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[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]
John had very few patients by this time in his career, but two from that cold and bitter autumn left him more affected that usual. People forget that doctors are after all human and that the battle to save the lives of their patients oftentimes leaves them emotionally as well as physically drained.The first event happened shortly after our return from Norfolk and involved my dear friend Benji, or as John called him 'that leering fellow'. Benji was certainly prodigious; in the last week of the previous year his wife Sarah had given birth to twin girls and now she was pregnant again with what would be their nineteenth - nineteenth! - child. I knew that my brother Luke, in between moaning about how Benji's half-brother Sandy would not let an old man get a moment's rest, had helped the family financially especially after he had become godson to his namesake and Benji's sixteenth child Luke three years back. I had helped Benji's eldest son and namesake get onto the teaching course that he had been after. John of course had provided free medical treatment to them all and that particular day he was called round to Sarah who had gone into labour some two weeks before her due day. Fortunately he was able to safely deliver of a son whom they called Stafford (Sarah's maiden name) although I know that the fight to save both mother and child took a lot out of my love. John had barely a dozen regular patients at this time and he still helped out at his old surgery at busy times, although I had had to covertly have a Word with the managers there who, I had come to suspect, were having rather too many 'busy times' in which they needed their most renowned doctor. The calls had slackened off after that but two weeks after what was to be the last of the Jackson-Gileses was soothed into the world, my love had been involved in another difficult birth and this time he had lost the mother and, despite his best efforts, her baby too. Such things affected even a professional like him – I knew how much because he would always come home and give me the sort of look that said he wanted nothing more than some of the manly embracing thing that I liked and he sort of tolerated. And if we spent the evening with my shorter form resting naked on the top of his taller one while we dozed and talked in front of the fire, well, why not? We were not young any more and we had done more than enough to deserve some time to ourselves.What did concern me however was that John did not seem to snap out of his 'funk' as he called it, and we rarely coupled in the weeks after his calamity. I started to grow anxious about him – and I was not the only one.
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I was more than a little suspicious when, only moments after my love had been called out to one of the boys at Mr. Godfreyson's molly-house, John's least favourite Cornish ex-fisherman just happened to call by. Lowen clearly saw my cynicism and nodded as he sat down.“You know that my brother Blaze came up to London yesterday?” he said.“Yes”, I smiled. “It was very good of him and Rachael to visit Mother, although perhaps not the best timing as she had just finished one of her stories. The one about the tug-of-war team.”“That does not sound too bad”, he said.“Luke told me just where they tied the ropes”, I sighed. “I am not speaking to him as a result. And I may also have passed on some of your ideas to Sandy, so it will serve my brother right if he is unable to walk in the next few days as a result!”He chuckled at that.“Blaze also called in on me and Philip”, he said. “He said that he had met Doctor Watson coming out of the house from his cab and that he looked very miserable. Has something happened?”“He lost a patient”, I explained. “Worse, a mother and her newborn daughter, and he had thought he was close to saving the girl.”Lowen nodded.“I asked around the boys”, he said, “and a couple of them also said he had been down when he tended to them, although he did not tell them why. I have an idea that may help.”“What is it?” I asked.“As well as the fiery Blaze I also have a much younger sister, Mona”, he said. “She stayed in Cornwall and married a Mr. James Penmarrick, a bit of a dolt but a decent enough fellow for a lawyer. They both live in Penwith.”“Where is that?” I asked.“It is the area around and beyond Penzance, up to the famous Land's End”, he said. “Her eldest son, my nephew Day, lives in Mousehole some miles south of Penzance and he is in this campaign group about the new omnibus service that the Great Western Railway is starting up.”I blinked at that.“Your nephew is called Day>?” “Another Cornish name”, he said. “There is a village called St. Day up near Camborne. You see, the railway company did consider extending the main line but is instead starting an omnibus service between Marazion, which lies east of Penzance, and Newlyn which lies a few miles north of Mousehole.”“And the people of Mousehole wish the bus service to be extended to them?” I asked. To my surprise he shook his head.“They most definitely do not”, he said. “Not just because there has always been a rivalry between the two villages, but because they think their part of the world would lose its unique character. No-one really passes through Mousehole on the road to anywhere, but better transport links to the outside world would surely draw people away, as we have see elsewhere. And then there is the history; Marazion and Mousehole used to be the to chief ports before Penzance rose to prominence in Stuart times. Old enmities die hard in the country, as I am sure you have seen in your travels.”That was true, I thought.“How might this help me with John?” I asked, He grinned devilishly.“Day lives in a small cottage just beyond the southern edge of the village”, he smiled. “And we all know how the dear doctor is always worried about his age, especially just now when he is in his fifties while the man that he loves is not. So this is what I suggest....”
