As a sixth-year graduate student in the History department, I was supposed to be finishing my dissertation on the aesthetics of Late Victorian pornography. Instead, I was spending all of my fellowship money on pot and vintage erotica.
I wasn't sure what started my malaise and stalled my writing. Perhaps it was simply that my long-standing boredom with the world had finally vanquished all of my enthusiasm. But no, my misanthropy had actually fueled my academic writing. Perhaps it was being dumped by the whiny girlfriend who couldn't understand my fascination with "the relics of the patriarchy's objectification of women". No, I think that I always secretly disliked her and the self-righteousness that informed all of her activism. Perhaps it was not being able to possess those luscious, sepia-tinted bodies, gloriously full and irregular. The sterile female bodies of mainstream modern pornography not only failed to turn me on, they disgusted me. Shaved pussies, long red nails, unnaturally buoyant tits, and vacant expressions were for the unimaginative masses.
I could, however, masturbate for hours to the favorite photos in my collection. One favorite shows a skinny, hairy man, awkwardly stiff-backed in his cross-legged position staring covetously up at a the furry crotch and ass of the sublimely round woman who kneels before him on an oriental rug, her hands tied behind her back, her fair face pressed down on the rug visible through the long dark curls. I find the triangle of beauty marks on her smooth, fair ass strangely compelling. The skinny man holds a riding crop in the hand that faces the camera, but it hangs limply—he appears to be interested in more commonplace pursuits as he licks his lips; the crop has been perfunctorily added by the photographer, perhaps. The fair expanse of the woman's back is marred by a few tiny, flowered bruises induced by mouth far more delicate than this man's. Her face is regally composed; despite her submissive position, she appears to be challenging the photographer. His stubby cock stands greedily, and I wonder if he ever possessed her, if that infinitely unworthy little man ever placed his rough hand at the nape of her neck and thrust into her, as she winced with disgust and he squealed with pleasure. It seems highly unlikely. I imagine striding into the sepia-toned drawing room, into the past, and throwing him aside, telling him to go back to his washer-woman wife and five snot-nosed children. He appears infinitely more fragile than my darling, and infinitely more base.
The woman in this photograph, I call her "S", since I was never able to uncover her identity, was unique in the world of Victorian pornography avidly traded in gentlemen's clubs. My research had corroborated the fact that, while obviously many of the models were prostitutes well-accustomed to acting out the fetishes that escaped the acute sublimation of the times, a select few were women who didn't need or want the money these modeling jobs offered. Some of the models look jaded and bored; others appear to deeply enjoy the subversiveness of their splayed positions, double penetrations, and spankings on the best parlor chair or the bearskin rug. I certainly couldn't get enough of the settings, the imaginative contexts, the eyes of the impossibly white bodies occasionally hiding genuine scandalization. Others saw only passivity behind the eyes of these models, but I saw boredom in the worst and tremulous desire in the best.
Another photo showed S crouched down facing the camera, supported on her elbows, her hands clasped. A dark stone adorns the filigree ring on her ring finger. Her impossibly round and full rump is thrust into the air, her full, pendulous breasts are squeezed into impressive décolletage between her arms. S wears a mask, a dark, feathered affair. It is the triangular birthmark on the right cheek of her rump that allows me to confirm my identification of her, but I think I'd know that delicious ass anywhere otherwise. Behind the mask, her light eyes stare fiercely at the photographer, her delicate mouth pursed in subtle disdain. I wonder who this photographer was, and whether the fact that S always meets the gaze of the lens directly means that she had a relationship with this photographer outside of the makeshift studio in the parlor room.
The intimacy of the photos partially explains S's long and successful career as a model. S was quite popular among the gentlemen by 1885, perhaps because they read her returned gaze as a direct engagement of them. A choice early photograph from the early 1880s shows my darling lifting her white skirts to reveal her plump, round ass. Although, as usual, parts of her face are blurred or obscured, the tell-tale birthmark confirms her identity. An enormous, flower-laden hat perches neatly on her head, but the drowsiness of her gaze and the weakness of her knees suggest that she has just been thoroughly fucked. As I wonder what other images the mirror, and perhaps the camera, had held, I know that the awkward angle of her image in the mirror is best explained by the photographer's desire to keep the camera out of the shot.
When I masturbate to S, I am invariably in the role of the photographer, calling out instructions, telling her to lift her ass a little higher, to arch her back more severely, to look only at me. I wear a man's cap on my cropped hair, a jacket and pants that complement my tall, large frame and disguise my considerable curves, and everybody respects me because I am fierce and, perhaps, wealthy. And even though my deep, throaty voice is full of authority and respected by the assistants and other models that are often in the room, she hears the tenderness behind my commands, she knows simultaneously how much I love her and how much it turns me on to see her obey me. After the lights are dim, and everybody has gone home, we are lovers, of course. Perhaps her rich, elegant husband is fagging around Italy and this is her home, and she is really my mistress at night. Yes, these photographed humiliations are orchestrated for her pleasure. I smoke a joint as I visualize the moment when, as I thrust my hand into her wet pussy dripping all over the damask coverlet on the four poster bed, she tells me that I cannot stop, and I know that I serve her. I ease into a deep sleep and dream of wandering over her luscious curves while she bites my ear menacingly and purrs into my ear "Melisande, you serve me".
A transatlantic call wakes me at 6:00 AM. Groggily, I realize that it's Peter, the antiques dealer I met in London while on a traveling fellowship last year. Peter is a kindly, older English gentleman man who works for a prestigious auction house and shares my obsession with19th century erotica, although his own enthusiasm for S does not match mine. He asks me whether I've received the very interesting print that he acquired for fifteen quid at an estate sale. I tell him I haven't looked through my mail lately and that I'll send him a check, but he refuses, saying that he bought it only because he couldn't bear to let something like this exist so far away from me. I thank him profusely, especially since my own finances are in a sorry state, and tell him to hold on while I check my mail. I walk the five paces to the mail basket by the door of my studio apartment. Sure enough, there it is, the tell-tale brown envelope, amidst unpaid bills and unread newspapers. I open it with him on the phone, and gasp. Faintly, I hear him say he's delighted by my tellingly silent reaction and that he'll leave me to my pleasure. "Goodbye, dear," he says and hangs up before I can gather my thoughts well enough to respond.
There she is, my glorious S, her delicate mouth embedded in the furry pussy of someone who, I know instantly, is the photographer. From a technical perspective, the shot is breath-defying, and my breath was thrice defied before I gathered my wits. The photographer is reclined upon a white eyelet coverlet, the slightly darker skin of her hips and legs contrasting beautifully with the milky whiteness of S. The perspectives is hers as she looks down upon the ministrations of her submissive partner. As usual, S's gaze is more sultry than passive, but, unusually, it is more earnest than brazen as it looks up at the face of her beloved through the camera. A hint of the beauty marks are visible on the raised, round rump behind her. Her hands are hooked around the darker thighs, the familiar ring gleaming slightly in the abundance of white-washing light as her fingers press into her partner's thighs. The lust in her dark eyes pierces me. I moan inadvertently and clench my nether regions as I imagine her holding me so.
