“Well, Marcia, I was at loose ends in Berlin, and due for a three-week stay, so my mind began to work subtly and quickly. The niece? Was that the young woman in the background? I hadn't recalled that she was too prepossessing, but she was not repulsive or I'd have recalled. Who knows? Why, she might have been her aunt's pupil. I told her then that I had noticed her, but hadn't been so fortunate as to be introduced to her. I asked if I might come to see her, if she didn't think it would be too bold. She said, 'Certainly. Come, if you would like to.' But that invitation lacked warmth. I said, 'Yes, how about this afternoon about five.' She said, 'Yes, that would be agreeable.' She wasn't too affable, but at least she agreed. So I risked another step forward, Marcia, thus:
“'If you are doing nothing this evening, and if you won't think it too indiscreet on my part, I'd like to suggest dinner at a restaurant after we have had our talk. Anywhere you like.'
“'I don't think I can give you an answer now; we'll see about it later,' she said, interspersing her remarks with one or two scarcely perceptible giggles, which I took as a good sign. I added hastily, 'That's arranged, then, I'll be with you at five. Would you tell me if it's the same address?' and here I quoted from my card and she assured me it was, and her soft voice seemed much more friendly.
“So, Marcia, I took a cab to the address. A young woman opened the door to me. It was, I saw instantly, the niece-rather tall, fairly slim; one of those platinum blondes whose hair lacks lustre. Her features were delicately molded. Her face was alive rather than pretty. Her eyes were a shade too light, but looked intelligent. She showed me into the living room. Everything seemed the same. I recognized the table, the divan, and the door through which the Baroness had entered. The niece, who was very correctly dressed in an afternoon frock, received me with decorum, as if I were a business man.
“She led me to two armchairs, standing some distance away from the famous table. I took that as a bad sign, but I showed nothing of my mood. We had a self-conscious conversation at first, and I learned that the Baroness had gone to Rotterdam to see relations of her husband. She felt, the niece explained, that political situations in Germany were menacing. She was right, of course-I knew already-and wished to be in a neutral country in case of trouble. She felt her niece could keep the apartment and was paying half the rent. I asked her if she had been living with her aunt before. 'Certainly, I was,' she retorted a bit sharply and seemed to be turning something over in her mind. She bit her lip. Then, 'I was here when you came that day,' gesturing with her chin toward the apartment that lay beyond the doors whence the Baroness had appeared. 'I was pretty angry.'
“'Were you?' I asked intrigued.
“She said, Marcia, 'I had been angry before that. She had not introduced me to you after the lecture. On the way home I complained of her negligence. You see, I had a pretty shrewd idea of what was in her mind. She had promised that, the next afternoon, if you mentioned me to her, she would call me. She swore later you had not so much as mentioned a word about me.'
“I said I had no idea at all that she was living in the apartment. She gave me a mocking look, Marcia, and said, 'You said to yourself, that young woman is an innocent little fool; she's no idea of what has been going on.'
“I put on as well as I could an innocent look, and said, 'So what?'
“She replied, 'I know what happened, of course.'
“'Everything, are you sure?'
“'I think so,' she said with hardly a hint of provocation, and added, 'You see, Mina and I were great friends-she told me about it afterwards.'
“I ventured boldly then, Marcia dear, 'And when she'd done that, did you still complain of being neglected?'
“She shrugged, looked me straight in the face, and said with bravado, 'Mina and I did not have to hide things from each other-or play each other a shabby trick. We were as intimate as women can be.' I told her I regretted my negligence of her. I said, however, that we could make up for lost time, it was not too late, and asked her to come sit on my knee. I asked her name; she came and sat on my knee and, with an assumed air of sulkiness, said 'Erna von Blomberg.'
“'Well then, Erna, my dear, I confess, since I see I can be perfectly frank with you, I made this appointment today with you with the deliberate intention of repairing the wrong I had involuntarily done you.' She then said that she felt that was clear in our phone chat, but I had to admit truthfully that I had not remembered anything at all about her, so it was not very flattering.”
“Well, now, and how did you talk yourself out of that, my clever Lothario?” murmured Marcia, her naked breasts swelling vibrantly.
“I told her, on the contrary, that I did notice her, but since her aunt had not felt like introducing us, I could not guess that she was bored to tears elsewhere in the apartment. And even if I'd known, my interview with her aunt had quickly taken on a-rather confidential nature. She interrupted only to say, 'I know about that.'
“I said I wanted to stay with her as many charming hours as we could manage but didn't want to disappoint her, as I had promised her a fine dinner. I said didn't she think it would take up a good deal of time that could be better employed? I'd so much rather stay here with her until quite late making love and doing foolish things.
“'Do you really mean that?' she asked, jiggling up and down on my knees in an excess of gaiety that was far from being assumed. 'But how will you get any dinner, my pet? I've hardly any food up here.'
“I suggested a delicatessen then that might send up food-caviar, chicken in aspic, a Russian salad, Rhine wine, champagne. She slipped off my knee and said it would be marvelous, she knew just the place, and she rang up. I made the order as generous as possible. We went to the living room. Erna hung around my neck and whispered in my ear like a little girl who can overcome her shyness only through hiding. I admit to being astounded at this fit of sudden modesty: 'If you don't mind, it would be so much fun, so lovely; it is something I've never really had a chance of doing. If you don't mind, we won't start till the food has been delivered. Then, when we are quite sure of not being disturbed-some time past midnight-we'll both undress completely. Would you like that? The apartment is beautifully warm, we shall not be cold. The whole thing will be sort of a party. We'll put on the phonograph. I've some Viennese dance records and we can interrupt dinner as often as we like, just as one leaves one's table in a restaurant to dance. It'll be heavenly.'
