Anonymous - The Autobiography of a Flea, Book 3

“Enough, enough, Thomas, I have heard that narrative a hundred times over. Aye, and in the consoling of her, did you not, though you were then – if your tale be accurate – no more than nineteen summers, know her in the Biblical sense some half-dozen times before the storm quieted and she with it? And each time in the retelling, that temptress' bubbies grow in span just as, I fear, the accomplishments of your untried cock!”

“Damn for an uncircumcised villain if I had not by that time already initiated my cock in a score of beldames and maidens, for my first tumble was when I was but fourteen, a meager lad who knew his station.”

“Aye, between the straining thighs of whatever wench would spread them for you,” the English ecclesiastic laughingly intervened. “But the demoiselle whom you have likened to your hayrick partner in carnal coupling is named Denise, and this coppery-haired coquette is her sister Louisette, nearly her twin but for the incidence of an hour between them in emerging from their worthy mother's fabricating womb.”

“And these fair sisters, equally are they maidens, Father?”

“Equally, though in varying degrees as to eagerness and zest. They can fend for themselves, I am certain, but I have taken them under my protection, as they plead to have their kidnapped young brother released from the dungeons of the evil Bey of Algiers. At St. Thaddeus, I will seek to interest the Father Superior in their special case so that intercession can be made to that infidel ruler. But now, let our luggage be taken to our rooms, and do you bring me a mug of good brown ale to toast your health, my amiable Thomas!”

“My sister's young nephew Jemmy will see to the quartering of the wenches – aye, begging your pardon, Father, virgins then. Come you with me, and I will draw a cooling draught from a newly tapped barrel.”

Next I heard the robust landlord call impatiently, “Jemmy, you worthless, shiftless scamp, stir your lazy stumps and be helping these young damsels to the two rooms on the second floor to the west! And mind you do not give them offense with your gawking about and your sheep's eyes, or I'll drub your young hide till every bone is broken!” Then, in a softer voice to Father Lawrence, “He's a good boy, but I keep him in his place by letting him fear my constant wrath. To praise and cozen him would be to let him grow slothful.”

“A good precept. But how he blushes at the sight of my wards!”

“'Tis because he is as yet untried in playing the game of the two-backed beast, though I've caught him more times than I would remember slipping his apprentice tool out of his breeches and pretending that he had a wench to ready for its entry.”

“Poor youth! That is a pleasure which is more seemly when one comes to the last ages of man than the first,” Father Lawrence chuckled. “But my throat is parched, so let us sample this nut-brown ale you brag of worthy Thomas!”

“T-this w-way, my – my 1-ladies,” I heard the little squeaky voice of a youth stammer out, and it was followed by soft giggles from the three fair wards. They might not yet be able to discourse in his native tongue, but I wagered they knew already what a fainthearted, blushing young son of Onan he must be, already stricken into gawkiness by the mere sight of three such luscious, tempting morsels of cunt.

“Go with the estimable young man, my daughters,” Father Lawrence now bade them in French, “and I will come to you later when Thomas has prepared our dinner. I have told them, my friend, of your mouthwatering roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and the gooseberry tart. It will be a feast for them.”

“Aye, if at St. Thaddeus they are to dine on black bread and water, and the scourge and droning prayers for dessert.”

“Not so, go to, you sacrilegious rogue. My colleagues are, I trust, astute enough to tempt my wards with puddings and comfits and sweetmeats, if they hope to initiate them into the raptures of carnal communion.”

“From what I know of that hairy bull Father Clement,” the landlord chucklingly gave reply, “he would fuck before a feast, during it and long after it, without once casting an eye on the groaning sideboards laden with viands.”

“On what presumption do you thus defame the character of that worthy prelate?”

“On what my own eyes beheld not a week hence, when he and two other portly priests commandeered my best rooms and ale and nearly a quarter of beef, sent my servants screeching for help from the sheriff to save them all from ravishment, and tumbled my bound girl Emily – though in all justice and fairness, I must tell you that she is readily tumbled. Come, the ale awaits us. Jemmy is not to be feared with your treasured lambs, so forget your momentous obligations for the nonce and let us talk of halcyon times when maidens would gaze at each of us in turn and then select him whose swollen weapon was the more fearsome.”

“Ah, golden days of youth! But even in those dimly distant days, Thomas, I was selected at least thrice to your once!” the English ecclesiastic hilariously made answer.

“Now that you wear the cassock of a learned and holy man who hears the confessions of heaven alone knows how many adulterous baggages,” the landlord jestingly if impiously intervened, “I will not boldly denounce you as a liar. But if for one night before you take up again your consecrated duties, set both of us upon those three fledglings, and on the morrow see whether I do not outscore you fully two to one!”

“And what would that prove, good Thomas, save that you are a man of impatient appetites, which I knew years ago,” Father Lawrence laughed. “No, I am always charged with safe delivery, unmolested and unadulterated, of my wards to the Seminary. And while privately as a sinner who was once a man in breeches such as you are now, my good friend, I may pine to give them swifter delivery by far of their womanhood than any of my colleagues at St. Thaddeus, I would reproach myself to my dying day for having thus broken faith with my new order and the Father Superior who dispatched to me my orders to convert young souls to the blessed flock which is contingent upon him and his fellows. Ah, this ale is not at all impaired as I remember its vigor!”

“It equals its provider as to that,” Thomas quipped.

“And its drinker too, if that be true. Again, to your health!”

“And yours!” Both men smacked their lips and then clanked their tankards down upon the counter, and the locket shook in his pocket and I in turn was shaken, but not sadly. For now I had learned much of my jailer; he had been a man of parts who loved the good things of life till, perhaps in some melancholy evening after carousal, he had seen a vision and repented. But just because he had been a sinner, he was more indulgent than most who are called to the dour black raiment of the priesthood. So I had compassion on his nocturnal strayings when Lucifer beckoned, for he had not come by venery with the assumption of the cassock, but long before he had even been persuaded to don it.

After several tankards of nut-brown ale and many a hearty backslapping and exchanges of reminiscences of happy times past, the good landlord at length went to his kitchen to order the evening repast for his four new guests. I heard Father Lawrence sigh nostalgically, as if this reunion had brought back memories still too vivid to be churchlike, and then I heard the sound of soft footsteps and a sudden little catch of breath, followed by a stammered, hasty, “Oh, forgive me, Your Worship, I did not see you. Is there aught I may bring you for your comfort, holy sir?”

“Be not afraid of my somber gown, my daughter. Are you perchance possessed of the Christian name of Emily?”

“But indeed I am, Your Worship! Do you know me? Yet I confess I have not seen you at my master's hostel ere this.”