by Frank Harris
«that means you won't come tomorrow or,» she added hastily, «even the day after?» «I can't possibly,» I declared. «I have a good week's work in front of me; but you know I'll come the first afternoon I can make myself free and I'll let you know the day before, sweet!»
She looked at me with tearful eyes and quivering lips. «Love is its own torment!» she sighed, while I dressed and got away quickly.
The truth was I was already satiated. Her passion held nothing new in it: she had taught me all she could and had nothing more in her, I thought; while Kate was prettier and much younger and a virgin.
Why shouldn't I confess it? It was Kate's virginity that attracted me irresistibly: I pictured her legs to myself, her hips and thighs…
The next few days passed in reading the books Smith had lent me, especially Das Kapital, the second book of which, with its frank exposure of the English factory system, was simply enthralling. I read some of Tacitus, too, and Xenophon with a crib, and learned a page of Greek every day by heart, and whenever I felt tired of work I laid siege to Kate. That is, I continued my plan of campaign. One day I called her brother into my room and told him true stories of buffalo hunting and of fighting with Indians; another day I talked theology with the father or drew the dear mother out to tell of her girlish days in Cornwall. «I never thought I'd come to work like this in my old age, but then children take all and give little; I was no better as a girl, I remember,»-and I got a scene of her brief courtship!
I had won the whole household long before I said a word to Kate beyond the merest courtesies. A week or so passed like this till one day I held them all after dinner while I told the story of our raid into Mexico. I took care, of course, that Kate was out of the room.
Towards the end of my tale, Kate came in: at once I hastened to end abruptly, and after excusing myself, went into the garden. Half an hour later I saw she was in my room tidying up; I took thought and then went up the outside steps. As soon as I saw her I pretended surprise. «I beg your pardon,» I said. «I'll just get a book and go at once; please don't let me disturb you!» and I pretended to look for the book. She turned sharply and looked at me fixedly. «Why do you treat me like this!» she burst out, shaking with indignation.
«Like what?» I repeated, pretending surprise. «You know quite well,» she went on angrily, hastily. «At first I thought it was chance, unintentional; now I know you mean it. Whenever you are talking or telling a story, as soon as I come into the room you stop and hurry away as if you hated me. Why? Why?» she cried with quivering lips. «What have I done to make you dislike me so?» and the tears gathered in her lovely eyes. I felt the moment had come: I put my hands on her shoulders and looked with my whole soul into her eyes.
«Did you never guess, Kate, that it might be love, not hate?» I asked.
«No, no!» she cried, the tears falling. «Love does not act like that!» «Fear to miss love does, I can assure you,» I cried. «I thought at first that you disliked me and already I had begun to care for you» (my arms went round her waist and I drew her to me), «to love you and want you. Kiss me, dear,» and at once she gave me her lips, while my hand got busy on her breasts and then went down of itself to her sex. Suddenly she looked at me gaily, brightly, while heaving a big sigh of relief. «I'm glad, glad!» she said. «If you only knew how hurt I was and how I tortured myself; one moment I was angry, then I was sad. Yesterday I made up my mind to speak, but today I said to myself, I'll just be obstinate and cold as he is and now-» and of her own accord she put her arms round my neck and kissed me-«you are a dear, dear! Anyway, I love you!» «You mustn't give me those bird-pecks!» I exclaimed. «Those are not kisses: I want your lips to open and cling to mine,» and I kissed her while my tongue darted into her mouth and I stroked her sex gently. She flushed, but at first didn't understand; then suddenly she blushed rosy red as her lips grew hot and she fairly ran from the room. I exulted: I knew I had won: I must be very quiet and reserved and the bird would come to the lure; I felt exultingly certain! Meanwhile I spent nearly every morning with Smith: golden hours! Always, always before we parted, he showed me some new beauty or revealed some new truth: he seemed to me the most wonderful creature in this strange, sunlit world. I used to hang entranced on his eloquent lips! (Strange! I was sixty-five before I found such a hero-worshiper as I was to Smith, who was only four or five and twenty!) He made me know all the Greek dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and put them for me in a truer light than English or German scholars have set them yet. He knew that Sophocles was the greatest, and from his lips I learned every chorus in the Oedipus Rex and Colonnus before I had completely mastered the Greek grammar; indeed, it was the supreme beauty of the literature that forced me to learn the language. In teaching me the choruses, he was careful to point out that it was possible to keep the measure and yet mark the accent too: in fact, he made classic Greek a living language to me, as living as English. And he would not let me neglect Latin: in the first year with him I knew poems of Catullus by heart, almost as well as I knew Swinburne. Thanks to Professor Smith, I had no difficulty in entering the junior class at the university; in fact, after my first three or four months' work was easily the first in the class, which included Ned Stephens, the brother of Smith's inamorata.
