Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
by John Cleland
A new and genuine edition from the original text (London, 1749).
PARIS—ISIDORE LISEUX
Of this Edition, privately printed, there are
350 numbered copies, of which this is number 111.
Contents
LETTER THE FIRST |
LETTER THE SECOND |
LETTER THE FIRST
Madam,
I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as
indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to
view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerged, at length, to
the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to
bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the
leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding,
naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose
pleasures I had been tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and
manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession,
who, looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as
great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.
Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give you good
quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the
loose part of my life, written with the same liberty that I led it.
Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take the
pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint situations such
as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of
decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you
have too much sense, too much knowledge of the originals, to sniff prudishly
and out of character at the pictures of them. The greatest men, those of the
first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets
with nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think
them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.
This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My maiden name
was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire,
of parents extremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.
My father, who had received a maim on his limbs, that disabled him from
following the more laborious branches of country drudgery, got, by making nets,
a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarged by my mother’s keeping
a little day-school for the girls in her neighborhood. They had had several
children; but none lived to any age except myself, who had received from nature
a constitution perfectly healthy.
My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar: reading, or
rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work,
composed the whole system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no
other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex,
in the tender age of life, when objects alarm or frighten more by their novelty
than anything else. But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expense of
innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a
creature of prey that will eat her.
My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars and her
little domestic cares, that she had spared very little to my instruction,
having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of guarding me
against any.
I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell me in
the loss of my fond, tender parents, who were both carried off by the
small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby
by hastening the death of my mother: so that I was now left an unhappy
friendless orphan (for my father’s coming to settle there, was
accidental, he being originally a Kentisrman). That cruel distemper which had
proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such mild and
favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and what then I did
not know the value of, was entirely unmarked I skip over here an account of the
natural grief and affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little
time, and the giddiness of that age, dissipated too soon my reflections on that
irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the
notions that were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking
out for a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from one
Esther Davis, a young woman that had beer down to see her friends, and who,
after the stay of a few days, was returned to her place.
As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had concern enough about
what should become of me, to start any objections to this scheme, and the woman
who took care of me after my parents’ death, rather encouraged me to
pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this launch into the wide
world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my fortune, a phrase which, by
the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever
it made or advanced.
Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with her, by
piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to be seen in
London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and
Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life
to come at; the detail of all which perfectly turned the little head of me.
Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not without a
spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going clothes did not
rise above dowlas shifts and stuff gowns, beplaced with silver: all which we
imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal into my determination of
trying to come in for my share of them.
The idea however of having the company of a towns-woman with her, was the
trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of me during my
journey to town, where she told me, after the manner and style, “as how
several maids out of the country had made themselves and all their kind for
ever: that by preserving their virtue, some had taken so with their masters,
that they had married them, and kept them coaches, and lived vastly grand and
happy; and some, may-hap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as
well as another?”; with other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a
tip-toe to begin this promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my
native one, contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown
insupportable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold air of
charity, with which I was entertained, even at the only friend’s house
that I had the least expectation of care and protection from. She was, however,
so just to me, as to manage the turning into money the little matters that
remained to me after the debts and burial charges were allowed for, and, at my
departure, put my whole fortune into my hands; which consisted of a very
slender wardrobe, packed up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with
seventeen shillings in silver, stowed in a spring-pouch, which was a greater
treasure than I ever had seen together, and which I could not conceive there
was a possibility of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with
the joy of seeing myself mistress of such an immence sum, that I gave very
little attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.
Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the Chester waggon, I pass over
a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at which I droped a few tears betwixt
grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that
happened to me on the road, such as the waggoner’s looking liquorish on
me, the schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by
the valiance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly
care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for the protection by making me
bear all travelling charges, which I defrayed with the unmost cheerfulness, and
thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain.
She took indeed great care that we were not overrated, or imposed on, as well
as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not her vice.
It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached the town, in our slow
conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through the greatest
streets that led to our inn, the noise, of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds
of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops and houses, at once
pleased and amazed me.
But guess at my mortification and surprise when we came to the inn, and our
things were landed and delivered to us, when my fellow traveller and
protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during
the journey, and prepared me by no preceedings signs for the stunning blow I
was to receive, when I say, my only dependence and friend, in this strange
place, all of a sudden assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she
dreaded my becoming a burden to her.
Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and good
offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought herself, it
seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe
to my journey’s end, and seeing nothing in her procedure towards me but
what natural and in order, began to embrace me by the way of taking leave,
whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so
much as to mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and knowledge
of the place she had brought me to.
Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to nothing
more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a slight
alleviation of it, in the following harangue: “That now we were got safe
to London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she advised me by all
means to get into one as soon as possible; that I need not fear getting one;
there were more places than parish-churches; that she advised me to go to an
intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing stirring, she would find me
out and let me know; that in the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and
acquaint her where to send to me; that she wished me good luck, and hoped I
should always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bringing a disgrace
on my parentage.” With this; she took her leave of me, and left me, as it
were, on my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.
Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to feel most
bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in a
little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I
felt at my helpless strange circumstances, burst out into a flood of tears,
which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I still remained
stupified, and most perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself.
One of the drawers coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty, by asking me,
in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied innocently:
“No.” But I wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for
that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly
came, and told me drily, without entering in the least into the distress she
saw me in, that I might have a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I
had some friends in town (there I fetched a deep sigh in vain!), I might
provide for myself in the morning.
It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize in its
greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed to lie on that
night, calmed my agonies; and being ashamed to acquaint the mistress of the inn
that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the
very next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnished with
written directions on the back of a ballad, Esther had given me. There I
counted on getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might
be fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little
stock should be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated to
me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, however affected I was at
her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to rely on her, as I began to think,
good-naturedly, that her procedure was all in course, and that is was only my
ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light I at first did.
Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as neat as my
rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with special
recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any
more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen,
and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wished for
intelligence office.
It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with a book
before her in great form and order, and several scrolls made out, of directions
for places.
I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes or
observing any of the people round me, who were attending there on the same
errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine deep, just made a shift to
stammer out my business to her.
Madam heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister of State,
and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me no answer, but to
ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told me places for
women too slight built for hard work: but that she would look over her book,
and see what was to be done for me, desiring me to stay a little, till she had
dispatched some other customers.
On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration which
carried with it a killing uncertainly, that my circumstances could not well
endure.
Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion from my uneasy
thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little, and sent my eyes on a course
round the room, where they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such my
extreme innocence pronounced her) sitting in a corner of the room, dressed in a
velvet mantle (in the midst of summer), with her bonnet off; squat, fat,
red-faced, and at least fifty.
She looked as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from head to
foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so
fixedly put me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest
recommendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose. After a little time,
in which my air, person and whole figure had undergone a strict examination,
which I had, on my part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming, drawing
up my neck, and setting my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the
greatest demureness:
“Sweet-heart, do you want a place?
“Yes, and please you,” (with a curtsey down to the ground).
Upon this she acquainted me she was actually come to the office herself, to
look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with a little of her
instruction; that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character; that
London was a very wicked, vile, place; that she hoped I would be tractable, and
keep out of bad company; in short, she said all to me that an old experienced
practitioner in town could think of, and which was much more than was necessary
to take in an artless inexperienced country maid, who was even afraid of
becoming a wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jumped at the first
offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such
my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was, I being actually
hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the office, whose shrewed
smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and innocently interpreted them
as marks of being pleased at my getting into place so soon: but, as I
afterwards came to know, these Beldams understood one another very well, and
this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my mistress, frequently attended, on the
watch for any fresh goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers,
and her own profit.
Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain that fearing I presume,
lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping through her
fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling
herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered without the least
scruple or explanation as to where I was going.
This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me, and thence
renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in
——— street, who accordingly landed us at the door, after I
had been cheered up and entertained by the way with the most plausible flams,
without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I was, by
the greatest luck, fallen into the hands of kindest mistress, not to say
friend, that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I entered her doors
with most complete confidence and exultation, promising, myself that, as soon
as I could be a little settled, I would acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good
fortune.
You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessened by the appearance
of a very handsome back parlor, into which I was led and which seemed to me
magnificently furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordinary ones
in inns upon the road. There were two gilt pier-glasses, and a buffet, on which
a few pieces of plate, set out to the most shew, dazzled, and altogether
persuaded me that I must be got into a very reputable family.
Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I must have good
spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me to be a
common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her;
and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers for
me; to all which I answered only by the profoundest and the awkwardest
curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such as “’yes! no! to be
sure!”
Presently my mistress touched the bell, and in came a strapping maid-servant,
who had let us in. “Here, Martha,” said Mrs. Brown, “I have
just hired this young woman to look after my linen; so step up and show her her
chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you would myself,
for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I shall do
for her.”
Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her cue
perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up with her; and
accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there
was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman,
a cousin of my mistress, who she was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she
ran out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress!
and how happy I was to light upon her! and that I could not have bespoke a
better; with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have started
suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was perfectly new to
life, and who took every word she said in the very sense she laid out for me to
take it; but she readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and
measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me
pleased with my cage, and blind to the wires.
In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future service, we
were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the same parlour, where
there was a table laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her
one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose business
it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was to the mounting block;
and she was accordingly, in that view, alloted me for a bed-fellow, and, to
give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferred on her by
the venerable president of this college.
Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation of Mrs.
Phœbe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and instruction I
was affectionately recommended.
Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a companion,
Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon over-ruled my most humble
and most confused protestations against sitting down with her Ladyship, which
my very short breeding just suggested to me could not be right, or in the order
of things.
At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams and carried on
in double meaning expressions, interrupted every now and then by kind
assurances to me, all tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my
present condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was I then.
It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a few
days, till such clothes could be procured for me as were fit for the character
I was to appear in, of my mistress’s companion, observing withal, that on
the first impressions of my figure much might depend; and, as they rightly
judged, the prospect of exchanging my country clothes for London finery, made
the clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me. But the truth was,
Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be seen or talked to by any, either of
her customers, or her Does (as they called the girls provided for them), till
she secured a good market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the
appearances of having brought into her Ladyship’s service.
To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass the
interval to bed time, in which I was more and more pleased with the views that
opened to me, of an easy service under these good people; and after supper
being shewed up to bed, Miss Phœbe, who observed a kind of reluctance in me to
strip and go to bed, in my shift, before her, now the maid was withdrawn, came
up to me, and beginning with unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon
encouraged me to go on with undressing myself; and, blushing at now seeing
myself naked to my shift, I hurried to get under the bed-clothes out of sight.
Phœbe laughed and was not long before she placed herself by my side. She was
about five and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in which, according to
all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too,
being made for the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must
have made of her constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur,
that stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of
showing company, instead of seeing it.
No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress laid down, but she,
who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness presented itself,
turned to me, embraced and kissed me with great eagerness. This was new, this
was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kindness, which, for ought I knew,
it might be the London way to express in that manner, I was determined not to
be behind-hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the
fervour that perfect innocence knew.
Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wandered over my whole
body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warmed and surprised me
with their novelty, than they either shocked or alarmed me.
The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions, contributed also
not a little to bribe my passiveness; and, knowing no ill, I feared none,
especially from one who had prevented all doubts of her womanhood, by
conducting my hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down, in a size and
volume that full sufficiently distinguished her sex, to me at least, who had
never made any other comparison.
I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom raised no
other emotion but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt pleasure. Every
part of me was open and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which,
like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thawed all coldness as they
went.
My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm, rising
hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify anything to the touch,
employed and amused her hands awhile, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth
track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a few months before
put forth and garnished the mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to
spread a grateful shelter over the sweet seat of the most exquisite sensation,
and which had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible
innocence. Her fingers played and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that
moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.
But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts the main spot, and
began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an introduction of a
finger into the quick itself, in such a manner, that had she not proceeded by
insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty to oppose
its resistance to their progress, I should have jumped out of bed and cried for
help against such strange assaults.
Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that
wantoned through all my veins, but fixed with violence in that center appointed
them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied in feeling,
squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger
between, till an “Oh!” expressed her hurting me, where the
narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any depth.
In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretching, sighs, short
heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I was more
pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated
kisses and exclamations, such as “Oh! what a charming creature thou art!
What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you! Oh! that I were a
man for your sake!” with the like broken expressions, interrupted by
kisses as fierce and salacious as ever I received from the other sex.
For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings so new
were too much for me. My heated and alarmed senses were in a tumult that robbed
me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gushed from my eyes, and
somewhat assuaged the fire that raged all over me.
Phœbe, herself, the hackneyed, thorough-bred Phœbe, to whom all modes and
devices of pleasure were known and familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise
her those arbitrary tastes, for which there is no accounting. Not that she
hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex; but when she met with
such occasions as this was, a satiety of enjoyments in the common road,
perhaps, too a great secret bias, inclined her to make the most of pleasure,
wherever she could find it, without distinction of sexes. In this view, now
well assured that she had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her
purpose, she rolled down the bed clothes gently, and I saw myself stretched
naked, my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or sense to
oppose it. Even my growing blushes expressed more desire than modesty, whilst
the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on
my whole body.
“No!” says Phœbe, “you must not, my sweet girl, think to
hide all these treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as my touch. I must
devour with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer me to kiss it. I have not seen
it enough. Let me kiss it once more. What firm, smooth, white flesh is here!
How delicately shaped! Then this delicious down! Oh! let me view the small,
dear, tender cleft! This is too much, I cannot bear it! I must! I must!”
Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where you will easily
guess. But what a difference in the state of the same thing! A spreading
thicket of bushy curls marked the full grown, complete woman. Then the cavity
to which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as she felt it
within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction, that I
presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phœbe grew more
composed, after two or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh’s! and giving me
a kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the
bed-clothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I
know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution,
were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and communication with
the bad of our sex, is often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of the
other. But to go on. When Phœbe was restored to that calm, which I was far
from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points
necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my
answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise
herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness
and warmth of constitution.
After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I
fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I had been led
into, when nature which had been too warmly stirred and fermented to subside
without allaying by some means or other relieved me by one of those luscious
dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to those of waking real
action.
In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phœbe was up
before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and
if I was ready for breakfast? carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase
the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the
night’s bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and begin
any work she would be pleased to set me about. She smiled; presently the maid
brought in the tea equipage, and I just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled
my mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late
rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my pure
and fresh looks. I was “a bud of beauty” (this was her style),
“and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!” to all which my
answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as simple and
silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than
had they proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the world.
We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were brought
two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the necessaries for
rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.
Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with joy at
the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured indeed, but
passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap, braited shoes, and
the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the
occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs. Brown, who had already
a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were to pass in review;
for he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises,
but also on immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me;
concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the hottest to
trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in, as a maidenhead.
The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was then left to
Phœbe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the
satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dressed. When it
was over, and I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt, too natural, too
artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change, in the real truth,
for much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy
simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, tawdry finery that I
could not conceal my strangeness to.
Phœbe’s compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was
not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever
entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was then
tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place
here to sketch you an unflattered picture.
I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remarked, was
barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light
and free without owing anything to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as
soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural curls, and did not a little to
set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though
its features were delicate, and the shape was a roundish oval, except where a
pit on my chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can
be imagined, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain
occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my teeth, which
I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and white; my bosom was finely
raised, and one might then discern rather the promise than the actual growth of
the round, firm breast, that in a little time made that promise good. In short,
all the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at
least my vanity forbid me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges
the men, who all, that I ever knew at last, gave it thus highly in my favour;
and I met with, even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that
justice, whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to
detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously excelled in.
This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should be ungrateful to
nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and
fortune, were I to suppress, through an affectation of modesty, the mention of
such valuable gifts.
Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my head that all
this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I
innocently attributed all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good
Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under pretence of keeping my
money safe, got from me, without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now
call it) which remained to me after the expenses of my journey.
After some little time most agreebly spent before the glass, in scarce
self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in it, I was
sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy
of my new clothes, which she was not ashamed to say, fitted me as if I had worn
nothing but the finest all my life-time; but what was it she could not see me
silly enough to swallow? At the same time, she presented me to another cousin
of her own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the
room, and on my dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little
affronted that I had only presented my cheek to him: a mistake, which, if one,
he immediately corrected, by gluing his lips to mine, with an ardour which his
figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for: his figure, I say, than
which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly and disagreeable
were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.
Imagine to yourself, a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made, with a
yellow cadaverous hue, great goggle eyes, that stared as if he was strangled;
an out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth, livid lips, and breath
like a Jake’s: then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin, that made
him perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women with child; yet, made as he
was thus in mock of man, he was so blind to his own staring deformities, as to
think himself born to please, and that no woman could see him with impunity: in
consequence of which idea, he had lavished great sums on such wretches as could
gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to those who had not
art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspired, he behaved even brutally.
Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek in variety, the provocative that
was wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment, which he too often saw
himself baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this always threw him
into a fit of rage, which he wreaked, as far as he durst, on the innocent
objects of his fit of momentary desire.
This then was the master to which my conscientious benefactress, who had long
been his purveyor in this way, had doomed me, and sent for me down purposely
for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up before him, turned me
round, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him the rise and fall, the turn
and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took
even a handle from the rusticity of my charms: in short, she omitted no point
of jockeyship; to which he only answered by gracious nods of approbation,
whilst he looked goats and monkeys at me: for I sometimes stole a corner glance
at him, and encountering his fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure
horror and affright, which he, characteristically, attributed to nothing more
than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it.
However, I was soon dismissed, and reconducted to my room by Phœbe, who stuck
close to me, not leaving me alone, and at leisure to make such reflections as
might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just
gone through; but to my shame be it confessed, that just was my invincible
stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that I did not yet open my eyes to
Mrs. Brown’s designs, and saw nothing in this titular cousin of hers but
a shockingly hideous person, which did not at all concern me, unless that my
gratitude for my benefactress made me extend my respect to all her cousinhood.
Phœbe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart toward this
monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentelman for a husband.
(Fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace.) I
answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a husband, but that if I
was to choose one, it should be among my own degree, sure! so much had my
aversion to that wretch’s hideous figure indisposed me to all “fine
gentlemen,” and confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been
necessarily cast in the same mould that he was. But Phœbe was not to be put
off so, but went on with her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes
of my reception into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in
general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than one
reason showed her would be easily enough obtained of me; but then she had too
much experience not to discover that my particular fixed aversion to that
frightful cousin would be a block not so readily to be removed, as suited the
consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.
Mother Brown had in the meantime agreed the terms with this loquorice old goat,
which I afterwards understood were to be fifty guineas peremptory, for the
liberty of attempting me, and a hundred more at the complete gratification of
his desires, in the triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I was to be left
entirely at the discretion of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous
contract being thus settled, he was so eager to be put in possession, that he
insisted on being introduced to drink tea with me that afternoon, when we were
to be left alone; nor would he hearken to the procuress’s remonstrances,
that I was not sufficiently prepared, and ripened for such an attack; that I
was too green and untamed, having been scarce twenty-four hours in the house:
it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his vanity arming him against
any supposition of other than the common resistance of a maid on those
occasions, made him reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was
thus fixed, unknown to me, for that very evening.
At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phœbe did nothing but run riot in praise of this
wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman would be that he would favour with
his addresses; in short my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to persuade
me to accept them: “that the gentleman was violently smitten with me at
first sight; that he would make my fortune if I would be a good girl and not
stand in my own light; that I should trust his honour; that I should be made
for ever, and have a chariot to go abroad in,” with all such stuff as was
fit to turn the head of such a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily
here my aversion had taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so
strongly defended from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask my
sentiments, I gave them no hopes of their employer succeeding, at least very
easily, with me. The glass too marched pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to
make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the imminent
attack.
Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the evening, after I
had retired to my apartment, and the tea board was set, enters my venerable
mistress, followed close by that satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar
to him, and by his odious presence, confirmed me in all the sentiments of
detestation which his first appearance had given birth to.
He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner that gave
me the utmost pain and confusion, all the mark of which he still explained to
be my bashfulness, and not being used to see company.
Tea over, the commoding old lady pleady urgent business (which indeed was true)
to go out, and earnestly desired me to entertain her cousin kindly till she
came back, both for my own sake and her; and then, with a “Pray, sir, be
very good, be very tender to the sweet child,” she went out of the room,
leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and unprepared by the suddenness of her
departure, to oppose it.
We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seized me. I was
so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I sat
on the settee, by the fire side, motionless and petrified, without life or
spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir.
But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction: the
monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther ceremony or
preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards
him, obliged me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him, his
pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me then next to
senseless, and unresisting, he tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all
open there, to his eyes and hands: still I endured all without flinching, till
emboldened by my sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or
cry out, he attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the
lower part of my naked thighs, which were crossed, and which he endeavoured to
unlock. Oh then! I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing from
him with an activity he was not prepared for, threw myself at his feet, and
begged him, in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would not hurt
me. “Hurt you, my dear?” says the brute, “I intend you no
harm. Has not the old lady told you that I love you? that I shall do handsomely
by you?”
“She has indeed, sir,” said I, “but I cannot love you, indeed
I cannot! pray let me alone! yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me
alone and go away.” But I was talking to the wind, for whether my tears,
my attitude, or the disorder of my dress proved fresh incentives, or whether he
was now under the dominion of desires he could not bridle, but snorting and
foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts
to extend and fix me on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to lay me
along, and even to toss my petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare,
which I obstinately kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee
to force them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main
avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt the
weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying
with terrors; but he stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing,
cursing, and repeating “old and ugly!” for so I had very naturally
called him in the heat of my defence.
The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his
eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust, which his
power was too short-lived to carry him through the full execution of; of which
my thighs and linen received the effusion.
When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up: “that he
would not do me the honour to think of me any more; that the old
b——h might look out for another cully; that he would not be fooled
so by ever a country mock modesty in England; that he supposed I had left my
maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my
skim-milk in town” with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to
with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love from her
darling minion: for, incapable as I was of receiving any addition to my perfect
hatred and aversion to him, I looked on this railing, as my security against
his renewing his most odious caress.
Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown’s views were now come out, I had not the heart,
or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with my dependence on
that beldam, so much did I think myself hers, soul and body: or rather, I
sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good opinion of her, and
choose to wait the worst at her hands, sooner than be turned out to starve in
the streets, without a penny of money or a friend to apply to these fears were
my folly.
While this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat pensively by
the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still bare, and my cap
fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess,
the villain’s lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at the sight of
all that bloom of youth which presented itself to his view, a bloom yet
unenjoyed, and of course not yet indifferent to him.
After some pause, he asked me with a tone of voice mightily softer, whether I
would make it up with him before the old lady returned, and all should be well;
he would restore me to his affections, at the same time offering to kiss me and
feel my breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears, my indignation, all
acting upon me, gave me a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from
him, I ran to the bell and rang it, with such violence and effect as to bring
up the maid to know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted
anything; and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounced into
the room, and seeing me stretched on the floor, my hair all dishevelled, my
nose gushing out blood, which did not a little tragedize the scene, and my
odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved by all my
cries and distress, she was herself confounded and did not know what to do.
As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and hardened to transactions of
this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her heart could she have seen
this unmoved. Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined that matters
had gone greater lengths than they really had, and that the courtesy of the
house had been actually consummated on me, and flung: me into the condition I
was in: in this notion she instantly took my part, and advised the gentleman to
go down and leave me to recover myself, and “that all would be soon over
with me; that when Mrs. Brown and Phœbe, who were gone out, were returned,
they would take order for everything to his satisfaction; that nothing would be
lost by a little patience with the poor tender thing; that for her part she was
frightened; she could not tell what to say to such doings; but that she would
stay by me till my mistress came home.” As the wench said all this in a
resolute tone, and the monster himself began to perceive that things would not
mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of the room murmuring and
pitting his brows like an old ape, so that I was delivered from the horrors of
his detestable presence.
As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her assistance in
anything, and would have got me some hartshorn drops and put me to bed; which
last I, at first, positively refused, in the fear that the monster might return
and take me at that disadvantage. However, with much persuasion and assurances
that I should not be molested that night she prevailed on me to lie down; and
indeed I was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful
apprehension, so terror-struck, that I had not power to sit up, or hardly to
give answers to the questions with which the curious Martha plied and perplexed
me.
Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of Mrs. Brown, as
if I had been the criminal, and she the person injured; a mistake which you
will not think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue nor principles
had the least share in the defence I had made, but only the particular aversion
I had conceived against this first brutal and frightful invader of my tender
innocence.
I passed then the time till Mrs. Brown came home, under all the agitations of
fear and despair that may easily be guessed.
About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and having received rather a
favourable account from Martha, who had run down to let them in, for Mr. Crofts
(that was the name of my brute) was gone out of the house, after waiting till
he had tired his patience for Mrs. Brown’s return, they came thundering
up stairs, and seeing me pale, my face bloody, and all the marks of the most
thorough dejection, they employed themselves more to comfort and re-inspirit me
than in making me the reproaches I was weak enough to fear, I who had so many
juster and stronger to retort upon them.
Mrs. Brown withdrawn, Phœbe came presently to bed to me, and what with the
answers she drew from me, what with her own method of palpably satisfying
herself, she soon discovered that I had been more frightened than hurt; upon
which I suppose, being herself seized with sleep, and reserving her lectures
and instructions till the next morning, she left me, properly speaking, to my
unrest; for, later tossing and turning the greatest part of the night, and
tormenting myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things, I fell,
through mere fatigue into a kind of delirious doze, out of which I waked late
in the morning, in a violent fever: a circumstance which was extremely critical
to reprieve me, at least for a time, from the attacks of a wretch, infinitely
more terrible to me than death itself.
The interested care that was taken of me during my illness, in order to restore
me to a condition of making good the bawd’s engagements, or of enduring
further trials, had, however, such an effect on my grateful disposition that I
even thought myself obliged to my un-doers for their attention to promote my
recovery; and, above all, for the keeping out of my sight of that brutal
ravisher, the author of my disorder, on their finding I was too strongly moved
at the bare mention of his name.
Youth is soon raised, and a few days were sufficient to conquer the fury of my
fever: but, what contributed most to my perfect recovery and to my
reconciliation with life, was the timely news that Mr. Crofts, who was a
merchant of considerable dealings, was arrested at the King’s suit, for
nearly forty thousand pounds, on account of his driving a certain contraband
trade, and that his affairs were so desperate, that even were it in his
inclination, it would not be in his power to renew his designs upon me: for he
was instantly thrown into a prison, which it was not likely he would get out of
in haste.
Mrs. Brown, who had touched his fifty guineas, advanced to so little purpose,
and lost all hopes of the remaining hundred, began to look upon my treatment of
him with a more favourable eye; and as they had observed my temper to be
perfectly tractable and conformable to their views, all the girls that composed
her flock were suffered to visit me, and had their cue to dispose me, by their
conversation, to a perfect resignation of myself to Mrs. Brown’s
direction.
Accordingly they were let in upon me, and all that frolic and thoughtless
gaiety in which those giddy creatures consume either leisure, made me envy a
condition of which I only saw the fair side; insomuch, that the being one of
them became even my ambition: a disposition which they all carefully
cultivated; and I wanted now nothing but to restore my health, that I might be
able to undergo the ceremony of the initiation.
Conversation, example, in short all, contributed, in that house, to corrupt my
native parity, which had taken no root in education; whilst now the inflammable
principal of pleasure, so easily fired at my age, made strange work within me,
and all the modesty I was brought up in the habit, not the instruction of,
began to melt away like dew before the sun’s heat; not to mention that I
made a vice of necessity, from the constant fears I had of being turned out to
starve.
I was soon pretty well recovered, and at certain hours allowed to range all
over the house, but cautiously kept from seeing any company till the arrival of
Lord B——, from Bath, to whom Mrs. Brown, in respect to his
experienced generosity on such occasions, proposed to offer the perusal of that
trinket of mine, which bears so great an imaginary value; and his lordship
being expected in town in less than a fortnight, Mrs. Brown judged I would be
entirely renewed in beauty and freshness by that time, and afforded her the
chance of a better bargain than she had driven with Mr. Crofts.
In the meantime, I was so thoroughly, as they call it, brought over, so tame to
their whistle, that, had my cage door been set open, I had no idea that I ought
to fly anywhere, sooner than stay where I was; nor had I the least sense of
regretting my condition, but waited very quietly for whatever Mrs. Brown should
order concerning me; who on her side, by herself and her agents, took more than
the necessary precautions to lull and lay asleep all just reflections on my
destiny.
Preachments of morality over the left shoulder; a life of joy painted in the
gayest colours; caresses, promises, indulgent treatment; nothing, in short, was
wanting to domesticate me entirely and to prevent my going out anywhere to get
better advice. Alas! I dreamed of no such thing.
Hitherto I had been indebted only to the girls of the house for the corruption
of my innocence: their luscious talk, in which modesty was far from respected,
their description of their engagements with men, had given me a tolerable
insight into the nature and mysteries of their profession, at the same time
that they highly provoked an itch of florid warm-spirited blood through every
vein: but above all, my bed fellow Phœbe, whose pupil I more immediately was,
exerted her talents in giving me the first tinctures of pleasure: whilst
nature, now warmed and wantoned with discoveries so interesting, piqued a
curiosity which Phœbe artfully whetted, and leading me from question to
question of her own suggestion, explained to me all the mysteries of Venus. But
I could not long remain in such a house as that, without being an eye-witness
of more than I could conceive from her descriptions.
One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly recovered of my fever, I
happened to be in Mrs. Brown’s dark closet, where I had not been half an
hour, resting upon the maid’s bed, before I heard a rustling in the
bed-chamber, separated from the closet only by two sash doors, before the
glasses of which were drawn two yellow damask curtains, but not so close as to
exclude the full view of the room from any person in the closet.
I instantly crept softly and posted myself so, that seeing everything minutely,
I could not myself be seen; and who should come in but the venerable mother
Abbess herself! handed in by a tall, brawny young Horse-grenadiers, moulded in
the Hercules style: in fine, the choice of the most experienced dame, in those
affairs, in all London.
Oh! how still and hush did I keep at my stand, lest any noise should baulk my
curiosity, or bring Madam into the closet!
But I had not much reason to fear either, for she was entirely taken up with
her present great concern, that she had no sense of attention to spare to
anything else.
Droll was it to see that clumsy fat figure of her’s flop down on the foot
of the bed, opposite to the closet door so that I had a full front view of all
her charms.
Her paramour sat down by her: he seemed to be a man of very few words, and a
great stomach; for proceeding instantly to essentials, he gave her some hearty
smacks, and thrusting his hands into her breasts, disengaged them from her
stays, in scorn of whose confinement they broke loose, and sagged down,
navel-low at least. A more enormous pair did my eyes never behold, nor of a
worse colour, flagging, soft, and most lovingly contiguous: yet such as they
were, this great beef-eater seemed to paw them with a most unenviable lust,
seeking in vain to confine or cover one of them with a hand scarce less than a
shoulder of mutton. After toying with them thus some time, as if they had been
worth it, he laid her down pretty briskly, and canting up her petticoats, made
barely a mask of them to her broad red face, that blushed with nothing but
brandy.
As he stood on one side, unbuttoning his waistcoat and breeches, her fat brawny
thighs hung down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly open to my view; a
wide open mouthed gap, overshaded with a grizzly bush, seemed held out like a
beggar’s wallet for its provision.
But I soon had my eyes called off by a more striking object that entirely
engrossed them.
Her sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked, stiff and erect,
that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before, and which, for the
interest my own seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I stared at
with all the eyes I had: however, my senses were too much flurried, too much
concentered in that now burning spot of mine, to observe anything more than in
general the make and turn of that instrument; from which the instinct of
nature, yet more than all I had heard of it, now strongly informed me, I was to
expect that supreme pleasure which she had placed in the meeting of those parts
so admirably fitted for each other.
Long, however, the young spark did not remain before giving it two or three
shakes, by way of brandishing it, he threw himself upon her, and his back being
now towards me, I could only take his being ingulphed for granted, by the
directions he moved in, and the impossibility of missing so staring a mark; and
now the bed shook, the curtains rattled so that I could scarce hear the sighs
and murmurs, the heaves and pantings that accompanied the action, from the
beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of
me, and made every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion grew so
violent that it almost intercepted my respiration.
Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse of my companions, and
Phœbe’s minute detail of everything, no wonder that such a sight gave
the last dying blow to my native innocence.
Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by nature only, I stole my
hand up my petticoats, and with fingers on fire, seized and yet more inflamed
that center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as if it would force its way
through my bosom: I breathed with pain; I twisted my thighs, squeezed and
compressed the lips of that virgin slit, and following mechanically the example
of Phœbe’s manual operation on it, as far as I could find admission,
brought on at last the critical ecstasy, the melting flow, into which nature,
spent with excess of pleasure, dissolves and dies away.
After which, my senses recovered coolness enough to observe the rest of the
transaction between this happy pair.
The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady immediately sprung up,
with all the vigour of youth, derived, no doubt, from her late refreshment; and
making him sit down, began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and pinch his
cheeks, and play with his hair: all which he received with an air of
indifference and coolness that showed him to be much altered from what he was
when he first went on to the breach.
My pious governess, however, not being above calling in auxiliaries, unlocks a
little case of cordials that stood near the bed, and made him pledge her in a
very plentiful dram: after which, and a little amorous parley, Madam set
herself down upon the same place, at the bed’s foot; and the young fellow
standing sidewise by her, she, with the greatest effrontery imaginable,
unbuttons his breeches, and removing his shirt, draws out his affair, so shrunk
and diminished, that I could not but remember the difference, now crest-fallen,
or just faintly lifting its head: but our experience matron very soon, by
chaffing it with her hands, brought it to swell to that size and erection I had
before seen it up to.
I admired then, upon a fresh account, and with a nicer survey, the texture of
that capital part of man: the flaming red head as it stood uncapt, the
whiteness of the shaft, and the shrub growth of curling hair that embrowned the
foots of it, the roundish bag that dangled down from it, all exacted my eager
attention, and renewed my flame. But, as the main affair was now at the point
the industrious dame had laboured to bring it to, she was not in the humour to
put off the payment of her pains, but laying herself down, drew him gently upon
her, and thus they finished, in the same manner as before, the old last act.
This over, they both went out lovingly together, the old lady having first made
him a present, as near as I could observe, of three or four pieces; he being
not only her particular favourite on account of his performances, but a
retainer to the house; from whose sight she had taken great care hitherto to
secret me, lest he might not have had patience to wait for my lord’s
arrival, but have insisted on being his taster, which the old lady was under
too much subjection to him to dare dispute with him; for every girl of the
house fell to him in course, and the old lady only now and then got her turn,
in consideration of the maintenance he had, and which he could scarce be
accused of not earning from her.
As soon as I heard them go down-stairs, I stole up softly to my own room, out
of which I had luckily not been missed; there I began to breathe more free, and
to give a loose to those warm emotions which the sight of such an encounter had
raised in me, I laid me down on the bed, stretched myself out, joining and
ardently wishing, and requiring any means to divert or allay the rekindled rage
and tumult of my desires, which all pointed strongly to their pole: man. I felt
about the bed as if I sought for something that I grasped in my waking dream,
and not finding it, could have cried for vexation; every part of me plowing
with simulated fires. At length, I resorted to the only present remedy, that of
vain attempts at digitation, where the smallness of the theatre did not yet
afford room enough for action, and where the pain my fingers gave me, in
striving for admission, though they procured me a slight satisfaction for the
present, started an apprehension which I could not be easy till I had
communicated to Phœbe and received her explanations upon it.
The opportunity, however, did not offer till next morning, for Phœbe did not
come to bed till long after I was gone to sleep. As soon then as we were both
awake, it was but in course to bring our ly-a-bed chat to hand, on the subject
of my uneasiness: to which a recital of the love scene I had thus, by chance,
been spectatress of, served for a preface.
Phœbe could not hear it to the end without more than one interruption by peals
of laughter, and my ingenuous way of relating matters did not a little heighten
the joke to her.
But, on her sounding me how the sight had affected me, without mincing or
hiding the pleasurable emotions it had inspired me with, I told her at the same
time that one remark had perplexed me, and that very considerably.
“Aye!” says she, “what was that?” “Why,”
replied I, “having very curiously and attentively compared the size of
that enormous machine, which did not appear, at least to my fearful
imagination, less than my wrist, and at least three of my hand-fuls long, to
that of the tender small part of me which was framed to receive it, I could not
conceive its being possible to afford it entrance without dying, perhaps in the
greatest pain, since she well knew that even a finger thrust in there hurt me
beyond bearing. As to my mistress’s and yours, I can very plainly
distinguish the different dimensions of them from mine, palpable to the touch,
and visible to the eye; so that, in short, great as the promised pleasure may
be, I am afraid of the pain of the experiment.”
Phœbe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I expected a very serious
solution of my doubts and apprehensions in this matter, only told me that
“she never heard of a mortal wound being given in those parts, by that
terrible weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately made as
myself, had outlived the operation; that she believed, at the worst, I should
take a great deal of liking; that true it was, there was a great diversity of
sizes in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing, frequent over-stretching
with unmerciful machines, but that at a certain age and habit of body, even the
most experienced in those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid
and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, in their natural
situation: but that since chance had thrown in my way one sight of that sort,
she would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more delicately, and go
a great way in the cure of my fears from that imaginary disproportion”.
On this she asked me if I knew Polly Phillips? “Undoubterly,” says
I, “the fair girl which was so tender of me when I was sick, and has
been, as you told me, but two months in the house.” “The
same,” says Phœbe. “You must know then, she is kept by a young
Genoes merchant, whom his uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he
is, on a pretex of settling some accounts, but in reality to humour his
inclinations for travelling, and seeing the world. He met casually with this
Polly once in company, and taking a likning to her, makes it worth her while to
keep entirely to him. He comes to her here twice or thrice a week, and she
receives him in the light closet up one pair of stairs, where he enjoys her in
a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the heat, or perhaps the caprices of his own
country, I say no more, but to-morrow being his day, you shall see what passes
between them, from a place only known to your mistress and myself.”
You may be sure, in the ply I was now taking, I had no objection to the
proposal, and was rather a tip-toe for its accomplishments.
At five in the evening next day, Phœbe, punctual to her promise, came to me as
I sat alone in my own room, and beckoned me to follow her.
We went down the back stairs very softly, and opening the door of a dark
closet, where there was some old furniture kept, and some cases of liquor, she
drew me in after her, and fastened the door upon us, we had no light but what
came through a long crevice in the partition between ours and the light closet,
where the scene of action lay; so that sitting on those low cases, we could,
with the greatest ease, as well as clearness, see all objects (ourselves
unseen), only by applying our eyes close to the crevice, where the moulding of
a panel had warped, or started a little on the other side.
The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with his back directly towards
me, looking at a print. Polly was not yet come: in less than a minute though,
the door opened, and she came in; and at the noise the door made he turned
about, and come to meet her, with an air of the greatest tenderness and
satisfaction.
After saluting her, he led her to a coach that fronted us, where they both sat
down, and the young Genoes helped her to a glass of wine, with some Naples
biscuits on a salver.
Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and questions in broken
English on one side, he began to unbutton, and, in fine, stript unto his shirt.
As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling off all their clothes, a
scheme which the heat of the season perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her
pins, and as she had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her
gallant’s officious assistance, undressed to all but her shift.
When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosened, waist and knee bands,
and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his shirt collar was unbottoned too:
then, first giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the shift
off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and familiarized to this humour,
blushed indeed, but less than I did at the apparition of her, now standing
stark naked, just as she came ont of the hands of pure nature, with her black
hair loose and a-float down her dazzling white neck and shoulders, whilst the
deepened carnation of her cheeks went off gradually into the hue of glazed
snow: for such were the blended tints polish of her skin.
This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and sweet featured, her
shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts,
finely plumped out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sustained
themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples, pointing different ways,
marked their pleasing separation; beneath them lay the delicious tract of the
belly, which terminated in a parting of rift scarce discerning, that modesty
seemed to retire downward, and seek shelter between two plump fleshy thighs:
the curling hair that overspread its delightful front, clothed it with the
richest sable fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a subject for
the painters to court her, sitting to them for a pattern female beauty, in all
the true pride and pomp of nakedness.
The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing and transported at the
sight of beauties that might have fired a dying hermit; his eager eyes devoured
her, as she shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither were his hands
excluded their share of the high feast, but wandered, on the hunt of pleasure,
over every part and inch of her body, so qualified to afford the most exquisite
sense of it.
In the mean time time, one could not help observing the swell of his shirt
before, that bolstered out, and pointed out the condition of things behind the
curtain: but he soon removed it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now,
as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.
The young gentleman, by Phœbe’s guess, was about two and twenty; tall
and well limbed. His body was finely formed, and of a most vigorous make,
square shouldered, and broad chested: his face was not remarkable any way, but
for a nose inclining to the Roman, eyes large, black, and sparkling, and a
ruddiness in his cheeks that was the more a grace; for his complexion was of
the brownest, not of that dusky dun colour which excludes, the idea of
freshness, but of that clear, olive gloss, which glowing with life, dazzles
perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases more, when it pleases at all. His
hair being too short to tie fell no lower than his neck, in short easy curls;
and he had a few sprigs about his paps, that garnished his chest in a style of
strength and manliness. Then his grand movement, which seemed to rise out of a
thicket of curling hair, that spread from the root all over his thighs and
belly up to the navel, stood stiff and upright, but of a size to frighten me,
by sympathy for the small tender part which was the object of its fury, and
which now lay exposed to my fairest view; for he had, immediately on stoppings
off his shirt, gently pushed her down on the couch, which stood conveniently to
break her willing fall. Her thighs were spread out to their utmost extention,
and discovered between them the mark of the sex, the red-centered cleft of
flesh, whose lips vermillioning inwards, expressed a small ruby line in sweet
miniature, such as Guide’s touch or colouring: could never attain to the
life or delicacy of.
