“What else have you to tell me?”
“Well, I must also tell you I've passed this whole blessed week positively thinking of nothing but you. I had such a ripping good time when I was here before that you've been on my mind ever since. The old pego has been in a continuous state of perturbation. Embarrassing at times, don't you know. Night before last I thought something really ought to be done about it. I tried the wife's door and it was unlocked, so I went in. She was asleep, or what I thought more likely, pretending to be asleep. The time is now, I thought, as I pulled the covers off her; the girl is here, and so is the place right there in the center of her bird's nest. If I hadn't been well soused, I'd have known better. This is what I got?”
And turning his face sidewise he indicated something I had not yet observed; three long, partially healed scratches down the length of his cheek.
“My heavens!” I exclaimed. “If she's like that, and you don't care for her, why do you want to do it with her?”
“Any port in a time of storm,” he answered ruefully, shrugging his shoulders. “A man can't always make his cock behave.”
“Well, I think that's strange! If I were a man and I didn't like a woman, I'm sure I wouldn't want to fuck her!”
“That's what you think, baby. When a man gets in a certain state, he has to do something. When I was in South Africa I even fucked kinky-headed Kaffir girls. A half a loaf, or even a black loaf, is better than none!”
“And so, you got your pretty face scratched. It served you right. Is that all you got?”
“To all intents and purposes, yes. There were quite, a few commentaries and observations of an interesting nature thrown in for good measure.”
I couldn't help laughing but at the same time, deep inside me, a little canker of jealousy that he should have wanted to do it with her began to form.
“Is your wife pretty?” I asked suddenly.
“About as pretty compared to you as a moth is in comparison to a beautiful, exotic butterfly.”
His words relieved the vague foreboding which had come over me, and for the moment I forgot the matter.
“What else have you to tell me?”
“I want to ask you something. Suppose I should want to take you out some night to a show, a cabaret, a party, or maybe pass the night in a hotel, could you get away?”
“I guess so, I'd have to ask Madame Lafronde. She doesn't like to have, the girls go out, but sometimes she lets them. I've never been away all night. I suppose if you gave her something extra you could get her to let me, maybe.”
“All right; that's that. She can't hold you in captivity. If she gets rambunctious I'll take care of things. And now that the incidentals are disposed of, the momentous question is: how shall we pass the night to get the most fun possible out of it?”
I leaned over close to him and, cupping my hands around my lips, slowly spelled out my recommendation in his ear: “F-u-c-k-i-n-g!”
“Moved, seconded, and unanimously adopted! Let's start!”
“Shall I get undressed now?”
“No, I want to enjoy that dress awhile first, if you don't mind rumpling it. Let's lie down on the bed and just tease for a little while.”
“All right! But wait… you forgot something… you were going to tell me something else, you started to tell me and then you said you'd tell me later!”
“Ah, yes!” he exclaimed, laughing, sinking back into his chair. “Before I mention that, I think you'd better take those other two drinks!”
“Oh! It's something that's going to put a strain on my modesty, is it?”
“Better not ask any questions until after you've had the drinks.”
“You're torturing me with curiosity! All right, here goes one… and… here goes the other. That makes three altogether. My modesty is now in a dormant state!”
“Well,” he said, still laughing, “you put the idea in my head with your nonsense about playing with yourself. You made me think of something odd, a blank void in my life. I've been all over the world, I've lived with a dozen women more or less and enjoyed the transitory favors of hundreds of others. I've seen all kinds of naughty shows and exhibitions, and if anyone had asked me, I'd have sworn there wasn't a single act in the whole encyclopedia of sexual arts I hadn't witnessed. I've even seen actual rapes of young girls in show bagnios in Cairo. But while you were joking about abusing yourself it came over me that I never actually saw a girl masturbating herself. I mean, really by herself, just as though she were alone and nobody watching her.”
“Oh, heavens! I know what's coming! Give me another drink, quick! My modesty never lived through three before, but ifs squirming and twitching now!”
“Listen, baby!” he exclaimed between convulsions of laughter, “I've had something squirming and twitching all week on account of you! I had it pretty well under control the last time, but it's ready to go off on the slightest provocation now, and I think I'd better not expose it to any direct heat, that is, if I want to keep it in a playful humor for a few hours!”
“What a lovely way of saying you want to keep a hard-on! All right, where do I fit into the picture?”
“Well, with the idea you put in my head, and having in mind your inexhaustible resources, I thought possibly you might be kind enough to stage a little entertainment, enjoy yourself voluptuously, and at the same time gratify my prurient curiosity. Kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes!”
I could not, of course, restrain my laughter, but at the same time the erotic titillations which the lewd suggestion evoked were vibrating through me and my face, felt like it was on fire.
“I guessed it. In plain words, you want to see me masturbate myself! Well, I've done it when there was no man around, but it will be the first time I ever did it with one right by me!”
“Then you'll be accommodating?”
“Excellency, I'm yours, body and soul, and your slightest wish is my command! How… how…” I exclaimed, again gasping with laughter, ”… how am I supposed to do it?”
“Don't ask me! I don't know how girls do it! I'm not even supposed to be here! You're doing it just as though you were alone!”
“Very well! But I'd better take another drink to make sure my modesty stays unconscious. It was never put to such a test before! Well, first, oh, ha, ha, ha, do I have to tell you what I'm thinking about while I'm doing it, too?”
“That would add greatly to the realism!”
“Well, first, I'm all alone, like you said, and I'm thinking about something I did with a man I liked… I'm thinking about what you and I did when you were here before…”
“Just a moment! I'm not supposed to be here, but you oblige, me to obtrude for a second. What you and I did when I was here before — we did a number of things. Be more specific in the interests of lucidity and realism!”
“Well, ha, ha, ha, I'm thinking of everything we did, and especially what you did to me first, while I was lying on the bed here, before I undressed!”
“Proceed. I'm withdrawn from the room again,”
“I'm thinking about how you licked me down there, and it makes me feel hot. My little thing in the top of my cunny gets hard and I'm wishing you were here to do that again. And the more I think of it, the worse it gets, and pretty soon I think I'd better do something to relieve the feeling.
“I can't decide at first whether I will or not, and I walk over to my bureau and get these pictures and take this one out and look at it…
“Excuse me for coming in again, let's see that picture… u-um!”
“As I was saying when I was interrupted by a phantom voice, I look at the picture. It's a very nice picture of a naked man and a naked woman, and the man has got his face, down between the woman's legs and he's doing something to her with his mouth. I think to myself, I wish that woman were me and the man Monty. But they aren't, so after I've looked at it awhile I put it back with the rest of the pictures and hide them under the clothes in my bureau.
