That night, after she was sure her father was asleep, Louisa crept downstairs as quietly as she could. With her flickering candlestick leading the way, she went into the library and tried the doors on the secretaire bookcase. They were locked, as expected.
Quivering with a mixture of fear and excitement, she began her quest for the key. As she searched her father’s desktop and drawers, she took great care to return anything she disturbed to the exact place it had been when she came in. For her father was extremely fastidious. He would notice the smallest thing out of place. And then, he would know she’d been in here snooping.
Her gaze flicked toward the umbrella stand where Papa stored his birch rods. All of them had names—or, more accurately, titles—that corresponded with their size. The biggest, for example, was the King, the second biggest, the Duke, and so on.
As she continued her search, she wondered which he would use if he discovered Theo was secretly courting her. The King, probably. She cringed at the thought, for surely the biggest switch would strip the flesh from her bones.
She found the key where she should have looked first: under the blotter. Gripping it with trembling fingers, she approached the secretaire. With a soft click, the doors opened, revealing to her three shelves of books with blank spines. She withdrew a small red one and opened the cover, also unmarked. The frontispiece read: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Her heart beat faster as she smiled in triumph. It was just the sort of thing she’d hoped to find. After sharing so many passionate kisses with Theo, she had become extremely curious about the act of amorous congress. And how better to learn what to expect than by reading explicit literature?
Tonight, his fervent kisses had awakened in her feelings and sensations she’d never experienced before—or even knew were possible. Would he kiss her with equal passion tomorrow? Would he try to do more? Would she let him if he did?
Part of her wanted to—the part that could not bear the idea of Charles being the first and only man with whom she would ever be intimate. In fact, the thought of her cousin being free to touch her in her most private places was a constant torment to her soul. And, much as it plagued her heart, there was still every chance she would end up married to that cretin. For Theo had not yet proposed—nor given her any indication he meant to do so in time to save her from her worst nightmare.
Bringing her candle nearer, she scanned the first few pages in quest of what one might delicately describe as “the good parts.” At length, she found what she was looking for: a scene in which two prostitutes were voyeuristically observing a tryst between a girl of eighteen and a swarthy young Italian man in his early twenties. To Louisa’s delight, many paragraphs were devoted to flowery descriptions of the man’s penis, which the author variously (and humorously) referred to as his “great instrument,” “weapon of pleasure,” and “red-headed champion,” among other euphemisms. Soon thereafter, they commenced the act of love, which the author described as follows:
He thrusts, she heaves, at first gently, and in a regular cadence; but presently the transport began to be too violent to observe any order or measure; their motions were too rapid, their kisses too fierce and fervent for nature to support such fury long: both seemed to me out of themselves: their eyes darted fires: “Oh! oh! I can’t bear it. It is too much. I die. I am going,” were Polly’s expressions of ecstasy: his joys were more silent: but soon broken murmurs, sighs heart-fetched, and at length a dispatching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her body, and then the motionless languor of all his limbs, all shewed that the die-away moment was come upon him; which she gave signs of joining with by, the wild throwing of her hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep sob, in which she seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.
What Louisa read aroused in her such ungovernable longings she would have given herself to Theo in a heartbeat. Fortunately, he was not here, so her virtue was safe for the moment. But would it be tomorrow? And would it have been tonight had that gentleman not disturbed them in the banquet hall? For, as Theo so deliciously suckled her breast, she felt his “weapon of pleasure” poking her abdomen.
Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what the Captain might look like without any clothing. Did he, like the Italian man, have “sprigs of hair about his paps that garnished his chest in a style of strength and manliness”? Did his “weapon” rise out of a thicket of curling hair that spread from the root all over his thighs and belly up to the navel? Was it of a size to frighten her?
Shivering at the thought, she slipped the book into the pocket of her dressing gown, locked the cabinet, and put the key back exactly where she found it. Then, with her womb aching intolerably, she made her way back upstairs to her bedchamber.
After locking the door and cast off her robe. The bedroom was freezing, and when she slid into bed, the cool of the crisp white sheets gave her goose pimples. For some time, she lay there in the soft candlelight, imaging Theo doing to her the things the handsome Italian had done to Polly in the book. Rather than bringing her relief, however, the fantasy only enflamed her the more.
