Memoirs of Fanny Hill
me by all the endearments of assurance and protestations, to lay hold
of my hands, to kiss me, and once more to make free with my bosom,
which, being at full liberty from the disorder of a loose dishabile,
now panted and throbbed, less with indignation than with fear and
bashfulness, at being used so familiarly by still a stranger. But he
soon gave me greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping
his hands above my garters; thence he strove to regain the pass, which
he had before found so open, and unguarded; but now he could not unlock
the twist of my thighs; I gently complained, and begged him to let me
alone; told him I was not well. However, he saw there was more form and
ceremony in my resistance, than good earnest; he made his conditions
for desisting from pursuing his point, that I should be put instantly
to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to the landlady, and that he
would return in an hour, when he hoped to find me more reconciled to
his passion for me, than I seemed at present. I neither assented nor
denied, but my air and manner of receiving his proposal, gave him to
see that I did not think myself enough my own mistress to refuse it.
Accordingly he went out and left me, when a minute or two after, before
I could recover myself into any composure for thinking, the maid came
in with her mistress’s service, and a small silver orringer of what she
called a bridal posset, and desired me to eat it as I went to bed,
which consequently I did, and felt immediately a heat, a fire run like
a hue-and-cry through every part of my body; I burnt, I glowed, and
wanted even little of wishing for any man.
The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle away, and wishing
me a good night, went out of the room, and shut the door after her.
She had hardly time to get down stairs, before Mr. H.... opened my room
door softly, and came in, now undressed, in his night-gown and cap,
with two lighted wax candles, and bolting the door, gave me, though I
expected him, some sort of alarm. He came a tip-toe to the bed side,
and saying with a gentle whisper: “Pray, my dear, do not be startled...
I will be very tender and kind to you.” He then hurried off his
clothes, and leaped into bed, having given me openings enough, whilst
he was stripping, to observe his brawny structure, strong made limbs,
and rough shaggy breast.
The bed shook again when it received this new load. He lay on the
outside, where he kept the candles burning, no doubt for the
satisfaction of every sense, for as soon as he had kissed me, he rolled
down the bed clothes, and seemed transported with the view of all my
person at full length, which he covered with a profusion of kisses,
sparing no part of me. Then, being on his knees between my thighs, he
drew up his shirt, and bared all his hairy thighs, and stiff staring
truncheon, red top, and rooted into a thicket of curls, which covered
his belly to the novel, and gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon
I feel it joining close to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the
head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on both sides.
I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive, he soon gave
nature such a powerful summons down to her favourite quarters, that she
could no longer refuse repairing thither; all my animals spirits then
rushed mechanically to that center of attraction, and presently, inly
warmed, and stirred as I was beyond bearing, I lost all restraint, and
yielding to the force of the emotion, gave down, as mere woman, those
effusions of pleasure, which, in the strictness of still faithful love,
I could have wished to have kept in.
Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between this impression
of a pleasure merely animal, and struck out of the collision of the
sexes, by a passive bodily effect, from that sweet fury, that rage of
active delight which crowns the enjoyments of a mutual love passion,
where two hearts, tenderly and truly united, club to exalt the joy, and
give it a spirit and soul that bids defiance to that end which mere
momentary desires generally terminate in, when they die of a surfeit of
satisfaction!
Mr. H..., whom no distinctions of that sort seemed to distract, scarce
gave himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but, as if
he had tasked himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour were
no signs hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for
renewing the onset; to which, preluding with a storm of kisses, he
drove the same course as before, with unbated fervour; and thus, in
repeated engagements, kept me constantly in exercise, till dawn of
morning, in all which time he made me fully sensible of the virtues of
his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest, compact
hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that might pass for no
bad image of our ancient sturdy barons, whose race is now so thoroughly
refined and frittered away into the more delicate and modern built
frame of our pap-nerved softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and
almost as masculine as their sisters.
Mr. H..., content, however, with having the day break upon his triumph,
resigned me up to the refreshment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon
dropped into a profound sleep.
Though he was some time awake before me, yet he did not offer to
disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion for; but on my first
stirring, which was not till past ten o’clock, I was obliged to endure
one more trial of his manhood.
About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of the richest soup,
which her experience in these matters had moved her to prepare. I pass
over the fulsome compliments, the cant of the decent procuress, with
which she saluted us both; but though my blood rose at the sight of
her, I supprest my emotions, and gave all my concerne to reflections on
what would be the consequence of this new engagement.
