Jonathan Richardson

Confessions Of An English Traveler

Prologue

Looking back over my Life-it has not been a long one and I like to think I am still in my prime-I find it hard to say just when the thought of leaving England first arose in my mind. I only know that when I acquired new lodgings for the third time in two years my restlessness had become acute and could not have been cured.

The new lodgings were neither better nor worse than the ones I had occupied for several months previously. But I had grown morose from looking at the same faces and the same rows of brick-walled houses week after week, and moving about had become a necessity for me. If anything had been needed to add fuel to my discontent, the episode which I have just related had supplied it, and only a drastic break with the past remained as a means of improving my lot.

I had very nearly paid for my recklessness with my life and what had I gained from an encounter behind drawn blinds in the small hours that differed from a hundred others I had enjoyed in recent months? What had I gained that I could look back on as different, as wildly exciting?

True, no two women are alike. But when you have explored all of the possibilities resident in the delectable sex in a city such as London, when you have endured needless bickerings and the striking of bargains in disreputable taverns and poverty-blighted streets your thoughts turn to what might be accomplished in a happier climate under brighter skies.

I had spent most of the morning unpacking. There was an eight-foot-high book cabinet which could be swung out from the wall far enough to flood the shelves with sunlight from the window opposite and I could read the title of each book as I set it down.

Most of the books it would have been unwise to place in the hands of the very young. But few men of learning and wide experience would have thought my collection in any way outrageous, for I have a preference for classic volumes which have stood the test of time, and survived the unjustified attacks so often made upon great literature of a bold and candid nature by narrow-minded Servants of the Crown.

As I placed the books, one by one, on the cabinet's two upper shelves I paused to admire the fine gold-and-leather binding of JUSTINE, and found myself idly flipping a dozen or more pages I had memorized almost line for line.

What a hypocrite De Sade had been, pretending to be morally outraged by practices in which he had himself so frequently indulged that his last years had been spent on a mat of straw in a stone-walled asylum, for offenses which Napoleon had refused to condone, despite the presentation copy which the author had made bold to send him. Yet what a superb intellect the man had possessed, how marvellously he had illuminated the darkest recesses of the human mind!

I had closed JUSTINE with a snap and was chuckling, for the hundredth time, over a passage in Petronius, in which two dissolute wights, fleeing for their lives, take refuge in Roman Bath, and observe there a man whose organ was so huge that his body seemed like a tiny, dangling appendage attached to it-I was chuckling, as I say, over what is perhaps the most amusing passage in the whole of Roman literature when I heard a gentle tapping at the door.

It wasn't the first time that my new landlady had announced her presence in that way. But it was barely eight o'clock and the thought crossed my mind that only a matter of some importance would have brought her to my door at so early an hour.

I walked to the door and opened it and she slipped quickly into the room.

“This letter just came,” she said, extending an envelope bearing a small black postal stamp in its upper right hand corner, and looking at me almost guiltily, as if half-suspecting that I would be somewhat puzzled by her promptness in delivering a letter that might not be of the least importance.

Bless the hearts of all new landladies, and bless them again for the curious interest which they display toward every newcomer to the field of combat most dear to their hearts. They take it for granted that no man-be he young or old, or hobbling about on crutches-will find himself incapable of a truly prodigious performance when the shades are drawn and he is given a proper degree of encouragement.

I, for one, have never needed encouragement in that respect. But if women were not so amiably disposed for the most part when a newcomer arrives on the field of battle even the boldest of us might experience qualms and hesitate to exhibit a corresponding degree of audacity.

It is so false, so completely contrary to what I have myself observed all of my life to believe that women must invariably be coaxed and flattered and pursued with tireless persistence to yield to a man intent on seduction! No more than a knowing and ardent glance is needed to break down all of their defenses. Whatever remains after that is pretense solely, and one can shatter pretense as though it were a feather. And if there are a few women who are capable of remaining icily contemptuous and unyielding, one can be sure they are not women a man of parts would choose as a partner in bed-chamber delights.

“I was expecting this letter,” I said, to put her at her ease. “It was kind of you to bring it to me the instant it arrived.”

For a moment she just stood looking at me, as if she did not quite know what to say in reply. She could not have been more than twenty-five and was quite possibly three or four years younger. She had beautiful hair, a dark, silky brown and it descended to her shoulders. But what I liked most about her were her sturdy legs, ample bosom and fresh complexion, which gave her the look of a country girl, wholesome and unspoiled.

Her bodice was loosened and her chemise was parted just above the twin mounds of her breasts. But though I could not see more than the upper part of their swelling curvature I was almost sure that the nipples would be rosy-pink and would stiffen the instant I touched them.

