Chico Williams

The Ups and Downs of Life

CHAPTER 1

Showing how I commenced my career in the Court of Venus

The son of a gentleman of moderate fortune, whom I lost when quite a child, I was designed from the first for the army. Having, at the age of sixteen, been presented with a cadetship, so soon as my outfit was completed, I started by the mail for Portsmouth, on a cold night in February 1834.

Arrived at Portsmouth, I put up at the Fountain Inn, the George being full, and the next day called at the latter hotel to pay my respects and present a letter of introduction to Major S-, who, with his three nieces and daughter, was there staying.

I found the old major discussing a bottle of port, in spite of his gout, and he gave me hearty reception. He was a specimen of the old school of company's officers, of which few now remain. Bluff, hearty and hospitable, he was a man of some sixty years of age, who had seen some hard service in his youth. But poverty, that bane of human life, forbade his enjoying his otium cum dignitate. In fact, he was again returning to India in search of his colonelcy, which promotion yet tarried.

'Well, youngster,' said he, 'so you're going to try your fortune in India, eh? you won't find the Pagodas grow on the trees now, my lad, the golden fruit has been plucked long ago; but you seem a likely young chap, so I drink to your success, here's to you, my boy,' and he swallowed a bumper, pushing the bottle at the same time to me. I tippled and talked, for I was not troubled with mauvaise honte even at sixteen, and at eight o'clock I rose to take leave. 'Well, my lad, good-night,' said the old major, 'and harkee, the skipper tells me that we are likely to be detained here for a week or two by this cursed south-west gale, so you had better come and take up your quarters with me at Southsea, where I have taken lodgings — 22 Portsea Terrace — come tomorrow and I'll introduce you to my nieces!' At the words nieces I pricked up my ears, and promising to come, I took leave and returned to the Fountain. I went into the coffee-room and, in the grand way known only to griffins, called loudly for a pint of wine and some filberts. The boxes were all occupied, and as I sought for a table, a fine, handsome fellow who was languidly drinking a bottle of claret, accosted me. 'Here's room, take a seat here, glad of your company.' I bowed carelessly, for I had been so used to meet good society at my uncle's, that I had none of the schoolboy shyness which is usual with beardless boys of sixteen. I did not notice it then, but I have since thought my quondam acquaintance must have been immensely amused with me.

When the waiter brought my 'stingy port', he passed his claret to me, saying, 'Don't drink that stuff, try this, 'tis real Chateau Margaux, by God, try it.'

I sipped a glass and made a wry face, 'Thank you,' said I, 'I'd rather stick to my stingo.' He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing, so I went on with my port. My new friend then informed me that he belonged to the British Legion, under Sir De Lacy Evans, and was pledged to the cause of Don Pedro, and was, like me, waiting for a fair wind to sail to Portugal. Of course, I reciprocated his confidence by telling him that I was going to India as a cadet.

As soon as we had both finished our wine, he pulled out a cigar-case and lit a real Havannah, a rarity in those non-smoking days, then he offered me his case. I was wonderfully fascinated with this man — his handsome person, black moustache turned up a la Carolus 1st, and dashing air quite captivated me.

'What are you going to do tonight?' said he.

'Damme!' said I, hazarding my first oath, 'I'm game for anything.'

'Suppose we go to the theatre?' said he.

'With all my heart,' said I.

So to the theatre we went. On the way he told me his various adventures with the girls at Portsmouth and cautioned me against them. But on coming out of the theatre we were surrounded by a bevy of blooming loves (at least if their cheeks were not blooming, the paint was), and my guardian friend was quickly carried off. As for me, I remained like a lamb doomed to the slaughter; a bold devil about five-and-twenty had seized me and was about to make me her prey, when she was swooped down upon by a pretty little creature of fifteen, who in peremptory language desired her to loose her hold. What influence the young girl had upon the older one I don't know, but she obeyed without a word, and the other taking my arm led me away.

'You are a little cadet,' she said, 'I know, and a very pretty boy you are, and shall come and sleep with me!' I turned my eyes on my captor, she was very pretty and I yielded at discretion.

