10 - Section 10. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.

10 - Section 10. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.  
This book has been notorious since it first appeared and had been banned several times and in several countries. It is a fictional work that details the adventures of an orphaned girl who ends up working in a brothel in London. Early on she falls in love with a young man named Charles, but only to end up being separated from him. She then recounts her experiences as a prostitute who, in spite of her circumstances, manages to retain her humanity and undying faith in true love.  
⚠️If you find insult/get offended or are against extreme descriptions of sexual acts PUT THE BOOK DOWN⚠️

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section ten of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Memoirs of a
Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland letter the second part ten.
Louisa herself did not long outstay this adventure at Missus Cole's,

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to whom by the bye we took care not to
boast of our exploit till all fear of consequences were
clearly over. For an occasion presenting itself of proving her
passion for a young fellow at the expense of her discretion,
preceding all in character, she packed up her toilet at
half a day's warning and went with him abroad, since

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which I entirely lost sight of her, and it never
fell in my way to hear what became of her.
But a few days after she had left us, two
very pretty young gentlemen who were missus Coles's especial favorites
and free of her academy, easily obtained her consent for
Emily's and my acceptance of a party of pleasure at

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a little but agreeable house belonging to one of them,
situated not far up the River Thames on the Surrey side.
Everything being settled, and it being a fine summer day,
but rather of the warmest, we sat out after dinner
and got to our rendezvous about four in the afternoon, where,

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landing at the foot of a neat joyous pavilion, Emily
and I were handed into it by our squires, and
there drank tea with a cheerfulness and gaiety that the
beauty of the prospect, the serenity of the weather, and
the tender politeness of our sprightly gallants naturally led us
into after tea, and taking a turn in the garden,

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my particular, who was the master of the house and
had in no sense schemed this party of pleasure for
a dry one, proposed to us with that frankness which
his familiarity at Missus Coles entitled him too, as the
weather was excessively hot, to bathe together under a commodious
shelter that he had prepared expressly for that purpose, in

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a creek of the river, with which a side door
of the pavilion immediately communicated, and where we might be
sure of having our diversion out save from interruption, and
with the utmost privacy. Emily, who never refused anything, and I,
who ever delighted in bathing, and had no exception to
the person who proposed it, or to those pleasures it

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was easy to guess, it implied, took care on this
occasion not to wrong our training at missus Cole's, and
agreed to it with as good a grace as we could,
upon which, without loss of time, we returned instantly to
the pavilion, one door of which opened into a tent
pitched before it, that, with its marquees, formed a pleasing

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defense against the sun or the weather, and was besides
as private as we could wish. The lining of it
embossed cloth represented a wild forest foliage, from the top
down to the sides, which in the same stuff were
figured with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between filled with

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flower vases, the whole having a gay effect upon the
eye wherever you turned it. Then it reached sufficiently into
the water, yet contained convenient benches round it on the
dry ground, either to keep our clothes or or in short,
for more juices than resting upon. There was a side table, too,

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loaded with sweet meats, jellies and other eatables, and bottles
of wine and cordials. By way of occasional relief from
any rawness or chill of the water, or from any faintness,
from whatever cause. And in fact, my gallant, who understood
cheer entire perfectly, and who for taste, even if you
would not approve this specimen of it, might have been

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controller of pleasures to a Roman emperor, had left no
requisite towards convenience or luxury unprovided as soon as we
had looked round this inviting spot, and every preliminary of
privacy was duly settled. Strip was the word when the
young gentleman soon dispatched the undressing each his partner, and

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reduced us to the naked confession of all those secrets
of person which dress generally hides, and which the discovery
of was naturally speaking, not to our disadvantage. Our hands
indeed mechanically carried towards the most interesting part of us,
screened at first all from the tufted cliff downwards, till

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we took them away at their desire and employed them
in doing them the same office of helping off with
their clothes, in the process of which there passed all
the little wantonnesses and frolics that you may easily imagine.
As for my spark. He was presently undressed, all to
his shirt, the four lapet of which, as he leaned

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languishingly on me, he smilingly pointed to me to observe
as it bellied out or rose and fell according to
the unruly starts of the motion behind it. But it
was soon fixed for now, taking off his shirt and
naked as a cupid, he showed it me at so
upright a stand, as prepared me indeed for his application

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to me for instant ease. But though the sight of
its fine size was fit enough to fire me, the
cooling air as I stood in this state of nature,
joined to the desire I had of bathing, first enabled
me to put him off and tranquilize him with the
remark that a little suspense would only set a keener

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edge on the pleasure. Leading then the way, and showing
our friends an example of continency which they were giving
signs of losing respect to, we went hand in hand
into the stream till it took us up to our neck,
where the no more than graceful coolness of the water
gave my senses a delicious refreshment from the sultriness of

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the season, and made more alive, more happy in myself,
and in course more alert and open to voluptuous impressions.
Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively
played with my companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers
at discretion mine at length, not content with making me

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take the plunge over head, and ears kept splashing me
and provoking me with all the little playful tricks he
could devise, and which I strove not to remain in
his stept, for we gave, in short a loose to mirth,
and now nothing would serve him but giving his hands
the regal of going over every part of me neck, breast, belly, thighs,

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and all the et cetera. So dear to the imagining
under the pretext of washing and rubbing them, as we
both stood in the water no higher now than the
pit of our stomachs, and which did not hinder him
from feeling and toying with that leak that distinguishes our sex,
and it so wonderfully water tight, for his fingers in

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vain dilating and opening it only let more flame than
water into it. Be it said without a figure. At
the same time he made me feel his own engine
which was so well wound up as to stand even
the working in water. And he accordingly threw one arm
round my neck, and was endeavoring to get the better

