The Lady, or the Tiger?
Chapter 2: Primal Urges & Wolves at the Door
A thunderstorm had rumbled through in the deepest part of the night, waking them, stirring them into making wild, passionate love – rough and hungry and zealous. Finished, and utterly exhausted from the arduous expenditure of every ounce of his energy, William now remained atop of his wife, sweaty, heavy, his entire body ladened and weak, whispering his love into her neck, his voice dry and winded and hot.
"Shh," she coaxed him, "Just listen to the teeming rain outside the window… and the gushing and rustling of the leaves in the trees, William," each of them relished in the gentle feel of her lips' glances across the skin of his ear as she spoke. Julia practically needed to pry her fingers out of his back… "It had been intense," she nearly giggled, and she tenderly trickled her fingernails up into his damp hair, cherishing his scalp, reveling in the humid sweetness of her husband, loving him with all of her heart for he had truly given her everything he had.
In the sounds and smells of the lush lingering storm, they recovered. They recovered their regular heartbeats, they recovered their slower breathing rates, they recovered their grounded separateness, and William rolled off of her, bringing her along, perfectly resting her head on his chest. Blissful contentment soaked and bathed into each cell, it slowly dissipated, mingling with the strains and imperfections of one's living a full life in a challenging world. Thoughts came, of work tomorrow, of receiving another rejection letter from an orphanage, of their beautiful son sleeping in his room down the hall…
"I'll adjust the alarm," William broke the silence, leaning and stretching towards his night table. He would change the time of their forced waking, give them a few more precious moments.
Julia glanced up to see the time… "Two," she thought, seeing the tiny hands in the last dwindling flashes of lightning, "Yum, hours still to sleep."
(
Her morning routines finished in the bathroom, Julia tiptoed across the bedroom floor to the window. The cool, crisp breeze of an autumn dawn meandered in, slipping through the cracks in her robe to tingle her bare skin underneath, and she remembered the storm, and their steamy lovemaking, with its thrilling touch. Her deep sigh, one of contentment, she considered whether to begin to dress for the day or wake William. Wondering about the time, she decided to walk over to his side of the bed.
Her eyes traveled to his face. In the rosy golden light, she could see the rugged shadow on his jawline, his long, dark lashes softly closed. "Mmm," she breathed out her body's, her soul's, reaction to this man – William Murdoch was very attractive, indeed. Gathering up her hair and twisting it back out of her face, she glanced at the time. "Ten minutes. Not much. Not enough," she thought to herself with disappointment, telling herself to quiet the warm ache she felt churning for him in her womb.
Gazing back at him, those chocolaty brown eyes of his, breathtaking, in this warm luminescence, she felt caught. His look so focused, so luring… He lowered his covers, never releasing his hold on her eyes, and watched as she yielded, surged as she looked him over. His chest, his shoulders, his arms, down his stomach, then stuck, deliciously stuck, her eyes widened, her knees weakened, cloaked, but most assuredly present, the bulge in his pajama bottoms catching her attention.
"Come here," so lusty he said it, the look in his eyes, the tented rise in the fabric above his groin, tugging her so that she felt the enormity of his need in every cell. He took her hand. "He had just woken up!" some semblance of reasoning tried to sound in her head, "Perhaps he had been having a sexy drea…"
Flying, she was suddenly just flying, head over heels, defying gravity with the flip, finding herself flat out on the mattress. "How did he do and that and not hurt me? The surprise showed in her eyes. Taking her hands above her head, pinning her wrists down to the soft bed… He was…
"Who is this man? William's going to have his way with me! My sash… undoing my sash. Suddenly her skin was engulfed by a cold rush of the fall-morning air, and subconsciously her womb quaked and her back arched up to him. "Who are you?" she asked, grasping at her self-control. Narrowing her eyes at him, feigning a warning, "What have you done with my husband?" she joked.
Lusciously out of breath, charged, exhilarating, he replied, "It's just, sometimes I find you so irresistibly sexy."
