Walk on the Wild Side

Gremlin



Once upon a time in a village not unlike your own, there lived a kindly old author, who, although he worked very hard, was always poor...

Blaine Adams was a writer of good intentions but minimal abilities, and he liked his gin. That he ever managed to publish at all was primarily due to his prolific output and to his persistence. Given skin thick enough and time, he could usually find some second-rate publisher who would accept his third-rate novels for bottom-list rates. He wrote equally well in all categories—Gothics, mysteries, westerns, science fiction, swords-and-sorcery, bodice rippers, horror, whatever markets were receptive at the moment. It’s just that he never wrote very well. Once Edmond Hamilton, a venerable pulp writer, had told him, “No writer is a hack if he enjoys what he’s doing.” Within these parameters, Blaine Adams was not a hack.

When his wife left him for an androgynous artist with an attitude and good coke connections, Blaine Adams’ world caved in upon him.

Blaine Adams lived in a small cottage in the deep, deep woods. It was a small frame house, actually, and it was on the edge of a state forest preserve. He enjoyed walks in the woods with his dog, a shaggy mutt named Buford, as exercise after hours of abusing his typewriter. Karen, his wife, was a potter, and she plied her wares from a mall shoppe in the nearby university town. Buford died not long after she left him, and he couldn’t decide which emptiness was the more painful.

His had been a simple life. Hours at his typewriter—he planned to purchase a word-processor whenever he got a really big advance. Boring lines at the post office waiting to mail manuscripts and collect rejected ones sent out weeks before—he really hoped to find a good agent soon. Chores about the house and unkempt yard while his wife was in town, plying her trade, and then start dinner. Adams was as good a cook as writer—enthusiastic, undaunted, and incompetent. At night, some cable and a cold cuddle; he suggested that she see a doctor about her Headaches. Anyway, there was the gin to keep him company.

Blaine Adams was really only thirty-something, but he appeared older due to a receding hairline and a bookish nature that peered out from behind bifocals. Given that, he was tall, had once been rangy, but was now showing an incipient double chin from beneath his craggly black beard where grey hairs were beginning to show through.

The walks in the woods kept him fit, despite his sedentary occupation. When the state had purchased the sweep of ridges, they had enclosed a number of old farming settlements-abandoned since the Depression or earlier, and now little more than tree-grown foundations, forest-claimed fields, and collapsed barns. Here and there yellow daffodils, orange day-lillies, and purple cemetery vine still bloomed beside old homesites and forgotten stones of weed-covered family cemeteries. Buford used to hunt here in vain for slow-moving squirrels.

Blaine Adams had published thirty-something books-almost half of them under his own name-but none were ever reprinted.

For weeks he waited for Karen to return, numb from shock and disbelief. After some months, he stayed numb from gin, still hoping against his blurred reality. He tried to force himself to write, but even he saw the hopeless mediocrity of his efforts. Bills began to accumulate, and Tanqueray became Gordon’s became generic gin. Enough royalties trickled in to keep him afloat—his lifestyle was a modest one—and he might have made it had not his companion of sixteen years died one horrible night.

He buried Buford in the yard.

And he could no longer bear to walk in the woods.

Loneliness and depression set in with killing certainty. Blaine Adams stumbled through his gin-fogged days in utter isolation, staring dumbly at his typewriter without inspiration, feeding himself without thought.

It is difficult enough to cook for one person, harder still when there is little appetite. Adams left barely tasted pots of chili, overdone meatloaves, half-eaten hamburgers, meal after wretched meal—all to moulder in his refrigerator. Somehow Adams always thought he would get around to finishing his leftovers, but, of course, these held even less appeal to his appetite than they did when freshly cooked. But Blaine Adams was a frugal man, and he hated to let anything go to waste.

A manuscript entitled Wire Edge awaited Adams the next morning. The opening chapters of the novel bore some minimal resemblance to House of the Hungry Dead. The manuscript for the latter had been neatly torn into quarters—all 372 pages at once—and dumped into the wastebasket. There were stains of barbecue sauce on the torn pages. Adams sniffed cautiously. There was also the faint odor of dirt and ancient decay. Of mildew and mould.

Of a neglected graveyard.

Blaine Adams remembered his walks through the forest preserve, with its tumbled-down farmhouses and forgotten family cemeteries. His mind refused to accept it, but his writers imagination whispered mad thoughts that he could not flee from.

Adams drank gin-laced coffee all afternoon. That evening he filled Buford’s bowl with rancid collard greens, a stone-hard chunk of pound cake, the scrapings of a container of jalapeno and bean dip, half a bag of stale corn chips, and the smoldering last of another ill-fated pot of chili. Then he waited quietly.

The wind began to stir about midnight. Adams kept the television blasting as usual, and pretended to sleep through the Val Lewton flick on AMC. He could see the screen door from his chair, and, despite the wind and the television, he could hear the sound of the crockery food dish being pushed about on the porch. He remembered how Buford used to push the bowl across the floor in a feeding frenzy, rasping his teeth to chew the last crumbs from the edges.

Silence, then the lapping of water. Adams thought he heard a soft belch.

The screen was securely latched, but the hook flipped open as a small hand reached through the torn screen. The hand that touched the door was about the size of a child’s hand, but thickfingered and with spadelike stubby claws.

It entered the kitchen confidently, gazing briefly at Adams in his chair. Adams had kept his eyes lowered, and now he clamped them shut.

It was somewhere between a toad and a dwarf. As a writer, Adams had read too much about elves and fairies and trolls and goblins. His guest was a hobbit from Hell. It was just over four feet in height, and it was almost human in shape, but the coarse scales interspersed with tufts of grey fur that covered its body were proof it wasn’t human—even without looking at its face. Large, toad-like eyes, yellow and slit-pupiled, peered from above flattened nostrils and a wide, wide mouth with thin lips and very many pointed yellow teeth. Pointed ears poked through the long tufts of fur that hung down from its scaly scalp, and a short pair of crooked horns grew out of the top of its skull. Its arms were too long, its legs were too short, and its feet were narrow and taloned. A pronounced pot-belly hung out over a dirty pair of cut-off houndstooth check slacks-these last missing from Adams’ clothesline many weeks back.

