Chapter 8

I never solved the conflict. I was like the boy who worried about the sex problem, and woke up with the solution on his stomach. I did not refuse Rex the next time he wanted me, what is the point of refusing what you have once granted? I simply enjoyed it, with more and more abandon, and thought less and less about the whys and wherefores. But I did not give up Rosy. On the contrary, my affair with her flamed more hotly than ever.

At the dance the night after Rex had first touched me, Rosy told me what a wonderful lover I was. I said a private prayer of thanksgiving to Bacchus. We danced closely and I had a powerful horn: it was almost a musical copulation. It went down after a time, and she asked me mockingly, "Have I offended you?"

When we went home, her mother had left supper for two. We ate it, Rosy sitting on my knee. When I had her afterwards it was very different from the first. I was ferocious in my attack, almost tearing the clothes off her, and nibbling her earlobes and nipples, and pounding away like a blacksmith. She could tell I was going to come too quickly and she loyally forced herself to a quick climax to meet me. Psychologists can make what they like of that.

"Stay the night!" she whispered.

But I was not sufficiently sure of her mother's attitude for that. And I did not feel like meeting Rex at breakfast. But I stayed with her an hour, talking in whispers, and then I had her again. During the hour, I fondled her splendid breasts, nuzzled between them and let my fingers play in her wet labia. We exchanged interesting information: such as that when I made her nipple erect, she felt a nice tweak in her clitoris; and that when she touched a particular nerve in my neck, behind the ear, I felt it at the other end of the telegraph wire, between my legs. We put these revelations into practice.

Rosy was inquisitive about me: what other girls had I had? I told her one or two harmless anecdotes. Had

I ever been to a brothel or had a tart? I told her truthfully, no, I liked girls who did it for pleasure, not for money. She was disappointed, she wanted to know all about those girls and what they did.

"Some day I shall try it, I expect, and then I'll come and tell you," I said. "Tell me about yourself, instead, what's the first thing you can remember in the sex line?"

"In a field," she said, "an old man with grey hair. He came up and gave me some sweets. I was quite little. There was another girl with me, but she ran away. "What did he do?"

"He pulled it out and showed it to me." "You didn't run away, too?"

"I couldn't, I wanted to go to the W, I was afraid I'd wet my knickers. When he showed it to me, I laughed. He told me to hold it, so I did. Then he sat down and pulled me on to his knee and showed me how to rub it for him. I wasn't frightened, I don't know why."

"Well, go on. What happened?"

"Naturally, he put his hand between my legs, and I was starting to dribble, I couldn't contain myself. I remember I said, 'I can't help it,' I was quite ashamed of myself."

"And could he contain himself?"

"No, he didn't, and I was ever so surprised at what came out of him. Then he jumped up and buttoned himself and ran away. He never kissed me or anything, but he gave me the rest of the sweets. I was so pleased to see him go, because then I could relieve myself. I never told anyone, because I thought I would be the one to get blamed." We laughed together. She added reminiscently: "He can't have been so old, really, by the quickness of him, and the way he ran off. I expect he was about forty, but I thought he was ninety at the least."

"What was the next?" I asked. "Tell me about losing your virginity, who was it?"

"Kiss me," Rosy said. I thought she was being reticent about her maidenhead, but it wasn't that. Relating the story of the old man in the field had excited her: her face was hot, and her limbs were tense. Her thighs clutched my hand, that was stiil playing there between them. She felt my prick and found it getting stiff again

"Bob!" she mumbled. "Give me it!"

I rolled on to her and she guided my prick into her cosy bird's nest with her eager fingers. There was no difficulty, as everything down there was sopping wet; it was just like docking the Queen Mary.

I glued my mouth to her mouth, my dull nipples on her sensitive ones, my right arm under her neck, th* fingers of my left creeping round her smooth luxurious buttock into the cleft of her arse, and our toes tangling. This time I couldn't have come as quickly as the first even if I had wanted to; my glands had so recently emptied themselves. I wanted to give her a lot of pleasure, for I liked her very much: she had a simple goodness that shone out of her. What she needed was a good husband, not a fly-by-night like me, and I believe she got one in the end. Meanwhile, the least I could do was give her as much pleasure as she gave me; or try to.

I fucked her with long, steady strokes at first, and then began to quicken but not too fast; I tried to prolong it Her hands clutched my back convulsively, I could feel the sharp print of her fingernails.

"Bob! Go on, Bob. O Christ I'm coming!" she whispered, breathlessly, and come she did, long before I was at a climax: a stiffening of her legs and arms, i writhe of her soft parts, a terrific shudder, and a new gush of lubricating oil. But she did not pack up and want a rest, as I would have done. She went on in a continuous quiver, and had orgasm after orgasm, miniature ones, like waves hitting a shore. The inside muscles of her cunt worked on me all the time, I could feel them right through my prick, they were kneading it like new dough; I could believe the mouth of her womb was taking a suck at my knob, too, for its own satisfaction.

This joy only an experienced woman could give. Rosy brought all her past and laid it on the bed for me, a gift; I could not be jealous of any man she had had before me, as I was their beneficiary.

Rosy's hand was running down the channel of my spine, then it was under my balls, lightly frisking the surface. Her tongue was under my tongue, her lip spilled saliva into my mouth. She raised her legs and crossed them behind my back.* The heat radiated from her taut, burning cheeks, and her left arm was right round my neck, so that her searching fingers could play with my left ear, turning it into a little erotic zone of its own. Turning her mouth aside from mine, she bit me in the shoulder; a sharp icicle of pain that only braced my nerves and forced me on faster.

