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 17 - Part 2
Things had reached such a low ebb, that even the old brigadier could see that something was not quite tickety-boo with his second wife. Less glamour model, more wizened old prune. Even his battle-scarred old eyes picked up on the worrying lack of foundation and the tell-tale roots. He was, at heart, a kind and generous man and hated to see his wife in such a sorry state. But his offers of a spa week-end in Cornwall, a sanatorium in Zurich, even a spell at the Priory, were met with an adamant and rude refusal.
After a few more weeks, things took a worrying change for the worse. Mrs O-H took to her bed and refused to move from it for the whole month. Not even an invitation to dinner at Highgrove could bend her steely determination to stay put. Jilly told me that she now ate all her meals in bed and that the family took turns to play euchre with her and read out-loud from the problem pages of the Sun and the Mirror.
One bight day in early Spring, it was the turn of Peregrine himself to sit at the bedside of the invalid and while away the hours with stories of threesomes in Coventry and gambling addictions in Bexleyheath (the problems were exactly the same everyday and I was becoming expert at predicting Dear Deidre’s response). It so happened that the window to master-bedroom was open (according to the instructions of the fierce Irish nurse) and that a particularly lush patch of grass grew just below that very window. Manoeuvring myself with admirable sleight of hoof, I found that I could over-hear every word that was said.
"Mummy, I hate to see to like this! Sophie and I rushed over as soon as we heard the news!"
Such casual mention of her arch-rival had a worrying effect on the invalid. She fell back on her pillow in a swoon and was only with difficulty revived. She looked up at Peregrine with carefully made-up, enormous eyes. Her silk negligee at that very moment happened to slip, revealing an erectly-nippled breast. After a few moments of worrying wheezing, she managed to whisper a few well-chosen (well-rehearsed) words.
"The truth is, darling, that I don't feel very strong. Really I don't. Sometimes, on the very bad days, I think that I am not long for this world. That the shadows are lengthening, and the angels are calling."
"Don't talk like that! Nil desperandum and all that! I hear that the doc says there's nothing actually wrong with you. You've just got to cheer up and snap out of it. That's what I always tell the boys when they get an attack of the blues. There's always tomorrow! How about I cheer you up with some jokes I heard in the mess?"
This was just the sort of gung-ho optimism that endeared Peregrine Ormsby-Harmsworth to his men, and - presumably - to Sophie Rheinstein, although I would have credited her with a bit more subtlety. It did not go down well with Mrs O-H. She also realized that, yet again, the seduction was not exactly going to plan. The carefully chosen, diaphanous attire, the artfully shaded room, the perfume, the make-up, the manicure, the erotic evocation of death and the maiden - nothing seemed to dent the armour of the young warrior. She realized, with a flash of insight, that the time of hinting and innuendo was way past. The direct approach was her only chance.
She lifted a withered, ringless hand from the downy duvet and laid it gently on her step-son's manly, stubbled cheek.
"Perry, darling. Darling Perry. You are so young, so innocent. So ill-versed in the ways of the wide and wicked world. So inexperienced and - dare I say? -naive."
The young man bristled at the implied criticism of his masculinity. In the mess, he was known as quite the womaniser, a stag-night stalwart and the best-man with all the best stories. Moreover, Miss Rheinstein was not the sort of woman to put up with inexperience. She was a woman of the world, etc etc. Poor Peregrine blustered on until Mrs O-H smiled indulgently, yet somehow also menacingly, and held up a conciliatory hand.
"Darling, boy. You might have had a whole army of girlfriends - boyfriends, too, I dare say - but you are simply too young to have felt such fires of passion that destroy the mind as well as the body. You are simply too young to realize that love like this is a disease, a madness, a fire, a death. You are simply too young to have experienced such passion that one can neither sleep nor eat. Passion that saps one's very life blood. Passion that leads inexorably to madness and the grave."
Perry and I listened in silence to this extraordinary speech. I could hazard a rough guess as to what was coming next, but Tim-Nice-But-Dim, silver-medalist in the Sandhurst finals, seemed genuinely bemused. Despite the timely warnings of his well-read girl-friend. You are still too subtle, Mrs O-H... As if she could read my mind, the wicked step-mother removed her hand from the boy's flushed faced and placed it, high up, on his corduroyed thigh. And there it lay, provocatively, tantalisingly, close to the large and promising bulge. As I watched in gobsmacked amazement, she stretched wide her fingers and actually brushed - nay, stroked -his cock with her talon-like nails.
"You are too young to realize that passion like this knows no rules, no boundaries of decency and convention. The mischievous God of Love shoots his arrow where it is least expected and least convenient. How could you know that it is you, darling? You, you, you who are the one and only cause of this terrible illness? It is entirely because of you that I lie here dying. Dying! I have become a skeleton, a ghost, a shadow of my former self. And it is all because of you and the deadly passion that you have aroused in me. Your father can call the finest doctors in the world, from Harley Street to Geneva to Tokyo. But it is only you who can cure me. You are the only doctor I need. You and you alone can restore me to health. Can restore me to life. Without your love, I can only die."
Even the sweet, dim Peregrine had got the message by now. He lept up as if he had been burned, but his step-mother seized him by the wrists and continued her protestations of undying love (lust).
"For years now I have watched and admired you from afar. Watched as you turned from a beautiful school boy to a brave and beautiful warrior. Can you imagine the pride I felt when you were first commissioned, when I first saw you in the dashing uniform of the Household Cavalry? Can you imagine the love, the yearning, the insane desire to have you? Right there, on the parade ground. Right here, in your father's house. On the kitchen table, in the greenhouse, on the croquet lawn, on your little boy's bed, under the Spurs posters. To have you again and again and again. To have and to hold you for ever and ever."
© 2017 Mimi L. Thompson
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