The hotness of New Year's

Should I worry that if I do "the hotness of" every occasion I'll find myself stuck when the year rolls around again and I have to find something else to write naughtily about that's tied to the same occasion? Nah. You can expect to read "The hotness of champagne" next year, with some lurid tale of a Gigi-lookalike.

For now, though, let the world be new, to fit the coming new year, and the celebration we usually call New Year's, though we may equally well call it the Feast of the Holy Name, or—even better and more liturgical-historically accurate, the Feast of the Circumcision. That's right: in the Middle Ages, what much of Europe celebrated on the first day of January was the removal of Jesus of Nazareth's foreskin.

I've wondered from time to time whether circumcision could ever be hot. The answer always seems to come back in the negative. So we'll go in a Victorian direction today…

The Victorians—at least the class we who write erotic novels think of as the Victorians; that is, the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy—used the first of January to visit one another, often bringing gifts, for the notion of gifts on Christmas, under the branches of that newfangled gewgaw the Christmas-tree, had not yet taken hold. In particular bachelors expected invitations to visit the houses of families with marriageable daughters.

Ah. Yes.

Imagine that a particularly debauched gentleman has three daughters, each of them lovely but—because of the gentleman's impecunious state—unable to find suitable matches. How will he get them off his hands and his pocketbook?

He will of course invite the five most notorious libertines in Londaon to his home on New Year's Day. He will of course lay his daughters naked—"No missish protestations, Cecilia! Off with your petticoats!"; "Esther, did I not tell you to shave your cunny this morning? Go to your room and do so this instant!"; "Theodosia, your sweet bottom needs a good smacking, and I have invited just the men to give it you!"—over the dining-table next to the sweetmeats, and the bachelors will of course take turns in fucking their bare cunts and their virginal bottoms, not neglecting to use the canes and birches provided by the gentleman to test the girls' responses to discipline.

By the second day of January, the gentleman's worries will have come to an end. The girls, ruined in mouth, quim, and arse but fainting with untold pleasure, will have gone home with their keepers, the three lucky men chosen by lot of the five, with the other two libertines assured they may visit at any time to have a fuck. All night, that first night of the new year, they will serve the lusts of the men who will henceforth possess them at the bargain price of room, board, and the occasional frock.

Compare the following passage from The Duke's School for Young Ladies.

Clarissa watched her newest pupil closely as Anne’s gaze took in the duke’s drawing room. She thought she could see a distinct lack of surprise in the new girl’s eyes at the grand room’s holding, along with beautiful chairs, sofas, divans, and tables of the usual kind, several unusual pieces of furniture: three whipping benches and two demonstration tables. So experienced already, she thought. She supposed that a single visit from the duke could do that—just as it had done the same for Clarissa herself, all those years ago.

“Freda Garrett, in the blue room, please,” she said. “Do not undress: Mr. Babcock will wish to assist you in that, I believe. Ursula Gregory, over bench number one, if you please. Joan Porter, undress to your shift, if you please. I shall assist you. Lavinia Ellsworth, assist Georgina Holmes in unlacing, and she will then assist you in doing the same. Get undressed to your shifts. Miss Holmes over bench number two and, Miss Ellsworth, please oil her bottom-hole with the oil in the little cabinet, in order that she be ready for Mr. Abbott. Miss Crawley and Miss Solmes, completely undressed, and over by table number one.”

Gowns were removed as appropriate, hung in the presses that waited to one side of the drawing room, and soon enough all had been prepared for the entry of the gentlemen. After she had secured Ursula to the whipping bench, Clarissa, still in her own beautiful gown and feeling like a queen, walked over to where Sarah had led Anne to demonstration table number one, just in front of the mantelpiece, where a lovely warm fire burned in the grate.

The girls looked so sweet without their clothes that Clarissa could not help embracing them and kissing them on both cheeks before she said, “Now get upon the table, my sweet girls. Anne, Sarah will tell you what to do. Do not be anxious, for the gentlemen who watch like to see some confusion on a girl’s face when she must do this for the first time.”

Anne nodded solemnly and began to climb onto the table, six feet long and four feet wide, covered in padded leather for the girls’ comfort. The height of the table, which rose two feet from the floor—and so came to the duke’s knee—was not, of course, for the girls’ comfort but rather for the pleasure of the duke and his friends. Had Anne noticed? Clarissa wondered, as she often wondered such things about girls coming for the first time to make a part of a debauch. Sarah of course had reason to know quite well how convenient the table’s height made it for a gentleman to get his cock into a girl in whatever mode of enjoyment he chose.

Lost in a reverie of memories of past parties—of the times she herself had lain upon this table—Clarissa was surprised to hear Sarah’s timid voice, and to turn to see the sweet girl still standing next to the table, rather than moving to join Anne. “Miss Halton?” she said. “Is it true? That… Mr. Westenra…”

Clarissa did not wish to stir false hope in Sarah’s bosom, though she was of the opinion that Mr. Westenra could well be sincere in his desire to marry her. Nevertheless, she knew her eyes shone when she said, “Hush, child. Let that be as it may, and get upon the table with Miss Solmes.”
Sarah nodded, and began to climb to join her friend, who lay with her back to the fire, the sweet curve of her hips making a bewitching silhouette, and the golden curls upon her cunny glistening faintly. Clarissa felt suddenly that she wished to share a confidence with these two, and that her response to Sarah’s natural desire to know more of the possibility of a proposal from Mr. Westenra had left much wanting. She said softly, “Do you know, girls, that I have a hope that things at the school may change for the better, tonight?”

“What, miss?” asked Anne.

“Miss Crawley,” Clarissa said, then, noting that Sarah had begun to assume a position face-to-face with Anne, “your face before Miss Solmes’ cunny, if you please. If you are to be allowed to kiss, the gentlemen will tell you so.”

“Yes, miss,” Sarah said, moving to obey. “Miss, what did you mean, please? About changing for the better?”

“I have a stratagem,” Clarissa said in as low a voice as she could. “Listen to Ursula, for I believe that with Mr. Dabney’s unwitting help…” Then the door opened, and the duke, clad in his dressing gown, came in. The marquess, Lord Lerner, Mr. Stalby, Mr. Westenra, and Mr. Abbott all also wore dressing gowns, clearly having availed themselves of the opportunity the duke always gave to make their amours more convenient thus. Mr. Dabney and Mr. Babcock both still wore their evening dress.
Clarissa looked into Anne’s frightened eyes, and could not resist another kiss upon her forehead. “All may be well,” she whispered, and glided over to the duke.

The stratagem had formed in her mind after dinner, the moment she saw Ursula’s reaction to the news that Mr. Dabney wished to watch her caned, rather than to go to a private room to whip and fuck Lavinia Ellsworth away from the eyes of the world. Ursula had made a conquest, and Clarissa knew that she might well go to any length to secure him. If Mr. Dabney were the sort of respectable man who did not mind a little public fellatio, he would certainly, as the duke’s executor, be interested in the kind of story Clarissa thought she might be able to bring Ursula to tell, under the stern application of Lord Lerner’s cane to her rump.


And if Ursula told the sort of tale of Mrs. Fayerweather that Clarissa suspected the girl might have stored up in her memory, things might well change for the better, with some assistance from Mr. Dabney.