Gynecocracy

I felt that at last I had begun to live instinctively, that there was something to live for. It could be no mere hallucination that the future had still some mystery to disclose, and some more perfect tuition to offer. A dim vision of the happiness to be enjoyed by the human creature when it perfects itself by the discovery and coalescence of its sexual affinity was thus unfolded; and, on the other hand, I easily perceived the misery it must endure from unsatisfied yearnings.

There was evidently more in the education I was receiving and in the discipline to which I had been given up than was apparent on its surface or than I had supposed.

Mademoiselle had indeed thoroughly given me a psychological lesson. I had taken it to be a joke. I had not dreamt it was possible for that little hand to teach me so much.

At last my fair instructress looked up, and speaking as though she were putting some restraint upon herself, said significantly: "Well, Julian, I think we have talked long enough, and I am now going to read."

"Oh, Mademoiselle," I said, "won't you give me more?"

"You silly boy," she rejoined, laughing, and now really rosy, "you do not even know what I am going to permit you. Come here."

She was seated in a low and long-seated armchair, and placing her knees against its left elbow, she directed me to seat myself on the floor, with my legs underneath the chair, and with my face close to the front of the seat.

I found this no easy matter, and went to work rather clumsily, receiving one or two playful but sharp slaps, "for not carrying out a lady's wishes with more alacrity." When at last I had succeeded, she unfastened and took off the drawers from my arms and also the body of the dress I was wearing, leaving my arms, neck, and shoulders bare. I was much incommodated by the corset, which was really a very ill-fitting one, and felt exceedingly awkward in my unfamiliar attire, and indeed hurt myself with the busks of the longwaisted thing as I assumed the required posture. My long legs, uncovered by the petticoats, which in my efforts to seat myself as bidden had worked themselves quite up to my knees, were disposed in a very ungraceful and clumsy heap beneath the chair. I sincerely trusted Mademoiselle, martinet and stickler for elegance as I knew her to be, would not notice this, dreading the consequences if she did. Perhaps, however, she considered the irksomeness and the discomfort of the badly arranged drapery beneficial. For although she must have noticed the bundle and my immodestly uncovered legs, yet when she had got me close enough, she gave me no further directions. By a dexterous movement and half-turn, accomplished before I had time to guess what she meant, she whisked her petticoats over my head and lodged her right leg across my left shoulder. The result was that I found my head again between her soft and warm thighs, each voluptuously pressing one of my cheeks. Her legs were enveloped in exquisitely fine linen undergarments; and there was wafted to me a fresher and stronger prevalence of that strange intoxicating perfume which I had noticed about the red flannel petticoat. My natural impulse was to retreat, an effort promptly prevented by a tight grip of Mademoiselle; stooping over she lifted up her skirts and looking at me with a strange fierce light in her eyes but with a rosy smile upon her face, said: "Now, Julian, if in the course of your incursions underneath my petticoats you should encounter a mouth with a moustache you may kiss it; and, in fact, when 39

I press my heel against your back-like this-you are to kiss it-you understand-and to continue doing so as long as I press you."

She then again dropped her voluminous garments over me and threw herself well back in the chair. My head, already well above her knees, came to the open part of her drawers where I felt her satin like skin and soft warm flesh, this time naked, against my cheeks. To my astonishment, my nose, mouth, and chin were tickled by some hairs. This must be the moustache thought I, and before I had time to determine what to do, Mademoiselle gave a wriggle and holding me close with her legs, rubbed something very hairy and moist all over my face, my eyes, my nose, and my mouth in a very lingering manner. In the midst of the hair I found what seemed like a mouth set lengthwise instead of across, and felt a little protuberance near its top, which was pressed forcibly against my own lips and which appeared to be excessively sensitive. At the same moment I felt her heel pressed against my shoulders and I gave it a kiss. It was instantly pushed into my lips and my mouth was forced wide open; unable to kiss it, I tickled it with my tongue.