She led me through a number of horrid dark streets and at length stopped before a grim-looking door. Three peculiar raps procured instant admission. Following my conductor, I stumbled up the worm-eaten stairs; she drew a key from her pocket and opened a door. I was almost blinded by the blaze of light that met my eyes. A sumptuous room containing every elegancy of life was before me; upon a console table was set out a cold collation. Champagne stood in ice. Two little girls, naked as the day they were born, came forward to do the honours. The room was as hot as July, owing to the two tremendous fires that blazed in the apartments.

'You haven't a five-pound note about you, my dear boy?' said the siren.

'I have two,' said I, innocently enough.

'Oh! you little darling!' said the pretty creature and my purse was emptied in an instant.

'Come along, darling!' said the girl, 'have some supper.'

In those halcyon days my appetite was good, my stomach was iron, my head was brass, I ate, I drank, God! how I quaffed the champagne.

'Well, I'm damned!' said Polly (for that was her name), 'by God, you're a little trump,' and she flung herself on a sofa and tossed up her clothes. I sprang towards her. 'Oh, you dear little boy,' said she, 'let me look at the pretty little cock; is it a virgin?' and she took it in her mouth. I was in raptures and seized on her beauteous cunt. I kissed her breasts, I mounted her and crack went my frenum in an instant. Oh, ye who have not wasted your early vigour in riotous frigging, tell me, was ever in your after days any joy like that first delicious fuck? Talk of heaven! talk of the bliss 'which it hath not entered the heart of man to conceive'!

Oh, the world are all thinking about it,

And as for myself I can swear,

If I fancied that heaven were without it,

I'd scarce feel a wish to go there!

Heaven can't be finer, and so I found it. I fucked Polly four times, the little girls twice a-piece, I drank two bottles of champagne and returned to my hotel at five in the morning, with my prick as raw as a carrot 'tis true, but sober as a parson. At ten o'clock I had breakfasted and was on my way to Portsea Terrace, fresh and lively as a lark. Oh, those youthful days! those dear, darling, youthful days!

had I three hundred thousand a year, I would gladly give a moiety of my income for their return.

Ave! Polly! dear destroyer of my virginity! where art thou now? Alas, alas! poxed! used up!

dead, perhaps; or, sad alternative! perhaps, grown old, stale and shrivelled, you sell oranges at the corners of streets, or sweep a dirty crossing. Telle est la vie! — such is life!

I never saw her again, for at Portsea Terrace I found I had 'other fish to fry' — now isn't that vulgar? What an expression amidst such Aphrodisiac rhapsodies. All right, old fellow, but you know

'there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous'.

Arrived at Portsea Terrace, I was at once introduced to the nieces of Major — They were three in number: Henrietta, a fine girl of two-and-twenty, with dark brown eyes and skin of pure white and red; Lucy, aged eighteen, a sparkling brunette with a lovely figure and almond-shaped eyes; and Fanny, also a dark beauty of fourteen, but so developed, she looked five-and-twenty at least. As for the good major's wife, she was old and fat and his daughter plain and scraggy. But there were two other young ladies going out to Madras under his care, who I suppose would have been considered fine women, the Misses N-l, but they did not particularly take my fancy.

A pretty, rosy, laughing little chambermaid showed me my room when it was time to go to bed and, simpering as she set down the candle, said, 'Do not be alarmed if you hear a noise in the night, sir. Captain Fraser, of the Azincour, occupies the next room with his wife and he comes in late sometimes and a little the worse for liquor.'

I glanced at the folding-doors against which the head of my bed stood and naively remarked,

'Well, if I hear them quarrel, I shall also hear them make love!'

'Oh, fie!' said the girl, with an arch look.

'Heigh, ho!' said I, 'I wish I had a bedfellow too, it is so cold!'

'Do you really though, dear?' said the pretty creature, looking, as I thought, rather lovingly at me.

'Indeed, I do and I could not wish for a prettier one than you!'

'Oh you saucy little man!' cried the girl, giving me a playful slap on the face which did not hurt the least. 'Why you are a mere boy.'

