The Handyman Ch. 04: 1815

Peer knew of no one else he could confide in even in indirect terms with less risk than Solomon Cole. He figured that he could innocently mention the Landho tavern and easily withdraw in feigned surprise if Cole told him bluntly that the upper rooms of the Landho provided exactly what Peer—nervously and with a great deal of guilt and embarrassment but also much pent up frustration—was looking for.

When Peer mentioned it while in the bank arranging transfer of the money for the boat near completion at the Shern Shipyard, Solomon Cole laughed and leaned across the desk at him, with perhaps a little leer in his eye, and whispered, "I would be pleased to take you there to see what it is for yourself. But I would think you would have no need for that."

"No need?"

"No. You own it, you know."

"Own it? Own what?"

"The Landho. Your wife, Mary, hasn't told you? It's just one of many Geer family holdings in the town. I assumed you knew—That Mary kept it for you because . . . it would pleasure you."

After that he never looked at Mary the same way again. What did she know about the nature of the Landho tavern, he wondered? In fact, what had she known about him and Klaus when she had moved into the upper rooms of the jewelry store in Broad Bay? It was all too much for Peer to fathom—and there, of course, was no proper way for him to ask Mary. There were some things even a husband and wife—especially a husband and wife—didn't discuss at the opening of the nineteenth century.

But after a year of Mary and just Mary and when she had birthed their first child, a son, and was so taken with motherhood that Peer could have told her that he was sailing to the moon and would be gone three weeks, she just would have smiled and wished him a safe journey, Peer built up the courage to enter the Landho tavern.

By then everyone in town knew who Peer Fischer was—and all of them had probably known that the Geers, the family he'd married into, owned the place when he hadn't known it for so long.

So, there was not so much as a twitter when he went in. The bar room was crowded; the atmosphere was not just boisterous, it was downright bawdy; and those pushing the drinks and pulling men up the stairs by their hands were both female and male—and dressed skimpily and suggestively.

One of the Semple boys was tending bar, and Peer almost turned and walked back outside.

But he'd entered and everyone had seen him, so leaving at this point would only be both unsatisfying and a bit too late for him to pretend innocence to what went on between these walls.

After a few drinks, during which the Semple boy obviously wanted Peer to let him know exactly what his pleasure was, Peer nodded his head toward a big bruiser who was trying to convince a man to go upstairs with him. He looked like particularly rough trade and he was cradling a hand whip, which was just about all the statement of his wares that anyone would need.

Before he could do more than gesture, though, Peer felt a nudge at his elbow and he turned to see, in shock, that the younger Shern he had been dealing with at the shipyard, Adney, was now sitting beside him and looking very interested. He had leather wrists bands, tight-fitting shirt and trousers, and a thick chain around his neck.

"If that's what you want, I can help you with that," the young Shern whispered to Peer. "The walls here are rather thin, and that isn't the best pleasure for here. I have someplace we could be more private."

The "someplace" proved to be the loft of a livery stable, across from Solomon Cole's bank. The stable was closed because the Geers had built a larger, much-better-outfitted stable next door to put the independent owner of this business out of business. The younger Shern had bought the building for a song.

His special den was in the loft area, with old hay bales cushioning the sound on the front and two side walls and heavy iron rings set at intervals along the back walls at different heights. Peer wasn't tall, but there was a set positioned just within his grasp. The outfitting of Adney's lofty retreat immediately reminded Peer of the ritter's dungeon and caused him to respond in a way that made young Adney Shern laugh and run the strands of his horse whip lovingly through his hands. Peer already was naked and his interest in what Adney had in mind already was obvious to both of them.

Peer had never seen a small rubber ball on strappings such as Adney produced as he prodded Peer toward the back wall. But he soon learned what that was for.

Adney had Peer strung up in no time and did lip and tongue play between his buttocks cheeks that Peer had never experienced before and that was driving him crazy—until he learned that the rubber ball in his mouth was for biting hard on as, though memories of the ritter and his dungeon came back to Peer, these memories made the ritter out to be a midget in contrast to Adney in the staff that was being shoved up inside him after he'd been flogged and almost exhausted from writhing.

Now he was in ninth heaven.