Chapter 2

Friday night sluggishly edged its way through the calendar. Claudia's instinct warned her that this night would presage an entirely new experience. She bathed and dressed with great care; she must be at her seductive best for tonight. She donned a filmy chemise over her roseate body and a deceptively simple little dress with a wickedly low neckline. She removed the stopper from the perfume bottle and daintily touched her lips, her bosom and her hair. The doorbell rang and she went forward with her peculiarly swimming gait, a vision to delight any man. When Mr. Thomas was received and his blue eyes met the sparkling humid orbs of this dazzling creature before him, he had perforce to look long and deep to reassure himself that this beautiful young woman was a demure student in his class. Claudia looked mutely to him for assistance in putting on her coat. Then Thomas held it up so that she could snuggle her svelte figure within its folds. His hands brushed her shoulders and the titillating odor of her scent shot a thrill through him. His hands had a tendency to linger.

"Oh, by the way, Miss Claudia," he said, "Robert, our other prize essayist will be unable to go-he's confined to his home with a cold. If you like, I can postpone our little theater party . . . "

Through it all he devoured her with his eyes and it was all Claudia could do to restrain her laughter. At that moment he looked for all the world like a little boy who had performed a misdeed and was wistfully attempting to square off things. Of course he wanted her. Then why did he have to go through this silly rigmarole?

"Of course, we'll go," she told him. "That is, unless you have made other arrangements."

"Oh, no . . . no," he reassured her with ludicrous haste, and they left the house.

Once on the highway Thomas' spirits returned, and he was once more the masterful, sophisticated man he really was. It was apparent to him that this girl knew what was going on and would have to be treated as an adult. He told her as much.

"Miss Claudia, I want to beg your pardon for treating you in the moronic manner I have."

"Then from now on things are going to be different?" Claudia asked him sweetly, drawing closer.

"Yes, of course."

"Then call me Claudia."

"If you will call me Tom?"

Things were moving rather swiftly between them now. He drove with one arm about her supple waist. She thrilled to his muscular hardness. They were drawing near the theater now. Suddenly, upon impulse, he said boyishly, "Claudia, we don't really have to go to that old theater, do we?"

This was more like it, thought Claudia. "Well, Tom, where would you like to go?" she asked innocently enough.

"Well," he replied, "we could go over to my place. I've got music and perhaps you would like to look at some of my books. I've got one about Catherine the Great."

"I don't know . . . " she said doubtfully, getting a thrill when his face plainly mirrored his disappointment, and how it lighted up when she did at last consent to go to his place.

It was indeed a lovely little place, a small bungalow on the outskirts of the town amid a delightful seclusion. Chances of interruption were slim. Claudia liked the masculine atmosphere. A picture of Tom in his revealing togs fired her with desire, he was so beautifully built. Here was a man, a man a woman could gladly give herself to! There was nothing juvenile about Tom. She was tired of the simple boys she knew. Tom was different.

"Drink?" he asked after they had taken off their coats.

"Please." She turned on the radio while he went into the kitchen.

He returned in a moment with a loaded tray. They clicked glasses and Claudia swallowed a goodly share of her highball. A famous Chicago orchestra was pouring insinuating rhythms into the room. Claudia draped herself full length upon the chaise lounge, her lovely figure outlined in all its splendid symmetry. Thomas studied her, glass in hand, his eyes smoldering in his pale face.

"You know," he said, "you're a strange girl . . . "

"Don't start that now, Tommy. Let's dance." She didn't want him to begin talking in that vein, as though he were taking advantage of her. She could take care of herself. She did not know all there was to life, but she was learning, and tonight, she was determined, she would learn another lesson in pleasure.

He held her rather loosely in his arms, as though he feared he might do her bodily harm. She would soon change that, she smiled to herself, and gently drew closer. His arm tightened about her curving form. She nestled closer still, her head resting upon his expansive chest and she began to work her thighs against his gently. She felt something growing slowly against her dress; it seemed to work its throbbing way through the flimsy material, boring into the juncture of the thighs. It swelled larger and larger until all that Thomas could do was to stand rooted to the spot. Claudia's hand dropped with seeming casualness and grazed the front of his trousers. It was as though the man carried a concealed baseball bat, so large and so stiff was his penis. Claudia trembled with suppressed delight. This wonderful thing was going to be hers and tonight . . . yes tonight! She would break down all those childish fears Tom undoubtedly had about her. If the stories told about him were only moderately true, he had lived life at a pretty fast clip, and she was going to live part of it with him. He was probably afraid of exposure and the fact that she was under age "jail bait" was the term she had heard used. It was up to her to take the initiative.