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of that harsher construction bred by the surrounding fluid, and
had in effect won his way so far as to
make me sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether
lips from the inn driving machine. When independent of my
not liking that awkward mode of enjoyment, I could not
help interrupting him in order to become joint spectators of

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a plan of joy in hot operation between Emily and
her partner, who, impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of
the bath, had led his nymph to one of the
benches on the green bank, where he was very cordially
proceeding to teach her the difference betwixt jest and earnest,
there setting her on his knee and gliding one hand

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over the surface of that smooth, polished, snow white skin
of hers, which now doubly shone with a dew bright luster,
and presented to the touch something like what one would
imagine of animated ivory, especially in those ruby nippled globes
which the touch is so fond of and delights to

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make love to. With the other he was lusciously exploring
the sweet secret of nature in order to make room
for a stately piece of machinery that stood up reared
between her thighs, as she continued sitting on his lap
and pressed hard for instant admission, which the tender Emily,

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in a fit of humor, deliciously protected, affecting to decline
and elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in
a style of waywardness so prettily put on and managed
as to render it ten times more poignant then her eyes,
all amidst the softest dying languishment, expressed at once a

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mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her sweetness was zested
with a coyness so pleasingly provoking. Her moods of keeping
him off were so attractive that they redoubled impetuous rage
with which he covered her with kisses, And the kisses that,
whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for the

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cunning Wanton contrived such sly returns off as were doubtless
the sweeter for the gust she gave them of being
stolen ravished. Thus Emily, who knew no art but that
which nature itself, in favor of her principal end pleasure,
had inspired her with the art of yielding, coyed it, indeed,

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but coyed it to the purpose. For with all her straining,
her wrestling and striving to break from the clasp of
his arms, she was so far wiser yet than to
mean it, that in her struggles it was visible she
aimed at nothing more than multiplying points of touch with him,
and drawing yet closer. The folds that held them everywhere

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entwined like two tendrils of a vine, intercurling together, so
that the same effect as when Louisa strove in good
earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now produced by
different motives. Meanwhile, their immersion out of the cold water
had caused a general glow, a tender suffusion of heightened

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carnation over their bodies, both equally weight and smooth skinned,
so that as their limbs were thus amorously interwoven in
sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to distinguish who they
respectively belonged to, But for the brownier boulder muscles of
the stronger sex. In a little time, however, the champion

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was fairly in with her, and had tied at all
points the true lovers. Not when now adieu, all the
little refinements of a finessed reluctance, adieu the friendly faint.
She was presently driven forcibly out of the power of
using any art, and indeed what art must not give way.
When nature, corresponding with her assailant, invaded in the heart

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of her capital, and carried by storm, lay at the
mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry
triumphantly and completely soon, however, to become a tributary for
the engagement. Growing hotter and hotter at close quarters, she
presently brought him to the pass of paying down the

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dear debt to nature, which she had no sooner collected in.
But like a jewellist who has laid his antagonist at
his feet when he has himself received a mortal wound,
Emily had scarce time to plume herself upon her victory.
But shot with the same discharge, she in a loud,
expiring sigh, in the closure of her eyes, the stretch

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out of her limbs, and a remission of her whole
frame gave manifest sighs that all was as it should be.
For my part, who had not, with the calmest patience,
stood in the water all this time to view this
warm action, I leaned tenderly on my gallant, and at
the close of it, seemed to ask him with my

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eyes what he thought of it. But he more eager
to satisfy me by his actions than by his words
or looks. As we should, the water towards the shore
showed me the staff of love so intensely set up,
that had not even charity beginning at home in this case,
urged me to our mutual relief. It would have been cruel, indeed,

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to have suffered the youth to burst with straining, when
the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand. Accordingly,
we took to a bench, whilst Emily and her spark,
who belonged, it seems to the sea, stood at a sideboard,
drinking to our good voyage. For as a last observed,
we were well under way, with a fair wind up

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channel and full freighted. Nor indeed were we long before
we finished our trip to Cythera and unloaded in the
old Haven. But as the circumstances did not admit of
much variation. I shall spare you the description. At the
same time allow me to place you here an excuse
I am conscious of owing you for having perhaps too

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much affected the figuratives, though surely it can pass nowhere
more allowably than in a subject which is so properly
the province of poetry, nay is poetry itself, pregnant with
every flower of imagination and loving metaphors. Even were not
the natural expressions for respects of fashion and sound, necessarily

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forbid it. Resuming now my history, you may please to
know that, what with a competent number of repetitions, all
in the same strain, and by the bye, we have
a certain natural sense that those repetitions are very much
to the taste, what with a circle of pleasures delicately varied,

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there was not a moment lost to joy all the
time we stayed there, till late in the night we
were re escorted home by our squires, who delivered us
safe to missus Cole with generous thanks for our company.
This too, was Emily's last adventure in our way for Scarce.
A week after she was by an accident too trivial

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to detail to you the particulars found out by her parents,
who were in good circumstances, and who had been punished
for their partiality to their son in the loss of him,
occasioned by a circumstance of their over indulgence to his appetite,
upon which the so long engrossed stream of fondness running

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violently in favor of this lost and inhumanly abandoned child,
whom they had not neglected enquiry about they might long
before have recovered. They were now so overjoyed at the
retrieval of her that I presume it made them much
less strict in examining the bottom of things, for they
seemed very glad to take for granted in the lamp

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everything that the grave and decent missus Cole was pleased
to pass upon them, and soon afterwards sent her from
the country a handsome acknowledgment. But it was not so
easy to replace to our community the loss of so
sweet a member of it, For not to mention her beauty.
She was one of those mild, pliant characters that if

