The ordinary flea would, at this point, doubtless have given way to his trepidations arid, resigning himself to doom by starvation and suffocation, believed that at least if he must come to a final end, there could be no more hallowed way to die than about the person of a doughty ecclesiastic who had shown his mettle against sinners full many a time. But I am no ordinary flea, and therefore I could only be impatient with such meek resignation. No, I was destined too for great things, or I would not have been chosen out of my millions of colleagues to chronicle the foibles of man and maid and to observe how righteousness goeth before a fall (into a maiden's or even a widow's bed!)
I consoled myself with the anodyne of recalling that Marisia had several times mentioned, with nostalgic tenderness, her liaison with her young aunt Laurette. Then this tender sentiment must one day sharply restore her yearnings for those happy days when she and her aunt completed with such cunning carnal collaboration to thwart the senile lusts of old Monsieur Villiers. And when that day came, she would recall the locket and cajole Father Lawrence into restoring it to her, I was certain.
Then suddenly the hideous thought sprang into mind-what if, on reaching St. Thaddeus, it became incumbent upon Father Lawrence to don a new style of cassock, for every order has its own identifying habit? And what if the cassock in which I was tucked away were sent to be laundered as is often done by Amazonian beldames with massive biceps who wash clothing in a stream and beat it dry with great rocks which they dash pitilessly upon it with their powerful hands? Oh, that I should come to my death by being ignominiously squashed by the concussion of stone against metal brought into fatalistic conjunction by the harsh and unloving hand of a robust female after having paid poetic tribute to the gentleness of human womankind all my articulate days!
But I sternly rebuked myself for even considering this theoretical – if all too void – possibility. No, I was made of sterner stuff, else would I have perished long ago from the annoyed slap of some pompous prelate whose flaccid, obese posterior I had bitten in quest of my dinner, or the petulant fillip of the fingers of some courtesan who, finding that she had an undetermined itch in her hinder or pubic parts, did by ill luck encounter me in her gropings and so snuff out my bright golden youth. And since all fleas are necessarily fatalists, to the extent that even the most superannuated vanity which they oft borrow from the two-legged species does not delude them into believing they are or ever can be immortal, I comforted myself with the knowledge that I could not have lived so long as this and done so much and expounded so much of human fripperies and caprices unless I were fated to go on yet a little time to know the end of Father Lawrence's peregrinations and, more particularly, why destiny had decreed that I was to return nolens volens to the odious Seminary of St. Thaddeus.
During my ruminations, there had been a knock at the door and a humble seaman entered, charged by the cook at his galley to provide breakfast for the four passengers. The man had vision, whatever else may be said for him, for after Father Lawrence had taken the tray with effusive thanks, he whistled softly under his breath, and remarked in coarse French which truly smacked of the port of Marseilles, “Ma tete, si ces jolis cons-la ne sont gatees d'demeurer avec un pere qui est aussi Pere et ne peut pas les basier comme il faut,” which was a very whimsical play on words, since the translation came to “By the head of my prick, what a shame that these lovely cunts aren't wasted staying the night with a father who's also a Father and so may not fuck them as their tastiness merits.”
But Father Lawrence had ears as sharp as his own worthy hymen-rending implement, for he countered swiftly before the seaman could quit the cabin, “Les bon vintages ne gatent jamois d'attendre,” which means “Good wine only improves the more by waiting to drink it.” I heard a gasp from the seaman, who doubtless had not expected so apt a riposte, and then the cabin door banged to, and Father Lawrence, with a dulcet tone to his voice as if this interchange of bons mots had sharpened his appetite for food as well as for cunt, exclaimed, “My daughters, fall to and eat your fill while I say grace for the bounty of manna which the Lord provideth, and then let us go on deck so we may disembark among the first. I am eager to convey you safely to the coach which takes the high road to Somerset, so we may be at our ease in the good inn there. It happens I know the landlord there as I might my own brother, and he will set before us a Lucullan feast of good roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and a Stilton cheese and ale and a gooseberry tart dripping with rich juice out of its fragrant brown crust, and then, I warrant you, my daughters, you will not look ill upon our England.”
