Chapter 3
Claudia sat in the observation car watching the scenery rush by. Mile after mile of interminable flatness: the monotonous level of the Illinois prairies. The roaring train seemed to bisect its evenness like a pair of scissors cutting through a sheet of paper.
The trip had been barren of event. True, several men had attempted to become familiar, but Claudia was hardly in the frame of mind .to be receptive to masculine advances, regardless of how attractive they might be. She sat with eyes glued to the window, trying to still the horrible fear in her heart, thinking of how she would have to live alone in the great bustling city of Chicago and of the suffering which would be her inevitable lot-the abortion was not very pleasant to look forward to. For the moment, the girl pondered whether the price of pleasure did not come too high.
Now the skidding landscape was changing from fields of waving corn, rolling seas of wheat, barns and silos and herds of cattle, to dingy, smoke-belching factories, great train sheds, and miles ahead the city seemed enveloped in a cloudy, dirty gray-an unnatural gloom which would hover over the great city so long as its industries would continue to pump the lifeblood of production through its swollen veins.
Fifteen minutes later the train pulled into the La Salle Street Station and a grinning redcap carried Claudia's bag out into what was to her countrified eyes and ears a disintegrated bedlam. She got into a taxi.
"Where to, lady?" asked the cabby.
She paused, undecided where to go in this clanging jungle.
"Do you know of some nice clean place where I might stop?" she asked. "Some place that is not too high?"
The driver pushed back his cap and scratched his head. "How about the "Y"? They're pretty reasonable."
Claudia was about to consent when she reminded herself of her condition. That would hardly be the place for her at present.
Noticing her hesitation, the driver suggested the near-north side as a desirable address, "Because," he explained, "you can live pretty cheap and it's within walking distance of the loop."
She placed herself entirely in his hands and soon they drew up before a clean, rather interesting looking apartment house in one of the little Parisian appearing streets so common to that part of the town.
Claudia climbed the stairway, her heavy suitcase bumping against her legs. She rang the bell and a few moments later the buxom landlady, a Mrs. Gleason, answered the door. She sized up the girl with friendly eyes and showed her two vacancies which existed in her house. Claudia selected a little kitchenette apartment with French windows which faced the street and offered an interesting view of the city. She gave Mrs. Gleason a week's rent in advance and when at last the landlady withdrew, she flung herself upon the bed, exhausted from her unaccustomed train ride and the nervous tension of entering into a new life.
But she was not destined to rest for long. Insurgent thoughts and memories crowded into her consciousness. Home . . . her parents. The thought of how shabbily she had treated them and how much they must be suffering brought the tears welling up in her eyes. She could see before her the heartless words of her tense little note:
"I'm fed up with living in this stupid little town. I want to get away while I have the chance. Don't try to find me and don't worry. I'll come home when I'm ready. Love, Claudia."
It was a pretty heartsick girl who cried herself to sleep that night.
The next morning, following a brisk shower and a change of clothing, Claudia felt considerably better when she walked out into the warm sun of a newborn day. The famous, exhilarating breezes of the windy city promised new thrills, new excitement to this girl released from the narrow confines of the small town and the constant rubbing of elbows with all of its inhabitants. Here in this vast metropolis one could for the time being escape from many things. It would be pleasant to become for the moment a new person, to assume a new identity. This might be fun, after all, she thought, but what about breakfast?
Bacon and eggs, a steaming cup of coffee amid a clatter of dishes and a cheerful rattle of cutlery made her feel even better. With a light heart and a radiant smile upon her lovely face, Claudia fairly danced along the city streets, leaving a trail of craning masculine necks behind her.
The sound of horns, the screeching of auto brakes, the dang-dong of impatient streetcar motormen produced a throbbing metropolitan symphony which was music to Claudia's ears. She was like a weary traveler who has roamed the world to find at last a sense of integration and a feeling of belonging in some inconsequential hamlet. This, she felt, was her spiritual home.
The street she trod led at last to the great Chicago Loop district and Claudia spent most of the day gazing at the lovely things displayed in the glamorous windows of State Street's famous shops. She could not fight off the temptation to purchase things and before the day had drawn to a close, she had spent a large portion of the two hundred dollars Tom had given her as a parting gift.
