Fifty Shades of Victorian Desire (25 page)

Having in the last two chapters related my first boyhood’s experience in love, I think for incident it will equal any to be found in works of greater fame, but I do not intend to weary you with any further relations of my early successes on the Venusian war path.

I pass over the period of my youth and very early manhood, leaving you to imagine that my first lesson with Emma and my father as joint instructors was by no means thrown away.

Yet I found at the age of thirty I was only on the threshold of mysteries far more entrancing. I had up to that time been a mere man of pleasure, whose ample fortune (for my father who had grown rich, did not disinherit me when he died) sufficed to procure any of those amorous delights without which the world would be a blank to me.

But further than the ordinary pleasures of the bed I had not penetrated.

‘The moment was, however, approaching when all these would sink into insignificance before those greater sensual joys which wholesome and well-applied flagellation will always confer upon its devotees.’

I quote the last sentence from a well-known author, but I’m far from agreeing with it in theory or principle.

I was emerging one summer’s evening from the Café Royal, in Regent-street, with De Vaux, a friend of long standing, when he nodded to a gentleman passing in a ‘hansom’, who at once stopped the cab and got out.

‘Who is it?’ said I, for I felt a sudden and inexplicable interest in his large lustrous eyes, eyes such as I have never before seen in any human being.

‘That is Father Peter, of St Martha of the Angels. He is a bircher, my boy, and one of the best in London.

At this moment we were joined by the Father, and a formal introduction took place.

I had frequently seen admirable
cartes
of Father Peter, or rather, as he preferred to be called, Monsignor Peter, in the shop windows of the leading photographers, and at once accused myself of being a dolt not to have recognized him at first sight.

Descriptions are wearisome at the best, yet were I a clever novelist given to the art, I think I might even interest those of the sterner sex in Monsignor Peter, but although in the following paragraph I faithfully delineate him, I humbly ask his pardon if he should perchance in the years to come glance over these pages, and think I have not painted his portrait in colours sufficiently glowing, for I must assure my readers that Father Peter is no imaginary Apollo, but one who in the present year of grace, 1883, lives, moves, has his being, eats, drinks, fucks, and flagellates with all the
verve
and dash he possessed at the date I met him first, now twenty-five years ago.

Slightly above the middle height, and about my own age, or possibly a year my senior, with finely chiselled features, and exquisite profile, Father Peter was what the world would term an exceedingly handsome man. It is true that hypercritics might have pronounced the mouth a trifle too sensual, and the cheeks a thought too plump for a standard of perfection, but the women would have deemed otherwise, for the grand dreamy Oriental eyes, which would have outrivalled those of Byron’s Gazelle, made up for any shortcoming.

The tonsure had been sparing in its dealings with his hair, which hung in thick but well-trimmed masses round a classic head, and as the slight summer breeze blew aside one lap of his long clerical coat, I noticed the elegant shape of his cods, which in spite of the tailor’s art, would display their proportions, to the evident admiration of one or two ladies who, pretending to look
in at the windows of a draper near which we were standing, seemed rivetted to the spot, as the zephyrs revealed the tantalizing picture.

‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Clinton,’ said Father Peter, shaking me cordially by the hand. ‘Any friend of Mr. De Vaux, is a friend of mine also. May I ask if either of you have dined yet?’

We replied in the negative.

‘Then, in that case, unless you have something better to do, I shall be glad if you will join me at my own home. I dine at seven, and am already rather late. I feel half-famished and was proceeding to Kensington, where my humble quarters are, post haste, when the sight of De Vaux compelled me to discharge the cab. What say you?’

‘With all my heart,’ replied De Vaux, with alacrity, and since I knew him to be a perfect sybarite at the table, and that his answer was based on a knowledge of Monsignor’s resources, I readily followed suit.

To hail a four-wheeler, and get to the doors of Father Peter’s handsome but somewhat secluded dwelling, which was not very far from the south end of the long walk in Kensington Gardens, did not occupy more than twenty minutes.

