History of a Pleasure Seeker

by Richard Mason

  He lay in the dark as he had lain on many nights, listening to Piet and Didier laugh in the echoing bathroom across the hall. With a slow, deliberate cruelty he tortured himself by imagining them together—maybe with women, certainly drunk and happy. So real were these visions that when he heard a floorboard creak he thought he had imagined it. But he had not. Piet was climbing the stairs. Where was Didier? He felt in the dark for his pocket handkerchief and dried his sticky fingers. Then he switched on the light. The evening’s agonies demanded expression, and the only expression was vengeance. He felt sure that Didier was doing something for which he might punish him; with any luck, something so grave that the punishment might be permanent. He owed the lad nothing. If he could not have him he would not protect him.

  When he had washed his hands and arranged himself he put on his dressing gown, parted his hair carefully, and went downstairs. He found Didier in the kitchen stealing two slices of the Vermeulen-Sickerts’ apple cake and dismissed him on the spot. “You may stay the night since it is so late,” he said with splendid froideur. “But I will not tolerate thieving. Make sure you are gone before lunch tomorrow.”

  And when Didier had stumbled up the stairs, his apologies refused, Gert Blok sat down at the kitchen table, and ate both slices of cake, and felt better.

  Didier went straight to Piet’s room. He was horny enough not to mind much about the future. Piet was lying on his bed, shirt and trousers on the floor, head back, mouth open. He was fast asleep. The moon’s light caught his profile and shadowed the indentations of his powerful body. He was snoring lightly and twitching as he dreamed. A longing to kiss him stole over Didier, but again he resisted it.

  He sat down on the bed, suddenly tired. Piet muttered in his sleep and turned on his side, pulled his thick, hairy legs under him. The movement struck Didier as an invitation, as though Piet half sensed his presence and was making space for him. He took off his shirt and lay down beside him. He pressed his shoulder against Piet’s back. He could feel the warmth of Piet’s body and smell the cigar smoke in his hair; see the pimple on the back of his neck, the imperfection that made him perfect. And though the darkness had begun to spin he fell into a deep and easeful sleep.

  The sound of the bell ringing to summon the household to church infiltrated Piet’s dreams as fiery, crashing cymbals. He did not often drink and was not at all accustomed to the inconveniences of a hangover. He was desperately thirsty and at the same time unable to move his body in search of water. He opened his eyes. Church was impossible. He closed them again, but then his door was knocked on and opened.

  “Cheer up, chum.” Didier had risen at dawn to enjoy his final bath and pack his trunk. “You’ve got my hot water to yourself now. I was just saying good-bye.”

  “Good-bye?”

  “Blok caught me last night getting our cake. I have to be out of the house before they get back from their prayers.”

  Piet sat up. “Again … slower.”

  Didier repeated himself. When Piet understood what had happened, he subsided onto his pillows and told Didier to stop packing. “Mrs. Vermeulen-Sickerts trusts me. I’ll make sure of everything.”

  “Cocky, aren’t you?”

  “It’s only cake. She’ll see that.”

  “She can’t countermand her own butler. That’s not how these things work.”

  Piet got out of bed and pulled his trousers on. “I’ll see to it. There’s no need to pack.”

  “I don’t much fancy being here when you’re gone, as it happens. Blok’s only prey. Get me a reference if you’ve got so much influence.”

  “That’s easily done.” But Piet’s conscience was troubled. He did not think Didier should pay the penalty for the purloined apple cake alone. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”

  “Not if you’re not.”

  “All right, then.” He stepped by him, went to the desk, and opened the steel box he kept in it. He had a small bundle of notes left and counted out ten of them. “I always earned more than you, though I hardly deserved to. Take your share and have the winnings from last night, too.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Of course you could.”

  “I won’t.”

  Piet made as if to put the money back, but at the last moment he grabbed Didier’s arms and pinned them behind him. He put the notes forcibly into his trouser pocket. “And now you have. I feel sure we will meet again. God bless, and good speed.”

  Piet slept for four hours, and as he drifted towards consciousness Jacobina appeared to him, aloof but available. He woke with the idea that he should not delay and got out of bed. As he washed and dressed he almost brought himself to believe that Maarten owed him the freedom to pleasure his wife.

  He had saved his son, after all.

  The house was Sunday-quiet. He went to Jacobina’s private sitting room and found her in her reading chair, beside the window that looked onto the canal. On her lap was an open book that had rested there for half an hour.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Barol,” she said coolly.

  “Good afternoon, mevrouw.”

  “You missed church.”

  “I was unwell. I said my devotions in private.”

  “I trust you are better now?”

  “I am, thank you. I have come about Didier Loubat.”

  Jacobina’s face tightened. “There can be no leniency for thieves. I would never have thought it of him.”

  “I asked him to get the cake. I did not know it was forbidden.”

  “You woke him at three in the morning to send him on an errand?”

  “No, mevrouw. We were out together.”

  Jacobina’s older brothers had been merry carousers, and she had often heard them defend themselves to her parents. She approved of boys sticking up for one another. “Why did he not come to me to explain?”

