“You must not make me vain by paying me such compliments, Marisia,” he chided gently. “That would be to do disrespect to my colleagues and to play them false.”
“Do you mean that they will fuck us too, mon Pere?” Once again the sensually titillating voice of lovely Denise rose in the air of the little cabin. He coughed and replied, “At this moment, my daughter, to answer you truthfully, I do not see how it can be avoided. If you were actually my daughters of flesh and blood it would not be permitted. Or again, were any one of you my bride, that too would not be permitted – but then, of course, since we are not authorized to wed, the problem is theoretical at any rate. And I cannot, much as I would wish, hoard you for myself. Unless, but no – I would not instruct you to be devious, my daughters.”
“But I like you best of any priest, mon Pere. So much more than Pere Mourier!” Marisia told her champion.
“You flatter me greatly, my daughter. You touch me to the quick. But I put my duty above my private feelings and consign all three of you safely and intact as regards your virtue to the Seminary for your novitiate-hood. It is a solemn estate, my daughters, I can arrange, perhaps, to attend you when your hour has come to pass from the laity into the more exalted state of being received as wards of the Holy Seminary.”
“But a moment ago, mon Pere,” Louisette now wished to be heard from again, “you said that you did not wish to instruct us to be devious. Did you mean that there might be a way where we would be solely under your protection and not have to be fucked by all those priests whom we do not know and whom we might not like to fuck us?”
“I began to say that, yes, my daughter. But it would be too artful, too much like deception, and certainly far too selfish on my part.”
“But tell us, anyway, do tell us!” Marisia cried.
“Well, my daughters, you have heard of portents and miracles and signs of great moment in the Bible, have you not?”
“Oh yes!” all three chorused eagerly.
“To preserve your chastity against the burning and righteous zeal of the priests who will stand superior to me in seniority – though, and here I am vain to the utmost in even hinting at such a thing, I doubt that they will outstand me in stature of my fifth limb – if you would put them off by devising a kind of riddle, it would be possible that if all of them should fail to solve this riddle I should then be the one who would initiate you into the tender mysteries.”
“What kind of riddle?” Denise breathlessly demanded.
“In the Bible there is a parable which saith that it is easier for a camel to enter through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” the English ecclesiastic's voice waxed mellow and sententious, and I could almost see the smile which curled so beatifically about his rugged visage. “Now, what is it which hides from view the dainty virginal orifice of a female which a male desires to fuck?”
There was silence for a moment while the three of them pondered this perverse parable, and then Marisia, the irrepressible, piped up with a cry of joy: “The maidenhead, mon Pere?”
“Yes, truly, but not from the sight, Marisia. The hymen is that hidden barrier to bliss which nestles just inside the soft lips, but it is not the answer to my riddle.”
“I have it, mon Pere,” Louisette gleefully expounded. “It is the hair over the con!”
“Exactly, my daughter!” he jubilantly cried. “Nature, to protect us from unfriendly elements, when man and woman were cast out of Eden eternities ago, did contrive to hide those most sensitive parts of our anatomy with body hair. And so it is true that the hair over a virgin's cunt shields her first of all from both the eyes and the prick of the male who covets her maidenhead. Before first taking your maidenhead, therefore, my daughters, my colleagues will have to reckon with the hairs of your tender cunts. And if you would say to them that you have vowed to give yourselves only to him who can guess the exact numbers of the tender silky tendrils which conceal your virginities, it may well be that your vow will be respected.”
“Oh, yes, I see now,” gurgled Louisette. “But you will know the answer, will you not, Father Lawrence, and so it will be you who fucks us after all!”
“You are as witty as you are beautiful, my daughter. So, while this light of the lamp is not the best, I will go back to the porthole to look out upon the calm sea and to say my orisons, while you hasten to count, each of you, each silken strand of the down which so modestly veils your virgin cunts!”
“Oh, mon Pere,” Marisia squealed, “you have saved us for yourself! But do you mean that we must count them one by one?”
“Yes, my child, and you must memorize the total number and never forget it, so that when one of the worthy brethren at the seminary demands that you open to him those gates of paradise, you will tell him of your vow. You will permit him to guess, although it may be that if he is a doubting Thomas, he will insist upon the prerogative of counting them himself, and that you must submit to, my child. But even under that latter circumstance, should he err in even so much as one tender silk-bearing follicle, then you can honestly and truthfully say unto him that your vow is still secure and that you must, in all humility but honesty refuse his desires.”
“But we will tell you, will we not, mon Pere?” Denise's husky voice queried.
“I do not ask you to do this, my dear daughter,” Father Lawrence sounded more benign than I had ever heard him do before. “And it must be of your own volition, for I seek no preference. I stand – as does the polarity of my manhood – totally on my merits.”
I feared that the good Father would expound once again ad infinitum on this by now somewhat tiring pun, but he did not. He waited instead for the response from his three charming wards, and it was not long in coming. Louisette now spoke: “Why, then, it would be well for us to begin the count now before we reach the Seminary, mon Pere. But the light from this oil lamp is dim. It is difficult to see and perchance we might count one where there are two and so be in error ourselves and in peril of losing that which we might prefer to bestow upon you, our dear protector and savior!”
“I am at your disposal, always, my daughters. If you wish me to do the counting, I would be privileged and accurate, too, I can tell you,” he eagerly responded.
Now I had greater admiration than ever, for here was a man of good faith and pious works, who, like the three young Israelites who allowed themselves to be flung into the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, of his own free will was offering himself up as sacrifice to the most lewd and exciting of temptations. He was about to enact the very parable of St. Anthony. I felt certain that he would be more than equal to the test which a lesser mortal belonging to the laity could hardly be expected to pass. I remembered the story of Thais who showed herself in the desert to that mournful priest Athanais who had cried out in contumacy against her lubricity and yet how he had succumbed to mortal sin. But Father Lawrence was made of sterner stuff.
I felt that there was a symbolism to this also. Here I was, ensconced within a little sheaf of fragrant love- hairs which had enshrined the pussypetals of gentle Laurette, and now these three girls were about to protect their maidenheads by taking cognizance of the same intimate substance. Perhaps, if I could have the power to radiate the expressions of thought through this accursed metal locket, I might yet contrive to reach the eclectic mind of Father Lawrence and get him to open that memento at long last. I do confess, dear reader, that I was anxious to behold how he would go about the counting. Now there are Zulu chieftains who, though adjudged ignorant and stupid by the standards of so-called civilized men, yet can tell you to the last doe how many deer are in their herd or how many cows down to the very last and puniest of calves. They have, you see, their own methods of counting, and their history is far more primitive and ancient than that of the European. But I had never before heard of tallying the very follicles of silky hair which entwined so mysteriously and lovingly over the tender love-chasm of a human female.
I now heard the rustling of sheets from the lower bunk where Denise and Louisette were quartered, and then, amid suppressed giggles and sighs, Louisette's muffled voice saying: “Mon Pere, my sister and I have decided to count by ourselves, one serving the other.”
“What a charming and original manner of tallying is this!” the English ecclesiastic exclaimed and his voice sounded suspiciously inflamed from the visual excitement the two minxes were evidently providing to his enraptured eyes. “But turn a little to the side, my daughters, so that you will catch, each of you, the widest benefit of the illumination of the lamp – ah, that is better. Louisette, you are above your sister which is mete, since you are the older. Now do not be distracted in this good work, although I do not think the task should take too long since you are both too young to have amassed, as is said of ancient generals, your thousands and tens of