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one does not entirely esteem, one can scarce help loving,
which is not such a bad compensation, neither owing all
her weakness to good nature and an indolent facility that
kept her too much at the mercy of first impressions.
She had just sense enough to know that she wanted
leading strings, and thought herself so much obliged to any

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who would take the pains to think for her and
guide her, that with very little management she was capable
of being made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife.
For vice, it is probable had never been her choice
or her fate, if it had not been for occasion
or example, or had she not depended less upon herself

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than upon her circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards verified,
for presently meeting with a match that was ready cut
and dry for her, with a neighbour's son of her
own rank, and a young man of sense and order,
who took her as the widow of one lost at sea.
For so it seems, one of her gallants whose name

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she had made free with really was she naturally struck
into all the duties of their domestic life, with as
much constancy and regularity as if she had never swerved
from a state of undebauched innocence from her youth. These
desertions had, however, now so far thinned missus Cole's brood

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that she was left with only me, like a hen
when one chicken. But though she was earnestly entreated and
encouraged to recruit her core, her growing infirmities, and above
all the tortures of a stubborn hip gout, which she
found would yield to no remedy, determined her to bread
up her business and retire, with a decent pittance into

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the country, where I promised myself nothing so sure as
my going down to live with her, as soon as
I had seen a little more of life and improved
my small matters into a competency that would create in
me an independence on the world. For I was, now,
thanks to missus Cole, wise enough to keep that essential

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in view. Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress,
as did the philosophers of the town, the white crow
of her profession. For besides that she never ransacked her customers,
whose taste too, she ever studiously consulted. Besides that, she
never racked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put

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their hard earnings, as she called them under the contribution
of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the seduction
for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those unfortunate
young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster
objects of compassion. Among these, indeed, she picked but such

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a suit at her views, and taking them under her protection,
rescued them from the danger of the public sinks of
ruin and misery to place or do for them well
or ill in the manner you have seen. Having then
settled her affairs, she set out on her journey, after
taking the most tender leave of me, and at the

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end of some excellent instructions, recommending me to myself with
an anxiety perfectly maternal. In short, she affected me so
much that I was not presently reconciled to myself for
suffering her at any rate to go without me. But
fate had, it seems, otherwise, disposed of me. I had,

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on my separation from missus Cole, taken a pleasant, convenient
house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from
its smallness, which I furnished neatly and modestly. There with
a reserve of eight hundred pounds. The fruit of my
deference to Missus Scold's counsels, exclusive of clothes, some jewels,

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some plate. I saw myself in purse for a long time,
to wait without impatience, for what the chapter of accidents
might produce in my favor. Here under the new character
of a young gentlewoman whose husband was gone to see,
I had marked me out such lines of life and
conduct as leaving me at a competent liberty to pursue

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my views, either out of pleasure or fortune. Bounded me, nevertheless,
strictly within the rules of decency and discretion, a disposition
in which you cannot escape observing a true pupil of
Missus Cole. I was scarce, however, well warm in my
new abode, when going out one morning pretty early to
enjoy the freshness of it in the pleasing outlet of

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the fields, accompanied only by a maid whom I had
newly hired. As we were carelessly walking among the trees,
we were alarmed with the noise of a violent coughing,
turning our heads towards which we distinguished a plain, well dressed,
elderly gentleman, who attacked with a sudden fit, was so
much overcome as to be forced to give way to

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it and sit down at the foot of a tree
where he seemed suffocating, with the severity of it being
perfectly black in the face, not less moved than frightened,
with which I flew on the instant to his relief,
and using the roat of practice I had observed on
the like occasion, I loosened his cravat and clapped him
on the back. But whether to any purpose or whether

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the cough had had its course, I know not, But
the fit immediately went off, and now recovered to his
speech and legs, he returned me thanks with as much
emphasis as if I had saved his life, this naturally
engaging a conversation. He acquainted me where he lived, which
was at a considerable distance from where I met with him,

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and where he had strayed insensibly on the same intention
of a morning walk. He us, as I afterwards learned
in the course of this intimacy, which this little accident
gave birth to an old bachelor turned of sixty, but
of a fresh, vigorous complexion, in so much that he
scarce marked five and forty, having never racked his constitution

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by permitting his desires to overtax his ability as to
his birth and condition. His parents, honest and failed mechanics, had,
by the best traces he could get of them, left
him an infant orphan on the parish, so that it
was from a charity school that, by honesty and industry

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he made his way into a merchant's counting house, from
whence being sent to a house in Caddy's. He, there
by his talents and activity, acquired a fortune, but an
immense one with which he returned to his native country,
where he could not, however, so much as fish out
one single relation out of the obscurity he was born in.

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Taking then a taste for retirement, and pleased to enjoy
life like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his
days in all the ease of opulence, without the least
parade of it, and rather studying the concealment than the
show of a fortune, looked down on a world he
perfectly knew himself to his wish, unknown and unmarked by.

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But as I proposed to devote a letter entirely to
the pleasure of retracing to you all the particulars of
my acquaintance with this ever to me memorable friend, I
shall in this trnngiently touch on no more than may
serve as mortar to cement, to form the connection of
my history, and to obviate your surprise that one of

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my high blood and relish of life should count a
gallant of three score such a catch, referring then to
a more explicit narrative to explain by what progressions are acquaintance.
Certainly innocent at first insensibly changed nature and ran into
unplatonic lengths, as might well be expected from one of

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my condition of life, and above all from that principle
of electricity that scarce ever fails of producing fire when
the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint you that
as age had not subdued his tenderness for our sex,
neither had it robbed him of the power of pleasing,
Since whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of youth

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he atoned for or supplemented with the advantages of experience,
the sweetness of his manners, and above all his flattering
address in touching the heart by an application to the
understanding from him, it was I first learned to any purpose,
and not without infinite pleasure, that I had such a

