Tuesday 11 August 2009

The Other Betsy Thoughtless, Part 2

Rather than providing a detailed analysis of the other Betsy Thoughtless (concerning which, see my first post here), I have have decided to simply make the text available. I have scanned and corrected the OCR-text from the Grove Press reprint. The text is long (4,235 words), but since it is a pain to keep pdf's available online, I am posting it here anyway.

Betsy Thoughtless.

You fleering harlot, I'll have a horse to leap thee, and thy base issue shall carry thee, and thy base issue shall carry sumpters.—Come, lords, bring her along: we’ll to the prince all, where her hellhood shall wait his censure;—and if he spare thee, she-goat, may he lie with thee again! and beside, mayst thou lay upon him some nasty foul disease, that hate still follows, and his end a dry ditch! Lead, you corrupted whore.
  Cupid's Revenge.
    Beaumont and Fletcher.

  I became acquainted with this lovely girl during my visit to Cheltenham. She is the daughter of a rich commoner in the West of England, and we soon formed an intimacy of the sweetest and most agreeable kind. She was in her eighteenth year, with a form and face seldom equalled: her hair was of a lively brown, her skin perfectly white, and her face full of ardour and beauty. I discovered her secrets very soon after my introduction, by the recital of a warm and very libidinous story, which I read in the French, and which I pretended to have witnessed. This won her confidence, and she confessed that she been seduced by a young gentlemen, a protégé of her father’s.
  I lent the beautiful creature some luscious prints, tastefully executed, and which made her almost mad, as she had never seen anything of the kind before. In return for the these, which I afterwards gave her, she promised me, in writing, and memoir of the circumstances and causes of her seduction, and I cannot do better than give it in her own words:

To Miss WILSON.

