I venture upon this chapter, my dear reader, with considerable trepidation. It is not matter suitable to delicate digestions, and may well horrify the overrefined, but it was part of the life I lived, and justifiably may be set down to insure the reader's all-inclusive grasp of reality-otherwise my story would be grievously incomplete. My life situation was, if I may faintly belabor the point, inadequate after the death of Hugh Kinsteares. Whoever the man or woman, whatever the place, I could generate no erotic response-I remained in mourning for the demise of the one man I have loved in this life aside from my brother James. How that mourning was terminated is the gist of this chapter -and I shall make no apologies for it, the method, that is. I do most certainly apologize for any stomach I may turn, and to any sensibility I may offend. While it is not my purpose to put down matter that may shock the ingenuous ear, I have no recourse other than to inscribe the truth as it occurred-we must at least be faithful to the proper recording of an event lest the event itself deceive us. I insist I shall not be deceived and, if I may identify with the reader momentarily, I feel that the reader, too, is opposed to deception. Nevertheless, as I say, I proceed with trepidation. While truth may be experienced precisely, and undoubtedly is, the accurate rendering of it is another story-so frequently will that be at variance with the morals of the day and will be characterized as either overly puritanical or overly bestial. In any case, I will take my chances with the devoted reader and get on with the story… Maytemper's Mummers were still in Brighton, having gained a large measure of success. After one of the afternoon performances of As You Like It, I sat down to the dressing-room table -a dressing room, of course, I shared with the other females of the cast-and went about the process of removing my makeup in the gaslight. I was feeling unusually taciturn, practically sullen-when the doorman from the stage door came in and put an engraved card on the vanity before me. The leading lady, Sylvia Knox-Drendendorff-who owned execrably bad teeth whose stench preceded her-leaned her nose over my shoulder and read the card aloud: “Sir Lawrence Terstyke, Bart., Merlin House, Sussex.” On the obverse side in rather a childlike scrawl it was evidently Sir Lawrence who had inscribed-to Knox-Drendendorff's post-adolescent glee-that my acting had made a very considerable impression upon him, and that he begged to make my acquaintance-he would be waiting with his coach-and-four just outside the stage door. “Ah,” said Sylvia Knox-Drendendorff in her rather shrill voice, but one could not fault her on her thespian ability. She tapped me lightly on the shoulder with her fan.
“And will you take the gamble, my lass?” Her smirk extended to both ears which I immediately wanted to take and give a sound boxing to, but she did need her ears for cues, didn't she? I therefore checked my felonious intent, put on a mask of extravagant indifference and shrugged the shoulder Sylvia had dubbed. She pinched up her skirts, seeing I wasn't going to make any comment whatsoever, and flounced off angrily. The girls who played minor roles and who doubled in the crowd scenes, regarded me with fresh admiration and chorused me with naive glosses. “Suppose he's fake, Victoria-what would you do?”
“How wonderful to be loved by the nobility!” “I dreamed of my white knight in a coach-and-four…” “He could be an old man, Victoria.” “I wouldn't accept him on his first advances, but on his second he could advance all over me! Oh, la!” By that point I was sans makeup and ready to go. I had not decided whether I ought to go out with the Baronet or no. I should have to see him first and observe what I could in the twilight before making up my mind.
And there he was as I stepped out of the stage door-lounging gracefully, for all his heft, against the door of his coach-and-four.
Seeing me, he slouched to my side. “Miss Collins,” he said. He had one of those rich bassos that banished all care in the listener.
And his basso, of course, was suitable to his physique, which was extraordinarily broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. He stood some six feet seven inches. But what was so immediately strange was not that Sir Lawrence had iron-gray hair and amber eyes, nor even the impression that his eyes might glow in the twilight-but that his eyes were feral… As for his skin, it had that leathery aspect difficult to ascribe years to. His cheekbones were high and prominent, and his chin had a hard thrust. The whole picture of the man was that of boniness, boyishness, power and enormous tensions held in reserve. And he had those long sinewy hands equally facile with a skillet or gun or the nipples of a woman's breasts. His age, I judged, was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, with a tip toward fifty. “Yes,” I said inanely, “I am Victoria Collins. You, I take it, are Sir Lawrence Terstyke.” “Quite, Now then, Miss Collins, are you hungry after your performances?” He said this with an air of the most tender concern, as if his waiting upon me would be enough to give him the most exquisite delight. I looked at him a long time. Not for a moment did his solicitous ambiance change. But what could one really tell?
