"It is a thousand pities you do not like sweets."
"Does little de Belvaux like sweets? She offered me some yesterday. She must be a good customer. Is it always for sweets she visits you?"
I laughed again. The little man laughed also. He looked a little uncertain. Then his face cleared. He saw I knew more than I cared to say. No doubt there were confidences among the pensionnaires. Doubtless I possessed a knowledge of what went on there.
He offered me a chair. He leaned over me while I sat and wrote the word "Voltaire." His breath came hot on my neck. The situation was novel. A strange excitement possessed me. He took the pen from my hand. As he did so, he seized my wrist and pressed it.
"What will you give me, if I get the book?"
"Whatever you like, if I am not found out."
"All right, come in here, mademoiselle. You are the most beautiful girl in the pension. I would do all for you for nothing. Why do you laugh? Eh bien, nearly for nothing. At any rate for something you would like."
He led the way into the inner room; the window which looked up towards the house was covered with a muslin blind. He closed the curtain behind us. I had seen him shut the outer door. There was another door at the back of the lodge which led into the shrubbery. He stood in front of me. He took me round the waist. Encouraged by my submission, he drew me to him. He pressed his stunted body to mine. He quite took my breath away.
"You darling! You beauty! You are not afraid. You shall know all — you shall see all. Look at this?"
He quickly unfastened his trousers. I was horribly afraid we might be interrupted.
"Don't be uneasy. There is no chance that anyone can disturb us. Here, my divine little beauty! Give me your pretty hand."
He seized it. He conveyed it to his person. He placed it upon a monstrous limb half swollen with desire. It lolled in my immodest grasp. My fingers clutched it and closed up. It was my initiation to a man's parts. He uncovered his belly and fully exposed all. He was covered with short, curly, dark hair. The limb throbbed and lengthened in my hand.
"Rub it like that… so…that's lovely! Oh! That's exquisite! How nicely you do it, mademoiselle"
His member swelled and stiffened till it was more than half the length of his stunted thighs. The red and blue knob looked like a shiny ripe plum.
"Do you like that, ma belle?"
"Yes, I like it-are you quite sure we are safe?"
"Quite safe-go on, ma petite belle, I will tickle you too, presently."
I continued my gentle friction, looking all the while at the strange thing I held in my hand. There was a large hairy purse below, which wagged about as I worked. I rubbed the limb up and down as he told me. It grew as hard as a piece of wood. I grasped the loose skin which could no longer cover the big plum. I pressed it back at each movement. His pleasure seemed to increase-my strokes grew quicker.
"I shall come soon. Je vais jouir! Oh! Oh! Go on-go on! Faster- do not let go-mon dieu! What pleasure! Hold tight-oh?"
With my right hand, I moved up and down as the girls milk the cows. I looked down at his naked limb. He uttered some inarticulate words. Suddenly, as I looked, a stream of thick hot stuff shot out and fell in a shower all over my hand and arm. I worked away until the thing, covered with froth, slipped out of my hand.
"Now you must promise me that book as soon as you can get it, or I shall not come again to visit you."
"I am going tomorrow to the quais. No doubt I can get it there."
"Bonjour, alors. I will come for it the day after tomorrow."
"Ah, my sweet dove, then you shall learn something more; something very nice that all young ladies like very much."
"But I must have my book."
"Sans faute, au revoir?"
You-Eveline-the girl they all call so delicately beautiful, so refined that they say your noble and ancient blood stands out in your face and figure-you associate with such a being as this! A hunchback, whose ugly head lies deep between his shoulders, whose dwarfed stature barely exceeds four English feet, whose ungainly legs bow apart like the opposite staves of a barrel!
Yes-Eveline pleads guilty. In art it is the rule that all should be in good proportion; all must unite to form a pleasing similarity. In lust it is the reverse. Lust is fed by disparity. By incongruity and perversity. The tall man loves the little woman. The old man's senile passion is stimulated by the immature girl. The elderly lady takes a boy of twenty to her arms, and lavishes presents upon him so that his interest, if not his desire, should be involved. Endless requirements arise out of these anomalies. Then why should the gentle, the graceful, the elegant and the delicately bred and nurtured Eveline not find a similar stimulus in dalliance with a deformed but interesting hunchback? Eveline is perverse. If you do not believe it, please close these memoirs. They are not for you.
But at the same time, the hunchback is a strong man with a large limb. Eveline, even at that early age, had conceived a desire for strong men with large limbs.
Two days later I found an opportunity during the recreation time to wander down to the porter's lodge-not for sweets.
All was quiet. The concierge was at the little window. It commanded the straight avenue to the main building. He had evidently seen me coming.
"I have come to know about my book-my Voltaire. Have you got it for me?"
"Ah, mademoiselle, as if I could forget such a sweet and beautiful being as you. Of course I have it. Behold it here?"
He held up in both hands several small volumes bound in rusty leather and waved them triumphantly over his ugly head. He deposited them on the table. I looked at the title, Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations; Voltaire. I picked up Volume I–Charlemagne.
"You are very good. It is what I want. Tell me the price?"
"You beautiful cherie, you have already paid me for anything I can do for you all my life long. Afterwards we will talk of the price."
He struck his great hollow chest a sounding blow. He actually bowed. Then he struck an attitude.
Had I not felt he was assuming a part, I might have believed in his vehemence. As it was, I knew well enough his vicious designs upon myself. I was on my guard. I put the little volume in my pocket.
"Well, and now, my pretty one, you will give me my reward."
He pressed his long arm round my waist. He gave a side-glance up the avenue, then with his left hand he coolly undid his nether garment and shamelessly produced his big yard.
"I am a man of few words, dear mademoiselle, but only just feel the weight of that?"
I looked upon his nakedness. He took my hand as he spoke. He laid it upon his member. Even as my fingers closed on his exposed nudity, his request had become impossible. Snake-like, the huge thing straightened and lengthened itself. It rose with strong muscular jerks. It stood proudly up by itself at a small angle with his hairy belly. I looked at it, and at the man himself, with a strong inclination to laugh.
The little fellow was evidently in no humor for jesting. His face, inflamed with the coarsest lust, was opposed to my own. His bandy legs, his squat body, his long ungainly arms appeared to me irresistibly comic. As he stood in front of me, his left arm resting on his hip, his right close to his side, and his long and vigorous limb stretched disproportionately before him, he seemed to me to resemble nothing so much as an exaggerated teapot with a straight spout.
Then a strange sensation of abandonment came over me. I felt excited beyond all self-restraint with the strangeness of the situation. I put my little hand again upon the huge spout. I felt it throb. The man's lust extended its influence to me. I was quite ready to meet his salacious advances. I seated myself in his armchair. He placed himself in front of me. I examined the big limb. I caressed it with my hand. I shook it and played with it, wondering at its size and elasticity.