It was clear he was deeply religious, for he wrote long passages that she only skimmed in which he wondered at the meaning of some verse of scripture, or wrote his thoughts on what she gathered were debates about the proper path to salvation he’d had with friends. Faith, he kept insisting to himself, was more important than good works, but good works were still intrinsically part of faith.
She was more interested in the many pages of rigorous household accounting. The man seemed to be paid a quite handsome sum of money, but he had no servants or horses. Instead, he saved toward some purpose whose sum grew larger each month, and gave the rest away to charity.
The more she read, the more she began to wonder about him. He was a frustrating figure, her diarist, always denying himself harmless luxuries—regular haircuts, a rich dessert—and always blaming himself for not welcoming this self-denial with greater joy.
Self-indulgence breeds the appetites and distracts from serving the Lord, he wrote in several places, underlining the words so forcefully that there were dents in the paper from his quill.
Eat the cake, she wanted to shout back at him. Indulge in that extra hour of sleep on Sunday. Death can come at any time.
At least his grim self-admonitions were effective in exhausting her. She yawned, her eyes finally growing heavy. But just as she was about to close the book, she caught sight of the word breast.
She nearly laughed out loud. Oh no, my poor serious diarist. Hast thou espied a comely woman?
The passage began below an update on the garden (turnips growing splendidly; snails eating the lamb’s lettuce; forgive me, I murdered them with poison). But then, most intriguingly, the diarist’s careful letters became a bit more jagged, his ink a bit more sharply scratched into the paper, leaving little speckles here and there, like he was writing in a lather.
I am a nuisance to myself. This morning at fellowship, Lydia Byron passed by me as I was making my donation and I … I almost can’t bear to commit the words to paper. I touched her breast. It was not intentional, of course—an accident, which we both pretended did not happen, for it would be too outrageous to address such a thing in the house of the Lord—but I cannot expunge it from my mind. All day I have been gripped with the memory of that accidental burst of flesh—so soft beneath my hand. The memory of it provokes an unwelcome excitement that I am tempted to sinfully relieve, and the evidence of which necessitates the wearing of my coat indoors for decency, though it is hot today, and the heat adds to my affliction. God, grant me please the coolness of mind and strength of will to eradicate this memory from my body, for I am in hourly danger, so tempted to indulge myself in sinful memory.
Alice bit her lip. Poor diarist.
She hoped, for his sake, that he had succumbed to temptation and brought himself relief.
His description of desire, so tortured and reproachful, reminded her of the way she’d felt herself, in the years before she’d met Elena Brearley.
She’d also felt a sickly kind of guilt when, as a girl, she wanted things she was told she mustn’t. Her mother was always catching her—with her father’s organ student in the woods, or in the barn with the hired boy who kept their livestock, or in the graveyard on the hill behind their cottage with the baker’s son, who always smelled like bread. Unlike when Alice wandered, or said bold things, or laughed at the wrong time, her mother did not chastise her for these lapses. Instead, she hustled her away, a look of fear in her eyes. Nothing below the skirt or you’ll wind up with a baby in your belly.
It had been wonderful, when she arrived at Elena’s, to match her yearnings to knowledge of the flesh. On Charlotte Street desire was not considered a shortcoming of one’s character. She’d observed what ecstasies were possible, from the commonplace to the exotic. How touch could turn patrician men into writhing boys. How made-up fantasies could transform stone-faced women into purring felines. She’d learned from her mistress exactly how babies were begotten and how she could avoid one, without sacrificing her desire to be touched. Elena did not mind if she brought lovers to her garret room on nights she wasn’t working, so long as they came up the back stairs and did not disturb the members. With these men, she traded favors. Learned how to channel longings into pleasure.
She hoped her diarist had met some woman and realized he needn’t torture himself with guilt. She immediately set upon skimming the journal to see how he’d progressed. Toward the back, she caught sight of the words “crisis of lust.”
She raised a brow. “Wicked of you, diarist.”
I walked ten miles today, stricken by a dream in which I found myself reliving once again the crisis of lust that set me on this course of purification. In the dream, I lingered after worship, working on a hymn. Sarah came in with a rag and bucket, and was pleased to see me—crediting me with finding her the work as maid. She ran up and embraced me as I sat on the pianoforte bench. She was effusive and did not let go, hanging on me, and though I knew that I should move aside, I lingered overlong because, I will confess, it felt so good.
Her former trade being what it is, and her not long out of it, she is too free with favors, and she kissed me. I became paralyzed with shock, knowing I must get up but unable to move, which she took as enthusiasm. Her hand went to my manhood, which had plumped at her nearness in a way she could perceive. “Let me comfort you,” she said. “I am so grateful for all you’ve done for me.”
In life, of course, I came to my senses in time, refused, and fled.
But in the dream, I let her do what I’d imagined on that day—what I’d truly wanted.
“Would you wash my feet?”
And in the dream she found her bucket and took down her hair, as in the Gospel of Luke, and most tenderly undressed me. She used her hair to wash me, as the whore did for Christ. Her hands crept higher, higher, toward my shame—
And then I woke up in the throes of pleasure, unable to prevent what had, in sleep, already progressed past the point of stopping. Now, I am left to face that my excitement was not just from her tender touch, nor her comely face, but from the fact that my desire was based in scripture, that it was intensified because we were in church—that place that should be most separate from sin.
I cannot tell the reverend about this for he will think me depraved, so instead I write it here, to hold myself to account and ask forgiveness from the Lord.
This journal was becoming very diverting indeed. Now she understood why she had found it at the whipping house. It must belong to a member with religious fantasies, who had left it behind by mistake. She wondered if she’d answered the door for him, or assisted in one of his sessions. She wondered what he looked like—if he was handsome.
She decided to imagine he looked like Henry Evesham. A man of compelling proportions—tall and sturdy and inviting. Very much the kind of man she might enjoy watching explore his most forbidden urges. Or, at the very least, entertaining in her room, alone.
Did Henry know that he was so appealing? She wondered how he would react if she told him she desired him. If she put her hands on his and brought them to her skin.
She reached beneath her nightdress and closed her eyes and grazed her fingers over her breasts, then lower, to her cunt. She allowed her thoughts to wander over the plains of Henry’s body.
He would be sweet. A virgin. Eager, but unsure of what to do. Cautious not to hurt her with his size. So gentle she would have to pull him down on top of her and show him exactly how indelicate a small girl could be.