'Does not your cunny tingle still?', he asked. His words burst out, without control. 'Pa-PA! I… OH!' He spun me, held me crushed to him, groped down beneath my bottom cheeks and raised me struggling on tiptoe. 'Tonight! You hear me? Or I'll bring the strap to you, my girl'. He raised my chin and gripped it painfully, and forced me to look up into his eyes. My own showed anguish mingled with desire. 'You wouldn't, Papa! No-oh, please! Oh, not that horrid strap again! It burns me and you know it does'. 'And to what purpose-eh? Now, answer me!' 'To, to, to make me let you'.
'Well?' 'Oh, please, Papa-I have to go. Don't crush me so'.
'The strap or cock, then-which is it to be? I will have no further nonsense from you now'. 'Yes-yes-all right!'
'Come-say it clear; I wish to hear you say'. 'You're h… h… hurting me, Papa. Yes, yes, all right!' His grip had slackened and I pressed away, stepped back from him and gathered up my hat and reticule. 'What?', he demanded. I put my bonnet on all in a rush, my fingers trembling visibly. The bizarre occurrence had begun to take on a near reality. 'Wh… what you said'. I giggled it and choked at the same time, rushed to the door and sped along the hall. 'My love!', he called, but I was gone, was gone, my driver starting up as I appeared, and brushing cobwebs from his eyes. He raised his whip in readiness. I smiled at him and tumbled in. He little knew the gesture he had made.
CHAPTER 16
I said nothing to the others of my new encounter with that strange and yet magnetic man. Had I thought less of him, I would. I felt a pity for his state, the utter loneliness that must enfold him in between the stagings of the same play on and on, his grapplings for the words he wished to hear from the mouths of whimpering girls whose legs he spread. Perhaps it was a case of age and youth, I thought, but then remembered James' warm, eager eyes, his hands that groped me up beneath my skirt, and knew it not to be so.
'Shall we not go home?', I asked of Jane the next morning when Julie said she had to leave. Her uncle was to come for her: an invasion by a visitor from a far world. 'I suppose so', Jane said. She had a feeling in her, as she said, that she wished to go somewhere, do something, but she knew not what it was nor where: a sensation not unfamiliar to me, too, and one that stirs me often still, like a branch that shakes itself in a wild wind, pretending it would leave the mother trunk. 'We shall have cock wherever we go-that is for certain', Julie said. Her tone was placid, and no smiling wrinkles round her eyes. Sometimes she had solemnity and was not always fey and bright. But her moods, like those of mine and Jane's, were ever at a change. I was to see a new side to her now, but knew it not until we disengaged ourselves from Harry and Aramintha and went off. 'It may rain today', said Julie's Uncle Herbert in the carriage, she beside him and we facing them. He was a small man who forever preened himself, wore silk cravats and purple spats, and had but a nibbler of a moustache upon his upper lip. 'It may or it may not. We shall know it if the cows lie down. Be quiet. I have not said that you might speak. My friends, dear Uncle, are not as you think, and will not have your sauciness'. If one can hear another gape, then I heard Jane do so. My own face flushed. I knew not where to look- her words so brusque. She whom Papa had carried limp and willing from our bed to say her prayers so many weeks before. I expected her uncle to bluster or to shout. Instead he looked more meek and bowed his head. The motions of the carriage jolted him more than it did myself. 'What were we talking of?', asked Julie to me then, as though he were not there. I covered up confusion by replying something quite mundane. Her uncle raised his face and was expressionless. A tubular protrusion showed between his thighs. I must have stared at it, for Julie laughed and said, 'He likes to have his quietness when with ladies. Do you not?', she asked him, and he nodded, dumb. Thereat she placed her hand upon his thigh and put her thumb upon his covered tool whose knob outlined itself beneath the cloth. -in a moment we shall stop to have a drink', she said, and called out something to the driver who then hollered back. Julie sat quietly then-sat like a queen. Her thumb brushed back and forth.
Each time it did, her uncle quivered and compressed his lips. His eyes were pebbles-were expressionless. I stared at passing fields on one side-Jane the other. A desire came over me to smack Julie; I knew not why. The impudent power that she exploited puzzled me and set me all awry. I knew not whence it came and sensed that Jane was equally bewildered-tense with an unknowing. We need not stop so soon, I wished to say, but did not speak for fear of an embarrassing reply. I felt as if all were a knot that I could not untie. Five minutes passed along the dusty road, and then the coach wheeled in and stopped outside an inn. Its keeper stood, arms folded, gazed upon our vehicle and then went in as though to lay a carpet down. Julie got out the first-then I and Jane. Her uncle stayed within, stayed sat. His penis was more prominent from her sly thumbings. 'He will wait', said Julie, and no sooner had we reached the door than she began to giggle, rushed within the rather dark interior and took up seat at a rough table. 'What?', Julie asked. It sounded like a general question to the world at large. 'Oh, he has been like that for years. You must not think it over-bold or strange of me. My aunt has trained him', Julie quaintly said, and ordered white wine for the three of us. I wanted to tell that he was a man. The male was paramount. That had for long been dinned into our minds. Papa had pushed his trousers down. Julie had knelt with maidenly obedience and… 'Tell us!', said Jane across my thoughts. 'Oh, what's to tell? He does as he is told. Only be females though. I do not understand it much myself. He has a perky strut with other men, quaffs whiskey well and shoots and smokes cigars, and yet…' 'Yet, what?', I asked, my nose all wrinkled up. 'Oho, you have seen for yourself. My aunt says he is childlike in the female grip. Many a time she smothers him between her thighs while talking with another lady in their house. He kneels obedient, his face between. When she releases him at last, oh you should see his cheeks, how red they are!'
'Oh!', I ejaculated. So did Jane. The mastery of Jenkins on me, yet he too had cried. Were males so pliable beneath? I could not bring myself to think they were as frail as we. The world and all its people jumbled in my head. Elizabeth's husband saying 'Hold her down!' -and Aramintha's uncle… Ah… Ah yes. She said that she had peed down on his chest. I had not even pictured it when she said that, but now I did, and felt a strange, warm flush. 'He would wait an hour if I told him so-but come, this is just a lesson to him', Julie said and emptied quick her glass, we leaving ours half drunk and going out into the sun again. 'Have you ever peed on him?', I asked. The words escaped me, sudden as they were. I would not have her think me wholly ignorant. 'Aha! You know!', she laughed, 'Yes, sometimes, yes.
How messy, though, it is. He has to lie down in the bath without his trousers on, his shirt tucked up. He has a fair prick on him, not too small. You soon will see'. 'I never thought', said Jane, and then she stopped. We had seen our uncle only several times, and that when we were younger. He had been no more than just an adult shape, a voice, within the house. So many came and went-we took no note, and in any case were ushered early into bed for reasons I had long since understood. Uncle Herbert sat erect in every sense, cock tenting up his trouser front. A holy silence was maintained as we drove on. I felt it must not break, and so did Jane, for she said nothing, too. I did not mind; I had so much to dwell upon. In fifteen minutes we arrived. 'May I…?', he quavered as we reached the house. The carriage swayed as we got down. 'Yes! Out with you and follow at our heels', said Julie. There was mischief in her eyes. Also a touch of fear, I saw. She was not too much accustomed to her role, and feared to appear before her aunt as other than that lady wished her to. With us she had dissembled just enough-bubbling with the surprise she had created. I watched deflation in her when we met her aunt, but then that lady seemed to recharge her with energy, her flashing eyes and her large bosom holding court all by themselves. 'Herbert!