TONGS—1861—AND REGULATION PATTERN 1858 “HARDEE” HAT, OWNED BY R. HARDING, THE FAMILY BLACKSMITH.
Collier remembered Dominique’s story, the midnight blacksmith in the floppy hat.
Another chill followed him up the stairs. He hadn’t noticed that the “Naughty Girl Clips” in the other case were now missing.
The floor creaked with every other step upstairs. Several wall-mounted electric candles were all that lit the stair hall. Did he hear a door click shut somewhere? Collier gazed through grainy dark. When he passed room two, he couldn’t help it. He bent to sniff the keyhole but noticed nothing. Then he whisked into his own room and locked the door.
It was Dominique’s story, of course, and the power of suggestion that would follow most anyone who’d heard it. Something in the house was building up, some unnamed psychic residue, and Collier was picking it up like a lint trap.
When he stripped and turned out the lights, impulse took him to the curtains over the French doors. He looked out at the old forge, which, in the sinking moonlight, looked like nothing more than a pile of rocks.
Sleep impelled him once in bed.
He thought about her force of will—to abstain from sex—and then thought about his, which barely existed. He determined himself not to use her to assuage his own lust. The voice of his id kicked in yet again,
Collier, somehow, doubted it, and he sloughed off the voice.
Collier smiled and shook his head.
He fell into black sleep and began to dream at once.
Because he knew this was a dream.
He dreamed that someone was looking in
Who was it? And what were they seeing?
The blackness prevailed. A soft hand ran up his chest.
Even his dream was goading him to masturbate. But why not with images of Dominique? Was Dominique one of the women, and if so, who was the other?
Eventually the tongues and hands retreated.
Did he hear a giggle?
That’s when it occurred to him how
A lively whistling, then a girl’s Southern drawl whispered through the utter blackness, “Here! Come on! Here!”
The bed rustled a bit; then someone else began to ravenously lick his face. It was frenetic, unabating…
More giggles.
The voice on the right: “Look at him go! Good, good boy!”
The voice on the left: “Don’t lick him
“What a dirty dog!”
He snapped on the bed lamp—
The room stood empty, but…
The door was ajar.
“I know I locked that!” he stated to no one. He got up uncaring that he was naked, and he closed the door and locked it. “I’m
But was he really?
Collier wished he smoked just then, because it seemed the perfect time for a cigarette.
His eyes shot wide. He looked at the door but—
The tiny tapping sound came from the other side of the room.
It was coming from the wall.
Even with the lights on, he could just make out the peephole.
He switched off the lamp and found himself kneeling at the wall. Now the hole was lit.
He looked in.
He could tell at once that the sleek physique sitting in the hip bath belonged to Lottie. The circle encompassed her spread thighs, belly, and tight peach-size breasts.
The strange girl’s hips writhed in the bathwater, her hand frenetically plying her sex.
Collier’s teeth chattered; he watched for many minutes, even as he thought,
His hand inched toward his own crotch.
He pulled away from the hole and sighed.
And what could explain the final observation, what could only have been a
He remained there on his knees for several minutes, and through the wall heard Lottie’s obvious climax, then the hip bath being emptied, then the door click shut. A few moments later, and not much of a surprise…
It was from his door now.
“Gimme a break, Lottie,” he hefted his voice. “Go to bed.”
