Venus in India (22 page)

That afternoon I got a little note from Fanny saying that mama had desired her to write and ask me to dine with them unless I had a prior engagement. That was the propriety part but in the corner written very small and hurriedly was, 'Do come, my darling!' I sent reply that I should have much pleasure in accepting the invitation and I went.

As I suspected it was for the sake of a council of war that I was wanted and I told Colonel and Mrs Selwyn that I had seen old Bridges and both thought it was an excellent move. The poor colonel was especially anxious to get rid of Lavie, for that fellow used to come in by whichever door of my bungalow happened to suit him at any time of the day he wanted to see me, and as he used to come some nine or ten times a day the colonel was twice nearly caught in one of my spare rooms fucking Mrs Soubratie and for a week or more he had been entirely without his accustomed greens as he never knew when Lavie might perhaps find him partaking of them between Mrs Soubratie's brown thighs. The colonel also naturally wanted to put an end to the courtship, which was ridiculous and scandalous, so he determined to see Bridges himself and insist on Lavie's being sent away.

After dinner we all walked up and down the fine avenue in the cool evening air, under a sky lit up by a myriad of lovely stars. We talked of nothing but Lavie until Mrs Selwyn, getting tired, took the colonel in, leaving Fanny, Amy, Mabel and me walking together. Amy got rid of Mabel and I would have been as glad as Fanny if we could equally have got rid of Amy too. Our conversation naturally turned on love and matrimony and Amy said, 'Well! I only hope nobody will ever ask me to marry them. I will surely say no!'

'Why?' said I laughing.

'Oh! Fancy going to bed with a man! I should die of shame!'

'Your mother goes to bed every night with your father, Amy, and she does not die of shame.'

'Oh, that's different!'

'I don't see it.'

'Well! anyhow I should die of shame. Would not you, Fanny?'

Fanny hesitated. She had hold of my hand and gently squeezing it she said, 'I think that would depend upon whether I loved the man or not.'

'Exactly,' said I. 'I know my wife was rather ashamed the first night I came to sleep with her but long before morning she laughed at her foolish fears!'

'Oh! Do tell us all about it!' cried Amy, who seemed to have an eagerness to know how such a change could come over my wife in such a short time.

'Well!' I said, 'I will tell you willingly but mind you if I do I shall have to touch on subjects it is not usual to speak of to young virgins.'

'Never mind,' said Amy, 'it is dark and you will not be able to see our blushes.'

I was delighted at the prospect of being able to inflame still more if possible the already highly raised passions of Fanny, whose little hand trembled in mine, and I commenced, 'Well! I will not tell you all about the marriage ceremony because, I dare say, you are familiar with the open-daylight mysteries of marriage. It is of the secret side of matrimony, of the nuptial couch, of which I speak and I warn you once I begin I can't leave off. So if I say anything which sounds shocking you will have to hear it in silence. Do you care for me to go on?'

'Yes!' cried both girls and glancing at Amy I saw her press her hand for a moment between her thighs, for dark as it was it was not too dark for me to see that much. I was satisfied. It was evident that her little cunnie was tickling and I was determined that it should tickle her a good deal more before I was done. Not that I had any designs on Amy's cunt; I aimed at Fanny's rather.

'Well! my bride and I went to Brighton to spend the first night or so of our honeymoon. All the way in the train we had to appear calm, to speak to one another as naturally as could be, but I could see that Louie was not quite the same as she had been before that day. Had we been going to Brighton unmarried and not as we were, bride and bridegroom, I am sure she would have talked and laughed in a free and open manner whereas now some thought which I could easily guess at was oppressing her. That thought was of course that her whole life was going to change now that I had rights over her body which I had never had before and that surely in a very few hours' time I should be exercising them. She told me afterwards she had often longed for that time but now it had come she felt nervous.'

'No wonder,' said Amy again, pressing her cunnie with a trembling hand. I saw the movement quick as it was and made my prick more comfortable under the buttons of my trousers, an act which Fanny saw and which she responded to by a hard squeeze of my hand.