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Hence a few days later John and I decamped to Paddington Station for the long journey all the way to Penzance at the furthest point west of God's Wonderful Railway; a certain green-eyed someone had once very unfairly suggested that I liked this company because they clearly shared my utter lack of modesty! Normally a long train journey anywhere in England (and sometimes even a short one) would have been cause for the sort of activities which would have had a certain English city doctor staggering out of his compartment at the end of his journey in need of a lie-down, but I did not suggest such a thing just now. Instead he just leaned into me and we relaxed as the train set off.“You have not told me anything about the case yet”, he pointed out.This was going to be interesting. I braced myself.“Lowen has asked me to help out a family member”, I said carefully.He tensed up at once and looked sharply at me.“Not Blaze?” he said warily. Like me he had a high regard for the silent behemoth who had married the lady unfortunate enough to have had my brother Mycroft as her first husband, a mistake that Blaze and I had eventually managed to help her remedy. I shook my head.“His and Lowen's nephew who goes by the unusual name of Mr. Day Penmarrick”, I said. “He works as a fisherman in the Cornish port of Mousehole some miles south of Penzance, and people there are concerned that the new Great Western omnibus service linking nearby Paul to the town might be extended to them.”“New transport links do not bring only benefits”, John agreed. “Remember Stevedon? They did all right despite having no station of their own.”“And now we have somewhere else that does not want to join the modern world”, I smiled. “One cannot turn back the tide of technological progress, but perhaps one can divert it for a while. Let us see what we can do.”John suddenly got something.“I did not see Mr. Trevelyan come round”, he said suspiciously.“You just missed him when you went out to treat Stewart and Ned”, I said.He clearly put two and two together there and wondered if he had been gotten out of the way for a visit from his least favourite Cornish ex-fisherman (he almost certainly had been). My love nestled back into my side and wrapped an arm around me. I really should get round to mentioning that the Cornish ex-fisherman had been in a steady relationship with Philip at the house for some years now, so John had no need to be jealous at all.I looked at John's green eyes now dark with jealousy and decided that I would indeed get round to it. Some day.
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On arriving at Penzance we went out onto the station forecourt to find two horse-drawn 'buses waiting for us. Steam-powered vehicles were coming into use at that time but they were still slow and unreliable, and doubtless the Great Western Railway was waiting to see if the route paid before indulging in that sort of expenditure. We got on board the Newlyn omnibus which was almost empty; the Marazion one was about one-quarter full.“Did we not pass through a station at Marazion?” John wondered.“Yes”, I said, “but it is a couple of miles from the centre of the village. You know what station names are like, often miles from the places that they purport to serve. And the service probably also provides for those who need to come into Penzance and shop; even with one horse-power it is better than walking especially if one is to be returning with bags of shopping.”It was almost dark on that cold November day and John moved instinctively closer to me.“I do not think there is much danger of this service being extended on to Mousehole if they can only get four passengers including us off the London express”, I said, “But we have some time here to monitor things so we shall see if the numbers improve.”He nodded and contrived to move even closer to me. I smiled.
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Mr. Penmarrick's cottage was ideally placed, within easy walking distance of the village along a coast path and yet set on a small headland with a screen of trees that gave it privacy (he had very obligingly moved into rooms at the local tavern where he was dating the landlord's daughter). The following day we walked down to the village to meet the first omnibus of the day, and saw an unimpressive one passenger alight. At least there was a one hundred per cent increase in the number of people going the other way.“I told Lowen that I would give a letter from him to his nephew”, I said. “He has a boat here so we shall have to ask which one.”John did not pout at the mention of the fellow's name but followed me as we went into a small quayside office and asked after Mr. Day Penmarrick. We were fortunate; he was undertaking some repairs to his boat, the 'Saucy Jane', and we were told it was black with a double white stripe along the side. It proved easy to find, as did Mr. Penmarrick.I had not thought to ask Lowen for a physical description of his nephew, but as it turned out I had not needed to. A quarter of a century since John and I had walked along another Cornish harbour in rather more unpleasant circumstances (Hugh Town in The Adventure of the Repellent Philanthropist), and young Mr. Penmarrick was the image of his uncle from back then. A wiry fellow whose hair was almost as blond-white as his relative's but could not have been more than twenty summers, he greeted us affably enough and thanked me for bringing him the letter. And he leered at me just like Lowen had done all those years ago, again to the clear annoyance of someone in the vicinity who seemed to have developed a sudden cough.John's annoyance only increased when Day discovered that I could speak Cornish and we conversed in that ancient tongue. The fact he kept looking at my beloved while doing this probably accounted for the increasingly unhappy growling I could hear, and when he reached over to pat me on the shoulder John visibly seethed. “I do not know why we came down here!” he grumbled as we relaxed after a pleasant meal at a quayside tavern. “Especially with another damn leering fisherman on hand.”“He offered to take me out on his boat tomorrow”, I said idly, silently enjoying the murderous look that that remark elicited. “I would not of course ask you to come; we know how easily you get sea-sick. And he said he would show me how to land a big catch.”I might well be investigating my own murder from beyond the grave from the look he was giving me just now.“I did bring a few of our playthings down from London just in case you did feel in the mood”, I said casually, “but maybe some quiet time would suit us just now. Besides, if the weather is really good then Day and I can.....”He rose sharply to his feet.“Cottage!” he snarled. “Now!”I feigned surprise, quickly finished my drink and hurried away with him in hot pursuit. Success!