In desperation she braved the cold to retrieve her secret treasure from her dressing-gown pocket. Opening to where she’d left off, she read:
But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue lie down on his back, and gently pull down Polly upon him, who giving way to his humour, straddled, and with her hands conducted her blind favourite to the right place; and following her impulse, ran directly upon the flaming point of this weapon of pleasure, which she staked herself upon, up pierced, and infixed to the extremist hair breadth of it…
Louisa shuddered, ready to die from longing. Had the household not been asleep, she would have cried out in frustration. She must have relief. She simply must. So what if her only outlet was wicked? She had already sinned by welcoming—nay, encouraging—a man’s courtship in defiance of her father. Worse yet, she yearned for the Captain to do to her all the things the Italian had done to Polly.
What was self-pleasuring compared to that? And besides, who would discern her guilt apart from herself and God? Nobody. Not even Theo would know how wantonly she fantasized about him.
With her fingers, she explored that part of herself that was swollen and tingling. The ache was unbearable; the longing a torture that burned her from the inside out. She did not really understand the sensations coursing through her. She only knew she needed to be free of the terrible throbbing between her legs. One of her fingers touched a spot—a small cluster of nerve endings—that seemed to hold the key to ending her suffering. How had she not known it was there? How had she not known her body was capable of producing such sublime sensations? Why had the world so wickedly kept this secret from her?
Touching herself again, her pleasure spiked. She moaned and hugged her pillow to her. The building pressure was exquisite torture. She continued to rub, licking her finger when it got too dry.
Yes. Oh, yes. This was what she longed for. To burn, to be on fire. Like Juliet, Guinevere, or Isolde. The only thing that could make it more wonderful was if Theo was here to impale her with his weapon of pleasure.
The inner fire reached a fever pitch. Then, something inside her seemed to break open like a pipe. Pleasure gushed through her, leaving her quivering and breathless as she, too, expired in an agony of bliss.
* * * *
Theo shifted restlessly in his bed and tried not to think how good it felt to have Louisa’s body pressed against his while their tongues danced so deliciously. How divine those few moments had been—but also how dangerous.
I want to burn, Theo. Like a fiery comet shooting across the heavens.
That boldness of spirt, which he so adored, would get her into trouble one day—possibly as soon as tomorrow. For he did not think he could resist her if she tried to seduce him. He was only a man, after all—and one who’d denied himself the sweet pleasures of the flesh far too long already.
Had that gentleman not interrupted them, God alone knew what might have happened in that banquet room. Why had he agreed to meet her there? Could he honestly say he had no notion with might occur? No, he could not. But he went anyway. Because he was an idiot who let his cock override his better sense.
He closed his eyes and tried again to put Louisa out of his mind. Dearest, loveliest Louisa, who had seeped under his skin as indelibly as the swallow tattoos on his chest and forearm. The only way to get rid of her now was to cut out not his flesh, but his heart—and he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.
Because he loved her, dammit, and could not live without her. He wasn’t quite ready to offer her marriage, but felt confident he would be very soon. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but certainly before she would be compelled to marry her contemptible cousin.
The question was: Could he wait that long to satisfy his passion for her? Maybe, if he saw to himself. Yes, it was a sin, but certainly a lesser one than fornication. Not that he had not committed both innumerous times already, along with many others. Killing and dishonoring his father (with just cause), for example, as well as taking the Lord’s name in vain.
In God’s eyes, were there greater and lesser degrees of sin? Maybe and maybe not. Either way, he could not imagine that, with all the evil in the world, God cared a jot whether a man induced his own climax or not.
With that thought in mind, he reached under his nightshirt, striving no longer to block the memory of what transpired between him and Louisa in the banquet hall. On the contrary, he took the liberty of embellishing what was in truth a fairly innocent encounter.
In his mind, he did not pull away when she reached inside his trousers. Instead, he bared her breasts and suckled her nipples while she stroked his grateful erection. His hand was her hand, pumping and pulling and pinching in all the right ways.
What pleasures she bestowed unwittingly with that clever hand of hers!
At the moment of crisis, he reached to the bedside table for his handkerchief. Onanism might not be a serious sin in the eyes of God, but he still had his dignity. And that was a vast deal more than he could say for his shipmates, who “Boxed the Jesuit” without the decency to stifle their grunts and groans.
How glad he’d been to be promoted to a position with his own quarters, where he could box without an audience!