Golden Horse - Chapter 9 adapted from the scandalously provocative, politically incorrect Latin classic 'Asinus Aureus'

Accidentally turned into a horse by his lover (who’s a witch) a young lawyer's plan to defraud a billionaire goes wildly wrong. Destined to see the cruel crazy erotic world through equine eyes, finally he manages to escape to become an animal rights activist.

Retranslated and (liberally) adapted in today’s world (of London) from the original Latin of Lucius Apuleius (a Tunisian Roman citizen), which itself came from the Ancient Greek he wrote it in.

Chapter 9

It didn't take long to find the Rising Sun and order a pint. It was debatable whether the company was more or less congenial than that at the ambassadorial dinner table. The only other customers at this late hour were a toothless old geezer with a Guinness and last Friday's Racing Post, a couple of middle-aged tarts and a skinny skin-head of about fourteen.

I decided to keep myself to myself for the next few hours, glued - almost literally - to the sticky bar stool, speaking only to order the next pint. And the next. And the next and the next and the next. At about three a.m., even I realized that I'd had enough and should go back 'home' (a laughable misnomer if ever there was one).
Satisfied with alcohol, all I wanted now was a fag and a fuck. The first craving was easily satisfied. As soon as I was outside, blinking woozily in the street-lights, I cracked open a fresh packet of Mayfair and inhaled deeply and happily. I then set off, unsteadily, yet purposefully, in search of the Rose of Damascus. Who knows, she might even have some coke, too.

As soon as I reached the rusty gate and grotty patch of nettles that passed for Dr M's front-garden, I realized that something was very wrong. There had obviously been some sort of fight or struggle. The gate was hanging off its hinges and rubbish was strewn all over the so-called garden. The little oblong space was full of broken bottles and over-turned dustbins. The weed-filled pots that flanked the front door were smashed, as was the front, left-hand window. Through the fug of ten pints, I could just about make out the baddies themselves, in the very act of jemmying open the grilled front door. Fired with righteous indignation - I was, after-all, the educated version of the strong-arm of the law - and without stopping to wonder why a couple of burglars would make such an exhibition of themselves in the front garden of busy street (yes, this was just the sort of street that was busy at three in the morning), I flew at them.

I don't think that I've told you much about my physical appearance. So you don't yet know that I am six foot four, with every muscle honed and developed to the peak of perfection by daily, three-hour visits of the gym (an unpopular barrister has as much time on his hands as your average dole-supported, long-term-unemployed). But even I was surprised by the speed and ease with which I toppled my opponents. Within seconds, they lay in a crumpled heap at my feet. I kicked them aside, unlocked the front door and staggered - swaggered - up the stairs to bed. I was soon congratulating myself on a job well done and anticipating the warm thanks of my mega-rich host, his sexy wife and foxy slave-girl. And after that pleasant little day-dream, I fell into a deep sleep until five o'clock.

Five o'clock. It was then, of course, that the panic set in. With the swish of some infernal wand, the effects of the alcohol dispersed, like a vanishing sea-mist and I saw, with dire and dreadful clarity, both what I had done and its inevitable consequences. I had killed two unarmed men, who were posing no personal threat. I had not graduated top of the year in both my undergraduate degree and my bar exams, without knowing the sentence for crimes such as this. Decades in the Scrubbs were staring me in the face, my brilliant legal career in shreds. Panic soon gave way to depression, to a depression that weighed down on me like the rock of Sisyphus. I was drained of all aim and all purpose. I was pinned to the bed - but, not alas, by the silken ropes of the perverted Astea.