My dear friend,

'Tis well that I am alone, for I blush to the ears in making a confession, even to you, of the wanton and naughty scenes which led to the first indulgence of my passions;—passions the most ardent and glowing; but which, I am happy to say, have met with a corresponding feeling in those of my lover;—but to my tale.
  A youth had been brought up by my father from infancy. He was called my brother; and though we frequently remarked the want of likeness between us, and other circumstances, no suspicion that he was not my brother ever entered our minds until a few months since. This youth bore our family name; was called Tom Thoughtless; was educated by my father liberally, and a midshipman’s berth was obtained for him. In progress of time he became a lieutenant, and in that capacity, full of life, full of health and beauty, and at the glowing and impetuous age of nineteen, returned from a long station and came to see us.
  Whether Tom had had any intimation of our non-relationship, I know not, but when he took me in his arms, his embrace was impetuous and boisterous, though tender: he dwelt upon my lips with a fervour, that made me thrill all over. He sucked my lips, he grasped my form to his, sighed, breathed short, and seemed full of emotion. Lord! what a tremor and flutter I was in; so new was the character of this embrace. “Oh, Betsy,” said he, full of agitation, “you are the first I woman I have held in my arms for five years.”—“Am I indeed?” I replied, scarcely knowing what I said. I fluttered dreadfully and felt quite overpowered. So new was all this, and so much awakened my passions. I lay back in his arms: he put my ringlets away from my forehead, and kissed my brow, my eyes, and my mouth. Oh! what unhallowed kisses I then thought them; flames wantoned through me and seemed to centre in one spot;—that spot which we keep so sacred, and which had scarcely been visited by my curious touch. “Oh! Betsy,” said he, “that we were not related. Let me at least for a moment indulge the sweet, the blissful idea. “I knew not what he purposed, but he thrust his tongue between my lips—it was in my teeth—upon my tongue. This motion so strange, so unexpected, almost took away my breath. I tried to speak—to cry out. Alas! I could not, my feelings choked me. His right hand had been round my waist; he dropped it to my posteriors; be felt them three or four times through my dress, then carried me to the side of the room, against which he placed me. His body was now against mine; his knee separated my limbs; he stood between them as far as my garments would allow, and began heaving by short tilts his body against mine.
  I cannot describe what I felt; I thought I should faint through excess of delight. This heaving motion continued; it made me mad; I—I—how shall I confess it?—I followed his example, and met his bobs with eager activity, sighing and crying out all the time, “Oh! Tom, Tom, my dear fellow, what are you doing?” But he evidently knew not; he was completely absorbed, and kept wriggling the middle of his person against mine, and I intuitively followed his example—so seductive is passion. In the midst of this I felt him gradually lifting up my clothes: a cold shudder communicated this to me; the next moment a looking-glass, that stood in a recess opposite to where we stood, revealed to me our shaking clothes and agitated persons. In this I saw that my legs were uncovered and part of my thighs!
  This alarmed me dreadfully, and I immediately seized his hands, full of blushes and confusion, and burning with passion, exclaimed: “Tom, what are you doing? The servants will come in, we shall be discovered.” I slipped from before him, and at the same moment heard my father's voice, giving some directions. He very shortly after entered the apartment.
  I will pass over the emotions this interview occasioned, though I dreamt that Tom was my husband, and was happy in my arms. My waking thoughts were of this dear fellow, and so impassioned were they, that I kicked down the bed-clothes, and pulling up my shift, all the lower beauties of my limbs lay open. I said to myself, "Ah? here is a pair of legs handsome enough, and a couple of round plump thighs; there is a good sprinkling of curl about this mount; but what an unmeaning thing is this slit! Can this be what the men hunt us poor women for? I can easily imagine that man has something divine for us: something delightful to feel, to grasp, to handle, to look at. Oh! that I had it now—that it was just dividing these glowing, but opening lips. Tom, look at me—you want to deflower me—I know you do. Cone then, I am ready to receive you—put it in—there, I feel it (and I pushed in my finger). Now it entered—Oh I how delicious—push, push—Tom, my dear fellow—Oh! I feel it—there, there.” With such expressions as these, and in working my fingers upon that susceptible spot we all possess, I soon dissolved in a flood of lascivious joy.
