623-36-4798

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
BLEAK HOUSE BY CHARLES DICKENS CONT

Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and acknowledging the trooper’s parting salute with one slight nod.

It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button—having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him—that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper’s part to effect a separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in quest of his adviser.

By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares. To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician’s shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan’s pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, Mr. George says to himself, “She’s as usual, washing greens. I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn’t washing greens!”

The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. George’s approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing near her. Her reception of him is not flattering.

“George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!”

The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon it.

“I never,” she says, “George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute when you’re near him. You are that restless and that roving—”

“Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am.”

“You know you are!” says Mrs. Bagnet. “What’s the use of that? WHY are you?”

“The nature of the animal, I suppose,” returns the trooper good-humouredly.

“Ah!” cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. “But what satisfaction will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or Australey?”

Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she stands possessed appear’s to be her wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet’s dust.

“Mrs. Bagnet,” says the trooper, “I am on my parole with you. Mat will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far.”

“Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling,” Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. “Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and married Joe Pouch’s widow when he died in North America, SHE’D have combed your hair for you.”

“It was a chance for me, certainly,” returns the trooper half laughingly, half seriously, “but I shall never settle down into a respectable man now. Joe Pouch’s widow might have done me good—there was something in her, and something of her—but I couldn’t make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat found!”

Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the little room behind the shop.

“Why, Quebec, my poppet,” says George, following, on invitation, into that department. “And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!”

These young ladies—not supposed to have been actually christened by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from the places of their birth in barracks—are respectively employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him.

“And how’s young Woolwich?” says Mr. George.

“Ah! There now!” cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. “Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece.”

“Well done, my godson!” cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.

“I believe you!” says Mrs. Bagnet. “He’s a Briton. That’s what Woolwich is. A Briton!”

“And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you’re respectable civilians one and all,” says Mr. George. “Family people. Children growing up. Mat’s old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and—well, well! To be sure, I don’t know why I shouldn’t be wished a hundred mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!”

Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves—Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.
 
BLEAK HOUSE BY CHARLES DICKENS CONT

Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it were a rampart.

“George,” says Mr. Bagnet. “You know me. It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then we’ll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do—do it!”

“I intend to, Mat,” replies the other. “I would sooner take her opinion than that of a college.”

“College,” returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. “What college could you leave—in another quarter of the world—with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella—to make its way home to Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!”

“You are right,” says Mr. George.

“What college,” pursues Bagnet, “could you set up in life—with two penn’orth of white lime—a penn’orth of fuller’s earth—a ha’porth of sand—and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That’s what the old girl started on. In the present business.”

“I am rejoiced to hear it’s thriving, Mat.”

“The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, “saves. Has a stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she’s got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she’ll set you up.”

“She is a treasure!” exclaims Mr. George.

“She’s more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old girl said it wouldn’t do; intention good, but want of flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got another, get a living by it!”

George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an apple.

“The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet in reply, “is a thoroughly fine woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as she gets on. I never saw the old girl’s equal. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!”

Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs. Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, Mrs. Bagnet develops an exact system, sitting with every dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich’s knife, in particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the complete round of foreign service.

The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her needlework, then and only then—the greens being only then to be considered as entirely off her mind—Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper to state his case.

This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.

“That’s the whole of it, is it, George?” says he.

“That’s the whole of it.”

“You act according to my opinion?”

“I shall be guided,” replies George, “entirely by it.”

“Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is.”

It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand—that the plain rule is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is Mr. Bagnet’s opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so relieves Mr. George’s mind by confirming his own opinion and banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of experience.

Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George again turns his face towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

“A family home,” he ruminates as he marches along, “however small it is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it’s well I never made that evolution of matrimony. I shouldn’t have been fit for it. I am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn’t hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I didn’t camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that’s something. I have not done that for many a long year!”

So he whistles it off and marches on.

Arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn’s stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, “Who is that? What are you doing there?”

“I ask your pardon, sir. It’s George. The sergeant.”

“And couldn’t George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?”

“Why, no, sir, I couldn’t. At any rate, I didn’t,” says the trooper, rather nettled.

“Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?” Mr. Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.

“In the same mind, sir.”