That evening, after she had played with her purchases like a little girl will with a new doll, Claudia sat down and did some serious thinking. She had not taken any steps to procure her abortion. She did not know how such things were handled or who to turn to in this strange new world she had been plunged into. As she lay there deep in harassing perplexity, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it to find Mrs. Gleason standing outside with a friendly smile upon her open countenance. "My, haven't you bought a lot of things!" she exclaimed to Claudia as she noticed the temporary disorder of boxes and wrapping tissue. The girl was touched by her manner and began lightheartedly to model her purchases before the motherly landlady who stood watching her beautiful roomer, a bundle of towels suspended over her arms. Mrs. Gleason nodded her head approvingly with each new change of costume. "My dear," she said, "you are a very lovely girl and I hope you will be very happy here."
Her simple manner so moved the girl that she burst into tears.
"What's wrong, child?" asked Mrs. Gleason. "Don't you feel well?"
Claudia was then impelled to pour out her age-old story and Mrs. Gleason received the news of her condition without any visible shock or surprise. "There-there," she comforted the sobbing girl. "Never you mind. Everything is going to be all right. My nephew is a doctor and tomorrow I will give you a note to him and it'll all be fixed up. Why, this has happened to thousands of girls!"
When the landlady left, Claudia fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. She had made her first friend in this seething city.
The following morning, Claudia, armed with her new friend's note, made her way to the offices of the latter's nephew. The address on the note Mrs. Gleason had given her led her to a grand building rearing its impressive height deep into the overhanging clouds. A speedy electric elevator suavely lifted her almost instantly to the fifteenth floor. She got out and entered a large office exquisitely furnished in the modern manner. A young woman seated behind a switchboard gazed at her inquiringly.
"Dr. Benson ? " Claudia asked rather timidly.
She was told she would have to wait and was directed to a chair in the lavishly furnished anteroom. Claudia sat fingering a copy of a glossy, beautifully illustrated magazine. With sly eyes she studied the luxurious surroundings and gave herself up to guesses as to the kind of a man the doctor was. She thought: was he young or old? Good-looking, or just another man one took for granted like the parlor furniture?
She continued to thumb through her magazine, idly staring out of the window at the far-reaching, shimmering blue expanses of the lake. Several hundred miles beyond that watery stretch lay home and security. She trembled with a sudden fear. Perhaps things would not go as easily as she had been led to believe. A voice intruded: "You may go right in now, Miss. Dr. Benson will see you in there." A white-frocked nurse indicated a door.
It was with mingled feelings that Claudia walked through the door into whatever fate held in store for her.
A tall, distinguished-looking young man, his darkly handsome face accentuated by the whiteness of his surgical gown, greeted her. Claudia was instantly reassured by his competent and direct manner. She held out Mrs. Gleason's little note. He took it without a word, merely giving her a sharp glance out of his clear blue eyes.
When he had finished, he folded the paper into a precise little square. He addressed her, "Well, Miss Fenton, I see you are in trouble. My aunt has asked me to help you and of course I will be glad to do whatever I possibly can. You must realize, of course, that for a doctor to perform an abortion, he exposes himself to considerable risk. Accidents are unpredictable and naturally the act itself is illegal. However, I will be glad to examine you and see how far gone you really are. Just put your things on that chair and when you have completely disrobed get on that large table near the window."
He walked away, whistling a little tune, leaving the poor girl in a terrible state. She stood rooted to the spot and unable to make a decisive move. Dr. Benson came back, fuming with impatience.
"What's the trouble! Hurry, take your clothes off and get on the operating table. I can't take all day!"
To be in the nude was no novelty for Claudia, of course, but nevertheless it was one thing to stand naked before some man whom you cared for and who was delighted by your physical presence, and yet another matter to disrobe before the hard eyes of some medical brute. But what could she do? She resolved to adopt her only way out of the mess she had gotten herself into and began to slowly reveal her love-charms to Dr. Benson, who watched her frowningly.
Accordingly she took off her hat and coat and slowly drew her dress over her head, and as the hem of her skirt rose like a curtain lifting over a theatrical scene, Dr. Benson lost his hard, bored professional look. Her tenderly turned calves and swelling firmly-fleshed thighs came into plain sight. And as her tapering waist and glistening pendant breasts were revealed fairly straining at the filmy chemise which reluctantly clung softly to their loveliness, the good doctor ran his tongue over his suddenly parched lips. His professional attitude was quickly vanishing, although he still retained his medical manner.
At last Claudia stood revealed in the nude, her silky skin turning rosy beneath the doctor's smoldering gaze.