Claudia twined her arms tightly about his neck and began to swing her hips in an oval orbit, gently massaging Thomas' inflamed and tumescent shaft. Thomas was no longer in possession of his normal senses. His hands descended inevitably and uncontrollably upon her tautly-fleshed buttocks and he lifted her to him. All pretense at dancing was tossed to the winds. Thomas felt himself ejaculating in his trousers. The spurting liquid seemed to come from the base of his skull. When he had finished he released the girl and sank into a great overstuffed chair which squatted in a corner. His throbbing head was buried in his hands. He felt ashamed of himself for having committed so childish an act-and with a child. But, by God, she was no child and she couldn't get away with something like this on Tommy Thomas! No woman ever had and this was no exception.

"You wait here a minute," he commanded brusquely. "I'll be back in a jiffy."

As he left her standing near the radio, her breasts rising and falling beneath the flimsy material of her dress, he thought he detected a gleam of amusement in her eyes. Well, he'd change all that in a hurry, he reflected grimly. He entered the bathroom and washed and dried himself and donned pajamas and a robe. Now he'd see how far this innocent little bitch would go. He'd give her something to put in her diary after he had put it into her.

When he got back she was reclining once more upon the longue. She had flung her shapely body upon it carelessly, for her dress had worked its way up over her knees and the white skin of her thighs gleamed. He dimmed all the lights, with the exception of one little bulb which threw a lascivious red haze over the room. He tuned down the radio and stood over her . . .

Claudia saw him through a faint reddish mist. He bent over her, drawing closer and closer until she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek. He brushed her cheeks, her brow and her eyelids with his moist lips. Claudia pressed her fair face against his, gently turning against his lips until they both met in a burning, drawn-out kiss. He let himself down upon the sofa, swinging her body easily above him as though she were a baby. This was no mean feat. Claudia was a tall, healthy girl. He cuddled her to him, rocking her in his massive arms. Claudia lay on top of him, her yielding flesh pressing against him with intoxicating warmth. To his searching hands she felt like a bundle of fire.

Claudia lay relaxed and incapable of any motion; she seemed to be in the clutch of a straining giant. Apparently Tom was carried away by passion. They lay together in that state for moments, when suddenly he arose with her in his arms and carried her into his bedroom.

Claudia felt his nervous, fumbling fingers unbuttoning her dress. She helped him; and when at last she lay naked and unashamed upon the dark coverlet, her ivory-white, tenderly rounded body with its swelling red-nippled breasts melting into the softness of the bedding, Tom could restrain himself no longer-for that matter what man could? He mounted her, resting on hands and wrists and knees, her beautiful slimness outstretched beneath him.

From between his own legs there projected eight inches in length of feminine pacification. Claudia reached up with fond hands and guided his dagger into her receptive sheath, where it fit without any room to spare, in fact it caused her considerable pain-but it was a curious mingling of agony and delight. Thomas let out his organ slowly and cautiously like a construction worker paying out a length of rope, but when he had sounded her depth, she emitted a little wail, "Oh, Tommy, darling, you have put your prong where no one else ever has before!"

Tommy began to pump and Claudia to writhe in ecstasy beneath him. Waves of agonizing delight filtered through her. This was really fucking! His peter seemed to swell and grow larger within her repository. It extended the muscles of her tight vaginal tract and she was almost insane with pleasure. Her pelvis rotated madly and as a result of their close sexual cohesion, Tom played but a passive share. There was none of the customary slipping in and out; Claudia was as yet too tight. Like a runaway horse she had the bit in her teeth and dashed off in her mad race. He was forced to follow her lead as she gyrated beneath him. He reached for the bed posts and held on until they should both drop back with passion-charred frames, but he had not reckoned on Claudia's amazing strength. Powerful a man as Thomas was, and experienced as he was in the ways of love, he was but a willing and helpless foil in Claudia's hands.

A lesser man might have come long before, as a result of their almost unbearably tight union, but Thomas forced himself to think of other things to prolong his ejaculation. But even he could no longer withstand the onslaught of this sex-mad Venus to whom he was a helpless but willing Adonis. He felt he could not retain his seeping seed any longer.

"I'm coming, Claudia!" he cried chokingly. "I can't keep it back!"

