Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)Cleland, John
General
Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)
Cleland, John
England -- Fiction; Erotic fiction; Prostitutes -- Fiction
The night then was fixed, with all possible respect to the eagerness of
his impatience, and in the mean time Mrs. Cole had omitted no
instructions, nor even neglected any preparation, that might enable me
to come off with honour, in regard to the appearance of my virginity,
except that, favoured as I was by nature with all the narrowness of
stricture in that part requisite to conduct my designs, I had no
occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that create a momentary
one, easily discovered by the test of a warm bath; and as to the usual
sanguinary symptoms of defloration, which, if not always, are generally
attendants on it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of
her own, which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in its
place.
Every thing then being disposed and fixed for Mr. Norbert’s reception,
he was, at the hour of eleven at night, with all the mysteries of
silence and secrecy, let in by Mrs. Cole herself, and introduced into
her bedchamber, where, in an old-fashioned bed of her’s, I lay, fully
undressed, and panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least
with those perhaps greater of a dissembled one which gave me an air of
confusion and bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all the honour of,
and was indeed scarce distinguishable from it, even by less partial
eyes than those of my lover: so let me call him, for I ever thought the
term “cully” too cruel a reproach to the men, for their abused weakness
for us.
As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these occasions, used
to young women abandoned for the first time to the will of man, had
left us alone in her room, which, by the bye was well lighted up, at
his previous desire, that seemed to bode a stricter examination than he
afterwards made, Mr. Norbert, still dressed, sprung towards the bed,
where I got my head under the clothes, and defended them a good while
before he could even get at my lips, to kiss them: so true it is, that
a false virtue, on this occasion, even makes & greater rout and
resistance than a true one. From thence he descended to my breasts, the
feel I disputed tooth and nail with him till tired with my resistance,
and thinking probable to give a better account to me, he hurried his
clothes off in an instant, and came into bed.
Mean while by the glimpse I stole of him, I could easily discover a
person far from promising any such doughty performances as the storming
of maidenheads generally requires, and whose flimsy consumptive texture
gave him more the air of an invalid that was pressed, than of a
volunteer, on such hot service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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