John Thomas & Lady Jane

had fallen from her breasts and her navel. They should have
used bonding glue to hold them in place.
    ‘Never mind!’ she said, clinging to
him. ‘Love me while you can!’ She clung to him and caressed him and felt his
phallus rise against her. It was a huge thing, twelve inches of steaming
gristle.
    ‘I love it!’ she said, quivering, and
feeling the rapid thrills go through her loins. ‘I love it when he rises like
that, so proud. It’s the only time when I feel there is nothing really to be
afraid of.’ (Any ordinary woman would have run for her life at the sight of
it.) ‘I love it when he comes into me!’
    And that evening, the last before
Connie’s departure, Clifford read out to her a bit from the end of a book he
had been reading.
     
    There was a young man of Bombay
    On a slow boat to China one day
    He was trapped in the tiller
    By a sex-crazed gorilla
    And China’s a long, long way.
     
    ‘My dear Constance, you are flashing
with lightning like a hot summer night. You look like a Bacchante just off to
the hill.’
    Little did he know two hours ago she
had been just that with forget-me-nots in her fanny.
    She felt strangely, wildly excited!
Strange gusts of energy swept through her. She kept lighting up.
    After a feverish morning, towards
noon, she heard Hilda’s car. Both sisters had this odd, maidenly demureness.
Perhaps it was something Scotch in them.
    ‘Are you ready to go?’ said Hilda.
    ‘Pining!’ said Constance. ‘But! — do
you mind? — I want to stay the night near here!’
    ‘Where?’ said Hilda.
    ‘You know I’ve got a man I’m in love
with?’
    Hilda looked at her sister in a wise
steadiness.
    ‘I suspected it. But no more. — Do
you want to tell me about him?’
    ‘Yes! He’s our gamekeeper!’
    ‘A gamekeeper!’ she almost shouted.
    ‘He’s lovely as a lover,’ said Constance.
    Hilda disapproved, but she agreed to
drive off with Constance that afternoon to Mansfield, where they would stay for
dinner, and she herself would stay the night.
    There was an early cup of tea in the
hall, whose doors were wide open to let in the sun.
    ‘Goodbye, Constance girl! Come back
safely,’ said Clifford.
    So they drove to Mansfield, where
Hilda took her room and they both dined. So then back they sped towards
Crosshill just after sunset.
    ‘Oh Hilda!’ said Constance. ‘It’s so
wonderful to live and to be in the middle of all creation!’
    ‘I suppose it is, if one is in the
middle of creation. But every mosquito thinks the same, if it thinks at all.’
    ‘I wouldn’t begrudge a mosquito
anything except a bite,’ said Constance.
    Hilda had on the head-lights by the
time they passed Crosshill. Constance’s heart gave a jump.
    ‘There he is!’ she said. And there he
was.
    ‘Did you wait long?’ said Constance to him, as he stood under a tree.
    ‘Only a bloody hour,’ he said.
    ‘This is my sister Hilda!’ said Constance, going to the side of the car.
    Soames raised his hat, but came no
nearer. Raising a hat cannot make a person come nearer.
    ‘Why don’t you come down to the
cottage with us?’ said Constance to her sister.
    He didn’t want her to come to the
cottage. She would only delay the screwing. The dog Flossie ran ahead and the
three walked a bit in silence, not only a bit but the whole bloody way in
silence. At last Constance saw the lonely little yellow light, that made her
heart beat faster. Sometimes people’s hearts beat faster with a purple light or
a green light but in her case she was susceptible to a yellow light.
    ‘Would you like Champagne and pate de
foie gras?’ he said. ‘Would you have some caviar. Would you like that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Champagne, it’s Moët
& Chandon. Would you like that?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Hilda.
    She had pulled her hat straight down
over her eyes and to see her he had to bend down and look under her brim to
talk to her.
    ‘Here’s some caviar and Bath Olivers
to be going on with.’
    The three sat in silence, sometimes
they stood in silence which was just the same as sitting in silence but higher
up.
    Soames produced some French cheese.
    ‘You are not eating,’ said Constance, expostulating.
    Oh how he hated being expostulated
at.
    ‘I ate afore this. This wor a’ for
thee!’ he said. ‘So now it’s for thee an’ thy sister.’
    Hilda finished her food in silence.
She ate all the venison. All she left on the plate was the design.
    ‘I get a lot of posh food from Lord
Chatterley’s kitchen,