But Mr. H..., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not suffer me to
languish under it, and acquainted me, that having taken a solid sincere
affection to me, he would begin by giving me one leading mark of it, in
removing me out of a house which must, for many reasons, be irksome and
disagreeable to me, into convenient lodgings, where he would take all
imaginable care of me; and desiring not to have any explanations with
my landlady, or be impatient till he returned, he dressed and went out,
having left me a purse with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he
had about him, as he express it, to keep my pocket still further
supplied.
As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence of the first
launch into vice (for my love attachment to Charles never appeared to
me in that light). I was instantly borne away down the stream without
making back to the shore. My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and
above all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion I
began to find in this new acquaintance, from the black corroding
thoughts my heart had been a prey to, ever since the absence of my dear
Charles, concurred to stun all my contrary reflections. If I now
thought of my first, my only charmer, it was still with the tenderness
and regret of the fondest love, embittered with the consciousness that
I was no longer worthy of him. I could have begged my bread with him
all over the world, but wretch that I was! I had neither the virtue or
courage requisite not to outlive my separation from him.
Yet, had not my heart been thus preengaged, Mr. H... might probably
have been the sole master of it; but the place was full, and the force
of conjectures alone had made him the possessor of my person; the
charms of which had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and
were, of course, no foundation for a love either very delicate or very
durable.
He did not return till six in the evening, to take me away to my new
lodgings; and my moveables being soon packed, and conveyed into a
hackney coach, it cost me but little regret to take my leave of a
landlady whom I thought I had so much reason not to be over pleased
with; and as for her part, she made no other difference to my staying
or going, but what that of the profit created.
We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was that of a plain
tradesman, who, on the score of interest, was entirely at Mr. H...’s
devotion, and who let him the first floor, very genteelly furnished,
for two guineas a week, of which I was instated mistress, with a maid
to attend me.
He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper from a neighbouring
tavern, after which, and a gay glass or two, the maid put me to bed.
Mr. H.... soon followed, and notwithstanding the fatigues of the
preceding night, I found no quarter nor remission from him: he piquet
himself, as he told me, on doing the honours of my new apartment.
The morning being pretty well advanced, we got to breakfast; and the
ice now broke, my heart, no longer engrossed by love, began to take
ease, and to please itself with such trifles Mr. H....’s liberal liking
led him to make his court to the usual vanity of our sex. Silks, laces:
ear rings, pearl necklace, gold watch, in sort, all the trinkets and
articles of dress were lavishly heaped upon me; the sence of which, if
it did not create returns of love, forced a kind of grateful fondness,
something like love: a distinction which it would be spoiling the
pleasure of nine tenths of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I
suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do make it.
I was now established the kept mistress in form, well lodged, with a
very sufficient allowance, and lighted up with all the lustre of dress.
Mr. H.... continued kind and tender to me; yet, with all this, I was
far from happy: for, besides my regrets for my dear youth, which,
though often suspended or diverted, still returned upon me in certain
melancholic moments with redoubled violence, I wanted more society,
more dissipation.
As to Mr. H.... he was so much my superior in every sense, that I felt
it too much to the disadvantage of the gratitude I owed him. Thus he
gained my esteem, though he could not raise my taste; I was qualified
for no sort of conversation with him, except one sort, and that is a
satisfaction which leaves tiresome intervals, if not filled up by love,
or other amusements.
Mr. H...., so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of
whom had passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this
uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking me the better for it, had
the complaisance to indulge me.
He made suppers at my lodging, where he brought several companions of
his pleasures, with their mistresses; and by this means I got into a
circle of acquaintance, that soon stripped me of all the remains of
bashfulness and modesty which might be yet left of my country
education, and were, to a just taste, perhaps, the greatest of my
charms.
We visited one another in form, and mimicked, as near as we could, all
the miseries, the follies, and impertinencies of the women in quality,
in the round of which they trifle away their time, without it ever
entering their little heads, that on earth there cannot subsist any
thing more silly, more flat, more insipid and worthless, than,
generally considered, their system of life is: they ought to treat the
men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to condemn them to it.
But though, amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now acquainted with
a good many, besides some useful matrons, who live by their connexions
with them), I hardly knew one that did not perfectly detest their
keepers, and, of course, made little or no scruple of any infidelity
they could safely accomplish, I had still no notion of wronging mine: