«You are the loveliest girl I've ever seen!» I cried as I helped to put in the syringe and wash her sex. «You're mah man,» she said proudly, «an' I want to show you that I can love better than any white trash; they only give themselves airs!» «You are white,» I cried, «don't be absurd!» She shook her little head. «If you knew,» she said. «When I was a girl, a child, old white men, the best in town, used to say dirty words to me in the street and try to touch me-the beasts!» I gasped: I had had no idea of such contempt and persecution. When we were back in bed together: «Tell me, Sophy dear, how you learned to move with me in time as you do and give me such thrills?» «Hoo!» she cried, gurgling with pleased joy.
«That's easy to tell. I was scared you didn't like me, so this afternoon I went to wise old niggah woman and ask her how to make man love you really! She told me to go right to bed with you and do that,» and she smiled. «Nothing more?» I asked. Her eyes opened brightly. «Shu!» she cried. «If you want to do love again, I show you!» The next moment, I was in her and now she kept even better time than at first and somehow or other the thick, firm lips of her sex seemed to excite me more than anyone had ever excited me.
Instinctively the lust grew in me and I quickened and as I came to the short, hard strokes, she suddenly slipped her legs together under me and closing them tightly held my sex as in a firm grip and then began «milking» me-no other word conveys the meaning-with extraordinary skill and speed, so that, in a moment, I was gasping and choking with the intensity of the sensation and my seed came in hot jets while she continued the milking movement, tireless, indefatigible! «What a marvel you are,» I exclaimed as soon as I got breath enough to speak,
«the best bedfellow I've ever had; wonderful, you dear, you!» All glowing with my praise, she wound her arms about my neck and mounted me as Lorna Mayhew had done once; but what a difference! Lorna was so intent on gratifying her own lust that she often forgot my feelings altogether and her movements were awkward in the extreme; but Sophy thought only of me and, whereas Lorna was always slipping my sex out of her sheath, Sophy in some way seated herself on me and then began rocking her body back and forth while lifting it a little at each churning movement, so that my sex in the grip of her firm, thick lips had a sort of double movement. When she felt me coming as I soon did, she twirled half round on my organ half a dozen times with a new movement and then began rocking herself again, so that my seed was dragged out of me, so to speak, giving me indescribably acute, almost painful sensations. I was breathless, thrilling with her every movement. «Had you any pleasure, Sophy?» I asked as soon as we were lying side by side again. «Shuah!» she said smiling. «You're very strong, and you,» she asked, were you pleased?» «Great God,»
I cried, «I felt as if all the hairs of my head were traveling down my backbone like an army! You are extraordinary, you dear!» «Keep me with you, Frank,» she whispered. «If you want me, I'll do anything, everything for you: I never hoped to have such a lover as you. Oh, this child's real glad her breasties and sex please you. You taught me that word, instead of the nasty word all white folks use. 'Sex' is a good word, very good!» and she crowed with delight. «What do colored people call it?» I asked. «Coozie,» she replied smiling,
«Coozie. Good word too, very good!» Long years later I heard an American story which recalled Sophy's performance vividly. An engineer with a pretty daughter had an assistant who showed extraordinary qualities as a machinist and was quiet and well behaved to boot. The father introduced his helper to his daughter and the match was soon arranged. After the marriage, however, the son-in-law drew away and it was in vain that the father-in-law tried to guess the reason of the estrangement. At length he asked his son-in-law boldly for the reason. «I meant right, Bill,» he began earnestly, «but if I've made a mistake I'll be sorry. Warn't the goods accordin' to specification? Warn't she a virgin?» «It don't matter nothin'!» replied Bill frowning. «Treat me fair, Bill,» cried the father.
«War she a virgin?» «How can I tell?» exclaimed Bill. «All I can say is, I never know'd a virgin before that had that cinder-shifting movement.» Sophy was the first to show me the «cinder-shifting» movement, and she surely was a virgin! As a mistress Sophy was perfection perfected and the long lines and slight curves of her lovely body came to have a special attraction for me as the very highest of the pleasure-giving type. Lily first and then Rose were astonished and perhaps a little hurt at the sudden cooling off of my passion for them. From time to time I took Rose out or sent her books, and I had Lily anywhere, any when; but neither of them could compare with Sophy as a bedfellow, and her talk even fascinated me more the better I knew her. She had learned life from the streets, from the animal side first, but it was astonishing how quickly she grew in understanding: love is the only magical teacher! In a fortnight her speech was better than Lily's; in a month she talked as well as any of the American girls I had had; her desire of knowledge and her sponge-like ease of acquirement were always surprising me. She had a lovelier figure than even Rose and ten times the seduction even of Lily: she never hesitated to take my sex in her hand and caress it; she was a child of nature, bold with an animal's boldness and had besides a thousand endearing familiarities. I had only to hint a wish for her to gratify it. Sophy was the pearl of all the girls I met in this first stage of my development and I only wish I could convey to the reader a suggestion of her quaint, enthralling caresses. My admiration of Sophy cleansed me of any possible disdain I might otherwise have had of the Negro people, and I am glad of it; for else I might have closed my heart against the Hindu and so missed the best part of my life's experiences. I have had a great artist make the sketch of her back which I reproduce at the end of this chapter; it conveys something of the strange vigor and nerve-force of her lovely firm body. But it was written that as soon as I reached ease and content, the fates would reshuffle the cards and deal me another hand.
First of all, there came a letter from Smith telling me how he had had a bed wetting one night and had caught a severe cold. The cough then had returned and he was losing weight and heart. He had come to the conclusion, too, that I had reached, that the moist air of Philadelphia was doing him harm, and the doctors now were beginning to urge him to go to Denver, Colorado, all the foremost specialists agreeing that mountain air was the best for his lung-weakness. If I couldn't come to him, I must wire him and he'd stop in Lawrence to see me on his way west, he had much to say-. A couple of days later he was in the Eldridge House and I went to see him. His appearance shocked me: he had grown spectre thin and the great eyes seemed to burn like lamps in his white face. I knew at once that he was doomed and could scarcely control my tears. We passed the whole day together and when he heard how I spent my days in casual reading and occasional speaking and my Topsy-turvey nights, he urged me to throw up the law and go to Europe to make myself a real scholar and thinker. But I could not give up Sophy and my ultra-pleasant life. So I resisted, told him he overrated me: I'd easily be the best advocate in the state, I said, and make a lot of money and then I'd go back and do Europe and study as well. He warned me that I must choose between God and Mammon; I retorted lightly that Mammon and my senses gave me much that God denied. «I'll serve both,» I cried, but he shook his head. «I'm finished, Frank,» he declared at length, «but I'd regret life less if I knew that you would take up the work I once hoped to accomplish. Won't you?» I couldn't resist his appeal.