"I wish I could swallow you up inside me," she gasped, and it almost seemed as if she might, with the wonderful suction of her vagina. "Hurt me, do what you like to me!"

I was hurting her, unconsciously, my grip on her tender flesh was so tight, as I saw afterwards: I gave her blue bruises that lasted a week. But I was not trying to hurt, only to enjoy and give joy. I was going up into that mindless phase of the orgasm, when the rhythm grows automatic, and sensation gives way to something beyond itself: I was in the wet caverns of night, the warm animal body of life was all round and over me, I was pressed between the huge hides of oxen, their great slobber-mouths were licking me, I \vas on the roof of a bucking train coming out of the tunnel of bowels, my prick was bursting, my mouth was filled with crushed grapes, the hands of children were patting my limbs from end to end, I was hosed down with hot rosewater, Rosy-water, I was nothing but one big pulsebeat, a great white artery of spunk; I blacked out, the seventh wave threw me up the shore in white spume and left me there.

After that, Rosy made me a cup of cocoa before I left her. I had not managed the miracle that alcohol had performed for me on the other occasion, but I had lived up to my reputation with Rosy all right; and for my part, I had enjoyed it more, with no worries about whether I could come or not, and with more natural confidence, somehow.

I felt a bit of a hypocrite, letting her think there was nothing between me and Rex, but I couldn't tell her, and what good would it have done?

All the same, I had done very little deceiving up to then. I was sorry to begin it. I accepted it, however, as one of the hard necessities of my life. To be completely open with everyone would mean going to jail, and having no job, and losing countless pleasures. To say nothing of the quarrels and heartaches and jealousies it would create; though perhaps deception creates even more, in the long run. The tangled web and so on.

Anyway, I kept Rosy in the dark about Rex, and if she had asked me I would have denied it.

I did not keep Rex in the dark about Rosy, though he never sought details-they would have been very distasteful to him, I'm sure. He made an occasional flippant reference to it, sarcastic but indulgent, as though it was something childish that I ought to have grown out of, like thumb-sucking. He knew well enough that I was not in love with the girl, so he did not worry. It was my emotional loyalty he wanted, and sex occasionally as intimacy.

In sex, he wanted to be all active. He did not let me touch him, at this stage of the affair. He simply wanted to enjoy me, with his fingers and his lips, give me pleasure, and reassure himself of my affection, I think.

I had got over my qualms and it was pure sensual pleasure to me. If he seemed like parting from me at night without a caress I would even ask him, didn't he want to? and then he always found some dark alleyway where he could kiss me and toss me off, if nothing else.

It was true as he had said, that he did not go in for buggery-he was possibly too fastidious! so that experience did not come my way. Would I have refused? No, I don't imagine so. But I was content with what he did want.

In his room one afternoon (Rosy was out, with her mother, and I was glad they were not in the house). Rex tumbled me on the bed, tickling and joking; I was being my age, a young carefree animal, and to him a very attractive one, firm and lithe, with a complexion as good as a girl's. He soon had me unbuttoned, and my trousers down to my knees, my shirt up to my waist, and the game had become more serious. My cock erected like a spring, and he amused himself pulling it forward and letting it slap back on my belly. Then suddenly he plunged down and took it in his mouth.

I held his head between my two hands, my own head thrown back on the pillow and abandoned myself to the passive joy. He sucked with skill-experience, again! his hands meanwhile fondling my waist and thighs and balls. When I came, he swallowed it thirstily. He wasn't fastidious about that! Why should he be, anyway?-it was something he more than enjoyed, something he wanted with appetite and passion. He once said lightly that it was "cleaner than kissing, from the hygienic point of view, because our mouths are simply full of germs, all as eager to copulate as we are!" But that had nothing to do with why he liked gamarouching: he liked to drink my living seed, suck it into him like mother's milk. He felt that was the extremest intimacy he could have with me, bodily. He did it whenever we could manage the circumstances. I liked it. I liked to give him what he felt was a privilege, and I loved the sensation itself-there can't be a man alive who doesn't enjoy the feeling. There are thirteen muscles in the tongue, and Lord knows how many in the lips, all under wonderful control: no cunt can compete with them for skill, they know exactly what they're doing. But they get tired quicker than a cunt.

So from Rex, inhibited about bottoms but not about mouths, I learned something-the strangeness of people's rules about what's "clean" and what's "dirty," what may be done and what is taboo.

Rosy was a good girl, a fine girl, good-hearted and giving and living. She was also silly, she poured the neighbourhood gossip into my unwilling ears, and she bored me to death at times. Fucking or dancing she was grand, but otherwise we hadn't much in common.

My relationship with Rex was one long, amusing conversation, with a romantic tone and sexual undertones. I felt like his pupil, in everything. He was like those tutors of classical times, those pederastic pedagogues, like the one in Petronius; only, unlike that boy, I did not allow "liberties" to get presents out of him. When he wanted to give me a watch, I was offended and refused, remarking, "It's not my birthday."