'Ah! no wonder! as you say Amy. And yet if our courtships were more natural and less conventional than they are, there would be none of this unnatural restraint. Why I loved my Louie as I had never loved a girl before. There was not a part of her I did not ardently desire to kiss, to devour! The very ground she stood on, the chairs she sat in, were all sacred to me! In fact, I loved her! I had fancied I loved others before but I now knew for the first time what love was. Ah! it is not all a matter of the heart alone but of the body also. I wonder if either of you two girls has any notion of what passion is? When all one's being is stirred up by the thought of the presence of the beloved, of the desired one! I suppose in fact I know that girls do experience much physical excitement when the passion comes on but in a man the change from quiescence to storm and fury is enormously marked. Yet in our cold way of making love, which is the conventional way, it would appear to be proper to forget all ideas of knowledge of difference of sex or even the meaning of marriage. A lover may speak of his mistress's beautiful face, her beautiful figure or her beautiful hips or her beautiful legs or thighs but never under any circumstances of that most exquisite and beautiful charm of charms which, made for him and for him alone, lies between those beautiful thighs.'

'Oh! Captain Devereaux! For shame!' cried out Amy.

'Do be quiet!' exclaimed Fanny. 'Captain Devereaux is quite right, Amy, and you know it.'

Amy laughed and seemed uneasy and remained silent.

'Well! I was thinking all the way down to Brighton of all those charming charms which were now mine and which I was literally burning to possess myself of, but ever and anon would come the thought how might I do it? How was I to dare to lay a hand on my Louie which must startle her modesty, however much her thoughts may have run on the consummation of our marriage? Such thoughts in her I considered not at all unlikely, for modest and virtuous as my Louie was I knew from her general demeanour that, although innocent, she could not be ignorant.

'Afterwards Louie told me that similar conflicts had been plaguing her. She longed for my marital embraces on the nuptial couch with great ardour but she dreaded the first steps. Oh! she longed to give herself to me she said but she feared that in so doing I might lose something of that valued respect for her which I had constantly shown. She feared to be immodest. How could she give me her naked charms without doing that which from her babyhood she had learnt to look upon as immodest to a degree? No wonder we felt an unnatural degree of restraint, a kind of fear of one another, for although when passion drives hard two lovers can be absolutely and unashamedly naked to one another, without such passion that nakedness which ought to be so glorious and so divine may be degraded to indecency and nastiness.'

'I cannot imagine it ever being anything else!' exclaimed Amy, vigorously caressing herself between her thighs. 'However -'

'Amy I wish to goodness you would be quiet and let Captain Devereaux tell his story!' cried Fanny petulantly. For some time she had been walking with her own hand constantly on her thrilling little cunt, quite indifferent whether I noticed it or not. I pretended not to do so, however.

'Well!' I resumed, 'at last we arrived at Brighton. Having eaten our dinner we tried to appear calm to one another. Louie ventured to sit on my knees with her arms round my neck but was careful not to press her bosom against mine. Having exhausted every available topic of conversation and, I admit, having behaved like a pair of fools, so terribly afraid were we of one another, I ventured to hint that it was time to go to bed. "Oh!" said Louie (hiding her hot and blushing face in my neck), "not yet, Charlie darling! It is not half-past ten! I never go to bed so early!" Then for the first time did I pluck up a little courage. I kissed her over her lips and I whispered, "This is our wedding night, my darling, darling Louie."

'She darted at me one quick little look, then cast down her eyes, gave me a kiss and whispered, "Well don't come up too soon, there's a good fellow. Oh! Charlie! I wish it was tomorrow!" she jumped up and ran out of the room.

'Thus having ventured to hint at what was to follow on this our wedding night I felt inspired with some degree of courage and with courage came desire in floods far greater than I had yet experienced with Louie. I literally burned to have her! How long would it be before I might go up? There was a clock on the mantelpiece and it seemed to take an hour to mark one minute. At the end of ten minutes I could stand it no longer. I was in real pain - for you must know if passion means pleasure it means pain too until it is indulged.'

Here Fanny looked at me and pressed my hand. Ye gods! I wished Amy anywhere else but where she was. My voice trembled as I resumed.

