oddly met friend. However, my confident statement that I was expected, coupled, I dare say, with my generally smart appearance, ended in my being shown upstairs. I followed the maid to a large high-ceilinged room and at once recognized Miss Clarence in the lady stretched on an ample sofa.
She was got up in a most calculated negligee. A semi-transparent tea-gown was outer garment, but even that was cut low in on her the shoulders and short in the arms like an evening frock, her knees were drawn up so that I saw her uncovered legs right up to well above her knee, uncovered that is, save for pretty openwork silk stockings of a greenish color. She looked very attractive, her hair was obviously just done up by an artist in the coiffuring business, and she was beautifully made up. She had a cigarette in her lips and her left hand held a half emptied champagne glass. There was a thick, intoxicating odor of scent in the room.
“Goodness Gracious!” she said, after a prolonged stare. “My little friend of two years ago; the little girl just going to school. Well, it's a wonder I recognized you. Christ, you are altered, child!”
I mumbled that I had always remembered her invitation, but that this was the first opportunity I had had of accepting it.
“Well, you've come at quite an opportune moment,” she said, after she had extracted my story from me; how I had been cast off, and what had happened to me-I did not tell her quite all that happened to me. “I can make use of you this afternoon. I remember saying that you should have a dress, you shall have it.”
I didn't know very much of the world at that time, but I knew enough to realize that my hostess was a bad woman; bad, that is, in the sense of a woman who sold her body to a good bidder, and intuition taught me that she wanted me for the same purpose. Curiosity, and natural desire to make a little money, gave me courage. I was ready for pretty well anything.
She went on to tell me that she had arranged to find a virgin for one of her richest clients that very afternoon. The girl she selected had disappointed her. “In fact, my little dear,” she informed me, “I was so much at a loss that I had got myself up as fascinating as possible to see if the old devil couldn't put up with me-now you've come.”
“But-?”
“Exactly; you're not a virgin, but you look a child, and the physical difficulties can be got over. You'll do very well for a first class virgin. First of all, however, that smart frock won't do; my old man expects a poor girl.” A ring at the bell interrupted her talk, and she immediately pressed an electric button at her side. “Marie,” she said to the maid who entered, “If that is General Salis, tell him to wait in the dining room. Give him a drink but don't dare to be loving to him or-.”
“But the General is so impetuous,” answered the pretty girl.
“Well, don't let him put his impetuosity into you,” laughed Miss Clarence, “tell him that I have a little friend waiting for him.”
“Now,” she said when the girl had gone, rising to her feet, and becoming a business woman on the instant, “are you game for this; it's be ten pounds in your pocket; not a bad afternoon's earnings?”
“I'm game,” I replied. “Give me a drink though.”
She poured out a glass of champagne, and while I was drinking it, began to undo my bodice. I was soon disembarrassed of everything but my underclothes, and Miss Clarence looked at me critically. “Your undies are rather too smart,” she said, “but I'll tell him I gave you these for the occasion. Now for the virginity part of the business.”
She led me into an adjoining room, filled a basin with water and dropped the contents of a paper into the water: “That's powdered alum,” she remarked, “that'll dry your little cunt up, my false virgin,” at the same time filling a syringe with the mixture. I obeyed her and injected the alum and water. “You'll have to bleed,” she added, “these old men always look for that. I'll show you how. Here's a little bladder of pigeon's blood, put it under the string of your drawers, or anywhere else where you can hide it. When he's having you, you must wriggle about a lot and scream, and you must find a chance of breaking this. Crack it with your nail and manage to let some run over his cock and balls; get it into his hairy part if you can, but above all get your drawer saturated. If I know the General he'll probably want to take those away as a trophy; of course he'll give extra money for another set for you.”
Then she dressed me in a very plain three quarter length dress of common material and made me let my hair down. “Capital,” was her comment when she surveyed me, “you don't look more than fourteen; the old man'll think he's got a treasure.”
With my little bladder of blood tucked into my drawers and my poor pussy dried up to the closing point with the alum, I followed her back into the drawing-room. She rang again, and presently the General followed the maid into the room.
It was a desperately business like proceeding, and it was not till long afterwards that I recognized how all this straightforward bargaining and arranging appealed to the old rip for whom I made the sacrifice. She had instructed me to be extraordinary coy, and I sat on the couch with my face half covered with my hands, taking care, however, to let the most attractive part of it be visible, and taking care at the same time to stick out my shapely legs as far as possible from under my frock.
The General was a fat man with a double chin and fierce moustache. He came into the room with a military stride, and kissed Miss Clarence on the cheek.
“Lock the door, Marie, and sit down by it,” said Miss Clarence, “General-you trust me, and you must trust Marie-this child may be hurt, and I shall want some one to help me look after her.”
The old devil's eyes twinkled as he looked at me; became fiery lamps as I got up in obedience to Miss Clarence's gesture and suffered him to kiss me.
Miss Clarence was very business like; in fact she was almost like a governess of a class and her manner was strikingly at variance with her alluring appearance, but how well she knew her man. He was boiling with excitement and anticipation.
“Now, General,” she went on, “this little girl is the daughter of a friend of mine. She is doing this for money because she is almost penniless. She has always lived in the country and knows nothing of men. I have told her what you are going to do to her, and it is the first time she has ever heard of any such thing.” The old reprobate, and I recognized him from his pictures in the papers as being a hero of the last ward, was sitting on a couch, puffing a cigar and devouring me with his eyes while his ears followed Miss Clarence introductory lecture. “She is innocent, and has no idea of the value of her charms to mankind. You are going to pluck a very rare flower and you'll have to pay for it. Thirty pounds in all, General. Ten pounds for me, fifteen pounds for my little friend-you see how generous I am-and five pounds for Marie, who is staying here to help in any way she can. Is it a bargain?”
The old man rose to his feet? “No, damn you it isn't,” he cried, “its a damned shame.”
“Well, why do you come here wasting my time?” snapped Miss Clarence.
“Thirty pounds for you, sixty for the girl, and a tenner for Marie,” blustered the General. “I've just won an unexpected hundred pounds on a horse this afternoon, and if the little lady wants money, damn she shall have it!”
The bargain needless to say, was struck at once, and the General laid a roll of five pound notes on the table.
Then came my turn. I had been instructed by Miss Clarence to be perfectly passive and speak as little as possible. At her bidding I had laid myself out on the capacious sofa, and the old man approached. He kissed me lusciously several times, but I gave him no respending lips caress, and he then began feeling my legs. Miss Clarence and the maid were sitting, silent spectators, smoking cigarettes.
I wriggled and crossed my legs as he felt me, and pretended with little pushes, to thrust him away. “Oh, damn it all, Bella,” I heard him say, “I must have her clothes off!”
Bella Clarence pretended to whisper to me and gain my consent, and then disembarrassed me of all my outer clothes. I lay on the couch in my drawers and chemise, my long auburn hair flowing over my shoulders and breasts.
“That's enough off, General,” Miss Clarence said, “You can't expect her to go stark naked the very first time.”
The General was a big, heavily formed man but his white hairs had led me to expect a very different instrument from the gigantic phallus that he produced. It was indeed a stout and powerful thing and reared up till its head almost knocked against his naval-he had stripped himself quite bare.
I gripped my little bladder of blood in my hand-and waited.
I shall never forget the scene at the commencement of the pseudo seduction. Above me towered the big old
