Fifty Shades of Victorian Desire (30 page)

Noticing that the daughter was fond of dress, I bought a small parcel of ribbons one day at a draper’s, and had them addressed to her without saying a word as to my having sent them.

The following morning I met her on the stairs, gaily decked out, and I asked her where she was going.

‘Only for a walk in this silly old inn,’ she replied. ‘I have a beau, sir, an unknown beau, who has sent me all these beautiful ribbons, and a lot more besides, and I thought by going out he
might see that I had appreciated his gift, that is if he were watching for me,’ added she, with an arch smile.

That’s right, my girl, perhaps he will send you something else; by the way, what is your name?’

‘Gerty,’ said the young lady, smiling.

‘Well, Gerty, you’ll excuse me saying so, but that splendid ribbon with which you have decorated your hat, makes the hat look quite shabby.’

‘Alas! sir, I know it, but mother is poor, and I can’t afford to buy another one just yet.’

‘If you’d promise not to tell your mother, promise me sacredly not on any account to tell her, I will take you to a shop where I saw a lovely one yesterday that would suit your style admirably, and I shall only be too happy to purchase it for you.’

‘Oh, sir, you are very kind, but I could not impose –’

‘Tut, child, don’t speak like that, but go out into the street, and walk to the corner of the Great Turnstile, and I will join you in three minutes.’

Of course I did this to avoid observation. Presently I went out myself, and took her to the very drapers where I had bought the ribbon.

‘Good morning, sir,’ I have now got that particular shade of ribbon you wanted yesterday.’

The cat was out of the bag, Gerty glanced quickly up at me, and I saw I was discovered.

‘So
you
are the unknown beau, ‘ she whispered, ‘well, I am surprised.’

‘And, I hope, pleased, too, Gerty?’

‘Well, I hardy know,’ said she, ‘but what about the hat?’

To cut a long story short I rigged her up from top to toe, and before I left the shop I had expended nearly £20 on her.

‘How on earth am I to account for having this to mother?’

‘We’ll have it sent like the ribbons, and, of course, you can’t form a guess where it came from. The shop people must put no address inside,’ and giving all the necessary instructions, I shook hands with Gertrude and bade her good morning.

In the evening a gentle tap at my door ushered in the young lady herself, who, closing it softly after her, said, ‘Those things have come, sir, and mother went on like anything, but I vowed I didn’t know who had sent ‘em, so she told me in that case I’d better thank God, and say no more about it.’

‘Then it’s all right,’ said I, looking intently at her large rounded
bust, which, confined as it was by a tightly fitting dress, showed to singular advantage.

I’m afraid, sir,’ said, she, ‘that I didn’t thank you sufficiently this morning, and so I thought as mother has gone down to Peckham to see her brother I’d call in and do it now.’

‘My dear Gertrude,’ said I, ‘there’s only one way of showing your gratitude to me, and that way you are as yet I fear too young to understand. Come here, my dear.’

I was sitting by a blazing coal fire, and although I had not lit the gas the light was ample, she stepped forward, and seemed, as I thought, rather timorous in her manner.

‘My dear Gerty,’ said I, placing my arm round her waist, ‘you are heartily welcome to what my poor purse can afford. As for those petty matters I purchased to-day, one kiss from those pouting lips will repay me a thousand fold,’ so saying I lifted her on to my knee, and kissed her repeatedly.

At first she tried to disengage herself, but soon I found my caresses were not unwelcome. Presently I began undoing the buttons of her frock, and although she fought against it at first, she gradually allowed herself to be convinced, and as her swelling bubs disclosed themselves to my view I felt transported.

‘Oh! Mr. Clinton, you will ruin me, I’m sure you will. Pray stop where you are, and do not go any further.’

Her beautiful little nipples, as the firelight threw them into relief on her lily breasts looked like a pair of twin cherries, and before she could prevent me, my mouth had fastened on one, and I sucked it with avidity.

‘Oh! Mr. Clinton, I shall faint. Do let me go. I never felt anything like this in my life.’

‘My darling,’ said I, suddenly placing my prick in her hand, ‘did you ever feel anything like that?’

Her thumb and fingers clutched it with a nervous clasp, and I felt that her hands were moist with the hot dew of feverish perspiration. Before, however, I could prevent her, or, indeed, fathom her motives, she had slid from my grasp, and was kneeling on the floor between my extended legs.