It’s a gremlin—that was all Adams could think. My God, I’ve got a gremlin. He cracked open his eyelids.

The gremlin had opened his refrigerator. Pleased, it nodded and ran a long black tongue over its thin lips. Then, moving almost noiselessly, it quickly entered Adams’ study and sat down at his desk. For a moment it shuffled papers about, then it stretched its stubby fingers, cracked its knuckles. Leaning forward, it began to type.

The clawed fingers seemed to rush across the keyboard too fast to follow as page after page spun out like magic. The gremlin was composing final copy faster than a word processor could print out. And the only noise from the typewriter was a soft strumming sound.

Adams was right: it was magic.

After about an hour, the gremlin stopped typing. It read through the new chapters of Wire Edge, nodded and placed them in a neat stack— then stretched languidly and got up. Rubbing its belly happily, it beamed a horrible smile at Adams in his chair, and let itself out by the kitchen door.

Adams did not fall asleep until dawn.

He remembered the fairy tale about the elves and the shoemaker. And in his fumbling efforts at research, he had read about the little people in the myths of many cultures. Sometimes friendly, sometimes mischievous, sometimes inimical. In days gone by, peasants would leave out bowls of milk or meal as offerings to win their favor. Sometimes the little people would repay them with acts of kindness. Sometimes it just held them at bay.

Blaine Adams had no illusions as to his culinary skills. Only a gremlin could love the dismal messes he left out. And he’d been adopted by a gremlin.

Where had it come from? There were miles of forest, the ruins of old settlements, the forgotten graveyards. Had some immigrant brought the creature here, or was it native to these woods? Useless to attempt to explain magic. Gin and exhaustion called a halt to Adams’ speculations.

Go with the flow, Adams decided, and the next night he lavished half a bottle of Tabasco sauce on the dreadful failure of short ribs and dumplings he had seen the gremlin eyeing in his refrigerator.

Wire Edge came in at about 200,000 words a few weeks later. The contract had called for only 75,000 words, but Adams’ editor was basking in the praise for having brought in a potential year’s best seller for a mere $5,000 advance. She generously sent him a small bonus check and another three-book contract, but a hungry agent had got wind of her new discovery, and he tracked Blaine Adams down.

Negotiations. Contracts. Mega bucks. Mega hype. Hardcovers. Film options. Cover blurbs from the genre’s finest.

The Calling was rushed into print amid a flurry of extravagant reviews and enthusiastic reader reception. The publisher promised more Blaine Adams shock classics in the near future, and the public grabbed up copies of Stalker as fast as the news-stands could stock them.

It was all happening very fast.

By nature shy and reclusive, Blaine Adams left everything to his new agent. He was content to bank his checks, and he refused to appear on talk shows or to do a signing tour.

The elves had abandoned the shoemaker after they realized he had discovered them. Adams did not stray from his routine. Each night he set out leftovers. As the contracts for new books came in, he foraged through his boxes of rejected manuscripts and hopeless starts—leaving them on his desk when required.

Life was good. For both of them.

And then a local bookstore insisted on having a meet-the-author signing party.

Adams should have refused, but the proprietor was an old friend. He was seated at a table laden with hot-off-the-press copies of Wire Edge when the screaming started.

Fans lined up before his table suddenly bolted for exits. Wine glasses shattered on the floor; a buffet table went crashing. Some, suspecting a publicity stunt, crouched behind shelves of books. Adams stumbled to his feet, staring in horror.

The gremlin moved complacently through the scene of panic, pausing briefly to swallow a handful of chicken wings. It wiped its fingers on the remains of the tattered and mouldering antique tuxedo it wore, then hurried over to where Adams stood frozen.

“Sorry I’m late,” the gremlin apologized, “but it took me awhile to dig up this tux: for the occasion.”

Adams guessed where it had dug up the tux, but he was past shuddering.

The gremlin climbed into his vacated chair and beamed over the stacks of books at what remained of its fans. It slung a long arm affectionately around the slumping Blaine Adams.

“Hey, I love this guy!” the gremlin proclaimed. And just wait till you read his cookbook!”





Prince of the Punks



The aged cemetery in Battersea had been in disuse for some years. Weeds grew thickly, cut back only at long intervals by uncaring caretakers. Vandals had knocked over some of the tombstones, broken off bits from the statues of angels. A number of the graves had been opened and robbed. Modern graffiti—some of it Satanic—sprawled across many a Victorian mausoleum.

It was a typical London autumn afternoon. Spitting rain, cold, overcast. Inspector Blount considered himself a fool for trudging along through this mess. Detective Sergeant Rollins gave him reproachful glances but kept silent; he was a tall, sour man in his thirties, ambitious for promotion. Dr Hoffmann led the way vigorously, despite his aged legs. He must be all of eighty. Detective Sergeant Rollins carried his heavy leather bag.

“It’s just a short matter of finding his tomb,” called back Dr Hoffmann.

Inspector Blount cursed himself for venturing out on this lunatic outing. He was rotund and graying, too old for this sort of thing. Still, Dr Hoffmann might lead them to some manner of clues. Anything would help this investigation.

Six unsolved deaths in two months, all with linking modus operandi. All of them teenagers, found within a few miles of this vicinity, puncture wounds to the throat, bodies drained of blood. The tabloid press was filled with screaming headlines of Satanic rituals and vampiric sacrificial killings. More quietly and more firmly, orders came down to solve the mess quickly.

