My Life and Loves/Chapter 10
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE.
Chapter X.
Supper at the Gregory's was almost over when I entered the dining-room: Kate and her mother and father and the boy Tommy were seated at the end of the table, taking their meal: the dozen guests had all finished and disappeared. Mrs. Gregory hastened to rise and Kate got up to follow her mother into the neighbouring kitchen.
"Please don't get up!" I cried to the girl, "I'd never forgive myself for interrupting you: I'll wait on myself or on you", I added smiling, "if you wish anything—"
She looked at me with hard, indifferent eyes and sniffed scornfully: "If you'll sit there", she said, pointing to the other end of the table, "I'll bring you supper; do you take coffee or tea?"
"Coffee, please," I answered and took the seat indicated, at once making up my mind to be cold to her while winning the others. Soon the boy began asking me had I ever seen any Indians—"in war-paint and armed, I mean" he added eagerly.
"Yes and shot at them, too", I replied smiling. Tommy's eyes gleamed—"Oh tell us!" he panted and I knew I could always count on one good listener!
"I've lots to tell, Tommy," I said, "but now I must eat my supper at express rate or your sister'll be angry—" I added as Kate came in with some steaming food: she pulled a face and shrugged her shoulders with contempt.
"Where do you preach?" I asked the grey-haired father, "my brother says you're really eloquent—"
"Never eloquent," he replied deprecatingly, "but sometimes very earnest perhaps, especially when some event of the day comes to point the Gospel story—" he talked like a man of fair education and I could see he was pleased at being drawn to the front.
Then Kate brought me fresh coffee and Mrs. Gregory came in and continued her meal and the talk became interesting, thanks to Mr. Gregory who couldn't help saying how the fire in Chicago had stimulated Christianity in his hearers and given him a great text. I mentioned casually that I had been in the fire and told of Randolph Street Bridge and the hanging and what else I saw there and on the lakefront that unforgettable Monday morning.
At first Kate went in and out of the room removing dishes as if she were not concerned in the story, but when I told of the women and girls half-naked at the lakeside while the flames behind us reached the zenith in a red sheet that kept throwing flame-arrows ahead and started the ships burning on the water in front of us, she too stopped to listen.
At once I caught my cue, to be liked and admired by all the rest; but indifferent, cold to her. So I rose as if her standing enthralled had interrupted me and said:
"I'm sorry to keep you: I've talked too much, forgive me!" and betook myself to my room in spite of the protests and prayers to continue of all the rest. Kate just flushed; but said nothing.
She attracted me greatly: she was infinitely desirable, very good-looking and very young (only sixteen, her mother said later) and her great hazel eyes were almost as exciting as her pretty mouth or large hips and good height. She pleased me intimately but I resolved to win her altogether and felt I had begun well: at any rate she would think about me and my coldness.
I spent the evening in putting out my half-dozen books, not forgetting my medical treatises, and then slept, the deep sleep of sex recuperation.
The next morning I called on Smith again where he lived with the Reverend Mr. Kellogg, who was the Professor of English History in the University, Smith said. Kellogg was a man of about forty, stout and well-kept, with a faded wife of about the same age. Rose, the pretty servant, let me in: I had a smile and warm word of thanks for her: she was astonishingly pretty, the prettiest girl I had seen in Lawrence: medium height and figure with quite lovely face and an exquisite rose-leaf skin! She smiled at me; evidently my admiration pleased her.
Smith, I found, had got books for me, Latin and Greek-English dictionaries, a Tacitus too and Xenophon's Memorabilia with a Greek grammar: I insisted on paying for them all and then he began to talk. Tacitus he just praised for his superb phrases and the great portrait of Tiberius—"perhaps the greatest historical portrait ever painted in words." I had a sort of picture of King Edward the Fourth in my romantic head, but didn't venture to trot it out. But soon, Smith passed to Xenophon and his portrait of Socrates as compared with that of Plato. I listened all ears while he read out a passage from Xenophon, painting Socrates with little human touches: I got him to translate every word literally and had a great lesson, resolving when I got home, I'd learn the whole page by heart. Smith was more than kind to me: he said I'd be able to enter the Junior Class and thus have only two years to graduation. If Willie gave me back even five hundred dollars, I'd be able to get through without care or work.