  I dressed myself with peculiar care, and was complimented by my dear Tom on my good looks and beauty. After breakfast he proposed a walk, and I eagerly put on my bonnet, and taking his arm, proceeded through the park, in which my father's house stands. “We were both in high spirits, and enjoyed each other's society. In passing a cottage, which belonged to the estate, we heard bustle and cries, and through the broken palings discovered the cottager's wife in pursuit of her daughter, a full grown girl. She caught her near where we were peeping, and putting her left foot on a washing tub, which was reversed, she pulled the girl across her knee, and drew" from under her apron a birch rod; in a moment the girl's clothes were all gathered up, and her legs and limbs sprawling in the air. Her person was beautifully formed, and her skin particularly white, and rendered more so by her having on black worsted stockings. Not a moment was lost by the enraged mother, who began to flog away at the girl's posteriors like a fury, the violence of which might be seen by the redness which followed the strokes. The girl twisted and kicked about, but was obstinately silent, and after having received about twenty severe strokes, her petticoats were put down by her mother, who exclaimed, "There, that will teach you to stay on your errands, and then tell lies to excuse it.” She left the girl; but chancing to turn her head before entering the cottage she observed the girl making faces at her. Roused by this, she darted at the girl, who was in a moment on her knee, and her clothes again flung up. The eagerness of the mother made her drop the rod, and we had time to inspect the glowing bottom of the girl, the cheeks of which were red with the recent punishment. The mother, mad with passion, now began to switch away at the thighs and buttocks of the girl; and it was evident that she made more impression, for the girl began to entreat for forgiveness; but the mother was inexorable: she kept rattling away without mercy, and after whipping her, for I am sure full a minute, till her bottom was the colour of crimson, flung her down and quitted her, saying. “You'll make faces at your mother again, you young harlot, I dare say."
  Oh! how this scene affected me; it roused my passions to a pitch of frenzy, and had we at that moment been in a place of greater privacy, and I had been solicited, I should have fallen a victim to the excitement. I walked with my impassioned companion, who, after some artful interrogatives, drew from me an avowal, that I had not only enjoyed the whole of the scene we had witnessed together, but should dearly like to have been the administrator of the punishment if it had been inflicted on a girl so pretty as Sally Meadows. We returned home. My father was out, and Tom asked me to show him my boudoir, which my father had praised for its taste the evening before. Ah! how pleased was I to do anything to give the dear fellow amusement or delight. He praised my taste in the disposition of the furniture and general arrangement; spoke of my drawings, the beautiful shrubs which adorned the large balcony of the only window in the room. “How beautiful,” he exclaimed, “how elegantly planned!, what ample admirable chairs for courting, and what a voluptuous sopha.” He came to me, and kneeling close by me, pressed me in his arms. A voluptuous languor crept over me; he saw it, and drew down my face to his; he rapturously kissed my mouth, and when I least expected it, his impassioned tongue burst between my lips. What an electric thrill did this produce! I was absolutely filled with passion; but think, my dear Miss Wilson, what was my surprise when he produced from under his coat the identical rod with which the cottager's wife had whipped Sally Meadows. The sight of it made me giddy: I knew not what I did: I felt him lay his body across my thighs, his coat-flaps were thrown up, his trousers were entirely down, and nothing covered his naked posteriors but his shirt. His putting the rod into my hand had brought me to my senses. “Oh! Tom,” said I, “it must not be—I dare not proceed—do not ask me.” He canted up his shirt, so as to leave his naked flesh entirely exposed to my view. “My dear Betsy,” said he, “don't baulk your wishes, you said you should have been glad to change places with the flogger this morning—gratify me—indulge yourself—we are alone—treat me as a truant—think me an idle boy that deserves chastisement.”—“Don’t look at me then," I said. He promised: I took the rod and began to exercise it gently on his white buttocks. Oh! the delightful sawing through the air, the whisking sound as it met his flesh, the knowledge that his breeches were down, that the secret staff of life was lying on my limbs—kept from my naked flesh only by my garments. All this conspired to fill me full of the most unchaste wishes.
  “Do I hurt you, my sweet fellow?” said I, in a voice of extreme tenderness. “No, my love; use more strength—strike with more nerve—Ah! there—that's it—that's it, my sweet Betsy.” He now laid more in front of me, and I felt him falling in between my opening knees. As my clothes were down I did not heed this; indeed, my active strokes of the birch had changed the colour of the flesh cushions, and I entered fully into the spirit of the adventure. He kept jolting his person in front of mine, at every motion of the rod, and I, to hold him more secure, had worked myself nearer to him, and close to the edge of the sopha. One of his arms was round my waist, the other grasped me lower down; my clothes, by his working gradually, got higher, which he seemed to be aware of, for his workings increased, and his long strokes pushed them higher at every heave of his body. My strokes upon his bottom continued, and I found myself cutting him without mercy. Oh I what a delirium I was in: he was now entirely between my open thighs—they expanded to admit him—Oh! I shall never forget the moment—new, intoxicating and delirious. Something hard pressed against my thighs, then against my belly: it kept repeatedly bobbing against the most sensitive part of my body. I thought he was debauching me: I seemed to feel that he was really entering my—I had not power to prevent him; indeed, I found that I was spreading myself out, jutting up my body, and doing everything that I thought would facilitate his purpose.