"Come," he said authoritatively. "On the table. Let's have a look."
The trembling, wretched girl reclined her gorgeous figure upon the doctor's table and closed her eyes for shame.
The medic now had her where he could feast his burning eyes upon such exquisite loveliness as had never before been his fortune to view. Benson could examine and treat a thousand women, perhaps, and very likely not one of this number would tend to give him any amorous stimulation. Claudia was the thousand and first.
Benson seemed in a kind of a trance. He could not take his eyes from the tenderly swelling delicious pink and white flesh which lay before him. Claudia moved restlessly as though she felt his heated stare. The doctor shook himself into some semblance of activity.
His precise, workmanlike hands swept over her mound-like belly. He prodded her about, his fingers searing her cool, yielding body. "Does that hurt?" he kept asking her. "Does this hurt?" And always she answered in the negative. Now he inserted a probing finger between her vulval lips, caressing them with a delicate feathery touch. He stared with fascinated eyes as the lips of her sex began to part and open wide like the petals of flowers under the stimulating spring rains. The girl began to stiffen under his ministrations. Benson's fingers, like the roots of a deeply growing tree, imbedded themselves into the glossy curling hair which grew like moss around Claudia's scarlet, fat-lipped gash of sex. He tugged at the silky ringlets and the girl let out a moan. This seemed to have'a peculiar effect upon Benson. He began to knead her breasts with cunning hands. Poor Claudia felt as though ten thousand devils were jabbing tiny pitchforks into her most sensitive areas. It was all part of the treatment, she reasoned, but after all she could not stand this much longer. It was too much for frail feminine flesh to endure. The doctor continued his passionate pawing. He thrilled to the exquisite feel of her flesh, he could go on like this forever. He felt his penis straining against his trousers like a dog against a leash. Far back in her womb, he could see her clitoris like a slim finger standing erect. He caressed it and soon there began to exude from out of her ducts a trickle of sex-secretion. To the doctor this was the last straw. His hands went to his trousers and came up with a fistful of woman-delight. He grasped Claudia's slim ankles in iron hands and dragged her until her spherical buttocks rested on the table's edge. He released her legs until they hung from a sitting position, then he eased his palpitating prong into her throbbing depths and began to pump away madly.
"Doctor! Oh, Doctor!" called out the amazed Claudia, realizing by this time that the unexpected was taking place.
The busy doctor could merely grunt, "It's only part of the treatment, honey!"
Claudia did not know what to say. She was hardly in a position to make an effective protest. After all, he was the doctor.
The torrents of lust swept her up as she reacted to the virility of Dr. Benson. When he had spent his sexual fluid for the moment, he took her in his arms and she realized that the treatment had gone too far. She struggled in his arms, wildly attempting to free herself from his maddened embrace, but she was in a grip of iron, too terrified to scream. Once more he attempted to put in his raging tool, but she continued to move her crevice about in such a manner that he found it impossible to penetrate her, and all the while his heat and desire for her mounted. She was doubled up on the table, attempting to cover her sheath and protect it from his furious onslaught. This left her ruby breasts exposed. The infuriated doctor put his throbbing tool in that smooth hollow which existed like a gentle valley between her bulbs and, under this added stimulation, he soon poured out the pent-up semen within him, splattering the poor girl with the sticky stuff.
This emission seemed to bring him to his senses and to a realization of the enormity of his offense. He solicitously cleansed the distraught girl and pleaded with her for forgiveness. Claudia felt sick and tired of the whole thing. Benson was afraid the girl might lodge a complaint against him and now offered to perform the abortion for nothing. He explained to her that his customary fee for the operation was two hundred dollars. Claudia now had in her possession barely one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Not only could she not afford the necessary medical procedure, but even if she could secure a cheaper physician, she would be left penniless. While it was true she had been grossly violated, nevertheless, Dr. Benson now seemed to be repentant and was offering a handsome conciliation. Claudia decided to allow him to go through with the operation.
He seemed genuinely relieved when she told him her intentions and he gave her instructions as to her diet and how she should use some pills he provided her with. "Come back on Friday afternoon," he told her. "Don't eat any food and I'll perform the operation. I feel I owe you that much, and for heaven's sake nothing to my aunt about what happened here."
