Richard Mason - History of a Pleasure Seeker

Finally the dinner gong sounded. Now Blok had to leave, and when he had gone Piet washed his hands and face and went downstairs, his body painfully alert, his mind half crazed by the intoxications of the afternoon.

There were no guests, and the new friendliness of Constance and Louisa made the gathering intimate, almost cozy. Jacobina had taken a scented bath and was feeling wonderfully composed. She knew at once that Piet was not, and the jolt of power this sent through her banished all inclination to guilt. As Constance recounted the details of Myrthe Janssen’s pursuit of Frederik van Sigelen, Jacobina thought that God would not have created human bodies as He did — in His own image, after all — if He disapproved of sexual pleasure. Consequently, what she had done was not the grievous sin the churchmen described. The minister of the Nieuwe Kerk came to her, a stupid, ugly man who could rail against carnality quite safely since no one was likely to engage in any with him. She knew that she had promised her body to Maarten twenty-eight years before, but surely his long failure to exercise his rights entitled her to reclaim a portion of his entitlements and bestow them on another?

Looking at Jacobina, Piet Barol could only see her on her aunt’s chaise longue, her skirts pushed up to her waist. He was acutely sensitive to her. Every time she spoke or glanced in his direction, his cock throbbed like a risk-addicted being over whom he had no control. As the dessert was cleared he began to fear that he would not be able to rise from the table without embarrassment. He toyed with the poires Carignon , wondering desperately what he should do, which only increased his difficulties; and at last it was Virgil who rescued him with the speech Anchises makes to his descendants in the Aeneid . He had memorized it as a schoolboy and recited it silently, as a soothing incantation.

Classical poetry succeeded where all other distractions had not. By the time the ladies rose, he was presentable enough to rise with them, but he dared not risk an hour in the drawing room. He excused himself, complaining of a sore throat.

Jacobina was not deceived. The knowledge that a young man as desirable as Piet could not control himself in her presence made her soar with happiness. She said good night to him politely, and in the presence of her daughters told him that he might help her with some correspondence the following afternoon, at four o’clock.

Piet made his way to the attic floor, stumbling like a drunkard. It was hot and airless beneath the lead roofs. As he reached his bedroom, grateful to be alone, he heard Didier’s voice and remembered it was a Thursday and his weekly evening off. Didier was in the bath. “Come and entertain me!” he called. “Himself’s downstairs, doing the coffee.”

Piet opened his own door, pretending he hadn’t heard. But he did not go through it. He was a young man who had just sent a woman into ecstasy. The urge to boast about his achievement to another young man was invincible. He went into the bathroom, wondering how to do so discreetly, and found Didier stretched languidly in the tub. The windows were open; it was deliciously breezy after the stifling corridor. Piet took off his jacket and went to his place on the radiator.

Didier sank beneath the water and wet his hair. It fell sleek and blond over his eyes. “It’s glorious in here. I’m not getting out for an hour.”

“Selfish.”

“You can get in if you like. There’s plenty of space for two.”

The young men were often undressed in each other’s company and there was no awkwardness in this. They had some of their best conversations while one sat on the radiator, waiting for his turn in the water. But they had never shared the bath before. Tonight it seemed unusually long and full and white; especially inviting. Piet hesitated.

“Don’t be so provincial.”

This was a well-aimed barb. “All right, then. Thanks.” Piet took off his clothes and got into the bath at the opposite end from his friend. He lowered himself in slowly to avoid splashing the floor. The mass of his body brought the water to the brim.

“What’ve you been doing all afternoon?” Didier moved his feet to make space for Piet.

“Pleasing a woman.”

“Not Hilde?”

“Of course not.”

“Who then?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Certainly.”

“Well—” And Piet told him a story, truthful in its essential elements, about a respectable married woman in her forties whom he had spent the afternoon, and others before it, pleasuring until she begged him to stop. He told Didier how the lady refused to let him undress or touch himself or speak; how she addressed him peremptorily, as one might a servant; and that this heightened his delight as he subdued her with his lips and tongue and fingers, reduced her to a moaning wreck who could barely stand when he was done. He told Didier that they had met in the Vondelpark, that her husband was often away, and that they had the run of her house when he was. By the time he was finished his cock had thrown off the anesthetic of the Virgil and was pulsing in the water.

So was Didier’s. “D’you think she’d like two?” He smiled his crooked smile and watched Piet closely. When he saw his friend was not shocked, he told a story of his own. “My first year as a page at the Amstel, a guest asked me into his suite. His wife had noticed me. She was younger than him, Austrian, randy as hell. We spent the night gamuching her.” He grinned. “Of course we didn’t touch each other, him and me.” As he spoke, his foot was bobbing lightly against Piet’s thigh; he could feel the hair on Piet’s leg against his toes. “It happened a lot after that.”

Like Piet Barol, Didier Loubat was not telling the strict truth. He had, indeed, been invited to guests’ rooms at the Amstel Hotel; it had happened on many occasions. But in each case the occupants of the rooms had been men — and their wives, if they had them, were not present. Now recklessness gripped him. He pulled the plug and let some water out of the bath, as though preparing to leave it; but when the level was sufficiently low to expose them both, he said, “We can’t go in this state. Blok’ll be up any minute. If he catches us …”

Piet’s erection was almost painful. “Well, what then?”

“I won’t look if you don’t.”

Both their cocks were now standing clear of the water. Didier’s was long and thin, like his body. Piet’s was squatter and fatter, rising from a dense clump of black hair. The memory of Blok’s lascivious stares before dinner remained, and was highly unpleasant.

“All right, then,” said Piet. “Eyes closed.”

They leaned back and closed their eyes and began to rub themselves, making the water churn. At his end of the bath, Piet was loosening Jacobina’s stays, pushing her dress roughly to the floor as she ripped the buttons on his shirt. He was proud of his body and longed to show it to her. He imagined her admiring him, sliding his undershorts down, taking his prick in her mouth. His legs spasmed and a foot jerked against Didier’s buttock. In the instant he touched it, his friend’s smooth skin became Jacobina’s and this sent him hurtling towards the conclusion he sought.

Didier was listening carefully. When he judged that Piet was past caring, he opened his eyes. Piet’s head was thrown back, his neck and shoulders magnificent. His right hand was thrashing in the water. For six hours Piet had been subject to the most demanding temptations, which first Jacobina, and later the obligations of dinner with her daughters, had prevented him from satisfying.

Satisfaction, when it came, was bountiful.

Didier found the sight awe inspiring, and the impossibility of matching such profusion made him self-conscious. He stood up and reached for a towel.