There were the feral amber eyes, the broad shoulders, the slim hips, the long legs tightly tailored. Doubtless he would be more than competent in bed, but that was not the question. The question was, would he have the unique competence requisite toward ending my mourning over Hugh Kinsteares, so that my membranes could once again react ardently to caresses, to strokings, to gentle or savage penetrations, and that my glaciality be altogether dissipated? I decided to take the gamble of finding out. What, really, could be dangerous about that? Sir Lawrence's manners were impeccable-there was no doubt he was a gentleman born. I smiled wickedly. “I am terribly hungry after performances, Sir Lawrence.” “Ah,” he said.
He gave me a small smile, not as if he were restraining himself or that he had no more to give, but that the small smile was proper in the circumstances. “In that case,” he continued, “would you prefer the Boar and Bramble, most suitable in these parts for dining and modest drinking, or would you rather incline toward the less public virtues of my own manse, Merlin House? I must point out that the Boar and Bramble has a most unparalleled view of the sea, while all Merlin House can offer you is the pleasance of looking out over one of the serenest valleys in Sussex. My coach-and-four are at your service, Miss Collins.” “Merlin House, Sir Lawrence.” “I am indeed honored, Miss Collins.” As he handed me into the coach-and-four, I said, “I should be much more at my ease if you simply called me Victoria.” “Thank you, Victoria. And I should be happier-and more honored-by the use of my Christian name alone.” The baronet picked up the reins and we were off in his coach-and-four. It was perhaps a twenty-minute ride at a vigorous pace to Merlin House, but the baronet did not neglect me for his horses. Quite the contrary.
Since one could still see how nature preened itself even during the hour of dusk, Sir Lawrence pointed out to me some of the more vivid historical aspects of this part of Sussex. There, for example, was Marcy's Oak, a vastness of a tree, from one of whose sturdy limbs Raymond Marcy had been hanged in 1723 when the outraged citizenry of the district whom Marcy represented in Parliament discovered he was additionally lining his pockets with a moonlit and nonmoonlit career as a highwayman in Essex. The brief bridge they were crossing over at the moment, Sir Lawrence commented, was tarried at by no less a personage than Chaucer, on his journey from Brighton to London, who had written immortal couplets about it-rendered somewhat more mortal by the fact that the manuscript, titled Henry-the-Ghost's Navigaunt Crossing, had been irretrievably lost because one of his mistresses, a Lady Surcom, leaving London for a visit to Edinburgh, had been incensed that Chaucer refused to accompany her, and she had thereupon torn to unidentifiable pieces the very manuscript Chaucer had presented her with after returning from Brighton. “I suppose that taught Chaucer a lesson,” I said. “Well,” Sir Lawrence said, “we have no record of the poet thereafter giving any of his manuscripts to his succeeding mistresses.” “I suggest that the good Lady Surcom was not incensed because Chaucer refused to go with her so much as she might have been angered over the years that other mistresses had preceded her and that she would be superseded herself.” “I would venture to say,” the baronet told me, “that you, Victoria, would not be such a stickler for what, by a euphemism, might be called the pseudovirtuous.” One of Sir Lawrence's gray locks fell over his forehead and thereby enchanted me-the presumably open-faced boyishness of the baronet's countenance mingling with the subtlety and power showing there as well, would have, before the advent of Hugh Kinsteares, shaken me to my figurative balls-which I had released to Hugh. Now I was not shaken in the slightest, but there was, encouragingly, the faintest tingle at my fingertips which was, discouragingly, something of a distance from my heart. “I am not a stickler for virtue, Lawrence, pseudo or otherwise. On the other hand, if I am enticed to a scene of passion and happen to change my mind, I do not expect my escort to restrain me if I choose noninvolvement.” “Indeed,” the baronet said flatly.
“Indeed,” I said quite firmly. “One should not dream of behaving otherwise,” Sir Lawrence said. “It would be an insult redeemable only on the field of honor. Who-I speak entirely theoretically-would seek to create a duel to settle the matter?”
“My brother James,” I said dryly. “Oh,” he said. “I don't at all feel brotherly, Victoria. Well, then,” he continued, “perhaps I had best return you to Brighton. There's no telling how I would behave with so beautiful a woman as you after night fell-” “No,” I interrupted desperately, “I really don't want to go back, Lawrence.
You are a man of reason, I think, and of exquisite manners. Besides-”
I grinned impishly-“I'm terribly hungry.” The baronet nodded and increased the pace of his team. “That kind of hunger,” he said, “belongs to the belly and must be served if we are to be preserved.”