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portion of me worth bestowing some regard on from him,
I received my first essential encouragement and instructions how to
put it in that train of cultivation, which I have
since pushed to the little degree of improvement you see it.
At He it was who first taught me to be
sensible that the pleasures of the mind were superior to

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those of the body, at the same time that they
were so far from obnoxious to or incompatible with each other, that,
besides the sweetness in the variety and transition the one,
served to exalt and perfect the taste of the other,
to a degree that the senses alone can never arrive.
At himself, a rational pleasurist, as being much too wise

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to be ashamed of the pleasures of humanity, loved me, indeed,
but loved me with dignity, in a mien equally removed
from the sourness of forwardness by which age is unpleasingly characterized,
and from that childish, silly dotage that so often disgraces it,
and which he himself used to turn into ridicule and

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compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a
young kid. In short, everything that is generally unamiable in
his season of life was in him repaired by so
many advantages that he existed a proof manifest at least
to me, that it is not out of the power
of age to please. If it lays out to please,

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and if making just allowances those in that class do
not forget that it must cost them more pains and
attention than what youth the natural spring time of joy
stands in need of, as fruits out of season require
proportionably more skill and cultivation to force them. With this gentleman, then,

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who took me home soon after our acquaintance commenced, I
lived near eight months, in which time my constant complaisance
and docility, my attention to deserve his confidence and love,
and a conduct in general devoid of the least art
and founded on my sincere regard and esteem for him
one and attached him so firmly to me that, after

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having generously trusted me with a genteel independent settlement, proceeding
to heap marks of affection on me, he appointed me
by an authentic will, his sole heiress and executrix, a
disposition which he did not outlive two months, being taken
from me by a violent cold that he contracted as

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he unadvisedly ran to the window on an alarm of
fire at some streets distance, and stood there, naked, breasted,
and exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night air.
After acquitting myself of my duty towards my deceased benefactor,
and paying him a tribute of unfeigned sorrow, which a

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little time changed into a most tender, grateful memory of
him that I shall ever retain, I grew somewhat comforted
by the prospect that now opened to me, if not
of happiness, at least of affluence and independence. I saw
myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth.
For I was not yet nineteen actually at the head

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of so large a fortune, as it would have been
even the height of impudence in me to have raised
my wishes much more my hopes to and that this
unexpected elevation did not turn my head. I owed to
the pains my benefactor had taken to form and prepare
me for it, as I owed his opinion of my
management of the vast possessions he left to me to

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what he had observed of the prudential economy I had
learned under Missus cole, of which the reserve he saw
I had made was a proof and encouragement to him.
But alas how easily is the enjoyment of the greatest
sweets in life in present possession poisoned by the regrets
of an absent one. But my regret was a mighty

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and just one, since it had my only truly beloved
Charles for its object. Given him up I had indeed complete,
having never once heard from him since our separation, which,
as I found afterwards, had been my misfortune and not
his neglect, for he wrote me several letters which had

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all miscarried, but forgotten him. I never had. Amidst all
my personal infidelities, not one had made a pin's point
impression on a heart impenetrable to the true love passion.
But for him. As soon, however, as I was mistress
of this unexpected fortune, I felt more than ever how

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dear he was to me from its insufficiency to make
me happy, whilst he was not to share it with me.
My earliest care consequently was to endeavor at getting some
account of him, But all my researches produced me no
more light than that his father had been dead for
some time, not so well as even with the world,

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and that Charles had reached his port of destination in
the South Seas, where, finding the estate he was sent
to recover, dwindled to a trifle by the loss of
two ships in which the bulk of his uncle's fortune lay.
He was come away with a small remainder, and might, perhaps,
according to the best advice, in a few months, returned

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to England, from whence he had, at the time of
this my inquiry had been absent two years and seven months.
A little eternity in love you cannot conceive with what
joy I embraced the hopes thus given me of seeing
the delight of my heart again. But as the term
of months was assigned it in order to divert and

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amuse my impatience for his return. After settling my affairs
with much ease and security, I set out on a
journey for Lancashire, with an equipage suitable to my fortune,
and with a design purely to revisit my place of nativity,
for which I could not help retaining a great tenderness,
and might naturally not be sorry to show myself there,

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to the advantage I was now in past to do.
After the report Ester Davis had spread of my being
spirited away to the plantations, for on no other supposition
could she account for the suppression of myself to her
since her leaving me so abruptly at the inn. Another
favorite intention I had to look out for my relations,

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though I had none besides distant ones, and prove a
benefactress to them. Then missus Cole's place of retirement lying
in my way, was not amongst the least of the
pleasures I had proposed to myself in this expedition. I
had taken nobody with me but a discreet, decent woman
to figure it as my companion besides my servants, and

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was scarce got into an inn about twenty miles from London,
where I was to sup and pass the night, when
such a storm of wind and rain sprang up, as
made me congratulate myself on having got under shelter before
it began. This had continued a good half hour, when,
with the thinking me of some directions to give to
the coachman I sent for him, and not caring that

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his shoes should soil the very clean parlor in which
the cloth was laid, I stepped into the hall kitchen
where he was and where Whilst I was talking to him,
I slantingly observed two horsemen, driven in by the weather,
and both ringing wet, one of whom was asking if
they could not be assisted with a change while their

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clothes were dried. But heavens, who can express what I
felt at the sound of a voice ever present to
my heart, and that is now rebounded at or when
pointing my eyes towards the person it came from, they
confirmed its information in spite of so long an absence,
and of a dress one would have imagined studied for

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a disguise, a horseman's great coat with a stand up
cape and his hat flapped. But what could escape the
piercing alertness of a sense surely guided by love. It
transports them like mine, was above all consideration or schemes
of surprise, and I that instant, with the rapidity of
the emotions that I felt the spur of shot into

