Chapter 16: The Meeting on the Electric Railway

I was still working on the completion of my efforts with Helena. After her night's rest I released her from the temporary cage that was now her nocturnal home. I had decided that there were some specific results I wished to obtain from a small experiment and advised the Prince's housekeeper that Helena would not be available for work that morning. Helen, anticipating an easier time than her normal round of domestic duties, seemed pleased when I informed her she would be remaining in her accommodation.

She was less happy when she saw what I had planned for her. Her objections were overcome – or at least stifled – by the application of a plug gag and I wrestled her into position on the Orrery. I was anxious to determine at what point of rectal distension and penetration Helena took on the desired level of passivity.

Until now my efforts to subdue Helena had really been based on trial and error and I knew that this would hardly provide the basis for a consistent set of recommendations regarding her future management. The Prince would need more than "some little knack". I had determined to set about the task by empirical methods and my friends at Ponders End persuaded me that a new device would provide a more accurate way of determining the best combination of girth and depth for Helena's anal plug. The plug could already modify its breadth and length automatically using its clockwork mechanism. The engineers from Ponders End had found a way of automatically recording these settings onto a chart fixed to a drum that rotated slowly with time. I believe that they had created the mechanism in imitation of one used to record the changes of atmospheric pressure during the day. It was a simple matter to add a second needle which recorded vibration in the frame of the Orrery (and thus Helena's agitation or passivity). "I will see you later Miss Voutrakis," I announced as I set the device in motion to her immediate distress. "I have an important meeting to attend."

The thrashing of the second needle on the chart, as I left, told me that the anal plug was not yet optimised.

It was some time later when I met with Julian Castwich. My telegraph message had asked him to meet me by joining the Volks Electric Promenade[1] at the Hove station. Poloi was to join us further along the line at Worthing.

"You don't find this a little melodramatic?" Castwich scowled out from the windows of the carriage at the sea crashing on the shingle beside the track.

"I thought melodrama was your stock-in-trade – or at least Miss Knight's. We need to have an urgent and discreet discussion. I thought it unwise for you, Poloi and myself to be seen meeting together other than by apparent chance."

It was a cold, windswept morning of which the British south coast produces many. I had taken the precaution of dressing for the British sea side in a thick tweed suit and my heavy Baskerville. The weather vindicated my choices. White crests were whipped from the tops of the waves. Spray had created a crust of white salt crystals on the seaward windows of the carriage. The two-coach train moved out of Hove. It was deserted apart from Castwich and I.

I related the conversation that I had had with the Prince's father. "You will understand that I now have concerns for the success of your project."

Castwich's demeanour changed. "I can, of course, see the difficulty. This is a complete disaster. I cannot imagine why his father said nothing before. If the Prince is not able to consummate his union then your work will have been wasted. What do you propose?"

"I am not sure. I am hoping that Poloi might be able to give some advice."

A sudden cessation in the whining of the carriage's electric motor was followed by a slowing of the train as we coasted to a halt at Worthing Seafront. The figure of Aristides Poloi clad in tweed greatcoat and a wide-brimmed hat stood shivering on the platform. He got inside, grateful to be out of the wind from the sea. He sat down opposite the pair of us and before saying anything took a hip flask from an inside pocket and, unscrewing the cap, took a long swig from the flask's contents. "Metaxa," he said. "The last until Athens is relieved of the Ottoman-Macedonian yoke, I fear."

There was a short pause while the station staff attached cables to the train's batteries. One drawback of the Volks system is its reliance on electric power. The man may be a pioneer but he has failed to realise the superiority of steam traction for public transport. The pause while the power is topped up at each stop makes each journey interminable. Even the pneumatic system of the London Over Rail is less tedious to travel on than the Volks.

"Aristides," I began, "is the Prince a patient of yours?"

Poloi put down the flask. "No, not directly. I have expressed my view to the Palace that a consultation might well be of benefit to them and to him but with no avail. I understand that his father vetoed any suggestion that medical or psycho-sexual therapy might be of benefit for the Prince."

"So we may talk freely without you feeling constrained by professional confidences?" Poloi nodded warily. I told him of my conversation with the Duke. Aristides seemed unsurprised. Castwich was sitting back, staring through the window towards the windswept coast. Both it and he looked bleak. Poloi's first remarks did little to comfort either of us.

"This is quite consistent," Poloi explained. "I assume from the Duke's words that the Prince's member is of less than average size. This is presumably a condition apparent when the organ is flaccid but it may not be indicative of any pathological deficiency. It is not uncommon for a small penis to achieve greater increase in girth and length during erection than a larger one. I could not judge without a physical examination of course but it may be that the Prince is no less of a man than any of us and that his difficulties are entirely the result of criticism and ridicule. That could lead to an inability to direct energies into sexual congress."

The short re-charging completed, the station staff detached the cables and we were on our way. It was a ritual that would be repeated at each stop.