Venus in India

‘Know it! of course he does! It’s her way of paying him off for his brutal conduct to her, to drive him nuts by writing and telling him how nicely she is dragging his name through the mud.’

‘Then why does he not divorce her?’ I cried indignantly, for I felt that it was monstrous for a wife, no matter what her grievance might be, to behave in such an outrageous manner.

‘Ah! — but sink your voice a little lower, Devereaux, not that all this is not perfectly well known by our fellows, but about the divorce. Well, you see, if what I have heard is true, a divorce is the last thing Searle can get, or would care to ask for, no matter how much he might wish it could be managed.

‘Certain little things would come out at the trial, and he might find himself not only minus a wife whom he hates, but also minus his liberty and what remains of his honour, and I don’t think anyone would care to become a convict, even to rid himself of his wife!’

‘What little things?’ asked I, quite bitten with curiosity.

‘Oh! Searle was a long time in Persia before he married, and he got the Persian taste for boys! Sodomy, you know!’ And the modest major sank his voice to a whisper. ‘Sodomy! he tried to get Mrs Searle to acquire a taste for it herself, but she, like a proper woman, indignantly refused to comply. It might have stopped there, but one night Searle, full of zeal and brandy, actually ravished his poor wife’s — hem — hem — hem, well! — bum! and from that day she hated him — quite naturally, I think! Then, of course, she gave him the nag, nag, rough side of her tongue, until he nearly killed her, as I told you, in his passion. Then she went and set up at Ramsket.’

‘But,’ said I, horrified to hear such a disgusting story, so loathsome on either side, ‘how is it she can demand such enormous sums for what I expect equally good returns can be got almost anywhere in India!’

‘Oh! but you don’t know. First of all, Mrs Searle is in society — she is, I suppose, the most beautiful woman in India, if not in all Asia!’

‘In society!’

‘Yes! bless you! you don’t understand. Now come! You, who have seen the world at home! Have you not heard how Mrs So and So is suspected of poking, and yet you have met her every night at the best houses? Have you not seen common or fast women, who dare to do what your own wife or sister dare not, and nobody says more than that they are fast? Do you suppose you know what women actually do poke, and those who only get the credit for it? It is just the same with Mrs Searle. She lives in a pretty little bungalow, some three miles deep in the hills of Ramsket; she calls it Honeysuckle Lodge, but the funny fellows call it Cunnie Fuckle Lodge. Ha! ha! ha! and she has named the hill it is on Mount Venus; she stays there all the hot weather; in the cold weather she goes to Lucknow or Mteerut or Agra or Benares or wherever she likes. No fellow has her without an introduction. The Viceroy is damned spoony on her, and that is sufficient to keep the fashionable people quiet. People suspect, people know, but people pretend to think it impossible that the quiet lady, living in a little bungalow, away from all the world, minding her garden and her flowers, is anything but a poor, persecuted wife whose husband is a brute!’

‘Oh! that is it! So to have her you must get an introduction?’

‘Yes! Without that you might as well cry for the moon!’

‘And how is it to be managed?’ I asked out of simple curiosity, for I had no notion of having Mrs Searle, but I was interested in this curious story of which I did not know how much to believe or how much to discredit.

‘Ha! ha! ha! Devereaux! I fancy you are beginning to think whether you can find five hundred rupees for yourself, eh?’

‘Not a bit!’ said I indignantly, ‘I have no idea of such a thing, but simply asked out of curiosity!’

‘Well!’ said the pudgy little major, puffing his cheroot hard as it had nearly gone out, ‘no harm to tell you, anyhow! You can get an introduction from any man who has had her! I could give you one for instance. See! This is how I had her. I had heard of Mrs Searle and had, like everybody else, heard funny reports about her, which, like I see you do now, I only half believed. Well! I did not then know she lived at Ramsket, but chance made me pitch upon that place to spend three weeks’ leave in during the hot weather of ′75. The Viceroy and his staff were spending the time there also, and everybody was wondering why he chose Ramsket instead of Naini Tal. There is reason in everything and Mrs Searle was his reason, no doubt. However, without being too long winded, I met Lord Henry Broadford, the Assistant Military Secretary, you know. Broadford was at school with me, and is a damned good fellow. One day, soon after I went to Ramsket, I was standing talking to Broadford, when the finest, handsomest woman I had ever seen walked by, and Broadford took off his hat and smiled, and she bowed. She looked full at me as I took off my hat and, by George, sir! she made my heart thump in my bosom, she was so lovely. When she was out of earshot I said, “Harry, who is your friend? By God, she is a clinker and no mistake!”

