Three Graces of Maidstone

I had hoped that the landlord would see the advantage of having me on the premises. If I was there I might deter vandalism and possible squatters. If anything went wrong I could report it immediately. The landlord was getting a free security guard.

The legal paperwork took nearly a month and needed Amy's signature several times. She complied but made it clear that she thought I was on a wild goose chase. I had enough time for me to rearrange my life so that I had as much time available for digging. I moved my equipment into the end cottage. I arranged to reconnect the water and electricity. I could cook a meal and clean myself up. I made what had been the front parlour into my workroom, equipped with tables to spread any finds on. The only find I really wanted was the Three Graces but I wouldn't tell anyone about them unless and until I found them.

The first two weeks were boring. I cleared the site by hand. There was no room for even the smallest mechanical digger. I started the first trench across where I thought the centre of the cellars would be. By the end of the second week that trench was a yard and a half deep with nothing to show except a collection of Victorian rubbish.

Amy telephoned me out of the blue. She admitted that she had been unreasonable about my obsession with the Three Graces. She knew that she got excited about archaeological finds but hadn't realised that archaeology about more modern structures could be as interesting as earlier ones until she had started working on an Eighteenth Century water mill. Had I found anything? I told her that I hadn't but I thought I might be in the right area. We agreed to meet up on Friday.

We went out for a meal. When we left into the cold October night we shivered so Amy invited me back to nearby her flat. She kissed me on the doorstep before leading me inside. After a couple of cups of coffee she snuggled up to me and we began to kiss. One kiss led to another and then to her bed. For once she was the instigator. She stripped me slowly and sensuously before pushing me back on to her bed and mounting me. Later that night she pulled me on top of her, wrapping her legs tightly as I thrust. Despite myself I thought of the Three Graces and almost felt the other two pressing down on me as I penetrated Amy/Aglaia. I even reached for the non-existent button behind Amy's neck as she continued to writhe after I had ejaculated. Amy took this for a signal for more effort. I held on as she reached her own climax.

Amy and I agreed to meet again soon. She offered her assistance as an archaeologist if I found anything interesting. Would I tell Amy? I wasn't sure. Was I deceiving her? Probably - but did it matter when I had found nothing?

Late one day, halfway through the third week, at a depth of eight feet I found the top of a stonework arch that looked old. I dug around it until I had exposed an area about six feet square. I picked out some of the stones to make a hole and lowered an electric lantern. The vault was about twelve feet deep and extended away from the hole in two directions. The floor was dry and dusty but there was nothing there, nothing except bare flagstones. I covered the hole with a tarpaulin until the morning.

The next day I widened the hole, fitted a lockable trapdoor, and pushed a ladder down so that I could descend. I lowered a candle to check whether the air was breathable. The candle flame burned bright and clear. I climbed down with a powerful flashlight.

The cellar was twelve feet wide and about sixty feet from end to end. My entrance was almost in the centre. At one end there was an arched doorway. I hurried towards it because this cellar was bare except for a light covering of dust. Through the archway there was another identical cellar, another archway and a third cellar. All were bare as if swept clean.

I thought I saw an irregularity at the far end of the third cellar. I was feeling disappointed because all my work had only discovered three bare cellars. Although they might be interesting in the history of the development of Maidstone, a medieval empty cellar was just as boring as an empty Victorian one. If there had been some finds then my work might have been justified.

At the end of the third cellar was another archway that had not been completed. It wasn't blocked. It had been started and stopped because the builders had encountered a large natural rock weighing many tons. I slapped the rock in frustration. I hadn't found the Three Graces. I hadn't found anything. I retraced my steps to the ladder and went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee while I thought furiously. Where had I gone wrong? Had the contents of the cellars been removed hundreds of years ago? Where were the Three Graces?

After my coffee I decided to do my research properly. I should measure and record what I had found, even if it was boring. I fixed the ladder securely so that I could use it frequently. I collected my tape measures, a digital camera and measuring yardsticks, putting them carefully into the cellars. I ran electric cables into the cellars and connected several powerful floodlights that I could move around easily. I took a folding table and chair to use as a workspace to rest my laptop.

