My Dearest Elizabeth,
I have indeed landed on my own dark continent, though I think you would find it uncommon hot and bright. Your fantasies of my landing at Durban “best limb forward” generated a chorus of guffaws at the Regatta Club, though I did not disclose your name. I have no doubt that you would enjoy a measure of notoriety among the lads, but I am reluctant to show all my cards so soon upon disembarking, and you, dear, are my ace of spades.
You have forgotten, perhaps, that my fame in this port is only for being the heir to the dreary Greenacre Trade Co. My reputation for debauchery I credit you with, since I was for all who knew me a wide-eyed innocent when first you marked me. And such I shall let my reputation stand here, for you know that the prettiest daughters are hidden away from reckless dandies, and flaunted nearly into the laps of seeming respectable gentlemen of a certain station. And you also know what adventures I can bestow upon any pretty daughter that finds her way into my lap.
Why must you torment me with memories of my long and almost fruitless voyage? I kept nearly as chaste as a Franciscan, though not for lack of …show more content…
I waited for her to bid her brother a good-night, then listened for her breathing, and I had guessed true—her head was just next to my talking holes. She sang a whispered song to calm herself for sleeping. I spoke halt and confusing first, to create a fiction that I spoke in my sleep. I praised her cheeks and her ankles and the dimples on the backs of her fingers. I wondered in my sleep-talking what her lips would taste like, how the young bloom of her breasts would crush under the attentions of my hands. Her singing stopped, and I could hear her breath catch, and hold. “I wonder if she knows the ecstasy of wandering hands?” I said, plain this time. I heard her turn away then, and I ceased my speaking until the next evening for fear of her raising an
I have indeed landed on my own dark continent, though I think you would find it uncommon hot and bright. Your fantasies of my landing at Durban “best limb forward” generated a chorus of guffaws at the Regatta Club, though I did not disclose your name. I have no doubt that you would enjoy a measure of notoriety among the lads, but I am reluctant to show all my cards so soon upon disembarking, and you, dear, are my ace of spades.
You have forgotten, perhaps, that my fame in this port is only for being the heir to the dreary Greenacre Trade Co. My reputation for debauchery I credit you with, since I was for all who knew me a wide-eyed innocent when first you marked me. And such I shall let my reputation stand here, for you know that the prettiest daughters are hidden away from reckless dandies, and flaunted nearly into the laps of seeming respectable gentlemen of a certain station. And you also know what adventures I can bestow upon any pretty daughter that finds her way into my lap.
Why must you torment me with memories of my long and almost fruitless voyage? I kept nearly as chaste as a Franciscan, though not for lack of …show more content…
I waited for her to bid her brother a good-night, then listened for her breathing, and I had guessed true—her head was just next to my talking holes. She sang a whispered song to calm herself for sleeping. I spoke halt and confusing first, to create a fiction that I spoke in my sleep. I praised her cheeks and her ankles and the dimples on the backs of her fingers. I wondered in my sleep-talking what her lips would taste like, how the young bloom of her breasts would crush under the attentions of my hands. Her singing stopped, and I could hear her breath catch, and hold. “I wonder if she knows the ecstasy of wandering hands?” I said, plain this time. I heard her turn away then, and I ceased my speaking until the next evening for fear of her raising an