Anonymous - The Autobiography of a Flea, Book 2

On the Thursday afternoon which marked the start of the second week of Laurette's marriage to the elderly patron, both Pere Mourier and Father Lawrence conferred at the former's rectory on the subject of bringing this charming wench to her confessional. It was decided that Pere Mourier would pay a call this very evening on the golden haired young bride and gently remind her that it was high time she closet herself with her spiritual mentor and announce to him her new attitude on the subject of wifely obligations. Now Monsieur Villiers, angrily frustrated as we well know from not having perforated Laurette's coveted hymen, had decided to turn his attentions to his vineyards and to the bottling of the good wine from those grapes which had been harvested. Consequently, he spent the morning and afternoon out in the fields with his workers and with his overseer Hercule, and gave his bride to understand that he would be thus occupied at least through the following week.

Having returned at sundown, exhausted from his unwonted physical labors, the patron went straight to his bedchamber and to sleep. So when Pere Mourier was announced by the housekeeper Victorine, he found charming Laurette alone in her own room, fully clothed and deliciously provocative as ever to his expertly appraising eyes.

“My daughter,” he said unctuously, “it is high time that you make your confession. Will you not come to my rectory tomorrow afternoon so that this obligation may be fulfilled in complete privacy, as is befitting so grave a ceremony.”

Laurette cast down her beautiful blue eyes and averred that she would keep the appointment. And so on Friday afternoon, she made her way to the rectory, was smilingly received by the beautiful Desiree and ushered at once into the presence of the obese French priest.

But what was Laurette's surprise to find Father Lawrence there also, seated at his ease near the little curtained booth into which she was to go. Pere Mourier had had this second confession booth installed in his rectory, just off the salon, for special occasions, whereas most of his parishioners, naturally, avowed their sins in the church itself.

“Good day, Father,” Laurette stammered, rather nervous at discovering that she would have to bare her secret heart to not one but apparently two fathers confessor. “Do not be afraid, my child,” Father Lawrence smilingly responded, “it is only that the worthy Pere Mourier was gracious enough to invite me, a visitor from English shores to observe what close communication he keeps with his little flock here in this charming village of Provence. It may well be that I shall learn much from him to take back to England with me, and thereby spread more good. So go make a clean breast of your misdeeds and mis-thoughts, my daughter, and you will be heartened thereby.”

So the golden haired young beauty, mastering her embarrassment, entered the little confessional booth and knelt, down on the cloth-covered rail, whilst Pere Mourier made his way to the other side and began pompously: “I am ready now, my child, to take your confessional.”

Laurette's soul was a tender one and a sweet one, I am certain. In the main she had not really much to confess in that short time which had elapsed between her last confessional and her first week of marriage. Solely, she accused herself of deep regret that she had been forced to marry against her will, because she did not love her husband and was not sure that she ever could.

To this, Pere Mourier assumed a highly sententious line of reasoning, reminding her that the Israelites, after escaping Egypt, remembered their sorrows and their tribulations for centuries thereafter by means of ceremonials. “Just so,” he concluded, “must you realize that in return for blessings and good things, you must pay the price of some small annoyances, for life is never perfect, my dear child.”

“Alas, mon pere,” Laurette sighed, “I tell myself this daily, but it does not seem to ease the pangs in my grieving heart. I still mourn my Pierre.”

“That is scandalous, my daughter. Satan himself lurks in the darkness, waiting to seize your mortal soul the moment you entertain thoughts of adulterous consorting. For such it is, and do not doubt it; now that you are wed in lawful estate to the good patron whose name you bear, it behooves you to remain as irreproachable as Caesar's wife herself. Try to remember that, my child.”

“I – I will, mon pere,” Laurette quavered. She had doubtless thought herself finished with this painful interrogation when suddenly Pere Mourier interposed: “Now, before I give you your penance, my daughter, you must tell me whether you have made every possible effort to be a good and obedient wife to your husband.”

“Yes, mon pere, I – I am sure that I have done my best,” was the tremulous answer.

“Well, then, that is virtue indeed if it is so. But I would have a strict accounting from you, Laurette, as to this vital question: Have you humbly and truly granted your husband his conjugal rights? By this I mean, of course, have you permitted him access to your body that he may cleave unto you, as is prescribed by all the tenets of a good marriage?”

“I – I have gone to bed with him when – when he has wished it, yes, mon pere,” Laurette's voice trembled even more now, “but, and I do not know why, he – he has been unable to make love to me.”

“What is this?” thundered the fat priest. “Do you mean that he has not yet taken your-maidenhead?” »N – no, mon pere. But it was not for want of trying, I swear to you.”

“That makes no difference. If you are still virgin, it could only be because of your wicked resentment of the worthy patron and your clandestine and unholy lust for that scoundrel Pierre Larrieu whom you yearn to put in your husband's rightful place. This is sinfulness, my daughter, and must be chastised severely. I exhort you to see to it, this very night – aye, mark my words, Laurette! – that you bring your husband to a consummation of this marriage. Do you understand me? He is to take your hymen in the nuptial bed before the sun rises on the morrow. Then I bid you come to confessional tomorrow at one in the afternoon, to relate to me whether you have fulfilled my ordainment. And woe betide your bottom, my rebellious child, if I find that you have not heeded my counsel. Now go back to the house of your husband and recite a hundred Hail Marys.”

Laurette emerged from the confessional booth, her face streaked with tears, her eyes downcast, and she did not even give Father Lawrence a second glance as she left the rectory, her mind full of poignant anguish at the thought of the edict which the fat French priest had laid upon her.

I had decided to remain in the salon to find out the reaction of these two worthy ecclesiasts, for I suspected that they themselves had designs upon this delicious virgin. Pere Mourier had already shown as much in his lascivious scourging of her naked bottom. And after having witnessed Father Laurence's lusty fomicatory antics with the two beautiful widows Desiree and Hortense, I felt him made of the same cloth as Pere Mourier.

“You see, Father Lawrence, how stubborn the child is?” Pere Mourier wagged a fat reproving finger, then shook his head with a doleful sigh. “Lucifer wages a frightful struggle with me for the possession of her tender soul. If the two of us do not prevent her from casting aside her marital obligations and fleeing to the arms of that good-for-nothing, she will be damned to eternal perdition. And I do not mind telling you, in all confidence, Father Lawrence, that the worthy Monsieur Claude Villiers will at once cease his contributions to my little parish, which would leave me impoverished and unable to carry out the good works of faith which this so often sinful village so desperately needs.”