I am hungry for another sweet go! I want this cunt!’ and I slipped my hand under her belly and between her thighs, and my middle finger into her palpitating cunnie.
‘No!’ she said, forcefully pushing my invading hand away. ‘No! Not one more fuck until you have gone and reported yourself! Ah! you don’t know the regulations, I see! But I do! I have not been in India all these years without learning what they are, and Major Searle, the brigade major here, is a perfect beast and devil! You may depend upon it, he knows you are here, and he would be only too delighted to get a chance of sitting on you, and he will be able to do so if you don’t report yourself before dark. Remember you got here early this morning!’
I tried to convince her that I did not care a fig for Major Searle and all the Bengal regulations to boot! I said I was on duty, the post of honour being between her lovely thighs and my Johnnie anxious to go his rounds of her darling cunnie, and I did not think I could properly quit my duty in her body to go and perform another which would do quite well enough tomorrow, by which time, in all probability, Johnnie would have come off guard and would require a rest from his labours! But it was of no use; she declared I did not know my man, she told me a great deal more, from which it was very plain that something unpleasant had occurred between herself and Major Searle, and that it really did matter very much, to herself if not to me, that I should report my arrival, and do so at once.
Never did man more unwillingly do anything than I did, when, in obedience to my lovely tyrant’s commands, I dressed and walked out to find the house of the brigade major. I know other men will not believe me or give me credit when I say that I felt as if I had not had one single fuck since I left England. That my balls and groin ached and I had all the sensations of a man who is soon about to have the fuck he has most looked forward to, for which he has lived chastely and kept himself in reserve in order to enjoy more that for which he burns, I can only state as a fact, and let others believe or not as they like. Certain it is, that there are times when either from length of abstinence, or the way in which a woman affects him, a man exhibits far greater power in the fields of Venus than at other times. Let me imitate Théophile Gautier, and request my readers, male and female, to remember that special time, when the former had that splendid night, and the latter had the active, big, strong lover, the best of all she ever had as far as fucking goes.
In this state I walked over to the bungalow which was pointed out to me as that of the brigade major. I was so far fortunate that I met him just as he was going out for a walk before dinner with his smooth English terrier.
‘May I ask whether you are Major Searle, the brigade major, sir?’
‘Yes, I am!’
‘I should have come earlier to report my arrival, sir, but I have travelled so far in dak gharries that I have been lying down all day, and it was so very hot when I got up that I have deferred my coming to report myself until now.’
‘And who may you be, sir?’
‘I am Captain Charles Devereaux, of the First East Folk Regiment of Infantry, and I am on my way to Cherat to join my battalion on promotion.’
‘Oh! indeed! How do you do, Captain Devereaux! I am sorry that I did not know you at first! Will you come in or are you inclined for a little stroll? Will you come over to the mess of the 130th and let me introduce you to the officers? I am afraid you won’t get to Cherat quite so soon as you may wish; every blessed machine with wheels has been ordered for a week to come, so that if I were offered lakhs [thousands] of rupees I could not get you a conveyance here — besides which the road from Publi to Shakkote, at the foot of the hill, is rutted and bad for anything heavier than an ekka [one-horse native carriage], and you would have to go up the hill to Cherat either on foot or on horseback when you got there.’
The whole manner of the man changed when he found I was an officer, and what was more a captain, i.e. just one grade below himself in rank. Had I been a subaltern, he might have kept up a higher degree of hauteur.
At first I thought my new acquaintance rather an agreeable man. He spoke affably and pleasantly. He asked me about my voyage, my stay in Bombay and journey up country. He spoke about the war which would practically come to an end when the Khandahar expedition had blown Ayub Khan and the conquerors of the ill-fated Marwand to the four winds of heaven; then he returned to the subject of Nowshera, the dak bungalow and its inmates. He spoke of my well-known (as far as her most secret charms were concerned but otherwise perfectly unknown) mistress and commenced a series of very subtle questions, which, from their very guardedness, showed me that there was one person, and one circumstance, which he was approaching like a cunning cat stalking a sparrow, taking every cover as a guard as he crept up to it. I remembered the evident repugnance my new love had shown when speaking of Major Searle, and I fenced his questions until at last he asked me openly: ‘Have you seen a woman, a rather lady-like person, in the bungalow?’
‘I have seen one lady,’ I replied, ‘but there may be more than that for all I know in the house; I have not been over it, so I cannot tell if the one I have seen is the person you refer to.’
‘Well!’ said he, ‘let me warn you that the woman I refer to is the wife of a non-commissioned officer — she is very pretty, and, I regret to say, about the most abandoned woman in India, if not in the whole world. She must be suffering from nymphomania, for she cannot see a man without she asks him to have her, and as she is really lovely to look at it is quite on the cards that if she asks a young man, fresh out from England like you, he might accept the proposition, and think that he had fallen in with a very good thing indeed — but — pardon me — let me finish — the penalty for adultery with a European woman in India is two years’ imprisonment and a fine of two thousand rupees, and expulsion from India of the woman herself. Already the woman I speak of has rendered herself liable to expulsion hundreds of times; no one has as yet informed against her, but her conduct at Peshawar has been so scandalous and indecent that proceedings will most likely be taken against her. A strict watch — of which she is not aware — is being kept on her, and some unfortunate fellow, say yourself, for you are young and no doubt do not dislike the ladies — ha! ha! ha! — might find himself a victim of her lust, for lust it is and nothing else.’
‘Well! Major Searle,’ I replied, ‘I am a married man and so I hope less liable to temptation from the path of duty than the unfortunate bachelor. Many thanks, however, for your timely warning, for of course I know that, married or single, a man may become the victim of his passions, especially when taken off his guard by a pretty woman!’
‘Ah! You speak truly!’ he replied, ‘and I can tell you that this wretched creature is as lovely as a houri, and as lustful as the most able whore in Babylon.’
I had not lived so long a life in the worship of Venus without having seen a good deal of the hidden springs of men’s minds, and I came to the conclusion that this tirade of friend Major Searle’s was not altogether spoken on the side of virtue, or caution, but that it was a kind of warning, ‘Don’t you touch that woman, she is my preserve, and no one hunts in the forest between her thighs but myself!’
Our arrival at the mess brought the conversation to a close. Like most messes of regiments which have been some time in India, this one was composed of a nice set of generally hospitable officers, all more or less languid from a long residence in a hot and unhealthy climate. They were also too much accustomed to seeing new faces, through the men going to or returning from Afghanistan, to be very greatly interested in me, but they were cordial and kind, made me drink a couple of pegs, asked me to dinner the next night, which happened to be their guest night, and begged me to consider myself an honorary member of their mess so long as I should remain in Nowshera.
I would willingly have excused myself from accepting their kind invitation to dinner, because I was so infatuated with my charming girl in
