Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

Meanwhile my right hand was busy. I had got my fingers to her warm flesh between the stockings and the drawers and was wild with desire: soon, mouth on mouth, I touched her sex. What a gorgeous afternoon we had! I had learned enough now to go slow and obey what seemed to be her moods. Gently, gently, I caressed her sex with my finger till it opened and she leaned against me and kissed me of her own will, while her eyes turned up and her whole being was lost in thrills of ecstasy. When she asked me to stop and take my hand away, I did her bidding at once and was rewarded by being told that I was a «dear boy» and «a sweet,» and soon the embracing and caressing began again. She moved now in response to my lascivious touchings, and when the ecstasy came on her, she clasped me close and kissed me passionately with hot lips and afterward in my arms wept a little, and then pouted that she was cross with me for being so naughty. But her eyes gave themselves to me even while she tried to scold. The dinner bell rang and she said she'd have to go, and we made a meeting for afterwards on the top deck; but as she was getting up she yielded again to my hand with a little sigh and I found her sex all wet, wet!

She got down out of the boat by the main rigging and I waited a few moments before following her. At first our caution seemed likely to be rewarded, chiefly, I have thought since, because everyone believed me to be too young and too small to be taken seriously. But everything is quickly known on seaboard, at least by the sailors.

I went down to Dr. Keogh s cabin, once more joyful and grateful, as I had been with E… My fingers were like eyes gratifying my curiosity, and the curiosity was insatiable. Jessie's thighs were smooth and firm and round: I took delight in recalling the touch of them, and her bottom was firm like warm marble. I wanted to see her naked and study her beauties one after the other. Her sex, too, was wonderful, fuller even than Lucille's, and her eyes were finer. Oh, life was a thousand times better than school. I thrilled with joy and passionate wild hopes-perhaps Jessie would let me, perhaps-I was breathless. Our walk on deck that evening was not so satisfactory: the wind had gone down and there were many other couples and the men all seemed to know Jessie, and it was Miss Kerr here, and Miss Kerr there, till I was cross and disappointed. I couldn't get her to myself save at moments, but then I had to admit she was as sweet as ever and her Aberdeen accent even was quaint and charming to me.

I got some long kisses at odd moments and just before we went down I drew her behind a boat in the davits and was able to caress her little breasts; and when she turned her back to me to go, I threw my arms round her hips and drew them against me, and she leant her head back over her shoulder and gave me her mouth with dying eyes. The darling! Jessie was apt at all love's lessons. The next day was cloudy and rain threatened, but we were safely ensconced in the boat by two o'clock, as soon as lunch was over, and we hoped no one had seen us. An hour passed in caressings and fondlings, in love's words and love's promises; I had won Jessie to touch my sex and her eyes seemed to deepen as she caressed it. «I love you, Jessie. Won't you let it touch yours?» She shook her head. «Not here, not in the open,» she whispered and then, «Wait a little till we get to New York, dear,» and our mouths sealed the compact. Then I asked her about New York and her sister's house, and we were discussing where we should meet, when a big head and beard showed above the gunwale of the boat and a deep Scotch voice said: «I want ye, Jessie, I've been luiking everywhere for ye.» «Awright, father,» she said. «I'll be down in a minute.» «Come quick,» said the voice as the head disappeared. «I'll tell him we love each other and he won't be angry for long,» whispered Jessie; but I was doubtful. As she got up to go my naughty hand went up her dress behind and felt her warm, smooth buttocks. Ah, the poignancy of the ineffable sensations; her eyes smiled over her shoulder at me and she was gone-and the sunlight with her. I still remember the sick disappointment as I sat in the boat alone. Life then, like school, had its chagrins, and as the pleasures were keener, the balks and blights were bitterer. For the first time in my life vague misgivings came over me, a heartshaking suspicion that everything delightful and joyous in life had to be paid for-I wouldn't harbor the fear. If I had to pay, I'd pay; after all, the memory of the ecstasy could never be taken away, while the sorrow was fleeting. And that faith I still hold. Next day the chief steward allotted me a berth in a cabin with an English midshipman of seventeen going out to join his ship in the West Indies. William Ponsonby was not a bad sort, but he talked of nothing but girls from morning till night and insisted that Negresses were better than white girls: they were far more passionate, he said. He showed me his sex; excited himself before me, while assuring me he meant to have a Miss Le Breton, a governess, who was going out to take up a position in Pittsburgh. «But suppose you put her in the family way?» I asked. «That's not my funeral,» was his answer, and seeing that the cynicism shocked me, he went on to say there was no danger if you withdraw in time. Ponsonby never opened a book and was astoundingly ignorant: he didn't seem to care to learn anything that hadn't to do with sex. He introduced me to Miss Le Breton the same evening. She was rather tall, with fair hair and blue eyes, and she praised my reciting. To my wonder she was a woman and pretty, and I could see by the way she looked at Ponsonby that she was more than a little in love with him. He was above middle height, strong and good tempered, and that was all I could see in him. Miss Jessie kept away the whole evening, and when I saw her father on the «upper deck,» he glowered at me and went past without a word. That night I told Ponsonby my story, or part of it, and he declared he would find a sailor to carry a note to Jessie next morning if I'd write it. Besides, he proposed we should occupy the cabin alternate afternoons; for example, he'd take it next day and I must not come near it, and if at any time one of us found the door locked, he was to respect his chum's privacy. I agreed to it all with enthusiasm and went to sleep in a fever of hope. Would Jessie risk her father's anger and come to me? Perhaps she would: at any rate I'd write and ask her and I did. In one hour the same sailor came back with her reply. It ran like this: «Dear love, father is mad, we shall have to take great care for two or three days; as soon as it's safe, I'll come-your loving Jess,» with a dozen crosses for kisses. That afternoon, without thinking of my compact with Ponsonby, I went to our cabin and found the door locked: at once our compact came into my head and I went quickly away. Had he succeeded so quickly? And was she with him in bed? The half-certainty made my heart beat. That evening Ponsonby could not conceal his success, but as he used it partly to praise his mistress, I forgave him. «She has the prettiest figure you ever saw,» he declared, «and is really a dear. We had just finished when you came to the door. I said it was some mistake and she believed me. She wants me to marry her, but I can't marry. If I were rich, I'd marry quick enough. It's better than risking some foul «disease,» and he went on to tell about one of his colleagues, John Lawrence, who got black pox, as he called syphilis, caught from a Negress. «He didn't notice it for three months,»

Ponsonby went on, «and it got into his system; his nose got bad and he was invalided home, poor devil. Those black girls are foul,» he continued; «they give everyone the clap and that's bad enough, I can tell you; they're dirty devils.» His ruttish sorrows didn't interest me much, for I had made up my mind never at any time to go with any prostitute. I came to several such uncommon resolutions on board that ship, and I may set down the chief of them here very briefly.