“I—I have gone to bed with him when—when he has wished it, yes, mon pere,” Laurette's voice trembled even more now, “but, and I do not know why, he—he has been unable to make love to me.”
“What is this?” thundered the fat priest. “Do you mean that he has not yet taken your-maidenhead?” »N—no, mon pere. But it was not for want of trying, I swear to you.”
“That makes no difference. If you are still virgin, it could only be because of your wicked resentment of the worthy patron and your clandestine and unholy lust for that scoundrel Pierre Larrieu whom you yearn to put in your husband's rightful place. This is sinfulness, my daughter, and must be chastised severely. I exhort you to see to it, this very night—aye, mark my words, Laurette!—that you bring your husband to a consummation of this marriage. Do you understand me? He is to take your hymen in the nuptial bed before the sun rises on the morrow. Then I bid you come to confessional tomorrow at one in the afternoon, to relate to me whether you have fulfilled my ordainment. And woe betide your bottom, my rebellious child, if I find that you have not heeded my counsel. Now go back to the house of your husband and recite a hundred Hail Marys.”
Laurette emerged from the confessional booth, her face streaked with tears, her eyes downcast, and she did not even give Father Lawrence a second glance as she left the rectory, her mind full of poignant anguish at the thought of the edict which the fat French priest had laid upon her.
I had decided to remain in the salon to find out the reaction of these two worthy ecclesiasts, for I suspected that they themselves had designs upon this delicious virgin. Pere Mourier had already shown as much in his lascivious scourging of her naked bottom. And after having witnessed Father Laurence's lusty fomicatory antics with the two beautiful widows Desiree and Hortense, I felt him made of the same cloth as Pere Mourier.
“You see, Father Lawrence, how stubborn the child is?” Pere Mourier wagged a fat reproving finger, then shook his head with a doleful sigh. “Lucifer wages a frightful struggle with me for the possession of her tender soul. If the two of us do not prevent her from casting aside her marital obligations and fleeing to the arms of that good- for-nothing, she will be damned to eternal perdition. And I do not mind telling you, in all confidence, Father Lawrence, that the worthy Monsieur Claude Villiers will at once cease his contributions to my little parish, which would leave me impoverished and unable to carry out the good works of faith which this so often sinful village so desperately needs.”
“I see your predicament, my confrere,” the English ecclesiast gravely agreed. “You shall have my aid, I pledge it. But how shall we constrain Laurette to keep her vows?”
“I have in mind a scheme that, while it is somewhat audacious, will surely prove successful. You overheard me telling the wench to see to it that her husband deflowered her this very night? Well, why should we not make sure of this ourselves? He has been out to the vineyards all this week and will come home late in the evening. Let us therefore go to his abode and secrete ourselves in the closet of his bedchamber. Thence we can watch to behold Laurette's obedience or lack of it. And should she seek, once he falls asleep, to steal out of the house to her wretched lover, we shall be there to enforce her righteousness. You, being a foreign priest, will terrify her all the more by your authority, since she now knows that you and I are in league together against the demon which seeks to seduce her soul.”
“A master stroke, Pere Mourier! I could not have thought of a better one myself. Well, then, let us go quickly and take our place without danger of discovery.”
“There will be no need to worry about our presence in the closet,” Pere Mourier winked at his English colleague. “The good Victorine, whom I have known for many years, is a pious soul. Moreover, she is spited because the patron did not wed her instead of Laurette, and it is human nature that she will try vindictively to make certain that the girl, once having snared the prize of marriage, lives up to it most strictly!”
I took this for an invitation for myself as well, and hopped upon the broad black hat of Pere Mourier, which protected his florid face from the hot Provence sun.
When they arrived at the home of Monsieur Claude Villiers, Pere Mourier had a whispered conversation with Victorine while Father Lawrence pretended not to listen. I, at my ease on Pere Mourier's black hat, heard everything. The French holy man had, it seemed, consoled Victorine on many a previous occasion when her grief for having lost two husbands (one from death by natural causes, the other because the man had run away with a young serving wench) became too much for her to bear alone. Hence there was a sympathetic bond between them, and out of memory of this, the patron's housekeeper agreed to say nothing to her master and to hide them both in the spacious closet of his bedchamber. The patron, she believed, would return by seven that evening, would dine and then summon his tender young bride to bed. At the moment, she informed them, Laurette was napping in her own room.