Claudia agreed readily and as she walked slowly to her apartment she began to realize that the doctor's attack upon her, unsought and unwelcome as it had been, was in reality a financial boon at any rate. She kept her mouth shut to Mrs. Gleason when her landlady praised her nephew as a very fine young man. If you only knew, she thought, what a wolf your "fine young man" really is; but Claudia was discovering that few men were to be trusted where a pretty young woman is concerned. It was something in the male sex-psychology, she decided, and did not bother her head about it any further.
Friday, on the appointed hour, she appeared in Dr. Benson's office with Mrs. Gleason, who had consented to come along. True to his promise, the doctor was in readiness to perform the deed. With a beating heart Claudia removed her clothing and allowed herself to be placed on the operating table by the nurse who was in attendance.
Claudia bore the pain and travail of her abortion with the enduring feminine stoicism which has been a source of wonder to men through the ages. When at last she drifted out of the haze of smells and sounds she could hear Mrs. Gleason's voice as if from the peak of a mountain top, "It's all over, dear-it's all over." She was lying on a couch in the outer office. She heard Dr. Benson's voice speak with professional crispness. "Just let her rest here a while," he was saying. "She'll be all right. Everything went fine. Bring her back next week and I'll give her a final examination."
Claudia gradually gained strength until she was able, with Mrs. Gleason's support, to get into a cab and make her way home.
Under the landlady's care Claudia rapidly recovered and was soon as radiant and blooming as she had ever been. The following week she appeared in Dr. Benson's office for his final seal of approval.
"Everything has gone splendidly," he told her. "You are as healthy as you ever were. After this, don't be so criminally negligent about yourself. Here"-he handed her some literature-"read this and take care of yourself, and if you ever need me, don't hesitate to get in touch with me."
Claudia thanked him and said goodbye, happy that this dreadful experience was over and that she was all right again.
From now on, she thought, I'm through with men. She began to live a quiet, secluded life, spending the evenings in her little place listening to the radio or reading a book. During the daytime she went for long walks through the city. She could not see enough of its wonders: the libraries, picture galleries, parks, the wide-flung lake in its many moods, smooth and even as a table top one day and a raging, tempestuous sea another; but most of all she enjoyed the picturesque neighborhood in which she lived. She never tired of gazing at the passing throng from her own personal little ivory tower. They swarmed under her gaze like so many microbes, each with its own little festering of hopes, schemes, woes and frustrations. And all the strangely ludicrous combinations: short fat men with long angular women, lean as a rail towering above them; great stalwart men with tiny women barely able to keep pace with them as they trotted briskly by their side; old men and virgins; slim youths and fatuous old women tittering and giggling like overgrown school girls; swarthy, glistening-haired Filipinos with the inevitable pale-faced blondes teetering along on incredible heels-the whole thing, like a vast picture whose figures were forever merging into new and more exciting compositions, was a never ending source of interest and entertainment.
Of course, with the passage of time, Claudia became seized with the desire to become more than a spectator. She tired of her purely objective mood and a spark of the old longing began to glow hotly within her. Her sleep became fitful and troubled and she knew it would not be much longer before she would seek relief.
A new tenant had come into the building and that evening as Claudia lolled at ease, wrapped in a sheer negligee, she heard the sound of a piano and strains of marvelous melody filtered into her room, the golden tones of the "Moonlight Sonata." Claudia bathed in the liquidity of Beethoven's genius. The playing died away abruptly, the pianist striking a jarring discord as though displeased and angry about something. Claudia listened, hoping that the unseen musician would play again.
The night was hot and sultry. The few trees outside drooped lifelessly, their leaves still and quiet as if in a vacuum. Claudia toyed with the idea of going for a walk toward the lake. There was a sharp rap on her door and she rose to her feet, switching on the light to see who it might be. She opened the door to discover a tall, strongly built young woman with level, piercing eyes.
"Good evening," she said in a deep, throaty voice. "My name is Davis, Billy Davis. I've just moved in next door. I hate to trouble you," she continued pleasantly, "but I'm in the middle of a lemonade drinking orgy and I find I've just used up what little sugar I had left. I wonder if you're in any better shape?"
Claudia hurried eagerly to her little cupboard, terribly eager to please her new neighbor. She returned with her entire supply.
"I just adore the way you play the piano," she told Billy in her shy way. "What on earth made you stop?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Just a mood, I guess. You know how you're apt to get when you live alone." She studied the dainty creature before her. Into her eyes there was growing a peculiar stare.
"I know how you feel," sympathized Claudia. "I have been feeling like that myself."