Phœbe, at this, gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for a whisper question:
“Whether I thought my little maiden-head was much less?” But my
attention was too much engrossed, too much inwrapped with all I saw, to be able
to give her any answer.
By this time the young gentelman had changed her posture from lying breadth to
length-wise on the coach: but her thighs were still spread, and the mark lay
fair for him, who now kneeling between them, displayed to us a side view of
that fierce erect machine of his, which threatened no less than splitting the
tender victim, who lay smiling at the uplifted stroke, nor seemed to decline
it. He looked upon his weapon himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with
his hand to the inviting; slit, drew aside the lips, and lodged it (after some
thrusts, which Polly seemed even to assist) about half way; but there it stuck,
I suppose from its growing thickness: he draws it again, and just wetting it
with spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheathed it now up to the hilt, at which
Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite another tone than one of pain; he
thrusts, she heaves, at first gently, and in a regular cadence; but presently
the transport began to be too violent to observe any order or measure; their
motions were too rapid, their kisses too fierce’ and fervent for nature
to support such fury long: both seemed to me out of themselves: their eyes
darted fires: “Oh! oh! I can’t bear it. It is too much. I die. I am
going,” were Polly’s expressions of extasy: his joys were more
silent: but soon broken murmurs, sighs heart-fetched, and at length a
dispatching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her body, and then
the motionless languor of all his limbs, all shewed that the die-away moment
was come upon him; which she gave signs of joining with by, the wild throwing
of her hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep sob, in which she
seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.
When he had finished his stroke, and got from off her, she lay still without
the least motion, breathless, as it should seem, with pleasure. He replaced her
again breadth-wise on the couch, unable to sit up, with her thighs open,
between which I could observe a kind of white liquid, like froth, hanging about
the outward lips of that recently opened wound, which now glowed with a deeper
red. Presently she gets up, and throwing her arms round him, seemed far
undelighted with the trial he had put her to, to judge, at least by the
fondness with which she eyed, and hung upon him.
For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I felt over me during this
scene; but from that instant, adieu all fears of what man can do unto me! they
were now changed into such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings, that I
could have by the sleeve, and offered him the bauble, which I now imagined the
loss of would be a gain I could not too soon procure myself.
Phœbe, who had more experience, and to whom such sights were not so new, could
not however, be unmoved at so warm a scene; and drawing me away softly from the
peeping hole, for fear of being overheard, guided me as the door as possible,
all passive and obedient to her least signals.
Here was no room either to sit or lie, but making me stand with my back towards
the door, she lifted up my petticoats, and with her busy fingers fell to visit
and explore that part of me, where I was perfectly sick and ready to die with
desire; that the bare touch of her finger, in that critical place, had the
effect of a fire to a train, and her hand instantly made her sensible to what a
pitch I was wound up, and melted by the sight she had thus procured me.
Satisfied then with her success, in allaying a heat that would have made me
impatient of seeing the continuation of the transactions between our amourous
couple, she brought me again to the crevice, so favourable to our curiosity.
We had certainly been but a few instants away from it, and yet on our return we
saw everything in good forwardness for recommencing the tender hostilities.
The young foreigner was sitting down, fronting us, on the coach, with Polly
upon one knee, who had her arms round his neck, whilst the extreme whiteness of
her skin was not undelightfully contrasted by the smooth glossy brown of her
lover’s.
But who could count the fierce, unnumbered kisses given and taken? In which I
could often discover their mouths were double tongued, and seemed to favour the
mutual insertion with the greatest gust and delight.
In the meantime, his red-headed champion, that had so lately fled the pit,
quelled and abashed, was now recovered to the top of his condition, perked and
crested up between Polly’s thighs, who was not wanting, on her part, to
coax and keep it in good humour, stroking it, with her head down, and receiving
even its velvet tip between the lips of not its proper mouth: whether it was to
render it more glib and easy of entrance, I could not tell; but it had such an
effect, that the young gentleman seemed by his eyes, that sparkled with more
excited lustre, and his inflamed countenance, to receive increase of pleasure.
He got up, and taking Polly in his arms, embraced her, and said something too
softly for me to hear, leading her withal to the foot of the couch, and taking
delight to slap her thighs and posteriors with that stiff sinew of his, which
hit them with a spring that he gave it with his hand, and made them resound
again, but her about as much as he meant to hurt her, for she seemed to have as
frolic a taste as himself.
But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue lie down on his back,
and gently pull down Polly upon him, who giving way to his humour, stradled,
and with her hands conducted her blind favourite to the right place; and
following her impulse, ran directly upon the flaming point of this weapon of
pleasure, which she staked herself upon, up pierced, and infixed to the
extremest hair breadth of it: thus she sat on him a few instants, enjoying and
relishing her situation, whilst he toyed with her provoking breasts. Sometimes
she would stoop to meet his kiss: but presently the sting of pleasure spurred
them up to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from the
undermost combatant, were thrust at the same time, he crossing his hands over
her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet violence: the inverted strokes of
anvil over hammer soon brought on the critical period, in which all the signs
of a close conspiring extasy informed us of the point they were at.
For me, I could bear to see no more; I was so overcome, so inflamed at the
second part of the same play, that, mad to an intolerable degree, I hugged, I
clasped Phœbe, as if she had wherewithal to relieve me. Pleased however with,
and pitying the taking she could feel me in, she drew towards the door, and
opening it softly as she could, we both got off undiscovered, and reconducted
me to my own room, where, unable to keep my legs, in the agitation I was in, I
instantly threw myself down on the bed, where I lay transported, though ashamed
at what I felt.
Phœbe lay down by me, and asked me archly, “if, now that I had seen the
enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid of him? or did I think I
could come to a close engagement with him?” To all which, not a word on
my side; I sighed, and could scarcely breathe. She takes hold of my hand, and
having rolled up her own petticoats, forced it half strivingly, towards those
parts, where, now grown more knowing, I missed the main object of my wishes;
and finding not even the shadow of what I wanted, where every thing was so
flat, or so hollow, in the vexation I was in at it. I should have withdrawn my
hand, but for fear of disobliging her. Abandoning it then entirely to her
management, she made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself rather
the shadow than the substance of any pleasure. For my part, I now pined for
more solid food, and promised tacitly to myself that I would not be put off
much longer with this foolery of woman to woman, of Mrs. Brown did not soon
provide me with the essential specific. In short, I had all the air of not
being able to wait the arrival of my lord B——, though he was now
expected in a very fews days: nor did I wait for him, for love itself took
charge of the disposal of me, in spite of interest, or gross lust.
It was now two days after the closet scene, that I got up about six in the
morning, and leaving my bedfellow fast asleep, stole down, with no other
thought than of taking a little fresh air in a small garden, which our back
parlour opened into, and from which my confinement debarred me, at the times
company came to my house; but now sleep and silence reigned all over it.
I opened the parlour door, and well surprised was I at seeing, by the side of a
fire half-out, a young gentleman in the old lady’s elbow chair, with his
legs laid upon another, fast asleep, and left there by his thoughtless
companions, who had drank him down, and then went off with every one but his
mistress, whilst he stayed behind by the courtesy of the old matron, who would
not disturb or turn him out in that condition at one in the morning; and beds,
it is more than probable there were none to spare. On the table still remained
the punch bowl and glasses, stewed about in their usual disorder after a
drunken revel.
But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping estray, heavens! what a sight! No!
term of years, no turn of fortune could ever eraze the lightninglike impression
his form made on me. Yes! dearest object of my earliest passion, I command for
ever the remembrance of thy first appearance to my ravished eyes, it calls thee
up, present; and I see thee now.
Figure to yourself, Madam, fair stripling between eighteen and nineteen, with
his head reclined on one of the sides of the chair, his hair disordered curls,
irregularly shading a face, on which all the roseate bloom of youth and all the
manly graces conspired to fix my eye sand heart; even the languour and paleness
of his face, in which the momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing
to the excesses of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to the finest
features imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep, displayed the meeting edges of
their lids beautifully bordered with long eye-lashes; over which no pencil
could have described two more regular arches than those that graced his
forehead, which was high, perfectly white and smooth; then a pair of vermilion
lips, pouting and swelling to the touch, as if a bee had freshly stung them,
seemed to challenge me to get the gloves off this lovely sleeper, had not the
modesty and respect, which in both sexes are inseparable from a true passion,
checked my impulses.
But on seeing his shirt collar unbottoned, and bosom whiter than a drift of
snow, the pleasure of considering it could not bribe me to lengthen it, at the
hazard of a health that began to be my life’s concern. Love, that made me
timid, taught me to be tender too: with a trembling hand I took hold of one of
his, and waking him as gently as possible, he started, and looking, at first a
little wildly, said with a voice that sent its harmonious sound to my heart:
“Pray, child, what-a-clock is it?” I told him, and added that he
might catch cold if he slept longer with his breast open in the cool of the
morning air. On this he thanked me with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with
that of his features and eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly surveying
me, carried the surightly fires they sparkled with directly to my heart.
It seems, that having drank too freely before he came upon the rake with some
of his young companions, he had put himself out of a condition to go through
all the weapons with them, and crown the night with a getting a mistress; so
that seeing me in a loose undress, he did not doubt but I was one of the misses
of the house, sent in to repair his loss of time; but though he seized that
notion, and a very obvious one it was, without hesitation, yet, whether my
figure made a more than ordinary impression on him, or whether it was his
natural politeness, he addressed me in a manner far from rude, though still on
the foot of one of the house pliers come to amuse him; and giving me the first
kiss that I ever relished from man in my life, asked me if I could favour him
with my company, assuring me that he would make it worth my while: but had not
even new-born love, that true refiner of lust, opposed so sudden a surrender,
the fear of being surprised by the house was a sufficient bar to my compliance.
I told him then, in a tone set by love itself, that for reasons I had not time
to explain to him. I could not stay with him, and might even ever see him
again, with a sigh at these words, which broke from the bottom of my heart. My
conqueror, who, as he afterwards told me, had been struck with my appearance,
and liked me as much as he could think of liking any one in my supposed way of
life, asked me briskly at once, if I would be kept by him, and that he would
take a lodging for me directly, and relieve me from any engagements he presumed
I might be under to the house.
Rash, sudden, undigested, even dangerous as this offer might be from a perfect
stranger, and that stranger a giddy boy, the prodigious love I was struck with
for him, had put a charm into every objection: I not resisting, and blinded me
to every objection; I could, at that instant, have died for him: think if I
could resist an invitation to live with him! Thus my heart, beating strong to
the proposal, dictated my answer, after scarce a minute’s pause, that I
would accept of his offer, and make my escape to him in what way he pleased,
and that I would be entirely at his disposal, let it be good or bad. I have
often since wondered that so great an easiness did not disgust him, or make me
too cheap in his eyes, but my fate had so appointed it, that in his fears of
the hazzard of the town, he had been some time looking out for a girl to take
into keeping, and my person happening to hit his fancy, it was by one of those
miracles reserved to love, that we struck the bargain in the instant, which we
sealed by an exchange of kisses, that the hopes of a more uninterrupted
enjoyment engaged him to content himself with.
Never, however, did dear youth carry in his head more wherewith to justify the
turning of a girl’s head, and making her set all consequences at
defiance, for the sake of following a gallant.
For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which were assembled in his
form, he had an air of neatness and gentility, certain smartness in the
carriage and port of his head, that yet more distinguished him; his eyes were
sprightly and full of meaning; his looks had in them something at once sweet
and commanding; his complexion out-bloomed the lovely coloured rose, whilst its
inimitable tender vivid glow clearly saved it from the reproach of wanting
life, of raw and dough-like, which is commonly made of those so extremely fair
as he was.
Our little plan was, that I should get out about seven the next morning (which
I could readily promise, as I knew where to get the key of the street door) and
he would wait at the end of the street with a coach to convey me safe off;
after which, we would send, and clear any debt incurred by my stay at Mrs.
Brown’s, who, he only judged, in gross, might not care to part with one,
he thought, so fit to draw custom to the house.
I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house his having seen such a
person as me, for reasons I would explain to him more at leisure. And then, for
fear of miscarrying, by being seen together, I tore myself from him with a
bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my room, where I found Phœbe still fast
asleep, and hurrying off my few clothes, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy
and anxiety, that may be easier conceived than expressed.
The risks of Mrs. Brown’s discovering my purpose, of disappointments,
misery, ruin, all vanished before this new-kindled flame. The seeing, the
touching, the being, if but for a night, with this idol of my fond virgin
heart, appeared to me a happiness above the purchase of my liberty or life. He
might use me ill, let him: he was the master, happy, too happy, even to receive
death at so dear a hand.
To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day, of which every minute
seemed to me a little eternity. How often did I visit the clock! nay, was
tempted to advance the tedious hand, as if that would have advanced the time
with it! Had those of the house had the least observations on me, they must
have remarked something extraordinary from the discomposure I could not help
betraying; especially when at dinner mention was made of the charmingest youth
having been there, and stayed breakfast. “Oh! he was such a beauty!… I
should have died for him!… they would pull caps for him!…” and the
like fooleries; which, however, was throwing oil on a fire I was sorely put to
it to smother the blaze of.
The fluctuations of my mind, the whole day, produced one good effect: which
was, that, through mere fatigue, I slept tolerably well till five in the
morning, when I got up, and having dressed myself, waited, under the double
tortures of fear and impatience, for the appointed hour. It came at last, the
dear, critical, dangerous hour came; and now, supported only by the courage
love lent me, I ventured, a tip-toe, down stairs, leaving my box behind, for
fear of being surprized with it in going out.
I got to the street door, the key whereof was always laid on the chair by our
bed side, in trust with Phœbe, who having not the least suspicion of my
entertaining any design to go from them (nor, indeed, had I, but the day
before), made no reserve or concealment of it from me. I opened the door with
great ease; love, that emboldened, protected me too: and now, got safe into the
street, I saw my new guardian angel waiting at a coach door, ready open. How I
got to him I know not: I suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a trice, and
he by the side of me, with his arms clasped round me, and giving me the kiss of
welcome. The coachman had his orders, and drove to them.
My eyes were instantly filled with tears, but tears of the most delicious
delight; to find myself in the arms of that beauteous youth, was a rapture that
my little hear swam in; past or future were equally out of the question with
me; the present was as much as all my powers of life were sufficient to bear
the transport of, without fainting. Nor were the most tender embraces, the most
soothing expressions wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of
never giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken, in throwing myself
thus entirely upon his honour and generosity. But, alas! this was no merit in
me, for I was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and, I
did what I did, because I could not help it.
In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were landed at a public
house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for the reception of duet parties of
pleasure, where a breakfast of chocolate was prepared for us.
An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly well,
breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and said,
“we were well paired, i’ faith! that a great many gentlemen and
ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple… he was sure
I was a fresh piece… I looked so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a
lucky man!…” all which, common landlord’s cant, not only pleased
and soothed me, but helped to diver my confusion at being with my new
sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to be alone with: a
timidity which true love had a greater share in than even maiden bashful-ness.
I wished, I doated, I could have died for him; and yet, I know not how, or why
I dreaded the point which had been the object of my fiercest wishes; my pulses
beat fears, amidst a flush of the warmest desires. This struggle of the
passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty and lovesick longings, made me
burst again into tears; which he took, as he had done before, only for the
remains of concern and emotion at the suddenness of my change of condition, in
committing myself to his care; and, in consequence of that idea, did and said
all that he thought would most comfort and re-inspirit me.
After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must take the liberty
henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by), with a smile full of meaning, took
me gently by the hand, and said: “Come, my dear, I will show you a room
that commands a fine prospect over some gardens”; and without waiting for
an answer, in which he relieved me extremely, he led me up into a chamber, airy
and lightsome, where all seeing of prospects was out of the question, except
that of a bed, which had all the air of recommending the room to him.
Charles had just slipped the bolt of the door, and running, caught me in his
arms, and lifting me from the ground, with his lips glued to mine, bore me
trembling, panting, dying with soft fears and tender wishes, to the bed; where
his impatience would not suffer him to undress me, more than just unpinning my
handkerchief and gowns, and unlacing my stays.
My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs, presented to his sight
and feeling the firm hard swell of a pair of young breast, such as may be
imagined of a girl not sixteen, fresh out of the country, and never before
handled: but even their pride, whiteness, fashion, pleasing resistance to the
touch, could not bribe his restless hands from roving; but, giving them the
loose, my petticoats and shift were soon taken up, and their stronger center of
attraction laid open to their tender invasion. My fears, however, made me
mechanically close my thighs; but the very touch of his hand insinuated between
them, disclosed them and opened a way for the main attack.
In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examination of his eyes and
hands, quiet and unresisting; which confirmed him the opinion he proceeded so
cavalierly upon, that I was no novice in these matters, since he had taken me
out of a common bawdy house, nor had I said one thing to prepossess him of my
virginity; and if I had, he would sooner have believed that I took him for a
cully that would swallow such an improbability, than that I was still mistress
of that darling treasure, that hidden mine, so eagerly sought after by the men,
and which they never dig for, but to destroy.
Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he unbuttoned, and drawing out the
engine of love assaults, drove it currently, as at a ready made breach… Then!
then! for the first time, did I feel that stiff horn-hard gristle, battering
against the tender part; but imagine to yourself his surprise, when he found,
after several vigorous pushes, which hurt me extremely, that he made not the
least impression.
I complained, but tenderly complained: “I could not bear it… indeed he
hurt me!…” Still he thought no more, than that being so young, the
largeness of his machine (for few men could dispute size with him) made all the
difficulty; and that possibly I had not been enjoyed by any so advantageously
made in that part as himself: for still, that my virgin flower was yet
un-cropped, never entered into his head, and he would have thought it idling
with time and words, to have questioned me upon it.
He tried again, still no admittance, still no penetration; but he had hurt me
yet more, while my extreme love made me bear extreme pain, almost without a
groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me,
kissed my falling tears, and asked me tenderly “what was the meaning of
so much complaining? and if I had not borne it better from other than I did
from him?” I answered, with a simplicity framed to persuade, that he was
the first man that ever served me so. Truth is powerful, and it is not always
that we do not believe what we eagerly wish.
Charles, already disposed by the evidence, of his senses to think my pretences
to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers me with kisses, begs me, in
the name of love, to have a little patience, and that he wilt be as tender of
hurting me as he would be of himself..
Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joyfully to him, whatever
pain I foresaw it would cost, me.
He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one of the pillows
under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another
Under my head, in ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself
standing betwen them, made them rest upon his; applying then the point of his
machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance, it was so small, he could
scarce assure himself of its being rightly pointed. He looks, he feels, and
satisfies himself: there driving on with fury, its prodigious stiffness, thus
impacted, wedgelike, breaks the union of those parts, and gained him just the
insertion of the tip of it, lip deep; which being sensible of, he improved his
advantage, and following well his stroke, in a straight line, forcibly deepens
his penetration; but put me to such intolerable pain, from the separation of
the sides of that soft passage by a hard thick body, I could have screamed out;
but, as I was unwilling to alarm the house, I held in my breath, and crammed my
petticoat, which was; turned up over my face, into my mouth, and bit it through
in the agony. At length, the tender texture of that tract giving way to such
fierce tearing and rending, he pierced something further into me: and now,
outrageous and no longer his own master, but borne headlong away by the fury
and over-mettle of that member, now exerting itself with a kind of native rage,
he breaks in, carries all before him, and one violent merciless lunge, sent it,
imbrued, and reeking with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me… Then! then
all my resolution deserted me: I screamed out, and fainted away with the
sharpness of the pain; and, as he told me afterwards, on his drawing out, when
emission was over with him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood,
that flowed from the wounded torn passage.
When I recovered my senses, I found myself undressed and a-bed, in the arms of
the sweet relenting murderer of my virginity, who hung mourning tenderly over
me, and holding in his hand a cordial, which, coming from the still dear author
of so much pain, I could not refuse; my eyes, however, moistened with tears,
and languishingly turned upon him, seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and
ask him, if such were the rewards of love. But Charles, to whom I was now
infinitely endeared by his complete triumph over a maidenhead, where he so
little expected to find one, in tenderness to that pain which he had put me to,
in procuring himself the height of pleasure, smothered his exultation, and
employed himself with so much sweetness, so much warmth, to sooth, to caress,
and comfort me in my soft complainings, which breathed, indeed, more love than
resentment, that I presently drowned all sense of pain in the pleasure of
seeing him, of thinking that I belonged to him: he who was now the absolute
disposer of my happiness, and, in one word, my fate.
The sore was, however, too tender, the wound too bleeding fresh, for
Charles’s good-nature to put my patience presently to another trial; but
as I could not stir, or walk a-cross the room, he ordered the dinner to be
brought to the bed side, where it could not be otherwise than my getting down
the wing of a fowl, and two or three glasses of wine, since it was my adored
youth who both served, and urged them on me, with that sweet irresistible
authority with which love had invested him over me.
After dinner, and everything but the wine was taken away, Charles very
impudently asks a leave, he might read the grant of in my eyes, to come to bed
to me, and accordingly falls to undressing; which I could not see the progress
of without strange emotions of fear and pleasure.
He is now in bed with me the first time, and in broad day; but when thrusting
up his own shirt and my shift, he laid his naked glowing body to mine… oh
insupportable delight! oh! superhuman rapture! what pain could stand before a
pleasure so transporting? I felt no more the smart of my wounds below; but,
curling round him like the tendril of a vine, as if I feared any part of him
should be untouched or unpressed by me, I returned his strenuous embraces and
kisses with a fervour and gust only known to true love, and which mere lust
never rise to.
Yes, even at this time, that all the tyranny of the passions is fully over, and
that my veins roll no longer but a cold tranquil stream, the remembrance of
those passages that most affected me in my youth, still cheers and refreshes
me; let me proceed then. My beauteous youth was now glued to me in all the
folds and twists that we could make our bodies meet in; when, no longer able to
rein in the fierceness of refreshed desires, he gives his steed the head, and
gently insinuating his thighs between mine, stopping my mouth with kisses of
humid fire, makes a fresh eruption, and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears,
and forces his way up the torn tender folds, that yielded him admission with a
smart little less severe that when the breach was first made I stifled,
however, my cries, and bore him with the passive fortitude of an heroine; soon
his thrusts, more and more furious, cheeks flushed with a deeper scarlet, his
eyes turned up in the fervent fit, some dying sighs, and an agonizing shudder,
announced the approaches of that ecstatic pleasure, I was yet in too much pain
to come in for my share of.
Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numbed and blunted the sense of the
smart, and given me to feel the titillating inspersion of balsamic sweets, drew
from me the delicious return, and brought down all my passion, that I arrived
at excess of pleasure through excess of pain. But, when successive engagements
had broke and inured me, I began to enter into the true unalloyed relish of
that pleasure of pleasures, when the warm gush darts through all the ravished
inwards; what floods of bliss! what melting transports! what agonies of
delight! too fierce, too mighty for nature to sustain?… well has she
therefore, no doubt provided the relief of a delicious momentary dissolution,
the approaches of which are intimated by a dear delirium, a sweet thrill, on
the point of emitting those liquid sweets, in which enjoyment itself is
drowned, when one gives the languishing stretch out, and die at the discharge.
How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had subsided, after the
melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation, asked myself cooly the question,
if it was in nature for any of its creatures to be so happy as I was? Or, what
were all fears of the consequence, put in the scale of one night’s
enjoyment, of any thing so transcendently the taste of my eyes and heart, as
that delicious, fond, matchless youth.
Thus we spent the whole afternoon, till supper time in a continued circle of
love delights, kissing, turtle-billing, toying, and all the rest of the feast.
At length, supper was served in, before which Charles had, for I do not know
what reason, slipped his clothes on; and sitting down by the bed side, we made
table and tablecloth of the bed and sheets, whilst he suffered nobody to attend
or serve but himself. He ate with a very good appetite, and seemed charmed to
see me eat. For my part, I was so transported with the comparison of the
delights I now swam in, with the insipidity of all my past scenes of life, that
I thought them sufficiently cheap, at even the price of my ruin, or the risk of
their not lasting. The present possession was all my little head could find
room for.
We lay together that night, when, after playing repeated prizes of pleasure,
nature, overspent and satisfied, gave us up to the arms of sleep: those of my
dear youth encircled me, the consciousness of which made even that sleep more
delicious.
Late in the morning I waked, first; and observing my lover slept profoundly,
softly disengaged myself from his arms, scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of
shortening his repose; my cap, my hair, my shift, were all in disorder, from
the rufflings I had undergone; and I took this opportunity to adjust and set
them as well as I could: whilst, every now and then, looking at the sleeping
youth, with inconceivable fondness and delight, and reflecting on all the pain
he had put me to, tacitly owned that the pleasure had overpaid me for my
sufferings.
It was then broad day. I was sitting up in the bed, the clothes of which were
all tossed, or rolled off, by the unquietness of our motions, from the sultry
heat of the weather; nor could I refuse myself a pleasure that solicited me so
irresistibly, as this fair occasion of feasting my sight with all those
treasures of youthful beauty I had enjoyed, and which lay now almost entirely
naked, his shirt being trussed up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the
season and room made me easy about the consequence of. I hung over him
enamoured indeed! and devoured all his naked charms with only two eyes, when I
could have wished them at least an hundred for the fuller enjoyment of the
gaze.
Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still present to my transported
imagination! a whole length of an all perfect manly beauty in full view. Think
of a face without a fault, glowing with all the opening bloom and verdant
freshness of an age, in which beauty is of either sex, and which the first down
over his upper lip scarce began to distinguish.
The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seemed to exhale an air sweeter
and purer than what it drew in: ah! what violence did it not cost me to refrain
the so tempted kiss!
Then a neck exquisitely turned, graved behind and on the sides with fais hair,
playing freely in natural ringlets, connected his head to a body of the most
perfect form, and of the most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength of
manhood was concealed, and softened to appearance by the delicacy of his
complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and the plumpness of his flesh.
The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a manly proportion,
presented, on the vermilion summit of each pap, the idea of a rose about to
blow.
Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of his limbs, that
exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the loins, where the waist ends
and the rounding swell of the hips commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth,
and dazzling white, burnishes on; the stretch-over firm, plump, ripe flesh,
that crimped’ and ran into dimples at the least pressure, or that the
touch could not rest upon, but slid over on the surface of the most polished
ivory.
His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy roundness, gradually
tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support that beauteous
frame at the bottom of which I could not, without some remains of terror, some
tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible machine, which had, not long
before, with such fury broke into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender
parts of mine, that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but
behold it now! crest fallen, reclining its half-caped vermilion head over one
of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs
and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short
and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness, branched veins, the supple
softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a
squat thickness, languid, and borne up from between his thighs, by its globular
appendage, that wondrous treasure bag of nature’s sweets, which revelled
round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, perfected
the prospect, and altogether formed the most interesting moving picture in
nature, and surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnished by the
painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchased at immense prices; whilst
the sight of them in actual life is scarce sovereignly tasted by any but the
few whom nature has endowed with a fire of imagination, warmly pointed by a
truth of judgment to the spring-head, the originals of beauty, of
nature’s unequalled composition, above all the imitations of art, or the
reach of wealth to pay their price.
But every thing must have an end. A motion made by this angelic youth, in the
listlessness of goingoff sleep, replaced his shirt and the bed clothes in a
posture that shut up that treasury from longer view.
I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of me in which the objects
just seen had begun to raise a mutiny, that prevailed over the smart of them,
my fingers now opened themselves an easy passage; but long I had not time to
consider the wide difference there, between the maid and the now finished
woman, before Charles waked, and turning towards me, kindly enquired how I had
rested? and, scarce giving me time to answer, imprinted on my lips one of his
burning rapture kisses, which darted a flame to my heart, that from thence
radiated to every part of me; and presently, as if he had proudly meant revenge
for the survey I had smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the bed
clothes, and trussing up my shift as high as it would go, took his turn to
feast his eyes on all the gifts nature had bestowed on my person; his busy
hands, too, ranged intemperately over every part of me. The delicious austerity
and hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the whiteness and firmness of my
flesh, the freshness and regularity of my features, the harmony of my limbs,
all seemed to confirm him in his satisfaction with his bargain; but when
curious to explore the havock he had made in the centre of his over fierce
attack, he not only directed his hands there, but with a pillow put under,
placed me favourably for his wanton purpose of inspection. Then, who can
express the fire his eyes glistened, his hands glowed with! whilst sighs of
pleasure, and tender broken exclamations, were all the praises he could utter.
By this time his machine, stiffly risen at me, gave me to see it in its highest
state and bravery. He feels it himself, seems pleased at its condition, and,
smiling loves and graces, seizes one of my hands, and carries it, with gentle
compulsion, to this pride of nature, and its richest master piece.
I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I could not grasp, a column
of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked with blue veins, and carrying, fully
un-capt, a head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn could be harder or stiffer;
yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to the touch. Presently he guided my
hand lower, to that part in which nature, and pleasure keep their stores in
concert, so aptly fastened and hung on to the root of their first instrument
and minister, that not improperly he might be styled their purse-bearer too:
there he made me feel distinctly, through their soft cover, the contents, a
pair of roundish balls, that seemed to play within, and elude all pressure, but
the tenderest, from without.
But now this visit of my soft, warm hand, in those so sensible parts, had put
every thing into such ungovernable fury, disdaining all further preluding, and
taking advantage of my commodious posture, he made the storm fall where I
scarce patiently expected, and where he was sure to lay it: presently, then, I
felt the stiff intersection betwen the yielding, divided lips of the wound, now
open for life; where the narrowness no longer put me to intolerable pain, and
afforded my lover no more difficulty than what heightened his pleasure, in the
strict embrace of that tender, warm sheath, round the instrument it was so
delicately adjusted to, and which now cased home, so gorged me with pleasure,
that it perfectly suffocated me and took away my breath; then the killing
thrusts! the unnumbered kisses! every one of which was a joy inexpressible; and
that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses! But this was a disorder too
violent in nature to last long: the vessels, so stirred and intensely heated,
soon boiled over, and for that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this
dalliance and disport had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of
necessity to lay breakfast and dinner into one.
In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following account of himself, every
tittle of which was true. He was the only son of a father, who, having a small
post in the revenue, rather overlived his income, and had given this young
gentleman a very slender education: no profession had he bred him up to, but
designed to provide for him in the army, by purchasing him an ensign’s
commission, that is to say, provided he could raise the money, or procure it by
interest, either of which clauses was rather to be wished than hoped for by
him. On no better a plan, however, had his improvident father suffered this
youth, a youth of great promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it at
least, in next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no sort of pains to give
him even the common premonitions against the vices of the town, and the dangers
of all sorts which wait the unexperienced and unwary in it. He lived at home,
and at discretion with his father, who himself kept a mistress; and for the
rest, provided Charles did not ask him for money, he was indolently kind to
him: he might lie out when he pleased, any excuse would serve, and even his
reprimands were so slight, that they carried with them rather an air of
connivance at the fault, than any serious control or constraint. But, to supply
his calls for money, Charles, whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a
grandmother, who doated upon him. She had a considerable annuity to live on,
and very regularly parted with every shilling she could spare, to this darling
of her’s, to the no little heart-burn of his father; who was vexed, not
that she, by this means, fed his son’s extravagance, but that she
preferred Charles to himself; and we shall too soon see what a fatal turn such
a mercenary jealousy could operate on the breast of a father.
Charles was, however, by the means of his grandmother’s lavish fondness,
very sufficiently enabled to keep a mistress, so easily contented as my love
made me; and my good fortune, for such I must ever call it, threw me in his
way, in the manner above related, just as he was on the look-out for one.
As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born for domestic
happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-manner’d; it could never
be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities ruffled a calm he was so qualified
every way to maintain or restore. Without those great or shining qualities that
constitute a genius, or are fit to make a noise in the world, he had all those
humble ones that compose the softer social merit: plain common sense, set off
with every grace of modesty and good nature, made him, if not admired, what is
much happier: universally beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the
beauties of his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion,
neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had afterwards full
occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that season of giddiness and
levity, would have touched my heart very little, had it been lodged in a person
less the delight of my eyes, and idol of my senses. But to return to our
situation.
After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder, Charles got up,
and taking a passionate leave of me for a few hours, went to town, where
concerting matters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together to my late
venerable mistress’s, from whence I had, but the day before, made my
elopement, and with whom he was determined to settle accounts, in a manner that
should cut off all after reckonings from that quarter.
Accordingly they went; but by the way, the Templar, his friend, on thinking
over Charles’s information, saw reason to give their visit another turn,
and, instead of offering satisfaction, to demand it.
On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles, whom they knew,
and from the earlyness of my escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever
having so much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his being
accessory to my flight, they were, in their way, making up to him; and as to
his companion, they took him probably for a fresh cully. But the Templar soon
checked their forwardness, by enquiring for the old lady, with whom he said,
with a grave-like countenance, that he had some business to settle.
Madam was immediately sent for down, and the ladies being desired to clear the
room, the lawyer asked her, severely, if she did know, or had not decoyed,
under pretence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just come out of the
country, called Frances or Fanny Hill, describing me withal as particularly as
he could from Charlie’s description.
It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of justice; and Mrs. Brown,
whose conscience was not entirely clear upon my account, as knowing as she was
of the town as hackneyed as she was in bluffing through all the dangers of her
vocation, could not help being alarmed at the questions, especially when he
went on to talk of a Justice of peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for
keeping a disorderly house, pillory, carting, and the whole process of that
nature. She, who, it is likely, imagined I had lodged an information against
her house, looked extremely blank, and began to make a thousand protestations
and excuses. However, to abridge, they brought away triumphantly my box of
things, which, had she not ben under an awe, she might have disputed with them;
and not only that, but a clearance and discharge of any demands on the house,
at the expense of no more than a bowl of arrack-punch, the treat of which,
together with the choice of the house conveniences, was offered and not
accepted. Charles all the time acted the chance companion of the lawyer, who
had brought him there, as he knew the house, and appeared in no wise interested
in the issue; but he had the collateral pleasure of hearing all that I told him
verified, as far as the bawd’s fears would give her leave to enter into
my history, which, if one may guess by the composition she so readily came
into, were not small.
Phœbe, my kind tutoress Phœbe, was at the time gone out, perhaps in search of
me, or their cooked-up story had not, it is probable, passed smoothly.
This negociation had, however, taken up some time, which would have appeared
much longer to me, left as I was, in a strange house, if the landlady, a
motherly sort of a woman, to whom Charles had liberally recommended me, had not
come up and borne me company. We drank tea, and her chat helped to pass away
the time very agreeably, since he was our theme; but as the evening deepened,
and the hour set for his return was elapsed, I could not dispel the gloom of
impatience, and tender fears which gathered upon me, and which our timid sex
are apt to feel in proportion to their love.
Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him over-paid me; and the soft
reproach I had prepared for him, expired before it reached my lips.
I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise than awkwardly, and
Charles flew to me, catches me in his arms, raised and extending mine to meet
his dear embrace, and gives me an account, interrupted by many a sweet
parenthesis of kisses, of the success of his measures.
I could not help laughing at the fright of the old woman had been put into,
which my ignorance, and indeed my want of innocence, had far from prepared me
from bespeaking. She had, it seems, apprehended that I fled the shelter to some
relation I had recollected in town, on my dislike of their ways and proceedings
towards me, and that this application came from thence; for, as Charles had
rightly judged, not one neighbour had, at that still hour, seen the
circumstance of my escape into the coach, or, at least, noticed him; neither
had any in the house, the least hint of suspicion of my having spoken to him,
much less of my having clapt up such a sudden bargain with a perfect stranger,
thus the greatest improbability is not always what we should most mistrust.
We supped with all the gaiety of two young giddy creatures at the top of their
desires; and as I had given up to Charles the whole charge of my future
happiness, I thought of nothing beyond the exquisite pleasure of possessing
him.
He came to bed in due time; and this second night, the pain being pretty well
over, I tasted, in full draught, all the transports of perfect enjoyment: I
swam, I bathed in bliss, till both fell asleep, through the natural
consequences of satisfied desires, and appeased flames; nor did we wake but to
renewed raptures.
Thus, making the most of love, and life did we stay in this lodging in Chelsea
about ten days; in which time Charles took care to give his excursions from
home a favourable gloss, and to keep his footing with his fond indulgent
grand-mother, from whom he drew constant and sufficient supplies for the charge
I was to him, and which was very trifling, in comparison with his former less
regular course of pleasure.
Charles removed me then to a private ready furnished lodging in D…. street,
St. James’s, where he paid half a guinea a week for two rooms and a
closet on the second floor, which he had been some time looking out for, and
was more convenient for the frequency of his visits, than where he had at first
placed me, in a house, which I cannot say but I left with regret, as it was
infinitely endeared to me by the first possession of my Charles, and the
circumstance of losing, there, that jewel, which can never be twice lost. The
landlord, however, had no reason to complain of any thing, but of a procedure
in Charles too liberal not to make him regret the loss of us.
Arrived at our new lodging, I remember I thought them extremely fine, though
ordinary enough, even at that price; but, had it been a dungeon that Charles
had brought me to, his presence would have made a little Versailles.
The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apartment, and with great
volubility of tongue, explained to us all its conveniences: “that her own
maid should wait on us… that the best of quality had lodged at her house…
that her first floor was let to a foreign secretary of an embassy, and his
lady… that I looked like a very good natured lady…” At the word lady,
I blushed out of flattered vanity: this was strong for a girl of my condition;
for though Charles had the precaution of dressing me in a less tawdry flaunting
style than were the clothes I escaped to him in, and of passing me for his
wife, that she had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on
account of his friends, I dare swear this appeared extremely apocryphal to a
woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the least of her
concern: it was impossible to be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the
advantage of letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself would
have far from scandalized her, or broke her bargain.
A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dispose you to account for
the part she is to act in my concern.
She was about forty six years old, tall, meagre, red-haired, with one of those
trivial ordinary faces you meet with every where, and go about unheeded and
un-mentioned. In her youth she had been kept by a gentleman, who, dying, left
her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of a daughter he had
by her: which daughter, at the age of seventeen, she sold, for not a very
considerable sum neither, to a gentleman who was going on envoy abroad, and
took his purchase with him, where he used her with the utmost tenderness, and
it is thought, was secretly married to her: but had constantly made a point of
her not keeping up the least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a
market of her own flesh and blood. However, as she had not nature, nor, indeed,
any passion but that of money, this gave her no further uneasiness, then, as
she thereby lost a handle of squeezing presents, or other after advantages,
out of the bargain. Indifferent then, by nature of constitution, to every other
pleasure but that of increasing the lump, by any means whatever, she commenced
a kind of private procuress, for which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave
decent appearance, and sometimes did a job in the match-making way; in short,
there was, nothing that appeared to her under the shape of gain, that she would
not have undertaken. She knew most of the ways of the town, having not only
herself been upon, but kept up constant intelligences in promoting a harmony
between the two sexes, in private pawn-broking, and other profitable secrets.
She rented the house she lived in, and made the most of it, by letting it out
in lodgings; though she was worth, at least, near three or four thousand
pounds, she would not allow herself even the necessaries, of life, and pinned
her subsistence entirely on what she could squeeze out of her lodgers.
When she saw such a young pair come under her roof, her immediate notions,
doubtless, were how she should make the most money of us, by every means that
money might be made, and which, she rightly judged, our situations and
inexperience would soon beget her occasions of.
In this hopeful sanctuary, and under the clutches of this harpy, did we pitch
our residence. It will not be might material to you, or very pleasant to me, to
enter into a detail of all the petty cut-throat ways and means with which she
used to fleece us; all which Charles indolently chose to bear with, rather than
take the trouble of removing, the difference of expense being scarce attended
to by a young gentleman who had no ideas of stint, or even economy, and a raw
country girl who knew nothing of the matter.
Here, however, under the wings of my sovereignly beloved, did the most
delicious hours of my life flow on; my Charles I had, and, in him, every thing
my fond heart could wish or desire. He carried me to plays, operas,
masquerades, and every diversion of the town; all which pleased me, indeed, but
pleased me infinitely the more for his being with me, and explaining every
thing to me, and enjoying perhaps, the natural impressions of surprise and
admiration, which such sights, at the first, never fail to excite in a country
girl, new to the delights of them; but to me, they sensibly proved the power
and dominion of the sole passion of my heart over me, a passion in which soul
and body were concentered, and left me no room for any other relish of life but
love.
As to the men I saw at those places, or at any other, they suffered so much in
the comparison my eyes made of them with my all-perfect Adonis, that I had not
the infidelity even of one wandering thought to reproach myself with upon his
account. He was the universe to me, and all that was not him, was nothing to
me.
My love, in fine, was so excessive, that is arrived at annihilating every
suggestion or kindling spark of jealousy; for, one idea only, tending that way,
gave me such exquisite torment, that my self-love, and dread of worse than
death, made me for ever renounce and defy it: nor had I, indeed, occasion; for,
were I to enter here on the recital of several instances wherein Charles
sacrificed to me women of much greater importance than I dare hint (which,
considering his form, was no such wonder), I might, indeed, give you full proof
of his unshaken constancy to me; but would not you accuse me of warming up
against a feast, which my vanity ought long ago to have been satisfied with?
