The Autobiography of a Flea, Book 3

CHAPTER EIGHT

I do not know what prayers Father Lawrence must have addressed to Aeolus, the mythological god of the winds, but by late afternoon the sun broke through the dull gray sky and the howling of the winds abated. I had to rely for news of this seeming miracle on Father Lawrence himself, for after he had initiated the sisters Denise and Louisette into a starting familiarity with the most virile part of his person, he had them take a nap in their newly acquired room while he flung himself in an armchair and bade his ward close her eyes and fortify herself in the arms of Morpheus so that she would have strength for the nocturnal journey on the good ship which was to take them back to England. After that nap, which must have consumed all of an hour or more, he wakened and strode to the window and then cried out in his vigorously resonant voice, “My daughter, my daughter, open your eyes and gaze upon the fair sight of the sun, for it will be your last day in your native land!”

Drowsily, Marisia wakened and came to join him beside the window. I heard the sound of a tender kiss, rather more chaste than was Father Lawrence's wont. Besides, from his genial tone, I gathered that he was on the verge of sermonizing his charming raven-haired ward on the inevitable good fortune that would await her now that she was under his protection, though I did not think he would be braggart enough to claim it was he who had stopped the winds and brought forth the sun from behind the angry, dark clouds.

“It is customary for us priests to use the term 'my daughter' when we are in converse with a female of any age from nine to ninety-nine,” he explained. “Yet with you, my little Marisia, I feel a greater intimacy, as if truly you were my own flesh and blood and thus my daughter. So, when you are in the Seminary of St. Thaddeus, you will have to answer to other priests whose authoritative powers take priority over mine, being the newest comer there. Yet before you enter those walls, my dear child, I wish you to promise me – and I hope that you sincerely feel this kinship between us – that when I say to you 'my daughter' you will always know that it has a secret meaning and a benediction which is of my personal good will and not simply out of amenity.”

“Oui, mon Pere,” Marisia sighed, “I do feel very much that way, for I have no one else to look after me, and yet it is not exactly like a daughter that I feel towards you, mon Pere.”

“Shhh,” cautioned the good English ecclesiastic. “Remember, we have a pact between us so that once you are in the seminary you will not breathe a word to the other priests of what tender joys you and I have shared. It could be, so to speak, a kind of family secret between us. And even when you find that you must turn your devotions to others, who will doubtless try to urge or even browbeat you into compliance, think tenderly of me. If the need arises, close your eyes and remember the idyllic passages we have shared, which cannot be taken away from us even with the passage of the years.”

He spoke mournfully enough, verily, to compose a sonnet on his sorrow at aging. But I did not think that he would have to worry for a good many years yet over his loss of liaison between himself and the fair sex.

“Are you going to help Denise and Louisette find their brother, truly, mon Pere?”

“Why, as to that, my cherished daughter, I mean to put the matter before my brothers of the cloth once we have arrived at St. Thaddeus. You see, a seminary which is endowed by the charitable contributions of many wealthy parishioners – who, it may be added, are the more generous precisely because they are the more sinful, wishing to buy their dispensation in advance to save them from the flames of Hell when their time is come – has no end of monetary riches which can be put to costly endeavors. By this I mean, dear Marisia, that if my brothers at St. Thaddeus are impressed by the virtue and beauty of Denise and Louisette, they may, in their own charitable disposition, divert some of those funds to send a messenger or courier to the powerful Bey of Algiers and even buy this worthy youth Jean back. I cannot tell in advance if they will do this, but I promise them, as I promise you, that I will do all in my power to aid your new friends so that your little family may be reunited once again. We will say a prayer together for this worthy cause. Kneel down beside me at this window and stare out into the sky, where the fair sun once more parades upon the heavens. Does this not augur well for our journey by ship this eventide?”

“Oh yes, Father.”

“Then let us pray that you and I will always be as close as we are now, to share delights and joys, to confide in me your sorrows and dreams – especially the latter, for a maiden's dreams are the stuff which women are made by – and I will interpret for you, just as Joseph interpreted the dreams of Potiphar and then of Pharoah in those ancient days of Egypt.”

