I had been dozing lazily in front of the fire.
Confound myself for doing such a thing! I am a heavy sleeper, but I could not help but fall prey to the soothing warmth on my face, particularly after a drink or two. Fire is an exceedingly strange catalyst. I should have observed its effects on weariness long before, I thought to myself. I lay still for a moment, allowing the tongues of light to dance before my eyes, massaging my limbs with warmness, so deeply gratifying…
...Sod it. I shall do it later.
My recliner claims me as a victim once again.
I must be more cautious in future. Perhaps it was the smoothness of the leather that was so comfortable, or maybe it was my combined weariness from the past few days finally catching up with me.
No matter. Whatever the reason, I slept for quite a while. That much was apparent, for when I came to, it was daylight outside.
Snick, clink.
That noise was irritating. It stirred me, but I did not open my eyes. Something very warm and soft had been draped around my shoulders, and I felt a longing desire to sink into it and ignore whatever the trivial noise was. In my semi-lucid state, I did not realise that I had fallen asleep without a blanket.
Snick, clink.
My ear twitched. ‘What was that sound?’ I remember thinking to myself.
It was like a soft rustling, followed by a high-pitched snap, followed by the soft ping of something as it hit something else. Possibly, the latter noise was porcelain. The former was like that of a twig when stepped on, except that did not make sense, for I was not outside.
Hum, I thought to myself. What could it be?
I lay half-awake for a few moments, allowing my sleepy mind to turn over the problem in my head. It was not a natural sound, though it came at regular intervals – and what of the pinging sound?
I decided that it must have been a nut of some kind, cracked by somepony and dropped from a reasonable height onto some china. I felt much chuffed with my prowess of deduction, and smiled to myself, sinking a little deeper into sleep, and snuggling against whatever had been wrapped around me.
But we don’t have any nuts.
There were several obvious indicators that should have woken me up before that one. For one, I knew quite well that Trotson was moving his things to Ponyville, and would not return until this afternoon. Furthermore, the curtains had been drawn before I fell asleep. Even the strange warmth around my shoulders could and should have tipped me off.
Nevertheless, it has been said by greater scholars then me that the mind works in mysterious ways – and, in this instance, it was that particular thought that struck me as most odd.
My eyes flashed open.
The fire in front of me was the first thing I noticed – it was freshly built and lit. There were merely a few charred embers in the pit when I had lain down, and now there was a fresh pine log cast onto the black grill, merrily spitting every now and again.
“Canterlot is so bleak this time of year,” a feminine voice said from behind me, and I heard the rustling of a dress as somepony moved.
Of course, I knew who it was.
“Not that I pine for somewhere sunnier, of course. I much prefer to travel in the winter,” the voice continued. Hoofsteps came round my head. I had had my back to the stranger, and shut my eyes quickly as she came round, trying to pretend I was still asleep.
The light over my eyelids darkened. She had knelt, leaning just a little closer to me, and blocking out the sunlight…
Something wafted into my nostrils. It was the scent flower of some kind.
Not lilac.
Hmm. Not lavender. Maybe it was sunflowers?
No, wait. Rosaceae. An English Rose. She always wore rose. At least on her neck, anyway. It couldn’t be anyone else but her.
She smirked a little as she bent down. I didn’t need to have my eyes open to know that much. She always had been keener than I at detecting falsehoods (somehow!), so I did not think for a moment that I had fooled her - but I might as well try, I thought. After all, I never particularly enjoyed her visits, brief or protracted.
“It’s highly rude,” the voice said again, “to fall asleep while someone’s talking to you.”
I did not so much as dare tense a muscle. Perhaps she would just leave me and go away, I thought.
Not quite.
She attacked quite suddenly, and took me off guard.
I felt a gentle wetness on my eartip. I was somewhat alarmed and confused - but then the pinpricks of her teeth followed, her tongue tickling me as she tried to force a reaction.
I nearly twitched. I silently caught my breath in surprise, but held strong for the moment.
"Huh," she murmured, dissatisfied.