(33:10):
his arms, crying out as I threw mine round his neck,
my life, my soul, my Charles, and without further power
of speech, swooned away under the pressing agitations of joy
and surprise. Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself
in my charmer's arms, but in the parlor, surrounded by

(33:31):
a crowd which this event had gathered round us, and
which immediately, on a signal from the discreet landlady who
currently took him for my husband, cleared the room and
desirably left us alone to the raptures of this reunion,
My joy, at which had like to have proved at
the expense of my life, power superior to that of

(33:53):
grief at our fatal separation. The first object then that
my eyes opened on was their supreme idol and my
supreme wish. Charles on one knee, holding me fast by
the hand, and gazing on me with a transport of fondness.
Observing my recovery, He attempted to speak and give vent
to his patience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy

(34:16):
him once more that it was me. By the mightiness
and suddenness of the surprise continuing to stun him, choked
his utterance, he could only stammer out a few broken,
half formed, faltering accents, which my ears, greedily drinking in spelt,
and put together so as to make out their sense.

(34:36):
After so long so cruel an absence, My dearest Fanny,
Can it? Can it be you? Stifling me at the
same time with kisses that stopping my mouth at once
prevented the answer that he panted for, and increased the
delicious disorder in which all my senses were rapturously lost amids. However,

(35:00):
this crowd of ideas, and all blissful ones there obtruded
only one cruel doubt that poisoned nearly all the transcendent happiness.
And what was it but my dread of its being
too excessive to be real? I trembled now with the
fear of its being no more than a dream, and
of my waking out of it into the horrors of

(35:21):
finding it one Under this fond apprehension, imagining I could
not make too much of the present prodigious joy before
it should vanish and leave me in the desert again,
nor verify its reality too strongly. I clung to him.
I clasped him as if to hinder him from escaping
me again. Where have you been? How could you could

(35:44):
you leave me? Say you are still mine, that you
still love me, And thus thus kissing him as if
I would consolidate lips with him, I forgive you, forgive
my hard fortune in favor of this restoration. All these interjections,
breaking from me in that wildness of expression that justly

(36:06):
passes for eloquence in love, drew from him all the
returns my fond heart could wish or require. Our caresses,
our questions, our answers. For some time observed no order,
all crossing or interrupting one another in sweet confusion, whilst
we exchanged hearts at our eyes and renewed the ratifications

(36:26):
of a love unbated by time or absence. Not a breath,
not a motion, not a gesture on either side, but
what was strongly impressed with it. Our hands locked in
each other, repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that their
fiery thrill went to the heart again. Thus absorbed and
consented in this unutterable delight, I had not attended to

(36:50):
the sweet author of it, being thoroughly wet and in
danger of catching cold. When in good time the landlady,
whom the appearance of my equipis, which by the bye
Charles knew nothing of, had gained me an interest in
for me and mine, interrupted us by bringing in a
decent shift of linen and clothes, which now somewhat recovered

(37:12):
into a calmer composure by the coming in of a
third person. I pressed him to take the benefit of
with a tender concern and anxiety that made me tremble
for his health. The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded
to shift in the act of which, though he proceeded
with all that modesty which became these first solemner instants

(37:34):
of our re meeting after so long an absence, I
could not contain certain snatches of my eyes lured by
the dazzling discoveries of his naked skin that escaped him
as he changed his linen, and which I could not observe,
the unfaded life and complexion of without emotions of tenderness
and joy that had himself too purely for their object

(37:57):
to partake of a loose or mistimed desire. He was
soon dressed in these temporary clothes, which neither fitted him
now became the light my passion placed him in to
me at least, Yet as they were on him, they
looked extremely well, in virtue of that magic charm which
love put into everything that he touched or had relation

(38:18):
to him, And were indeed was that dress that a
figure like this would not give grace to for Now,
as I eyed him more in detail, I could not
but observe the even favorable alteration which the time of
his absence had produced in his person. There were still
the requisite lineaments, still the same vivid vermilion and bloom

(38:41):
reigning in his face, But now the roses were more
fully blown, the tan of his travels and appeard somewhat
more distinguishable, had, at the expense of no more delicacy
than what he could well spare, given it an air
of becoming manliness and maturity that symmetrized nobly with that
air of distinction and empire with which nature had stamped it,

(39:05):
in a rare mixture with the sweetness of it. Still
nothing had he lost of that smooth, plumpness of flesh, which,
glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the eye and delicious
to the touch. Then his shoulders were grown more square,
his shape more formed, more portly, but still free and airy.

(39:26):
In short, his figure showed riper greater and perfector to
the experienced eye than in his tender youth. And now
he was not much more than two and twenty. In
this interval however, I picked out of the broken, often
pleasingly interrupted account of himself, that he was, at that instant,

(39:46):
actually on his road to London, in not a very
paramount plight or condition, having been wrecked on the Irish coast,
for which he had prematurely embarked, and lost the little
all he had brought with him from the side sees,
so that he had not till, after great shifts and hardships,
in the company of his fellow traveler, the captain got

(40:08):
so far on his journey that so it was, having
heard of his father's death and circumstances, he had now
the world to begin again on a new account, a
situation which he assured me in a vein of sincerity,
that flowing from his heart penetrated mine, gave him to
farther pain than that he had not in his power

(40:29):
to make me as happy as he could wish my fortune.
You will please to observe I had not entered upon
any overture of reserving to feast myself, with the surprise
of it to him in calmer instances, and as to
my dress, it could give him no idea of the truth,
not only as it was mourning, but likewise, in a