I plotted the orientation of the walls, measured length and height, and photographed everything with a yardstick in view to show dimensions. At the end of the day I had enough information to build a virtual reality set of cellars on my computer. I entered some of the data but left the rest and the calculations until the next day.

I thought about telling Amy about the cellars but what could I show her? All I had were empty rooms of little interest to anyone. I decided to wait and see. If I found something then I'd tell Amy, or would I?

That night I had a nightmare of being trapped in the Three Graces with Hesta laughing at me as I was swallowed between the three figures. None of the Graces had any resemblance to Amy. They seemed relentless and possessed of inhuman endurance, wearing me down by their constant thrusting. Hesta's laughing became more maniacal as I was swallowed between the three bodies. Hesta turned into Amy berating me for excluding her from my find.

"I hope the Three Graces stab you to death," Amy/Hesta screamed at me. I woke in a cold sweat, nearly shouting aloud that I hadn't deceived her.

In the morning I finished entering the data and started the programme to produce a three-dimensional image of the cellars. Even on my new laptop that would take some time so I returned to the cellars to check the walls carefully to see if there was anything I had missed.

After an hour of crawling fruitlessly around the empty cellars I stopped for coffee and looked at the laptop's results. The three cellars stood out clearly on screen and the obvious hit me. How stupid could I be? There was no entrance or exit to the cellars, not even in their arched ceilings.

The third cellar was shorter than the other two. The archways from the first to the second cellar, and from the second cellar to the third, were about twelve feet from the end yet entered the third cellar flush with its end wall. The third cellar was only forty feet long.

I went outside and discreetly marked the positions of the cellars on the surface of the back yards. I scratched their outline in the dirt. Where the ends of the third cellar came I plotted a hole to be dug beyond the end walls. There must be a blocked entrance somewhere.

Four days later I had cleared a stone ramp leading down towards the truncated end of the third cellar and I had begun to expose the wall. I had found nothing to show that these cellars might have held anything important. I now had both sides of a cellar wall and my measurements showed that the wall must be solid. There were faint indications that the wall at the foot of the ramp was later than the rest of the cellars but that was it. I had found three empty cellars and now I had found the original access to them. Should I tell Amy now? I decided not to.

I sat down in the kitchen of the end cottage and stared at the three-dimensional image on my laptop. I was disappointed. I had wasted months of my life on research and now weeks of hard physical labour and for what? I had found three completely empty cellars. There had not been even a scrap of parchment or a discarded wine bottle. I went to the fridge and opened a cold can of lager. When empty, I rinsed the can out and added it to the box for recycling. I turned to get another can and then stopped dead.

Surely the cellars' emptiness was unnatural? Most cellars accumulated things that might be useful someday. Even disused cellars normally had piles of rubbish. These were very empty, almost clinically empty. Why?

I opened the second can. The cellars showed that there was nothing to hide. Anyone finding them could see that they were totally empty after a single walk around. Was their emptiness a deliberate ploy? I sat down with my laptop and played with the three dimensional image. There was nowhere that was concealed. The three cellars were identical except for the newer wall at the end of the entrance ramp.

I went back down into the cellars. I walked to the end of the third cellar and the incomplete archway blocked by the natural stone outcrop. I poked around it with a bar. That stone was solid and immovable except by explosives. Why had they started an arch? They must have intended to link the cellar to somewhere else. This third cellar must actually have been the first because it had the only access to outside. If they couldn't go past that rock did they build the second and third cellars instead? Were they an attempt to bypass the rock? If so, why did they end in solid walls? The solid wall concealing the entrance ramp had deceived me. What if one or more of the other end walls were also later additions?

The obvious place to start was in the cellar I had broken into first. That must have been the last one made because it was accessed from the other two. I turned a floodlight at the wall furthest from the archway to the next cellar and looked very carefully. I thought that the stone work wasn't as well interlinked with the side walls. I took up a pickaxe and attacked the wall where it met the side wall. A few blows and I had displaced a couple of large stones. I pulled them out to show a dark hole beyond. I bashed away with the pickaxe until an avalanche of stones made a hole large enough for me to crawl through. I moved the floodlight until it shone through the hole and peered.

