Infernal Revolutions (30 page)

I bowed humbly in tacit acknowledgement of my sinful weakness, and turned to the base of the ladder, where I stood looking up doubtfully at the gloom.

‘Here, take this,' said Sophie, handing me the lantern. ‘I'll follow you up.'

I hardly had strength to climb the ladder without the lantern, let alone with it, but by the expediency of pausing for a rest on each rung – a reluctant Jacob on his way to Rebel Heaven – I eventually managed to rise to the hayloft, which by lamplight did indeed possess a soft, snug, welcoming look. Whilst I was wondering whether to disrobe before or after Sophie's arrival, a walking stick came cartwheeling over the parapet, narrowly missing my head.

‘Catch!' called Sophie, after a coughing fit lasting some minutes. Then I heard creaking and grunting sounds below, and concluded that she was on her way up to join me.

‘Still dressed, sweetie?' she said with surprise as I met her at the top. ‘Why, I thought I'd given you ample time in which to disrobe in private. Still, never mind,' she added, reaching out to tug at my breeches with a glazed look in her eyes, ‘two pairs of hands are better than one.'

‘Madam!' I protested weakly, as Sophie set laughingly about her job, ‘this is an outrage!'

‘Isn't it!' exclaimed Sophie joyfully, tearing apart my breeches with the ferocity of a ratter. ‘But these are outrageous times. Fusty decorum and false modesty are things of the…' Her voice faded away, so that
past
was barely audible. Something down there, if I was not mistaken, had caught her attention, and subdued her. The salt marsh aroma returned with a vengeance.

‘Oh Harry, I've never seen one set in aspic before.'

‘'Tis not aspic, I fear, Madam. ‘Tis…'

‘Oh, I know what it is, Harry. Don't you worry about that.'

She tilted her head back and inhaled deeply, a look of Mozartian ecstasy on her face. ‘Just smell that Salty Dog!'

Such unconditional and unexpected admiration made me reinterpret my shame as pride. ‘Twas indeed, as the most reluctant sniffer would agree, a very manly tang, so full of vigour and potency that it was surely only a matter of time before my dog was called into battle proper. However, just at the very moment of whimpering surrender, my mind began to proliferate with doubts once more. Most troubling was whether, when it came to the crunch, I dare risk infection with an unknown woman, however captivating. I continued to agonize over this while Sophie went on with her work, peeling my breeches off with a zest refreshing rather than whorish. Indeed, so unconcerned was she about the state of my soul that she even whistled while she toyed with me.

And toy with me she did, chuckling and gurgling to herself as she removed one item of clothing after another. I lay still like a corpse, in the half-hope that she would lose interest and fall asleep, but my non-compliance only seemed to excite her the more. Before long, I was unwrapped completely, and a strange silence replaced Sophie's chucklings. I was, I felt sure, being gloatingly admired, and in all probability mentally raped. I quickly feigned a light snore.

‘Harreee,' came up Sophie's wheedling voice, my name being drawn out coquettishly.

‘What?' I replied, mock-groggily, smacking my lips.

‘You're not tired, are you?'

‘A little.'

I both heard and felt the sigh that followed – ‘twas of disappointment, and it wafted along the inside of my right thigh, very mollifying.

‘Then you lie back,' she said eventually, ‘and rest while I clean you up.'

‘Oh, I can clean myself up in the morning. Come up here and lie down with me.' I wanted her face where I could see it, to counter irrational fears of having my engine bitten off.

‘No, I said I would clean you up so I will. Though I must say, you smell very clean already.'

‘Yes, I had a bath only two days ago.'

‘More than once a month is considered effiminate around these parts.'

We tutted together at New Jersey degeneracy.

‘Harreee,' came the wheedle again, after a couple of minutes of brooding silence.

‘Aye?'

‘There's something I've always wanted to do, and now I have an opportunity to do it. In fact, the opportunity is staring me in the face. And I've not had many opportunities in life, I really haven't.'

This was ominous, and I feared the worst, but I could not refuse a request couched in such affecting terms. Besides, I had concluded that toying – even mutual toying if I felt up to it later – could do no harm.

‘Aye, go on then. If you must.'