My charade didn't last. Her next trick was far more devious. She inhaled deeply before releasing herself in a long, blissful shudder.
“Mmm… Pones…”
I kicked a back leg.
My companion glowers at me as I write this, though I can assure you that it was quite literally a knee-jerk reaction. Purely out of surprise at her sly and underhanded ways, and nothing more.
Anyway, she giggled a little, drawing her head back to survey me properly. I sighed, and opened my eyes.
“Guess I still know how to push your buttons,” she said, smiling and kissing me on the nose.
I rolled over uncomfortably. The sequinned blanket that often resided on my bed fell from about my shoulders as I did so.
“Go away.”
My eyes fell on a small china bowl, set upon the small hand-table that usually held my customary glass of scotch. Almonds.
The cracking noise came from behind me again, and a hoof hovered over my mouth, slipping something into it. Unwittingly, I had left my gab open, and I sat up quickly, preparing to spit, thinking it to be poison –
But actually, it was just an almond.
I love almonds.
My eyes looked back down at the china bowl. She had taken that from the cupboard in Trotson’s room. It had been a gift for his wedding from a friend. Dozens of the auburn-coloured nuts lay in it, and all of them were shelled. An entire bowl’s worth, without managing to wake me. I must have been more tired than I realized, or she had become twice as stealthy. Whatever the case, I ate the nut thoughtfully, and she paced back round to the other side of me, taking a seat where my head had been.
“I bought you them. All the way from Appleloosa.”
“How thoughtful,” I replied dryly. “Perhaps you could bring back the emeralds you stole from Lord Canterbury next time, too?”
She gave me an offended look. I could feel it on the side of my face as I stared resolutely out of the window, trying not to eat another nut.
“Why so brusque, Sherclop? I’m only here for a friendly chat.”
“You said some very nasty things last time I tried to have a ‘friendly chat’.”
She sniffed.
“Well, I was supposed to be married at the time. I had to act the part, you know.”
She held another almond under my nose.
I was not going to have another.
She freed her mane a little from its tight bundle with a spare hoof. It fell over her shoulders in long, luxurious strands, each wave its own delicate shade of mauve. The scent was in her hair, too. She shook her head a little to let her locks tumble, stirring the sweet smell up into my nose.
I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I know I didn’t flare my nostrils. It took all of my concentration to avoid that much.
But then I felt the touch of something on my tongue, and I closed my mouth in surprise. In my intense focus, I had not noticed that my lips had parted to help me fill my lungs. She had taken the advantage of my sensory arousal to slip the nut into my mouth.
Very well, I thought. Another point to her. No more, though.
“What did you do with him?” I asked wearily, rubbing a hoof on my forehead.
“Which one?”
“The cotton investor.”
“Ugh, he was such a bore.”
A beat passed, and I tried not to open my eyes or enjoy the almond in my mouth. Both feats were impossible, and she knew that quite well. I glanced over at her, and noticed she was watching me with a smoky gaze, her pale green eyes peeking from under the blue fascinator that she wore, boring into me. I swallowed and replied.
“I take it the ring wasn’t to your liking?”
She smiled playfully, holding a magenta hoof up to me. Around its very edge was the small tan-line where I knew she must have worn the wedding band. Or rather, where she hadn’t been wearing it – the pale fur that would usually announce a married mare was barely visible.
“No. Not that I care for such things.”
“Ah, a shame,” I uttered, with the driest sarcasm I could muster. “Another broken heart to your name.”
“Oh, I don’t think it bothered him,” she said sweetly. “He had his eyes and hooves on his secretary – a dear little filly from Hoofington. The way I see it, I did him a favour by leaving him." She sighed, and scooted an inch closer to me, nuzzling my neck. “Mmm. Tell me, Sherclop, why are all stallions so greedy and stupid?”
“Why, thank you.”
She giggled.
“Of course, you’re the obvious exception to the rule.”
I chose to ignore the jibe, and concentrate on polite conversation.
“So you took his money?” I said, still staring straight ahead.