‘ “Don’t you know,” says he, “why that is the famous Mrs Searle.”

‘ “Is it,” says I. Then I asked him if he knew whether it was true she poked, as people said.

‘Broadford looked at me and grinned and said: “Would you like to know for certain, Stone?”

‘And I said, “Yes.”

‘ “Well,” says he, “the most certain way is to poke her yourself, for you might not believe me if I told you that I was in bed with her up to five o’clock this morning!”

‘ “I don’t believe you, you beggar!” said I, “you are laughing at me.”

‘ “All right!” says he, “have you five hundred rupees to lose on a bet?”

‘ “Well!” I hesitated; five hundred is a large sum and the subject was not worth it.

‘Seeing me hesitate, he said, “Well, would you give five hundred rupees to have Mrs Searle yourself, Jack?”

‘ “Yes,” said I, plump as could be.

‘ “Then come along with me,” said Broadford.

‘Well, we went to my hotel, and there Broadford made me write a cheque, and get five one-hundred-rupee notes from the native banker, new and crisp, in exchange. Then he made me write a letter addressed to Mrs Searle, in which I asked her might I come and take dinner with her on such and such a day? naming the day. I was more than half afraid the fellow was humbugging me, but he pulled out a case from his pocket, and showed me a lovely photo in it of a stark-naked lady, cunt and all complete, and, says he, “Mrs Searle gives one of these to each of her lovers, and she gave me this this morning; see, her name, date and the number of times I had her last night!” Well, I looked at the photo, and sure enough there was no mistaking it was the lady I had just seen, besides which I remembered having seen photos of her taken in the plains.

‘By God! sir! the sight of such lovely charms settled my hash. I told Broadford that he would have to bear the brunt if anything went wrong. He swore all would be right, and after I had signed my name to the note to Mrs Searle, he added his initials and “WTBF?”

‘ “What does that mean?” I asked.

‘ “ ‘Will there be fuck?’ of course!” Well, this done, I put the five good crisp notes in the letter, and we went to the post office, registered it, and then I began to think I had been made a fool of. But it was all right. The day afterwards I got a registered letter. It was from Mrs Searle. In it were my five notes. She said she was very sorry but that she did not think she could have the pleasure of my company at dinner for another ten days, would I write again in about a week’s time, if that would suit me, and she would be sure not to disappoint me. I rushed off, found Broadford, and nearly had a fit of apoplexy from excitement. By his advice I waited some eight days, then sent another letter, and again enclosed the notes, and I added after my own signature, WTBF? Next came a letter by hand. It said, “My dear Jack,” this time. It invited me to dine the next evening at eight and ended with “Matilda Searle. TWBF.”’

‘And did you go?’