In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles framed himself one, in
instructing me, as far as his own lights reached, in a great many points of
life, that I was, in consequence of my no-education, perfectly ignorant of: nor
did I suffer one word to fall in vain from the mouth of my lovely teacher: I
hung on every syllable he uttered, and received, as oracles, all he said;
whilst kisses were all the interruption I could not refuse myself the pleasure
of admitting, from lips that breathed more than Arabian sweetness, I was in a
little time enabled, by the progress I had made, to prove the deep regard I had
paid to all that he had said to me: repeating it to him almost word for word;
and to shew that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I reflected upon, that
I entered into it, I joined my own comments, and asked him questions of
explanation.
My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, manners, and deportment, began
now sensibly to wear off: so quick was my observation, and so efficacious my
desire of growing every day worthier of his heart.
As to money, though, he brought me constantly all he received, it was with
difficulty he even got me to give it room in my bureau; and what clothes I had,
he could prevail on me to accept of on no other foot, than that of pleasing him
by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond which I had no ambition. I could
have made a pleasure of the greatest toil, and worked my fingers to the bone,
with joy, to have supported him: guess, then, if I could harbour any idea of
being burthensome to him, and this disinterested turn in me was so unaffected,
so much the dictate of my heart, that Charles could not but feel it: and if he
did not love me as much as I did him (which was the constant and only matter of
sweet contention between us), he managed so, at least, as to give me the
satisfaction of believing it impossible for man to be more tender, more true,
more faithful than he was.
Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my apartment, from whence I
never stirred on any pretext without Charles; nor was it long before she wormed
out, without much art, the secret of our having cheated the church of a
ceremony, and, in course, of the terms we lived together upon; a circumstance
which far from displeased her, considering the designs she had upon me, and
which, alas! she will have too soon, room to carry into execution. But in the
meantime, her own experience of life let her see, that any attempt, however
indirect or disguised, to divert or break, at least presently, so strong a
cement of hearts as ours was, could only end in losing two lodgers, of whom she
had made very competent advantages, if either of us came to smoke her
commission, for a commission she had from one of her customers, either to
debauch, or get me away from my keeper at any rate.
But the barbarity of my fate soon saved her the task of disuniting us. I had
now been eleven months with this life of my life, which had passed in one
continued rapid stream of delight: but nothing so violent was ever made to
last. I was about three months gone with a child by him, a circumstances would
have added to his tenderness, had he ever left me room to believe it could
receive an addition, when the mortal, the unexpected blow of separation fell
upon us. I shall gallop post-over the particulars, which I shudder yet to think
of, and cannot; to this instant, reconcile myself how, or by what means I could
out-live it.
Two live-long days had I lingered through without hearing from him, I who
breathed, who existed but in him, and had never yet seen twenty-four hours pass
without seeing or hearing from him. The third day my impatience was so strong,
my alarms had been so severe, that I perfectly sickened with them; and being
unable to support the shock longer, I sunk upon the bed, and ringing for Mrs.
Jones, who had far from comforted me under my anxieties, she came up, and I had
scarce breath and spirit enough to find words to beg of her, if she would save
my life, to fall upon some means of finding out, instantly, what was become of
its only prop and comfort. She pitied me in a way that rather sharpened my
affliction than suspended it, and went out upon this commission.
For she had but to go to Charles’s house, who lived but an easy distance,
in one of the streets that run into Covent Garden. There she went into a public
house, and from thence sent for a mid servant, whose name I had given her, as
the properest to inform her.
The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones enquired of her what had
become of Mr. Charles, or whether he was gone out of town, acquainted her with
the disposal of her master’s son, which, the very day after, was no
secret to the servants. Such sure measures had he taken, for the most cruel
punishment of his child for having more interest with his grandmother than he
had, though he made use of a pretence, plausible enough, to get rid of him in
this secret abrupt manner, for fear her fondness should have interposed a bar
to his leaving England, and proceeding on a voyage he had concerted for him;
which pretext was, that it was indispensably necessary to secure a considerable
inheritance that devolved to him by the death of a rich merchant (his own
brother) at one of the factories in the South Seas, of which he had lately
received advice, together with a copy of the will.
In consequence of which resolution, to send away his son, he had, unknown to
him, made the necessary preparations for fitting him out, struck a bargain with
the captain of a ship, whose punctual execution of his orders he had secured,
by his interest with his principal owners and patron; and, in short, concerted
his measures so secretly, and effectually, that whilst the son thought he was
going down to the river, that would take him a few hours, he was stopt on board
of a ship, debarred from writing, and more strictly watched than a State
criminal.
Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forced on a long voyage, without
taking leave of one friend, or receiving one line of comfort, except a dry
explanation and instructions, from his father, how to proceed when he should
arrive at his destined port, enclosing, withal, some letters of recommendation
to a factor there: all these particulars I did not learn minutely till some
time after.
The maid, at the same time, added, that she was sure this usage of her sweet
young master would be the death of his grand-mamma, as indeed it proved true;
for the old lady, on hearing it, did not survive the news a whole month, and as
her fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which she had laid up no reserves,
she left nothing worth mentioning to her so fatally envied darling, but
absolutely refused to see his father before she died.
When Mrs. Jones returned, and I observed her looks, they seemed so unconcerned,
and even nearest to pleased, that I half flattered myself she was going to set
my tortured heart at ease, by bringing me good news; but this, indeed, was a
cruel delusion of hope: the barbarian, with all the coolness imaginable, stabs
me to the heart, in telling me, succinctly, that he was sent away, at least, on
a four years’ voyage (here she stretched maliciously), and that I could
not expect, in reason, ever to see him again: and all this with such pregnant
circumstances, that I could not escape giving them credit, as they were,
indeed, too true!
She had hardly finished her report before I fainted away, and after several
successive fits, all the while wild and senseless, I miscarried of the dear
pledge of my Charles’s love; but the wretched never die when it is
fittest they should die, and women are hard-lived! to a proverb.
The cruel and interested care taken to recover me, saved an odious life: which,
instead of the happiness and joys it had overflower in, all of a sudden
presented no view before me of any thing but the depth of misery, horror, and
the sharpest affliction.
Thus I lay six weeks, in the struggles of youth and constitution, against the
friendly efforts of death, which I constantly invoked to my relief and
deliverance, but which proved too weak for my wish. I recovered at length, but
into a state of stupefaction and despair, that threatened me with the loss of
my senses, and a mad house.
Time, however, that great comforter in ordinary, began to assuage the violence
of my suffering, and to numb my feeling of them. My health returned to me,
though I still retained an air of grief, dejection, and languor, which taking
off from the ruddiness of my country complexion, rendered it rather more
delicate and affecting.
The landlady had all this while officiously provided, and seen that I wanted
for nothing: and as soon as she saw me retrieved into a condition of answering
her purpose, one day, after we had dined together, she congratulated me on my
recovery, the merit of which she took entirely to herself, and all this by way
of introduction to a most terrible, and scurvy epilogue: “You are
now,” says she, “Miss Fanny, tolerably well, and you are very
welcome to stay in these lodgings as; long as you please! you see I have asked
you for nothing this long time, but truly I have a call to make up a sum of
money, which must be answered.” And, with that, presents me with a bill
of arrears for rent, diet, apothecaries’ charges, nurse, etc., sum total
twenty-three pounds, seventeen and six-pence: towards discharging of which I
had not in the world (which she well knew) more than seven guineas, left by
chance, of my dear Charles’s common stock, with me. At the same time, she
desired me to tell her what course I would take for payment. I burst out into a
flood of tears, and told her my condition: that I would sell what few clothes I
had, and that, for the rest, would pay her as soon as possible. But my
distress, being favourable to her view, only stiffened her the more.
She told me, very cooly, that “she was indeed sorry for my misfortunes,
but that she must do herself justice, though it would go to the very heart of
her to send such a tender young creature to prison….” At the word
“prison!” every drop of my blood chilled, and my fright acted so
strongly upon me, that, turning as pale and faint as a criminal at the first
sight of his place of execution, I was on the point of swooning. My landlady,
who wanted only to terrify me to a certain point, and not to throw me into a
state of body inconsistent with her designs upon it, began to sooth me again,
and told me, in a tone composed to more pity and gentleness, that “it
would be my own fault, if she was forced to proceed to such extremities; but
she believed there was a friend to be found in the world, who would make up
matters to both our satisfactions, and that she would bring him to drink tea
with us that very afternoon, when she hoped we would come to a right
understanding in our affairs.” To all this, not a word of answer; I sat
mute, confounded, terrified.
Mrs. Jones, however, judging rightly that it was time to strike while the
impressions were so strong upon me, left me to myself and to all the terrors of
an imagination, wounded to death by the idea of going to prison, and, from a
principle of self-preservation, snatching at every glimpse of redemption from
it.
In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallowed up in grief and despair,
when my landlady came in, and observing a death-like dejection in my
countenance, still in pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity, and bidding
me be of good heart: “Things,” she said, “would be but my own
friend”; and closed with telling me “she had brought a very
honourable gentleman to drink tea with me, who would give me the best advice
how to get rid of all my troubles.” Upon which, without waiting for a
reply, she goes out, and returns with this very honourable gentleman, whose
very honourable procuress she had been, on this, as well as other occasions.
The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very civil bow, which I had
scarce strength, or presence of mind enough to return a curtsey to; when the
landlady, taking upon her to do all the honours of the first interview (for I
had never, that I remember, seen the gentleman before), sets a chair for him,
another for herself. All this while not a word on either side; a stupid stare
was all the face I could put on this strange visit.
The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I suppose, to lose any time,
observing my silence and shyness before this entire stranger: “Come, Miss
Fanny,” says she, in a coarse familiar style, and tone of authority,
“hold up your head, child, and do not let sorrow spoil that pretty face
of yours. What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be free, here is a worthy
gentleman who has heard of your misfortunes, and is willing to serve you; you
must be better acquainted with him, do not you now stand upon your punctilios,
and this and that, but make your market while you may.”
At this so delicate, and eloquent harangue, the gentleman, who saw I looked
frighted and amazed, and, indeed, incapable of answering, took her up for
breaking things in so abrupt a manner, as rather to shock than incline me to an
acceptance of the good he intended me then, addressing himself to me, told me
“he was perfectly acquainted with my whole story, and every circumstance
of my distress which he owned was a cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty
to fall into…. that he had long taken a liking to my person, for which he
appealed to Mrs. Jones, there present; but finding me so deeply engaged to
another, he had lost all hopes of succeeding, till he had heard the sudden
reverse of fortune that had happened to me, on which he had given particular
orders to my landlady to see that I should want for nothing; and that, had he
not been forced abroad to the Hague, on affairs he could not refuse himself to,
he would himself have attended me during my sickness;… that on his return,
which was the day before, he had, on learning my recovery, desired my
landlady’s good offices to introduce him to me, and was as angry, at
least, as I was shocked, at the manner in which she had conducted herself
towards obtaining him that happiness; but, that to show me how much he
disdained her procedure, and how far he was from taking any ungenerous
advantage of my situation, and from exacting any security for my gratitude, he
would before my face, that instant, discharge my debt entirely to my landlady,
and give me her receipt in full; after which I should be at liberty either to
reject or grant his suit, as he was much above putting any force upon my
inclinations.”
Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured just to look up to him,
and observed his figure, which was that of a very well-looking gentleman, well
made, of about forty, dressed in a suit of plain clothes, with a large diamond
ring on one of his fingers, the lustre of which played in my eyes as he waved
his hand in talking, and raised my notions of his importance. In short, he
might pass for what is commonly called a comely black man, with an air of
distinction natural to his birth and condition.
To all his speeches, however, I answered only in tears that flower plentifully
to my relief, and choking up my voice, excused me from speaking, very luckily,
for I should not have known what to say.
The sight, however, moved him, as he afterwards told me, irresistibly, and by
way of giving me some reason to be less powerfully afflicted, he drew out his
purse, and calling for pen and ink, which the landlady was prepared for, paid
her every farthing of her demand, independent of a liberal gratification which
was to follow unknown to me, and taking a receipt in full, very tenderly forced
me to secure it, by guiding my hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make
me passively put it into my pocket.
Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melancholic despair, as my
spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks that they had received;
and the accommodating landlady had actually left the room, and me alone with
this strange gentleman, before I had observed it, and then I observed it
without alarm, for I was now lifeless, and indifferent to every thing.
The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this sort, drew near me; and,
under the pretence of comforting me, first with his handkerchief dried my tears
as they ran down my cheeks: presently he ventured to kiss me on my part,
neither resistance nor compliance. I sat stock still; and now looking on myself
as bought by the payment that had been transacted before me.
I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting life, spirits, or
courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of the modesty of my sex, I
suffered, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased; who proceeding insensibly
from freedom to freedom, insinuating his hand between my handkerchief and
bosom, which he handled at discretion: finding thus no repulse, and that every
thing favoured, beyond expectation, the completion of his desires, he took me
in his arms, and bore me, without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying
me gently downed, and having me at what advantage he pleased, I did not so much
as know what he was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless
insensibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and innocent of
the least sensations of pleasure: a death-cold corpse could scarce have less
life or sense in it. As soon as he had thus pacified a passion which had too
little respected the condition I was in, he got off, and after recomposing the
disorder of my clothes, employed himself with the utmost tenderness to calm the
transports of remorse and madness at myself, with which I was seized, too late,
I confess, for having suffered on that bed, the embraces of an utter stranger I
tore my hair, wrung my hands, and beat my breast like a mad woman. But when my
new master, for in that light I then viewed him, applied himself to appease me,
as my whole rage was levelled at myself, no part of which I thought myself
permitted to aim at him, I begged of him with more submission than anger, to
leave me alone, that I might, at least, enjoy my affliction in quiet. This he
positively refused, for fear, as he pretended, I should do myself a mischief.
Violent passions seldom last long, and those of women least of any. A dead
still calm succeeded this storm, which ended in a profuse shower of tears.
Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I should have ever known
any man but Charles, I would have spit in his face or had I been offered
infinitely a greater sum of money than that I saw paid for me, I had spurned
the proposal in cold blood. But our virtues and our vices depend too much on
our circumstances; unexpectedly beset as I was, betrayed by a mind weakened by
a long severe affliction, and stunned with the terrors of a goal, my defeat
will appear the more excusable, since I certainly was not present at, or a
party in any sense to it. However, as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he
was now over the bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses
of one that had got that advantage over me, no matter how obtained; conforming
myself then to this maxim, I considered myself as so much in his power, that I
endured his kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not that
he, as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevailed over the aversion of my soul, to
give myself up to any sensation of that sort; what I suffered, I suffered out
of a kind of gratitude, and as a matter of course what had passed.
He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the renewal of those
extremities which had thrown me, just before, into such violent agitations;
but, now secure of possession, contented himself with bringing me to temper by
degrees, and waiting at the hand of time for those fruits of generosity and
courtship, which he since often reproached himself with having gathered much
too green, when, yielding to the inability to resist him, and overborne by
desires, he had wreaked his passion on a mere lifeless, spiritless body, dead
to all purpose of joy, since taking none, it ought to be supposed incapable of
giving any. This is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly forgave him
the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point of interest, I had
fallen to him, I had reason to be pleased that he found, in my person,
wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as easily as he had had me.
The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanced, that the maid came in to
lay the cloth for supper, when I understood, with joy, that my landlady, whose
sight was present poison to me, was not to be with us.
Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduced, and a bottle of Burgundy,
with the other necessaries, were set on a dumb-waiter.
The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with a tender warmth, that
I should sit up in the elbow chair by the fire, and see him eat, if I could not
be prevailed on to eat myself. I obeyed with a heart full or affliction, at the
comparison it made between those delicious tête-à-têtes with my very
dear youth, and this forced situation, this new awkward scene, imposed and
obtruded on me a cruel necessity.
At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort and reconcile me to my
fate, he told me that his name was H…, brother to the Earl of L…. and that
having, by the suggestions of my landlady, been led to see me, he had found me
perfectly to his taste, and given her a commission to procure me at any rate,
and that at length he had succeeded, as much to his satisfaction as he
passionately wished it might be to mine adding, withal, some flattering
assurances, that I should have no cause to repent my knowledge of him.
I had now got down at least half a partridge, and three or four glasses of
wine, which he compelled me to drink by way of restoring nature, but whether
there was any thing extraordinary put into the wine, or whether there wanted no
more to revive the natural warmth of my constitution, and give fire to the old
train, I began no longer to look with that constraint, not to say disguise, on
Mr. H…., which I had hitherto done but, withal, there was not the least grain
of love mixed with this softening of my sentiments: any other man would have
been just the same to me as Mr. H…, that stood in the same circumstances, and
had done for me, and with me, what he had done.
There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine were, if not at an end,
at least suspended: my heart, which had been so long overloaded with anguish
and vexation, began to dilate and open to the last gleam of diversion or
amusement. I wept a little, and my tears relieved me; I sighed, and my sighs
seemed to lighten me of a load that oppressed me; my countenance grew, if not
cheerful, at least more composed and free.
Mr. H…, who had watched, perhaps brought on this change, knew too well not to
seize it: he thrust the table imperceptibly from between us, and bringing his
chair to face me, he soon began, after preparing me by all the endearments of
assurance and protestations, to lay hold of my hands, to kiss me, and once more
to make free with my bosom, which, being at full liberty from the disorder of a
loose dishabile, now panted and throbbed, less with indignation than with fear
and bashfulness, at being used so familiarly by still a stranger. But he soon
gave me greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping his hands
above my garters; thence he strove to regain the pass, which he had before
found so open, and unguarded; but now he could not unlock the twist of my
thighs; I gently complained, and begged him to let me alone; told him I was not
well. However, he saw there was more form and ceremony in my resistance, than
good earnest; he made his conditions for desisting from pursuing his point,
that I should be put instantly to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to the
landlady, and that he would return in an hour, when he hoped to find me more
reconciled to his passion for me, than I seemed at present. I neither assented
nor denied, but my air and manner of receiving his proposal, gave him to see
that I did not think myself enough my own mistress to refuse it.
Accordingly he went out and left me, when a minute or two after, before I could
recover myself into any composure for thinking, the maid came in with her
mistress’s service, and a small silver orringer of what she called a
bridal posset, and desired me to eat it as I went to bed, which consequently I
did, and felt immediately a heat, a fire run like a hue-and-cry through every
part of my body; I burnt, I glowed, and wanted even little of wishing for any
man.
The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle away, and wishing me a
good night, went out of the room, and shut the door after her.
She had hardly time to get down stairs, before Mr. H…. opened my room door
softly, and came in, now undressed, in his night-gown and cap, with two lighted
wax candles, and bolting the door, gave me, though I expected him, some sort of
alarm. He came a tip-toe to the bed side, and saying with a gentle whisper:
“Pray, my dear, do not be startled… I will be very tender and kind to
you.” He then hurried off his clothes, and leaped into bed, having given
me openings enough, whilst he was stripping, to observe his brawny structure,
strong made limbs, and rough shaggy breast.
The bed shook again when it received this new load. He lay on the outside,
where he kept the candles burning, no doubt for the satisfaction of every
sense, for as soon as he had kissed me, he rolled down the bed clothes, and
seemed transported with the view of all my person at full length, which he
covered with a profusion of kisses, sparing no part of me. Then, being on his
knees between my thighs, he drew up his shirt, and bared all his hairy thighs,
and stiff staring truncheon, red top, and rooted into a thicket of curls, which
covered his belly to the novel, and gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon
I feel it joining close to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the head, and
left no partition but the intermediate hair on both sides.
I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive, he soon gave nature such
a powerful summons down to her favourite quarters, that she could no longer
refuse repairing thither; all my animals spirits then rushed mechanically to
that center of attraction, and presently, inly warmed, and stirred as I was
beyond bearing, I lost all restraint, and yielding to the force of the emotion,
gave down, as mere woman, those effusions of pleasure, which, in the strictness
of still faithful love, I could have wished to have kept in.
Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between this impression of a
pleasure merely animal, and struck out of the collision of the sexes, by a
passive bodily effect, from that sweet fury, that rage of active delight which
crowns the enjoyments of a mutual love passion, where two hearts, tenderly and
truly united, club to exalt the joy, and give it a spirit and soul that bids
defiance to that end which mere momentary desires generally terminate in, when
they die of a surfeit of satisfaction!
Mr. H…, whom no distinctions of that sort seemed to distract, scarce gave
himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but, as if he had tasked
himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour were no signs hung out in
vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for renewing the onset; to which,
preluding with a storm of kisses, he drove the same course as before, with
unbated fervour; and thus, in repeated engagements, kept me constantly in
exercise, till dawn of morning, in all which time he made me fully sensible of
the virtues of his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest,
compact hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that might pass for no
bad image of our ancient sturdy barons, whose race is now so thoroughly refined
and frittered away into the more delicate and modern built frame of our
pap-nerved softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as
their sisters.
Mr. H…, content, however, with having the day break upon his triumph,
resigned me up to the refreshment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon dropped
into a profound sleep.
Though he was some time awake before me, yet he did not offer to disturb a
repose he had given me so much occasion for; but on my first stirring, which
was not till past ten o’clock, I was obliged to endure one more trial of
his manhood.
About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of the richest soup, which
her experience in these matters had moved her to prepare. I pass over the
fulsome compliments, the cant of the decent procuress, with which she saluted
us both; but though my blood rose at the sight of her, I supprest my emotions,
and gave all my concerne to reflections on what would be the consequence of
this new engagement.
But Mr. H…, who penetrated my uneasiness, did not suffer me to languish under
it, and acquainted me, that having taken a solid sincere affection to me, he
would begin by giving me one leading mark of it, in removing me out of a house
which must, for many reasons, be irksome and disagreeable to me, into
convenient lodgings, where he would take all imaginable care of me; and
desiring not to have any explanations with my landlady, or be impatient till he
returned, he dressed and went out, having left me a purse with two and twenty
guineas in it, being all he had about him, as he express it, to keep my pocket
still further supplied.
As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence of the first launch into
vice (for my love attachment to Charles never appeared to me in that light). I
was instantly borne away down the stream without making back to the shore. My
dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and above all, to say the plain truth, the
dissipation and diversion I began to find in this new acquaintance, from the
black corroding thoughts my heart had been a prey to, ever since the absence of
my dear Charles, concurred to stun all my contrary reflections. If I now
thought of my first, my only charmer, it was still with the tenderness and
regret of the fondest love, embittered with the consciousness that I was no
longer worthy of him. I could have begged my bread with him all over the world,
but wretch that I was! I had neither the virtue or courage requisite not to
outlive my separation from him.
Yet, had not my heart been thus preengaged, Mr. H… might probably have been
the sole master of it; but the place was full, and the force of conjectures
alone had made him the possessor of my person; the charms of which had, by the
bye, been his sole object and passion, and were, of course, no foundation for a
love either very delicate or very durable.
He did not return till six in the evening, to take me away to my new lodgings;
and my moveables being soon packed, and conveyed into a hackney coach, it cost
me but little regret to take my leave of a landlady whom I thought I had so
much reason not to be over pleased with; and as for her part, she made no other
difference to my staying or going, but what that of the profit created.
We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was that of a plain tradesman,
who, on the score of interest, was entirely at Mr. H…’s devotion, and
who let him the first floor, very genteelly furnished, for two guineas a week,
of which I was instated mistress, with a maid to attend me.
He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper from a neighbouring tavern,
after which, and a gay glass or two, the maid put me to bed. Mr. H…. soon
followed, and notwithstanding the fatigues of the preceding night, I found no
quarter nor remission from him: he piquet himself, as he told me, on doing the
honours of my new apartment.
The morning being pretty well advanced, we got to breakfast; and the ice now
broke, my heart, no longer engrossed by love, began to take ease, and to please
itself with such trifles Mr. H….’s liberal liking led him to make his
court to the usual vanity of our sex. Silks, laces: ear rings, pearl necklace,
gold watch, in sort, all the trinkets and articles of dress were lavishly
heaped upon me; the sence of which, if it did not create returns of love,
forced a kind of grateful fondness, something like love: a distinction which it
would be spoiling the pleasure of nine tenths of the keepers in the town to
make, and is, I suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do make
it.
I was now established the kept mistress in form, well lodged, with a very
sufficient allowance, and lighted up with all the lustre of dress.
Mr. H…. continued kind and tender to me; yet, with all this, I was far from
happy: for, besides my regrets for my dear youth, which, though often suspended
or diverted, still returned upon me in certain melancholic moments with
redoubled violence, I wanted more society, more dissipation.
As to Mr. H…. he was so much my superior in every sense, that I felt it too
much to the disadvantage of the gratitude I owed him. Thus he gained my esteem,
though he could not raise my taste; I was qualified for no sort of conversation
with him, except one sort, and that is a satisfaction which leaves tiresome
intervals, if not filled up by love, or other amusements.
Mr. H…., so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of whom had
passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this uneasiness, and,
without approving, or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance to
indulge me.
He made suppers at my lodging, where he brought several companions of his
pleasures, with their mistresses; and by this means I got into a circle of
acquaintance, that soon stripped me of all the remains of bashfulness and
modesty which might be yet left of my country education, and were, to a just
taste, perhaps, the greatest of my charms.
We visited one another in form, and mimicked, as near as we could, all the
miseries, the follies, and impertinencies of the women in quality, in the round
of which they trifle away their time, without it ever entering their little
heads, that on earth there cannot subsist any thing more silly, more flat, more
insipid and worthless, than, generally considered, their system of life is:
they ought to treat the men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to condemn them
to it.
But though, amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now acquainted with a good
many, besides some useful matrons, who live by their connexions with them), I
hardly knew one that did not perfectly detest their keepers, and, of course,
made little or no scruple of any infidelity they could safely accomplish, I had
still no notion of wronging mine: for, besides that no mark of jealousy on his
side started me the hint, or gave me the provocation to play him a trick of
that sort, and that his constant generosity, politeness, and tender attention
to please me, forced a regard to him, that, without affecting my heart, insured
him my fidelity, no object had yet presented that could overcome the habitual
liking I had contracted for him and I was on the eve of obtaining, from the
movements of his own voluntary generosity, a modest provision for life, when an
accident happened which broke all the measures he had resolved upon in my
favour.
I had now lived near seven months with Mr. H…. when one day returning to my
lodgings, from a visit in the neighbourhood, where I used to stay longer, I
found the street door open, and the maid of the house standing at it, talking
with some of her acquaintance, so that I came in without knocking and, as I
passed by, she told me Mr. H…. was above. I slept up stairs into my own
bed-chamber, with no other thought than of pulling off my hat etc., and then to
wait upon him in the dining room, into which my bed-chamber had a door, as is
common enough. Whilst I was untying my hat strings, I fancied I heard my maid
Hannah’s voice and a sort of tustle, which raised my curiosity; I stole
softly to the door, where a knot in the wood had been slipped out, and afforded
a very commanding peep-hole to the scene then in agitation, the actors of which
had been to earnestly employed to hear my opening my own door, from the landing
place of the stairs, into my bedchamber.
The first sight that struck me was Mr. H…. pulling and hauling this coarse
country strammel towards a couch that stood in a corner of the dining-room; to
which the girl made only a sort of awkward holdening resistance, crying out so
loud, that I, who listened at the door, could scarce hear her: “Pray Sir,
don’t.., let me alone… I am not for your turn… You cannot, sure,
demean yourself with such a poor body as I… Lord! Sir, my mistress may come
home… I must not indeed… I will cry out…” All of which did not
hinder her from insensibly suffering herself to be brought to the foot of the
couch, upon which a push of no mighty violence served to give her a very easy
fall, and my gentleman having got up his hands to the strong hold of her
Virtue, she, no doubt, thought it was time to give up the argument, and that
all further defense would be vain: and he, throwing her petticoats over her
face, which was now as red as scarlet, discovered a pair of stout, plump,
substantial thighs, and tolerably white; he mounted them round his haps, and
coming out with his drawn weapon, stuck it in the cloven sport, where he seemed
to find a less difficult entrance than perhaps he had flattered himself with
(for, by the way, this blouse had left her place in the country, for a
bastard), and, indeed, all his motions shewed he was lodged pretty much at
large. After he had done, his Deare gets up, drops her petticoats down, and
smooths her apron and handkerchief. Mr. H…. looked a little silly, and taking
out some money, gave it her, with an air indifferent enough, bidding her be a
good girl, and say nothing.
Had I loved this man, it was not in nature for me to have had patience to see
the whole scene through: I should have broke in and played the jealous princess
with a vengeance. But that was not the case: my pride alone was hurt, my heart
not, and I could easier win upon myself to see how far he would go, till I had
no uncertainty upon my conscience.
The least delicate of all affairs of this sort being now over, I retired softly
into my closet, where I began to consider what I should do. My first scheme
naturally, was to rush in and upbraid them; this, indeed, flattered my present
emotions and vexations, as it would have given immediate vent to them; but, on
second thoughts, not being so clear as to the consequence to be apprehended
from such a step, I began my discovery still a safer season, when dissembly my
discovery till a safer season, when Mr. H…. should have perfected the
settlement he had made overtures to me of, and which I was not to think such a
violent explanation, as I was indeed not equal to the management of, could
possibly forward, and might destroy. On the other hand, the provocation seemed
too gross, too flagrant not to give me some thoughts of revenge; the very start
of which idea restored me to perfect composure; and delighted as I was with the
confused plan of it in my head, I was easily mistress enough of myself to
support the part of ignorance I had prescribed to myself; and as all this
circle of reflections was instantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage
door, and opening it with a noise, passed for having that moment come home; and
after a short pause, as if to pull off my things, I opened the door into the
dining room, where I fund the dowdy blowing the fire, and my faithful shepherd
walking about the room, and wistling, as cool and unconcerned as if nothing had
happened. I think, however, he had not much to brag of having out-dissembled
me: for I kept up, nobly, the character of our sex for art, and went up to him
with the same open air of frankness as I had ever received him. He stayed but a
little while, made some excuse for not being able to stay the evening with me,
and went out.
As for the wench, she was now spoiled, at least for my servant; and scarce
eight and forty hours were gone round, before her insolence, on what had passed
betwen Mr. H…. and her, gave me so fair an occasion to turn her away, at a
minute’s warning, that, not to have done it would have been the wonder;
so that he could neither disapprove it nor find in it the least reason to
suspect my original motive. What became of her afterwards, I know not; but
generous as Mr. H…. was, he undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare
answer, that he kept up no further commerce with her of that sort; as his
stooping to such a coarse morsel, was only a sudden sally of lust, on seeing a
wholesome looking, buxom country wench, and no more strange than hunger, or
even a whimsical appetite’s making a fling meal of neck-beef, for change
of diet.
Had I considered this escapade of Mr. H…. in no more than that light and
contented myself with turning away the wench, I had thought and acted right;
but, flushed as I was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H… to
have been cheaply off, if I had not pushed my revenge farther, and repaid him,
as exactly as could for the soul of me, in the same coin.
Nor was this worthy act of justice long delayed: I had it too much at heart.
Mr. H… had, about a fortnight before, taken into his service a tenant’s
son, just come out the country, a very handsome young lad, scarce turned of
nineteen, fresh as a rose, well sharped and clear limbed: in short, a very good
excuse for any woman’s liking, even though revenge had been out of the
question; any woman, I say, who was disprejudiced, and that wit and spirit
enough to prefer a point of pleasure to a point of pride.
Mr. H… had clapped a livery upon him; and his chief employ was, after being
shewn my lodgings, to bring and carry letters or messages between his master
and me; and as the situation of all kept ladies is not the fittest to inspire
respect, even to the meanest of mankind, and, perhaps, less of it from the most
ignorant, I could not help observing that this lad, who was, I suppose,
acquainted with my relation to his master by his fellow servants, used to eye
me in that bashful confused way, more expressive, more moving and readier
caught at by our sex, than any other declarations whatever: my figure had, it
seems, struck him, and modest and innocent as he was, he did not himself know
that the pleasure he took in looking at me was love, or desire; but his eyes,
naturally wanton, and now inflamed with passion, spoke a great deal more than
he durst have imagined they did. Hitherto, indeed, I had only taken notice of
the comeliness of the youth, but without the least design: my pride alone would
have guarded me from a thought that way, had not Mr. H….’s
condescension with my maid, where there was not half the temptation, in point
of person, set me a dangerous example; but now I began to look on this
stripling as every way a delicious instrument of my designed retaliation upon
Mr. H…. of an obligation for which I should have made a conscience to die in
his debt.
In order then to pave the way for the accomplishment of my scheme, for two or
three times that the young fellow came to me with messages, I managed so, or
without affectation to have him admitted to my bed side, or brought to me at my
toilet, where I was dressing; and by carelessly shewing or letting him, as if
without meaning or design, sometimes my bosom rather more bare than it should
be; sometimes my hair, of which I had a very fine head, in the natural flow of
it while combing; sometimes a neat leg, that had unfortunately slipt its
garter, which I made no scruple of tying before him, easily gave him the
impressions favourable to my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in his
eyes, and glow in his cheeks: then certain slight squeezes by the hand, as I
took letters from him, did his business completely.
When I saw him thus moved, and fired for my purpose, I inflamed him yet more,
by asking him several leading questions, such as: “Had he a mistress?…
was she prettier than me?… could he love such a one as I was?…” and
the like; to all which the blushing simpleton answered to my wish, in a strain
of perfect nature, perfect undebauched innocence, but with all the awkwardness
and simplicity of country breeding.
When I thought I had sufficiently ripened him for the laudable point I had in
view, one day that I expected him at a particular hour, I took care to have the
coast clear for the reception I designed him; and, as I laid it, he came to the
dining room door, tapped at it, and, in my bidding him come in; he did so, and
shut the door after him. I desired him, then, to bolt it on the inside,
pretending it would not otherwise keep shut.
I was then lying at length upon that very couch, the scene of Mr. H….’s
polite joys, in an undress, which was with all the art of negligence flowing
loose, and in a most tempting disorder: no stays, no hoop…, no incumbrance
whatever. On the other hand, he stood at a little distance, that gave me a full
view of a fine featured, shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of
fresh blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining black, played to
his face in natural side curls, and was set out with a smart tuck-up behind;
new buckskin breechs, that, clipping close, shewed the shape of a plump, well
made thigh; white stockings, garter-laced livery, shoulder knot, altogether
composed a figure of pure flesh and blood, and appeared under no disgrace from
the lowness of a dress, to which a certain spruce neatness seems peculiarly
fitted.
I bid him come towards me, and give me his letter, at the same time throwing
down, carelessly, a book I had in my hands. He coloured, and came within reach
of delivering me the letter, which he held out, awkwardly enough, for me to
take, with his eyes rivetted on my bosom, which was, through the designed
disorder of my handkerchief, sufficiently bare, and rather than hid.
I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immediately catching hold of his
shirt sleeve, drew him towards me, blushing, and almost trembling; for surely
his extreme bashfulness, and utter inexperience called for, at least, all the
advances to encourage him: his body was now conveniently inclined toward me,
and just softly chucking his beardless chin, I asked him: “If he was
afraid of a lady?…” and with that took, and carrying his hands to my
breasts, I press it tenderly to them. They were now finely furnished, and
raised in flesh, so that, panting with desire, they rose and fell, in quick
heaves, under his touch: at this, the boy’s eyes began to lighten with
all the fires of inflamed nature, and his cheeks flushed with a deep scarlet:
tongue-tied with joy, rapture, and bashfulness, he could not speak, but then
his looks, his emotion, sufficiently satisfied me that my train had taken, and
that I had no disappointment to fear.
My lips, which I threw in his way, so that he could not escape kissing them,
fixed, fired, and emboldened him: and now, glancing my eyes towards that part
of his dress which covered the essential object of enjoyment, I plainly
discovered the swell and commotion there; and as I was now too far advanced to
stop in so fair a way, and was indeed no longer able to contain myself, or wait
the slower progress of his maiden bash-fulness (for such it seemed, and really
was), I stole my hands upon his thighs, down one of which I could both see and
feel a stiff hard body, confined by his breeches, that my fingers could
discover no end to. Curious then, and eager to unfold so alarming a mystery,
playing, as it were, with his buttons, which were bursting ripe from the active
force within, those of his waistband and fore-flap flew open at a touch, when
out IT started; and now, disengaged from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and
surprise, what? not the play thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a
Maypole, of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observed, it must
have belonged to a young giant. Yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and
even venture to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory!
perfectly well turned and fashioned, the proud stiffness of which distented its
skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie with that of the most
delicate of our sex, and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by
a sprout of black curling hair round the root: through the jetty springs of
which the fair skin shewed as in a fine evening you may have remarked the clear
light through the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a
hill: then the broad of blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue
serpentines of its veins, altogether composed the most striking assemblage of
figure and colours in nature. In short, it stood an object of terror and
delight.
But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity, through
the want of occasions in the strictness of his home breeding, and the little
time he had been in town not having afforded him one; was hitherto an absolute
stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly
stocked with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I
could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me,
which such an oversized machine was very fit to lay in ruins.
But it was now of the latest to deliberate, for, by this time, the young
fellow, over heated with the present objects, and too high metled to be longer
curbed in by that modesty and awe which had hitherto restrained him, ventured,
under the stronger impulse, and instructive promptership of nature alone, to
slip his hands, trembling with eager impetuous desires, under my petticoats;
and seeing, I suppose, nothing extremely severe in my looks, to stop or dash
him, he feels out, and seizes, gently, the center spot of his ardours. Oh then!
the fiery touch of his lingers determines me, and my fears melting away before
the glowing intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and yield all
liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable movement giving my petticoats a
toss, the avenue lay too fair, too open to be missed. He is now upon me: I had
placed myself with a jerk under him, as commodious and open as possible to his
attempts, which were untoward enough, for his machine, meeting with no inlet,
bore and battered stiffly against me in random pushes, now above, now below,
now beside his point; till, burning with impatience from its irritating
touches, I guided gently, with my hand, this furious fescue to where my young
novice was now to be taught his first lesson of pleasure. Thus he nicked, at
length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made to find no breach
impracticable, and mine, though so often entered, was still far from wide
enough to take him easily in.
By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy machine was so critically
pointed, that, feeling him fore-right against the tender opening, a favourable
motion from me met his timely thrust, by which the lips of it, strenuously
dilated, gave way to his thus assisted impetuosity, so that we might both feel
that he had gained a lodgment. Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent,
and, to me, most painful piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so far in,
as to be now tolerably secure of his entrance: here he stuck, and I now felt
such a mixture of pleasure and pain, as there is no giving a definition of. I
dreaded alike his splitting me farther up, or his withdrawing; I could not bear
either to keep or part with him. The sense of pain, however, prevailing, from
his prodigious size and stiffness, acting upon me in those continued rapid
thrusts, with which he furiously pursued his penetration, made me cry out
gently: “Oh, my dear, you hurt me!” This was enough to check the
tender respectful boy even in his mid-career; and he immediately drew out the
sweet cause of my complaint, whilst his eyes eloquently expressed, at once, his
grief for hurting me, and his reluctance at dislodging from quarters, of which
the warmth and closeness had given him a gust of pleasure, that he was now
desire mad to satisfy, and yet too much a novice not to be afraid of my
withholding his relief, on account of the pain he had put me to.
But I was, myself, far from being pleased with his having too much regarded my
tender exclaims; for now, more fired with the object before me, as it still
stood with the fiercest erection, unbonneted, and displayed its broad vermilion
head, I first gave the youth a re-encouraging kiss, which he repaid me with a
fervour that seemed at once to thank me, and bribe my further compliance; and
soon replaced myself in a posture to receive, at all risk, the renewed
invasion, which he did not delay an instant: for, being presently remounted, I
once more felt the smooth hard gristle forcing an entrance, which he achieved
rather easier than before. Pained, however, as I was, with his efforts of
gaining a complete admission, which he was so regardful as to manage by gentle
degrees, I took care not to complain. In the mean time, the soft strait passage
gradually loosens, yields, and, stretched to its utmost bearing, by the stick,
thick, indriven engine, sensible, at once, to the ravishing pleasure of the
feel and the pain of the distension, let him in about half way, when all the
most nervous activity he now exerted, to further his penetration, gained him
not an inch of his purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis of
pleasure overtook him, and the close compressure of the warm surrounding flow
drew from him the ecstatic gush, even before mine was ready to meet it, kept up
by the pain I had endured in the course of the engagement, from the
insufferable size of his weapon, though it was not as yet in above half its
length.
I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would draw, but was pleasingly
disappointed: for he was not to be let off so. The well breathed youth,
hot-mettled, and flush with genial juices, was now fairly in for making me know
my driver. As soon, then, as he had made a short pause, waking, as it were, out
of the trance of pleasure (in which every sense seemed lost for a while,
whilst, with his eyes shut, and short quick breathings, he had yielded down his
maiden tribute), he still kept his post, yet unsated with enjoyment, and
solacing in these so new delights; till his stiffness, which had scarce
perceptibly remitted, being thoroughly recovered to him, who had not once
unsheathed, he proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself an entire entry
into me, which was not a little made easy to him by the balsamic injection,
with: which he had just plentifully moistened the whole internals of the
passage. Redoubling, then, the active energy of his thrusts, favoured by the
fervid appetency of my motions, the soft oiled wards can no longer stand so
effectual a picklock, but yield, and open him an entrance. And now, with
conspiring nature, and my industry, strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates,
and at length, winning his way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and finally, a
home made thrust sheaths it up to the guard; on the information of which, from
the close jointure of our bodies (insomuch that the hair on both sides
perfectly interweaved and incircled together), the eyes of the transported
youth sparkled with more joyous fires, and all his looks and motions
acknowledged excess of pleasure, which I now began to share, for I felt him in
my very vitals! I was quite sick with delight! stirred beyond bearing with its
furious agitations within me, and gorged and crammed, even to a surfeit. Thus I
lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken breathings, faultering accents,
eyes twinkling with humid fires, lunges more furious, and an increased
stiffness, gave me to hail the approaches of the second period: it came… and
the sweet youth, overpowered with the ecstasy, died away in my arms, melting a
flood that shot in genial warmth into the innermost recesses of my body; every
conduit of which, dedicated to that pleasure, was on flow to mix with it. Thus
we continued for some instants, lost, breathless, senseless of every thing, and
in every part but those favourite ones of nature, in which all that we enjoyed
of life and sensation was now totally concentered.