I soon discovered that Smith was heels over head in love with Kate Stephens, shot through the heart, as Mercutio would say, with a fair girl's blue eye! And small wonder, for Kate was lovely; a little above middle height with slight, rounded figure and most attractive face: the oval, a thought long, rather than round, with dainty, perfect features, lit up by a pair of superlative grey-blue eyes, eyes by turns delightful and reflective and appealing, that mirrored a really extraordinary intelligence. She was in the senior class and afterwards for years held the position of Professor of Greek in the university. I shall have something to say of her in a later volume of this history, for I met her again in New York nearly fifty years later. But in 1872 or '73, her brother Ned, a handsome lad of eighteen who was in my class, interested me more. The only other member of the senior class of this time was a fine fellow, Ned Bancroft, who later came to France with me to study. At this time, curiously enough, Kate Stephens was by way of being engaged to Ned Bancroft; but already it was plain that she was in love with Smith, and my outspoken admiration of Smith helped her, I hope, as I am sure it helped him, to a better mutual understanding. Bancroft accepted the situation with extraordinary self-sacrifice, losing neither Smith's nor Kate's friendship: I have seldom seen nobler self-abnegation; indeed, his high-mindedness in this crisis was what first won my admiration and showed me his other fine qualities. Almost in the beginning I had serious disquietude: every little while Smith was ill and had to keep his bed for a day or two. There was no explanation of this illness, which puzzled me and caused me a certain anxiety. One day in midwinter there was a new development. Smith was in doubt how to act and confided in me. He had found Professor Kellogg, in whose house he lived, trying to kiss the pretty help, Rose, entirely against her will. Smith was emphatic on this point: the girl was struggling angrily to free herself, when by chance he interrupted them. I relieved Smith's solemn gravity a little by roaring with laughter. The idea of an old professor and clergyman trying to win a girl by force filled me with amusement: «What a fool the man must be!» was my English judgment; Smith took the American high moral tone at first.
«Think of his disloyalty to his wife in the same house,» he cried, «and then the scandal if the girl talked, and she is sure to talk!» «Sure not to talk,» I corrected. «Girls are afraid of the effect of such revelations; besides a word from you asking her to shield Mrs. Kellogg will ensure her silence.» «Oh, I cannot advise her,» cried Smith. «I will not be mixed up in it: I told Kellogg at the time, I must leave the house, yet I don't know where to go! It's too disgraceful of him! His wife is really a dear woman!»
For the first time I became conscious of a rooted difference between Smith and myself: his high moral condemnation on very insuffici
ent data seemed to me childish, but no doubt many of my readers will think my tolerance a proof of my shameless libertinism!
However, I jumped at the opportunity of talking to Rose on such a scabrous matter and at the same time solved Smith's difficulty by proposing that he should come and take room and board with the Gregorys-a great stroke of practical diplomacy on my part, or so it appeared to me; for thereby I did the Gregorys, Smith and myself an immense, an incalculable service. Smith jumped at the idea, asked me to see about it at once and let him know, and then rang for Rose.
