Teleny or the Reverse of the Medal (7 page)

I, of course, looked upon it as a monstrosity, a sin—as Origen says—far worse than idolatry. And yet I had to admit that the world—even after the cities of the plain had been destroyed —throve well enough notwithstanding this aberration, for Paphian girls in the great days of Rome were but too often discarded for pretty little boys.

It was but time for Christianity to come and sweep away all the monstrous vices of this world with its brand new broom. Catholicism later on burnt those men who sowed in a sterile field—in effigy.

The popes had their catamites, the kings had their
mignons,
and if all the host of priests, monks, friars and caluyers were forgiven, they —it must be admitted—did not always commit buggery, or cast away their seed on rocky soil, although religion did not intend their implements to be baby-making tools.

As for the Templars, if they were burnt, it surely could not have been on account of their pederasty, for it had been winked at long enough.

What amused me, however, was to see that every writer impeached all his neighbors of indulging in this abomination; his own people alone were free from this shocking vice.

The Jews accused the Gentiles, and the Gentiles the Jews, and—like syphilis—all the black sheep who had this perverted taste had always imported it from abroad. I also read in a modern medical book, how the penis of a sodomite becomes thin and pointed like a dog's, and how the human mouth gets distorted when used for vile purposes, and I shuddered with horror and disgust. Even the sight of that book blanched my cheek!

It is true that since then, experience has taught me quite another lesson, for I must confess that I have known scores of whores, and many other women besides, who have used their mouths not only for praying and for kissing their confessor's hand, and yet I have never perceived that their mouths were crooked, have you?

As for my penis, or yours, its bulky head— but you blush at the compliment, so we will drop this subject.

At that time I tortured my brain, fearing to have committed this heinous sin morally, if not materially.

Mosaic religion, rendered stricter by the Talmudic law, has invented a cowl to be used in the act of copulation. It wraps up the whole body of the husband, leaving in the middle of the gown but a tiny hole—like that in a little boy's pants—to pass the penis through, and thus enable him to squirt his sperm into his wife's ovaries, fecundating her in this way, but preventing as much as possible all carnal pleasure. Ah, yes! but people have long since taken French leave of the cowl, hoodwinking the whole affair by hooding their falcon with a 'French letter.'

Yes, but are we not born with a leaden cowl —namely, this Mosaic religion of ours, improved upon by Christ's mystic precepts, and rendered impossible, perfect, by Protestant hypocrisy; for if a man commits adultery with a woman every time he looks at her, did I not commit sodomy with Teleny every time I saw him or even thought of him?

There were moments however when, nature being stronger than prejudice, I should right willingly have given up my soul to perdition— nay, yielded my body to suffer in eternal hell-fire—if in the meanwhile I could have fled somewhere on the confines of this earth, to some lonely island, where in perfect nakedness I could have lived for some years in deadly sin with him, feasting upon his fascinating beauty.

'Still I resolved to keep aloof from him, to be his motive power, his guiding spirit, to make of him a great, a famous, artist. As for the fire of lewdness burning within me—well, if I could not extinguish it, I could at least subdue it.

'I suffered. My thoughts, night and day, were with him. My brain was always aglow; my blood was overheated; my body ever shivering with excitement. I daily read all the newspapers to see what they said about him; and whenever his name met my eyes the paper shook in my trembling hands. If my mother or anybody else mentioned his name I blushed and then grew pale.

'I remember what a shock of pleasure, not unmingled with jealousy, I felt, when for the first time I saw his likeness in a window amongst those of other celebrities. I went and bought it at once, not simply to treasure and dote upon it, but also that other people might not look at it;'

'What! you were so very jealous?'

'Foolishly so. Unseen and at a distance I used to follow him about, after every concert he played.

'Usually he was alone. Once, however, I saw him enter a cab waiting at the back door of the theatre. It had seemed to me as if someone else was within the vehicle—a woman, if I had not been mistaken. I hailed another cab, and followed them. Their carriage stopped at Teleny's house. I at once bade my Jehu do the same.

'I saw Teleny alight. As he did so, he offered his hand to a lady, thickly veiled, who tripped out of the carriage and darted into the open doorway. The cab then went off.

'I bade my driver wait there the whole night. At dawn the carriage of the evening before came and stopped. My driver looked up. A few minutes afterwards the door was again opened. The lady hurried out, was handed into her carriage by her lover. I followed her, and stopped where she alighted.