'Come and sleep with me,' said I, 'and I will show you I can act like a man.'

I slipped five shillings into her hand and gave her a kiss.

'But,' said she, hesitatingly, 'if my missus should find it out — if you were to get me with child?'

'Oh! no fear of that, my pet, I'm too young for that, but I think you could please me and I'm sure I could please you.'

'Well, look here, dear,' said the girl, 'my missus will go to bed in about an hour and then I will come.'

I hugged her in my arms and, as an earnest of what I was to have, she let me feel her little cunny, on which a few hairs were beginning to sprout.

What a long hour of expectation it was and how I tossed and tumbled in the bed, but at length the happy moment arrived. I heard the door open softly and Mary appeared in her shift, shading the light with her hand. She was going to put it out, but I stopped her, bade her lock the door and come at once to bed. She obeyed with the greatest docility. Then I had her shift up in an instant and covered every part of her white body with kisses. The next moment I was between her thighs and slipped into her spending cunny without any difficulty. How I buried my face between those breasts of snow! how I slapped those thighs! What a frantic fuck it was. When it was over I whispered, 'Ah, then, this is not your first time?'

'Nor your's, dear boy!' she replied, hugging me.

'Nor mine,' I ejaculated, returning the embrace.

'Why, how old are you?' said Mary.

'Sixteen last month,' I replied. And you?'

'Well, I'm not sixteen yet, but shall be in March.'

'The devil!' I exclaimed, 'and how many men have you had?'

'Let me see,' said Mary, thinking, 'well, about fifteen, I fancy.'

'Oh, then, you know all about it?'

'Pretty well,' said she.

By this I was ready again and was going to work en regle, but she stopped me. 'I'll show you another way for a change, which a ship's captain, who was lodging here, taught me, and I think you will like it,' and kneeling upon all fours, she told me to kneel behind her. Now it had never before occurred to me that there could be anything attractive in the hinder beauties of a woman; I had been accustomed to look in front.

But, oh ye gods and little fishes! what a new and enchanting delight thrilled through all my veins as those bulging hips, those dimpled white hemispheres arose on my view. I stooped down and imprinted a loving kiss on each lovely globe, and then grasping her ivory thighs, I drove into her mossy grotto, wondering in my mind why nature had placed it so near another and not so savoury aperture! I moved with frenzy, she toyed with the balls of love! Was ever young mortal so blessed?

Happy, thrice happy, golden days of fiery youth. Our climax came! I took no heed of it. Without a descent, I commenced again and at length fell fainting on her alabaster back. Then rolling over on the bed with Mary clasped to my breast, my lips glued to hers, her tongue in my mouth, I fell into a delicious slumber. How long we lay sleeping I know not, but I was awakened by a gruff voice in the next room, which seemed to be craving some favour which his female companion appeared not inclined to grant.

'What does the fellow want to do, Mary?' I whispered.

'Hush!' said she, stopping my mouth with a kiss. 'Listen and you will hear. He's a damned old beast and behaves shamefully to his poor little wife.'

'Mrs Fraser?' said I, interrogatively.

'Yes,' she whispered, 'she is only eighteen, beautiful as an angel and so sweet tempered, yet I believe he has not yet taken her virginity, and they have been married a month, and he is forty at least.'

'You surprise me,' said I, 'for what did he marry her then?'

'Oh! you will hear presently if you'll only listen instead of talking so, naughty boy!'

I was silent.

Captain Fraser: 'Come, my darling, do kneel up, there's a dear, I want to see your peach-like bottom.'

Mrs Fraser: 'Oh, pray don't, Harry, it is so big! and you do hurt that poor little place so! do put it in the other, that is meant for it, I'm sure! pray do!'

Captain Fraser: 'Nonsense, my dear, I prefer the smaller hole, now don't be foolish; kneel up!'

Mrs Fraser: 'Oh, Harry, pray don't. I'm quite sore with what you did last night; pray do go to sleep if you can't do it in the right place!'

Captain Fraser: 'God damn your eyes! if you don't kneel up at once, I'll pinch you black and blue, and I'll beat you.'

