Seriously, I should like to have news of your health. Are you perhaps more ill than you like to tell me? I am very uneasy about it. You do not say what it is, but I guess. I have already guessed lots of things about you. I have to-you are so wanting in frankness.
Poor little puppy Pip! You are very amiable! Only think, he was about to become an orphan; what an escape-and for me too-and for Lilian too!
What you say about the name of Jacky delights me and tickles me agreeably. What happiness if, when I see you, you were to be as in your letter. You ought to-but no, I am not going to tell you what you ought to do to make me love you. If you have naught that is good in your soul for me, say so and let me go!
JACKY.
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Tuesday, January 31, 1899.
Can you come tomorrow night by the nine o'clock train? I shall expect you and do my very best to secure an hour's tête-à-tête in the nasty little dining-room you know.
Is Lord Fontarcy still in Paris?
My parents will be back Saturday.
Kiss and love,
LILIAN.
As I went to keep the above alluring appointment, I reflected on the mind and character of my charmer, and the result was far from being complimentary to her. I was surprised to find that she had answered a letter where I had the sinister audacity to say that “I did not wish to return to my vomit!” I was opening my eyes at last, and I did not care if she were to be offended with me or not. Still I could not have very deep love for a woman to write to her as I had just done.
Where she made her great mistake, as a trifler with men, and I beg my lady readers to make a note of this, was in not knowing her customers. She used the same bait for all her fish. It was easier for her, but such proceedings savor of narrow-mindedness. A woman is clever who alters her tactics with every lover. A true huntsman uses a different cartridge for each variety of game. Had I desired the complete favors of this hysterical, selfish creature, I should have had to pay a fearful price. And, in return for all my sacrifices, I must have suffered in the terrible bondage that would have held me-a sensitive man-tightly tied, by the links of my own lusts, to this fearful example of a wickedly neurotic female, without reason, without shame, without the slightest particle of self-respect. I was vile enough, in all conscience, and I have little right to judge her, but I had no wish to torture her; I wanted a little love, if it suited her to love me, and that was all. She could do whatever she liked, and enjoy a crowd of miscellaneous lovers, as long as she behaved honestly to me, and when she had enough of me, she was to say so, and I would walk out of her life without a murmur. But this was too simple and sincere for her. There was no money in this, nor any hold on a man. I was not jealous, I had never asked for her virginity. How could such a man be “worked”? It will also be noticed that I asked her in my letter to think of all that might please her in her house. I meant that she was to try and make her Papa like me exceedingly, so as to invite me often, and she accepted all my sly innuendoes on this subject as a matter of course. I wondered, too, why she called her dining-room: “nasty”? I had never said so, but it must have been because Papa had possessed her in that room, in the evening after dinner, when Mamma had gone up to bed. I also thought, as I sat in the train, that the principal reason for her kind invitation, was because I was bringing a little silver purse.
She was waiting for me with her dogs as I came out of the station, and greeted me kindly, affectionately, and with much rapid gossip, so as to prevent me recurring to the harsh part of my letter. I was quite satisfied to have produced my slight effect; I knew-alas! — that all my remonstrances would be soon forgotten.
After a short walk, she told me to keep a sharp eye on the dining-room window, which faced the road. When I saw the light go out, it would mean that she had gone upstairs with her lamp to Granny and would see that all was quiet for the night. I was to go for a little stroll, and when I saw the light reappear, come softly into the house, as that would mean she was back in the dining-room again, waiting for me, and supposed to be writing letters. Everything was arranged as she told me, and twenty minutes later, I was in her arms. She had nothing on but a dove-colored dressing-gown of some soft material over her chemise, petticoat, and drawers.
After a passionate bout of kissing, she sat on my knee and chatted gaily, and I frankly confess that I forgot all her wretched shilly-shallying in the joy of holding her loved form clasped in my arms.
Why she had been ill in bed was this: she had suffered agonies through toothache and after trying all the domestic remedies of her grandmother, and obtaining no relief, had fled to Paris alone, and rushed to a Dental Institute. There, a young dentist told her she had a very bad abscess of the gums and declared it must be operated at once. On her affirming that she feared suffering, he offered to administer some gas and produce insensibility. To this she had consented.
“Were you not frightened? He might have taken liberties with you and perhaps violated you? Had you no fear, as you say you were all alone with him?”
I watched her narrowly as I said this. She answered me coolly that she had no fear on that head, and I felt more certain than ever that I was right in thinking that her maidenhead had disappeared in October or November.
Duly put to sleep, she remembered nothing more, until she found herself half-undressed and quite dazed, with several windows open, and a crowd of people round her. It appears that the young doctor had administered an overdose, and as an older man who was now in the room told her, her life had been in danger. She had been accompanied to the railway station and was now, although out of bed, still under the care of a doctor.
I told her that she ought to have telegraphed for me, but I did not say how I felt inclined to disbelieve her entirely. Her troubles, to my thinking, might be connected with her womb, and I was afraid that the visit to a dentist meant some uterine exploration. There may have been an abscess as well, and I felt a movement of horror, as I thought of a contaminating contact. It is only just to say that these disgusting thoughts came into my mind later. Everything seemed to conspire against Lilian, and drive me slowly from her: her own conduct and the dread secrets of her prostituted frame.
The operation had taken place during the past week, and Charlotte had spent Sunday with her, sleeping at Sonis, before the return of Lilian's parents. While Lilian talked to me, I had my hand on her naked thighs, and toyed with the luxuriant growth of hair on her mount.
“Charlotte did like that to me the other night as I was falling off to sleep-just the same as you are doing to me now.”
“Did you spend with her finger?”
“Certainly not,” answered Lily, indignantly, “I turned over, pushed her hand away, and went to sleep.”
I have often noticed that if a woman is allowed to talk without being contradicted, she will tell a series of half-truths, relating to what occupies her mind at the time, and an attentive listener is thus often put on the track of secrets he would not otherwise be able to get at. Many men also possess this same grave defect, and lack the retentive power which should prevent them making the slightest allusion to anything they may wish to hide. So I gathered that Charlotte and Lilian had plenty of tribadic fun together.
Still I kept my own counsel, and by laughing and joking, contrived to produce upon her the impression I wanted; that I was a love-sick loon, desiring her madly, full of strange sensual longings, and ready to believe anything she might tell me.
I now began to get rather lecherous and excited, having her half-naked body on my knee, and I made her stand up, while my hands wandered all over her lithe frame. She still kept up a slight show of resistance and I felt greatly irritated and lewd, as I knew that my angel was merely shamming, being by this time expert at every caress. But I played my part, and enjoyed the idea of passing for a fool, especially as I knew that all my sayings and doings would be reported to Papa and Mamma on their return. I opened her peignoir and was astonished to find that she had grown much fatter in every way and I told her what I thought. She agreed with me, but did not seem to suspect that I noticed she was now a woman. All her girlishness was gone.