I discovered gradually that he had another, hidden, life. He took me one day to an Arab cafe in dockland. Sailors of all nationalities were there, and a bunch of painted, twittering pansies ready to amuse them. There were a few women, too, not very attractive, I thought. Four of the pansies, screaming, "Rex! Rex darling! where have you been all this time?" surrounded us when we sat down. They looked at me with piercing eyes, one rather coy, the others disdainful; I smiled at them in a well-meaning way. Rex smiled at them all, indulgently, patting the coy one lightly on the bum. There were hoots of laughter from the next table. The air smelt of French tobacco and Turkish coffee.

Was it a revolting scene? Not to me. I thought, if you knew these boys you would find them just as nice and as nasty, as kind and as cruel as any other people, the same mixture. Rex isn't afraid to know them. He plunges in here, with his courage and sympathies, just as he does in the pygmy villages or among the South Sea Islanders.

Somebody with a flask laced our coffees with rum and I began to get high. All at once I saw a really attractive girl: a little light-coloured negress, about seventeen, in a short, loose dress that managed to suggest she had almost nothing on underneath. She was at the coffee-bar, trying to buy some biscuits, and there was a laughing argument with some of the fairies, who were giving her advice. I drifted up (Rex was talking to a boy) and joined in the fun. I was accepted at once, and she smiled up at me: what tiny white teeth, between those thick lips! She had a pointed chin, a flat nose, big brown eyes, a red hair-ribbon. I began to talk to her, and as there was quite a crowd round the bar we were able to huddle at one side in comparative isolation. I put my arm round her waist, as it could not be seen. She pushed it away. I put it round again, and she let it remain. I presumed she was a tart. How did you begin to ask the price? Anyway, I had next to no money, and couldn't very well ask Rex for some.

I noticed a side door near the bar. "It's very hot in here, shall we go out for a breath of air?"

I moved towards the door as I spoke and opened it quickly. She did not answer, but let me usher her out. This was mad, I thought, shutting the door after us. But to hell with the money, I wanted her very much, I'd have her first and argue afterwards.

We were in a dark patch beside the cafe, near a chicken-run, I stood her against a wall and sucked her strange dark lips. I put my hand inside her frock. She had conical breasts and very big nipples: she quivered when I touched them. She wagged her strong tongue like a pendulum in my mouth. My left hand found its way under her hem and inside her pants, which were so wide they could hardly be called protective.

I liked her crisp, curly pubic hair. I" expected a big gap there, but no, it was a tight, neat little cunt, carried right forward, like a child's, not away back between the legs: I believe she could have pissed against a wall, like a boy. It was moist, but felt unused: perhaps she was even a virgin? She quivered and squirmed so violently when I touched it that I was afraid she was ill and would have a fit any minute. Her eyes were shut, she seemed to be going into a trance. But how could I have her? Traffic was passing not twenty yards away, and somebody else might come out of the side door, anyway.

I had a huge beat, and if I didn't get it into her soon

I should come in my trousers from the mere quivering of this young, black body against me.

At that moment I heard voices. A man stepped out of the shadow saying: "What you doing with my girl, eh?"

He was a white man, square-headed, sailor-like, and he had doubled his fists.

She snapped out of her trance immediately, ducked under my arm and opened the side door again. I dived in after her, trying to shut the door behind me, but the man got his foot there. The girl shot behind the bar and vanished into the kitchen. I stumbled across to the table, mumbling a warning to Rex, who got up and faced round to cover my retreat. The man looked about seven feet high and six feet broad, he had a bottle in his hand like a club, a fellow-tough was behind him to back him up, and I did not think this a very good time and place for a fight. The bottle crashed over my head as I reached the door. But the Arab proprietor and a sailor grabbed the big man by the arms and put a half-nelson on him, while to the shrieks of the fairies I made my getaway. Rex followed me, and we ran with undignified haste till we could catch a bus.

"I see there are places I mustn't take you," Rex said. "If this was East Africa, I'm afraid you'd soon be seeing your most precious ornaments hanging from a palmtree.

"Did you see her?" I asked him. "Oh, she was beautiful!"

"Taboo, apparently," he said. "Well, never mind, you're still intact."

A statement which he was proving to his own satisfaction, an hour later.

How many sexes can you be? I asked myself. I really ought to make up my mind, oughtn't I? Both the homo and the hetero tend to distrust, if not dislike, the amphibian, I found. Not that I minded very much what they thought. Owen insolently called me "Madame X" sometimes, but I only laughed. It was true my most romantic feelings at the time went to Rex, if my highest excitement was aroused by women.

I was getting nowhere with my studies, had lost interest in the academic life and all its dreary prospects, and felt pretty sure I should fad in my exams. So the bright thing to do would be to quit before I was ploughed. And do what?

Suddenly an enchanting prospect opened before me. Rex's book came out, he collected some royalties, paid some of his numerous debts and began preparing for a new expedition, this time to Abyssinia. He asked me to go with him as his secretary and aide-de-camp.

I said yes without the slightest hesitation. Faraway places with strange-sounding names, and all that. The Lion of Judah and the Queen of Sheba and Arthur Rimbaud. I also thought at once of little black nymphs and pliable boys, of course. I had an inner realisation that this adventure might mean committing myself completely to one half of life, however: Rex's life; almost like a marriage, instead of just an affair. That was how it would be to Rex: he made love-speeches to me that proved it. But inside myself I kept the belief that I could dodge it, that I needn't absolutely "go over" the sex borderline, and "be a queer," even then.

I shall never know how it would have worked out. I made up my mind to go, and my enthusiasm for Abyssinia made Rex happier than I had ever seen him. The nearest I actually got to it was an Ethiopian night club in Paris.

