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I pass’d then the time till Mrs Brown’s return 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 receiv’d 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 upstairs, and seeing me pale, my face bloody, and all the marks of the most thorough dejection, they employed themselves more to comfort and reinspirit 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Mrs Brown withdrawn, Phoebe came presently to bed with me, and half with the answers she drew from me, half with her own method of palpably satisfying herself, she soon discovered that I had been more frighted than hurt; upon which I suppose, being herself seiz’d with sleep, and reserving her lectures and instructions till the next morning, she left me, properly speaking, to my unrest; for, after tossing and turning the greatest part of the night, and tormenting myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things, I fell, through sheer 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 oblig’d to my undoers 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 mov’d 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 near 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, advanc’d 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 observ’d my temper to be perfectly tractable and conformable to their views, all the girls that compos’d 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 their 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, all, in short, contributed in that house to corrupt my native purity, which had taken no root in education; whilst now the inflammable principle 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 turn’d out to starve.
I was soon pretty well recover’d, and at certain hours allow’d 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 afford 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 destination.
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 dream’d 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 provok’d an itch of florid warm-spirited blood through every vein; but above all, my bedfellow Phoebe, whose pupil I more immediately was, exerted her talents in giving me the first tinctures of pleasure; whilst nature, now warm’d and wantoned with discoveries so interesting, piqu’d a curiosity which Phoebe artfully whetted, and leading me from question to question of her own suggestion, explain’d to me all the mysteries of Venus. But I could not long remain in such a house as that without being an eyewitness of more than I could conceive from her descriptions.
One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly recover’d of my fever, I happen’d to be in Mrs Brown’s dark closet, where I had not been half an hour, resting upon the maid’s settee-bed, before I heard a rustling in the bedchamber, 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-grenadier, 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 so 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 hers 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, disengag’d them from her stays, in scorn of whose confinement they broke loose and swagged 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 neck-beef eater seem’d to paw them with a most uninvitable 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 blush’d with nothing but brandy.
As he stood on one side, for a minute or so, 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-mouth’d 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 engross’d them.
Her sturdy stallion had now unbutton’d, 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 star’d at with all the eyes I had: however, my senses were too much flurried, too much concentred 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; 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 ingulph’d for granted by the directions he mov’d 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 thrill’d 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 Phoebe’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 all on fire, seized, and yet more inflamed that centre of all my senses; my heart palpitated, as if it would force its way through my bosom; I breath’d with pain; I twisted my thighs, squeezed, and compressed the lips of that virgin slit, and following mechanically the example of Phoebe’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 recover’d coolness enough to observe the rest of the transaction between this happy pair.
The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady immediately sprang 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 receiv’d with an air of indifference and coolness, that show’d 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 sat herself down upon the same place, at the bed’s foot; and the young fellow standing sideway by her, she, with the greatest effrontery imaginable, unbuttons his breeches, and removing his shirt, draws out his affair, so shrunk and diminish’d that I could not but remember the difference, now crestfallen, or just faintly lifting its head: but our experienc’d 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 roots 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 finish’d, 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 secrete me, lest he might not have had patience to wait for my lord’s arrival, but have insisted on being the 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 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 downstairs, I stole up softly to my own room, out of which I had luckily not been miss’d; there I began to breathe freer, and to give loose rein to those warm emotions which the sight of such an encounter had raised in me. I laid me down on the bed and stretched myself out, 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 grasp’d in my waking dream, and not finding it, could have cry’d for vexation; every part of me glowing with stimulating 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, tho’ they procured me a slight satisfaction for the present, started an apprehension about which I could not be easy till I had communicated to Phoebe, and received her explanations upon it.
The opportunity, however, did not offer itself till next morning, for Phoebe 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 being our lie-a-bed chat to land on the subject of my uneasiness: to which a recital of the love scene I had thus, by chance, been spectatress of, serv’d for a preface.
Phoebe 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 inspir’d me with, I told her at the same time that one remark had perplex’d 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 does not appear, at least to my fearful imagination, less than my wrist, and at least three of my handfuls long, to that of the tender small part of me which was framed to receive it, I cannot conceive that it is possible to effect the entrance without dying, perhaps in the greatest pain, since you well know that even a finger thrust in there hurts me beyond bearing…As to my mistress’s and yours, I can 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 promis’d pleasure may be, I am afraid of the pain of the experiment.’