This part of the cellars wasn't empty. The space seemed larger than any one of the other three cellars. My light couldn't show all of it because the stonework curved away in an arc behind the other two cellars. There were vague shrouded shapes and piles covered in heavy material across the width of the cellar nearly reaching the roof with a narrow passageway down the centre. Even what I could see would make a load for several heavy trucks. Everything had a thick layer of dust. Dust, mainly from my energetic wall-bashing, sparkled in the floodlight's beam.

I restrained my impatience and cleared away the rubble before enlarging the hole so that I could walk through it easily. I stacked the stones against the side wall. When I had finished I had one last look before leaving the cellar and switching off all the lights. I didn't trust myself to examine the finds carefully. Tomorrow would do, but tonight I would sleep in the cottage. I didn't want any stray tramp stumbling in on my secret hoard.

I celebrated with a whole bottle of champagne. That was a mistake. Amy/Hesta's laughter tormented my dreams. The Three Graces turned from three beautiful women into three vengeful Harpies determined to thrust their daggers into my body while I was gagged and bound between them. In the early hours of the morning I was reduced to sitting up in bed reading a ridiculously plotted paperback thriller a previous tenant had left in the cottage. I dare not sleep. Hesta and the Three Graces would be on me as soon as my eyes closed.

Shortly after dawn I knew that I needed Amy's help. I should have involved her earlier. What I had seen might take years to record even if the Three Graces weren't there. I made myself a cooked breakfast to pass the time until it would be a reasonable hour to ring Amy.

When I did I got straight through to her message system. I left the message "I've found something – please ring," and then made myself some strong coffee to wake me up.

Amy rang back within the hour.

"What have you found, Malcolm?" she asked.

"I don't know. I discovered three completely empty cellars but yesterday I broke through an end wall to see a whole heap of things I haven't touched. Whatever they are, they have been there a long time. I need your help, please Amy."

"OK, Malcolm. I'll have to make a couple of phone calls but I'll be with you within the hour."

That hour seemed interminable. I dare not go down to look at the finds. I might be disappointed.

Amy almost jumped into my arms as she came through the door. I had forgotten how excited discoveries made her. She dragged me onto the couch and we made love. At first I was impatient with her because I wanted to get at the cellar but her demanding lips and writhing legs soon made me concentrate on satisfying her. The thought of Aglaia flashed past as Amy's legs clamped harder but my body soon erased anything except the frantic coupling.

"We could have done this more often if you hadn't been so secretive, Malcolm. Should I forgive you for neglecting me?"

How could I answer? It was true. I had neglected her and kept her away from my excavations until I needed her. I kissed her but she turned away.

It was an hour before we had recovered sufficiently to enter the cellars. Once I had turned the lights on Amy was amazed at the space taken by the empty cellars. I took a powerful light on a long lead to the wall I had broken through. A few blows from a sledgehammer cleared room for us to enter with the light.

Amy set up my camera on a tripod. I put measuring sticks around each shrouded heap and we meticulously recorded the position of everything without touching anything. At the furthest part of the concealed area was the largest shape.

"If the Three Graces are anywhere," Amy said casually, "they must be here. Shall we try uncovering?"

It took longer than either of us had expected. The shape was covered in layer upon layer of coarse cloth tied with rope over each layer. We brought two aluminium ladders so that we could lift the layers off carefully and we recorded each stage of the unwrapping with photos and measurements.

Finally it was obvious that we were revealing a large four-poster bed. On top of the posts was a heavy wooden canopy with dark red pelmets in perfect condition. The closed curtains were slightly faded but still sound. We carefully parted them on one side to reveal more wrapping over the bed. We stood back.

"I think we should take a break, Malcolm," Amy suggested. "We've been down here for hours."

She was right. Leaving the floodlight and tripod in place we left the cellars and turned the lights off.

