by Frank Harris
Sommerfeld relieved me of nearly all the office work: I had only to get up the speeches, for he prepared the cases for me. My income was so large that I only slept in my office-room for convenience sake, or rather for my lechery's sake. I kept a buggy and horse at a livery stable and used to drive Lily or Rose out nearly every day. As Rose lived on the other side of the river, it was easy to keep the two separate, and indeed neither of them ever dreamed of the other's existence. I had a very soft spot in my heart for Rose: her beauty of face and form always excited and pleased me and her mind, too, grew quickly through our talks and the books I gave her. I'll never forget her joy when I first bought a small bookcase and sent it to her home one morning, full of books I thought she would like and ought to read.
In the evening she came straight to my office, told me it was the very thing she had most wanted, and she let me study her beauties one by one; but when I turned her round and kissed her bottom, she wanted me to stop. «You can't possibly like or admire that,» was her verdict.
«Indeed I do,» I cried, but I confessed to myself that she was right, her bottom was adorably dimpled but it was a little too fat, and the line underneath it was not perfect. One of her breasts, too, was prettier than the other, though both were small and stuck out boldly: my critical sense would find no fault with her triangle or her sex; the lips of it were perfect, very small and rose-red and her clitoris was like a tiny, tiny button. I often wished it were half an inch long like Mrs. Mayhew's. Only once in our intercourse did I try to bring her to ecstasy and only half succeeded; consequently, I used simply to have her just to enjoy myself, and only now and then went on to a second orgasm so as really to warm her to the love-play; Rose was anything but sensual, though invariably sweet and an excellent companion. How she could be so affectionate though sexually cold was always a puzzle to me. Lily, as I have said, was totally different: a merry little grig and born child of Venus: now and then she gave me a really poignant sensation. She was always deriding Mrs.
Mayhew, but curiously enough, she was very much like her in many ultimate ways-a sort of understudy of the older and more passionate woman, with a child's mischievous gaiety to boot and a childish joy in living. But a great and new sensation was now to come into my life. One evening a girl without a hat on and without knocking came into my office. Sommerfeld had gone home for the night and I was just putting my things straight before going out. She took my breath; she was astoundingly good looking, very dark with great, black eyes and slight girlish figure. «I'm Topsy,» she announced and stood there smiling, as if the mere name told enough. «Come in,» I said, «and take a seat: I've heard of you!» And I had. She was a privileged character in the town: she rode on the street-cars and railroads, too, without paying. Those who challenged her were all «poor white trash,» she said, and some man was always eager to pay for her. She never hesitated to go up to any man and ask him for a dollar or even five dollars-and invariably got what she wanted: her beauty was as compelling to men as her scornful aloofness. I had often heard of her as «that d… d pretty nigger girl!» but I could see no trace of any Negro characteristic in her pure loveliness. She took the seat and said with a faint southern accent I found pleasing, «You» name Harris?» «That's my name,» I replied smiling. «You here instead of Barker?» she went on. «He sure deserve to die hicuppin': pore white trash!» «What's your real name?» I asked. «They call me 'Topsy',» she replied, «but ma real true name is Sophy, Sophy Beveridge. You was very kind to my mother who lives upstairs. Yes,» she went on defiantly, «she's my mother and a mighty good mother, too, and don't you fergit it,» she added, tossing her head in contempt of my astonishment. «Your father must have been white,» I couldn't help remarking, for I couldn't couple Topsy with the old octoroon, do what I would. She nodded, «He was white all right: that is, his skin was,» and she got up and wandered about the office as if it belonged to her. «I'll call you 'Sophy,'«I said, for I felt a passionate revolt of injured pride in her. She smiled at me with pleasure. I didn't know what to do. I must not go with a colored girl, though I could see no sign of black blood in Sophy, and certainly she was astonishingly good looking, even in her simple sprigged gown. As she moved about I could not but remark the lithe panther-like grace of her and her little breasts stuck out against the thin cotton garment with a most provocative allurement. My mouth was parching when she swung round on me. «You ondressing me,» she said smiling, «and I'se glad, 'cause my mother likes you and I loves her-sure pop!» There was something childish, direct, innocent, even, about her frankness that fascinated me, and her good looks made sunshine in the darkening room.