Phoebe 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 killing; that true it was, there was a great diversity of sizes in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing, frequent overstretching with unmerciful machines, but that at a certain age and habit of body even the most experienc’d in those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, and things 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 Philips. ‘Un doubtedly,’ say 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 Phoebe. ‘You must know then, she is kept by a young Genoese merchant, whom his uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he is, sent over here with an English merchant, his friend, on a pretext 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 liking 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 tomorrow 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 state that I was now in, I had no objection to the proposal, and was rather on tiptoe for its accomplishment.
At five in the evening, next day, Phoebe, punctual to her promise, came to me as I sat alone in my own room, and beckon’d 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 fastening 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 tho’, the door opened, and she came in; and at the noise the door made he turned about, and came to meet her, with an air of the greatest tenderness and satisfaction.
After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese help’d her to a glass of wine, with some Naples biscuit 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, stripped to 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, undress’d to all but her shift.
When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosen’d, waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his shirt collar was unbuttoned too: then, first giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and familiaris’d to this humour, blush’d indeed, but less than I did at the apparition of her, now standing stark naked, just as she came out of the hands of pure nature, with her black hair loose and afloat down her dazzling white neck and shoulders, whilst the deepen’d carnation of her cheeks went off gradually into the hue of glaz’d snow: for such were the blended tints and polish of her skin.
This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and sweet-featur’d, her shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plump’d out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sustain’d themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples, pointing different ways, mark’d their pleasing separation; beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which terminated in a parting or rift scarce discernible, that modestly seem’d to retire downwards, 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 of 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 fir’d a dying hermit; his eager eyes devour’d her, as she shifted attitudes at his discretion; neither were his hands excluded their share of the high feast, but wander’d, 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 meantime, one could not help observing the swell of his shirt before, that bolster’d out, and showed the condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon remov’d it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now, as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.
The young gentleman, by Phoebe’s guess, was about two and twenty; tall and well limb’d. His body was finely form’d, and of a most vigorous make, square-shoulder’d, and broad-chested: his face was not remarkable in 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 garnish’d his chest in a style of strength and manliness. Then his grand movement, which seem’d to rise out of a thicket of curling hair that spread from the root all round 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 expos’d to my fairest view; for he had, immediately on stripping off his shirt, gently push’d her down on the couch, which stood conveniently to break her willing fall. Her thighs were spread out to their utmost extension, and discovered between them the mark of the sex, the red-centred cleft of flesh, whose lips, vermilioning inwards, exprest a small ruby line in sweet miniature, such as Guido’s touch or colouring could never attain to the life or delicacy of.
Phoebe, at this, gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for a whispered question: whether I thought my little maidenhead was much less? But my attention was too much engross’d, too much enwrapp’d with all I saw, to be able to give her any answer.
By this time the young gentleman had changed her posture from lying breadth- to length-wise on the couch: but her thighs were still spread, and the mark lay fair for him, who, now kneeling between them, display’d to us a side-view of that fierce erect machine of his, which threaten’d no less than splitting the tender victim, who lay smiling at the uplifted stroke, nor seem’d to decline it. He looked upon his weapon himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with his hand to the invisible slit, drew aside the lips, and lodg’d it (after some thrusts, which Polly seem’d 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 sheath’d 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 seem’d 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 ecstasy: his joys were more silent; but soon broken murmurs, sighs heart-fetch’d, and at length a dispatching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her body, and then motionless languor of all his limbs, all showed 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 finish’d 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 breadthwise 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 from undelighted with the trial he had put her to, to judge at least by the fondness with which she ey’d and hung upon him.
For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I felt all over me during this scene; but from that instant, adieu all fears of what man could do unto me; they were now changed into such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings, that I could have pull’d the first of that sex that should present himself, 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.
Phoebe, 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 peephole, for fear of being overheard, guided me as near the door as possible, all passive and obedient to her least signal.
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 now the heat and irritations were so violent that I was perfectly sick and ready to die with desire; 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 transaction between our amorous 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 couch, 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, unnumber’d kisses given and taken? in which I could often discover their exchanging the velvet thrust, when both their mouths were double tongued, and seemed to favour the mutual insertion with the greatest gusto and delight.
