Sexual Sorcery: An Erotic Tale of Sex, Mystery and the
Occult, in Victorian England by C M Fontana
An unwitting academic stumbles into the
erotically-charged occult underworld of Victorian London. With a cast of
characters including an investigator with a talent for seduction, a mesmerist
collecting a harem of beautiful ladies, and a woman who believes she has had
sex with Satan, Sexual Sorcery is a sizzling story of decadence, conspiracy and
carnality.
When a collection of books go missing from the
University's collection, Fredrick Clifford travels to London in search of the
likely culprit, an apparently respectable gentleman named Victor Braystone. But
he soon finds that he is not the only one with an interest in Mr Braystone, and
the manipulative Catherine Wolseley soon draws him into her own schemes.
As he, Miss Wolseley and their seductive accomplice begin
to unravel Mr Braystone's plots, Fredrick Clifford finds himself both confused
and entrapped in a shocking world of of sex and duplicity. And as the trail
leads him from the seductions of a London club to a Satanic altar in the wilds
of the Welsh borders, he struggles to make sense of both the dark uncertainties
of the occult, and of an unfamiliar realm of debauchery and sex.
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Excerpt
By Saturday morning, Fredrick had still not had time to
visit the agency to advertise for a new domestic servant, and he was becoming
heartily sick of bread and marmalade for breakfast – or, indeed, for any other
meal that he could not reasonably eat out. It was also an irritation that he
had to answer his own front door, and now he found himself greeted at his front
step by a small grubby boy, in bare feet and ragged trousers, presenting him
with a sealed envelope.
He took the letter, tipped the boy a coin, and closed the
door.
The paper was expensive, that handwriting feminine.
Inside, a note simply read:
Two o’clock. My carriage will collect you. We cannot have
gaps in your education as a gentleman. Please be an attentive student. Such
classes are not inexpensive.
And that was all. He assumed that it was from Miss
Wolseley, and resigned himself to having to follow her cryptic instructions. In
the meantime, he thought, he would finish his newspaper, and then visit the
agency to and see if they could alleviate his domestic difficulties.
And so, soon after lunchtime, after a satisfactory visit
to the agency he found on returning to his house a familiar carriage parked
outside.
“My good man, am I late?”
“Not at all Sir,” the gruff coachman tipped his hat. “I’m
early. Take your time, Sir. We aren’t due til ‘alf past.”
Fredrick re-emerged promptly at two o’clock, and climbed
into the carriage, and sat back while it bounced and swerved through the city’s
congested streets. Out of the window he saw gentrified houses, and, as the
traffic moved slowly on the main roads, although the journey was barely two
miles, it took over twenty minutes. He was relieved to find that they stopped
in a fashionable West End street.
He stepped down from the carriage, and the coachman
indicated the door across the road.
He crossed the street and rapped with the brass door
knocker.
Promptly, the door was opened, and a short, grey haired
maid opened the door.
“Fredrick Clifford,” he introduced himself. “I may be
expected?”
“Of course,” the maid curtseyed, with a hint of an
accent, perhaps Italian or French, and stepped back to let him in.
She took his coat, hat and cane, and then led him up the
stairs, and into a well furnished sitting room. Tall windows let light flood
into the room through lace curtains, the room was decked with a range of
plushly upholstered chairs and settees, the largest of which, unusually, seemed
to be the size of a single bed, but with ornate arms and a high back.
The maid motioned him to take a seat in a plush chair by
the window. She assured him, “I will say that you have arrived,” and then
withdrew.
As he waited, he looked around. The décor was, the more
he considered the details, eccentric.
Not only were the chairs unusually deeply upholstered,
and the main sofa far wider than was needed, but there were numerous sturdy
hooks, which looked like they might have hung chandeliers before gas lighting
was installed, both in the ceiling and also, inexplicably in the skirting board
at the foot of the wall. There was also a faint but spicy scent in the air,
which he suspected might be incense – an unusual scent to encounter outside of
a High or Catholic church.
The door opened, and he turned to see a tall, graceful
woman step into the room. She wore a red silk robe like a dressing gown, and
around her neck an ornate necklace of black beads. Her brown hair hung loosely
in flowing curls, cascading over her shoulders, and Fredrick’s eyes were drawn
further down, to the sides of her firm breasts, indecently visible where the two
sides of the robe met.
“I’m so sorry!” he instinctively stood up and turned his
back on her, to stare fixedly out of the window.
