Memoirs of Fanny Hill
and gave it the full possession of my whole body and soul; for now all
thought was at an end with me; I lived in what I felt only. And who
could describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by the
charm of their novelty and surprise? when that part of me which had so
hungered for the dear morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced
all my vital sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my
beloved guest; who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome, in a
dissolvent, richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating
her paramour with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly poured into me,
where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry reception, I hailed
it with the warmest confluence on my side, amidst all those ecstatic
raptures, not unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus, however,
I arrived at the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected
indeed, but not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived
in town from college, and came familiarly to his mother at her
apartment, where he had once before been, though, by mere chance. I had
not seen him: so that we knew one another by hearing only; and finding
me stretched on his mother’s bed, he readily concluded from her
description, who it was. The rest you know.
“This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the young gentleman
escaping then, and many more times undiscovered. But the warmth of my
constitution, that made the pleasures of love a kind of necessary of
life to me, having betrayed me into indiscretions fatal to my private
fortune, I fell at length to the public; from which, it is probable, I
might have met with the worst of ruin, if my better fate had not thrown
me into this safe and agreeable refuge.”
Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having brought the time
for the girls to retire, and to prepare for the revels of the evening,
I staid with Mrs. Cole, till Emily came, and told us the company was
met, and waited for us.
Mrs. Cole on this, taking me by the hand, with a smile of
encouragement, led me up stairs, preceded by Louisa, who was come to
hasten us, and lighted us with two candles, one in each hand.
On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we were met by a
young gentleman, extremely well dressed, and a very pretty figure, to
whom I was to be indebted for the first essay of the pleasures of the
house. He saluted me with great gallantry, and handed me into the
drawing room, the floor of which was overspread with a Turkey carpet,
and all its furniture voluptuously adapted to every demand of the most
studied luxury; now too it was, by means of a profuse illumination,
enlivened by a light scarce inferior, and perhaps more favourable to
joy, more tenderly pleasing, than that of broad sunshine.
On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction! to hear a buzz of
approbation run through the whole company, which now consisted of four
gentlemen, including my particular (this was the cant term of the house
for one’s gallant for the time), the three young-women, in a neat
flowing dishabille, the mistress of the academy, and myself. I was
welcomed and saluted by a kiss all round, in which, however, it was
easy to discover, in the superior warmth of that of the men, the
distinction of the sexes.
Awed, and confounded as I was, at seeing myself surrounded, caressed,
and made court to by so many strangers, I could not immediately
familiarize myself to all that air of gaiety and joy, which dictated
their compliments, and animated their caresses.
They assured me that I was so perfectly to their taste, as to have but
one fault against me, which I might easily be cured of, and that was my
modesty: this, they observed, might pass for a beauty the more with
those who wanted it for a heightener; but their maxim was, that it was
an impertinent mixture, and dashed the cup so as to spoil the sincere
draught of pleasure; they considered it accordingly as their mortal
enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met with it. This was a
prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensued.
In the midst of all the frolic and wantonness, which this joyous band
had presently, and all naturally, run into, an elegant supper was
served in, and we sat down to it, my spark elect placing himself next
to me, and the other couples without order or ceremony. The delicate
cheer and good wine soon banished all reserve; the conversation grew as
lively as could be wished, without taking too loose a turn: these
professors of pleasure knew too well, how to stale impressions of it,
or evaporate the imagination of words, before the time of action.
Kisses however were snatched at times, or where a handkerchief round
the neck interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected:
the hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till the
provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my particulars’s
proposal for beginning the country dances was received with instant
assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instruments were in
tune. This was a signal for preparation, that the complaisant Mrs.
Cole, who understood life, took for her cue of disappearing; no longer
so fit for personal service herself, and content with having settled
the order of battle, she left us the field, to fight it out at
discretion.
As soon as she was gone, the table was removed from the middle, and
became a side-board; a couch was brought into its place, of which when
I whisperingly inquired the reason, of my particular, he told me, “that
as it was chiefly on my account that his convention was met, the
parties intended at once to humour their taste of variety in pleasures,
and by an open public enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint of
reserve or modesty, which they looked on as the poison of joy; that
though they occasionally preached pleasure, and lived up to the text,
they did not enthusiastically set up for missionaries, and only
indulged themselves in the delights of a practical instruction of all
the pretty women they liked well enough to bestow it upon, and who fell
properly in the way of it; but that as such a proposal might be too
violent, too shocking for a young beginner, the old standers were to
set an example, which he hoped I would not be averse to follow, since
it was to him I was devolved in favour of the first experiment; but
that still I was perfectly at my liberty to refuse the party, which
being in its nature one of pleasure, supposed an exclusion of all force
or constraint.”