  I lost all sense of shame and of propriety: I urged him not to delay my happiness, that I was ready, and would bear anything for his sake. This I accompanied by an eager imitation of his motions. I met his thrusts: we went on in regular cadence: the rod fell from my nerveless grasp; my arms intuitively embraced his naked back: I cried, sighed, and fell back in a state of insensibility. I recovered: he was just in the act of getting from off my body. I now felt confused indeed, and jumped up and made my escape in the greatest disorder into my bed-room.
  Ignorant as I then was of man, I really believed that my virginity had been taken, and having bolted the door, I sat in a chair facing the looking-glass. I pulled up my clothes, and was surprised to find a very large portion of my shift completely wetted in front. This indeed, had saved me. I looked at the wet-with amazement and exclaimed, “What a quantity—I am quite flooded—what an inundation—Heavens! if this had been deposited within my person!” This thought, which at first alarmed me, inflamed me more on consideration; and amid a thousand extravagancies, I eagerly proceeded to obtain all the gratification within my own reach. When my intoxication had ceased, I found it necessary to change my linen, and I accordingly dressed for dinner, taking as much pains with my person as possible, for which I was again rewarded by the extravagant encomiums of the young sailor. When we were alone, he took occasion to remark that my father had informed him that he wished to have a conference with him before dinner on the morrow, as he had something of importance to communicate.
  The morrow arrived; my dear fellow was at my side, and he again led me blushing and trembling to the boudoir. I had reassured myself into the supposition that he would not proceed to extremities with me, from fear of consequence, our fancied relationship, and from his pausing yesterday on the very threshold of happiness, and this made me bold, though excess of passion kept me weak and trembling. He again produced the rod; I tried to persuade him not to proceed. He heeded me not, but put down his trousers. He [w]as kneeling on the sopha where I was sitting. He brought both my legs upon the sopha, against which proceeding I remonstrated, but could not prevent him. He now drew off his trousers, and kneeling between my legs, leaned forward to kiss me. It was impossible for me not to see his shirt bolstering out in front of him, and my imagination was instantly at work. His soul-thrilling kiss set me in a blaze. He seemed to wish to uncover my neck: the removal of my neckerchief and half-a-dozen buttons undone behind, not only enabled him to lay my bosom entirely bare, but my shoulders also. He made the most wanton observations on their whiteness, size and beauty; called them a most charming pair of pouting bubbies, and said, he had no doubt my hidden beauties were equally voluptuous and desirable; but what could exceed my surprise and admiration, when he pulled up his shirt, and discovered to me that monstrous thing, about which I had so often dreamt and agitated myself, of a thickness and length perfectly frightful, as it stood in all its pride and stiffness. I devoured its shape, head and appendages, as it started in convulsive throbs before me. He then tumbled me backwards—I had not the power to resist him, though I fell that he was lifting up all my garments and exposing my most secret parts. An exclamation of joyful surprise broke from him, as he caught a view of my person. My native modesty had made me close my limbs, which were now perfectly naked, but his hands opened them to their fullest extent, in spite of entreaties. “How can you now, Tom, use me so? It’s quite a shame to expose my person in this way.”—“I must, my dear, dear sister,” said he. “What a bright, transparent skin! What beautiful legs! what round, white, soft, fleshy and voluptuous thighs! what a rough and hairy concern you have got here!”—“Really, Tom, you are too bad; you make my face burn like scarlet,” and I put both my hands over the spot he had named. They were soon, however, pulled off, and I found his fingers busily opening the hot and fiery cell of my virginity. I could not prevent him—I lay fluttering like a wounded partridge—the victim of lust. If I looked up, the truncheon of love was throbbing before me, and rendered me perfectly reckless of any consequences. Enjoyment I wanted; and I facilitated all his endeavours for that purpose, He placed a cushion under me—I was completely exposed to his touch:-he opened the lips of the virgin slit; he touched the sensitive nerve; he laid down upon my body, and dividing the lips of my moss-rose, lodged the head of his capacious instrument between them. I still thought he meant to go no further; he put his arms round me—I clung eagerly to him, and abandoned myself to the transports of the moment. We kissed each other with fervour unceasingly. “Have you ever been enjoyed, my sweet girl?” said he. “Oh! never,” said I. “Why cannot we give each other pleasure?—you are ready for the amorous conflict—I am maddening for it. My instrument is throbbing against your eager avenue. Let me enter, my sweet girl—let me push it in but a short way.”—“Ah, no, no,” I exclaimed, “cannot you be satisfied to do as yesterday?”