Then Smith told me how he had gone to Germany after his American University: how he had studied there and then worked in Athens at ancient Greek for another year till he could talk classic Greek as easily as German. "There were a few dozen Professors and students" he said, "who met regularly and talked nothing but classic Greek: they were always trying to make the modern tongue just like the old." He gave me a translation of "Das Kapital" of Marx, and in fifty ways inspired and inspirited me to renewed effort.
I came back to the Gregorys for dinner and discussed in my own mind whether I should go to Mrs. Mayhew's as I had promised or work at Greek: I decided to work and then and there made a vow always to prefer work, a vow more honored in the breach, I fear, than in the observance. But at least I wrote to Mrs. Mayhew excusing myself and promising her the next afternoon. Then I set myself to learn by heart the two pages in the "Memorabilia".
That evening I sat near the end of the table; the head of it was taken by the University Professor of Physics, a dull pedant!
Every time Kate came near me I was ceremoniously polite: "Thank you very much! It is very kind of you!" and not a word more. As soon as I could, I went to my room to work.
Next day at three o'clock I knocked at Mrs. Mayhew's: she opened the door herself: I cried, "how kind of you" and once in the room drew her to me and kissed her time and time again: she seemed cold and numb.
For some moments she didn't speak, then: "I feel as if I had passed through fever", she said, putting her hands through her hair, lifting it in a gesture I was to know well in the days to come: "Never promise again if you don't come: I thought I should go mad: waiting is a horrible torture! Who kept you?—some girl?" and her eyes searched mine.
I excused myself; but her intensity chilled me. At the risk of alienating my girl-readers, I must confess this was the effect her passion had on me. When I kissed her, her lips were cold. But by the time we had got upstairs, she had thawed: she shut the door after us gravely and began: "See how ready I am for you!" and in a moment she had thrown back her robe and stood before me naked: she tossed the garment on a chair; it fell on the floor: she stooped to pick it up with her bottom to me: I kissed her soft bottom and caught her up by it wih my hand on her sex. She turned her head over her shoulder:
"I've washed and scented myself for you, Sir: how do you like the perfume? and how do you like this bush of hair?" and she touched her Mount with a grimace; "I was so ashamed of it as a girl: I used to shave it off: that's what made it grow so thick, I believe: one day my mother saw it and made me stop shaving; oh, how ashamed of it I was: it's animal, ugly:—don't you hate it? Oh! tell the truth!" she cried, "or rather, don't; tell me you love it".
"I love it," I exclaimed, "because it's yours!" "Oh you dear lover," she smiled, "you always find the right word, the flattering salve for the sore!"
"Are you ready for me?" I asked, "ripe-ready or shall I kiss you first and caress pussy?"
"Whatever you do, will be right," she said, "you know I am rotten-ripe, soft and wet for you always!"
All this while I was taking off my clothes: now I too was naked.
"I want you to draw up your knees," I said: "I want to see the Holy of Holies, the shrine of my idolatry".
At once she did as I asked. Her legs and bottom were well-shaped without being statuesque; but her clitoris was much more than the average button: it stuck out fully half an inch and the inner lips of her vulva hung down a little below the outer lips. I knew I should see prettier pussies. Kate's was better shaped, I felt sure, and the heavy, madder-brown lips put me off a little.
The next moment I began caressing her red clitoris with my hot, stiff organ: Lorna sighed deeply once or twice and her eyes turned up; slowly I pushed my prick in to the full and drew it out again to the lips, then in again and I felt her warm love-juices gush as she drew up her knees even higher to let me further in: "Oh, it's divine", she sighed, "better even than the first time", and when my thrusts grew quick and hard as the orgasm shook me, she writhed down on my prick as I withdrew, as if she would hold it, and as my seed spirted into her, she bit my shoulder and held her legs tight as if to keep my sex in her. We lay a few moments bathed in bliss. Then as I began to move again to sharpen the sensation, she half rose on her arm: "Do you know", she said, "I dreamed yesterday of getting on you and doing it to you: do you mind, if I try—" "No, indeed!" I cried, "go to it: I am your prey!" She got up smiling and straddled kneeling across me and put my cock into her pussy and sank down on me with a deep sigh. She tried to move up and down on my organ and at once came up too high and had to use her hand to put my Tommy in again; then she sank down on it as far as possible: "I can sink down all right", she cried smiling at the double meaning, "but I cannot rise so well! What fools we women are, we can't master even the act of love; we are so awkward!"