Which was why Blount and Rollins were following a probable senile lunatic through a forgotten Victorian cemetery in the rain. He might know something. He might even be their killer.

“I have made a lifetime study of vampires,” Dr Hoffmann had said, when he presented himself in Inspector Blount’s office. “Your murders are clearly attacks by a vampire. I think I can find him. And destroy him.”

Inspector Blount had just been upbraided with the others for lack of progress. He was having his tea and thinking of retorts he wished he had dared make. His assignment was to explore the Satanic youth gang element to the murders. Thus Dr, Hoffmann was sent to his office, and Inspector Blount was in a testy mood.

“A vampire? How many sugars?” He poured a cup for Dr Hoffmann. A nut case just might know something worth following with regard to other loonies of his acquaintance. Any sort of lead just now.

“Two, please. Yes, a vampire. Obvious, isn’t it.” Dr Hoffmann sipped his tea. “If I’m correct, and I think I am, judging from the localities of the deaths, it’s one Giles Ashton, entombed within the family crypt, St Martin’s, Battersea, in 1878. Months later, they opened his coffin clandestinely and drove a stake through his heart. There had been numerous deaths such as these in the vicinity. Described as anemia. Ashton had been known to explore the black arts. Died under strange and unspecified circumstances. After that, the deaths ceased.”

Inspector Blount finished his tea and wished it were a cup of single malt. At least he was pursuing his assignment by listening to this mad geezer. “How do you know all this, then?”

“I’ve spent my life studying vampirism.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot. So then. Why is this Giles Ashton suddenly on the prowl after all these years?”

“I think it’s those young punk would-be Satanists, raiding unfrequented cemeteries and robbing graves for skulls and other human remains. I think some of them broke into the Ashton crypt, opened his coffin, saw the stake through his heart, and removed it to see what would happen. It would have released him.

“I see.”

Dr Hoffmann examined his watch. “Just past midday. I have wooden stakes and mallet, garlic, crucifix, holy water, and consecrated host. We can find his crypt before darkness and destroy him before he kills again.”

Inspector Blount had just received a severe reprimand to produce results right now. His position was in jeopardy. The man was a senile fool, but if he did have any knowledge of Satanic rites near the murder scenes, Blount could truthfully report that he was following every lead. Perhaps the geezer might lead him to something important.

So Inspector Blount summoned Detective Sergeant Rollins, and the two of them followed Dr Hoffmann off into the rain and the weeds and the vandalized graves.

“Here it is!” Dr Hoffmann pointed to the mausoleum. It had been blemished with spray-paint graffiti; the door had been forced. In eroding marble letters, the name of Ashton could still be read upon the cornice.

Inspector Blount envisioned a gang of depraved teenagers, high on drugs, performing Satanic rituals here. Drinking the blood of their spaced-out sacrifices, leaving their bodies close by, too crazed to think of hi ding them. This might be the break.

“Vampires sleep by day,” Dr Hoffmann said. “Giles Ashton will be resting in his coffin.”

Inspector Blount had seen the movies. Let the old geezer go on about with it. He and Rollins should find evidence here. It was a large mausoleum, ideal for cult activities. In the semidarkness, Blount observed with disgust empty cans of Tennent’s Super, broken syringes, used condoms, dirty blankets, more graffiti. A large pentagram painted on the floor. Blount suspected that it wasn’t actually paint.

“Over here!” Dr Hoffmann pointed to a vandalized coffin. It bore evidence of having been forced open recently, and a verdigris-covered bronze tablet read: GILES ASHTON. 1830-1878. MAY HE REST FOREVER.

“Quick! Hand me my bag!”

Rollins did so, feeling like an idiot.

Dr Hoffmann removed a sharpened wooden stake and a mallet. “Now then. Remove the coffin lid, and you’ll find your killer.”

My God, the man is serious, thought Inspector Blount. Best to humor him, then get on with the serious detective work. He and Rollins lifted the coffin lid, as Dr Hoffmann stood poised to strike. The coffin was empty.

Dr Hoffmann stared at the empty coffin. “They must have hidden his body!”

A figure stepped out from the deepest shadows at the back of the crypt.

“After so long a sleep,” said Giles Ashton, “I find I have insomnia.” He also had a sawed-off shotgun.



(The original version of this story was written in collaboration with John Mayer.)





The Picture of Jonathan Collins



The advert had promised “Psychic Consultations” and listed an address in Chelsea.

Jonathan Collins stood before the door of this address, still considering. He was a slightly built man, apparently just nearing thirty. He was clean-shaven, had neat but longish black hair, bright brown eyes, very good features and wore a dark blue pin-striped suit—de rigueur for a middle management position at the largish London hotel where he worked. He had on tight black leather shoes, neatly laced. At a glance, he was a handsome young man on the way up.

He sucked in his breath and rang the bell.

The door opened.

“Yes?”

“Miss Starlight?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Jonathan Collins. I arranged for a consultation.”

“Please, do come in.”

Victoria Starlight appeared to be somewhat older than Collins. Her hair was a mass of brown elflocks bound with a tangerine scarf. She wore a shapeless black smock, many necklaces, bracelets and rings, and gold-framed granny glasses straight from the late sixties. Her flat was cluttered with books and objets d’art, but meticulously dusted. She had four cats that were visible.

She ushered Collins to a small table. The table was set with a deck of Tarot cards and a crystal ball. Collins felt like a fool. “Fancy some jasmine tea? I’ve just put the kettle to boil.”

“Not just yet.”

“I read tea leaves as well.”

“My nerves can’t manage tea just now.”

The kettle was at a boil. Victoria saw to it and returned with her cup of tea. She sat across from Collins, waiting for him to speak.

Collins sighed and decided to get on with it. “Miss Starlight, I collect pornography.”

“What?” She seemed poised to throw the teacup.