The look on his face pulled at her, and invaded her, simultaneously. Hands still pinned above her head, he took liberties, rendering her helpless to him, his hand explored, forceful and ravenous on her naked body, robustly his thumb roamed over her hip bone, riding her, riding in along the scrumptious curve of her, grabbing, holding, taking her waist. So humungous, tremendous, the wrenching of her womb for him, the tilt so dizzying, the foggy threat hanging there, of swirling blackness in the stratosphere. She would answer, continue their play, tease him for telling her that sometimes he could not resist. Use the same words she had used to respond that first time, to his "picnic" request and their drinking of absinthe… Pushing the words out breathlessly, "And this is one of those ti..."
His mouth on hers, stifling, muffling, stealing the word, impossible to catch its sound, its meaning as it spun and dropped away from her. Demanding, deep kisses, ravaging her. The barreling, rampaging flip of her insides as his mouth seized her tender neck. His hand pushed at her thigh. Still flying, out of control, out of control, she resisted his push. Urgently he forced his hand harder against her, her defenselessness swelling his primal urges, and she succumbed. Wham her brain, her insides, twisted and squeezed and flooded and flung as he moved… her breath flying out of her nostrils, the sound of it urging him on… Between her legs… Reaching for his pajama bottoms.
Too fast. Too fast, Julia's world was spinning out of control.
"Mm," her desperate moan in the air, defying her panic, finding him so delicious, him to her, the touch. Wet for him, astoundingly, astoundingly drenched and dripping and slippery, and oh my God the feel of him pushing in, breaching, taking…
He would be too fast! His powerful thrusts began, thundering, ramming…
"William," it was her voice out there, she heard it begging.
Hammering and pounding and pumping into her, he felt the lift, the humungous, treacherous rise… "Julia," he called her, pulled her, urged her closer, urged her to hurry.
Oh my God, it was going to be big, she felt the tidal-wave's promise. Breathy and humid, her words, "Yes William. Yes. It's coming," she answered him as she felt the rumbling, the roaring, just before the enormous crash, and William only pumped harder, so much harder, soaring them both, inertia tumbling them, whirling, and flipping, and exploding them, so mountainous the fall, the sweet, sweet ripples of the fall flowing through every moleculous morsel, melding them together as one.
The succulent sounds of their harmonious moans of release, of their voracious pleasure, still hung in the air, sang in their ears. Dense and heavy, the warm liquid lead flooded his muscles, useless, spent. He felt her underneath him, breathing, heart beating – rapid and strong. The flood of conflicting emotions cascaded, still overpowered by the warm, wonderful soaking of lust and love, he felt the edges darken with guilt. He'd been rough… too rough. Yet, his words, spoken, told only of the sweetness still floating within him, hot in her ear, "That was…"
"I see you quite liked it," she beamed, gentle and warm, her kiss to his cheek, her breath showering over his face, then a tender rubbing of her petal-soft lips and chin along his stubble. The reassurance of it sent the dark shadows fleeing, leaving him solely drowned with the warm, golden magic of their love.
The alarm sounded.
With her hold on him, still around him, he rolled them, rotated them, sitting them up on the edge of the bed, his feet to the floor, his wife straddling him, in his arms, her knees bent at his sides, his pajama bottoms draped around his ankles, he turned off the alarm.
Her voice in his ear, "My, you really swept me off my feet, detective."
"Mm-hmm," he chuckled, kicking free of his pajama shackles.
"I love you, William Murdoch. I count my lucky stars that I married you, every day, every day," she vowed.
"I'll remember that the next time you are banishing me to the couch," he grinned, so delightfully cocky.
"At your peril, mister," she warned mischievously, "That is, if you know what's good for you."
He stood, her clinging tight, riding him like a trusty steed. "I'm not letting you go yet. Not yet," she informed him, him feeling her grip around him tighten.
