Memoirs of Fanny Hill
sleep: those of my dear youth encircled me, the consciousness of which
made even that sleep more delicious.
Late in the morning I waked, first; and observing my lover slept
profoundly, softly disengaged myself from his arms, scarcely daring to
breathe, for fear of shortening his repose; my cap, my hair, my shift,
were all in disorder, from the rufflings I had undergone; and I took
this opportunity to adjust and set them as well as I could: whilst,
every now and then, looking at the sleeping youth, with inconceivable
fondness and delight, and reflecting on all the pain he had put me to,
tacitly owned that the pleasure had overpaid me for my sufferings.
It was then broad day. I was sitting up in the bed, the clothes of
which were all tossed, or rolled off, by the unquietness of our
motions, from the sultry heat of the weather; nor could I refuse myself
a pleasure that solicited me so irresistibly, as this fair occasion of
feasting my sight with all those treasures of youthful beauty I had
enjoyed, and which lay now almost entirely naked, his shirt being
trussed up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the season and room
made me easy about the consequence of. I hung over him enamoured
indeed! and devoured all his naked charms with only two eyes, when I
could have wished them at least an hundred for the fuller enjoyment of
the gaze.
Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still present to my
transported imagination! a whole length of an all perfect manly beauty
in full view. Think of a face without a fault, glowing with all the
opening bloom and verdant freshness of an age, in which beauty is of
either sex, and which the first down over his upper lip scarce began to
distinguish.
The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seemed to exhale an air
sweeter and purer than what it drew in: ah! what violence did it not
cost me to refrain the so tempted kiss!
Then a neck exquisitely turned, graved behind and on the sides with
fais hair, playing freely in natural ringlets, connected his head to a
body of the most perfect form, and of the most vigorous contexture, in
which all the strength of manhood was concealed, and softened to
appearance by the delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his
skin, and the plumpness of his flesh.
The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a manly
proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of each pap, the idea of
a rose about to blow.
Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of his limbs,
that exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the loins, where the
waist ends and the rounding swell of the hips commences; where the
skin, sleek, smooth, and dazzling white, burnishes on; the stretch-over
firm, plump, ripe flesh, that crimped’ and ran into dimples at the
least pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid over on
the surface of the most polished ivory.
His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy roundness,
gradually tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support
that beauteous frame at the bottom of which I could not, without some
remains of terror, some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that
terrible machine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke
into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender parts of mine, that
had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but behold it
now! crest fallen, reclining its half-caped vermilion head over one of
his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the
mischiefs and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of
the hair, in short and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness,
branched veins, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay
foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a squat thickness, languid,
and borne up from between his thighs, by its globular appendage, that
wondrous treasure bag of nature’s sweets, which revelled round, and
pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, perfected the
prospect, and altogether formed the most interesting moving picture in
nature, and surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnished by
the painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchased at immense
prices; whilst the sight of them in actual life is scarce sovereignly
tasted by any but the few whom nature has endowed with a fire of
imagination, warmly pointed by a truth of judgment to the spring-head,
the originals of beauty, of nature’s unequalled composition, above all
the imitations of art, or the reach of wealth to pay their price.
But every thing must have an end. A motion made by this angelic youth,
in the listlessness of goingoff sleep, replaced his shirt and the bed
clothes in a posture that shut up that treasury from longer view.
I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of me in which the
objects just seen had begun to raise a mutiny, that prevailed over the
smart of them, my fingers now opened themselves an easy passage; but
long I had not time to consider the wide difference there, between the
maid and the now finished woman, before Charles waked, and turning
towards me, kindly enquired how I had rested? and, scarce giving me
time to answer, imprinted on my lips one of his burning rapture kisses,
which darted a flame to my heart, that from thence radiated to every
part of me; and presently, as if he had proudly meant revenge for the
survey I had smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the bed
clothes, and trussing up my shift as high as it would go, took his turn
to feast his eyes on all the gifts nature had bestowed on my person;
his busy hands, too, ranged intemperately over every part of me. The
delicious austerity and hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the
whiteness and firmness of my flesh, the freshness and regularity of my
features, the harmony of my limbs, all seemed to confirm him in his
satisfaction with his bargain; but when curious to explore the havock
he had made in the centre of his over fierce attack, he not only
directed his hands there, but with a pillow put under, placed me
favourably for his wanton purpose of inspection. Then, who can express
the fire his eyes glistened, his hands glowed with! whilst sighs of
pleasure, and tender broken exclamations, were all the praises he could
utter. By this time his machine, stiffly risen at me, gave me to see it
in its highest state and bravery. He feels it himself, seems pleased at
its condition, and, smiling loves and graces, seizes one of my hands,
and carries it, with gentle compulsion, to this pride of nature, and
its richest master piece.