“I thought so. That’s sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, “in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?”

“Yes, I AM the man,” says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down. “What then, sir?”

“What then? I don’t like your associates. You should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.”

With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise.

Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them to him. “A pretty character to bear,” the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. “A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!” And looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp. This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.
 
Subject: My anal fissure Bob
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 10:44:00 +0200

After lurking about in the wings the required 2 months I have felt the need to tell you about my anal fissure Bob.

It all started about two years ago in Thailand. I had just fired a round of green chile liquishit (patent pending) down the hole that the Asians call "toilet" when I noticed an odd sensation just inside the rim of my sphincter accompanied by a blasting spray of rich red blood.

After living in Asia for six months I thought that I had experienced nearly every digestive tract malady known to man. Worms, burning and colonic liquidity on a huge scale. Butt (hehe) this was something completely different.

It was a singularly unique feeling that I know now to have been the actual tearing of my rectum. It was Bob making himself known to me.

At first Bob wasn't so bad. Occasional itch and discomfort. Nothing that I couldn't handle. A mint flavored suppository now and again seemed to do the trick.

But then about a year ago my cruel master Bob began requiring more and more from me. Itching on a scale that can only be described as "hellish" was the order of the day. I had a permanent brown stain on my index finger from trying to scratch the inside of my colon through my troubled anus.

I had lost all sense of decorum. I no longer cared what people thought. I often walk around in public with my hand down my pants, finger firmly implanted, trying to appease the evil God Bob.

In my spare time I would daydream about modifying various farm implements to deal with the overwhelming itch. I even went so far as to order a tined hand trowel.

Finally, I went to see a doctor. He made a quick diagnosis of hemorrhoids and let me go with a prescription for some industrial strength hemlube(tm). The doc never saw Bob, who had retreated into his tear in fear of his only natural enemy, the medical practioner.

This only made Bob more angry and he visited wanton terror upon me. I began babbling to myself and have conditioned myself so against shitting that it is only with a great gnashing of teeth that I can make my approach to the bowl. As the chocolate tube steak descends I feel my rectum tear asunder like the curtain of the holy tabernacle. Bob laughing. Bob laughing.

Now, I have finally found a doctor that can help me. She made the diagnosis with a flashlight clamped firmly in her teeth. I had met her in a bar and Bob was not expecting a midnight diagnosis on my living room floor. "No problem" she said.

I have since been scheduled for surgery on October 29th to exorcise Bob from my most tender of parts. He seems to have accepted his fate and has been more peaceful as of late. We spend our time singing and reminiscing about our last two years together. We talk about the life after this one and I comfort him with rectal salve and oatmeal.

I will post details of the operation, and details about the demise of Bob.

I hope that he will be brave.
 
Subject: My Anal Fissure Bob
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 01:02:00 +0200
KEYWORDS: YOUCH!, VIOLENT ANAL DILATION, OH JEEEESUS, HELP

Some of you may remember my previous post regarding my anal fissure, Bob.

The surgery that had been scheduled for October 29th has been postponed until December the first. Bob has had a stay of execution, a reprieve if you will.

Bob has become a holy terror of an anal fissure and my surgeon has informed me that the most effective way of dealing with Bob is a form of surgical exorcism that is know to the medical profession as VIOLENT ANAL DILATION. I am not making this up! They are going to anaesthetize both Bob and me, and then dilate my asshole to a diameter that until that moment it has never known.

My greatest fear is becoming conscious and out of the corner of my eye seeing the medical staff zipping up their trousers.

On a side note, I have met a man named Ream. This is his name. Word of honor. It just seems so appropriate that I meet him at the stage of my life when violent anal dilation is required. Maybe I should spare myself the trauma of surgery and spend more time with Ream.
 
Subject: Anal Fissure Bob Returns
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 22:52:00 +0200

As you know, my anal fissure Bob and I were due to be separated today. By that most tasteless of medical marvels, violent anal dilation, Bob was to be no more.

The hospital scheduled the dilation over a week ago. They had sent me some medicine that I was to take the night before, and the morning of the procedure. It consisted of an overdose of some kind of laxative pill and two suppositories the size of a sputnik.