Playfully he tried to unseat her, jumping, and wriggling about.
Her clutching beautifully increasing…
"Now, Mr. Murdoch, you know you are not the only one here who can sit a buck," she challenged him, surging his efforts.
Delicious, her squeals.
Wham, he pressed her back into the wall. The thrill sparkling in his eyes, in her eyes. He kissed her, she melted. "You win," she whispered, lowering her legs to the floor, letting him go.
)
William just finishing brushing his teeth, Julia re-robed and laying out her clothes, the tiny knocking rapped at their bedroom door. Their son, now almost two years-old, on the other side, the parents shared a look… Fun, agreed. Hurrying to the bed, Julia tossed William a pillow, then grabbed one for herself.
"Just a minute," Julia called out as they both snuck forward to the door. One glance, and William reached over and turned the knob.
Glee and surprise on the little child's face at the sight of his mother directly in front of him, the promise of roughhousing held in the pillow in her hands…
"Good morning, little one. Now I'm gonna get you," her teasing tone promised the horse-playing shenanigans he so craved.
So overwhelmingly enamored by the game, instead of running away, her tiny son plowed directly into her pillow, screaming and shrieking with delight, to be scooped up into the air and to have his giggles muffled by the wonderful fluffiness.
Suddenly, his Daddy joined the game, with a wild growl, intensifying his joyous squeals. Quickly sandwiched between two pillows, the father exclaimed, "A toddler sandwich and we're gonna eat you up." Gravity-defying spins and tosses, and parental squeezes, and even being thrown on the bed, and then tickled, and being encouraged to return the pillow-fire, all resulted in parental exhaustion.
Lying flat out on the bed, being repeatedly battered with pillows by both his lovely wife and his adorable little son, William called out uncle, and grabbed his boy and hugged him close, letting the child ride the breaths of his chest. "Whew," he blew out some of his exhaustion, then secretly whispered, "You never kissed your mother good morning," prompting the little boy to dart to his mother and jump into her opening arms and be showered with kisses.
"Good morning, Mommy," he declared.
"And your Daddy," she returned the favor, sending the child running across the space between them once more. Bounding into his father's lap, he gave him a kiss, "Morning Daddy," he said.
Julia walked over to them where they sat on the bed and extended a hand, inviting their son to go with her. "Let's get you started, little one. Daddy has to shave," she said.
"I wanna see," William Jr. began his pleas.
"Then you'd best hurry with brushing your teeth then," his mother bargained.
Like a rocket, he burst away from her, his little feet pattering down the hall to the bathroom in a rush.
She looked back to her husband, "Shouldn't take long, with his few little teeth," she added, laughing at her own joke… in his opinion, endearingly.
Intending to share his morning shave with his son, William set out his clothes and waited for the two of them to return. He had pulled Julia's vanity chair up to the bathroom countertop so William Jr. could stand on it and see into the mirror. The boy watched with amazement as his Daddy put the shaving cream on his face with the little brush. Then his Daddy made his world shine, wholeheartedly sharing the experience with the boy, he spread some of the foam on the little boy's face with the soft, soft brush. And then, with a quick glance in the mirror to his wife, he handed his son her nail-file to be his 'razor,' and he proceeded to teach the boy how to 'shave' off the cream right alongside his Daddy.
His Mommy's smile in the mirror, telling it was part of the play, she scolded her husband mercilessly.
Not long after, the doorbell rang. It was Uncle George, with the Constabulary carriage. They were needed – there was a body in the park.
) (
Noticing that the morgue carriage had already arrived in the park, Julia took William's hand and stepped out of the police carriage. She went directly to the body lying on the road. William stayed back, getting updated and then giving instructions to the constables at the scene. When he joined her, squatting down next to her at the body's side, he found that his mind was flashing images… sexy, inappropriate, luscious images…
"Doctor," he said, tilting his hat, catching her eye.
"Detective," came her reply, sultry… her beautiful blue eyes lingering a little too long.
