedroom door and made my silent escape to the capital city.

What a fortuitous visit, dear friends! No wonder they say Brighton is a centre of rum practices!

Saturday 28 March 2009

Success!

Readers, I have just recorded upon the hard drive of this laptop a selection of photos of such depravity that they would curl the eyebrows of Asmodeus himself!

From this you may infer that my investigations into the nocturnal activities of my erstwhile colleague Mister Bertram Bertram have been successful. I'll say they were! I consider such lithographs sold in the marketplace at Stapleton prison would fetch a pretty penny, were I not more enamoured with the art of blackmail than plain old dirty commerce.

But I am late already for a number of errands I must run before I make my escape for London town. I shall reveal all later.

Augustus
x

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Annoyance... and a plan is formed

Dear readers, prithee absorb my tender apologies for my abscence from the "international network"!

In truth, this week has afflicted me terrible hard and bitter. What I had envisaged as a week of fortitude from the dark spirits encroaching on my mind, has instead become yet another torture to my stricken senses. For I have discovered that Bertie is a terrible pain.

First. The blaggard slurps his tea through teeth. So: slllluuuuurrrrp. My tensions distend at the act! A blood-red shroud falls over my vision!
Second. From elevenses to high tea, his back bowels perform a veritable symphony of tootelage. And such a stench - enough to make a Parisian wince.
Third. I awoke yesterday and discovered this "gift" upon my Harrop's Seashammy. What in blazes?!

But, I do see a way out of this dreadful brew. Each night this past week has the bastard risen from his chamber at 1am and tippy-toed in his stockinged feet all the way down to the scullery door. And each night have I followed him down, and viewed his cheesy slucker glancing about all a-guilted, before interring himself therein.

By God, do I smell a case for blackmail coming on! It is a familiar smell - piquant as hot treacle - and one that I've missed since the old vicar of Twelvetrees sadly passed. Bertie could help me raise the fortune I need to enable my next bold adventure in the unknown lands!

Yes - whatever lies behind that scullery door profers a fresh project upon which I may fasten my unstable mind, thus cleansing it of poor dead :;.^..

Tomorrow I shall go investigate. Goodnight my patient orphans.

Monday 16 March 2009

A chance encounter

Ah my, for a bottle of Andrew's Elexir! A day of croquet has left my bones aching terrible...

Nearly suffered acute embarrasment when an old schoolpal of Bertie's came to visit Bertram Towers. Something about the fellow tweaked a memory, and three games in I was still racking my crumbling brains for the source.

It was as I was running a hoop that I hit on it - the idea that is - and I damn-well nearly slipped a-cookoo!

I recognised the chap from a house of ill-repute in Marylebone. Fortunately for me, his eyes had been obscured with a tie fashioned from thick slices of ham and gathered behind his head. Once having recalled this, I revelled in a smug safeness, full knowing that unless I started barking like a dog, the man would be none the wiser of our previous encounter. He did, however, turn a little glazed when I suggested we dine on a platter of cold meats for supper.

But such thoughts churn around and bar me from sleep! Think I may take this grey pill handed to my with such gravity by Bertie...

Sunday 15 March 2009

A curious incident in the middle of the night

I arrived at Bertie's in time for tea and scones on his veranda. He remains as fine a fellow as I remember: an iron-strong eye, waxen whiskers and a waddling walk that endears him to all who make his acquantance. We discussed the prime minister's fiscal stimulation policy, then I removed myself to my chambers where I unpacked my Everlite.

Re-emerging an hour later, I found Bertie wandering his aviary in the grounds. Bertie keeps one of the finest collections of owls in the UK, and we stood admiring a particularly jaunty Speckled Woodchuck. Relaxed by a combination of port and the owl's delicate markings, I revealed all about the visitation of my dead wife to my chambers this week hence.

Bertie reassured me: 'Sure to be but a half-digested carrot disturbing your sleeping pattern,' he smiled, gripping my cervical plexus then drawing me over to an enclave of woodpeckers.

'See,' he pointed. 'Magnificent specimens.' He reached for my hand and placed int0 it a grey pill. 'Take it before you go to bed, should do the trick.'

That night I woke around half past four with an urgent calling from my bladder. Rising and heading for the toilet, I saw Bertie leaving his bedroom and tiptoing down the stairs. What was this? An affair with a serving wench? A midnight nip from the whiskey bottle? As I drew water, I resolved to investigate further on another evening.