I heard a rustling of garments and a little sigh. Marisia was doubtless, the little baggage, snuggling closer to her guardian by way of promising him that tender nearness which he had asked of her. I admired his zeal, but I also admired his forbearance. He had been with her alone so many untold hours that he could have taken her maidenhead a thousand and one times ere now; yet, apart from some delightful digital dalliance, he had not really taxed her virgin estate. Did he actually mean to bring her to that seminary where fornication was the watchword if not the password, without once attempting to match his stalwart staff against the tender barrier of that membrane which mortals call the maidenhead? And since I knew him to be a man of parts and a man of hot-blooded intensity as well, under that cassock of his, (and still more out of it) I found it highly amusing to conjecture exactly how he proposed to save that jewel for his own taking once he and Marisia had crossed the threshold of St. Thaddeus. From my recollections of my sojourn (which, dear reader, you may enjoy for yourself by reading the first volume of my memoirs), I could name at least four sturdy, portly priests who would fall upon Marisia as if she were a side of fresh mutton to be devoured during a time of famine. How then, for all his vigor and casuistry, could he out-talk or out-maneuver those ravenous colleagues and be first between the shapely nubile thighs of gentle Marisia?

He was mulling over that problem, though I could not know it at the time. But after this communal prayer, he rose and bade Marisia attend to her attire, saying that he would have supper sent up to the three girls and that then they must be ready to go down to the wharf to board the ship, for he was now certain that they were upon the last stage of their long journey.

As he put on his cassock, I was rudely jounced from one end of the locket to the other, thus interrupting my own meditations. I could not understand why, with the good Father's natural curiosity, he had not deemed it advisable to pry open this locket and see what token Laurette had given her charming young cousin by her old husband's adoption. I crouched, ready to spring, waiting for that moment when the catch should be turned and the top of the locket fly open so that I might fly out. But he did not so much as delve his hand into the pocket of the black robe which announced his piety. Instead, he went down the stairs to give orders to the landlord to have a tray of viands and a pitcher of milk sent up to the two rooms, sufficient to nourish three growing young maidens. As it chanced, he met the fair Georgette, who informed him that her father, too, was taking a nap and that she would therefore take charge of fulfilling his wishes.

“Why, my daughter, you have already filled them more than I could ask,” he insinuated with a genial chuckle. “But tonight is the last time that you will see me on these shores, for with the calming of the Channel, our ship must sail upon the eventide. I shall miss you, dear Georgette, and I shall say a prayer for you when I repeat my orisons two days hence in the holy seminary of St. Thaddeus.”

“But I thought, mon Pere,” Georgette curiously observed, “that you are un Anglais. And yet the name St. Thaddeus suggests rather the name of a Pole. How did that come about, mon Pere?”

“Now that you mention it, my clever beauty,” he said thoughtfully, “I confess that I am somewhat perplexed that the Seminary was not named after a good English saint. Ah, I have it! You say that this St. Thaddeus is a Pole. Well, by my troth, each of my colleagues with whom I am shortly to be joined, so I am reliably informed, must be in truth the descendant of a Pole of good measure and good valor, since he possesses a fearsome pole between his thighs, a staff fortified with vigor enough to terrify Lucifer if it were struck upon the doors of Hell!”

This allegorical allusion left Georgette still perplexed, for she only giggled and did not pursue the topic. Or perhaps, in a different sense, she did, since I heard her voice much nearer to Father Lawrence, as if she were up against him, with a sweet and mournful expression saying: “But does this mean that I am not to see you again, mon Pere?”

“In your dreams, or in your thoughts, or, if it is so willed, my daughter, then in the flesh should I be assigned to these French shores by my superiors,” was his response.

“Oh, I would rather see you in the flesh, then, a hundred times over, mon Pere,” she murmured coquettishly. “For when you are across the Channel with all those Poles, you will not think of me at all.”

“Why, my daughter, that is not true in the least. Indeed, the more I am forced to think of my pole, the more often both it and I will remember the charming hospitality you accorded both of us so recently. And I think that there is still a little time before I must depart from this cordial inn, which I would use in the sweet employment of saying au revoir to you, dear Georgette.”

“Why, whatever do you mean, mon Pere?” she tittered.

“I mean that I will explain to you the riddle of the Pole as against a pole, so that the two are often one, but the one is not necessarily the other, depending on geography as well as birth.”

“I am only a poor honest girl who aids her ailing father to run this meager little inn, mon Pere. But I would gladly listen to you without heeding the time if it were not that I should fear a drubbing for neglecting my tasks. And you do not wish your three young wards to go unfed?”

“Not at all, my daughter, but there is ample time. And if they fast for a quarter of an hour or more past their usual suppertime, it will teach them fortitude and patience, both goodly qualities to be reckoned with in the hereafter when they are come to final judgment. As for myself, I should like nothing better than to be able to chose a bottle of wine with which to toast the health of both you and your father. Could we not descend again to this estimable wine cellar of yours, my dear Georgette?”