My words were barely out when what felt like a highly mobile leech clamped on to the stickiest part of my groin, and started to remove all traces of seminal paste, one wet sucking circle at a time. Reduced to a mere human salt-lick, I nevertheless writhed with involuntary pleasure as my mouth went O O O at the rafters and my fists pummelled the floor in ecstatic outrage. However, having been shot off many times already, I greatly feared a dry bob and subsequent infection, so I tried desperately to think of detumescents. Thomas Paine's
Common Sense
, George Washington's false teeth and Hartley's mange all went through my mind, but nothing could stop the slow weary elevation of my barrel to the zenith. Quiveringly sensitive to all of its doings, I felt something flutter over its head, perhaps Sophie's eyelashes. Then came the cascade of hair on my belly, and the very definite placing of lips on the nodding lobb. My fists became palmed thrashings, as Sophie's teeth nibbled their way up to the root of my being, taking it all in. Then she clamped her mouth shut, and slid the hot tight little purse up and down my length with great facility.

‘My dear,' I blathered, feeling what was left of my sap begin to rise, and not wanting to disgrace myself again. ‘I think I am now clean enough, thank you. Please desist and lie down quietly by my side.'

Heedless of my words, the head stayed where it was, bobbing up and down, engrossed in its supper. I continued with more urgency.

‘Sophie, I must insist. I fear damage to my internal organs if I am forced to gush once more. I am not, alas, as young as I was.'

This in many ways pathetic plea seemed to have an effect, for Sophie's head came up covered in hair, which she proceeded to sweep back off her forehead with a single movement of her hand. The look revealed on her face, however, was not a compassionate one. The unfocused eyes, the dazed expression, the foaming mouth, all meant only one thing – murderous, mindless lust. Realizing my virginity was in frightful danger, I started to spiderwalk my fingers slowly towards my breeches, ready for a desperate getaway. But ‘twas too late. With a Rebel Yell she hoisted her skirt high and jumped onto me, legs astraddle. A squirm, a pelvic wriggle, a groan, and she had impaled herself on my rogering iron. This I considered to be an outrageous abuse of my liberty, if not of my happiness. I protested vigorously.

‘Madam!' I began, as though speaking out against the Stamp Act in the House of Commons, ‘if you think you can bring me here to use as you wish, like a cat toying with a mouse, then you are badly mistaken. I have already given you an inch – or so – and now you have taken a mile. I demand that you get off me now, get dressed, and start acting with more decorum. We are not barnyard animals, Madam.'

Sophie's response to this surprised me. Obviously in no mood for discussion, she raised her right hand high and slapped me twice across the face in a lovely fore- and backhand sweeping movement. Then she gagged my mouth with her left hand and rutted even more hotly, head down and staring at the point of Infernal Combustion with fierce concentration. Spluttering around the corners of her hand, I realized I was getting a terrible going-over, but my cannon stubbornly refused to fire and get the whole grisly ordeal over with.

However, this delay paradoxically gave me time to review my position. Although I was being treated like a piece of meat, had not now the deed been done? I was no longer a virgin, whether she climbed off now or not; I probably had the clap, whether she climbed off now or not; and – seepage considered – she was probably pregnant, whether she climbed off now or not. My hand, and other things, had been forced. And on reflection I was glad that they had: at least I would no longer die a virgin. And it was touching, not to mention gratifying, the way that Sophie was groaning and thrashing above me. All that effort, all that determination to grimly enjoy herself – I had a lot to thank her for in truth, and ‘twould have been ungrateful of me not to pay her back in kind. So, resetting my mind for Enjoyment, I waited until Sophie's lust was almost spent – which it obviously was when she started to list badly on the side of her weak leg – and then, praying for beginner's luck, I went over to the Attack, to Sophie's great astonishment.

‘Oh, Harry!' she squealed, as I began to play the man with her. ‘You love me as much as I love you!'

‘Is that why you slapped me?' I roared, deepening my voice by several octaves.

‘No,' said Sophie, widening her eyes with happy fright, ‘I did that purely for enjoyment.'

‘For that, Madam, you must pay!'

‘I'm ready!' cried Sophie. ‘Do your worst, you Bold Man!'

My worst was the same as my best, in the contradictory terms of these amorous engagements, and ‘twas enough to make gluttonous monsters of us both. After a brief rest I was then introduced to a variety of new positions including the
New Jersey Straddler
, the
Hackensack Babymaker
, the
Pillowdribbler
and the
Bergen County Slammer
, though how Sophie knew about these things was a matter of conjecture. In return I could only give a reprise of the
Brighthelmstone Basher
, but I vowed I would spend much of my spare time creating more subtle ones now that I was started. And through it all we squawked, we squealed, we grunted, we rolled and rutted until our bare bodies were covered in sweat and hay. In short, we behaved like beasts, and ‘twas quite glorious; and as for the noise, it compared favourably to that made by Dick and Clara in Hoboken, once the deadening effect of the hay had been taken into account. If unsure on any point, I simply shouted, screamed or grunted at the top of my voice – though what relationship this bore to what I was feeling I could not ascertain. The main thing was, it was all quite obscene, and an unworthy subject of reflection for even the lowest Augustan poet. However, some thirdrate Milton might have found symbolic solace in the way we eventually rolled right off the end of the parapet, and fell a good ten feet onto yet more bales of hay.