“Not modern smut,” Collins said hastily. “My interest is only in material from the turn of the century—antique French postcards, art studies, that sort of thing. Somehow I seem to identify myself with that period. I hope this doesn’t offend you.”

“That you have an affinity for the fin de siècle does not. Pornography does. Why are you here?”

“It’s these.” Collins reached into his suit-coat pocket and produced two aging photographs. “I obtained these at an estate auction as part of a collection. I should warn you that they are explicit.”

Victoria examined them with distaste. They appeared to be late-Victorian photographs.

The first was of two young men. One was wearing a garland, woman’s black stockings and white silk knickers with lace and ruching, open at front and back. He was crouching upon a hassock. The other young man was standing, wearing black stockings with ribboned garters and a petticoat, which he was holding high above his waist as he thrust his cock deep into the other man’s ass. The crouching man was looking back to watch the action.

The second photograph was similar, with the same two men, but shot against a different backdrop. One young man was standing bent over, holding his knees. He wore a garland and a lacy dress and black stockings with garters; the dress and petticoats were pulled above his hips. The other young man was wearing black stockings with ribboned garters and a black corset. He stood behind his partner, his cock thrusting into the other’s ass. Their faces were cherubic with pleasure.

“Why show me this trash?” Victoria threw the photographs back to Collins.

Collins spread them out on the table. “Look closely. That’s Oscar Wilde. I’ve verified that from other photographs.”

“So sell it to The Sun. I’d always heard that Wilde was dead butch.”

“And the man wearing the garland looks all too much like me.” Startled, Victoria reexamined the photographs, studying Collins’s face. “He does look like you. A relative? Or coincidence? Or is this a hoax?”

“Not a hoax. As to the rest, I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”

“Perhaps you may have had a gay ancestor. Perhaps he did have a fling with Oscar Wilde or someone who resembled him. Does this make you uncomfortable?”

Collins peered at the photographs. “I think that may be me wearing the garland. See? Even the same mole over the left cheekbone.”

Victoria sipped her tea. She was not actually a psychic, but she had a smattering knowledge of the occult. The loonies who consulted her kept her off the dole. This man was a megaloony.

“Right, then. Are you telling me that you are over a century of age, and that you were photographed being buggered by Oscar Wilde in drag?”

“I don’t know what to think. Not for certain.” Collins pocketed the photographs. “I was in London during the Blitz. All of my records were destroyed in the course. Evidently I was buried in the rubble when my house took a direct hit. I lay in a coma for more than a week. No one could say how I survived. After, I had no memories. I had to learn to walk and speak all over again. But there were no scars.”

Victoria reached for a cigarette. She was trying to quit, but... “So you’re going on sixty-something. You’re certainly keeping fit.”

“I put it to good diet and regular exercise,” said Collins. “But after I discovered these photographs, strange memories of a life before the War began to haunt me.”

“Memories of a previous life?”

“Of this same life.”

Victoria glanced at her mantel clock. She usually booked sessions for one hour, but this time she must find a way to cut it short.

Collins went on: “You’ve read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray?”

“I have,” she said carefully.

Collins withdrew the photographs and looked at them again. “I believe that the premise of the story is true. And I believe that Wilde based the character Dorian Gray on me.”

“I’m sorry.” Victoria was pouring herself more tea. “You believe that you are Dorian Gray?”

“No. Just a model for his character. I was young and pretty. Wilde used me like a woman. I think one of his set did paint a portrait of me a portrait that aged through the years, whilst I’ve remained the same.”

“And why have you just now come upon this conclusion?” Victoria had two Tarot readings scheduled for the afternoon, then an evening crystal gazing.

“I told you: these photographs,” said Collins, still fumbling with them. “Memories came back. Began to distill.”

Likely distilled single malt whiskey, Victoria thought. “What is it you wish me to do?”

Collins seemed desperate. “If this is true, then I have to find my portrait so that I can protect it.”

“Didn’t it go up with that bomb?”

“No. Of course not. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Victoria composed herself. Loonies paid. “What you need to do, Mr Collins, is to channel your thoughts back to the last century. By doing so, you may follow the path of your portrait and rediscover your lost years. I have some gems and crystals that will assist you—aquamarine, black tourmaline and rose quartz. They are pendant to a silver chain which you must wear as you meditate upon these thoughts. You may need to reenact past experiences of profound emotional energy to help the crystals lead you back.” And she took him for fifty quid, mainly for the baubles, and after Collins left, she made doubly certain of the bolts.

Victoria Starlight then picked up her favorite cat, a monstrously obese gray tabby, and cradled her. “Oxfam, that was bloody well the craziest git we’ve ever let into our flat.”

Jonathan Collins actually had held a number of positions since the War. He was very good at middle management, but shifted positions frequently—banks, hotels, brokerage firms—before he actually reached boardroom level. He was generally well liked by his fellow workers, who gossiped that he dyed his hair, lied about his age and worked out regularly. The latter two were correct. He was a quiet, polite man, something of a womanizer, seldom drank, but would stand a round or two. When the subject of conversation turned to Collins, it was agreed that he was one of the last of the old school, born out of his age. Only a few associates, mainly female, had ever seen his collection of fin de siècle pornography.

To the best of his knowledge, Jonathan Collins had never had or considered having a homosexual experience of any sort. Then he discovered the photographs. Strange and disturbing memories began to overwhelm his dreams. Why could he remember the taste of Oscar Wilde’s come when he awoke?

Collins tried to meditate with the stones. He only grew bored, then fell asleep. After several such failures, he decided that either he didn’t know how to meditate or the woman was no more than a well-paid fake. Nonetheless, she had advised him that he might need to reenact past experiences of profound emotional energy in order to channel.

Collins waited another week, then explored the phone boxes. His dreams had become disremembered fantasies, leaving him with only a sleepless haze of uncertainty. His fellow workers at the hotel expressed concern about his health. Collins explained it all as a bout of flu. It was going around.