«I like you, Sophy,» I said, «but anyone would have done as much for your mother as I did. She was ill!» «Hoo!» she snorted indignantly. «Most white folk would have let her die right there on the stairs. I know them: they'd have been angry with her for groaning.
I hate 'em!» And her great eyes glowered. She came over to me in a flash: «If you'd been an American, I could never have come to you, never! I'd rather have died, or saved and stole and paid you-» the scorn in her voice was bitter with hate: evidently the Negro question had a side I had never realized. «But you're different,» she went on, «an' I just came-» and she paused, lifting her great eyes to mine with an unspoken offer in their lingering regard. «I'm glad,» I said lamely, staving off the temptation, «and I hope you'll come again soon and we'll be great friends-eh, Sophy?» and I held out my hand smiling; but she pouted and looked at me with reproach or appeal or disappointment in her eyes. I could not resist: I took her hand and drew her to me and kissed her on the lips, slipping my right hand the while up to her left breast. It was as firm as India rubber: at once I felt my sex stand up and throb: resolve and desire fought in me, but I was accustomed to make my will supreme. «You are the loveliest girl in Lawrence,» I said, «but I must really go now. I have an appointment and I'm late.» She smiled enigmatically as I seized my hat and went, not stopping even to shut or lock the office door. As I walked up the street, my thoughts and feelings were all in a whirl. «Did I want her? Should I have her? Would she come again? «Oh, Hell! women are the very devil and he's not so black as he's painted! Black?» That night I was awakened by a loud knocking at my office door; I sprang up and opened without thinking and at once Sophy came in laughing. ^"What is it?» I cried, half asleep still. «I'se tired waiting,» she answered cheekily, «and anyways I just came.» I was about to remonstrate with her when she cried: «You go right to bed,» and she took my head in her hands and kissed me. My wish to resist died out of me. «Come quickly!» I said, getting into bed and watching her as she stripped. In a hand's turn she had undressed to her chemise. «I reckon this'll do,» she said coquettishly. «Please take it off,» I cried, and the next moment she was in my arms naked. As I touched her sex, she wound her arms round my neck and kissed me greedily with hot lips. To my astonishment her sex was well formed and very small: I had always heard that Negroes had far larger genitals than white people; but the lips of Sophy's sex were thick and firm. «Have you ever been had, Sophy?» I asked. «No, sir!» she replied. «I liked you because you never came after me and you was so kind and I thot that I'd be sure to do it sometime, so I'd rather let you have me than anyone else. I don't like colored men,» she added, «and the white men all look down on me and despise me and I-I love you,» she whispered, burying her face on my neck. «It'll hurt you at first, Sophy, I'm afraid,» but she stilled all scruples with, «Shucks, I don't care. If I gives you pleasure, I'se satisfied,» and she opened her legs, stretching herself as I got on her. The next moment my sex was caressing her clitoris and of herself she drew up her knees and suddenly with one movement brought my sex into hers and against the maiden barrier. Sophy had no hesitation: she moved her body lithely against me and the next moment I had forced the passage and was in her. I waited a little while and then began the love game. At once Sophy followed my movements, lifting her sex up to me as I pushed in and depressing it to hold me as I withdrew. Even when I quickened, she kept
time and so gave me the most intense pleasure, thrill on thrill, and, as I came and my seed spirted into her, the muscle inside her vagina gripped my sex, heightening the sensation to an acute pang; she even kissed me more passionately than any other girl, licking the inside of my lips with her hot tongue.
When I went on again with the slow in-and-out movements, she followed in perfect time and her trick of bending her sex down on mine as I withdrew and gripping it at the same time excited me madly; soon, of her own accord, she quickened while gripping and thrilling me till again we both spent together in an ecstasy. «You're a perfect wonder,» I cried to her then, panting in my turn, «but how did you learn so quickly?» «I loves you,» she said, «so I do whatever I think you'd like then I likes that too, see?» And her lovely face glowed against mine. I got up to show her the use of the syringe and found we were in a bath of blood. In a moment she had stripped the sheet off. «I'll wash that in the morning,» she said laughing, while doubling it into a ball and throwing it in the corner. I turned the gas on full: never was there a more seductive figure. Her skin was darkish, it is true, but not darker than that of an ordinary Italian or Spanish girl, and her form had a curious attraction for me: her breasts, small and firm as elastic, stood out provocatively: her hips, however, were narrower than even Lily's, though the cheeks of her bottom were full; her legs, too, were well-rounded, not a trace of the sticks of the negro; her feet even were slender and high arched.