"Your awkwardness, however, excites me," I said. "Does it?" she cried, "then I'll do my best", and for some time she rose and sank rhythmically; but as her excitement grew, she just let herself lie on me and wiggled her bottom till we both came. She was flushed and hot and I couldn't help asking her a question:
"Does your excitement grow to a spasm of pleasure?" I asked, "or do you go on getting more and more excited continually?"
"I get more and more excited," she said, "till the other day with you for the first time in my life the pleasure became unbearably intense and I was hysterical, you wonder-lover!"
Since then I have read lascivious books in halt a dozen languages and they all represent women coming to an orgasm in the act, as men do, followed by a period of content; which only shows that the books are all written by men and ignorant, insensitive men at that. The truth is hardly one married woman in a thousand is ever brought to her highest pitch of feeling: usually, just when she begins to feel, her husband goes to sleep. If the majority of husbands satisfied their wives occasionally, the Woman's Revolt would soon move to another purpose: women want above all a lover who loves to excite them to the top of their bent. As a rule men through economic conditions marry so late that they have already half exhausted their virile power before they marry. And when they marry young they are so ignorant and so self-centered that they imagine their wives must be satisfied when they are. Mrs. Mayhew told me that her husband had never excited her really. She denied that she had ever had any acute pleasure from his embraces.
"Shall I make you hysterical again!" I asked, out of boyish vanity, "I can, you know!"
"You mustn't tire vourself! she warned, "my husband taught me long ago that when a woman tires a man, he gets a distaste for her and I want your love, your desire, dear, a thousand times more even that the delight you give me—"
"Don't be afraid", I broke in, "you are sweet, you couldn't tire me: turn sideways and put your left leg up, and I'll just let my sex caress your clitoris back and forth gently; every now and then I'll let it go right in until our hairs meet." I kept on this game perhaps half an hour until she first sighed and sighed and then made awkward movements with her pussy which I sought to divine and meet as she wished when suddenly she cried:
"Oh! Oh! hurt me, please! hurt me, or I'll bite you! Oh God, oh, oh"—panting, breathless till again the tears poured down!
"You darling!" she sobbed, "how you can love! Could you go on forever?"
For answer I put her hand on my sex: "Just as naughty as ever", she exclaimed, "and I am choking, breathless, exhausted! Oh, I'm sorry", she went on, "but we should get up, for I don't want my help to know or guess: niggers talk—"
I got up and went to the windows; one gave on the porch but the other directly on the garden. "What are you looking at?" she asked coming to me. "I was just looking for the best way to get out if ever we were surprised", I said, "if we leave this window open I can always drop into the garden and get away quickly."
"You would hurt yourself", she cried. "Not a bit of it", I answered, "I could drop half as far again without injury, the only thing is, I must have boots on and trousers, or those thorns of yours would give me gip!" . . . . "You boy", she exclaimed laughing: "I think after your strength and passion, it is your boyishness I love best"—and she kissed me again and again.
"I must work", I warned her, "Smith has given me a lot to do." "Oh, my dear", she said, her eyes filling with tears, "that means you won't come tomorrow or", she added hastily, "even the day after?"
"I can't possibly", I declared, "I have a good week's work in front of me; but you know I'll come the first afternoon I can make myself free and I'll let you know the day before, sweet!" She looked at me with tearful eyes and quivering lips: "love is its own torment!" she sighed while I dressed and got away quickly.
The truth was I was already satiated: her passion held nothing new in it: she had taught me all she could and had nothing more in her, I thought; while Kate was prettier and much younger and a virgin. Why shouldn't I confess it? It was Kate's virginity attracted me irresistibly: I pictured her legs to myself, her hips and thighs and her sex: she wouldn't have a harsh bush of hairs; already I felt the silken softness of her triangle: would it be brown or have strands of gold in it like her hair?
