I never did, dear reader, discover the limits to my need for sex. I saw no particular reason for staying on at Daphne Oblov's to prove again and again that I was incapable of being satisfied for any reasonable length of time. The furnace at the apex of my black triangle wanted to be stoked without end-I had no control over it. George Maytemper showed himself the gallant he truly was by once again exercising forbearance and permitting me to rejoin his players, but he remarked that, regrettably, if ever I had to sever myself from his group once more in the future, there could be no return. He had to have both his leads and supporting players completely dependable-which was, after all, he said, within the tradition of the theatre. I promised Maytemper that I would abide by his stricture. I consulted several physicians, of course, with negative results. I visited, too, as a matter of fact, the doctor called on by Mother and Father whenever they stayed at their London residence in Hagen House. He was an old family friend, and his name was Noel Franniston and, with his snowy white hair, he looked to be the distinguished physician he actually was. My exchange with him, after he had thoroughly examined me at his rooms on Harley Street, might be illuminating for the discerning reader. After he had seated himself at his desk and I was ensconced in the Morris chair opposite him, Dr. Franniston said, “You are remarkably sound, Clarissa. Organically there's not a thing wrong with you. Apparently your condition came about at the outset of the Terstyke affair-commencing with the great Dane you told me of. Before then, for a period, you experienced sexual coldness following the unfortunate Kinsteares demise.” “Yes,” I said flatly, expressionlessly.
'I'm afraid, Clarissa, that what we call nymphomania-which is your present state-is attributable, I believe, to a pathologic mental condition and can be treated only by a physician qualified to handle the diseases of the psyche. I don't know of any such physician here in London who could remit your condition. If it were possible-but you will not accept any help from the Marquis-I'd like you to see a Sigmund Freud in Vienna. The treatment is expensive and you'd have to stay in Vienna for some time-and it is quite uncertain, even there, that therapy would be successful.” “Your opinion, then, Dr.
Franniston, is that this is a condition I will have to live with.”
Tamping the tobacco into his pipe, Dr. Franniston nodded and said, “I'm afraid so, Clarissa…” So, I have lived with it. Painfully, innumerable times, but I have managed. The rest of the tale can be quite briefly recounted. For many years, during my twenties and thirties, I had obviously no trouble at all in having lovers-from both sexes if I had a mind to. Nor was there any diminution during my forties. But when I turned fifty-and the newspapers had me down then as being the most brilliant of supporting actresses-male and female overtures to me began to thin out. A noticeable sag to my face and figure had come about-as come about it must-and my emerald eyes were not quite enough to compensate for the failure of other parts of my body. Curiously, just about at this time of my life, I noticed what must have been a running advertisement in the agony column of one of the London newspapers-to the effect that a Lady Quist-Hagen was being sought and that she should contact at once Grantsby and Zast, solicitors. Although caution is wiser than curiosity-though, as it turned out this was not the case-I visited Grantsby and Zast. Emory Zast, his hair thinning beyond his bulging forehead, his nose crowded by puffy pink cheeks, was the soul of courtesy. He had news that was at once both tragic and enheartening. It seemed that my mother and father-Louisa and Mathew Quist-Hagen, the Marquis and Marchioness of Portferrans-had taken mortally ill when they had learned of the death of their only son, James, from a lingering blood disease-a matter I had not known about, of course, since James and I had not been in touch with each other for many, many years-and had themselves expired within weeks of each other from what Dr. Franniston had described as “profound shock.” They wished, Mr. Zast said, to exercise no punitive action upon their daughter, Clarissa, and had therefore willed her the very considerable bulk of their estate together with Hagen and Quistern houses-in the hope, they wrote, that Clarissa would marry and bear a son to continue the Quist-Hagen line. But in no sense, they added, was this to be a proviso before she, Clarissa Quist-Hagen, was to be the inheritor.
