Sister Alice. And to be sure, such a lecture would allow her full occasion for delivering those famous rejoinders full of underlying sarcasm at my expense, while she would bask in the comfortable knowledge that the social code prescribed my accepting them in all meek humility, leaving her safe from reprisal. And then, oh my lady, what a fall from grace there would be!
I opened the door to her. My pulses leaped at the sight that greeted my eager eyes. In an adorable little felt hat with a feather that set a jaunty note of imperious sophistication, cape and rustling silken dress whose hems descended to her ankles, Marion stood before me, her lovely haughty face a bland mask of disdain and smug security; oh, yes, from the very lineaments of her features there could be no doubt she had come to rub salt into my wounds by archly recalling to me that she had never approved of me and that if her sister proved weak enough to succumb to my manly virtues-whose existence she herself still doubted-it was vital that she remain the calm, dispassionate counselor and guide to steer her sister safely through the reefs and treacherous currents which my questionable character was inexorably certain to set before poor helpless Alice as a way of life.
There was a kind of fitting justice to Marion’s visit I had, as my readers will recall, originally had that treacherous armchair in my Snuggery fashioned expressly for the purpose of holding Marion in it and rendering her quite helpless while I went about the delicious procedure of ensnaring her sister Alice and compelling her to submit to my desires. And as you also know, at the last moment, Marion had not been able to keep the appointment- though Alice surely had no reason to complain of lack of attention she had received from me on that occasion!
I kept my face as bland as I could to bide the sudden delighted emotion that surged through me as I beheld Marion here on the very threshold of my apartment, the first step across which would lead to her coerced surrender and my own sweet revenge! And I congratulated myself upon my wisdom in having agreed to the landlord’s insistence that I rent not only my modest suite of sitting-room and two bed-rooms but the unusual “lumber room”- so he had called it-which had once actually been a confinement chamber for lunatics; the house had once been built as a private lunatic asylum, and to this room which I now referred to as my Snuggery, inmates who ultimately were destined for Bedlam had been confined. I may say with some little pride as well as amusement that since my acquisition of this admirably equipped room, it had been put to far better diversions!
Marion wore a fashionable green frock with high collar and full bodice and long, low skirts that were puffed and descended over her ankles. Her fashionable little bonnet tied with laces under her rounded chin, and altogether she was a most prepossessing sort of female. Alice had told me that she had been married three years, and of course I knew that she had been separated from her husband because of his crass infidelity. In my mind, the man must have been a fool to have allowed his wife to discover his penchants for liaisons with other females, since my first glance at Marion made my pulses race and my vital order throb with eager anticipation. There is an old adage that one should be able to eat one’s cake and have it too, and assuredly Marion’s husband would have done better to have practiced that adage. Never mind, I told myself, I would practice it for him!
“I am here, as you see,” she spoke in a cold, disinterested voice, whose inflections showed a rich contralto, whereas Alice had always the most delicious soprano voice-whose timbre never failed to make me shudder with lust when she was undergoing the delightful dalliance with feather or lips or tongue or fingers under my ministrations. Marion’s voice pleased me enormously, more than I can say; it suggested such a poise and worldliness as to convince a stranger at first impression that here was a creature who would be in complete control of herself at all times, no matter what the situation. Well, my beauty, I told myself gleefully, this afternoon will see whether or not you are capable of the normal reactions of a trapped and helpless victim! I do not think there’s a man alive who has not played with himself the delightful game of conjectural imagery. By which I mean the fanciful visualization of what a fully clothed female must look like when she is bereft of everything except her blushes. As I have already commented, the overly modest and even bulky clothing which was currently fashionable heightened my interest in this little game, and in a sense I had to admit that the more clothing the woman wore, the longer it would take to bring her to this desired state of Eve-nudity. And prolongation is always one of the most exquisite nuances of carnal gratification.
All this flashed through my mind in the space of an instant, needless to say, for I was already replying to Marion’s disdainful comment: “And it shall be my pleasant duty, dear Marion, to provide you with a justifiable reason for having made this visit to me. Would you not take a cup with me in my sitting room?”