My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my silence did my
acquiescence. I was now embarked, and thoroughly determined on any
voyage the company would take me on.
The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cornet of horse, and
that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft and amorous Louisa. He led
her to the couch (nothing loth), on which he gave her the fall, and
extended her at length with an air of roughness and vigour, relishing
high of amorous eagerness and impatience. The girl, spreading herself
to the best advantage, with her head upon the pillow, was so
concentered in that she was about, that our presence was the least of
her care and concern. Her petticoats, thrown up with her shift,
discovered to the company the finest turned legs and thighs that could
be imagined, and in broad display, that gave us a full view of that
delicious cleft of flesh, into which the pleasing hair, grown mount
over it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance, between two
close hedges, delicately soft and pouting. Her gallant was now ready,
having disencumbered himself from his clothes, overloaded with lace,
and presently, his shirt removed, shewed us his forces at high plight,
bandied and ready for action. But giving us no time to consider the
dimensions, he threw himself instantly over his charming antagonist who
received him as he pushed at once dead at mark, like a heroine, without
flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally truer to the
taste of joy, or sincerer in the expressions of its sensations, than
she was: we could observe pleasure lighten in her eyes, as he
introduced his plenipotentiary instrument into her; till, at length,
having indulged her to its utmost reach, its irritations grew so
violent, and gave her the spurs so furiously, that collected within
herself, and lost to every thing but the enjoyment of her favourite
feelings, she retarded his thrusts with a just concert of spring
heaves, keeping time so exactly with the most pathetic sighs, that one
might have numbered the strokes in agitation by their distinct murmurs,
whilst her active limbs kept wreathing and intertwisting with his, in
convulsive folds: then the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant
painless lovebites, which they both exchanged, in a rage of delight,
all conspiring towards the melting period. It soon came on, when
Louisa, in the ravings of her pleasure-frensy, impotent of all
restraint, cried out: “Oh Sir!... Good Sir! pray do not spare me! ah!
ah!...” All her accents now faultering into heart-fetched sighs, she
closed her eyes in the sweet death, in the instant of which we could
easily see the signs in the quiet, dying, languid posture of her late
so furious driver, who was stopped of a sudden, breathing short,
panting, and, for that time, giving up the spirit of pleasure. As soon
as he was dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats, and
running up to me, gave me a kiss, and drew me to the side-board, to
which she was herself handed by her gallant, where they made me pledge
them in a glass of wine, and toast a droll health of Louisa’s proposal
in high frolic.
By this time the second couple was ready to enter the lists: which were
a young baronet, and that delicatest of charmers, the winning, tender
Harriet. My gentle esquire came to acquaint me with it, and brought me
back to the scene of action.
And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany her
dispositions, for the barefaced part she was engaged to play, with such
a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty and yielding coyness, as she
did. All her air and motions breathed only unreserved, unlimited
complaisance without the least mixture of impudence, or prostitution.
But what was yet more surprising, her spark elect, in the midst of the
dissolution of a public open enjoyment, doated on her to distraction,
and had, by dint of love and sentiments, touched her heart, though for
a while the restraint of their engagement to the house laid him under a
kind of necessity of complying with an institution which himself had
had the greatest share establishing.
Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant, blushing as
she looked at me, and with eyes made to justify any thing, tenderly
bespeaking of me the most favourable construction of the step she was
thus irresistibly drawn into.
Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the couch, and
passing his arm round her neck, preluded with a kiss fervently applied
to her lips, that visibly gave her life and spirit to go through with
the scene; and as he kissed, he gently inclined her head, till it fell
back on a pillow disposed to receive it, and leaning himself down all
the way with her, at once countenanced and endeared her fall to her.
There, as if he had guessed our wishes, or meant to gratify at once his
pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by the title of present
possession, of beauties delicate beyond imagination, he discovered her
breast to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what delicious
manual of love devotion; how inimitable fine moulded! small, round,
firm, and excellently white; then the grain of their skin, so soothing,
so flattering to the touch! and of beauty. When he had feasted his eyes