‘What is the matter, Gerty dear?’ said I.

I got no answer, but the hand which still held my penis was brought softly forward, her mouth opened, and drawing back my foreskin, she tongued me with a sweet solacing suck that almost drove me frantic.

For at least two minutes I lay back in the arm chair, my brain in a delirium of delight, till not able to bear it any longer, for she had begun to rack me off. I got my prick away, pushed back the arm chair, and with mad, and, I may add, stupid haste, broke her maidenhead, and spent in her at the same instant with such force that for the moment I expected (contrary to all anatomical knowledge) to see the sperm spurting out of her mouth.

It would be unjust to Gertrude were I to accuse her of want of reciprocity, for my hearthrug gave pretty good proof that she was by no means wanting in juice, since to say it was swamped would be but mildly to describe its condition.

Hardly had Gertrude wiped out her fanny, and just as I was in the act of pouring her out a glass of brandy and water, to prevent the reaction, which in a maid so young might I thought possibly set in, when, without announcing her entrance, the mother rushed into the room like a tigress. She had returned to fetch her latch key.

‘So this is what I brought you up for like a lady, is it,’ she began; ‘and this is the conduct of a gentleman that I thought was a real gentleman. Don’t deny it, you brazen bitch,’ she continued, seeing that Gertrude was about to try a lame explanation, for she was ready witted enough. I’ve got a nose of my own, and if ever there was a maidenhead cooked its been done in this room since I’ve been out. Why, even the staircase smells fishy. I discard you for ever. Perhaps the gentleman,’ laying a sneering stress on the word, ‘now that he’s ruined you, will keep you,’ and she bounced out of the room.

I took the old woman at her word, and rented a little cottage at Kew, where I kept Gerty in style for about three months, and should have done so to the end of the chapter if I had not caught her one Saturday afternoon
in flagrante delicto
with one of the leading members of the London Rowing Club, so I gave her a cheque for £100, and she started as a dressmaker, or something of the kind, at which business she has I understand done very well.

One morning, as the summer was waning, and August warned us to flee from town, De Vaux called upon me at my new chambers, for prudence had suggested my removal from my late quarters, and found me dozing over a prime Cabana, and the latest
chic
book from Mr. —, the renounced smut emporium.

‘Glad to see you,’ said De Vaux. ‘My friend Leveson has asked me down to Oatlands Hall for a week’s shooting, and wishes me to bring a friend, will you come?’

‘Is there anything hot and hollow about,’ asked I, ‘for to tell you the truth, my boy, knocking over grouse is a very pleasant occupation, but unless there is some sport of another kind on as well, the game is not worth the candle.’

‘Clinton, you are incorrigible, I never remember to have met such an incurable cunt hunter in my life. Well, there may be some stray ‘stuff drop in while we are there, but I warn you not to try it on with Mrs. Leveson, for though she might give you the idea at a first glance that she was fast and frivolous, she’s in reality as true as steel to her husband, and I would not give a brass farthing for the chance of the veriest Adonis that ever stood in a pair of patent leather boots.’

I should immensely like to have a slap at this dreadful Diana of yours, De Vaux. Is she a beauty?’

De Vaux sighed heavily.

I was hard hit myself that quarter once,’ he said, ‘but it was no go. Her eyes are wandering orbs, like a gipsy’s. She has the finest set of teeth I ever saw in my life, and a form, well – I’d rather not go into it, for it upsets me.’

‘I’d rather go into it, for my part,’ said I, laughing. ‘Why you’re a very Strephon, De Vaux, in your poetic keep-at-a-distance style of admiring this divinity. Did you seriously try it on now, left no stone unturned, eh?’

‘I did, indeed,’ said De Vaux, both before and after she was married, but it was love’s labour lost. I got my hand on her leg once, and she froze me with a few curt words, and wound up by telling me if I did not instantly go back to town, and foist some lying excuse on Leveson for going, she would expose me mercilessly, and by God, Clinton, I am sufficiently learned in womankind to know when they mean a thing and when they do not.’

‘Really, I must see this paragon of yours, De Vaux. The more obstacles there are in the way, the better a Philosopher in Cunt enjoys it.’

