to your mistress and myself.’
You may be sure, in the state that I was now in, I had no objection to the proposal, and was rather on tiptoe for its accomplishment.
At five in the evening, next day, Phoebe, punctual to her promise, came to me as I sat alone in my own room, and beckon’d me to follow her.
We went down the back-stairs very softly, and opening the door of a dark closet, where there was some old furniture kept, and some cases of liquor, she drew me in after her, and fastening the door upon us, we had no light but what came through a long crevice in the partition between ours and the light closet, where the scene of action lay; so that sitting on those low cases, we could, with the greatest ease, as well as clearness, see all objects (ourselves unseen), only by applying our eyes close to the crevice, where the moulding of a panel had warped or started a little on the other side.
The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with his back directly towards me, looking at a print. Polly was not yet come: in less than a minute tho’, the door opened, and she came in; and at the noise the door made he turned about, and came to meet her, with an air of the greatest tenderness and satisfaction.
After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese help’d her to a glass of wine, with some Naples biscuit on a salver.
Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and questions in broken English on one side, he began to unbutton, and, in fine, stripped to his shirt.
As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling off all their clothes, a scheme which the heat of the season perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant’s officious assistance, undress’d to all but her shift.
When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosen’d, waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his shirt collar was unbuttoned too: then, first giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and familiaris’d to this humour, blush’d indeed, but less than I did at the apparition of her, now standing stark naked, just as she came out of the hands of pure nature, with her black hair loose and afloat down her dazzling white neck and shoulders, whilst the deepen’d carnation of her cheeks went off gradually into the hue of glaz’d snow: for such were the blended tints and polish of her skin.
This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and sweet-featur’d, her shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plump’d out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sustain’d themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples, pointing different ways, mark’d their pleasing separation; beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which terminated in a parting or rift scarce discernible, that modestly seem’d to retire downwards, and seek shelter between two plump fleshy thighs; the curling hair that overspread its delightful front, clothed it with the richest sable fur in the universe; in short, she was evidently a subject for the painters to court her sitting to them for a pattern of female beauty, in all the true pride and pomp of nakedness.
The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing and transported at the sight of beauties that might have fir’d a dying hermit; his eager eyes devour’d her, as she shifted attitudes at his discretion; neither were his hands excluded their share of the high feast, but wander’d, on the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of her body, so qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it.
In the meantime, one could not help observing the swell of his shirt before, that bolster’d out, and showed the condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon remov’d it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now, as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.
The young gentleman, by Phoebe’s guess, was about two and twenty; tall and well limb’d. His body was finely form’d, and of a most vigorous make, square-shoulder’d, and broad-chested: his face was not remarkable in any way, but for a nose inclining to the Roman, eyes large, black, and sparkling, and a ruddiness in his cheeks that was the more a grace, for his complexion was of the brownest, not of that dusky dun colour which excludes the idea of freshness, but of that clear, olive gloss, which, glowing with life, dazzles perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases more, when it pleases at all. His hair, being too short to tie, fell no lower than his neck, in short easy curls; and he had a few sprigs about his paps, that garnish’d his chest in a style of strength and manliness. Then his grand movement, which seem’d to rise out of a thicket of curling hair that spread from the root all round thighs and belly up to the navel, stood stiff and upright, but of a size to frighten me, by sympathy, for the small tender part which was the object of its fury, and which now lay expos’d to my fairest view; for he had, immediately on stripping off his shirt, gently push’d her down on the couch, which stood conveniently to break her willing fall. Her thighs were spread out to their utmost extension, and discovered between them the mark of the sex, the red-centred cleft of flesh, whose lips, vermilioning inwards, exprest a small ruby line in sweet miniature, such as Guido’s touch or colouring could never attain to the life or delicacy of.
Phoebe, at this, gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for a whispered question: whether I thought my little maidenhead was much less? But my attention was too much engross’d, too much enwrapp’d with all I saw, to be able to give her any answer.
By this time the young gentleman had changed her posture from lying breadth- to length-wise on the couch: but her thighs were still spread, and the mark lay fair for him, who, now kneeling between them, display’d to us a side-view of that fierce erect machine of his, which threaten’d no less than splitting the tender victim, who lay smiling at the uplifted stroke, nor seem’d to decline it. He looked upon his weapon himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with his hand to the invisible slit, drew aside the lips, and lodg’d it (after some thrusts, which Polly seem’d even to assist) about half-way; but there it stuck, I suppose from its growing thickness: he draws it again, and just wetting it with spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheath’d it now up to the hilt, at which Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite another tone than one of pain; 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 seem’d 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-fetch’d, and at length a dispatching thrust, as if he would have forced himself up her body, and then motionless languor of all his limbs, all showed 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.
When he had finish’d his stroke, and got from off her, she lay still without the least motion, breathless, as it should seem, with pleasure. He replaced her again breadthwise on the couch, unable to sit up, with her thighs open, between which I could observe a kind of white liquid, like froth, hanging about the outward lips of that recently opened wound, which now glowed with a deeper red. Presently she gets up, and throwing her arms round him, seemed far from undelighted with the trial he had put her to, to judge at least by the fondness with which she ey’d and hung upon him.
For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I felt all over me during this scene; but from that instant, adieu all fears of what man could do unto me; they were now changed into such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings, that I could have pull’d the first of that sex that should present himself, by the sleeve, and offered him the bauble, which I now imagined the loss of would be a gain I could not too soon procure myself.
Phoebe, who had more experience, and to whom such sights
