"You ask me to strip my mind; well, I'll try," Flora began, "and if I omit anything, you must just question me, for I want to please you, you dear!
"Ever since I can remember, I have revelled in certain kinds of-may I call them, naked thoughts. Even as young as seven I must have been lewd — this is stripping myself with a vengeance. I remember I had measles at school, and a doctor whose pet I was attended me. He was very good-looking. I suppose he was a hero to me-anyway, I distinctly remember the sensation he caused me by undressing and touching me. That may be ordinary enough, but I used to dream about it, think about it, delight in it. Is that natural? I've never told any one-they wouldn't understand-so I don't know whether it is usual or not.
"And later at nine years of age or so, a girl much older than myself made me much worse. Of course, she used me to gratify her sensations, but it was very bad for me. She put my hand on her and told me to rub. I think I must have been really depraved, for later two other girls got very intimate with me, but this time I was the ring-leader. I can hardly say what we didn't do-you will understand. This at the age of nine and ten, and they say boys are more depraved than girls! I don't believe it. From that you can have some idea what I am like now.
"My dreams lead to sensations. I just revel in passions that have no outlet whatever, unless I satisfy them myself. And often I do that. That's one side of me.
"I wish to God those of my sex weren't such hypocrites. Even my best friend, with whom I discuss all sorts of things, chiefly men and women, often seems thoroughly disgusted and tells me seriously I'm getting very immoral. She was saying the other day that she had dreamt she was walking naked and alone down the main street, and she thought everyone had had that dream more or less frequently. I said I had never dreamt I was naked and alone anywhere! That it was wasting a splendid sensation. She was really annoyed.
"Then there were two other girls; they were about the same age as myself, thirteen and fourteen. They were sisters and very wild; I mean undisciplined. I didn't like them at all, they were too rude and bold and very mean. Still they served a purpose. They used to strip and put me in bed and one of them rubbed vaseline or some sort of grease between my legs, and the other looked on till her turn came. The sensation of being looked at was almost as good as the one of being rubbed. I must have been a cunning little devil, because I certainly wasn't able to analyze the why and the wherefore of it at all; I just knew I liked it.
"And then came older girls; when I was about fifteen, a girl took me up to her room and locked the door; it was a sort of wardrobe room-small and pitch dark. I was old enough to realize then just what I was doing. She put my hand on her sex and I touched her as well as I could. I know I liked doing it.
Naturally she was fully developed and somehow that was an added enjoyment for me. It did me harm in that I used to brood over it, gloat over it, enjoy my lewd thoughts-well, fifteen is too young for that, especially as I didn't need encouraging."
"But why shouldn't you be encouraged?" I couldn't help asking.
"I was already too much inclined that way," she replied.
"So much the better," I went on; "I can't understand the implied condemnation."
"Nor can I," she rejoined. "It's merely habit, the customary way of thinking and speaking.
"You want to know everything: are girls' desires as vagrant as those of men?
Yes, and quite as strong, I think; when, as a young girl, a man attracted me, a complete stranger-or showed me he wanted me, in the tram or anywhere, I used to cross my legs and press my thighs together and squeeze my sex till I came just as if I had used my hand; often I was all wet. There, you have the truth!
"Why did I come here? Naturally, I hoped to win a first prize, but really that was not my chief motive. The gardener said there was a young good-looking Englishman in the villa who would be very nice to me; the money was only the hope we all used to excuse ourselves. We pretended to be seeking the money, but in truth we were seeking lover and love-new emotions.
"When the gardener left me in the bedroom that first morning, I noticed how fine the sheets were and the pretty pictures in the room: 'When will he come?'
I asked myself; 'What will he do?' And my heart was in my mouth.
"Before you came in that first time to see me, the hope of you set all my pulses throbbing. I threw myself on the bed and thought about it, and thinking gradually brought about the feeling that demands satisfaction, so I satisfied it by touching myself-waiting for you: you dear, you!
"I've told you nothing about men, you say; but really, I had no experiences to speak of till I came here. My mother was always warning me of the consequences and the risk of having a child was always present.
"I often saw men in the town I could have liked, but we lived right out in the country, and till your gardener came and talked to me and assured me there was no risk and a great deal of fun, I never gave myself to any man: you are first, and you know it, don't you, dear?