‘You can come with me and welcome, Clinton, but I tell you candidly Mrs. Leveson is beyond your reach or that of any other man. She is simply ice.’

‘But, my dear De Vaux, ice can be made to thaw!’

‘Not the ice of the poles.’

‘Yes, even that, if you apply sufficient heat. Bah! my friend, I’ll wager you twelve dozens of my finest Chateau Margaux to that emerald pin you wear, for which I have often longed, that I will fuck your pearl of chastity before this day week.’

The bet was instantly accepted, for although I had previously offered him £50 for his pin, and he didn’t want to part with it, still he felt no danger in the present instance, and went home and probably drank in his imagination half of my wine in anticipation.

‘Clinton, my boy,’ said I, apostrophizing my prick, as I got into bed that evening, if you don’t disturb her ladyship’s ice-bound repose before many nights have gone over your proud red head may you be damned to all eternity, and, in response, my noble, and, I may add, learned friend, perked himself up straight, and though he didn’t speak, his significant and conceited nod assured me that he at any rate had no misgivings.

HAVING arrived at Oatlands Hall about five o’clock in the afternoon, after a delightful journey, for it was the 11th August, and the mellow corn just fully ripened for the sickle greeted our city-worn eyes all along the line. So really picturesque was the view that I lost several opportunities of getting well on with a buxom young chit who wanted fucking worse than anything in petticoats ever did between London and York.

De Vaux slept most of the way, and if without committing murder I could have got the girl’s mother out of the carriage window, I should certainly have landed a slice of fifteen, for she could not have been over that age.

I may, however, mention that I had an after opportunity in the year that followed, which will come in its turn, as, like most of the fashionable novelists, I must decline to anticipate.

Leveson was a very jolly fellow, about thirty-eight or forty, and Mrs. Leveson, a really grand creature, at least ten to twelve years his junior, but although De Vaux had prepared me for something above the common, I must confess the reality far surpassed my expectations.

Figurez vous
, as our lively neighbours would put it, a sweet smiling Juno, with an oval face, coloured prettily by nature’s own palette, and a pair of finely arched eyebrows surrounding eyes
so dazzling in their lustrous black that I fell a victim to the very first glance.

Poor De Vaux seemed half in doubt, half dread, for this was the first time he had seen her since the
fiasco.
She, however, stretched out her hand and welcomed him cordially.

We had a fine, old-fashioned country dinner, and then Mrs. Leveson proposed a stroll round the grounds. She took a great pride in the garden and orchard, and the exquisite fascination of her manner as she described lucidly all the various differences between plants, shrubs, greenery, exotics, and all the thousand and one trifles that interest a botanical student showed me that she was no ordinary woman.

Again I was compelled to silent admiration when we walked through the stables, which Caligula’s could scarcely have excelled for cleanliness, and as she patted the horses in their boxes I envied them, for they neighed and whinnied with delight at her very touch.

I was glad when she and her husband had gone into the house, and left De Vaux and me to finish our smoke alone.

‘Well,’ said he, ‘what do you think of her?’

‘Think of her,’ muttered I, ‘I’d rather not think of her, she has excited me to such an extent that if I don’t get into something in the house I shall really have to go into the village and seek out an ordinary ‘pross’.

‘Well, my dear boy, then you’d better do that at once, for unless some of the chambermaids are amenable, I’m perfectly certain that you’ve no time to lose. You might as well dream of fucking the moon as Mrs. Leveson. She’s quite as chaste and just as unattainable.

‘That be damned,’ said I, ‘De Vaux’s constant reiteration of this Dulcinea’s chastity was gall and wormwood to me.

We were the only guests who had arrived for the 12th, and as grouse shooting meant getting up at dawn, we had one rubber at whist, and retired to bed early.

On the first floor of this large old mansion there were at least a dozen rooms. My own bedroom door immediately faced our host and hostess’s; De Vaux slept in the next room to mine.

‘How frightfully hot it is,’ said Leveson. ‘I should say we’re bound to have some rain.’

‘I hope not,’ said I, ‘for it will spoil our morning, though this temperature is simply insufferable’ I had been all round the world
in my father’s yacht, and had spent a considerable time in the tropics, but had never remembered such an intense dry heat.