The next few days passed in reading the books Smith had lent me, especially "Das Kapital", the second book of which, with its frank exposure of the English factory system, was simply enthralling: I read some of Tacitus, too, and Xenophon with a crib and learned a page of Greek every day by heart, and whenever I felt tired of work, I laid siege to Kate. That is, I continued my plan of campaign: one day I called her brother into my room and told him true stories of buffalo hunting and of fighting with Indians; another day I talked theology with the father or drew the dear mother out to tell of her girlish days in Cornwall: "I never thought I'd come down to work like this in my old age; but then children take all and give little; I was no better as a girl; I remember"—and I got a scene of her brief courtship!
I had won the whole household long before I said a word to Kate beyond the merest courtesies. A week or so passed like this till one day I held them all after dinner while I told the story of our raid into Mexico. I took care, of course, that Kate was out of the room. Towards the end of my tale, Kate came in: at once I hastened to the end abruptly and after excusing myself, went into the garden.
Half an hour later I saw she was in my room tidying up; I took thought and then went up the outside steps. As soon as I saw her, I pretended surprise: "I beg your pardon", I said, "I'll just get a book and go at once; please don't let me disturb you!" and I pretended to look for the book.
She turned sharply and looked at me fixedly: "Why do you treat me like this?" she burst out, shaking with indignation.
"Like what?" I repeated, pretending surprise. You know quite well", she went on angrily, hastily: at first I thought it was chance, unintentional; now I know you mean it. Whenever you're talking or telling a story, as soon as I come into the room you stop and hurry away as if you hated me. Why? Why?" she cried with quivering lips, "What have I done to make you dislike me so?" and the tears gathered in her lovely eyes.
I felt the moment had come: I put my hands on her shoulders and looked with my whole soul into her eyes: "Did you never guess, Kate, that it might be love, not hate?" I asked.
"No, no!" she cried, the tears falling, "love doesn't act like that!"
"Fear to miss love does, I can assure you", I cried, "I thought at first that you disliked me and already I had begun to care for you", (my arms went round her waist and I drew her to me) "to love you and want you. Kiss me, dear" and at once she gave me her lips while my hand got busy on her breasts and then went down of itself to her sex. Suddenly she looked at me gaily, brightly while heaving a big sigh of relief. "I'm glad, glad!" she said, "if you only knew how hurt I was and how I tortured myself; one moment I was angry, then I was sad. Yesterday I made up my mind to speak, but today I said to myself, I'll just be obstinate and cold as he is and now"—and of her own accord she put her arms round my neck and kissed me, "you are a dear, dear! Anyway, I love you!"
"You mustn't give me those bird-pecks!" I exclaimed, "those are not kisses: I want your lips to open and cling to mine" and I kissed her while my tongue darted into her mouth and I stroked her sex gently. She flushed, but at first didn't understand, then suddenly she blushed rosy red as her lips grew hot and she fairly ran from the room.
I exulted: I knew I had won: I must be very quiet and reserved and the bird would come to the lure; I felt exultingly certain!
Meanwhile I spent nearly every morning with Smith: golden hours! Always, always before we parted, he showed me some new beauty or revealed some new truth: he seemed to me the most wonderful creature in this strange, sunlit world. I used to hang entranced on his eloquent lips! (Strange! I was sixty-five before I found such a hero-worshipper as I was to Smith, who was then only four or five and twenty!) He made me know all the Greek dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and put them for me in a truer light than English or German scholars have set them yet. He knew that Sophocles was the greatest and from his lips I learned every chorus in the Oedipus Rex and Colonos before I had completely mastered the Greek grammar; indeed, it was the supreme beauty of the literature that forced me to learn the language. In teaching me the choruses, he was careful to point out that it was possible to keep the measure and yet mark the accent too: in fact, he made classic Greek a living language to me, as living as English. And he would not let me neglect Latin: in the first year with him I knew poems of Catullus by heart, almost as well as I knew Swinburne. Thanks to Professor Smith I had no difficulty in entering the Junior Class at the University; in fact, after my first three or four months' work I was easily the first in the class, which included Ned Stevens, the brother of Smith's inamorata. I soon discovered that Smith was heels over head in love with Kate Stevens, shot through the heart as Mercutio would say, with a fair girl's blue eye!
