The chance came. — I had already twice dropped in-to the hands of the woman gifts about ten times the value of what an Italian would have given, when she had opened the door. The Marchesa was not rich, and only kept one man-servant in the house (a flat in a very large palace it was, and most of their rooms on one floor) but she kept such a carriage, horses, coach-man, and out-door servants, that she might have been taken for a millionaire. — I was to have been at the Palazzo, the day after I had tailed the lady, and was in my room wondering whether any more copulation would come off, and thinking over the charms of my noble Venus, when a letter was brought me from the Marchesa, and a reply asked for by bearer. “Tell the servant to come up.” — I thought it was a man, when behold, up came the maid.
Quick as lightning came my resolve. “Come in whilst I write a reply.” She was inside my room, the door was closed, there was my bed, there the opportunity. — She wore big gold earrings. — “You like ear-rings. What did those cost, they are handsome,” and I went close to her to look at them. She told me. — At once I fell into raptures about her beauty — “I'll give you a brooch if you'll give me a kiss.” “No, I must get back” — but I took out from my trunk a cameo, bought at Florence, and put it into her hand, whilst at the same moment I snatched a kiss or two. — “There,” I said, “is a trifle for the kiss,” and I gave a trifle — “and I'll give you the brooch if you'll let me” — “Let you what.” — I saw by her look that she knew quite well what. — “Come to the bed.” — “Ah, Grand Dio! No Signor, I'm married.” — “Nonsense.” — “Yes.” — “The Marchese' Valet is my husband, he is away with the Marchese now.”
Surprized, I yet saw my chance at once. — Her husband away — then if some one does not do her business, in his absence, she must want fucking badly. — “Ah, not the brooch, but then take this.” I took out two gold pieces and laid them down. — She shook her head, eyeing the gold. — I bolted my door, and without further preliminary put my hand up her clothes. — “Grand Dio, Signor! What are you doing?” — But her resistance was slight. — “Take it, cara mia, who will know?” and I pulled her on to my knee, she having stood up when I approached her. — “Kiss me, then — let me feel then, — only feel it,” — I felt her cunt freely tho she said again “Giammai — certemente giammai.”
“Assurdita, cara mia,” and I put her hand on to my prick. — She let her hand rest on that article, but lifelessly. — I kept on feeling her. Her thighs closed. — “Oh, I must go,” said she, her bum wriggling: and with a convulsive, involuntary squeeze of my prick, up she got, shifting my hand from her cunt, and letting go of my pego.
I rose up also. — Instinct told me that lust was coursing through her veins. — What ideas float thro my brain in moments like this. I forget everything but cunt. The thought of cunt absorbs every other. Now they ran on a cunt not yet seen, the belly of a woman not yet entered by me. Then the desire to fuck it dominated me. — Does a woman have similar lewed thoughts and sensations? — Will his prick go up me? — His sperm moisten me — Certainly, at a time, a visible langour creeps over her, she resists no longer, tho she says, “No — never — no” — till the prick touches her cunt. — Ah! It is up her, roking and poking, and she is silent at once, with eyes half closed, luxuriating in the smooth rigidity, which is prodding, and rubbing, and wriggling, in her.
Gently I pulled the maid, still uttering “Giammai — certamente — Giammai” — to my bed, and sat her down on its edge, and with arm round her waist, kissing and begging her. But I forgot the Italian for cunt. “Cosa,” was all I could say. — “No — the Marchesa will wonder where I am.” But I fingered her cunt freely, and in another minute, silently she had dropped backwards, or been gently pulled on to the bed. — I lifted her legs. I saw a broad expanse of belly, dark hair, a red line, and in a minute my prick was up her. How delicious she seemed, yet the whole time I was fucking I kept thinking of the look and feel of the Marchesa's black quim, thin thighs, and small bum. How strange my thoughts often so wander, — for now I often think of other cunts than the one which is giving me pleasure.
The maid lay in soft, silent delight, till my prick left her, and then sprang up rapidly. — “What shall I tell the Marchesa about my long absence?” — “Say I was out and you waited for me.” — She shook her head as if that tale would not do. Perhaps she had told such a tale too often before. — I never heard what she did tell. — I put the gold into her hand, it was quite equal to two months' wages. Gold, omnipotent gold!
The letter from the Marchesa needed a reply, and purposely I sent an ambiguous one, likely to get the maid sent back to me. The ruse was successful, and back she came with another letter. She looked sly, and laughed quietly as she entered, as if she expected what followed. The instant I had read the letter, I pushed her on to the bed and we fucked again deliciously. “You've washed your cunt” — said I, recollecting the name of that article now — mona — “Certamente,” said she, bursting out laughing. — I wrote my reply, and there was the end of my business with her on that day.
My friend called soon after and we went for a walk. I asked him where he took his women to. (He was a bachelor and had said he had no mistress.) He took them to his own rooms. — No one objected there. — What could I do I asked, if I wanted a woman. — Eyeing me curiously, he said I might bring a real lady to his rooms, if I'd give him notice, so that he might absent himself. That did not of course suit me — and he shewed me one or two very nice houses, where on the first or second floor of a public staircase, good accommodations might be had. “But you needn't go there much,” said he. “Ladies will manage it for you in their own houses if you take their time, they are clever at it here.” — “Whores are not assumed to exist, there are so many priests, tho there really are lots of whores, and you need never fear going home with them, for on the slightest complaint to the police, you will get any one of them sent out of the city. — That keeps them careful. They know it, and are well behaved. And if a man opens the door, be not afraid. Men manage often these things here.” And indeed I had found at several Italian towns, men attending at brothels. The customs of nations are different in sexual, as in other matters.
I had to call on the Marchesa afterwards, and knowing I might see the maid, wrote on a slip of paper, a request to know where she would meet me. She opened it hurriedly, and whispered “I can't read.” — So I was balked. — The Marchesa that day asked if I had a sitting room at my hotel, and seemed surprized when she heard I had not. “I can't call on you then.” She evidently meant me to have her at my hotel. — Such audacious intrigue in a married woman, almost a stranger to me, astonished me. I had never I think met with such before, and began to take a dislike to her. Yet I got a sitting room adjoining my bedroom that very day.
Moreover, I had set my mind on the maid, and did not wish all my stiffness taken out of me, by that slim piece of nobility, tho I felt somewhat honored by the distinction she had conferred on me. Then I thought of my friend's remark about her, and began wondering, whether other travelling strangers had been similarly honored, for her husband seemed to be mostly away from her, as far as I could learn.
At the Opera that night, the Marchesa said she would call on me next morning after mass (Sunday), about something or another, I forget what — and she did. — She was shown into my sitting room and placed her self on the sofa. She looked really very inviting there, and my pego began to swell, as I thought of the sofas in her house. So getting near her, I asked if she had Roman silk stockings on. She laughed, looked voluptuously at me, and said I was too dangerous to tell anything about stockings any more, that I'd better for-get all about them, and she turned to another subject quite adroitly, as if she didn't wish to refer what had passed only two days before.