Anonymous
The story of a Dildoe
TABLEAU I
Madison Square is a fashionable locality in New York, attractive in its architecture, its position and its inhabitants-well to do merchants, cotton brokers, railway contractors and bankers lived there, and there their fashionable wives and daughters gave receptions, and held parties that were the talk of New York society. The belle of Madison Square was Flore McPherson. She has been celebrated in song, for it was ' Flora McPherson of Madison Square that made three separate journeys to Paris' in search of novelties when she had ' nothing to wear '-that is, nothing that was not perfectly fresh within the last fortnight. But this history deals with events in the life of Flora before she made the celebrated journey spoken of.
As yet she was but seventeen-plump, fair, rosy, with a wonderful fund of spirits, quick at repartee, and altogether what the Yankees call a ' smart gal. '
Flora's father was from a Scotch family, and the acuteness he inherited had enabled him to take advantage of numerous lucky chances in the way of railway work, the result of the combined skill and luck being-a fortune.
Flora was his only child. Her mother, a woman devoted to fashion and not companionable to him, so that Flora was indeed her dad's idol, and all that money could purchase her she had. Her private purse was always well replenished, and she was in many respects a girl to be envied.
Of course a young lady with such considerable personal attractions and with such an ample stock of dollars in prospective was not without admirers, but as yet no aspiring young gentleman had made any impression upon her. She was heart-whole, and though fond of society, at every gathering she seemed to take more pleasure in the society of her young lady friends than in that of any gentleman who hung over her chair and poured his vapid small talk into her eаг.
Her two close companions were Laura Addison and Maud Tromp.
Laura was the youngest daughter of a cotton broker, a charming girl about Flora's age, but dark, warm and impulsive, a good heart and a genial temper, and with Southern blood in her veins that made her passionate and daring.
Maud was of a German family, quiet, subdued, lymphatic, dreamy and poetical; but her quiet eyes shewed a nature you could put firm trust in, and anybody who secured the affection of Maud Tromp would have a friend steadfast and true.
Maud was older than the other two, and was ' engaged,' but her lover held an important position in a mercantile house, and was now in Europe for a year or two on business, so that for consolation during his absence Maud was much in the society of the two girls.
It was a quiet autumn evening when the three sat together in Flora's boudoir. They had not been discussing Shakespeare and the musical glasses, but a theme more interesting to all women-Love.
Flora and Laura had been congratulating Maud on the approaching return af her fiancee, to be fol lowed soon by her marriage-a prospect that poor timid Maud seemed to dread.
' So you wish that courtship could go on for ever, do you? ' said Flora. ' Well, poor girl, it is rather rough on you to have a slice of two years take out of a pleasant courtship, and then on Henry's return — before you have got used to him again-to be hurried into all the abruptness and reality of matrimony. Still Maud, my dear, realization, in spite of metaphysics, must be better than anticipation. I know my dinner itself is better than the pleasure of expecting it; and it would take some powerful argument to convince me that a husband we can love is not better than a lover we can ditto. What do you say, Laura?'.
'Oh, I am with you, my love, by all means,' replied Laura. ' For my part, I quite envy Maud her good fortune. Henry is a fine, manly fellow, and I'm sure he loves her, and his two years in Europe has no doubt improved him, if that were possible. I anticipate for her a very happy life.'
' Oh, you quite mistake me if you think I have any dread or doubt about my future,' said Maud earnestly; ' it is the actual plunge itself that I dread. I don't pretend to any more modesty than any other girl; but I regard with positive horror the idea or — of-well I suppose I need not be afraid of my own sex-of a man knowing all about me. Fancy, now, feeling a man-a naked man-getting into bed with one! Ugh!' and Maud positively gave a shudder.
' Ha! ha!' laughed quick, impulsive Laura. ' Why, my dear child, you shudder at what most women look forward to with supreme delight; and as for getting into bed with you, if I am any judge ot Henry's disposition, it strikes me he will get into more than that. Oh! there now, I beg your pardon (and she blushingly put her hand before her face), I didn't mean to say that, but the thought came and it slipped out.' Maud blushed, and Flora could not help laughing, ' Well Maud,' said Flora, ' I can sympathize with you to some extent, but only to a limited extent, for my part the shock my modesty will receive from the presence, or even the contact of my husband, will, I feel certain, be less than what I shall suffer from what I call the indecent exhibition of a wedding. In the privacy of one's own chamber, with only one's husband to see your blushes, I think there is nothing but what one can get over, but I think it is something awful to be dressed up for an occasion, and starred at by a lot of people who know perfectly well, even down to the youngest boy or girl, what it is all for, and what you are going to be done to.'
' Yes,' said Laura, ' I have often thought of that. Why, when I was only eleven years old I was bridesmaid to Mary Parker, and as we came out of church the remarks made by the low boys shewed they all knew what it meant, it was something awful; why one boy positively called out,' Oh, my eye. there's another shop going to be opened to-night.' And when the coachman drove the carriage up he didn't come close enough to the kerb, one man said,' Now coachman, come up, the young lady can't stretch her leg out all that way, and then a nasty rough fellow says,' Oh never fear, she'll stretch more than that if he's up to his work by and bye.' Oh, my dear, I thought poor Mary would have fainted. Yes, a wedding is all very well for the dresses and all that, but it has its dark side as well.'
' Now, to tell you the truth,' said Flora, ' and I shall, since we are on the topic, speak without reserve,that remark the man made about-well, about stretching-was rude but apropos; and it sets me thinking whether after all the embrace of a husband is such a desirable thing. I know I once heard mama, when she little thought I was listening, tell a lady about the remark a young lady made who was congratulated on her wedding day. I did not quite catch the words, but I know the idea was that it was a fine thing to be congratulated upon, to be torn all to pieces the first night! Now I can't help thinking that the actual pain inflicted must be awful, and not worth the pleasure they say comes after it.'
' I cannot give any opinion,' said Laura, ' about a first embrace and the pain it entails; but from an accident I can give an idea of the pleasure. Oh, you need not look so; I don't mean in my own experience. But when I was down South on a visit to Uncle Morris's plantation I got overtaken one night by a storm and crept into one of the sugar-houses for shelter, and there I fell asleep in a corner. When I woke I found I was not alone, for a smart young white man was there-one of the overseers-and a young woman-a quadroon-pretty, lithe and active. They were talking earnestly together and I listened, at first thinking some plot was on, for the slaves were in a dangerous state just then. I found, however, that it was only a love scene I was doomed to be present at, and oh, my dear girls, I shall never forget it. After a lot of kissing and toying, the young man-Tony Barker I found was his name- got her on to a lot of sugar bags that made a capital kind of bed, in a corner, and being thrown on a pile of canes was like a state bed and gave me a full view of the whole proceeding.'
Flora and Maud drew their chairs eagerly up to Laura and in one breath exclaimed.
'Oh, tell us all about it.'
' Well, then, in perfect confidence I will. After kissing and playing, Tony, for, I learned to call him that, took out his dilly.'
' Oh, don't be so stupid,' said Flora, ' as to call it a dilly, that is only what they say in the nursery about a little
