After she stopped reading, Alice had a sudden idea. She decided to put the things back in the room, and surprise Gerald with it, after she had cleaned everything up. She decided that if things were not in good working order, she could always admit trying to prepare a surprise for him. But if they were in good shape, and she could clean them, THAT surprise would be really stunning.

Several days after finding the room, Alice was tearing salad greens and chopping vegetables when the phone rang. She dried her hands as she looked at the caller ID on her phone. MON CHERI AU TRAVAIL it said. She picked it up, and had a quick impulse to tell Gerry she had a surprise waiting for him, but stifled it.

“Hi Honey!” she said brightly.

“Hi, Honey,” Carla said. “Does this mean you’re finally gonna let me into your pants?”

“Oh, hi, Carla,” Alice replied. “Maybe someday, but right now, I’m taken. I saw the caller ID, and thought it was Gerry calling.”

Carla laughed, “It’s ok, Dear. Once I spend a night with you, Gerald will probably get me booted out of the partnership, because I’ll ruin you for him. You’ll never go back to men. But that isn’t really why I called. Gerald is with a client, and is leaving as soon as they are finished. He asked me to give you a buzz to see, as he put it, ‘what flavor grape juice’ you’d like with dinner.”

Alice laughed, and said, “Oh. We’re having roast beast. Ask him to pick up a big, jammy cab or something similar.”

“Roast beas … oh, roast BEEF! You guys are a sketch, “ Carla laughed. “Okey doke, I’ll tell him.”

“Oh, and tell him to get two bottles, instead of the usual one,” Alice added, almost as an afterthought.

“Two bottles, huh? On a Wednesday night? Sounds to me like someone’s gonna get lucky.”

Alice laughed, and said, ”Hey, listen. I know you can keep a secret. And I know Gerry follows the eleventh commandment when it comes to his, doctor, his attorney, and his secretary, and I just HAVE to … ”

“Eleventh commandment?” Carla interrupted, “What’s that?”

“Never keep secrets from them, or lie to them,” Alice went on. “So I imagine he told you all about his Aunt Sarah?”

“Oh, yes! He regaled me with the whole tale this morning. I must say, she sounds like my kind of woman. Well, except for the business with her husband. I prefer females, and the occasional nice guy, but that guy sounds like a total slime ball, to me.”

“Yeah,” Alice replied, Gerry and I thought so, too, “But here’s the good part. I found a hidden room in the basement, and I think that must be where she was talking about. And, get this! I found a notebook that I think she kept, and I think that guy was not her husband. I think he was her FATHER! And I think her boy friend KILLED him!”

“Alice, honey, you have way too much time on your hands. Spending your days rattling around in that big old house has your imagination running overtime. Oh, I don’t doubt you found the room, but working in criminal law, I have seen enough police records and procedures to know people don’t get away with murdering people with whom they are closely associated. The police always figure them out and catch them. Even in the eighteen hundreds, there were very few people who got away with killing close acquaintences or relatives.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Alice mused. “Maybe I DO have too much time. Actually, just the other day I was toying with the notion of seeing if I could land an accounting position with a small business. Maybe I really should get off my fat ass, and give it a try.”

“Your ass is not fat. It is pleasingly plump, and I’d like to spank and then lick it someday. Meanwhile, though, I guess I’ll have to settle for dreaming. What was that song by Mama Cass? ‘But I can dream, can’t I?’ Oh, well, if you ever decide you need a female attorney for, um, ANYthing, you know where to call. I’ll tell Gerald, Big House Red.”

“That stuff really was good that time, and so was the Tractor Shed, and what was that stuff with the rooster? Oh yeah, Rex Goliath. Too bad all those labels were bought out by the big wine houses, and went downhill. Take care, Carla.”

“You, too, Alice. Have fun tonight. Be sure to do something I probably wouldn’t. Bye, bye.”

After she broke the connection, Alice stood there, with her phone in her hand. She had a sudden flash of herself in the pillory, being flogged while she watched the voluptuous Carla strapped to the table with her breasts caught and pulled up in the suction cups, and the fucking machine pounding away . The vision was so intense, she could almost hear both hers and Carla’s screams of ecstasy. And she could hear Gerald’s maniacal laughter, as he operated the valves in time with the strains of Minuet In G. Oh, goodness, she thought, I really DO have too much time on my hands.

