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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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 Twitter: @mystic_erotica
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!”
