Desire Page 3

  “How divinely sweet you are! The perfume of your lovely breath is so rapturously nice. Do let me – do – do! I love you so!”

  He held me tight with his left arm. He had withdrawn his right. I was conscious he was undoing his trousers. He had left my skirts in disorder. I saw him pull aside his protruding shirt. I secretly watched his movements out of a corner of my eye while he kept my face close to his. Then appeared all that I had seen on the bathing machine, but standing fiercely erect, red-headed and formidable – a huge limb. He thrust it into full view.

  “My darling! My beauty! See this! See! See to what a state you have driven me. You will let me – won’t you?”

  “Oh, for shame! Let me go – pray do not do that – you must not. Your finger hurts. Don’t – pray don’t! Oh, dear! Oh! Oh!”

  The jolting of the carriage favoured his operations. His hand was again between my thighs. His second finger pressed my throbbing button. My parts were bedewed with the fluid begotten by desire. He was inspecting the premises before taking possession. I only hoped he would not find the accommodation insufficient for so large a tenant.

  “Oh, pray don’t! Oh, goodness! What a man you are!”

  With a sudden movement, he slipped round upon his knees, passing one of my legs over his left arm and thus thrust me back on the soft sprung seat of the carriage. He threw up my clothes. He was between my thighs. My belly and private parts were exposed to his lascivious operations. I looked over my dress as I attempted to right myself. I saw him kneeling before me in the most indelicate position. His trousers were open. His huge privates stood menacingly before my eyes. He had so far loosened his clothing that his testicles were out. His belly was covered with crisp black hair. I saw all in that quick feverish glance. I saw the dull red head of his big limb drawn downward by the little string as it faced me, and the slit-like opening through which the men spurt their white venom.

  He audaciously took my hand, gloved as it was, and placed it upon his member. It was hard and rigid as wood.

  “Feel that – dear girl! Do not be frightened. I will not hurt you. Feel – feel my prick!”

  He drew me forward. I felt him as requested. I had ceased all resistance. My willing little hand clasped the immense instrument he called his “prick”.

  “Now put it there yourself, little girl. It is longing to be into you.”

  “Oh – my good heavens! It will never go in! You will kill me!”

  Nevertheless I assisted him to his enjoyment. I put the nut between the nether lips. He pushed while firmly holding me by both hips. My parts relaxed – my vagina adapted itself as I had been told it could without injury to the most formidable of male organs. The huge thing entered me. He thrust in fierce earnest. He got it fairly in.

  “Oh! My God! I’m into you now! Oh! Oh! How delicious! Hold tight! Let me pull you down to me – so – oh! My God! How nice! How soft! How exquisite!”

  I passed my left arm through the strap. My right clutched him round the neck. He put down his hand. He parted the strained lips round his huge intruding weapon. Then he seized me by the buttocks. He strained me towards him as he pushed. My head fell back – my lips parted. I felt his testicles rubbing close up between my legs. He was into me to the quick!

  “Oh, dear! Dear! You are too rough! You hurt – you push too hard! My goodness me! How you are tearing me. Oh! Oh! Ah! It is too much! You darling man! Push! Push! Oh!”

  It was too much pleasure. I threw my head back again. I grasped the cushions on either side. I could not speak. I could only gasp and whine now. I moved my head from side to side as he lay down on my belly and enjoyed me. His thing – stiff as a staff – worked up and down my vagina. I could feel the big plum-like gland pushed forcibly against my womb. I spent over and over again. I was in heaven.

  He ground his teeth. He hissed. He lolled his head. He kissed me on the lips. He breathed hard and fast. His pleasure was delicious to witness.

  “Oh! Oh! Hold tight, love. I am in an agony of pleasure. I – I – can’t tell you! I – never – tasted – such delicious poking! Oh! Ugh!”

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You are so large! So strong!”

  “Don’t move! Don’t pinch my prick more than you can help, darling girl. Let us go on as long as possible. You are coming again. I can feel you squeezing me! Oh! Wait a moment – so – hold still!”

  “Oh! I can feel it at my womb – you are up to my waist! Oh, dear! Oh! Oh! You are so stiff!”

  “I cannot hold much longer. I must spend soon!”