  “He did not wish to place you in the awkward position of going against Mr. Blok.”

  “I see.”

  “He is an upstanding fellow. I come to ask you to give him the reference he deserves.”

  Jacobina did not intend to gratify Piet’s request too readily. “I will consult my husband. The last word on the matter is his.”

  “Thank you, mevrouw.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I should like to give my notice.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Now that Master Egbert is well, he should go to school. He will have no need of a tutor after Christmas.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Barol. He may need your assistance to make up lost ground.”

  “He is far ahead of his peers in anything I can teach him.”

  “What if he relapses?”

  “He will not. Be firm with him if he stumbles.”

  Jacobina was not in the habit of begging servants to stay on, and she did not intend to do so now. Nevertheless, she had imagined having the time to subdue her conscience and enjoy Piet again. The knowledge that this was not so made her petulant. “Have you not been happy with us, Mr. Barol?”

  “It has been an honor to be of service to your family.” Piet paused. “And especially to you. I have never had such rewarding employment.”

  “You have done fine work.”

  “Perhaps I might be useful in some small way before I leave?”

  Jacobina rang the bell. “Tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock.” She spoke without emotion. “I have some letters you might address.”

  “With pleasure.”

  And when Piet had bowed and left her, Jacobina ordered hot chocolate from Hilde and found fault with the china she had selected, and the composition of the tray, and told her that if she did not improve she would have to get rid of her.

  Then she sat down and wrote Didier Loubat an excellent reference.

  Almost twenty-four hours separated this brief conversation from the time Jacobina had named. Piet passed them in a state of trying anticipation. There was no Didier to hurry the minutes along with, and weeks without touch
ing a woman made the wait unendurable. His suspense was heightened the next morning when Maarten proposed a visit to Willemshoven to show Egbert the place for the first time. The boy accepted excitedly; so did Constance; but Jacobina said she had too much to do to go frolicking about the countryside. She was wearing her apple-green dress and looked at her plate when Piet excused himself too, on the grounds that it should be a family outing. Louisa also refused, because she was angry with her father and wished to make this plain to him.

  “We shall spend the night in an inn in the village and return tomorrow,” said Maarten merrily.

  “Don’t hesitate to spend two if you’re enjoying yourselves.” Jacobina had spent much of the previous day, and all this morning, adjudicating a fierce debate between her conscience and her inclination. She had decided at last on a rendezvous with Piet Barol; now the question remained what its business might be.

  The party left after lunch. As she waved them off she reached a compromise she found acceptable and climbed the stairs to her aunt’s bedroom, feeling fearful but alive. She would see Piet naked, but this would be their last encounter. She would never repeat such wickedness with him or anyone else.

  He knocked ten minutes later and had had the good taste to change into the suit of English wool he had worn to their first interview. He was wearing nothing that had once been her husband’s.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Barol.”

  “Good afternoon, Mevrouw Vermeulen-Sickerts.”

  At the foot of the bed was a round carpet, which had been the setting for certain fantastical scenes Jacobina now intended to act out. “Please stand in the center of the circle and remove your jacket,” she said.

  Piet did as he was told.

  “And your waistcoat.”

  He complied again.

  “Your tie, if you please.” She spoke in exactly the tone she had used to Hilde that morning, when instructing her on the correct way to lay out her clothes. “Your shirt.”

  Now Piet understood her intentions. He had long wished to show her his body, but his hands as they undid his buttons were shaking.

  “You may drop it at your feet.”

  He did so.

  “Now your shoes and socks.”

  He bent down before her and removed them.

  “Your trousers,” said Jacobina.

  Piet took his trousers off. In the cheval glass on the wardrobe door he could see his reflection: his pale, muscular body; the patch of dark hair on his chest; the trail of it that led over his stomach and thickened at the waistband of his drawers, which were unequal to restraining their contents. He was proud of his cock, which had aroused admiring attention before. And the clipped, disinterested voice in which Jacobina said, “You may remove your undershorts,” satisfied the last demands of ego.

  He obeyed her. The spectacle of his nakedness exceeded Jacobina’s expectations by some measure. She had lived this scene many times before but had never pursued it beyond this climactic point. Now she saw that Piet would honor further direction, and the desire to touch him took hold of her. This was not part of the bargain she had made with her conscience. However, having come so far she could not resist the urge to continue. I will never do this again, she thought, and made up her mind to do as she pleased.

  But where should she touch him? Where first?

  She walked the circumference of the carpet twice, inspecting Piet carefully. She chose his shoulder blades and ran her hand across them. Goose pimples rippled over his back. She circled him again. His cock was throbbing in time to the pulsing artery on his neck. She put her left hand to the place where his buttocks began their hairy outward curve, then her right in the middle of his chest, on the cushion of soft black curls between his pectorals. His body was wonderfully solid and warm. She put her arms around his neck and leaned back, watching his sinews tighten as he took her weight. Piet shivered, but he was not cold. When she had touched his thighs and his calves and the hard roundness of his upper arms, the idea of handling his cock began to mesmerize her. She stood in front of him. It was pointing straight up at her from a thicket of coarse black hair. She put her index finger to it and provoked a violent spasm. Piet grinned. Now she looked at his face, and his excitement made her brave.