(40:49):
style of plainness and simplicity that I had ever kept
to with studied art, he pressed me, indeed tenderly to
satisfy his ardent curiosity, both with regard to my past
and present state of life since his being torn away
from me. But I had the address to elude his
questions by answers that showing his satisfaction at no great

(41:11):
distance one upon him to waive his impatience in favor
of the thorough confidence he had in my not delaying it.
But for respects I should in good time acquaint him
with Charles, however, thus returned to my longing arms, tender, faithful,
and in health, was already a blessing too mighty for

(41:32):
my conception. But Charles in distress, Charles reduced and broken
down to his naked personal Merit was such a circumstance
in favor of the sentiments I had for him as
exceeded my utmost desires. And accordingly I seemed so visibly charmed,
so out of time and measure pleased at his mention

(41:52):
of his ruined fortune, that he could account for it
in no way, but that the joy of seeing him
again had swallowed up every other sense or concern. In
the meantime, my woman had taken all possible care of
Charles's traveling companion, and as supper was coming in, he
was introduced to me. When I received him, as became

(42:13):
my regard for all of Charles's acquaintances and friends. We
four then supped together in the style of joy, congratulation,
and pleasing disorder that you may guess for my part,
though all these agitations had left me not the least stomach,
but for that uncloying feast the sight of my adored youth,

(42:35):
I endeavored to force it by way of example, for him,
who I conjectured, must want such a recruit after riding,
and indeed he ate like a traveler, but gazed at
and addressed me all the time like a lover. After
the cloth was taken away and the hour of repose
came on, Charles and I were, without further ceremony in

(42:56):
quality of man and wife, shone up together to a
very handsome apartment, and all in course the bed, they said,
the best in the inn. And here decency forgive me,
if once more I violate thy laws, and keeping the
curtains undrawn, sacrifice thee for the last time to that

(43:17):
confidence without reserve, with which I engaged to recount to
you the most striking circumstances of my youthful disorders. As
soon then as we were in the room together left
to ourselves, the sight of the bed starting the remembrance
of our first joys, and the thought of my being

(43:37):
instantly to share it with the dear possessor of my
virgin heart, moved me so strongly that it was well
I leaned upon him, or I must have fainted again
under the overpowering sweet alarm. Charles saw into my confusion
and forgot his own, that was scarce less to apply
himself to the removal of mine. But now the true

(44:00):
refining passion had regained thorough possession of me, with all
its strain of symptoms. A sweet sensibility, a tender timidity, love,
sick yearnings, tempered with a diffidence and modesty, all held
me in a subjection of soul incomparably dearer to me
than the liberty of heart with which I had been

(44:21):
long too long, the mistress of in the course of
those grosser gallantries, the consciousness of which now made me
sigh with a virtuous confusion. And regret. No real virgin
in view of the nuptial bed could give more bashful
blushes to unblemished innocence than I did to a sense
of guilt. And indeed I loved Charles too truly not

(44:44):
to feel severely that I did not deserve him. As
I kept hesitating and disconcerted under this soft distraction, Charles,
with fond impatience, took the pains to undress me, and
all I can remember, amidst the flutter and composure of
my senses, with some flattering exclamations of joy and admiration,

(45:06):
more especially at the feel of my breasts, now set
at liberty from my stays, and which, panting and rising
in tumultuous robs, swelled upon his dear touch and gave
it the welcome pleasure of finding them well formed and
unfailed in firmness. I was soon laid in bed and
scarce languished an instant for the darling partner of it

(45:29):
before he was undressed and got between the sheets with
his arms clasped round me, giving and taking with gust
inexpressible a kiss of welcome that my heart, rising to
my lips, stamped with its warmest impression concurring to by
bliss with that delicate and voluptuous emotion which Charles alone

(45:51):
had the secret to excite, and which constitutes the very life,
the essence of pleasure. Meanwhile, two candles lighted on a
side table near us, and a joyous wood fire threw
a light into the bed that took from one sense
of great importance to our joys all pretexts for complaining
of being shut out of its share of them. And

(46:13):
indeed the sight of my idelized youth was alone from
the ardor with which I had wished for it, without
other circumstance, a pleasure to die of. But as action
was now a necessity to desires so much on edge
as ours, Charles, after a very short prelusive jalliance, lifting

(46:33):
up my linen in his own, laid the broad treasures
of his manly chest close to my bosom, both beating
with the tenderest alarms. When now the sense of his
glowing body, in naked touch with mine, took all power
over my thoughts, out of my own disposal, and delivered
up every faculty of the soul to the sensiblest of

(46:55):
joys that affecting me infinitely more with my distinction of
the person than of the sex, now brought my conscious
heart deliciously into play. My heart, which eternally constant to Charles,
had never taken any part in my occasional sacrifices to
the cause of constitution, complaisance, or interest. But ah, what

(47:18):
became of me when as the powers of solid pleasure
thickened upon me I could not help feeling the stiff
stake that had been adored with the trophies of my
despoiled virginity, bearing hard and inflexible against one of my thighs,
which I had not yet opened from a true principle

(47:38):
of modesty, revived by a passion too sincere to suffer
any aiming at the false merits of difficulty, or my
putting on an impertinent mock coyness. I have, I believe,
somewhere before, remarked that the feel of that favorite piece
of manhood has in the very nature of it something

(47:59):
inimately pathetic. Nothing can be dearer to the touch, nor
can affect it with a more delicious sensation. Think, then,
as a love thinks, what must be the consummate transport
of that quickest of our senses in their central seat, too,
when after so long a deprival, it felt itself re

(48:20):
inflamed under the pressure of that peculiar scepter member which
commands us all but especially my darling elect from the
face of the whole earth, And now at its mightiest
point of stiffness, it felt to me something so subduing,
so active, so solid and agreeable, that I know not
what name to give its singular impression, But the sentiment