“He was jealous. And I was bored. Do you think I would do anything else?”
I blinked at the blue wallpaper that had only recently become my preference. Perhaps not, I thought.
“Why do you keep returning to me between husbands?” I asked.
“Oh, they’re just a side interest. More like jobs,” she said vaguely, shuffling a little closer and turning side on, clasping my right hoof in both of hers.
While such a comment coming from any other woman would have seemed facetious, I could believe her.
She had… a somewhat illustrious career as a thief. I met her during a little investigation of my own. I would have said she had met me, but I had the good fortune to take her by surprise. I know a good deal about her, and I have an extensive file on her doings and whereabouts – I find her to be an equally intriguing criminal and mare. Usually the two (and here I refer to her sex and criminality) do not go hand-in-hand, or at least in any degree of success, though if her years-old vocation could be measured in wealth, it would surpass my own by several notches.
She had been about to ‘acquire’ a bracelet of freshwater pearls from a client of mine. I found that to be quite unacceptable. Instead of turning her in, though, I had talked to her, so as to gain a clearer understanding of her motives. That much is nothing unusual, of course – I always try to understand the methods of the common criminal.
Except that she wasn't a common criminal. Oh no. She was so much more than just a common criminal.
Her responses to my questions were direct and straightforward - admittedly, that took me off guard. Usually, criminals had to be subdued or cuffed before they would... lend me their secrets. She simply confessed to her doings in such a clear-cut and nonchalant manner that it intrigued me, and we... hit it off, as Trotson might say.
Stallions who longed after her good looks were just another facet of her repertoire. While she did not say so, she seemed to take some small glee in depriving the greedier ones of their wealth, leaving large, lump anonymous donations to charities in the forms of money or food. Though admirable, I do not know why she does this. She truly is a criminal without motive – or rather, her motive is not one that is measurable in golden bits.
I would have understood more of her, but she then chose to depart, on the condition that she would give the pearls to me. I laughed, and guaranteed nothing, but agreed to release her into the hooves of a then-young policepony. He shall remain unnamed to save his embarrassment – for when I came back to speak to her (the pearls having been to their rightful owner), she had escaped.
From thereon, though, she developed a rather strange fascination for me that I found (and still find) quite… unsettling. Perhaps it’s because I caught her in the first place, and inadvertently became a rival of some description. I would be lying if I said her professional interest was unrequited. Indeed, I find her to be a… fascinating example of a criminal.
An intellectual – merely bored, seeking entertainment as I do. Quite unlike any other mare I have met before, and indeed, we share many things.
Her more sincere feelings, though...
She tugged on the leg she held, pulling me a little closer. Slowly, she traced her hoof up and down my own as she lightly kissed her way along the line of my neck, trying to catch my gaze. As she reached my cheek again, the kisses became a little more longing – still quick to the touch, but slowly-paced, so that all I could feel was the warm tickle of her lips.
I shuddered a little as I felt her hot breath in my ear for a second time.
“I don’t suppose you’re busy this weekend?”
“I’m not, but I don’t intend to spend it with you.”
She let me go with a huff, sinking back onto her side of the recliner, where she eyed me sulkily.
“You never even gave me a chance to ask.”
“You’re not a foal, so don’t act like one. You know why I won’t.”
The petty expression vanished, only to be replaced by her smouldering half-grin.
“Fair enough, but I happen to know that you just finished your last job, so you have no reason not to.”
She handed me the copy of The Canterlot Times that Trotson had left a copy of on my desk.
The desk!
Underneath was my safe. In it, my personal affections. My eyes flitted over to the rug that covered it. It was well-concealed beneath the floorboards. Perhaps she had not noticed it yet. I did not want her opening it and gaining the wrong impression, after all.
“Your companion is very interesting,” she said, leaning forward to scrutinise Trotson’s youthful face in the photograph. “Is he a permanent fixture of your life now?”
“He’s a good friend.”
Her eyebrows rose a little. “And your chronicler, or so I’ve read.”
“I assure you, he inflicts such a chore upon himself.”