And small wonder, for Kate was lovely; a little above middle height with slight, rounded figure and most attractive face: the oval, a thought long, rather than round, with dainty, perfect features, lit up by a pair of superlative grey-blue eyes, eyes by turns delightful and reflective and appealing that mirrored a really extraordinary intelligence. She was in the Senior Class and afterwards for years held the position of Professor of Greek in the University. I shall have something to say of her in a later volume of this history, for I met her again in New York nearly fifty years later. But in 1872 or 73, her brother Ned, a handsome lad of eighteen who was in my class, interested me more. The only other member of the Senior Class of that time was a fine fellow, Ned Bancroft, who later came to France with me to study.
At this time, curiously enough, Kate Stevens was by way of being engaged to Ned Bancroft; but already it was plain that she was in love with Smith and my outspoken admiration of Smith helped her, I hope, as I am sure it helped him, to a better mutual understanding. Bancroft accepted the situation with extraordinary self-sacrifice, losing neither Smith's nor Kate's friendship: I have seldom seen nobler self-abnegation: indeed his high-mindedness in this crisis was what first won my admiration and showed me his other fine qualities.
Almost in the beginning I had serious disquietude: every little while Smith was ill and had to keep his bed for a day or two. There was no explanation of this illness which puzzled me and caused me a certain anxiety.
One day in mid-winter there was a new development. Smith was in doubt how to act and confided in me. He had found Professor Kellogg, in whose house he lived, trying to kiss the pretty help, Rose entirely against her will: Smith was emphatic on this point, the girl was struggling angrily to free herself, when by chance he interrupted them.
I relieved Smith's solemn gravity a little by roaring with laughter: the idea of an old Professor and clergyman trying to win a young girl by force filled me with amusement: "What a fool the man must be!" was my English judgment; Smith took the American high moral tone at first.
"Think of his disloyalty to his wife in the same house", he cried, "and then the scandal if the girl talked and she's sure to talk!"
"Sure not to talk", I corrected, "girls are afraid of the effect of such revelations; besides a word from you asking her to shield Mrs. Kellogg will ensure her silence."
"Oh, I cannot advise her", cried Smith, "I will not be mixed up in it: I told Kellogg at the time, I must leave the house, yet I don't know where to go! It's too disgraceful of him! His wife is really a dear woman!"
For the first time I became conscious of a rooted difference between Smith and myself: his high moral condemnation on very insufficient data seemed to me childish; but no doubt many of my readers will think my tolerance a proof of my shameless libertinism! However I jumped at the opportunity of talking to Rose on such a scabrous matter and at the same time solved Smith's difficulty by proposing that he should come and take room and board with the Gregorys—a great stroke of practical diplomacy on my part, or so it appeared to me; for thereby I did the Gregorys, Smith and myself an immense, an incalculable service. Smith jumped at the idea, asked me to see about it at once and let him know and then rang for Rose.
She came half scared, half angry, on the defensive, I could see; so I spoke first, smiling: "Oh Rose", I said, "Professor Smith has been telling me of your trouble: but you ought not to be angry: for you are so pretty that no wonder a man wants to kiss you: you must blame your lovely eyes and mouth"—
Rose laughed outright: she had come expecting reproof and found sweet flattery.
"There's only one thing, Rose", I went on: "the story would hurt Mrs. Kellogg if it got out and she's not very strong, so you must say nothing about it, for her sake: that's what Professor Smith wanted to say to you", I added. "I'm not likely to tell", cried Rose: "I'll soon forget all about it: but I guess I'd better get another job: he's liable to try again though I gave him a good hard slap", and she laughed merrily.
"I'm so glad for Mrs. Kellogg's sake", said Smith gravely, "and if I can help you to get another place, please call upon me".
"I guess I'll have no difficulty", said Rose flippantly with a shade of dislike of the Professor's solemnity: "Mrs. Kellogg will give me a good character" and the healthy young minx grinned; "besides I'm not sure but I'll go stay home a spell: I'm fed up with working and would like a holiday, and mother wants me—"
"Where do you live, Rose?" I asked with a keen eye for future opportunities; "On the other side of the river", she replied, "next door to Elder Conklin's, where your brother boards—"she added smiling.
