For some time she felt only a sharp, aching tenderness towards Jean; a deep, romantic affection for the woman who had given her such exquisite pleasure. How wonderful it had felt to be caressed by those long, gentle fingers! Monique sighed. How considerate Jean had been, how thoughtful!
Was it really sinful to be loved by a member of your own sex? Monique began to feel the first pangs of self-reproach — a sudden remorse creeping through her body as she stared at Jean's fingers: relaxed in sleep, the beautifully shaped hands lying passively at the woman's side.
What intimate things they had done to her! The girl felt a deep blush stealing over her cheeks as she regarded Jean's hands and remembered how they had touched her in her most private and secret parts!
How could she ever look Jean in the eyes again after knowing the woman so completely? She began to feel terribly afraid that Jean would reject her — that when the woman awoke she would feel ashamed of her momentary weakness and hate the girl who had inspired it. Monique bit her lip tearfully.
It wasn't really her fault, the girl tried to insist. What they had done together had been as much on Jean's initiative as her own. She couldn't be held entirely to blame for their immoral and unnatural intimacy.
But then Monique realised that she longed for a repetition of it! Jean had stirred previously unknown desires within her and Monique could no longer pretend that they didn't exist. Perhaps these feelings had always been waiting for a woman like Mrs. Cameron to nudge them and bring them out into the open. Perhaps she was a lesbian — through and through!
The idea startled her and she tried to suppress it. Surely all girls went through some such phase in their sexual development? It wasn't all that unusual for a girl to seek out a member of her own sex when she was growing aware of her beauty and her desires?
But somehow Monique knew that her feelings for Jean Cameron went much deeper than a mere girlish infatuation. Gingerly, she put her hand on Jean's calf and let her fingers press the shapely flesh.
Again, the familiar breathlessness overcame her: she could feel, stirring from her very soul, a growing awareness that her emotions towards Jean belonged to a very different category. It the love of which the poets spoke really existed, Monique was certain that she felt it for this wonderful, beautiful woman.
Helplessly, her mind and body yearned for Jean. She couldn't imagine that the caresses of a man could even equal, let alone surpass, those which she had enjoyed with Mrs. Cameron. Monique gazed soulfully on the relaxed, sleeping body — white and naked, the legs apart and revealing Jean's sex: the smooth triangle of dark hairs into which she'd so recently been burying her mouth.
The girl knew that the morning which had begun so normally (no different from the many others she'd spent with the Camerons) had completely changed her life. There was no turning back for her. Never again could she be the innocent, inexperienced girl of her childhood. Without warning, her submerged lust had risen to the surface of her being — and she was to be subjugated to her desires for the rest of her life…
Her thoughts saddened her; Monique felt a sweet melancholy pervade her as she fully realised that she had at last crossed the threshold into womanhood. It was a momentous occasion, this irrevocable step towards maturity. And, her eyes never leaving Jean's body, the girl began to cry silent tears; weeping for the loss of her innocence.
The sound of her crying woke Jean up. Faintly, through her sleep of exhaustion, the woman heard gentle, rhythmic sobs as Monique was unable to keep her weeping to herself.
“Oh, what's the matter, darling?” she asked anxiously, sitting up in the bed and quickly putting her arm around Monique's bare shoulders. “Why are you crying? What's wrong?”
Monique buried her head in Jean's hair, clinging to the woman, her body shaking helplessly. Between sobs, she blurted out: “You must despise me for what I've done, Jean! You must hate me! I've been so wicked, so terrible…”
Firmly, Jean took the girl by her shoulders and lifted her up so that their eyes met. “Oh, Monique!” she whispered. “How can you even think such a thing? I love you, darling! I love you! Do you think I didn't know what I was doing — that I was actually being seduced by you?
“It's been so long since I've made love the way we made love, Monique! So very long…” Her eyes took on a faraway look and her voice faltered. “If anything, it's me who ought to be ashamed", she continued, searching Monique's eyes intensely. “You are only a child — and I've behaved as if you were in full control of your emotions. It was very wrong of me — ”
Monique shook her head urgently. “Oh, you must not think that, Jean!” she exclaimed. “I knew exactly what I was doing, believe me!” She smiled wistfully. “We do seem to be at cross-purposes, don't we?” Monique said with a rueful twist of her lips. “First, we didn't want to be truthful about what we were doing to each other this morning.
“Or at least — ” she corrected herself quickly. “I didn't want to admit it! And now, we both think we've persuaded the other to do something which she didn't really want to do! I suppose it's quite funny really, isn't it?”
Jean hugged her tightly. “Never mind, darling", she told the girl. “I think we both understand each other now. Don't we?”
Monique nodded happily, moving her cheek softly against Jean's. “Oh yes!” she cried. “We do — I know we do!”
Jean kissed her gently on her chin. “Good", she said briskly. “Now — let's have no more talk about doing 'terrible things'! What we have together isn't terrible: it's beautiful and wonderful, understand?”
Monique nodded again, gazing into Jean's face with a trustful, child-like faith.
“I've waited so long to be loved", Jean went on, her voice huskier and filling with emotion. “When you came to stay with us I never imagined that you'd be the one, darling. How could I? I always thought it would be another man…
“But now I know how wrong I was! Men are selfish, greedy animals! They think only of themselves. I should have known that you could never have the same relationship with them that two women can have. It's impossible — the two sexes are so different, they each want completely opposite things from their partners.
“Women want to be adored… caressed slowly and gently. Men want to dominate cruelly and with only a token display of tenderness. How can they ever be truly happy together?”
Monique listened, allowing herself to be persuaded by Jean's words, refusing to question the dubious logic which the woman was propounding.
“I loved a girl once — a long time ago", Jean continued. “We were at school together and used to spend our holidays at each other's houses. One year I'd stay with her, the next year she'd come out to my parent's house in the country — not very far from here, as a matter of fact…
“We used to play games together: act out charades in which we'd pretend that we were famous people — actors and actresses, kings and queens… the usual games which children indulge in. I forget which one of us first suggested it, but we started to imagine what these people were like when they made love — how they behaved…
“We began to experiment; getting so carried away with enthusiasm for the new twist to our game that we actually undressed each other and kissed and fondled…
“Both of us enjoyed doing this so much that we played it nearly every time we were alone together. We tried out different techniques, guessing how certain movie stars would make love when they didn't have an audience watching them. Neither of us ever admitted it, but very soon it became far more than just a game. We always disguised what we were doing; we never admitted that we were really Jean and Anne who were making love to each other.
“But, obviously, we both knew secretly that we loved each other much more passionately than two girl friends ought to. And that we were far more intimate than was considered 'proper'.