It wasn't until dawn that I summoned enough energy to get out of bed, dress and pack. It was obvious even to my alcohol-befuddled brain that I had to get out of here, quam celerrime as they say on the Forum. It was unlikely that my nutcase host would even remember who I was, but Astea knew almost everything about me, from the size of my cock to my favourite Brad Pitt films, as well as - perhaps more worryingly - where I lived and where I worked. I was also extremely worried about Susie and her superlative deductive skills. She had weaned more information out of me in five minutes than the Gestapo would in five days. My only hope was immediate flight and an immediate change of identity. Those tenuous links to the Nigerian underworld (ie St Jerome’s Old Boys 'Association) would finally come in handy. I knew at least twenty old class-mates who could give me a new passport, even a new face, in a couple of days.

I crept down the stairs as quietly and quickly as possible, only swearing when I kicked over the standard lamp, trod on the cat and accidentally switched on the Bang and Olufson digital radio (thereby filling the hitherto sleeping house with the Call to Prayer, beamed in direct from Alexandria). By the time I had managed to locate the front door and unlock its multifariously complicated locks (a securely bolted door did not chime well with what I remembered about last night), the whole house was awake and watching me. They were still watching as I was hauled off to Willesden nick.

I must say that I was pretty hurt by their obvious lack of concern. I might have been with them for less than a week, but I was under the fond impression that we had developed a certain rapport. Apparently not. Dr Massoud was nonchalantly smoking one of his enormous cigars, the 3rd Mrs Massoud was wearing a fetching house-coat and talking on a mobile phone. The other two wives were sitting side-by-side on the stairs, wearing the kind of night attire that would, under more propitious circumstances, have deserved my undivided attention. But the last thing I remember, burned on my memory, is Astea. Astea leaning over the balcony and winking stagily. She even seemed to be smiling. Why wasn't she weeping and wringing her hands in despair? Why wasn't she hurling abuse and swearing as her man was taken away? Why wasn't she pummelling her fists into the sturdy policemen? She was a fat lot of use in a crisis and should give up any idea of a gangster-moll career.

While my flat-mates might have been behaving very oddly, the rest of the morning's events were boringly obvious. The text-book arrest of the text-book criminal. There must have been what we in the business call a stake-out, with coppers hiding in the bushes all night. I fell into the waiting, welcoming arms of a young bruiser called Sergeant Mills. They always say, if you want to beat people up, join the police. And they're damn well right. Before you could say 'Allah the All-Merciful', I found myself lying on the ground, with my hands behind my back. With a mouth-full of gravel and a broken nose. As I said, a text-book arrest.

Like every young lawyer, I had seen enough preliminary interviews to know the procedures as well as the thugs who were supposedly interviewing me. The cold, sweet tea, the stale digestives, the good-cop/bad-cop routine, the silence, the coming and going, the ironic offers of legal representation, the strip search ... Well, anyone who reads the Guardian will know exactly what happened, so I won't bore you with the details of those first few, horrifying hours. Suffice it to say, my guilt - and my fate - were decided in the first two minutes. The rest of the 'interview' comprised endless repetitions of the same questions, to which I steadfastly made 'no comment.' Finally, in desperation, they threw me (literally) into the cells and left me to stew in my own vomit (their words). Not before I had accidentally bashed my head against a door post ('Watch it!') and fallen down a short flight of stairs ('Look where you're going, can't you?'). At least they hadn't decided (yet) that I had tried to escape by jumping out of a fourth-floor window.

At about midday, a slutty dinner-lady asked if I'd rather have shepherds' pie or veggie con carne. I politely declined both and immediately fell into a fitful, clammy sleep. Almost as soon as my eyes were closed, the nightmares began. My subconscious was systematically dredged of everything that I'd seen or heard in the last few days. Every story, every anecdote, every throw-away remark had been meticulously stitched together to make a terrifying, seemingly endless dream of horror and evil. What had seemed almost funny at the time, now drenched me in the cold sweat of terror. I saw Gothic churches, pale, faceless corpses, ravening packs of foxes with fangs like wolves, owls, violated sleep, torn jugulars, spouting blood, girls and boys possessed by the gods of the primal forest, canals filled with moulding bodies, magic casements, sadism, necromancy, metamorphosis, and plain old evil. Evil as old as the world itself, in all its multiple variety.

