In a low voice, there came from her the words: "Kiss me, my darling."
Submissive to her demand, I passed my two arms around her naked waist and approached my lips towards hers. But she withdrew her mouth.
"No, darling," she whispered, "not that way."
Fearing to give way to my own desire, I still hesitated to understand her. Whereupon, with an imperious and almost violent movement, she seized me by the neck. She lowered my head towards her bosom, while her other hand, thrusting forward one of her bubbies, drew it towards my mouth. Under my now close breath, her bosom became still more arched. However, instead of snatching at the beautiful fruit presented to my lips, it was only the point which I caressed with the tip of my tongue. Therese uttered a cry of surprise which at first made me draw back. But she continued to murmur — "Again! Again!" These words let loose on her bosom a perfect avalanche of caresses: multitudinous caresses with tongue and lips, more varied and more intoxicating than any bestowed by the hands.
I was kneeling on the right-hand side of my wife, and suddenly became aware that my position was inconvenient. She was indeed too lateral to enable me to dose, in exactly equal parts, the contribution of my tenderness towards her breasts. Was that strict division really so essential? — or was this merely a pretext suggested by my desire?…
However that might be, I rose and knelt down facing Therese, between her knees, which I had parted. Then I continued the interrupted feast, — tickling, alternately, the twin rose-buds with my lips, or taking them into my mouth to suck them. Or else, using my tongue in long sweeps, the moist tracks of which crossed and intercrossed, I licked the whole of her bosom greedily. Nay, sometimes I sought to take almost the whole of one of her bubbies into my mouth, to suck it in voraciously until Therese pushed me away, with the exclamation- "You are hurting me, my darling giddy goat."
Under the pressure of my hips, her legs had unconsciously parted. Her dress, becoming gradually rucked up, disclosed first of all a silk40 sheathed knee, then, suddenly, above the stocking, a snow-white thigh. I closed my eyes so as to blot out this unexpected temptation.
Meanwhile, a remark she had made to me during dinner came back to me. I had expressed a fear that her gown, made of silver lame, must be very heavy for her to wear on such a warm evening, whereupon Therese had replied, — "But I've nothing else, — absolutely nothing else underneath." This reply now set my imagination in a blaze; it took a delight in picturing, under her dress, the nudity of her thighs as far as the altar of love, — that warm spot which was so near and which, through the parting of her legs, must now be half-open. I was seized with dizziness. Under the material which imprisoned and caused it to adhere to my flesh, my sex became in such a state of erection that I was positively in anguish, and in order to relieve the pain I was forced to unbutton my trousers and release the Phallus until it was wholly nude.
With her head thrown back and her body thrilled by the thousand caresses from my lips and tongue, my wife was unable to suspect what I had done. I strove to keep within bounds the convulsive movements made by my liberated member, for fear it came into contact, under her dress, with her naked thighs, and thus arouse her attention. Already my thoughts were concentrated with an anxious and voluptuous feeling, on the inevitable consequences of my imprudence. I realized those consequences most clearly; I accepted them, without pity for my wife's too-confident abandonment, without a scruple on account of promises made. I was conscious of my bad faith; I measured the shameful contrast between the tenderness with which I was intoxicating Therese, in order the better to disarm her suspicion, and the cruel laceration amidst which I should satisfy my desire. I imagined a sorrowful cry and a look of painful astonishment. But I had waited too long, — I was at the end of my powers of resistance, and, cowardly, I discounted the pardon promised in advance.
The throbbing of my temples increased and bewildered me, driving every thought from my brain. All that remained was a crimson vision of moist, defenceless flesh, and the pulsations of my sex extended towards that flesh. I raised myself with an instinctive movement, which brought my lips up to Therese's mouth, — a movement above all prompted by a wish to place my sex on an exact level with her own.
With my two arms still around her naked waist, I drew my wife slowly towards me; and already I could feel my flesh, thrilling with lustful desire, gently touching the blond moss surrounding the coveted fleshly nook. Then, becoming wildly impatient, I seized hold of her dress to turn it up completely. Therese was startled and advanced her hand to restrain me, — then she renounced, with the words:
"Darling, my own darling. I am yours… But remember your promise."
The resigned sweetness of her voice, much more than her very words, dragged me from the enchantment of my desire. Amidst a flash of dizziness, as though after a fall, I regained consciousness of my actions.
For a few moments longer I remained leaning over Therese, with my mouth against hers, for I wanted to immobilize her head against the back of the chair and so prevent her seeing me while I remedied the indecency of my attire.
But the trivial vulgarity of this action emphasized the grotesqueness of my situation. I was annoyed with myself through this abdication of my virility, — a stupid abdication in the presence of a little girl who foolishly refused to let me have her, when I had a perfect legal right to do so. Above all was I angry with Therese herself for having once more baulked my desire. When she raised her head and looked into my eyes, she was astonished to find them so full of hostility. She smiled at me sadly. Then her glance descended to her bare bosom, to her legs which I kept apart, and to her raised dress, disclosing her thigh. Yet she made no attempt to veil her nudity, and, instead of pushing me away she drew me towards her, burying my face in the valley between her bubbies and pressing me to them passionately. A sob rose in my throat, — a sob of vexation and remorse and also tenderness. But the tears appeased me, — they steadied my nerves; and I abandoned myself to the infantile sweetness of letting myself be consoled.
I myself drew down her dress, after furtively kissing the nude, moist thigh; I myself veiled, with amorous precautions, my beloved's beautiful breasts, so that no harm could come to their fragile, rosy nipples. Then, closely pressed one against the other, we ascended to our rooms. The open window on the landing was already glowing with a phosphorescence which heralded in the approaching end of night.
Therese was leaning on my shoulder and whispered in my ear:
"You have been infinitely tender and deliciously indulgent, my darling. But I implore you not to be disappointed over this first night of our marriage. To me it has been so full of love, — infinitely more beautiful, richer in voluptuousness than all my dreams. Don't you see how I am still all a-tremble through your caresses? — and how madly in love I am with you? I don't know how to tell you all this. But it is with the whole gift of my body that I would thank you."