Charlie Althair says he has not had a real good night since he last had you. I believe he has adorned his prick with one or two more maidenheads whilst you were away.
He loves tender virgins, and makes them love him!
Adieu, darling Lucia. I am to have Sir Thomas Gordon tonight. You may remember I had him about eighteen months ago at his mother's house.
Your poor loving cousin,
'GLADYS'
'Well,' said Lucia as I handed back the letter, 'what do you think I told Gladys in my reply this morning?'
'I suppose you said that you thought I would go with you, dear.'
'Yes, indeed, I did. And I said more! I told her that you were absolutely beautiful from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, and that your disposition was so amorous, your temperament so ardent, that you would be the very finest possible acquisition. I told her that I had found you, darling, in a state of extraordinary simplicity and ignorance, but that the moment I reflected from the mirror of my mind and my experience the ways of enlightening knowledge, you had spread out not only your lovely, rounded bosom, but your exquisitely chiselled thighs to receive all I had to give you. I said that so plentiful was the will of love, between the aforesaid voluptuous thighs, that it hardly asked to be touched before it overflowed with the offerings of sympathy, and that though the sweet cunnie sheltered by its lovely bush, and was virgin of virgin, yet I knew that, short as had been the period since it had first been excited to mobility, it would gladly accept the sacrifice of its peerless maidenhead, and admit the stalwart prick of that happy lover who, alone of men born of women, will have the delicious privilege of carrying the light of knowledge to its hottest depths, I-.'
'Oh, enough, enough!' I cried laughingly, putting up my hand to stop her torrent of words, 'I am delighted you told Gladys all this, and oh, Lucia, I do long! I do long for that perfect knowledge which you have so eloquently described.'
'And your longing shall soon, very soon be indulged,' cried Lucia. 'Oh, we must hurry up old Penwick, and perhaps within a week my Susan shall have had not only one, but twenty, thirty, forty good, solid, succulent fucks!'
I bounded on, leaping and running, so great was my excitement. Never, never, was a girl more madly happy than I to hear this, and yet hardly twenty-four hours had elapsed since, to all intents and purposes, my now raging cunt was dead asleep. Oh, how wide awake it was now!
I asked Lucia to let me read Gladys' letter once more. It interested me, but I did not understand the whole of it.
'What does she mean by our guests, Lucia?'
'Oh, they are people, ladies and gentlemen, but chiefly married ladies who, wishing for a change of diet, long for flesh pots they don't find in their husbands' beds-in other words, married ladies who fall in love with other men. They find it difficult to indulge their very natural passions in their own houses, still more difficult to do so in the houses of their lovers, and are afraid to go to hotels for fear of being recognised by other visitors there. We know so many people in high society that we know those whom we can trust, and there are ladies amongst our friends who sympathise with the anguish of lovers panting to enjoy a good fuck, and we permit our house to be named as a safe Bower of Bliss, where snug rooms, and comfortable beds, and perfect incognito can be found. We get a note, say a day or two before the happy night fixed upon for the full enjoyment. Gladys or I meet the lady, as it were by accident, at our friend's house, and the matter is quietly arranged. We ask the lady to dinner, she gets another invitation from our mutual friend to a quiet ladies' party at her house, she accepts the latter, tells her husband she is going there, but comes to us instead. Her beau, if we don't know him at first, comes to our house at dinner-time, mentions the name which his lady is fixed on to bear in our house, and is admitted as a matter of course. We sometimes sit down to dinner as a party of eighteen or twenty; five of the twenty may be my lover, Gladys', Annette's, Gladys, and I; the remainder would be seven couples who come to enjoy a sweet half or whole night in one another's embraces, and the odd are either a guest, a lady friend, or a gentleman for whom we can't provide a bed and a cunt.'
'And do these different couples know that the others are also going to fuck, Lucia?'
'Not unless they have intimate acquaintance with one another. Our rule is that when at the table, or in the drawing-room, only the manners of society as it exists are to rule-i. e, there must be no amorous talk or play. A stranger would have no idea that anything more than a social meeting was intended, and I can assure you our reunions are delightful, as everyone is in a state of excitement more or less subdued, and all are expecting a delicious time in a few short hours. You will see that about 10 o'clock, as the time goes, people will rise to go away. Gladys will press them to give her the pleasure of their company for a little longer. They will excuse themselves, but as they leave the room, they go upstairs instead of down; and after the ladies have had a few minutes' grace, to arrange such little matters as they would not care to settle in the presence of their lovers, the gentlemen follow, discreetly kept from treading on one another's heels by either myself, Gladys, or Annette, who keep them in conversation until the coast is clear, when a gentle “good-night” and pressure of the hand tells them they can safely go to the rooms where their respective ladies are undressing and preparing to receive them.'
'So in that way, I suppose, you prevent one gentleman seeing where another goes?'
'Quite so; not only that, but we are so clever that no gentleman sees another go upstairs at all.'
And how do they know their rooms, because if they are strangers to the house, and there are so many bedrooms, how can they avoid making a mistake?'
'That is very simple. We tell their ladies to give them the hint at dinner. In each guest's wine glass is put a flower, different to any other in the room: say one is a carnation, another a rose, another a lily or whatever you like. When the gentleman goes upstairs, he looks for a door having his flower in the keyhole, and opens it, walks in, and there is his lady, more or less undressed. Nothing can be more simple or well contrived, my dear Susan.'
'But surely they must notice that every keyhole has a flower in it! And would not that make them suspect that others were on the same errand as themselves?'
'Oh, my darling Susan, you may be sure that men and women of the world have an immense amount of discretion, and don't see more than is needful. No doubt they do see a lot, but they say nothing, and, as a matter of fact, everybody minds his own affairs. We never have any trouble. Our guests must be well recommended, or else they would get no invitations, and the recommendations we get come from the highest quarters!'
'But,' I persisted, as idea after idea presented itself to my mind, 'it must put you to a lot of expense, all these dinners and entertainments.'
'So it does,' replied Lucia, with gentle acquiescence, 'but Gladys is rich, and so am I, and even if we wished it we cannot prevent very handsome presents being made us, not only by our own lovers, but by those who reap the advantage of acquaintance with us: all goes to help, but our motives are not mercenary-we live the merriest, most delightful of lives, and what we do is from a love of pleasure. You see, we have no object on which to spend the seven or eight thousand a year we have between us, and so we can afford to be generous to Love. As it is, we do not spend half our income.'
'Ah, that explains it all,' I said, 'but tell me, Lucia, who is Annette, whom you mentioned just now?'
'She is our confidential maid, a most lovely girl, whom a young Henry Pendleton seduced; she was his sister's maid. I took his maidenhead, and he continued by taking Annette's, but unfortunately his mamma found her in his bed, and turned her out of doors then and there. Her parents, being strict Presbyterians, would not take her back, and she would have gone on the streets as a last resort, or drowned herself, had not poor Henry, in a state of anguish, for he is a dear, kind hearted boy, written and implored me to help Annette. I sent for her and saw her. Her exceeding beauty at once recommended her to me, and I took her on as my own maid. Little by little I found she was as amorous as a pigeon and I proposed to her to admit a lover of mine, whom I could not take because another had a pre-engagement with me one night. She was delighted, and I heard such an excellent report of her next morning that I took her on as my aide-de-con!'
'Aide-de-camp!' said I, 'Lucia, you don't pronounce it properly!'
'Don't I, dear? Well, I think I do! Con is the French for cunt, and I say truly when I say that Annette is my aide-de-con!'
I laughed, and was delighted at this new kind of staff appointment!
'So, I suppose, I am an aide-de-con that is to be, Lucia?'
