Anonumous: The prodigal virgin

“You see,” went on Marion rather breathlessly, “I suppose I was still rather flushed and upset-for you licked my lips you know you did-instead of just kissing me quite properly at breakfast time. And Mildred said she could have shaken me, that my timidity made even my own brother-in-law hesitant about taking me in his arms-and uncomfortable because I was so perturbed by a few little pettings. But you aren’t hesitant and uncomfortable, are you, Stanley?” “Not particularly,” he smiled briefly.

His companion mused in a rosy silence for a moment. “Mildred is simply a darling and I love her with all my heart,” she said at length. “But she does let her tongue gallop away with her once in a while, doesn’t she? She kept me as red as a peony for a while there. She scolded-not harshly, you understand, for she couldn’t be mean-because I refused last night to let you come into my room when she wanted to call you so that you could see my new gray silk combination. I wouldn’t have minded, Stanley, only I was in it at the time, trying it on, and it was every stitch I had on. So, you see, that would have been pretty terrible even for a nice brother, wouldn’t it? At least I thought so.

“And she said I had been silly to protest and run when she suggested after dinner last night that you should fix my garter. But how could I, Stanley let you do that? For it had come undone about my waist.” And she said that things that I thought hard and coarse and were just seasoning which teaches people to look with calm upon episodes which aren’t really of terrific importance-helping them to look, clear-eyed, on the facts of life. And she went on to say that it would be a good thing for me if some of these rapscallions of men got hold of me and tossed me in a blanket quite naked. Imagine-I know I should die! She was smiling, but I half think she meant it!”

“Some of them are quite capable of doing exactly that, small sister,” he laughed. “Especially with giggling girls and women to egg them on-and with a few drinks aboard each participant. In fact that and much more has been done on this very shore in the course of romps that tended to degenerate into revelry.”

The girl shuddered. She lessened the few inches which separated them. She snuggled a bit as if for protection against nameless outrages. “I shan’t dare go about here unless you are at hand,” she murmured. “I know you wouldn’t let them do such unspeakable things. Of course Mildred loves me whole-heartedly but somehow I feel that, if she got excited and mirthful, she might not protest in the least if they did the most terrible things to me!”

This lesson in “brotherly and sisterly” caresses was about to continue. Marion’s naked and wondrous legs had once again capitulated after various retreats, and mingled now with the stalwart limbs of the man. And this was only the second lesson which this expert and enthusiastic tutor had given her.

In a nervous silence, feeling as if she were going to a much graver assignation, the maiden had consented to accompany her brother-in-law for a second swim together. And she had not resisted or argued-after a brief start and hesitation-when he had led her toward the secluded nook which seemed designed for spooning.

She took some comfort in the fact that Mildred had smilingly consented to let her don a suit which she felt distinctly more proper than the one she had previously worn with Stanley. The garment-another one-piece affair, to be sure-was of cherry silk. It was much looser upon her body than the blue contrivance into which Mildred had managed almost to shove her on the day previous and hence it did not reveal so shamedly each curve and protuberance of the perfect little body of Marion. Nor did it stretch into such gauziness as to make it a mere film, as had been the case with the garment which had led to such nerve-wracking familiarities.

But already had the maiden had reason, with beating heart, to realize that this very looseness might prove a source of danger too. Not very serious danger, of course, since her reliable and loveable brother-in-law was pledged to “mere kisses,” although, as he had just carefully explained, the inevitable by-products of embraces and kisses could not be avoided.

She had been inclined to sit cross-legged upon the sand, looking solemnly at the man with gray eyes like a disturbed owl. She had resisted at first by instinct, perhaps the more because every nerve in her lovely body tingled for his arms and lips. When he had stretched upon the sand by her side, he began to draw her gently towards him.

“Stanley-Stanley, dear-be considerate, won’t you?” she had whispered a little huskily as, yielding, she was drawn to lie facing him.

“You’re all wrapped up like a mummy,” he complained disingenuously, touching her lightly here and there on the loose little garment, which left her smooth sides and chest and back, as well as legs and arms, quite uncovered.

“Don’t Stanley, I’m very nervous already,” sighed the girl, as his fingers strayed to the pit of her stomach. “You can’t, thank God, see my skin all through it, can you?”

A wee, perturbed wrinkle showed on her white brow.

“It’s horribly scanty at that. I’m very-uncovered. But Mildred said it was the most sedate one she had in all her sea shore wardrobe. She showed me one and vowed I should have one by the end of the week just like it. It was of white silk. You’ve probably seen it. She got into it to show me-hasn’t she got a lovely body, Stanley? And when she saw how sort of confused I was to see how nearly nude she looked in it and to realize that she dared appear in public in it, she stepped under the shower and then showed me the effect of water on it. My dear, she looked positively bare in the clinging, drenched thing! I really think you ought to speak to her about that suit. Has she ever worn it on the beach and into the water?”

“Two or three times,” he replied. “It’s a popular favorite in the colony. They howl for her to go back and get into it when she appears in any of her other suits.”

“And you let her?” queried Marion wonderingly.

He shrugged. “What could I do without making such a point of what, according to modern standards, is of slight importance, and then appear a spoil-sport and prude and a grumpy husband? To tell you the truth, I feel I have a right to be proud of having so lovely and so beautifully built a wife who, when her body is on view like a work of art, people gasp in admiration. To be sure, when she comes out of the water in that suit she is just the same as stark naked. She has to be-and sometimes she is-very careful how she sits. For a wee rose shows between her legs and I’ve seen men’s fingers curl and their eyes gleam when they catch sight of it. And a cute beard and pink nipples are served to the eyes of all comers.”

“Oh, heavens, Stanley, how can you say such things!” wailed the shocked Marion softly, writhing, chest to chest with him and held in his arms. “And how can you endure such things? She hasn’t had a mother or father, except for Aunt Josephine and Uncle Frank, and I guess they have been the reverse of strict. Shouldn’t you try to make her behave?”

“She behaves all right, the dear,” he remarked quietly. “Don’t you see, Maro, that it’s all a matter of social standards? This generation has decided that the prudish quibbles and fanatical reserves of a bygone time were just morbid-that they weren’t really innocent or lovely at all. So life is flavored with more of the honey of fun and frolic and of pretty things freely revealed and with less of the vinegar of prudish conventions. Oh, little sweetness, what a soft spot I’ve found to kiss!”

His warm lips were buried just beneath a pink ear. The girl sighed and stirred in his arms. And, for some fifteen minutes, the silence which reigned was broken only by such sighs and by the feverish breathing of two more and more agitated persons.