A little later, the English ecclesiastic and his three delicious wards were safely quartered in the cabin, which he pronounced quite spacious for their needs. There were but two bunks, he said, so that Louisette and Denise, being sisters by blood, should not be separated and would take the lower bunk. Marisia would clamber to the upper bunk, while as for himself, if the ship did not toss and pitch and roll about too much, he could make do quite nicely by stationing himself on the floor and resting his back against the oaken chest apparently belonging to the second or third mate, since it was the practice of vessels of this kind, when there were more passengers than nominal, for the highest ranking of the vessel's personnel to give up their own cabins to the travelers.
Denise and Louisette changed into their shifts and got promptly into their bunk while Father Lawrence went to the porthole and peered out into the night, thus having his back to them and protecting their virginal modesty. Marisia also changed into her shift during this tender mark of propriety. The only light in the cabin was cast by an oil lamp near the bunks, but Marisia, who doubtless felt herself to be more a waif than ever in this ship's cabin and aloft in the air above the bed occupied by her two dear friends, quavered, “Do not yet blow out the lamp, mon Pere, for I am fearful, having never before boarded a ship to cross the sea!”
“Have no fear, my dear Marisia,” he said kindly, “by morning we shall be in Dover, and then we shall make a leisurely journey to London. The sea is calm now, and there is nothing to fear. As I mentioned to you, and to you too, Louisette and Denise, I wish to tell you something of this seminary where you will be housed, fed, and well looked after.”
(Oh, well looked after indeed, and looked into and at and by and much more, if I in my locket am still the same flea that once fled the venue where Julia and Bella entered as ingenuous novices and soon became precocious experts in the gentle art of fucking and sucking and being sucked as well!)
“Will we be happy there, mon Pere?” Denise, in her provocatively husky voice now asked.
“Happiness, my daughter, is an intangible substance. It cannot be measured, and it is not always material. It is a word that covers a multitude of joys, and, alas, sometimes a multitude of sins as well. For example, a naive child who had never tasted sweets might be handed a stick of barley candy by some lecherous old rogue who wished to take indecent liberties with her person. Yet in her guilelessness, sucking that candy, she might believe that she had attained a state of happiness, whereas the villainous old man, who lusted for her person, would not know happiness until he had tasted her in exchange. Do you see my parable, my daughters?”
“Oh yes,” Marisia giggled. “But you remember what you promised me, mon Pere!”
“And what was that, my daughter?”
Now surely whatever seaman had occupied this cabin before the good Father and his wards must never have heard in all his born days such a startling piece of conversation as the black-haired country demoiselle now expounded ever so merrily and hopefully: “Why, mon Pere, that before I became a novice you would fuck me with your great big prick!”
Father Lawrence coughed, possibly from an overdraught of the sea air from the porthole which he banged shut almost instantly upon Marisia's last word, then he approached the bunks, carrying me with him all this while, for he had not yet taken off his cassock. “Tut, tut, Marisia, haven't I told you that a gently bred girl does not blurt out such candid words? It is only when we are reasonably certain of not being eavesdropped upon by bigoted interlopers that we may allow our speech such liberties.”
“Oh, mon Pere,” Louisette's sweet clear voice now wished attention, “that would not be fair to fuck Marisia and to ignore your two new wards, Denise and myself! Why will you not fuck all three of us?”
“My daughters, there is something that I must tell you in all confidence, and you must swear upon your virginal honor not to reveal it to any other priest. It is this: as I have tried to explain, I am new to the Seminary, and although I have lived a great deal and preached many sermons of righteousness, I will not have the standing in this seminary that I had in my former bailiwick, nor even in Languecuisse, where there was only Pere Mourier to contest with me in the battle for saving souls. No, my daughters, there will be at least a dozen or even a score of stalwart priests at Thaddeus; and each, who is as zealous in his own faith as I am in mine, will doubtless seek to convert you to his argument. There is first of all the Father Superior, who has a kind of droit de seigneur over every novice.”
But the irrepressible Marisia, who had already seen the good Father's qualifications for his post, was not to be put off so readily; once again, her voice quivering with merriment as well as with anticipation, she urged: “But surely no one at the Seminary can have as big a prick as you do, mon Pere!”
“You must not make me vain by paying me such compliments, Marisia,” he chided gently. “That would be to do disrespect to my colleagues and to play them false.”
“Do you mean that they will fuck us too, mon Pere?” Once again the sensually titillating voice of lovely Denise rose in the air of the little cabin. He coughed and replied, “At this moment, my daughter, to answer you truthfully, I do not see how it can be avoided. If you were actually my daughters of flesh and blood it would not be permitted. Or again, were any one of you my bride, that too would not be permitted – but then, of course, since we are not authorized to wed, the problem is theoretical at any rate. And I cannot, much as I would wish, hoard you for myself. Unless, but no – I would not instruct you to be devious, my daughters.”
“But I like you best of any priest, mon Pere. So much more than Pere Mourier!” Marisia told her champion.
“You flatter me greatly, my daughter. You touch me to the quick. But I put my duty above my private feelings and consign all three of you safely and intact as regards your virtue to the Seminary for your novitiate-hood. It is a solemn estate, my daughters, I can arrange, perhaps, to attend you when your hour has come to pass from the laity into the more exalted state of being received as wards of the Holy Seminary.”
“But a moment ago, mon Pere,” Louisette now wished to be heard from again, “you said that you did not wish to instruct us to be devious. Did you mean that there might be a way where we would be solely under your protection and not have to be fucked by all those priests whom we do not know and whom we might not like to fuck us?”
“I began to say that, yes, my daughter. But it would be too artful, too much like deception, and certainly far too selfish on my part.”
“But tell us, anyway, do tell us!” Marisia cried.
“Well, my daughters, you have heard of portents and miracles and signs of great moment in the Bible, have you not?”
“Oh yes!” all three chorused eagerly.
“To preserve your chastity against the burning and righteous zeal of the priests who will stand superior to me in seniority – though, and here I am vain to the utmost in even hinting at such a thing, I doubt that they will outstand me in stature of my fifth limb – if you would put them off by devising a kind of riddle, it would be possible that if all of them should fail to solve this riddle I should then be the one who would initiate you into the tender mysteries.”
“What kind of riddle?” Denise breathlessly demanded.
“In the Bible there is a parable which saith that it is easier for a camel to enter through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” the English ecclesiastic's voice waxed mellow and sententious, and I could almost see the smile which curled so beatifically about his rugged visage. “Now, what is it which hides from view the dainty virginal orifice of a female which a male desires to fuck?”