After the shock, as of cold water being thrown over us, we composed ourselves and exchanged compliments.

‘Sir,' said Sophie solemnly, picking strands of hay out of my hair. ‘You have rogered me senseless. I cannot move a limb.'

I glowed with pride.

‘I thank you, Madam. And may I say, that never before have I felt so physically abused. I feel as though my kidneys have been removed.'

Sophie kissed me for saying this, then draped an arm and a leg over me. In a few seconds she was snoring straight down my ear. Blissfully happy, I tried to stay awake in order to replay in my mind the staggering events of the evening, but ‘twas hopeless: there was too much to take in, and I found myself instead being sucked ever faster down the whirling plughole of Oblivion. Moments later I gargled, and was gone.

For a good few minutes after waking I did not know where or what I was. I simply lay like a disembodied idiot watching motes of dust dance in the thin slices of sunlight. Then I became aware of saliva trickling from the corner of my mouth, always the sign with me of a blissfully deep sleep. But blissfully deep sleeps in the past had only followed the writing of poetry, and I had no memory of doing that. Then, obligingly, a cock crowed very close, and it all came flooding back – visually, aurally and sensually. I beamed up at the distant rafters, then looked around for My Love so that I could grab her and do it again. As I did so, however, my attention was diverted by a strange white protuberance on my ranger, which for one dreadful moment I thought might be an early symptom of the pox. Tentatively, I stretched out my hand to hold the gruesome Dildo, and was horrified when it crumpled and crackled at my touch, much in the manner of dead, dry skin. However, I soon gave a sigh of relief – ‘twas merely one of my spying notes rolled and pinned into a Dunce's Cap, on the blank side of which Sophie had written, in capitals, RATS KEEP OFF. PRIVATE PROPERTY OF SOPHIE B MECKLENBURG. Below that, in an atrocious hand adorned with hearts, straggled BACK SOON WITH BREAKFAST, HARRY
LOVER
MAN.

This appellation, I confess, was immensely gratifying to me. It meant, at last, that I was an aphrodisiac to someone on this earth, and could finally consider myself a man in the true Oysterman tradition. What would my father say now, the fat fool? And more importantly what would the likes of Eloise De Witt and Vickie Tremblett say now that my potency had been confirmed in an exhausted female hand? Yes, I mulled with wry detachment on the fickleness of the world's opinion, how people's perceptions would be changed. No more would it be ‘Poor Harry' this, and ‘Poor Harry' that, but ‘Oh, Mr Oysterman, who is that gratified-looking woman by your side?' And I would tell them, with great pride, that it was the one and only Sophie B. Mecklenburg, the Limping Lady of the Lowlands. And they (viz. all the women who had ever spurned me) would waft their fans with simulated indifference, and secretly curse the day they mistook an embryonic pearl for an irritating piece of sand.

But such vindictive and selfregarding reverie was proof enough that I was no pearl yet, and I struggled to pull my mind back to the Right Way. Once done, I could see clear enough that I should not be thinking about Wonderful Me, or Defeated Them, but the Revolutionary Sophie, whose extravagant love had set my blood bubbling in the first place. Wrapped in her arms, I had been a poor plague-ridden city engulfed by a cleansing fire, and now I was free to start building my life anew.

In such an Edenic state I was unable to bear the idea of getting dressed immediately – which was just as well, as my clothes were nowhere to be seen – so I rose and made my way naked towards the barn door, which was blazing a beckoning rectangle of light at me. Leading the way, lolling and twitching like a divining rod, was no less a personage than Captain Standish, reactivated since the engagement with Sophie, and looking and feeling as if he would never go down again. I was damnably proud, and could not resist a jump on the spot, simply for the pleasure of watching him buck and leap and come to rest as firm and horizontal as a
Twinkle
crosstree. Even as I fumbled with the latch of the door, it was banging its head against the wood in a frenzy of impatience, eager to get on with its dirty work of populating New Jersey. But I was no Hessian, and I was able to smile benignly at the antics of the young fellow, secure in the knowledge that ultimate control of its destination lay not with gross nature, but with Godlike English Reason, a powerful vice that kept all unruly dissidents in their place. Exhilarated, I swung the door open wide, and was rewarded for my boldness with a view that quite staggered my aesthetic senses. For in front of me lay a heavenly landscape come to life – the greenest fields, the bluest skies, the whitest wisps of cloud, all applied with the dash and verve of a Cosmic Gainsborough. Admittedly, the sight of my clothes draped over the horse rail, sending up a column of vapourizing semen, would have marred the scene for many – especially Verne Placquet – but I prided myself on having an aesthetic sense wide enough to accommodate such human blots without undue distress. After all, ‘twas only life, and not even Erasmus himself could feel more indulgence towards the human race than I in such a mood.