She came half-scared, half-angry, on the defensive, I could see; so I spoke first, smiling. «Oh Rose,» I said, «Professor Smith has been telling me of your trouble; but you ought not to be angry: for you are so pretty that no wonder a man wants to kiss you; you must blame your lovely eyes and mouth.» Rose laughed outright: she had come expecting reproof and found sweet flattery. «There's only one thing, Rose,» I went on. «The story would hurt Mrs. Kellogg if it got out and she's not very strong, so you must say nothing about it, for her sake. That's what Professor Smith wanted to say to you.» I added. «I'm not likely to tell,» cried Rose. «I'll soon forget all about it, but I guess I'd better get another job: he's liable to try again, though I gave him a good, hard slap,» and she laughed merrily. «I'm so glad for Mrs. Kellogg's sake,» said Smith gravely, «and if I can help you get another place, please call upon me.» «I guess I'll have no difficulty,» answered Rose flippantly, with a shade of dislike of the professor's solemnity. «Mrs. Kellogg will give me a good character,» and the healthy young minx grinned,
«besides I'm not sure but I'll go stay home a spell. I'm fed up with working and would like a holiday, and mother wants me-» «Where do you live, Rose?» I asked with a keen eye for future opportunities.
«On the other side of the river,» she replied, «next door to Elder Conklin's, where your brother boards,» she added smiling.
When Rose went I begged Smith to pack his boxes, for I would get him the best room at the Gregorys' and assured him it was really large and comfortable and would hold all his books, etc.; and off I went to make my promise good. On the way, I set myself to think how I could turn the kindness I was doing the Gregorys to the advantage of my love. I decided to make Kate a partner in the good deed, or at least a herald of the good news. So when I got home I rang the bell in my room, and as I had hoped Kate answered it. When I heard her footsteps I was shaking, hot with desire, and now I wish to describe a feeling I then began to notice in myself. I longed to take possession of the girl, so to speak, abruptly, ravish her in fact, or at least thrust both hands up her dress at once and feel her bottom and sex altogether; but already I knew enough to realize certainly that girls prefer gentle and courteous approaches. Why? Of the fact I am sure. So I said, «Come in, Kate,» gravely. «I want to ask you whether the best bedroom is still free, and if you'd like Professor Smith to have it, if I could get him to come here?» «I'm sure, Mother would be delighted,» she exclaimed. «You see,» I went on, «I'm trying to serve you all I can, yet you don't even kiss me of your own accord.»
She smiled, and so I drew her to the bed and lifted her up on it. I saw her glance and answered it: «The door is shut, dear,» and half lying on her, I began kissing her passionately, while my hands went up her clothes to her sex. To my delight she wore no drawers, but at first she kept her legs tight together frowning. «Love denies nothing, Kate,» I said gravely; slowly she drew her legs apart, half-pouting, half-smiling, and let me caress her sex. When her love-juice came, I kissed her and stopped. «It's dangerous here,» I said, «that door you came in is open; but I must see your lovely limbs,» and I turned up her dress. I hadn't exaggerated; she had limbs like a Greek statue and her triangle of brown hair lay in little silky curls on her belly and then-the sweetest cunny in the world. I bent down and kissed it.
In a moment Kate was on her feet, smoothing her dress down. «What a boy you are,» she exclaimed, «but that's partly why I love you; oh, I hope you'll love me half as much. Say you will, Sir, and I'll do anything you wish!» «I will,» I replied, «but oh, I'm glad you want love; can you come to me tonight? I want a couple of hours with you uninterrupted.» «This afternoon,» she said, «I'll say I'm going for a walk and I'll come to you, dear! They are all resting then or out and I shan't be missed.» I could only wait and think. One thing was fixed in me, I must have her, make her mine before Smith came: he was altogether too fascinating, I thought, to be trusted with such a pretty girl; but I was afraid she would bleed and I did not want to hurt her this first time, so I went out and bought a syringe and a pot of cold cream which I put beside my bed. Oh, how that dinner lagged! Mrs. Gregory thanked me warmly for my kindness to them all (which seemed to me pleasantly ironical!) and Mr. Gregory followed her lead; but at length everyone had finished and I went to my room to prepare. First I locked the outside door and drew down the blinds: then I studied the bed and turned it back and arranged a towel along the edge; happily the bed was just about the right height! Then I loosened my trousers, unbuttoned the front and pulled up my shirt: a little later Kate put her lovely face in at the door and slipped inside. I shot the bolt and began kissing her; girls are strange mortals; she had taken off her corset, just as I had put a towel handy. I lifted up her clothes and touched her sex, caressing it gently while kissing her: in a moment or two her love-milk came.