I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I could not grasp, a
column of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked with blue veins, and
carrying, fully un-capt, a head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn
could be harder or stiffer; yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to
the touch. Presently he guided my hand lower, to that part in which
nature, and pleasure keep their stores in concert, so aptly fastened
and hung on to the root of their first instrument and minister, that
not improperly he might be styled their purse-bearer too: there he made
me feel distinctly, through their soft cover, the contents, a pair of
roundish balls, that seemed to play within, and elude all pressure, but
the tenderest, from without.
But now this visit of my soft, warm hand, in those so sensible parts,
had put every thing into such ungovernable fury, disdaining all further
preluding, and taking advantage of my commodious posture, he made the
storm fall where I scarce patiently expected, and where he was sure to
lay it: presently, then, I felt the stiff intersection betwen the
yielding, divided lips of the wound, now open for life; where the
narrowness no longer put me to intolerable pain, and afforded my lover
no more difficulty than what heightened his pleasure, in the strict
embrace of that tender, warm sheath, round the instrument it was so
delicately adjusted to, and which now cased home, so gorged me with
pleasure, that it perfectly suffocated me and took away my breath; then
the killing thrusts! the unnumbered kisses! every one of which was a
joy inexpressible; and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses!
But this was a disorder too violent in nature to last long: the
vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for
that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport
had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to
lay breakfast and dinner into one.
In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following account of himself,
every tittle of which was true. He was the only son of a father, who,
having a small post in the revenue, rather overlived his income, and
had given this young gentleman a very slender education: no profession
had he bred him up to, but designed to provide for him in the army, by
purchasing him an ensign’s commission, that is to say, provided he
could raise the money, or procure it by interest, either of which
clauses was rather to be wished than hoped for by him. On no better a
plan, however, had his improvident father suffered this youth, a youth
of great promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it at least,
in next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no sort of pains to give
him even the common premonitions against the vices of the town, and the
dangers of all sorts which wait the unexperienced and unwary in it. He
lived at home, and at discretion with his father, who himself kept a
mistress; and for the rest, provided Charles did not ask him for money,
he was indolently kind to him: he might lie out when he pleased, any
excuse would serve, and even his reprimands were so slight, that they
carried with them rather an air of connivance at the fault, than any
serious control or constraint. But, to supply his calls for money,
Charles, whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a grandmother, who
doated upon him. She had a considerable annuity to live on, and very
regularly parted with every shilling she could spare, to this darling
of her’s, to the no little heart-burn of his father; who was vexed, not
that she, by this means, fed his son’s extravagance, but that she
preferred Charles to himself; and we shall too soon see what a fatal
turn such a mercenary jealousy could operate on the breast of a father.
Charles was, however, by the means of his grandmother’s lavish
fondness, very sufficiently enabled to keep a mistress, so easily
contented as my love made me; and my good fortune, for such I must ever
call it, threw me in his way, in the manner above related, just as he
was on the look-out for one.
As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born for domestic
happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-manner’d; it could
never be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities ruffled a calm he was
so qualified every way to maintain or restore. Without those great or
shining qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a noise
in the world, he had all those humble ones that compose the softer
social merit: plain common sense, set off with every grace of modesty
and good nature, made him, if not admired, what is much happier:
universally beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the beauties of
his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion,
neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had
afterwards full occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that
season of giddiness and levity, would have touched my heart very
little, had it been lodged in a person less the delight of my eyes, and
idol of my senses. But to return to our situation.
After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder, Charles
got up, and taking a passionate leave of me for a few hours, went to