"Wouldn't you like to step over to my place?" invited Billy in a casual tone. "I've got the dump fixed up pretty good. Want to take a little looksee? And if you're a good little girl, I might play for you."
Claudia was delighted. "Wait," she cried, "until I slip into a dress."
"Don't bother," Billy told her with a strange expression. "It's frightfully warm. Let's be comfy." She led Claudia across the hall into her room.
Claudia gave vent to a little exclamation of surprise when she saw how beautifully Billy's apartment had been arranged. It was done in a modernistic black and silver and Claudia had never seen anything like it outside of a movie set. Mirrors set into the walls and the ceiling shot flashes of light from all angles. In one corner were several marvelous feminine nudes. There were no pictures of men. Along one wall was a long bookcase crammed with volumes of all sizes and thicknesses. The entire arrangement reeked of a certain culture. "Like it?" Billy asked.
"It's simply beautiful!" Claudia answered. "It makes my room look like a hole in the wall."
"There, now, don't say that, dear," Billy said with a kind of tenderness creeping into her voice. "I really thought your room was dainty and sweet like yourself." She stood close to Claudia, her face betraying a conflicting emotion, but Claudia was too interested in her unusual surroundings to notice and Billy walked off into the kitchen to prepare the lemonade, leaving Claudia to drink in the room and its furnishings. One did not have to know much about that sort of thing to realize the costliness of the rugs and the odd pieces lying about with a kind of oriental profusion. And the books were peculiar titles that Claudia had never heard of before.
The welcome sound of the musical clink of ice against glass put an end for the moment to her explorations.
They sat about, sipping at their cooling drinks. As Claudia sat back in her easy chair, the folds of her flimsy robe fell away, revealing a goodly length of shapely limb and curving thigh. Billy's mouth worked uncontrollably, her eyes hypnotically riveted to the delectable sight. Claudia unconsciously drew her robe about her and Billy turned suddenly and walked over to the piano where her long powerful fingers struck wonderful chords, sensuous strains of melody like a bird trilling a love-call to its mate.
At last Billy stopped and shook Claudia gently. "You better get to sleep, honey, or I might have to carry you." A shiver coursed through Claudia. This woman reminded her of Tom, with her height and wide shoulders, and when she turned her head and the vein of her neck stuck out in a taut line, her entire profile, with the closely clipped hair falling over her brow, completed a picture she knew too well. She said goodnight to Billy, sensing as she did so an odd constraint in the air.
"Goodnight," said Billy, and her blazing eyes followed Claudia's hips in their beautifully feminine rhythm as she swayed across the hall. Billy spent a bad night.
That was the beginning of a strange friendship. Claudia got into the habit of dropping over almost every night to listen to Billy on the piano. It began to appear to her that she was the best friend she ever had, so understanding and so full of sympathy. Billy and Claudia kept open house for each other. Billy was especially fond of surprising Claudia in the bathtub. She would stand gazing rapturously while the younger girl would rub down her soft glowing skin and something inside her would melt as she watched the girl's rich, warm breasts and tenderly rounded buttocks. Claudia grew used to this scrutiny and gradually attached less and less importance to it. Occasionally she would become peculiarly disturbed by what would begin as a casual caress and tend to develop into something vastly different, but when she would look up with an expression of faint alarm spreading over her youthful face her companion would quickly turn away with some joking speech such as:
"You know, my dear, I don't understand for the life of me, how the men can bear to leave you alone. You were made for love. You know you have the loveliest and softest body I have ever seen. I love your breasts and thighs, so smooth so round and white." And her fingers would open and close as she would turn her face away to walk over to the piano where she would vent her tortured feelings by pounding away with all her strength on the piano.
Naturally, such a state of affairs could not endure for long. One evening, as Claudia emerged fresh and glowing from her bath, she felt the pressure of a pair of lips upon her shoulder. She turned in surprise and was amazed to find Billy standing quietly like a bashful lover, like the boys back in her own little town who she used to torment with her beauty out of sheer cruelty.
A sudden instinct bade her cover her nakedness with her robe.
"Why, Bill!" she said. "What on earth is the matter with you tonight?"
Billy hung her head sullenly. "You ought to know what is the matter with me," she sulked. And then, when she noticed the uncomprehending look on Claudia's face, she said gruffly, "Kid, you don't know what it's all about, do you?" She walked out of the room and returned a little later with a small book in her hand.
