“Shall you play Pontius Pilate with your wicked stand? What is truth? Am I not my own truth? Come, let us to the pillage of one less innocent than I. There is a booth, you say, a place for pleasure, entertainment? Will not the multitudes come, surprise us at some lewd display?”
His lips attempt my own. For this impertinence I move away, unclasped, and saunter here and there, beguiling as I know I can beguile.
“There will be privacies, Laura, insinuations of hands, meetings of mouths.”
“If I permit them, as to my own person. Is there some overlord there, a master, mistress, harridan, or whore?”
“A mistress, yes. One of gentle family who fell upon hard times.”
“Gay girls say the same thing, so I have heard- claiming to be the daughters of penniless clergy or shipwrecked captains. I will know her genuineness or not. Is it far?”
“On the marquee yonder, below the hill. She does not wish to be seen by all.”
“Discretion in an open place? It is to be laughed at! I sense a commonness about her purpose, but even so you may take me there. Have care that no hands are laid upon me that I might despise.”
“It shall be as you wish.”
His tone is starched and ironed. Seemingly I have offended by not falling beneath him on the grass. Fantasies, however, serve me better for the nonce. I have been beneath him, but he knows it not, have felt the slime of comings on his cock, the piston's easing from my sheltered dell, faint spatter of his sperm upon the grass.
Rather would I taste strawberries now, sugared, dipped in cream, my quim licked by a Vicar's pet while he, incurious, sleeps by. Such scenes, I believe, Rowlandson or another drew. There was a sheaf of them, as I discovered, beneath an atlas on my father's shelves. The maids were comely and the men mature. Pricks were displayed, looked thin and spired, some being seen to spout, some not. Some waited while the maidens squatted, pissed, or urinated standing, legs apart. There were soundings of experience to be made, as I apprehended. Was there pleasure to be taken in such viewing?
I laid my hand upon a prayer book as I looked, to guard myself from devils, and yet ever turned the leaves. Fadings of colouring lent a charm to all I viewed. Upon seeing how the men's testicles hung, I stirred my loins. The crests were rubicund. I licked my lips. I had not then sucked upon one such but secretly had wished it.
Upon learning that I had viewed them, for I had turned them all about, my aunt had them put away-or burnt, averring that my father had purchased them in foolish youth. One should not keep for too long images on paper, so she said, for it implied unfulfilment in the eyes of those who looked. There was-sadness in the stillness of the figures, she averred. I, being then emergent, knowing the pulsing penis at my bulb, replied that were the eyes of those depicted able to move-were some magic to enable them to move, even without movement of limbs-then sadness would be not apparent. So I cogitated and was found right in my thinking, for there must ever be movement and a flowing. The power of movement exceeds the power of sound. So is the sea witness also to this truth.
My thoughts become more dry upon approaching the marquee. Above the awnings crude paintings are displayed of women seemingly naked and yet not. They represent participants in the Tableaux Vivants which are evidently here to be seen, my uncle explaining that in such the ladies, so attired in tights of near flesh colour, array themselves in still and classic poses. The law, he says, requires that they do not move-an absurdity, yet thus propriety is maintained.
His arm goes forward, a flap moves, we enter. The ground is boarded. The planks groan and flap. Two girls, near-naked and with dirty feet, sit listless on a bench. Upon our entrance one rises and scuttles round behind a screen. My uncle coughs. Whether it is a signal of content or dissatisfaction I know not.
The girl rises, uncertain, her face too pale for this bright summer day. I would make her lie outside without a parasol.
“She'll come in a minute-the mistress. Was you to see her?”
Her voice is drab and has no taste to it. She will couple with those who will sperm her only in silence, her small mouth working like a doll's. She speaks because a silence hurts her mind and brings uncertainty.
“Yes.”
Her small hurt comes to me. I cover it with a smile as one might cover up a fretting bird that sings in darkness to bring back the sun. Upon my speaking then a lady appears. I would call her such for she has the carriage of one, the neck well held, hair groomed, faint rouge upon her cheeks. Not yet in the middle way of life, her body has a bloom of firmness, slim.
“You are well come. This is your daughter?”
“My niece, Madam. Permit me, Laura, to introduce Amelia.”
“Amelia Symington-Smythe. I have no use for anonymities-have you Her smile is charming-intimates that I might be untried. I am brought here perhaps to some green altar to be sacrificed. “I have a bower within-will you not come?”
Behind the screen an enclosure that itself is full tented, roofed, surrounded and made private. Lamps are necessary. Light glitters through green' glass, through blue, through pink. Two ottomans, and cushions here and there. We are seated. An air of hesitation hovers.
“There were entertainments we had heard.” My uncle coughs again. Some nervousness possesses him.
“You had both heard? Will you take liqueurs? Susan!”
Her smile is gentle but her voice sounds sharp. We, in a tent within a tent, are as intruders to her realm. A girl enters, bears a tray. The hem of a chemise wafts round her hips, shortened for revelation. Her bottom naked gleams, her stockings black. In serving she presents her cleft, the cheeks inrolling on her secrecy. Her tuft, well furred, is clipped triangular. The lips peep a little, pouting, as she walks. I will have her with my tongue before the day folds dark into the trees. Her face pleases, neither common nor patrician.
In the full forest of her hair…
“You may leave, Susan. The gentleman may follow in a moment. Be sure your breath is sweetened and your thighs perfumed. Do you take to her?”
The question seemingly is addressed to my uncle.
“If such be, yes.” He appears to flounder-confuses thoughts with words and words with thoughts.
“Take then your drink and follow her. There is an alcove to the rear where you may pleasure her or she may pleasure you. One never knows upon such matters, does one?”
“Very well. Ah, yes.”
Cast somewhat in confusion, he departs. There is a whiplash to her voice beneath the velvet. I evidently am desired, or shall know about the matter soon enough.
“He has had you? Had you yet?”
In speaking she rises, seats herself beside me on an ottoman, which takes some creaking pleasure from her bottom's bulge.
“Are you ever so direct?” My smile, received, amuses. Her eyebrows arch.
“I will not have girls forced to it-save by myself. Are you for training or for wilful pleasures?”
“Which of those two is Susan, then?”
My question, facing question, makes her laugh. The sound is pleasing, tinkles, silvery.
“She is at the midway of her fate-will serve him well enough though slightly stiff of thighs, will jerk her bottom petulant and sob a little. Had I known more about you as a pair I might have had your tongue flick-tease her first. Men, however, are artful in their ways. He might have entered you without your willing. Such trios ever please the lustful. Has he mounted you?”
“Not he. You may fill my glass again-if you will fill my glass again. You appear to have acquaintance with him and yet not. Do you screen your intent or are you ever open on such matters?”
“We fence with questions, do we not? Lie back a little that I might taste your mouth. How sultry, small, and succulent your lips!”
“Is this your way of training?”
“I would have you, yes. You knew that I would have you from the moment of the meeting of your eyes. Birds fly behind your eyes, flirt with the world, are gone. Here, let me take your glass. Fill your mouth and pass the liquor then within my own. Does that not please?”
“How would you train me? Perhaps I have been trained. Ah! Oh, your finger intrudes! Why do you put it there
