As holiday jobs went, this wasn't a bad one, I'd thought. Winslow Estate was a decrepit Victorian mansion, but as night watchman all I had to do was be there to deter burglars, and to give the two main downstairs rooms a quick going-over with the broom. It was easy money: the sweeping only took twenty minutes, so I spent the rest of the time in the armchair by the roaring fire studying for my maths degree, and enjoying the occasional small glass of the surprisingly nice port from the crystal decanters.
When I'd got the job, Josie, my girlfriend, had frowned. "Winslow? That old house near the church? You know it's supposed to be haunted?"
"Haunted?"
"Yeah."
I'd laughed. "Well, if they know about number theory, they can help me."
I'd been working there all week and so far ghosts had been conspicuously absent. The owners were away for the holiday, and tomorrow was Christmas Eve. At eight o'clock in the morning I'd be finished and I planned to have a quiet time at home.
There was nobody around for miles in any direction so, like I usually did, I stripped down to my boxers in the warm, comfortable room. Through the huge windows snow was falling softly outside. The mansion itself may be in bad shape but the extensive grounds were quite lovely, and everything looked even more wonderful in its blanket of white. I took a sip of port, returned to the armchair, and contemplated my textbook again.
For instance, in 1970, it was proven, as a solution to Hilbert's Tenth Problem, that there is no Turing Machine which can solve all Diophantine equations. In particular, this means that, given a computably enumerable set of axioms, there are Diophantine equations for which there is no proof - >
My head jerked up sharply – some movement had caught my eye. I looked around but nothing seemed to be amiss in the room. I put the book down and went to the window again. No footprints in the snow outside, nothing. A passing bat, perhaps. Oh well. Back in the chair I picked the book up.
There is a large and venerable grandfather clock in the hallway – it's an erratic old thing and the sound of chiming bells wafts through the place at more or less random intervals – but in one regard it is quite reliable: the clanks and small explosions that issue from it at midnight. It was doing this now, so I knew the time exactly when it happened again and I knew that I'd definitely seen movement in my peripheral vision. I frowned, replaced the textbook on the arm of the chair and stood up.
I was looking directly at it this time. Something moved across the right-hand window. It was gone before I could make out what it was, but then the glass slowly began to cloud over – and images appeared on the surface.
I stared. This was not possible. I was a great believer in the laws of physics and they did not permit this sort of thing. But the images were there. Was I asleep? Dreaming? I pinched myself hard – and let out a grunt. That had hurt. I was not dreaming.
It took me a while to make any sense of what I was seeing, but the scene in the window was now in colour and three dimensions. Eventually I realised what I was looking at: it was a dungeon of some kind – a bare, stone-walled room, in the middle of which a naked guy was restrained, his arms spread-eagled between ceiling chains. He was kneeling on a small black-covered bench, straps around his ankles keeping his feet there. He didn't look happy.
Then a second figure entered, and I gasped. Twenties, black hair – and facially, he was the spitting image of me . Yes, he was a bit taller and better built than I am, and had a goatee beard, but other than that it was like looking in a mirror. He was bare-chested, wearing what appeared to be heavy leather breeches, with boots over them, and black leather gloves.
There was no sound, but I watched transfixed as he stood facing the restrained guy, smiled slowly, and said something. A look of horror appeared on the victim's face and he started to shake his head violently.
I could see the other guy laugh. Even without sound I knew it was not a pleasant laugh.
The victim's cock was soft between his legs, but after a couple of minutes' work by the gloved hands, it began to harden. Once he'd got it fully erect the guy began to stroke it. The victim was still shaking his head, but now his hips were thrusting slightly. This thrusting became more urgent until, after a couple more minutes – and clearly against his will – he came.
The me-lookalike immediately spread the spunk over his gloved hands, then jammed his fingers into the guy's armpits.
The victim threw back his head and screeched hysterically.
What the fuck was this? My mouth slowly opened wider as I watched the leather guy's hands move from the armpits to the ribs, the stiff fingers digging in mercilessly. If the armpit tickling had been unbearable, the lower the hands went, the worse it got – and when they started on his sides it was clear that the victim was screaming frantically.
What I was watching was torture, plain and simple – and yet there was something compelling about it – I couldn't look away. The fact that the guy had made the victim cum immediately before he had started to tickle torture him told me that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he had a devious, cunning mind, and that it was not the first time he'd done this. With a sudden rush of guilt I realised that I had a raging hard-on.
The guy walked around behind the victim, peeling his leather gloves off. He knelt down and started to work on the guy's feet, scratching his long, sharp fingernails over the bare soles. This appeared to be the worst yet – the victim was struggling and writhing and thrashing about in his restraints and screaming himself hoarse.
After a time the torturer made the victim cum for a second time and started on him again. This appeared to be even worse. He worked on his armpits, his ribs, sides, thighs, knees, feet – and from the sadistic expressions on his face he seemed to be gleefully feeding off every moment of the man's unbearable suffering.
I wondered what it felt like to get off so much on doing that to someone – and I also shuddered as I wondered what it felt like to have that done to you. While you were helpless, couldn't get away from it, couldn't stop it, couldn't control it. And if, like I was, you were horrendously ticklish to start with...
I have no idea how long I stood there watching this, but there came a time when the images faded, the window whitened again, and then slowly cleared as if nothing had happened at all.
I stood there, dazed and unbelievably horny. I knew I shouldn't have felt horny watching that, but fucking hell, I did. My hand was on its way to get my cock out when I felt a slight draught of air on the back of my neck.
I whipped around and almost had a heart attack – I was face to face with the guy who had been the victim in the images. He raised a hand and blew some dust into my face. I choked on it for a moment, and then I could no longer move my body.
"Barwick. Mortimer Barwick."
I shook my head, my eyes staring. "What? No!" I yelled. "I'm not him! I'm Jamie Barwick." Mortimer had been my great-grandfather. "I'm not him!"
The guy seemed not to hear. "Mortimer Barwick," he said slowly, relishing every word. "You kept me in that cellar for a twelve-month. And every one of those days you tormented me like the very devil himself." Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth. "I have waited for this for so, so long, Mortimer Barwick. And now you shall suffer as you made me suffer…"
With sharp fingernails he tore my boxers off me – and then his hands reached for my cock.
I could do nothing about it. Slowly, it got harder and harder…