Yesterday evening I had ingested the pills and inserted the Grogan Buster(tm) industrial strength stool liquefier. Around ten, I began to feel the need, and by 10:15 I was sitting on the throne enjoying one of the most massive squats of my life. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that was not original equipment that came with my digestive tract was madly scrambling for the exit.

Sound like fun? Well, for a while it was. Then things began to go wrong.

I had evacuated myself from stem to stern. Enough already I thought. Things slowed down, and I showered off.

This morning, I awoke at 4:00 am and as according to my physicians instructions, inserted the remaining suppository. Mistake. By 5:00 I was fully in the throws of the colonic "dry heaves." There was nothing to shit, but my colon was receiving a chemical message to evacuate at any cost. What had started out as a good time was rapidly turning into a nightmare.

I arrived at the hospital at 9:00. I was greeted by a nurse who looked as though she belonged in the WWF. I surrendered my trousers and at her command was treated to not one, but two enemas. There was some kind of chemical added to "help clean you out." I once again began desperately trying to expel the contents of my digestive system. Alas, it had been empty since the night before. I sat on the bowl, my sphincter twitching in and out as it tried to pass the phantom grogan that it thought was there. It began to hurt. Bad. For the next half hour I was in such terrible pain. My asshole felt as though it had been beaten with a baseball bat. Eventually, the pain began to subside.

I was led into an adjoining examination room. A doctor that hadn't seen or fingered me before was there. He explained that my surgery was postponed for a week because they had decided that one final test should be performed.

I should stop here to tell you that I am an American living in the country of Finland. Yeah, I speak some Finnish. But it's limited to things like "Gee, those are nice tits." So I wasn't too hip to the terminology of Finnish speaking proctologists.

If I knew what was about to happen, I never would have laid down on that table.

THE SCOPE! OUCH! OhJeesusOhJeesusOhJeesus.

Never do this! No matter what they tell you! No matter how hard they plead and cajole. Believe me, death is preferable.

What happened to me next was this: A doctor snaked a 60 cm fiber optic hose up my fundament. It had a viewing scope on one end, and a device to pump air into my colon on the other. As he manipulated it up my rectum I could feel the head move through the colon. I could imagine the bright light moving through the labyrinth of sphincters and valves. It reminded me of a motorcycle headlight racing through the Holland tunnel.

The searing pain was intense. At one point in time, I felt as if the thing was pressing on my lungs. I definitely felt it try to enter something that I was sure was some kind of door to my stomach. At that moment, I began to sweat profusely. The world began to spin. My stomach tried to retch, but again, nothing to barf. There I was, lying naked on a cold table with a scope up my air-filled colon, when a plan for revenge crept into my mind. With all my might I pressed my diaphragm down into the pressurized shit chamber. A tremendous wet fart sang around the hose and out my asshole. It was accompanied by the overwhelming stench of impacted fecal matter. A small smile crossed my lips. The doctor and nurse pretended as though nothing had happened. It was only moments later that the tube was retracted and the nurse had to wipe my liquishit smeared rectum.

Needless to say, a good time was had by all.
 
Subject: My anal fissure Bob
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 23:49:00 +0200

It's been a while since my violent anal dilation.

I'm afraid that I have neglected my duties by not telling you about it sooner. But I have been at some loss for words about it.

My anal fissure Bob who had plagued me for the last three years is in the process of dying.

After the violent anal dilation I had expected to awaken from my anaesthetized slumber to find that Bob had been completely destroyed. Annihilated by modern medicine in a small sterile room of a hospital in Seinajoki Finland. A rich heritage of blood and pain wiped out in minutes by strangers in mask and gown.

It all started a couple of Mondays ago at 7 am. I hadn't slept much the night before. Bob was quiet, but I lay awake thinking about what was to come the next morning. I was a little worried. I was about to experience something called violent anal dilation and I was a bit concerned. I found out later that my fears about the procedure where in fact pretty close to reality.