I lifted her up on the bed, pushed down my trousers, anointed my prick with the cream and then, parting her legs and getting her to pull her knees up, I drew her bottom to the edge of the bed: she frowned at that, but I explained quickly: «It may give a little pain, at first, dear: and I want to give you as little as possible,» and I slipped the head of my cock gently, slowly into her. Even greased, her pussy was very tight and at the very entrance I felt the obstacle, her maidenhead, in the way; I lay on her and kissed her and let her or Mother Nature help me. As soon as Kate found that I was leaving it to her, she pushed forward boldly and the obstacle yielded. «O-O!» she cried, and then pushed forward again roughly and my organ went in her to the hilt and her clitoris must have felt my belly. Resolutely, I refrained from thrusting or withdrawing for a minute or two and then drew out slowly to her lips and, as I pushed Tommy gently in again, she leaned up and kissed me passionately. Slowly, with extremest care, I governed myself and pushed in and out with long slow thrusts, though I longed, longed to plunge it in hard and quicken the strokes as much as possible; but I knew from Mrs. Mayhew that the long, gentle thrusts and slow withdrawals were the aptest to excite a woman's passion and I was determined to win Kate. In two or three minutes, she had again let down a flow of love-juice, or so I believed, and I kept right on with the love-game, knowing that the first experience is never forgotten by a girl and resolved to keep on to dinnertime if necessary to make her first love-joust ever memorable to her. Kate lasted longer than Mrs. Mayhew; I came ever so many times, passing ever more slowly from orgasm to orgasm before she began to move to me; but at length her breath began to get shorter and shorter and she held me to her violently, moving her pussy the while up and down harshly against my man-root. Suddenly she relaxed and fell back: there was no hysteria; but plainly I could feel the mouth of her womb fasten on my cock as if to suck it. That excited me fiercely and for the first time I indulged in quick, hard thrusts till a spasm of intensest pleasure shook me and my seed spirted or seemed to spurt for the sixth or seventh tune. When I had finished kissing and praising my lovely partner and drew away, I was horrified; the bed was a sheet of blood and some had gone on my pants: Kate's thighs and legs even were all incarnadined, making the lovely ivory white of her skin, one red. You may imagine how softly I used towel on her legs and sex before I showed her the results of our love-passage. To my astonishment she was unaffected. «You must take the sheet away and burn it,» she said, «or drop it in the river: I guess it won't be the first.» «Did it hurt much?» I asked. «At first a good deal,» she replied, «but soon the pleasure overpowered the smart and I would not even forget the pain
. I love you so. I am not even afraid of consequences with you: I trust you absolutely and love to trust you and run whatever risks you wish.» «You darling!» I cried, «I don't believe there will be any consequences; but I want you to go to the basin and use this syringe. I'll tell you why afterwards.» At once she went over to the basin. «I feel funny, weak,» she said, «as if I were-I can't describe it-shaky on my legs. I'm glad now I don't wear drawers in summer, they'd get wet.» Her ablutions completed and the sheet withdrawn and done up in paper, I shot back the bolt and we began our talk. I found her intelligent and kindly but ignorant and ill-read; still she was not prejudiced and was eager to know all about babies and how they were made. I told her what I had told Mrs. Mayhew and something more: how my seed was composed of tens of thousands of tadpole-shaped animalcule. Already in her vagina and womb these infinitely little things had a race: they could move nearly an inch in an hour and the strongest and quickest got up first to where her egg was waiting in the middle of her womb. My little tadpole, the first to arrive, thrust his head into her egg and thus having accomplished his work of impregnation, perished, love and death being twins. The curious thing was that this indescribably small tadpole should be able to transmit all the qualities of all his progenitors in certain proportions; no such miracle was ever imagined by any religious teacher. More curious still, the living foetus in the womb passes in nine months through all the chief changes that the human race has gone through in countless aeons of time in its progress from the tadpole to the man. Till the fifth month the foetus is practically a four-legged animal. I told her that it was accepted today that the weeks occupied in the womb in any metamorphosis correspond exactly to the ages it occupied in reality. Thus it was upright, a two-legged animal, ape and then man in the womb for the last three months, and this corresponded nearly to one-third of man's whole existence on this earth. Kate listened, enthralled, I thought, till she asked me suddenly: «But what makes one child a boy and another a girl?»