When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young fellow had withdrawn
that delicious stretcher, with which he had most plentifully drowned all
thoughts of revenge, in the sense of actual pleasure, the widened wounded
passage refunded a stream of pearly liquids, which flowed down my thighs, mixed
with streaks of blood, the marks of the ravage of that monstrous machine of
his, which had now triumphed over a kind of second maidenhead. I stole,
however, my handkerchief to those parts, and wiped them as dry as I could,
whilst he was re-adjusting and buttoning up.
I made him sit down by me, and as he had gathered courage from such extreme
intimacy, he gave me an aftercourse of pleasure, in a natural burst of tender
gratitude and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had opened to him: scenes
positively new, as he had never before had the least acquaintance with that
mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of female distinction, though nobody better
qualified than he to penetrate into its deepest recesses, or do it nobler
justice. But when, by certain motions, certain unquietness of his hands, that
wandered not without design, I found he languished for satisfying a curiosity,
natural enough, to view and handle those parts which attract and concenter the
warmest force of imagination, charmed, as I was, to have any occasion of
obliging and humouring his young desires, I suffered him to proceed as he
pleased, without check or control, to the satisfaction of them.
Easily, then, reading in my eyes the full permission of myself to all his
wishes, he scarce pleased himself more than me; when, having insinuated his
hand under my petticoat and shift, he presently removed those bars to the
sight, by slily lifting them upwards, under favour of a thousand kisses, which
he thought, perhaps, necessary to divert my attention from what he was about.
All my drapery being now rolled up to my waist, I threw myself into such a
posture upon the couch, as gave up to him, in full view, the whole region of
delight, and all the luxurious landscape around it. The transported youth
devoured every thing with his eyes, and tried, with his fingers, to lay more
open to his sight the secrets of that dark and delicious deep: he opens the
folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any thing of a hard
body, close round it, and oppose the sight; and feeling further, meets with,
and wonder at, a soft fleshy excrescence, which, limber and relaxed after the
late enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and examination of his fiery fingers,
more and more stiff and considerable, till the titillating ardours of that so
sensible part made me sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which he withdrew his
curious probing fingers, asking me pardon, as it were, in a kiss that rather
increased the flame there.
Novelty ever makes the strongest impressions, and in pleasures, especially; no
wonder then, that he was swallowed up in raptures of admiration of things so
interesting by their nature, and now seen and handled for the first time. On my
part, I was richly overpaid for the pleasure I gave him, in that of examining
the power of those objects thus abandoned to him, naked and free to his loosest
wish, over the artless, natural stripling: his eyes streaming fire, his cheeks
glowing with a florid red, his fervid frequent sighs, whilst his hands
convulsively squeezed, opened, pressed together again the lips and sides of
that deep flesh wound, or gently twitched the over-growing moss; and all
proclaimed the excess, the riot of joys, in having his wantonness thus
humoured. But he did not long abuse my patience, for the objects before him had
now put him by all his, and, coming out with that formidable machine of his, he
lets the fury loose, and pointing it directly to the pouting-lip mouth, that
bid him sweet defiance in dumb shew, squeezes in his head, and, driving with
refreshed rage, breaks in, and plugs up the whole passage of that soft
pleasure-conduit pipe, where he makes all shake again, and put, once more, all
within me into such an uproar, as nothing could still, but a fresh inundation
from the very engine of those flames, as well as from all the springs with
which nature floats that reservoir of joy, when risen to its floodmark.
I was now so bruised, so battered, so spent with this overmatch, that I could
hardly stir, or raise myself, but lay palpitating, till the ferment of my
senses subsiding by degrees, and the hour striking at which I was obliged to
dispatch my young man, I tenderly advised him of the necessity there was for
parting; at which I felt so much displeasure as he could do, who seemed eagerly
disposed to keep the field, and to enter on a fresh action. But the danger was
too great, and after some hearty kisses of leave, and recommendations of
secrecy and discretion, I forced myself to send him away, not without
assurances of seeing him again, to the same purpose, as soon as possible, and
thrust a guinea into his hands: not more, less, being too flush of money, a
suspicion or discovery might arise from thence; having everything to fear from
the dangerous indiscretion of that age in which young fellows would be too
irresistible, too charming, if we had not that terrible fault to guard against.
Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating draughts of pleasure, I
still lay on the couch, supinely stretched out, in a delicious languor diffused
over all my limbs, hugging myself for being thus revenged to my heart’s
content, and that in a manner so precisely alike, and on the identical spot in
which I had received the supposed injury. No reflections on the consequences
ever once perplexed me, nor did I make myself one single reproach for having,
by this step, completely entered myself into a profession more decried than
disused. I should have held it ingratitude to the pleasure I had received, to
have repented of it; and since I was now over the bar, I thought, by plunging
head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to drown all sense of
shame or reflection.
Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions, and whispering to myself
a kind of tacit vow of incontinency, enters Mr. H… The consciousness of what
I had been doing deepened yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed with the warmth
of the late action, which, joined to the piquant air of my dishabile, drew from
Mr. H…. a compliment on my looks, which he was proceeding to bask the
sincerity of with proofs, and that with so brisk an action, as made me tremble
for fear of a discovery from the condition those parts were left in from their
late severe handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen with
their uncommon distension, the ringlets pressed down, crushed and uncurled with
the over flowing moisture that had wet everything round it; in short, the
different feel and state of things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr.
H…..’s nicety and experience unaccounted for but by the real cause. But
here the woman saved me: I pretended a violent disorder of my head, and a
feverish heat, that indisposed me too much to receive his embraces. He gave in
to this, and good naturedly desisted. Soon after, an old lady coming in made a
third, very apropos for the confusion I was in, and Mr. H…., after bidding me
take care of myself, and recommending me to my repose, left me much at ease and
relieved by his absence.
In the close of the evening, I took care to have prepared for me a warm bath of
aromatik and sweet herbs; in which having fully laved and solaced myself, I
came out voluptuously refreshed in body and spirit.
The next morning waking pretty early, after a night’s perfect rest and
composure, it was not without some dread and uneasiness that I thought of what
innovation that tender soft system of mine might have sustained, from the shock
of a machine so sized for its destruction.
Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry my hand thither, to
inform myself of the state and posture of things.
But I was soon agreeably cured of my fears.
The silky hair that covered round the borders, now smoothed and re-pruned, had
resumed its wonted curl and trimness; the fleshy pouting lips that had stood
the brunt of the engagement, were no longer swollen or moisture-drenched; and
neither they, nor the passage into which they opened, that had suffered so
great a dilation, betrayed any the least alteration, outwardly or inwardly, to
the most curious research, notwithstanding the laxity that naturally follows
the warm bath.
This continuation of that grateful stricture which is in us, to the men, the
very jet of their pleasure, I owed, it seems, to a happy habit of body, juicy,
plump and furnished, towards the texture of those parts, with a fullness of
soft springy flesh, that yielding sufficiently, as it does, to almost any
distension soon recovers itself so as to re-tighten that strict compression of
its mantlings and folds, which form the sides of the passage, wherewith it so
tenderly embraces and closely clips any foreign body introduced into it, such
as my exploring finger then was.
Finding then every thing in due tone and order, I remember my fears, only to
make a jest of them to myself. And now, palpably mistress of any size of man,
and triumphing in my double achievement of pleasure and revenge, I abandoned
myself entirely to the ideas of all the delight I had swam in. I lay stretching
out, glowingly alive all over, and tossing with burning impatience for the
renewal of joys that had sinned but in a sweet excess; nor did I lose my
longing, for about ten in the morning, according to expectation, Will, my new
humble sweetheart, came with a message from his master, Mr. H…., to know how
I did. I had taken care to send my maid on an errand into the city, that I was
sure would take up time enough; and, from the people of the house, I had
nothing to fear, as they were plain good sort of folks, and wise enough to mind
no more other people’s business than they could well help.
All dispositions then made, not forgetting that of lying in bed to receive him,
when he was entered the door of my bed chamber, a latch, that I governed by a
wire, descended and secured it.
I could not but observe that my young minion was as much spruced out as could
be expected from one in his condition: a desire of pleasing that could not be
indifferent to me, since it proved that I pleased him; which, I assure you, was
now a point I was not above having in view.
His hair trimly dressed, clean linen, and, above all, a hale, ruddy, wholesome
country look, made him out as pretty a piece of woman’s meat as you could
see, and I should have thought any one much out of taste, that could not have
made a hearty meal of such a morsel as nature seemed to have designed for the
highest diet of pleasure.
And why should I here suppress the delight I received from this amiable
creature, in remarking each artless look, each motion of pure indissembled
nature, betrayed by his wanton eyes; or shewing, transparently, the glow and
suffusion of blood through his fresh, clear skin, whilst even his stury rustic
pressure wanted not their peculiar charm? Oh! but, say you, this was a young
fellow of too low a rank of life to deserve so great a display. May be so: but
was my condition, strictly considered, one jot more exalted? or, had I really
been much above him, did not his capacity of giving such exquisite pleasure
sufficiently raise and enoble him, to me, at least? Let who would, for me
cherish, respect, and reward the painter’s, the statuary’s, the
musician’s art, in proportion to the delight taken in them: but at my
age, and with my taste for pleasure, a taste strongly constitutional to me, the
talent of pleasing, with which nature has endowed a handsome person, formed to
me the greatest of all merits; compared to which, the vulgar prejudices in
favour of titles, dignities, honours, and the like, held a very low rank
indeed. Nor perhaps would the beauties of the body be so much affected to be
held cheap, were they, in their nature, to be bought and delivered. But for me,
whose natural philosophy all resided in the favourite center of sense, and who
was ruled by its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right handle, I
could scarce have made a choice more to my purpose.
Mr. H….’s loftier qualifications of birth, fortune and sense, laid me
under a sort of subjection and constraint, that were far from making harmony in
the concert of love; nor had he, perhaps, thought me worth softening that
superiority to; but, with this lad, I was more on the level which love delights
in.
We may say what we please, but those we can be the easiest and freest with, are
ever those we like, not to say love the best.
With this stripling, all whose art of love was the action of it, I could,
without check of awe or restraint, give a loose to jay, and execute every
scheme of dalliance my fond fancy might put me on, in which he was, in every
sense, a most exquisite companion. And now my great pleasure lay in humouring
all the petulances, all the wanton frolic of a raw novice just fledged, and
keen on the burning scent of his game, but unbroken to the sport: and, to carry
on the figure, who could better read the wood than he, or stand fairer for the
heart of the hunt?
He advanced then to my bed side, and whilst he faultered out his message, I
could observe his colour rise, and his eyes lighten with joy, in seeing me in a
situation as favourable to his loosest wishes, as if he had bespoke the play.
I smiled, and put out my hand towards him, which he kneeled down to (a
politeness taught him by love alone, that great master of it) and greedily
kissed. After exchanging a few confused questions and answers, I asked him if
he would come to bed to me, for the little time I could venture to detain him.
This was just asking a person, dying with hunger, to feast upon the dish on
earth the most to his palate. Accordingly, without further reflection, his
clothes were off in an instant; when, blushing still more at this new liberty,
he got under the bed clothes I held up to receive him, and was now in bed with
a woman for the first time in his life.
Here began the usual tender preliminaries, as delicious, perhaps, as the
crowning act of enjoyment itself; which they often beget an impatience of, that
makes pleasure destructive of itself, by hurrying on the final period, and
closing that scene of bliss, in which the actors are generally too well pleased
with their parts, not to wish them an eternity of duration.
When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards the main point, by
toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my breasts, now round and plump, feeling
that part of me I might call a furnace mouth, from the prodigious intense heat
his fiery touches had rekindled there, my young sportsman, emboldened by the
very freedom he could wish, wontonly takes my hand, and carries it to that
enormous machine of his, that stood with a stiffness! a hardness! an upward
bend of erection! and which, together with it bottom dependence, the
inestimable bulse of ladies jewels, formed a grand showout of goods indeed!
Then its dimensions, mocking either grasp or span, almost renewed my terrors.
I could not conceive how, or by what means I could take, or put such a bulk out
of sight. I stroked it gently, on which the mutinous rogue seemed to swell, and
gather a new degree of fierceness and insolence; so that finding it grew not to
be trifled with any longer, I prepared for rubbers in good earnest.
Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give him the fairest play, I
guided officiously with my hand this furious battering ram, whose ruby head,
presenting nearest the resemblance of a heart, I applied to its proper mark,
which lay as finely elevated as we could wish; my hips being borne up, and my
thighs at their utmost extension, the gleamy warmth that shot from it, made him
feel that he was at the mouth of the indraught, and driving fore right, the
powerfully divided lips of that pleasure-thirsty channel received him. He
hesitated a little; then, settled well in the passage, he makes his way up the
straights of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing, widening as he
went so as to distend and smooth each soft furrow: our pleasure increasing
deliciously, in proportion to our points of mutual touch increased in that so
vital part of me which I had now taken him, all indriven, and completely
sheathed; and which, crammed as it was, stretched splitting ripe, gave it so
gratefully straight an accommodation! so strict a fold! a suction so fierce!
that gave and took unutterable delight. We had now reached the closest point of
union; but when he beckened to come on the fiercer, as if I had ben actuated by
a fear of losing him, in the height of my fury, I twist my legs round his naked
loins, the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to the touch, quivered again
under the pressure; and now I had him every way encircled and begirt; and
having drawn him home to me, I kept him fast there, as if I had sought to unite
bodies with him at that point. This bred a pause of action, a pleasure stop,
whilst that delicate glutton, my nether mouth, as full as it could hold, kept
palating, with exquisite relish, the morsel that so deliciously ingorged it.
But nature could not long endure a pleasure that it so highly provoked without
satisfying it: pursuing then its darling end, the battery recommenced with
redoubled exertion; nor lay I inactive on my side, but encountering him with
all the impetuosity of motion I was mistress of, the downy cloth of our meeting
mount was now of real use to break the violence of the tilt; and soon, indeed!
the highwrought agitation, the sweet urgency of this to-and-fro friction,
raised the titillation on me to its height; so that finding myself on the point
of going, and loath to leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I
employed all the forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested to me, to
promote his keeping me company to our journey’s end. I not only then
tightened the pleasure-girth round my restless inmate, by a secret spring of
friction and compression that obeys the will in those parts, but stole my hand
softly to that store bag of nature’s prime sweets, which is so pleasingly
attached to its conduit pipe, from which we receive them; there feeling, and
most gently indeed, squeezing those tender globular reservoirs, the magic touch
took instant effect, quickened, and brought on upon the spur the symptoms of
that sweet agony, the melting moment of dissolution, when pleasure dies by
pleasure, and the mysterious engine of it overcomes the titillation it has
raised in those parts, by plying them with the stream of a warm liquid, that in
itself the highest of all titillations, and which they thirstily express and
draw in like the hot natured leach, which, to cool itself, tenaciously extracts
all the moisture within its sphere of execution. Chiming then to me, with
exquisite consent, as I melted away, his oily balsamic injection, mixing
deliciously with the sluices in flow from me, sheathed and blunted all the
stings of pleasure, whilst a voluptuous languor possest, and still maintained
us motionless, and fast locked in one another’s arms. Alas! that these
delights should be no longer-lived; for now the point of pleasure, unedged by
enjoyment, and all the brisk sensations flattened upon us, resigned us up to
the cool cares of insipid life. Disengaging myself then from his embrace, I
made him sensible of the reasons there were for his present leaving me; on
which, though reluctantly, he put on his clothes, with as little expedition,
however, as he could help, wantonly interrupting himself, between whiles, with
kisses, touches and embraces I could not refuse myself to. Yet he happily
returned to his master before he was missed; but, at taking leave, I forced him
(for he had sentiments enough to refuse it) to receive money enough to buy a
silver watch, that great article of subaltern finery, which he at length
accepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully to preserve of my affections.
And here, Madam, I ought, perhaps, to make you an apology for this minute
detail of things, that dwelt so strongly upon my memory, after so deep an
impression; but, besides that this intrigue bred one great revolution in my
life, which historical truth requires I should not sink from you, may I not
presume that so exalted a pleasure ought not to be ungratefully forgotten, or
suppressed by me, because I found it in a character in low life; where, by the
by, it is oftener met with, purer, and more unsophisticated, than among the
false, ridiculous refinements with which the great suffer themselves to be so
grossly cheated by their pride: the great! than whom, there exist few amongst
those they call the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who cultivate less,
the art of living than they do; they, I say, who for ever mistake things the
most foreign to the nature of pleasure itself; whose capital favourite object
is enjoyment of beauty, wherever that rare invaluable gift is found, without
distinction of birth, or station.
As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any share in my commerce in
this handsome youth. The sole pleasures of enjoyment were now the link I held
to him by: for though nature had done such great maters for him in his outward
form, and especially in that superb piece of furniture she had so liberally
enriched him with; though he was thus qualified to give the senses their
richest feast, still there was something more wanting to create in me, and
constitute the passion of love. Yet Will had very good qualities too: gentle,
tractable, and, above all, grateful; silentious, even to a fault: he spoke, at
any time, very little, but made it up emphatically with action; and, to do him
justice, he never gave me the least reason to complain, either of any tendency
to encroach upon me for the liberties I allowed him, or of his indiscretion in
blabbing them. There is, then, a fatality in love, or have loved him I must;
for he was really a treasure, a bit for the Bonne Bouche of a duchess; and, to
say the truth, my liking for him was so extreme, that it was distinguishing
very nicely to deny that I loved him.
My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but found an end from my own
imprudent neglect. After having taken even superfluous precautions against a
discovery, our success in repeated meetings emboldened me to omit the barely
necessary ones. About a month after our first intercourse, one fatal morning
(the season Mr. H…. rarely or never visited me in) I was in my closet, where
my toilet stood, in nothing but my shift, a bed gown and under petticoat. Will
was with me, and both ever too well disposed to baulk an opportunity. For my
part, a whim, a wanton toy had just taken me, and I had challenged my man to
execute it on the spot, who hesitated not to comply with my humour: I was set
in the arm chair, my shift and petticoat up, my thighs wide spread and mounted
over the arms of the chair, presenting the fairest mark to Will’s drawn
weapon, which he stood in act to plunge into me, when, having neglected to
secure the chamber door, and that of the closet standing a-jar, Mr. H…. stole
in upon us, before either of us was aware, and saw us precisely in these
convicting attitudes.
I gave a great scream, and dropped my petticoat: the thunder-struck lad stood
trembling and pale, waiting his sentence of death. Mr. H…. looked sometimes
at one, sometimes at the other, with a mixture of indignation and scorn; and,
without saying a word, spun upon his heel and went out.
As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn the key, and lock the
chamber door upon us, so that there was no escape but through the dining room,
where he himself was walking about with distempered strides, stamping in a
great chafe, and doubtless debating what he would do with us.
In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of his senses, and, as much
need as I had of spirits myself, I was obliged to employ them all to keep his a
little up. The misfortune I had now brought upon him, endeared him the more to
me, and I could have joyfully suffered any punishment he had not shared in. I
watered, plentifully, with my tears, the face of the frightened youth, who sat,
not having strength to stand, as cold and as lifeless as a statue.
Presently Mr. H…. comes in to us again, and made us go before him into the
dining room, trembling and dreading the issue, Mr. H…..sat down on a chair
whilst we stood like criminals under examination; and, beginning with me, asked
me, with an even firm tone of voice, neither soft nor severe, but cruelly
indifferent, what I could say for myself, for having abused him in so unworthy
a manner, with his own servant too, and how he had deserved this of me?
Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity, that of an audacious defence of
it, in the old style of a common kept miss, my answer was modest, and often
interrupted by my tears, in substance as follows: “That I never had a
single thought of wronging him” (which was true), “till I had seen
him taking the last liberties with my servant wench” (here he coloured
prodigiously), “and that my resentment at that, which I was over-awed
from giving vent to by complaints, or explanations with him, had driven me to a
course that I did not pretend to justify; but that as to the young man, he was
entirely faultless; for that, in the view of making him the instrument of my
revenge, I had down right seduced him to what he had done; and therefore hoped,
whatever he determined about me, he would distinguish between the guilty and
the innocent; and that; for the rest, I was entirely at his mercy.”
Mr. H…. on hearing what I said, hung his head a little; but instantly
recovering himself, he said to me, as near as I can retain, to the following
purpose:
“Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have fairly turned the
tables upon me. It is not with one of your cast of breeding and sentiments,
that I allow you so much reason on your side, as great difference of the
provocations: be it sufficient that I should enter into a discussion of the
very to have changed my resolution, in consideration of what you reproach me
with; and I own, too, that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest
in you. Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross. I give you a
week’s warning to get out of these lodgings; whatever I have given you,
remains to you; and as I never intend to see you more, the landlord will pay
you fifty pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I hope you
will own I do not leave you in a worse condition than what I took you up in, or
that you deserve of me. Blame yourself only that it is no better.”
Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to the young
fellow:
“For you, spark, I shall, for your father’s sake, take care of you:
the town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and to-morrow you shall
set out, under the charge of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to
your father, not to let you return and be spoil’d here.”
At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to stop him, by throwing
myself at his feet. He shook me off, though he seemed greatly moved too, and
took Will away with him, who, I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off.
I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by a gentleman whom I
certainly did not deserve. And all the letters, arts, friends, entreaties that
I employed within the week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so
much as to see me again. He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and submission
to it was my only part. Soon after he married a lady of birth and fortune, to
whom, I have heard he proved an irreproachable husband.
As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country to his father,
who was an easy farmer, where he was not four months before an
inn-keepers’ buxom young widow, with a very good stock, both in money and
trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies,
married him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good foundation for their
living happily together.
Though I should have been charmed to see him before he went, such measures were
taken, by Mr. H….’s orders, that it was impossible; otherwise I should
certainly have endeavoured to detain him in town, and would have spared neither
offers nor expense to have procured myself the satisfaction of keeping him with
me. He had such powerful holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be
shaken off, or replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the question:
glad, however, I was from my soul, that nothing worse, and as things turned
out, nothing better could have happened to him.
As to Mr. H…, though views of conveniency made me, at first, exert myself to
regain his affection, I was giddy and thoughtless enough to be much easier
reconciled to my failure than I ought to have been; but as I never had loved
him, and his leaving me gave me a sort of liberty that I had often longed for,
I was soon comforted; and flattering myself, that the stock of youth and beauty
I was going to trade with, could hardly fail of procuring me a maintenance, I
saw myself under the necessity of trying my fortune with them, rather, with
pleasure and gaiety, than with the least idea of despondency.
In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among the sisterhood, who had
soon got wind of my misfortune, flocked to insult me with their malicious
consolations. Most of them had long envied me the affluence and splendour I had
been maintained in; and though there was scarce one of them that did not at
least deserve to be in my case, and would probably, sooner or later, come to
it, it was equally easy to remark, even in their affected pity, their secret
pleasure at seeing me thus discarded, and their secret grief that it was no
worse with me. Unaccountable malice of the human heart! and which is not
confined to the class of life they were of.
But as the time approached for me to come to some resolution how to dispose of
myself, and I was considering, round where to shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole,
a middle aged discreet sort of woman, who had been brought into my acquaintance
by one of the misses that visited me, upon learning my situation, came to offer
her cordial advice and service to me; and as I had always taken to her more
than to any of my female acquaintances, I listened the easier to her proposals.
And, as it happened, I could not have put myself into worse, or into better
hands in all London: into worse, because keeping a house of conveniency, there
were no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to go, in compliance with
her customers; no schemes, or pleasure, or even unbounded debauchery, she did
not take even a delight in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had
more experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was fitter to
advise and guard one against the worst dangers of our profession; and what was
rare to be met with in those of her’s, she contented herself with a
moderate living profit upon her industry and good offices, and had nothing of
their greedy rapacious turn. She was really too a gentlewoman born and bred,
but through a train of accidents reduced to this course, which she pursued,
partly through necessity, partly through choice, as never woman delighted more
in encouraging a brisk circulation of the trade, for the sake of the trade
itself, or better understood all the mysteries and refinements of it, than she
did; so that she was consummately at the top of her profession, and dealt only
with customers of distinction: to answer the demands of whom she kept a
competent number of her daughters in constant recruit (so she called those whom
their youth and personal charms recommended to her adoption and management:
several of whom, by her means, and through her tuition and instructions,
succeeded very well in the world).
This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now threw myself, having her
reasons of state, respecting Mr. H…., for not appearing too much in the thing
herself, sent a friend of her’s, on the day appointed for my removal, to
conduct me to my new lodgings at a brush-maker’s in E——
street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her own house, where she had no
conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings that, by having been for several
successions tenanted by ladies of pleasures, the landlord of them was
familiarized to their ways; and provided the rent was paid, every thing else
was as easy and commodious as one could desire.
The fifty guineas promised me by Mr. H…., at his parting with me, having been
duly paid me, all my clothes and moveables chested up, which were at least of
two hundred pounds value, I had them conveyed into a coach, where I soon
followed them, after taking a civil leave of the landlord and his family, with
whom I had never lived in a degree of familiarity enough to regret the removal;
but still, the very circumstance of its being a removal, drew tears from me. I
left, too, a letter of thanks for Mr. H…., from whom I concluded myself, as I
really was, irretrievably separated.
My maid I had discharged the day before, not only because I had her of Mr.
H…., but that I suspected her of having some how or other been the occasion
of his discovering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not having trusted her with
him.
We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so handsomely furnished, nor so
showy as those I left, were to the full as convenient, and at half price,
though on the first floor. My trunks were safely landed, and stowed in my
apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante, Mrs. Cole, was ready with
my landlord to receive me, to whom she took care to set me out in the most
favourable light, that of one from whom there was the clearest reason to expect
the regular payment of his rent: all the cardinal virtues attributed to me,
would not have had half the weight of that recommendation alone.
I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandoned to my own conduct, and
turned loose upon the town, to sink or swim, as I could manage with the current
of it; and what were the consequences, together with the number of adventures
which befell me in the exercise of my new profession, will compose the mater of
another letter: for surely it is high time to put a period! to this.
I am,
MADAM,
Yours, etc., etc., etc.
THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER
LETTER THE SECOND
Madam,
If I have delayed the sequel of my history, it has been purely to allow myself
a little breathing time not without some hopes, that, instead of pressing me to
a continuation, you would have acquitted me of the task of pursuing a
confession, in the course of which my self-esteem has so many wounds to sustain.
I imagined, indeed, that you would have been cloyed and tired with uniformity
of adventures and expressions, inseparable from a subject of this sort, whose
bottom, or groundwork being, in the nature of things eternally one and the
same, whatever variety of forms and modes the situations are susceptible of,
there is no escaping a repetition of near the same images, the same figures,
the same expressions, with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it
creates, that the words Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of
those pathetic terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure,
flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they
indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice professedly
composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the candour of your
judgment, for your allowing for the disadvantage I am necessarily under in that
respect; and to your imagination and sensibility, the pleasing taks of
repairing it, by their supplements, where my descriptions flag or fail: the one
will readily place the pictures I present before your eyes; the other give life
to the colours where they are dull, or worn with too frequent handling.
What you say besides, by way of encouragement concerning the extreme difficulty
of continuing so long in one strain, in a mean tempered with taste, between the
revoltingness of gross, rank and vulgar expressions, and the ridicule of
mincing metaphors and affected circumlocutions, is so sensible, as well as
good-natured, that you greatly justify me to myself for my compliance with a
curiosity that is to be satisfied so extremely at my expense.
Resuming now where I broke off in my last, I am in my way to remark to you,
that it was late in the evening before I arrived at my lodgings, and Mrs. Cole,
after helping me to range and secure my things, spent the whole evening with me
in my apartment, where we supped together, in giving me the best advice and
instruction with regard to the new stage of my profession I was now to enter
upon; and passing thus from a private devotee to pleasure into a public one, to
become a more general good, with all the advantages requisite to put my person
out to use, either for interest or pleasure, or both. “But then,”
she observed, “as I was a kind of new face upon the town, that is, was an
established rule, and part of trade, for me to pass for a maid and dispose of
myself as such on the first good occasion, without prejudice, however, to such
diversions as I might have a mind to in the interim; for that nobody could be a
greater enemy than she was to the losing of time. That she would, in the mean
time, do her best to find out a proper person, and would undertake to manage
this nice point for me, if I would accept of her aid and advice to such good
purpose, that, in the loss of a fictitious maidenhead, I should reap all the
advantages of a native one.”
As too great a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong to my character
at that time, I confess, against myself, that I perhaps too readily closed with
a proposal which my candor and ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not
enough to contradict the intention of one to whom I had now thoroughly
abandoned the direction of all my steps. For Mrs. Cole had, I do not know how
unless by one of those unaccountable invincible sympathies that, nevertheless,
from the strongest links, especially of female friendship, won and got entire
possession of me. On her side, she pretended that a strict resemblance, she
fancied she saw in me, to an only daughter whom she had lost at my age, was the
first motive of her taking to me so affectionately as she did. It might be so:
there exist a slender motives of attachment, that, gathering force from habit
and liking, have proved often more solid and durable than those founded on much
stronger reasons; but this I know, that though I had no other acquaintance with
her, than seeing her at my lodgings, when I lived with Mr. H…, where she had
made errands to sell me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated
herself so far into my confidence, that I threw myself blindly into her hands,
and came, at length, to regard, love, and obey her implicitly; and, to do her
justice, I never experienced at her hands other than a sincerity of tenderness,
and care for my interest, hardly heard of in those of her profession. We parted
that night, after having settled a perfect unreserved agreement; and the next
morning Mrs. Cole came, and took me with her to her house for the first time.
Here, at the first sight of things, I found every thing breathe an air of
decency, modesty and order.
In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young women, rather demurely
employed on millinery work, which was the cover of a traffic in more precious
commodities; but three beautifuller creatures could hardly be seen. Two of them
were extremely fair, the eldest not above nineteen; and the third, much about
that age, was a piquant brunette, whose black sparking eyes, and perfect
harmony of features and shape, left her nothing to envy in her fairer
companions. Their dress too had the more design in it, the less it appeared to
have, being in a taste of uniform correct neatness, and elegant simplicity.
These were the girls that composed the small domestic flock, which my governess
trained up with surprising order and management, considering the giddy wildness
of young girls once got upon the loose. But then she never continued any in her
house, whom, after a due noviciate, she found un-tractable, or unwilling to
comply with the rules of it. Thus she had insensibly formed a little family of
love, in which the members found so sensibly their account, in a rare alliance
of pleasure and interest, and of a necessary outward decency, with unbounded
secret liberty, that Mrs. Cole, who had picked them as much for their temper as
their beauty, governed them with ease to herself and them too.
To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepared, she presented me as a new
boarder, and one that was to be immediately admitted to all the intimacies of
the house; upon which these charming girls gave me all the marks of a welcome
reception, and indeed of being perfectly pleased with my figure, that I could
possibly expect from any of my own sex: but they had been effectually brought
to sacrifice all jealousy, or competition of charms, to a common interest, and
considered me a partner that was bringing no despicable stock of goods into the
trade of the house. They gathered round me, viewed me on all sides; and as my
admission into this joyous troop made a little holiday, the shew of work was
laid aside; and Mrs. Cole giving me up, with special recommendation, to their
caresses and entertainment, went about her ordinary business of the house.
The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views, soon creased as unreserved
a freedom and intimacy as if we had been for years acquainted. They took and
shewed me the house, their respective apartments, which were furnished with
every article of convenience and luxury; and above all, a spacious
drawing-room, where a select revelling band usually met, in general parties of
pleasure; the girls supping with their sparks, and acting their wanton pranks
with unbounded licentiousness; whilst a defiance of awe, modesty or jealousy
were their standing rules, by which, according to the principles of their
society, whatever pleasure was lost on the side of sentiment, was abundantly
made up to the senses in the poignancy of variety, and the charms of ease and
luxury. The authors and supporters of this secret institution would, in the
height of their humour, style themselves the restorers of the golden age and
its simplicity of pleasures, before their innocence became so unjustly branded
with the names of guilt and shame.
As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a shop was shut, the academy
opened; the mask of mock-modesty was completely taken off, and all the girls
delivered over to their respective calls of pleasure or interest with their
men: and none of that sex was promiscuously admitted, but only such as Mrs.
Cole was previously satisfied with their character and discretion. In short,
this was the safest, politest, and, at the same time, the most thorough house
of accommodation in town: every thing being conducted so, that decency made no
intrenchment upon the most libertine pleasures; in the practice of which, too,
the choice familiars of the house had found the secret so rare and difficult,
of reconciling even all the refinements of taste and delicacy, with the most
gross and determinate gratifications of sensuality.
After having consumed the morning in the dear endearments and instructions of
my new acquaintance, we went to dinner, when Mrs. Cole, presiding at the head
of her club, gave me the first idea of her management and address, in inspiring
these girls with so sensible a love and respect for her. There was no
stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or little jealousies, but all was
unaffectedly gay, cheerful and easy.
After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies, acquainted me that there
was a chapter to be held that night in form, for the ceremony of my reception
into the sisterhood; and in which, with all due reserve to my maidenhead, that
was to be occasionally cooked up for the first proper chapman. I was to undergo
a ceremonial of initiation they were sure I should not be displeased with.
Embarked as I was, and moreover captivated with the charms of my new
companions, I was too much prejudiced in favour of any proposal they could
make, to as much as hesitate an assent; which, therefore, readily giving in the
style of a carte blanche, I received fresh kisses of compliment from them all,
in approval of my docility and good nature. Now I was “a sweet girl… I
came into things with a good grace… I was not affectedly coy… I should be
the pride of the house,” and the like.
This point thus adjusted, the young women left Mrs. Cole to talk and concert
matters with me, when she explained to me, that “I should be introduced
that very evening, to four of her best friends, one of whom she had, according
to the custom of the house, favoured with the preference of engaging me in the
first party of pleasure;” assuring me, at the same time, “that they
were all young gentlemen agreeable in their persons, and unexceptionable in
every respect; that united, and holding together by the band of common
pleasures, they composed the chief support of her house, and made very liberal
presents to the girls that pleased and humoured them, so that they were,
properly speaking, the founders and patrons of this little seraglio. Not but
that she had, at proper seasons, other customers to deal with, whom she stood
less upon punctilio with, than with these; for instance, it was not on one of
them she could attempt to pass me for a maid; they were not only too knowing,
too much town-bred to bite at such a bait, but they were such generous
benefactors to her, that it would be unpardonable to think of it.”
Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise of pleasure, for such I
conceived it, stirred up in me, I preserved so much of the woman, as to feign
just reluctance enough to make some merit, of sacrificing it to the influence
of my patroness, whom I likewise, still in character, reminded of it perhaps
being right for me to go home and dress, in favour of my first impressions.
But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me, “that the gentlemen I
should be presented to were, by their rank and taste of things, infinitely
superior to the being touched with any glare of dress or ornaments, such slick
women rather confound and overlay than set off their beauty with; that these
veteran voluptuaries knew better than not to hold them in the highest contempt:
they with whom the pure native charms alone could pass current, and who would
at any time leave a sallow, washy, painted duchess on her own hands, for a
ruddy, healthy firm fleshed country maid; and as for my part, that nature had
done enough for me, to set me above owing the least favour to art;”
concluding withal, that for the instant occasion, there was no dress like an
undress.
I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters, not to be easily
overruled by her: after which she went on preaching very pathetically the
doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance to all those arbitrary tastes
of pleasure, which are by some styled the refinements, and by others the
depravations of it; between whom it was not the business of a simple girl, who
was to profit by pleasing, to decide, but to conform to. Whilst I was edifying
by these wholesome lessons, tea was brought in, and the young ladies,
returning, joined company with us.
After a great deal of mixed chat, frolic and humour, one of them, observing
that there would be a good deal of time on and before the assembly hour,
proposed that each girl should entertain the company with that critical period
of her personal history, in which she first exchanged the maiden state for
womanhood. The proposal was approved, with only one restriction of Mrs. Cole,
that she, on account of her age, and I, on account of my titular maidenhead,
should be excused, at least till I had undergone the forms of the house. This
obtained me a dispensation, and the promotress of this amusement was desired to
begin.
Her name was Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose limbs were, if possible,
too well made, since their plump fulness was rather to the prejudice of that
delicate slimness required by the nicer judges of beauty; her eyes were blue,
and streamed inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be prettier than her
mouth and lips, which closed over a range of the evenest and whitest teeth.
Thus she began:
“Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure of my life, is
sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in the advancement of the proposal
you have approved of. My father and mother were, and for aught I know, are
still, farmers in the country, not above forty miles from town: their barbarity
to me, in favour of a son, on whom alone they vouchsafed to bestow their
tenderness, had a thousand times determined me to fly their house, and throw
myself on the wide world; but, at length, an accident forced me on this
desperate attempt at the age of fifteen. I had broken a chinabowl, the pride
and idol of both their hearts; and as an unmerciful beating was the least I had
to depend on at their hands, in the silliness of these tender years, I left the
house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London. How my loss was
resented I do not know, for till this instant I have not heard a syllable about
them. My whole stock was two broad pieces of my godmother’s, a few
shillings, silver shoe-buckles and a silver thimble. Thus equipped, with no
more clothes than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and frightened at every
foot or noise I heard behind me, I hurried on; and I dare sweare, walked a
dozen miles before I stopped, through mere weariness and fatigue. At length I
sat down on a style, wept bitterly, and yet was still rather under increased
impressions of fear on the account of my escape; which made me dread, worse
than death, the going back to my unnatural parents. Refreshed by this little
repose, and relieved by my tears, I was proceeding onward, when I was overtaken
by a sturdy country lad, who was going to London to see what he could do for
himself there, and, like me, had given his friends the slip. He could not be
above seventeen, was ruddy, well featured enough, with uncombed flaxen hair, a
little flapped hat, kersey frock, yarn stockings, in short, a perfect plough
boy. I saw him come whistling behind me, with a bundle tied to the end of a
stick, his travelling equipage. We walked by one another for some time without
speaking; at length we joined company, and agreed to keep together till we got
to our journey’s end; what his designs or ideas were, I know not: the
innocence of mine I can solemnly protest.
“As night drew on, it became us to look out for some inn or shelter; to
which perplexity another was added, and that was, what we should say for
ourselves, if we were questioned. After some puzzle, the young fellow started a
proposal, which I thought the finest that could be; and what was that? why,
that we should pass for husband and wife: I never dreamed of consequences. We
came presently, after having agreed on this notable experience, to one of those
hedge accommodations for foot passengers, at the door of which stood an old
crazy beldam, who seeing us trudge by, invited us to lodge there. Glad of any
cover, we went in, and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him, called for
what the house afforded, and we supped together as man and wife; which,
considering our figures and ages, could not have passed on any one but such as
any thing could pass on. But when bed-time came on, we had neither of us the
courage to contradict our first account of ourselves; and what was extremely
pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I was how to evade lying
together, which was so natural for the state we had pretended to. Whilst we
were in this quandary, the landlady takes the candles, and lights us to our
apartment, through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate from the
body of the house. Thus we suffered ourselves to be conducted, without saying a
word in opposition to it; and there, in a wretched room, with a bed answerable,
we were left to pass the night together, as a thing quite of course. For my
part, I was so incredibly innocent, as not even to think much more harm of
going into bed with the young man, than with one of our dairy wenches; nor had
he, perhaps, any other notions than those of innocence, till such a fair
occasion put them into his head.
“Before either of us undressed, however, he put out the candle; and the
bitterness of the weather made it a kind of necessity for me to go into bed:
slipping then my clothes off, I crept under the bedclothes, where I found the
young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh rather pleased
than alarmed me. I was indeed too much disturbed with the novelty of my
condition to be able to sleep; but then I had not the least thought of harm.
But oh! how powerful are the instincts of nature! how little is there wanting
to set them in action! The young man, sliding his arm under my body, drew me
gently towards him, as if to keep himself and me warmer; and the heat I felt
from joining our breasts, kindled another that I had hitherto never felt, and
was, even then, a stranger to the nature of. Emboldened, I suppose, by my
easiness, he ventured to kiss me, and I insensibly returned it; without knowing
the consequence of returning it: for, on this encouragement, he slipped his
hand all down from my breast to that part of me where the sense of feeling is
so exquisitely critical, as I then experienced by its instant taking fire upon
the touch, and glowing with a strange tickling heat: there he pleased himself
and me, by feeling, till growing a little too bold with me, he hurt me, and
made me complain. Then he took my hand, which he guided, not unwillingly on my
side, between the twist of his closed thighs, which were extremely warm; there
he lodged and pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me feel the proud
distinction of his sex from mine. I was frightened at the novelty, and drew
back my hand; yet, pressed and spurred on by sensations of a strange pleasure,
I could not help asking him what that was for? He told me he would shew me if I
would let him; and without waiting for my answer, which he prevented by
stopping my mouth with kisses I was far from disrelishing, he got upon me, and
inserting one of his thighs between mine, opened them so as to make way for
himself, and fixed me to his purpose; whilst I was so much out of my usual
sense, so subdued by the present power of a new one, that, between far and
desire, I lay utter passive, till the piercing pain rouzed and made me cry out.