We were to have a fortnight in London, first, while

Rex prepared his kit; then a visit to Paris, and on to Marseilles, where we would take ship.

I gave up working, sold my books, and to avoid stormy scenes with my tutors I simply ran away when the time came, leaving letters which I wrote on a cafe table.

With all my movables in a couple of suitcases I met Rex at the railway station and away we sped to Loridon.

Never having seen the place before, I found it wildly exciting. I did all the usual sightseeing, fountains, pigeons, pictures and old armour.

We also went to a lot of theatres and eating places. But what impressed me most was the appearance of London by night, and not only the West End, for we went to places ilke Hammersmith to see plays, and Hampstead to dine with Rex's friends. It was the enormous dark web of streets, the roads spreading like the fingers of a wicked hairy hand, the miles of people who did not even know one another; the prostitutes lurking on corners, and the cars cruising for pickups; all that prowling darkness just outside the glitter and rush. That was what impressed me, that vast jungle. What had Abyssinia got that London hadn't? I wanted to plunge in, and be seduced into new vices.

To Rex, I was a bride on a honeymoon. He bought me clothes and presents, outside of my nominal salary, which had begun, and which I earned very easilytaking lists of requirements to his dictation, and pricing things at various shops. I accepted his gifts, thinking, Why not? it gives him pleasure. (A whore's argument.) He showed me off to his friends. Some were sedate and literary. Some were very queer indeed.

We stayed at a Bloomsbury hotel. One room, two beds. I wondered whether there were any funny ideas in the head of the boots and the chambermaid, when we were installed there, the first night. We had eaten out at a Turkish restaurant, and drunk wine in the French House, and come back tired and gay, joking about everything. And at last we were in our room, the door closed on us, we were beginning our first whole night together. It really was honeymoonish: I wished that for one night I could really be a girl, breasted, cunted and beautiful, with black chiffon pyjamas and neck-length hair. But of course, if I had been, Rex would not have been interested! This seemed to me, as I took off my manly brogues and unbuttoned my shirt, a quaint fact.

Rex certainly watched me with a bridegroom's hungry eye as I stripped off. I grinned saucily at him, and did not put my pyjamas on. He, too, stripped, and I looked him over with curiosity, for I had never seen him naked before. I looked quite a sylph by comparison, with my soft downy skin and lack of muscle. He was sunburnt from past travels, strong and soldierly, with spare, taut flanks, biceps like wire rope, and smooth ridges of muscle on his shoulders and thighs. He had no hair on his body except the bush round his prick, and what he had there was crisp and brown.

He was really a fine sight, by any standard: mature, fit, aesthetic and masculine. Yet he would probably never father a child, and that seemed a pity.

For all my girl-mood, I did not feel very sexy at the sight of him, only admiring. The situation excited me, though, and Rex's devouring gaze. My cock, which he looked at as if it were the first rosebud in June, was a little inflated, but still dangling.

I had the curious spectacle of his own weapon rising. It grew before my eyes, with a series of jerks or highkicks, till it was sticking out, hard as iron, quite a noble object.

The ornament of a noble figure. Some people profess to find the male outfit ugly, but I am not of that way of thinking. Rex's looked like a Roman warrior in his helmet. Lovingly modelled, like the one on Michaelangelo's David, or on some splendid African sculptures, the penis can be either magnificent or sinuously tender and appealing, according to its mood, but beautiful in either. Like any other human feature, it can be either handsome or plain.

"I can read your thoughts," I said.

"Impudent stripling," he said. "Excellent wretch." He moved close and embraced me. I put my arms round his neck. He put his hand down and fondled my parts, till my prick was as stiff as his own. Then he clamped them together, his and mine, face to face, with his hand round both. He murmured some endearments, and pushed me on to the bed. We lay down together, and pulled the covers over us.

I ventured for once to touch his privates with my hand, and play around them as he liked to play around mine. He let me, but with a shade of reluctance, 1 thought. That was not what he wanted. Now, surely, tonight he will want to put this in some orifice of mine, my arse or mouth, I thought. But he did not. He wanted nothing more than I used to do with my brothers.

Rex was not at all a narcissist, as I was. He did not want to be the object of my caresses, he wanted me to be the object of his. He was drunk with the utter joy of possession, that first night in the hotel with me. He kissed me from head to foot, even my toes. He sucked my cock till it seemed to swell, almost to bursting-point. But he gave up, cunningly, when he felt me getting over-excited, for he wanted to prolong his pleasure before making me come.

We lay on our sides, face to face, legs entwined, arms likewise. Rex had put out the bedside lamp, there was just the breathing darkness of London, and its traffic that never seems to stop. Our hot pricks throbbed against each other's belly, as we squirmed in the grip of passion. Rex put his hand down behind me, so that his wrist was in the cleft of my bottom, and I felt his fingertips, passing between my legs, brushing the corrugated skin of my balls. He touched me up so lightly that something seemed to jump of own accord in the core of my prick, like a watchspring.

Suddenly, he turned me on my back. He could hold out no longer, his passion was devouring him, he stretched full length on top of me and his mouth came down on my mouth, his tongue almost down my throat. He put one lover-like arm under and round my waist, forced the other between us and held our two pricks together as though they were a pair of little lovers, themselves. I gripped him with my thighs, which nearly sent him mad with desire. He rose on a terrific pounding climax. For once, I was not the first to come. I was just beginning to work up to it when I felt him leap and shudder and spill all over me: that hot, strongsmelling puddle of fulfilment!