He smiled broadly. “You will forgive me, Victoria, if I anticipated your needs-I had my chef prepare you something of a feast. It is a kind of British smorgasbord.” I laughed merrily. I felt completely at my ease. With my gloved hand I touched the high cheekbones of the baronet. “Will you,” I said, “denude me of my gloves, Lawrence?” He glanced at me sharply. “Never,” he said, “of your gloves, Victoria.” In the sharpness of his glance I saw the end of man, but it was so sensitively portrayed that I refused to accept its import. But I was becoming restless again-we had been jouncing along for a very considerable time-I had got bored with comparing the Cornish countryside with that of Sussex. The topography of both were very similar. Sussex had more lush greenery, the hedges here were thicker and taller, the gardens were more luxuriant and the surrounding countryside more rolling than that of Cornwall's. Apropos, when Sir Lawrence glimpsed Merlin House in the distance and drew my attention to it, it resembled nothing so much as Quistern House-even to a background which included a maze. As we jogged closer it became clear that this was simply another Georgian structure. Still, these old houses often had stately galleries which frequently led to exhibition chambers where there might be highly costly paintings.
Again apropos, I remembered how my father tried, childishly, to oppress his son with the weightiness of the human condition. Mathew Quist-Hagen had said, “I had a gallery full of masterly canvasses that I and my agent ransacked Europe for, but they proved to be too much a drain on the exchequer. Consequently, I disposed of most of them for the Quist-Hagen estate. The proceeds from the sale of these paintings will be divided equally between you two, my daughter and my son. Now we will forget the entire matter.” My mother's face had screwed up to a point where she had had to erupt into tears, and the Marquis of Portferrans had crossed quickly to comfort her… The baronet's deep basso intruded on my memory. “I believe we're here, Victoria,” he said, and he handed me out of the carriage and up the steps of Merlin House where Lawrence's butler stood obsequiously, greeted his master and held open the white door. It was night, and the gaslights warmly beckoned us in. I had not been that long gone from Quistern or Hagen houses not to miss the luxurious interiors. However, I took breath in hand and moved past the butler, whose name was Scample. Then, appearing with a monstrous bark, a great Dane leaped upon Lawrence, lapping at his face with his massive tongue. The baronet laughed, “All right, Loki, I've come back and I've brought a lady with me.” “So we see,” another voice said. It belonged to Lawrence's valet, whose name was Tiddings. “But we do warmly welcome you back, don't we, Loki?” The dog paid Tiddings no heed, he was again on all fours and waiting massively and patiently for whatever his master wanted.
Something curious was happening to me now as Sir Lawrence informed the housekeeper, Mrs. Bailey, to ready a bedroom upstairs for me. Mrs. Bailey then expressionlessly informed me where the nearest bathroom was situated. I immediately occupied it and began my toilet.
The curious thing happening to me was that my scalp had begun itching as soon as I had become aware of Loki, the great Dane. The cause of the sensation was so obscurely curious, however, that I dismissed all possible motivations, at which point the itching of the scalp ceased.
I could then attend to my face… When I came downstairs, Sir Lawrence was energetically pacing the great dining room with Loki. All the dishes of that evening's dinner were on the round table.
“I've taken the liberty, Victoria, of dismissing the servants for the evening-there are certain times when one wishes to be untrammeled…” He ran his fingers through his gray hair, thereby further disheveling it but making it more appealing than ever, more boyish and yet more manly-a most peculiar combination. Nevertheless, my pulse remained steady. “You wish to compliment me, Lawrence,”
I said, “not only for my acting.” “Oh, but your acting is devilishly good, devilishly.” We had sat ourselves down and were making salients in our redolent steaks. Once Sir Lawrence had disposed of the bulk of his meat, he felt inclined to lean back in his seat and to address me with what might be called authoritative intimacy. I enjoyed the attitude but foresaw the ruinous flaw of despotism in it.
“Yes,” he said, eyeing me with avidity, “devilishly good acting, Victoria. But you know, of course, that you will never be a star…”
“How do you conclude that, Lawrence?” “There is a certain charismatic effect that the really great thespians own-” “That I don't have.” “You don't have it regardless of the sex of your focus. Your particular hypnotic has its effect on the male only.”