"Here," she said to Claudia. "Read this and you'll understand what's the matter with me better than I can tell you myself." She left like a gust of wind, slamming the door tight.
With mingled feelings, Claudia sat down to read the book which had been left in her possession. What had come over Billy? What was the underlying reason for her strange actions? Well, she would soon find out.
Claudia read the book without moving from her chair for two hours. When she had absorbed every word and studied every phrase, the little volume slipped from her lifeless fingers to the floor. Tears seeped from out the corners of her eyes and rolled unheeded down her cheeks. So that was how it was. Billy was a lesbian!
How blind she had been not to understand what was perfectly obvious at first glance. What torture Billy had passed through! Poor creature! Who could trace the fearful labyrinths of the human mind! In what strange channels did human desire flow! By what devious routes did humans seek ecstasy.
With every fiber of her being Claudia yearned to help and to make her friend's lot a happier one, for she was genuinely fond of her talented neighbor. And now, through the open window, music was wafted to her, the song of a damned soul, and it seemed to Claudia as she sat there that Billy was pleading for her closer understanding, for her love. The song swelled and threatened to overflow her senses. Claudia ran out of the room crying, "Billy! Billy!" and she was clutched in the arms of steel. Their tears mingled in the grateful darkness.
Thus began an unusual relationship between the two women, one which was fraught with unique experiences for Claudia as she gave herself utterly to this strange and dominating creature.
At first the only apparent sexual gratification Billy craved was that of the kiss. She began by kissing Claudia tenderly and chastely, like one would kiss a brother or sister-utterly without passion. Her greatest sensual thrill seemed to be derived from the contemplation of Claudia's undraped figure. She would turn out all the lights in the room but one and focus that one upon Claudia's body which would glisten beneath its radiance as though it were made of polished marble. Billy would study this lovely picture and then go to the piano, where she would extract from its depths strange and eerie music.
But gradually her passion took a more definite turn. Billy was clever enough to play upon her younger and as yet more unschooled pupil with consummate skill. She was slowly and deliberately preparing her lovely companion for greater transports and more intimate raptures. She would say to Claudia, "God made me the way I am, a man in woman's clothing. I did not ask to be thus created; therefore the fault is not mine."
Claudia came gradually to understand the peculiar workings of her mind, and her tolerance and sympathy grew accordingly. The first instinctive aversion she had felt was leaving her and was replaced by feelings of an entirely different nature.
Both women lived together now, Claudia having moved into Billy's apartment. Mrs. Gleason, the landlady, looked rather displeased, but said nothing. It was an old story to her.
For several days Billy courted and wooed Claudia like the most tender and poetical of lovers. She wrote her amorous lyrical poetry extolling her lovely feminine charms and spun about her the disturbing net of music. She would read to the younger girl the most poignant expressions of love known to man. The incomparable Sappho was her favorite and she would quote the poetess-courtesan's burning rhythms to Claudia as she held her in her arms.
"Whose soft footfall sets my heart a-bound-ing
Wilder than when the clarions are sounding;
Whose bright face hath power to charm me That Lydia's army!"
And louder and sweeter would grow this he-woman's voice. Claudia was fast becoming carried away by this surging worship of music. But with the passage of time she began to yearn for a more material sign of love. It was wonderful to be thus tenderly worshiped and revered, and to be showered with expensive gifts and the filmy finery dear to her woman's heart, but nightly there grew in her vitals by leaps and bounds the desire for physical satisfaction. She was becoming sated by this platonic and sexless arrangement, she was tired of being treated like some bloodless doll. She was too hotly sexed for that kind of treatment.
Her feelings were communicated to Billy in that marvelous intuitive way she had of understanding things without being told. She smiled her bitter smile. "So you are beginning to become oppressed by your desire for physical intercourse, eh? Your insides are crying out for impregnation by a man-the filthy beasts. Can't you understand that I offer you a love far more pure and delicate and beautiful than that which any of those coarse-haired creatures can offer?"
"I know that," Claudia said. "I know, dear, and I'm sorry. Truly I am, and I want you to know that I am grateful for everything."
Her mildness softened Billy. "You dear sweet child. Of course it was silly of me to grow angry. After all, you must be starved for sexual stimulation. Well, if you want it that way I can give you greater satisfaction than is possible to any man."
"Can you really?" asked Claudia in wonderment.