«You are the loveliest girl I've ever seen!» I cried as I helped to put in the syringe and wash her sex. «You're mah man,» she said proudly, «an' I want to show you that I can love better than any white trash; they only give themselves airs!» «You are white,» I cried, «don't be absurd!» She shook her little head. «If you knew,» she said. «When I was a girl, a child, old white men, the best in town, used to say dirty words to me in the street and try to touch me-the beasts!» I gasped: I had had no idea of such contempt and persecution. When we were back in bed together: «Tell me, Sophy dear, how you learned to move with me in time as you do and give me such thrills?» «Hoo!» she cried, gurgling with pleased joy.
«That's easy to tell. I was scared you didn't like me, so this afternoon I went to wise old niggah woman and ask her how to make man love you really! She told me to go right to bed with you and do that,» and she smiled. «Nothing more?» I asked. Her eyes opened brightly. «Shu!» she cried. «If you want to do love again, I show you!» The next moment, I was in her and now she kept even better time than at first and somehow or other the thick, firm lips of her sex seemed to excite me more than anyone had ever excited me.
Instinctively the lust grew in me and I quickened and as I came to the short, hard strokes, she suddenly slipped her legs together under me and closing them tightly held my sex as in a firm grip and then began «milking» me-no other word conveys the meaning-with extraordinary skill and speed, so that, in a moment, I was gasping and choking with the intensity of the sensation and my seed came in hot jets while she continued the milking movement, tireless, indefatigible! «What a marvel you are,» I exclaimed as soon as I got breath enough to speak,
«the best bedfellow I've ever had; wonderful, you dear, you!» All glowing with my praise, she wound her arms about my neck and mounted me as Lorna Mayhew had done once; but what a difference! Lorna was so intent on gratifying her own lust that she often forgot my feelings altogether and her movements were awkward in the extreme; but Sophy thought only of me and, whereas Lorna was always slipping my sex out of her sheath, Sophy in some way seated herself on me and then began rocking her body back and forth while lifting it a little at each churning movement, so that my sex in the grip of her firm, thick lips had a sort of double movement. When she felt me coming as I soon did, she twirled half round on my organ half a dozen times with a new movement and then began rocking herself again, so that my seed was dragged out of me, so to speak, giving me indescribably acute, almost painful sensations. I was breathless, thrilling with her every movement. «Had you any pleasure, Sophy?» I asked as soon as we were lying side by side again. «Shuah!» she said smiling. «You're very strong, and you,» she asked, were you pleased?» «Great God,»
I cried, «I felt as if all the hairs of my head were traveling down my backbone like an army! You are extraordinary, you dear!» «Keep me with you, Frank,» she whispered. «If you want me, I'll do anything, everything for you: I never hoped to have such a lover as you. Oh, this child's real glad her breasties and sex please you. You taught me that word, instead of the nasty word all white folks use. 'Sex' is a good word, very good!» and she crowed with delight. «What do colored people call it?» I asked. «Coozie,» she replied smiling,
«Coozie. Good word too, very good!» Long years later I heard an American story which recalled Sophy's performance vividly. An engineer with a pretty daughter had an assistant who showed extraordinary qualities as a machinist and was quiet and well behaved to boot. The father introduced his helper to his daughter and the match was soon arranged. After the marriage, however, the son-in-law drew away and it was in vain that the father-in-law tried to guess the reason of the estrangement. At length he asked his son-in-law boldly for the reason. «I meant right, Bill,» he began earnestly, «but if I've made a mistake I'll be sorry. Warn't the goods accordin' to specification? Warn't she a virgin?» «It don't matter nothin'!» replied Bill frowning. «Treat me fair, Bill,» cried the father.