So for the next four hours of that disembarkation, I jogged along in his pocket as the coach, swaying and creaking, took the high road to Somerset. Marisia sat beside the English ecclesiastic, and when the driver took a perilous turn in the road with a noisy crack of his whip and a loud oath to his horses, Marisia swayed against Father Lawrence so suddenly that I almost felt the metal locket pinch together; had she been goodly of girth, this might well have happened and my story would have ended here upon this high road to the village of Somerset, which was halfway to London and the odious Seminary.
I had never known that a road could be so torturously crooked, for nearly every two or three minutes, with a little squeal of giggle, Marisia tumbled against the good Father, who murmured some chiding or soothing formula to ease her sweet confusion. But after about a dozen or more such pressures against my confining prison, I began to believe that the road itself could not be altogether blamed for these losses of equilibrium; for Father Lawrence did not seem to sway no matter how much the raven-haired baggage flung herself to his side. And thereby I concluded that the ingenuous little peasant virgin was purposely pretending to be tipped by the errant hooves of the thundering horses, for the sole reason that she wished to enchant Father Lawrence to the utmost and so he would renounce his vow of chastity and continence as regards her (for I had not heard him take that selfsame vow with any other female since my flea-ish gaze had first reposed upon his virile countenance) and grant her the dispensation of her maidenhead.
Finally, much to my relief, he murmured, “Come, my daughter, lay your head upon my shoulder and put your arm about my waist to sustain yourself against the harrowing ardors of our journey, for I would not have you overly fatigued and bruised. That tender creamy skin of yours must have no marring bruise on its lilial surface, or my colleagues, in their examination of you when your novitiate is come upon, will pronounce me the rude and unsanctimonious perpetrator.”
Whereupon the naughty minx responded, “Oh, mon Pere, I would not mind if my naked skin were black and blue from head to toe if only you would pluck my little flower and put your great prick deep into my little nestling place, for since I have seen and touched it I have been burning between my legs and only its sojourn there can put the fire out.”
“It is true that spunk is an infallible remedy for inner fires, my daughter, but I cannot grant your wish till my brethren have had ample time to consider you and put you to the test. Yet you will not forget the important tally and the vow you have taken, will you, my daughter? That is the only way you can withhold yourself for the eventuality of my gratifying you as your sweet virgin cunt so passionately desires.”
Rogue though he might be, this virile and robust English ecclesiastic, he was surely an honest one; and I, who have seen much skullduggery and slyly insinuating hypocrisy in this world which the great Voltaire once cynically termed as the best of all possible ones, would not give you tuppence for a Machiavelli as against a brigand who forthwith declared his felonious intentions. Besides, having witnessed too many scenes of licentiousness at the Seminary which we were rapidly approaching, I had decided to champion Father Lawrence against the horde of well-fed, complacent, worldly prelates who would assuredly seek to best this novice priest in their midst by making off with all the sensual spoils – that is, and as the French say, ca va sans dire, could I but manage to fly out of this intolerable locket.
“Oh, I will remember it, mon Pere,” sweet Marisia sighed, “for I have no one in the world save you to comfort me.”
“Spoken like a grateful and devout daughter, dear child! Now it is paramount that you and your new friends Denise and Louisette learn as quickly as you can some of the vagaries of our English tongue, so you will not be at too great a disadvantage before my colleagues, who are eloquent in that language as they are in Latin. And there are even some who will roll out and thunder forth the most sonorous of Latin tags, thus thinking to impress and convert you to their doctrines. Be on your guard, my daughter, and when you find yourself before an imponderable dilemma, say to them, 'I have taken a vow of chastity, Your Reverence.' Let me hear your sweet rosy lips intone those words, Marisia.”
Whereupon the raven-haired maiden echoed the sentiment with the most charming, lisping French accent, and I felt that, given her inherent sauciness and naively inventive gifts, she might yet escape the odious fate that had befallen the by now thoroughly fucked-out Julia and Bella. And yet the perils Marisia faced were legion, for how could she, with all the spoken vows upholding chastity she might conjure up at the imminent moment of her
