Moreover, he said as much in his farewell to Pere Mourier: “Do you then have the maiden ready to depart at ten tomorrow morning. I have arranged with the worthy Monsieur Debouchet to take us both in his horse-drawn cart to the village of Grand Ventre, where tomorrow afternoon we shall both, God willing, board the carriage that will take us to Calais and our boat to cross the Channel.”
I had, of course, forgotten that Father Lawrence had sojourned with the comely widow Madame Hortense Bernard during his vacation in this admirable little village of Provence. I now deduced that it was his intention to bid her farewell, and that this leave-taking would not be one of short duration. And I remembered well how the good Father had not only given the Widow Bernard ten francs for the first week of his lodging but had granted her that carnal boon which not even her own husband had deigned to bestow upon her – namely, the taking of the virginity of her bottomhole. Hence as a man of honor and of the cloth as well, Father Lawrence doubtless intended to settle his score with the Widow Bernard before his departure, a score to be paid in more intimate means than francs alone.
He walked in a leisurely manner towards the little cottage of his landlady, and I in the locket was bumped about at regular cadence as his strong thighs moved back and forth in their measured rhythm en route to his hospitable abode. Too, he might have put up at the rectory for the night; Pere Mourier's housekeeper, the beautiful Amazonian, Desiree, would surely be desirous to bid him Godspeed on his journey in the amorous way she had already shown so passionately.
But then, since my mind was sharply at work in the continuance of finding distraction against my doleful incarceration, I perceived that Pere Mourier would inevitably summon Desiree to his own bed to console himself for leaving Marisia's virgin cunny immaculate. And I had to commend Father Lawrence on his admirable tact; the fat French priest's chagrin, in being denied access to Marisia's virginal couch, might well have made him the enemy of Father Lawrence, but if he could instead requite his blazing lusts with his sculptural housekeeper, he could forget the other frustration.
Father Lawrence at last arrived at the cottage of the Widow Bernard and knocked sonorously three times. The door was almost immediately opened, and I heard again the sweetly mellow contralto voice of his handsome and mature landlady; “Oh Your Reverence, I was already thinking of you! I have prepared a particularly appetizing supper which I hope will please your discriminating palate. Alas, it may well be the last repast that I set before Your Reverence.”
“Thank you, my daughter. Yes, you are quite right; in the morning I leave for London. Hence I am happy to have these last hours with you, my daughter, so that I may settle my reckoning with you and leave your charming cottage without being materially in you debt.”
“Ah, how I shall miss Your Reverence. But do come in, for it is not proper to keep a man of your eminence standing outside my humble door!”
Yes, I told myself, the good Father would be well occupied this his last night in Languecuisse! I could almost see the benign smile upon his manly visage at these flattering words of the Widow Bernard's and her own fatuous smile in her delight at seeing his gratification. She would presently see that gratification take the shape of his vigorous bludgeon of a prick, not too long after the repast she intended for him. I have found in my wanderings that human beings have an axiom all their own: A full belly leadeth always to a full cock. And also: The more tempting the viands consumed, the more furious the urge to fuck. So this would be a memorable last night indeed for Father Lawrence, as well as for his beautiful widowed landlady, if I was any judge.
He sat down at the table, jiggling me again in my metal prison, and the Widow Bernard served him a meal over which he exclaimed many times. There was a bottle of good red Beaujolais, extremely young, since the cork had been put to it at this last harvest, the harvest which had brought Laurette such unforeseen rapture and exalted status in the village.
I will not bore you, my appreciative reader, in recounting the homilies and platitudinous flattery which the two of them exchanged during that meal. Suffice it to say that each sought to wheedle the other into a radiant mood of well being, a kind of spiritual attunement for their night ahead. But when I felt myself jiggled again, it was because Father Lawrence had risen from the table, pushing back his chair, and then I heard him say in a firm voice (which nevertheless trembled with greedy anticipation): “Truly, a feast for the gourmet, my daughter! And now, before I say farewell to you, let me hear your confession so that I may shrive you of any sins that you have either committed or considered. Your bedroom, I believe, would be a fitting chapel for your orisons. Come, my daughter, let us retire.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Close the door, Your Reverence, do. When I am with you, I feel almost as I did when I was a trembling bride.” The Widow Bernard seemed to be in the grip of a powerful emotion once inside the portals of her bedchamber.
There was a sound of the closing of the door, and with it I was jiggled once again in my metal prison, now encased within the pocket of his cassock. I realized that now I should have to use my keenly developed sense of hearing in lieu of sight, since even a flea as gifted as I has not yet devised the power of peering through metal and, after that, a thickness of black cloth. So, dear reader, you, just as I did then, will have to supply your own fanciful imagery and join it to the accompanying dialogue which I faithfully remembered while Father Lawrence took his fond leave of the delectable matron.
“There, now, my daughter, it is done. Does it allay your trepidations?”
To this there was a stifled little giggle as the Widow Bernard retorted, “But not entirely, Your Reverence. My feelings are mixed at this very moment, for you see, I behold you now in the black cassock of your holy order, which reminds me of my frailties as a sinner. Yet at the same time, when I gaze upon your handsome features, dear Father Lawrence, I tremble inwardly with those forbidden sensations which are proper only to a dutifully married woman.”
I heard him cluck his tongue in a gentle reproof: “This is understandable, my daughter. And it is good that, as a true believer of the Faith, you stand in awe of the most sacrosanct mysteries which are handed down to us from the very top of Mount Sinai, when Moses received those tenets which were to guide the lives of all of us in the centuries to come. Truly, my black cassock is the symbol of Mother Church, who gathers into her arms all the penitents who seek her consolation and her forgiveness for their temporal as well as their spiritual sins. Yet, to continue the analogy, under this cassock beats the heart of a virile man who is all too well aware of these frailties of which you speak so self-consciously. In my ecclesiastical robes, I stand before you as the representative of Mother Church, to give you her blessing and to pray that you will be comforted in your sorrows and your affliction of being bereft of a suitable husband, who will know how within the scope of our righteous laws to ease your carnal pangs as a descendant of the Eve who must atone throughout the ages for having eaten the forbidden fruit in Eden.”
“Your words are so helpful, my dear Father Lawrence,” the Widow Bernard cooed, and then uttered a heartfelt sigh.
“I do my humble best, my daughter,” he responded. “And now it is as that representative that I stand before you, to take heed of your confessional, which shall always be private between us, since no confidence to a priest may ever be passed on to the laity. Tell me, daughter, have you sinned in aught since our last meeting?”