Anonymous - The Altar of Venus

There was an inflexion in his tones and an understanding in those steely blue eyes which caused me to lower my head, and I interposed no further objections to accompanying him.

My uncle went in for scientific farming, was quite prosperous and had a fine home in which were to be found all the modern comforts, and conveniences possible in a rural community. A week after the conversation above referred to had transpired found us on the night train, and early the next day we reached the small station where a carnage drawn by two powerful horses was waiting to convey us to the farm a few kilometers distant. And shortly thereafter we were at our destination.

I was in no humor to greatly appreciate the beauties of nature in full bloom, but as I glanced around and observed the stately elms, the well kept gardens, beautiful vines and flowers which surrounded a long rambling, comfortable house, with green fields, and azure tinted hills in the distance, my spirits rose somewhat, and I consoled myself with the reflection that even here the necessary ingredients of an amorous adventure of some kind might be found. For my uncle's farm provided a livelihood* for several families, which lived on the premises in little houses and cottages and which almost constituted in themselves a small community.

One afternoon, tired of reading, I was discontentedly wandering to and fro among the various barns and granaries on the place when I suddenly and unexpectedly came face to face with a young person of whose presence on the farm I had not previously been aware. This young person was a pretty rustic damsei of thirteen or fourteen. Recovering quickly from my momentary surprise, I bowed gracefully, wishing her a pleasant afternoon. She responded civilly, edged past me, and went on about her business-whatever it was.

Discreet inquiry revealed thp fact that she was

the daughter of a widow woman who had charge of the butter and cheese making department, and that the two of them lived in one of the tiny cottages nearby. Immediately the situation took on a rosier hue and with great optimism I began to speculate on the possibilities. It will be gathered from this that I was lacking neither in self assurance nor vanity. * My experience with girls had been such as to support the idea that my attentions not only were welcome but expected. Consequently, it was with considerable surprise I found that this country damsel did not respond immediately to my advances. Indeed, her attitude bordered on the disdainful. Though I manageid to meet her at frequent intervals, adopting my most polished airs in my efforts to engage her in amiable conversation, she regarded me in the most expressionless way, briefly answering such questions as I propounded in futile attempts to hold her attention-and proceeded on her way. This was for me a new experience. It exasperated me, and incidentally, shocked my sense of the fitness of things, that this calico gowned, bare legged country girl was not impressed by my city airs and sophistication. However, aside from being pretty, she possessed a pair of bubbies of dimensions truly amazing in a female of her years, whose contours, blooming floridly and visibly under the scant clothing, fairly mesmerized me. So I redoubled my efforts. But, alas, my most persistent and assiduous attentions failed to envoke a spark of interest, and finally, I abandoned the siege in disgust.

Again I took recourse to the library as a means of diversion, and it was while rummaging through the well stocked shelves that I encountered a book with a French title which attracted my attention. I withdrew it from among its companions and idly thumbed the pages. They were uncut, but the chapter titles in the index fed my interest* I took the volume out to my hammock and- with a penknife cut the pages. The title of this book was "Madamoiselle de. Mauphin." How it happened to be in the library of my puritanical and religious minded uncle I will never know but it was certainly due to some accident and beyond doubt he never so much as suspected the presence of this masterpiece of lurid literature in his m staid and respectable collection of books.

I had not, up to this time, ever gotten my hands on any book of a really pornographic nature. The family doctor book, with its chapters on procreation, childbirth, and kindred subjects was a far throw from the book I at that mo-merit had before my eyt amp;s. Many times since I have tried to obtain a copy in English, but such as I have found invariably turned out to be re-

vised or "expurgated" editions. In the certainty it would never have been missed, I could have appropriated this copy if I had had my wits about me at the time. The story revolves around a young French girl who, thrown upon her own resources adopts a masculine disguise as a .protection against the vicissitudes of life to which an unprotected girl would be exposed. She is involved in many erotic situations, which culminate in another young girl falling in love with her, unaware of her true sex. This girl, frantic at her apparent failure to win du Maupin's love enters her room at night and in a last despairing effort to seduce the object of her infatuation, exposes her nude body. This, and many other emotional episodes, in the last of Which the two females come to a satisfactory understanding, surrendering themselves to each other in a sexual embrace of mysterious nature, were so vivid in their rendition that I was soon in a state of erotic frenzy. Before I had concluded many chapters I arose from the hammock, sought the amp;e›-elusion of my room, and lay down on the bed to continue the story. Soon I was obliged to unfasten the front of my trousers for comfort. Shortly thereafter I was holding the book in one hand, and masturbating myself with the other. The necessity of being at the dinner table interrupted me before I had finished the story, and tucking the book under the mattress of the bed, I went downstairs. Later, pleading a headache as an excuse for early retirement, I returned to my room. Before I turned out the light that night I had read the book from cover to cover. And incidentally had jacked myself off three times.

This orgy of masturbation, instead of calming my nerves seemed to have just the contrary effect, and throwing discretion to the winds, I resolved to force an issue with the dairy woman's daughter. I had dealt with girls before whose real, or simulated objections to intimate relations had been vanquished by bold and forceful methods and, though this girl's attitude toward me was rather at variance with anything previously experienced, I decided to adopt a course involving more action and less talk with her. Maybe that was what the sly little minx was -waiting for.

Through more or less clandestine observation, I had learned something of her habits and knew that at about four o'clock each afternoon she made the jround of the barns and stables to gather up eggs which the hens, allowed to run at large, deposited in obscure nooks and corners. In one of the stables there was a loft in which a reserve supply of loose hay was stored. I had seen her going up the stairs to this loft and it was in this ideally situated and "furnished" retreat I planned to waylay her.

And so, pulses beating in optimistic anticipation of carnal intimacies with her, I waited the opportune moment and when she entered the building that afternoon I was close at her heels. As I reached the door she was ascending the narrow stairway, and I slipped quietly up behind her. On reaching the top of the landing I saw her in the other extremity of the loft gathering up eggs from a nest in the side of a pile of hay. As I approached her she glanced at me but there was no expression of alarm in her face. She continued to pick up eggs which she placed carefully in a basket. Falling back on the old tried out and proven system, I wasted no words this time in idle conversation. Putting my arm around her waist, I sat down on the fragrant hay, and pulled her down upon my lap. She uttered not a single word, nor made the slightest movement of resistance, but simply laid passively in my arms. I pressed my lips to hers, and though she did not return the caress, neither did she try to avoid it.