Claudia could not answer because her own hot flow began to ooze simultaneously with Tom's molten discharge which felt like liquid fire in her depths. Only inside of her she felt a gush of indescribable sensations. She felt an inner urge to raise her voice in song, but when she at last was able to give utterance, all she could say was, "Tom! Ohhh! Tom!" She gave a few last writhes as though to milk him completely of his semen, and gradually, as he emitted the lava-like flow of love-liquid, his penis slowly shriveled and slipped slackly out of her passage. They drew apart, panting like exhausted athletes after a grueling contest.

At last Tom was able to gasp, "Claudia, darling, where on earth did you ever learn to love like that? How could you learn so much in so short a time?"

Claudia glowed under his praise. "I have you to teach me more, Tom," she said shyly.

"I know you must have been with many women."

He protested, telling her she should not believe all the wild stories she had heard.

Claudia smiled. "That's quite all right, darling. I wouldn't love you as much unless you had had some experience, and don't try to tell me you haven't. What about that heiress?"

"Sweetheart," Tom said seriously, "you've made me forget any heiress that ever existed, and for that matter, any other woman."

It was sweet flattery to Claudia to think that she compared favorably with all the dazzling, mature women Tom must have known.

She reached over to where he lay and, twining her arms about him, gave him a long intimate caress, smoothing back his rumpled curls, brushing his throat with her moist lips, and all the time she watched his shrunken penis rising to life. Tom had the quick revivatory powers of healthy, hot-blooded youth. He lay on his left side and encircled the rounded column of her neck with his left arm. He slid his right leg in between both of hers and with his right hand he played upon passion's keyboard as though it were a piano. His fingers lovingly fondled the fat-lipped crease between her legs. Her female orifice opened wider and wider under his stimulation. Tom was a man who took his time. His questing fingers gradually worked their way inward until they encountered the clitoris, and under his skillful manipulation, Claudia learned the true meaning of "unendurable delight indefinitely prolonged." She lay there quivering under his tense body. And when at last her torrid crevice began to become moist and slippery to his touch, he slowly eased in his sizable shaft; but this time he did not put it in to stay. In and out he slid its length until he reduced her to a moaning pulp. She wrapped desperate arms about him to compel his moving prober to stay put, but Tom had other ideas. At last, having exhausted the possibilities of this method, he grasped her plump round buttocks with both hands and drew her into him. They both ground away, their bodies seeming to melt together with the heat of pure animal passion. As they reached their emotional and physical crisis, it was too poignant for Claudia and like a mad tigress she sank her white teeth into Tom's muscular shoulder. He swore but only held her closer so she could hardly breath. At last they emptied themselves of their pent-up juices, first in short spurts and then in that wonderful smoothly flowing release of love's lotion. Although both felt a great peace, so strong were their emotions that they yet clung to one another, their bodies scorched by the winds of desire.

At last Tom arose. He attempted to raise Claudia in his great arms, but no, he did not possess the strength. He laughed softly.

"You see what you do to me, dear," he said to her.

Claudia pretended to be sorry. "I shouldn't have let you, honey," she told him regretfully. "You might strain yourself."

"Try and stop me, you wild woman," Tom said. "You ain't seen nothin' yet." He made as though to spring into bed once more, but Claudia had come to her senses.

"They will be expecting me home, darling. It's late and besides there will be other nights."

They both went to the bathroom and cleaned up. A feeling of deep peace came over her. This was the only way in which she could purchase emotional quiet. Tom drove her home and left her, after pleading to see her later in the week. He begged like a little boy and Claudia could not help but feel proud when this great handsome young man pleaded for her favors.

"We'll see," she said like the natural coquette she was. Claudia was learning fast.

It amused her during the following week to watch the way Tom maneuvered to get to speak to her alone. She purposely put him off until he was beside himself with desire for her. He would ask her to see him after class under the pretext that he wanted to talk to her about her school work. She would sit some distance away watching him out of amused eyes. She learned the terrible weakness of a man who is in love.

A week went by and now it was Claudia who began to feel within her the stirring of desire. She found out that she had cravings also, and they left her powerless. It was in this condition that she consented one afternoon to see Tom after class. She waited until all the other pupils had left, and then she sidled up to him with her voluptuous, swinging walk.

"Now, Claudia," he said with a weak attempt to enforce his authority as her teacher, "this last paper you handed in is not up to your usual standard. I'm afraid you are not showing your customary interest in your work."

Claudia leaned over him and her fresh pear-shaped breasts swung out slightly from their splendid hollow. Poor Tom could only stare in fascination at the lovely, pulse-quickening sight.

"You're not showing much interest in the paper either, teacher," Claudia teased.

