by Frank Harris
Mayhew's feelings, long repressed, flamed with the heat of an afternoon in July or August, while in Kate's one felt the freshness and cool of a summer morning, shot through with the suggestion of heat to come. And this comparison, even, is inept, because it leaves out the account the effect of Kate's beauty, the great hazel eyes, the rosied skin, the superb figure. Besides, there was a glamor of the spirit about Kate: Lorna Mayhew would never give me a new note that didn't spring from passion; in Kate I felt a spiritual personality and the thrill of undeveloped possibilities. And still, using my utmost skill, I haven't shown my reader the enormous superiority of the girl and her more unselfish love. But I haven't finished yet. Smith had given me The Mill on the Floss to read; I had never tried George Eliot before and I found that this book almost deserved Smith's praise. I had read till about one o'clock when my heart heard her; or was it some thrill of expectance? The next moment my door opened and she came in with the mane of hair about her shoulders and a long dressing gown reaching to her stocking feet. I got up like a flash, but she had already closed the door and bolted it. I drew her to the bed and stopped her from throwing off the dressing-gown. «Let me take off your stockings first,» I whispered. «I want you all imprinted on me!» The next moment she stood there naked, the flickering flame of the candle throwing quaint arabesques of light on her ivory body. I gazed and gazed: from the navel down she was perfect; I turned her round and the back, too, the bottom, even, was faultless, though large: but alas! the breasts were far too big for beauty, too soft to excite! I must think only of the bold curve of her hips, I reflected, the splendor of the firm thighs, the flesh of which had the hard outline of marble, and her-sex. I put her on the bed and opened her thighs: her pussy was ideally perfect. At once I wanted to get into her; but she pleaded: «Please, dear, come into bed, I'm cold and want you.» So in I got and began kissing her. Soon she grew warm and I pulled off my night-shirt and my middle finger was caressing her sex that opened quickly. «E-E,» she said, drawing in her breath quickly, «It still hurts.» I put my sex gently against hers, moving it up and down slowly till she drew up her knees to let me in; but, as soon as the head entered, her face puckered a little with pain and, as I had had a long afternoon, I was the more inclined to forbear, and accordingly I drew away and took place beside her. «I cannot bear to hurt you,» I said. «Love's pleasure must be natural.» «You're sweet!» she whispered. «I'm glad you stopped, for it shows you really care for me and not just for the pleasure,» and she kissed me lovingly. «Kate, reward me,» I said, «by telling me just what you felt when I first had you,» and I put her hand on my hot stiff sex to encourage her. «It's impossible,» she said, flushing a little.
«There was such a throng of new feelings; why, this evening, waiting in bed for the time to pass and thinking of you, I felt a strange prickling sensation in the inside of my thighs that I never felt before and now»-and she hid her glowing face against my neck, «I feel it again! «Love is funny, isn't it?» she whispered the next moment. «Now the pricking sensation is gone and the front part of my sex burns and itches. Oh! I must touch it!» «Let me,» I cried, and, in a moment, I was on her, working my organ up and down on her clitoris, the porch, so to speak, of Love's temple. A little later she herself sucked the head into her hot, dry pussy and then closed her legs as if in pain to stop me going further; but I began to rub my sex up and down on her tickler, letting it slide right in every now and then, till she panted and her love-juice came and my weapon sheathed itself in her naturally. I soon began the very slow and gentle in-and-out movements which increased her excitement steadily while giving her more and more pleasure, till I came and immediately she lifted my chest up from her breasts with both hands and showed me her glowing face. «Stop, boy,» she gasped, «please, my heart's fluttering so! I came too, you know, just with you,» and indeed I felt her trembling all over convulsively. I drew out and for safety's sake got her to use the syringe, having already explained its efficacy to her: she was adorably awkward and, when she had finished, I took her to bed again and held her to me, kissing her. «So you really love me, Kate!» «Really,» she said, «you don't know how much! I'll try never to suspect anything or to be jealous again.» She went on, «It's a hateful thing, isn't it? But