Her hoof grasped the paper and lifted it a little closer.
“He’s very, very interesting…” she said, a tiny smile playing about her lips.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
She glanced up, fixing me with an innocent, surprised expression.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“He is married.”
“Now, why would I be thinking about something like that?” she said, that ever-so-slightly sweet edge back in her voice.
“Because you are immoral and wicked?” I replied curtly.
“Just the way you like it, then?”
I blanched a little. Here, her smile widened into a grin, and she began to knead my hoof slowly in her own.
“I need a favour.”
I could not help myself. My ears pricked a little, and my chest stirred.
“And pray tell, why should I help you?’
“Hmm... Consider it repayment for me tipping you off about that burglary at the Royal Museum a few months ago,” she said. The kneading became somewhat more insistent.
“Can’t you find somepony else to help you out with that?” I asked flatly.
I admit freely, I made a mistake here – and in my defense, I am only a stallion. Had I been of the fairer gender, I would have seen straight through her charms. It was a cheap and ambiguous trick from her, but I knew she never minded cheating. It was just another one of her underhooved methods, not dissimilar to the ones she used on her husbands.
There was a short pause, and after it had passed, I glanced over at her. The smile had widened into a smug grin. Her eyes had not lost their hot stare, and were a little wider than before, as though she was pleased at what she was hearing.
“Actually, I just wanted to ask about something else,” she said, her expression placating back to its usual radiant self. It’s lovely to know your mind is still in the gutter, though.”
My stomach did a somersault.
“My mind is not in the gutter!” I objected. “I merely assumed –”
“That you’re all I seem to think about these days?” She finished, blinking at me innocently. “Certainly not. Now, the question is, why would you be thinking about that?”
Another cutting blow. I chose not to reply.
“It’s not really a favour,” she continued, ignoring my determination to deny her affections, as... unwanted as they were. “More like… A referral. I know somepony who needs your help.”
I glanced over at her.
“Who?”
“A friend of mine. A young filly who I taught at school.”
“I find it most interesting that you call those foals your friends.”
She smiled softly again.
“She’s not that young. College age, at the least. But you know that doesn’t bother me. I’m a teacher. Some of my students are merely foals, yet I count them amongst my friends.”
“Yes, yes, yes. That, and the thieving is just a side interest. You’ve told me all this before.”
A pensive pause filled the air. The fire crackled, casting spindly shadows that danced across the walls.
“You still consider me more of a criminal than a normal pony?” She asked.
“Perhaps.”
The silence continued to deafen me.
She let go with of my leg with one hoof and twisted in the light before us, observing where the pale band had once been.
“…In any case, I think I’d like to be myself for a while,” she said nonchalantly, turning the hoof this way and that. “Being a trophy wife is a little dreary, particularly when they have uninteresting last names.”
“What’s it to be this week then? Just the usual cover of Irene Saddler, master thief?”
“No. I wouldn’t mind being… Me. For a while, at least.”
That was surprising to me. I had not expected that she had wanted to assume her real identity.
“Thinking of quitting, then?”
“Perhaps,” she said, resuming her pressing into my hoof once more. “Depends if I can get you to move.”
“I don’t think so.”
She sighed. The massaging stopped.
“Why?”
“Because of the nature of my work.”
“I could see you more often.”
“I couldn’t.”
“And you couldn’t just move it down there?”
“I could.”
“So why not do it?”
“I might.”
“When?”
“Whenever the fancy takes me.”
Here, she tugged a little on my right hoof once more. I turned to face her as she did so – I had grown tired of being played with, and felt much like putting a hoof between us if she tried. But it was unnecessary. Instead of her usual antics, she had removed her hat, putting it on the table in front of me. I glanced up at her face, slightly confused. Gone was the enticing, playful attitude that had drawn her here in the first place, and in its place was a frown.
Her silk dress shimmered grey-blue in the morning light as she sat, staring at me, with those big, dulcet, emerald eyes...