"I'll show you," Billy said. She grasped the girl in her strong arms and, pressing her lips to Claudia's in a fierce liquid kiss, worked her fiery tongue inside of Claudia's mouth with the rapidity of a striking snake. This was the first time she had ever caressed Claudia with any show of masculine passion and the girl's head rang with strange clamor. She had known the pulse-quickening kisses of men in the heat of their lust, but never the love lashing which now sent quivers like the chilly feet of an army of mice marching up and down her spine. It seemed as if Billy would never halt her torrid caresses. She released the girl for an instant so they could both snatch a brief breathing spell. Then she once more covered the rosebud mouth of her passive partner with her own full lips, but she was more gentle. With softly pursed mouth she cleverly created a kind of suction between them which soon had Claudia trembling like a leaf in the wind, her body seared by the hot flames of lust.
Billy desisted and held the shivering girl rigidly in her arms. She pushed her away. "Now do you think I can love?" she asked, her voice filled with contempt.
Claudia was almost beside herself with stored-up passion. She sank before her lover upon her knees. "Please!" she urged. "For heaven's sake, do something for me before I go mad!"
Billy stood in a masculine manner, her arms crossed over her flat chest. With a sudden motion as if she had changed her mind, she caught the distraught girl up and carried her tormented form into the bedroom. She tore the clothes roughly from the girl's palpitating figure.
"Love?" she cried. "You don't know what love is! I'll show you how a tribade makes love!" She removed her clothing until she had revealed entirely her half-formed breasts and flat hips. She jumped into bed and drew the yielding pink and white body to her.
"It's such a lovely thing," she whispered as she sucked the ruby-red nipples of Claudia's velvet breasts and fingered the converging lips of her cleft with sensitive touch. The poor girl was in insufferable heat.
"Billy, Billy, do something!" she cried. "I'm burning up!"
Billy mounted her and they rubbed bottoms, the friction causing the girl unspeakable delight. She bucked beneath the lascivious weight of the lesbian like an unbroken horse trying to unseat its rider. Despite her strength, Billy had a hard time staying with the now ecstatic girl.
"I'm coming!" Claudia kept crying and undulating her hips with machinelike rapidity until at last she felt the torrential flow within her and she sank back in languorous delight, her body renewed and refreshed.
It was with a tremendous feeling of gratitude that Claudia nestled like a little child within the circling arms of her preceptress.
"Oh, I can't begin to describe how good you have made me feel!" she said. "It's as if all those horrible knots within me had suddenly become untied."
"We have only just begun our rosy trail of love," Billy told her. "If ever you leave my arms you will find that no one will ever take you as high on love's towering mountain as I will." Her vice-like arms strained the girl to her own hard body with such force that the breath was driven out of Claudia and she wriggled gasping in her lover's clutch. Billy whispered, "When I'm through with you, you'll never look at another man, the beasts!"
She kneeled beside the bed and drew Claudia across its narrow width and tongued the snowy insides of her thighs, gradually working up her thinly covered, turbulent sexual desire. When she had lifted her to the sought-for pitch, she buried her face deep into the mossy growth of hair which grew lovingly about the girl's beautifully shaped sex and began to lap the luscious crease vigorously, sending waves of agonizing delight through the girl who was no longer able to control herself. She twitched and wriggled as new sensations came into her consciousness and her ovarian geysers emitted, spouting lavalike outpourings of love's lotion.
She had fallen into the hands of a devotee of Aphrodite who was intensely skilled in the rites of satisfying as well as provoking desire.
Billy played with her erogenous centers and delicately nursed Claudia's diminished and somewhat appeased appetite like a pungent cocktail will bring dormant desire for food to life. Those knowing fingers titillated within her the seat of passion and gave new and unusual sensations to the unlearned in love. Claudia swelled beneath the tribade's maddening touch, and now her own fingers went on a search of their own, toying with the thin vulval lips of her companion. She inserted an inquisitive finger into the other's vaginal tract and now it was Billy's turn to stir with uneasy hips. Seeing this effect upon her friend, Claudia groped deeper into her female orifice until her fingers found the clitoris. To her amazement it felt like a penis in her hands and, looking down, she saw it projecting its smooth head from out of the vaginal tract. Farther and farther it protruded from between Billy's twitching legs until it grew to the size of a man's thumb. Billy once more mounted over Claudia's shapely body and inserted her little prong into her pleasure-laden depths. When Claudia felt that little object pressing within her after the long time she had gone without its delight, her excitement knew no bounds and she wrapped her slender limbs about the waist of her lover as though she meant to blend the other's figure into hers forever and ever, and now the two made the bedsprings give up chamber music as they melted together, caught in passion's flame. It was an experience fraught with pain and pleasure for both. They both went mad and tore at one another like animals in heat, and after they had spent, they lay too tired to move.