The phone boxes in the West End were festooned with daily supplies of cards advertising sexual favors of any sort and including a phone number. Some were nicely illustrated. Collins passed over the spanking, schoolgirls in uniform, water sports and the usual. After three or four boxes, he selected one which read: “Stern TV Wardrobe Mistress Seeks Submissive Slaves for Training.”

After three or four days, he phoned the number.

Collins was given an address near Baker Street. Desperate by now, he presented himself at the door of the flat promptly as scheduled. He was certain that any minute his hair might be thinning and that his teeth probably were loosening in their gums. His nails seemed to be pulling away from the quick, and his digestion was not good. He had to find the painting.

A tall blonde in a tight, long velvet dress answered the bell. Her features were quite feminine, heavily made-up and very stern.

Collins almost stuttered. “Good evening. I’m Mr Collins. I believe I have an appointment.”

“Get inside.” She practically dragged him past the doorway “I am Mistress Gwen. You will always address me as Mistress Gwen. You will answer only to Miss Joan. And why are you wearing those ridiculous clothes, Miss Joan?”

Her riding crop smacked his backside. “No excuses! Show me your forty quid, and I’ll soon see that you are properly attired for a young lady.”

Collins pulled out the two photographs from his suitcoat pocket, along with his wallet. “This is what I want.”

Mistress Gwen looked at the pictures, then looked shrewdly at Collins. No, not from the police. Some twisted Yuppie out for a night’s thrills. She didn’t usually perform sex—most clients just liked to dress up and be dominated, then wank off. But.

“That’s another forty quid.”

Collins paid her and was led into a large bedroom.

Mistress Gwen smacked her riding crop. “Out of those clothes. All of them. Right now.”

Collins hesitated over his boxer briefs, but a smack from the riding crop made him drop them with the rest of his clothes.

“Good,” said Mistress Gwen. “You please me when you obey. If you’re a good little Miss Joan, perhaps I won’t have to cane you. Now, then, put on this condom. I won’t have you soiling my wardrobe.”

Mistress Gwen unzipped her dress. Beneath it she was wearing a black leather corselet with six suspenders attached to black seamed hose, and black six-inch stiletto pumps. The corselet showed some cleavage, but the bulge in her black knickers revealed that she was a he. Mistress Gwen began choosing things from her chest of drawers.

“These should fit you, Miss Joan.”

Mistress Gwen helped Miss Joan put on a black bra with foam rubber falsies, then a pair of black tap pants over a black suspender belt and black seamed hose. After that came a black corset, laced tight, and a pair of ankle-strap stiletto shoes. She made Miss Joan sit at the dressing table whilst she applied makeup to her face and lips, then fitted her with a curling black wig.

Miss Joan minced around the room, getting lessons in deportment and frequent whacks from the riding crop.

“Now it’s time for the rest of your training,” said Mistress Gwen. “Get on your knees on the bed. Now!”

Miss Joan did as she was told. Mistress Gwen had pulled down her knickers, revealing a formidable erection. She rolled on a lubricated condom, then yanked down Miss Joan’s knickers and climbed up behind her on the bed.

Miss Joan gasped for breath as Mistress Gwen’s cock pressed into her. She pushed her face and padded breasts into the bed pillows, stifling a moan as the head pierced her and the rigid length slid in behind. Mistress Gwen began to thrust quickly, lovelessly. Her hand reached around for Miss Joan’s cock and stroked it.

Mistress Gwen was deliberately brutal as she f*cked her. She stroked Miss Joan’s cock as if she were trying to pull it off. Mercifully soon, Miss Joan felt Mistress Gwen’s cock pulse and strain inside her ass; then came her own orgasm.

Miss Joan passed out upon the pillows...

• • •

Collins was crouched upon a hassock. He was wearing lacy open knickers and black stockings. Oscar Wilde, clad in black stockings, his petticoat upraised, was buggering him soundly.

“Hold that!” someone called out.

Wilde paused, his cock partially withdrawn. There was a bright flash, then a plume of burned powder. Collins turned his head. The photographer was removing the glass plate, inserting a new one.

Wilde resumed sodomizing him, thrusting slowly. “We’ll have these to show to select friends to see how pretty you are now,” Wilde said. “You’ll treasure these photographs when you are old and decaying.”

Collins glanced up at the windows, shuttered from outside. Lettering there read: “J. MacVane. Photographic Studio.”

Wilde surged deeply into him, coming in violent spurts. There was another flash of light...

Miss Joan was lying across a bed, and someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes and found that she was in drag with a filled condom on her drooping cock and a sore ass. She groaned and sat up.

Mistress Gwen was watching her with concern. All she needed was a dead John on her premises. “You feel all right? You were passed out for a minute or so there. You got a condition of some sort?”

“I just was carried away,” said Miss Joan.

“Yes. Well, you gave me a fair start. Now, change your clothes and be off. I have another client in an hour.” Mistress Gwen considered telling Miss Joan not to come here again, but eighty knicker was eighty knicker, and she was a good f*ck. Responsive. Perhaps too responsive.

Collins tried the directories, on the one chance in a million that the firm of J. MacVane might still be doing business. It wasn’t. Not under that name, at least. Countless wasted phone calls told him nothing. He realized that he was only assuming that the studio had been in London.

He phoned the auction house whence he had obtained the photographs. They furnished no useful information. The lot of photographs was merely an item from an estate: the deceased was not to be named.

After a week of blind ends and disturbing dreams, Collins made another appointment with Mistress Gwen.

Mistress Gwen received Collins with mixed feelings. She knew he wasn’t police, and a regular at eighty quid was too good to turn away. But that fainting spell: if it happened again, she might have to reconsider.