Saturday 14 March 2009

A trip to Bertie's

Quickly, then. Packing my bags for a spell of sea-air. Called Bertie (assistant on Marabalana forest expedition, ornithologist, crucifiction enthusiast) late last night and invited myself to his Brighton townhouse for a few days. I sensed mild trepidation, but reassured him there would be no repeat of the incident at Rochways. My taxi to Victoria Station awaits - I must hurry!

Friday 13 March 2009

Another terrible visitation

Ah! Haunted again by my poor dead bride! Her very tendrils quivered mere inches from my gaping maw! Her painted thigh all a-shimmer before my gawping globe!

Ah :;.^.! What a life we could have had. Never did she set foot upon English soil before her untimely end at the hands of a spinning jackanape. And yet, there I saw her in this very room - obscuring my view of the News at Ten.

Steadying my nerves with a strong, bitter quaalude, I consider: I am a man of science. And this is 18--. Queen Victoria on the throne, let us not forget! We are not some stone-worshipping clan!

If only I could make sense of this madness!

I find myself terrible fearstruck. I beg a sojourn in the countryside to clear my mind.

Wither sanity?

Thursday 12 March 2009

This blog

'Twas in the year of 18-- that I first decided to commit my thoughts to the "international network", to coin its unabbreviated nomenclature. First, as a manner of documenting in fine style my travels and - dare I say it - misadventures in the unexplored lands. And with this I mean both my outer and inner lands. I momentarily ponder which provokes the most interest in my readers, then continue inevitably to the next paragraph.

However, with poor Augustus currently landlocked in London town, my blog serves another purpose, to educate readers as to the the life of a London gentleman of modest means, with an inquisitiveness of nature which occasionally errs towards the more sinister inclinations. A chap absorbing the scents, flavours and imagery of a new cultural revolution, yet feeling quite unimpressed.

Met a gent today. He was a pretty fellow, to be sure.

Monday 9 March 2009

Dear Lord! Is it true? Did my eyes deceive me? Or did I receive an unearthly visitation last night?

For, after retiring bedwards and reading a few light chapters of Benby's "Callow Andrews Intoxicates" I become aware of some mystic presence before me. Glancing up quick sharp, I was horrified to see my poor sweet :;.^. - clear as life and yet dead from me these past eight months! What?!

:;.^., the finest beauty of the chin people, who I sired while a guest of the %¬¬ tribe of the southern lowlands. Sweet :;.^., slain and yet crystal clear bright to my eyes, so clear that I could observe her magnificent jagged fronds (the envy of the tribe) as easy as the first day we met.

Ah :;.^., I can still remember that day in the lagoon to the east of the settlement. I, wading through the stinkoil towards the furthermost shore where the lucky fruit of the chickentree hung overhead (such was my obsession for that delicious sweetmeat).

But all thought of chickenfruit was erased from my mind as she rose before me out of the inky mire beneath - a big sploosh by which she made herself known, then a swift headshake to remove the moisure from her glistening gills. I knew, at that point, that she must be mine.

:;.^. was the tribe's most elligible damson, and promised to the ¦¦¦/¦ tribe whose village was across the stinkoil itself. A peace offering and tribe-marriage was intended, and my taking her caused a terrible war between these two chin-factions that claimed thousands of lives, and which I imagine continues to this day.

That, however, is one of those pitiful sad results that follow the pursuit of science. And I am, foremost, a scientist.

Pretty :;.^., could it be you?

An attack of the vapours

A black, black weekend.

First, I was served an elevenses of human effluent. Later, I burnt my arm poking the fire with a gin-soaked shirt.

Needless to say, the two are related.

My abode, on ------ Road, Marylebone, is situated a mere 14 feet short of a latitudinal line that runs direct to that seething cesspit of London named Whitechapel, which, as any well-travelled man knows, is replete with a level of depravity otherwise unknown to the Western world.

The sickness of this location literally oozes down the lateral line (51.51, to be precise), forming rivulets in the roadside near my house. These then stream downhill, leading right down under the door of my parlour, forming pools which after some hours will ferment fizzingly and efforvesce into the air stream, wafting deadly putrefaction upwards under the door of my chambers.

Reader, this is not purely my hypothesis - the kernel of its' truth is borne out here. I merely have added my own metaphysical meat to Enfield and Allen's brain-bones.

(There are, incidentally, further moral effects of latitudinal positioning which I have experienced. Once, whilst visiting my sister Agnes in North Kensington, I was taken by an overwhelming surge of piety - I literally felt God's gilded beams purging my flesh of sin. It was some time later that I discovered that the dwellings of my darling sis run parallel to St Paul's Cathedral.)

