I said she was always in the way. She said she must live there. "You
would like me to go out of town for a fortnight." Said I, "That is the
best thing you can do." She said she could not.
I insisted, and at length she agreed to go for ten days, I paying her I
think fifteen pounds for her lodgings. Off she went, and I dare say went
to a friend's close by, I never knew. She said she was sorry she had
brought the girl to London. Louise was not to know that I was aware of
her departure. The last words she said to me were, "I suppose when you
have her you will leave me." I replied I had no such intention, nor had
I; but a gay woman is a good judge of the future.
I must now describe the lodgings more closely. The ground-floor was
occupied by a cloth merchant; there was no shop, but in the windows were
some bales of cloth, a brass name-plate was on the inner door, the
top of the house was the cloth-dealer's store. The man was rarely in
England, the entrance to the shop from the hall was always locked, and I
never saw more than one man enter it.
The first floor Camille had. On the second floor was a grumpy old woman
named Boileau; she took charge of the house. I scarcely ever saw the old
woman excepting when she opened the door, and then she neither spoke or
looked at me. Until Louise came, Camille had had a French servant. Some
years afterwards it turned out that the woolen shop was used by the
foreigners for forging foreign notes; the cloth business was but a mask.
Camille had been there two years.
Off Camille went. That same day I was at the house. Madame, Louise said,
had gone for ten days into the country, and had left word that no one
was to be let in. I went upstairs saying I should come when I liked,
that as Camille had gone, we could do as we liked. She looked hard at
me.
"I expect Madame has gone off with some man," said I, "she will get a
good lot of fucking." She had heard me talking baudy, and knew that word
in English and French. Then we had breakfast together, and I made love
to her.
Louise was as vain as a peacock, and excessively fond of her stomach.
When she had a glass of champagne, she used to swallow it as fast as
she could. This weakness and inclination in any woman places her at the
mercy of a man who will spend his money; and though I did not then see
the advantages of money as plainly as I see it now, I instinctively used
it.
"This is jolly," said I, "we will go and have dinner, then go to the
theatre, do what we like afterwards." Her eyes sparkled, but she feared
to go, for "Madame was such a demon when offended." "Who would know? The
people in the house would not know what we did," I replied.
It was yet only mid-day. "Nobody can interrupt us, let's have luncheon
here, I will get the wine." A french restaurateur sent in a hot luncheon.
I fetched champagne, then bethought myself of something which had not
occurred to me before.
Camille had as said a big album full of voluptuous pictures. When she
went to fetch Louise I asked her to leave it with me till her return.
She said, "I will pawn it to you for ten pounds." I lent that sum. Since
her return she had not asked for it, maybe thinking I would ask for my
ten pounds. I knew now well the effect of baudy pictures in exciting
lust, so I fetched it. We had luncheon and champagne, she laughed,.
talked, objected to sit down with me, but at last was thoroughly at home
with me, and for the first time talked freely of her mistress, whom
she feared. She disclosed a deal of simplicity and a very great deal of
vulgarity, for she was an utter vulgar peasant girl; but I didn't mind
anything to get up her cunt.
Good living heats the body and stimulates randi-ness; there is fifty
times as much danger in leaving a young couple together with their
stomachs full of good food, than when they are empty. A gentle heat, a
sense of fullness, a gentle swelling, creeps up the stem of the man's
prick, the knob feels tender and voluptuous; a gentle moisture distills
in the woman's cunt, heat and an alloverish feeling, from clitoris
to arse-hole overcomes her. Both are then ready for fucking, and only
restrained from going at it by various social reasons, which determine
our actions in every-day life. Such was our state when kissing and
laughing we put away the things. Then we sat side by side on the sofa,
with my arm round her waist.
I produced the book, which I had brought with me. I recollected how,
pouring over it with Sarah or Susan, the pictures in my "Fanny Hill"
used to throw them into a state of randiness which it was left me to
appease. Susan used to say, that she only had to look at the pictures
for a minute, to make her want "to forget herself." I took the book out
of the paper; it was a large square book, which immediately attracted
her attention. "What is that?" she asked. "Pictures." "Oh! show me."
"Come on then." She sat on my knee, I put my left arm round her waist.
"Give me a kiss." She gave it. "Now let me look." I had placed my right
hand on her thigh outside her clothes, and was thinking, what a nice
chance I had for throwing her back on the sofa, but I opened the first
page. It was a fine, large coloured print (how well I remember it) of
a bed-room. On the bed knelt two young women side by side, their
petticoats thrown over their backs, and showing their backsides to their
waists. Close by stood a middle-aged woman looking at them; through the
door were the heads of two men peeping at the posterings, lust was on
their faces. One of the girls had a much fatter bum than the other, both
cunts were visible, the hair of one black, the other, light. It was
a bet as to who had the handsomest posterior, the woman to decide was
saying, "Marie a gagne, ell a la plus vonde et la plus belle."
Louise gave a loud "oh!" as if taken by surprise, her face changed
blood-red, she turned the cover over and burst into a fit of laughter,
tried to get away from me, but I held her fast, so she put her head over
my shoulder and laughed, I laughing with her. "You have as nice a bum
as the dark one," said I. "There is nothing more like that, look through
it." I opened the book again; under her eyes was a picture of a woman
undressed, laying at the edge of the bed, her legs open, her middle
finger on her cunt; by her side a man with trowsers down, his prick out
stiff and crimson-tipped, one hand on the woman's thigh, and intensely
looking at her cunt.