“What was your next most exciting adventure, darling?”
“Well, Marcia, that experience had changed my attitude towards woman. I don't mean I'd become overnight a Don Juan, but I do mean, darling, that I'd changed the mental pigmentation of my identity, to coin a phrase. Let's put it this way. I got the impression that women never before discovered so many good points in my general outlook. I tried, therefore, to be more differential, more noticing, toward people and of course, especially, women. That, by the way, is one explanation of how, when I first met you at the soiree given by Mrs. Caswell, I said to myself, 'There is a woman for me,' Marcia, and you've revealed already beyond my highest expectations that you are a woman, all that it implies. I had, you see, enveloped myself in a shimmering cloud, a glory cloud. I felt permeated by a sort of electric energy, and why not? Hadn't I proved myself able to cope with four striking attractive women, each of whom had her own special sexual penchant, each of whom I left satisfied with my behaviour as a man and a gentleman. Ergo, I am aware now, you see, of another world which interpenetrates the world of every day, now at one point, now at another. Now that I am on the alert for its manifestations, I can detect its presence everywhere and comprehend that by entering it I can forget the mundane world with all its boredom. This realization of mine becomes a good deal like a magic carpet, as you've so vividly created the term, on which I am free to travel where my will fancies. You see, it came upon me that, throughout the world, wherever I chanced to travel, now that I had zest and depth enough to recognize these women who were candid in their sensual desires, I could recognize the initiates. Or, by entering the room, let's say, could at once discern three or four women who were waiting for the sign. Not that I'd give it to them necessarily, but it was always there.”
“I think I understand, darling. And was I such?” She sat back on the loveseat, hands in her lap generously and fearlessly providing him with the glorious sight of her proud ivory twin turrets taut and full and firm, waiting for that sign.
“Yes-oh, yes-at once, I knew you for my petite mistress-my little sweetheart-from all others apart.”
“I love you, Max,” she breathed. “I am yours, you know that-wait-wait, and let me prove it as nothing can do. But do go on, it's so thrilling to be like this.”
“Thank you, my sweet, for your perfect trust, and I too pledge myself body and soul not to dash your hopes. Now, a year's interlude follows and our scene on my magic carpet changes to Berlin.”
“A German girl this time, eh darling?”
“Yes-a baroness, no less. I was travelling in style, you see.”
“Indeed you were. Tell me all about her and light me another cigarette, with a kiss to flavor it, please.”
He did, then he started: “Well, Marcia, by this time, my business was now nicely founded and I'd gone to Germany in search of pottery, glassware, and Dresdenware. I'd found what I wanted, purchased the stuff, and arranged to have it sent across. Then, I took a two-week holiday in Berlin. After a week, I met an interesting fellow from the German consulate service who spoke flawless English and French and, comparing notes, found that we had a few mutual London friends. After dinner that night he asked me to come make a little speech on American life to a group of wealthy and influential people who gathered regularly-a sort of Union League clique, to put it in an understandable setting.”
“Yes, I understand, dear.”
“Well, I made my little speech about the glories of America. I boosted free trade, as I thought politically wise, and after my speech I was congratulated on all sides. I noticed two women standing far back who were apparently waiting for the others to finish with their remarks. One was between thirty-two and thirty-six, on the plump side but with wonderful black eyes and a dark olive complexion and the kind of face, at once voluptuous and classical, that one sees in Italian pictures of the later Renaissance. The other was younger, probably twenty-five. She stayed in the background and I did not have much time to note her particularly.
“The rather plump lady with the handsome black eyes paid me a number of compliments in excellent English. Then injecting an even stronger note of charm into her smile, she said, 'I am the Baroness-' At the moment, I did not quite catch the name. 'I should have liked to ask you some questions about your country. Would you, if you are staying here in Berlin, find it too great a bore to take tea with me tomorrow at five o'clock?' I hesitated a moment and she added, 'We shall be entirely alone.' This she said with a gleam in her eyes.