‘Oh! What a question! Of course I did. By God, sir! I was simply bursting. Even now I can hardly tell my story with any degree of quiet! Well, I went; I was received by her in an awfully pretty little drawing room, most beautifully furnished and bristling with knick-knacks, mirrors, pictures and everything that can make a room handsome and elegant. The floor was covered with carpet into which one’s feet sank as one walked on it. Mrs Searle was sitting reading when I arrived, and as soon as the bearer had gone out of the room she came and took my hand, shook it, and then kissed me! I was so excited; I felt such a sense of false shame, that at first I was like a stuck pig! But she quickly put me at my ease, sat on the sofa, made me sit next to her, jammed her knee against mine and, whilst asking me where, how and when I had known Lord Henry Broadford, showed off her splendid shoulders and magnificent bosom. I had been awfully randy on my way there, I had been randy all the days I had been waiting for her, but I was so knocked over by the elegance I saw on my first arrival that I declare, if the truth were told, I felt inclined to run away. But little by little, as I got to see the woman I was going to have, as I began to hear her talk as if we were quite old chums, and at her touch — the contact of her hand on mine, to say nothing of the kisses which from time to time she gave me — I began to pluck up courage. So by way of showing her I was no fool but expected something, I offered to put my hand on her bosom, and take hold of one of her glorious bubbies, of which I saw nearly half over her dress. But she laughed and said it was not time for that yet, that when we had dined, and I had had my smoke, we would go to bed, where I should find her all I could wish for, and where I should have the fullest liberty, so long as I did not exceed the bounds which every honest man observed who had a woman. Well! I kissed her and begged her pardon. I had a rosebud in my buttonhole, and she took it out and said, “See, I place your rose where you shall be!” and she put it between her bubbies and said, “there it is, a rose among the lilies, but that is all of you I can allow at present to be there.” Well, sir! we had a splendid dinner. In spite of my impatience I did justice to a rattling good feed, and afterwards she made me smoke a cigar, and when it was nearly done she said she would go and undress, and that when I heard a little bell ring, I was to go to her bedroom which she had already pointed out to me. Soon I heard the bell and I went. Oh! I was delighted! By God, sir! I have had many fine women, but I never saw one who was a patch on Mrs Searle when undressed. She had on a quite transparent kind of nightgown, which covered her from neck to heels. It had no sleeves, and her arms were something splendid. Her bubbies looked more enticing covered with this transparent stuff, than when I saw them bare. Her nipples looked like strawberries, red and luscious. I would have been able to see her cunt, but all the whole of the way, from her chin to her feet, there was a broad rose-coloured ribbon, which fell exactly over it, so that I could only see the fringe of hair on either side where it passed over her bush. I declare, Devereaux, I cannot describe the night I had with her, for it would drive you wild and you would be trying to slip into that woman at the dak bungalow, and it would never do, you being, as you say, a married man, but I never — never — never had such a glorious fucking in my life. It is true I was five years younger than I am now, and as I keep a pretty little piece of brown meat, and have my regular greens twice a week, I might not be able to do as good a turn now, as I did then, but I had that woman eight solid times, sir, seven times before I went to sleep, and once in the morning. She said herself that she did not expect it of me at first sight, as she said I was too fat, and fat men were bad pokes as a rule. When I went away after breakfast she gave me a case like the one Broadford had shown me, and told me not to open it until I got home, and she told me she relied on me not to show it to anyone, unless I thought them a fit fellow for her to have. I’ll show it to you now! Ha! Bearer! Kitmutgar! koi, hai!’ and the excited major shouted to the servants, one of whom came. By his orders the major’s bearer brought a little writing dispatch-box, and from this he took a small case, some six inches by four in size, and then, giving me a nudge, he walked to the anteroom of the mess, which was deserted, and showed me a very well-executed photo of a perfectly naked woman. On the back of the photo was written: From M. Searle to Jack Stone — 15 June 1875 — 8.

‘Now!’ said the major, ‘any time you would like to have that woman, you drop me a line and I will give you the necessary introduction.’

I thanked him heartily, but I must say I did not feel tempted to give five hundred rupees for the favours of any woman, just then, and mentally I made comparisons between my Lizzie and Mrs Searle which were not favourable to the latter, though, according to the photo, she was certainly a fine woman.

Then, after smoking another cigar, and drinking a couple more pegs and talking Mrs Searle and fuck generally, I left to go home, and I looked forward to returning to Lizzie and getting rid of some of the hot blood which was running in a desperately excited manner through my throbbing veins, for the little major’s conversation had been the reverse of cooling.

It was very nearly midnight when I reached the bungalow and there was not a light in the place. The stars had shown in the road fairly well, but the verandah and rooms, on my side at least, were pitch dark. I imagined that Lizzie must have grown tired of waiting up for me and taken the opportunity of getting a good sleep before I came home, since it was highly likely that, after a good mess dinner and quantities of generous wine, I would be rather lively and keen and put her into that condition too.

Full of this idea, and determined if possible to give her a surprise sweet-awakening by getting into her whilst she slept, I stole on tiptoe towards my room, to undress there and then join her in her ‘naked bed’. But as I crossed the verandah something white gleamed on one side and, on looking, I saw it was Lizzie, sitting in my easy chair, apparently, from her position, asleep. I stole up behind her and bending over her I kissed her soft cheek, at the same time stealing my hand into her glorious bosom, and caressing her warm, swelling, elastic bubbies, which always gave me such delight to feel. Oh! What nice things good bubbies are to feel!