  She gripped it with her right hand and squeezed.

  This action sent an instruction to Piet Barol’s brain that no human effort could override. His eyelids snapped shut. His knees buckled. His overfull balls discharged their cargo with thundering conviction. But the anesthetic of ecstasy did not last long. He opened his eyes to find the front of Jacobina’s apple-green dress thickly adorned with white matter. He was appalled to have lost control in this schoolboy fashion. For a moment he wanted to cry.

  “Forgive me, mevrouw.”

  Jacobina was also horrified, but horror was not the only emotion she felt. The simultaneous crumpling of Piet’s body and spirit inspired an unexpected tenderness. She could hardly blame him for finding her presence stimulating beyond endurance. Neither did she intend to terminate this encounter until she, too, had achieved the release Piet’s body had so abruptly claimed. Her dress was ruined, but the presence of this divine young man, so delectably cowed, overcame the promptings of mortification. A daredevil spirit alighted on her shoulder. Obliging its whispered instruction, she turned her back on him and said, “Unfasten my buttons, Mr. Barol.”

  Piet put his undershorts on and complied. Jacobina’s buttons were tiny and covered in slippery apple-green silk. There were twenty-seven between neck and bustle, and his large fingers handled them clumsily. He did not know what he should expect. Certainly he did not imagine that Jacobina, having stepped out of her dress, would instruct him to unlace her corset and remove her petticoat, her stockings and silk knickers, and would cross to the chaise longue and recline on it in the position she had so often assumed when fully clothed. But she did all these things. He followed her meekly and knelt on one knee before her.

  This afternoon there were no tickles. Jacobina could not silence a low protest of delight. She raised herself on her elbows, the better to see him. “I did not ask you to dress again.”

  “No, mevrouw.”

  Piet removed his drawers to reveal an emphatic recovery. Its rapidity was exceedingly flattering. Jacobina arched her back and pushed her cunt against his face, pulling his curly head closer with both hands.

  The sensation was electrifying. Piet’s cock jolted taut. He had often thought of having this haughty, still-beautiful woman and sensed that the day was one of unprecedented permissions. He looked up. So did she, and neither looked away. He straightened his back, brought his face closer to hers. There was wantonness in her eyes, and it decided him. He held her legs apart, raised himself from the floor, and plunged his cock into her.

  It was much wider than Maarten’s.

  Jacobina cried out. The effrontery of it! But she had imagined this impudent act too often to resist sincerely at the final hour. The room began to swim. Piet was fucking her with quick, violating thrusts. It was stupendous, but he was shaking so severely she feared a repeat of his former punctuality.

  “Lentement, Mr. Barol.”

  Piet slowed down. As he found his rhythm and kept to it, Jacobina closed her eyes. She had never in her life experienced such a thing, and the longer it lasted the more complex and wonder-filled it became. The pleasure was so consuming it left no space in her head for any consciousness of wrongdoing. She floated upwards, until she could clearly see the shining muscles of Piet’s back, then herself on the chaise longue and the room and the house and the city, the fields around her childhood home, Riejke Vedder’s blue-veined breasts, her children’s births. As she soared over her life she felt free—and in that freedom was the knowledge that Egbert was free too, that she need no longer blame herself for his suffering, and that the young man who had saved him was now leading her towards this blissful extinction of the self.

  On an impulse, she kissed him.

  Then nothing mattered any longer. They
threw themselves into one another, kissing and clutching and fucking. A wild delirium took hold of them; lifted them up, caressed them, goaded them. Jacobina’s climax unfurled and billowed, hurtled her into the air, only to catch her again on a zephyr breeze. She was conscious much later of the spurts of Piet’s semen; felt the death throes of his body, a pre-echo of its end at this moment of heightened life. They clung to each other, two naked human animals in a true state of innocence—unconscious of their nakedness and of everything else.

  Then it was over. As the pleasure lifted so did its protections against reality. Jacobina was the first to regain her senses and pushed Piet from her.

  He got up at once and dressed.

  Now she could see herself in the cheval glass, naked and sweaty. She did not inspect the reflection closely. As the practicalities of the situation crowded in on her, she rose and arranged her disordered underwear. How was she to get back to her room? Her own dress was in no state to be worn. She considered sending Piet for a clean one, but what if he were caught rifling her closet? There was no one in the house she could trust.

  Without looking at him, she went to her aunt’s wardrobe and selected a mauve tea gown. It was three seasons old and far too big for her, but it had a sash and would have to do. She put her own dress in a drawer and put her aunt’s on. “My buttons, please, Mr. Barol.” She turned her back to him.

  As Piet fastened them, Jacobina’s self-possession returned. She had not scrutinized her body in the mirror for fear of the signs of aging and decay she might detect, but these did not seem to have mattered to her heroic young slave, and that made them matter much less to her. When Piet had finished, she pinned her hair and went to the door.

  “Thank you,” she said, and stalked down the stairs without a backward glance.