I think he is growing up nicely and I love him, so do not laugh at in the future at the way he carries his ears, or we shall not be friends at all.
I am sad at the thought of being so long without seeing you, for my parents do not start till the twentieth or later.
Waiting does not suit me, for as you know, patience and I have nothing in common. Besides, I want to see you. It is a bore to remain a fortnight or three weeks without giving a good kiss to one's Papa.
You want me not to recriminate, but I can't help it. I must rebel against my destiny, and ask you to share my trouble.
I am off. Here comes Papa, and I won't have him question me about what I am writing.
To your dear lips, without forgetting my pretty beloved dolly.
LILIAN.
I think I had been writing some very erotic letters to Lilian. I remember that I sent her an extract from a very obscene book, turning upon inhuman delights, entitled The Pleasures of Cruelty. (See Appendix A.)
I had also told her, in my last letter, that she must remind me herself when she saw me again of all I had asked her to do and suffer for my sake. She was to say:
“Master, I have the ribbon ready for you to pull, and I am dying to make water, as I have not done so for many hours. May I do so now?”
There may have been other filthy things that she was to tell me and ask me to do to her, but I cannot now call to my mind all my extravagant exigencies.
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Sonis-sur-Marne. Sunday, August 21, 1898.
My love,
I waited to be free to write to you, so as to be able to tell you: “Lilian awaits a sign from her beloved master to run into his arms.”
My parents are off at last. I am therefore left entirely to myself, and consequently when my darling little Papa wishes, his daughter, who is displeased with him, will come and tell him so with her own lips.
I will bring you myself the extracts you sent me, and in that way it will be easier for me to give you an account of my impressions. It will be sweeter to tell you all I feel, having my mouth glued to yours, and my cheek caressed by your beard, which is so silky.
I do not forget the orders in your last letter and I will remind you of all you desired.
A word from you, and I come to try and drive away a little of that sadness you feel.
Very softly, Lilian imprints a long kiss on the end of her doll's nose, and pushes the point of her very indiscreet tongue where her Papa likes it to go.
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Telegram received at noon August 22, 1898.
Wednesday. Half-past two.
LILIAN.
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Telegram, received 11 a.m.,
Wednesday, August 24, 1898.
Unwell. Tomorrow if you wish.
LILIAN.
LILIAN TO JACKY.
(Undated.) Received August 24, 1898.
Lilian is indisposed today, and if she is no better tomorrow, she will be obliged to put off the appointment.
In any case, if you do not receive a wire from me tomorrow morning, you can be at the usual place and I will come there.
Certainly, dear little father, I am grieved to have caused you pain, if only for an instant, but if however you had reflected a little, you would have found my silence quite natural.
Mamma is off on her pleasure trip, to a part of the world where it appears everybody is very elegant. As I look after her toilettes, and have to make her a lot of hats, I have not had a moment to myself, especially as she is not an easy one to please.
But I do not mind begging your pardon for faults which exist in reality only in your imagination. There is only one terrible thing which you have probably put in your letter to frighten me: “I will punish you by not kissing you.”
That I must resist with all my strength. I rebel. To be deprived of your mouth? I will never submit to that. I could not support such torture.
Tomorrow then, my most severe master. I adore you.
August 26, 1898.
Lilian's father and mother had left her alone with a servant and her maternal grandmother. They had gone to Hamburg. I was surprised to find that her periodical indisposition should be over by the twenty-fifth, when it generally made its appearance about the twenty-seventh, or twenty-eighth. Therefore, it must have begun on the twenty-first. And as she had not written to me between the seventh and the twenty-first, I began to have shrewd suspicions that something was wrong.
I had got into my head that there was almost a complete understanding between her and her mother's lover. He had taken such great trouble to impress upon me that Lilian should on no account be allowed to get a glimpse at the Horn Book I had lent him, that I began to smell a rat. It was quite unnecessary to repeat that to me so often. Then again, she had written to me that she had not seen the book; that Papa kept it at his bureau and did not bring it home to Sonis. She had got that obscene dialogue, too. I had sufficient knowledge of the secret monthly miseries of women to know that a virgin is generally pretty regular, but I was resolved to wait, watch, and not say anything. Lily was not communicative. There was nothing to be got out of her by a direct question; I must keep my ears open and see what she would let drop in her chatter.
I had a rod in pickle for her, however. Worse than a rod; in fact, a whip. I had ordered a strange instrument, which I am certain I invented myself, as I never saw it before or since. I called it the “whip-stick.” Everyone knows what a swordstick is-a hollow walking-cane, in which is concealed a sharp blade or dagger. I had one made, but instead of containing a sword, it held nothing more deadly than a light lady's riding-whip, or whalebone switch. I could thus walk through Paris without exciting any notice. It was impossible for me to carry a whip in the town, and a very thin bamboo also looked ridiculous in the afternoon, in the hands of a portly, middle-aged gentleman in frockcoat and high hat.
Lilian arrived; pretty, coquettish and very amiable. I scolded her for not having written to me for twelve days, but I did not touch upon the growing intimacy that I suspected between her and he who stood in the light of a stepfather towards her.
I unscrewed the top of my stick and showed the whip that was hidden within. To try it, I made her lift up her skirts, and gave her one cut across her bottom over her half-open drawers. She uttered a shriek and writhed in real pain. I was surprised, but I found that using a riding-whip was quite different to a lithe stick or the hand. I soothed her and petted her, but tears were in her eyes, and she complained bitterly of the smart. I examined her bottom and found a long weal across her left buttock. What was worse, her drawers being open, the end of the lash had by some means curled itself right between the posteriors, and just above the pinky-brown orifice was a little cut. The skin was broken and there was one spot of blood, like a small ruby.
I did not think it advisable to let her know how cruel I had unwittingly been, but I glossed the matter over, and resolved to have a light touch in the future with my whip. In fact, I never used it at all after this afternoon, when I was careful not to hurt her much. I afterwards gave it to Clara, who took it to London and delighted all her friends with it. She has it still, and it is one of her most valued possessions.
By aid of this whip, with which I carefully touched up Lilian over the back and the fat part of her arms, I got her by force to undress slowly before me, but not before I had made her walk about the room with my hand clasping the two hairy lips of her second mouth.
When she was undressed, and I had feasted my eyes and lips on the neat little body I loved so well, and which excited me so strangely, I forced her to stand with her shift lifted up with both hands, as high as her neck. It was a pretty sight to see her thus exposed. She grumbled and laughed in one breath. She could hide nothing, but writhed about as she stood, as if by her serpentine movements she could conceal some parts of her frame from my lecherous gaze. If she tried to drop her chemise, I flourished my whip over her head and she took up her position again. As she stood there, bending down a little, as if by leaning her body over she could hide the fleece that cast a black shadow at the bottom of her maiden, flat belly, I slowly undressed, looking at her all the time, and walking round her as if she was a lay figure, and so heightening her confusion; which I thoroughly enjoyed.