I must have slept like this for hours, tortured beyond human endurance, by forces far beyond mere human understanding. It was almost a relief when a stick-thin, vicious looking WPC burst into the cell.
"Get your arse in gear. You've got an appointment at the morgue."

I sighed and picked up my jacket. This was a ploy that I knew very well indeed. It was almost the oldest trick in the book. You confront the 'murderer' with the sickening evidence of his heinous crime and shock him into an early confession. In my previous incarnation, as an idealistic legal-aid duty solicitor (as opposed to modern-day legacy hunter), I had defeated such tactics with steely determination (My client is not obliged to - blah, blah, blah). But on this particular afternoon, I simply hadn't the strength to put up a fight. I hadn't the strength to do anything other than exactly what I was told to do.

Meek as a lamb, I followed the cruel-lipped woman down the endless strip-lit corridors, past empty offices and sinister (alarmed) 'interview suites', past the curry-scented canteen (it was Thursday) and the broken fountain, past notices for Christmas parties and the Christian Union carol service (it was April), past photos of the Queen Mother and cheery sketches of Victorian Peelers, down the small lift to the tile-lined, misery-filled basement. A 1960s sign, with a pointy finger, indicated the way to our bleak destination.

The morgue, like all morgues, was as brightly lit as Blackpool in August. Like all morgues (I have an unfortunately wide experience of such places), it smelt strongly of disinfectant and of other, far more unpleasant, less easily identified odours. There were about ten people present, which was the first odd thing. Police cuts were such that the staff was usually two at the absolute max. The bow-tie wearing, classical-music-loving pathologist and his tired-looking assistant. So who were all these people and what were they doing here? And why were they all dressed as surgeons? I could understand the scrubs and maybe even the bath-caps and gloves, but why were all their faces covered?

As I looked about me, properly frightened, twenty eyes bore into me with baleful, accusatory stares. From the corner of my eye - I couldn't bear to face them directly - I saw the bodies themselves. They were laid out, side-by-side, on identical stretchers and covered with regulation polythene.
I suddenly felt faint. The room was swaying and the lights swinging. I hadn't eaten for hours and I felt such a sudden surge of nausea that I had to hold on to a chair. Could I really have killed two people? Was I really capable of such a thing? If so, then I had become a stranger to my very self. As I stood, bewildered and terrified, I watched a fly crawl slowly, dirtily across the ceiling. Life, I thought, the life of even the grubbiest insect, is all that matters. Death is viler than dung. My hands were screwed up in such a tight fist that my nails dug into my palms and made them bleed. Sweat was pouring off me and my heart seemed fit to burst. It took all my strength not to run screaming from the room.
"Right. Let's get this show on the road. There's been enough fannying about for one day. You ready?"

I nodded queasily and wondered briefly what would have happened if I'd said 'no'. The WPC bent over and, with a theatrical flourish, whipped off the plastic sheets. Anyone would think that she was about to pull a rabbit from a hat or present expectant gourmets with the chef's piece de resistance. Incredibly, there was a small ripple of applause. It took some moments before I could screw up the courage to look. To look at what I had done, how I had killed two men. Two men with friends, families, jobs, hobbies. Two men with lives. Which I had taken away. For no reason, with no excuse. With my heart hammering in my throat and my eyes blurred with sweat and tears, at last I found the courage to look.
And see two bulky sacks of cement. To look in utter confusion at the laughing eyes that filled the little lab. To look in amazement as, one by one, they took off their masks and revealed themselves as Dr Massoud and his wife, Mrs O-L and her secretary-cum-dominatrix, Hassan, the Deaconess, Susie and her cafe regulars, the bar-man at the Rising Sun and even Astea. That was the unkindest cut of all. Et tu Astea? Then fall, Luke.

And fall I did, crashing to the ground in a dead faint.

© 2017 Mimi L. Thompson

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