Oh, now I saw the scheming logic of this sly, English ecclesiastic! His play on words had so bemused me that I had not quite ascertained his purpose in remarking it to this simple wench. But it was plain now: the 'pole' to which he referred was nothing more nor less than his prick. I should not really say nothing less, for it was surely substantially more than most men are given to boast of between aspiring female thighs!

Simple tavern wench or not, Georgette perceived his drift at once, once he had mentioned the wine cellar. With a little trill of laughter, he gave him a resounding kiss, melting into his arms as a pound of butter would melt upon a high plateau under the scorching sun of the Sahara. I heard the most effusive sighs and gasps, and the rustling of garments and the little moans and finally the sucking sounds of lips put together in exquisite conjunction. And when the Father spoke at last, it was in a tone that trembled and was edged with huskiness, which I ascribed to the most tender of all emotions that can be shared between male and female, even if they be sanctimonious ecclesiastic and humble peasant wench.

“Oh, quickly, man Pere,” Georgette gasped, and her voice also shared this same eloquent tremolo of excitement which I had just heard from her vigorous male partner, “I am sure that I can find one of Papa's finest bottles of Anjou or Chablis for so important an occasion! But we cannot tarry very long, mon Pere, because my father will be down certainly before another half hour has made the sun sink closer to its bed in the western sky.”

It was amusing to me, as well as a source of grudging admiration, that whenever any susceptible female came into Father Lawrence's presence, he infallibly was afflicted with the most romantic and poetic diction. Now whether she partook of it by osmosis or by inspiration of his presence and person or by humility which sought for self-improvement to be worthy of so articulate and artful a male, I cannot really tell. But from what I know of Father Lawrence's endeavors to sow the seed wherever it would find good planting, I am rather more inclined toward the process of osmosis: that osmosis which involves the soft receptive cunt of the female and its inordinate capacity for accepting the offertory of spunk of which substance Father Lawrence seemed to be blessed in super-abundant quantity.

“I must sample the Anjou,” he decided after another series of sucking kisses and cooing sighs proffered by his fair accomplice. “But do you know that, after having serenely taken my ease in that little village of Provence, I have the bucolic yearning to tap the good wine out of a barrel rather than to take it from a bottle, for bottle-feeding is more fitting for babes. And the only thing I have to do with babes, apart from baptizing them, is in the conception of them which, I need not tell you, my daughter, is forbidden by Mother Church in my estate.”

“Oh, I will eagerly tap your barrel for you, mon Pere,” Georgette passionately vouchsafed. And I knew precisely what barrel she referred to and what sweet instrument would be the tapper. It was fitted most deliriously between her satiny thighs, but I did not think that within so short a time as half an hour it could tap the full barrel of Father Lawrence's spunk.

At last they broke asunder, and Georgette led the way to the little staircase that led down to the dark wine cellar. She told him that she would take a candle with her to lighten their way; and then the naughty baggage preferred a remark which certainly showed that she had been remiss in making her usual confessions at whatever church she attended in Calais.

For with a soft slurred giggle, as they went down the stairs, she remarked, “I will save this candle, mon Pere, and after you have left us, I will retain it as a remembrance of your presence. Mayhap, many a night from now when I toss and turn in my lonely bed, I will take it and pretend that it is you visiting me where I wish best to entertain you.”

Was there ever so bold and candid a hussy as Georgette? Comparing her with gentle Laurette and sweet Marisia, I could but pronounce that, as has often been held by theologians, there is more bawdy virtuosity in the cities than in the village hamlets. And doubtless this is true because simply there are more wanton females in the former than in the latter by dint of population. However, knowing the alert capacity for wisdom which sweet Marisia had already shown, even in Languecuisse, I should not be surprised if by the time she had sojourned in wicked and sprawling London for a while, she could put even Georgette to shame when it came for sweet shamelessness!

Father Lawrence did not remark to this naughty observation till they had reached the wine cellar and Georgette had set the candle down in a little cup. But then he murmured, “It grieves me, my daughter, that you would let an inanimate object simulate that noblest of human structures given to man for his joy to make up for the loss he suffered he was driven out of Eden. So, before we tap this wine, my daughter, let me show you how wrong you are in seeking such a substitution.”

Whereupon once again I was rudely flung from side to side and up and down till I was most indignant. He had doffed his cassock with an unimpaired vigor, as if he had not already lost a good deal of spunk from the fingerings of the two sisters and of his own tender young ward Marisia. I could only conclude that he had a truly inexhaustible supply.