Tom stood up and towered above her. She looked up at him with slumberous, provocative eyes. He swung her feet off the floor and cradled her in his arms, crushing her, smothering her with flaming kisses.

"Put me down, Tom!" she cried. "Someone might come in!"

"Let them,'" he said hoarsely. "You can't play around with me. You're mine."

"Yes, yes," she said urgently. "But lock that door. What if someone comes in and finds us here?"

He would not set her down, but carried her to the door and locked it. He bore her over to his chair and placed her on his knees and his hands went to her tempting breasts. He put his mouth to her nipples and began to blow upon them with his fiery breath. They grew erect and hard under his ministrations. His hands worked up her legs until they reached the converging lips of her sex and then he knew he had her. Her heavy lashes drooped over her eyes and her breath came in convulsive sobs. When he had her writhing in her arms, crying for him to give her relief from her excitement, he turned her around in his lap until she faced him and she straddled him between her legs as though she were riding him like a saddle. He bared his penis and lifted her up until she had become impaled upon the shaft, and when she felt its hot length imbedded into her vaginal tube she began to dominate the sex play, for after all, Tom was in a stationary position and it was up to her to impart sweet rhythm to the carnal act. She writhed like a serpent in his arms and once, in her excitement, she rotated her hips in such a wide swing that his penis slipped out of her two sections of moist, hot flesh and they both sought with frantic fingers to replace his raging organ into her cavity. There was no earthly power capable of stopping them now. They climaxed their passion with the inevitability of a rock rolling down a hill, and Claudia found this new position productive of great pleasure. At last they poured out their lava and for the moment they slaked their sexual thirst.

When they had finished, Claudia slipped from his lap and arranged her clothing. Tom walked rather stiffly to the door and opened it. He breathed more freely now. But he was worried. No woman had ever aroused in him such physical desire before. It had been sheer madness to have risked detection in this manner. He told Claudia he was sorry for having behaved so impulsively and that he would not behave like that again.

Claudia came close to him and whispered: "Tom, dear, don't you see that we are up against something that is bigger and stronger than either of us. I'm not afraid of it because I know it is part of life. Don't you remember Oscar Wilde's Helas? And these lines?

" 'To drift with every passion till my soul, Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.'

"That is what I want. I want to know and feel all that a person possibly can. If it is part of life, I feel it should be experienced."

Tom could only look at her and stare. He was amazed to hear such a mature thought (he had already borne the brunt of and could testify to the maturity of her physical passion) coming from so young a woman.

"I have never before known so gifted a person." he said. "There is no doubt in my mind but what this town is too small and limited for your talents and your personality."

Tom was no fool and could see the handwriting on the wall.

Claudia was hurt by his words. "Oh, Tom, I've been so happy here the last few weeks, and all because you have entered my life; and now you talk of my leaving. Are you tired of me already?" she asked, and came close to him, insinuating her thighs against the front of his trousers, rubbing gently in the way she had. In a moment his inflamed phallus was in her soft grasp, but this time they could not chance an unexpected interruption. Tom sank back in his chair, his legs under his desk while Claudia gently frigged him, catching the hot flow in her handkerchief. He could not resist her volcanic lust, and there were to be few men in her life who could.

After this episode, Claudia's life swept on evenly; but she understood by this time that existence was full of lulls, depressions between the peaks, and one had to accept them gracefully. Something would happen, and when one was as beautiful and youthful as Claudia, something generally did. She was not the kind of a girl that men forget.

There was a deep excitement bubbling within her which constantly called out for change, new faces and new thrills. Claudia seemed to be insatiable. Even her parents noticed a certain change in her. As a result of her sex experiences, she seemed to glow and expand with a new and radiant beauty. Intercourse swept her clean of all the unhealthy neuroses and complexes common to the average inhibited girl. Claudia possessed a lovely youthful bloom which vastly became her. Boys of her own age were mad about her, but to Claudia's maturer point of view they seemed but little children. There was little they could offer her after what she knew.

Tom still pursued her as avidly as ever and they spent many exhausting nights together. He was a well-educated and considerate man and he did a great deal toward polishing off the youthful amoreuse. In her relations with him, Claudia probably learned more than she ever could in formal schools. The school of life teaches more vital subjects and manners, and what it has to teach, its students never forget, for it sears its lessons indelibly upon the brain.

