Jessie would let me, perhaps-I was breathless. Our walk on deck that evening was not so satisfactory: the wind had gone down and there were many other couples and the men all seemed to know Jessie, and it was Miss Kerr here, and Miss Kerr there, till I was cross and disappointed. I couldn't get her to myself save at moments, but then I had to admit she was as sweet as ever and her Aberdeen accent even was quaint and charming to me.
I got some long kisses at odd moments and just before we went down I drew her behind a boat in the davits and was able to caress her little breasts; and when she turned her back to me to go, I threw my arms round her hips and drew them against me, and she leant her head back over her shoulder and gave me her mouth with dying eyes. The darling! Jessie was apt at all love's lessons. The next day was cloudy and rain threatened, but we were safely ensconced in the boat by two o'clock, as soon as lunch was over, and we hoped no one had seen us. An hour passed in caressings and fondlings, in love's words and love's promises; I had won Jessie to touch my sex and her eyes seemed to deepen as she caressed it. «I love you, Jessie. Won't you let it touch yours?» She shook her head. «Not here, not in the open,» she whispered and then, «Wait a little till we get to New York, dear,» and our mouths sealed the compact. Then I asked her about New York and her sister's house, and we were discussing where we should meet, when a big head and beard showed above the gunwale of the boat and a deep Scotch voice said: «I want ye, Jessie, I've been luiking everywhere for ye.» «Awright, father,» she said. «I'll be down in a minute.» «Come quick,» said the voice as the head disappeared. «I'll tell him we love each other and he won't be angry for long,» whispered Jessie; but I was doubtful. As she got up to go my naughty hand went up her dress behind and felt her warm, smooth buttocks. Ah, the poignancy of the ineffable sensations; her eyes smiled over her shoulder at me and she was gone-and the sunlight with her. I still remember the sick disappointment as I sat in the boat alone. Life then, like school, had its chagrins, and as the pleasures were keener, the balks and blights were bitterer. For the first time in my life vague misgivings came over me, a heartshaking suspicion that everything delightful and joyous in life had to be paid for-I wouldn't harbor the fear. If I had to pay, I'd pay; after all, the memory of the ecstasy could never be taken away, while the sorrow was fleeting. And that faith I still hold. Next day the chief steward allotted me a berth in a cabin with an English midshipman of seventeen going out to join his ship in the West Indies. William Ponsonby was not a bad sort, but he talked of nothing but girls from morning till night and insisted that Negresses were better than white girls: they were far more passionate, he said. He showed me his sex; excited himself before me, while assuring me he meant to have a Miss Le Breton, a governess, who was going out to take up a position in Pittsburgh. «But suppose you put her in the family way?» I asked. «That's not my funeral,» was his answer, and seeing that the cynicism shocked me, he went on to say there was no danger if you withdraw in time. Ponsonby never opened a book and was astoundingly ignorant: he didn't seem to care to learn anything that hadn't to do with sex. He introduced me to Miss Le Breton the same evening. She was rather tall, with fair hair and blue eyes, and she praised my reciting. To my wonder she was a woman and pretty, and I could see by the way she looked at Ponsonby that she was more than a little in love with him. He was above middle height, strong and good tempered, and that was all I could see in him. Miss Jessie kept away the whole evening, and when I saw her father on the «upper deck,» he glowered at me and went past without a word. That night I told Ponsonby my story, or part of it, and he declared he would find a sailor to carry a note to Jessie next morning if I'd write it. Besides, he proposed we should occupy the cabin alternate afternoons; for example, he'd take it next day and I must not come near it, and if at any time one of us found the door locked, he was to respect his chum's privacy. I agreed to it all with enthusiasm and went to sleep in a fever of hope. Would Jessie risk her father's anger and come to me? Perhaps she would: at any rate I'd write and ask her and I did. In one hour the same sailor came back with her reply. It ran like this: «Dear love, father is mad, we shall have to take great care for two or three days; as soon as it's safe, I'll come-your loving Jess,» with a dozen crosses for kisses. That afternoon, without thinking of my compact with Ponsonby, I went to our cabin and found the door locked: at once our compact came into my head and I went quickly away. Had he succeeded so quickly? And was she with him in bed? The half-certainty made my heart beat. That evening Ponsonby could not conceal his success, but as he used it partly to praise his mistress, I forgave him. «She has the prettiest figure you ever saw,» he declared, «and is really a dear. We had just finished when you came to the door. I said it was some mistake and she believed me. She wants me to marry her, but I can't marry. If I were rich, I'd marry quick enough. It's better than risking some foul «disease,» and he went on to tell about one of his colleagues, John Lawrence, who got black pox, as he called syphilis, caught from a Negress. «He didn't notice it for three months,»
Ponsonby went on, «and it got into his system; his nose got bad and he was invalided home, poor devil. Those black girls are foul,» he continued; «they give everyone the clap and that's bad enough, I can tell you; they're dirty devils.» His ruttish sorrows didn't interest me much, for I had made up my mind never at any time to go with any prostitute. I came to several such uncommon resolutions on board that ship, and I may set down the chief of them here very briefly.