Stuck. They were seductively stuck together, mingling in the persistent, tempting, euphoric remnants of the afterglow.
William's mind, in multiple directions all at once the circuits were firing, dwelled on the rosy color of her cheeks, and the tempting of a dangling curl at her edge. Close enough to touch, he broke their decorum while working, and reached across the distance between them to take the curl in his fingers.
The uncharacteristic and alluring action drew a yearnful breath from her, for her mind had managed to hold tighter to the roles they each played in public, at least at this moment, more so than did his, it appeared, and she regretted it deeply.
"Detective," she called, sensing his eyes better focus. Slowly it would hit him, what he was doing wrong, where they were. With such a powerful hope and anticipation, she waited for the beautiful flooding of blushing to cover his face, preparing desperately to fight her smile as it did.
The blush did not come, and instead, his holding to her eyes tugged at her. She fought the whirlwind, leaned into the force of it defiantly, needing to break the spell.
"The body, detective," she said, her tone too longing, too monotone, but at least the words had made it out into the vortex for him to hear. He would fall back into the reality around them, help to pull her there, too, as he fell back down to the ground.
Oh, but his eyes betrayed the misunderstanding… "the body, detective," she had said…
His mind flared the memory, hot and strong, of his firm, demanding hold on her flesh, her curvy, naked body flashing in the flickering lightning bolts. He saw it, smelled the ozone of it, heard her gasp, as he glided and lifted his needy fingers over her ribcage, seizing her breasts as she straddled above him, so creamy and delicious, upwards, and downwards, and inwards, rippling and yielding to him, creating deep, deep cleavage, the bulbous orbs jiggling with the waves of his motions. He rose up to her, tucked into her, smothering his face in her, right before the soft surrounding of her flesh muffled the boom of the crack of thunder, roaring through the world. His groin bolted, as his eyes traveled down over her body and his breath both surged and caught…
"The victim's body, detective," her voice stronger now, threatening to tease.
The bump of her tone providing the shove he needed… and the smells of the park, the sounds of the birds, flowed in, and he was… back.
And then the beautiful blush came, with the wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. He needed to clear his throat before speaking, and still his voice scratched, "I'm having trouble forgetting…" he cleared his throat again, he let go of her curl. He was going to say this "this morning…"
But she spoke first. "It was lovely – memorable," she agreed. She sounded so grounded now.
"George," he called out, perhaps a little too loudly, in an effort to force himself back to the scene.
The constable joined them, squatting down on the other side of the body.
"It's downhill on your side, George. Is it wet under him?" William asked.
"Yes, some, but it seems to be dry further under…"
"The body was placed here well before sunrise?" Julia asked, looking to the detective at the scene.
George's face showed his amazement.
William nodded, turning to George to explain. "There was a thunderstorm, um…" he reached up to rub his brow, causing Julia to shift her position nervously in his periphery. He was certain she was stifling the urge to giggle. "Around two this morning…" he paused, to push hard against the explicit details of the memory that threatened to reappear in his mind, "It woke us up."
"I see," the constable replied. And truth be told, he did, his own memories playing in his head of hearing the hearty cries of the old neighbor woman's parrot, back at the Windsor House Hotel, imitating Dr. Ogden's sensual and rowdy exclamations during what was obviously this couple's passionate lovemaking. He betrayed himself, a Mona-Lisa smile curling on his face, and all three of them jolted their attention back down on the body.
It appeared that this particular murder was not going to be all that difficult to solve. The victim had identification on him, and a knife, the likely murder weapon, still wedged in his chest. The blood at the scene suggested the murder had taken place here. There was a bloody footprint. Time of death, based on temperature and lividity, matched with the conclusions drawn from the observation of the presence of a dry spot underneath him, was determined to be between midnight and two a.m. and that he had been stabbed right here where he laid.