There came to Claudia's father's office one day the handsomest man she had ever seen. There was something vaguely familiar about his appearance. He approached Claudia, who was sitting in the little reception room, and in a beautiful voice slightly tinged with a foreign accent asked if the doctor was in. Claudia replied that he had just been called away on a case and that she expected him back shortly and asked him if he would be kind enough to wait. The stranger took one look at this delicately rounded creature, her lovely face and the memorable dark eyes which glowed expressively in her milky face, and decided that he would be delighted to do so. He seated himself advantageously, so that he might better study this glorious creature so out of place amid the rather squalid surroundings. He was enchanted by her grace as her body moved in gracefully fleeting poses. A beam of sunlight poured through the window, endowing her hair and features with a kind of ethereal radiance. The stranger was overcome as he always was in the presence of beauty. "Dio Mio!" he said softly. "A madonna with a Borgia's eyes!" and when Claudia raised her head questioningly, he begged her pardon with a charming smile. "You look so beautiful sitting there with the sun like a spotlight thrown upon your face and hair. Ah, my girl, you possess real beauty. The sun is an enemy of feminine charm. It is a cruel revealer of the flaws in the skin, but you are a very lucky girl; you have the delicate perfection that is possessed only by the very young."

Claudia reacted instantly to his charming manners, his voice and his good looks. She looked at him quietly serious for a moment and said in her throbbing contralto voice, "You are most kind."

She did this with a kind of grand and moving simplicity that is part of genuine persons. The stranger studied her with narrowing eyes. What had he found in this ugly provincial little town? What manner of a young woman was this? Why she was scarcely more than a girl. Whence came she by her regal air and the way about her of careless ease? He was burning with a host of urgent questions, but the entrance of the old doctor forestalled him. When the visit was over, the stranger paused at Claudia's desk.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said with a disarming smile. "I am Richard Martini; I am an actor and am appearing at your auditorium for a short stay. You would give me great pleasure if you would accept two tickets for the show. Perhaps your boyfriend, eh?"

Claudia accepted the tickets without letting herself appear too eager. With a flashing smile Martini made his exit, leaving the girl to swim in the riotous seas of speculation.

Claudia could hardly wait until the show would open. She tried to tell herself that Martini had behaved with the traditional open-handedness of his profession, that she meant nothing to him, that he had probably drawn out her father, and having discovered their relationship, merely offered her these tickets as a courtesy. Had he not mentioned something about a boyfriend? Surely that did not indicate a particular interest in her. But she knew she was only denying what was fairly evident. He was interested in her; her instinct told her that. How his eyes had followed her every move! Well, tomorrow would tell the story. Claudia had progressed. She did not feel any awe toward Martini, even though his personality was considerable. She was learning to take all men in her stride.

Tomorrow came at last and Claudia prepared herself for the unknown, the unpredictable. She bathed and dressed and scented her velvety softness until she stood feminine perfection incarnate. Of course she went to the theater alone . . .

Shortly after Martini made his entrance upon the stage, his eyes sought out Claudia. His action was unmistakable. When he found her sitting alone, his entire being suggested relief. It was terribly flattering to this girl to be singled out as the object of this man's attentions. Of all the hundreds of persons thronging the theater, she alone had entered into a secret understanding with this prince among men, this glamorous person whom people paid to see.

The first act was over; Claudia relaxed in her seat. To her the performance was vitally exciting. She had such a personal contact with the show. A boy came up the aisle during the intermission with a little note. She read it:

"Will you come back stage after the performance? Please say you will.

Richard Martini."

The boy furnished a pencil and Claudia wrote boldly across the note, "Yes." Now it seemed to her that all through the play every romantic speech and gesture he uttered was addressed to her. She was enmeshed in the tenuous web of glamour. Her heart rose and fell with the caressing beat of his voice. She deeply resented the leading lady; she stirred uneasily when the situations in the play demanded that Richard hold her in his arms while he made passionate avowals of love. But at last the play ran out its length, the actors took their bows and the audience began to stream up the aisles out into the night. And Claudia went backstage.

It was with mingled emotions that she viewed all the hubbub going on. Groups of actors in intimate little discussions, talking and laughing with the unselfconsciousness of small children. She was directed to Martini's dressing room. When she entered, she found him removing his makeup. He jumped to his feet and greeted her so effusively that her confidence grew immediately. She complimented him upon his performance and discussed the play intelligently while he continued to change into his street clothes. When he had finished he said, "Now let me really look at you."

With mock-seriousness she pirouetted before him, turning gracefully upon her heels like a mannequin. Fresh and radiant, her lush beauty reminded him of some jungle flower. He must have her. He decided to gamble everything on one decisive stroke.