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We returned (raced back) to the house on a Tuesday; I had provisionally reserved a first-class compartment back to London a week thence. I was sure that we might find some way to fill the time – and that first Tuesday John filled me repeatedly! One of the things he did when he was jealous (and that I loved) was to sleep with his larger form covering mine, as if he was afraid that I might disappear in some way. As if I would ever want to do such a thing.Besides, I was not sure I could walk that much just now!On Wednesday we had sex in every room in the cottage – he should have known better to challenge me to do It in the airing-cupboard – and after dinner we had sex in the stream out the back which was hilarious as John clearly felt the cold but was determined to take me anyway.Late on Thursday he actually fell asleep while impaling me in the bath, which embarrassed him horribly. I could see that he was flagging so while he was using the bathroom I covertly raised the flag on the flagpole outside.Come Friday morning it 'just chanced' that Mr. Day Penmarrick called by – seriously, could he have found a skimpier set of vest and shorts? - and was visibly eager to come into the house to check up on us. Just as John was visibly determined to block his way, even if he had to lean on the doorpost somewhat. And when I remarked how handsome the young fellow looked – it was straight back to the bedroom for me. Via the landing; a little rug-burn was worth his satisfied look as he staked his claim on me once more. The weekend, and on Saturday as on every other day we were naked all day – out of courtesy for our host I had made sure we had had dressing-gowns on the day before – and I baked John a pie, which was nice of me. Especially as I made him wait for sex until it was done. And as if you even have to ask; it did not survive to see the Sabbath. Come to that, barely did I!On Sunday John carried me up and down the stairs while impaling me on his cock, and we spent virtually the whole day with him inside of me. It was wonderful being able to make him come by applying pressure to certain sensitive areas of his that I knew so well, but I did not abuse that knowledge. Much.Monday was spent mostly sleeping, which John wrapped around me still occasionally growling about tolerably passable-looking Cornishmen who wanted what was his. I made sure that I only smirked when I knew he could not see me, but somehow he knew I was doing it anyway, which made him cross. Which.... you get it. So did I.
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On Tuesday morning what was left of me hobbled very slowly back down to the village. Thank the Lord (and Lowen) that the cottage had been fully stocked for our time there; it had saved us precious time and what would have been some painfully long walks to get food. And judging from the look that someone was giving me as we waited for the 'bus, that first-class compartment was going to be well-used. As was I!I managed to slip away from John to use the bathroom in the local tavern, and used that time to slip out the back and meet Day so that I could pay him for his 'services'. And if we strode back in chatting like old friends who had 'just happened' to meet up, the furious look on John's face said that I would be regretting that very soon.As the French say, je ne regrette rien! All the way back to Paddington!
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It was the day after our return to Baker Street that John asked me something.“The omnibus service?” he said.“The Great Western Railway is not that impressed with the Newlyn route”, I said. “They have told me that they will discontinue it if it does not pick up soon.”He looked at me suspiciously.“Just when did they tell you that?” he demanded.“Distraction sex?” I grinned.“I am not that predictable”, he said.“Distraction sex when I will let you eat the slice of pie I bought you off my naked chest while....”He was already racing to our room.Ten months to go.
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Postscriptum: The service to Newlyn did indeed not last long, barely seeing in the new year, although it was replaced by one to St. Just and Land's End The Marazion service was discontinued in 1916, and the Great Western Railway Company divested itself of its omnibus services between 1929 and 1933. And not long after our trip west I may or may not have paid for Mr. Day Penmarrick to come to London to see his brother, and to call in on us 'while he was in the area'. John did not take his visit at all well......
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