I want to see your classroom: would you take me up once to the university?» «Why, of course,» I cried. «I should be only too glad; «I'll take you tomorrow afternoon. Or better still,» I added, «come up the hill at four o'clock and I'll meet you at the entrance.» And so it was settled and Kate went back to her room as noiselessly as she had come. The next afternoon I found her waiting in the university hall ten minutes before the hour, for our lectures beginning at the hour always stopped after forty-five minutes to give us time to be punctual at any other classroom. After showing her everything of interest, we walked home together laughing and talking, when, a hundred yards from Mrs. Mayhew's, we met that lady, face to face. I don't know how I looked, for being a little shortsighted, I hadn't recognized her till she was within ten yards of me; but her glance pierced me. She bowed with a look that took us both in. I lifted my hat and we passed on. «Who's that?» exclaimed Kate, «What a strange look she gave us!» «She's the wife of a gambler,» I replied as indifferently as I could. «He gives me work now and then,» I went on, strangely forecasting the future. Kate looked at me, probing, then, «I don't mind. I'm glad she's quite old!» «As old as both of us put together!» I retorted traitorously, and we went in. These love-passages with Mrs. Mayhew and Kate, plus my lessons and my talks with Smith, fairly represent my life's happenings for this whole year from seventeen to eighteen, with this solitary qualification, that my afternoons with Lorna became less and less agreeable to me. But now I must relate happenings that again affected my life. I hadn't been four months with the Gregorys when Kate told me that my brother Willie had ceased to pay my board for me more than a fortnight. She added sweetly, «It doesn't matter, dear, but I thought you ought to know and I'd hate anyone to hurt you, so I took it on myself to tell you.» I kissed her, said it was sweet of her and went to find Willie. He made excuses, voluble but not convincing, and ended up by giving me a check while begging me to tell Mrs. Gregory that he, too, would come and board with her. The incident set me thinking. I made Kate promise to tell me if he ever failed again to pay what was due, and I used the happening to excuse myself to Lorna.
I went to see her and told her that I must think at once of earning my living. I had still some five hundred dollars left, but I wanted to be before-hand with need; besides, it gave me a good excuse for not visiting her even weekly. «I must work!» I kept repeating, though I was ashamed of the lie. «Don't whip me, dear!» she pleaded. «My impotence to help you is painful enough; give me time to think. I know Mayhew is quite well off: give me a day or two, but come to me when you can. You see, I've no pride where you are concerned: I just beg like a dog for kind treatment for my love's sake. I wouldn't have believed that I could be so transformed. I was always so proud: my husband calls me 'proud and cold'-me cold! It's true I shiver when I hear your voice, but it's the shivering of fever. When you came in just now unexpectedly and kissed me waves of heat swept over me: my womb moved inside me. I never felt that till I had loved you and now, of course, my sex burns-I wish I were cold: a cold woman could rule the world. «But no! I wouldn't change. Just as I never wished to be a man, never. Though other girls used to say they would like to change their sex, I, never! And since I've been married, less than ever. What's a man? His love is over before ours begins.»
«Really?» I broke in grinning. «Not you, my beloved!» she cried. «Oh, not you; but then you are more than a man! Come, don't let us waste time in talk. Now I have you, take me to our Heaven. I'm ready, 'ripe-ready' is your word: I go to our bed as to an altar. If I'm only to have you even less than once a week, don't come again for ten days: I shall be well again then and you can surely come to me a few days running. I want to reach the heights and hug the illusion, cramming one hot week with bliss and then death for a fortnight. What ra
gs we women are! Come, dear, I will be your sheath and you shall be the sword and drive right into me. «But I'll help you,» she cried suddenly. «Was it that girl told you, you owed money for food?» I nodded and she glowed. «Oh, I'll help, never fear! I never liked that girl: she's brazen and conceited and-oh! Why did you walk with her?»
«She wanted to see the university,» I said, «and I could not well refuse her.» «Oh, pay her,» she cried, «but don't walk with her; she's a common thing. Fancy her mentioning money to you, my dear!»