……………………………………..

“Hi, Honey! I’m home!” came the cheery call as Alice heard the front door close.

“In the kitchen,” she called back.

The first thing Gerald saw as he set his briefcase down, were the two notebooks lying on the table, side by side. “What’s this?” He asked Alice.

“A light bulb,” she replied over her shoulder, as she removed the roast from the oven.

“I SEE that, Smartass,” Gerald replied. “But I meant the other.”

“A notebook,” Alice said, nonchalantly.

Gerald was beginning to get a little irked. He had had a long day at the office, and was in no mood for fun and games. “I SEE it’s a notebook,” he replied, seriously. “Where did it come from?”

Alice, hearing the tone in his voice, quickly set the roast on the counter, and removed her oven mitts. Crossing to Gerald, she wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a short kiss. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I sometimes forget you have a harder day than I. Welcome home, Honey. Sit down while I pour the wine, and I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”

Gerald, realizing he was starting to take his day out on Alice said, in a gentler tone, “Do you mind if I remove my jacket? A gentleman always asks a lady before he exposes himself in his shirt sleeves.”

Alice smiled, and said, “Of course, Dear. Please make yourself comfortable.”

“Of course? You mind? Or did you mean to say …”

“Oh take off your clothes and get comfortable, “ Alice laughed.

“ALL of them?” Gerald asked in mock horror.

“Yes,” Alice grinned, “And stand up and put your cock on the plate so I can slather it with gravy, and lick it off.” She set the food on the table, and started to slice the meat, placing several slabs on each of their plates.

Gerald, visibly relaxing, took a sip of wine, and said, “Oh my. We are naughty today, aren’t we? Speaking of which, Carla really has the hots for you. When she got off the phone, I swear, I could see a damp spot in the crotch of her oh-so-severe pants suit.”

Alice held up her finger, indicating she wanted to say something, as soon as she finished chewing what was in her mouth. “She told me again today, that she really wants to get into my pants.”

“Well, Honey, what do YOU want?” Gerald asked. “I mean, she probably knows things about female anatomy that I never will, so if you’d like to … well, you know. I really wouldn’t mind.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure it wouldn’t make you feel jealous, or inadequate, or somehow less important to me? I love you, you know.”

“No, of course not, Silly. Jealousy and those things are for people who are unsure of themselves and their ability as PEOPLE. I know she can probably do things for you that I never could, just as I can probably do things for you that SHE never could. We’re built differently.”

“Yes, and vive le difference!” Alice laughed.

“And I love you, too. So if you’d like to have a romp … no, that sounds crass. If you’d like to have some time with her, I’d be happy to go play a round or two of golf, or something. Or, for that matter, I could take a weekend, and go fishing.”

“Well, before we decide to do anything rash, pour us another glass of wine, and come with me,” Alice said, standing.

“Where are we going?” Gerald asked, curiously.

“You’ll see,” was the cryptic answer.

Taking Gerald’s hand, she led him to the basement stairway. “You go first, so you can catch me if the wine I’ve had makes me trip on the stairs,” Alice said.

“Oh fine,” Gerald replied, as he started down the stairs, “and we can both wind up in a heap at the bottom. We’ll be like those old people in the advertisement: Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

“You silly old fart,” Alice laughed. “While we’re at it, let’s get ourselves a clapper.”

Gerald laughed too, then. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Gerald turned around, looking at the room. “Well,” he said, “this will make a great wine cellar.”

“So it will, but that’s not why I brought you down here. Go push on the wall beneath the stairs.”

Gerald looked at her quizzically, but crossed the room and did as he was told. The wall gave way with a creak, and Gerald said, “Inner Sanctum! We have our very own inner sanc … Holy shit! It’s the room!”

As he was opening the door, Alice had reached her hand around past him, and pressed the light switch. She had spent the npast three days cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, and oiling. Everything in the room was spotless. She had even tried out the machinery, to see if it all worked, and finding it to be in good order, put some Armor All on a cloth and wiped down all the rubber parts, so everything in the room gleamed as if it was brand new. She had decided not to switch out the antique bulbs; she felt they lent a sort of gothic feel and added to the ambiance. She remembered a trick her father had told her about when starting up antique radios. “Make a plug socket, with a light socket in series. Control the available voltage to the plug socket by putting a low wattage bulb in the light socket.” So, having dug around in the carriage house, and come up with the parts, Alice had done essentially that. She had put a twenty-five watt bulb in series with the rest the bulbs in the room, and the glow of the lights was bright enough to see by, but not blindingly so. Alice rightly reasoned that the antique bulbs would last much longer, running on reduced voltage.