She swept in, glancing about with her lips pursed in evident contempt of my surroundings, though even Alice had complimented me on their decor and neatness for a bachelor. That was another black mark against Marion’s account which, I, promised myself, I meant to settle to the very fullest measure of my capacities-and hers!-before this afternoon wended its way to its exciting end. Finished with her inspection, she turned back to me and remarked almost insolently, “Mind you, I shan’t stay long. The only reason I came, if you must know, was that I had some shopping at the milliner’s and at a book store not far from your apartment. And since you made such an important point of communicating with me, I decided to grant you this meeting.”
“I’m happy that you did, Marion. Alice has always spoken so favorably of you, and even though you did oppose our knowing each other, I shall hope to persuade you that I am not so black as I have been painted.” I did not feel it necessary to add at that point that the painting had been done by Marion herself. Alice had inherently a warm and generous nature-which, to be sure, the sweet pursuit of her conquest had fully unleashed! But I could tell at once that Marion preferred this icy veneer as a kind of shield. Therefore the question was: Was she totally frigid and devoid of warmth and a capacity for passion, or was this veneer only assumed to hide her true outlook? Well, that was precisely the question I had posed myself to have answered for me in my snuggery. I also determined to learn from Marion just how thoroughly her former husband had indoctrinated her into the sweet mysteries of physical bliss. Perhaps he had left me two of her three virginities; the very thought of that nearly made me spill the cup of tea that I was bringing to her and setting beside her with the utmost deference and gentlemanly courtesy. For if you have never had in your apartment an arrogant and cool young woman who treats you as if you were beneath her notice while at the same time you are conjuring up visions of her rosy lips deferentially fixed about your manhood, then you cannot begin to understand the riotous images that filled my mind and the shuddering impulsions which titillated all my nerves and sinews! After having poured out my own tea and added cream and sugar to my preference, I seated myself opposite her and fixed upon her the most intent and gracious look it was in my power to muster. An uneasy silence fell over us, and then finally, after a ladylike sip or two from her cup, she set it down in the saucer almost with a clatter as, fixing her dark, widely spaced blue eyes upon me, she remarked, “What chiefly brought me to agreeing to visit you here, Jack, is the inexplicable part of your note to me. I cannot for the life of me understand how you could possess any kind of information about my future happiness, as you termed it, that would be of the least concern to me. Will you please explain your meaning?”
“Now that is a most intimate matter, and I will not be so brash as to give you a direct answer in a single sentence or two, my dear Marion,” I told her speciously.
Her supercilious eyebrows arched, and her blue eyes were extremely cold as she retorted, “If you continue the insolence of treating me like a child, Jack, I shall leave at once. I’m already beginning to regret my visit Now I insist that you be direct with me and explain precisely how you take upon yourself the audacity of telling me that you could possibly know anything about my person or my thoughts or my hopes for the future. You are well aware, I trust, that my husband and I have parted company. You never knew him, and this is the first time that you have really met me, and yet out of a clear sky you presume upon yourself to be some sort of judge. This is sheer temerity on your part, and I know now why I was so opposed to my sister’s infatuation with you. It appears to me, sir, that you have in you the traits of a scoundrel!”
Mentally I rubbed my hands with glee at this little tirade of hers. How beautifully she had added to her account She had started a brand-new page and it was already scored most heavily against her. Oh, Marion, Marion, how little you know me but how well you will before too many hours have passed, I told myself, and I confess that I was hard put to it to keep from smiling like a predatory beast of prey who finds that the elusive gazelle has unwarily entered his lair!
“You have made an accusation, Marion,” I said as coldly as she had done to me, “that is not seemly, for now you have taken upon yourself the temerity-to use your own picturesque term-of judging me without even knowing me, just as you did before when I first knew Alice. I had never met you when I first knew your lovely sister, and I’m now fully convinced that she jilted me precisely because you had already formed your own opinionated notion of what my character must be. I blamed her at the time, I no longer do so, for we are reconciled. But if your own marriage has come to such a drastic end, Marion, would it not be more reasonable to ask yourself if it is perhaps not you who are at fault and therefore, if that is so, that your opinions and your judgments of people may play you false?”