I arrived at the hospital in good spirits. I was shown my bed and given the button up the back surgical minidress. Even though the procedure wasn't scheduled until 1:30 I was required to change into the garment. I suppose that it's a mandatory indignity to humiliate and degrade potential troublemakers. Maybe word had gotten out that I had been asking questions about the procedure. What kind of drugs that they would be giving me, if my physician had performed many of these procedures etc. Medical personnel here don't like being quizzed by foreigners with anal fissures. It had taken lots of explaining just to get permission to have a videotaped documentary of the procedure made and released to me. I had to get my local practitioner to request it. It has since been explained to me that most procedures are taped anyway. They just don't release the tapes to the public.

I was in bed dozing when I felt a sharp pain in my ass. I whirled my head around in bed to see a rather stern and matronly looking woman with a large enema bag. Presumably it was her and her nozzle o' fun that was causing the distress. I admired her technique. I was asleep. She probably figured that I would sleep right through it. What, and miss all the fun? Not likely. Besides, she was about as gentle as a bull elephant. Anal fissure Bob let out a sharp cry of pain. And so did I. She smiled and patted my head like a lap dog as she filled my rectum. As I looked around the room, I realized that we were not alone. Not 10 feet away was the wife and 2 teenage daughters of the varicose vein strip down in the bed next to me. They were all checking me out. I smiled my best grimace and tried to enjoy myself.

At 1:00 my doctor dropped by for a chat. The first thing that I noticed about him was that the hand that he extended in greeting had a slight palsy. Actually, it was more of a tremor. This is true! "Halloo," he said with a poorly forced smile that revealed his large yellow teeth. "I spoke anglish warry badney."

"Uh ... hi," I stammered. "I speak a little Finnish; we will try to talk."

"OK," he agreed.

We chatted about the usual stuff ... pain, etc. I'm trying to ask the guy about the procedure when out of the blue, he looks up and says "We will tear you a new asshole." I am not making this up. By this time, I am not feeling very confident about what's going on and am giving some serious thought to just getting up and leaving. I knew about A.F. Bob. He was something that I could understand. I could live with him. This surgeon was something else. An unknown X with a license to dilate. He gave me two tiny white pills to swallow. "For made you relax" he said. Hmmmm ... now this guy was starting to speak my language. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. "Seee yuuu in da operashunn place" he said, and was gone.

I began feeling a little light-headed from whatever drug it was that he had given me when two orderlies came in. They spoke low and softly to me in Finnish. Who knows what they were talking about. I just kept nodding my head stupidly. I couldn't have answered them anyway as my toungue was stuck to the roof of my parched mouth. As they rolled me down the hall I tried to count the number of acoustic tiles in the ceiling.

Eventually, we arrived at the big swinging doors of the operating room and are met by two others in surgical greens. It is like a prisoner exchange at the Rhine. They greet each other. The two that transported me there wish me a happy dilation, hand over my file to the others, then turn and leave me with the dilation team.

As we enter the operating theatre I begin to feel quite apprehensive. My tongue is thick in my mouth. I am transferred to the main operating table. The anesthetist walks in and without so much as a hello starts tapping my forearm to find a suitable vein. I try to greet him but all that comes out is a horrible squawk.

I am relieved of my meager garment and I lay there, alone and naked. I look down in horror to see that my penis and testicles have completely withdrawn into my abdomen. Perhaps they had seen it first and were trying to warn me because there, on a stainless steel tray, nestled amongst strange looking devices is the object of my apprehension. It is some sort of anal battering ram.

It is stainless steel and is about a foot long. It has two handles bolted to it. And for all the world it looks like one of those Stanley thermoses.

By this time, a vein had been found and been hooked up to the Anesthetist. He still hasn't said anything so I find my voice. "How about a little valium to get thing started." He surprises me by speaking perfect English. "Here," he said, "Try this" and injects something into the hookup that *IMMEDIATELY* makes me feel secure and right at home. No more problems. I chuckle at the prospect of the stainless invader.

As this all was happening, the nurses were quite busy. They had stainless steel poles that they were affixing to the sides of the operating table. On top of these poles were large plastic blocks that were deeply indented to accommodate what could only be my thighs. A more compromising version of the stirrups that doctors often use to examine women. And truly, the video has born my theory out. My buttring is bright, exposed, and nearly eye level to the wielder of the dilation tool.