“I’d rather you stayed here while Carla and I played,” she said. “and then, afterward, we could come down here and keep you company.”

Gerald felt himself expanding at the thought of being bound and forced to wait in the basement, while his wife and Carla were doing things he could only imagine upstairs.

Alice looked at Gerald’s crotch, and saw that the idea was turning him on, so she continued. “I was thinking it would be really easy to set up a mini cam, so that you could see and hear all that Carla and I did. I talked to her yesterday about it, and she said she thought it would be great fun. Of, course, I think she’d agree to sodomy on Sunday, if she thought it would give her a chance to do me. So, tentatively, Carla and I were thinking about this weekend. What do you think?”

“I don’t know if I could stand watching and hearing you while being bound and unable to join in. Would it be possible to give me a remote control, that I could use to turn it off, if it proved to be too much?”

“I thought about how I’d feel if it were you and another man, and I suspected you might feel that way. The unit I ordered on line has a remote control that can turn the camera in three axes, zoom in and out with automatic focus, change the light for optimum viewing, change the sound volume, and can mute or turn the entire unit off or on. The flat screen is large enough that, with the optional Fresnel lens, at normal focus, everything appears life-sized. Also, every function on the remote can be controlled with pressing one of a series of buttons, so it can be operated one-handed, or, as I had in mind, by you pressing the buttons with a soda straw held in your mouth. That way, I can strap your hands, so that you cannot masturbate while you are watching us.” Alice grinned mischievously and went on, “I wouldn’t want to come down here to keep you company, only to find you had nothing left for me.”

“Alice, Honey, you are a true minx, I swear it.”

“Now that you’ve seen the room, “ Alice said, “let’s take our wine up to bed, and I’ll show you the notebook I found in that desk over there.” She waved her arm in the general direction of the desk, spilling a little of her wine on the floor, “Whoops! I think I’m a little giddy.”

“No, Dear,” Gerald corrected her, “you’re a LOT giddy.

Next thing I know, you’ll be trying to jump my bones, and then pass out.”

“Well, le’s go upstairs, an’ you can fuck me, that ish, prove… um..prov… um… if I can make it.”

“Tell you what, Dear. Since my glass is empty, and yours is, too, now, why don’t you carry the glasses, and I’ll carry you.”

“Oh how rome-tick. Whoops! I mean roMANtic. You can carry me over the thresher..um thresh… um you know, through the door.”

Oh Lord, thought Gerald. She really is trashed. Oh well. I guess I’m not getting any tonight. He grinned wryly to himself. He picked her up in his arms, and she started trying to talk again, but was so incoherent, that Gerald couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying. He took her straight up to the bedroom, and laid her on the bed. By the time they got there, she was completely passed out, so he gently undressed her, and pulled the covers over her. He bent over then, and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Miss Silliness,” he whispered.

“M-m-mm. g’night,” Alice mumbled.

Gerald went back down to the kitchen, and cleaned up the dinner table. After he finished washing the dishes, and stacking them in the drain, he poured himself the last of the second bottle of wine, and picking up both notebooks, he went upstairs. He undressed, and sat up in bed, reading.

…………………………………………

Carla called them Saturday morning, asking if they minded terribly putting off the festivities until Sunday, as she had just gotten a phone call from her brother. He had gotten an assignment that entailed traveling, but was going to have a six-hour layover in town, and she really wanted to go see him.

Gerald and Alice were slightly disappointed, but told her they understood, and would see her on the morrow. Gerald decided to spend the day doing a little detective work. He had read both notebooks completely through, and was convinced of several things, but wanted to see some real evidence.

Alice decided to spend her found time reading the notebooks, and possibly enjoying a little “personal time”, as she put it.

“You mean you are going to go lock yourself in your room and masturbate,” Gerald said, laughing.

“Not at all,” Alice giggled. “I’m not going to lock the door.”