The session went much as before. This time Mistress Gwen was dressed mainly in black latex and leather gear. She soon had Miss Joan wigged and corseted, with red latex spanking knickers, open at the back, and matching latex shoulder-length gloves and stockings. She added a slave collar with a lead, then instructed Miss Joan sternly, often using her riding crop on Miss Joan’s exposed bottom.

Having put Miss Joan through her paces, Mistress Gwen ordered her to stand before the white bedroom wall. She took out a Polaroid camera from a drawer, demanding that Miss Joan pose for her.

Miss Joan protested. “You could use these for blackmail.” Mistress Gwen worked the camera. “These are Polaroids. No negatives. Yours for a keepsake. Something to remember how pretty you are, Miss Joan, and where to come to be pretty again at any time. Besides, I think you rather enjoy being photographed. You really do like to pose.”

Mistress Gwen took ten shots of Miss Joan in various poses, set the photographs aside, then said, “These will be another ten quid.” Watching her clock, Mistress Gwen next commanded Miss Joan to kneel upon the bed, then undid the zip of her leather knickers. She rolled on a lubricated condom, gave Miss Joan’s bottom a few more whacks to improve her own erection, then mounted her. She pressed her cock into Miss Joan’s rectum as quickly as she could force it, anxious to complete the session, and began to move her hips furiously. She had let an aging queen in maid’s costume give her a blow job earlier that day, and this second ejaculation would take time. Time was money.

Miss Joan was rocking from the ceaseless drilling she was getting. She moved her hand back to her cock, hard and throbbing beneath the latex spanking knickers. She was about to come...

Collins was standing beside a plaster mock-up of a Greek column. Behind him was a backdrop of a Doric temple. Collins wore a garland in his hair and nothing else. The studio was quite warm.

“Just a moment, Jack.”

Oscar Wilde rose from his chair. He was also naked, and Collins remembered being sodomized by him only minutes ago. Wilde stroked his cock, bringing Collins to full erection.

“Much better, Jonathan. Take the photograph, Jack.”

Again a flash and a puff of smoke. Collins blinked.

“That was a beautiful pose, dear boy,” said Wilde. “Your body perfect, your lovely penis saluting the flag and your face aglow from a good buggering. I think I shall have this one mounted and framed.”

“I wish I could stay like this forever, if it pleases you.”

Wilde smiled. “Go on and toss yourself off. I want to see it.”

Collins began to jerk his rigid cock. He hadn’t come during his buggering, and he was close to ejaculation. “I would give my soul to remain forever young as in that photograph.”

His come spurted from him as Wilde watched thoughtfully There was another flash...

“Wake up!” Mistress Gwen slapped Miss Joan’s bottom with her crop and shook her roughly.

Miss Joan opened her eyes, trying to recognize her surroundings. Her latex knickers were sticky with come; the condom had either slipped or burst.

“Good. Do you make it a habit of passing out when you reach your orgasm?”

“Perhaps this corset is too tightly laced.”

“Well, then, let’s just unlace you. Then clean yourself and get into your clothes. And don’t forget your photographs.”

Mistress Gwen again considered telling Miss Joan to stay away, but she reckoned she might hit her for a hundred quid next session. Perhaps add some bondage, a good spanking, a gym slip instead of a corset, a pair of schoolgirl’s knickers she must wear home. Miss Joan had all the marks of a regular and profitable client.

Besides, the man was clueless.

Collins asked for a week’s holiday from the hotel. Despite short notice, it was readily granted. The staff had commented for some weeks that Mr Collins appeared to be under some stress. A holiday was well overdue.

He had previously obtained a pass to the library at the British Museum, and he spent the first days researching any material regarding the life and times of Oscar Wilde. Wildes notorious affairs were discussed with varying degrees of discretion. Nowhere was there mention of anyone named Jonathan Collins or a photographer named Jack MacVane. But then, such matters as these had been strictly clandestine in that era.

Collins phoned Victoria Starlight for an appointment. He told her that he had twice been able to channel. She told him to keep at it and hung up. He left several messages on her answering machine, but none were returned.

Collins phoned Mistress Gwen, who did pick up her phone for him. “I want to do some shopping,” he said resolutely, “and I shall need your assistance. I wish to acquire a woman’s costume of approximately 1890—original if possible.”

Mistress Gwen was already consulting her filofax. A dead Thursday until ten. “Is this for you to wear?”

“Yes. Of course, I’ll pay you for your time and expertise—and as before.”

“Won’t come cheap.” Mistress Gwen left that open-ended. I do know all the shops, and I suppose I can cancel a few sessions. Come round with a taxi as quick as you can, and we’ll shop for your wardrobe.” And mine as well, she thought as she hung up the phone. It wasn’t going to be a dull Thursday after all.

Mistress Gwen was modestly dressed in black tights and minidress, stilettos and a chained and studded motorcycle jacket when Collins came to her door. They got into the taxi, and Mistress Gwen gave an address near Portobello Road. As the day progressed, Mistress Gwen would give many addresses.

They found several petticoats, some open knickers with lots of lace, a chemise and a camisole, and two corsets—Collins insisted that Mistress Gwen must have the black one—at the vintage clothing shops. Mistress Gwen insisted upon high-buttoned shoes with five-inch heels, and a shop that catered to transvestites supplied these for them both, along with black silk stockings and ribboned garters. The dress took some doing, but after a search, a shop in Camden Passage had a lovely ball gown which Mistress Gwen judged would fit Miss Joan once she was tightly laced. She picked out a pair of twenties vintage silk camiknickers for herself and included them with the sale. Collins stopped at a florist’s and, after some doing, managed a floral garland.

Well laden, they arrived back at Mistress Gwen’s flat by midafternoon. Mistress Gwen had also had an excellent luncheon at Collins’s expense; she saw prospects of yet more knicker and was in the very best of spirits. The man must be made of money. She poured two glasses of sherry.