A moment later, when I heard a gasp from Georgette, I was certain that he was exhibiting to her the difference between a pole and a candle, and I was indisputably right. With a swelling ardor to his mellow and resonant voice, he bade her consider the difference: “Behold, my daughter, here is your candle, placed beside my pole. Is there aught by which you could actually consider the two the same save perhaps in the length? But even admitting the equal length of this candle which has lighted our way to this dark cellar, do you not see that my own pole is greater in breadth? Also observe the head of the two objects side by side. That of my pole is shaped like a plum and set off from the stick which bears it forward, whereas this candle is all of the same contour. The candle has a wick which must be lighted. You will need to strike tinder or take it near a fire to illumine it so that in turn it may guide the way. But my pole has an eternal wick, so long as I am alive and lusty, my daughter, and this I will demonstrate with perspicacity to you upon this instant. Do you but truss up your kirtle and lower your drawers.”

“Oh, oui, oui, mon Pere!” Georgette gasped with a feverish excitement. Once again I heard the rustling of garments. And when I heard Father Lawrence's gasp, I knew mat she had just exhibited her silky-downed wine-tapper.

“There, do you see, my daughter? My wick is already lit at the sight of your soft pussy. It fairly burns to guide itself forward between those soft seductive lips shrouded by the silky hairs which modestly shield your tenderest of niches. I need no tinder nor flame to ignite my wick, Georgette; and see how huge and thick my wickbearer is when it beholds your sweet candle-snuffer. Yet here again the analogy fails, for even though once you may snuff me out by receiving the outpouring of my spunk, nature strengthens me so that soon again my wick is lit and ready for more guidance. Let me illustrate this, my daughter.”

“Oh, oui, oui, oui… ooohhh – aaahhh, mon Pere, mon Pere!! C'est merveilleux!” Georgette squealed.

“And finally, to deny this analogy altogether,” he continued a great deal more forcefully, “when this candle by which you would simulate my pole should approach so soft and silky-furred a candle-snuffer as is yours, it would burn it piteously. Whereas my pole does not burn at the wick, yet it burns indefatigably all down its length when it is nestled entirely within your sweet candle-snuffer – thus!”

I heard him grunt as he doubtless shoved his pole forward into Georgette's candle-snuffer, for the baggage moaned and groaned and hugged him and then showered him with a thousand little sucking kisses to express her ecstasy.

“How your bottom squirms and jiggles, my daughter,” he gasped, still more hoarsely than before, “my hands can scarcely steady it; it is like the rudder of a ship tossed hither and yon upon angry waters, hurling itself this way and that! But I will bring it balance and equilibrium, my daughter! Do you hold tight onto me while my pole guides you through these turbulent seas to find at last the appeasement for which you burn and for which equally I burn to bestow upon you!”

And then, dear reader, there followed a chorus of groans and gasps, and huggings and kissings, of sighs and murmurs, until finally I heard Georgette wail out, “Oh, yes, it is so much better than any candle! It is bigger and thicker and hotter by far than any candle! Oh, hurry, hurry, make me burn all inside of my little con!”

“I will, I will! Have patience, my daughter!” he gasped. “My pole a candle? There, take this, and this again!” At each 'this' he must have given a lunge of his formidable pole, for Georgette squealed as if she were being drawn and quartered. But it was not a squeal of pain but rather one of indescribable carnal bliss.

And then there came his long-drawn groan as his wick was dampened by that rapacious and insatiable candle-snuffer which Georgette housed between her plump straining thighs.

They sighed together like a pair of turtle doves as at last he must have drawn himself out, well tapped for the nonce. And then after a lengthy pause, he said, in a wan voice which suggested that he had bestowed perhaps more spunk upon her pussy than he had intended to, “If you must keep that candle as memento, Georgette, do you at least take a pairing knife and whittle it in some reasonable semblance of my pole. Yet you would do well to begin with a thicker candle, my daughter, for even though at this moment my own pole is vastly diminished down to the leanness of the taper which brought us to this lair of Bacchus, remember that unlike the candle, it can swell and aggrandize itself to mighty measurements. And now, a last kiss, my daughter, and then let us drink this good Anjou together to each other's health and fortune and to a safe voyage across the Channel for my pole.”

A languid sigh and a murmured, “Oui, oui, mon Pere!” from Georgette told me in conclusion that she had at last grasped Father Lawrence's little play on words. For she had assuredly been thoroughly poled, and by now she needs must know the pole was by far superior to any candle.