The chief dilator strolls in, and nods at the anesthetist. The latter hooks up a large syringe full of what looks like vaseline to my I.V. line and says "See you later." I remember trying to fight it just to see if I could. I couldn't. A monster head rush, I try to speak, and that's the last thing that I remember.

It's only now that I review the video that I realize the horror of what actually happened to me.

It's strange to see yourself lying on a cold slab, with your penis retracted, falling unconscious. Right after I go out, a nurse puts a black rubber mask over my face. Two attendants raise my thighs into the "stirrups" and scrunch me down so that my ankles are bent straight back towards my head. The camera angle is from straight overhead, so you get a weird out of body feeling watching the whole thing. One nurse manipulates what's left of my genetalia out of the way while another unceremoniously paints my asshole with some sort of red tinted disinfectant.

The doctor wastes no time and before you can say "Is he asleep?" has two of his fingers deep into my ass. He checks around and during the examination gives my prostate a mighty push. I swear that I shoot a load of something straight onto my belly where it just sits there through the rest of the procedure. The doctor gives a grunt of satisfaction and reaches for the dilator.

Nurses squirt some kind of lubricant from a large syringe into and around my ass. The surgeon then inserts the end of the dilation unit into my ass and begins rotating it left and right. Soon he has my poor asshole fully dilated. And I mean *DILATED*. There I am, out like a light, with a stainless steel thermos up my ass. Every thirty seconds or so the doctor does a 360 with the thing.

Everyone is looking pretty bored, especially me.

After about a half hour of this, the doctor removes the dilator and PUTS HIS ENTIRE HAND UP MY ASS. This is the best part of the video. If you have had a few drinks and squint a little it looks for a moment like some kind of bizarre bondage/fisting film.

A satisfied nod and the nurses move in for the clean up. Someone has the presence of mind to wipe the manually ejaculated fluid off of my belly. Someone swabs the shit and blood from my ass.

I get another syringe of something in my arm. The mask comes off my face. A nurse shakes me gently and my eyes flutter open. "Is it over?" I ask with wondrous shining eyes. Lots of nods around the room. "I dreamed" I say. "Wow, I feel fine!"

End of video.

They wheel me into the recovery room where I try to sit up. I carefully reach down in a cautious exploration of my asshole. It is confounded with a giant tampon like stuffing. "Uh oh" I think to myself and try to ignore it. It's only later when they pull the stuffing out do I realize the full extent of what's happened.

The next day, I took the first effortless shit that I had in sometime. Oh joy! Oh nirvana.

After the surgery, Bob was still his usual self. In fact, he was more terrible than usual. He had expected sudden death and when he awoke, believing that he had survived a professional ass (hehe) ass (hehe) ination attempt, he was even more pissed off and motivated than before. He had felt betrayed, and had amused himself for the first several days by visiting a torturous itching upon me, his host.

The hard part about his slow strangulation is that I can feel him dying. He groans and complains like any other terminal patient. I must take him with me wherever I go. We are like the Siamese twins Chang and Eng. Can I survive without my symbiotic buddy?

Well, at least fire and blood won't shoot out of my ass every time that I try to pop a stubborn grogan. I will no longer know the joys of crying real tears when I shit. For a long time I was told that painful elimination was unnatural. Now, I truly understand.

Now, two weeks later, Bob is only a faint echo of his former self. He is still hanging onto life, but only just. He is still there, an ugly slash of an anal fissure. But there is just the occasional itch, and even that is fading rapidly.

And oh yes ... my butthole has sprung back to a more manageable size. Your asshole really is an incredible machine.

I had a small dinner party on Christmas day. After dinner I put on the video. It took about twenty minutes before anyone realized that it was me. I guess they thought it was Nova or something. Ho Ho Ho.

Thank you for your interest in my anal fissure Bob.

-Joe
 
A Study in Scarlet, cont'd.

CHAPTER IV.
WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.


It was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.

“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all that is to be learned.”

“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”

“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word for that—it follows that it must have been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”

“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s height?”

“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”

“And his age?” I asked.

“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”

“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.

“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flakey—such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”

“And the florid face?” I asked.

“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”

I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”

My companion smiled approvingly.

“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent-leathers and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible—arm-in-arm, in all probability. When they got inside they walked up and down the room—or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”

This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand. “That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”

Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom