“I–I'm afraid I couldn't-” she faltered uneasily.
His whole face and attitude hardened at her rebuff and be frowned sharply. “I have no wish to seek unwilling confidence or trust,” he said crisply-and mendaciously. “1 had thought to deserve some-but no matter-”
Rose did not say-as she might quite truthfully have done-that he had never deserved anything of her except the rent, which he had been paid-and that other rent which was unhappily still due.
Perturbed by the evident irritation of a man who held her so much in his power that her eviction and business loss could be forced if he so desired-yet overcome by shame at making him her confidante regarding episodes so intimate that she scarcely dared think of them even in solitude-she still hesitated, and then succumbed to what seemed the inevitable.
The more so when he added with ominous sternness: “Now as regards this rent overdue…”
“Ohh! Indeed, I'll tell you,” she quavered hurriedly as he paused. “I realise it is a kindly interest that prompts you to wish to know-and that you hope to be helpful. It is only that Lester began to-have too much curiosity about-about my person. At first just little things.”
“Would it bother you to go into detail-from the very beginning?” he asked-showing her a face which seemed to be full of kindly interest. “I would like to know exactly what occurred. Things that were unimportant in your eyes might be of great significance to me.
Rose Bolton, with a great effort of self-control, tried to banish the notion that perhaps her landlord was moved by curiosity to hear from her own lips those domestic indecencies which had eventually so alarmed her.
She simply had to banish it in order to be able to go on at all. Surely Mr. Freeman, hard though he sometimes seemed, really had benevolent thoughts and hoped to be genuinely helpful. In any event, she concluded helplessly that his firmly expressed wish had been equivalent to a command.
“Lester was only thirteen… a mere child-when his father died,” she murmured. “I had been in the habit of bathing him almost up to that time-you know mothers so often fail to realize or dislike to admit that a child is growing up? I discontinued the practice of bathing him because of — well — rather disturbing symptoms he displayed…”
“It got stiff-when you touched it?” suggested the man interestedly.
“Really. Mr. Freeman — ” stammered Rose, blushing hotly, and turning her head away in embarrassment.
“Oh! We're adults-and either you're telling me-or else you aren't-” he insisted ominously. And as she still remained silent, he rose and reached for his hat and coat.
“My lawyer,” he began, “will see you tomorrow.”
It was as curt a threat as possible, and under ordinary conditions Rose's pride would have asserted itself in a flare of contempt. But at the moment she was threatened by the peril of financial ruin-from which this man only could possibly save her.
“Please don't be angry, Mr. Freeman,” she pleaded. “It is not easy for a mother to speak of such things, as you must know. But try and have patience with me-and I will tell you what…”
“Quite plainly and simply-without any unnecessary kind of prudery,” he remarked, seating himself once more.
It was an affirmation which held within itself an order. Rose shivered a little, and paled noticeably. She was not used, in her pride as a young and handsome woman, to just accepting meekly such an attitude as this man's. Then, too, there was no longer any doubt in her mind that it was a lascivious curiosity which prompted him to wish to penetrate her hitherto private life to such an extent.
Yet — heaven help her — it seemed that she must minister to that seemingly benevolent yet actual perverse and insistent curiosity. It was too late to retreat. She could not afford to pay the price of financial ruin for the privilege of personal reticence.
“Yes-I will tell you-” she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.
“Everything-in plain words-not balking like a child at the facts…” were phrases which she heard dimly in his low toned but insistent reply.
She bowed her finely poised head. She was unable to avoid his meaning-that he wished her narrative to be spiced with a certain crudity-nor could she escape compliance. And all her breeding and refinement merely served to make her task the harder.
“So you bathed the boy-when he was already thirteen?” prompted Freeman. “Naked, of course. And what had your late husband-the boy's father-to say to that?”
“He-my husband used to laugh about it,” she faltered. “And he said I was babying Lester too much-that he was too big to be bathed by a woman. Of course he knew there was no thought of intentional indecency in it. But he began asking me queer, disturbing questions about it…”
“Such as…?” murmured Mr. Freeman, as she paused nervously.
“Well-whether-”
She swallowed and took the plunge. This man had to be placated, even at the expense of her womanly and motherly instincts.
“Whether any hair was beginning to grow about his — about Lester's-private parts?” she whispered falteringly. “And whether his soft little-thing… showed any signs of excitement-growing stiff-when I bathed him. And whether I took it in my fingers to wash and dry it — and whether it swelled up and hardened as I handled it? Very embarrassing questions like these… and some others.”
“And you told him…”
“I'm afraid I wasn't always candid with my husband about these and a few other episodes,” she confessed. “You see, I fancied there were morbid motives behind his queries…”
“And another thing-it is hard for a mother to admit that her child is no longer a child-or that he is passing beyond the need of her ministrations and her supervision. So I clung jealously to my prerogatives in regard to Lester's person as well as in other fields. I led Mr. Bolton to believe-by scoffing rather than by direct denials-that Lester remained quite unmoved by my fingering when I washed and dried his body.”
“I let him think, too, that the boy was always permitted to wash his private parts himself,” she faltered- with downcast eyes.
“His little tool-his prick and balls?” queried her visitor insistently. In his gray eyes was an imperative order to the dismayed woman to compel her tongue to use words such as she had never before uttered.
She turned her gaze downward to the twisting fingers in her lap. Her pallor yielded to a rising tide of color. Her tongue hesitated and her enunciation was thick as she forced herself to attempt what the man desired. But at the same time she was conscious, to her amazement and horror, that she thrilled strangely to the necessity of adopting the vocabulary of a chorus girl or prostitute to satisfy the demands of this man who held her in his power.
Rose felt almost as if she were prostituting herself bodily to his desires as she whispered-so softly that he had to stoop to catch the words:
“His prick and balls-I used to bathe them myself- but I let his father think that Lester attended to this part of his ablutions. But I did it-and I pretended not to notice when-when his little prick hardened up and expanded and thrust out in pink capped extension,” she said almost casually.
She raised dark, glazed eyes upwards. And she saw that the man was in a silent, flushed ecstasy as he listened to her.
Chapter II
And then this handsome, healthy widow… for years accustomed to think of her sexual life as wholly a thing of the past-in spite of her relative youth — vibrated furiously if ashamedly, in rhythm to the vibration of her libertine tyrant. Her voice grew clearer, ever though it was still tremulous. She cleared her throat that he might hear better. She almost reveled in her shame as she told him…
“Lester's cock would be persistently stiff when I had finished drying it. There was never anything said about it between us. Though at first he had seemed terribly self-conscious about its notable display whenever he was to be bathed. But as I continued to show a matter of fact attitude regarding his-his hard-ons-he presently lost his shame concerning them, and even seemed to gloat over showing himself before me in this state.”