The first move is always crucial, for there are women who prefer a quick thrust bosomward by an impetuously exploring hand, and others the tit-illation of a hand somewhat more audacious moving quickly upwards from knee to thigh to the enchanted circle itself.

The elaborate and voluptuous variations which follow success may take many forms. But that does not diminish the importance of the first bold move in paving the way for a complete conquest.

I decided to be less bold than I might have been if I had been entirely sure that she had tapped on my door with only one thought in mind-to find out if the new lodger was amorously inclined. Perhaps she had delivered the letter solely out of kindness, and I was not so base as to repay an act of kindness with lovemaking, inflamed by bawdy thoughts, that might come as a rude shock to her.

If I had put my hand immediately beneath her clothes and refused to remove it a struggle might have ensued. But at least-if I had proceeded thus quickly to intimacies which would have resolved all doubt-I would have known where I stood and the chances were high that I would have been conducted, by moans of pleasure and many grateful sighs, into a garden of delight, ringed around with the loveliest of flowering plants.

Still-I decided for once to shun all rudeness and a too abrupt attempt to find out if her inclinations were as I had pictured them, if only because she had looked at me so trustingly when I had taken the letter from her hand.

“Won't you sit down for a moment?” I said, drawing a chair toward her, and removing from it three books which I found myself wishing she could have read.

“It seems a pity,” I went on earnestly, “that so much work should be required of you when an older woman, with her youth already spent, would not find housekeeping tasks half as burdensome. Such tasks make the young and gay of heart feel that they are being cheated of happiness, and rightly so. Could not your father afford to employ a housekeeper, to assist you at least? With five lodgers-”

She sat down and shook her head, a look of sadness coming into her eyes.

“My father is quite poor,” she said. “Did you not know that? It is true we own this house. But it is heavily mortgaged and he has been out of work for several months.”

I drew close to her and let my hand rest lightly on her shoulder, feeling that the time for boldness had come.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I thought that your father was a man of considerable wealth.”

She looked at me quickly, then dropped her eyes and for a moment we were both silent. Then a blush crept over her face, startling me.

I thought at first that it was just my sudden closeness that brought a flush to her cheeks, the unexpected touch of my hand. Then I realized that my engine had begun to stiffen and I could not control its rising-a rising she could hardly have failed to notice.

A wave of mad desire swept over me and my hand left her shoulder and went exploring beneath her chemise, cupping her right breast very firmly for an instant and then quickly releasing it.

To my astonishment she said not a word, but sat perfectly still, as if she had anticipated the swift descent of my hand and neither resented nor took pleasure in it.

Having gone so far I saw no reason to desist and lowering my head began passionately to kiss her neck and shoulders, while my hand descended for the second time, and took firm hold of her breast. This time I squeezed it, and ran my forefinger back and forth across her nipple to see if it had hardened. Seemingly it had, but only slightly, and the stiffening could have been caused by nothing more than the friction of my digital massage.

It was strange and disappointing, for all this time she had said not a word. Had I started in the wrong way and could it be that she resented the fact that I had not immediately raised her dress and exposed more fully the beautifully shaped limbs whose country girl sturdiness I had so much admired? Had she been secretly hoping that I would explore their whiteness as well, and that my hand would travel swiftly up her thighs until it came to rest on a moist and hairy mound? Had she been anticipating just such a caress?

She still had said not a word, and my libidinous-ness had now become so fierce that I could no longer continue with the fondling of her breasts and the mere planting of kisses on her shoulders as I sought to arouse in her a responsiveness that she seemed totally to lack.

“You are very beautiful, my dear,” I whispered and would have waited a few seconds longer if she had not remained as stonily impassive as a mannequin beneath the administrations of a dressmaker whose only concern is the proper fitting of clothes on a form that is the opposite of alive.

She spoke then, for the first time. “What you are doing is silly,” she said. “If you must have me, the sofa is the best place for it.”

Amazed and no longer able to contain myself-my instrument was as stiff as a board-I turned her around and rained kisses all over her face and throat. Then I took her by the arm, guided her to the sofa and pushed her back upon it.

When I started to raise her dress she gripped my wrist tightly and I thought for a moment she was intent on forcing me to desist before my hand traveled to her cleft or I straightway mounted her. But no-her intention was quite otherwise. She guided my hand upwards until my fingers became entwined in Venushair, and assisted me as well by pulling up her dress until none of her charms remained hidden, from her ankles to her opened thighs.

