While I was writing my novel I became acquainted with a very nice lady, the wife of a public official. She was suffering terribly from both moral restrictions and her husband's inability. When I met her, she had just bidden farewell to her last lover. She admitted that quite calmly and when I asked her, “When will you say good-bye to me?” she answered with a sweet smile, “How do I know now what I will feel for you tomorrow?”
I liked that answer and she became my mistress. I must admit, to do her full justice, that she was the most accommodating mistress I have ever had. Every morning between nine and ten she visited me at my apartment. Fortunately, it was easy for her to come and see me without fear of detection, and moreover I had given her a key to the front door. Usually I was still in bed that early in the morning and I had grown accustomed to waiting for the moment when she would peek around the door to my bedroom with her poodle hairdo and call out, “I am not here to say good-bye to you!”
Whenever she was later a certain uneasiness would well up in me … she has given me her silent farewell. I was neither very sad nor truly upset when this thought would occur to me. “One of these days she will stay away and I will have to go out and look for another one. I am sure there are women enough who are available for a little changing of partners. After all, they love to do it.”
And then, when she showed up after all, everything would be fine. She had the habit of lifting her skirt and petticoat the moment she entered the room and, since it was easier for her not to wear any other undergarments at all, I was afforded a good look at her firm thighs and a small portion of her belly. She then undulated toward my bed and, as first part of the ritual, I had to kiss her mound of shame.
She would then undress as quickly as a little monkey and the real kissing would get underway. First the mouth, which lasted for a long time, thereupon eyes and throat. She would become very excited and by the time I had reached her ears she would twitter like a little bird, try to escape me and immediately turn her other ear toward my lips. Next her bosom. It was very firm and small, “A handful is enough, anything more is strictly for the pigs,” is a saying of my countrymen with which I do not entirely agree. By the time I started to kiss the nipples of her breasts she would completely relax and sink next to me on the bed; once I had reached her inner thighs, her entire body would shudder and shake.
That is how it all usually was done. Sometimes she would lie down immediately, especially after she had had an exceptionally exciting dream. And when the sacrifice had been made she would invariably turn her little round behind toward me and I had to give it a firm smack. “You know, I always pretend that my husband hits me, and then the whole affair is all right.”
I asked her once why she was unfaithful to her husband, if she suffered every day again from pangs of conscience.
“It has to be that way,” she countered, “because he comes to me every Saturday and he says that that is enough … you know what happens at our place on Saturdays?” She laughed like an excited schoolgirl. “Do you believe that my husband has never seen me naked? And my body is surely beautiful, but he has not once, not even in pitch dark, stretched out his hands and touched it. Well, anyhow, on Saturdays we go to the theater and afterwards we visit a restaurant. He orders half a bottle of red wine and drinks it. His face will become more and more serious and he starts pressing his knees together. That is a sure sign. I know he has not forgotten that it is Saturday. And, after about a half-hour, he will say, 'Well!' That's all. Nothing else. And we leave.
“On the way home we don't talk, probably because that would make his desire disappear. Another fifteen minutes and we are in bed, in our pitch dark bedroom and I hear him say again, 'Well!' Of course, sometimes it takes a little longer before he utters this invitation, because sometimes it takes him simply a little longer to get an erection. I have to giggle, and I am on my back, tickling myself with my fingers. And then … put, put, put … and he's ready and crawls, without even kissing me, back into his own bed. And with the same regularity he tells me, 'The preventative is not torn, but I think it is better when you take a douche. Good night!'
“So you see, those are my nights of love … the Saturday nights. Oh, in the beginning they were terrible, because I had nothing else and I would often think that I would die out of sheer misery. I never became passionate till after he was ready. So, I started out with my fingers and later on with a candle. And later on, I became a little bit smarter. At a girl friend's house I saw one of those rubber things.
She put it on, rubbed it with some oil and then … my God, was that ever an experience. And then, when she became tired of it, I assumed the role of the man. I went to see her as often as I could, but one Saturday I had spent the entire afternoon with her till I was sore inside and out. I could have done without my husband's put-put-put that night. But finally that playing around with the rubber thing was no longer pleasant. It did not give me the satisfaction I wanted. So I thought: To hell with all this so-called decency, and I took a lover. After all, the natural thing is still the best, and I can't help myself, I have to have what I need.”
And, I'm sure, that's what the little one has always had. Before me and since me and, if she's still alive, which I fervently hope though she must be a matron by now, for all I know she is still having it. She did not, like Rita for instance, belong to the unsatiable ones, though she did have one thing in common with Rita: her delight in her own nudity.
Once she told me happily: “You know what? Tomorrow I can spend the entire day with you. Be sure to have some cold cuts and candies, will you?”
It must have sounded terribly ungrateful and coarse when I did not seem enthusiastic at all by asking with surprise, “All day?”
She pouted a little. The poor thing had so much enjoyed the prospect. Her husband had to go to some convention or other and she had already given the maid a day's leave. I took her into my arms and said, “But of course, darling, don't be so disappointed, tomorrow you'll be with me all day and I'll simply postpone my work till the day after tomorrow.”
“You mean you have to work?”
I told her that at the moment I was working on a theatrical play. It was my first play, by far my most outspoken one, but the only one which had not been attacked by a howling mob of moralists, mainly because nobody had ever produced it.
She embraced me, kissed me and clapped her hands like a little excited girl. She was happy to find out that I had a profession, and especially the one I had. “I will stay with you, you will have to read passages to me and you will also have to do some work on it. I want to be your muse!” she exclaimed while turning a pirouette. Doing that, she had excited me so greatly that I did not want her to go yet. But she was very firm about it and said, “No, not today … tomorrow!”
And she walked away.
The next day was more than just charming. She arrived at her regular time and was very carefully dressed. I was still in bed, waiting for her, as usual. But this time she did not lift her skirt when she closed the door and she also did not undulate up to the bed. Instead she exclaimed happily, “Mister poet, why don't you get up and wash your face while I fix your breakfast in the other room!”
She hurried over to me, gave me a quick kiss and whispered in my ear, “But you don't have to put your clothes on.”
And she disappeared.
When I walked into the adjoining room, I noticed that the curtains were drawn and the lights on. The table was set and next to it, on its iron stand, stood the samovar. Only I did not see my little one. Suddenly she called out, “Peek-a-boo!” Her poodle hairdo came from under the table and the next moment she was in my arms, as naked as I was. I was extremely passionate but she did not want it yet.