  Bang! Bang! ! Bang! ! !

  The train was passing over the points at Reigate. The alarm was sufficient to retard our climax. It acted as a check to his wild excitement – to the coming climax.

  “Hold quite still, you sweet little beauty. We do not stop. The speed is quickening again. Now push! Push! Push! Is that nice? Do you like my big prick? Does it stir you up? You are right, my sweet. I can feel your little womb with the tip.”

  He assisted me to throw my legs up over his shoulders. He seemed to enter me further than ever.

  “Oh! You’re so large! Oh! Good Lord! Go on slowly – don’t finish me yet! It’s so – so – so nice! You’re making me come again. Oh my!”

  “No, dear, I won’t finish you before I can help it. You are so nice to poke slowly! Do you like being finished? Do you – oh, my God! There, push! Push! Do you like to feel a man come?”

  “Oh! Not so hard! There! Oh, my! Must – must I tell you – I – I love to feel – to feel a man spend – all the sweet sperm!”

  “You’ll feel mine very – very soon, you beautiful little angel. Oh! I shall swim you in it! There! My prick is in now up to the balls – Oh! Oh! How you nip it – oh!”

  He gave some exquisite short stabs with his loins. His thing, as hard as wood, was up my belly as far as its great length could reach. He sank his head on my shoulder.

  “Hold still – I’m spending! Oh, my God! How luscious!”

  I felt a great gush come from him. It flowed from him in quick hot jets. He groaned in his ecstasy. I opened my legs. I raised up my loins to receive it. I clutched right and left at anything and everything – I spent furiously. He gave me a quantity. I was swimming in it. At length he desisted and released me.

  A few minutes sufficed in which to rearrange ourselves decently. Mr Turner asked me many questions. I fenced some – I answered others. I let him believe I was professionally employed in a provincial company. I told him I had been unwell and had been resting a short time at Eastbourne. He was delicate enough not to press for particulars, but he asked for an address. I gave him a country post office. In a few minutes more we stopped on the river bridge to deliver up tickets.

  The train rolled into the station. My new friend made his adieux. He dexterously slipped two sovereigns into my glove as he squeezed my hand. I was glad. It proved the complete success of my precautions.

  I hailed a hansom and drove direct to Swan and Edgar’s. Outside the station, my cab stopped in the crowd. A poor woman thrust a skinny arm and hand towards me with an offer of a box of matches. I took them and substituted one of the sovereigns. As I alighted in Piccadilly, a ragged little urchin made a dash to turn back the door of my cab. He looked half starved.

  “Have you a mother? How many brothers and sisters?”

  “Six of us, lydy; muvver’s out o’ work.”

  “Take that home as quick as you can.”

  “Blimy! A thick ’un! There ain’t no ruddy copper lookin’ to pinch it off me! Muvver’ll plant it away, so as ’ow favver won’t have no cause to bash her for it.”

  He had never been taught to say “thank you”. He took one hasty glance in either direction and darted away in the throng.

  I discharged the cab. I made quite sure I was not followed.

  Meanwhile my late companion was no doubt speeding on towards Manchester where he said he must dine that evening with Mrs Turner. I hope the good lady was reasonable with her spouse.

  FIRST
DAWN

  Rudyard Kipling

  Rudyard Kipling was a British writer of short stories, a novelist, a poet and a journalist. He was born in Bombay and died in London at the age of seventy. He is famous for The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Kim, ‘If...’, ‘Gunga Din’ and ‘The White Man’s Burden’. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1907. He declined several offers of both a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship. George Orwell hailed him as a ‘prophet of British Imperialism’.

  To-night God knows what thing shall tide,

  The Earth is racked and faint

  Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed;

  And we, who from the Earth were made,

  Thrill with our Mother’s pain.

  In Durance.

  No man will ever know the exact truth of this story; though women may sometimes whisper it to one another after a dance, when they are putting up their hair for the night and comparing lists of victims. A man, of course, cannot assist at these functions. So the tale must be told from the outside – in the dark – all wrong.

  Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.