“I told her it would be a privilege for me except that my consulate friend had invited me to the theatre at half past seven, and since we'd have a box I'd have to dress formally. What with changing and eating, I'd have but little time to spare. She retorted with that same air of voluptuous magnificence, as if we were old friends, “That can all be arranged. Put on your evening things before you come. No one will notice if you wear an overcoat in the street, and in my house what will it matter how you are dressed? As to a meal, I'll see that you get enough for your tea to keep you from dying of hunger, and you are sure to go on to supper after the play.' She gave me her card and said she lived only a few minutes from the theatres. I thanked her and promised to be at her home at the hour named. I had a feeling that she wanted to introduce me to her friend but some other people came up just then and monopolized me. The name on the card was Baroness Mina Von Kastein.”
“Ah, I sense a real international intrigue, Max, darling. You're a wonderful storyteller. I'm on to your real ways and look forward to the days- though not too soon, dear, as you can understand — when you'll tell our children wonderful stories of adventure.”
And again, Max was as ecstatic over the imaginative loveliness of his young wife's brain as her wonderfully exciting young body, a study in plasticity that she had abandonedly revealed half nude.
“I'm touched, darling, by that little nuance. Well, to hasten on with it. The next afternoon I dressed in my evening clothes, put on a muffler and overcoat and took a taxi to the address on the card. I'd been imagining many things since that meeting, including an amorous interview. I told myself everything depended on circumstance. If when I went there, I found four or five women in her salon, I'd look forward to an afternoon of literary chitchat. If I did find her alone, all would depend on the attire in which she would choose to receive me, the degree of formality in her manner, the absence or presence of any servants.
“After all, with a pair of voluptuous and roguish eyes like hers, a man could easily give the wrong interpretation to the affair. However, I say now, my mistake was in submitting myself in advance to a ready-made situation, instead of being able to change it to my own desires. Such a situation, Marcia, is often a woman's way of seeing what value is attached to her, and her ultimate surrender may quite definitely depend on the way one handles it.
“In short, I reached the house and rang the bell of the apartment indicated. Almost at once the door was opened by a young and quite pleasing maid. She took my overcoat, glancing curiously at my evening clothes, and showed me into a large room where she left me. I saw no more of her until I left. The room was lighted by two windows and housed much fine furniture. In the middle of the floor stood an occasional table with all the paraphernalia of tea and, in addition, sherry, port, and sandwiches. After I'd been there three or four minutes a door opened at the far end and the Baroness entered. I was at once struck by what she was wearing. Her clothing could hardly have been less formal-a housecoat of dark-blueish colored silk, very low cut at the throat, flowing girdle, and a pair of very pretty silver cloth sandals. She had made up her face with great care and even at a distance I detected a whiff of heady perfume. The smile on her lips and in her eyes gave me the feeling she was entirely the mistress of herself. She begged me at first to excuse her for not being up to the level of my evening clothes. 'Between us,' she smiled, 'we strike a happy average.'”
“Ah, the plot thickens.”
“It does indeed, Marcia. May I kiss your lovely bare breasts once again, please, sweetheart?”
Marcia nodded, blushing, closing her eyes. And bending, he kissed each lovely aureole then the buds, and retreated. A tremor shook her, her fingers opened, closed, opened like tapering petals.
“She took a chair close to the table then, Marcia, and made me sit opposite her at some little distance. Placed thus, she accentuated the provocative nature of her negligee, for that it was! Her bosom, ripe but without the least flaccidity, so far as I could visually determine, was daringly exposed — a good half of the upper curves were naked. That olive satiny skin was, I admit, devilishly intoxicating, and the perfume together with her own captious femininity proved quite devastating. I now see her point in placing me away from her. Had I been next to her I might have seized her at once and so destroyed the illusion she quite obviously wished.”
