Memoirs of Fanny Hill. John Cleland

in trust with Phœbe, who having not the least suspicion of my entertaining any design to go from them (nor, indeed, had I, but the day before), made no reserve or concealment of it from me. I opened the door with great ease; love, that emboldened, protected me too: and now, got safe into the street, I saw my new guardian angel waiting at a coach door, ready open. How I got to him I know not: I suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a trice, and he by the side of me, with his arms clasped round me, and giving me the kiss of welcome. The coachman had his orders, and drove to them.

      My eyes were instantly filled with tears, but tears of the most delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of that beauteous youth, was a rapture that my little hear swam in; past or future were equally out of the question with me; the present was as much as all my powers of life were sufficient to bear the transport of, without fainting. Nor were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of never giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken, in throwing myself thus entirely upon his honour and generosity. But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and, I did what I did, because I could not help it.

      In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were landed at a public house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for the reception of duet parties of pleasure, where a breakfast of chocolate was prepared for us.

      An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and said, “we were well paired, i’ faith! that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple... he was sure I was a fresh piece... I looked so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!...” all which, common landlord’s cant, not only pleased and soothed me, but helped to diver my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to be alone with: a timidity which true love had a greater share in than even maiden bashful-ness.

      I wished, I doated, I could have died for him; and yet, I know not how, or why I dreaded the point which had been the object of my fiercest wishes; my pulses beat fears, amidst a flush of the warmest desires. This struggle of the passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty and lovesick longings, made me burst again into tears; which he took, as he had done before, only for the remains of concern and emotion at the suddenness of my change of condition, in committing myself to his care; and, in consequence of that idea, did and said all that he thought would most comfort and re-inspirit me.

      After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must take the liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by), with a smile full of meaning, took me gently by the hand, and said: “Come, my dear, I will show you a room that commands a fine prospect over some gardens”; and without waiting for an answer, in which he relieved me extremely, he led me up into a chamber, airy and lightsome, where all seeing of prospects was out of the question, except that of a bed, which had all the air of recommending the room to him.

      Charles had just slipped the bolt of the door, and running, caught me in his arms, and lifting me from the ground, with his lips glued to mine, bore me trembling, panting, dying with soft fears and tender wishes, to the bed; where his impatience would not suffer him to undress me, more than just unpinning my handkerchief and gowns, and unlacing my stays.

      My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs, presented to his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a pair of young breast, such as may be imagined of a girl not sixteen, fresh out of the country, and never before handled: but even their pride, whiteness, fashion, pleasing resistance to the touch, could not bribe his restless hands from roving; but, giving them the loose, my petticoats and shift were soon taken up, and their stronger center of attraction laid open to their tender invasion. My fears, however, made me mechanically close my thighs; but the very touch of his hand insinuated between them, disclosed them and opened a way for the main attack.

      In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examination of his eyes and hands, quiet and unresisting; which confirmed him the opinion he proceeded so cavalierly upon, that I was no novice in these matters, since he had taken me out of a common bawdy house, nor had I said one thing to prepossess him of my virginity; and if I had, he would sooner have believed that I took him for a cully that would swallow such an improbability, than that I was still mistress of that darling treasure, that hidden mine, so eagerly sought after by the men, and which they never dig for, but to destroy.

      Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he unbuttoned, and drawing out the engine of love assaults, drove it currently, as at a ready made breach... Then! then! for the first time, did I feel that stiff horn-hard gristle, battering against the tender part; but imagine to yourself his surprise, when he found, after several vigorous pushes, which hurt me extremely, that he made not the least impression.

      I complained, but tenderly complained: “I could not bear it... indeed he hurt me!...” Still he thought no more, than that being so young, the largeness of his machine (for few men could dispute size with him) made all the difficulty; and that possibly I had not been enjoyed by any so advantageously made in that part as himself: for still, that my virgin flower was yet un-cropped, never entered into his head, and he would have thought it idling with time and words, to have questioned me upon it.

      He tried again, still no admittance, still no penetration; but he had hurt me yet more, while my extreme love made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kissed my falling tears, and asked me tenderly “what was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not borne it better from other than I did from him?” I answered, with a simplicity framed to persuade, that he was the first mam that ever served me so. Truth is powerful, and it is not always that we do not believe what we eagerly wish.

      Charles, already disposed by the evidence, of his senses to think my pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers me with kisses, begs me, in the name of love, to have a little patience, and that he wilt be as tender of hurting me as he would be of himself..

      Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joyfully to him, whatever pain I foresaw it would cost, me.

      He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another Under my head, in ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself standing betwen them, made them rest upon his; applying then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance, it was so small, he could scarce assure himself of its being rightly pointed. He looks, he feels, and satisfies himself: there driving on with fury, its prodigious stiffness, thus impacted, wedgelike, breaks the union of those parts, and gained him just the insertion of the tip of it, lip deep; which being sensible of, he improved his advantage, and following well his stroke, in a straight line, forcibly deepens his penetration; but put me to such intolerable pain, from the separation of the sides of that soft passage by a hard thick body, I could have screamed out; but, as I was unwilling to alarm the house, I held in my breath, and crammed my petticoat, which was; turned up over my face, into my mouth, and bit it through in the agony. At length, the tender texture of that tract giving way to such fierce tearing and rending, he pierced something further into me: and now, outrageous and no longer his own master, but borne headlong away by the fury and over-mettle of that member, now exerting itself with a kind of native rage, he breaks in, carries all before him, and one violent merciless lunge, sent it, imbrued, and reeking with virgin blood, up to the very hilt in me... Then! then all my resolution deserted me: I screamed out, and fainted away with the sharpness of the pain; and, as he told me afterwards, on his drawing out, when emission was over with him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood, that flowed from the wounded torn passage.

      When I recovered my senses, I found myself undressed and a-bed, in the arms of the sweet relenting murderer of my virginity, who hung mourning tenderly over me, and holding in his hand a cordial, which, coming from the still dear author of so much pain, I could not refuse; my eyes, however, moistened with tears, and languishingly turned upon him, seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and ask him, if such were the rewards of love. But Charles, to whom I was now infinitely endeared by his complete triumph over a maidenhead, where he so little expected to find one, in tenderness to that