In the meantime, his red-headed champion, that had so lately fled the pit, quell’d and abash’d, was now recover’d to the top of his condition, perk’d 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 received even its velvet tip between the lips of not its proper mouth: whether she did this out of any particular pleasure, or 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 seem’d 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 posterior 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 hurt 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, straddled, 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 stak’d herself upon, up pierc’d, and infix’d 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 spurr’d them up to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from the undermost combatant, were thrusts 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 ecstasy 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 hugg’d, I clasped Phoebe, as if she had the wherewithal to relieve me. Pleased, however, with (and pitying) the taking she could feel me in, she drew me towards the door, and opening it as softly as she could, we both got off undiscover’d, and she 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 asham’d at what I felt.
Phoebe lay down by me, and ask’d 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 venture to come to a close engagement with him? To all which, not a word on my side; I sigh’d, and could scarce breathe. She takes hold of my hand, and having roll’d up her own petticoats, forced it half-strivingly towards those parts, where, now grown more knowing, I miss’d the main object of my wishes; and finding not even the shadow of what I wanted, where everything 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 pin’d for more solid food, and promis’d tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much longer with this foolery from woman to woman, if 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—, tho’ he was now expected in a very few 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 not 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 open’d into, and from which my confinement debarr’d me at the times company came to the house; but now sleep and silence reign’d all over it.
I open’d the parlour door, and well surpris’d 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 his mistress, whilst he stay’d 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 remain’d the punch bowl and glasses, strew’d about in their usual disorder after a drunken revel.
But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping form, heavens! what a sight! No! no term of years, no turn of fortune could ever erase the lightning-like 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 ravish’d eyes…it calls thee up, present; and I see thee now!
Figure to yourself, Madam, a fair stripling between eighteen and nineteen, with his head reclin’d on one of the sides of the chair, his hair in disorder’d curls, irregularly shading a face on which all the roseate bloom of youth and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eyes and heart. Even the langour 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 eyelashes, over which no pencil could have described two more regular arches than those that grac’d 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, seem’d to challenge me to get the gloves of this lovely sleeper, had not the modesty and respect, which in both sexes are inseparable from a true passion, check’d my impulses.
But on seeing his shirt-collar unbutton’d, and a 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 o’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 sprightly 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 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 seiz’d 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 natural politeness, he address’d me in a manner far from rude, tho’ still on the foot of one of the house pliers, come to amuse him; and giving me the first kiss that I ever relish’d from man in my life, ask’d 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, oppos’d so sudden a surrender, the fear of being surpris’d by the house was a sufficient bar to my compliance.
I told him then, in a tone set me by love itself, that for reasons I had not time to explain to him, I could not stay with him, and might not even ever see him again: with a sigh at these last words, which broke from the bottom of my heart. My conqueror, who, as he afterwards told me, had been struck with my appearance, and lik’d me as much as he could think of liking anyone in my suppos’d way of life, ask’d 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 presum’d I might be under to the house. Rash, sudden, undigested, and 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 his voice there was no 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 a compliance 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 hazard 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 person more wherewith to justify the turning of a girl’s head, 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, a 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 outbloom’d the lovely-colour’d rose, whilst its inimitable tender vivid glow clearly sav’d it from the reproach of wanting life, of being raw and dough-like, which is commonly made to 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, he would send, and clear any debt incurr’d 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 Phoebe still fast asleep, and hurring off my few clothes, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and anxiety that may be easier conceived than express’d.
The risks of Mrs Brown’s discovering my purpose, of disappointments, misery, ruin, all vanish’d before this new-kindl’d 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 of 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 seem’d 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 advanc’d the time with it! Had those of the house made the least observations on me, they must have remark’d 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 stay’d for 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, produc’d one good effect: which was that, through mere fatigue, I slept tolerably well till five in the morning, when I got up, and having dress’d 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, on tiptoe, downstairs, leaving my box behind, for fear of being surpris’d with it in going out.
I got to the street door, the key whereof was always laid on the chair by our bedside, in trust with Phoebe, 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 open’d the door with great ease; love, that embolden’d, 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 clasp’d round me, and giving me the kiss of welcome. The coachman had his orders, and drove to them.
My eyes were instantly fill’d 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 heart 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 driven 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 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 look’d so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!…all which common landlord’s cant not only pleas’d and sooth’d me, but help’d to divert my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, now the minute approach’d, I began to fear to be alone with: a timidity which true love had a greater share in than even maiden bashfulness.