“What a master psychologist you became.” “Didn't I? Well, she flexed her arms and moved in her chair during our first chitchat-the least movement of her body produced a series of daring undulations. A harem type of beauty, I thought to myself, or a Wagnerian heroine, only dark. On the whole, very pleasant to look at with a ripe sensual mouth, moist and sensitive, indeed deserving of more than the eyes' tribute. She'd obviously be disappointed, and rightly so, if I were unresponsive to such courtesy. She explained that her rather odd last name was her husband's and Dutch but that she herself came from Berlin. Her husband's family were Huguenots from the south of France. He had left an estate there but her small income prevented her from going very often, though she loved France. And a little later she said, 'Shall we have tea now or would you like to wait a while?' I said I would wait.
“'Shall we smoke then?' she asked softly, and a gleam of mischief shone in her eyes. She offered me a cigarette and took one herself, raised it to her lips but made no effort to reach for the large box of matches that lay upon the table convenient to her hand. I got up, opened the box, struck a match, and approached the Baroness. She took the proffered light, half closing her eyes as she did so. As she was puffing on her cigarette somewhat pensively, she kept her beautiful long lashes lowered.
“Then slowly they raised and her luminous dark eyes fixed on me, a half smile lifting the corners of her lips. I bent to her and kissed her quickly. Then, hardly seeming to move my lips, I fused my mouth to hers. She uttered a soft throaty sigh, her free hand came up to touch the back of my neck as if to indulge me freely and she closed her eyes again. I kissed her a third time, a lingering and very persuasive and flattering kiss. She put down her cigarette and leaned back slowly, her hand slipping from my neck to my left hand.
“This, Marcia, was open invitation. As a representative of America before-shall we say-the German menace, I had a national honor to uphold.”
“No rationalizing now; you know you found her desirable.”
“So I did. But here's the continuation. A fourth kiss produced a very passionate result. Her tongue darted like a hummingbird's tongue against my lips, brushed them fleetingly, then withdrew; and that told me all I needed to know. My left arm circled her satiny neck, my right moved down to the naked upper curve of her ripe full breast and she did not deny me, but opened her lips so that I might insert my tongue.
“After a few minutes of this, she murmured 'Let's make ourselves more comfortable, shall we?' and I drew back to let her rise. She took the lead and I followed her to the sofa. She turned to confront me, tilting her head with that maddening half smile on her ripe red mouth.
“I came to her; my left arm took measure of her waist, very supple for all her ripeness-understand me, she was not at all stout, but very oriental in beauty-and my right hand undid the flowing sash of the girdle. A few moments more — the almost transparent dress, for all its dark color, had slipped to the floor and she stood naked except for the silver sandals. She wore no stockings. She cupped her breasts gently and, letting her head tilt back, I paid my tribute to those wonderfully big, yet solid and satiny breasts crowned by exceedingly voluptuous dark brown nipples with wide aureoles-after which she turned felinely and lay down on the sofa.
“Her nakedness once more had become reconciled to its rich and solid contours, Marcia darling, and displayed a massive and exciting beauty which had something in it that was reminiscent of the ideals of the ancient world, of the denizen of the women's apartments in a Greek house. Or, if you prefer, of the harem of a woman's body that is seen as a cushion of living flesh, a melting warmth, a deep darkness of voluptuous delights.
“She looked up at me, eyes half closed, throat pulse hammering, and murmured vibrantly, 'Take me-now-I'm yours-conquer me. But-keep on your clothes please-if you wish to give me the utmost pleasure-please.'
“I was startled but understood her-or thought I did. I had removed only my muffler and overcoat, or rather, the maid had taken them. I was about to take off my coat when she shook her head emphatically, tightening her lips, her luminous eyes imploring me. So I unbuttoned the fly of my immaculate trousers and that of my shorts and drew forth my organ, liberating it, already reddened and rigid with desire for her and she said, 'Yes, yes, that's it-now take me-oh-quickly, come to me,' she gasped.