En route I discovered that Father Peter possessed a further charm, which added to those I have already mentioned, must have made him (as I thought even then, and as I know now) perfectly invincible among womankind. He was the most fascinating conversationalist I ever listened to. It was not so much the easy winning way in which he framed his sentences, but the rich musical intonation, and the luscious laughing method he had of suggesting an infinity of things without, as a respectable member of an eminently respectable church, committing himself in words.

No one, save at exceptional intervals, could ever repeat any actual phrase of Monsignor’s which might not pass current in a drawing room, yet there was an instinctive craving on the part of his audience to hear more because they imagined he meant something which was going to lead up to something further, yet the something further never came.

Father Peter was wont to say when questioned upon this annoying peculiarity: ‘Am I to be held answerable for other people’s imaginations?’

But then Father Peter was a sophist of the first water, and a
clever reasoner could have at any rate proved that his innuendoes had in the first place created the imaginings.

Daudet Belot, and other leaders of the French fictional school have at times carefully analysed those fine
nuances
which distinguish profligate talk from delicate suggestiveness, Monsignor had read these works, and adapted their ideas with success.

‘My
chef
,’ said Monsignor, as we entered the courtyard of his residence, ‘tyrannizes over me worse than any Nero, I am only five minutes behind, and yet I dare not ask him for an instant’s grace. You are both dressed. I suppose if I hadn’t met you it would have been the “Royalty” front row; Fiorina, they say, has taken to forgetting her unmentionables lately.’

We both denied the soft impeachment, and assured him that the information about Fiorina was news to us.

Monsignor professed to be surprised at this, and rushed off to his dressing-room to make himself presentable.

Before many minutes he rejoined us, and leading the way, we followed him into one of the most lovely little bijou
salons
it had ever been my lot to enter. There were seats for eight at the table, four of which were occupied, and the
chef
, not waiting for his lord and master, had already sent up the soup, which was being handed round by a plump, rosy-cheeked boy, about fifteen years old, who I afterwards found acted in the double capacity of page to Monsignor and chorister at St. Martha of the Angels.

I was briefly introduced, and De Vaux, who knew them all, had shaken himself into his seat and swallowed half of his asparagus soup before I had time to properly note the appearance of my neighbours.

Immediately on my left sat a complete counterpart of Monsignor himself, save that he was a much older man, his name, as casually mentioned to me, was Father Boniface, and although sparer in his proportions than Father Peter, his proclivities as a trencherman belied his meagreness. He never missed a single course, and when anything particular tickled his gustatory nerve, he had two or even more helpings.

Next to him sat a little short apoplectic man, a Doctor of Medicine, who was more of an epicure.

A sylph-like girl of sixteen occupied the next seat. Her fair hair, rather flaxen than golden-hued, hung in profusion down her back, while black lashes gave her violet eyes that shade which Greuze, the finest eye painter the world has ever seen, wept to think he could never exactly reproduce. I was charmed with her lady-like manner, her neatness of dress, virgin white, and above all, with the modest and unpretending way she replied to the questions put to her.

If ever there were a maid at sixteen under the blue vault of heaven, she sits there, was my involuntary thought, to which I mechanically nearly gave expression, but was fortunately saved from such a frightful lapse by the page, who placing some appetizing salmon and lobster sauce before me, dispelled for the nonce my half visionary condition.

Monsignor P. sat near this young divinity, and ever and anon between the courses passed his soft white hands through her wavy hair.

I must admit I didn’t half like it, and began to feel a jealous pang, but the knowledge that it was only the caressing hand of a Father of the Romish Church quieted me.

I was rapidly getting maudlin, and as I ate my salmon the smell of the lobster sauce suggested other thoughts, till I found the tablecloth gradually rising, and was obliged to drop my napkin on the floor to give myself the opportunity of adjusting my prick, so that it would not be observed by the company.

