CHAPTER IV. THE TADPOLES, ETC
We slept long and soundly after our exploits of the night, and it was already near noon before either of us awoke. Lucia cried out when, on looking at my watch, she saw what the time was, and without waiting to give me any more caresses, she fled to her room, bidding me at the same time to be quick with my toilet.
On going downstairs Martha met me in the breakfast room, and looked all astonishment.
'My goodness, child,' said she, 'whatever makes you so late this morning? I went to see why you were not up. It gave me quite a turn when you did not come down at your usual hour. I could not but think of your poor, dear papa, who died in his sleep. But when I saw you and Miss Lucia sleeping so calmly in one another's arms, and saw by your bosoms rising and falling that it was only natural sleep, I left off being frightened. Ah, you did look a pretty pair. I could have wished, though, instead of Miss Lucia, I had seen a handsome young husband in your bed, who on waking would have given his pretty bird a sweet wakening, as young, active husbands always wake their wives.'
As she was saying these last few words Lucia came into the room.
'What was that you were saying, Mrs. Warmart, about young husbands waking their wives?' said she.
'I was just telling Miss Susan how I wished you had been her young man, Miss, when I saw the two of you so fast asleep this morning when I went to call her, and I was a-saying that if you had been, you would have waked her in a way she would have dearly liked.'
'Ah, true enough. So I would, and I can tell you, Mrs. Warmart, that when I saw how nicely Susan is made, I wished I was a young man myself last night, twenty times.'
'Ah, well, young ladies!' replied Martha, laughing, but still sufficiently seriously. 'You must not let your imaginations run away too much with you. Young men are not to be trusted, remember, and temptation comes very often when one is least on one's guard, and what is pleasure at first often ends in pain at last.'
'Yes, Mrs. Warmart, that I believe is true enough! But now have you any breakfast for us? I am hungry enough to feel that I could gobble up Susan, and if I let my hunger get the better of me I would make a complete end of her, which is more than the young man would do.'
Martha laughed and quickly put our breakfast on the table. Lucia and I, famished with our long fast, gladly fell to, and we both ate heartily.
Ah, now I feel better, Susan. How do you feel this morning? None the worse, I hope, for our delicious tete- a-tete last night?'
'All the better, I think,' said I, 'only I feel rather stretched in the thigh joints.'
'So do I,' said Lucia, 'now that comes from want of practice. It is such an age since I opened my thighs to anyone!
'However,' she continued, 'it won't be long, I hope, before I shall have lots more practice that way; and my lovely Susan shall begin hers. Oh, Susan! How I almost envy you, to know for the first time what a man is.'
I laughed.
'Look, darling!' Lucia ran on, 'I want to write a letter to Gladys, and to do one or two little things for myself, so I'll just run up to my room. You won't mind my leaving you for a little while, will you?'
'No, dear!' I said, 'I will go and feed my little pets and gather some flowers…'
'And dream of young men!' laughed Lucia.
'Very likely,' said I, 'especially when I have gathered a bunch of cunts.'
'You darling!' exclaimed Lucia, kissing me in her boisterous manner, 'You deserve a most luscious fucking, you come so quick in mind and body,' and pressing me once more in her arms, and kissing me again, she ran off.
Often and often have I wondered how I never seemed to see an inkling of that hell which I have so often read of as being the immediate result of following the natural bent of one's desires. I so often read, and have so often heard good people say, that the inevitable result of 'sinning' (and in the eyes of 999 out of 1,000 good women, fucking with anyone not one's husband is sin-hardly anything else being so) was miserable repentance, and a wretched state of one's conscience.
With me it has been just the reverse. I admit I have been fortunate, in so far as my acts have not been productive of unhappy results. I have no doubt we all regret having done anything which produces unfortunate consequences either for ourselves or for others, but such acts may not necessarily be sins. I don't know that a married woman enjoys her husband any the more because what he does to her in bed is 'lawful and right'. I fancy a prick is a prick, and a cunt a cunt, whether the conjunction of them be 'lawful' or 'unlawful'. All I know is, that whether the prick be that of a married or of an unmarried man, it makes no difference to me, so long as it be a good one, and well wielded. My cunt seems naturally formed to receive pricks, and all I can say is that those men who are gentle in idea and behaviour are ever welcome to it, and afford it and me such pleasure that I never say 'no' unless prudential reasons cause me, with a sigh, to decline the delightful offering. I don't know what the current of my thoughts was that morning, but I imagine I was looking forward to those halcyon days when, according to Lucia, I should have the voluptuous delight of knowing, from vivid experience, what it felt like to have a handsome and vigorous man stretched at full length between my glowing thighs, delighting me with his caresses!
When I came in an hour later, Lucia was still upstairs, and I sat down with a book in my hand, but my mind was still running on the pleasures I had so lately learnt.
After a while Lucia came downstairs, dressed ready for a walk, and holding a sketching block in her hand.
'Come, Susan dear,' she said, 'we breakfasted so late that I think neither of us could eat any lunch. Let us go out for a ramble over the fields. We will take some biscuits in our pockets, and I may show you some sketches I made. Perhaps if I can find a pretty view I may make a sketch this afternoon.'
'All right, Lucia!' I cried, and running upstairs, I quickly put on my hat and light jacket, and joined Lucia down in the breakfast-room.
We sallied forth, having first told Mrs. Warmart we might not be in again for some hours.
'Ah, that's right, Miss Lucia!' said the old dame, looking at my sweet cousin with beaming face and smiles. 'You are the right sort! I do believe that if you had not come here, poor Miss Susan would be sitting indoors now, moping to death.
'Susan,' said Lucia, as we made our way along the path, 'do you know one of the things you should carefully cultivate is exercise, good outdoor exercise, and walking is one of the best, because it is the least fatiguing, whilst at the same time it calls into play every muscle of your body. A good walker always carries himself upright: he gets good, square shoulders, and a fine, projecting chest, and he is always in good trim. It adds firmness to the flesh, and tone to the body, and a girl who wishes to preserve a good figure, to have firm breasts, firm, round and delightful to see and feel, can't do better than take plenty of walking exercise, in the fields if possible. Besides the mere healthiness of the walk, there is another and not unimportant reason.
Now although, as I explained last night, the sponge and syringe are perfect safeguards against the insidious approach to our wombs of the active spermatozoa, yet, if it be possible to still further defend ourselves, we should be foolish not to do it. Now, without being in the least degree uncharitable towards my neighbours, who in public denounce what they call illicit intercourse with men as sinful and wicked, yet my own experience has shown me that a very great number of ladies, both married and unmarried, have their lovers, whilst I know that numbers of shop-girls and servant maids have theirs also, and I do not think I am at all overshooting the mark when I say that at least one half of those shopgirls and servant maids have their lovers at least once a week, if not more often.
'But, as hardly any of them use any precaution whatever, it should follow that half the nubile women should, whether married or not, be always in the family way, whereas the truth is that this is not so, and why? Well, most of the girls of whom I speak are obliged to have their fucks either in the fields, or in some hidden corner, not in bed, and so soon as Master Johnnie Prick is out of their cunnies, the girls spring to their feet so as not to attract attention should any chance passenger come by.
'The consequence is that the seed has a tendency to run out of their little cunts. This I believe to be the reason why servants and shop-girls so frequently escape being impregnated.
'But take young, married couples. Now I think you may be sure that during the honeymoon fucking is the constant action which goes on. By rights, then, every young, married woman should have a baby in nine months