I wish’d, I doat’d, 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 reinspirit 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 having recommended the room to him.
Charles had scarce slipp’d the bolt of the door before, running, he caught me in his arms and, lifting me from the ground, with his lips glew’d 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 gown, 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 breasts, such as may be imagin’d 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 centre 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 meantime, I lay fairly exposed to the examination of his eyes and hands, quiet and unresisting; which confirm’d him in 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 believ’d 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 unbutton’d, 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 complain’d, but tenderly complain’d that 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 enjoy’d by any so advantageously made in that part as himself: for still, that my virgin flower was yet uncrop’d never enter’d into his head, and he would have thought it idling with time and words to have question’d me upon it.
He tries again, still no admittances, still no penetration, but he had hurt me yet more, whilst my extreme love made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kiss’d my falling tears, and ask’d me tenderly what was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not borne it better from others than I did from him? I answered, with a simplicity fram’d to persuade, that he was the first man that ever serv’d me so. Truth is powerful, and it is not always that we do not believe what we eagerly wish.
Charles, already dispos’d 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 will 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 resumed his attempts once more: 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 between them, made them rest upon his hips; applying then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance, he found it so small, he could scarce assure himself of its being rightly pointed. He looks, he feels, and satisfies himself: then driving forward with fury, its prodigious stiffness, thus impacted, wedgelike, breaks the union of those parts, and gain’d 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 scream’d out; but, as I was unwilling to alarm the house, I held in my breath, and cram’d my petticoat, which was turn’d 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 pierc’d 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, imbrew’d, and reeking with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me…Then! then all my resolution deserted me: I scream’d 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 flow’d from the wounded torn passage.
When I recover’d my senses, I found myself undress’d 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, moisten’d with tears and languishingly turn’d 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 endear’d by this 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, smother’d his exultation and employ’d himself with so much sweetness, so much warmth, to soothe, to caress and comfort me in my soft complainings, which breath’d indeed, more love than resentment, that I presently drown’d all sense of pain in the pleasure of seeing him, of thinking that I belong’d 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 across the room, he order’d the dinner to be brought to the bedside, 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 ador’d youth who both serv’d, and urged them on me, with that sweet irresistible authority with which love had invested him over me.
After dinner, and as 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 with 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 fear’d any part of him should be untouch’d or unpress’d by me, I return’d his strenuous embraces and kisses with a fervour and gusto only known to true love, and which mere lust could never rise to.
Yes, even at this time, when all the tyranny of the passions is fully over and my veins run no longer with ought 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 glew’d 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 refresh’d 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 irruption, and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and forces his way up the torn tender folds, that yielded him admission with a pain little less severe than when the breach was first made. I stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with the passive fortitude of a heroine; soon his thrusts, more and more furious, cheeks flush’d with a deeper scarlet, his eyes turn’d up in the fervent fit, some dying sighs, and an agonising shudder, announced the approaches of that ecstatic pleasure, I was yet in too much pain to come in for my share of it.
Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numb’d and blunted the sense of the pain, and given me to feel the titillating inspersion of balsamic sweets, drawn 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 inur’d me, I began to enter into the true unallay’d relish of that pleasure of pleasures, when the warm gush darts through all the ravish’d inwards; what floods of bliss! what melting transport! 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 drown’d, when one gives the languishing stretch-out and dies at the discharge.
How often, when the rage and tumult of my sense had subsided after the melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation, ask’d myself coolly 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 anything so transcendently the taste of my eyes and heart as that delicious, fond, matchless youth?
Thus we spent the whole afternoon till suppertime, in a continued circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing, toying, and all the rest of the feast. At length, supper was serv’d in, before which Charles had, for I do not know what reason, slipt his clothes on; and sitting down by the bedside, we made table and tablecloth of the bed and sheets, whilst he suffer’d nobody to attend or serve but himself. He ate with a very good appetite, and seem’d charm’d to see me eat. For my part, I was so enchanted with my fortune, 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 satisfy’d, 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 wak’d first; and observing my lover slept profoundly, softly disengag’d 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, I tacitly own’d 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 and 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 enjoy’d, and which lay now almost entirely naked, his shirt being truss’d up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the room and season made me easy about the consequence of. I hung over him enamour’d indeed! and devoured all his naked charms with only two eyes, when I could have wish’d them at least a hundred, for the fuller enjoyment of the gaze.