“And why, Mr Clifford, are you sorry?” The voice was
soft, the accent unmistakably continental.
“I am… that is to say…” He could barely hear her
approach, her bare feet on the carpet. “Perhaps I should return when you are
properly dressed.”
Her voice, now just over his shoulder, chided, “Mr
Clifford, I was told that you were a gentleman.”
“Well, yes!” he replied, indignantly.
“And is it polite, when a lady enters a room, turn your
back on her, and then proceed to criticise her choice of clothing.”
“Well, I… there is a question of what is appropriate!”
“Your lessons today,” she corrected him, “are to deal
instead with the question of what is courteous – gentlemanly. You may be quite
right about what is appropriate. But this afternoon, that is not our subject.”
To Frederick, what was gentlemanly and what was
appropriate seemed intimately connected. But Miss Wolseley had, presumably,
some purpose in sending him here.
“I apologise,” he conceded, turning to face her. It would
be a shame to argue with such an attractive hostess.
She smiled and inclined her head. “Then shall we start
again?”
Fredrick nodded.
The woman turned and walked softly back to the door. He
watched her robe sway against her legs, and was impressed by her grace. She
left the room, and shut the door after herself. Fredrick sat down again, and
waited.
After a minute, the door opened again, and the woman
returned.
Fredrick stood up, and stepped forwards to greet her.
“Fredrick Clifford, Madam. At your service.”
She held out her hand, palm down, and he took it gently,
and bowed slightly as he motioned to kiss it. He could not help, bending
forward, but appreciate the gentle curve of her breasts, barely draped in thin
red silk.
“Signorina Maria Cenci,” she replied with a hint of a
curtsey. “Charmed to meet you, Sir.”
She motioned him across to the wide sofa, strewn with
cushions, and when he sat she took a seat next to him. Her robe fell open at
the knee, revealing her slender, pale calf, and Fredrick made an effort not to
look too intently.
The door opened again, and the elderly maid entered,
carrying a tray, which she set down on the table by the settee.
“Milk and sugar, Mr Clifford?” Signorina Cenci asked.
“Please, yes.”
“Tell me Mr Clifford, she asked, as she poured the tea
and the maid withdrew, “how should a gentleman behave towards a lady?”
Fredrick considered for a moment, and then, taking the
cup and saucer offered to him, replied: “A gentleman should always be
respectful.”
“And why is that important?” she asked. And when Fredrick
had no ready answer, she clarified, “Why should a gentleman be respectful to a
lady, and not, perhaps, to a tree or stone?”
“Obviously, trees and stones don’t have feelings!”
“So when you say respectful, you mean that you should be
aware of the lady’s feelings?”
“Quite so,” Fredrick said, taking another sip of tea and
then setting the cup aside. “The male is the stronger sex. It is our duty to
protect, both physically and mentally, the frailer gender. It shows us to be
civilized human beings, and not savages.”
“And so,” Signorina Cenci asked, “you see that, if a man
turns his back on a woman as she enters the room, she might be upset. In which
case, the gentlemanly response is to greet her courteously, perhaps?”
“I see your point, Madam,” Fredrick acknowledged, not
wanting to argue.
“But is it also gentlemanly,” she teased, “as you bend
down to kiss her hand, to stare so intently at her breasts?”
Fredrick blushed, “I am so sorry, Madam, I didn’t intend
to.”
She laughed, and stood. “Then shall we try again?”
“Of course, if you wish.”
She left her tea cup on the table, walked to the door,
turned, paused, and then returned towards the sofa.
Fredrick stood, stepped forward, and took her hand when
she offered it. This time, as he bent and motioned to kiss her hand, he kept
his eyes fixed firmly on the floor.
Again Signorina Cenci laughed.
“Mr Clifford,” she smiled, placing her hand on his arm.
“Do you really think that if a lady deliberately appears dressed like this – ”
she raised her other hand to her neck and let her index finger slowly trace a
line along the hem of the robe, down her chest, over the mound of her breast “
– that she does not want to be admired?”
“Really, Madam, I protest,” Fredrick sighed, “You say
that I should not stare, and now you say that I should stare. What am I to do?”
“Mr Clifford, you are to be a gentleman. You are to
behave with consideration for the lady’s feelings.” Seeing that he was still
confused, she continued. “If you stare dumbly at my chest – “ she turned
slightly, so that he could fully appreciate the silhouette of her breasts – “I
might consider the stare to be aggressive, or I might worry that you are no
longer capable of rational thought. You are still capable of thought, Sir?”