‘Ah! is that you, Charlie, dear! I must have been half asleep,’ she said.

‘Yes! darling!’ I said softly, still pressing the delightful globes in my hand, one after the other, and kissing the sweet mouth turned up towards me.

Lizzie seemed to enjoy my caresses, for she merely returned my kisses and patted my face lightly with her hand. I found that although she was still dressed, her clothes were loose on her, and that I could pass my hand between the band and her waist, and her beautiful skin felt so soft, so satiny, so smooth, it delighted me as though I had never felt it before. From her bosom I descended until I reached the pretty plain of her lovely belly and here I let my roving hand wander from side to side as it gradually crept lower and lower until it reached the upper fringe of the glorious bush which so splendidly adorned her domelike motte, and then I threaded my way through this pathless forest until I reached the spot where the infold formed the precious and voluptuous deep line of her delicious cunt. I passed my middle finger in the groove, just tipping the awakened and slippery little clitoris, until I reached the entrance to the rich depths I sought for.

Lizzie said nothing; my left hand, which was over the bosom, felt the breast rise a little more tumultuously, and my arm bore a slightly increased strain as she leaned her head back upon it, but that was all. It was so dreamy, so exquisite, that I stood in that position, caressing the warm moist cunt, kissing the cherry lips with little caresses of mine, as if I were a dove billing its mate.

Suddenly a change seemed to come over me. I was no longer in India; it was no longer Lizzie whose charms I was master of, but my own beloved little beautiful wife. I remembered how, on the third night of our blissful and heavenly honeymoon, she had preceded me to bed; how it was the month of July, and the night was warm and balmy, the scent of the blossoming lime trees filling the air with its sweet aroma. I had given my Louie ten minutes to undress and perform those necessary little acts to make her comfortable for the night, which no young married woman likes to do in the presence of her husband, and then I had gone up to follow her into the bed, my beautiful heaven, in which I expected to find her, a luscious feast for my still ardent and excited and quite uncloyed desire. But when I went to the room she was still dressed. She was seated at the open window, reclining back into her chair. There were no candles. The stars were shining brightly but softly; the heavy masses of foliage on the trees loomed dark against the skies, and there was silence outside, except the occasional rustling of the leaves as the amorous zephyrs kissed the heads of the trees they loved, and the poetry of the moment filled me with a degree of tenderness and love I had not experienced in a similar manner since Louie and I had been made one at God’s holy altar. Like Lizzie, she had only half turned to accept my kisses, with a little question as to whether it was me — as though it could be anyone else! — as I had glided my happy hand into her so lately virgin bosom, and caressed the swelling globes which it had so delighted me on my wedding night to find did exist in truth and reality, beautiful, round, firm, polished, elastic and rose-crowned; for Louie had been so jealous of those exquisite beauties, that even when I had seen her dressed for the evening, in her low-necked gown, not one line of the lovely hemispheres did she show, and I had to imagine beauties to exist where my fancy painted them; and I had prayed I might find she really had sweet bubbies; for alas! how often is man deceived in his expectations as to the physique of his beloved bride. Neither of us spoke; we were too happy; and over her beautiful bosom my wanton hand had descended, until, finding her waistband loosened, it had explored the sweet pastures of silvery belly and crossed the rough surface of the mount of Venus; as my finger pressed in Cupid’s furrow, the lovely little clitoris, ever on the watch, had sprung up to salute it with a moist and eager kiss; a thrill, which I could feel, passed over my Louie’s form, and as she felt the strong middle finger bury itself in the hot depths of her velvety cunt, she had pressed my face to her burning cheeks, and murmured, ‘My man! Oh! my beloved man!’

Full of overflowing sentiment, which this entrancing quiet and this voluptuous scene of love and passion had inspired me with, I quite forgot where I was, and whom I was caressing. I kissed Lizzie rapturously and I murmured in a voice which must have quivered with deep emotion, ‘Oh! my darling! my own, own, darling.’

Lizzie started. She disengaged my hands and, standing up, she exclaimed in a voice which sounded strange to me, so different was it from her ordinary tone, ‘Charlie! Charlie! Don’t speak to me like that! Don’t! there’s a good fellow!’