“I knelt upon the couch, my hands wandering lightly over to her breasts and belly, her staunch elastic olive-satiny thighs, her pudescence-or to be less poetic, her quim-fur-was remarkably thick and prolific-very black, yet downy and soft as the finest silk, extending down to the cleft of her buttocks. Sensing that she preferred an instant conquest to a dalliance, I tried to acquiesce to her mood. I parted her thighs and lowered myself; in a moment was lying upon her, cushioned upon those full ripe breasts, so solid I felt I was being arched up by domes. Solid domes of lovely vibrant warm naked flesh. She moaned, closing her eyes, turning her head to one side. Her fists clenched at her side, she seemed to take an attitude of anguished submission, a submission that, while not defiant, embodied a ravishing clue to her personality. I prodded my organ against that downy fur and she moaned again, 'Yes, yes, I am yours-I submit, master-take me now.' And I thrust without waiting through her thick down to find a pair of petulant plump velvety lips, moist and eager to be pried apart. A moment later I had buried very slowly half of my length down her quim, the convulsive tremoring of which proved her readiness of passion.”
“Max-?”
“Yes, my sweet?”
“May I lay my head in your lap and drowse while you tell the story?”
“But-of course, darling.”
He moved aside to make room for her, and gently she laid her head down on his lap, her hands folded over her bare waist. And with her eyes closed, she whispered, “If it will help inspire you in the storytelling, love, please caress my breasts all you like.”
“Oh darling,” his hands gently caressing touched those rhythmically swelling naked ivory goblets. She sighed and he resumed, his eyes averted from her lest he forget the past and remember only the present.
“I began to possess her, slowly and not knowing her temperament in the act. She continued to clench her hands, her thighs abandoned, head thrown back, face contorted with passion and flushed, eyes closed, lashes and nostrils flaring. A little later, her mood of excitement, though not falling below what was to be expected, being not markedly intense and showing no sign of cumulative frenzy, she exclaimed vibrantly, 'Oh, master, hurt me-screw me hard and be brutal, very rough, please crush me, hurt me, pinch me, torture my wicked flesh. It burns for you-please!'
“I was suddenly at sea. Her request was genuine enough, I know. It was not a sudden whim prompted by desire either, I felt strongly. It was clear to me that from the first moment she had offered herself to me, she had been waiting for an opportunity to say just this. Somewhere deep down within most women, you know, there is a trace of masochism, though so faint it generally fails to be shocking-save for Lois, as you recall-and indeed this trace adds a certain pleasant spice to the sexual act, Marcia. It's probably a throwback to the far distant feudal times. Many women, for instance, adore a few gentle bites, and if they dared to, would ask to have them made not so gentle, were they not afraid of seeming perverse to a male with a lack of finer appreciation for these things. The feeling of being crushed and smothered for quite long periods too is associated with the female's love for masculine mastery. After all, Marcia darling, doesn't the very act of copulation carry with it, for most women, a certain masochistic connotation?
“I had, of course, a feeling for what is demanded by good manners and this came to my aid. My brutalities lacked conviction. I bit her nipples lightly, I pinched her buttocks, even her bottom hole, and gouged her sides with my elbows. They were little more than pretense for, after all, I had met her but the day before. But no doubt they stimulated her imagination, which did the rest. She flung her head and clenched fists about, arched, twisted, and groaned for joy. A frenzied orgasm followed, taking me by surprise, and I hastened to follow suit, my nails clenched in her bottom cheeks till at last I knew relief.
“During this lustful session, darling, I encountered a distinct thrill. I do not say I'd prefer masochism throughout a sexual relationship, but my sensibility sympathized with this lovely plump woman. I understood only too well her demands, her unsatisfied desires, and so would have found it perfectly natural and productive of a certain sense of relief to take full advantage of the liberty of action she accorded me. When we were seated again by the table, and while she served tea, the Baroness said, 'You were kind and intelligent, Herr Phillips. It's so difficult to find the right kind of man. I can't stand a mere brainless brute. I ought to have a regular lover, I know, but he'd have to be someone who'd understand and dominate me, someone, that is, of superior type. I see but few people and I can't pick up a lover in the street.' I then asked her why she wished me to retain my clothes. 'Because,' she smiled, 'it gives me the feeling that you are dominating me, raping me, being arrogant and contemptuous of me. You ought to have called me foul names, but I didn't ask you to do that. If you'd been wearing riding clothes, I should have begged you to keep them on, including your boots, especially if those boots had spurs, so you could trample me and spurn me as a naked slave, prostrate before her master.'