(48:44):
of consciousness, of its belonging to my supremely beloved youth,
gave me so pleasing an agitation, and worked so strongly
on my soul that it sent all its sensitive spirits
to that organ of bliss in me, dedicated to its reception.
There consentering to a point, like rays in a burning glass,

(49:04):
they glowed, they burnt with the intensest heat. The springs
of pleasure were in short wound up to such a pitch.
I panted now with so exquisitely keen an appetite for
the eminent enjoyment that I was even sick with desire
and unequal to support the combination of two distinct ideas

(49:24):
that delightfully distracted me for all the thought I was
capable of was that I was now in touch at
once with the instrument of pleasure and the great seal
of love. Ideas that mingling streams poured such an ocean
of intoxicating bliss on a weak vessel all too narrow
to contain it, that I lay overwhelmed, absorbed, lost in

(49:49):
an abyss of joy, and dying of nothing but immoderate delight.
Charles then roused me somewhat out of this ecstatic distraction
with a com plaint, softly murmured amidst a crowd of kisses,
at the position not so favorable to his desires, in
which I received his urgent insistence for admission, where that

(50:12):
insistence was alone so engrossing a pleasure that it made
me inconsistently suffer a much dearer one to be kept out.
But how sweet to correct such a mistake. My thighs,
now obedient to the intimations of love and nature, gladly disclose,
and with already submission, resign up the soft gateway to

(50:33):
the entrance of pleasure. I see, I feel the delicious
velvet tip he enters me might in Maine with oh
my pen drops from me here in the ecstasy now
present to my faithful memory. Description too, deserts me and
delivers over a task above its strength of wing to
the imagination. But it must be an imagination exalted by

(50:57):
such a flame as mine that can do justice to
that sweetest, noblest of all sensations, that hailed and accompanied
the stiff insinuation all the way up till it was
at the end of its penetration, sending up through my
eyes the sparks of the love fire that ran all
over me and blazed in every vein, in every pore

(51:19):
of me, a system incarnate of joy all over I
had now totally taken in Love's true arrow, from the
point up to the feather in that part where making
now new wound. The lips of the original one of nature,
which had owed its first breathing to this dear instrument,
clung as if sensible of gratitude, in eager suction round it,

(51:43):
whilst all its inwards embraced it tenderly with a warmth
of gust, a compressive energy that gave it, in its
way the heartiest welcome in nature, every fiber there gathering
tight round it and straining ambitiously to come in for
its share of the blissful touch as we were giving
them a few moments of pause, to the delectation of

(52:06):
the senses. In dwelling with the highest relish on this
intimatest point of reunion and chewing the cud of enjoyment,
the impatience natural to the pleasure soon drove us into action.
Then began the driving tumult on his side, and the
responsive heaves on mine, which kept me up to him.

(52:26):
Whilst as our joys grew too great for utterance, the
organs of our voices, voluptuously intermixing, became organs of the touch.
And oh that touch, how delicious, how poignantly luscious. And
now now I've felt to the heart of me, I
felt the prodigious, keen edge with which love, presiding over

(52:49):
this act, points the pleasure, love that may be styled
the attic salt of enjoyment. And indeed without it, the joy,
great as it is, is still a vulgar one, whether
in a king or beggar. For it is undoubtedly love
alone that refines, enables, and exalts it. Thus happy then

(53:11):
by the heart, happy by the senses, It was beyond
all power, even of thought, to form the conception of
a greater delight than what I was now consummating, the
fruition of Charles, whose whole frame was convulsed with the
agitation of his rapture, whilst the tenderest fires trembled in
his eyes, all assured me of a perfect concord of joy,

(53:34):
penetrated me so profoundly, touched me, so vitally, took me
so much out of my own possession, whilst he seemed
himself so much in mine, that, in a delicious enthusiasm,
I imagined such a transfusion of heart and spirit as
that coalescing and making one body and soul with him.

(53:55):
I was he and he me. But all this pleasure,
tending like life from its first instance towards its own dissolution,
lived too fast not to bring on upon the spur
its delicious moment of mortality. For presently the approach of
the tender agony discovered itself by its usual signals, that

(54:18):
were quickly followed by my dear Love's emanation of himself
that spun out and shot feelingly indeed up the ravished
in draft, where the sweetly soothing, balmy titillation opened all
the juices of joy on my side, which ecstatically inflow
helped to allay the prurient glow and drown our pleasure

(54:40):
for a while. Soon, however, to be on float again.
For Charles, true to nature's laws, in one breath, expiring
and ejaculating, languished not long in the dissolving trends, but
recovering spirit again soon gave me to feel that the
true metal springs of his instrument of pleasure were by love,

(55:01):
and perhaps by a long vacation, wound up too high
to be let down by a single explosion. His stiffness
still stood my friend, resuming then the action afresh, without
dislodging or giving me the trouble of parting from my
sweet tenant. We played over again the same opera, with
the same delightful harmony and concert. Our ardors, like our love,

(55:26):
knew no remission, and all as the tide served my lover,
lavish of his stores and pleasure milked overflowed me once
more from the fullness of his oval reservoirs of the
genial emulsion, whilst on my side, a convulsive grasp in
the instant of my giving down the liquid contribution rendered

(55:47):
me sweetly subservient at once to the increase of his
joy and of its effusions, moving me so as to
make me exert all those springs of the compressive exuction
with which the sensitive mechanism of that part thirstily draws
and drains the nipple of love with much such an
instinctive eagerness and attachment as to compare great with less

(56:11):
kind nature engages infants at the breast by the pleasure
they find in the motion of their little mouths and cheeks,
to extract the milky stream prepared for their nourishment. But
still there was no end of his vigor. This double
discharge had so far from extinguished his desires for that
time that it had not even calmed them. And at