“You’d be happy,” she murmured softly, her voice having slunk to barely above a whisper. Her tight grip still on one hoof, she ran the other over the back of my neck. “You know it, and so do I. You’d make me happy, too. We'd be happy...”
Gone was her coquettish attitude. I couldn’t help but remain transfixed in her imploring gaze.
“Just think about it,” she said. “We could just vanish somewhere.”
I wrenched myself away from her, looking out of the window, and onto the paved street below. It had begun to rain lightly.
“Please?” she said insistently. So pitiful was the request that I almost caved and looked back to her…
Almost.
She was just playing another game, surely, a sobering voice in the back of my head said. There’s no part of you that wants her. She’s trouble.
I agree that she’s trouble, I replied to the voice rather sternly. All the same, I’d better put her down gently.
I closed my eyes.
“You’ve asked me this before, and my answer remains unchanged.”
With a tired exhalation, she sighed. Then, she did something quite unexpected. She slipped her forelegs underneath my own, and hugged me.
I was quite used to her amorous advances, and equally skilled in resisting them. She was aggressive in that sense – presumably because she thought she had control over the situation. To her, playing with stallions was just another way to get what she wanted.
But this was different. Her hug was warm, and gentle. Her mane was beneath my nose, and so I could not help but catch another whiff of rose as she embraced me.
That was what she was more like. Gentle, soft.
…Exquisite.
I have to admit, at that point, I did lose track of my rationality for a moment.
“Maybe.”
She looked up to me, surprised.
“Really?”
I couldn’t help but notice that her voice was tinged with the edges of excitement.
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Never steal again.”
Saddler sighed. For a moment, her embrace tightened around my midriff, and she lowered her head onto my chest.
“Why do you always have to make it so difficult?” she said, a trace of sadness in her voice.
Silence reigned. I could hear the occasional metallic clip-clop of hooves on the pavement, and the distant rumble of carts carving a path through the watery road. The clock’s ticks seemed very loud and slow. After a while, I felt her breathing in time with mine, the rise and fall of her chest becoming rhythmic and slow as she held me. I could even feel the beating of her heart as she pressed against me.
I couldn’t help but feel very guilty for thinking of her as trouble. She was so innocent and unassuming when she meant no harm. And kind.
…And warm.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to console her, a smaller, quieter voice at the back of my head said.
I draped a foreleg around her shoulders.
Usually, such a victory would have resulted in gloating. She loved my affection, and vied every moment of her visits to acquiring it. But this was different. She didn’t even seem surprised. I suppose she just knew she won at every turn, but... I don’t think she felt like gloating, for once.
I stroked her mane a little.
I don’t know how long we stayed there. I suppose I just lost track of time. Eventually, though, she pulled away from me, getting to her hooves.
“Leaving so soon?” I asked.
“Sadly, yes,” she replied, replacing the elegant hat back upon her mane. She then stooped down, kissing me on the nose. As she straightened up, she gave me a forlorn smile. “I’ll get you yet, Pones.”
Usually, I’d have minded. Or at the very least, pretend I minded. Instead, I smiled back.
She reached into her dress and withdrew an envelope and a small black bag, tossing them onto my lap.
“Maybe some other time,” she added with a wistful tone. “Here is the envelope with her details.”
“I didn’t say I’d take the case.”
“Well, consider it a wager that you will.”
I went to reach for the letter, but something yanked at my right hoof with an ever-familiar jangle.
It was nothing I hadn’t expected, after all. I looked over thoughtfully, tugging softly at my own handcuffs, bound around my foreleg, and the very solid leg of the recliner.
“Did you really have to?” I asked, looking back to her. But my gaze fell upon an empty room. She had gone. Vanished, like a puff of smoke, without even so much as a sound.
I glanced over to my desk. Propped up was a picture on my desk. I simply sighed as my eyes fell upon its contents, for I knew well that it was far out of my reach. I made no attempt to break free until I realised Trotson would be arriving momentarily...
And that is how I came to be sitting in my study, cuffed to the furniture, with almonds, money, and a card in my lap.