Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Page A
Authors: Sarah Waters
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Historical, England, Erotic Fiction, England - Social Life and Customs - 19th Century, Lesbian, Lesbians, Lesbians - England
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with a dress of tulle and satin and a gilt tiara: chatted. 'Have you been a dresser for long? You seem awful she was a friend of Tootsie's from the ballet at the Pav young for it.'
come to ask Mrs Dendy's opinion of her costume. While the
'I'm not really a dresser at all, yet. Kitty is still training me frock was spread out on the parlour rug, the supper-things up-'
were carried off; and when the table was cleared the 83
84
Professor sat at it and spread a deck of cards. Percy joined She came about a half-hour later. I didn't look at her or say him, whistling; his tune was taken up by Sims, who raised her name, and she didn't greet me, only moved very quietly the lid of Mrs Dendy's piano and began to strike the melody about the room - assuming, I suppose, I was asleep, for I out on that. The piano was a terrible one -'Damn this cheesy was lying very straight on my side and had my eyes hard old thing!' cried Sims as he hit at it. 'You could play shut. There was a little noise from the rest of the house - a Wagner on it, and I swear it would come out sounding like laugh, and the closing of a door, and the rushing of water a sea-shanty or a jig!' - but the tune was gay and it made through distant pipes. But then all was calm again; and soon Kitty smile.
there were only the gentle sounds of her undressing: the
'I know this,' she said to me; and since she knew it she tiny volley of thuds as she pulled at the buttons on her couldn't help but sing it, and had soon stepped over the bodice; the rustle of her skirt, and then of her petticoat; the sparkling frock upon the floor to lift her voice for the sighing of the laces through the eyes of her stays. At last chorus at Sims's side.
there came the slap of her feet on the floorboards, and I I sat on the sofa with Bransby, and wrote a postcard to my guessed that she must be quite naked.
family. 'I am in the queerest-looking parlour you ever saw,'
I had turned the gas down, but left a candle burning for her.
I wrote, 'and everybody is extremely kind. There is a dog I knew that if I opened my eyes now, and tilted my face, I here with a stage-name! My landlady says to thank you for should see her clad in nothing but shadows and the candle-the oysters . . .'
flame's amber glow.
It was very cosy on the sofa, with everyone about me so But I did not turn; and soon there was another rustling, that gay; hut at half-past ten or so Kitty yawned - and at that I meant she had pulled on her nightgown. In a moment the gave a jump, and rose, and said it was my bedtime. I paid a light was extinguished; the bed creaked and heaved; and hasty visit to the privy out the back, then ran upstairs and she was lying beside me, very warm and horribly real.
changed into my nightgown double-quick - you might have She sighed. I felt her breath upon my neck and knew that thought I had been kept from sleeping for a week and was she was gazing at me. Her breath came a second time, and about to die of tiredness. But I was not sleepy at all; it was then a third, then: 'Are you asleep?' she whispered.
only that I wanted to be safely abed before Kitty appeared -
'No,' I said, for I could pretend no longer. I rolled on to my safely still and calm and ready for that moment that must back. The movement brought us even closer together - it shortly come, when she would be beside me in the dark, really was an extremely narrow bed - so I shifted, rather and there would be nothing but the two flimsy lengths of hurriedly, to my left, until I could not have shifted any our cotton nightgowns to separate her own warm limbs further without falling out. Now her breath was upon my from mine.
cheek, and warmer than before.
85
86
She said, 'Do you miss your home, and Alice?' I shook my my hand, and placed her arm over my middle, curling her head. 'Not just a little?'
fingers around the hollow of my waist. 'But we're like
'Well ..."
sisters now, aren't we Nan? You'll be a sister to me — won't I felt her smile.
come to ask Mrs Dendy's opinion of her costume. While the
'I'm not really a dresser at all, yet. Kitty is still training me frock was spread out on the parlour rug, the supper-things up-'
were carried off; and when the table was cleared the 83
84
Professor sat at it and spread a deck of cards. Percy joined She came about a half-hour later. I didn't look at her or say him, whistling; his tune was taken up by Sims, who raised her name, and she didn't greet me, only moved very quietly the lid of Mrs Dendy's piano and began to strike the melody about the room - assuming, I suppose, I was asleep, for I out on that. The piano was a terrible one -'Damn this cheesy was lying very straight on my side and had my eyes hard old thing!' cried Sims as he hit at it. 'You could play shut. There was a little noise from the rest of the house - a Wagner on it, and I swear it would come out sounding like laugh, and the closing of a door, and the rushing of water a sea-shanty or a jig!' - but the tune was gay and it made through distant pipes. But then all was calm again; and soon Kitty smile.
there were only the gentle sounds of her undressing: the
'I know this,' she said to me; and since she knew it she tiny volley of thuds as she pulled at the buttons on her couldn't help but sing it, and had soon stepped over the bodice; the rustle of her skirt, and then of her petticoat; the sparkling frock upon the floor to lift her voice for the sighing of the laces through the eyes of her stays. At last chorus at Sims's side.
there came the slap of her feet on the floorboards, and I I sat on the sofa with Bransby, and wrote a postcard to my guessed that she must be quite naked.
family. 'I am in the queerest-looking parlour you ever saw,'
I had turned the gas down, but left a candle burning for her.
I wrote, 'and everybody is extremely kind. There is a dog I knew that if I opened my eyes now, and tilted my face, I here with a stage-name! My landlady says to thank you for should see her clad in nothing but shadows and the candle-the oysters . . .'
flame's amber glow.
It was very cosy on the sofa, with everyone about me so But I did not turn; and soon there was another rustling, that gay; hut at half-past ten or so Kitty yawned - and at that I meant she had pulled on her nightgown. In a moment the gave a jump, and rose, and said it was my bedtime. I paid a light was extinguished; the bed creaked and heaved; and hasty visit to the privy out the back, then ran upstairs and she was lying beside me, very warm and horribly real.
changed into my nightgown double-quick - you might have She sighed. I felt her breath upon my neck and knew that thought I had been kept from sleeping for a week and was she was gazing at me. Her breath came a second time, and about to die of tiredness. But I was not sleepy at all; it was then a third, then: 'Are you asleep?' she whispered.
only that I wanted to be safely abed before Kitty appeared -
'No,' I said, for I could pretend no longer. I rolled on to my safely still and calm and ready for that moment that must back. The movement brought us even closer together - it shortly come, when she would be beside me in the dark, really was an extremely narrow bed - so I shifted, rather and there would be nothing but the two flimsy lengths of hurriedly, to my left, until I could not have shifted any our cotton nightgowns to separate her own warm limbs further without falling out. Now her breath was upon my from mine.
cheek, and warmer than before.
85
86
She said, 'Do you miss your home, and Alice?' I shook my my hand, and placed her arm over my middle, curling her head. 'Not just a little?'
fingers around the hollow of my waist. 'But we're like
'Well ..."
sisters now, aren't we Nan? You'll be a sister to me — won't I felt her smile.
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