Mrs Fraser, crying: 'Ah! Harry, you are a cruel man; it was not for this that I married you.'

Captain Fraser: 'Will you kneel up?'

A rustling of bedclothes and a shaking of the bedstead proclaimed that the poor little wife had complied.

'Let us look at them,' whispered Mary, drawing me out of bed; she pulled a knot out of the folding-doors, and we had a full view of the next apartment. Kneeling up on her hands and knees was one of the most beautiful young women I had ever beheld. She was entirely naked; behind her knelt a great, ugly brute of a man, whose bleared eyes showed him half drunk, and whose thick grizzled black whiskers and scowling brows formed a strange contrast to the angelic creature prostrate before him. 'Beauty and the beast!' I whispered to Mary, but she put her hand before my mouth.

Mrs Fraser: 'Oh, God! oh! oh! Harry, you hurt me cruel!'

Captain Fraser: 'Therein lies my pleasure, my pretty boy! oh! your bottom is just like the lovely boy's. Ah! now I see my cock entering your anus! It is distended to the utmost; now I am in! further! oh, bliss!'

Mrs Fraser: 'Oh! my God, what torment. Oh! cru-el ma-n, stop, ah! oh! you will destroy me; oh!' and she sank on the bed and sobbed as if her heart would break.

'Damn it,' I cried, 'I can't stand this, that old scoundrel ought to be taken out and shot!'

Mary stood looking at me petrified with terror, for I had uttered this aloud, then flying to the door she made her escape.

The captain drew out in an instant and looked towards the folding doors like a man bereft of his senses, his face pale as death, his lips twitching with nervous anxiety. He had heard my exclamation. I watched him as he dressed himself quickly and taking no notice of his young wife, who lay moaning on the bed, put on his hat and fled.

I heard him go down the stairs, I heard him unbar the front door, I heard him bang it after him and I had no more doubt in my mind that he had gone at once on board his ship, and that before day dawned he would be beating down channel in the Azincour, spite of the sou'wester in his teeth, than if I had followed in his wake and seen him. But convinced though I was that such would be the case, I was sufficiently prudent to go downstairs and bar and bolt the front door in case my gentleman should have a latchkey and return. This done, I went upstairs, but instead of returning to my own room, went boldly into his.

Mrs Fraser started up at my entrance, supposing it had been her lord — but seeing nothing but a rosy little boy she said, gently enough — 'My dear, you have mistaken your room, Captain Fraser, my husband, and I sleep here.'

I advanced, and sitting down on her bed, thus addressed her: 'My dear, Mrs Fraser, I am quite aware that this is not my room. I occupy the next apartment, and in occupying it both heard and saw all that passed between you and that miscreant your husband. 'Twas I who made the exclamation which caused him to flee this house, and he is now, I have no doubt, making the best of his way on board his ship, and will be beating down channel in a few hours, spite of the gale. But suppose he should not sail, should return, he cannot get in here tonight; the people of the house are gone to bed, and I have bolted and barred the front door.'

Poor Mrs Fraser sat up in the bed and regarded me attentively, 'To look at you, one would think you a child,' she said, 'but you talk like a man!'

'I am so much a man, my dear Mrs Fraser, that I would have poignarded that scoundrel just now, had I been near him; but as I cannot wound his body, I am here to wound his honour, if indeed he has any to lose. Take me in your arms, dearest girl, and I will soon show you what he ought to have done, and what blisses you have lost by marrying such as him.'

I sprang into the bed and clasped her in my arms; she leant her head on my shoulder and sobbed. At that moment, if the redoubtable Captain Fraser had appeared armed to the teeth, I believe I could have given him battle and conquered. God! how I loved, how I pitied that woman — 'I hope,' I said, 'he has not done you any "irretrievable injury".'

'He ruptured me the first night,' she sobbed out, 'and since then I have endured nothing but torment. Ah! how I loved him, and what a fond wife I could have been!'

'You break my heart,' said I. 'I was going to make the offer of my person to you, but by God, you disarm me, I am wretched.'