We washed the dust off our hands and faces before Amy went out for a takeaway meal. While she was gone I uploaded the photos to my computer's hard drive and to my personal back-up storage on the internet. Only then did I realise how tired I was. I moved to the couch and went into an almost dreamless sleep that was bliss.

Amy kissed me awake. Even asleep I knew that it was Amy kissing me and not Aglaia.

After the meal we returned to that bed. The last layers revealed that we had indeed found The Three Graces of Maidstone. I was surprised just how lifelike the three images looked after all this time. Each was dressed in silken Greek dresses split down the front. The alterations to add the stilettos were barely visible until I pressed around the small holes in their bodies. There was no sign of any blood on the soft flesh.

"Why no blood?" I asked aloud.

"Stilettos, if sharp and narrow enough, don't cause wounds that bleed," Amy said, "Most of the bleeding would be internal."

I didn't ask how she knew.

"Well? Now you've found them, aren't you going to try their embrace?"

Was Amy serious? The stilettos would kill me.

"I'm sure the daggers can be detached," she continued. "It would be a shame after all these months of obsession if you didn't enjoy them before they become a public spectacle..."

"I couldn't..."

"Yes you could. You want to, don't you?"

It was true. I had been dreaming about the Three Graces.

"Yes, but... I'd leave traces."

"Not if you used a condom, you wouldn't."

Amy seemed to have thought of the answers before I had.

It took us several days to examine the Three Graces in detail. They were in amazing condition. The mechanism had been covered with heavy grease. Once we had removed that and oiled the works liberally we wound the Three Graces up for the first time for hundreds of years.

I was fascinated and appalled. Anyone lying on Aglaia would be imprisoned by the three figures until released. The stiletto mechanisms struck with sudden ferocity, darting out almost too fast to see. We disconnected that part and carefully removed the sharp points. Now the Three Graces were back as they had been originally designed yet we could restore their deadly strike whenever we wanted.

While I uploaded more photos of the details of the Three Graces Amy stayed in the cellar learning how to operate the Three Graces' mechanism.

We agreed that I would try the Three Graces next evening. Amy would assist me and be there to stop the mechanism and release me at any time.

As I stood naked by the bed I shivered. The clockwork was fully wound and ready to go. These figures had killed. As Amy put a hand on my shoulder her long skirt brushed the back of my legs. She had dressed as if for a party with high heels, a long blood-red velvet skirt and a low-cut white satin top. Her face was unnaturally white, her lips bright scarlet. I noticed the change because Amy normally lived in jeans or a denim skirt.

"Go on," Amy urged.

I slid a condom on my insistent erection and positioned myself on Aglaia. I slid into her as if she had been made just for me. I heard a faint click as Amy pressed the button. I don't know how, but Aglaia's mouth found mine almost as if she was alive. I returned her kiss as her arms entwined around my body. Her sisters turned inwards and pressed me deeper into Aglaia's cleft which started to pulse around me. I opened my mouth to yell with excitement...

Aglaia's tongue darted into between my teeth and then swelled into a pear shape stifling any sound I might have made. I shook my head frantically before her arm clamped around it and held it still. The other Graces pushed harder against me until I was helplessly immobile. I couldn't see anything except Aglaia's face close to mine. I could hear very little as my head was trapped by her arm and her sisters' heads. Even so I sensed Amy moving behind the headboard ready to release me. I didn't want to be released. My erection was rhythmically encouraged to a shattering climax. Amy must have known when I was spent because she stopped the automaton within seconds.

I would have slumped if I could move.

"Well, Malcolm? Are you satisfied? Were they worth the effort? Were they worth neglecting me for?"

Amy's voice was shrill and demanding. I couldn't reply.

"Now I want something and you are in no position to refuse. Hold still."

I felt her hands part my exposed cheeks. Her fingers gently entered, smearing something slippery into my anus. Slowly she massaged until I was open for whatever she wanted to do to me.

A cold plastic dildo was what she wanted me to accept. She straddled me, lifting her long velvet skirt to her waist. She had attached that dildo to herself and she mounted me. I tried to scream against Aglaia as Amy thrust again and again into me. Aglaia's tongue gagged me silent as tears dripped against her unresponsive face.