But it was too late: he was too firm fixed in the saddle for me to compass
flinging him, with all the struggles I could use, some of which only served to
further his point, and at length an irresistible thrust murdered at once my
maidenhead, and almost me. I now lay a bleeding witness of the necessity
imposed on our sex, to gather the first honey off the thorns.
“But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was soon reconciled to
fresh trials, and before morning, nothing on earth could be dearer to me than
this rifler of my virgin sweets: he was every thing to me now.
“How we agreed to join fortunes: how we came up to town together, where
we lived some time, till necessity-parted us, and drove me into this course of
life, to which I had been long ago bettered and torn to pieces before I came to
this age, as much through my easiness, as through inclination, had it not been
for my finding refuge in this house: these are all circumstances which pass the
mark I proposed, so that here my narrative ends.”
In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet’s turn to go on. Amongst all
the beauties of our sex, that I had before, or have since seen, few indeed were
the forms that could dispute excellence with her’s; it was not delicate,
but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of her small but exactly
fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was, appeared yet more fair, from
the effect of two black eyes, the brilliancy of which gave her face more
vivacity than belonged to the colour of it, which was only defended from
paleness, by a sweetly pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and
fainter, till at length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white.
Then her miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of it, which
was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence, languor, and the
pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her contingent, she smiled, blushed a
little, and thus complied with our desires:
“My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the city of
York; and both he and my mother dying whilst I was an infant, I fell under the
care of a widow and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord N…, at his seat in
the county of…, where she brought me up with all imaginable tenderness. I was
not seventeen, as I am not now eighteen, before I had, on account of my person
purely (for fortune I had notoriously none), several advantageous proposals;
but whether nature was slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or
that I had not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least emotion
or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till that age, preserved a
perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst my fears of I did not now well know
what, made me no more desirous of marrying than of dying. My aunt, good woman,
favoured my timorousness, which she looked on as childish affection, that her
own experience might probably assure her would wear off in time, and gave my
suitors proper answers for me.
“The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was
neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to take
care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house and gardens,
situated at about half a mile distance from any other habitation, except,
perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.
“Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable
accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my aunt
asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a kind of
ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I carried my work with
me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and window faced upon. Here I fell
into a gentle breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses, as they fainted
under the excessive heat of the season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work
basked for a pillow, were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was
soon awaked and alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I
got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of
a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him
before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and
the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness of the clear
stream; so that presently stripping, he jumped into it on the other side, which
bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined down to the water, formed a
pleasing shady recess, commodious to undress and leave his clothes under.
“My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the water, were,
with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprise and fear; and, in
course, I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for
itself, interposed the objection of the door and window being so situated, that
it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way along the bank to the house,
without his seeing me: which I could not bear the thought of, so much ashamed
and confounded was I at having seen him. Condemned then to stay till his
departure should release me, I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of
myself: I kept some time betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking through
the window, which being an old fashioned casement, without any light behind me,
could hardly betray any one’s being there to him from within; then the
door was so secure, that without violence, or my own consent, there was no
opening it from without.
“But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that objects which
affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw our eyes as forcibly as those
that please us. I could not long withstand that nameless impulse, which,
without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me towards it; emboldened too
by my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I ventured by degrees to cast
my eyes on an object so terrible and alarming to my virgin modesty as a naked
man.
“But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was in general
the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which the sun playing upon made
the reflection of it perfectly beamy. His face, in the confusion I was in, I
could not well distinguish the lineamints of, any farther than that there was a
great deal of youth and freshness in it. The frolic and various play of all his
fine polished limbs, as they appeared above the surface, in the course of his
swimming or wantoning with the water, amused and insensibly delighted me;
sometimes he lay motionless, on his back, waterborne, and dragging after him a
fine head of hair, that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls.
Then the overflowing water would make a separation between his breast and
glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not escape observing so
remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy tuft, out of which appeared to
emerge a round, softish, limber, white something, that played every way, with
ever the least motion or whirling eddy. I cannot say but that part chiefly, by
a kind of natural instinct, attracted, detained, captivated my attention: it
was out of the power of all my modesty to command my eye away from it; and
seeing nothing so very dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all
my fears: but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes took
place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had so long lain
dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made me feel my sex for the first
time. He had now changed his posture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out
with his legs and arms; finer modeled than which could not have been cast,
whilst his floating locks played over a neck and shoulders whose whiteness they
delightfully set off. Then the luxuriant swell of flesh that rose from the
small of his back, and terminates its double cope at where the thighs are set
off, perfectly dazzled one with its watery glistening gloss.
“By this time I was so affected by this inward involution of sentiments,
so softened by this sight, that now, betrayed into a sudden transition from
extreme fears to extreme desires, I found these last so strong upon me, the
heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt their rage, that nature
almost fainted under them. Not that I so much as knew precisely what was
wanting to me: my only thought was, that so sweet a creature, as this youth
seemed to me, could only make me happy; but then, the little likelihood there
was of compassing an acquaintance with him, or perhaps of ever seeing him
again, dashed my desires, and turned them into torments. I was still gazing,
with all the powers of my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in an
instant, down he went. I had heard of such things as a cramp seizing on even
the best swimmers, and occasioning their being drowned; and imagining this so
sudden eclipse to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this unknown lad
had given birth to, distracted me with the most killing terrors; insomuch, that
my concern giving the wings, I flew to the door, opened it, ran down to the
canal, guided thither by the madness of my fears for him, and the intense
desire of being an instrument to save him, though I was ignorant how, or by
what means to effect it: but was it for fears, and a passion so sudden as mine,
to reason! All this took up scarce the space of a few moments. I had then just
life enough to reach the green borders of the waterpiece, where wildly looking
round for the young man, and missing him still, my fright and concern sunk me
down in a deep swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for I did not come
to myself, till I was roused out of it by a sense of pain that pierced me to
the vitals, and awaked me to the the most surprising circumstance of finding
myself not only in the arms of this very young gentleman I had been so
solicitous to save; but taken at such an advantage in my unresisting condition,
that he had actually completed his entrance into me so far, that weakened as I
was by all the preceding conflicts of mind I had suffered, and struck dumb by
the violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to cry out, nor the
strength to disengage myself from his strenuous embraces, before, urging his
point, he had forced his way and completely triumphed over my virginity, as he
might now as well see by the streams of blood that followed his drawing out, as
he had felt by the difficulties he had met with consummating his penetration.
But the sight of the blood, and the sense of my condition, had (as he told me
afterwards), since the ungovernable rage of his passion was somewhat appeased,
now wrought so far on him, that at all risks, even of the worst consequences,
he could not find in his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily
have done. I still lay all discomposed in bleeding ruin, palpitating,
speechless, unable to get off, and frightened, and fluttering like a poor
wounded partridge, and ready to faint away again at the sense of what had
befallen me. The young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing my hand, and with
tears in his eyes, beseeching me to forgive him, and offering all the
reparation in his power. It is certain that could I, at the instant of
regaining my senses, have called out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would
not be stuck at it; the violation was attended too with such aggravating
circumstances, though he was ignorant of them, since it was to my concern for
the preservation of his life, that I owed my ruin.
“But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to another! and
how little are they acquainted with the human heart who dispute it! I could not
see this amiable criminal, so suddenly the first object of my love, and as
suddenly of my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my hands with his tears,
without relenting. He was still stark-naked, but my modesty had been already
too much wounded, in essentials, to be so much shocked as I should have
otherwise been with appearances only; in short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the
tide of love returned so strong upon me, that I felt it a point of my own
happiness to forgive him. The reproaches I made him were murmured in so soft a
tone, my eyes met his with such glances, expressing more languor than
resentment, that he could not but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate
distance; but still he would not quit his posture of submission, till I had
pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most fervent entreaties,
protestations, and promises, I had not the power to withhold. On which, with
the utmost marks of a fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss my lips,
which I neither declined nor resented: but on my mild expostulation with him
upon the barbarity of his treatment, he explained the mystery of my ruin, if
not entirely to the clearance, at least much to the alleviation of his guilt,
in the eyes of a judge so partial in his favour as I was grown.
“It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking, which in
my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something very fatal, was no other than
a trick of diving, which I had not ever heard, or at least attended o, the
mention of: and he was so long-breathed at it, that in the few moments in which
I ran out to save him, he had not yet emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in
which, as he rose, seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was, that
some young woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with him, for he
knew I could not have fallen asleep there without his having seen me before:
agreebly to which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without
sign of life, and still perplexed as he was what to think of the adventure, he
took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into the summer-house, of
which he observed the door open: there he laid me down on the couch, and tried,
as he protested in good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again,
till fired, as he said, beyond all bearing by the sight and touch of several
parts of me, which were unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern
his passion; and the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this
swoon being a feint, was not the very truth of the case; seduced then by this
flattering notion, and overcome by the present, as he styled them, super-human
temptations, combined with the solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he
was not enough his own master not to make it. Leaving me then just only whilst
he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when,
finding me still entranced, he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I
felt, no more than the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to
roused me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able to
defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of his voice
sounded, methought, so sweetly in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and
interesting an object to me, wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the rising
perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all sense of the past
injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the symptoms of a reconciliation in
my softened looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips,
pressed them tenderly to pass his pardon in the return of a kiss so melting
fiery, that the impression of it being carried to my heart, and thence to my
new discovered sphere of Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse
him nothing. When now he managed his caresses and endearments so artfully, as
to insinuate the most soothing consolations for the past pain and the most
pleasing expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept my eyes
from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a glimpse of that instrument of
mischief which was now, obviously even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a
comparative observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and grew
greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore it no doubt designedly,
hard and stiff against one of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employed
such tender prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning passion of
desire being now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of the
sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield at length at
the force of the present impressions, and he obtained of my tacit blushing
consent all the gratifications of pleasure left in the power of my poor person
to bestow, after he had cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life,
and abilities to guard it.
“Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop; but I am so much
in notion, that I could not if I would. I shall only add, however, that I got
home without the least discovery, or suspicion of what had happened. I met my
young ravisher several times after, whom I now passionately loved and who,
though not of age to claim a small but independent fortune, would have married
me; but as the accident that prevented it, and its consequences, which threw me
on the public, contain matters too moving and serious to introduce at present,
I cut short here.”
Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her turn to treat the
company with her history. I have already hinted to you the graces of her
person, than which nothing could be more exquisitely touching; I repeat
touching, as a just distinction from striking, which is ever a less lasting
effect, and more generally belongs to the fair complexions; but leaving that
decision to every one’s taste, I proceed to give you Louisa’s
narrative as follows:
“According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my birth,
since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I know, it was scarce
possible to inherit a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did.
I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on
his master’s maid: the consequence of which was a big belly, and the loss
of a place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all
this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of
me to a poor relation in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook
here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the
complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a child she had by
her first husband. I had, on that footing, been taken home, and was not six
years old when this father-in-law died, and left my mother in tolerable
circumstances, and without any children by him. As to my natural father, he had
betaken himself to the sea; where, when the truth of things came out, I was
told that he died, not immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than
a common sailor. As I grew up, under the eyes of my mother, who kept on the
business, I could not but see, in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip,
which she did not care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our passions
than our features or complexions, and the bent of mine was so strong to the
forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at length, of all her care and
precaution. I was scarce twelve years old, before that part which she wanted so
much to keep out of harm’s way, made me feel its impatience to be taken
notice of, and come into play; already had it put forth the signs of
forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over it, which had often fluttered,
and I might also say, grown under my constant touch and visitation, so pleased
was I with what I took to be a kind of title to womanhood, that state I pined
to be entered of, for the pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the
growing importance of that part to me, and the new sensations in it, demolished
at once all my girlish play-things and amusements. Nature now pointed me
strongly to more solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so
fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not mistake the spot I
wanted a playfellow in.
“I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of coming at the
object of my longings, and used to shut myself up, to indulge in solitude some
tender meditation on the pleasure I strongly perceived the overture of, in
feeling and examining what nature assured me must be the chosen avenue, the
gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted after.
“But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew the fire that
consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at length to the insupportable
irritations of the little fairy charm that tormented me, I seized it with my
fingers, teazing it to no end. Sometimes, in the furious excitations of desire,
I threw myself on the bed, spread my thighs abroad, and lay as it were
expecting the longed-for relief, till finding my illusion, I shut and squeezed
them together again, burning and fretting. In short, this develish thing, with
its impetuous girds and itching fires, led me such a life, that I could
neither, night or day, be at peace with it or myself. In time, however, I
thought I had gained a prodigious prize, when figuring to myself that my
fingers were something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way in
with one of them with great agitation and delight; yet not without pain too did
I deflower myself as far as it could reach; proceeding with such a fury of
passion, in this solitary and last shift of pleasure, as extended me at length
breathless on the bed in an amorous melting trance.
“But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon began to perceive
that this work was but a paultry shallow expedient, that went but a little way
to relieve me, and rather raised more flame than its dry and insignificant
titillation could rightly appease.
“Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by what I had
industriously picked up at weddings and christenings, was possessed of the only
remedy that could reduce this rebellious disorder; but watched and overlooked
as I was, how to come at it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an
invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains and invention how at once to
elude my mothers vigilance, and procure myself the satisfaction of my impetuous
curiosity and longings for this mighty and untasted pleasure. At length,
however, a singular chance did at once the work of a long course of alertness.
One day that we had dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a
gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house, there started an
indispensable necessity for my mother’s going down to Greenwich to
accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know what genius whispered
me to plead a headache, which I certainly had not, against my being included in
a jaunt that I had not the least relish for. The pretext, however, passed, and
my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but
took particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands
of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had not a male
creature in the house.
“As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on
our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same
time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction probably
proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I
unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the bedclothes, in all the
loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to the old insipid privy shifts of my
self-viewing, self-touching self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of self
knowledge I could devise, in search of the pleasure that fled before me, and
tantalized with that unknown something that was out of my reach; thus all only
served to enflame myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst the one
thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I could have bit my
finger for representing it so ill. After then wearying and fatiguing myself
with grasping shadows, whilst that most sensible part of me disdained to
content itself with less than realities, the strong yearnings, the urgent
struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and the extreme self-agitations
I had used to come at it, had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet
sleep: for, if I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the
distraction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could
not have helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems; for waking out
of my very short slumber, I found my hand locked in that of a young man, who
was kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his boldness: but that
being a son to the lady to whom, this bed-chamber, he knew, belonged, he had
slipped by the servant of the shop, as he supposed, unperceived, when finding
me asleep, his first ideas were to withdraw; but that he had been fixed and
detained there by a power he could better account for, than resist.
“What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprise were instantly
subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke in great presence of mind from the
turn this adventure might take. He seemed to me no other than a pitying angel,
dropt out of the clouds: for he was young and perfectly handsome, which was
more than even I had asked for, man, in general, being all that my utmost
desires had pointed at. I thought then I could not put too much encouragement
into my eyes and voice; I regretted no leading advances; no matter for his
after-opinion of my forwardness, so it might bring him to the point of
answering my pressing demands of present case; it was not now with his thoughts
but his actions that my business immediately lay. I raised then my head, and
told him, in a soft tone, that tended to prescribe the same key to him, that
his mamma was gone out and would not return till late at night: which I thought
no bad hint; but as it proved, I had nothing of a novice to deal with. The
impressions I had made on him from the discoveries I had betrayed of my person
in the disordered motions of it, during his view of me asleep, had, as he
afterwards told me, so fixed and charmingly prepared him, that, had I known his
dispositions, I had more to hope from his violence, than to fear from his
respect; and even less than the extreme tenderness which I threw into my voice
and eyes, would have served to encourage him to make the most of the
opportunity. Finding then that his kisses, imprinted on my hand, were taken as
tamely as he could wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his to them, made me
so faint with overcoming joy and pleasure, that I fell back, and he with me, in
course, on the bed, upon which I had, by insensibly shifting from the side to
near the middle, invitingly, made room for him. He is now lain down by me, and
the minutes being too precious to consume in ultimate ceremony, or dalliance,
my youth proceeds immediately to those extremities, which all my looks, humming
and palpitations, had assured him he might attempt without the fear of a
repulse: those rogues the men, read us admirably on these occasions. I lay then
at length panting for the imminent attack, with wishes far beyond my fears, and
for which it was scarce possible for a girl, barely thirteen, but tall and well
grown, to have better dispositions. He threw up my petticoat and shift, whilst
my thighs were, by an instinct of nature, unfolded to their best; and my
desires had so thoroughly destroyed all modesty in me, that even their being
now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the prelude that pleasure
deepened my blushes at, more than same. But when his hand, and touches,
naturally attracted to their center, made me feel all their wantonness and
warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a sense of things, did I
perceive there, than when under my own insipid handling! And now his waistcoat
was unbuttoned, and the confinement of the breeches burst through, when out
started to view the amazing, pleasing object of all my wishes, all my dreams,
all my love, the king member indeed! I gazed at, I devoured it, at length and
breadth, with my eyes intently directed to it, till his; getting upon me, and
placing between my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of its sight, to give me
a far more grateful one, in its touch, in that part where its touch is so
exquisitely affecting. Applying it then to the minute opening, for such at that
age it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt with too great a
rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it, to heed much the pain that
followed: I thought nothing too dear to pay for this the richest treat of the
sense; so that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled I was still superiorly
pleased, and hugged the author of all this delicious ruin. But when, soon
after, he made his second attack, sore as every thing was, the smart was soon
put away by the sovereign cordial; all my soft complainings were silenced, and
the pain melting fast away into pleasure. I abandoned myself over to all its
transports, and gave it the full possession of my whole body and soul; for now
all thought was at an end with me; I lived in what I felt only. And who could
describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by the charm of their
novelty and surprise? when that part of me which had so hungered for the dear
morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced all my vital sensations to fix
their home there, during the stay of my beloved guest; who too soon paid me for
his hearty welcome, in a dissolvent, richer far than that I have heard of some
queen treating her paramour with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly poured
into me, where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry reception, I hailed
it with the warmest confluence on my side, amidst all those ecstatic raptures,
not unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus, however, I arrived at the
very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected indeed, but not so
wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived in town from college, and
came familiarly to his mother at her apartment, where he had once before been,
though, by mere chance. I had not seen him: so that we knew one another by
hearing only; and finding me stretched on his mother’s bed, he readily
concluded from her description, who it was. The rest you know.
“This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the young gentleman
escaping then, and many more times undiscovered. But the warmth of my
constitution, that made the pleasures of love a kind of necessary of life to
me, having betrayed me into indiscretions fatal to my private fortune, I fell
at length to the public; from which, it is probable, I might have met with the
worst of ruin, if my better fate had not thrown me into this safe and agreeable
refuge.”
Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having brought the time for the
girls to retire, and to prepare for the revels of the evening, I staid with
Mrs. Cole, till Emily came, and told us the company was met, and waited for us.
Mrs. Cole on this, taking me by the hand, with a smile of encouragement, led me
up stairs, preceded by Louisa, who was come to hasten us, and lighted us with
two candles, one in each hand.
On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we were met by a young
gentleman, extremely well dressed, and a very pretty figure, to whom I was to
be indebted for the first essay of the pleasures of the house. He saluted me
with great gallantry, and handed me into the drawing room, the floor of which
was overspread with a Turkey carpet, and all its furniture voluptuously adapted
to every demand of the most studied luxury; now too it was, by means of a
profuse illumination, enlivened by a light scarce inferior, and perhaps more
favourable to joy, more tenderly pleasing, than that of broad sunshine.
On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction! to hear a buzz of
approbation run through the whole company, which now consisted of four
gentlemen, including my particular (this was the cant term of the house for
one’s gallant for the time), the three young-women, in a neat flowing
dishabille, the mistress of the academy, and myself. I was welcomed and saluted
by a kiss all round, in which, however, it was easy to discover, in the
superior warmth of that of the men, the distinction of the sexes.
Awed, and confounded as I was, at seeing myself surrounded, caressed, and made
court to by so many strangers, I could not immediately familiarize myself to
all that air of gaiety and joy, which dictated their compliments, and animated
their caresses.
They assured me that I was so perfectly to their taste, as to have but one
fault against me, which I might easily be cured of, and that was my modesty:
this, they observed, might pass for a beauty the more with those who wanted it
for a heightener; but their maxim was, that it was an impertinent mixture, and
dashed the cup so as to spoil the sincere draught of pleasure; they considered
it accordingly as their mortal enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met
with it. This was a prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensued.
In the midst of all the frolic and wantonness, which this joyous band had
presently, and all naturally, run into, an elegant supper was served in, and we
sat down to it, my spark elect placing himself next to me, and the other
couples without order or ceremony. The delicate cheer and good wine soon
banished all reserve; the conversation grew as lively as could be wished,
without taking too loose a turn: these professors of pleasure knew too well,
how to stale impressions of it, or evaporate the imagination of words, before
the time of action. Kisses however were snatched at times, or where a
handkerchief round the neck interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely
respected: the hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till
the provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my particulars’s
proposal for beginning the country dances was received with instant assent:
for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instruments were in tune. This was
a signal for preparation, that the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood life,
took for her cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for personal service
herself, and content with having settled the order of battle, she left us the
field, to fight it out at discretion.
As soon as she was gone, the table was removed from the middle, and became a
side-board; a couch was brought into its place, of which when I whisperingly
inquired the reason, of my particular, he told me, “that as it was
chiefly on my account that his convention was met, the parties intended at once
to humour their taste of variety in pleasures, and by an open public enjoyment,
to see me broke of any taint of reserve or modesty, which they looked on as the
poison of joy; that though they occasionally preached pleasure, and lived up to
the text, they did not enthusiastically set up for missionaries, and only
indulged themselves in the delights of a practical instruction of all the
pretty women they liked well enough to bestow it upon, and who fell properly in
the way of it; but that as such a proposal might be too violent, too shocking
for a young beginner, the old standers were to set an example, which he hoped I
would not be averse to follow, since it was to him I was devolved in favour of
the first experiment; but that still I was perfectly at my liberty to refuse
the party, which being in its nature one of pleasure, supposed an exclusion of
all force or constraint.”
My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my silence did my
acquiescence. I was now embarked, and thoroughly determined on any voyage the
company would take me on.
The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cornet of horse, and that
sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft and amorous Louisa. He led her to the
couch (nothing loth), on which he gave her the fall, and extended her at length
with an air of roughness and vigour, relishing high of amorous eagerness and
impatience. The girl, spreading herself to the best advantage, with her head
upon the pillow, was so concentered in that she was about, that our presence
was the least of her care and concern. Her petticoats, thrown up with her
shift, discovered to the company the finest turned legs and thighs that could
be imagined, and in broad display, that gave us a full view of that delicious
cleft of flesh, into which the pleasing hair, grown mount over it, parted and
presented a most inviting entrance, between two close hedges, delicately soft
and pouting. Her gallant was now ready, having disencumbered himself from his
clothes, overloaded with lace, and presently, his shirt removed, shewed us his
forces at high plight, bandied and ready for action. But giving us no time to
consider the dimensions, he threw himself instantly over his charming
antagonist who received him as he pushed at once dead at mark, like a heroine,
without flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally truer to the
taste of joy, or sincerer in the expressions of its sensations, than she was:
we could observe pleasure lighten in her eyes, as he introduced his
plenipotentiary instrument into her; till, at length, having indulged her to
its utmost reach, its irritations grew so violent, and gave her the spurs so
furiously, that collected within herself, and lost to every thing but the
enjoyment of her favourite feelings, she retarded his thrusts with a just
concert of spring heaves, keeping time so exactly with the most pathetic sighs,
that one might have numbered the strokes in agitation by their distinct
murmurs, whilst her active limbs kept wreathing and intertwisting with his, in
convulsive folds: then the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant painless
lovebites, which they both exchanged, in a rage of delight, all conspiring
towards the melting period. It soon came on, when Louisa, in the ravings of her
pleasure-frensy, impotent of all restraint, cried out: “Oh Sir!… Good
Sir! pray do not spare me! ah! ah!…” All her accents now faultering
into heart-fetched sighs, she closed her eyes in the sweet death, in the
instant of which we could easily see the signs in the quiet, dying, languid
posture of her late so furious driver, who was stopped of a sudden, breathing
short, panting, and, for that time, giving up the spirit of pleasure. As soon
as he was dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats, and running up to
me, gave me a kiss, and drew me to the side-board, to which she was herself
handed by her gallant, where they made me pledge them in a glass of wine, and
toast a droll health of Louisa’s proposal in high frolic.
By this time the second couple was ready to enter the lists: which were a young
baronet, and that delicatest of charmers, the winning, tender Harriet. My
gentle esquire came to acquaint me with it, and brought me back to the scene of
action.
And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany her dispositions, for
the barefaced part she was engaged to play, with such a peculiar grace of
sweetness, modesty and yielding coyness, as she did. All her air and motions
breathed only unreserved, unlimited complaisance without the least mixture of
impudence, or prostitution. But what was yet more surprising, her spark elect,
in the midst of the dissolution of a public open enjoyment, doated on her to
distraction, and had, by dint of love and sentiments, touched her heart, though
for a while the restraint of their engagement to the house laid him under a
kind of necessity of complying with an institution which himself had had the
greatest share establishing.
Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant, blushing as she looked
at me, and with eyes made to justify any thing, tenderly bespeaking of me the
most favourable construction of the step she was thus irresistibly drawn into.
Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the couch, and passing
his arm round her neck, preluded with a kiss fervently applied to her lips,
that visibly gave her life and spirit to go through with the scene; and as he
kissed, he gently inclined her head, till it fell back on a pillow disposed to
receive it, and leaning himself down all the way with her, at once countenanced
and endeared her fall to her. There, as if he had guessed our wishes, or meant
to gratify at once his pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by the
title of present possession, of beauties delicate beyond imagination, he
discovered her breast to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what
delicious manual of love devotion; how inimitable fine moulded! small, round,
firm, and excellently white; then the grain of their skin, so soothing, so
flattering to the touch! and of beauty. When he had feasted his eyes with the
their nipples, that crowned them, the sweetest buds touch and perusal, feasted
his lips with kisses of the highest relish, imprinted on those all delicious
twin-orbs, he proceeded downwards.
Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the tenderest attention not to
shock or alarm her too suddenly, he, by degrees, rather stole than rolled up
her petticoats; at which, as if a signal had been given, Louisa and Emily took
hold of her legs, in pure wantonness, and, in ease to her, kept them stretched
wide abroad. Then lay exposed, or, to speak more properly, displayed the
greatest parade in nature of female charms. The whole company, who, except
myself, had often seen them, seemed as much dazzled, surprised and delighted,
as any one could be who had now beheld them for the first time. Beauties so
excessive could not but enjoy the privileges of eternal novelty. Her thighs
were so exquisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of flesh than
they were, they would have declined from that point of perfection they
presented. But what infinitely enriched and adorned them, was the sweet
intersection formed, where they met, at the bottom of the smoothest, roundest,
whitest belly, by that central furrow which nature had sunk there, between the
soft relievo of two pouting ridges, and which, in this girl, was in perfect
symmetry of delicacy and miniature with the rest of her frame. No! nothing in
nature could be of a beautifuller cut; then, the dark umbrage of the downy
spring moss that over-arched it, bestowed, on the luxury of the landscape, a
touching warmth, a tender finishing, beyond the expression of words, or even
the paint of thought.
Her truly enamoured gallant, who had stood absorbed and engrossed by the
pleasure of the sight long enough to afford us time to feast ours (no fear of
glutting!) addressed himself at length to the materials of enjoyment, and
lifting the linen veil that hung between us and his master member of the
revels, exhibited one whose eminent size proclaimed the owner a true
woman’s hero. He was, besides in every other respect, an accomplished
gentleman, and in the bloom and vigour of youth. Standing then between
Harriet’s legs, which were supported by her two companions at their
widest extension, with one hand he gently disclosed the lips of that luscious
mouth of nature, whilst with the other, he stooped his mighty machine to its
lure, from the height of his stiff stand-up towards his belly; the lips, kept
open by his fingers, received its broad shelving head of coral hue: and when he
had nestled it in, he hovered there a little, and the girls then delivered over
to his hips the agreeable office of supporting her thighs; and now, as if he
meant to spin out his pleasure, and give it the more play for its life, he
passed up his instrument so slow that we lost sight of it inch by inch, till at
length it was wholly taken into the soft laboratory of love, and the mossy
mounts of each fairly met together. In the mean time, we could plainly mark the
prodigious effect the progressions of this delightful energy wrought in this
delicious girl, gradually heightening her beauty as they heightened her
pleasure. Her countenance and whole frame grew more animated; the faint blush
of her cheeks, gaining ground on the white, deepened into a florid vivid
vermillion glow, her naturally brilliant eyes now sparkled with ten-fold
lustre; her languor was vanished, and she appeared quick, spirited and alive
all over. He had now fixed, nailed, this tender creature, with his home-driven
wedge, so that she lay passive by force, and unable to stir, till beginning to
play a strain of arms against this vein of delicacy, as he urged the to-and-fro
con-friction, he awakened, roused, and touched her so to the heart, that unable
to contain herself, she could not but reply to his motions, as briskly as her
nicety of frame would admit of, till the raging stings of the pleasure rising
towards the point, made her wild with the intolerable sensations of it, and she
now threw her legs and arms about at random, as she lay lost in the sweet
transport; which on his side declared itself by quicker, eager thrusts,
convulsive gasps, burning sighs, swift laborious breathing, eyes darting humid
fires: all faithful tokens of the imminent approaches of the last gasp of joy.
It came on at length: the baronet led the extasy, which she critically joined
in, as she felt the melting symptoms from him, in the nick of which, gluing
more ardently than ever his lips to hers, he shewed all the signs of that agony
of bliss being strong upon him, in which he gave her the finishing titillation;
inly thrilled with which, we saw plainly that she answered it down with all
effusion of spirit and matter she was mistress of, whilst a general soft
shudder ran through all her limbs, which she gave a stretch out, and lay
motionless, breathless, dying with dear delight; and in the height of its
expression, showing, through the nearly closed lids of her eyes, just the edges
of their black, the rest being rolled strongly upwards in their extasy; then
her sweet mouth appeared languishingly open, with the tip of her tongue
leaning negligently towards the lower range of her white teeth, whilst natural
ruby colour of her lips glowed with heightened life. Was not this a subject to
dwell upon? And accordingly her lover still kept on her, with an abiding
delectation, till compressed, squeezed and distilled to the last drop, he took
leave with one fervent kiss, expressing satisfied desires, but unextinguished
love.
As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down on the couch by her,
rais’d her head, which she declined gently, and hung on my bosom, to hide
her blushes and confusion at what had passed, till by degrees she re-composed
herself, and accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my spark, who had
left me to fetch it to her, whilst her own was readjusting his affaire and
buttoning up; after which he led her, leaning languishingly upon him, to oar
stand of view round the couch.
And now Emily’s partner had taken her out for her share in the dance,
when this transcendently fair and sweet tempered creature readily stood up; and
if a complexion to put the rose and lily out of countenance, extreme pretty
features, and that florid health and bloom for which the country girls are so
lovely, might pass her for a beauty, this she certainly was, and one of the
most striking of the fair ones.
Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disengage, her breasts, and restore
them to the liberty of nature, from the easy confinement of no more than a pair
of jumps; but on their coming out to view, we thought a new light was added to
the room, so superiourly shining was their whiteness; then they rose in so
happy a swell as to compose her a well horned fullness of bosom, that had such
an effect on the eye as to seem flash hardened into marble, of which it
emulated the polished gloss, and far surpassed even the whitest, in the life
and lustre of its colours, white weined with blue. Who could refrain from such
provoking enticements in reach? he touched her breasts, first lightly, when the
glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his hand, and made it slip along the
surface; he pressed them, and the springy flesh that filled them, thus pitted
by force, rose again reboundingly with his hand, and on the instant defaced the
pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of all those parts of her body
throughout, where the fulness of flesh compacts and constitutes all that fine
firmness which the touch is so highly attached to. When he had thus largely
pleased himself with this branch of dalliance and delight, he trussed up her
petticoat and shift, in a wisp to her waist, where being tucked in, she stood
fairly naked on every side; a blush at this overspread her lovely face, and her
eyes downcast to the ground, seemed to be for quarter, when she had so great a
right to triumph in all the treasures of youth and beauty that she now so
victoriously displayed. Her legs were perfectly well shaped and her thighs,
which she kept pretty close, shewed so white, so round, so substantial and
abounding in firm flesh, that nothing could afford a stronger recommendation to
the luxury of the touch, which he accordingly did not fail to indulge in. Then
gently removing her hand, which in the first emotion of natural modesty, she
had carried thither, he gave us rather a glimpse than a view of that soft
narrow chink running its little length downwards, and hiding the remains of it
between her thighs; but plain was to be seen the fringe of light-brown curls,
in beauteous growth over it, that with their silk gloss created a pleasing
variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too, their gentle embrowning
shade, considerably raised. Her spark then endeavoured, as she stood, by
disclosing her thighs, to gain us a completer sight of that central charm of
attraction, but not obtaining it so conveniently in that attitude, he led her
to the foot of the couch, and bringing it to one of the pillows gently inclined
her head down, so that as she leaned with it over her crossed hands, straddling
with her thighs wide spread, and jutting her body out, she presented a full
back view of her person, naked to her waist. Her posteriors, plump, smooth, and
prominent, formed luxuriant tracts of animated snow, that splendidly filled the
eye, till it was commanded down the parting or separation of those exquisitely
white cliffs, by their narrow vale, and was there stopt, and attracted by the
embowered bottom-savity, that terminated this delightful vista and stood
moderately gaping from the influence of her bended posture, so that the
agreeable interior red of the sides of the orifice came into view, and with
respect to the white that dazzled round it, gave somewhat the idea of a pink
slash in the glossiest white satin. Her gallant, who was a gentleman about
thirty, somewhat inclined to a fatness that was in no sort displeasing,
improving the hint thus tendered him of this mode of enjoyment, after setting
her well in this posture, and encouraging her with kisses and caresses to stand
him thro’, drew out his affair ready erected, and whose extreme length,
rather disproportioned to its breadth, was the more surprising, as that excess
is not often the case with those of his corpulent habit; making then the right
and direct application, he drove it up to the guard, whilst the round bulge of
those Turkish beauties of her’s, tallying with the hollow made with the
bent of his belly and thighs, as he curved inwards, brought all those parts,
surely not un-delightfully, into warm touch, and close conjunction; his hands
he kept passing round her body, and employed in toying with her enchanting
breasts. As soon too as she felt him at home as he could reach, she lifted her
head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck, without much straining,
but her cheeks glowing with the deepest scarlet, and a smile of the tenderest
satisfaction, met the kiss he pressed forward to give her as they were thus
close joined together: when leaving him to pursue his delights, she hid again
her face and blushes with her hands and pillow, and thus stood passively and as
favourably too as she could, whilst he kept laying at her with repeated thrusts
and making the meeting flesh on both sides resound again with the violence of
them; then ever as he backened from her, we could see between them part of his
long white staff foamingly in motion, till, as he went on again and closed with
her, the interposing hillocks took it out of sight. Sometimes he took his hands
from the semi-globes of her bosom, and transferred the pressure of them to
those large ones, the present subjects of his soft blockade, which he squeezed,
grasped and played with, till at length in pursuit of driving, so hotly urged,
brought on the height of the fit, with such overpowering pleasure, that his
fair partner became now necessary to support him, panting, fainting and dying
as he discharged; which she no sooner felt the killing sweetness of, than
unable to keep her legs, and yielding to the mighty intoxication, she reeld,
and falling forward on the couch, made it a necessity for him, if he would
preserve the warm-pleasure hold, to fall upon her, where they perfected, in a
continued conjunction of body and ecstatic flow, their scheme of joys for that
time.
As soon as he had disengaged, the charming Emily got up, and we crowded round
her with congratulations and other officious little services; for it is to be
noted, that though all modesty and reserve were banished from the transaction
of these pleasures, good manners and politeness were inviolably observed: there
was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches
to the girls for their compliance with the humours and desires of the men. On
the contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of
their condition to them. Men know not in general how much they destroy of their
own pleasure, when they break through the respect and tenderness due to our
sex, and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them. And this was a
maxim perfectly well understood by these polite voluptuaries, these profound
adepts in the great art and science of pleasure, who never shewed these
votaries of theirs a more tender respect than at the time of those exercises of
their complaisance, when they unlocked their treasures of concealed beauty, and
shewed out in the pride of their native charms, ever more touching surely than
when they parade it in the artificial ones of dress and ornament.
The frolic was now come round to me, and it being my turn of subscription to
the will and pleasure of my particular elect, as well as to that of the
company, he came to me, and saluting me very tenderly, with a flattering
eagerness, put me in mind of the compliances my presence there authorized the
hopes of, and at the same time repeated to me, “that if all this force of
example had not surmounted any repugnance I might have to concur with the
humours and desires of the company, that though the play was bespoke for my
benefit, and great as his own private disappointment might be, he would suffer
any thing, sooner than be the instrument of imposing a disagreeable
task.”
To this I answered, without the least hesitation, or mincing grimace,
“that had I not even contracted a kind of engagement to be at his
disposal without the least reserve, the example of such agreeable companions
would alone determine me, and that I was in no pain about any thing but my
appearing to so great a disadvantage after such superior beauties.” And
take notice that I thought, as I spoke. The frankness of the answer pleased
them all; my particular was complimented on his acquisition, and, by way of
indirect flattery to me, openly envied me.
Mrs. Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater mark of her regard
than in managing for me the choice of this young gentleman for my master of the
ceremonies: for, independent of his noble birth and the great fortune he was
heir to, his person was even uncommonly pleasing, well shaped and tall; his
face marked with the small-pox, but no more than what added a grace of more
manliness to features rather turned to softness and delicacy, was marvellously
enlivened by eyes which were of the clearest sparkling black; in short he was
one whom any woman would, in the familiar style, ready call a very pretty
fellow.
I was now handed by him to the cockpit of our match, where, as I was dressed in
nothing but a white morning gown, he vouchsafed to play the male Abigail on
this occasion, and spared me the confusion that would have attended the
forwardness of undressing myself: my gown then was loosen’d in a trice,
and I divested of it; my stays next offered an obstacle which readily gave way,
Louisa very readily furnished a pair of scissors to cut the lace; off went that
shell and dropping my uppercoat, I was reduced to my under one and my shift,
the open bosom of which gave the hands and eyes all the liberty they could
wish. Here I imagined the stripping was to stop, but I reckon short; my spark,
at the desire of the rest, tenderly begged, that I would not suffer the small
remains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole person; and for
me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dispute any point with them, and who
considered the little more that remained as very immaterial, I readily assented
to whatever he pleased-In an instant, then, my under petticoat was untied and
at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so that my cap, slightly fastened,
came off with it, and brought all my hair down (of which, be it again
remembered without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly
ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to the no unfavourable set-off of my
skin.
I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature, to whom I could not
appear a very disagreeable figure, if you please to recollect what I have
beforesaid of my person, which time, that at certain periods of life robs use
every instant of our charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly improved into
full and open, bloom, for I wanted some months of eighteen. My breasts, which
in the state of nudity are ever capital points, now in no more than in graceful
plenitude, maintained a firmness and steady independence of any stay or
support, that dared and invited the test of the touch. Then I was as tall, as
slim-shaped as could be consistent with all that juicy plumpness of flesh, ever
the most grateful to the senses of sight and touch, which I owed to the health
and youth of my constitution. I had not, however, so thoroughly renounced all
innate shame, as not to suffer great confusion at the state I saw myself in;
but the whole troop round me, men and women, relieved me with every mark of
applause and satisfaction, even flattering attention to raise and inspire me
with even sentiments of pride on the figure I made, which my friend gallantly
protested, infinitely outshone all other birthday finery whatever; so that had
I leave to set down, for sincere, all the compliments these connoisseurs
overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter myself with having
passed my examination with the approbation of the learned.
My friend, however, who for this time had alone the disposal of me, humoured
their curiosity, and perhaps his own, so far, that he placed me in all the
variety of postures and lights imaginable, pointing out every beauty under
every aspect of it, not without such parentheses, of kisses, such inflammatory
liberties of his roving hands, as made all shame fly before them, and a
blushing glow give place to a warmer one of desire, which led me even to find
some relish in the present scene.
But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most material spot of me was
not excused the strictest visitation; nor was it but agreed, that I had not the
least reason to be diffident of passing even for a maid, on occasion; so
inconsiderable a flaw had my preceding adventures created there, and so soon
had the blemish of an over-stretch been repaired and worn out at any age, and
in my naturally small make in that part.
Now, whether my partner had exhausted all the modes of regaling the touch or
sight, or whether he was now ungovernably wound up to strike, I know not; but
briskly throwing off his clothes, the prodigious heat bred by a close room, a
great fire, numerous candles, and even the inflammatory warmth of these scenes,
induced him to lay aside his shirt too, when his breeches, before loosened, now
gave up their contents to view, and shew’d in front the enemy I had to
engage with, stiffly bearing up the port of its head unhooded, and glowing red.