He raised his eyes from the curve of her robe, to look
her in the eye again. “Yes, of course.”
“But if you ignore me entirely, I might think that I have
failed to impress you, or that you consider me ugly. You do not consider me
ugly, do you?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Then, Mr Clifford, please, stop trying to guess what the
rules are. There is but one rule to being a gentleman. Consideration for the
feelings of the other person. And so, consider my feelings, and act
accordingly.”
“Very well,” Fredrick acquiesced.
“Then shall we try once more?”
She walked back to the door, and again turned to face
him. She paused for a moment. “Are you ready, Sir?”
Fredrick nodded.
She ran her finger down the front of her robe, and
deliberately opened the gap at her chest a little further, so that the sides of
both breasts were quite bare. “Are you certain?”
Fredrick paused for just a second and then answered
confidently: “Yes, Madam.”
Signora Cenci walked across the room, her hips swaying,
and held out her hand, palm down.
Fredrick took her hand. As he bowed and raised it towards
his mouth, he let his eyes glance over her soft flesh, and at the lowest point
of his bow he glanced up to look her in the eye. Then he looked back towards
her hand as he stood, and looked her in the eye again, keeping a lingering hold
of her hand before releasing her.
“Mr Clifford!” she smiled, “Have you not been taught that
it is too forward, even impertinent, to look a lady in the eye as you kiss her
hand?”
“Signora Cenci,” he countered, “From the way that you
adjusted your gown, I understood that you wanted me to be forward, even
impertinent.”
“Bravo!” she clapped her hands three times and smiled.
“Please sit, and explain to me your strategy.”
As they both sat down, he on her right, she on his left,
he explained. “I trust that you wanted,” he glanced again at the curve of her
breast, “to be appreciated, but with discretion. And I gathered that you would
not mind a little impertinence. When I first looked up at your eyes, you could
have looked away, but you did not. And so I inferred that a little more impertinence
might be in order before I released your hand.”
“Perfect, Mr Clifford! You considered my feelings, and
acted accordingly. One might almost say, appropriately?”
Fredrick smiled, “Yes, I think that you have proved that
point.”
“Which is exactly why you are here,” she explained. She
put her right hand behind her on the settee and turned her body towards him. “I
am told that you are an intelligent, educated gentleman. But you have been
taught to be a gentleman by following a set of rules. And now you find yourself
in situations where the rules do not seem to work. Situations for which no
rules have been written. Is this so?”
Fredrick nodded, “Increasing so, it seems.”
“And you are particularly unsure how to deal, in certain,
unusual situations, with ladies?”
“I understand how to make polite conversation,” he
admitted, “but there there are things, I find, that I do not really
understand.”
“And that is why you have been sent to me,” Signora Cenci
smiled. “Because if you are to be a gentleman in these situations, you will be
more confident, yes?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“And to be a gentleman you need only two things. You need
to act with consideration or the other person. And you need to understand what
the other person wants. You see?”
“Theoretically, I suppose.”
“At this moment, yes, quite theoretically. Because you do
not know enough about what a woman wants, and so you cannot treat her….
appropriately. So we shall give you a basic understanding.”
She looked at him, saying nothing more.
He felt that he was expected to react in some way, but
had no idea how.
“Mr Clifford,” she flicked her long hair over her
shoulder, and then lowered her hand to her knee, where she parted her robe a
little. “You are alone with a woman who has chosen to greet you in a quite indecorous
outfit – so indecorous, that she has not even troubled to put on underwear, but
instead has nothing between you and her but a single layer of very soft, very
thin silk. And now she has sat mere inches from you, turned her body towards
you, and is now waiting for you. Can you not imagine a gentlemanly reaction?”
He sat, confused, uncertain.
“To make this simple,” Signora Cenci coaxed, “you have
two options. If you are not sure what I want, then you can construct some
witty, sensitive line of conversation to draw me into disclosing my desires. Or
you can take action, in such a way that my response will tell you more of what
I want…. Do you feel able to engage in witty conversations at this moment?”
He shook his head, mutely.
“Then Mr Clifford, take action!”
Author Bio:
C M Fontana is a British erotic author, fusing plots of mystery, intrigue, and the supernatural with racy erotica. The first full-length novels, Sexual Sorcery, was published for Kindle in September 2015, with two novellas continuing the series released soon after.
Author Website: http://mysticerotica.com/
Author Twitter: @mystic_erotica
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