When he got to the carriage house, the first thing Gerald did, was open both doors all the way back on their hinges, to get as much light on the subject as possible. Then, with a strong magnifying lens, he inspected the leather traces minutely. He paid special attention to the torn edges, where they had broken, and at one point, gave a sort of satisfied “harrumph” to himself. Next, he began inspecting the carriage axles and wheels with the magnifying glass, but he found nothing that seemed untoward.

Turning his attention to the undercarriage, he crawled beneath, and closely inspected the fifth wheel and king bolt. He paid special attention to the fuchel and backstays, knowing that keeping the body properly centered over the axles is crucial to weight transfer when braking, but he found nothing untoward.

As he was crawling out from under the carriage, and standing up, he reached up and grasped the upper rim for support. His grip just happened to fall across one brake shoe, and he was surprised to find it quite soft and pliable. The tires, being also made of rubber, were quite hard, and had severe dry rot cracks in them. He would have expected to find the same in the brake shoes. How odd, he thought. Putting a fingernail against the side of one brake shoe, he found the rubber so soft that he was easily able to pierce it with his fingernail. Why would the tires have hardened and cracked from dry rot, and the brake shoes gone soft? He wondered. Thinking he was definitely onto something, he purposefully strode toward the house.

…………………………………..

While Gerald was out in the carriage house, Alice took off her clothing and laid on her back on the bed. She idly began lightly running her fingers all over her body, from her shoulders to as far down her legs as she could reach, without sitting up. She imagined how it was going to feel on Sunday, when Carla did that for her, and she felt her nipples begin to harden.

Spreading her legs, she lightly ran her fingers down the inside of her thighs, and played with the soft spots at the back of her knees. Her breath began to quicken as she thought about Carla putting her hands on her that way, and then gently making soft kisses along her inner thighs. Alice’s breath was becoming deeper, and she slowly traced her fingertips up to her under bust.

Cupping her breasts with both hands, she raised her thumbs and touched her aureolae. She gasped as one thumb inadvertently brushed the underside of her nipple. She used her thumb to circle it then, while with her other hand, she gently stroked her outer lips. Straightening the fingers of her hand in her crotch, she pressed her outer lips hard toward her pelvis, and felt the heat and moisture beginning to flow. She took one finger, and slowly slid it between her lips, gently stroking up and down, and felt herself becoming wetter.

Placing her other hand on her vulva, she brought the now very wet finger to her mouth, and slowly sucked her own juice from it. She was breathing more heavily, and, using the tip of her forefinger, gently pulled back her hood, exposing her fully engorged clitoris. Holding the hood up with one finger, she placed the wet fingers from her other hand on it at the upper left quadrant, and began gently moving her fingertip up and down.

She could feel her muscles contract with each movement of her fingertip, and she heard someone in the distance, making small moaning sounds. Intellectually, she knew it was she making those sounds, but they seemed to be coming from somewhere outside her body. She could feel the butterflies in her tummy, and inserted two fingers inside herself.

Reaching her sensitive spot, she began moving her fingers inside, in time with the motion of her fingertip along her clitoris. Then she could hold back no more, and furiously began rubbing circles on her clitoris with two fingers. The other two fingers inside her, she just curled and pumped up and down, as if they were a cock thrusting into her.

She felt her tummy clench, then, and cried out as her orgasm overtook her. Three times her tummy clenched, and three times she cried out. Then she fell back on the bed, and lay still. Her fingers were still inside her, and she could feel little aftershocks all through her, from her tummy to her toes.

As her breathing returned to normal, she opened her eyes, looking at nothing in particular, and smiled.

Rolling onto her side, and propping her head on her hand, she picked up Sarah’s notebook, opened it to the first page, and began reading

“Father brought home a notebook for me today, so that I might keep better track of the days. He says if I write in it each day, knowing the date on which I started it, I should be easily able to tell what the date or day of the week is. He has removed all the calendars in the house. I was surprised he didn’t take the clocks, too, but he says they need to be here, so I know when to start his dinner. I am glad he has left them; I like to hear them all go off at noon. It is a cacophonous sound, like what I suppose might be the sound of the coming of the apocalypse, but I find it lands solidarity to my days. I say to myself, ‘morning is over; now begins the long afternoon wait, till he gets home from work.’

