“Marcia!” He pretended to be shocked.
“But Max,” her fingers tightened and her eyes grew soft and fond, “you didn't think you were marrying an adolescent, I hope?”
“No, my darling. But you see, reputation means a good deal in your circle and I was accosted by heaven knows how many people who told me you were a paragon.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. You weren't one of those silly-brained debutantes whose only ambition in life was to break into print for many madcap escapades. That isn't to say you were staid and dull, dear-heaven forbid you ever should be that…”
“I don't think I shall-with you, Max dear.” Her voice was throaty, cajoling, teasing.
“For that, my precious one, I think you shall have a kiss.” He rose, came to her, and bent down, his hands caressing her shoulders, his lips moved down her forehead to her eyelids, thence to the tip of her nose, before they fused with hers in a long and ardent quivering kiss.
“Ah, and now, I shall go back to my place before I succumb to your witchcraft, Marcia, darling,” he chuckled.
“Thank you, kind sir-my darling,” Marcia whispered and blew a kiss to him, which he caught.
“Yes, paragon, but one with virtue. Yet somehow I felt you'd be unique, dearest, a wonderful sweetheart-the most desirable in the world.”
“You do find me desirable, my darling husband?” Her voice was very low.
“I think that kiss of a moment ago was ample evidence.”
“Evidence, but hardly ample.”
“Marcia,” his eyebrows raised in a mock surprise, “can this be the timid bride speaking on her wedding night?”
“Not timid, Max-I-well, darling, it's said a man and his wife shouldn't have any secrets from each other, and I don't mind too much confessing I've looked forward to tonight for some little time.”
“Marcia!”
“No, don't get up to kiss me yet, my sweetheart. Oh, but I do want your kisses terribly, but there's something else I want first.”
“Anything.”
“You promise?”
“Of course, with all my heart”
“I accept! Then-it's this, my love, my husband — I've come to you-well-shall we say-chaste? That's to say, I have had no affairs with any other man before you.”
“That, my adorable Marcia, I would have guessed instantly without your saying.”
She blushed and smiled. “Thank you, my loyal advocate. But-that's not to say I haven't wanted love, Max dear, love in the Continental sense, where it's meant to be a joy for both the lovers, not just a selfish pleasure of the man. You see, I have read books. I've read the great love stories, Max, of Heloise and Abelard, of the Browningsyes, and in a less ethereal way of Frank Harris and his amours. I've secretly pictured myself as a scienced lover's mistress, but till I said yes to you at the altar today, my love, I've never given anyone rights over me.”
He lit a cigarette for them both, then watched her intently, a little quizzical smile on his lips.
She resumed, “Tonight, you shall have every right-not only because you're my husband, but because I desire you to be my lover also-my first love. Assuming I can be wife and sweetheart enough to you to make that hope come true.”
“My darling, I know already that it will-for both of us-be rare delight we shall have of each other, and not only tonight.”
The blush deepened. For an instant her eyes were downcast, then clearly she fixed them on his face, resuming, “I hope that-and sense it-but I've a curious request to make of you. Don't think me pathological for it, for you have told me your cultural tastes, your personal habits, and likes and dislikes, just as you know mine, but I know absolutely nothing about-well-about your feelings on love-on wooing a girl. Our courtship was grand, but it went only to kisses and caresses. Thrilling as they were, they told me only that you were very gentle, considerate, and very devoted and adoring-all very flattering to an impressionable girl like me.”
“And you wish to know?”
Her lips made a laughing smile. “I wish to know, my dear sir, by what right of love's ability I shall let you into my bed tonight. I wish to know some of your amorous adventures before you saw me, desired me, and won me for your wife. No- don't protest-I fear I can't tell you any such story, for I have been, like Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche, in the matter of love affairs, as you know, but-well-this is my plan. I want you to love me passionately, with all your body as well as with all your soul. That's such a lovely line in the old service, I wanted it today. Do you think me quite shameless, Max dear? I truly did-that line where it says, 'with my body I thee worship.' Do you recall it?”
“I recall it, angel,” he said in a low voice, staring at her bemused.
She flushed again, inhaled her cigarette, exhaled a long lazy cloud, of blue smoke and watched it, perhaps to distract herself, then said, “Well, first you're to shave or bathe or whatever it is a husband does the first night till his spouse summons him, with fear and trembling, to her side. Only I shan't have any fear and trembling if you document yourself the way I want you to. Put on a dressing gown, then come sit beside me on the lovely circular loveseat before the window. Please pour out the champagne, but not too much. First I want your words to excite me, and then we shall see what we shall see. Is that too much to ask of my darling husband?”
“You're amazing and intoxicating, my dearest, and I foresee that I shall have no need of the champagne to inflame me for you.”
“No, no, Max, no wooing now. Go and do just what I've told you, and later you'll find a receptive sweetheart, all too eager for you.”
Finishing his cigarette, he arose, kissed the top of her head in mock obeisance, and left her.
Marcia rose, walked to the window and glanced out over New York's twinkling lights. They were on the topmost floor of the great hotel, which for an entire century had been identified as the most luxurious and aristocratic.
Then she pulled the Venetian blinds and turned off the light, leaving only a mutely glowing lamp near the circular loveseat before the great double window of the living room, and seated herself, stretching her body like a cat, flexing her arms, tingling with anticipation and excitement. She smoked a cigarette and then lay back, eyes half closed in reverie, arms clasped across her breasts, her lips slightly parted, nostrils flaring subtly, the swell of her bosom quick and responsive.
She was, as she had told him avowedly, a virgin. But in our enlightened and advanced day, there's a differentiation in that very term, which once had meant but one thing: the possession of the hymen which the lord and master would break in his feudal act of conquest on the wedding night. That is to say, her mind was sensitive, cultured, and for a girl of her set, remarkably free of inhibition. That indeed was one reason why she had chosen Max from all her suitors. She felt that this virile cultured man, older, wiser and more experienced, would be far more interesting a husband and lover than those youths of her own age who inherited wealth, were snobbish and superficial of mind. For there is, she knew, more to marriage than four bare legs in a bed.
Half an hour later he returned to her in slippers and purple satin dressing gown.
“My liege lord, welcome,” she said smiling, patting a place beside her. “Now sit down, light a cigarette and begin.”
He took his place beside her, his eyes drinking in her beauty, and he said humorously, “Where shall I begin and on what theme?”
“Darling, I'm very serious about all this, you know. I expect to be everything a girl can be to the man she adores, and you're going to help me by telling me your exploits. Yes Max, your exploits in the boudoir-in the bed. No, not since childhood, but as a man. And I think-on your travels, mainly-for I've always thought that European women brought up to regard lovemaking as a very delightful pursuit and with no guilt complexes attached give a man much more joy than one of our primly cloistered debutantes. Don't you agree?”