Midnight at the Villa Diodati

"I am surprised you still have any appetite," I murmured, stroking that which surprised me with its readiness with one hand only, for with all the jolting of the carriage I needed one hand to balance myself. "You seemed remarkably busy last night, my love. Did you enjoy her?"

"Not nearly as much as I enjoy you, my sweet," Sylvester growled, and his eagerness as I raised myself a little on him was palpable. "I must admit, I find this concept of free love espoused by my friends to be a little shocking. I am gratified that you do not share the beliefs of Mary and Claire and Cecilia."

"Of course not, my darling," I moaned. "I am no flower girl, to be shared with any man." I smiled as I lifted myself a little, massaging him inside me gently. "A wife's duty is to ensure her husband's pleasure and enjoyment, Sylvester, and in China a man may have many wives and concubines, but a woman should have only one husband and I am happy you enjoyed yourself last night."

And the less said about what I myself did last night while my dear Sylvester sported with Mary, the better.

"Ohhhhhh," and now I impaled myself on him.

"Ohhhhhh," he groaned, and his hands pulled me firmly downwards until I sheathed him completely.

"Do you think you can last until Geneva?" I murmured, both hands on his shoulders, balancing myself with my knees on the seat either side of him as the coach bounced in another of those ruts and I in turn moved most delightfully on him so that is was difficult not to squeal.

"That's almost two hours," Sylvester groaned. "No.... no, I can't last that long," and his hands gripped my hips firmly, holding me in place and he smiled. "But I'll do my damnedest, my dearest."

"Ohhhhhhh," I moaned, burying my face in Sylvester's shoulder as I moved on my dear Sylvester's rigid jade stalk involuntarily. "Ohhhhhh do try, Sylvester... do try your damnedest."

And no, there was definitely no need to mention to Sylvester what had happened with his friend, Lord Byron. Or for that matter with Ruthven and I smiled as Sylvester thrust hard, his hands pulling me gloriously downwards onto him as a jolt thrust him upwards and I did admit to myself that I did not regret what had happened, for it gave me something to compare Sylvester to, and Sylvester was gloriously wonderfully good at what he was doing.

"Yes," I moaned ecstatically, trying so hard not to move myself on him but it was so hard not to shudder with excitement when he used one finger to tease my clitoris like that and however long Sylvester lasted, I knew I would not last long. "Ohhhh yes, Sylvester, yes...yesssssss."

Not long at all and I forgot all about the Villa Diodati and Lord Byron and Shelley and Mary and Claire and Cecilia and poor Auden whose unwritten works would never now be known as I climaxed in a sudden rushing wave of gold with Sylvester's eyes smiling into mine.

And of course that Last Note from Chloe: I'm sure most of you will recognize some of the characters. George, Lord Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley. His (at the time of this story) 18 year old lover, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (they later married after Shelley's first wife died), Mary's half-sister, Claire Clairmont, who formed a menage with Shelley and Mary and who also had a short affair with Lord Byron. Some of you might be aware of who John Polidori was - Byron's doctor and author of the "The Vampyre", the seminal vampire novel which heavily influenced Brad Stoker's "Dracula." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley of course was the author of "Frankenstein."

In 1814, when she was nearly 17, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. On 26 June 1814, Shelley and Godwin declared their love for one another as Shelley announced he could not hide his "ardent passion", leading her in a "sublime and rapturous moment" to say she felt the same way; on either that day or the next, Mary lost her virginity to Shelley, which tradition claims happened in the cemetery of St Pancras churchyard. On 28 July 1814, the couple eloped and secretly left for France, taking Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, with them. Shelley and Clairmont were certainly lovers, and all three espoused free love (Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was an early feminist and advocate of free love at the end of the 18th century).

In May 1816, Mary and Percy Shelley travelled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant.The party arrived at Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley". Byron joined them on 25 May, with his young physician, John William Polidori and rented the Villa Diodati, close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny; Percy Shelley rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby. They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night. Byron also resumed his affair with Claire ("...a man's a man, and if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours, there is but one way..." he would later write of that time). Polidori fell in love with Mary and one night when Byron was reading aloud a poem, Shelley jumped up and ran shrieking from the room, having hallucinated under the influence of laudanum that Mary had sprouted demonic eyes in place of nipples.

"It proved a wet, ungenial summer", Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house". Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves with German ghost stories, which prompted Byron to propose that they "each write a ghost story". Unable to think of a story, young Mary Godwin became anxious: During one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated", Mary noted, "galvanism had given token of such things". It was after midnight before they retired, and unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the grim terrors of her "waking dream", her ghost story. So as you can see, a certain amount of reality woven into this.

Anyhow, "Midnight at the Villa Diodati" is me having a little fun with history. Into this seminal event in literature, where Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" and John Polidori wrote "The Vampyre", I have introduced Sylvester and Li-hua and hopefully a little Gothic Horror and some hot and entertaining sex. Hope you've all enjoyed.... Chloe