That same evening I got a note from Lorna, saying her husband wanted to see me. I met the little man in the sitting room and he proposed that I should come to his rooms every evening after supper and sit in a chair near the door reading, but with a Colt's revolver handy so that no one could rob him and get away with the plunder.
«I'd feel safer,» he ended up, «and my wife tells me you're a sure shot and used to a wild life. What do you say? I'd give you sixty dollars a month and more than half the time you'd be free before midnight.» «It's very kind of you,» I exclaimed with hot cheeks,
«and very kind of Mrs. Mayhew, too: I'll do it and I beg you to believe that no one will bother you and get away with a whole skin,» and so it was settled. Aren't women wonderful! In half a day she had solved my difficulty and I found the hours spent in Mayhew's gambling rooms were more valuable than I had dreamed. The average man reveals himself in gaming more than in love or drink, and I was astonished to discover that many of the so-called best citizens had a flutter with Mayhew from time to time. I don't believe that they had a fair deal; he won too constantly for that; but it was none of my business so long as the clients accepted the results; and he often showed kindness by giving back a few dollars after he had skinned a man of all he possessed. Naturally, the fact that I was working with her husband threw me more into Mrs. Mayhew's society: twice or so a week I had to spend the afternoon with her, and the constraint irked me. Kate, too, objected to my visits: she had seen me go into Mrs.
Mayhew's and I think divined the rest, for at first she was cold to me and drew away even from my kisses. «You've chilled me,» she cried. «I don't think I shall ever love you again entirely.» But when I got into her… really excited her, she suddenly kissed me fervently, and her glorious eyes had heavy tears in them. «Why do you cry, dear?» I asked. «Because I cannot make you mine as I am all yours!» she cried. «Oh!» she went on, clutching me to her, «I think the pleasure is increased by the dreadful fear and the hate-oh, love me and me only, love mine!» Of course I promised fidelity, but I was surprised to feel that my desire for Kate, too, was beginning to cool. The arrangement with the Mayhews came to an unexpected and untimely end.
Mayhew now and then had a tussle with another gambler, and after I had been with him about three months, a gambler from Denver had a great contest with him and afterwards proposed that they should join forces and Mayhew should come to Denver. «More money to be made there in a week,» he declared, «than in Lawrence in a month.» Finally he persuaded Mayhew, who was wise enough to say nothing to his wife till the whole arrangement was fixed. She raved but could do nothing save give in, and so we had to part. Mayhew gave me one hundred dollars as a bonus, and Lorna one unforgettable, astonishing afternoon which I must now try to describe. I did not go near the Mayhew's the day after this gift, leaving Lorna to suppose that I looked upon everything as ended. But the day after that I got a word from her, an imperious, «Come at once; I must see you!» Of course I went, though reluctantly. As soon as I entered the room she rose from the sofa and came to me. «If I get you work in Denver, will you come out?» «How could I?» I asked in absolute astonishment. «You know I'm bound here to the university and then I want to go into a law office as well. Besides, I could not leave Smith: I've never known such a teacher; I don't believe his equal can be found anywhere.»
She nodded her head. «I see,» she sighed. «I suppose it's impossible; but I must see you,» she cried. «If I haven't the hope-what do I say-the certainty of seeing you again, I shan't go. I'd rather kill myself! I'll be a servant and stay with you, my darling, and take care of you! I don't care what I do so long as we are together. I'm nearly crazed with fear that I shall lose you.»
«It's all a question of money,» I said quietly, for the idea of her staying behind scared me stiff. «If I can earn money, I'd love to go to Denver in my holidays. It must be gorgeous there in summer, six thousand odd feet above sea-level. I'd delight in it.» «If I send you the money, you'll come?» I made a face. «I can't take money from-a love» (I said 'love' instead of 'woman': it was not ugly), I went on, «but Smith says he can get me work and I have still a little.