Whistling, I tested the clothes for dryness, then dressed as well as I was able given the state of my engorged rod. Then I walked round to the corner of the barn to see where my horse had got to.

‘Whoah!'' said Sophie, coming in the opposite direction and almost colliding with me. ‘Be careful, I have your breakfast here!'

‘Breakfast, eh?' I said, staring with interest first at the girl herself, then at the cloth-covered tray she was carrying. ‘That is very pleasant, my dear. But I seem to have lost my horse.'

Sophie giggled.

‘He is not lost, sweet pea. I took him with me to the farm stables this morning. He's not so conspicuous there. Verne and Mr Placquet will just assume I stole him from a Tory last night. I can get him back for you any time you want.'

I supposed that was acceptable, though I felt vaguely alarmed at the temporary withdrawal of my lifeline to New York.

‘Coffee, sweetie?'

‘Yes,' I said, still weighing up the disadvantages of horseless travel as I followed Sophie back into the barn.

‘Yes
please
, I think you mean, Harry.' There was a sigh, and the gurgle of liquid being poured into a cup. ‘Unless, of course, gross familiarity has already bred contempt.'

I brightened immediately at the memory, forgot about the horse, and clutched hungrily at the pourer.

‘On the contrary, my dear,' I leered wickedly, ‘it has only sharpened my love.'

I grabbed her and launched into a frenzy of kissing.

‘Mind the coffee…mind the coffee…' shrilled Sophie, before her voice turned very hard and threatening. ‘Harry, if I spill this coffee it will be straight down your back! Now heed me, Sir! Coffee is forever sacred in these colonies after what happened at Boston in ‘73, and to spill it is to spill the blood of our glorious Patriots.'

‘Symbolically speaking,' I blubbed from the depths of her bosom.

‘Right, that's it.'

A searing heat fell onto my right kidney, and I involuntarily shot away from her like a scalded cat.

‘I will not be mocked,' said Sophie, with what seemed to me inhuman coldness. ‘Leastways not on political matters. Now, Sir – coffee, or coffee?'

‘Coffee,' I sulked. ‘If I am allowed to swallow such a holy brew.'

‘Facetious Boy!' said Sophie, warm again as she filled up a cup from her flask. ‘Where is your Patriotic fervour?'

‘I seem to have lost it temporarily, along with the skin on my back.'

‘I did warn you it was coming.'

I looked down with concern at my red flank, examined it carefully, and concluded that I would live.

‘Sophie,' I said, as she handed me my cup. ‘Let's play Redcoats and Rebels again, like we did last night.'

I did not like the note of desperation in my voice, but I was desperate. Twenty-one years of frustration could not be expunged in a single night, however good.

‘No, sweetie. I'm not a sweetmeat to be gorged. I'm a delicate flower, to be sipped at regular intervals.'

‘Buzz, buzz,' I said morosely, the most ungallant bee in town. But as my coffee and flagpole went down, my spirits paradoxically rose, until I felt quite cheered. Soon I was more interested in the contents of her basket than the contents of her dress.

‘Now,' said Sophie, delving in, ‘this is the best I could come up with in the circumstances. Mr Placquet was in such a foul mood this morning – ranting and raving about the futility of life after thirty – that he could only find solace in persecuting me. I thought I'd never finish the chores he gave me to do, but finish them I did, with a smile on my face, just to annoy him.'

Sophie smiled in memory of the annoying smile on her face.

‘You could always just run away,' I suggested, examining with curiosity one of the six oddlooking eatables Sophie had placed on a cloth between us.

‘I could, and I will, when the time is right, don't you worry, but…Harry, why are you sniffing and poking that Indian hoecake like you've never seen one before?'

‘Because,' I blustered, ‘I've never seen them made like this before.'

‘There are other ways of making them?'

‘Oh yes – hundreds. New York is the Indianwholecake capital of the world.' I slurred the word deliberately, not being sure if I'd heard Sophie right.