After examining the body at the scene, and after asking if she could take the body back to the morgue, Julia and William stood together, off slightly to the side, the body still on the ground behind them in the distance, knife poking up into the air, and they broke protocol, talking more intimately than they normally might, while, unbeknownst to them, they were being photographed. She asked if he would accept having Miss James perform the autopsy. "It looks fairly straight forward, William," Julia argued, "And I have my class today. Remember…" she nudged, leaning closer to him.
He nodded, prompting her to smile, which then brought a smile to his face as well.
She reminded, "I'm bringing them up to our property – the body farm…"
"Yes," he interrupted, wanting to show her how attentive to her plans he was, "It's a brilliant idea, a study on the effects of season on buried bodies." Her class would be analyzing bodies buried on both of the equinoxes – one was today, and both of the solstices.
Thinking of her and her class up at the body farm, he felt a gurgle of dread in his gut. He had to remind himself that they had solved all the tumultuous cases of the extra bodies that had been found up there. Still, the press had been aggressively critical of the whole idea of such a thing as a body farm, calling it morbid and spooky, and he still had a bad taste in his mouth from all their negative stories. "Be on the lookout, Julia, for any loitering reporters on the hunt for their latest take-down story," he warned, with a raised eyebrow.
Her giggle suggested she took his warning as a joke, yet, she told herself, he was probably right.
Uncommonly, they kissed, probably due to a lingering of their intimacy from their morning not yet fully letting go. She would be home late. He would miss her.
) (
Back at the stationhouse, things with the case of this morning's Atkins murder progressed rapidly. The victim's wife had an alibi – she and their two children had been being visited by her sister and her child who had spent the night with them. Her husband, the victim, was to have returned from a business trip late last night and had planned to sleep in his office. The wife suspected her husband's business partner of the murder. The partner, Mr. Tarson, had a temper, and he had been trying to get her husband to sell him his half of the business for weeks. The fingermarks on the knife matched those of the business partner, at least based on the fingermarks that they had dusted for in both the victim's and Mr. Tarson's offices, and compared to those of the victim. And they had discovered matching footprints going into the victim's office, figuring the partner had returned there after committing the murder. The only hitch was that they were having trouble locating the suspect. The constables were out looking for him.
Finally having time, William sat down at his desk and took a deep breath. "Ah," he thought, "the paper." He had barely made it through the headlines of the first page when the phone rang through from the front desk. "Detective?" the front desk constable's voice checked.
"Yes Jenkins?" William said.
"There's a man from an orphanage on the line for you, sir," the constable said.
A zing of worry overcame William. Surely, now, the gossip would spread through the whole stationhouse like a wildfire.
"Thank you, constable," he replied as calmly as he could. Before he had had a chance to recover from that first worry, another bigger one surged up from his innards – "What if they reject us too?!"
"Detective Murdoch, Mr. Harlen here. I'll be to the point, I know you're a busy man," the caller said.
"Thank you, sir. It's appreciated," William answered.
"It seems the board just simply could not be convinced, I'm sorry to say. It seems… well to be frank, detective… It seems that your wife's history was too… vexing for them."
"Vexing?" William heard himself sounding defensive, advised himself to back-off.
"Well, perhaps it would be helpful for you to better know what you're up against…" the man seemed to be wavering.
William decided in that instant that he wanted to know exactly why Julia – and it did sound like it was Julia, was being rejected as someone's mother.
"Better than what?" William asked.
"Um… Well, the letter we've sent you… It won't be very specific, you see," the man hinted.
"Well, I'd like you to be specific, please, Mr. Harlen," William stated plainly.
"Very well," Mr. Harlen gave. He took a deep breath and explained, "The board mentioned many… problems with your wife…"
William remained silent, his jaw tightening, unconsciously, his fist curling.
"I mean, she wouldn't even take your name when you married. And she had filed for a divorce… And, well, you have to admit detective, the fact that the two of you blatantly had an affair while she was married to Dr. Garland – at the Queen's Hotel together – it's on public record. Now, there is no argument, that's outright scandalous behavior…"
William's anger was letting go, he sunk deeper into his chair, his back rounding under the astoundingly crushing pressure of it all.