"Claudia, will you consent to have supper with me in my rooms? Just us two. There is so much I want to know about you."

She readily gave her consent and they taxied to his hotel. He had the good taste to refrain from making love to her during the short ride and she liked him all the more for it.

When they entered his suite everything was in readiness for a cozy little supper party for two. The table was beautifully set with gleaming silver and flowers. "I telephoned as soon as you answered my note," he said by way of explanation.

Claudia answered, "Richard, you're lying but I love it."

They both laughed; they were great friends.

When they had finished dining, the waiter cleared the table and, after asking whether there would be anything else, withdrew. They were alone. Claudia stood by the larger French window overlooking the town. A friendly moon rode the skies like a golden ship. Through the windows drifted in the redolent odors of growing things. Richard stood beside her. "Madonna Mio!" His voice caressed her. "Of what is my little virgin thinking?"

Claudia turned until she was hard against him. She said slowly, "I'm thinking the same thing you are thinking, Richard." He folded her in his arms and kissed her gently, just brushing her lips. He kept his mouth slack, working his lips on hers in a circular fashion. Then opening his mouth he pressed his strong white teeth against hers and sent new sensations pulsating through her. He sucked against her mouth, manipulating his lips until she experienced a feeling similar to that incurred in actual intercourse. Richard was a master at the art of kissing and he played upon her until every cell within her cried out for impregnation, until her itching crevice cried for pacification, until she was whispering hoarsely, "Take me, Richard! For heavens sake, take me!"

He bore her half-swooning to the bedroom and undressed her until her splendidly nude body reposed upon the bed. He watched her skin grow red as though rouged with carnal heat as he undressed slowly, like an epicure contemplating a feast. What a lovely piece, he thought.

At last he was as nude as she was and he crept into bed beside her. It seemed to Claudia as she lay there beside him that she was caressed by hands of flame. His diabolically clever fingers searched out her most sensitive nerve centers and twanged them as though she were a tightly strung harp. No sooner had his fingers left one erogenous spot twitching with desire than he was cunningly manipulating another. Why doesn't he begin, she thought. I can't stand this much longer. After all, there is a limit to human endurance. Well, she said to herself, if he could stand it, so could she. Perhaps that was how sophisticated men went about it.

Richard now began to run his moist lips along her legs upwards of the knee. At the same time, his hands were gently pulling at her nipples, bringing them to a jutting erection. She felt within her a drooling, a laving of her cavity, but still he made no motion to inject his priapus. Claudia lay in a helpless near-fainting condition. Waiting, waiting for Richard to assert his masculinity. Now his soft lips were brushing the tender insides of her fleshy thighs. Her vulva lips were yawning wider and wider under the titillation. Now Richard had his lips buried in the luxuriant black hair curling about her pubic mount. She felt his torrid tongue like a flame darting in and out about the delicate membranes of her vaginal tract. The molten liquid began to spurt over her tormentor's face and she writhed away from him, rolling in unspeakable ecstasy.

Richard got up and cleaned himself with a towel. Claudia lay there momentarily satisfied with her orgasm, but still wondering why Richard had not availed himself of the opportunity to sink his tool into her. In this he seemed to be different from all other men.

They rested, quietly laced in one another's arms, their passions spent for the moment. Claudia was curious, but she bided her time. Surely Richard Martini, the darling of two continents, knew all there was to know about the art of love.

He began to play with her body once more and again Claudia waited in deference to his presumably superior knowledge. Now he had his finger up her rectal cavity and was massaging it gently while he pressed his face in the exquisite hollow between her breasts. This was a new sensation to Claudia. Now, she thought, he surely will love me good and proper. Now he buried his nose under her arm pits, sniffing like an amorous dog. "Ah, darling," he said, "your perspiration is like the most delicate perfume!" His warm tongue was flowing over her silky, globular breasts and he was working her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Some inner urge compelled her to spread her thighs as wide apart as was physically possible, and Richard slid out of bed with a sinuous motion like a snake slithering through a pile of dead leaves. He grasped one of her ankles in each hand and raised her legs high into the air while she locked her hands over his buttocks as he once more dipped into the scarlet gash of her sex. The lips of her cleft drew apart under his heated attack and now his long slender tongue worked his way into her box, touching delicately everywhere. Far into her crevice, her clitoris began to stiffen like the penis of a man. Claudia was experiencing what was until now the acme of physical sensation in her career. But now Richard played his trump card. He nibbled gently at her clitoris with his teeth and Claudia made little animal noises of unbearable delight. She moved like a maddened beast. "Stop it, Richard!" she gasped. "St-o-op!" Her body was racked by a thousand sensory twinges. Richard stopped as all that was liquid in her body seemed to stream forth. Claudia now lay upon her face, utterly exhausted by the most ferocious love-play she had ever encountered. Her body was shaken and smoking like the skeleton-like, charred ruins of a building that has been razed by a devastating fire. She was entirely numb.

