In the autumn I was at a health resort. Stopping there was an elderly friend, who for quietness had lodgings almost in the suburbs. He'd been a long time there, said the house was exceedingly comfortable, and belonged to a widow who had a little girl. She said she was not a lodging house keeper, tho for a few months in the season she let the ground floor, getting a little extra money which was useful for the education of her girl. It seemed to my friend that there was truth in what she said, as for the first floor — which she didn't use much — she asked such a price, that no one would take it. He had told her so. She'd replied that it didn't matter, for she could do very well without it. The house was her own, was newly and well furnished, she had every appearance of having means, and she'd been there two years. There was something nevertheless mysterious about her. His age and habits rendered him above suspicion of amatory affairs.
She opened the door to me when I called one day. My friend was out, I waited for him, and to my sur-prise, I found her a woman of not perhaps more than seven and thirty, stoutish, well grown, with bright dark eyes and handsome face. I got into conversation with her, which at first she seemed disinclined to.
We chatted about my friend. — “Yes, a nice quiet man,” she said, if he were not she shouldn't keep him. It was said in an independent sort of way. Then, that really she needn't let the rooms, but the extra money was useful to better educate her girl. We chatted on, bit by bit I elicited that her husband had been dead four years. Her buxom fresh look stirred my lust, I had thought of her hidden charms, and with those delicate but warm suggestions, which come naturally, when voluptuous feelings run thro me, I asked why she didn't marry again, how she must miss a bedfollow, did she cuddle the pillow and so on, all tending to raise thoughts of and make her want fucking. She laughed, colored up, looked at me softly and asked questions about myself. I answered in words to imply that I was fond of women, and knew what sexual trouble a fine woman like her must have, who'd been by death deprived of her bed-fellow.
In such chance meetings when desire springs up, much depends upon the sexual state in which the man and woman may be. If both are at the moment hot, if the body is ready with its amorous fluids, each suggestive question and answer adds to the heat of cunt and ballocks. Both of us were, I think, much needing amorous delights that day. Just then my friend came in and stopped a pleasant conversation, she left and we talked about her. He said she was a lady, and further on, — “Ah, women are a mystery in sexual matters, thou-sands I'm convinced do without a male for years when left widows, whilst we wouldn't, couldn't wait a week.” — His profession — from which he'd retired — made him somewhat of an authority on such a subject.
I took a fancy to the landlady, my old friend had taken a fancy to the girl — a sweet one resembling her mother who next time brought her into my friend's room at his request. The girl, who was really beautiful, my friend treated paternally, the landlady with courtesy, keeping her nevertheless well at a distance. I looked next time at her and she at me, and a voluptuous thrill ran thro my pego as I thought of her hidden beauties. She colored up and looked fully in my eyes. I have always thought that lust is communicable between man and woman, by look or by touch, and believed she also had a voluptuous thrill. Did she see in my eyes lust for her, or did she magnetically infuse her lust into me, by her eyes?