“The will,” Emory Zast said, “is presently in probate and, since the major inheritor is now on hand-you, Lady Clarissa- there is no reason why the whole matter cannot be settled expeditiously…” I wept, of course, not over my parents-who had rarely touched me physically in all of my childhood and adolescence- but over my brother James, who had become an Anglican cleric. The soul of a kind of spiritual elegance, James had never hurt a living thing-and the love we had borne one another had never tarnished. And that, patient reader, is practically the end of the tale. Victoria Collins had no further need for existence. I told the whole story to George Maytemper-he understood perfectly and, more than incidentally, felt pain on the death of my brother with whom, in their Oxford days, George had spent many a pleasant hour. “I daresay, what with the acquisition of the Portferrans estate and its titles and property, you will wish no longer to tread the boards,” George said. “Your talent, after all, is no more than incidental to your noble blood. That may be harsh to recognize, Victoria-I prefer that to Clarissa!-but it is nonetheless socially accurate. Further, of course, you may indulge your eccentricities-of which none of us are free-to the hilt, if you will forgive my play on the word. I do respect you, Victoria, for your thespian art-and I do regret that the company will lose you. Without stardom you have seen to it that many of my productions had their audience; without you, much of that would have been impossible…”
“Thank you, George,” I said. “I owe you infinitely for having been so patient with me.” I was close to tears. “Please,”
Maytemper said, and helped me with his handkerchief. “Don't forget Victoria,” I whispered, and turned to go. “I cannot forget Victoria,” George Maytemper said. And I left the theatre forever…
The fortune my parents left me had overtaken me just as I was trying to adjust to the loss of lovers due to my failing physical charms, but the new Marchioness of Portferrans was now able to buy her men for the night, month or year and, as a diagnosed nymphomaniac, to endure and indulge the carnal itch from which at no time have I had release. Relief-I concede, but that my body gave me only for small periods, at the end of which I, Victoria-Clarissa Quist-Hagen-had to have a man- or woman-or, I do confess, a dog, who may very well be not only man's best friend, but woman's. My dismay on leaving the world of the theatre, I learned to shrug off, with the single exception of giving up the opportunity of playing in a Bernard Shaw vehicle. In my humble opinion he is the greatest comic playwright the world has ever seen, exceeding Aristophanes, Congreve and Wilde. But I have not written this account to acquaint you, dear reader, with my esthetic tastes, but rather with the inclinations of my flesh. I trust my story has not led you to feeling sorry for an amoral female-I have tried to tell it with as much of the gusto as I have enjoyed most of my years. It is true that now and for all those years since the death of my brother and parents I have had to buy my favors, but I have no regrets in having done so. And it is true that Victoria Collins is once again Lady Clarissa, the most Honorable, the Marchioness of Portferrans. However, and nonetheless, and in spite of- I cannot forget Victoria! Nor, for that matter-Clarissa… FOREWORD The ethical publisher is constantly aware of his indebtedness to his readers. One of the most perturbing facets of this awareness is the bitter knowledge that too many of the truly informative, enlightening books are couched in terms which are completely understood only by the professional. Even in the progressive publishing environment of the 1960's, it is not easy to find a work which comprehensively deals with a specific subject in a manner which can be readily assimilated by the vast majority of the reading public, providing them with the basic knowledge they cannot afford to seek in the expensive parlors of the psychiatrist. In its continuing search for this scarce material, Pompeii Press examines countless manuscripts to find the very few which meet these exacting requirements: (1) Knowledgeable handling of a very specialized subject; (2) Minimum use or esoteric terminology and maximum use of terms understandable to the average layman; (3) Presentation in a fictional form which explains the essentials of the subject by vivid personalization, using believable situations involving true-to-life people. Author Burton Dixon has delved into his subject in a manner which proves his dedication to research. The many psychopathiae sexualis which are hardly understandable to the average reader can be credited for the background theme of Dixon's work. But, unlike these classic references, Dixon's manuscript opens to the average layman the basic weaknesses of one side of man's sexuality, while pointing out the perils involved in the indulgence of these weaknesses. Not only the psychological data, but the geographical and social details of this terribly fascinating account, have a frighteningly plausible flavor. From the beginning, man has taken advantage of man's vulnerability, sometimes in the interests of Science, as with men like the fictional Dr. Frankenstein, and sometimes for self-gratification, as with men like the Marquis de Sade and the Due de Fronsac (son of the Due de Richelieu). The experimenter of Dixon's story, Carroll Ventner, overlaps the gap between these two categories. His earnest desire to add to man's knowledge is augmented by his own expanding sexuality, which draws on his powerful drives through the weakness of his ethical defenses. Only a capable writer who is also a dedicated researcher could provide this story. And only his determination to reach the reader who would otherwise remain uninformed on the subject could provide the incentive to word it in this most vivid style. To witness even a fictional account of this kind of behavior, is to be warned of the dangers which lurk around us, awaiting that most improbable coincidence of events to entrap us. For this, most of all, we are indebted to Burton Dixon.