We argued that back and forth until we finished our repast and Lawrence turned to the whisky decanter. Loki was lying on his side at the fireplace. “With soda?” Sir Lawrence asked. “Please.” He poured the spirits and handed me my glass. Then he took one for himself and sat down at the fireless fireplace near Loki, his free hand stroking the dog's neck. “Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “Because, darling Victoria, I've developed quite a passion for you. I've seen you in the theatre half a dozen times in as many days, and I should like to rid myself of this obsession.” “If I am an obsession to be got rid of, I think you'd better return me to my hotel.” “Very well, Victoria.” But I did not move. I stood rooted to where I was standing. “What are you doing to Loki?” I whispered. “Nothing I haven't done many times, Victoria. Are you ready to leave?” “Many times?” I echoed. “Yes,” the baronet said.
“Loki likes it. But come, Victoria, we must go. I'll get Scample to bring round the coach-and-four-” “No,” I said. “No.” I hardly dared breathe. “You've changed your mind?” Lawrence asked. “Yes,” I said. What the baronet was doing was fingering the long massive member belonging to Loki, and I was fascinated. More than fascinated-my pulse, for the first time in a very long time, had begun to race. The dog whined as his penis slid out of its cylindrical enclosure-a shiny scarlet penis that Lawrence squeezed gently, after which the lubricant-gleaming piece glided back into its chamber. If my skin were like milk, then it was presently more skimmed than milk-I must have been ghastly. I could not tear my eyes away from the repeated process. Again the dog's crimson member appeared on stage and Lawrence once more squeezed it. Loki whined, and the piece was returned to its housing. The process continued faster and faster. Back and forth went Loki's hind quarters and saturated scarlet column at a dizzying pace, Lawrence's hand less and less gentle. The dog's whine rose to a pitch where it could not be heard by the human ear. I was drenched in sweat-and I tore my dress open to the bodice so that my breasts sprang out and I could offer their nipples, after I stooped down to all fours, to Loki's idling tongue which lapped at them, the roughness of the dog's tongue a savage pleasure even as Lawrence whipped up the bottom of my dress and skirts and poked a thumb into the chamber of chambers-I thought I should go mad. Gone-totally dissipated-were the faintest thoughts of Hugh Kinsteares. Loki's tongue and scarlet penis and Lawrence's thumb had completely buried the young blond lad-and I was experiencing a revival that no Baptist meeting had ever done for me. Staring at Loki's genitals, not daring to lift my head for fear I would miss the spurt of the sperm that I hoped Lawrence would direct at my face, I bespoke myself to the baronet in a hoarse rasping voice. “Lawrence-” “Eh?”
“Where's your own machinery? I want it.” “In due course, my dear. Your patience will be thoroughly rewarded. You are enjoying the present state of affairs, are you not?” I was inarticulate. I groaned. “Good,” the baronet said. I could hear Loki winning again, and then this giant of a gray-haired man chuckled, giving the scarlet column a final squeeze and pointing it at my face, upon which Loki's semen catapulted, the creamy glutinousness streaming down my features. I stood up and divested myself of the rest of my clothes, not giving a damn if Lawrence were naked or not. I secured one of the throw rugs and sat back on my haunches on the rug-I wanted no frozen arse. Then I proceeded to smear the dog's sperm on as many parts of my body I could reach while Sir Lawrence regarded me amusedly. “I'll need more,” I said. “Well, then, milady, go and get it.” Again I arose and crossed to the fireplace where Loki lay on his side, his own machinery temporarily quiescent. I put an end to that-I put an end to it because by now I was absolutely inflamed and I realized I could fuck till dawn and produce a baker's dozen, at least, of orgasms.
“The beauty of your face,” the baronet said, “is exceeded only by the ravishing loveliness of your body. We shall all here be your subjects,” he continued, “the subjects, at times designated by myself, making appropriate suggestions. Do you understand, Victoria?”
“Quite.” I bent down and fingered Loki's nonmystic maleness.