When Rose went I begged Smith to pack his boxes for I would get him the best room at the Gregory's and I assured him it was really large and comfortable and would hold all his books, etc., and off I went to make my promise good. On the way I set myself to think how I could turn the kindness I was doing the Gregorys to the advantage of my love. I decided to make Kate a partner in the good deed, or at least a herald of the good news. So when I got home I rang the bell in my room and as I had hoped, Kate answered it. When I heard her footsteps I was shaking, hot with desire and now I wish to describe a feeling I then first began to notice in myself. I longed to take possession of the girl, so to speak, abruptly, ravish her in fact, or at least thrust both hands up her dress at once and feel her bottom and sex altogether; but already I knew enough to realise certainly that girls prefer gentle and courteous approaches: why? Of the fact I'm sure. So I said, "Come in, Kate!" gravely; "I want to ask you whether the best bedroom is still free and if you'd like Professor Smith to have it, if I could get him to come here?"
"I'm sure Mother would be delighted", she exclaimed.
"You see", I went on, "I'm trying to serve you all I can, yet you don't even kiss me of your own accord": she smiled and so I drew her to the bed and lifted her up on it: I saw her glance and answered it: "The door is shut, dear", and half lying on her I began kissing her passionately while my hand went up her clothes to her sex. To my delight she wore no drawers, but at first she kept her legs tight together, frowning: "love denies nothing, Kate", I said gravely; slowly she drew her legs apart, half pouting, half smiling, and let me caress her sex. When her love-juice came I kissed her and stopped: "It's dangerous here", I said, "that door you came in by is open; but I must see your lovely limbs" and I turned up her dress. I hadn't exaggerated; she had limbs like a Greek statue and her triangle of brown hair lay in little silky curls on her belly and then—the sweetest cunny in the world: I bent down and kissed it.
In a moment Kate was on her feet, smoothing her dress down: "What a boy you are", she exclaimed, "but that's partly why I love you; oh, I hope you'll love me half as much. Say you will, Sir, and I'll do anything you wish!"
"I will", I replied, "but oh, I'm glad you want love: can you come to me to night? I want a couple of hours with you uninterrupted." "This afternoon", she said, "I'll say I'm going for a walk and I'll come to you, dear! They are all resting then or out and I shan't be missed."
I could only wait and think. One thing was fixed in me, I must have her, make her mine before Smith came: he was altogether too fascinating, I thought, to be trusted with such a pretty girl; but I was afraid she would bleed and I did not want to hurt her this first time, so I went out and bought a syringe and a pot of cold cream which I put beside my bed.
Oh, how that dinner lagged! Mrs. Gregory thanked me warmly for my kindness to them all (which seemed to me pleasantly ironical!) and Mr. Gregory followed her lead; but at length everyone had finished and I went to my room to prepare. First I locked the outside door and drew down the blinds: then I studied the bed and turned it back and arranged a towel along the edge: happily the bed was just about the right height! Then I loosened my trowsers, unbuttoned the front and pulled up my shirt: a little later Kate put her lovely face in at the door and slipped inside. I shot the bolt and began kissing her: girls are strange mortals: she had taken off her corsets just as I had put a towel handy. I lifted up her clothes and touched her sex, caressing it gently while kissing her; in a moment or two her love-milk came.
I lifted her up on the bed, pushed down my trowsers, anointed my prick with the cream and then parting her legs and getting her to pull her knees up, I drew her bottom to the edge of the bed: she frowned at that but I explained quickly, "It may give you a little pain, at first, dear; and I want to give you as little as possible" and I slipped the head of my cock gently, slowly into her. Even greased her pussy was very tight and at the very entrance, I felt the obstacle, her maidenhead in the way: I lay on her and kissed her and let her or Mother Nature help me.
As soon as Kate found that I was leaving it to her, she pushed forward boldly and the obstacle yielded: "O—O" she cried and then pushed forward again roughly and my organ went in her to the hilt and her clitoris must have felt my belly. Resolutely I refrained from thrusting or withdrawing for a minute or two and then drew out slowly to her lips and as I pushed Tommy gently in again, she leaned up and kissed me passionately. Slowly with extremest care I governed myself and pushed in and out with long, slow thrusts though I longed, longed to plunge it in hard and quicken the strokes as much as possible; but I knew from Mrs. Mayhew that the long, gentle thrusts and slow withdrawals were the aptest to excite a woman's passion and I was determined to win Kate.