The Publishers San Diego, Calif. July 1968 PROLOGUE The racket came from somewhere just ahead of him. Carroll Ventner eased down on the brakes, gently, ready to stop at a split-second's notice. It had been a sickening tortured-metal sound, and he visualized what a serious wreck could be like up here, miles from ambulance and towing services. As he rounded the curve, he saw it dead ahead. The cab of a semi, lying on its side up against the oversized guardrails that fenced off the mountain road from the sheer drop-off at the edge of the shoulder. He braked the rented Mustang on the gravel and got out, headed for the truck, hoping he wouldn't be sick at what he might see. As he loped toward it, he saw the trailer it had been towing. It was several hundred feet down the winding road, and as he watched, it came up broadside against the guardrail, then flipped over, showing its wheels in the air. He halted, frozen in a momentary trance, waiting for the gargantuan crash he knew would follow. It took a long time, and he began to realize how high those cliffs were. Then he heard a sort of faint double booming, and that was all. He moved quickly to the cab and chassis, and as he opened the door, straining upward to swing out the heavy obstacle, the driver clambered out and stood beside him, miraculously unhurt, excepting a scratched forehead. He helped the man dig out the flares and reflectors, and set them out to warn other traffic at both upper and lower curves of the winding road, then they went to the cliffside and peered down the deep vee-shaped cut in the rock. They could vaguely make out the shape of the metallic box down there in the shadows. “It's going to cost a fortune to get that out of there,” he remarked. The trucker laughed, shaking his head negatively.
“Hell, even if they had a winch with enough cable to reach that far down, it would cost more to have it hauled out and repaired than it will cost the factory to build another one.” “What were you hauling?” “Mobile home. Half of a double-wide,” replied the trucker. “Oh, you mean one of those house-trailer coaches that shoves together to make it narrower for hauling?” “No, those are called expandibles, or extendibles, the ones that have one side that fits into the other side. A double-wide is really two separate trailers, each with its own wheels. The two halves each have one sidewall open. When the two are installed, side-by-side, they are fastened together to form one home, and moldings are used-inside and out-to hide the seam.” “Oh, yeah,” said Ventner, as he recalled something that had intrigued him in the past. “That's those units I've seen on the road, where one side is covered with plastic.”
“Right,” said the trucker. “They're sealed with heavy-gauge vinyl sheeting to keep out road dust, and any rain or snow that might happen along.” “Well, it looks as though some coyote or skunk family is going to have a pretty fancy den, if the insurance company doesn't intend to salvage that thing,” Ventner said thoughtfully. “They couldn't.” The trucker's tone was emphatic. “That was the heaviest unit; it weighs tons. Can you imagine what it would cost to snake it up here? Even with the expensive equipment they might move up here to do the job, chances are that it would get torn all to hell on those rocks when they pulled it up. And I know this canyon. A buddy took me into that area down there once on a hunting trip. You can't get within a couple of miles of that thing excepting on foot. “No, that baby's there to stay until it falls apart from old age. You can bet your sweet ass on that!” The trucker turned from the mangled guardrail and started back toward his vehicle. Carroll followed him, and as they neared the closest flare, a cruiser from the county sheriff's department eased around the curve and stopped. In minutes, the radio call was out for the towing service, and the deputy had control of the traffic picture. Ventner took his leave of the trucker, acknowledging the profuse thanks given him for lending a hand. He drove on down the mountain road, turning over and over in his mind the intriguing thought which had come to him before he'd left the scene of the accident. All he had to do was make his decision. He had two days of his Easter vacation left. He'd cancel the two dates he had, and pack into that back-country for a good look. If it was as inaccessible as the trucker had indicated, that would be the ideal spot for his summer camp. Maybe, for the first time in four years, he'd be able to spend his summer in the outdoors he loved without being invaded by the over-friendly folks who usually disturbed his peaceful camps. If he could get back in there as far as the small clearing he'd spotted from the clifftop, he could erect a marker of some sort, then he'd contact his old friend, Roger Devlin, and make him a proposition. He grinned to himself as he gunned the rented car through the straight stretch of road down the valley, glad that his spring vacation scouting had paid off. The mountain campsites he'd seen before he discovered that deep canyon were bound to be infested by crowds of tourists that would destroy the silent peace which he went to the woods to seek.
This summer, he'd have a forest world all his own. He'd be the absolute monarch of the woods all around him, for almost three solid months!
He reached the crest of a ridge, and saw the gray ribbon of U.S. 395 winding below him. With a shout of joy, he tramped down on the accelerator, then began to sing lustily in a low tenor voice, slightly off key. The date was March 28th.