He kept still a moment, panting; then realised that my pleasure was uncompleted. He slid down the bed, put his mouth into the creamy lake, drew my knob into his mouth and slid his hands round my buttocks. I had not far to go, and he sucked and licked with a very glib tongue. I do not think he knew how much his fingers in my bum-cleft had to do with it. Those searching and tender finger-dps sent ripples up and down my spine, and made my very guts throb, even lighting little electric filaments in my balls. My prick expanded like a bubble. My hands held the head of the man who adored my body so wildly, and who wanted to suck me into his bloodstream. My bubble burst, I poured myself into his mouth, and his cheeks quivered between my hands.

After that we had a lovely dreamy hour together, in each other's arms, in perfect peace. The sort of peace that David and Jonathan must have known together, when the sling was emptied; or any other two lovers of the antique world, when they were alone, and had done all they could want to do together.

Rex asked me, "How was Rosy, when you parted? She was tearful, on the last day."

"I feel rather bad about her," I admitted. "But she knew we had no future, and she took it rather well I got fond of her, you know, but this had to be. Our last night together was rather ghastly."

"How?"

"I had to have her for the last time, but I was no good, I knew she only wanted a souvenir and her heart wasn't in it. And I only wanted it to prove to her that I was as fond of her as ever. I could hardly come, I had to think of-other things. Just after we'd finished, her period came on. That made things all right. She had been worried sick, as she was a week late."

"You little idiots," Rex said. "You'd have been in a nice mess if she had been pregnant, and this trip just about to begin."

"Yes, I know. But we were lucky, as it happens. And that helped the parting, because her mind was so much relieved."

I did not tell Rex I had detected another motive in myself for having wanted to acquit myself well in Rosy's arms, that last night. That was, that I wanted to convince her I had not become "one of Rex's fairies," and was still a capable lover, still able to want and to have her, Vanity. I finished up rather crestfallen, that night: it was such an effort to reach the orgasm. She must have felt the sense of strain.

Anyway, I had written to her. Saying nothing, of course. Dear good Rosy: but I was young, and she was just another woman, another rosebud for me to drop on the path behind me. I was a not very excellent wretch.

I did one or two things during that London trip that I did not tell Rex about. He might well have been amused or pleased, even, but I was not sure. He might have scolded me, for taking needless risks. He might have found my behaviour "repellent," in that fastidious way of his.

On one of his errands I found myself a short cut through one of the London parks. It was a sunny afternoon. I had the sense of liberty and adventure, with the great exciting spread of London around me.

I went into the nearest palace of piss, to relieve my bladder. I was immediately joined by an old gentleman, who stood next to me and stared ostentatiously at my weapon. This was no new experience, but I simply ignored these gazers and walked out, as a rule. This time I looked with interest at the old man's face. He had white hair, a red complexion, with wrinkled watery eyes, and must have been well in his seventies. It seemed to me remarkable that he should still be such an eager voyeur. What satisfaction could he hope to have? And had he been doing this all his long life? I wondered. Was it really in my power to give him sexual pleasure?

He looked poor and not very clean, as well as old. I felt charitable. Instead of buttoning up when I had finished my pee, I stood toying with the instrument, letting the old stranger look. There was nobody eke there. With a glance over his shoulder to make sure we were not observed, he suddenly reached out his skinny hand to touch and seize it, whispering, "Lovely!"

I touched his pathetic member, which had probably not stood to attention for years. It did not respond, of course. But he held and squeezed and rubbed mine, as though it were his own. Perhaps he imagined it was himself again, in the days of his vigour. He seemed to want to get strength from me, from my youthfulness, as if my electricity would run into his system through his fingers, out of my magic wand. Perhaps that was possible, too. All sorts of mysterious things pass through the pores of our wonderful skin into another's being, when we touch: especially when our soft parts touch, even when they are hard! Vitamins, TNT, electronics, cosmic rays and iron jelloids, as well as sweat and seed.

I let the wicked innocent old man look and feel his fill, and his claw-like hand knew what it was doing. His bent fingers found their way to the sensitive spots, and he held me tightly to him while he tossed me off. As I neared the climax, footsteps approached. The danger brought me on like lightning, and I jerked in his hand, splashing on the floor, just in time to cover it with my foot and turn away as a tall burly fellow came in. The old man's reactions were slower, and I was sure the young man guessed something had been going on. The air smelt sexy, anyway. The old man stood at the wall, pretending to be still pissing or about to piss. The young man stood next to him and looked suspiciously at him and at me. I felt panicky. Perhaps he was a plain-clothes detective. I forced myself to act calmly and move without haste. I buttoned up slowly. The reckless old man was already staring greedily at the newcomer's tool. As I walked away I glanced back, and was amazed to see the newcomer frigging up an erection for his benefit, without the least concealment. He gave me a broad wink.

I went out into the sunshine, my limbs all of a tremble, and sat on a bench to recover, thinking to myself, "So this is London!"

Nor did I tell Rex about the little thrill I got and gave the night we went to Highgate. Our host and hostess were a middle-aged couple who went in for "gracious living." The wife, with tinted hair, was sweet and musical. The husband, bulky, handsome and literary, was an obvious old queen. Their son, fourteen, was a ravishing lad, with fair skin, white teeth, an infectious smile and a cowlick of soft fair hair.