‘The Indian What Of The World?' queried Sophie, confirming that I hadn't, and cocking her head attentively to listen to my answer.

‘O. Cake Capital,' I gambled in a strangled voice, all muscles taut and eyes glaring, as if answering a cruel Latin teacher.

I was regarded with puzzlement for a few agonizing moments, during which I felt that the whole measure of my mystery was being taken. The tension was such that I could think of no flippancy with which to divert her mental probing. A light perspiration broke out on my brow, and I began to shake.

‘Harry, is there something wrong with you?'

I mumbled not, secretly relieved that an outlet for lying had been afforded.

‘Because if there is, tell me, and I will do what I can to help.'

‘Oh, ‘tis nothing,' I said, tossing the untasted delicacy back onto the cloth. ‘Tis just that…'Tis just that…'

‘Out with it, Harry,' implored Sophie, eyes wide with sympathy and curiosity. ‘'Tis just that what?'

‘'Tis just that my mother choked to death on an O. Cake back in New York. I've never been able to look at them in the same light since.'

‘Oh, you poor, poor boy!' Sophie exclaimed, wild with a vicarious grief that was most affecting. ‘Why did you not say when you first saw them – I would have thrown them away immediately. You did not want to offend me, that's why, isn't it?'

I nodded bravely.

‘Will this make amends, my darling Harry?'

She shuffled over to me on her knees, and smothered me with hair and kisses. Pleasure soon heightened to ecstasy when she took my baubles in her hands, and proceeded to caress them tenderly. ‘Twas shameful, really, the dividends that barefaced lying paid, but I was able to assuage my guilt with the knowledge that full disclosure of my position could not be much longer delayed, Dick or no Dick. For I was, I fancy, in love with the girl, and ‘twas only fair that in return for the pleasure she'd given me, she should have the pleasure of handing me over to the Continental Army for hanging, if she so wished. I was easy on the score, being destined for a grisly end anyway sooner or later. I felt sure this would not come to pass just yet, however, for if this was not true love blowing down my ear, I did not know what was.

Love, or whatever it was, being followed by breakfast, whatever that was, for I dare not query further any unfamiliar item, we were set up for a day of sightseeing around Bergen County, or so I thought.

‘Really, Harry. Sometimes I wonder what country you think you're living in. Since when has leisure here ever been anything but the prerogative of the rich, and you cannot be rich if you have domestic duties to attend to, or creditors to evade.'

‘But there's a war on,' I cajoled, ‘all normal rules are suspended.'

‘Tell Mr Placquet that when I'm being whipped naked for desertion.'

A shudder of sexual excitement went through me, but I regained control.

‘Seems that this Mr Placquet has a greater hold on you than you care to admit.'

This clearly touched a raw nerve, for Sophie flared up out of all proportion to the question.

‘I've already told you – I will leave him when I'm good and ready, not before. I have plans of my own, you know. I am not going to abandon them for the whims of a passing stranger.'

‘Stranger!' I exclaimed, aghast. ‘But you've tasted my very salts, Madam! After last night, how much more intimate can you get?'

‘You loved me with your body all right, but how do I know what was going on in your mind?'

‘I couldn't love you with my body if my mind wasn't in it.'

‘Aye, that's what they all say,' she replied tartly, before adding, perhaps in response to the look of horror that must have crossed my face: ‘Or so Nancy tells me.'

‘So when will you make your move?' I asked after several minutes of heavy silence, in which I tasted the full bitterness of Love's ashes – a far worse state than hopeful celibacy. ‘Because by my estimation you have until Christmas at the most before the British arrive and make your decisions for you. What difference can a few weeks possibly make?'

‘They'll not get hold of me, those Dogs.'

‘I do not see how you can prevent them getting hold of you – except, as I say, by running away.'

Sophie smiled strangely, as if things of import were on her mind. This made me think I had not done my sexual job properly after all.

‘Do you know what my main problem is at the moment, Harry? The one that really prevents my otherwise-willing departure from this God-forsaken place?'

‘I do not, Madam,' I answered, all ears and trepidation. ‘No, not I.'

‘Muskets,' said Sophie. ‘Muskets, balls and powder. Lack of.'

I smiled and sighed with relief. The poor, vulnerable girl!

‘Sophie, you do not need such things if you come with me. I have a pistol, you have seen it. I will protect you with my life, you need have no fear. Every hair of your head is precious to me, and if one is so much as tweaked by a roguish trooper, I will personally stake him to the ground and blow apart every joint in his damned body, until he cries out to his Maker for mercy!'