That was Claudia's introduction to Sapphism and she was soon firmly caught in its almost inextricable toils.
Nevertheless, association with the talented and musical lesbian did wonders to improve Claudia intellectually. She now read many things that ordinarily she never would have known existed. She heard the finest music played by a creature who was almost a master. She continually met new and interesting people and moved in an aura of refinement, decadent refinement, to be sure, but yet productive of considerable intellectual vigor.
They rarely went out, but one evening Billy suggested that they might amuse themselves at a sort of tavern and club for their kind known as "The Sister's Club." Claudia accepted with alacrity.
It would have been terribly amusing for an uninformed onlooker to have beheld the solicitous manner in which the lesbian selected her "wife's" costume for the evening.
"I want you all in black for this evening. I want all my friends to see how gorgeous my little girl really is."
Billy practically dressed Claudia, helping her into a dainty black transparent chemise under which her white skin gleamed. Over this she donned a low-cut, clinging evening gown, effectively simple except for a little belt studded with rhinestones which seemed to burn with a kind of electric fire as it tenderly encircled her slim waist. A rhinestone purse to match and one white orchid on her tenuous shoulder strap completed the dazzling costume.
"My dear," said Billy, "you look like a dream come true."
As for Billy, a new mannish blue suit with a dashing felt hat to match, a white pique shirt and loosely knotted dark blue satin cravat sprinkled with white polka dots made her an unforgettable picture of a twilight woman. They made a terrible and splendid picture as they left the apartment house together.
"The Sister's Club" was going full blast when they arrived. Claudia was instantly the object of interest among the other woman-lovers. They drank and watched a suggestive floor show with interest. One turn, two pretty girls executing a nimble cancan with much high kicking and display of slender silken limbs amid a white froth of petticoats, brought the most prolonged applause.
A tall, broad-shouldered man, or what at first glance appeared to be a man, took the floor. That was "Paul," the master of ceremonies.
There was a preliminary fanfare as he made his brief announcement.
"And now, as you all know, we will conduct our monthly beauty contest. The most beautiful girl will be given a cash prize. All contestants are requested to enter the dressing rooms to get ready for the lineup."
"I would love to see my little sweetheart entered in this contest," Billy whispered as she caressed Claudia gently.
Claudia was reluctant, but under Billy's insistence and because she hated to offend, she went to the dressing room with the other contestants. Here each girl was given an arm band with an identifying number and told to disrobe. Most of the girls were entirely stripped except for their shoes and stockings before the amazed Claudia could begin. One of the tall lesbians approached her. "Come, honey," she whispered in her ear. "Take your clothes off." She pinched her soft breasts. "You're such a lovely piece, dear." She ran her tongue around her lips suggestively. The entire procedure made Claudia ill, but she decided that now she would have to go through with it.
Like the others she removed all her clothing but her shoes and stockings and got into line. At a given signal they filed out onto the little dance floor into the blinding glare of the spotlight. They were greeted by tumultuous applause. They took their positions and Claudia tremorously awaited the next move. All the tribades rose to their feet to inspect the contestants. They did not stop with their eyes; they prodded the flesh and ran their hands down curving buttocks. They fondled swelling breasts and commented upon skin texture. But that was only the preliminary examination. Now they knelt to inspect the private parts of the girls. They exclaimed in loving tones when they stopped before Claudia and ogled her beauteous sex. "What voluptuous lips!" they remarked. "What splendid hair and development of the mount of Venus!" Their lips drooled and their eyes flashed as with their feverish imaginations they pictured the delights which the girl's body contained.
After the examinations had concluded, ballots were passed out and the count taken.
"I award the grand prize of a beautiful purse containing fifty dollars to number seventy-two."
Number seventy-two was Claudia.
She received the award amid thunderous acclaim. They kept her in the center of the stage alone so they could drink in the rare loveliness which stood shyly before them. When they had finished making love with her with their eyes, Billy led Claudia back to her dressing room. She quietly donned her clothes, filled with revulsion. Something had snapped with her. She was sated with everything; with life, with love . . . and above all with Billy.