After we had wined and dined, I went up to the bathroom. John was just coming out, in his striped pyjamas, his face all newly scrubbed and shining, and a towel over his arm. He turned in to the next room, saying a polite good-night.

"Is that your room?"

I wandered in, and pretended to be interested in his sport trophies, while he climbed into bed. "Shall I put your light out for you?" "Yes, please."

I did so, and sat down on his bed. I thought of the Major, and determined not to let timidity hold me back, as it sometimes did with him. I put my arm round John's waist; encountering no shrinking or resistance, I put my hand down between his legs. He was already erect! As thick as my middle finger, and creditably firm.

"Don't," he said in a whisper, and tried to push my hand away. I refused to be pushed, and got a firm hold on it, sliding his foreskin up and down. He gave himself up to the pleasure of it. I kissed him. His mouth was very soft. I was quivering with excitement: it was nice to be seducer instead of seduced, for a change.

"Can you fire this gun?" I whispered.

"Yes."

I knelt beside the bed and sucked him off. I had his prick right in my mouth, nearly down my throat, till my lips touched his balls. I was hardly ready for his hot little spurt, it came so soon. I let it all go down, finding at last that I really wanted to.

by this time, I was very nearly coming, myself.

"Come on, toss me off, the way you do the cricket captain," I whispered, putting it into his hand. He giggled softly, and jerked me fast, with a strong little grip. I tried to catch my spendings in my handkerchief, but some went on his pyjamas and his flesh. His mother would doubtless think he had had a wet dream.

I kissed him again, murmured, "Keep mum!" and hurried down to rejoin the others. I had been missing for a long time.

"We guessed John must have waylaid you," the father said. "He's mad on sport, as you'll have discovered."

"Did he show you his medallion? He's very proud of it," said the mother.

"As a matter of fact, he did," I said. "And it's certainly something to be proud of."

As we were leaving, John's father pulled me into the corner among the coats and kissed me fervently, pressing my thighs. So Rex had been confiding secrets to him; or perhaps, knowing Rex, he took the situation for granted!

I wished I could have been alone with John's mother for a few minutes, too. I would have liked a hat-trick. Three in a family: that would be something!

I had no worries about what John's father would say, if he found out what had passed between me and his son. He could hardly play the outraged parent, with me, having given himself away. Not that John would tell, come to that.

I heard some hair-raising tales during our stay in the great Sexopolis.

Rex fixed himself some publicity, by ringing up a journalist he had known for years. This man was a hearty, if ever I saw one: a dark-eyed hook-nosed dissolute-looking person, in his thirties, with no great physique, but obviously a little stoat with women. He came to supper at our hotel and did an interview with Rex about his next trip and his book plans. But he did not make many notes, and it was hard to get him to absorb any facts, he was so busy reminiscing about his own experiences. Sexual, of course. He kept saying, "Listen, I must tell you this, and then we'll talk business"-or "Interrupting you just for a moment..."

He apologised for his normality-"I'm sorry this is all so bloody straightforward, nothing up your street. I wish I were a queer, keep me out of trouble, after all you can't get Bobbin here in the family way, can you?" He roared with laughter. "No offence meant. Do you like hearing about women?"

"Bobbin's a shocking womaniser," Rex said.

"Is he? You like a bit of cunt, do you? You ought to try both at the same time, man behind, woman in front," he said to me.

After another gulp of brandy, the journalist said to Rex: "Do you think I ought to try a bit of brown, just for an experiment? Everything once...but I'm not the type, really, am I?"

"Certainly not," Rex said.

"But all my experiences are so damn ordinary... Wait, I must tell you this, it was a bit of something out of the ordinary, but I hope it never happens to me again. Christ! Have you tried sadism, Rex? Well, don't."

The irrepressible creature went on:

"It started out marvellous, like a wet dream. I was covering a ball at the Savoy, the Duke of Kent was there with a party, and the Russian ballet people were there, and there were nearly as many journalists as guests. Anyway it was champagne all the way, and everybody was lit up. I'd had about five glasses of champagne when I suddenly saw the most luscious piece of cunt I've ever seen in my life. I just managed to save her from a shower of champagne that some idiot spilt over the balcony, and that gave me an excuse to ask her to dance. She was a fine, tall, beautiful blonde, with tits like whipped cream nearly coming out of her dress. Just holding her bare back when I was dancing with her made me imagine I was undressing her.

"I tried to talk about this and that, but it was no bloody use, I got a cockstand like the Monument. I tried to dance away from her, sort of at arms' length, but that was a bit unnatural, and she came closer in spite of me. She'd have had to be made of wood not to have felt the old man knocking his head on her thighs. I thought any minute she'd leave me flat. But what could I do? I tried thinking about corpses and cold baths but it made no difference.

"Anyway, she suddenly looked me in the eyes and said: 'Hey, this is too good to waste! Let's go to my flat and do something about it-it's only in Leicester Square.' And she pressed her cunt right on to my knob as she said it.

"Christ, I didn't need asking twice, believe you me. She went and got her cloak and we grabbed a taxi and went to her place. In the taxi she massaged my prick and swallowed my tonsils-it was all too good to be true.

"I'm not boring you, am I? I'll just finish this yarn and then we'll talk turkey. You can tell this is a true story, 'cause I'm telling it against myself.