“Now, then, Miss Joan. Shall I help you try on your new wardrobe? You should be very pretty.”

Collins reached into his suit coat and withdrew one of the photographs. It was the one of the young man in drag, skirts thrown up, standing bent over as the other man in a black corset and stockings sodomized him.

“I want it just like this.”

Mistress Gwen dealt with clients obsessed with their fetishes every day. She returned the photograph. “Then let’s get dressed properly.”

“I want it just like this,” Collins repeated. “No wigs, no makeup, no falsies, no condoms. Just like the picture.” He handed the photograph back to Mistress Gwen. “Does your camera include a timer?”

“It does.”

“I want a photograph of the two of us, just like that.”

“This will all cost a little more, of course,” said Mistress Gwen. She set up her camera on a tripod as Collins undressed. She did get frequent requests from clients for photographs of the two of them together. She removed her wig and makeup, brushed up her short black hair, then got out of her clothes. Miss Joan was struggling into her new garments and required assistance. They laced each other into the corsets, and Mistress Gwen finally settled Miss Joan into her dress. It was a good fit.

Miss Joan bent over, pulling her skirts over her hips. “Is this like in the photograph?”

Mistress Gwen checked her camera for frame and took a shot. “Very much so. You even look like the boy you’re dressed up as. Let’s try another.”

Mistress Gwen was wearing just the corset, stockings and garters, and her new shoes. She applied lubricant to her cock, set the timer, then stood behind Miss Joan. She guided her cock just past the head into Miss Joan’s ass as the camera flashed. Withdrawing, she collected the photograph and showed it to Miss Joan, along with the Victorian picture. “It’s a very close match.”

“Take another to be sure.” Miss Joan was tottering on her five-inch heels. Her hands were braced on her knees.

Mistress Gwen reset the timer, then moved behind Miss Joan, reinserting her cock a short way. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. It feels good. Now smile for the camera.”

The flash went off, and Mistress Gwen plunged her cock all the way into Miss Joan’s ass, grasping her hips to keep her from falling. “Just try not to faint on me this time. I don’t want you dangling from my dick.” She began to work her hips slowly back and forth against Miss Joan’s lace-circled ass. Mistress Gwen was enjoying herself; no need to rush a good f*ck. Many of Miss Joan’s fifty-quid notes would be hers soon enough...

Collins was sitting on the edge of a bed, his dress soiled and his face running with tears. Oscar Wilde had finished getting dressed and was laying five pounds upon the dressing table.

“Please, let’s not have further histrionics. You surely must have known that you were only a passing infatuation.”

“You used me like a girl,” Collins sobbed. “Now you’re paying me as if I were a prostitute.”

“I’m certain that you will find other men,” said Wilde, moving toward the door. “By the by, if you pop round to Soho, Jack should have some photographs for you. Keep them and remember your beautiful youth.”

“I never want to see them!”

“That’s not what you said short days ago. And what’s said is said.” Wilde adjusted his hat and left the room...

“It’s not a painting. It’s a photograph,” Miss Joan murmured.

“Of course,” panted Mistress Gwen. “I just took them.” Miss Joan was about to fall over, but Mistress Gwen held her hips tightly and made several more deep, quick thrusts as her orgasm jetted into Miss Joan. It was one of the best, and a pity she had to charge for such pleasure. Miss Joan had been silent during most of her screwing; there was semen running down her stockings, so Mistress Gwen assumed she had been quietly tossing herself off beneath her heaped petticoats. At least she hadn’t fainted. Mistress Gwen let her spent cock slip out of Miss Joan’s ass, pulled down Miss Joan’s skirts and helped her to sit down on the bed.

“It’s a photograph!” Miss Joan did seem a bit scattered.

“Yes? ” Mistress Gwen collected the last photograph she had shot. Very good, indeed. A close reenactment of the Victorian original, and Miss Joan’s resemblance to the buggered boy in the dress was uncanny.

“That bastard!” Miss Joan pointed to the original. “He f*cked me for a few weeks, paid me off as if I were a whore, then wrote a book about me!”

“I think a glass of sherry will do you good,” said Mistress Gwen. “Settle you down a bit.”

Collectors know other collectors, whether they collect coins, stamps, books, old cars, whatever. They make acquaintances and sometimes friends with those of similar interests.

Having exhausted all other avenues, Collins thought of phoning fellow collectors of vintage pornography. Secretive by nature and necessity, only a few others were well enough known to him personally to phone for assistance: any information on one Jack MacVane, photographer with studio in Soho, circa 1890.

On his fourth call, Collins got lucky. The call was to an acquaintance, Herbert Musgrave, an established dealer in antiquarian and esoteric books. His tastes in other matters were also esoteric.

“Yes, dear boy. J. MacVane. Yes, I have a number of pieces of his work. Bit of a decadent by all accounts. Yes, I heard about your luck at that estate auction recently. Look, why not pop by here this evening, say about sixish? You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. Excellent. Cheers!”

Herbert Musgrave had a semi-detached house in Crouch End and a small bookshop in Kensington which specialized in deluxe bindings, antiquarian books and other sorts, if you asked properly. He was a short man, putting on flesh, somewhere past fifty, with graying hair and beard, and bifocals. He and Collins often met at book fairs, exchanging pleasantries over a glass of wine and sometimes exchanging wrapped parcels.

Collins arrived at half-past six, owing to traffic. Musgrave greeted him enthusiastically. He was wearing a smoking jacket, and he had set out sherry, cheese and biscuits.

Once settled: “Well, give us a look at your find.” He examined the two photographs with keen interest. “Oh, yes. These are the work of J. MacVane. That’s his studio. Quite rare. Excellent find! I have a few others from these sets, but not these two. Would you consider selling them?”

“Sets?”

“Yes. For the elaborate staging as seen here, photographers often took a dozen or more plates, selling the best in packets of six to ten sequential photographs. Here, let me show you.”