Then I plainly saw what I had to trust to: it was one of those just true-sized
instruments, of which the masters have a better command than the more unwieldy,
inordinate sized one are generally under. Straining me then close to his bosom,
as he stood up foreright against me, and applying to the obvious niche its
peculiar idol, he aimed at inserting it, which, as I forwardly favoured, he
effected at once, by canting up my thighs over his naked hips, and made me
receive every inch, and close home; so-that stuck upon the pleasure-pivot, add
clinging round his neck, in which and in his hair I hid my face, burn-ingly
flushing with present feeling as much as with shame, my bosom glued to him; he
carried me once round the couch, on which he then, without quitting the
middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid me down, and began with
pleasure-grist. But so provokingly predisposed and primed as we were, by all
the moving sights of the night, our imagination was too much heated not to melt
us of the soonest; and accordingly I no sooner felt the warm spray darted up my
inwards from him, but I was punctually on flow, to share the momentary extasy;
but I had yet greater reason to boast of our harmony: for finding that all the
flames of desire were not yet quenched within me, but that rather, like wetted
coals, I glowed the fiercer for this sprinkling, my hot-mettled spark,
sympathizing with me, and loaded for a double fire, recontinued the sweet
battery with undying vigour; greatly encouraged to accommodate all my motions
to his best advantage and delight; kisses, squeezes, tender murmurs, all came
into play, till our joys growing more turbulent and riotous, threw us into a
fond disorder, and as they raged to a point, bore us far from our selves into
an ocean of boundless pleasures, into which we both plunged together in a
transport of taste. Now all the impressions of burning desire, from the lively
scenes I had been spectatress of, ripened the heat of this exercise, and
collecting to a head, throbbed and agitated me with insupportable irritations:
I perfectly fevered and maddened with their excess. I bid not now enjoy a calm
of reason enough to perceive, but I ecstatically, indeed, felt the power of such
rare and exquisite provocatives, as the examples of the night had proved
towards thus exalting our pleasures: which, with great joy, I sensibly found my
gallant shared in, by his nervous and home expressions of it: his eyes flashing
eloquent flames, his action infuriated with the stings of it, all conspiring to
raise my delight, by assuring me of his. Lifted then to the utmost pitch of joy
that human life can bear, undestroyed by excess, I touched that sweetly
critical point, whence scarce prevented by the injection from my partner, I
dissolved, and breaking out into a deep drawn sigh, sent my whole sensitive
soul down to that passage where escape was denied it, by its being so
deliciously plugged and choked up. Thus we lay a few blissful instants,
overpowered, still, and languid; till, as the sense of pleasure stagnated, we
recovered from our trance, and he slipt out of me, not however before he had
protested his extreme satisfaction by the tenderest kiss and embrace, as well
as by the most cordial expressions.
The company, who had stood round us in a profound silence, when all was over,
helped me to hurry on my clothes in an instant, and complimented me on the
sincere homage they could not escape observing had been done as they termed
it—to the sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving a double payment of
tribute at one juncture. But my partner, now dressed again, signalized, above
all, a fondness unbated by the circumstance of recent enjoyment; the girls too
kissed and embraced me, assuring me that for that time, or indeed any other,
unless I pleased, I was to go through no farther public trials, and that I was
now consummatedly initiated, and one of them.
As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to his partner, for the
night especially, and even till he relinquished possession over to the
community, in order to preserve a pleasing property, and to avoid the disgusts
and indelicacy of another arrangement, the company, after a short refection of
biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served in at now about one in the
morning, broke up, and went off in pairs. Mrs. Cole had prepared my spark and
me an occasion field-bed, to which we retired, and there ended the night in one
continued strain of pleasure, sprightly and uncloyed enough for us not to have
formed one wish for its ever knowing an end. In the morning, after a
restorative breakfast in bed, he got up, and with very tender assurance of a
particular regard for me, left me to the composure and refreshment of a sweet
slumber; waking out of which, and getting up to dress before Mrs. Cole should
come in, I found in one of my pockets a purse of guineas, which he had slipt
there; and just as I was musing on a liberality I had certainly not expected,
Mrs. Cole came in, to whom I immediately communicated the present, and
naturally offered her whatever share she pleased: but assuring me that the
gentleman had very nobly rewarded her, she would on no terms, no entreaties, no
shape I could put it in, receive any part of it. Her denial, she observed, was
no affectation of grimace, and proceeded to read me such admirable lessons on
the economy of my person and my purse, as I became amply paid for my general
attention and conformity to in the course of my acquaintance with the town.
After which, changing the discourse, she fell on the pleasures of the preceding
night, where I learned, without much surprise, as I began to enter on her
character, that she had seen every thing that had passed, from a convenient
place managed solely for that purpose, and of which she readily made me the
confidante.
She had scarce finished this, when the little troop of love girls, my
companions, broke in, and renewed their compliments and caresses. I observed
with pleasure, that the fatigues and exercises of the night had not usurped in
the least on the life of their complexion, or the freshness of their bloom:
this I found, by their confession, was owing to the management and advice of
our rare directress. They went down then to figure it, as usual, in the shop;
whilst I repaired to my lodging, where I employed myself till I returned to
dinner at Mrs. Cole’s.
Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other of these charming girls,
till about five in the evening; when seized with a sudden drowsy fit, I was
prevailed on to go up and doze it off on Harriet’s bed, who left me on it
to my repose. There then I laid down in my clothes, and fell fast asleep, and
had now enjoyed, by guess, about an hour’s rest, when I was pleasingly
disturbed by my new and favourite gallant, who, enquiring for me, was readily
directed where to find me. Coming then into my chamber, and seeing me lie
alone, with my face turned from the light towards the inside of the bed, he,
without more ado, just slipped off his breeches, for the greater ease and
enjoyment of the naked touch; and softly turning up my petticoats and shift
behind, opened the prospect of the back avenue to the genial seat of pleasure;
where, as I lay at my side length, inclining rather face downward, I appeared
full fair, and liable to be entered. Laying himself gently down by me, he
invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he applied
his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of that machine, whose
touch has something so exquisitely singular in it, to make its way good into
me. I awaked pretty much startled at first, at seeing who it was, disposed
myself to turn to him, when he gave me a kiss, and desiring me to keep my
posture, just lifted up my upper thigh, and ascertaining the right opening,
soon drove it up to the farthest: satisfied with which, and solacing himself
with lying so close in those parts, he suspended motion, and thus steeped in
pleasure, kept me lying on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he termed it,
from the snug indent of the back part of my thighs, and all upwards, into the
space of the bending between his thighs and belly; till, after some time, that
restless and turbulent inmate, impatient by nature of longer quiet, urged him
to action, which now prosecuting with all the usual train of toying, kissing,
and the like, ended at length in the liquid proof on both sides, that we had
not exhausted, or at less were quickly recruited of last night’s draughts
of pleasure in us.
With this noble and agreeable youth lived I in perfect joy and constancy. He
was full bent on keeping me to himself, for the honey-month at least; but his
stay in London was not even so long, his father, who had a post in Ireland,
taking him abruptly with him, on his repairing thither. Yet even then I was
near keeping hold of his affection and person, as he had proposed, and I had
consented to follow him in order to go to Ireland after him, as soon as he
could be settled there; but meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in
that kingdom, he chose the wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but at the
same time took care that I should receive a very magnificent present, which did
not however compensate for all my deep regret on my loss of him.
This event also created a chasm in our little society, which Mrs. Cole, on the
foot of her usual caution, was in no haste to fill up; but then it redoubled
her attention to procure me, in the advantages of a traffic for a counterfeit
maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of widowhood I had been left in; and
this was a scheme she had never lost prospect of, and only waited for a proper
person to bring it to bear with.
But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I had been in my
first trial of the market.
I had now passed near a month in the enjoyment of all the pleasures of
familiarity and society with my companions, whose particular favourites (the
baronet excepted, who soon after took Harriet home) had all, on the terms of
community established in the house, solicited the gratification of their taste
for variety in my embraces; but I had with the utmost art and address, on
various pretexts, eluded their pursuit, without giving them cause to complain;
and this reserve I used neither out of dislike of them, nor disgust of the
thing, but my true reason was my attachment to my own, and my tenderness of
invading the choice of my companions, who outwardly exempt, as they seemed,
from jealousy, could not but in secret like me the better for the regard I had
for, without making a merit of it to them. Thus easy, and beloved by the whole
family, did I get on; when one day, that, about five in the afternoon, I
stepped over to a fruit shop in Covent Garden, to pick some table fruit for
myself and the young women, I met with the following adventure.
Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observed myself followed by a
young gentleman, whose rich dress first attracted my notice; for the rest, he
had nothing remarkable in his person, except that he was pale, thin-made, and
ventured himself upon legs rather of the slenderest. Easy was it to perceive,
without seeming to perceive it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping
his eyes fixed on me, till he came to the same basket that I stood at, and
cheapening, or rather giving the first price asked for the fruit, began his
approaches. Now most certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a
modest girl. I had neither the feathers, nor fumet of a taudry town-miss: a
straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all, a certain natural and easy
air of modesty (which the appearances of never forsook me, even on those
occasions that I most broke in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave
him no opening to conjecture my condition. He spoke to me; and this address
from a stranger throwing a blush into my cheeks, that still set him wider of
the truth, I answered him, with an awkwardness and confusion the more apt to
impose, as there really was a mixture of the genuine in them. But when
proceeding, on the foot of having broken the ice, to join discourse, he went
into other leading questions, I put so much innocence, simplicity, and even
childishness, into my answers, that on no better foundation, liking my person
as he did, I will not answer for it, he would have been sworn for my modesty.
There is, in short, in the men, when once they are caught, by the eye
especially, a fund of cullibility that their lordly wisdom little dreams of,
and in virtue of which the most sagacious of them are seen so often our dupes.
Amongst other queries he put to me, one was, whether I was married? I replied,
that I was too young to think of that this many a year. To that of my age, I
answered, and sunk a year upon him, passing myself for not above seventeen. As
to my way of life, I told him I had served an apprenticeship to a milliner in
Preston, and was come to town after a relation, that I had found, on my
arrival, was dead, and now lived journey-woman to a milliner in town. That last
article, indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass for; but
it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I had inspired him with. After
he had next got out of me, very dexterously as he thought, what I had no sort
of design to make reserve of, my own, my mistress’s name, and place of
abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the rarest and dearest he could pick out
and sent me home, pondering on what might be the consequence of this adventure.
As soon then as I came to Mrs. Cole’s, I related to her all that passed,
on which she very judiciously concluded, that if he did not come after me there
was no harm done, and that, if he did, as her presage suggested to her he
would, his character and his views should be well sifted, so as to know whether
the game was worth the springes; that in the mean time nothing was easier than
my part in it, since no more rested on me than to follow her cue and
promptership throughout, till the last act.
The next morning, after an evening spent on his side, as we afterwards learnt,
in perquisitions into Mrs. Cole’s character in the neighbourhood (than
which nothing could be more favourable to her designs upon him), my gentleman
came in his chariot to the shop, where Mrs. Cole alone had an inkling of his
errand. Asking then for her, he easily made a beginning of acquaintance by
bespeaking some millinery ware; when, as I sat without lifting my eyes, and
pursuing the hem of a ruffle with the utmost composure and simplicity of
industry, Mrs. Cole took notice, that the first impressions I made on him ran
no risk of being destroyed by those of Louisa and Emily, who were then sitting
at work by me. After vainly endeavouring to catch my eyes in rencounter with
him (I held my head down, affecting a kind of consciousness of guilt for
having, by speaking to him given him encouragement and means of following me),
and after giving Mrs. Cole direction when to bring the things home herself, and
the time he should expect them, he went out, taking with him some goods, that
he paid for liberally, for the better grace of his introduction.
The girls all this time did not in the least smoak the mystery of this new
customer; but Mrs. Cole, as soon as we were conveniently alone, insured me, in
virtue of her long experience in these matters, “that for this bout my
charms had not missed fire; for by his eagerness, his manner and looks, she was
sure he had it: the only point now in doubt was his character and
circumstances, which her knowledge of the town would soon gain her the
sufficient acquaintance with, to take measure upon.”
And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence served her so well, that she
learned that this conquest of mine was no other than Mr. Norbert, a gentleman
originally of great fortune, which, with a constitution naturally not the best,
he had vastly impaired by his over-violent pursuit of the vices of the town; in
the course of which, having worn out and staled all the more common modes of
debauchery, he had fallen into a taste of maiden-hunting; in which chase he had
ruined a number of girls, sparing no expense to compass his ends, and generally
using them well till tired, or cooled by enjoying, or springing a new face, he
could with more ease disembarrass himself of the old ones, and resign them to
their fate, as his sphere of achievements of that sort lay only amongst such as
he could proceed with by way of bargain and sale.
Concluding from these premises, Mrs. Cole observed, that a character of this
sort was ever a lawful prize; that the sin would be, not to make the best of
our market of him; and that she thought such a girl as I only too good for him
at any rate, and on any terms.
She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in one of our inns of
court, which were furnished in a taste of grandeur that had a special eye to
all the conveniences of luxury and pleasure. Here she found him in ready
waiting; and after finishing her business of pretence, and a long conduit of
discussions concerning her trade, which she said was very bad, the qualities of
her servants, apprentices, journey-women, the discourse naturally landed at
length on me, when Mrs. Cole, acting admirably the good old prating gossip, who
lets every thing escape her when her tongue is set in motion, cooked him up a
story so plausible of me, throwing in every now and then such strokes of art,
with all the simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and temper, as
finished him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing could be better
counterfeited than her innocence of his. But when now fired and on edge, he
proceeded to drop hints of his design and views upon me, after he had with much
confusion and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long aloof from it as
she thought proper) of understanding him, without now affecting to pass for a
dragoness of virtue, by flying out into those violent and ever suspicious
passions, she stuck with the better grace and effect to the character of a
plain, good sort of woman, that knew no harm, and that getting her bread in an
honest way, was made of stuff easy and flexible enough to be wrought to his
ends, by his superior skill and address; but, however, she managed so artfully
that three or four meetings took place, before he could obtain the least
favourable hope of her assistance; without which, he had, by a number of
fruitless messages, letters, and other direct trials of my disposition,
convinced himself there was no coming at me, all which too raised at once my
character and price with him.
Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties to such a length as
might afford time for starting discoveries, or incidents, unfavourable to her
plan, she at last pretended to be won over by mere dint of entreaties,
promises, and, above all, by the dazzling sum she took care to wind him up to
the specification of, when it was now even a piece of art to feign, at once, a
yielding to the allurements of a great interest, as a pretext for her yielding
at all, and the manner of it such as might persuade him she had never dipped
her virtuous fingers in an affair of that sort.
Thus she led him through all the gradations of difficulty, and obstacles,
necessary to enhance the value of the prize he aimed at; and in conclusion, he
was so struck with the little beauty I was mistress of, and so eagerly bent on
gaining his ends of me, that he left her no room to boast of her management in
bringing him up to her mark, he drove so plump of himself into every thing
tending to make him swallow the bait. Not but, in other respects, Mr. Norbert
was not clear sighted enough, or that he did not perfectly know the town, and
even by experience, the very branch of imposition now in practice upon him: but
we had his passion our friend so much, he was so blinded and hurried on by it,
that he would have thought any undeception a very ill office done to his
pleasure. Thus concurring, even precipitately, to the point she wanted him at,
Mrs. Cole brought him at last to hug himself on the cheap bargain he considered
the purchase of my imaginary jewel was to him, at no more than three hundred
guineas to myself, and a hundred to the brokers: being a slender recompense for
all her pains, and all the scruples of conscience she had now sacrificed to him
for this first time of her life; which sums were to be paid down on the nail,
upon delivery of my person, exclusive of some no inconsiderable presents that
had been made in the course of the negociation: during which I had
occasionally, but sparingly been introduced into his company, at proper times
and hours; in which it is incredible how little it seemed necessary to strain
my natural disposition to modesty higher, in order to pass it upon him for that
a very maid: all my looks and gestures ever breathing nothing but that
innocence which the men so ardently require in us, for no other end than to
feast themselves with the pleasure of destroying it, and which they are so
grievously, with all their skill, subject to mistakes in.
When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed on, the stipulated
payments duly secured, and nothing now remained but the execution of the main
point, which centered in the surrender of my person up to his free disposal and
use, Mrs. Cole managed her objections, especially to his lodgings, and
insinuations so nicely, that it became his own mere notion and urgent request,
that this copy of a wedding should be finished at her house: “At first,
indeed, she did not care, not she, to have such doings in it… she would not
for a thousand pounds have any of the servants or apprentices know it… her
precious good name would be gone for ever…,” with the like excuses.
However, on superior objections to all other expedients, whilst she took care
to start none but those which were most liable to them it came round at last to
the necessity of her obliging him in that conveniency, and of doing a little
more where she had already done so much.
The night then was fixed, with all possible respect to the eagerness of his
impatience, and in the mean time Mrs. Cole had omitted no instructions, nor
even neglected any preparation, that might enable me to come off with honour,
in regard to the appearance of my virginity, except that, favoured as I was by
nature with all the narrowness of stricture in that part requisite to conduct
my designs, I had no occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that create a
momentary one, easily discovered by the test of a warm bath; and as to the
usual sanguinary symptoms of defloration, which, if not always, are generally
attendants on it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of her
own, which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in its place.
Every thing then being disposed and fixed for Mr. Norbert’s reception, he
was, at the hour of eleven at night, with all the mysteries of silence and
secrecy, let in by Mrs. Cole herself, and introduced into her bedchamber,
where, in an old-fashioned bed of her’s, I lay, fully undressed, and
panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least with those perhaps
greater of a dissembled one which gave me an air of confusion and bashfulness
that maiden-modesty had all the honour of, and was indeed scarce
distinguishable from it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover: so
let me call him, for I ever thought the term “cully” too cruel a
reproach to the men, for their abused weakness for us.
As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these occasions, used to
young women abandoned for the first time to the will of man, had left us alone
in her room, which, by the bye was well lighted up, at his previous desire,
that seemed to bode a stricter examination than he afterwards made, Mr.
Norbert, still dressed, sprung towards the bed, where I got my head under the
clothes, and defended them a good while before he could even get at my lips, to
kiss them: so true it is, that a false virtue, on this occasion, even makes
& greater rout and resistance than a true one. From thence he descended to
my breasts, the feel I disputed tooth and nail with him till tired with my
resistance, and thinking probable to give a better account to me, he hurried
his clothes off in an instant, and came into bed.
Mean while by the glimpse I stole of him, I could easily discover a person far
from promising any such doughty performances as the storming of maidenheads
generally requires, and whose flimsy consumptive texture gave him more the air
of an invalid that was pressed, than of a volunteer, on such hot service.
At scarce thirty he had already reduced his strength of appetite down to a
wretched dependance on forced provocatives, very little seconded by the natural
power of a body jaded, and racked off to the less by constant repeated over
draughts of pleasure, which had done the work of sixty winters on his springs
of live: leaving him at the same time all the fire and head of youth in his
imagination, which served at once to torment and spur him down the precipice.
As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bedclothes, which I suffered him to
force from my hold, and I now lay as exposed as he could wish, not only to his
attacks, but his visitation of the sheets; where in the various agitations of
the body, through my endeavours to defend myself, he could easily assure
himself there was no preparation, though, to do him justice, he seemed a less
strict examinant than I had apprehended from so experienced a practitioner. My
shift then he fairly tore open, finding I made too much use of it to barricade
my breasts, as well as the more important avenue: yet in every thing else he
proceeded with all the marks of tenderness and regard to me, whilst the art of
my play was to shew none for him, I acted them all the niceties, apprehensions,
and terrors, supposable for a girl perfectly innocent to feel, at so great a
novelty as a naked man in bed with her for the first time. He scarce even
obtained a kiss but what he ravished; I put his hand away twenty times from my
breasts, where he had satisfied himself of their hardness and consistence, with
passing for hitherto unhandled goods. But when grown impatient upon the main
point, he now threw himself upon me, and first trying to examine me with his
finger, sought to make himself further way, I complained of his usage bitterly:
“I thought he would not have served a body so… I was ruined… I did
not know what I had done…, I would get up, so I would…;” and at the
same time kept my thighs so fast locked, that it was not for strength like his
to force them open, or do any good. Finding thus my advantages, and that I had
both my own and his motions at command, the deceiving him came so easy, that it
was perfectly playing upon velvet. In the mean time his machine, which was one
of those sizes that slip in and out without being minded, kept pretty stiffly
bearing against that part, which the shutting my thighs barred access to; but
finding, at length he could do no good by mere dint of bodily strength, he
resorted to entreaties and arguments: to which I only answered, with a tone of
shame and timidity, “that I was afraid he would kill me… Lord!…,
would not be served so… I was never so used in all my born days…, I
wondered he was not ashamed of himself, so I did…,” with such silly
infantine moods of repulse and complaint as I judged best adapted to express
the character of innocence, and affright. Pretending, however, to yield at
length to the vehemence of his insistence, in action and words, I sparing
disclosed my thighs, so that he could just touch the cloven inlet with the tip
of his instrument: but as he fatigued and toiled to get in, a twist of my body,
so as to receive it obliquely, not only thwarted his admission, but giving a
scream, as if he had pierced me to the heart, I shook him off me, with such
violence that he could not with all his might to it, keep the saddle: vexed
indeed at this he seemed, but not in the style of displeasure with me for my
skittishness; on the contrary, I dare swear he held me the dearer, and hugged
himself for the difficulties that even hurt his instant pleasure. Fired,
however, now beyond all bearance of delay, he remounts, and begged of me to
have patience, stroking and soothing me to it by all the tenderest endearments
and protestations of what he would moreover do for me; at which, feigning to be
somewhat softened, and abating of the anger that I had shewn at his hurting me
so prodigiously, I suffered him to lay my thighs aside, and make way for a new
trial; but I watched the directions and management of his point so well, that
no sooner was the orifice in the least open to it, but I gave such a timely
jerk as seemed to proceed not from the evasion of his entry, but from the pain
his efforts at it put me to: a circumstance too that I did not fail to
accompany with proper gestures, sighs and cries of complaint, of which,
“that he had hurt me… he killed me… I should die…,” were the
most frequent interjections. But now, after repeated attempts, in which he had
not made the least impression towards gaining his point, at least for that
time, the pleasure rose so fast upon him, that he could not check or delay it,
and in the vigour and fury which the approaches of the height of it inspired
him, he made one fierce-thrust, that had almost put me by my guard, and lodged
it so far that I could feel the warm inspersion just within the exterior
orifice, which I had the cruelty not to let him finish there, but threw him out
again, not without a most piercing loud exclamation, as if the pain had put me
beyond all regard of being overheard. It was then easy to observe that he was
more satisfied, more highly pleased with the supposed motives of his baulk of
consummation, than he would have-been at the full attainment of it. It was on
this foot that I solved to myself all the falsity I employed to procure him
that blissful pleasure in it, which most certainly he would not have tasted in
the truth of things. Eased, however, and relieved by one discharge, he now
applied himself to sooth, encourage, and to put me into humour and patience to
bear his next attempt, which he began to prepare and gather force for, from all
the incentives of the touch and sight which he could think of, by examining
every individual part of my whole body, which he declared his satisfaction
with, in raptures of applause, kisses universally imprinted, and sparing no
part of me, in all the eagerest wantonness of feeling, seeing, and toying. His
vigour, however, did not return so soon, and I felt him more than once pushing
at the door, but so little in a condition to break in, that I question whether
he had the power to enter, had I held it ever so open; but this he then thought
me too little acquainted with the nature of things, to have any regret or
confusion about, and he kept fatiguing himself and me for a long time, before
he was in any state to resume his attacks with any prospect of success and then
I breathed him so warmly, and kept him so at bay, that before he had made any
sensible progress in point of penetration, he was deliciously sweated, and
wearied out indeed: so that it was deep in the morning before he achieved his
second let-go, about half way of entrance, I all the while crying and
complaining of his prodigious vigour, and the immensity of what I appeared to
suffer splitting up with. Tired, however, at length, with such athletic
drudgery, my champion began now to give out, and to gladly embrace the
refreshment of some rest. Kissing me then with much affection, and recommending
me to my repose, he presently fell fast asleep, which, as soon as I had well
satisfied myself of, I with much composure of body, so as not to wake him by
any motion, with much ease and safety too, played of Mrs. Cole’s device
for perfecting the signs of my virginity. In each of the head bed-posts, just
above where the bedsteads are inserted into them, there was a small drawer, so
artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it might have
escaped even the most curious search: which drawers were easily opened or shut
by the touch of a spring, and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler,
full of a prepared fluid blood, in which lay soaked, for ready use, a sponge,
that required no more than gently reaching the hand to it, taking it out and
properly squeezing between the thighs, when it yelded a great deal more of the
red liquid than would save a girl’s honour; after which, replacing it,
and touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of suspicion,
was taken away; and this was not the work of the fourth part of a minute, and
of which ever side one lay, the thing was equally easy and practicable, by the
double care taken to have each bed-post provided alike. True it is, that had he
waked and caught me in the act, it would at least have covered me with shame
and confusion; but them, that he did not, was, with the precautions I took, a
risk of a thousand to one in my favour.
At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or suspicion on his side, I
addressed myself in good earnest to my repose, but could obtain none; and in
about half an hour’s time my gentleman waked again, and turning towards
me, I feigned a sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but girding himself
again to renew the onset, he began to kiss and caress me, when now making as if
I just waked, I complained of the disturbance, and of the cruel pain that this
little rest had stole my senses from. Eager, however, for the pleasure, as well
of consummating an entire triumph over my virginity, he said every thing that
could overcome my resistance, and bribe my patience to the end, which now I was
ready to listen to, from being secure of the bloody proofs I had prepared of
his victorious violence, though I still thought it good policy not to let him
in yet a while. I answered then only to his importunities in sighs and moans,
“that I was so hurt, I could not bear it… I was sure he had done me a
mischief; that he had… he was such a bad man!” At this, turning down
the clothes, and viewing the field of battle by the glimmer of a dying taper,
he saw plainly my thighs, shift, and sheet, all stained with what he readily
took for a virgin effusion, proceeding from his last half penetration:
convinced, and transported at which, nothing could equal his joy and
exultation. The illusion was complete, no other conception entered his head,
but that of his having been at work upon an unopened mine; which idea, upon so
strong an evidence, redoubled at once his tenderness for me, and his ardour for
breaking it wholly up. Kissing me then with the utmost rapture, he comforted
me, and begged my pardon for the pain he had put me to: observing withal, that
it was only a thing in course; but the worst was certainly past, and that with
a little courage and constancy, I should get it once well over, and never after
experience any thing but the greatest pleasure. By little and little I suffered
myself to be prevailed on, and giving, as it were, up to the point of him, I
made my thighs, insensibly spreading them, yield him liberty of access, which
improving, he got a little within me, when by a well managed reception I worked
the female screw so nicely, that I kept him from the easy mid-channel
direction, and by dexterous wreathing and contortions, creating an artificial
difficulty of entrance, made him win it inch by inch, with the most laborious
struggles, I all the while sorely complaining: till at length, with might and
main, winding his way in, he got it completely home, and giving my virginity,
as he thought, the coup le grace, furnished me with the cue of setting up a
terrible outcry, whilst he, triumphant and like a cock clapping his wings over
his down-trod mistress, pursued his pleasure: which presently rose, in virtue
of this idea of a complete victory, to a pitch that made me soon sensible of
his melting period; whilst I now lay acting the deep wounded, breathless,
frightened, undone, no longer maid.
You would ask me, perhaps, whether all this time I enjoyed any perception of
pleasure? I assure you, little or none, till just towards the latter end, a
faintish sense of it came on mechanically, from so long a struggle and frequent
fret in that ever sensible part; but, in the first place, I had no taste for
the person I was suffering the embraces of, on a pure mercenary account; and
then, I was not entirely delighted with myself for the jade’s part I was
playing, whatever excuses I might plead for my being brought into it; but then
this insensibility kept me so much the mistress of my mind and motions, that I
could the better manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole scene of
deception.
Recovered at length to a more shew of life, by his tender condolences, kisses
and embraces, I upbraided him, and reproached him with my ruin, in such natural
terms, as added to his satisfaction with himself, for having accomplished it;
and guessing, by certain observations of mine, that it would be rather
favourable to him, to spare him, when he some time after, feebly enough, came
on again to the assault, I resolutely withstood any further endeavours, on a
pretext that flattered his prowess, of my being so violently hurt and sore,
that I could not possibly endure a fresh trial. He then graciously granted me a
respite, and the next morning soon after advancing, I got rid of further
importunity, till Mrs. Cole, being rung for by him, came in and was made
acquainted, in terms of the utmost joy and rapture, with his triumphant
certainty of my virtue, and the finishing stroke he had given it, in the course
of the night: of which, he added, she would see proof enough in bloody
characters, on the sheets.
You may guess how a woman of her turn of address and experience humoured the
jest, and played him off with mixed exclamations of shame, danger, compassion
for me, and of her being pleased that all was so well over: in which last, I
believe, she was certainly sincere. And now, as the objection which she had
represented as an invincible one, to me lying the first night at his lodgings
(which were studiously calculated for freedom of intrigues), on the account of
my maiden fears and terrors, at the thought of going to a gentleman’s
chambers, and being alone with him in bed, was surmounted, she pretended to
persuade me, in favour to him, that I should go there to him, whenever he
pleased, and still keep up all the necessary appearances of working with her,
that I might not lose, with my character, the prospect of getting a good
husband, and at the same time her house would be kept safer from scandal. All
this seemed so reasonable, so considerate to Mr. Norbert, that he never once
perceived that she did not want him to resort to her house, lest he might in
time discover certain inconsistencies with the character she had set out with
to him: besides that this plan greatly flattered his own ease, and views of
liberty.
Leaving me then to my much wanted rest, he got up, and Mrs. Cole, after
settling with him all points relating to me, got him undiscovered out of the
house. After which, as I was awake, she came in, and gave me due praises for my
success. Behaving too with her usual moderation and disinterestedness, she
refused any share of the sum I had thus earned, and put me into such a secure
and easy way of disposing of my affairs, which now amounted to a kind of little
fortune, that a child of ten years old might have kept the account and property
of them safe in its hands.
I was now restored again to my former state of a kept mistress, and used
punctually to wait on Mr. Norbert at his chambers whenever he sent a messenger
for me, which I constantly took care to be in the way of, and managed with so
much caution, that he never once penetrated the nature of my connections with
Mrs. Cole; but indolently given up to ease and the town dissipations, the
perpetual hurry of them hindered him from looking into his own affairs, much
less to mine.
In the mean time, if I may judge from my own experience, none are better paid,
or better treated, during their reign, than the mistress of those who, enervate
by nature, debaucheries, or age, have the least employment for the sex:
sensible that a woman must be satisfied some way, they ply her with a thousand
little tender attentions, presents, caresses, confidences, and exhaust their
inventions in means and devices to make up for the capital deficiency; and even
towards lessening that, what arts, what modes, what refinements of pleasure
have they not recourse to, to raise their languid powers, and press nature into
the service of their sensuality? But here is their misfortune, that when by a
course of teasing, worrying, handling, wanton postures, lascivious motions,
they have at length accomplished a flashy enervate enjoyment, they at the same
time light up a flame in the object of their passion, that, not having the
means themselves to quench, drives her for relief into the next person’s
arms, who can finish their work; and thus they become bawds to some favourite,
tried and approved of, for a more vigorous and satisfactory execution; for with
women, of our turn especially, however well our hearts may be disposed, there
is a controlling part, or queen-seat in us, that governs itself by its own
maxims of state, amongst which not one is stronger, in practice with it, than,
in the matter of is dues, never to accept the will for the deed.
Mr. Norbert, who was much in this ungracious case, though he professed to like
me extremely, could but seldom consummate the main-joy itself with me, without
such a length and variety of preparations, as were at once wearisome and
inflammatory.
Sometimes he would strip me stark naked on a carpet, by a good fire, when he
would contemplate me almost by the hour, disposing me in all the figures and
attitudes of body that it was susceptible of being viewed in; kissing me in
every part, the most secret and critical one so far from excepted that it
received most of that branch of homage. Then his touches were so exquisitely
wanton, so luxuriously diffused and penetrative at times, that he had made me
perfectly rage with titillating fires, when, after all, and much ado, he had
gained a short-lived erection, he would perhaps melt it away in a washy sweat,
or a premature abortive effusion, that provokingly mocked my eager desires: or,
if carried home, how faultered and unnervous the execution! how insufficient
the sprinkle of a few heat-drops to extinguish all the flames he had kindled!
One evening, I cannot help remembering, that returning home from him, with a
spirit he had raised in a circle his wand had proved too weak to lay, as I
turned the corner of a street, I was overtaken by a young sailor, I was then in
that spruce, neat, plain dress, which I ever affected and perhaps might have,
in my trip, a certain air of restlessness unknown to the composure of cooler
thoughts. However, he seized me as a prize, and without farther ceremony threw
his arms round my neck, and kissed me boisterously and sweetly. I looked at him
with a beginning of anger and indignation at his rudeness, that softened away
into other sentiments as I viewed him: for he was tall, manly carriaged,
handsome of body and face, so that I ended my stare, with asking him, in a tone
turned to tenderness, what he meant; at which, with the same frankness and
vivacity as he had begun with me, he proposed treating me with a glass of wine.
Now, certain it is, that had I been in a calmer state of blood than I was, had
I not been under the dominion of unappeased irritation; but I do not know how
it was, my pressing calls, his figure, the occasion, and if you will, the
powerful combination of all these, with a start of curiosity to see the end of
an adventure, so novel too as being treated like a common street-plyer, made me
give a silent consent; in short, it was not my head that I now obeyed, I
suffered myself to be towed along as it were by this man-of-war, who took me
under his arm as familialry as if he had known me all his lifetime, and led me
into the next convenient tavern, where we were shown into a little room on one
side of the passage. Here, scarce allowing himself patient till the drawer
brought in the wine called for, he fell directly on board me: when, untucking
my handkerchief, and giving me a snatching buss, he laid my breasts bare at
once, which he handled with that keenness of gust that abridges a ceremonial
evermore tiresome than pleasing on such pressing occasions; and now, hurrying
towards the main point, we found no conveniency to our purpose, two or three
disabled chairs, and a rickety table, composing the whole furniture of the
room. Without more ado, he plans me with my back standing against the wall, and
my petticoats up; and coming out with a splitter indeed, made it shine, as he
brandished it, in my eyes; and going to work with an impetuosity and eagerness,
bred very likely by a long fast at seat, went to give me a taste of it. I
straddled, I humoured my posture, and did my best in short to buckle to it; I
took part of it in, but still things did not go to his thorough liking;
changing them in a trice his system of battery, he leads me to the table and
with a master-hand lays my head down on the edge of it, and, with the other
canting up my petticoats and shift, bares my naked posteriors to his blind and
furious guide; it forces its way between them, and I feeling pretty sensibly
that it was not going by the right door, and knocking desperately at the wrong
one, I told him of it:—“Pooh!” says he, “my dear, any
port in a storm.” Altering, however, directly his course, and lowering
his point, he fixed it right, and driving it up with a delicious stiffness,
made all foam again, and gave me the tout with such fire and spirit, that in
the fine disposition I was in when I submitted to him and stirred up so
fiercely as I was, I got the start of him, and went away into the melting
swoon, and squeezing him, whilst in the convulsive grasp of it, drew from him
such a plenteous bedewal, as pointed to my own effusion, perfectly floated
those parts, and drowned in a deluge all my raging conflagration of desire.
When this was over, how to make my retreat was my concern; for, though I had
been so extremely pleased with the difficult between this warm broadside,
poured so briskly into me, and the tiresome pawing and toying to which I had
owed the unappeased flames that had driven me into this step, now I was cooler,
I began to apprehend the danger of contracting an acquaintance with this,
however agreeable stranger; who, on his side, spoke of passing the evening with
me and continuing our intimacy, with an air of determination that made me
afraid of its being not so easy to get away from him as I could wish. In the
mean time I carefully concealed my uneasiness, and readily pretended to consent
to stay with him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave a
necessary direction, and then instantly return. This he very glibly swallowed,
on the notion of my being one of those unhappy street-errants, who devote
themselves to the pleasure of the first ruffian that will stoop to pick them
up, and of course, that I would scarce bilk myself of the hire, by not
returning make the most of the job. Thus he parted with me, not before,
however, he had ordered in my hearing a supper, which I had the barbarity to
disappoint him of my company too.
But when I got home, and told Mrs. Cole my adventure, she represented so
strongly to me the nature and dangerous consequences of my folly, particularly
the risks to my health, in being so openlegged and free, that I not only took
resolutions never to venture so rashly again, which I inviolably preserved, but
passed a good many days in continual uneasiness, lest I should have met with
other reasons, besides the pleasure of that rencounter, to remember it; but
these fears wronged my pretty sailor, for which I gladly make him this
reparation.
I had now lived with Mr. Norbert near a quarter of a year, in which space I
circulated my time very pleasantly, between my amusements at Mrs. Cole’s,
and a proper attendance on that gentleman, who paid me profusely for the
unlimited complaisance with which I passively humoured every caprice of
pleasure, and which had won upon him so greatly, that finding, as he said, all
that variety in me alone, which he had sought for in a number of women, I had
made him lose his taste for inconstancy, and new faces. But what was yet at
least agreeable, as well as more flattering, the love I had inspired him with,
bred a deference to me, that was of great service to his health: for having by
degrees, and with much pathetic representations brought him to some husbandry
of it, and to insure the duration of his pleasures by moderating their use, and
correcting those excesses in them he was so addicted to, and which had
shattered his constitution and destroyed his powers of life in the very point
for which he seemed desirous to live, he was grown more delicate, more
temperate, and in course more healthy; his gratitude for which was taking a
turn very favourable for my fortune, when once more the caprice of it dashed
the cup from my lips.
His sister, lady L…, for whom he had a great affection, desiring him to
accompany her down to Bath for her health, he could not refuse her such a
favour; and accordingly, though he counted on staying away from me no more than
a week at farthest, he took his leave of me with an ominous heaviness of heart,
and left me a sum far above the state of his fortune, and very inconsistent
with the intended shortness of his journey; but it ended in the longest that
can be, and is never but once taken: for, arrived at Bath, he was not there two
days before he fell into a debauch of drinking with some gentlemen, that threw
him into a high fever, and carried him off in four days’ time, never once
out of a delirium. Had he been in his senses to make a will, perhaps he might
have made favourable mention of me in it. Thus, however, I lost him; and as no
condition of life is more subject to revolutions than that of a woman of
pleasure, I soon recovered my cheerfulness, and now beheld myself once more
struck off the list of kept mistresses, and returned into the bosom of the
community, from which I had been in some manner taken.
Mrs. Cole still continued her friendship, and offered me her assistance and
advice towards another choice; but I was now in ease and affluence enough to
look about me at leisure; and as to any constitutional calls of pleasure, their
pressure, or sensibility, was greatly lessened by a consciousness of the ease
with which they were to be satisfied at Mrs. Cole’s house, where Louisa
and Emily still continued in the old way; and my great favourite Harriet used
often to come and see me, and entertain me, with her head and heart full of the
happiness she enjoyed with her dear baronet, whom she loved with a tenderness
and constancy, even though he was her keeper, and what is yet more, had made
her independent, by a handsome provision for her and hers. I was then in this
vacancy from any regular employ of my person in my way of business, when one
day, Mrs. Cole, in the course of the constant confidence we lived in,
acquainted me that there was one Mr. Barville, who used her house, just come to
town, whom she was not a little perplexed about providing a suitable companion
for; which was indeed a point of difficulty, as he was under the tyranny of a
cruel taste: that of an ardent desire, not only of being unmercifully whipped
himself, but of whipping others, in such sort, that though he paid
extravagantly those who had the courage and complaisance to submit to his
humour, there were few, delicate as he was in the choice of his subjects, who
would exchange turns with him so terribly at the expense of their skin. But,
what yet increased the oddity of this strange fancy was the gentleman being
young; whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as are, through age,
obliged to have recourse to this experiment, for quickening the circulation of
their sluggish juices, and determining a conflux of the spirits of pleasure
towards those flagging shrivelly parts, that rise to life only by virtue of
those titillating ardours created by the discipline of their opposites, with
which they have so surprising a consent.
This Mrs. Cole could not well acquaint me with, in any expectation of my
offering for service: for, sufficiently easy as I was in my circumstances, it
must have been the temptation of an immense interest indeed, that could have
induced me to embrace such a job, neither had I ever expressed, nor indeed,
felt the least impulse or curiosity to know more of a taste, that promised so
much more pain than pleasure to those that stood in no need of such violent
goads: what then should move me to subscribe myself voluntarily to a party of
pain, foreknowing it such? Why, to tell the plain truth, it was a sudden
caprice, a gust of fancy for trying a new experiment, mixed with the vanity of
approving my personal courage to Mrs. Cole, that determined me, at all risks,
to propose myself to her and relieve her from any further look-out.
Accordingly, I at once pleased and surprised her, with a frank and unreserved
tender of my person to her and her friend’s absolute disposal on this
occasion.
My good temporal mother was, however, so kind as to use all the arguments she
could imagine to dissuade me: but, as I found they only turned on a motive of
tenderness to me, I persisted in my resolution, and thereby acquitted my offer
of any suspicion of its not having been sincerely made, or out of compliment
only. Acquiescing then thankfully in it, Mrs. Cole assured me “that
bating the pain I should be put to, she had no scruple to engage me to this
party, which she assured me I should be liberally paid for, and which, the
secrecy of the transaction preserved safe from the ridicule that otherwise
vulgarly attended it; that for her part, she considered pleasure, of one sort
or other, as the universal port of destination, and every wind that blew
thither a good one, provided it blew nobody any harm; that she rather
compassionated, than blamed those unhappy persons, who are under a subjection
they cannot shake off, to those arbitrary tastes that rule their appetites of
pleasures with an unaccountable control: tastes too, as infinitely diversified,
as superior to, and independent of all reasoning as the different relishes or
palates of mankind in their viands, some delicate stomach nauseating plain
meats, and finding no savour but in highseasoned, luxurious dishes, whilst
others again pique themselves upon detesting them.”
