‘Transforming Downdraughts’ - A Brief Synopsis

Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Late 19th Century.
Despite the opportunities his hard-earned wealth provides, bachelor Jonathon James Forrest is a tortured man. Orphaned at an early age, abused by his sadistic aunt and an impoverished childhood consisting of arduous tasks in one of the town’s pottery factories, James has dragged himself up from the bottom of the pile to become a manufacturing entrepreneur and one of the town’s richest men in a little over 20 years – but these things fail to provide the contentment he seeks.

After a lifetime of hardship, he is in danger of letting everything he has ever achieved fall to ruin as he struggles to cope with his homosexuality.
In the past, whenever his desires have threatened to spill into his everyday life, he has sated his appetite with a specific type of prostitute; abusing her in such a manner he is forced to use his assets to buy her silence. When his street-woman is unavailable, he takes trips to a certain house in Birmingham where all sense of freedom can be achieved. If neither outlet is obtainable he makes use of alcohol and stimulants to deaden his urges, but no single has provided the means to rid the man of his demons.

At a time when all homosexual deeds were considered illegal, the threat of imprisonment and its subsequent ruination hang heavy over James Forrest’s head, and all will be tested when he meets artist Malcolm Bingham.

Malcolm Bingham ignites a fire in James he cannot control. The factory owner very quickly falls in love with his friend and does all he can to appease a man oblivious to the secret behind such attention. Though neither handsome nor strong, Bingham’s flair is enough to send the industrialist into rapture – and it is this flair that gives birth to a revolution. With the aid of another of his friends, the failed musician Frederick Hammersley, the revolution entitled, ‘Transformationalism: the political movement designed to give art back to the people’ is devised, creating a wedge between James – who sees Hammersley as an opportunist bleeding Bingham dry of his talent – and Malcolm – who believes Frederick to be a misunderstood genius.
An uprising is at hand, and as James struggles with his own confusing emotions, Malcolm’s delusions, and a possible battle with Hammersley for Bingham’s affections, he edges ever closer to professional and personal devastation.

1
Precariously, she perches over the cracked ceramic of the commode’s bowl and pisses away my seed. A steady stream reminiscent of the pouring of my morning’s first beverage reverberates, filling her lake, piercing the muggy summer air. From the waist down, naked skin peeps out from behind the crusty folds of her mangy shirt; a thick bush of black pubic hair casts a low shadow over bare feet; heavy bruises daub her pale legs. Despite this being an everyday effort, she struggles to maintain balance on the floor’s warped timbers and has to use a hand to keep her position. The continuous noise of her torrent removes my mind from the breakfast table and reminds me of my bath at home, the luxurious porcelain tub in which I will later submerge myself in an attempt to exfoliate all memories of this room and her touch.

Reaching over, straining so as not to spill the bedpan’s contents, she grabs at the cloth prepared before our joining. Pulling it from the tepid waters of the washbowl lying beneath the mattress on which I lie, she stabilizes herself before using both hands to squeeze it tight. Milky liquid joins the cocktail of my ejaculation and her piss. Awkwardly, she lifts herself, positioning the cloth under the shirt. The nauseating smell of caustic soap escaping from the water merges with the room’s stench of decay and has me reaching for my coat – it hangs on the bedstead’s iron post where I had placed it before our coupling. Concealed within its silken pockets is the reassuring cotton of my handkerchief and with it, relief from the violation of my senses. Vigorously, she scours herself, rubbing at her point of entry, frenziedly removing any remaining traces of my spending. She scrapes herself methodically, manoeuvring the shirt to check on her progress, ensuring nothing remains whilst inadvertently revealing to me the soaking mass of her dark pubis. Under weak candlelight, the branches of grey I discovered veiled within the mound of her black forest earlier this evening are hidden, providing her with a flush of youth she perhaps does not fairly deserve. The sight is disturbing, sickening in fact and so I turn away, searching the room for something more appealing to focus my attention on.

It is with a weak heart I feel my disappointment.

The peeling flakes of the room’s leper-skin are dying. The blackness of heavy damp and murderous rot smothers everything. Plaster and paper hang limp, pulling themselves away from deformed walls, exposing the ruptured muscle of brickwork beneath. The ceiling is simply a rack of rafters; wooden tongues stretching from wall to wall, swelling away from the metal pins proffering their grip. From the darkness of the room’s distorted corners, black tentacles venture, wrapping their limbs around all they touch, their skin sprouting white furs of mould, caressing the putrefaction with a lover’s touch. Behind her crouching form, a solitary window reveals itself, shamefully parading a timber frame slowly collapsing under the weight of neglect and decay, crushing the yellowing paper stuffed into the holes, separating the broken panes; what glass remains refuses to offer its secrets - the filth it cherishes is too thick to penetrate. Beneath its failing sill, the exposed wood of the floor, splintered and putrid, wears a film of dust that has been ignored too long; decorating the few examples of threadbare carpet are the melted remains of former candles – the light from their wicks cheaper than the gas alternative.

Searching the room for a chink of hope, it is apparent her precious contents fair no better. Clothes hang from rusted nails embedded in the dado rail, trinkets litter the cancerous floor, mesh curtains suspend from a wire clinging to lumps in the plaster: all stink with the repellent musky scent of the town’s waters that lap only a few yards from the garden edge lying beneath the window’s ruined panels. I tear my eyes away as if slapped, catching my resting form. The wasted mattress holding me, its springs digging reminders into my exposed skin, is clad in sheets that were once rich, were once welcome, but that was a long time – and a few families - ago.

She doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t see the degradation for what it is; she is too familiar with it but the room’s depression and its rancid odour hang heavy in the air, suffocating this visitor.