First of all, I resolved that I would do every piece of work given to me as well as I could so that no one coming after me could do it better. I had found out at school in the last term that if you gave your whole mind and heart to anything, you learned it very quickly and thoroughly. I was sure even before the trial that my first job would lead me straight to fortune. I had seen men at work and knew it would be easy to beat any of them. I was only eager for the trial. I remember one evening I had waited for Jessie and she never came, and just before going to bed, I went up into the bow of the ship where one was alone with the sea and sky, and swore to myself this great oath, as I called it in my romantic fancy: whatever I undertook to do, I would do it to the uttermost in me. If I have had any successes in life or done any good work, it is due in great part to that resolution. I could not keep my thoughts from Jessie; if I tried to put her out of my head, I'd get a little note from her, or Ponsonby would come, begging me to leave him the cabin the whole day: at length in despair I begged her for her address in New York, for I feared to lose her forever in that maelstrom. I added that I would always be in my cabin alone from one to half past, if she could ever come.
That day she didn't come and the old gentleman who said he would adopt me got hold of me, told me he was a banker and would send me to Harvard, the university near Boston; from what the doctor had said of me, he hoped I would do great things. He was really kind and tried to be sympathetic, but he had no idea that what I wanted chiefly was to prove myself, to justify my own high opinion of my powers in the open fight of life. I didn't want help and I absolutely resented his protective airs. Next day in the cabin came a touch on the door and Jessie, all flustered, was in my arms. «I can only stay a minute,» she cried. «Father is dreadful, says you are only a child and won't have me engage myself and he watches me from morning to night. I could only get away now because he had to go down to the machine-room.»
Before she had finished, I locked the cabin door. «Oh, I must go,» she cried. «I must really; I only came to give you my address in New York; here it is,» and she handed me the paper that I put at once in my pocket. And then I put both my arms under her clothes and my hands were on her warm hips, and I was speechless with delight; in a moment my right hand came round in front and as I touched her sex our lips clung together and her sex opened at once, and my finger began to caress her and we kissed and kissed again.
Suddenly her lips got hot and while I was still wondering why, her sex got wet and her eyes began to flutter and turn up. A moment or two later she tried to get out of my embrace. «Really, dear, I'm frightened: he might come and make a noise and I'd die; please let me go now; we'll have lots of time in New York»-but I could not bear to let her go. «He'd never come here where there are two men,» I said,
«never. He might find the wrong one,» and I drew her to me, but seeing she was only half-reassured, I said, while lifting her dress, «Let mine just touch yours, and I'll let you go»; and the next moment my sex was against hers and almost in spite of herself she yielded to the throbbing warmth of it; but, when I pushed in, she drew away and down on it a little and I saw anxiety in her eyes that had grown very dear to me. At once I stopped and put away my sex and let her clothes drop. «You're such a sweet, Jess,» I said, «who could deny you anything; in New York then, but now one long kiss.» She gave me her mouth at once and her lips were hot. I learned that morning that, when a girl's lips grow hot, her sex is hot first and she is ready to give herself and ripe for the embrace.
Chapter V. The Great New World
A stolen kiss and fleeting caress as we met on the deck at night were all I had of Jessie for the rest of the voyage. One evening land lights flickering in the distance drew crowds to the deck; the ship began to slow down.