  Saumarez knew this when he made up his mind to propose to the elder Miss Copleigh. Saumarez was a strange man, with few merits, so far as men could see, though he was popular with women, and carried enough conceit to stock a Viceroy’s Council and leave a little over for the Commander-in-Chief’s Staff. He was a Civilian. Very many women took an interest in Saumarez, perhaps, because his manner to them was offensive. If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you, but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards. The elder Miss Copleigh was nice, plump, winning and pretty. The younger was not so pretty, and, from men disregarding the hint set forth above, her style was repellent and unattractive. Both girls had, practically, the same figure, and there was a strong likeness between them in look and voice; though no one could doubt for an instant which was the nicer of the two.

  Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they came into the station from Behar, to marry the elder one. At least, we all made sure that he would, which comes to the same thing. She was two and twenty, and he was thirty-three, with pay and allowances of nearly fourteen hundred rupees a month. So the match, as we arranged it, was in every way a good one. Saumarez was his name, and summary was his nature, as a man once said. Having drafted his Resolution, he formed a Select Committee of One to sit upon it, and resolved to take his time. In our unpleasant slang, the Copleigh girls ‘hunted in couples’. That is to say, you could do nothing with one without the other. They were very loving sisters; but their mutual affection was sometimes inconvenient. Saumarez held the balance-hair true between them, and none but himself could have said to which side his heart inclined, though every one guessed. He rode with them a good deal and danced with them, but he never succeeded in detaching them from each other for any length of time.

  Women said that the two girls kept together through deep mistrust, each fearing that the other would steal a march on her. But that has nothing to do with a man. Saumarez was silent for good or bad, and as business-likely attentive as he could be, having due regard to his work and his polo. Beyond doubt both girls were fond of him.

  As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez made no sign, women said that you could see their trouble in the eyes of the girls – that they were looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are quite blind in these matters unless they have more of the woman than the man in their composition, in which case it does not matter what they say or think. I maintain it was the hot April days that took the colour out of the Copleigh girls’ cheeks. They should have been sent to the Hills early. No one – man or woman – feels an angel when the hot weather is approaching. The younger sister grew more cynical, not to say acid, in her ways; and the winningness of the elder wore thin. There was effort in it.

  Now the Station wherein all these things happened was, though not a little one, off the line of rail, and suffered through want of attention. There were no gardens or bands or amusements worth speaking of, and it was nearly a day’s journey to come into Lahore for a dance. People were grateful for small things to interest them.

  About the beginning of May, and just before the final exodus of Hill-goers, when the weather was very hot and there were not more than twenty people in the Station, Saumarez gave a moonlight riding-picnic at an old tomb, six miles away, near the bed of the river. It was a ‘Noah’s Ark’ picnic; and there was to be the usual arrangement of quarter-mile intervals between each couple, on account of the dust. Six couples came altogether, including chaperones. Moonlight picnics are useful just at the very end of the season, before all the girls go away to the Hills. They lead to understandings, and should be encouraged by chaperones; especially those whose girls look sweetest in riding habits. I knew a case once. But that is another story. That picnic was called the ‘Great Pop Picnic’, because every one knew Saumarez would propose then to the eldest Miss Copleigh; and, beside his affair, there was another which might possibly come to happiness.

  The social atmosphere was heavily charged and wanted clearing.

  We met at the parade ground at ten: the night was fearfully hot. The horses sweated even at walking-pace, but anything was better than sitting still in our own dark houses. When we moved off under the full moon we were four couples, one triplet, and Me. Saumarez rode with the Copleigh girls, and I loitered at the tail of the procession, wondering with whom Saumarez would ride home. Every one was happy and contented; but we all felt that things were going to happen. We rode slowly; and it was nearly midnight before we reached the old tomb, facing the ruined tank, in the decayed gardens where we were going to eat and drink. I was late in coming up; and, before I went into the garden, I saw that the horizon to the north carried a faint, dun-coloured feather. But no one would have thanked me for spoiling so well-managed an entertainment as this picnic – and a dust-storm, more or less, does no great harm.

  We gathered by the tank. Some one had brought out a banjo – which is a most sentimental instrument – and three or four of us sang.

  You must not laugh at this. Our amusements in out-of-the-way Stations are very few indeed. Then we talked in groups or together, lying under the trees, with the sun-baked roses dropping their petals on our feet, until supper was ready. It was a beautiful supper, as cold and as iced as you could wish; and we stayed long over it.

