“Why, that is indeed true, M'sieu,” replied a charming voice that was elegantly low-pitched and retained a quality of huskiness which many men, I have found, find titillating to their cocks because it suggests the most lascivious intimacies between the sheets.
“Is it true that your brother has been abducted by the Bey of Algiers?” Father Lawrence pursued.
“Oui, oui, c'est bien vrai,” the low, husky voice told him with an effusive emotion that it could not conceal. “We had come, you must understand, from our little village where we and Jean, our brother, were born. We found at the docks a grizzled sailor who had been saved from shipwreck when the wicked Algerian pirates had attacked. He told us that poor Jean was seized by a dozen of the swarthy Moors and borne off onto their pirate ship, which then at once set sail. This sailor told us that the vessel of the pirates flew the flag of the mighty Bey, who is the scourge of all honest French and English seafarers. So Louisette and I, whose name is Denise, vowed that we would go to Algiers and on our knees implore that sovereign to take pity on our youth and purity and to accept us instead of Jean as his slaves.”
“From my first glimpse of you charming demoiselles,” Father Lawrence gallantly interposed, “my opinion is that the Bey would be vastly over-reimbursed for such an exchange. There would be two of you to your brother's one, which in itself would not be fair dealing. But since each of you is breathtakingly delicious, you would actually not so much be sacrificing yourselves as paying the Bey an unheard-of price to redeem your brother.”
“We are honest girls, M'sieu, even though we are but fifteen years old. Denise is my twin, but I am the older by an hour from my mother's womb,” Louisette now vouchsafed.
“Not yet your twin, since there is such a divergence in the two of you,” Father Lawrence declared. “And what enchanting contrast do my wind-sore eyes behold in you. You, Denise, with wheat-colored hair that falls to your waist and whose fringe of curls form a Gothic arch over your pristine and lovely forehead, with the pale pink skin which is so appetizingly fresh. And your sister Louisette, whose hair is the color of copper and falls even longer, nearly to her graciously rounded hips, yet of slimmer waist and longer legs though my vision is impaired. And her skin is the hue of rich, thickly curdled cream. But what was this man to you, my daughters? You may confide in me as you would to your own spiritual pere.”
“You are an English priest? Oh, how good it is to come upon a man of righteousness in a wicked city like Calais,” the husky-voiced Denise, exclaimed. “The man, who told us that his name was Edouard Daradier, saw us talking with the old sailor who had been with poor Jean. He offered us lodging and food and drink until we could find some charitable sea captain to take us on to Gibraltar, where we could make communication with one of the Bey's agents and implore an audience with that despotic lord.”
“He has not yet put you to any employment, my daughters?”
“He did say,” Louisette, who had been quite silent up to now, piped up, “that we had already cost him ten francs for our keep in these past three days, and that this night he would require us to earn our keep and to recompense him for what he has already spent. He wishes to bring men here to caress and fondle us.”
“Oh, oh the wicked, shameless rogue!” Father Lawrence thundered, sounding like an avenging angel. “It is well that I dismissed him, for were he in my presence now, I should smite him as David smote Goliath and let him totter from his false pedestal of charity and mercy which he professed to me not a few moments ago. Oh, my daughters, it is providence that brings me to you. Will you not accompany me and my ward Marisia to England so that you may take shelter and refuge in the holy seminary where I shall labor to save souls? There, I am certain that the Father Superior, when he hears of your misfortunes, will find some way to restore your brother Jean to you.”
“Oh, that would be so wonderful, and we should be so grateful, mon pere!” cried husky-voiced Denise.
“Then come, my daughters. We will go back to the inn where I am lodging and will further discuss your new life. Have no fear of this man who sought to earn money from your lovely flesh. He will be eternally damned. Now come.”
Without any demurral, the young sisters followed Father Lawrence downstairs. Outside the door, he was momentarily halted by the French pimp – for I mistake not that this man was precisely that – but Father Lawrence thundered forth so vitriolic a sermon on the veniality of sinful man (adding that he would call the gendarmes) that the man ran off rather than stand up to this stout-hearted English ecclesiastic.
“Each of you take an arm of mine, my children,” Father Lawrence said benevolently, “and we shall walk down the streets of Calais with smiles upon our faces, and with joy and humility in my heart that I have brought two more souls to the fold of righteousness.”
CHAPTER SIX
If this were a political treatise instead of an autobiography of a humble insect who has accumulated powers of perceptions and imagination far beyond his nominal rank in the animal kingdom, I might declare at this point that Father Lawrence's acquisition of the two charming sisters was little short of a coup d'etat.
But actually the worthy English ecclesiastic had, within the short space of a few hours since setting foot for the first time in Calais, ensured a tumultuous welcome from, and acceptance by, his future colleagues of the cloth at St. Thaddeus. No mater what the rules of seniority or, for that matter, noblesse oblige, there could be no doubt whatsoever that when he presented himself at the doors of the Seminary at London, benevolently ushering in three such mouth-watering morsels as Marisia, Denise, and Louisette, even the most dour and hostile priest of that establishment could not but beam upon him for his good works in procuring as adornments within their cloistered walls such tasty tidbits of virginal femininity.
And for me, though the possibility was only hypothetical (for if I did not find some way of egress out of that accursed locket, I should inevitably perish), this latest accomplishment of the good Fathers would compel me to ponder before deciding in whose virtuous behalf to exercise my wits, my guile, and my own little arsenal of salvationary tricks. Since I was destined to return to St. Thaddeus unless some minor miracle should occur (such as the unforeseen opening of Laurette's locket), I must contrive some means to justify my existence in that all too familiar haven of holiness, even though I had once fled its boundaries and believed I should never again behold it.
Since it was plain that I needed distraction during the time it would take the good Father to journey from Calais to London, I decided to soliloquize over the future which awaited these three young graces. Since I was so entranced with France where the language is still of infinite nuances and adroit shades of meaning, I amused myself for a few moments by remarking these three graces would undoubtedly be in no position to beg grace when His Grace decided that his carnal appetites brought him to the time of saying grace before feasting on all three. In a word, dear reader, that little play on words translated simply down to the premise that these three virgins could not long expect to retain their virginity once Father Lawrence had them safely cloistered at St. Thaddeus.
Once again, the problem was theoretical, to be sure. I was aware that Marisia was a wise virgin, which is to say that while she had played lascivious little games with her dear Tante Laurette for the purpose of thwarting the lustful yearnings of old Monsieur Villiers in his aim of plucking Laurette's cherry, her dainty cunny had not yet been visited to the hilt by a male prick, and thus her maidenhead was still intact. She was virgin Prima fasciae.