Musgrave had already set out a photo album. He quickly turned through it. “Yes, here they are. Some others in the sets.”

There were six photographs. Of the first pair, one was of the young man in the dress, assisting the other with his corset; the next portrayed him giving the other man a blow job. The next four were from the other set. The first showed the two men dressing each other; next, the man in the petticoat smiling as he guided his cock into the other’s mouth as he crouched upon a hassock; another, with his cock completely engulfed in his bent-over ass; the last, with the man in open knickers lying on his back on the hassock, legs high in the air, while the other man stood between his legs, f*cking him as if he were a woman.

“MacVane’s work is rather scarce,” said Musgrave, reaching for the sherry. “I can offer you a good price.”

“What do you know of the man?”

“Very little. He had a studio in Soho for a short time, took very good photographic portraits. He mingled with the most decadent of the artists and writers, that sort of thing. Said to have been intimate with Aleister Crowley and that lot. Most of his work was done on private commission—largely just nude studies of all ages and gender, but he also did a good bit of what you see here. Again, mostly on private commission. However, some prints got into circulation, and a scandal resulted. MacVane left London a jump ahead of the police and set up shop again in Paris. After photographing some memorable postcards, he was found dead in his studio. Talk was that he was poisoned, but the inquest ruled natural causes—he was a notorious drunkard—and so the matter and MacVane were soon forgotten.”

“I think that’s Oscar Wilde in the photographs.”

Musgrave adjusted his glasses and peered closely. “No, no, no, dear boy. Of course not. Some resemblance, certainly, but if you’ll pardon my saying so, the other man looks far more like you than does his lover resemble Oscar Wilde.”

Musgrave sipped his sherry, for which he had a weakness, and studied Collins’s handsome face, for which he also had a weakness. Thinking about it, he decided there really was an astonishing resemblance to the young man in the photograph. Musgrave wondered if Collins might have had a gay ancestor. Might it run in the family...?

“I have a few of his nude studies over here.” Musgrave pulled down a larger album. “Got them as part of a larger lot of Victorian photography at Sotheby’s some years back. It was an unsorted jumble, so I had it quite cheaply.”

Collins paged through the album. There was a buxom woman, another buxom woman, a girl of about ten, a boy of about the same age, another buxom woman, a boy in his teens, a muscular man of about twenty-five, another buxom woman, a girl of perhaps five, two buxom women embracing.

“This next is my favorite,” said Musgrave, sliding closer.

Collins stared at the photograph of himself, standing nude beside a plaster Doric column, against a Grecian backdrop. His mouth felt dry, and he reached for his sherry.

“The same dear boy as in those other photographs. And he does look very much like you, Jonathan. At least the face does.

“I really must have this,” Collins said.

“There’s another pose on the next page that shows him wanking off.”

“I’ll trade you my two photographs.”

Musgrave shook his head.

“And add to that one hundred pounds.”

Musgrave considered. The offer was really a very good one. But Collins seemed very interested in this one photograph. The sherry had gone to Musgrave’s head and made him reckless. Besides, he hadn’t known that Collins was interested in male pornography. Still waters.

He looked again at Collins’s two photographs. “Acts like this. Between two men. I mean, have you ever...?”

The next morning Collins phoned for a taxi. Musgrave saw him out, still in his dressing robe, and invited Collins to come again soon. Collins left without his two photographs, short by a hundred pounds, with Musgrave’s come due to meet somewhere between his stomach and his rectum. But he had the photograph wrapped securely and in his hands.

As he got into the taxi, Collins wondered if he hadn’t played the fool all along. The man in the picture should have aged whilst he stayed young. Neither of them had aged. Perhaps there actually had been a painting. Perhaps the aging portrait was only Wilde’s embellishment. Musgrave had been all over him throughout the night. He was too wrung out to want to think of his next possible move. Perhaps another session with Mistress Gwen.

After kissing Collins good-bye, Musgrave lit a cigarette and poured a glass of sherry. An enchanting but exhausting night; he was pleased that today was Saturday, so that his young assistant would be there to open shop. A shame to have taken such advantage of young Jonathan, but experienced collectors must learn never to permit their eagerness to acquire an object to reach the attention of its owner.

Besides, Musgrave had also purchased the glass negatives as part of the auction lot. He would have a new print made straightaway. Collins could still boast of having the original.

Climbing to his attic, Musgrave rummaged around and found the box of glass negatives, barely glanced at after the auction. Yes, it should be here. He carefully sorted through the plates. All of these were promised to be of the prints in his album. Here was the young man tossing off by the Greek column. Perhaps Collins would come back for that one.

The last plate was of a hideous, bloated old man, bald and toothless, sagging belly, covered with scars and blotches.

“Bloody hell! What was MacVane thinking when he took this!” Musgrave complained. “On one of his binges when he had this creature pose!”

He set the plate aside with a shudder. Two careful searches through the glass negatives did not reveal the plate he wanted.

“Cheated again,” Musgrave said angrily. In vexation he snatched up the offending glass negative, carried it downstairs all the way to the back, then hurled it into the dustbin at the back wall.

The glass negative shattered impressively. Musgrave felt somewhat better.

The taxi driver heard the scream from the back seat, turned his head to look, screamed himself. He went over the curb and struck a lamppost. He was still screaming when passersby pulled him out, There was no point in pulling out his passenger, if that was what it was.

It was still clutching in one rotting hand a parcel which was found to contain an old photograph of a nude young man. As the police pulled the parcel away, the crumbling hand, still clutching, broke away.

The driver had a concussion and no memory of the morning.

The body had crumbled into broken bits and dust.

The police suggested some bizarre prank. The inquest reluctantly concurred. There simply could be no other explanation.

The picture disappeared into police archives.

Jonathan Collins was never found.