"Her flat was as ritzy as hell, all cushions and mirrors and a damn great radiogram with a built-in cocktail cabinet. She put on sweet music and mixed some white ladies, but I was in too much of a hurry to bother much with drinking. She let me strip her. She kicked off her shoes and I undid her hooks and got her out of her frock and petticoat. She had lovely long legs, shapely as a mannequin's. I undid her bra, and her breasts absolutely jumped out at me. I kissed them and sucked them and nuzzled in between like a fucking beaver. She had gold lace panties, believe it or not, and she let me pull them down and play with the creases of her arse. She was kissing me all the time. Then I undid her bit of a suspender belt and rolled down her stockings, and finally I had her laid on the divan without a stitch, and I gave her a tongue bath, all over. "Then she sat up and said: 'Let me undress you,' I and she really seemed to enjoy taking my things off.

"I was feeling about ready to fuck her from Leicester Square to Piccadilly Circus by now. But she suddenly said: 'Look, I've got a little idiosyncrasy, I like being whipped. I want you to whip me.' And she opened a cupboard and took out a stick, what the Indians call a lathi. I could see she had quite a collection of whips and canes in there.

"It wasn't much in my line, but anything once, and I wanted to oblige her. I could wait a bit longer, for my reward.

"She bent over like a schoolboy, and I gave her a few whacks across the bottom. She shouted, 'Harder, harder, go on, hurt me!' So I slashed her here and there, as hard as I could bring myself to do it She wanted quite a lot, and she really began to look worked up, she writhed about with one hand in her cunt, and a wild look came into her eyes. All of a sudden, she began to slaver at the mouth, and seized the stick out of my hands. In two twos, she was lashing me like old Joe Buggery, and I was yelling blue murder. The louder I screamed the harder she hit me. She caught me one on the balls that doubled me up, and then when I bent over she tanned my arse. I hadn't got a stitch on, and I was half tight, and I couldn't defend myself. She was a lot taller than I am, athletic and strong as hell. I just ran, round and round the room, and she after me, madder and madder, till she fell down on the floor on her face, one hand under her cunt, jerking like an epileptic, moaning and biting the bloody cane and having a terrific come.

"I watched her, bloody well fascinated. It was quite a sight I thought, well, I've had to pay for my fucks one way or another, but I didn't expect to pay like this, it's a pretty high price. However. Then I saw she was pulling her clothes on again. I said, 'Here, come on, Joyce, let's get to bed and have the real thing, now.' But she calmly says: 'O no, nothing doing. I've had my pleasure, you can go home now.' What do you think of that?"

"What did you do, did you go home?" I asked.

"I was in no position to argue with that bloody murderess," he said. "All I got was weals that lasted three months."

As he was about to leave us, after hours more of such yarns, the journalist dropped a remark which was to alter my life's direction, and was ultimately the reason why I never saw Abyssinia. He said to Rex:

"I suppose you know, by the way, that Mark Fanning is back in town?"

"No! is he really?" Rex looked excited. He added, "Does he know I'm here?"

"Not yet, but I don't mind telling him, now that I've got my story. I didn't intend to let him scoop me."

"Who is he writing for?"

"O he's free lance. But he'll probably write you up for the Guardian, they take most of his stuff. He covered the cannibals for them, and the expedition to find the sea-serpent. They'll take anything he cares to writeeven a piece about you, old boy."

"I wasn't thinking about that," Rex replied.

"No, I know. Well, do you want me to tell him your address, or not?"

"Yes, why not?" Rex said. "If he wants to see me."

After the journalist had gone, I asked Rex who the mysterious Mark Fanning was. I vaguely knew his name.

"Just an adventurous journalist." "How adventurous?" "Very."

They must have had an affair, I thought. I was sure of it when I saw them together, a couple of days later. No caresses-at least in my presence-but a long handclasp, and such an eloquent staring into each other's eyes!

I did not like Mark. I was jealous, because he immediately muscled in on our life and plans, as if he had a right to, and because he knew so much about everything, and because he was charming but catty to me. He was about twenty-five, very Oxford, extremely handsome and bronzed, with frizzy gold hair and a lordly walk. He whisded on the letter S, and smelt of rosewater. He was brave, clever, feline and ruthless.

Whereas I had simply obeyed Rex's orders, he ha ideas of his own and began to put them over to Rex, most energetically. He could fix up with a newspaper for exclusive articles at a fee which would pay all Rex's expenses for the trip. On the second day of meeting us, Mark went further than this and proposed that he should come along, too, and write the articles in collaboration with Rex, cable them back to the newspaper, and take care of all the financing. On the third day, he was re-planning the route, and suggesting new equipment. He took over my inventories, struck out some items and put in others. I found myself with nothing to do-he was doing all the letter-writing and secretarial work with his left hand, so to speak, while drawing maps and plans with his right.

Rex did not seem to notice that I was upset. He seemed absolutely fascinated by Mark, and agreed to everything he suggested. "Don't you find Mark charming? He's good fun, too," he said. I did not think so.

"He's not my type," I said shortly. "He's obviously yours."

"I didn't think we should ever be friends again," Rex said. "I'm so glad we are."

I didn't ask for any details. Of course, before long I caught them kissing in our hotel room, but I didn't mind about that. Rex still wanted his fun with me at night. But all the same I thought he was less enthusiastic. My chief worry was that my job, my usefulness, was gone, and I suspected that Rex secretly wished I were not going with him, after all. I was sure he was out of love with me, if he had really been in it, and that his flame for Mark had revived, and put mine out. I was a nice young thing to play with, but little more. Did I want to go as his second-best concubine? I asked myself.

by the time we left London I was very miserable, feeling neglected and out of it. Mark came with us, of course, superintending everything, asking me cattily if I was quite comfortable. The pleasure of a calm and sunny Channel crossing could not cheer me.