Given there are such gaseous forms collecting in my chambers as I sleep, is there little wonder that on my awakening I was taken with a fit of what I cautiously describe as "priapic enlightenment". As Jessie the handmaiden brought hither my almond-stuffed kippers and a fresh copy of FHM, I set upon her with a righteous fury befitting Mad Jack McRory himself.

Having given the incident a three-quarterhour of peaceful distance I considered it "old news" enough to tinkle the kitchen for tiffin before indulging myself in a four-page interview with Carmen Electra.

Alas, on removal of the the metal cover on my plate, I discovered that my elevenses took the form of Merde de Jessie, drizzled with a thin urethral liquor. Looking on the bright side, I considered that at least it was warm.

My morning having taken such a distaseful pallour, I took alcoholic solace in the bars of this dissolute city.

By the hour of four in the morning I returned home, a mildewed stoat in one arm, a half-devoured packet of crabs' legs in the other. Lacking below-stairs aid and with an almighty chill upon my soul, I set upon the fireplace to build me a fine old blaze. However, my stars looked disfavourably upon this endeavor and I was scorched accordingly for my troubles.

And so, having rubbed a preparation into my forearm and placed an ad in the The Times for a forgiving servant, I have taken myself to bed.

Damn these vapours!

Saturday 7 March 2009

Touched by a booby

Spent the afternoon at the British Library researching for my paper... and yet ended up rather distracted by some irresistable hand-painted pictures of exotic birds. Some of these I removed for later perusal by means of a scalpel applied gingerly and close to the spine - a vice that will come as no suprise to anyone who has made his toilet chez Stigwood.

While involved in my shifty endeavor, I remarked upon this delight.

Ah blue footed booby! Ah angelchild of romance! Strutting about your paramour, showing off your prize new boots! Stomping and stamping away, with a blue tapered bill, to boot! They stretch their blue bills sky-ward in happy unison, and then - the perfect pay-off - the female tucks her head beneath her wing, all coquettish-like!

Could Goldsmith himself have written it finer?

Thursday 5 March 2009

A pecululiar encounter at "The Porcupine"

Lethergy has triumphed over my body today.

I planned to spend Thurs-day pushing ink through an oft-discussed treatise on the pansexual activities of the southern lowlands owlmen, but instead lay naked and dissolate upon the hearthrug, a thick corpus of drool collecting upon my "sunshine pallett". But for a wafer biscuit smeared with the merest smidgen of flyjam, not a jot has passed my lips.

The reason for such monumental inactivity was yesterday's lengthy drinking session, commencing late afternoon at the Roman Baths. I confess, two gentlemen there allowed me a little leeway. So invigorated, I headed to "The Colossus" for milk punch after which I was drawn with bitter inevitability to The Porcupine.

Therein, I took myself to the spinal bar where a Gary Numan tune was playing loudly. I was immediately enveloped by a fug, a thick pea-souper that concealed all but the extremities of the other guests. While leaning on the bar to order a light vinegar, I eased forward to a blonde-haired angel beside me, whispering into her perfect ear something about lost worlds, new textiles and cold, dead oceans. Before I could register her response, through the clouds I spotted three gents all a-smugger.

It was Skinny Bob with two others I didn't recognise. Cautiously I made my way over to greet them, but they were far too ensconced in debate to notice me.

"Never mind your patent sheep traps, I've got forty acres ruined by that vermin," spat one of the gentlemen I didn't know, tall and reedy with thick mutton chops. "Try and tell me you can elliminate that lot!"

"I tell you I can," retorted the other stranger, short and stout with a beard like muslin. "And more besides. I've disembarked an entire valley that was formerly wool-locked!"

And so it went on, with I and Skinny looking from one to the other and back and forth again as if at the first court at Wimbledon. It clear blew my mind that I was hearing this tepid prattle in The Porcupine - in London, indeed! And I, Stigwood the mighty explorer, reduced to such profound inanity! My head raced, and I raised my cane to beat these fools aside, thus allowing my easy retreat.

A hired car vomitted me to my door at three minutes past four, wherein I headed bedwards.

There I must go again now, I confess, with a shadow upon my soul. Oh weary London!

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Itching

Lately, London is a dreary place. Since my return from exploring the lowlands last July, in which I observed at close quarters the chin-people (noble beasts), I have been busy, true. But tea, brandy, my club (The Porcupine) and whores (m/f) will suffice but for a limited period until my feet (and elsewhere) are itching.

What am I to do?

Is there another campaign into which I can dig my unspeakable molars?