How long she lay in that position simulating death, she had no accurate memory of. Till at last she felt a hand upon her shoulder. It was Richard. "Drink this," he said and held out a good shot of brandy. It helped to bring her to. He threw open the windows until a reviving breeze swept through the rooms and refreshed Claudia to the point where she was able to bestir herself. They sat there in the dark room both in the nude, and discussed inconsequential things, as people will after they have had the most fundamental experiences together. It was on the tip of Claudia's tongue to ask why he had not possessed her in the orthodox manner. All the other techniques were satisfying enough but it was just like having a seven course dinner, each one consisting of chocolate cake. But she kept her speculations to herself for fear of seeming coarse.

With the passing of the minutes her thoughts began more and more to turn to sexual pleasure. Claudia was a strong healthy girl with marvelous recuperative powers. She and Richard were occupying separate chairs and now she arose and sat on the arm of his chair, pressing close to him, carrying on a conversation which was casual enough. Her hand slid down his fine body until she encountered the object she was searching for, and now her fingers closed around it. Richard did not move. Claudia gently manipulated it with loving hands, knowing full well that the limp prong should stiffen and swell under her skillful touch. She kept on fondling and caressing his joy-stick, thinking all the time that he was remarkably slow in coming around, but perhaps when he did so she would have one slow and grand fuck in which she would be able to spend herself several times.

Growing impatient, she began to frig him with sharp, abrupt thrusts. "Richard!" she cried in alarm. "Richard! What is the trouble?" But he was crying like a baby and could only hang his head in shame.

It was plain to most people what the trouble was. Even Claudia was beginning to grasp the meaning of his action, but she wanted to be certain. "You can tell me, Richard. I'll understand," she said in a sympathetic tone, throwing her arms about him, brushing the tears away as though she were a mother, and in a broken voice he blurted out the miserable story:

"While I was a very young man, practically a boy in Italy at the start of the war, I joined the Italian army. I saw considerable service in the Tyrol against the Austrians and one night during a raid I suffered a superficial wound and was left for dead in enemy territory. When I came to I discovered I had been taken prisoner. From then until the Armistice I remained confined in this camp, and it was during this incarceration that I lost my manhood in the most shameful manner." He paused as though backward about finishing his story. But Claudia's feminine curiosity was aroused, and she insisted upon hearing the completion of the tale.

It was with considerable reluctance that he concluded the story of his downfall. "I was then in the very first flush of my youth and had never intimately known a woman. I was bothered by the most lascivious dreams and nocturnal emissions, and the stories the older men continually told, and which I naturally could not help hearing as we were in pretty close quarters, inflamed my desires to the bursting point. This confinement was especially hard upon those men among us who had known connubial bliss and the deep sexual peace it generally brings. Masturbation became a common outlet. For a long time I was able to impose an iron restraint upon this horribly insistent voice which was raising a deafening clamor within me, but the sight of my companions easing themselves in this manner was too much for me, and with my very first act I began to dig my sexual grave. I was a hot-blooded youth and abused myself far beyond normal endurance. When at last the terrible war came to an end and I returned home, I found to my horror that I was no longer capable of functioning as a normal man should. That impotence led me into the kind of love-making you have been party to tonight."

Claudia was silent, for, after all, what was there that she could say to assuage his pain? It did not take a great deal of imagination to understand how he must feel. Claudia donned her clothes in silence. When she had finished dressing she walked over to where he sat, his head bowed in his arms. She bent over and kissed him dispassionately upon the forehead. "Goodnight, Richard," she said and she left him sitting alone in the dark.

This unusual encounter left Claudia somewhat dissatisfied with things. It left her rather cool toward men for some time. She began to consciously avoid the opposite sex for the first time since she had learned the joy which lay in the sexual congress. She resumed her friendships with the girls in the little town and spent the evenings about her home. She attended parties among several young men and women of her own age. Their naivete and general ignorance of sexual matters were to her a constant source of amusement. She laughed inwardly as these clumsy, awkward youths would attempt to make love to her, fingers all thumbs. It gave her considerable malicious pleasure to lead them on by apparently accidental caresses until they lusted for her with every fiber in their beings. She even amused herself with the girls, stirring them with clever fingers until they did not know what had aroused sudden dormant desires.