What happened then was accomplished more quickly than I could have wished, but I was beside myself with desire for her and could no longer exercise restraint.

I mounted her without first exploring the circle of delight and we were so quickly entwined that when the violence of our movements increased we reached a climax simultaneously and she relaxed with a long-drawn sigh.

She did not move again until I arose without looking at her-just why I could not have said-and walked across the room to the washstand to apply lavage to my now limp member. I heard her stirring on the sofa, but did not turn until she said: “I must go now. Father will be wondering why I have remained so long in your room when I came only to deliver a letter.”

She was sitting up when I swung about to face her, her clothes completely rearranged and a look,in her eyes that astonished me. I can only describe it as coldly calculating.

Before I could reply she went on quickly: “I have not attempted to hide anything from you. My father, as I have said, is desperately poor and the rent which he receives from the rooms he has been forced to let out barely pays for what is taken from us in taxes. Do you think-I know that you are a gentlemen of modest means-that two crowns would be too much to ask for the pleasure I have just afforded you?”

I saw then that she was holding out her hand- actually extending it toward me-as if in anticipation of a bounty she seemed convinced would be forthcoming.

Cursing myself for a fool, and making no attempt to hide the rage that had come upon me, I unlocked my writing desk, removed the two crowns from an upper drawer, and placed them on her palm, closing her fingers tightly over them.

“Here, my girl,” I said. “I am far from convinced that your father would go to the poorhouse if your lodgers were less generous. But I have never failed to pay a debt of this nature, for I am a man of conscience, and you did indeed render me some pleasure.”

I expected that she would leap up, and depart in sullen anger, for what I had said was more than insulting. But to my great surprise she merely smiled amiably, arose and walked out of the room without a backward glance, closing the door firmly behind her.

For five full minutes I paced the floor, with steadily mounting bitterness. I had made the mistake of thinking that, however amorously inclined she may have been, there was no trace of whorish-ness in her nature and her initial silence and blushing response to my restrained attempts at seduction had strengthened my belief in her innocence. The wanton way she had behaved on the sofa had not dispelled that belief, for I had assumed that she had been carried away by the passion my less restrained love-making had aroused in her and had pursued her pleasure, as I had mine, with no thought of commercial gain.

It was another reason, surely, for wishing to put London forever behind me-for three or four years, at the very least. I had had my fill of London women, successful as most of my conquests had been. All too often when you thought them generous to a fault, responsive to your every whim, tender and yielding, they turned out to be either whores at heart, or capable of limitless cruelty. Even whores can bestow upon a man an infinite variety of pleasures and for their many kindnesses I was profoundly grateful. I would have that clearly understood. I adore all women and would rather die in the embrace of a strumpet with no kindness in her nature than live in a world without women.

But must London forever keep a man from traveling a wider road to paradise, must the whims of English women alone concern him night and day, and inflict, for all the rapture that they bestow, a corresponding degree of torment?

I have often thought that the fog which has enshrouded London so many months in every year of which we have knowledge-was there ever a time when London was bathed in continuous sunlight? — has laid a curse upon all lovemaking, making it secretive and much too furtive, despite everything that has been written and said to the contrary.

The wide world beckoned, where kisses were more freely bestowed than anywhere in Europe and a man was not required to walk a tightrope between desire and satiety.

I thought of the women who live in cages in the larger cities of the South American continent and paint their faces blue, red and yellow. How strange and fascinating it must be to stop before such a cage on a street of prostitutes and look into the amorous eyes of women so exotic in aspect? Why should rouge alone be used by English women who pursue the same profession in a less inventive way?

Variety and change-what was to prevent me from taking full advantage of my modest but by no means niggardly income to enlarge my knowledge of how the most ancient of games is played, where all of our English rules are laughed to scorn?

And why should they not be laughed to scorn, when it is only when one ceases to kneel in fear before the pleasure-destroying scepter of a knavish fool in a land where Fog is King that one is free to be driven wild by the many delights of the dark and rejoice in the strength and persistence of that most untiring instrument of pleasure that has been given many names, but none that I like better than the Jolly Playfellow. In England it is often the opposite of jolly when it is inserted in a wench who lives in fear and trembling, dreading every knock on the door and as often as not holding out her hand for a crown or a farthing when the play is ended, precisely as my late visitor had done.

Pay and be gone is as often the rule as the exception, and nothing can make a fine upstanding member shrink more quickly and refuse to rise again than the impatience or scorn of a cruelly calculating woman, submitting with feigned pleasure to embraces she would prefer to have quickly ended.