In two or three minutes she had again let down a flow of love-juice or so I believed and I kept right on with the love-game, knowing that the first experience is never forgotten by a girl and resolved to keep on to dinner-time if necessary to make her first love-joust ever memorable to her. Kate lasted longer than Mrs. Mayhew: I came ever so many times, passing ever more slowly from orgasm to orgasm before she began to move to me; but at length her breath began to get shorter and shorter and she held me to her violently, moving her pussy the while up and down harshly against my manroot. Suddenly she relaxed and fell back: there was no hysteria; but plainly I could feel the mouth of her womb fasten on my cock as if to suck it. That excited me fiercely and for the first time I indulged in quick, hard thrusts till a spasm of intensest pleasure shook me and my seed spirted or seemed to spirt for the sixth or seventh time.
When I had finished kissing and praising my lovely partner and drew away, I was horrified: the bed was a sheet of blood and some had gone on my pants: Kate's thighs and legs even were all incarnidined, making the lovely ivory white of her skin, one red. You may imagine how softly I used the towel on her legs and sex before I showed her the results of our love-passage. To my astonishment she was unaffected: "You must take the sheet away and burn it", she said, "or drop it in the river: I guess it won't be the first."
"Did it hurt very much", I asked.
"At first a good deal", she replied, "but soon the pleasure overpowered the smart and I would not even forget the pain: I love you so: I am not even afraid of consequences with you: I trust you absolutely and love to trust you and run whatever risks you wish."
"You darling!" I cried, "I don't believe there will be any consequences; but I want you to go to the basin and use this syringe: I'll tell you why afterwards." At once she went over to the basin: "I feel funny, weak", she said, "as if I were—I can't describe it—shaky on my legs. I'm glad now I don't wear drawers in summer: they'd get wet." Her ablutions completed and the sheet withdrawn and done up in paper, I shot back the bolt and we began our talk. I found her intelligent and kindly but ignorant and ill-read; still she was not prejudiced and was eager to know all about babies and how they were made. I told her what I had told Mrs. Mayhew and something more: how my seed was composed of tens of thousands of infinitesimal tadpole-shaped animalculae—Already in her vagina and womb these infinitely little things had a race: they could move nearly an inch in an hour and the strongest and quickest got up first to where her egg was waiting in the middle of her womb. My little tadpole, the first to arrive, thrust his head into her egg and thus having accomplished his work of impregnation, perished, love and death being twins.
The curious thing was that this indescribably small tadpole should be able to transmit all the qualities of all his progenitors in certain proportions; no such miracle was ever imagined by any religious teacher. More curious still the living foetus in the womb passes in nine months through all the chief changes that the human race has gone through in countless aeons of time in its progress from the tadpole to the man. Till the fifth month the foetus is practically a four-legged animal.
I told her that it was accepted to-day that the weeks occupied in the womb in any metamorphosis corresponded exactly to the ages it occupied in reality. Thus it was upright, a two-legged animal, ape and then man in the womb for the last three months and this corresponded nearly to one third of man's whole existence on this earth. Kate listened enthralled, I thought, till she asked me suddenly:
"But what makes one child a boy and another a girl?"
"The nearest we've come to a law on the matter", I said, "is contained in the so-called law of contraries: that is, if the man is stronger than the woman, the children will be mostly girls; if the woman is greatly younger or stronger, the progeny will be chiefly boys. This bears out the old English proverb: "Any weakling can make a boy, it takes a man to make a girl."
Kate laughed and just then a knock came to the door. "Come in!" I cried and the colored maid came in with a note: "a lady's just been and left it", said Jenny. I saw it was from Mrs. Mayhew, so I crammed it into my pocket saying regretfully: "I must answer it soon." Kate excused herself and after a long, long kiss went to prepare supper while I read Mrs. Mayhew's note, which was short if not exactly sweet.
"Eight days and no Frank, and no news; you cannot want to kill me: come to-day if possible. Lorna."
I replied at once, saying I would come on the morrow, that I was installing Smith in my boarding-house and was so busy I didn't know where to turn, but would be with her sure on the morrow and I signed "Your Frank".
That afternoon at five o'clock Smith came and I helped to arrange his books and make him comfy.