'On going upstairs to our bedroom I saw Louie's pretty little boots outside the door. I hailed this as a good omen. I picked them up and kissed them and then, giving a little warning knock but without waiting to be told to come in, I turned the handle and entered. Louie was in her nightdress, just getting into bed. She gave a little cry, "Oh! you have come sooner than I expected!" and she huddled herself under the clothes showing only the upper part of her face. Oh! once she was in bed I seemed to shake off my most unnatural cowardice. I closed the door and running over to her I turned the clothes off her face and neck and I put one arm round her shoulders and rained the most burning and ardent kisses on her sweet lips; at the same time I slipped my hand into her bosom and for the first time took possession of the two most beautiful globes which adorned it. Louie did not draw back. She in no way tried to prevent my caressing her there. I was more than tempted to let my hand stray much lower and to seek for the temple of love of which the closely barred door is to be found at the foot of the forested hill sacred to the goddess of love!'

'Gracious!' cried Amy. 'Where and what is that?'

'As if you did not know, Amy!' exclaimed Fanny indignantly.

'You will soon hear, Amy,' said I. 'Well! I did not do so. Louie had both her arms around me and held me tight but I should have liked to have undone the front of her nightdress altogether and to have kissed the beautiful breasts I had found there, but poor Louie, who would have liked me to have done that too, was still a prey to the struggles of her dying modesty. At last I slipped my hand under her armpit and tickled her. With a loud shriek she let me go but she did not cover herself up any more. She lay looking at me with really longing eyes whilst I rapidly undressed. I put my watch on the table. I managed to get off my clothes and put on my nightshirt without offending modesty very much and I was just going round to the other side of the bed to get in when Louie told me I had not wound my watch and that she had not wound hers either. "Oh!" I cried, "let them run down, my Louie, never mind now!" "No!" said she, "Charlie darling, don't let us begin our married life by leaving undone anything which we ought to do." Oh bother! To please her I wound up both watches with a hand trembling with excitement and then jumped into bed.'

'Did you not blow out the candle?' asked Amy.

'Amy! if you interrupt any more,' cried Fanny angrily, 'I will ask Captain Devereaux not to let you know what happened next.'

'No, I did not blow out the candle, Amy, Louie said something about it but I pretended not to hear. I jumped into bed and put my arms around her and I hugged her to me. For just a moment she resisted a little stiffly but the next moment she yielded; she hid her face, which was all on fire, in my neck and whilst I kissed her frantically I put down my hand and gently drew up the veil which interposed itself between me and those glorious charms which could not much longer be kept from me or remain virgin. With as much delicacy as possible I passed my trembling hand over the smooth surface of her exquisite thighs until I reached the "bush with frizzled hair implicit", as Milton says.'

'Captain Devereaux!' shrieked Amy.

'And finding the sweet entrance to the temple I caressed it with an ardour which Louie could feel pouring in burning flames from my fingers. All she did or said was to hug me closer and murmur, "Oh! Charlie! Oh! Charlie." Finding her so quiet I -'

'What?' cried both girls in suffocating tones.

'I begged her to make place for me and let me worship her with my body as I had promised to do in my marriage vows. Gently she turned on her back and putting one knee first and then the other between hers I gently, but in the greatest excitement, lowered myself on to her beautiful body and then awoke every hidden source of pleasure and passion in her as I made the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies. Oh! dear girls, the rapture of that moment! To feel that I was really and truly joined to her and that the same throb which pulsated in and through her equally pulsated in and through me! It was a glimpse of heaven! It was love! Love in its very highest fulfilment. Louie gave herself to me without further restraint - all fear was gone, all ill-placed modesty was banished - and before morning light had come to take the place of that still yielded by the nearly burnt-out candles, my Louie lay perfectly naked - and not red with shame - in my equally perfectly naked embrace. There was not a part of our bodies which we hadn't mutually caressed and gazed upon and eaten up with kisses ardent and plentiful! Our sacrifices were without number! We kept no count! but the entire night was spent in revels which the angels, sexless and passionless, must have envied had they the means of realising, even in imagination, what they were like!'