Such remarks stirred us constantly, though to the outer world we were but two well-dressed and undoubtedly attractive females who went the ordinary way of the world.
“Tell me then what is sin?” I asked her once.
“Why, that is simple, Arabella, darling. Sin is the causing of pain or grief, mental or physical, to others, by whatever means and in whatever way. That in my simple view is all one can say of it. Naughtiness is not a sin, but is merely mischievous. Do you count us as having committed a sin, or caused such to others?”
I thought deeply upon this question and decided we had not. For this I shall doubtless be labelled by prudes and those of great stuffiness as a hypocrite. So be it. There is a lewdness-a mischief of lewdness-that dwells in all, whether it be the schoolmistress who takes her satisfaction from birching the bottoms of young ladies or the gentleman who merely wishes that he could follow her example but does not dare to. We who obtain the leisure accorded to us by wealth fare better by far than others. The wife left bereft of a husband who has turned to whores descends perhaps into poverty, which I count a most terrible occurrence. Both are at fault, of course, for she knew not how to entertain him, nor he how to be entertained. There is no solace, as I have often heard men declare, in the arms of a gay girl who lives but to fill her purse from each cock she receives. Better a warm hearth and several warm bottoms than a cheerless home or the over-rumpled and generally tawdry bed of a whore.
So much, indeed, I said most earnestly to Pearl who laughed at my then attempted earnestness.
“Come, dear, the truth of it is that we love fucking and equally love watching others at the game. For what else is it, if the truth be told? Not a girl we have ever put up to the cock has since regretted it. Indeed, she has become all the merrier for it and has blossomed out no end.”
“True,” I laughed, though for all my philosophising I would often ask of such a maiden afterwards, “Was it nice? Did you enjoy it?” Not all give truthful replies, of course, for they wish to be thought demure still and are taken frequently by surprise at their own lubricity-the pleasures of which they have been brought to realise. All temper their desires, too, for that is the way of woman. Such meagre adventures as I have recounted did not all take place within the compass of a month nor even six. The writing down of them but compresses them. I have frequently gone without a cock or another woman's tongue for a month in order that I might then enjoy the next encounter the more. Those who write of endless orgies are fools and charlatans who know no better than to constantly invent what they have never experienced, nor have the wit to bring about.
However well settled she may appear to be, a woman must ever look to her pecuniary advantages, not immediately but as they extend into the future. Thus Selina in her wisdom saw to it that Lord C.-who was widowed- was sufficiently well furnished with entertainments as would make him look no further for a spouse who otherwise would enter into the benefits of his Will. Such schemings, which may be thought ruthless and immoral to the world, are better understood between women than by men who have ordained for themselves the laws of property and seen to it that they alone own the spoils.
A writer of such meretricious novels as men secretly acquire from the bookshops in London's Holywell Street-and which, as I happen to know, are also hawked by vendors at the back doors of country houses-would have it that such as Elaine and Emily were rodded by their sires each day, or some such nonsense. Having enjoyed the fruit of the cock, such girls are wiser and intend not to become helpless hens to the strutting cockerel, but ration out their favours in due course as whim, desire or opportunity takes them.
Mr. Maudsley was such a one whose ebullience was rather more quickly subdued than he had anticipated. Within a year, Catherine saw to it that her elder daughter was married off and that Bertram was accorded no more favours, for to have permitted such would have created unwonted complications in her view. As to Susan she remained a perfect little houri-an arrangement that suited Catherine well as regards her own dalliances and kept Mr. Maudsley happily chez lui.
What a coldhearted view this may be thought to be, and yet what a practical one! All were happy thereby, as were Emily and Selina, for both could flirt and dally as they would while dear Lord C. dare make no wrong move or he would soon have been brought to heel and forbidden entrance to their beds.
I myself by the age of twenty-three gave thought to marriage, but discarded it as unnecessary, at least for two or three years, by which time certain stocks and bonds that Papa had set aside for me would have matured. Pearl gave no thought to marriage nor ever had, though making numerous acquisitions from various gentlemen who greatly appreciated her reputation for “arranging things” to their desire.
“Some would call me a procuress, but that would be a nonsense,” said she, “for I procure, introduce or persuade only such as would be persuaded and who are, of course, of equal social rank to the gentlemen. Some ladies arrange marriages, but I arrange pleasures. The latter is most often preferable to the former!”
In this she was right, for it takes neither wit nor sophistication to procure a girl from a dancing troupe, or such as parade upon the stage in Tableaux Vivantes when they appear, under cunning lighting, to be naked but are of course wearing flesh-coloured tights which cause great delight to gentlemen who see thereby the exact conformation of their tits and bottoms, not to say their often fulsome thighs. Young servants may equally be seduced, and frequently are by the masters or sons of households who slip a sovereign into their hands for their favours.
Such “adventures” Pearl and I ever considered tawdry and of no merit, interest or excitement whatever. We preferred some ceremonies or mischiefs such as are not obtained by merely paying a girl to up her skirt. I wished frequently that I had myself first been mounted in the manner of Elaine or Emily.
“Why? Would you have had it so?” Selina asked me when I confessed this to her some months after the seduction of Emily. I had put Selina to the tawse since then and she much enjoyed it, as did I, for in moderation-or some would say a shade beyond-it causes the bottom to burn delightfully and to arouse one's ardor. I reached into the lap of his breeches and passed the monstrous organ into my hand. So lusty in girth was it that my fingers could not hold fully around it. It throbbed like an engine. I felt the veins outstanding against my flesh. My belly swirled. I could not help but widen my thighs as much as my fallen drawers would permit to allow his finger to seek up between the lips of my lovenest. I know not what words passed between us in those brief moments save that on his part they were lewd and on mine excited. I moved my hand gently up and down his shaft. My senses reeled. Second by second I could feel my cunny moistening the more. Our tongues flashed together in such utter yearning that the moment clearly could no longer be delayed.
“You must know how it will be, Arabella, must you not?”
“Yes!” I assented, though I scarce recognised my voice as my own. I felt myself being borne back. We fell together upon the floor, he taking care that I would not harm myself in doing so. Without more ado my drawers were ripped from my ankles. With a certain roughness that thrilled me exceedingly, he thrust my legs apart, raising himself a little above me on one hand while with the other he fumbled his enormous cock against my slit.
“You will be put so upon the floor, or upon a couch, and fucked, Arabella.”
“OH!” I moaned. His knob was at the portals. I felt the huge bulb of it press into my wetness. For a second or two our hot eyes locked together and then with an ineffable groan he inserted two inches of his meaty shaft and was full upon me. Our lips meshed. I was in such an ague that I wriggled my bottom to obtain more of his prick, though to my uncle the movement must have appeared evasive in intent for he seized me strongly about the waist and embedded his throbbing peg the more so that in some magical wise my cunny expanded to receive it.