The familiar words beat against my skull. They belong to William Acton, the author of the manual on sexual habits that I was forced to read so many times as a youth. Now his words are burned into my brain. This manual not only forbids a man from having contact with a woman outside of marriage but also prohibits him from having any contact with…himself.
They are words that, at great personal expense, I live by.
“Leave him be, Henry,” Peter says from the corner. “His reason is no worse than yours. Some would say it is much better.”
Henry holds up his hands to indicate that he means no harm.
While I appreciate Peter’s concern, I’m not offended.
It was Henry who introduced me to the other men.
Peter was the one, however, who came up with the idea to meet on Tuesday evenings in this very smoking lounge.
“I am not affronted,” I say. “I know that Henry cannot understand why a man in my situation would abstain when he sees his own abstinence as the cruelest restriction of society upon man.”
“Itisexactly that,” laments Henry.
“Why don’t you marry, then?” Peter says. “Alfred is right. It is a choice.”
We are all silent then.Thatwas one of the mysteries of Peter. Of the six of us, he is the only married man—and yet he sits in this room. He belongs to ourclub,as Henry calls it, even though he has a wife.
A very comely one, in fact.
There is clearly more tothatstory than Peter is willing to share.
“For the same reason Alfred himself won’t marry. And Daniel and Bram and Theo. We have to make advantageous matches.”
“You forget my circumstances,” Daniel says. “I could only ever marry Emmeline. And she won’t be an aid to my station at all. Which is one of the reasons we have yet to marry.”
“Yes, yes, my apologies,” Henry says. “I spoke wrongly. Not you.”
“And not me,” Theo says. “I would marry the right woman tomorrow. If she would have me. If a woman who would have me exists. Which I doubt.”
“Any woman would be lucky to have you, Theo,” Bram says. “And you’re wrong about me, as well, Henry. I’ll never marry.”
“But youareright about me,” I interject with a smile. “I must marry a woman with a handsome dowry. The larger the better. In the church, it is imperative.”
I have read about love in novels. I want to believe that it is real. That I will somehow find it with the right woman. Novels are the one vice that I allow myself. I am always falling half in love with one heroine or another and then having to remind myself that she isn’t flesh-and-blood.
And then, there is the one secret that I keep. My one vice. The type of novel that a clergyman should never read. I have only one. But it is more than enough. It fires my mind. I can see its discreet, green cover now. I keep it at the bottom of a drawer, below my copy of that infernal book by William Acton. It is my shame and my torment.
“That is still a choice,” Peter says quietly. “We have all made our choices. Henry, you could go nearly anywhere in this city and find a woman willing to bed you—whether you paid her or charmed her into it. And that is not to mention marriage. You will not convince anyone here that you have not made a decision. However much you may lament it.”
Peter is the oldest of our strange little set. And he appears to be the most at peace with his situation.
The other men always seem restless, none more so than me.
But not Peter. He holds himself perfectly still while the rest of us fidget, tap the table with our fingers, or stand up suddenly to walk about the room.
I sigh.
Most days my own desires torture me, especially since their proper outlet, the marital state, remains so far out of my reach.
“Fine,” Henry bites off. “Itisa choice. But a choice that I very much wish I did not have to make.”
I grin. Winning an argument with Henry—it’s not easy.
“Thank you,” Peter says with a slight bow of his head. “I admire your willingness to be honest.”