(56:34):
his age desires our power. He was proceeding, then, amazingly
to push it to a third triumph, still without uncazing
if a tenderness natural to true love had not inspired
me with selt denial enough to spare and not overstrain him,
and accordingly entreating him to give himself and me quarter,

(56:55):
I obtained at length a short suspension of arms, But
not before he had exultingly satisfied me that he gave
outstanding the remainder of the night with what we borrowed
upon the day we employed with unwearied fervor in celebrating
thus the festival of our re meeting, and got up

(57:16):
pretty late in the morning, gay, brisk and alert. Though
rest had been a stranger to us, but the pleasures
of love had been to us what the joy of
victory is to an army. Repose, refreshment everything, the journey
into the country being now entirely out of the question,
and orders having been given overnight for turning the horses

(57:38):
heads towards London, we left the inn as soon as
we had breakfasted, not without a liberal distribution of the
tokens of my grateful sense of the happiness I had
met with in it. Charles and I were in my coach,
the captain and my companion in a chaise hired purposely
for them to leave us the conveniency of a tete
a tete here on the road. As the tumult of

(58:01):
my senses was tolerably composed, I had command enough to
head to break properly to him the course of life
that the consequence of my separation from him had driven
me into, which, at the same time that he tenderly
deplored with me, he was the less shocked at as
on reflecting how he had left me circumstanced, he could

(58:22):
not be entirely unprepared for it. But when I opened
the state of my fortune to him, and with that
sincerity which from me to him was so much a
nature in me, I begged of him his acceptance of
it on his own terms. I should appear to you
perhaps too partial to my passion, were I to attempt

(58:43):
the doing his delicacy justice. I shall content myself then
with assuring you that, after his flatly refusing the unreserved,
unconditional donation, that I long persecuted him in vain to accept, it,
was at length in obedience to his serious command. For
I stood out unaffectedly till he exerted the sovereign authority

(59:04):
which love had given him over me, that I yielded
my consent to waive the remonstrance. I did not fail
of making strongly to him against his degrading himself, and
incurring the reflection, however, unjust of having for respects of fortune,
bartered his honor for infamy and prostitution, in making one

(59:25):
his wife, who thought herself too much honored in being
but his mistress the plea of love. Then, over ruling
all objections, Charles entirely one with the merit of my
sentiments for him, which he could not but read the
sincerity of in a heart ever opened to him, obliged
me to receive his hand, by which means I was

(59:47):
in pass, among other innumerable blessings, to bestow a legal
parentage on those fine children you have seen by this
happiest of matches. Thus, at length I got snug into poor,
where in the bosom of virtue I gathered the only
uncorrupt sweets, where, looking back on the course of vice

(01:00:07):
I had run, and comparing its infamous blandishments with the
infinitely superior joys of innocence, I could not help pitying,
even in point of taste, those who immersed in gross
sensuality are insensible to the delicate charms of virtue, than
which even pleasure has not a greater friend, nor than

(01:00:29):
vice a greater enemy. Thus temperance makes men lords over
those pleasures that intemperance enslaves them too. The one parent
of health, vigor, fertility, cheerfulness, and every other desirable good
of life, the other of diseases, debility, barrenness, self loathing,
with only every evil instant to human nature. You laugh,

(01:00:53):
perhaps at this tale piece of morality extracted from me
by the force of truth resulting from compare experiences. You
think it, no doubt out of place, out of character.
Possibly too, you may look on it as the paltry
finness of one who seeks to mask a devilte to
vice under a rag of a veil, impudently smuggled from

(01:01:14):
the shrine of virtue, just as if one was to
fancy one's self completely disguised at a masquerade, with no
other change of dress than turning one's shoes into slippers,
or as if a writer should think to shield a
treasonable libel by concluding it with a formal prayer for
the king. But independent of my flattering myself, that you

(01:01:37):
have a just opinion of my sense and sincerity, give
me leave to represent to you that such a supposition
is even more injurious to virtue than to me, since
consistently with candor and good nature it can have no
foundation but in the falsest of fears, that its pleasures
cannot stand in comparison with those of vice. But let

(01:01:59):
truth dare to hold it up in its most alluring light.
Then mark how spurious, how low of taste, how comparatively
inferior its joys are to those which virtue gives sanction to,
and whose sentiments are not above making even a sauce
for the senses, but a sauce for the highest relish.

(01:02:20):
Whilst vices are the harpies that infect and foul the feast.
The paths of vice are sometimes strewed with roses, but
then they are forever infamous for many a thorn, for
many a canker worm. Those of virtue are strewed with
roses purely, and those eternally unfading ones. If you do me,

(01:02:40):
then justice, you will esteem me perfectly consistent in the
incense I burn to virtue. If I have painted vice
in all its gayest colors, if I have jected it
with flowers, it has been solely in order to make
the worthier, the solemner sacrifice of it to virtue. You know,
mister c O, You know his estate, his worth and

(01:03:03):
good sense. Can you will you pronounce it? Ill meant
at least of him, when anxious for his son's morals,
with a view to form him to virtue and inspire
him with a fixed, a rational contempt for vice. He
condescended to be his master of the ceremonies, and led
him by the hand through the most noted body houses

(01:03:24):
in town, where he took care. He should be familiarized
with all those scenes of debauchery, so fit to nauseate
a good taste. The experiment, you will cry, is dangerous,
true on a fool. But are fools worth so much attention?
I shall see you soon, and in the meantime think
candidly of me, and believe me ever, Madam yours, et cetera,

(01:03:48):
et cetera, et cetera. The end end of section ten,
end of Fanny Hill Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Thank you for listening.