Fanny Hill. John Cleland

before put forth and garnish’d the mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful shelter over the seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence. Her fingers play’d and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.

      But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempted the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an introduction of a finger into the quick itself, in such a manner that, had she not proceeded by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I should have jump’d out of bed and cried for help against such strange assaults.

      Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that wanton’d through all my veins, but fix’d with violence in that centre appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger between, till an ‘Oh!’ express’d her hurting me, where the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any depth.

      In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretchings, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as ‘Oh! what a charming creature thou art!…What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you!…Oh! that I were a man for your sake!…’ with the like broken expressions, interrupted by kisses as fierce and fervent as ever I received from the other sex.

      For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings so new were too much for me. My heated and alarm’d senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gush’d from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged the fire that rag’d all over me.

      Phoebe, herself, the hackney’d, thorough-bred Phoebe, to whom all modes and devices of pleasure were known and familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise of her art to break young girls, the gratification of one of those arbitrary tastes for which there is no accounting. Not that she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex; but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety of enjoyments in the common road, perhaps, too, a secret bias, inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever she could find it, without distinction of sexes. In this view, now well assured that she had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she roll’d down the bedclothes gently, and I saw myself stretched nak’d, my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or sense to oppose it. Even my glowing blushes expressed more desire than modesty, whilst the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on my whole body.

      ‘No!’ says Phoebe, ‘you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as well as my touch…I must devour with my eyes this springing bosom…Suffer me to kiss it…I have not seen it enough…Let me kiss it once more…What firm, smooth, white flesh is here!…How delicately shaped!…Then this delicious down! Oh! let me view the small, dear, tender cleft!…This is too much, I cannot bear it!…I must…I must…’ Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of the same thing!…A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full-grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction, that I presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two or three sighs, and heart-fetched Ohs! and giving me a kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the bedclothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and communication with the bad of our own sex is often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of the other. But to go on. When Phoebe was restor’d to that calm which I was far from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness, and warmth of constitution.

      After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I had been led into, when nature (which had been too warmly stir’d and fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other) relieved me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to those of waking real action.

      In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phoebe was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast, carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the night’s bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to set me about. She smil’d; presently the maid brought in the tea-equipage, and I had just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my mistress. I expected no less than to be told off, if not chid for, my late rising, when I was agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my pure and fresh looks. I was ‘a bud of beauty’ (this was her style), ‘and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!’ to all which my answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the world.

      We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.

      Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquette heart flutter’d with joy at the sight of a white lute-string, flower’d with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for spick-and-span new, a Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on immediate surrender to him, in case of his agreeing for me; concluding very wisely that such a place as I was in was of the hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in as a maidenhead.

      The care of dressing, and tricking me out for the market, was then left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dress’d. When it was over, and I view’d myself in the glass, I was, no doubt, too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change, in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.

      Phoebe’s compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place here to sketch you an unflatter’d picture.

      I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remark’d, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin-waisted, and light and free, without owing anything to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and did not a little set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate, and the shape was a roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can be imagin’d, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever carefully preserv’d, were small, even and white; my bosom was finely rais’d, and one might then discern rather the promise, than the actual growth, of the round firm breasts, that in a little time made that promise good. In short, all the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges