very nice I And has she been… kind? She has the air of being a trifle too unsophisticated for you, but she is in excellent hands and will soon learn… eh? Tell me, have you already educated her to humour your… caprices?'
'Dear Madame! I assure you…'
'Come, come, — you needn't tell me this, me, your old pupil! You know I won't be jealous!'
'A pupil who has graduated with honour to her teacher and now possibly exceeds him!'
'Be polite, if you please! You men are really too awful! You teach a poor innocent girl all sorts of naughty things, and then you reproach her if she should put your lessons into practice!
'I reproach you? — on the contrary! I prefer you as you now are, so knowing, — so charmingly naughty!'
'Then tell me. '-o
'Here conies your carriage! Haven't you changed your coachman?'
'Yes and no! Baptiste drives when I go out in domestic state in the company of my lord and master, my husband. But when I go by myself, I drop the family coachman and the family state and take a hired carriage. It is better in case of any… adventures, — for then I have nobody's indiscretions to fear! Baptiste, for instance, knows you.'
'Without knowing my successors!'
'You rude man! Come, open the carriage door for me!'
'May I not' have the honour of accompanying you?'
'Oh, yes! I know what you mean! You don't deserve to be allowed! But you must behave properly! Tell the man to drive to Rue de Suresnes.'
Since the termination of my liaison with Madame de Liancourt, a liaison which terminated without any rupture or unpleasantness, she (so she told me) had been leading a life without restraint and unfettered by any ties. She amused herself by studies in the physiology of Love, selecting her subjects for comparison how and where she pleased. Further, we had agreed to confide to each other the result of our various amatory adventures, and we did not interdict ourselves from renewing our former intimate relations if we so desired — if our electric currents should attract us to each other and if their tension should become such as to make the contact of our naked bodies bring about a 'discharge' (truly, a scientific word, but one most appropriate for the occasion)!
This evening, we were in such a condition.
Speaking for myself, the act of dancing, the sight of bare shoulders and breasts emerging from their lace surroundings as if to challenge men to consider whether what was hidden was likely to correspond with what was being shewn, all this had greatly excited me; and it did not make me any the calmer to be seated beside a lovely woman of about thirty, luscious and voluptuous to the degree at which a touch of maturity adds such spice to the charm of youth!
As for tell-tale eyes (which seemed to say 'Do you remember?' and 'Shall we re-commence?'), the gentle friction of her knees against mine as the carriage swayed, and a thousand other signs, showed me clearly that she was quite willing to satisfy with me the warm desire, the longing for a man which a hot-blooded woman feels after inhaling the masculine odour emanating from her dancing partners and after having abandoned herself to their more or less lascivious embrace. We could not but concentrate our ardent desires one for the other, — she, with all the burning longings of an erotically excited woman; I, with all the lustful ideas which riot through the brain of a man as he looks at pretty women and mentally undressing them imagines their appearances without clothes!
It was not therefore very surprising that before we had got half way to our destination, I threw my arm round Mme. de Liancourt's waist, brought my face against hers, and set to work to kiss her on her mouth and with my tongue to seek hers. My disengaged hand slipped up under the frilly flounces of her ball-dress, crept along over her silk clad legs and over her garters, and little by little reached her drawers and found the opening — through which it passed and commenced to touch and play with the close clustering and mossy forest of silky curly hairs.
'Wretch!' gasped my companion, as she abandoned herself to the voluptuous sensations that my finger was communicating to her as it sought to bury itself in her warm moist slit! In kindly reciprocation, her white-gloved hand travelled over my trousers, till it found the unmistakable proof of my excited condition! Quickly sundry buttons
yielded, — and then I felt against my sensitive skin the touch of dainty gloved fingers which promptly began their delicious manoeuvres, returning service for service, pleasure for pleasure!
Not a word passed! — only the sound of sighs, breathings, gaspings, as fingers and tongues busied themselves in their salacious duties! Oh, why is man not physically able (as a woman is) to sacrifice to Venus over and over again with hardly a pause, as women can? — Why must there as a rule be a break between one sacrifice and the next? With what delight would I have surrendered myself to the exquisitely maddening sensations communicated to my rampant prick by those gloved fingers and their subtle compression, even at the risk of ruining those white kid-gloves! But as I looked and hoped for a more completely satisfactory gratification of my lust before long, I managed to retain my burning ardour and keep it in reserve! More fortunate than me, Mme. de Liancourt, whose soft smooth thighs kept squeezing my hand, let herself go! — gasping, panting, quivering, she clung to me, spasmodically agitating her heaving hips and bottom — then inundated my hand with the creamy dew of her ecstatic discharge!
Just then the carriage stopped. Hastily we adjusted our dress, and after sending the carriage away, we entered the house in which Mme. de Liancourt's suite was located. A dim light had been left burning for her. As she passed the concierge's den she gave her name as Mme. Germain, telling me after we had passed inside that this was the name by which she was known here.
The suite was on the first floor. Mme. de Liancourt unlocked the door herself and ushered me into a handsomely furnished vestibule in which a rose-shaded lamp shed a soft light quite sufficient to illuminate the place. She remarked that she had done the furnishing, and that besides this there were a few more rooms. 'Here's the Temple!' she exclaimed, leading me into the bedroom, the best room of the suite. In it was a bed, large and low with thick curtains, a veritable theatre of Love! In one corner was one of those long and low easy chairs which accommodate so delightfully the form of a woman, especially when she is surrendering herself to furtive fondling and groping under her clothes! Numerous cushions were scattered all over the place; in another corner was a dainty stove; against one wall stood a full-length mirror. A smaller room opening into the bedroom had been furnished as a dressing and bathroom; here one saw displayed and ready for use the whole of a woman's mysterious toilet equipage, low divans, bidet, douche, basins, jars of essences, bottles of scent; a third room also communicating with the bedroom served as a boudoir, but for the moment fulfilled the office of a supper room, as the table had been laid with a cold supper for two persons. Thick close carpets covered the whole of the floors, and each room was fitted after the convenient English fashion with gas heating and lighting apparatus, thus enabling the occupant to practically dispense with servants.
'Does your maid Justine attend on you here?'
'No, only the concierge's wife and her sister.'
'But what do they think when they see you here?'
Madame de Liancourt smiled with a significant glance from her eyes and a gesture that plainly said that the presence of a gentleman would not occasion any surprise!
'Then they must have queer ideas about you?'
'My dear man, I have made the position quite simple and easy by not attempting to hide anything, but to pass as a cocotte. You see this cuts short all suppositions!'
Undoubtedly she had freed herself from traditions since I last had the honour of being entertained in her arms; and her candid admissions constituted in her quite a new attraction for me!
'Then this evening you are going to be my little cocotte!' I replied as I amorously kissed her mouth. She nodded, with a smile.
Then I proceeded to utilize with her to its best advantage her luxuriously equipped installation. I began by taking off her shoes, — and under the pretence that her high laced uppers rendered it necessary, I lifted the frilly flounces of her ball-dress and petticoats till the bewitching sight of a pretty woman's dainty underclothing was displayed to me, — the neatly shod tiny feet, the delicately rounded silk covered calves, the tempting garters above her knees, the strip of naked flesh just above them, her semi-transparent drawers with their frills, — all framed by the surrounding waves of her petticoats!
'What are you about?… come, do take off my shoes!'
But in spite of protests, I managed to deposit sundry hot kisses on the tempting bare flesh just above the
