And so he entered almost before the faint tap of his knock had died away, and instantaneously I heard two girlish squeals, followed by a clucking of Father Lawrence's tongue, and then these gravely intoned words: “My daughters, my daughters, whatever are you doing there atop the bed, and in such scandalously brief attire? Marisia, you being my ward, it is you who must explain what I behold here, for I do not wish to credence the testimony of my own eyes!”
“We – we were becoming ac – acquainted, mon Pere,” I heard Marisia quaver. “Denise was telling me how unhappy she was because her brother had been kidnapped by the wicked tyrants, and I wished to soothe her.”
“I cannot And fault with you for that tender show of compassion, my dear child,” the English ecclesiastic declared, “and if we were back in Languecuisse with the warm sun beating down upon us, I could have a little more tolerance for the brevity of your costumes. Yet outside the wind blusters and the waves are dark and ominous, so that it cannot be attributed to the warmth of the season, this immodesty of apparel. How do you explain, my tender Marisia?”
“I – I did not wish to rumple my dress, mon Pere,” was Marisia's ingenuous reply. “Nor I either, mon Pere,” Denise chimed in.
“Well, upon due reflection,” Father Lawrence said more mildly, “I cannot fault you on that score either. Indeed, I am told that the good fathers at St. Thad-deus are inclined towards parsimony, and so they will welcome you more heartily once they learn you are solicitous in the concern of your garments so as to prolong their life.”
Cynically again, had I possessed the powers of a ventriloquist, I might have informed these charming virgins that, from what I knew of St. Thaddeus, the pious fathers there would welcome them even more heartily were they to wear no dresses at all; and of a certainty, once they had been inculcated into the regimen which prevailed at that Seminary, I very much doubted that they would ever be permitted to wear dresses again, since the fewer clothes covering their charming forms the simpler and swifter the opportunity to teach them all they ever needed to know about the rudiments of fucking.
But I was anxious now to learn how Father Lawrence would profit by the titillating spectacle he must have burst in upon, one which he now detailed by remarking: “All the same, my children, you might have at least retained your chemises. But to lie thus clad only in your drawers and stockings and to huddle together facing each other with your arms about each other's waists, might well be misinterpreted by a less sanguine guardian than I. Was it you, Marisia, who suggested to Denise that both of you remove your chemises?”
“Why, no, mon Pere, it just came about naturally. Before we knew what was happening, there we were on the bed talking about Master Jean, Denise's dearest missing brother. Oh, mon Pere, are you going to help her and Denise find him?”
“Not at this moment, certainly.” I heard a discreet cough, and then I heard something else which made me realize that I had no need to fear the good Father in his failing to take advantage of a situation when it presented itself so surprisingly as this one undeniably had. It was, dear reader, the sly turn of the key in the lock, which meant that he wished privacy and no intrusion whatsoever upon the next few moments.
“Well, lest you two be embarrassed by my appearance in this dour black garb, I will remove it also, to show you how indulgent I am towards the virtue of compassion and of concern for the necessities of life which are bestowed upon you by others more fortunate, my daughters,” he now remarked. Once again I felt myself jiggled this way and that in my metal locket. I knew what that meant only too welclass="underline" he was removing the cassock, and he was appearing before these virgins as a man, not as a priest. If he had chosen the law as his profession, Father Lawrence might have become a judge advocate, sitting at the Assizes, for his was the kind of compassion towards the indigent and helpless female which would have brought him to the door of Newgate itself to call upon the beadle to hold the birch before it might fall upon the white buttocks of the condemned whores. And if I mistake not, he would have taken each of those poor wenches, soothed their chagrin at being forced to bare their most intimate parts, and then, having dispersed the multitude of greedy sightseers, consoled each in his own virile way.
“Now then, my daughters, we can all be more at our ease,” he resumed in an ingratiating tone of voice. “With your permission, Marisia, and with yours also, dear Denise, I will share your confidences and innermost thoughts. For I know that now, at the brink of this journey across that stormy body of water, both of you must fear your entry into a foreign land. You may well believe that there will be no friends there to greet you, and so, understanding this, I begin to realize why the two of you sought conclave with each other. It was much after the principle of two innocent babes that huddle together in their terror of the elements, seeking warmth and solace one from the other. Ah, what happy Christian virtues are nascent within you both, my daughters!”
With this, I heard a new creaking of the bed, which told me that father Lawrence had taken his place with the two charming girls. It was a pity that I could not see him, for surely, with Marisia and Denise lying there beside him naked from their neck to their waists, his prick must have been in a ferocious state. And because he had already declaimed that virginity was a trust imposed upon him by his new order, and that it could not be revoked until these wards had entered the protective walls of St. Thaddeus, I was mightily curious to learn how he proposed to appease his great longings (as well as his great long prick!).
“Now then, my dear children,” I heard him exclaim as again the bed creaked to suggest that he was settling himself most luxuriously, “let each of you give me her hand to hold, so that I may lie between you as a bulwark of good faith and friendship so allay your timidities and disperse all your fears. I know that the journey seems tempestuous over those stormy waves and under that leaden sky. But the sun will shine tomorrow as surely as my name is Father Lawrence, and the waves will be lulled by the soft breezes that you bring from fair France. I feel that this is true because during my vacation in that memorable little village where I first came upon Marisia, I found no storm or hostility anywhere. And now, my daughters, confess it – do you not both of you feel more at your ease to have me here between you?”
Denise giggled. “It reminds me a little of Jean when he was at home with us,” she confided.
“In what way, my daughter?”
“Well, he was always asking me to let him see my tetons.”
“Your titties? I cannot blame him for that either. How adorably firm and satiny they are to the sight and to the touch. Indeed, one would believe you were several years older than your actual age, my daughter. Your flesh is firm and yet so youthful, with the budding promise of maturity. This is the combination which heats the blood of the most experienced rogue, and that is why it was well that I rescued you and your sister from that wretched pimp. Beauty such as yours must be appreciated by those of wisdom and patience, as well as strength, my charming Denise.”
“Oh, mon Pere,” Denise again giggled, “now you are making me blush even more than Jean did.”
“And why should that be, my daughter?”
“Because you are a full grown man, mon Pere, and because I can see that your bite is so very much bigger than Jean's ever was, even though it is still hidden in your garments.”
She was assuredly a bold jade for a virgin, a wise virgin forsooth, was she not! Yet with unerring knowledge, I could have anticipated Father Lawrence's approval of that forwardness; of energetic mien and temperament himself, he most of all was a priest likely to savor an aggressive wench. It took fewer sermons and wasted less time to engage himself with one who did not simper and fidget and turn away and ask to have every word translated. With girls like Louisette and Denise, as with Georgette, and, farther back, with the Widow Bernard and the Amazonian housekeeper, Desiree, Father Lawrence was sure to be at his most zealous and potent; he did not need to waste his strength or his time in seducing them to bed, since females of that ilk already yearned to be fucked and rogered to the utmost, even if they did not come out and say so in so many words!