The dog whimpered a little. Lawrence chuckled. “Milady,” he said, “may I remind you that you are still wearing your summer gloves? I daresay you would have greater effect on Loki if you removed them. The bared hand and the naked mouth are sine non qua stimulants- unless you care to smoke the opium pipe. My apologies for not having mentioned that technique before.” “I know the technique-my brother had me look into a house in Soho, and I don't care to remember the pitiful people there. I don't want to remember anything now, Lawrence.” I knew my green eyes were blazing, my breasts were engorged, the nipples thereon stiff and feverish, and that my pudenda were crackling with heat. Blushing furiously at my stupidity with the gloves, I removed them hastily and tossed them aside. Then, my skull feeling like a drum beaten upon with a steadily remorseless rhythm, I sank to Loki's side, my high breasts quivering. “Loki,” I whispered, and I curved both my hands around his redoubtable prick. He gave a short light bark, lifted his head momentarily to regard me, and then subsided once again to his strange whining as I pulled at his shiny scarlet projectile, his haunches quivering and beginning to push. I brought him rapidly to an orgasm and played his hose over my whole body, with special reference to the little black curls at my groin. The next thing I knew was that Sir Lawrence was completely au naturel, and that his cock could win prizes at international exhibits, even though now only half erect, for length and thickness and sustension, although the latter, of course, had yet to be proven. But the baronet as yet made no direct move toward me. His cock's head drooped. I spread myself before him. My yoni was obviously swollen. “Your requirements are critical, I seem to see,” he said. “But I am not yet ready. I think the best thing you could do, Victoria, is to get on your hands and knees again, arse up.” A tremor shook me. “What are you going to do?” “Do stay calm,” Lawrence said. “I assure you there will be no pain.” My skull pounding, my eyes darkening, my loins painfully aching and throbbing, my breasts prickling, I once again assumed the stance of all fours-facing away from Lawrence and Loki. “That's precisely the way I want you,” the baronet said.
Then Loki began to whimper again, the sound steadily rising.
Inside and outside I was squirming with the tropics. I started to move my whole body backward and forward, backward and forward. “Yes, yes. That's very good,” Sir Lawrence said. Then, quite suddenly, something like a naming dart penetrated my vagina up to the hilt-and rough paws were sliding on my back. I screamed-horror and ecstasy in equal parts. The horror was that I understood the forepaws of the great Dane were on my back, and the ecstasy was that his cock was entering and leaving my vagina at a fantastically fast rate, rubbing constantly along the clitoris. I screamed again, but not from horror.
It was altogether from pleasure in the extreme-and I knew then and there that Victoria Collins, just as Clarissa Quist-Hagen before her, had been fashioned for sheer sexual enjoyment and that her life had been meant to be bounded by it-and spiced, from time to time, with suitable animal equipment. Sir Lawrence Terstyke went down on his own knees by our side to observe Beauty and the Beast in action. As Loki was thrusting-and he was doing so with remarkable rapidity-the baronet muttered, “Give it to her, by God-make mincemeat out of that cunt, doggie.” But while Loki was making mincemeat out of me, I had not yet taken full leave of my senses;' on the contrary, they were preternaturally keen and I saw that the baronet's lingam was in full bloom, and I could compare it only to the mightiest club I had ever encountered between a man's thighs. I waited until Loki erupted in me, like the boiling of the ocean's surf among jagged boulders, and his jism was running thickly down my rippling thighs, and then with an open hand I batted freely at the baronet's club. He roared with pain, backhanded Loki so that the great Dane slunk away, and then flung me on my back. With a cry of rage he plunged into me as if he were a butcher's cleaver determined to sever my crotch both from my torso and my lower limbs. I have never been, before or since, save by Terstyke, so thoroughly plumbed. His was the broom that exhaustively scoured my pantry, his the enormous bristle that on that night kept me in successive waves of shuddering orgasm. Again and yet again he brought me to shrieking climax, and chewed at my nipples as if he would mangle them beyond recognition. And if for a moment he happened to wane, he called for Loki and slammed the dog's cock between my bruised thighs, roaring with laughter as I convulsed and foamed at the mouth and beat at the floor in agonized bliss because the great Dane's prick was ramming me at such high speed. At times Lawrence Terstyke would pull Loki aside and himself receive the dog's hot semen in the mouth, which he would then transfer to my mouth by a kiss, or I would suck off the dog and bathe Sir Lawrence's member in it; and, if the gentleman were fading, my application would recrudesce him. I must confess that the psychic burial of Hugh Kinsteares took place on a most memorable night-my grieving frigidity was smashed to smithereens, never again to be repeated, and that the principal agency in this, at least at the start, was that powerful canine, the great Dane Loki, who had, by the way, amber eyes, like his master. Loki did turn out to be woman's best friend, and I shall be eternally and doggedly grateful. Curse a dog or make light of him in my presence, and you have earned yourself a lifelong enemy. Perhaps some women would similarly stand by a horse, but they must be more extraordinary females than I-I have many times witnessed the turgid prick of the stallion, I have been duly impressed but have never thought, except in my wildest dreams, that I could distend my scabbard sufficiently to accommodate it. Thus, while I believe there is nothing so pleasurable to the senses in this life as sexual congress, I should not want myself torn to pieces on its account.