Nevertheless, time healed the wound left by her amour and once again Claudia felt within her the consuming desire for love. This was no mild thing now. She had known what it was to be loved by a strong man, and once a woman has undergone that sensation, forever after she must have regular appeasement or suffer the torment of the damned. This was no problem for Claudia, because Tommy Thomas still slipped her scorching notes and mutely pleaded with his eyes for her companionship, and one day, when she was unbearably prodded by her physical needs, she consented to go to his little bungalow.

When she arrived that evening Tom was as solicitous and tender as a groom on his first night. Claudia joked with him about it, but Tom was in earnest. He had missed her. They had a few highballs and then he promised her as much love as she had ever had in her life.

It would be a glorious meeting of two people admirably suited to the delectable task of consummating the normal function of both sexes. Both entered frankly and unashamedly into the task of rendering the greatest possible joy to the other. They had been denied so long that they cooperated in getting over the first sexual union quickly so they could dally with more extended pleasure. He slipped his lusty ruby-tipped organ between her vulval lips after fondling their softness so that they parted readily and, after three or four rapid pushes, they spent a little of cupid's lotion. What did it matter? They possessed youth's reservoir.

They drew apart, each drinking in the beauty of the other. She with her graceful, symmetrical legs crowned by the growth of curling black hair, bringing out the wonderful whiteness of her thighs and gently rounded belly, tapering to a waist like the stem of a wineglass and then flowing into the tenderly blown breasts; and he with his stalwart shoulders, muscular arms and bulging chest, his every move starting his muscles flowing like animated coils of rope across his body. From the top of his head, crowned with its strongly growing blond hair, to the balls of his feet (not to speak of that club-like member dangling from between his legs), he was a man to arouse the respect and desire of any woman who possessed the normal feelings of her sex.

Claudia idly reached out her hand to galvanize his priapus into throbbing life. She thrilled as he did when his organ leaped up in exultant response.

"How strong you are, Tom, dear!" she exclaimed in wonder at his virility.

"Tonight, Claudia," he whispered, "I shall show you how strong I really can be." He directed her to get down on all fours, and while she was in that position, he grasped her by her softly yielding buttocks and drew her toward him until he had impaled her vagina upon his semen-filled penis. It was a new delight to Claudia to be loved dog-fashion from the rear. She wiggled her lovely rump to meet Tom's violent thrusts into her belly. The entire proceeding was fraught with a certain amount of pain, but the borderline between pain and pleasure is sometimes one of shading.

They pumped away in this manner until the hot sperm began to jet into her and she retaliated with a similar flow. A wonderful warmth came over her as she continued to spend her almost inexhaustible supply of love's juices. At last their figures merged from the lustful composition they had formed. Love, even such as theirs, has physical limits.

It was pleasant to lie so close to one another and listen to the deep, regular breathing of healthy youth gathering up strength for another fierce foray into the arms of Eros. Strange thoughts tumbled through Claudia's brain. This kind of thing surely could not go on forever. A strange feeling of uneasiness crept over her. Life always tendered one a bill for whatever happiness one was able to snatch from it. What price would she have to pay? She shivered, and once more Tom held her in her arms. She melted into his grasp as though he could shield her from any possible retribution. She gave herself up to him completely.

Several days after that memorable night Claudia had spent in Tom's house, she had her first inkling that something might be amiss, that her premonition had been correct. She was in trouble. Her menstrual flow had stopped.

She did not know which way to turn, but in the end she decided to call upon Tom for advice and for whatever assistance he might be prepared to offer.

When she told him what had happened, he immediately recognized her symptoms as the first stages of pregnancy. Naturally, Claudia was frightened, but she bore her misfortune well: she was a courageous girl and blamed no one for her predicament. After all, she realized she had been negligent. Tom stood by her and offered her marriage, but Claudia was too good a sport to take advantage of his offer. She had gotten as much pleasure out of their relations as he had and now that she had come to grief she was not going to be a cry baby.

"No, Tom," she said. "You don't owe me anything."

"Well," he said at last, as she remained adamant in her refusal, "the least I can do is to offer you money for an abortion."

She reflected for a moment and availed herself of his offer.

"Of course, Claudia, you realize you will have to leave town," he pointed out.

Her veins pounded with excitement. That thought had always lain back in the recesses of her mind: to go away, to try her wings in a large city. She would leave home; that's what she'd do. She would go to Chicago.