On the walls a collection of suggestive French pictures, and in an armchair, a muscular Chinaman, also naked, his staff of love in the half and half condition that follows a heavy fuck, but is maintained in some degree of naughtiness by the sensual surroundings.
"Ah Sin, how is it that you do wickedness so nicely?"
"They teachee me in school," was his astounding answer.
It appeared from the tale he unfolded that his mother was one of the famous prostitutes in a flower boat, and as she had connection with only very rich men, it is probable that his father was at least a Mandarin. In this floating brothel he had been brought up, and from his earliest days had been accustomed to sights of untrammelled lust. He soon knew all the tricks of the trade. 72
His flower boat made a specialty of providing indecent shows, and at a very early age, Ah Sin began to take a part in these. He underwent the usual operations performed on the male children born in a brothel and had his anus distended so that he could easily take a man's penis into it. He told me all this without the slightest shame, but added that he had not often been called upon to be buggered, owing to his efficiency in licking off the prostitutes as a show scene.
At the age of 17 he became assistant manager and head showman to a wealthy old pimp who ran three of these flower boats. In this capacity he produced some really fine pornographic shows for wealthy Cantonese and he referred to his triumphs with pardonable pride, his penis swelling at the recollection.
He produced one ballet of one hundred virgins and an equal number of handsome youths. They performed elaborate dances stark naked and then on grouped couches, the youths deflowered the virgins. He admitted, however, that perchance all the maidens were not exactly virgins, but 70 per cent of them were. It was the most expensive entertainment he had ever produced.
CHAPTER VIII
I stayed with Lewis for over a year. It was in a way pleasant, money was plentiful, and I was always the mistress of a charming little salon- but Lewis began to be trying with the women he forced on me.
I did not mind his smart London girls who were always dapper and frequently delightful, with their expensive frocks and their elegant lingerie, but when it came to his wandering Northwards for his inamoratas, well!
He had embarked in business with a Mr. Rudder, a wholesale merchant, in dancing girls and chorus girls. This man lived in Manchester in a mean street with a considerable gymnasium at the back of his premises, and hired out his harlots all over the world. He had no vice but one, Flappers, well not exactly flappers, but the class of ex-servant girl whom he generally found suitable for his companies and companions. They were about 20 or so in age, and they seldom washed. Some of them were clever and I did not mind their loose table manners, but there was one whom I could not stick to.
She was Scotch-a Glasgow girl-whom Mr. Rudder had picked up in Cowcadden Street, and she was certainly good-looking, when she was washed, which was very seldom. But she was ill tempered, feckless, vulgar, and her heart was as false as her teeth.
Lewis told me she was one of the best fucks he had ever had-she had been seduced it appeared by a fat proprietor of a Musical Comedy show, and I put up with her vulgarity for a bit. Common to the core, though she was, she had a certain female sympathy, and I used to lend her under clothes-I always burned the drawers when she returned them, which was not often.
Lewis brought her home many times-and I shuddered when she scratched her head, but when-after I knew she had been with him on the drawing room sofa, while I had been seeing to lunch-she scratched another portion of her body, I would have no more of it. I would not eat and I telephoned for friends.
Walker Bird was the first I got connected with-on the telephone-and he phoned me to come to the office.
I said goodbye to the Scotch lady, who excused her irritation on the score that her bladder was affected, and went to the Dial offices where Walker Bird was temporarily striving to keep the broker's men from the door. I met him outside, nervously pacing up and down.
"My dear child," he said, 'Tm glad to see you. I can't go into that office; there are rude persons there, but I want to see my publisher and I want some one to go with me. I must have companionship. You ought to come with me, he's worth seeing, quite a curie. He comes from one of those appalling North Country towns, where everyone has money and no aspirates, or aspirations for that matter. His language may alarm you but he doesn't mean it really; it's only the drink bubbling.
"He used to be good looking and thinks he is still, and boasts a great deal about his successes with women. As a matter of fact he has been practically impotent for years but when he got just the right amount of liquor into him, he's amusing. When he hasn't, he's dull and when he's had too much, he's a hog. He's taking up religious stuff, it interests him in contrast to the more profitable part of his business, which consists in selling dirty books and pictures. He thinks he'll do me over the publications, but he won't; I know exactly the right mood to catch him when a contract needs signing."
We got there at last, it was an Old World place in the riot of London life. A tattered man, smelling strongly of drink, let us in.
"That's a broker's man," said Walker. "Blythe has money really, but he always has them with him 'like the poor.' They are company with him, he gets on better with them than he does with the authors he has to meet and all the dear, dirty-minded poets he used to maintain are dead. As he truly says, broker's men are better than modern novelists; both only do it as a pose, because it's Bohemian-but I hear Mr. Blythe."
Mr. Blythe was wrangling with his confidential typewriter about the correct translation of a passage from the French. At the final word 'bitch' the door swung open and an agitated woman came out.
"Mr. Blythe will see you directly," she said apprehensively; "if you will sit here."
We sat in a little anteroom-dull cursing was heard from within. "He will probably want me to come out and have a drink," said Walker, "and you might humour him. He is apt to be very rude to women when they refuse him and it is necessary for him to have a whiskey very often. He is a queer creature, all the elements of a cultured brain, escaped from scholastic torture of some appalling North Country school; a sort of place with dust all over it, and an asphalt playground and horizontal bars-but here he comes."
Mr. Blythe opened the door cautiously and poked his head out, he was obviously very short sighted and peered at us.
"Come in," he said, speaking a broad South Yorkshire, as he recognized Mr. Bird.
"Miss Hunt," said Walker.
"Oh yes, I've heard of you; shall we go out and 'ave a drink?"
"Just a minute," said Walker, "what about my book?"
"Ere's a check."
Walker pocketed it. "And about that other little book, the one printed 'sub-rosa'-oh, it's all right, Miss Hunt understands."
"I'll take you to the place and show you, but just one drink first."
We drank in a smelly Pub, and then drove with frequent stoppages for "one more" to Chelsea, where the place was. Mr. Blythe improved on acquaintance. He had a very ready humour, if not always a decent one, but he had the knack of cracking his jokes quickly with no unnecessary verbiage.
He quarrelled with the cabman about his fare, and we entered into his place. It was an odd place, in an off street, near a busy thoroughfare, but quiet itself. Middle-aged women of forbidding aspect stood at the doors of their houses and glowered. I'm afraid little Nemmy's rather up-to-date clothing annoyed them. I heard the word "whore" distinctly as I left the cab.
We were let in by an extraordinary individual who chuckled continuously and was remarkably dirty and unshaved.