Robert Sermaise - The fleshly prelude

"Darling, — leave your hand where it is, but don't move it. You know quite well that if you caress me, I shall at once become frightfully excited. I want to rest a little. It is so delightfully shady here after the sunny road."

I obeyed her, enclosing the throbbing globe with my hand; and it was a novel, delicious pleasure to note that this somewhat tiny portion of her bosom coincided exactly with the measurements of my fingers. My conversion to the thesis of final causes was then an easy matter. The rosy nipple-unhardened by voluptuousness-slumbered, as it were, under my palm.

Therese had placed a hand on my knee. I drew it very gently towards me. Immediately responding to this impulse, her hand travelled along my thigh, came into contact with my stiffened member, under the thin flannel of my trousers. And then her fingers clutched it. But this contact was too indistinct a one to give either of us satisfaction, so her hand again moved, searching for the opening in my garment.

"Help me a little, darling," she whispered. "I'm still much of a novice."

Feverishly unbuttoning, until my "fly" was wide-open, I could not help feeling somewhat ashamed when my dark fleece was suddenly disclosed and Therese's eyes were fixed upon me. But she smiled and snuggled up tenderly in the hollow of my shoulder. Her hand was soon busy amusing itself with the untangling of the little curls, or losing itself in the hairy labyrinth; but soon she seized hold of the burning rod and fingered it, — though still with a little uncertainty, And on coming to the extreme point where my desire was centred, she stopped there for a short time before starting again. This time her hand slipped between my legs to caress, ever so lightly, those organs with whose timorous fragility her fingers were already acquainted. With her fingers she made a little nest for them and became wholly motionless.

The dense foliage of the linden-trees completely isolated our love. But the shrill cries from the swallows, wheeling in the sky, and the confused concert of the church-bells, reminded us of the infinite stretch of blue sky on that Sunday in July. With closed eyes, Therese appeared to have dozed off to sleep on my shoulder. Nevertheless, her fingers-still holding me prisoner- were animated by a strange tremor; it was a barely perceptible caress, yet my hypersensitive flesh responded at once. My hand, still encircling her breast, then momentarily contracted. Therese strained towards me and, amidst a sigh, said:

"I love you, — I love you, darling. How intensely I love you. Oh! that I could explain… So many things."

"Is it so difficult to put them into words?"

"Yes, — alas! And yet I feel that the immensity of the love which disturbs me is so full of life. My heart overflows with it, — rises, one might think, straight to my lips and escapes in the form of ardent words. But lips, you know, possess only one language when they are amorous, — that of kisses. And when you ask them to express themselves verbally, they are incapable of accurate translation."

After a short silence, she continued: "Moreover, I should fear to give you an analysis of myself in your presence. You would find me so terribly complicated."

"Do you still mistrust me? That's hardly nice. Do you think that I should love you more if, instead of being complicated, as you say you are, you gave way to your instinct, without reflecting? On the contrary, I love the adorable diversity of your being, infinitely. My love for you, darling, — my love, so intensely fleshly, has its birth in that very diversity; it is compound of admiration for the clarity of your intelligence, the limpidity of your soul, almost as much as of the desire for your body. And our caresses the most… the most tenderly bold appear to be legitimate because, despite everything, I love in you something more than your body."

Somewhat reticent (apparently so at any rate) but above all coquettish and playful, Therese pouted. She protested:

"Nevertheless, you must not disdain my body; even when it surrenders itself too madly. You must not be ashamed of loving it."

"Ah! yes, indeed it looks as though I did so. But, seriously, dearie, the veneration I feel for your intellectual and moral soul must not disturb you. It does not make my desire more timorous. On the contrary, it provokes it, makes it more exacting, more audacious. It allows it greater freedom, because there is thus an excuse for its very folly. And it will make my desire still more durable."

Therese did not reply. But her hand, nestling between my legs, enveloped me at one and the same time with a persistent and fluidlike sensation. There was a fluidity in her touch which aroused a keen sense of voluptuousness and positively electrified me. Suddenly indifferent to our discussion, Therese took no further interest save in the prolonged echoes of that caress throughout my sensual frame. She kept on the alert for those vibrations, — nay, provoked them time after time; and finally let them die down altogether. Then she smiled, — with a rather troubled expression, and appeared to make an effort to recover the thread of her ideas.

"What were we talking about?"

"Of ourselves, dearie. And of your love, which you regarded as so complicated."

"Ah! yes. What appeared to me to be complicated, you know, — what I wanted to be able to explain to you, was, — how can I express it?the multiplicity of my love. Doubtless it has grown too quickly; it contains a little of everything. But in what a state of disorder! A veritable bric-a-brac shop. Remnants of religious mysticism, mingled with a paganistic adoration of yourself; a profound admiration for your intelligence, at the same time as a crazy tenderness for certain details of your body; an almost material need to coddle you and then, all of a sudden, an ardent desire for your caresses. All that I perceive quite clearly, especially when I am against you, fascinated by the depth of your looks and yet disturbed by your sex, which vibrates so intensely in my hand. But I express myself so badly and fear that you will not understand to what extent I love you."

"Yet you are not downcast, are you?"

"Downcast? What for, indeed?"

"Owing to the long wait I have imposed on you. Later, perhaps, you will be doubtful of my desire-of my love for you?"

"Oh! darling. But I have seen, I have touched your sex and felt it falter through the excess of our caresses. And don't you understand that I love you all the more for having known the whole of you before my own surrender? Don't you realize my gratitude-and also my pridefor not having had to surrender myself blindly?"

Nevertheless her words troubled me. It was with a feeling of apprehension that I asked her:

"Do you think that it would be better to wait still longer?"

"Oh! no, no. Really I couldn't. You know quite well that I am now longing to belong to you, — body and soul. But it is thanks to you that I have passed a few days amidst a miraculous dream, which will ever illuminate our love; a dream that would have been impossible, I know full well, with any other person than you."

Her hand, which held me prisoner with tender precautions, recommenced its wanderings on my body. Over the hard stiffness of my sex she became compassionate, and the moist confession of my desire moved her.

"I understand what it must have cost you," said Therese. "I understand to how severe a trial I have put your tenderness-your infinite delicacy. What I admire in you, above all, is precisely the contrast between your terribly imperious desire and your indulgence towards my fears-those of a little girl. At one and the same time I love you for the violence you displayed the first day, to my very great fear, and for your patience since then."

Within the corolla of her closed fingers, she amorously pressed the ardent extremity of my penis, and concluded as follows: