“Ah, I sense a real international intrigue, Max, darling. You're a wonderful storyteller. I'm on to your real ways and look forward to the days- though not too soon, dear, as you can understand — when you'll tell our children wonderful stories of adventure.”
And again, Max was as ecstatic over the imaginative loveliness of his young wife's brain as her wonderfully exciting young body, a study in plasticity that she had abandonedly revealed half nude.
“I'm touched, darling, by that little nuance. Well, to hasten on with it. The next afternoon I dressed in my evening clothes, put on a muffler and overcoat and took a taxi to the address on the card. I'd been imagining many things since that meeting, including an amorous interview. I told myself everything depended on circumstance. If when I went there, I found four or five women in her salon, I'd look forward to an afternoon of literary chitchat. If I did find her alone, all would depend on the attire in which she would choose to receive me, the degree of formality in her manner, the absence or presence of any servants.
“After all, with a pair of voluptuous and roguish eyes like hers, a man could easily give the wrong interpretation to the affair. However, I say now, my mistake was in submitting myself in advance to a ready-made situation, instead of being able to change it to my own desires. Such a situation, Marcia, is often a woman's way of seeing what value is attached to her, and her ultimate surrender may quite definitely depend on the way one handles it.
“In short, I reached the house and rang the bell of the apartment indicated. Almost at once the door was opened by a young and quite pleasing maid. She took my overcoat, glancing curiously at my evening clothes, and showed me into a large room where she left me. I saw no more of her until I left. The room was lighted by two windows and housed much fine furniture. In the middle of the floor stood an occasional table with all the paraphernalia of tea and, in addition, sherry, port, and sandwiches. After I'd been there three or four minutes a door opened at the far end and the Baroness entered. I was at once struck by what she was wearing. Her clothing could hardly have been less formal-a housecoat of dark-blueish colored silk, very low cut at the throat, flowing girdle, and a pair of very pretty silver cloth sandals. She had made up her face with great care and even at a distance I detected a whiff of heady perfume. The smile on her lips and in her eyes gave me the feeling she was entirely the mistress of herself. She begged me at first to excuse her for not being up to the level of my evening clothes. 'Between us,' she smiled, 'we strike a happy average.'”
“Ah, the plot thickens.”
“It does indeed, Marcia. May I kiss your lovely bare breasts once again, please, sweetheart?”
Marcia nodded, blushing, closing her eyes. And bending, he kissed each lovely aureole then the buds, and retreated. A tremor shook her, her fingers opened, closed, opened like tapering petals.
“She took a chair close to the table then, Marcia, and made me sit opposite her at some little distance. Placed thus, she accentuated the provocative nature of her negligee, for that it was! Her bosom, ripe but without the least flaccidity, so far as I could visually determine, was daringly exposed — a good half of the upper curves were naked. That olive satiny skin was, I admit, devilishly intoxicating, and the perfume together with her own captious femininity proved quite devastating. I now see her point in placing me away from her. Had I been next to her I might have seized her at once and so destroyed the illusion she quite obviously wished.”
“What a master psychologist you became.” “Didn't I? Well, she flexed her arms and moved in her chair during our first chitchat-the least movement of her body produced a series of daring undulations. A harem type of beauty, I thought to myself, or a Wagnerian heroine, only dark. On the whole, very pleasant to look at with a ripe sensual mouth, moist and sensitive, indeed deserving of more than the eyes' tribute. She'd obviously be disappointed, and rightly so, if I were unresponsive to such courtesy. She explained that her rather odd last name was her husband's and Dutch but that she herself came from Berlin. Her husband's family were Huguenots from the south of France. He had left an estate there but her small income prevented her from going very often, though she loved France. And a little later she said, 'Shall we have tea now or would you like to wait a while?' I said I would wait.
“'Shall we smoke then?' she asked softly, and a gleam of mischief shone in her eyes. She offered me a cigarette and took one herself, raised it to her lips but made no effort to reach for the large box of matches that lay upon the table convenient to her hand. I got up, opened the box, struck a match, and approached the Baroness. She took the proffered light, half closing her eyes as she did so. As she was puffing on her cigarette somewhat pensively, she kept her beautiful long lashes lowered.
“Then slowly they raised and her luminous dark eyes fixed on me, a half smile lifting the corners of her lips. I bent to her and kissed her quickly. Then, hardly seeming to move my lips, I fused my mouth to hers. She uttered a soft throaty sigh, her free hand came up to touch the back of my neck as if to indulge me freely and she closed her eyes again. I kissed her a third time, a lingering and very persuasive and flattering kiss. She put down her cigarette and leaned back slowly, her hand slipping from my neck to my left hand.
“This, Marcia, was open invitation. As a representative of America before-shall we say-the German menace, I had a national honor to uphold.”
“No rationalizing now; you know you found her desirable.”
“So I did. But here's the continuation. A fourth kiss produced a very passionate result. Her tongue darted like a hummingbird's tongue against my lips, brushed them fleetingly, then withdrew; and that told me all I needed to know. My left arm circled her satiny neck, my right moved down to the naked upper curve of her ripe full breast and she did not deny me, but opened her lips so that I might insert my tongue.
“After a few minutes of this, she murmured 'Let's make ourselves more comfortable, shall we?' and I drew back to let her rise. She took the lead and I followed her to the sofa. She turned to confront me, tilting her head with that maddening half smile on her ripe red mouth.
“I came to her; my left arm took measure of her waist, very supple for all her ripeness-understand me, she was not at all stout, but very oriental in beauty-and my right hand undid the flowing sash of the girdle. A few moments more — the almost transparent dress, for all its dark color, had slipped to the floor and she stood naked except for the silver sandals. She wore no stockings. She cupped her breasts gently and, letting her head tilt back, I paid my tribute to those wonderfully big, yet solid and satiny breasts crowned by exceedingly voluptuous dark brown nipples with wide aureoles-after which she turned felinely and lay down on the sofa.
“Her nakedness once more had become reconciled to its rich and solid contours, Marcia darling, and displayed a massive and exciting beauty which had something in it that was reminiscent of the ideals of the ancient world, of the denizen of the women's apartments in a Greek house. Or, if you prefer, of the harem of a woman's body that is seen as a cushion of living flesh, a melting warmth, a deep darkness of voluptuous delights.
“She looked up at me, eyes half closed, throat pulse hammering, and murmured vibrantly, 'Take me-now-I'm yours-conquer me. But-keep on your clothes please-if you wish to give me the utmost pleasure-please.'