‘Oh! Lizzie! what have I done?’ I said in alarm.

‘Oh! you must not speak to me like that! You know you don’t love me, Charlie dear. You don’t love me like you do your wife, and if you did it would only make me unhappy. Oh! Charlie! the one thing which would take away the only pleasure I have in life, would be to know that some man really and truly loved me. I could not leave my husband and live with him, and I must have a man as often as I can. You don’t understand. When a woman has led the life I have she can’t steady down unless some illness puts an end to all feeling of desire in her. She must go on as she is till death, or at least till decay of all her bodily powers. Confess now, it was not Lizzie Wilson you were speaking to but your wife!’

‘Well, Lizzie, dearest!’ I said, quite thunderstruck with her vehemence and her outcry against love, ‘I won’t tell you a lie. I did for the moment forget where I was. It was this way — but sit down darling — and I will tell you truly.’ She did so, and still standing over her, and again possessing myself of the sweet charms between her thighs, to which she admitted me full rights as a true friend but not as an earnest and passionate lover, I told her about the scene of which I have given my readers a faint notion, as regards the delicious commingling of the adoration of the heart and the worship of the senses.

When I had finished Lizzie heaved a prodigious sigh and said: ‘Charlie! Take my advice and don’t be too long sending home for that true wife of yours! She will keep you from harm out here, and it is not right, it would be a cruel shame to condemn her to pass the life of a nun whilst you are amusing yourself in India, fucking to your heart’s content women who do not deserve such delight. For, mark my words, you are not the kind of man to go without women, nor will you find a station where there are not women, pretty and fine, who will not leave you alone — they will be as eager to have you as you will be to have them. Yes! believe me, if ever a man was formed to strike a woman’s fancy it is you. Send for your wife, for otherwise some mischief will be brewed, and you may be made to repent that you left her at home.’

These words, spoken with great earnestness, struck me very forcibly. It seemed also so like Satan rebuking sin that I could hardly help feeling amused. After a pause of a second or two, during which I gently stroked the sweet cunt under my hand, I said: ‘All right, Lizzie! I believe you are quite right! I will send for my wife as soon as you advise, but come in, there’s a darling, and let us enjoy the fleeting hour. It seems like ages since I last had my prick in this sweetest, softest, juiciest little cunt of yours!’

To this she replied, ‘Searle has been here tonight.’

My goodness! All my blood ran cold. I felt now as if my Louie, in answer to my prayer to come to bed, so that I might enjoy her loveliness, told me, ‘Too late, my dear, So and So has just been fucking me and I’m not inclined for any more!’

‘Searle!’ I exclaimed, snatching my hand away from under her clothes. ‘Searle! Oh! Lizzie! and did you let him have you?’

‘I did not say that he had me, Charlie, so you need not get into a fit of jealousy, you silly boy! No! If there is one man in the world to whom I would forever say no, it is Searle; but he was here all the same.’

I breathed. Somehow Lizzie had grown dear to me, she had been so nice, such a splendid fuck, and so tender towards me in spite of her disclaimer of love.

‘What did he want, Lizzie?’

‘What you say you do now, Charlie! But oh! we had such a row! I declare it has given me quite a headache! Oh! Searle! you … cursed beast!’

‘And what did he do or say Lizzie! Tell me!’

‘Well, you had hardly got across the road before Searle, who had apparently been watching for you to go, sneaked on to the verandah around the corner, and asked if I had got his note. Now I had received a note from him which I had kept to myself, and which I had not shown you, dear, for I did not want to make you jealous; a fine production it is, too, and a very useful one for me, I can tell you. I think he must have been either drunk or mad when he wrote it, for he could not have written a more damning piece of evidence against himself if he had tried to do it in his sober senses. Oh! Mrs Searle would give a cartful of her rupees to have it, for she could then get the divorce she longs for. Plenty of good fellows are ready to marry her if she could get divorced, and I know she has often said she would be glad to give up her present life; but Searle knows this, and his only revenge against her is to behave so prudently as not to give her any chance. If ever he has a woman it is so on the sly that no one knows it. Well, he has written down in black and white that he has had me — and since Mrs Searle left him, too. Let’s light a candle and I’ll show you the letter!’