«War she a virgin?» «How can I tell?» exclaimed Bill. «All I can say is, I never know'd a virgin before that had that cinder-shifting movement.» Sophy was the first to show me the «cinder-shifting» movement, and she surely was a virgin! As a mistress Sophy was perfection perfected and the long lines and slight curves of her lovely body came to have a special attraction for me as the very highest of the pleasure-giving type. Lily first and then Rose were astonished and perhaps a little hurt at the sudden cooling off of my passion for them. From time to time I took Rose out or sent her books, and I had Lily anywhere, any when; but neither of them could compare with Sophy as a bedfellow, and her talk even fascinated me more the better I knew her. She had learned life from the streets, from the animal side first, but it was astonishing how quickly she grew in understanding: love is the only magical teacher! In a fortnight her speech was better than Lily's; in a month she talked as well as any of the American girls I had had; her desire of knowledge and her sponge-like ease of acquirement were always surprising me. She had a lovelier figure than even Rose and ten times the seduction even of Lily: she never hesitated to take my sex in her hand and caress it; she was a child of nature, bold with an animal's boldness and had besides a thousand endearing familiarities. I had only to hint a wish for her to gratify it. Sophy was the pearl of all the girls I met in this first stage of my development and I only wish I could convey to the reader a suggestion of her quaint, enthralling caresses. My admiration of Sophy cleansed me of any possible disdain I might otherwise have had of the Negro people, and I am glad of it; for else I might have closed my heart against the Hindu and so missed the best part of my life's experiences. I have had a great artist make the sketch of her back which I reproduce at the end of this chapter; it conveys something of the strange vigor and nerve-force of her lovely firm body. But it was written that as soon as I reached ease and content, the fates would reshuffle the cards and deal me another hand.
First of all, there came a letter from Smith telling me how he had had a bed wetting one night and had caught a severe cold. The cough then had returned and he was losing weight and heart. He had come to the conclusion, too, that I had reached, that the moist air of Philadelphia was doing him harm, and the doctors now were beginning to urge him to go to Denver, Colorado, all the foremost specialists agreeing that mountain air was the best for his lung-weakness. If I couldn't come to him, I must wire him and he'd stop in Lawrence to see me on his way west, he had much to say-. A couple of days later he was in the Eldridge House and I went to see him. His appearance shocked me: he had grown spectre thin and the great eyes seemed to
burn like lamps in his white face. I knew at once that he was doomed and could scarcely control my tears. We passed the whole day together and when he heard how I spent my days in casual reading and occasional speaking and my Topsy-turvey nights, he urged me to throw up the law and go to Europe to make myself a real scholar and thinker. But I could not give up Sophy and my ultra-pleasant life. So I resisted, told him he overrated me: I'd easily be the best advocate in the state, I said, and make a lot of money and then I'd go back and do Europe and study as well. He warned me that I must choose between God and Mammon; I retorted lightly that Mammon and my senses gave me much that God denied. «I'll serve both,» I cried, but he shook his head. «I'm finished, Frank,» he declared at length, «but I'd regret life less if I knew that you would take up the work I once hoped to accomplish. Won't you?» I couldn't resist his appeal.
«All right,» I said, after choking down my tears, «give me a few months and I'll go, round the world first and then to Germany to study.» He drew me to him and kissed me on the forehead: I felt it as a sort of consecration. A day or so afterwards he took train for Denver and I felt as if the sun had gone out of my life.
I had little to do in Lawrence at this time except read at large and I began to spend a couple of hours every day in the town library.
Mrs. Trask, the librarian, was the widow of one of the early settlers who had been brutally murdered during the Quantrell raid, when Missourian bandits «shot up» the little town of Lawrence in a last attempt to turn Kansas into a slave-owning state. Mrs. Trask was a rather pretty little woman who had been made librarian to compensate her in some sort for the loss of her husband. She was well read in American literature and I often took her advice as to my choice of books. She liked me, I think, for she was invariably kind to me and I owe her many pleasant hours and some instruction. After Smith had gone west I spent more and more time in the library, for my law work was becoming easier to me every hour. One day, about a month after Smith had left, I went into the library and could find nothing enticing to read. Mrs. Trask happened to be passing and I asked her,
