Just at the critical moment, I took the precaution to swing Gilberte from the danger of presenting me with more cousins! I spent wildly outside her, my discharge shooting up into the air and falling like hot rain on her bottom and loins!
We had half-dressed ourselves again when we heard a knock at the door. It was Mme. de Saint-Edme, who had come to see if we wanted anything. We asked her to bring us some refreshments. She seemed delighted and relieved to note from our dishabille that not unpleasant sequel had followed her mistake in introducing us to each other.
In due course my cousin, now fully dressed and gloved, gave me a parting kiss through her veil, — and before leaving me arranged with me a further rendez-vous, — at which I promised myself (with a thrill of concupiscence) the pleasure of treating her as I did her friend Angela. I then called a carriage for her, a concluding attention that a woman appreciates after an amorous escapade.
"Well," said Mme. de Saint-Edme to me after Gilberte had gone, "so you are satisfied! I was terribly afraid of scandal when I saw you knew that lady! Is she a relation of yours?"
"No. I used to know her when she was a young girl!"
"Oh! Well, I was very afraid of a scene!"
"Thanks to me, dear lady, there wasn't one!"
"I do thank you, — but some how I felt sure that you would arrange the matter without any scandaclass="underline" another thing that reassured me was the air of distinction the lady had, — a woman of that caste hates a row. J feel the same also: do what you like, — amuse yourself as you may wish with ladies, — all this concerns nobody else, and does harm to no one! '
"Rather the contrary," I rejoined.
"But do it in the proper way, — maintain appearances!
"Pleasure coupled with discretion — that's my rule!"
"Oh! I'm not referring to you, — it's a pleasure to do anything for you! But all the same, when you asked me to leave the room, you looked a little afraid!
"But now, you are reassured?"
"Oh! now she has once passed through your hands, she will be all right."
On the day arranged between Gilberte and myself, I attended at Mme. de Saint-Edme's house. She escorted me to the chamber she had got ready for us, where she left me alone. I was the first at the rendez-vous, — and I must have waited some little time when she came in to tell me that my fair cousin had just arrived but that just at that moment a lady "habitue" had stopped her in the corridor and was expressing surprise at meeting her here.
"Why, Gilberte!" she had exclaimed — " I never thought of meeting you here! — you always used to say you dared not come! Have you come then to meet somebody?"
As Gilberte, surprised unpleasantly, hesitated — not knowing what to say, Mme. de Saint-Edme came up and told her that her visitor had already arrived, — whereupon the other lady had remarked that it was a pity, but nevertheless continued her conversation.
This lady (I had very little doubt) was the blonde friend of Gilberte, Angela de Valencay, an adopted name, as I learnt later on, without my having done anything to pierce the veil of anonymity with which she (like the rest) strove to hide her visits for the purposes of satisfying and gratifying her secret passions.
"At all events, she does not seem to be jealous!" I asked Mme. de Saint-Edme.
"Not in the least. She would not mind lending her lovers to her friends. But she objects strongly to any one being jealous of her. That seems fair enough."
Gilberte had not yet appeared.
"If she lets herself begin chattering with her friend, you may have to wait a long time," said Mme. de Saint-Edme. "But it is all right — here they come, both of them. Ladies, you are being anxiously waited for!"
"Oh! no one's waiting for me!" exclaimed Mme. de Valencay, — "all have made their arrangements for their fuckings and fun, for I notice the refreshments all over the place."
She indicated a table on which stood afternoon tea already laid out, which I had ordered in anticipation of Gilberte's arrival. I invited her to join us.
"But shan't I be in the way?" she replied. "Two turtle-doves like best to be alone! Very well — if I shall not be in the way, I will join you with pleasure, — only you must tell me when I am to disappear. You will respect my modesty, I am sure!"
But as she spoke she looked at me in a way that sufficiently indicated that her wishes were the very opposite of her words: her ardent glances seemed intended to recall to me past pleasures shared together and to invite me to the further joys she was evidently ready to give me. Dressed simply in a black costume, and carrying herself in a quiet manner but with an air of distinction, there was nothing about her to betray the lascivious desires that had brought her here, or the lecherous fashion in which she was ready to conduct herself — unless it was that peculiar glance that allowed one to detect, beneath the woman dressed, the naked woman, and behind perfect Society manners the intimate familiarity with the most daring libertinage.
While she was apologising to Gilberte for the liberty she was allowing herself to take, I had called for another plate and had dismissed her cab: for she had said that she hesitated to rejoin a cab that had been waiting at the door so long, — a feeling and accession of shame that a woman on an amorous escapade will well understand and which is often experienced when the time comes for her to quit the sweet seclusion in which she has been surrendering herself to her lust.
Then when the ladies had removed their hats and mantles we sat down at the table. Thus I found myself between two pretty women, one a blonde, the other almost a brunette — a charming contrast! Each of them had been enjoyed by me separately, — but this fact did not in the least diminish the power of their charms over me, — and their joint presence, the sweet proximity of these two appetizing feminine bodies to me aroused in my flesh the wildest lust which I hoped in turn to communicate to them.
The idea that each of them had been previously enjoyed by me made them both somewhat constrained at first, especially Gilberte, who seemed almost jealous: but very soon, under the soothing influence of "five o'clock tea" skilfully prepared, snatched kisses and licentious handlings, this slight constraint disappeared like dew under a morning sun. My mouth hotly attacked theirs alternately, — my tongue greedily sought theirs in turn, finding them only too ready to respond. Finally, when I was busily occupied with Gilberte, sucking his tongue, while my hands actively wandered all over her, unbuttoning her dress and stealing up her legs under her clothes till it reached the silken haired centre of attraction which my finger then sought to inflame, I felt Mme. de Valencay's hand pass over my trousers and attempt to drag into the air my torch of love, now fully alight and getting stiffer and stiffer in her fingers! Then away went all reserve! I begged them to undress or at all events to throw open their clothes so as to let me see, feel, handle and kiss more at my ease the two pairs of lovely breasts of which now I could only get a glimpse.
"But I say," exclaimed Mme. de Valencay laughingly, "if you're going to ask your guest to undress herself, your invitation in place of being a simple one to lunch will be one including a dance!"
"When a lady is invited to a dinner," I replied, "she naturally expects to stay and see the fun that is sure to follow."
"Ah! a play for three, eh?" she rejoined gaily, "but not arranged by the ballet-master of the Opera! Well, there's no reason why it should prove any the less entertaining, is there Gilberte?"
Gilberte smiled, half-pleased, half-vexed, — not from any sense of attended propriety but from a sort of feeling that as a comparative novice in amorous orgies she might have to play second fiddle to her friend! But her semi-hesitation only added a piquancy to her final surrender of herself, and did not hinder a woman of my cousin's disposition from letting herself go freely to learn fresh experiences in lust.