I am not allowed to indulge in any pleasures without his permission; he says that too many pleasures rot the mind, and make one dependent on them. But sometimes, I get to thinking about what we had done the evening before, and I am unable to keep my hands from myself.”

Oh, my God , thought Alice. Daniel Etheridge was her FATHER! Having built up a slight feeling of kinship with Sarah, Alice felt suddenly sickened. She skipped forward in the notebook, past the part she had previously read about Sarah and Ellen. With a sinking feeling, she read a later entry.

“It has happened, just as I knew it was bound to, sooner or later. Father has made Ellen pregnant, and she has agreed to marry him. I am hurt and angry, and told her so, but she just turned her back on me and walked out of the room. Of course, I shall have to go to the wedding, or there will be talk, but I told Adoule, after the wedding, I want nothing to do with either of them ever again. Oh I suppose her child might come to visit occasionally, but only after he or she is old enough to stay on his or her own. After all, it will be my half-sibling.

I shall threaten father that if he does not move out and give me title to this house and all that is in it, I shall tell everyone what he has done.

Adoule is angry. He has long felt that Father was taking advantage of his controlling position in this house. He told me that day after the first humiliation that he hated Father.

Oh, I was humiliated watching Father have his way with Ellen, and her enjoying it so, but Adoule did feel good in me. He is larger than Father, and makes me feel so full. And he is so much gentler. He always makes certain I am ready for him, before he tries to enter me. And I have been able to make him understand that I like being controlled, especially during the act. Those times Father has left us alone while he was having his dalliances with Ellen, Adoule has sometimes shown a willingness to tie me up, to my distinct pleasure.”

…………………………………………….

On reaching the house, Gerald immediately went to the telephone. As he waited for his brother to answer, he heard Alice cry out in her orgasm, and began once more to harden. “Hey, Ron,” he said, “Gerry. I have a quick question for you. What chemical that would have been readily available in the early nineteen hundreds would, with time deteriorate rubber and make it super soft and gummy?”

Ronald, who was really Ronald Nesbitt, Junior, and only Gerald’s step-brother, was silent for a moment. “Lemme see,” he said, after a bit, “rubber today is not really rubber, usually. It is usually neoprene, or something of that sort, unless you ‘re talking about latex gloves or condoms. Any petroleum product is pretty hard on latex, and so are some sulphur-based chemicals.”

“What would not have been readily detectable in, say , 1910?”

“What are you getting at? Are you planning something nefarious?”

Gerald laughed, and said, “No, but I think someone did that back in the early 1900’s. You know that old Brewster carriage out back?”

Ronald, who had looked it over several times since his parents inherited it, said, “Sure. I was the one who told Dad and Martha to hang onto it; that Brewster-bodied carriages were valuable. What about it?”

“The tires are dry-rotted, but the brake pads are soft as chewing gum. That’s what about it,” Gerald replied.

“Oh,” Ronald said. “Well, I’d put my money on petroleum products. If I wanted to mess up someone’s brakes, I’d reach for the grease can. HEY! How are the pads held on? If there’s a bolt holding them, or even rivets, they’d be counter bored into the rubber, so as not to rub on the tire. Those counter bores would be ideal places to hide grease. It would be a pain in the ass to do, though. You’d have to take the wheel off, stuff the hole, or holes, with grease, then put the wheel back on, and that means having to re-grease the bearings, and adjust them, too. And you’d have to have a replacement split pin for the castle nut, too.”

“Oh the person whom I suspect was a pretty mechanical guy; that wouldn’t have fazed him. Thanks. Are we still on for golf next weekend? I want a chance to win back my fifty bucks.”

Ronald laughed, “You bet. I need another fifty so I can buy the paint to shoot that raggedy-assed car of mine. See you, Man. Take care.”

……………………………………………

The following day, Carla arrived right on schedule. Alice and Carla played together for several hours, while Gerald watched from his not-terribly comfortable position on the table. It was so intense, at one point, he was dripping fluid from his cock onto his stomach so profusely, that it ran down his side, and tickled. But he left the camera on, and even managed to activate the record function.

Carla enjoyed the basement tremendously.

Several weeks later (after he paid his brother another fifty dollars) Alice and Gerald suggested she move in with them.

That was over thirty years ago, and still an occasional passer-by on the sidewalk hears the strains of Minuet In G being played on a piano.