— “We'll go to Paris, and be so happy” and then he began to talk baudy — which he had never done before.

She in tears and agitation went to her sister and told her all. — Said the sister, who did not seem now to care about anything so long as they got the money to enable them to go back to the farm, — “Why not? you can't do better.” — “Then I shan't marry Pietro.” — “Well, he's only a little farmer — and you'll have as much money in a week with the Captain as Pietro will give you in a year.” — Gertrude revolted at this advice, the sisters had a row, and parted, Margaretta finishing by saying that Pietro could not marry till his father died, which might be years hence, and that if Gertrude liked to wait years for her fucking, she might — and more fool she.

But it was such a fortune to them just then, those 1500 francs or even half that sum, that her sister was at her about it soon again nearly every day. — Once she said she would tell her husband if she did not get the money. — Then Gertrude said she would tell him all about the soldiers having tailed his wife. But it never was told him, they were both too wise for that.

She determined not to accept the Captain's offer, and for a week resisted. The leg of the Captain got better, and he was incessantly worrying her to be his mistress. He would take her thro Italy and give her no end of pleasures. At last he said, if she would sleep with him one night only he would give her half his estimate of the value, and the other half for a second night. — She resented it with affectation of modesty, but the offer upset her very much. — The offer of sleeping with her made her long for the male, she told me frankly.

There had been another wounded officer in the house. The mistress with an old servant attended to him, and in fact all three helped both of the two wounded men. — There was only opportunity of a brief kind for the Captain to tail Gertrude in the day, for the House Lady was, or affected to be, prudish, and said that Gertrude might not to be assisting the Captain alone, and was constantly in the room with her. The other officer then left, sufficiently cured. — The mistress' husband was out all day, and their one servant was also out one day — the Captain was moving about the room with crutches, but had no trowsers on, and a great dressing gown covered him.

Gertrude was with him, and he renewed his offer of money. — She had a lewedness on her that day, she supposed, her cunt was yearning for copulation, and his talk put the soldiers into her head. He caught hold of her as she passed him, — he was sitting at the edge of the bed — and kissed her, held her tight, and talked downright baudiness. She boxed his ears, and then he talked worse. His crutches slipped down on to the floor as he tried to get his hand up her clothes. — She struggled, but was frightened to make a noise, as he touched her cunt. (Ah, those male fingers, how few women can say nay when they have rubbed the clitoris for a minute.) He opened his dressing gown and pulled up her clothes, his cock was stiff, but he could not achieve his end, for he could not move excepting on the bed without assistance. — She was dying for a fuck, but got away from him. — Then he sat at the edge of the bed, holding his cock, began to cry, asked her to pity him, and said he would buy the watch and chain at once if she would. — She refused still, but helped him on to the bed. When there, he got his arms tightly round her, and pulled her up on to it. (She did not need pulling for she wanted it badly) then freely she opened her thighs and let him fuck her. — I'll bet there was lots of spunk on her thighs when she got off that bed. Thus she tasted cock again, was twenty-one years of age, big, healthy, and needed fucking, and she laughed when she told me that as soon as he had finished she went down stairs, saw the landlady as a blind, and then quickly went back to him, and when he begged her to go to him, she went without demur. He fucked her that and the following day as much as he could, and less than she wanted. She helped him with his wounded leg on to her. “I didn't care,” — she said — “I was longing for him to begin again as soon as he'd finished, tho I didn't tell him so, but made him beg and pray me a little.” — Then the old servant with whom Gertrude worked was away one night, and Gertrude went to the Captain's room and slept with him, risking the landlady catching her. It was her first, full, naked, flesh pleasure. — He kept his promise and gave her 1000 francs, and afterwards 500 francs more, which sum he actually sold the things for. She didn't tell her sister what had taken place till the Captain was well enough to move off. Then she lent her brother-in-law the money, saying that her intended husband had given it to her.

Margaretta then, in excess of gratitude, told her in confidence that she was in family way by one of the soldiers. That she felt sure of it at the time, from some sensations she experienced when she spent with him.

—She had denied before that she had had pleasure. It was not fancy, and that night she was anxious to get Antonio to do it to her, so that when the child came there might be no doubt about parentage. (An old dodge this, I have had women who played that game.)

— “If ever you tell your husband anything about me and the soldiers, I'll tell him the child is not his,” said Gertrude — Margaretta said she should not be such a fool. Soon after Gertrude and the Captain left.

She was happy enough with him, tho disappointed that he had not married her, till he took to drinking. He always insisted that she had had a rich lover who gave her the watch, or that she had stolen it. — That he said once or twice when they had words. — One night, in bed, they had had friends and were jolly and randy, she was fool enough, under a pledge of secrecy, to tell him the facts about the soldiers. It astonished him, and he always was for a time talking about it to her. — Then, when drunk, she was sure he had told one at least of their friends. They had had frequent rows about it, and she had threatened him that if ever he told it to a man and she knew it, that she would let that man have her. — That occurred a few months before I knew them. — She had asked him if he had told me. He denied it, but confessed he had told that he had heard of a woman having been ravished by soldiers. — That was nothing, he said, in war. — The French soldiers often did it. He had heard of cases where they had both fucked, and buggered as well, a mother, and a whole family of girls before their mother's eyes. — It was fair in war, some thought.

This history, not a word of which I disbelieve, was not of course told me in the consecutive way I have narrated it — I never knew a woman who would or could tell straight off, intelligibly, all about her first fucking, or any fucking affair. First the broad facts were told me, then the little incidents as I questioned her from time to time. It was first told me on the Sunday, when I stayed the two days and nights in his absence, and we lay naked in each other's arms, kiss- ing and feeling and fucking, and talking over this story, till I knew it by heart. Many a time after, when we met, I questioned her and stirred up our lust by talking over the incidents.

Afterwards, she told me about her first poking by her lover (an ordinary commonplace affair) and all her feelings and thoughts about copulation. — She would tell me what passed thro her mind when I was poking her, for she was frank and open, and I soon reasoned her out of the idea of there being any shame or disgrace in our voluptuous pleasures, or in talking about them, or disclosing frankly what we thought, how-ever lascivious it might be. — I came to the conclusion that she had not been a woman of ardent temperament until she was about twenty — I think I have known that to be the case with some women of high susceptibility, who only became voluptuous when full grown, and their passions were fully evoked by the male. — But women are so cunning, so taught early to hide all their thoughts and feelings about sexual affairs, that I may have been wrong in the opinion I formed. They are so damned cunning about their cunts, and their prick hunger — are women.