"One young fellow used to come out last summer from the town and we used to take long walks, and he said he loved me and was always touching my breasts and trying to excite me in fifty ways; but when I mentioned marriage, he sheered off. Men want pleasure and no ties and I don't blame them. If I were a man, I'd do the same: it's we women run the risk; but not with you, dear.
"Oh, now, often I can feel those slow long kisses of yours on my breasts and-I close my eyes and give myself to you: love is the best thing in the world, but how am I to love when you go away and the great days are ended? Oh, I wish my life could end with them: I have had the best of life."
"Don't say that," I cried. "The best of your life is still to come, and I shall not be gone forever."
And then the love play began again and went on till we were called out to lunch, and we found a feast that deserves to be described at length, but I am afraid of tiring my readers.
Though I liked Flora immensely, I often made fun of her coldness. She used to resent this, saying, "You do not know me!"
One day she found me with Adriana, and that evening she asked me: "Do you go with her because she's passionate?"
I nodded my head: it's useless to try to explain to a woman the attraction of novelty.
The next day, to my astonishment, Flora surpassed herself: she really used her sex as an instrument and gave me intense thrills.
As I cried out, "Enough dear!" she triumphed.
"Am I better than your Adriana?"
"Much better," I replied, "but why don't you act like that always?"
"I don't know!" she replied. "It's due to a sort of reserve I can't explain, but you mustn't believe with the gardener that Clara or Adriana or any of them feel more than I do. A man may be proud of liking the act; a woman is always ashamed to confess it or show it!"
The year after I had left San Remo, Flora wrote to me at the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. She told me that all her life since I had gone away was stale and flat. If I didn't want her any more, she would prefer to kill herself: she could not endure her dull, uneventful existence. The letter was some months old, but I raced over to San Remo at once to make things right if possible.
Naturally, I first sought out my gardener. He was astonished. "She has just been married," he cried, when I showed him the letter, "and well married; he's rich. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
It turned out to be as he had said: my Flora had married, and married exceedingly well, and when I sought her out, she didn't hesitate to tell me that half her success had come from the apprenticeship she had gone through with us Englishmen. "You taught me to love, Sir," she said, "and it was your teaching mainly that made it easy for me later to excite love without feeling it much. Yet my husband is a dear fellow, and I think I shall be happy with him: you don't mind?" she asked, smiling archly the while.
"Mind! Of course not!" And I said to myself, "Another ship come safely to port."
Adriana Adriana's account was very like that of Flora's in the early years, but at first she was more outspoken.
"Passion-I'm made of it, a colt-wild, crazy, untamed colt-quick, rashly impulsive, savage-and yet I've emotion enough in me-high poetry; the violin, 'flame in the skies of sunset'-all bring tears to my eyes: the rippling of a stream, the green foliage of trees, books and pictures-a deep sweet world.
"Of course, it was an older girl who first taught me sensuality; I don't really think she ever touched me. It was quite a one-sided affair, but what I did to her gave me quite a little pleasure of my own. Of course, I didn't know what she did it for. I liked it and that was all that mattered to me.
"I had a governess just before I went to school. I can't remember, but, anyway, she's the only female, barring the first I mentioned, who made me aware of her passion. She would insist on bathing me. I knew that was funny, as none of the others had wished to. But she banged on the door the first night, and when I admitted her, she came over to me and slowly took away the towel covering me. I felt ashamed-her eyes made me feel so-her look made me blush-it also began to make me feel strangely pleased, with that feeling of pleasure we all experience, I think, when we are looked at. Well, every week she bathed me and I became fully aware of her feelings towards me once behind the bathroom door. And I loved it. She would lift me out of the bath and lay me across her knees and the delightful sensation of being devoured by her greedy eyes made me open my legs — for her to rub me.
"From twelve to fourteen I was at school and developed a passion for one of the seniors. And while I would have been thrilled at a single touch of her fingers even on my hand, she never took even the very slightest notice of me.
The sight of her thrilled me, and if she passed me and I felt her brush against me, it set my heart beating. But that sort of hero worship is very common at school.