So the two cassocked ecclesiastics secreted themselves in the closet, while she brought them a sausage, bread, cheese and a half-bottle of good Anjou wine to quell their hunger—though I might have told her that their real hunger was for the white, soft flesh of gentle Laurette. And when they had made their meal, they drowsed. But I remained vigilant, for I wished to learn what mischief they intended to the lovely golden haired virgin.
Sure enough, as Victorine had predicted, the senile old fool came back to the house shortly after the grandfather's clock in the hallway had struck seven, and, after performing his ablutions and changing his earthstained garments, seated himself at the table and dined. Victorine informed him that the charming Laurette was feeling out of sorts, had napped much of the afternoon and begged his indulgence to permit her to take her evening repast in her own chamber. “So be it,” he snapped, “but you will tell Milady Villiers that she is to attend me in my bedchamber directly I have finished. If she demurs, remind her that she is my wife and that I have the right to thrash her with a switch if she does not obey in all things!”
Smirking at his own self-importance and the feeling of power it had given him to have such an autocratic order transmitted by the woman who had been his mistress to her far younger, more beautiful rival who was now his wife, scrawny old Claude Villiers ate a hearty supper, fortified by several glasses of Burgundy, and with his coffee had two glasses of cognac and then a cheroot. Finally, about eight-thirty, he got up rather unsteadily from the table and made his way to his bedchamber, his ugly features flushed and contorted with inflamed desire. He meant, this night, once and for all, to make Laurette his.
Victorine, out of compassion for the tender young damsel, had gone to Laurette's room to urge her to hasten to the master's bedchamber so as to avoid his wrath, and Laurette was consequently awaiting her elderly husband, seated in a chair, hands folded and eyes downcast. Monsieur Claude Villiers cackled with anticipatory glee at the sight of this demure, golden haired virgin so docilely attendant on his bidding. With a loud belch, he ordered, “It is well for you, my pigeon, that you came to my summons. And now, without more ado, I bid you undress all naked, as I mean to consummate our marriage and rend that chaste barrier which turns you from innocent damsel to loving, obedient wife!”
Laurette by now had understood that any pleas to spare her modesty were little more than wasted breath, and so, rising from the chair, her milky cheeks turning red with shame, silently divested herself of her garments, till she was deliriously nude from head to toe. Godiva's hair was long and a true shield to the prying eyes as she rode through Coventry, but Laurette could hide none of her beauties, for her two long golden braids were at best decorative. Yet they gave her a look of exquisite girlishness and naivete which, understandably, inflamed the already furious passions of this niggardly old fool.
“Now you will undress me, wife,” the patron commanded. And when shy, tender Laurette hesitated, he snarled, “It will be a proof of your sweet docility as my wife, a sign that you accept your status. Otherwise, I shall thrash you to the blood, and do so daily till you are my willing slave! Now do it quickly!”
Once again, with that enchanting intuition which seems to come to the aid of the youngest female in moments of crisis, Laurette submitted. Eyes downcast, cheeks aflame, she applied her trembling fingers to his garments till at last he appeared wisened, emaciated, hairy and naked, before her, the obscene little dangler between his lean thighs flaunted to her chaste modesty. But to his delighted surprise, gentle Laurette, far from shrinking away at the manifestation of his maleness, hesitantly put out a little white hand and timidly took hold of the head of his cock.
“My little darling!” the overjoyed old patron cried in his reedy voice. “I have been too harsh with you, I see, menacing you with a beating. I should have understood that, pure and innocent as you are, it needed time for you to comprehend the pleasures of the bed. Ah, Laurette, you do not know how happy you have made me now, nor how happy you shall soon make me. That's it, hold and fondle my cock and make it strong and powerful for the sweet ordeal of fitting it into that plump, hairy little slit between your round white thighs!”
Laurette, though her blushes had spread nearly to her luscious white bubbies, continued to hold the head of her old husband's cock, and now put her left arm round his waist, her eyes closed, and voluptuous shivers stealing