But my youthful spirits were not totally repressible. Life turned up another card for me.

A middle-aged woman and her daughter, expensively dressed, rushed up to Rex and made a fuss of him. He introduced them and we all had some drinks. He told me at the first opportunity that the mother, Flora, was a society divorcee and a patroness of struggling artists. The daughter, Joan, seventeen, had begun to paint, and they were going to Paris and Rome and Ischia. They had lots of money and "knew everybody" and were very sophisticated.

They were thrilled to meet Rex again and to hear about his expedition, and they glowed over me, most flatteringly. We were at least all going as far as Paris together and would be able to see one another during the coming week, Flora said.

Mark joined us. It appeared the two ladies knew him already, and I thought the polite greetings on both sides were a little chilly. I wasn't sorry about that.

Flora, about forty-five, wore her hair cropped in a rather lesbian style, and had sporting tailored suits. Joan was more feminine-looking, with fluffy brown hair, puppy-fat cheeks, fine shapely legs and quite a bust. Both had red lips and prominent brown eyes, big greedy eyes, eager to see everything in the world.

In my state of sulks over Rex, I was just in the mood to fly back to the opposite sex, and I fell instantly for Joan.

It wasn't mutual, however. Joan liked attentions paid to her, enjoyed flirting, but was not looking for any thing more. Nor did she want to consider me, in particular, anything more than a playmate: certainly not a bedmate, which was exactly what I would have liked to be. It took quite a time for this attitude of hers to get through my vanity and sink into my mind. Meanwhile I built up marvellous fantasies, and undressed her mentally every time I saw her. The lips of my mind were always caressing her nipples; I made it obvious from my behaviour how I felt about her; but she was cool and quick-witted and amusing, nothing shook her.

But Flora, her mother, was another matter altogether. She talked in doubles entendres, and made little secret of her interest in me. She felt much the same about me as I did about her daughter!

I played up to her a bit, partly out of pique with Rex, partly because it pleased her so much, partly because she was Joan's mother.

We leaned over the rail and watched the ship's wake. Flora sent Joan away on some fool's errand, and no sooner had she gone than the mother began squeezing my arm and rubbing her body amorously against my hip. She had had a few brandies and her tongue slurred some of her words.

"Tell me," she said in an intimate voice, "how are you and Rex getting on? You can be frank with me, I've known all about Rex for years and years. Are you very much in love with him?"

The idea obviously excited her, strange creature that she was.

I did not know how to answer so I smiled mysteriously.

"Do you have it every night?" she whispered, almost choking. "Yes," I said, to please her.

She gripped tighter, and pressed closer. "How lovely!" she exclaimed. "Yes, but-"

"But you're jealous of that horrible Mark. Don't trust that one, not a single inch, dear boy, he's simply a rotter. In Abyssinia, he'll simply throw you to the cannibals. I can't think why Rex doesn't see through him. You're not the same type as that at all, I could see that at once."

She paused for breath, and looked round quickly to make sure we were not overheard. Then she said: "You're not one-track, arc you? I mean, you like women, too?"

I squeezed her hand, gave her an encouraging smile, and nodded.

"I knew it!" she said triumphantly. "I knew it instantly, as soon as I saw you. You sec what a lot I know without having to be told!"

"You do, indeed!"

This kind of stuff went on for quite a time. Flora had a way of making me feel we belonged to a romantic underground movement, and all our conduct was illegal and thrilling. It was pleasant to be with someone who got such a high kick out of it all. She revered Rex as a writer, traveller and celebrity, loved him for his perverse life; but she had a special warmth for me because I was bi-or multi-sexual.

She was an indulgent mother to Joan but treated her with a slight contempt, as too young to have any sense. She glowed when I paid Joan a compliment, because she was proud of the girl's looks and talents and clothes. But she spoke to her condescendingly at times, while she treated me as an equal.

The trip was soon over. Flora gave me their Paris address and I promised to look them up. I also invited them to come one evening and see "us."

Flora smiled. "We'll see," she said. We parted.

Rex booked us in at a hotel, and I found we had three separate bedrooms: he, I and Mark. I said nothing. Perhaps we were going into training for the tropics by a period of chastity? But on the first night Rex came to my room. He sucked me off avidly, yet he did not seem to want an orgasm of his own. I wondered if Mark had squeezed him dry, but I refrained from any spiteful remarks. I was glad of the bit of pleasure, and the reassurance which it seemed to imply.

"Flora would love to watch us doing that!" I said, afterwards.

He did not like this remark very much.

"You seem rather taken with those two," he said.

"Yes, especially Joan. I'd like us to have them here to dine one evening, if you wouldn't mind."

"Mm, well, not this week, there's much to be done. We'll discuss it again, shall we?"

"At any rate, I'd like to go to see them at their hotel."

"That might be possible."

He went back to his own room shortly after that, leaving me feeling forlorn and low-spirited. Down the street I could hear an accordion, and bursts of laughter, and the click of billiard balls. The life of Paris, I thought, but I did not feel a bit gay. Holding my melancholy prick in a damp palm, I fell asleep.