"Another girl of my own age one night surprised me by asking me to accompany her into the bathroom. I went along wondering. She locked the door and then in a somewhat shamefaced fashion, asked me to touch her. I did, and she touched me. Both of us were highly excited, but we were interrupted, and somehow we never tried anything further afterwards.
"You ask me about exciting myself. I was doing it constantly from ten or eleven on. About thirteen I got quite thin and pale, and my mother told me one evening how a young girl friend of hers had ruined her health by touching her sex and so warned me. After that, I used to do it every Saturday night. Then I had an orgy, once a week; it was splendid. I used to think of some man who had attracted me or shown that he wanted me and I'd begin.
"One day in the tram a common man came in and threw himself down opposite me. Of a sudden I noticed that his trousers were unbuttoned and I saw his sex: it made me angry at first; he was so dirty and common. But as I stole glances at it, it excited me fearfully; I crossed my legs and squeezed my sex and at once I came. I could not help it: when I got out I was all streaming-wet to my knees.
"You ask me about my feelings. I have only to wait a very short time before I come, usually. But it all depends on the state of my mind. If there is not a good (I should say bad) atmosphere, it takes long, but if I feel really passionate- almost lewd-a minute will do it. And I can do it again perhaps three times, but that's the limit. My legs give way under me after that-so I judge I've had the best of myself; anyway I couldn't do more than that consecutively.
"No one thrill is ever exactly like the last; you soon learn to differentiate. Of course, they all recur, but never one after the other-and sometimes my favorite thrill comes most seldom; it is when all my muscles stiffen and grow rigid; it may not occur for days, even weeks."
Naturally, I went to work at once to bring on the rigid paroxysm in Adriana and found no difficulty. "You could not do it again," she said, but in ten minutes I proved that I could bring about the rigid orgasm as often as I liked.
In fact, once after bringing on the paroxysm three or four times, she burst out crying and laughing in a sort of wild hysteria that took me hours to quiet.
"I love you," she said to me, "and that's why I can't control myself. But why do you want any one else? I'll give you all myself, more than any one else can, you dear! But you must be faithful!"
"When are you most passionate?" I asked, and she replied:
"I have not noticed that I am more passionate at certain times-at least orthodox times-than others. I know it is so, or should be so, but everything to me depends on my mind and emotion.
"Did I tell you of any man having me? She wouldn't, I'm sure, your Flora, but I will. I was only sixteen and my folks got me work in the office in an hotel. He was the manager and married: I knew his wife, and his eldest daughter was older than I was. He was very kind to me from the beginning. I saw he desired me, of course.
"One fete day, three years ago, every one was in the street; but he had given me some work and I didn't like to leave it. In the middle of the procession he came to the door and sent me to fetch his fountain pen from his bedroom on the fourth floor. Of course I went, and while I was searching for his pen, he came into the room and had locked the door before I knew or guessed anything. He took me almost by force; he put his hands up my clothes and lifted me on to the bed; and while I was saying I'd cry out, he hurt me so that I shrieked; but he went on. Afterwards he kissed me and told me all sorts of sweet things, but I never put myself in his power again. I had a terrible dread for two weeks and then I feared the pain for years more. One day a girl told me I'd not suffer again.
"Then a boy came. I was tempted by his virginity, but I didn't yield; then last year a young visitor at the hotel made love to me-he didn't hurt, and I enjoyed it ecstatically, for I really liked him, and he had such dear pleasing ways: he was always bringing me flowers, and he would kiss my hands, and was always telling me how pretty I was and how much he loved my eyes: he was a dear!
"But now I've fallen in love with you with my whole soul and body passionately; and that's what makes me wild with jealousy. Flora is always boasting that you like her best, and I can't believe it, but I hate to hear her. I could strike the slut. But you do go with her, and I go home and cry half the night. Why can't you love me alone or love me best? Then I wouldn't care. But always to be second, to find that Flora is preferred to me: it's driving me crazy."
Of course I kissed her, smiling, and she said: "Promise you'll only go with me for this next week, and I'll give my very soul to you; promise! You'll see how sweet I can be-promise! I'll say all the naughty words and do all the naughty things: I want to! There! Do you hear that; I'll do more than you imagine, you dear, you!"