I have omitted to mention the charmer who was placed between De Vaux and Father Peter. She was a lady of far maturer years than the sylph, and might be as near as one could judge in the pale incandescent light which the pure filtered gas shed round with voluptuous radiance, about twenty-seven. She was a strange contrast to Lucy, for so my sylph was called. Tall, and with a singularly clear complexion for a brunette; her bust was beautifully rounded with that fullness of contour which, just avoiding the gross, charms without disgusting. Madeline, in short, was in every inch a woman to chain a lover to her side.

I had patrolled the continent in search of good goods, I had overhauled every shape and make of cunt between Constantinople and Calcutta, but as I caught the liquid expression of Madeline’s large sensuous eyes, I confessed myself a fool.

Here, in Kensington, right under a London clubman’s nose, was the
beau ideal
I had vainly travelled ten thousand miles to
find. She was sprightliness itself in conversation, and I could not sufficiently thank De Vaux for having introduced me into such an Eden.

Lamb cutlets and cucumbers once more broke in upon my dream, and I was not at all sorry, for I found the violence of my thoughts had burst one of the buttons of my fly, a mishap I knew from old experience would be followed by the collapse of the others unless I turned my erratic brain wanderings into another channel, so that I kept my eyes fixed on my plate, absolutely afraid to gaze upon these two constellations again.

‘As I observed just now,’ said the somewhat fussy little Doctor, ‘cucumber or cowcumber, it mattes not much which, if philologists differ in the pronunciation surely we may.’

‘The pronunciation,’ said Father Peter, with a naïve look at Madeline, ‘is very immaterial, provided one does not eat too much of them. They are a dangerous plant, sir, they heat the blood, and we poor churchmen who have to chastise the lusts of the flesh, should avoid them
in toto
; yet I would fain have some more,’ and suiting the action to the word, he helped himself to a quantity.

I should mention that I was sitting nearly opposite Lucy, and seeing her titter at the paradoxical method the worthy Father had of assisting himself to cucumber against his own argument, I thought it a favourable opportunity to show her that I sympathized with her mirth, so, stretching out my foot, I gently pressed her toe, and to my unspeakable joy she did not take her foot away, but rather, indeed, pushed it further in my direction.

I then, on the pretence of adjusting my chair, brought it a little nearer the table, and was in ecstacies when I perceived Lucy not only guessed what my manoeuvres meant, but actually in a very sly puss-like way brought her chair nearer too.

Then, balancing my arse on the edge of my seat as far as I could without being noticed, with my prick only covered with the table napkin, for it had with one wild bound burst all the remaining buttons of my breeches, I reached forward my foot, from which I had slid off my boot with the other toe, and in less than a minute I had worked it up so that I could just feel the heat of her fanny.

I will say this for her, she tried all she knew to help me, but her cursed drawers were an insuperable obstacle, and I was foiled. I knew if I proceeded another inch I should inevitably come a cropper, and this knowledge, coupled with the fact that
Lucy was turning wild with excitement, now red, now white, warned me to desist for the time being.

I now foresaw a rich conquest – something worth waiting for, and my blood coursed through my veins at the thought of that sweet little bower nestling within those throbbing thighs, for I could tell from the way her whole frame trembled how thoroughly mad she was at the trammels which society imposed. Not only that, the moisture on my stocking told me that it was something more than the dampness of perspiration, and I felt half sorry to think that I had ‘jewgaged’ her. At the same time, to parody the words of the Poet Laureate:

‘’Tis better frigging with one’s toe,

Than never to have frigged at all.’

Some braised ham and roast fowls now came on, and I was astonished to find a poor priest of the Church of Rome launching out in this fashion. The Sauterne with the salmon had been simply excellent, and the Mumms, clear and sparkling, which accompanied the latter courses had fairly electrified me.

By the way, as this little dinner party may serve as a lesson to some of those whose experience is limited, I will mention one strange circumstance which may account for much of what is to come.

Monsignor, when the champagne had been poured out for the first time, before any one had tasted it, went to a little liqueur stand, and taking from it a bottle of a most peculiar shape, added to each glass a few drops of the cordial.