I suddenly remembered the letter I had taken from the greedy-fingered hand of my early morning visitor, before closing that same hand over the two silver coins which were the price of her hire, and crossed the room to the desktop on which it was lying.

I picked it up and tore it open, after first noting that it was postmarked five weeks previously. How long, I wondered, does a letter customarily take to cross the Atlantic in a fast clipper ship? Surely I should have known, and yet I did not, despite the many times I had stood on a London dock waving goodbye to friends bound for America, and how often my eyes had strayed over the arrival and departure listings of just such ships in London newspapers.

It proved that I was not quite the man of the world I prided myself on being, for to possess knowledge of such matters is taken as an indication that one is accustomed to traveling widely, by both land and sea, and in drawing room conversation nothing more immediately stamps a man as wise in the ways of the world than to have such information at his fingertips.

The letter was briefer than I had thought it might be. But it left me in no doubt as to the cordiality of the welcome I would receive if I joined an old and trusted friend in the West Indies, in a business venture we had discussed at some length before his departure from England.

To many Englishmen the West Indies conjure up a vision of lepers and cathedral bells, and gaunt, famine-starved men and women, pitifully in need of the many “blessings of civilization” which Europeans take for granted, although I have seen just as much wretched poverty in the streets of London.

To me those sun-bright islands conjured up a quite different vision. It was of large-breasted women, gaily attired and balancing market baskets on their heads and fording many a stream with their skirts raised above their knees, even pausing to remove all of their clothes in the noonday heat to bathe completely naked and let male passersby contemplate the joy of having them until their loins ached and their members grew as rigid as battering rams.

As I stood reading my friend's letter for the third time I could picture myself already on shipboard, as I knew I soon should be, with the salt sea air in my nostrils, and with the unmourned London skyline dissolving in the fog.

The following curious document was found attached to the original manuscript of Jonathan Richardson's diary.

Episode One

I shall try to write in bold, short sentences. Many of my contemporaries write in long, involved-and to me, rather boring-sentences. I shall try to avoid this practice.

I shall begin with me unlacing my breeches, preparatory to mounting the comely wench who lay on my bed, skirts raised and with dawn just breaking outside the window to give sufficient light to enable me to see the most delectable part of her.

Then it was that I remembered the book.

What book? my reader will ask, so I shall endeavor to explain fully.

The book contained confessions. My uncle had given it to me a few days before when he'd departed on his third trip to the West Indies. I was to deliver it to a certain Thomas Matthews, Esquire, whose address my uncle had laboriously transcribed for me.

I had read two chapters of these confessions this morning early and the result was that here I was in this wench's chamber, ridding myself of my breeches, my eyes loving her blonde thatch of hair nestled and enticing me from beneath her luscious creamwhite thighs.

Poor Uncle, I thought. If only he knew what a bad example he has set for me. Had I not read the first two chapters of those bawdy confessions I'd not be here in this place so early in the morning, but those chapters excited me outrageously.

Had it not been for the confessions I would have waited at least until noon, Uncle.

“What do you smile about, my love?”

The words came from the red lips of my little friend who lay waiting my manhood, her blonde forest of pubic hair glowing like sunburst between her widely spread legs.

I looked down. My tool stood erect, ready for female entrance-a vibrant, husky machine of a young, healthy Englishman, a loyal subject of the Crown.

“Why do you stare at my precious commodity, my dear?” I asked. “Surely you have seen a man's rigidity before?”

She laughed in her throaty, prostitute voice. “Ah, I have seen far, far too many, perhaps?” Her blue eyes glowed with mirth and desire. “Some, though have been so flabby, so wrinkled-well, one would hardly think of them as tools, m'lord.”

“Would you label mine flabby and wrinkled?” I challenged.

She leaned from bed. I felt her sweet hot lips brush the tip of my bayonet. A fleeting, loving gesture-warm, clasping lips, a hand lightly brushing my left buttock before falling and she lying there, eyes loving my burgeoning erection.

“Ah, sometimes I think I have seen too many,” she murmured in repetition. “Yours is so smooth, so polished and-oh, quite, quite large. When you chisel with it do the splinters fly?”

I laughed softly. “Well spoken, wench. Life is full of surprises. I would wager that you could match wits with a Lady in Waiting to Her Majesty, what?”

“If I were such a Lady the good Queen would empty a full chamber pot over my errant head,” my lovely companion said, laughing. She then began to squirm on the bed, a look of savage impatience coming into her eyes as she held out her soft arms to me.

“I am only a toy of pleasure, m'lord. But, when your staff goes into me, its delectable penetration will make me forget I am of the other side, will it not?”