Another thing Jean did was to send to Paris and get half a dozen instruments resembling the sex of men in stiff Indian rubber; and these, too, we found could be used to excite our beauties to a hitherto unknown extent.
We all agreed finally that the sensuality of women lasted much longer than that of men, and women needed much more exciting. But Jean's greatest achievement was altogether new to most of us. He heard the gardener one day bragging of his mistress because she had the smallest sex.
"Of course," said Jean, "you know that you can make any girl's sex as small as you like."
We showed astonishment and he went on: "There are three or four injections which will contract the sex as much as you please, contract it so that you cannot enter easily the sex of a woman who has had a child: it's ridiculous to talk of a small sex as a beauty when anyone can have it."
In the next week or ten days we had all tried his injections of alum water and found that his remedy was in every case infallible; but still we preferred those who were naturally small.
Ernest told us that he had had a similar experience in the East, I think in Java, and I had to admit that I had learned about it in India.
Jean, too, would not be fettered for a moment to any girl, but every Wednesday and every Sunday chose a new partner; and he used to amuse us all infinitely with his stories of how he treated them and how he enjoyed them. One day when Jean had been bragging of his performances, one of his mistresses suddenly interrupted him by saying, "The only way one can ever get you to go twice is by whipping you," and we all laughed, for Jean was distinctly younger than any of us except George, and we hitherto had taken his bragging, more or less, to be the truth.
Looking back over that wonderful summer, I consider my most valuable experiences to be the stories the girls told of themselves: the sex experiences in girlhood of Flora and Adriana taught me a great deal, for they both were normal. I am sure Flora's confessions were perfectly truthful and, though Adriana concealed a good deal usually, she now and then revealed herself very completely. This is what Flora told me: but I'll keep these revelations for another chapter.
CHAPTER IX
"You ask me to strip my mind; well, I'll try," Flora began, "and if I omit anything, you must just question me, for I want to please you, you dear!
"Ever since I can remember, I have revelled in certain kinds of-may I call them, naked thoughts. Even as young as seven I must have been lewd — this is stripping myself with a vengeance. I remember I had measles at school, and a doctor whose pet I was attended me. He was very good-looking. I suppose he was a hero to me-anyway, I distinctly remember the sensation he caused me by undressing and touching me. That may be ordinary enough, but I used to dream about it, think about it, delight in it. Is that natural? I've never told any one-they wouldn't understand-so I don't know whether it is usual or not.
"And later at nine years of age or so, a girl much older than myself made me much worse. Of course, she used me to gratify her sensations, but it was very bad for me. She put my hand on her and told me to rub. I think I must have been really depraved, for later two other girls got very intimate with me, but this time I was the ring-leader. I can hardly say what we didn't do-you will understand. This at the age of nine and ten, and they say boys are more depraved than girls! I don't believe it. From that you can have some idea what I am like now.
"My dreams lead to sensations. I just revel in passions that have no outlet whatever, unless I satisfy them myself. And often I do that. That's one side of me.
"I wish to God those of my sex weren't such hypocrites. Even my best friend, with whom I discuss all sorts of things, chiefly men and women, often seems thoroughly disgusted and tells me seriously I'm getting very immoral. She was saying the other day that she had dreamt she was walking naked and alone down the main street, and she thought everyone had had that dream more or less frequently. I said I had never dreamt I was naked and alone anywhere! That it was wasting a splendid sensation. She was really annoyed.
"Then there were two other girls; they were about the same age as myself, thirteen and fourteen. They were sisters and very wild; I mean undisciplined. I didn't like them at all, they were too rude and bold and very mean. Still they served a purpose. They used to strip and put me in bed and one of them rubbed vaseline or some sort of grease between my legs, and the other looked on till her turn came. The sensation of being looked at was almost as good as the one of being rubbed. I must have been a cunning little devil, because I certainly wasn't able to analyze the why and the wherefore of it at all; I just knew I liked it.
"And then came older girls; when I was about fifteen, a girl took me up to her room and locked the door; it was a sort of wardrobe room-small and pitch dark. I was old enough to realize then just what I was doing. She put my hand on her sex and I touched her as well as I could. I know I liked doing it.
Naturally she was fully developed and somehow that was an added enjoyment for me. It did me harm in that I used to brood over it, gloat over it, enjoy my lewd thoughts-well, fifteen is too young for that, especially as I didn't need encouraging."
"But why shouldn't you be encouraged?" I couldn't help asking.
"I was already too much inclined that way," she replied.
"So much the better," I went on; "I can't understand the implied condemnation."
"Nor can I," she rejoined. "It's merely habit, the customary way of thinking and speaking.
"You want to know everything: are girls' desires as vagrant as those of men?
Yes, and quite as strong, I think; when, as a young girl, a man attracted me, a complete stranger-or showed me he wanted me, in the tram or anywhere, I used to cross my legs and press my thighs together and squeeze my sex till I came just as if I had used my hand; often I was all wet. There, you have the truth!
"Why did I come here? Naturally, I hoped to win a first prize, but really that was not my chief motive. The gardener said there was a young good-looking Englishman in the villa who would be very nice to me; the money was only the hope we all used to excuse ourselves. We pretended to be seeking the money, but in truth we were seeking lover and love-new emotions.
"When the gardener left me in the bedroom that first morning, I noticed how fine the sheets were and the pretty pictures in the room: 'When will he come?'
I asked myself; 'What will he do?' And my heart was in my mouth.
"Before you came in that first time to see me, the hope of you set all my pulses throbbing. I threw myself on the bed and thought about it, and thinking gradually brought about the feeling that demands satisfaction, so I satisfied it by touching myself-waiting for you: you dear, you!
"I've told you nothing about men, you say; but really, I had no experiences to speak of till I came here. My mother was always warning me of the consequences and the risk of having a child was always present.
"I often saw men in the town I could have liked, but we lived right out in the country, and till your gardener came and talked to me and assured me there was no risk and a great deal of fun, I never gave myself to any man: you are first, and you know it, don't you, dear?
"One young fellow used to come out last summer from the town and we used to take long walks, and he said he loved me and was always touching my breasts and trying to excite me in fifty ways; but when I mentioned marriage, he sheered off. Men want pleasure and no ties and I don't blame them. If I were a man, I'd do the same: it's we women run the risk; but not with you, dear.