Naturally I did as I was told and her body melted itself against mine while our lips met. "You dear," she said, "I love you so, and oh how wonderfully you kiss."
"You've taught me," I said. "I'm your pupil."
While we were together my sex was against hers and seeking an entry; each time it pushed in, she drew away; at length she said: "I'd love to give myself to you, dear, but I'm frightened."
"You need not be," I assured her. "If you let me enter, I'll withdraw before my seed comes and there'll be no danger." But do what I would, say what I would, that first night she would not yield to me in the usual way.
I knew enough about women to know that the more I restrained myself and left her to take the initiative, the greater would be my reward. A few days later I took her up Mount Lycabettus and showed her "all the kingdoms of the spirit," as I used to call Athens and the surroundings. She wanted to know about ancient Greek literature. "Was it better than modern French literature?"
"Yes and no; it was altogether different."
She confessed she could not understand Homer, but when I recited choruses from the Oedipus Rex, she understood them; and the great oath in Demosthenes' speech, "Not by those who first faced death at Marathon" — and the noble summing up brought tears to her eyes-"Now by your judgment you will either drive our accusers out over land and over sea, houseless and homeless, or you will give to us a sure release from all danger in the peace of the eternal silence." On hearing this, she kissed me of her own accord.
As we were walking that afternoon down the long slope of Lycabettus, "You don't want me any more?" she said, suddenly. "Men are such selfish creatures; if you don't do all they want at once, they draw away."
"You don't believe a word of that," I interrupted. "When have I drawn away?
I'm awaiting your good pleasure. I didn't want to bother you perpetually, that's all. If you could see me watching the handle of your door every night-"
"Some night soon it will turn," she said, and slipped her hand through my arm.
"I don't like to decide important things when I am all a quiver with feeling, but I've thought over all you said and I want to believe you, to trust you- see?" And her eyes were one promise.
Luckily, when the handle of her door did turn, I was on the watch and took her in my arms before she had crossed the threshold, and the love-game she had taught me went on for a long time. At length wearied and all dissolved in sensation, she lay in my arms and my sex throbbing hot was against hers, seeking, seeking its sheath. Luckily I did not force matters but let the contact plead for me. At length she whispered, "I hate to deny you; will you do what you promised?"
"Surely," I said.
"And there's no danger?"
"None," I replied. "I give you my word of honour," and the next moment she relaxed in my arms and let me have my will. Slowly I penetrated, bit by bit, and she leaned to me with greedy mouth, kissing me. It was divine, but oh, so brief: a few thrusts and I was compelled to withdraw to keep my word.
"Oh, it was heavenly," she sighed as I took up my spurting semen on my handkerchief, "but I like your mouth best: why is that? Your tongue excites me terribly: why?" she asked, and then, "Let's talk!"
But I said, "No dear! let's begin. Now there's no risk; I can go with you as much as we like without danger. I'll explain it to you afterwards, but take my word and let's enjoy ourselves."
The next moment I was in her again and the great game went on with renewed vigour. Again and again she came to an ecstasy and at length as I mounted high up so as to excite her more, she suddenly cried out: "Oh, oh, que c'est fou, fou, fou," and she bit my shoulder and then burst into tears.
Naturally I took her in my arms and began to kiss her; our first great loveduet was over. From that night on she had no secrets from me, no reticences, and bit by bit she taught me all she felt in the delirium of love: she told me she could not tell which gave her most pleasure, but I soon learned that she preferred me to begin by kissing her sex for ten or fifteen minutes and then to complete the orgasm with my sex used rather violently.
All the English schoolboy stories of some fancied resemblance between the mouth and the sex of the woman, and the nose and sex of the man, I found invariably false. Eirene had rather a large mouth and a very small pretty sex, whereas the girl with the largest sex and thickest lips I ever met had a small thin mouth. Similarly with the man. I'm sure there's no relation whatever between the sex and the feature of the face.
An exquisite mistress, Eirene, with a girl's body, small, round breasts, and a mouth I never grew tired of. Often afterwards, instead of walks, we adjourned to my room and spent the afternoon in love's games. Sometimes her mother came to her door and she would laugh and hug me; once or twice her brother came to mine, but we lay in each other's arms and let the foolish outside world knock. But we always practiced the game she had been the first to teach me; for some reason or other I learned more about women through it and the peculiar ebb and flow of their sensuality than the natural love-play had taught me; it gives the key, so to speak, to a woman's heart and senses, and to the man this is the chief reward, as wise old Montaigne knew, who wrote of "standing at rack and manger before the meal."
I was always trying to win confessions from my girl friends about then-first experiences in sensuality, but save in the case of some few Frenchwomen, actresses for the most part, I was not very successful. What the reason is, others must explain, but I found girls strangely reticent on the subject. Time and again when in bed with Eirene I tried to get her to tell me, and at long last she confessed to one adventure.
When she was about twelve she had a French governess in Marseilles, and one day this lady came into the bathroom, telling her she had been a long time bathing, and offering to help her dry herself. "I noticed," said Eirene,
"that she looked at me intently and it pleased me. When I got out she wrapped the robe about me and then sat down and took me on her knees and began to dry me. As she touched me often there I opened my legs and she touched me very caressingly, and then of a sudden she kissed me passionately on the mouth and left me. I liked her very much. She was a dear, really clever and kind."
"Did she ever dry you again?" I asked.
Eirene laughed. "You want to know too much, sir," was all she would say.
When I returned to Athens at the end of the summer, I took rooms in the people's quarter and lived very cheaply. Soon Eirene came to visit me again and we went often to the Greek theatre and I read Theocritus with her on many afternoons; but she gave me nothing new and in the spring I decided to return by way of Constantinople and the Black Sea to Vienna, for I felt that my Lehrjahre-"prentice-years"-were drawing to an end; and Paris beckoned, and London.
One of the last evenings we were together Eirene wanted to know what I liked best in her.
"You've a myriad good qualities," I began. "You are good-tempered and reasonable always, to say nothing of your lovely eyes and lithe slight figure.
But why do you ask?"
"My husband used to say I was bony," she replied. "He made me dreadfully unhappy, tho' I tried my best to please him. I didn't feel much with him at first and that word 'bony' hurt terribly."
"Don't you know," I said, "one of our first meetings, when you got out of bed to go to your room, I lifted up your nightie and saw the outline of your curving thighs and hips; it has always seemed to me one of the loveliest contours I've ever seen. If I had been a sculptor I'd have modelled it long ago-'bony,' indeed; the man didn't deserve you: put him out of your head."