“She had remained naked and continued with a gentle smile, her voice the same, talking of things she found delicious, as simply as if discussing a collection of antiques. Occasionally, she leaned forward and took my hand. And I eyed her body, especially that furry slit. She saw I was looking and admiring it, and said without the least coyness, 'We could go on, but I do not want to make you late for the theatre. I wonder if you'd be free to come at the same time tomorrow or later?' However, I told her, alas, no, I had a trip to Amsterdam to prepare for in a day or so. This wasn't quite true, but I did not want to involve myself too deeply.”
“Wise man.”
“When it drew near time for my leave-taking, I asked her to let me tidy up a bit. Like her, I was in rather a mess. She sighed and said she didn't want me in her bathroom, in case I'd run into-here she stopped. 'Your maid?' I asked. 'Yes, not that I need give account of myself to her, and anyhow she's probably got a shrewd suspicion. But I shouldn't like her to see you like this. There's a bureau over there with a glass, if it would do- and in one of the top drawers you'll find eau de cologne, a comb, brush, and some small towels. Come see for yourself, but do drink some port first.' She at once led me over to the bureau. Then she said, with a flash of those lovely black eyes, 'While you are combing your hair, arranging your tie, and all that in front of the glass, please leave me to my own pursuits. Don't take any notice of me. I want to give you one more proof of my devotion and humility.'
“I thought I saw again in her voice and facial expression, a hint of that roguishness which I thought I'd already found, on more than one occasion, when she wasn't engaged in making pathetic requests to me. For instance, Marcia, when she'd fallen on her knees by the table and played the part of an ecstatic worshipper. I neglected to tell you that: just before she lay on the sofa, she knelt down and kissed my shoes, cupping her breasts and bowing her head, saying, 'I'm yours, you know that-have no fear-take me, master me.'
“She took out the comb, brush, and eau de cologne. Then rather shyly she said, 'Couldn't you, while I'm doing what I'm doing, call me some bad names?' I told her that I hadn't the least desire to call her bad names-and what for instance? 'Something like filthy bitch, repeated several times, and other worse words only too vile to repeat which would have some bearing on what I soon shall be doing.' I began to make my toilette.
“She crouched naked at my feet and began to lick my toes and between them and up till she reached my penis, which she cleansed, mouthing and nibbling, passing her voluptuous tongue to and fro along it, and my balls. A few minutes later, I proceeded very slowly I must admit, to put the finishing touches to my hair. No words of the kind she wished had passed my lips, nor indeed did they at all. When I finished and dressed, I took my leave of her. She bade me au revoir. She hoped it would be that-and we were on a level of good friends.”
“Well-what a remarkable woman. And did you ever see her again?”
“No-and yet yes, in a way.”
Marcia's eyes opened, smilingly fixed on his handsome face. Bending down to her, his hands caressed lightly and slowly the rich ripe curves of her ivory bosom.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it was about two years later that I had occasion to go to Berlin on another trip. I had her card and rang her up. There was no answer. I tried an hour later, and this time I heard a woman's voice, but not hers-for hers was quite distinct and I hadn't forgotten it-reply, 'Yes, and who is it?' 'A friend of the Baroness. I happen to be passing through Berlin and wish to speak to her.'
“'She's not in Berlin.'
“'Will she be back soon?'
“'No, she is away for sometime.'
“'That is terribly disappointing.' My voice, Marcia, must have sounded sincere, for she went on with a greater show of interest:
“'Are you a friend of hers?'
“'Yes. I paid a call on her about two years ago. I have just come from Paris and should so much have liked to see her again.'
“'You aren't Herr Phillips, by any chance?'
“'Indeed I am, do you know me?'
“'I was with my aunt at your lecture. I don't suppose you noticed me. Oh, of course, I had a look at you.'”
“Max, I think another affair of yours is coming to light. Am I right?”