—“Oh! Betsy,” said he, “can I witness your impassioned look?—Can I look at these throbbing breasts heaving with desire, and not feel emotion?—Can I know that I am now standing stiffly, ready for the encounter, placed at the very entrance of the portal of love, and that portal a virginity?—no, no, impossible. I must—I must, by heavens—must put it in!” A gentle movement of his bottom sent the instrument lip deep; another, and the head was in; a third, I found opening the rose leaves of my pucelage. He was on the high way to happiness; I felt him every instant making more way, penetrating by inches. He hurt me, but I heeded it not—I was maddened, intoxicated, and felt ready for sacrifice. He had placed me so advantageously for his purposes that his most trifling movement told. I felt distinctly the fibres of his instrument as he advanced and drew back. He kept up a short and steady rocking motion, which provoked passion, and made me, in spite of myself, reply to his movements. Oh I with what rapture did I meet his thrusts! How loud were my sighs! how ardent my expressions of delight! “Oh, heavens!” I exclaimed, “what pleasure. This is beyond my hopes—beyond my expectations. Oh! Tom, my dearest Tom, I will ever love you; do you love me, are you gratified?” Kisses long and ardent followed these expressions, whilst the mighty engine kept working its way within me. I felt that the narrow limit was filled: I felt the head of the instrument distinctly: I still kept up, working my loins to meet him, and had flung my head back and shut my eyes, to enjoy the full swing of the imagination. “Are you fainting, my sweet?” said he, “are you dissolving?”—“No, my dear Tom,” I returned, hiding my face in his shoulder, “but I think I soon shall” He began to move faster—I kept pace with him—our movements were violent. I cried, laughed and sighed by turns, as I fell the intoxicating moment coming with furious haste upon me. “Oh!” said he, “my love—Betsy—my queen-sister—love—I am coming—I am coming—Oh! there!” At this instant I found shot into my very vitals that hot liquid, so maddening to the female—so exquisite in its administration; but so fatal in its consequences to the unmarried. I shrieked as the boiling juice was spouted into me: another followed; but before I had received a third, I had lost all remembrance of the scene in an hysterie.
  Upon my recovering, I found myself silting upright in the arms of Tom. My clothes were down certainly, but my bosom was entirely bare, and my hair, having got loose from the comb, hung over my naked shoulders, and I was in dreadful disorder. I threw my arms round the dear fellow’s neck, and sobbed upon his bosom, for my heart was full of the tenderest love for him. I wished him to leave me alone, and he kindly complied, kissing me with a fervour that re-kindled my desires; had he pressed it, I should again have yielded—I feel I could refuse him nothing.
  I went to my bedroom, and there found it would be necessary to change my chemise—lord! lord! how it was marked—the whole story of my virginity might be read upon its tail.
  When I had dressed I went down to dinner, and learned with sorrow that Tom had been sent by my father to a neighbouring town, to bring some papers from his lawyer. This evening I passed in a feverish impatience, for he came not. He returned to breakfast in the morning. We met like lovers after a long separation. During the morning I was in my boudoir, when my father entered, leading in my sweet ravisher. I could perceive from the countenance of each that something of importance had passed between them, and my father undertook to explain the cause to me. “My sweet child,” said he, “you are now come to years of discretion, and I ought to explain a secret which, for motives not now necessary to give you, I have kept from your knowledge. Tom is not my son; but the child of an old college friend, whose finances were exhausted by play. You have hitherto looked upon him as your brother; perhaps, in a year or two you could prevail upon yourself to accept him as a husband, for I mean to share my fortune between you.” I could hear no more—I sunk into the extended arms of Tom, who kissed me again to life. When I came to myself, I turned my eyes on my fascinating seducer. “Did I hear aright? are we, indeed, strangers in blood?” A long kiss that half recovered me was the reply. We reeled to the couch—we both sunk upon it. I drew up my clothes (think how shocking that was!) to be ready. He was in the act of unbuttoning his trousers, when it occurred to me that the door was not fastened, and that papa might return. I told Tom of it; he hastened to bolt it, when he luckily heard some one coming: he gave me the signal; I jumped up, adjusted my clothes, and with a pair of old scissors began to trim the flowers in the balcony. My father entered, and was delighted to see me so completely recovered: the rest of the day he spent with us. what need I say more. My dear Miss Wilson? but during the happy fortnight or his stay, every moment we could pass in secret was devoted to passion. He left me only for a short time; he is to return next month, when I am to be a bride, and Tom is to go to sea no more. Think, my dear friend, how my young heart beats for that moment:—think of my impassioned dreams. I go over repeatedly all we have done together, and feel that I must love this dear fellow for ever.

I remain, my dear friend,
  Yours very faithfully,
    Elizabeth Thoughtless.

March, 1839.

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