  I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter; but nobody seemed to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind began lashing the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of the sea. Before we knew where we were the dust-storm was on us, and everything was roaring, whirling darkness. The supper-table was blown bodily into the tank. We were afraid of staying anywhere near the old tomb for fear it might be blown down. So we felt our way to the orange-trees where the horses were picketed and waited for the storm to blow over. Then the little light that was left vanished, and you could not see your hand before your face. The air was heavy with dust and sand from the bed of the river, that filled boots and pockets, and drifted down necks and coated eyebrows and moustaches. It was one of the worst dust-storms of the year.

  We were all huddled together close to the trembling horses, with the thunder chattering overhead, and the lightning spurting like water from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no danger, of course, unless the horses broke loose. I was standing with my head downwind and my hands over my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing each other. I could not see who was next me till the flashes came.

  Then I found that I was packed near Saumarez and the eldest Miss Copleigh, with my own horse just in front of me. I recognized the eldest Miss Copleigh, because she had a pagri round her helmet, and the younger had not. All the electricity in the air had gone into my body, and I was quivering and tingling from
head to foot – exactly as a corn shoots and tingles before rain. It was a grand storm.

  The wind seemed to be picking up the earth and pitching it to leeward in great heaps; and the heat beat up from the ground like the heat of the Day of Judgment.

  The storm lulled slightly after the first half-hour, and I heard a despairing little voice close to my ear, saying to itself, quietly and softly, as if some lost soul were flying about with the wind: “O my God!” Then the younger Miss Copleigh stumbled into my arms, saying: “Where is my horse? Get my horse. I want to go home. I want to go home. Take me home.”

  I thought that the lightning and the black darkness had frightened her; so I said there was no danger, but she must wait till the storm blew over. She answered: “It is not that! It is not that! I want to go home! Oh, take me away from here!”

  I said that she could not go till the light came; but I felt her brush past me and go away. It was too dark to see where. Then the whole sky was split open with one tremendous flash, as if the end of the world were coming, and all the women shrieked.

  Almost directly after this, I felt a man’s hand on my shoulder and heard Saumarez bellowing in my ear. Through the rattling of the trees and howling of the wind I did not catch his words at once, but at last I heard him say: “I’ve proposed to the wrong one! What shall I do?” Saumarez had no occasion to make this confidence to me. I was never a friend of his, nor am I now; but I fancy neither of us were ourselves just then. He was shaking as he stood with excitement, and I was feeling queer all over with the electricity.

  I could not think of anything to say except, “More fool you for proposing in a dust-storm.” But I did not see how that would improve the mistake.

  Then he shouted: “Where’s Edith – Edith Copleigh?” Edith was the younger sister. I answered out of my astonishment, “What do you want with her?” For the next two minutes, he and I were shouting at each other like maniacs – he vowing that it was the younger sister he had meant to propose to all along, and I telling him, till my throat was hoarse, that he must have made a mistake! I can’t account for this except, again, by the fact that we were neither of us ourselves. Everything seemed to me like a bad dream – from the stamping of the horses in the darkness to Saumarez telling me the story of his loving Edith Copleigh from the first. He was still clawing my shoulder and begging me to tell him where Edith Copleigh was, when another lull came and brought light with it, and we saw the dust-cloud forming on the plain in front of us. So we knew the worst was over. The moon was low down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an hour before the real one. But the light was very faint, and the dun cloud roared like a bull. I wondered where Edith Copleigh had gone; and as I was wondering I saw three things together: First Maud Copleigh’s face come smiling out of the darkness and move towards Saumarez, who was standing by me. I heard the girl whisper, “George,” and slide her arm through the arm that was not clawing my shoulder, and I saw that look on her face which only comes once or twice in a lifetime – when a woman is perfectly happy and the air is full of trumpets and gorgeously-coloured fire, and the Earth turns into cloud because she loves and is loved. At the same time, I saw Saumarez’s face as he heard Maud Copleigh’s voice, and fifty yards away from the clump of orange-trees I saw a brown holland habit getting upon a horse.