I promised and kept my word, but after that week Adriana never came back again, and so we lost the loveliest figure of all. In her, jealousy was stronger than passion, as it is in many, many women.
Clara
It was the gardener again who brought me to the chief discovery. He told me that Clara had no reticences and would tell me anything, so one day I got him to bring her and questioned her. She said:
"What is there to tell? It's the same thing over and over again, only it gets better and better all the time, different to (sic) most things in life. I don't know when I began. I don't think I was more than seven, but almost immediately I noticed that I didn't care for girls touching me; I only wanted boys, and I was very curious about them, though I pretended not to be.
"One boy, five or six years older than I was, when I was about ten, told me all about it and suited the action to the word. He hurt me a little, but the pleasure, even at the beginning, was greater than the pain, and so I went on with anyone I liked; and I liked a good many.
"I got very careful about thirteen because I knew what the consequences might be, and I made up my mind only to go with a man I really cared for. I don't know why I fell in love, but I did when I was about fifteen, with a gentleman who was good-looking and had charming manners. He spoke to me in the street, took me for a drive, kissed me and put his hand all over me. I didn't mind. He really was charming but when he took me up to his bedroom in his hotel, I told him I was frightened; but he assured me that I'd run no risk with him, and he kept his word. Yet, that sort of half-pleasure didn't content me, so I was very glad, indeed, when your gardener came; and since then I have been as happy as a bird!
"You want to know whether I have touched myself. Sure; all girls have. If they say they haven't, they lie; the silly fools. Why shouldn't we have pleasure when it's so easy?
"I remember my father took me once to the picture gallery in Genoa. I loved the pictures; but one had a young man in it who looked right at me. I got off next morning and went back to the gallery to my pictured lover. I could not help it; I sat down on the bench opposite to him and crossed my legs and squeezed my sex till I was wet. And when I went to bed that night I thought of him, and his lovely limbs and his great eyes, and I touched myself with my hand pretending it was him till I came again and again, and at last got so wild I just had to stop or I'd have screamed-but lots of girls are like that.
"I think I was one of the few who let a boy have me time and again. I could not resist: the truth is, I wanted him as much as he wanted me, and when an older man came after me, it was worse: I could not refuse him, and I felt more with him than with any boy, till I came here, and the great games began. Oh, I love them all; and I've always been taken with you since you gave me the first prize when I had only won the second. You great sweet!"
Naturally, after this we had a long kissing match that ended in a new rendezvous, which was repeated frequently, for I found Clara in many respects the most delightful of all the girls. She had really no reticences, and loved to show her sex and to talk about her intense sensations in the crudest terms; but she never invented or beautified anything, and this simplicity of truth in her was most attractive. When, for example, she said, "When you have me I feel the thrills running all down my thighs to the knees," she was plainly describing an immediate personal experience, and when she told me that merely hearing my voice in the villa made her sex open and shut, I could be sure it was the truth. And bit by bit this truth of reciprocated sensation grew on me, till I, too, was won by the novelty of the emotion. Clara was the most wonderful mistress of them all; though the youngest.
I have spoken here only of pleasant occurrences; and it is interesting or amusing incidents that I remember best in my past life; but towards the end of the summer there was a good deal of trouble with some of the girls. It began with the defection of Adriana; as if encouraged by her jealousy, others felt inclined to follow her example and make conditions.
The three queens, and Clara in especial, remained fairly constant to the end, but Jean and his girls were a constant source of trouble. He would change in the same day, and that always led to remonstrances or angry scenes. Finally, both Ernest and George had to go back to England, and I was ashamed of having let the summer pass without completing my work.
When I returned later to San Remo to see Flora, I found that Clara, too, had got well married. She explained it by saying that widows always found husbands easier than girls, knowing more of what men wanted.
A word here about the difference between the jealousy of man and that of woman.
The jealousy of woman: If the man went with another woman because he loved her, the woman would weep, but forgive him. Love is all powerful to her. But if the man went with another girl out of mere passion, even if he didn't care for her, the woman would be furious: she sees the act-it is an unpardonable traitorism.
The jealousy of man is just the contrary: If the woman went with another man, and gave herself to a passing fancy, the man would be hurt, but would forgive her easily. But if the woman gave herself to some one out of love, the man would be furious and too angry to forgive.