I stood now in no need of this preamble of encouragement, or justification: my
word was given, and I was determined to fulfill my engagements. Accordingly the
night was set, and I had all the necessary previous instructions how to act and
conduct myself. The dining room was duly prepared and lighted up, and the
young gentleman posted there in waiting, for my introduction to him.
I was then, by Mrs. Cole, brought in, and presented to him, in a loose
dishabille fitted, by her direction, to the exercise I was to go through, all
in the finest linen and a thorough white uniform: gown, petticoat, stocking,
and satin slippers, like a victim led to sacrifice; whilst my dark auburn hair,
falling in drop-curls over my neck, created a pleasing distinction of colour
from the rest of my dress.
As soon as Mr. Barville saw me, he got up, with a visible air of pleasure and
surprise, and saluting me, asked Mrs. Cole, if so fine and delicate a creature
would voluntarily submit to such sufferings and rigours, as were the subject of
his assignation. She answered him properly, and now, reading in his eyes that
she could not too soon leave us together, she went out, after recommending to
him to use moderation with so tender a novice.
But whilst she was employing his attention, mine had been taken up with
examining the figure and person of this unhappy young gentleman, who was thus
unaccountably condemned to have his pleasure lashed into him, as boys have
their learning.
He was exceedingly fair, and, smooth complexioned, and appeared to me no more
than twenty at most, though he was three years older than what my conjectures
gave him; but then he owed this favourable mistake to a habit of fatness, which
spread through a short, squab stature; and a round, plump, fresh coloured face
gave him greatly the look of a Bacchus, had not an air of austerity, not to say
sternness, very unsuitable even to his shape of face, dashed that character of
joy, necessary to complete the resemblance. His dress was extremely neat, but
plain, and far inferior to the ample fortune he was in full possession of; this
too was a taste in him, and not avarice.
As soon as Mrs. Cole was gone, he seated me near him, when now his face changed
upon me, into an expression of the most pleasing sweetness and good humour, the
most remarkable for its sudden shift from the other extreme, which I found
afterwards, when I knew more of his character, was owing to a habitual state of
conflict with, and dislike of himself, for being enslaved to so peculiar a
lust, by the fatality of a constitutional ascendant, that rendered him
incapable of receiving any pleasure, till he submitted to these extraordinary
means of procuring it at the hands of pain, whilst the constancy of this
repining consciousness stamped at length that cast of sourness and severity on
his features: which was, in fact, very foreign to the natural sweetness of his
temper.
After a competent preparation by apologies, and encouragement to go through my
part with spirit and constancy, he stood up near the fire, whilst I went to
fetch the instruments of discipline out of a closet hard by: these were several
rods, made each of two or three strong twigs of birch tied together, which he
took, handled, and viewed with as much pleasure, as I did with a kind of
shuddering presage.
Next we took from the side of the room a long broad bench, made easy to lie at
length on by a soft cushion in a callico-cover; and everything being now ready,
he took his coat and waistcoat off; and at his motion and desire, I unbuttoned
his breeches, and rolling up his shirt rather above his waist, tucked it on
securely there; when directing naturally my eyes to that humoursone
master-movement, in whose favour all these dispositions were making, it seemed
almost shrunk into his body, scarce showing its tip above the sprout of hairy
curls that clothed those parts, as you may have-seen a wren peeping its head
out of the grass.
Stooping them to untie his garters, he gave them to me for the use of tying him
down to the legs of the bench: a circumstance no farther necessary than, as I
suppose, it made part of the humour of the thing, since he prescribed it to
himself, amongst the rest of the ceremonial.
I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, played at forcing him to
lie down: which, after-some little show of reluctance, for form-sake, he
submitted to; he was straightway extended flat upon his: belly, on the bench,
with a pillow under his face; and as he thus tamely lay, I tied him slightly
hand and feet, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining trussed up
over the small of his back, I drew his breeches quite down to his knees; and
now he lay, in all the fairest, broadest display of that part of the back-view;
in which a pair of chubby, smooth-cheeked and passing white posteriors rose
cushioning upwards from two stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or
separation by an union at the small of the back, presented a bold mark, that
swelled, as it were, to meet the scourge.
Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, and according to his direction,
gave him in one breath, ten lashes with much good-will, and the utmost nerve
and vigour of arm that I could put to them, so as to make those fleshy orbs
quiver again under them; whilst he himself seemed no more concerned, or to mind
them, than a lobster would a flea-bite. In the mean time, I view intently the
effect of them, which to me at last appeared surprisingly cruel: every lash had
skimmed the surface of those white cliffs, which they deeply reddened, and
lapping round the side of the furthermost from me, cut specially, into the
dimple of it, such livid weals, as the blood either spun out from, or stood in
large drops on; and, from some of the cuts, I picked out even the splinters of
the rod that had stuck in the skin. Nor was this raw work to be wondered at,
considering the greenness of the twigs and the severity of the infliction,
whilst the whole surface of the skin was so smooth-stretched over the hard and
firm pulp of flesh that filled it, as to yield no play, or elusive swagging
under the stroke: which thereby took place the more plump, and cut into the
quick.
I was however already so moved at the piteous sight, that I from my heart
repented the undertaking, and would willing had given over, thinking he had
full enough; but, he encouraging and beseeching me earnestly to proceed, I gave
him ten more lashes; and then resting, surveyed the increase of bloody
appearances. And at length, steeled to the height, by his stoutness in
suffering, I continued the discipline, by intervals, till I observed him
wreathing and twisting his body, in a way that I could plainly perceive was not
the effect of pain, but of some new and powerful sensation: curious to dive
into the meaning of which, in one of my pauses of intermission, I approached,
as he still kept working, and grinding his belly against the cushion under him:
and first stroking the untouched and unhurt side of the flesh-mount next me,
then softly insinuating my hand under his thigh, felt the posture things were
in forwards, which was indeed surprising: for that machine of him, which I had,
by its appearance, taken for an impalpable, or at least a very diminutive
subject, was now, in virtue of all that smart and havoc of his skin behind,
grown not only to a prodigious stiffness of erection, but to a size that
frighted even me: a non-pareil thickness indeed! the head of it alone filled
the utmost capacity of my grasp. And when, as he heaved and wriggled to and
fro, in the agitation of his strange pleasure, it came into view, it had
something of the air of a round fillet of veal, and like its owner, squab, and
short in proportion to its breadth; but when he felt my hand there, he begged I
would go on briskly with my jerking, or he should never arrive at the last
stage of pleasure.
Resuming then the rode and the exercise of it, I had fairly worn out three
bundles, when, after an increase of struggles and motion, and a deep sigh or
two, I saw him lie still and motionless; and now he desired me to desist, which
I instantly did; and proceeding to untie him, I could not but be amazed at his
passive fortitude, on viewing the skin of his butchered, mangled posteriors,
late so white, smooth and polished, now all one side of them a confused
cut-work of weals, livid flesh, gashes and gore, insomuch that when he stood
up, he could scarce walk; in short, he was in sweet-briars.
Then I plainly perceived, on the cushion, the marks of a plenteous effusion,
and already had his sluggard member run up to its old nestling-place, and
enforced itself again, as if ashamed to shew its head; which nothing, it seems,
could raise but stripes inflicted on its opposite neighbours, who were thus
constantly obliged to suffer for his caprice.
My gentleman had now put on his clothes and recomposed himself, when giving me
a kiss, and placing me by him, he sat himself down as gingerly as possible,
with one side off the cushion, which was too sore for him to bear resting any
part of his weight on.
Here he thanked me for the extreme pleasure I had procured him, and seeing,
perhaps, some marks in my countenance of terror and apprehension of retaliation
on my own skin, for what I had been the instrument of his suffering in his, he
assured me, “he was ready to give up to me any engagement I might deem
myself under to stand him, as he had done me, but that if I proceeding in my
consent to it, he would consider the difference of my sex, its greater delicacy
and incapacity to undergo pain.” Reheartened at which, and piqued in
honour, as I thought, not to flinch so near the trial, especially as I well
knew Mrs. Cole was an eye-witness, from her stand of espial, to the whole of
our transaction, I was now less afraid of my skin, than of his not furnishing
me with an opportunity of signalizing my resolution.
Consonant to this disposition was my answer, but my courage was still more in
my head, than in my heart; and as cowards rush into danger they fear, in order
to be the sooner rid of the pain of that sensation, I was entirely pleased with
his hastening matters into execution.
He had then little to do, but to unloose the strings of my petticoats, and lift
them, together with my shift, navel-high, where he just tucked them up loosely,
and might be slipt up higher at pleasure. Then viewing me round with great
seeming delight, he laid me at length on my face upon the bench, and when I
expected he would tie me, as I had done him, and held out my hands, not without
fear and a little trembling, he told me, “he would by no means terrify me
unnecessarily with such a confinement; for that though he meant to put my
constancy to a trial, the standing it was to be completely voluntary on my
side, and therefore I might be at full liberty to get up whenever I found the
pain too much for me.” You cannot imagine how much I thought myself
bound, by being thus allowed to remain loose, and how much spirit this
confidence in me gave me, so that I was even from my heart careless how much my
flesh might suffer in honour of it.
All my back parts, naked half way up, were now fully at his mercy: and first,
he stood at a convenient distance, delighting himself with a gloating survey of
the attitude I lay in, and of all the secret stores I thus exposed to him in
fair display. Then, springing eagerly towards me, he covered all those naked
parts with a fond profusion of kisses; and now, taking hold of the rod, rather
wantoned with me, in gentle inflictions on those tender trembling masses of my
flesh behind, than in any way hurt them, till by degrees, he began to tingle
them with smarter lashes, so as to provoke a red colour into them, which I
knew, as well by the flagrant glow I felt there, as by his telling me, they now
emulated the native roses of my other cheeks. When he had thus amused himself
with admiring, and toying with them, he went on to strike harder, and more
hard, so that I needed all my patience not to cry out, or complain at least. At
last, he twigged me so smartly as to fetch blood in more than one lash: at
sight of which he flung down the rod, flew to me, kissed away the starting
drops, and sucking the wounds eased a good deal of my pain. But now raising me
on my knees, and making me kneel with them straddling wide, that tender part of
me, naturally the province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share of
suffering: for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the rod so that the sharp
ends of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I could not help wincing,
and writhing my limbs with smart; so that my contortions of body must
necessarily throw it into infinite variety of postures and points of view, fit
to feast the luxury of the eye. But still I bore every thing without crying
out: when presently giving me another pause, he rushed, as it were, on that
part whose lips, and round about, had felt this cruelty, and by way of
reparation, glued his own to them; then he opened, shut, squeezed them, plucked
softly the overgrowing moss, and all this in a style of wild passionate rapture
and enthusiasm, that expressed excess of pleasure; till betaking himself to the
rod again, encouraged by my passiveness, and infuriated with this strange taste
of delight, he made my poor posteriors pay for the ungovernableness of it; for
now showing them no quarter, the traitor cut me so, that I wanted but little of
fainting away, when he gave over. And yet I did not utter one groan, or angry
expostulation; but in my heart I resolved nothing so seriously, as never to
expose myself again to the like severities.
You may guess then in what a curious pickle those soft flesh-cushions of mine
were, all so red, raw, and in fine, terribly clawed off; but so far from
feeling any pleasure in it, that the recent smart made me pout a little, and
not with the greatest air of satisfaction receive the compliments, and
after-caresses of the author of my pain.
As soon as my clothes were huddled on in a little decency, a supper was brought
in by the discreet Mrs. Cole herself, which might have piqued the sensuality of
a cardinal, accompanied with a choice of the richest wines: all which she set
before us, and went out again, without having, by a word or even by a smile,
given us the least interruption or confusion, in those moments of secrecy, that
we were not yet ripe to the admission of a third too.
I sat down then, still scarce in charity with my butcher, for such I could not
help considering him, and was moreover not a little piqued at the gay,
satisfied air of his countenance, which I thought myself insulted by. But when
the now necessary refreshment to me of a glass of wine, and a little eating
(all the time observing a profound silence) had somewhat cheered and restored
me to spirits, and as the smart began to go off, my good humour returned
accordingly: which alteration not escaping him, he said and did every thing
that could confirm me in, and indeed exalt it.
But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible was wrought in
me, such violent, yet pleasingly irksome sensations took possession of me that
I scarce knew how to contain myself; the smart of the lashes was now converted
into such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me sigh, squeeze my
thighs together, shift and wriggle about my seat, with a furious restlessness;
whilst these itching ardours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of
discipline had principally fallen, detached legions of burning, subtile,
stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of assemblage, where
their titillation raged so furiously, that I was even stinging made with them.
No wonder then that in such a taking, and devoured by flames that licked up all
modesty and reserve, my eyes, now charged brimful of the most intense desire,
fired on my companion very intelligible signal of distress: my companion, I
say, who grew in them every instant more amiable, and more necessary to my
urgent wishes and hopes of immediate ease.
Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations, soon knew the
pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme disorder; in favour of which,
removing the table out of the way, he began a prelude that flattered me with
instant relief, to which I was not, however, so near as I imagined: for as he
was unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and rouse to action his unactive
torpid machine, he blushingly owned that no good was to be expected from it,
unless I took it in hand to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just
refreshing the smart of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more
than a boy’s top, keep up without lashing. Sensible then that I should
work as much for my own profit as his, I hurried my compliance with his desire,
and abridging the ceremonial, whilst he leaned his head against the back of a
chair, I had scarce gently made him feel the lash, before I saw the object of
my wishes give signs of life, and presently, as it were with a magic touch, is
started up into a noble size and distinction indeed. Hastening then to give me
the benefit of it, he threw me down on the bench; but such was the refreshed
soreness of those parts behind, on my leaning so hard on them, as became me to
compass the admission of that stupendous head of his machine, that I could not
possibly bear it. I got up then, and tried, by leaning forwards, and turning
the crupper on my assailant, to let him at the back avenue: but here it was
likewise impossible to stand his bearing so fiercely against me, in his
agitations and endeavours to enter that way, whilst his belly battered directly
against the recent sore. What should we do now? both intolerably heated: both
in a fury; but pleasure is ever inventive for its own ends: he strips me in a
trice stark naked, and placing a broad settee-cushion on the carpet before the
fire, oversets me gently, topsy turvy, on it; and handling me only at the
waist, whilst you may be sure I favoured all my dispositions, brought my legs
round his neck; so that my head was kept from the floor only by my hands and
the velvet cushion, which was now bespread with my flowing hair: thus I stood
on my head and hands, supported by him in such manner, that whilst my thighs
clung round him, so as to expose to his sight all my back figure, including the
theatre of his bloody pleasure, the centre of my fore pair fairly bearded the
object of its rage, that now stood in fine condition to give me satisfaction
for the injuries of its neighbours. But as this posture was certainly not the
easiest, and our imaginations, wound up to the height, could suffer no delay,
he first, with the utmost eagerness and effort, just lip-lodged that broad
acorn-fashioned head of his instrument; and still befriended by the fury with
which he had made that impression, he soon stuffed in the rest; when now, with
a pursuit of thrusts, fiercely urged, he absolutely overpowered and absorbed
all sense of pain and uneasiness, whether from my wounds behind, my most
untoward posture, or the oversize of his stretcher, in an infinitely
predominant delight; when now all my whole spirits of life and sensation
rushing, impetuously to the cock-pit, where the prize of pleasure was hotly in
dispute and clustering to a point there, I soon received the dear relief of
nature from these over-violent strains and provocations of it; harmonizing with
which, my gallant spouted into me such a potent overflow of the balsamic
injection, as softened and unedged all those irritating stings of a new species
of titillation, which I had been so intolerably maddened with, and restored the
ferment of my senses to some degree of composure.
I had now achieved this rare adventure ultimately much more to my satisfaction
than I had bespoken the nature of it to turn out; nor was it much lessened, you
may think, by spark’s lavish praises of my constancy and complaisance,
which he gave weight to by a present that greatly surpassed my utmost
expectation, besides his gratification to Mrs. Cole.
I was not, however, at any time re-enticed to renew with him, or resort again
to the violent expedient of lashing nature into more haste than good speed:
which, by the way, I conceive acts somewhat in the manner of a dose of Spanish
flies; with more pain perhaps, but less danger; and might be necessary to him,
but was nothing less so than to me, whose appetite wanted the bridle more than
the spur.
Mrs. Cole, to whom this adventurous exploit had more and more endeared me,
looked on me now as a girl after her own heart, afraid of nothing, and, on a
good account, hardly enough to fight all the weapons of pleasure through.
Attentive then, in consequence of these favourable conceptions, to promote
either my profit or pleasure, she had special regard for the first, in a new
gallant of a very singular turn, that she procured for and introduced to me.
This was a grave staid, solemn, elderly gentleman, whose peculiar humour was a
delight in combing fine tresses of hair; and as I was perfectly headed to his
taste, he used to come constantly at my toilet hours, when I let down my hair
as loose as nature, and abandoned it to him to do what he pleased with it; and
accordingly he would keep me an hour or more in play with it, drawing the comb
through it, winding the curls round his fingers, even kissing it as he smoothed
it; and all this led to no other use of my person, or any other liberties
whatever, any more than if a distinction of sexes had not existed.
Another peculiarity of taste he had, which was to present me with a dozen pairs
of the whitest kid gloves at a time: these he would divert himself with drawing
on me, and then biting off their finger ends; all which fooleries of a silly
appetite, the old gentleman paid more liberally for, than most others did for
more essential favours. This lasted till a violent cough, seizing and laying
him up, delivered me from this most innocent and insipid trifler, for I never
heard more of him after his first retreat.
You may be sure a by-job of this sort interfered with no other pursuit, or plan
of life; which I led, in truth, with a modesty and reserve that was less the
work of virtue than of exhausted novelty, a glut of pleasure, and easy
circumstances, that made me indifferent to any engagements in which pleasure
and profit were not eminently united; and such I could, with the less
impatience, wait for at the hands of time and fortune, as I was satisfied I
could never mend my pennyworths, having evidently been served at the top of the
market, and even been pampered with dainties: besides that, in the sacrifice of
a few momentary impulses, I found a secret satisfaction in respecting myself,
as well as preserving the life and freshness of my complexion. Louisa and Emily
did not carry indeed their reserve so high as I did; but still they were far
from cheap or abandoned, though two of their adventures seemed to contradict
this general character, which, for their singularity, I shall give you in
course, beginning first with Emily’s:
Louisa and she went one night to a ball, the first in the habit of a
shepherdess, Emily in that of a shepherd: I saw them in their dresses before
they went, and nothing in nature could represent a prettier boy than this last
did, being so fair and well limbed. They had kept together for some time, when
Louisa, meeting an old acquaintance of hers, very cordially gives her companion
the slip, and leaves her under the protection of her boy’s habit, which
was not much, and of her discretion, which was, it seems, still less. Emily,
finding herself deserted, sauntered thoughtless about a while, and, as much for
coolness and air as any thing else, at length pulled off her mask and went to
the sideboard; where, eyed and marked out by a gentleman in a very handsome
domino, she was accosted by, and fell into chat with him. The domino, after a
little discourse, in which Emily doubtless distinguished her good nature and
easiness more than her wit, began to make violent love to her, and drawing her
insensibly to some benches at the lower end of the masquerade room, got her to
sit by him, where he squeezed her hands, pinched her cheeks, praised and played
with her fine hair, admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship
dashed with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of, poor Emily
attributed to his falling in with the humour of her disguise; and being
naturally not the cruellest of her profession, began to incline to a parley on
those essentials. But here was the stress of the joke: he took her really for
what she appeared to be, a smock-faced boy; and she, forgetting her dress, and
of course ranging quite wide of his ideas, took all those address to be paid to
herself as a woman, which she precisely owed to his not thinking her one.
However, this double error was pushed to such a height on both sides, that
Emily, who saw nothing in him but a gentleman of distinction by those points of
dress to which his disguise did not extend, warmed too by the wine he had plyed
her with, and the caresses he had lavished upon her, suffered herself to be
persuaded to go to a bagnio with him; and thus, losing sight of Mrs.
Cole’s cautions, with a blind confidence, put herself into his hands, to
be carried wherever he pleased. For his part, equally blinded by his wishes,
whilst here gregious simplicity favoured his deception more than the most
exquisite art could have done, he supposed, no doubt, that he had lighted on
some soft simpleton, fit for his; purpose, or some kept minion broken to his
hand, who understood him perfectly well, and entered into his designs. But, be
that as it would, he led her to a coach, went into it with her, and brought her
to a very handsome apartment, with a bed in it; but whether it was a bagnio or
not, she could not tell, having spoken to nobody but himself. But when they
were alone together, and her inamorato began to proceed to those extremities
which instantly discover the sex, she remarked, that no description could paint
up to the life, the mixture of pique, confusion and disappointment, that
appeared in his countenance, joined to the mournful exclamation: “By
heavens, a woman!” This at once opened her eyes, which had been shut in
downright stupidity. However, as if he had meant to retrieve that escape, he
still continued to toy with and fondle her, but with so staring an alteration
from extreme warmth into a chill and forced civility, that even Emily herself
could not but take notice of it, and now began to wish she had paid more regard
to Mrs. Cole’s premonitions against ever engaging with a stranger. And
now an excess of timidity succeeded to an excess of confidence, and she thought
herself so much at his mercy and discretion, that she stood passive throughout
the whole progress of his prelude: for now, whether the impressions of so great
a beauty had even made him forgive her sex, or whether her appearance or figure
in that dress still humoured his first illusion, he recovered by degrees a good
part of his first warmth, and keeping Emily with her breeches still unbuttoned,
stript them down to her knees, and gently impelling her to lean down, with her
face against the bed-side, placed her so, that the double way, between the
double rising behind, presented the choice fair to him, and he was so fairly
set on a mis-direction, as to give the girl no small alarms for fear of losing
a maidenhead she had not dreamt of. However, her complaints, and a resistance,
gentle, but firm, checked and brought him to himself again; so that turning his
steed’s head, he drove him at length in the right road, in which his
imagination having probably made the most of those resemblances that flattered
his taste, he got, with much ado, to his journey’s end: after which, he
led her out himself, and walking with her two or three streets length, got her
a chair, when making her a present not any thing inferior to what she could
have expected, he left her, well recommended to the chairmen, who, on her
directions, brought her home.
This she related to Mrs. Cole and me the same morning, not without the visible
remains of the fear and confusion she had been in, still stamped on her
countenance. Mrs. Cole’s remark was, that her indiscretion proceeding
from a constitutional facility, there were little hopes of any thing curing her
of it, but repeated severe experience. Mine was, that I could not conceive how
it was possible for mankind to run into a taste, not only universally odious,
but absurd, and impossible to gratify; since, according to the notions and
experience I had of things, it was not in nature to force such immense
disproportions. Mrs. Cole only smiled at my ignorance, and said nothing towards
my undeception, which was not affected but by ocular demonstration, some months
after, which a most singular accident furnished me, and which I will here set
down, that I may not return again to so disagreeable a subject.
I had, on a visit intended to Harriet, who had taken lodgings at Hampton-court,
hired a chariot to go out thither, Mrs. Cole having, promised to accompany me;
but some indispensable business intervening, to detain her, I was obliged to
set out alone; and scarce had I got a third of my way, before the axle-tree
broke down, and I was well off to get out, safe and unhurt, into a
public-house, of a tolerable handsome appearance, on the road. Here the people
told me that the stage would come by in a couple of hours at farthest, upon;
which, determining to wait for it, sooner than lose the jaunt I had got so far
forward on, I was carried into a very clean decent room, up one pair of stairs,
which I took possession of for the time I had to stay, in right of calling for
sufficient to do the house justice.
Here, whilst I was amusing myself with looking out of the window, a single
horse-chaise stopt at the door, out of which lightly leaped two young’
gentlemen, for so they seemed, who came in only as it were to bait and refresh
a little, for they gave their horse to be held in readiness against they came
out. And presently I heard the door of the next room, where they were let in,
and called about them briskly; and as soon as they were served, I could just
hear that they shut and fastened the door on the inside.
A spirit of curiosity, far from sudden, since I do not know when I was without
it, prompted me, without any particular suspicion, or other drift or view, to
see what they were, and examine their persons and behaviour. The partition of
our rooms was one of those moveable ones that, when taken down, served
occasionally to lay them into one, for the conveniency of as larger company;
and now, my nicest search could not shew me the shadow of a peep-hole, a
circumstance which probably had not escaped the review of the parties on the
other side, whom much it stood upon not to be deceived in it; but at length I
observed a paper patch of the same colour as the wainscot, which I took to
conceal some flaw; but then it was so high, that I was obliged to stand upon a
chair to reach it, which I did as soft as possible, and, with a point of a
bodkin, soon pierced it, and opened myself espial room sufficient. And now,
applying my eye close, I commanded the room perfectly, and could see my two
young sparks romping and pulling one another about, entirely, to my
imagination, in frolic and innocent play.
The eldest might be, on my nearest guess, towards nineteen, a tall comely young
man, in a white fustian frock, with a green velvet cape, and cut bob-wig.
The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy, completely well made,
and to say the truth, a sweet pretty stripling: he was too, I fancy, a country
lad, by his dress, which was a green plush frock, and breeches of the same,
white waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with his yellowish hair, long and
loose, in natural curls.
But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the eldest cast every way round
the room, probably in too much hurry and heat not to overlook the very small
opening I was posted at, especially at the height it was, whilst my eye close
to it kept the light from shining through and betraying it, he said something
to his companion that presently changed the face of things.
For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the younger, to put his
hands into his bosom, and give him such manifest signs of an amorous intention,
as made me conclude the other to be a girl in disguise: a mistake that nature
kept me in countenance for, for she had certainly made one, when she gave him
the male stamp.
In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to accomplish their
project of preposterous pleasure, at the risk of the very worst of
consequences, where a discovery was nothing less than improbable, they now
proceeded to such lengths as soon satisfied me what they were.
For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other’s breeches, and removing
the linen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft, middle sized, and scarce
fledged, when after handling and playing with it a little, with other
dalliance, all received by the boy without other opposition than certain
wayward coyness, ten times-more alluring than repulsive, he got him so turned
round, with his face from him, to a chair that stood hard by; when knowing, I
suppose, his office, the Ganymede now obsequiously leaned his head against the
back of it, and projecting his body, made a fair mark, still covered with his
shirt. As he thus stood in a side view to me, but fronting his companion, who,
presently unmasking his battery, produced an engine that certainly deserved to
be put to a better use, and very fit to confirm me in my disbelief of the
possibility of things; being pushed to odious extremities, which I had built on
the disproportion of parts; but this disbelief I was now cured of, as by my
consent all young men should likewise be, that their innocence may not be
betrayed into such snares, for want of knowing the extent of their danger: for
nothing is more certain than that ignorance of advice is by no means a guard
against it.
Slipping, then, aside the young lad’s shirt, and tucking it up under his
clothes behind, he shewed to the open air those globular fleshy eminences that
compose the Mount Peasants of Rome, and which now, with all the narrow vale
that intersects them, stood displayed and exposed to his attack; nor could I
without a shudder behold the dispositions he made for it. First, then,
moistening well with spittle his instrument, obviously to make it glib, he
pointed, he introduced it, as I could plainly discern, not only from its
direction and my losing sight of it, but by the writhing, twisting and soft
murmured complaints of the young sufferer; but at length, the first straits of
entrance being pretty well go through, every thing seemed to move and go pretty
currently on, as on a carpet road, without much rub or resistance; and now,
passing one hand round his minions’ hips, he got hold of his red-topped
ivory toy, that stood perfectly stiff, and shewed, that if he was like his
mother behind, he was like his father before; this he diverted himself with,
whilst, with the other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning forward over his
back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the loose curls that fell over
it, in the posture he stood him in, and brought him towards his, so as to
receive a long breathed kiss; after which, renewing his driving, and thus
continuing to harass his rear, the height of the fist came on with its usual
symptoms, and dismissed the action.
The criminal scene they acted, I had the patience to see to an end, purely that
I might gather more facts and certainty against them in my design to do their
deserts instant justice; and accordingly, when they had re-adjusted themselves;
and were preparing to go out, burning as I was with rage and indignation, I
jumped down from the chair, in order to raise the house upon them, but with
such an unlucky impetuosity, that some nail or ruggedness in the floor caught
my foot, and flung me on my face with such violence, that I fell senseless on
the ground, and lay there some time before any one came to my relief: so that
they, alarmed, I suppose, by the noise of my fall, had more than the necessary
time to make a safe retreat. This they effected, as I learnt, with a
precipitation nobody could account for, until, when come to myself, and
composed enough to speak, I acquainted those of the house with the whole
transaction I had been evidence to.
When I came home again, and told Mrs. Cole this adventure, she very sensibly
observed to me, that “there was no doubt of the due vengeance one time or
other overtaking these miscreants, however they might escape for the present;
and that, had I been the temporal instrument of it, I should have been put to a
great deal more trouble and confusion than I imagined; that, as to the thing
itself, the less said of it was the better; but that though she might be
suspected of partiality, from its being the common cause of womankind, out of
whose mouths this practice tended to take something more than bread, yet she
protested against any mixture of passion, with a declaration extorted from her
by pure regard to truth; which was, that whatever effect this infamous passion
had in other ages and other countries, it seemed a peculiar blessing on our air
and climate, that there was a plaguespot visibly imprinted on all that are
tainted with it, in this nation at least, for that among numbers of that stamp
whom she had known, or at least were universally under the scandalous suspicion
of it, she would not name an exception hardly to one of them, whose character
was not, in all other respects, the most worthless and despicable that could
be; stript of all the manly virtues of their own sex, and filled up with only
the worst vices and follies of ours; that, in fine, they were scarce less
execrable than ridiculous in their monstrous inconsistence, of loathing and
contemning women, and at the same time apeing all their manners, airs, lisps,
scuttle, and, in general, all their little modes of affectation, which become
them at least better, than they do these unsexed, male misses.”
But here, washing my hands of them, I re-plunge into the stream of my history,
which I may very properly ingraft a terrible sally of Louisa’s, since I
had some share in it myself, and have besides engaged myself to relate it, in
point of countenance to poor Emily. It will add, too, one more example to
thousands, in confirmation of the maxim, that women get once out of compass,
there are no lengths of licentiousness, that they are not capable of running.
One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone out for the day, and
only Louisa and I (not to mention the house-maid) were left in charge of the
house, whilst we were loitering away the time, in looking through the shop
windows, the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard bread indeed by mending
of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood, offered us some nosegays, ranged
round a small basket; by selling of which the poor boy eked out his
mother’s maintenance of them both: nor was he fit for any other way of
livelihood, since he was not only a perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammered
so that there was no understanding even those sounds his half-dozen animals
ideas, at most, prompted him to utter.
The boys and servants in the neighbourhood had given him the nick-name of
good-natured Dick, from the soft simpleton’s doing every thing he was bid
at the first word, and from his naturally having no turn to mischief; then, by
the way, he was perfectly well made, stout, clean-limbed, tall of his age, as
strong as a horse, and, withal, pretty featured; so that he was not,
absolutely, such a figure to be snuffled at neither, if your nicety could, in
favour of such essentials, have dispensed with a face unwashed, hair tangled
for want of combing, and so ragged a plight, that he might have disputed points
of shew with any heathen philosopher of them all.
This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out of pure compassion, and
nothing more; but just at this time as he stood presenting us his basket, a
sudden whim, a start of wayward fancy, seized Louisa; and, without consulting
me, she calls him in, and beginning to examine his nosegays, culls out two, one
for herself, another for me, and pulling out half a crown, very currently gives
it him to change, as if she had really expected he could have changed it: but
the boy, scratching his head, made his signs explain his inability in place of
words, which he could not, with all his struggles, articulate.
Louisa, at this, says: “Well, my lad, come up stairs with me, and I will
give you your due,” winking at the same time to me, and beckoning me to
accompany her, which I did, securing first the street-door, that by this means,
together with the shop, became wholly the care of the faithful house-maid.
As we went up, Louisa whispered me “that she had conceived a strange
longing to be satisfied, whether the general rule held good with regard to this
changeling, and how far nature had made him amends, in her best bodily gifts,
for her denial of the sublimer intellectual ones; begin, at the same time, my
assistance in procuring her this satisfaction.” A want of complaisance
was never my vice, and I was so far from opposing this extravagant frolic, that
now, bit with the same maggot, and my curiosity conspiring with hers, I entered
plump into it, on my own account.
Consequently, soon as we came into Louisa’s bed-chamber, whilst she was
amusing him with picking out his nosegays, I undertook the lead, and began the
attack. As it was not then very material to keep much measures with a mere
natural, I made presently free with him, though at my first motion of meddling,
his surprise and confusion made him receive my advances but awkwardly: nay,
insomuch that he bashfully shied, and shied back a little; till encouraging him
with my eyes, plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking his cheeks, and
forwarding my point by a number of little wantonnesses, I soon turned him
familiar, and gave nature her sweetest alarm: so that aroused, and beginning to
feel himself, we could, amidst all the innocent laugh and grin I had provoked
him into, perceive the fire lighting in his eyes, and, diffusing over his
cheeks, blend its glow with that of his blushes. The emotion in short of animal
pleasure glared distinctly in the simpleton’s countenance; yet struck
with the novelty of the scene, he did not know which way to look or move; but
tame, passive, simpering, with his mouth half open, in stupid rapture, stood
and tractably suffered me to do what I pleased with him. His basket was dropt
out of his hands, which Louisa took care of.
I had now, through more than one rent, discovered and felt his thighs, the skin
of which seemed the smoother and fairer for the coarseness, and even the dirt
of his dress, as the teeth of negroes seem the whiter for the surrounded black;
and poor indeed of habit, poor of understanding, he was, however, abundantly
rich in personal treasures, such as flesh, firm, plump, and replete with the
juices of youth, and robust well-knit limbs. My fingers too had now got within
reach of the true, the genuine sensitive plant, which, instead of shrinking
from the touch, joys to meet it, and swells and vegetates under it: mine
pleasingly informed me that matters were so ripe for the discovery we
meditated, that they were too mighty for the confinement they were ready to
break. A waistband that I unskewered, and a rag of a shirt that I removed, and
which could not have covered a quarter of it, revealed the whole of the
idiot’s standard of distinction, erect, in full pride and display: but
such a one! it was positively of so tremendous a size, that prepared as we were
to see something extraordinary, it still, out of measure, surpassed our
expectation, and astonished even me, who had not been used to trade in trifles.
In fine, it might have answered very well the making a skew of; its enormous
head seemed, in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep’s heart; then you
might have trolled dice securely along the broad back of the body of it; the
length of it too was prodigious; then the rich appendage of the treasure-bag
beneath, large in proportion, gathered and crisped up round in shallow furrows,
helped to fill the eye, and complete the proof of his being a natural, not
quite in vain; since it was full manifest that he inherited, and largely too,
the prerogative of majesty which distinguishes that otherwise most unfortunate
condition, and gave rise to the vulgar saying “That a fool’s bauble
is a lady’s playfellow.” Not wholly without reason: for, generally
speaking, it is in love as it is in war, where the longest weapon carries it.
Nature, in short, had done so much for him in those parts, that she perhaps
held herself acquitted in doing so little for his head.
For my part, who had sincerely no intention to push the joke further than
simply satisfying my curiosity with the sight of it alone, I was content, in
spite of the temptation that stared me in the face, with having raised a
May-pole for another to hang a garland on: for, by this time, easily reading
Louisa’s desires in her wishful eyes, I acted the commodious part, and
made her, who sought no better sport, significant terms of encouragement to go
through stitch with her adventure; intimating too that I would stay and see
fair play: in which, indeed, I had in view to humour a new born curiosity, to
observe what appearances active nature would put on in a natural, in the course
of this her darling operation.
Louisa, whose appetite was up, and who, like the industrious bee, was, it
seems, not above gathering the sweet of so rare a flower, though she found it
planted on a dunghill, was but too readily disposed to take the benefit of my
cession. Urged then strongly by her own desires, and emboldened by me, she
presently determined to risk a trial of parts with the idiot, who was by this
time nobly inflamed for her purpose, by all the irritation we had used to put
the principles of pleasure effectually into motion, and to wind up the springs
of its organ to their supreme pitch; and it stood accordingly stiff and
straining, ready to burst with the blood and spirits that swelled it… to a
bulk! No! I shall never forget it.
Louisa then, taking and holding the fine handle that so invitingly offered
itself, led the ductile youth, by that mastertool of his, as she stept backward
towards the bed; which he joyfully gave way to, under the incitations of
instinct, and palpably delivered up to the goad of desire.
Stopped then by the bed, she took the fall she loved, and leaned to the most,
gently backward upon it, still holding fast what she held, and taking care to
give her clothes a convenient toss up, so that her thighs duly disclosed, and
elevated, laid open all the outward prospect of the treasury of love: the
rose-lipt overture presenting the cockpit so fair, that it was not in nature
even for a natural to miss it. Nor did he: for Louisa, fully bent on grappling
with it, and impatient of dalliance or delay, directed faithfully the point of
the battering-piece, and bounded up with a rage of so voracious appetite, to
meet and favour the thrust of insertion, that the fierce activity on both sides
effected it with such pain of distention, that Louisa cried out violently, that
she was hurt beyond bearing, that she was killed. But it was too late: the
storm was up, and force was on her to give way to it; for now the man-machine,
strongly worked upon by the sensual passion, felt so manfully his advantages
and superiority, felt withal the sting of pleasure so intolerable, that
maddening with it, his joys began to assume a character of furiousness, which
made me tremble for the too tender Louisa. He seemed, at this juncture, greater
than himself; his countenance, before so void of meaning, or expression, now
grew big with the importance of the act he was upon. In short, it was not now
that he was to be played the fool with. But, what is pleasant enough, I myself
was awed into a sort of respect for him, by the comely terrors his motions
dressed him in: his eyes shooting sparks of fire; his face glowing with ardours
that gave another life to it; his teeth churning; his whole frame agitated with
a raging ungovernable impetuosity: all sensibly betraying the formidable
fierceness with which the genial instinct acted upon him. Butting then and
goring all before him, and mad and wild like an ower-driven steer, he ploughs
up the tender furrow all insensible to Louisa’s complaints; nothing can
stop, nothing can keep out a fury like his: with which, having once got its
head in, its blind rage soon made way for the rest, piercing, rending, and
breaking open all obstruction. The torn, split, wounded girl cries, struggles,
invokes me to her rescue, and endeavours to get from under the young savage, or
shake him off, but alas! in vain: her breath, might as soon have strength to
have quelled his rough assault, or put him out of his course. And indeed, all
her efforts and struggles were managed with such disorder, that they served
rather to entangle, and fold her the faster in the twine of his boisterous
arms; so that she was tied to the stake, and obliged to fight the match out, if
she died for it. For his part, instinct-ridden as he was, the expressions of
his animal passion, partaking something of ferocity, were rather worrying than
kisses, intermixed with ravenous love-bites on her cheeks and necks, the prints
of which did not wear out for some days after.
Poor Louisa, however, bore up at length better than could have been expected:
and though she suffered, and greatly too, yet, ever true to the good old cause,
she suffered with pleasure and enjoyed her pain. And soon now, by dint of an
enraged enforcement, the brute-machine, driven like a whirlwind, made all smoke
again, and wedging its way up, to the utmost extremity, left her, in point of
penetration, nothing to fear or to desire: and now,
“Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,”
(Shakespeare.)
Louisa lay, pleased to the heart, pleased to her utmost capacity of being so,
with every fibre in those parts, stretched almost to breaking, on a rack of
joy, whilst the instrument of all this over-fullness searched her senses with
its sweet excess, till the pleasure gained upon her so, its point stung her so
home, that catching at length the rage from her furious driver and sharing the
riot of his wild rapture, she went wholly out of her mind into that favourite
part of her body, the whole intenseness of which was so fervously filled, and
employed: there alone she existed, all lost in those delirious transports,
those extasies of the senses, which her winking eyes, the brightened vermilion
of her lips and cheeks, and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched, so pathetically
expressed. In short, she was now as mere a machine as much wrought on, and had
her motions as little at her own command, as the natural himself, who, thus
broke in upon her, made her feel with a vengeance his tempestuous mettle he
battered with; their active loins quivered again with the violence of their
conflict, till the surge of pleasure, foaming and raging to a height, drew down
the pearly shower that was, to allay this hurricane. The purely sensitive idiot
then first shed those tears of joy that attend its last moments, not without an
agony of delight, and even almost a roar of rapture, as the gush escaped him;
so sensibly too for Louisa, that she kept him faithful company, going off, in
consent, with the old symptoms: a delicious delirium, a tremendous convulsive
shudder, and the critical dying: Oh! And now, on his getting off she lay
pleasure-drenched, and regorging its essential sweets; but quite spent, and
gasping for breath, without other sensation of life than in those exquisite
vibrations that trembled still on the strings of delight; which had been too
intensively touched, and which nature had so ravishingly stirred with, for the
senses to be quickly at peace from.
As for the changeling, whose curious engine had been thus successfully played
off, his shift of countenance and gesture had even something droll, or rather
tragi-comic in it: there was now an air of sad repining foolishness, superadded
to his natural one of no meaning and idiotism, as he stood with his label of
manhood, now lank, unstiffened, becalmed, and flapping against his thighs, down
which it reached half way, terrible even in its fall, whilst under the
dejection of spirit and flesh, which naturally followed his eyes, by turns,
cast down towards his struck standard, or piteously lifted to Louisa, seemed to
require at her hands what he had so sensibly parted from to her, and now
ruefully missed. But the vigour of nature, soon returning, dissipated the blast
of faintness which the common law of enjoyment had subjected him to; and now
his basket re-became his main concern, which I looked for, and brought him,
whilst Louisa restored his dress to its usual condition, and afterwards pleased
him perhaps more by taking all his flowers off his hands, and paying him, at
his rate, for them, than if she had embarrassed him by a present, that he would
have been puzzled to account for, and might have put others on tracing the
motives of.
