“Untie my hands, then,” she murmured in her charming Celtic lilt.
The Signore merely chortled at the suggestion and gave another sharp smack on her coppery-toned bottom-cheeks as if to reprimand such sauciness. Miss Jones gave a little squeal, whether of discomfort or excitement, who can say? Perhaps it was a little of both.
Whatever the cause, it goaded the Signore to mount her with the resolve of a born rider astride the saddle. Taking her between the rear of her thighs, he was thus able to give his hands full freedom of fondling her breasts and belly, while his hairy loins tickled and prickled her young backside. There is, alas, no scale of enthusiasm in these matters by whose Fahrenheit or Centigrade one may measure the thrill of desire. Yet our almond-eyed beauty writhed and whimpered in a manner which made such exact measurement unnecessary.
The Signore feasted his lips on the delicate whorls of her ears and the fine moulding of her neck. He bit her lightly on the shoulders and his fingernails raked the smooth gold flanks of her trim thighs. She, in turn, twisted her face round and the tight-lidded slant of her dark eyes begged kisses for her greedy lips. A series of sharp rising cries announced the approach of her climax while the Signore discharged his own passion into her loins with grunts and gasps far removed from the exquisite colour of his famous verses. They lay entwined on the dark blue-and-crimson of the Persian carpet, writhing and panting together a little in the moment of their supreme satisfaction. Presently there was another sharp smack on her bottom to prepare the randy little piece for an encore. Just then I heard a sound in the corridor. Opening my door as softly as I might, I peeped through the crack and took young Marit entirely by surprise. What do you suppose? She had stripped to her white blouse and her denim drawers-which was not unusual at that hour of night. She was also kneeling at Miss Jones's keyhole, which was charmingly lewd! You may guess the sequel. Her features were hidden somewhat by the light brown tresses which lapped about her collar. Yet as she sat upon her heels and viewed the scene in the bedroom, Marit's slim young hand was thrust within the waist of her pants at the front. Her fingers were moving with a most lascivious knowingness between her slender thighs.
Though I could not quite see her face for the silken waves of hair falling about her features, I was certain of her mood all the same, if only from the manner in which her glossy young hair trembled and the gasps which issued from her! Do not condemn her too easily, Augustus. Desire is strong at fourteen or fifteen and yet the proper conduct of society requires that its yearnings must be repressed by its elders. How else, then, is Marit to relieve her feelings? I know that she spends much of the day at cafe tables with girls and boys of her own age. Yet I cannot believe that she has ever so much as had her hand inside a boy's pants to feel his budding manhood. Nor, I think, has a boy ever had his own hand in her knickers to fondle the warmth between her thighs or the cool little orbs of Marit's bottom-cheeks. So the little minx worked herself harder and harder, until at last the spasm came upon her. She shuddered as if with horror and yet surely the pleasure was exquisite. Indeed, she was so overcome that she sank down and lay upon the tiles, hugging her knees to her breasts and her fingers busy in her panties all over again! What momentous events are passing in the Villa Lola, dear cousin! What stories I may have to tell you by the time that I despatch my next letter to England! Your own loving Maude Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude VI. Augustus to Lady Maude Wight, 14 June, afternoon My dearest Maude, I received your letter with its charming and most amusing anecdote of Miss Jones. Yet I fear, my dear cousin, that I am hardly a good audience for such tales just now. To tell you the truth, I do not know whether to rejoice or despair. I have devoted my time to finding out all that I can about Julie, where she lives and what time she may be seen in the street or at her work in the bookshop. To what purpose is all this? I have discovered that she has a lover with whom she shares her rooms. I had feared this and was quite sure that it must be a hulking fellow in whose company I had seen her from time to time. I was wrong. She has a lover but, believe me, it is another girl! You see my predicament? I do not know whether that makes my situation better or worse. Is a woman a more dangerous rival for me than a man? I cannot tell and do not know how to begin finding out.
The girl, like so many common sluts here, is one of Mr. Bowler's young whores. You may see her and a number of others busying themselves as you pass the doors of one of his shops. This creature is named Sian and I daresay you know her. She has a mop of lightly waved reddish hair and a white-skinned look. Her eyes are a light blue, her cheekbones slanting and her chin rather weak with a painted little bud of a mouth. She is not particularly tall and her look is of a slack and sluttish girl. I am no purist in such matters, however. Were it not for my rivalry with the girl-my aversion, needless to say-I would allow that Sian has that characteristic Celtic beauty of pale skin, reddish hair which always seems to make skin even whiter, and blue eyes which sometimes look dark from the manner in which she applies the mascara brush to their lashes. Her figure at twenty years old is at that desirable stage of rounding softly but without showing the degree of plumpness which will one day mar her outline. Under a snug singlet one sees the resilience of her cherry-topped breasts.
When Sian bends over in her cotton working-pants of pale grey-blue, she tightens them skin-smooth over thighs that are still trim and bottom cheeks which are still tautly rounded with the elasticity of youth. I had watched her in this posture a day or two before, the cotton so tight at the seat that one easily saw the ridge which mapped the outline of Sian's knickers. Do not think I am blind, then, to her attractions. Yet there is no torture I would shrink from imposing as a punishment for her seduction of Julie's innocence. I swear I have seen Sian wearing a wedding-ring. If she has regular exercise on the staff of a husband or boyfriend, what excuse is there for her depravity with another girl? It is not the helpless inclination of a born lesbian but a matter of calculated lechery. What right has she to enjoy the pleasures of Julie's bed when my own passion burns unrequited? I will not give up the pursuit of my beloved-rest assured of that. I have rented a common lodging across the street from her own, the better to lay siege. Its upper window commands a view into all her rooms, so that I may survey the object of my desires as well as the machinations of my rival. Before you cry alarm at my obsession and write to Dr. Raspail about my condition, let me inform you that all my suspicions have proved well founded, as I saw for myself last night. Would you credit it? Thinking this room of mine unoccupied, the two girls did not so much as draw a curtain over any window. I saw all that passed as clearly as if then in the best box at the theatre and they performing on the stage a dozen feet from me!