The man went on, "She works. She has been arrested… more than once. On trial for murder – and even convicted…"
William leaned into the phone, unwilling to let this go on. "But she was…"
"Yes," Mr. Harlen interrupted, "Yes, you proved she was innocent. But then she was also arrested for teaching women about methods of contraception."
The detective's sigh into the receiver announced that he had conceded. He was only grateful that they didn't know the whole of it in that regard, absolutely terrified of the consequences of knowledge ever getting out of Julia's abortion. For that, it would not only be rejection from orphanages, it would be jail, possibly even hanging.
Mr. Harlen returned a sigh. "I am sorry detective, but it seems unlikely any adoption board will agree to giving a child up to a household so lacking in…" here the man's hesitation sent a panic through William, the judgement so potentially harsh. He held his breath, bracing…
Harlen chickened-out, did not pass on the condemning moral judgement. "I'm sorry, you will have to look elsewhere, detective, I'm afraid," he concluded, "The letter is in the mail."
With a huff, William answered as politely and confidently as he could, "Thank you for your time Mr. Harlen. We will."
"Good day," the man said before he hung up the phone, as if that would be possible now.
His face mixed between a frown and a scowl, William reached up and rubbed his brow. Every fiber of his being yelled for him NOT to tell this to Julia, for there was no doubt, it would be devastating for her. But how could he not? She was his partner, his soulmate through this life. He would have to tell her. Deciding to let the problem stew on the back burner, he returned to the paper, quickly regretting it.
A headline inside enticed readers to the latest gossip about the Murdoch's. The article stole any choice he had had in the matter – he definitely would need to discuss it with Julia now.
"Modern Ogden Unfit for Mothering, Orphanage Rules," read the headline.
Yes, the whole stationhouse would know they were trying to adopt, the whole world it seemed. And much, much worse, the whole world would hear about his lovely Julia from the dismal perspective of the wolves huffing at their door. William sat, chin in fist, staring down at the dreadful paper.
He felt a surprising relief with the knock at his office door. "Sir, we found Mr. Tarson. He was trying to board a train," Crabtree said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Should we put him in the Interview Room?" he asked.
"Yes George. That's very good, very good," he nodded and jumped up.
"Actually sir. He's already confessed," George told.
William stalled, took a breath to think. "Good. Good," he nodded again. "We'll make it official," he concluded. He retrieved the file from his desk and headed in to take the confession.
) (
A few hours later, William sat at his desk, flowers for his wife laid off to the side, finishing up the file on this morning's case. He wasn't surprised when a call came through from Julia, but he fought to sound unbothered, hoping she had not yet seen the paper, and figuring it best to breach the subject when they were at home.
"Julia," his voice smiled for her, "Is everything alright?" he asked.
"Well detective," he so loved the playful teasing he so often heard in her voice, "Now that you ask…"
"What is it?" his curiosity and worry rose.
"It seems that here at the infamous Murdoch Body Farm, there is, once again, a body that we did not bury here," she told. "And, to make matters worse…"
Now, with this his whole stomach flipped upwards while his heart sunk…
"It appears that a few reporters got word we would be here today, somehow. Circling like wolves, actually," she giggled, betraying her own discomfort, "Unfortunately, they smelled blood, and a few of my students verified their assertions… and well, they know, um, details now. And they're asking for more. And William, it's… I think you should come," she said.
She heard his pressured exhale through the phone line. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he promised her. "Uh, Julia…"
"Yes?" so sweet her voice…
"It'll be alright," he said.
"Yes. Yes, I'm sure it will, William. But it will be better when you're here, hmm?' she asked him, told him.
"I'm already out the door," he said, standing, stretching to reach for his homburg. He hung up the phone.
"George," he called, "I could use your help."
) (