I only realised that her head was on the move when her hair tickled its way across my chest and then her face with its queer smile was closing out the world. Her lips touched upon mine. I nearly gagged at the taste of wine. My brain was boiling inside my skull, and nausea that had nothing to do with gastro bubbled in my stomach. Her tongue tried to force my clenched teeth open, but in fact that was achieved when her hand slipped under my pyjama string and closed around the stem of my penis. I knew then what it was like to be in the clutches of an octopus, only warm and caressing and soothing, despite the fierce heat that raised at every point of contact.

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a dinner was laid out—and wine and plate. Steyne was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sate. The wretched woman was in a full brilliant toilette, her arms and her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings; and the brilliants on her breast that Steyne had given her. He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught the sight of Rawdon’s white face. At the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome her husband: Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.
He, too, attempted a laugh—and came forward holding out his hand. “What, come back! How d’ye do, Crawley?” he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to grin at the intruder.
There was that in Rawdon’s face which caused Becky to fling herself before him. “I am innocent, Rawdon,” she said; “before God, I am innocent.” She clung hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings, and baubles. “I am innocent.—Say I am innocent,” she said to Lord Steyne.
    Which, of course, she is. Kissing her hand, and she fully dressed, over-dressed—I carefully checked the meaning of those odd words used here—sate, and toilette. The first might have meant satisfied, but was also an archaic form of sit. A rare usage of toilette is simply a costume. The least I might have hoped for was a little nudity, even one bare breast would have sufficed.
    But no, empty-handed once again, and the poor girl—doing it all to support their lavish lifestyle, goes down on this slim offence. It annoyed me, as dodging the whole battle of Waterloo annoyed me, and really I found Thackeray and Vanity Fair bland. I loved Becky Sharp, hated all the other characters, but the author just did not allow me to get as deeply into this terrific female as I wanted. You knew what she did, you were told why she did it, but you never really knew where she was at with it. The character seems underdone to me.