“This idea, Marcia, must evidently have been a dream of long standing with her, often imagined but never realized; she wanted to squeeze out the last possible drop of pleasure, for after exchanging some lovely stinging kisses, which at once told me she had a fertile temperament and was intensely ardent, she murmured, 'We shall have to go and get the things from the kitchen-the food and plates, the drinks from the refrigerator, but we can go as we are-and maybe exchange caresses and nice kisses on the way. It'll be all the more fun doing ordinary things in a state of passionate excitement. As a rule-love-making is such a stale, gloomy affair. People so often behave as though they wanted to be through with a tiresome duty. You must make me drink a lot. You'll see that the drunker I am the nicer I am. If you like, I'll sit at the piano and spread my legs very wide so you can caress me while I play some waltz or adagio-if you wish.”
“The naughty little trollop.”
“She was. I assured her I found the proposal enchanting and knew just the sort of excitement she wanted to create. While we waited for the caterer's delivery, I asked her whether she had not, in the Baroness' day, been given an occasional opportunity to hold one of these intimate parties or orgies. She told me 'yes,' and rather scornfully enumerated some of them, saying she did not have a happy memory of them. I asked her, when she was alone with her aunt, how the latter's desire for pain and humiliation showed itself. She said it was odd, but it hardly showed at all. She was always imperious to her niece.
“When at last the food was delivered, Erna paid the man, brought back my change, and then threw herself into my arms. After some ardent kisses we stripped naked, each helping the other. Then we enjoyed the first course, after which Erna showed me by caressing my penis that she wished attention-and she received it.
“We lay on the divan, she beneath me, her mouth glued to mine, her hands stroking me, as I teased her by prodding my organ into her love-hair. She had dark blonde quim-fur but not too much, almost as if it had been shaven for the occasion, and her slit was delicate to the extreme, her quim exceptionally tight. I fondled her breasts, which were saucy little pears with tiny dark buds that stiffened and enlarged after a few kisses, such as yours do, dearest, when I caress them.”
Here Marcia blushed, sighed, put her hands over his, pressed tight against her panting young ivory breasts.
Her legs crossed, her body quivering, she was like a harp ready to be played by the master artist, only requiring the proper notes to be struck to bring forth glorious music.
Here he went on, after a moment of love-play, silent and delicious for both: “Erna suggested, after we had attained our first climax-which hadn't taken too long a time-that she would purposely hold back longer the next time, as she wished to savor its every moment I could spend the entire night sleeping and loving her in bed and then we wouldn't have to think of parting. 'We'll just go to bed when we can't stand anymore. Is that not a very good device? Even if you sleep in Mina's bed, I can come and pay you a visit. It'll be as though our little party were still going on. I haven't got any pajamas to lend you, so you will have to sleep naked and I will too, just to keep you company. When we wake up tomorrow we'll be as stark as a couple of angels. I'll leave a note for the charwoman, telling her when to come back.'
“It was so agreed. Erna had a lovely lithe body. Her bottom was oval, svelte, and very mobile, her thighs long and slender-as were her calves. She had the ability of a young hussy, well-trained and exceptionally passionate, even abandoned. We went back from course to course to exchange caresses. She particularly liked me to wriggle a finger in her tight little bottom-hole while I sucked her nipples. After a dessert of rum cake, she sat on my lap with her back to me and while I fondled her pretty little breasts, I had her from behind. I mean in her quim-she didn't wish to try the other way of love-making except for my finger giving her a postillion while we were locked tight in each other's embrace.
“I pass over the rest of our amours, my dear, not only because it's late, but because she was impure. Erna was uninhibited and showed me that she was made for love and needed it, but that she was impure. Now here let me interpose my own feelings on the subject of purity, darling, the more propitious because, after all, you do come to me virginal. A virgin of twenty is often purer than she was at twelve. Purity in a young girl is proof against all the ordinary chances of life. But there is a point where this admirable paradox breaks down, there is a moment when this purity ought to melt in the heats of love, in the overwhelming crush of sexual ardor. And I feel that even after my sojourn with the very impure Erna, I could not but feel the more tenderly toward a young woman, untouched and proud as yourself, my darling Marcia, whom I was ordained to meet. I promised myself the happiness of introducing a young woman such as this, should she ever come my way-and she has, tonight-to all, little by little, of the exaltations that life and love have taught me-except those which she-you-would certainly not desire for reasons not of modesty but of personal taste. For I attribute to you an infallible gift of discrimination.”
“Oh, Max-angel-but go on. Surely there is another trip this magic carpet took?”
“Yes, three more episodes, only. The last extremely short. I shall take leave of them hurriedly as the lateness of the hour and my desire for you make it quite obvious I can't satisfy myself with words much longer, especially when my fingers are tasting the glory of your beautiful young and hard breasts.”
“Oh, yes, yes, dear-a glass of champagne and a cigarette, then I promise to be very good-or rather, extremely naughty to make it all up to you.”
He procured her requests; she sat up, heedless of her fallen negligee or the abandoned bra, half nude, divinely beautiful with that nuance of sweet wantonness.