I'll come in the holidays.» «Holy days they'll be to me!» she said solemnly, and then with quick change of mood, «I'll make a beautiful room for our love in Denver; but you must come for Christmas, I could not wait till midsummer. Oh, how I shall ache for you-ache!» «Come upstairs,» I coaxed and she came, and we went to the bed. I found her mad with desire, but after I had brought her in an hour to hysteria and she lay in my arms crying, she suddenly said,
«He promised to come home early this afternoon, and I said I'd have a surprise for him. When he finds us together like this, it'll be a surprise, won't it?» «But you're mad!» I cried, getting out of bed in a flash. «I shall never be able to visit you in Denver if we have a row here!» «That's true,» she said as if in a dream,
«that's true. It's a pity: I'd love to have seen his foolish face stretched to wonder; but you're right. Hurry!» she cried, and was out of the room in a twinkling. When she returned, I was dressed.
«Go downstairs and wait for me,» she commanded, «on our sofa. If he knocks, open the door to him. That'll be a surprise, though not so great a one as I had planned,» she added laughing shrilly. «Are you going without kissing me?» she cried when I was at the door.
«Well, go, it's all right, go, for if I felt your lips again, I might keep you.» I went downstairs and in a few moments she followed me. «I can't bear you to go!» she cried. «How partings hurt!» she whispered. «Why should we part again, love mine?» and she looked at me with rapt eyes. «This life holds nothing worth having but love.
Let us make love deathless, you and I, going together to death. What do we lose? Nothing! This world is an empty shell! Come with me, love, and we'll meet death together!» «Oh, I want to do such a lot of things first,» I exclaimed. «Death's empire is eternal, but this brief task of life, the adventure of it, the change of it, the huge possibilities of it beckon me. I can't leave it.» «The change!» she cried with dilating nostrils, while her eyes darkened, «the change!» «You are determined to misunderstand me,» I cried. «Is not every day a change?» «I am weary,» she cried, «and beaten. I can only beg you not to forget your promise to come-ah!» and she caught and kissed me on the mouth. I shall die with your name on my lips,» she said, and turned to bury her face in the sofa cushion. I went: what else was there to do? I saw them off at the station.
Lorna had made me promise to write often, and swore she would write every day, and she did send me short notes daily for a fortnight. Then came gaps ever lengthening: «Denver society was pleasant and a Mr.
Wilson, a student, was assiduous: he comes every day,» she wrote.
Excuses finally, little hasty notes, and in two months her letters were formal, cold; in three months they had ceased altogether.
The break did not surprise me. I had taught her that youth was the first requisite in a lover for a woman of her type. She had doubtless put my precepts into practice: Mr. Wilson was probably as near the ideal as I was, and very much nearer to hand. The passions of the sense demand propinquity and satisfaction and nothing is more forgetful than pleasures of the flesh. If Mrs. Mayhew had given me a little, I had given her even less of my better self.
Chapter XII. Hard Times and New Loves
So far I had had more good fortune than falls to the lot of most youths starting in life; now I was to taste ill luck and be tried as with fire. I had be
en so taken up with my own concerns that I had hardly given a thought to public affairs; now I was forced to take a wider view. One day Kate told me that Willie was heavily in arrears: he had gone back to Deacon Conklin's to live on the other side of the Kaw River and I had naturally supposed that he had paid up everything before leaving. I found that he owed the Gregorys sixty dollars on his own account, and more than that on mine.
I went across to him really enraged. If he had warned me, I should not have minded so much; but to leave the Gregorys to tell me made me positively dislike him, and I did not know then the full extent of his selfishness. Years later my sister told me that he had written time and again to my father and got money from him, alleging that it was for me and that I was studying and couldn't earn anything.
«Willie kept us poor, Frank,» she told me, and I could only bow my head; but if I had known this fact at the time, it would have changed my relations with Willie. As it was, I found him in the depths.
Carried away by his optimism, he had bought real estate in 1871 and 1872, mortgaged it for more than he gave, and as the boom continued, he had repeated this game time and again till on paper and in paper he reckoned he had made a hundred thousand dollars. This he had told me and I was glad of it for his sake, unfeignedly glad. It was easy to see that the boom and inflation period had been based at first on the extraordinary growth of the country through the immigration and trade that had followed the Civil War. But the Franco-German war had wasted wealth prodigiously, deranged trade, too, and diverted commerce into new channels. First France and then England felt the shock:
