how I love you!' clasping her slender waist round from the back with any disengaged arm.
'Oh, take your hand away! Something awful-something dreadful will happen. I am sure it will, and I cannot prevent it. Oh! Oh!' For all answer, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, uninterruptedly and determinedly continued.
When she worked me almost into a frenzy, and my movements, jerks, and exclamations showed me to be in extremis, still holding me and pressing me more tightly, she again turned her head to look into my eyes. I noticed her own eyes were swimming. She squeezed me and crushed me more energetically, not uttering a syllable, but pressing against me with her whole form.
At last a convulsive shudder shook my frame from head to foot, and finally centred and concentrated itself in what she had hold of. Completely beyond myself and without my control, it went into a violent spasm of throbs, causing me such a sensation of delight and satisfaction as I had never dreamt of in my wildest moments, spouting out something time after time into her dainty hand, which was now still, and only quiescently grasping me.
'Oh,' I gasped as I lay exhausted, and she arose, 'if only I could do that to you!'
'Where should you put it, Master Julian?' she asked, laughing.
That, I confess, puzzled me.
As I lay recovering, my eyes rivetted on Mademoiselle, I understood why women have such power over men, why men will go through so much for them, and how truly they may be named 'mistress.' It is because they have it in their power to do that with his body, which can convulse him with inexpressible and delirious joy. I began to feel the subtle pleasure of being wrapt in a woman's garments, which seemed hallowed from their resemblance to those which enveloped Mademoiselle herself, as she stood a little distance off, wiping her dainty hand with a handkerchief, and putting on a pretty and amused air of delicate disgust.
I had been introduced to Love, and made acquainted with one of the secrets of its influence and power. Love was no longer an abstraction, but the sweetest and most desirable reality. Venus had, however, so far only uncovered her face. I felt the want of some complement of my ecstasy, of some participation in it. The veil had fallen to the Goddess's shoulders, not yet to her feet!
Mademoiselle again ensconced herself in her easy chair, and taking up her book, turned over its leaves somewhat at random. Her breasts rose and fell more quickly than before; and upon her cheeks there was just the slightest possible flush-such a flush of pink as a delicate white rose sometimes has. And in her dark eyes shone a glorious and laughing light, which she allowed to radiate upon me, reminding me of the laughter-loving Venus, and revealing the significance of that Homeric epithet.
CHAPTER 7
I felt convinced that there was some way as yet undisclosed-some means by which I could comprehensively and entirely love and be loved.
I had already become sensible of the rapture of possessing in some degree the secret of the concealed springs which, duly worked upon, rose in fountains of overwhelming volume and transported one in floods of delight.
I felt that at last I had begun to live instinctively, that there was something to live for. It could be no mere hallucination that the future had still some mystery to disclose, and some more perfect tuition to offer. A dim vision of the happiness to be enjoyed by the human creature when it perfects itself by the discovery and coalescence of its sexual affinity was thus unfolded; and, on the other hand, I easily perceived the misery it must endure from unsatisfied yearnings.
There was evidently more in the education I was receiving and in the discipline to which I had been given up than was apparent on its surface or than I had supposed.
Mademoiselle had indeed thoroughly given me a psychological lesson. I had taken it to be a joke. I had not dreamt it was possible for that little hand to teach me so much.
At last my fair instructress looked up, and speaking as though she were putting some restraint upon herself, said significantly: 'Well, Julian, I think we have talked long enough, and I am now going to read.'
'Oh, Mademoiselle,' I said, 'won't you give me more?'
'You silly boy,' she rejoined, laughing, and now really rosy, 'you do not even know what I am going to permit you. Come here.'
She was seated in a low and long-seated armchair, and placing her knees against its left elbow, she directed me to seat myself on the floor, with my legs underneath the chair, and with my face close to the front of the seat.
I found this no easy matter, and went to work rather clumsily, receiving one or two playful but sharp slaps, 'for not carrying out a lady's wishes with more alacrity.' When at last I had succeeded, she unfastened and took off the drawers from my arms and also the body of the dress I was wearing, leaving my arms, neck, and shoulders bare. I was much incommodated by the corset, which was really a very ill-fitting one, and felt exceedingly awkward in my unfamiliar attire, and indeed hurt myself with the busks of the longwaisted thing as I assumed the required posture. My long legs, uncovered by the petticoats, which in my efforts to seat myself as bidden had worked themselves quite up to my knees, were disposed in a very ungraceful and clumsy heap beneath the chair. I sincerely trusted Mademoiselle, martinet and stickler for elegance as I knew her to be, would not notice this, dreading the consequences if she did. Perhaps, however, she considered the irksomeness and the discomfort of the badly arranged drapery beneficial. For although she must have noticed the bundle and my immodestly uncovered legs, yet when she had got me close enough, she gave me no further directions. By a dexterous movement and half-turn, accomplished before I had time to guess what she meant, she whisked her petticoats over my head and lodged her right leg across my left shoulder. The result was that I found my head again between her soft and warm thighs, each voluptuously pressing one of my cheeks. Her legs were enveloped in exquisitely fine linen undergarments; and there was wafted to me a fresher and stronger prevalence of that strange intoxicating perfume which I had noticed about the red flannel petticoat. My natural impulse was to retreat, an effort promptly prevented by a tight grip of Mademoiselle; stooping over she lifted up her skirts and looking at me with a strange fierce light in her eyes but with a rosy smile upon her face, said: 'Now, Julian, if in the course of your incursions underneath my petticoats you should encounter a mouth with a moustache you may kiss it; and, in fact, when 39
I press my heel against your back-like this-you are to kiss it-you understand-and to continue doing so as long as I press you.'
She then again dropped her voluminous garments over me and threw herself well back in the chair. My head, already well above her knees, came to the open part of her drawers where I felt her satin like skin and soft warm flesh, this time naked, against my cheeks. To my astonishment, my nose, mouth, and chin were tickled by some hairs. This must be the moustache thought I, and before I had time to determine what to do, Mademoiselle gave a wriggle and holding me close with her legs, rubbed something very hairy and moist all over my face, my eyes, my nose, and my mouth in a very lingering manner. In the midst of the hair I found what seemed like a mouth set lengthwise instead of across, and felt a little protuberance near its top, which was pressed forcibly against my own lips and which appeared to be excessively sensitive. At the same moment I felt her heel pressed against my shoulders and I gave it a kiss. It was instantly pushed into my lips and my mouth was forced wide open; unable to kiss it, I tickled it with my tongue.
Mademoiselle's movements as I did so became more and more vigorous, her hold of me grew tighter and tighter, and she pressed me still more closely. Feeling her foot heavily against my shoulders I continued to play with what I concluded was her raw flesh, to bite it gently with my teeth, and to lick it with my tongue, especially that little protuberance, as I soon discovered the transports which that gave her. To my wonder the aperture still grew larger and larger until I seemed actually to lose my face in it. It had wet me and appeared to cover me all over in it. I felt as if I was some distance inside her body and I grew furious with a strange excitement which increased with her own. Mademoiselle's throbs became more and more convulsive, indeed as violent as mine had been on the ottoman.
At last, centring herself upon my mouth, there came a series of violent spasmodic throbs lasting for some seconds then becoming gradually slower and slower, whilst there was jerked into my mouth a warm 40