Whether she ever returned to the attack I know not, and, to say truth, I
believe not. She had had her freak out, and had pretty plentifully drowned her
curiosity in a glut of pleasure, which, as it happened, had no other
consequence than that the lad, who retained only a confused memory of the
transaction, would, when he saw her, forget her in favour of the next woman,
tempted, on the report of his parts, to take him in. Louisa herself did not
long outstay this adventure at Mrs. Cole’s (to whom, by the bye, we took
care not to boast of our exploit, till all fear of consequences were clearly
over): for an occasion presenting itself of proving her passion for a young
fellow, at the expense of her discretion, proceeding all in character, she
packed up her toilet, at half a day’s warning, and went with him abroad,
since which I entirely lost sight of her, and it never fell in my way to hear
what became of her.
But a few days after she had left us, two very occasion, not to wrong our
training at Mrs. Cole’s, especially favourites, and free of her academy,
easily obtained her consent for Emily’s and my acceptance of a party of
pleasure, at a little but agreeable house, belonging to one of them situated
not far up the river Thames, on the Surrey side.
Every thing being settled, and it being a fine summer day, but rather of the
warmest, we set out after dinner, and got to our rendezvous about four in the
afternoon; where, landing at the foot of a neat, joyous pavilion, Emily and I
were handed into it by our esquires, and there drank tea with a cheerfulness
and gaiety, that the beauty of the prospect, the serenity of the weather, and
the tender politeness of our sprightly gallants, naturally led us into.
After tea, and taking a turn in the garden, my particular, who was the master
of the house, and had in no sense schemed this party of pleasure for a dry one,
proposed to us, with that frankness which his familiarity at Mrs. Cole’s
entitled him to, as the weather was excessively hot, to bathe together, under a
commodious shelter that he had prepared expressly for that purpose, in a creek
of the river, with which a side-door of the pavilion immediately communicated,
and where we might be sure of having our diversion out, safe from interruption,
and with the utmost privacy.
Emily, who never refused anything, and I, who ever delighted in bathing, and
had no exception to the person who proposed it, or to those pleasure it was
easy to guess it implied, took care, on this occasion, not to wrong our
training at Mrs. Cole’s, and agreed to it with as good a grace as we
could. Upon which, without loss of time, we returned instantly to the pavilion,
one door of which opened into a tent, pitched before it, that with its
marquise, formed a pleasing defense again the sun, or the weather, and was
besides as private as we could wish. The lining of it, embossed cloth,
represented a wild forest foliage, from the top, down to the sides, which, in
the same stuff, were figured with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between
filled with flower vases, the whole having a pay effect croon the eye, wherever
you turned it.
Then it reached sufficiently into the water, yet contained convenient benches
round it, on the dry ground, either to keep our clothes, or…, or…, in short
for more uses than resting upon. There was a side-table too, loaded with
sweetmeats, jellies, and other eatables, and bottles of wine and cordials, by
way of occasional relief from any rawness, or chill of the water, or from any
faintness from whatever cause; and in fact, my gallant, who understood chère
entiêre perfectly, and who, for taste (even if you would not approve this
specimen of it) might have been comptroller of pleasures to a Roman emperor,
had left no requisite towards convenience or luxury unprovided.
As soon as we had looked round this inviting spot, and every preliminary of
privacy was duly settled, strip was the word: when the young gentlemen soon
dispatched the undressing each his partner and reduced us to the naked
confession of all those secrets of person which dress generally hides, and
which the discovery of was, naturally speaking, not to our disadvantage. Our
hands, indeed, mechanically carried towards the most interesting part of us,
screened, at first, all from the tufted cliff downwards, till we took them away
at their desire, and employed them in doing them the same office, of helping
off with their clothes; in the process of which, there passed all the little
wantonnesses and frolics that you may easily imagine.
As for my spark, he was presently undressed, all to his shirt, the fore-lappet
of which as he leaned languishingly on me, he smilingly pointed to me to
observe, as it bellied out, or rose and fell, according to the unruly starts of
the motion behind it; but it was soon fixed, for now taking off his shirt, and
naked as a Cupid, he shewed it me at so upright a stand, as prepared me indeed
for his application to me for instant ease; but, though the sight of its fine
size was fit enough to fire me, the cooling air, as I stood in this state of
nature, joined to the desire I had of bathing-first, enabled me to put him off,
and tranquillize him, with the remark, that a little suspense would only set a
keener edge on the pleasure. Leading them the way, and shewing our friends an
example of continency, which they were giving signs of losing respect to, we
went hand in hand into the stream, till it took us up to our necks, where the
no more than grateful coolness of the water gave my senses a delicious
refreshment from the sultriness of the season, and made more alive, more happy
in myself, and, in course, more alert, and open to voluptuous impressions.
Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively played with my
companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at discretion. Mine, at length, not
content with making me take the plunge over head and ears, kept splashing me,
and provoking me with all the little playful tricks he could devise, and which
I strove not to remain in his debt for. We gave, in short, a loose to mirth;
and now, nothing would serve him but giving his hand the regale of going over
every part of me, neck, breast, belly, thighs, and all the et cætera, so
dear to the imagination, under the pretext of washing and rubbing them; as we
both stood in the water, no higher now than the pit of our stomachs, and which
did not hinder him from feeling, and toying with that leak that distinguishes
our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for his fingers, in vain dilating
and opening it, only let more flame than water into it, be it said without a
figure. At the same time he made me feel his own engine, which was so well
wound up, as to stand even the working in water, and he accordingly threw one
arm round my neck, and was endeavouring to get the better of that harsher
construction bred by the surrounding fluid; and had in effect one his way so
far as to make me sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether lips, from
the in-driving machine; when, independent of my not liking that awkward mode of
enjoyment, I could not help interrupting him, in order to become joint
spectators of a plan of joy, in hot operation between Emily and her partner;
who impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of the bath, had led his nymph to
one of the benches on the green bank, where he was very cordially proceeding to
teach her the difference betwixt jest and earnest.
There, setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over the surface of that
smooth polished snow-white skin of hers, which now doubly shone with a
dew-bright lustre, and presented to the touch something like what one would
imagine of animated ivory, especially in those ruby-nippled globes, which the
touch is so fond of and delights to make love to, with the other he was
lusciously exploring the sweet secret of nature, in order to make room for a
stately piece of machinery, that stood up-reared, between her thighs, as she
continued sitting on his lap, and pressed hard for instant intromission, which
the tender Emily, in a fit of humour deliciously protracted, affected to
decline, and elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in a style of
waywardness, so prettily put on, and managed, as to render it ten times more
poignant; then her eyes, all amidst the softest dying languishment, expressed,
ait once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her sweetness was zested with
a coyness so pleasingly provoking, her moods of keeping him off were so
attractive, that they redoubled the impetuous rage with, which, he covered her
with kisses: and kisses that, whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for, the
cunning wanton contrived such sly returns, of, as were, doubtless the sweeter
for the gust she gave them, of being stolen ravished.
Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in favour of her
principal end, pleasure, had inspired her with, the art of yielding,
coy’d it indeed, but coy’d it to the purpose; for with all her
straining, her wrestling, and striving to break from the clasp of his arms, she
was so far wiser yet than to mean it, that in her struggles, it was visible she
aimed at nothing more than multiplying points of touch with him, and drawing
yet closer the folds that held them every where entwined, like two tendrils of
a vine intercurling: together: so that the same effect, as when Louisa strove
in good earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now produced by different
motives.
Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had caused a general glow, a
tender suffusion of heightened carnation over their bodies; both equally white
and smooth-skinned; so that as their limbs were thus amorously interwoven, in
sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to distinguish who they respectively
belonged to, but for the brawnier, bolder muscles of the stronger sex.
In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her, and had tied at
all points the true lover’s knot; when now, adieu all the little
refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the friendly feint! She was
presently driven forcibly out of the power of using any art; and indeed, what
art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with her assailant, invaded
in the heart of her capital and carried by storm, lay at the mercy of the proud
conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly and completely? Soon, however,
to become a tributary: for the engagement growing hotter and hotter, at close
quarters, she presently brought him to the pass of paying down the dear debt to
nature; which she had no sooner collected in, but, like a duellist who has laid
his antagonist at his feet, when he has himself received a mortal wound, Emily
had scarce time to plume herself upon her victory, but, shot with the same
discharge, she, in a loud expiring sigh, in the closure of her eyes, the
stretch-out of her limbs, and a remission of her whole frame, gave manifest
signs that all was as it should be.
For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in the water all this
time, to view this warm action, I leaned tenderly on my gallant, and at the
close of it, seemed to ask him with my eyes, what he thought of it; but he,
more eager to satisfy me by his actions than by words or looks, as we shoaled
the water towards the shore, showed me the staff of love so intensely set up,
that had not even charity, beginning at home in this case, urged me to our
mutual relief, it would have been cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to
burst with straining, when the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand.
Accordingly we took a bench, whilst Emily and her spark, who belonged it seems
to the sea, stood at the side-board, drinking to our good voyage: for, as the
last observed, we were well under weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and
full-freighted; nor indeed were we long before we finished our trip to Cythera,
and unloaded in the old haven; but, as the circumstances did not admit of much
variation, I shall spare you the description.
At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am conscious of owing
you, for having, perhaps, too much affected the figurative style; though
surely, it can pass nowhere more allowable than in a subject which is so
properly the province of poetry, nay, is poetry itself, pregnant with every
flower of imagination and loving metaphors, even were not the natural
expressions, for respects of fashion and sound, necessarily forbidden.
Resuming now my history, you may please to know, that what with a competent
number of repetitions, all in the same strain (and, by the bye, we have a
certain natural sense that those repetitions are very much to the taste), what
with a circle of pleasures delicately varied, there was not a moment lost to
joy all the time we staid there, till late in the night we were re-escorted
home by our esquires, who delivered us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks
for our company.
This too was Emily’s last adventure in our way: for scarce a week after,
she was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you the particulars, found out
by her parents, who were in good circumstances, and who had been punished for
their partiality to their son, in the loss of him, occasioned by a circumstance
of their over indulgence to his appetite; upon which the so long engrossed
stream of fondness, running violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly
abandoned child whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long
before have recovered, they were now so over-joyed at the retrieval of her,
that, I presume, it made them much less strict in examining the bottom of
things: for they seemed very glad to take for granted, in the lump, every thing
that the grave and decent Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass upon them; and soon
afterwards sent her, from the country, handsome acknowledgment.
But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet a
member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those mild, pliant
characters, that if one does not entirely esteem, one can scarce help loving,
which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing all her weaknesses to good
nature, and an indolent facility that kept her too much at the mercy of first
impressions, she had just sense enough to know that she wanted leading strings,
and thought herself so much obliged to any who would take the pains to think
for her, and guide her, that with a very little management, she was capable of
being made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is
probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been for
occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself than upon her
circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards verified: for presently
meeting with a match, that was ready cut and dry for her, with a
neighbour’s son of her own rank, and a young man of sense and order, who
took as the widow of one lost at sea (for so it seems one of her gallants,
whose name she had made free with, really was), she naturally struck into all
the duties of her domestic life, with as much simplicity of affection, with as
much constancy and regularity, as if she had never swerved from a state of
undebauched innocence from her youth.
These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole’s cluck that
she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but though she was
earnestly entreated and encouraged to recruit her crops, her growing
infirmities, and, above all, the tortures, of a stubborn hip gout, which she
found would yield to no remedy, determined her to break up her business, and
retire with a decent pittance into the country, where I promised myself,
nothing so sure, as my going down to live with her, as soon as I had seen a
little more of life, and improved my small matters into a competency that would
create in me an independence on the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole,
wise enough to keep that essential in view.
Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the philosophers of the
town the white crow of her profession. For besides that she never ransacked her
customers, whose tastes too she ever studiously consulted, she never racked her
pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she
called them, under the contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the
seduction for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those
unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster objects of
compassion: among these, indeed, she picked out such as suited her views and
taking them under her protection, rescued them from the danger of the public
sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or for them, well or ill, in the manner you
have seen. Having then settled her affairs, she set out on her journey, after
taking the most tender leave of me, and at the end of some excellent
instructions, recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal. In
short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently reconciled to myself
for suffering her at any rate to go without me; but fate had, it seems,
otherwise disposed of me.
I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant convenient house at
Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from its smallness, which I furnished
neatly and modestly. There, with a reserve of eight hundred pounds, the fruit
of my deference to Mrs. Cole’s counsels, exclusive of clothes, some
jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in purse for a long time, to wait without
impatience for what the chapter of accidents might produce in my favour.
Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose husband was gone to
sea, I had marked me out such lines of life and conduct, as leaving me a
competent liberty to pursue my views either out of pleasure or fortune, bounded
me nevertheless strictly within the rules of decency and discretion: a
disposition, in which you cannot escape observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.
I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when going out one morning
pretty early to enjoy the freshness of it, in the pleasing outlet of the
fields, accompanied only by a maid, whom I had newly hired, as we were
carelessly walking among the trees, we were alarmed with the noise of a violent
coughing: turning our heads towards which, we distinguished a plain well
dressed elderly gentleman, who, attacked with a sudden fit, was so much
overcome, as to be forced to give way to it and sit down at the foot of a tree,
where he seemed suffocating with the severity of it, being perfectly black in
the face; not less moved than frightened with which, I flew on the instant to
his relief, and using the rote of practice I had observed on the like occasion,
I loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but whether to any purpose,
or whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the fit immediately
went off; and now recovered to his speech and legs, he returned me thanks with
as much emphasis as if I had saved his life. This naturally engaging a
conversation, he acquainted me where he lived, which was at a considerable
distance from where I met him, and where he had strayed insensibly on the same
intention of a morning walk.
He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy which this little
accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned of sixty, but of a fresh
vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five and forty, having
never racked his constitution by permitting his desires to over-tax his
ability.
As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed mechanics, had,
by the best traces he could get of them, left him an infant orphan on the
parish; so that it was from a charity-school, that, by honesty and industry, he
made his way into a merchant’s counting house, from whence, being sent to
a house in Cadiz, he there, by his talents and activity, acquired not only a
fortune, but an immense one, with which he returned to his native country;
where he could not, however, fish out so much as one single relation out of the
obscurity he was born in. Taking then a taste for refinement, and pleased to
enjoy life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his days in all the ease of
opulence, without the least parade of it; and, rather studying the concealment
than the shew of a fortune, looked down on a world he perfectly knew himself,
to his wish, unknown and unmarked by.
But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of retracing to
you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever, to me, memorable
friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no more than may serve, as
mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my history, and to obviate your
surprise that one of my blood and relish of life, should count a gallant of
three score such a catch.
Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what progressions
our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first, insensibly changed nature, and
run into unplatonic length, as might well be expected from one of my condition
of life, and above all, from that principle of electricity that scarce ever
fails of producing fire when the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint you,
that as age had not subdued his tenderness for our sex, neither had it robbed
him of the power of pleasing, since whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms
of youth, he atoned for, or supplemented with the advantages of experience, the
sweetness of his manners, and above all, his flattering address in touching the
heart, by an application to the understanding. From him it was I first learned,
to any purpose, and not without infinite pleasure, that I had such a portion of
me worth bestowing some regard on; from him I received my first essential
encouragement, and instructions how to put it in that train of cultivation,
which I have since pushed to the little degree of improvement you see it at; he
it was, who first taught me to be sensible that the pleasures of the mind were
superior to those of the body; at the same time, that they were so far from
obnoxious to, or, incompatible with each other, that, besides the sweetness in
the variety and transition, the one served to exalt and perfect the taste of
the other, to a degree that the senses alone can never arrive at.
Himself a rational pleasurist; as being much too wise to be ashamed of the
pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but loved me with dignity; in a mean
equally removed from the sourness, of forwardness, by which age is unpleasingly
characterized, and from that childish silly dotage that so often disgraces it,
and which he himself used to turn into ridicule, and compare to an old goat
affecting the frisk of a young kid.
In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season of life, was,
in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a proof, manifest at
least to me, that it is not out of the power of age to please, if it lays out
to please, and if, making just allowance, those in that class do not forget,
that if must cost them more pains and attention, than what youth, the natural
spring-time of joy, stands in need of: as fruits out of season require
proportionally more skill and cultivation, to force them.
With this gentleman, who took me home soon after our acquaintance commenced, I
lived near eight months in which time, my constant complaisance and docility,
my attention to deserve his confidence and love, and a conduct, in general,
devoid of the least art and founded on my sincere regard and esteem for him,
won and attached him so firmly to me, that, after having generously trusted me
with a genteel, independent settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection
on me, he appointed me, by an authentic will, his sole heiress and executrix: a
disposition which he did not outlive two months, being taken from me by a
violent cold that he contracted, as he unadvisedly ran to the window, on an
alarm of fire at some streets distant, and stood there naked-breasted, and
exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night air.
After acquitting myself of the duty towards my deceased benefactor, and paying
him a tribute of un-feigned sorrow, which a little time changed into a most
tender, graceful memory of him, which I shall ever retain, I grew somewhat
comforted by the prospect that now opened to me, if not of happiness, at least
of affluence and independence.
I saw myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth (for I was not yet
nineteen), actually at the head of so large a fortune, as it would have been
even the height of impudence in me to have raised my wishes, much more my hopes
to; and that this unexpected elevation did not turn my head, I owed to the
pains my benefactor had taken to form and prepare me for it, as I owed his
opinion of my management of the vast possessions he left me, to what he had
observed of the prudential economy I had learned under Mrs. Cole, the reserve
of which he saw I had made, was a proof and encouragement to him.
But, alas! how easily in the enjoyment of the greatest sweets in life, in
present possession, poisoned by the regret of an absent one! But my regret was
a mighty and just one, since it had my only truly beloved Charles for its
object.
Given him up I had, indeed, completely, having never once heard from him since
our separation; which, as I found afterwards, had been my misfortune, and not
his neglect, for he wrote me several letters which had all miscarried; but
forgotten him I never had. And amidst all my personal infidelities, not one had
made a pin’s point impression on a heart impenetrable to the true love
passion, but for him.
As soon, however, as I was mistress of this unexpected fortune, I felt more
than ever how dear he was to me, from its insufficiency to make me happy,
whilst he was not to share it with me. My earliest care, consequently, was to
endeavour at getting some account of him; but all my researches produced me no
more light, than that his father had been dead for some time, not so well as
even with the world; and that Charles had reached his port of destination in
the South Seas, where, finding the estate he was sent to recover, dwindled to a
trifle, by the loss of two ships in which the bulk of his uncle’s fortune
lay, he was come away with the small remainder, and might, perhaps, according
to the best advice, in a few months return to England, from whence he had, at
the time of this my inquiry, been absent two years and seven months. A little
eternity in love!
You cannot conceive with what joy I embraced the hopes thus given me of seeing
the delight of my heart again. But, as the term of months was assigned it, in
order to divert and amuse my impatience for his return, after settling my
affairs with much ease and security, I set out on a journey for Lancashire,
with an equipage suitable to my fortune, and with a design purely to revisit my
place of nativity, for which I could not help retaining a great tenderness; and
might naturally not be sorry to shew myself there, to the advantage I was now
in pass to do, after the report Esther Davis had spread of my being spirited
away to the plantations; for on no other supposition could she account for the
suppression of myself to her, since her leaving me so abruptly at the inn.
Another favourite intention I had, to look out for my relations, though I had
none but distant ones, and prove a benefactress to them. Then Mrs. Cole’s
place of retirement lying in my way, was not amongst the least of the pleasures
I had proposed to myself in this expedition.
I had taken nobody with me but a discreet decent woman, to figure it as my
companion, besides my servants; and was scarce got into an inn, about twenty
miles from London, where I was to sup and pass the night, when such a storm of
wind and rain come on, as made me congratulate myself on having got under
shelter before it began.
This had continued a good half an hour, when bethinking me of some directions
to be given to the coachman, I sent for him, not caring that his shoes should
soil the very clean parlour, in which the cloth was laid, I stept into the hall
kitchen, where he was, and where, whilst I was talking to him, I slantingly
observed two horsemen driven in by the weather, and both wringing wet; one of
whom was asking if they could not be assisted with a change, while their
clothes were dried. But, heavens! who can express what I felt at the sound of a
voice, ever present to my heart, and that it now rebounded at! or when pointing
my eyes towards the person it came from, they confirmed its information, in
spite of so long an absence, and of a dress one would have studied for a
disguise: a horseman’s great coat, with a stamp-up cape, and his hat
flapped… but what could escape the alertness of a sense truly guided by love?
A transport then like mine was above all consideration, or schemes of surprise;
and I, that instant, with the rapidity of the emotions that I felt the spur of,
shot into his arms, crying out, as I threw mine round his neck: “My
life!… my soul!… my Charles!..” and without further power of speech,
swooned away, under the pressing agitation of joy and surprise.
Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself in my charmer’s arms,
but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd which this event had gathered round
us, and which immediately, on a signal from the discreet landlady, who
currently took him for my husband, cleared the room, and desirably left us
alone to the raptures of this reunion; my joy at which had like to have proved,
at the expense of my life, its power superior to that of grief at our fatal
separation.
The first object then, that my eyes opened on, was their supreme idol, and my
supreme wish, Charles, on one knee, holding me fast by the hand and gazing on
me with a transport of fondness. Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak,
and give vent to his patience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy him once
more that it was I; but the mightiness and suddenness of the surprise
continuing to stun him, choked his utterance: he could only stammer out a few
broken, half-formed, filtering accents, which my ears greedily drinking in,
spelt, and put together, so as to make out their sense: “After so
long!… so cruel an absence!… my dearest Fanny!… can it?… can it be
you?…” stifling me at the time with kisses, that, stopping my opening
mouth, at once prevented the answer that he panted for, and increased the
delicious disorder in which all my senses were rapturously lost. However,
amidst this crowd of ideas, and all blissful ones, there obtruded only one
cruel doubt that poisoned nearly all the transcendant happiness: and what was
it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real? I trembled now with my
fear of its being no more than a dream, and of waking out of it into the
horrors of finding it one. Under this fond apprehension, imagining I could not
make too much of the present prodigious joy, before it would vanish and leave
me in the desert again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I clung to him, I
clasped him, as if to hinder him from escaping me again: “Where have you
been?… how could you… could you leave me?… Say you are still mine… that
you still love me… and thus! thus!” (kissing him as if I would
consolidated lips with him) “I forgive you… forgive my hard fortune in
favour of this restoration.”
All these interjections breaking from me, in that wildness of expression that
justly passes for eloquence in love, drew from him all the returns my fond
heart could wish or require. Our caresses, our questions, our answers, for some
time observed no order; all crossing, or interrupting one another in sweet
confusion, whilst we exchanged hearts at our eyes, and renewed the
ratifications of a love unabated by time or absence: not a breath, not a
motion, not a gesture on either side, but what was strongly impressed with it.
Our hands, locked in each other, repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that
their fiery thrill went to the heart again.
Thus absorbed, and concentered in this unutterable delight, I had not attended
to the sweet author of it being thoroughly wet, and in danger of catching cold;
when, in good time, the landlady, whom the appearance of my equipage (which,
bye the bye Charles knew nothing of) had gained me an interest in, for me and
mine interrupted us by bringing in a decent shift of linen and clothes; which
now, somewhat recovered into a calmer composure by the coming in of a third
person, I pressed him to take the benefit of, with a tender concern and
anxiety that made me tremble for his health.
The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift; in the act of which,
though he proceeded with all that modesty which became these first solemner
instants of our re-meeting, after so long an absence, I could not refrain
certain snatches of my eyes, lured by the dazzling discoveries of his naked
skin, that escaped him as he changed his linen, and which I could not observe
the unfaded life and complexion of without emotions of tenderness and joy, that
had himself too purely for their object, to partake of a loose or mis-timed
desire.
He was soon dressed in these temporary clothes, which neither fitted him, nor
became the light my passion placed him in, to me at least; yet, as they were on
him, they looked extremely well, in virtue of that magic charm which love put
into every thing that he touched, or had relation to him: and where, indeed,
was that dress that a figure like his would not give grace to? For now, as I
eyed him more in detail, I could not but observe the even favourable alteration
which the time of his absence had produced in his person.
There were still the requisite lineaments, still the same vivid vermillion and
bloom reigning in his face; but now the roses were more fully blown; the tan of
his travels, and a beard somewhat more distinguishable, had, at the expense of
no more delicacy than what he could well spare, given it an air of becoming
manliness and maturity, that symmetrized nobly with that air of distinction and
empire with which nature had stamped it, in a rare mixture with the sweetness
of it; still nothing had he lost of that smooth plumpness of flesh, which,
glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the eye, and delicious to the touch;
then his shoulders were grown more square, his shape more formed, more portly,
but still free and airy. In short, his figure showed riper, greater, and
perfecter to the experienced eye, than in his tender youth; and now he was not
much more than two and twenty.
In this interval, however, I picked out of the broken, often pleasingly
interrupted account of himself, that he was, at that instant, actually on his
road to London, in not a very paramount plight or condition, having been
wrecked on the Irish coast for which he had prematurely embarked, and lost the
little all he had brought with him from the South Seas: so that he had not till
after great shifts and hardships, in the company of his fellow-traveller, the
captain, got so far on his journey; that so it was (having heard of his
father’s death and circumstances,) he had now the world to begin again,
on a new account: a situation, which he assured me, in a vein of sincerity,
that flowing from his heart, penetrated mine, gave him to farther pain, than
that he had not his power to make me as happy as he could wish. My fortune, you
will please to observe, I had not entered upon any overture of, reserving, to
feast myself with the surprise of it to him, in calmer instants. And, as to my
dress, it could give him no idea of the truth, not only as it was mourning, but
likewise in a style of plainness and simplicity that I had ever kept to with
studied art. He pressed me indeed tenderly to satisfy his ardent curiosity,
both with regard to my past and present state of life, since his being torn
away from me: but I found means to elude his questions, by answers that shewing
his satisfaction at no great distance, won upon him to waive his impatience, in
favour of the thorough confidence he had in my not delaying it, but for respect
I should in good time acquaint him with.
Charles, however, thus returned to my longing arms, tender, faithful, and in
health, was already a blessing too mighty for my conception: but Charles in
distress!… Charles reduced, and broken down to his naked personal merit, was
such a circumstance, in favour of the sentiments I had for him, as exceeded my
utmost desire; and accordingly I seemed so visibly charmed, so out of time and
measure pleased at his mention of his ruined fortune, that he could account for
it no way, but that the joy of seeing him again had swallowed up every other
sense of concern.
In the mean time, my woman had taken, all possible care of Charles’s
travelling companion; and as supper was coming in, he was introduced to me,
when I received him as became my regard for all of Charles’s acquaintance
or friends.
We four then supped together, in the style of joy, congratulation, and pleasing
disorder that you may guess. For my part, though all these agitations had left
me not the least stomach, but for that uncloying feast, the sight of my adored
youth, I endeavoured to force it, by way of example for him, who I conjectured
must want such a recruit after riding; and, indeed, he; ate like a traveller,
but gazed at, and addressed me all the time like a lover.
After the cloth was taken away, and the hour of repose came on, Charles and I
were, without further ceremony, in quality of man and wife, shown up together
to a very handsome apartment, and, all in course, the bed, they said, the best
in the inn.
And here, Decency, forgive me! if once more I violate thy laws and keeping the
curtains undrawn, sacrifice thee for the last time to that confidence, without
reserve, with which I engaged to recount to you the most striking circumstances
of my youthful disorders.
As soon, then, as we were in the room together, left to ourselves, the sight of
the bed starving the remembrance of our first joys, and the thought of my being
instantly to share it with the dear possessor of my virgin heart, moved me so
strongly, that it was well I leaned upon him, or I must have fainted again
under the overpowering sweet alarm. Charles saw into my confusion, and forgot
his own, that was scarce less, to apply himself to the removal of mine.
But now the true refining passion had regained throughout possession of me,
with all its train of symptoms: a sweet sensibility, a tender timidity,
love-sick yearnings tempered with diffidence and modesty, all held me in a
subjection of soul, incomparably dearer to me than the liberty of heart which I
had been long, too long! the mistress of, in the course of those grosser
gallantries, the consciousness of which now made me sigh with a virtuous
confusion and regret. No real virgin, in short, in view of the nuptial bed,
could give more bashful blushes to unblemished innocence, than I did to a sense
of guilt; and indeed I loved Charles too truly not to feel severely that I did
not deserve him.
As I kept hesitating and disconcerted under this soft distraction, Charles,
with a fond impatience, took the pains to undress me; and all I can remember
amidst the nutter and discomposure of my senses, was, some flattering
exclamation of joy and admiration, more specially at the feel of my breasts,
now set at liberty from my stays, and which panting and rising in tumultous
throbs, swelled upon his dear touch, and gave it the welcome pleasure of
finding them well formed, and un-failed in firmness.
I was soon laid in bed, and scarce languished an instant for the darling
partner of it, before he was undressed and got between the sheets, with his
arms clasped round me, giving and taking, with gust inexpressible, a kiss of
welcome, that my heart rising to my lips stamped with its warmest impression,
concurring to my bliss, with that delicate and voluptuous emotion which Charles
alone had the secret to excite, and which constitutes the very life, the
essence of pleasure.
Mean while, two candles lighted on a side-table near us, and a joyous wood
fire, threw a light into the bed, that took from one sense, of great importance
to our joys, all pretext for complaining of its being shut out of its share of
them; and, indeed, the sight of my idolized youth was alone, from the ardour
with which I had wished for it, without other circumstance, a pleasure to die
of.
But as action was now a necessity to desires so much on edge as ours, Charles,
after a very short prelusive dalliance, lifting up my linen and his own, laid
the broad treasures of his manly chest close to my bosom, both beating with the
tenderest alarms: when now, the sense of his glowing body, in naked touch with
mine, took all power over my thoughts out of my own disposal, and delivered up
every faculty of the soul to the sensiblest of joys, that affecting me
infinitely more with my distinction of the person, than of the sex, now brought
my heart deliriously into play: my heart, which, eternally constant to Charles,
had never taken any part in my original sacrifices to the calls of
constitution, complaisance, or interest. But ah! what became of me, when as the
powers of solid pleasure thickened upon me, I could not help feeling the stiff
stake that had been adorned with the trophies of my despoiled virginity,
bearing hard and inflexible against one of my thighs, which I had not yet
opened, from a true principle of modesty, revived by a passion too sincere to
suffer any aiming at the false merit of difficulty, or my putting on an
impertinent mock coyness.
I have, I believe, somewhere before remarked, that feel of that favourite piece
of manhood has, in the very nature of it, something inimitably pathetic.
Nothing can be dearer to the touch, nor can affect it with a more delirious
sensation. Think then! as a love thinks, what must be the consummate transport
of that quickest of our senses, in their central seat too! when, after so long
a deprival, it felt itself re-inflamed under the pressure of that peculiar
sceptre-member, which commands us all: but especially my darling, elect from
the face of the whole earth. And now, at its mightiest point of stiffness, it
felt to me something so subduing so active, so solid and agreeable, that I know
not what name to give its singular impression: but the sentiment of
consciousness of its belonging to my supremely beloved youth, gave me so
pleasing an agitation, and worked so strongly on my soul, that it sent all its
sensitive spirits to that organ of bliss in me, dedicated to its reception.
There, concentering to a point, like rays in a burning glass, they glowed, they
burnt with the intensest heat; the springs of pleasure were, in short, wound up
to such a pitch, I panted now with so exquisitely keen an appetite for the
eminent enjoyment, that I was even sick with desire, and unequal to support the
combination of two distinct ideas, that delightfully distracted me: for all the
thought I was capable of, was that I was now in touch, at once, with the
instrument of pleasure, and the great seal of love. Ideas that, mingling
streams, poured such an ocean of intoxicating bliss on a weak vessel, all too
narrow to contain it, that I lay overwhelmed, absorbed, lost in an abyss of
joy, and dying of nothing but immoderate delight.
Charles then roused me somewhat out of this ecstatic distraction, with a
complaint softly murmured, amidst a crowd of kisses, at the position, not so
favourable to his desires, in which I received his urgent insistance for
admission, where that insistance was alone so engrossing a pleasure, that it
made me inconsistently suffer a much dearer one to be kept out; but how sweet
to correct such a mistake! My thighs, now obedient to the intimations of love
and nature, gladly disclose, and with a ready submission, resign up the soft
gateway to the entrance of pleasure: I see, I feel the delicious velvet tip!…
he enters me might and main, with… oh! my pen drops from here in the extasy
now present to my faithful memory! Description too deserts me, and delivers
over a task, above its strength of wing, to the imagination: but it must be an
imagination exalted by such a flame as mine that can do justice to that
sweetest, noblest of all sensations, that hailed and accompanied the stiff
insinuation all the way up, till it was at the end of its penetration, sending
up, through my eyes, the sparks of the love-fire that ran all over me and
blazed in every vein and every pore of me; a system incarnate of joy all over.
I had now totally taken in love’s true arrow from the point up to the
feather, in that part, where making no new wound, the lips or the original one
of nature, which had owed its first breathing to this dear instrument, clung,
as if sensible of gratitude, in eager suction round it, whilst all its inwards
embraced it tenderly, with a warmth of gust, a compressive energy, that gave
it, in its way, the heartiest welcome in nature; every fibre there gathering
tight round it, and straining ambitiously to come in for its share of the
blissful touch.
As we were giving them a few moments pause to the the delectations of the
senses, in dwelling with the highest relish on this intimatest point of
re-union, and chewing the cud of enjoyment, the impatience natural to the
pleasure soon drove us into action. Then began the driving tumult on his side,
and the responsive heaves on mine, which kept me up to him; whilst, as our joys
grew too great for utterance, the organs of our voices, voluptuously
intermixing, became organs of the touch… how delicious!… how poignantly
luscious!… And now! now I felt, to the heart of me! I felt the prodigious
keen edge, with which love, presiding over this act, points the pleasure: love!
that may be styled the Attic salt of enjoyment; and indeed, without it, the
joy, great as it is, is still a vulgar one, whether in a king or a beggar; for
it is, undoubtedly, love alone that refines, ennobles, and exalts it.
Thus, happy, then, by the heart, happy by the senses, it was beyond all power,
even of thought, to form the conception of a greater delight than what I now am
consummating the fruition of.
Charles, whose whole frame was convulsed with the agitation of his rapture,
whilst the tenderest fires trembled in his eyes, all assured me of a perfect
concord of joy, penetrated me so profoundly, touched me so vitally, took me so
much out of my own possession, whilst he seemed himself so much in mine, that
in a delicious enthusiasm, I imagined such a transfusion of heart and spirit,
as that coalescing, and making one body and soul with him, I was he, and he me.
But all this pleasure tending, like life from its first instants, towards its
own dissolution, lived too fast not to bring on upon the spur its delicious
moment of mortality; for presently the approach of the tender agony discovered
itself by its usual signals, that were quickly followed by my dear
lover’s emanation of himself, that spun out, and shot, feelingly indeed!
up the ravished indraught: where the sweetly soothing balmy titillation opened
all the juices of joy on my side, which ecstatically in flow helped to allay
the prurient glow, and drowned our pleasure for a while. Soon, however, to be
on float again! for Charles, true to nature’s laws, in one breath,
expiring and ejaculating, languished not long in the dissolving trance, but
recovering spirit again, soon gave me to feel that the true mettle spring! of
his instrument of pleasure, were, by love, and perhaps, by a long vacation,
wound up too high to be let down by a single explosion: his stiffnesss till
stood my friend. Resuming then the action afresh, without dislodging, or giving
me the trouble of parting from my sweet tenant, we played over again the same
opera, with the same harmony and concert: our ardours, like our love, knew no
remission; and all the tide serving my lover, lavish of his stores, and
pleasure-milked, he over-flowed me once more from the fulness of his oval
reservoirs of the genial emulsion: whilst, on my side, a convulsive grasp, in
the instant of my giving down the liquid contribution, rendered me sweetly
subservient at once to the increase of joy, and to its effusions: moving me so,
as to make me exert all those springs of the compressive exsuction, with which
the sensitive mechanism of that part thirstily draws and drains the nipple of
Love; with much such an instinctive eagerness and attachment, as to compare
great with less, kind nature engages infants at the breasts, by the pleasure
they find in the motion of their little mouths and cheeks, to extract the milky
stream prepared for their nourishment.
But still there was no end of his vigour: this double discharge had so far from
extinguished his desires, for that time, that it had not even calmed them; and
at his age, desires are power. He was proceeding then amazingly to push it to a
third triumph, still without uncasing, if a tenderness, natural to true love,
had not inspired me with self-denial enough to spare, and not over-strain him:
and accordingly, entreating him to give himself and me quarter, I obtained, at
length, a short suspension of arms, but not before he had exultingly satisfied
me that he gave out standing.
The remainder of the night, with what we borrowed upon the day, we employed
with unwearied fervour in celebrating thus the festival of our remeeting; and
got up pretty late in the morning, gay, brisk and alert, though rest had been a
stranger to us: but the pleasures of love had been to us, what the joy of
victory is to an army: repose, refreshment, every thing.
The journey into the country being now entirely out of the question, and orders
having been given overnight for turning the horses’ heads towards London,
we left the inn as soon as we had breakfasted, not without a liberal
distribution of the tokens of my grateful sense of the happiness I had met with
in it.
Charles and I were in my coach; the captain and my companion in a chaise hired
purposely for them, to leave us the conveniency of a tête-à-tête.
Here, on the road, as the tumult of my senses was tolerably composed, I had
command enough of head to break properly to his the course of life that the
consequences of my separation from him had driven me into: which, at the same
time that he tenderly deplored with me, he was the less shocked at; as, on
reflecting how he had left me circumstances, he could not be entirely
unprepared for it.
But when I opened the state of my fortune to him, and with that sincerity
which, from me to him, was so much a nature in me, I beged of him his
acceptance of it, on his own terms. I should appear to you perhaps too partial
to my passion, were I to attempt the doing his delicacy justice, I shall
content myself then with assuring you, that after his flatly refusing the
unreserved, unconditional donation that I long persecuted him in vain to
accept, it was at length, in obedience to his serious commands (for I stood out
unaffectedly, till he exerted the sovereign authority which love had given him
over me), that I yielded my consent to waive the remonstrance I did not fail of
making strongly to him, against his degrading himself, and incurring the
reflection, however unjust, of having, for respects of fortune, bartered his
honour for infamy and prostitution, in making one his wife, who thought herself
too much honoured in being but his mistress.
The plea of love then over-ruling all objections, for him, which he could not
but read the sincerity of in a heart ever open to him, obliged me to receive
his hand, by which means I was in pass, among other innumerable blessings, to
bestow a legal parentage on those fine children you have seen by this happiest
of matches.
Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of virtue, I
gathered the only uncorrupt sweets: where, looking back on the course of vice I
had run, and comparing its infamous blandishments with the infinitely superior
joys of innocence, I could not help pitying, even in point of taste, those who,
immersed in gross sensuality, are insensible to the so delicate charms of
VIRTUE, than which even PLEASURE has not a greater friend, nor VICE a greater
enemy. Thus temperance makes men lords over those pleasures that intemperance
enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour fertility cheerfulness, and
every other desirable good of life; the other, of diseases, debility,
barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil incident to human nature.
You laugh, perhaps, at this tail-piece of morality, extracted from me by the
force of truth, resulting from compared experiences: you think it, no doubt,
out of character; possibly too you may look on it as the paultry finesse of one
who seeks to mask a devotee to vice under a rag of a veil, impudently smuggled
from the shrine of Virtue: just as if one was to fancy one’s self
completely disguised at a masquerade, with no other change of dress than
turning one’s shoes into slippers; or, as if a writer should think to
shield a treasonable libel, by concluding it with a formal prayer for the King.
But, independent of my flattering myself that you have a juster opinion of my
sense and sincerity, give me leave to represent to you, that such a supposition
is even more injurious to Virtue than to me: since, consistently with candour
and good nature, it san have no foundation but in the falsest of fears, that
its pleasures cannot stand in comparison with those of Vice; but let truth dare
to hold it up in its most alluring light: then mark, how spurious, how low of
taste, how comparatively inferior its joys are to those which Virtue gives
sanction to, and whose sentiments are not above making even a sauce for the
senses, but a sauce of the highest relish; whilst Vices are the harpies that
infect and foul the feast. The paths of Vice are sometimes strewed with roses,
but then they are for ever infamous for many a thorn, for many a cankerworm:
those of Virtue are strewed with roses purely, and those eternally unfading
ones.
If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly consistent in the
incense I burn to Virtue. If I have painted Vice in all its gayest colours, if
I have decked it with flowers, it has been solely in order to make the
worthier, the solemner sacrifice of it to Virtue.
You know Mr. C*** O***, you know his estate, his worth, and good sense: can
you, will you pronounce it ill meant, at least of him, when anxious for his
son’s morals, with a view to form him to virtue, and inspire him with a
fixed, a rational contempt for vice, he condescended to be his master of the
ceremonies, and led him by the hand through the most noted bawdy-houses in
town, where he took care he should be familiarized with all those scenes of
debauchery, so fit to nauseate a good taste? The experiment, you will cry, is
dangerous. True, on a fool: but are fools worth so much attention.
I shall see you soon, and in the mean time think candidly of me, and believe me
ever,
MADAM,
Yours, etc., etc., etc.
X X X