With her rinsing complete, her ritual finished, she nonchalantly throws the cloth to one side where it will soak through the spaces in the floor’s grooving and drain into the abyss of the vacant room below. She is no doubt oblivious to the grime it will pick up and infect her with the next time she uses it for she leaves it where it lies and stands to walk over to the dressing table resting against the lip of the windowsill.

It is the only item of furniture other than the bed frame not to have succumbed to the room’s plague. The table’s prowess is the only refreshing sight. It cowers apologetically beneath the weight of the room’s poverty. Its skeleton is of the richest mahogany; opulent in decoration and sensual in form. The bench is thick and heavy, providing strength lost to the dying timbers of the floor. Two drawers lie beneath the bench’s weight, smooth and deep, promoting the delicate carvings of a leaf I do not recognise; twisting branches trace the edges of the holdings return on themselves to flower and blossom into the silver goblet of a tear-shaped handle. The legs, each one showing a strength defiant in the face of the room’s withering structure, are tree trunks, each one standing broad and steadfast at each of the bureau’s four corners. Wrapped around them, the thin whisper of an ivy tail follows their girth, tracing a path towards the drawer’s base.

Even in a hovel of this destitution, beauty can shine.

How she could afford such a luxury, I do not know, but it is a question I should ask of her for it is obviously out of her price range and could have consequences for my future. It is either a family heirloom or has been acquired via monies obtained through ill gotten means or extortion. A man will whisper many a secret when sharing a girl’s pillow. Or perhaps I am being overly judgemental; perhaps she simply paid for it from funds stolen from a client’s wallet.

The few items she has on the escritoire countertop are the little she can afford, but each one provides its own form of personal satisfaction: an ivory comb, it’s fibres filled with the rotting corpses of her own hair; a tub filled with a white powder she used on her face earlier tonight; a black stick she puts to her eyes. All are marks of an unnecessary vanity. Behind these trinkets, a mirror stands in a plain frame, solid and unsoiled, reflecting the squalor of the room into the void of an infinite world beyond.

She turns away from my staring eyes and bends to face the mirror, checking her reflection for any new imperfections. As she does so, she pushes the slim round form of her white buttocks out from behind the shirt’s veil, forcing the vertical slit of her heavily haired vulva out towards me. Her straightened legs, the bruises now lost in the candle’s flickering shadows, accentuate the curve of her rear, her creases losing any imperfections they may hold in a normal stance.
The dark split of her arse is closed, squeezed tight to provide further curvature but burying the precious sight she knows I long to see – and yet, it offers me a cruel, inviting grin, beckoning me to touch. Hypnotising, as if it is a masterpiece come to life, my eyes cannot leave this sight. The dead weight of my tongue is stuck to the floor of my mouth, preventing me from swallowing the spittle that builds. My breaths quickens in pace, warming the silk of the handkerchief I still hold to my nose. Her image, her new image, removes the skin of revulsion I had been nurturing; it reminds me of my reasons: my reasons for visiting this particular whore.

I reach over to the bedside table and place down my handkerchief - barely conscious of the fact that her light fingers may prevent me from seeing it ever again - and unscramble myself from the rough entanglements of the bed sheets. Walking towards her, naked and erect, I accidentally kick the bowl into which she has just urinated, spilling the contents across the floor, away from my feet – though at this moment in time, I couldn’t care less whether I was paddling in the stuff or having to drink it: my urges are awake once more. Vigorously I wank some of the spit I have managed to create onto the deformed form of my stiffened penis, using it as a means of improvised lubrication. I see her reflection in the mirror’s perfect surface; she is smiling, uncaring, satisfied with the prospect of earning a few extra funds to purchase the means of removing tonight’s memories.

We realise in unison she has played her game to perfection.

Grabbing the bones of her narrow hips, my hands wrapped around her thin waist, the fingertips close to touching, I place the tip of my pillicock into position and attempt to force myself into her. My erection battles with the vacuum created by her washing; her inner-walls sodden with the after-effects of its sluice. My foreskin becomes twisted by the lining of her cave and I am close to withdrawing, despite the desperation building inside me. It takes more effort than I am normally willing to offer to enter her but the sight of her succulent backside ensures my perseverance. I drop more spit aiming it towards my intended target. Watching it disappear within the contours of her wonderful valley, I feel it touch the roof of my prick and I pull my hips back to enable maximum coverage. Tightening my grip on her waist, I thrust myself towards her. Finally I am at one with the wetness of her hole. She snaps her head back in either shock or pleasure – of which, I do not care.

With my eyes closed, I pummel at her hard and fast, my callused fingers stroking the succulent contours of her boyish rear. All thoughts of mould and decay leave me as I feel familiar fires burn deep inside my abdomen, my innards aflame with the approaching orgasm. I can feel my temperature rising through effort and excitement and all astute thoughts are abolished. The image of Malcolm replaces that of the girl, intensifying all sensations. Though I know it to be wrong, and I will feel the guilt long into the night, I succumb to my base desires and push a dry index finger into the tight confines of her soaking back passage.

We moan in unison - she in surprise, me in satisfaction.

If I’ve whetted your appetite and you’re desperate to read more of my work, then get in contact via the contacts page. For the tiniest of tiny fees (certainly a lot less than you’d expect to pay on certain auctioning websites) I’ll email the requested manuscript across in a .pdf format – complete with spelling and grammar mistakes!! Then, if I do make to the big time, you’ll have a collector’s item – and as I said, all for the tiniest of tiny fees!! (Did I make the bit about the fees clear? They really are tiny.)