'A few days afterwards I knew who she was.'

'And who was she?'

'A lady of an unblemished reputation with whom Teleny had played some duets.

'In the cab, that night, my mind was so intently fixed upon Teleny that my inward self seemed to disintegrate itself from my body and to follow like his own shadow the man I loved. I unconsciously threw myself into a kind of trance and I had a most vivid hallucination, which, strange as it might appear, coincided with all that my friend did and felt.

'For instance, as soon as the door was shut behind them, the lady caught Teleny in her arms, and gave him a long kiss. Their embrace would have lasted several seconds more, had Teleny not lost his breath.

'You smile; yes, I suppose you yourself are aware how easily people lose their breath in kissing, when the lips do not feel that blissful intoxicating lust in all its intensity. She would have given him another kiss, but Teleny whispered to her: 'Let us go up to my room; there we shall be far safer than here.'

Soon they were in his apartment.

She looked timidly around, and seeing herself in that young man's room alone with him, she blushed and seemed thoroughly ashamed of herself.

'Oh! Rene,' she said, 'what must you think of me?'

'That you love me dearly,' quoth he; 'do you not?'

'Yes, indeed; not wisely, but too well.'

Thereupon taking off her wrappers, she rushed up and clasped her lover in her arms, showering her warm kisses on his head, his eyes, his cheeks and then upon his mouth. That mouth I so longed to kiss!

With lips pressed together, she remained for some time inhaling his breath, and—almost frightened at her boldness—she touched his lips with the tip of her tongue. Then, taking courage, soon afterwards she slipped it in his mouth, and then after a while, she thrust it in and out, as if she were enticing him to try the act of nature by it; she was so convulsed with lust by this kiss that she had to clasp herself to him not to fall, for the blood was rushing to her head, and her knees were almost giving way beneath her. At last, taking his right hand, after squeezing it hesitatingly for a moment, she placed it upon her breasts, giving him her nipple to pinch, and as he did so, the pleasure she felt was so great that she was swooning away for joy.

'Oh, Teleny!' she said; 'I can't! I can't any more.'

And she rubbed herself as strongly as she could against him, protruding her middle parts against his.

—And Teleny?

—Well, jealous as I was, I could not help feeling how different his manner was now from the rapturous way with which he had clung to me that evening, when he had taken the bunch of heliotrope from his buttonhole and had put it in mine.

He accepted rather than returned her caresses. Anyhow, she seemed pleased, for she thought him shy.

She was now hanging on him. One of her arms was clasped around his waist, the other one around his neck. Her dainty, tapering, bejewelled fingers were playing with his curly hair, and paddling his neck.

He was squeezing her breasts, and, as I said before, slightly fingering her nipples.

She gazed deep into his eyes, and then sighed.

'You do not love me,' she said at last. 'I can see it in your eyes. You are not thinking of me, but of somebody else.'

And it was true. At that moment he was thinking of me—fondly, longingly; and then, as he did so, he got more excited, and he caught her in his arms, and hugged and kissed her with far more eagerness than he had hitherto done— nay, he began to suck her tongue as if it had been mine, and then began to thrust his own into her mouth.

After a few moments of rapture she, this time, stopped to take a breath.

'Yes, I am wrong. You love me. I see it now. You do not despise me because I am here, do you?'

'Ah! if you could only read in my heart, and see how madly I love you, darling!'

And she looked at him with longing, passionate eyes.

'Still you think me light, don't you? I am an adulteress!'

And thereupon she shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.

He looked at her for a moment pitifully, then he took down her hands gently, and kissed her.

'You do not know how I have tried to resist you, but I could not. I am on fire. My blood is no longer blood, but some burning love-philter. I cannot help myself,' said she, lifting up her head defiantly as if she were facing the whole world, 'here I am, do with me what you like, only tell me that you love me, that you love no other woman but me, swear it.'

'I swear,' he said languidly, 'that I love no other woman.'

She did not understand the meaning of his words.

'But tell it to me again, say it often, it is so sweet to hear it repeated from the lips of those we dote on,' said she, with passionate eagerness.

'I assure you that I have never cared for any woman so much as I do for you.'

'Cared?' said she, disappointed.

'Loved, I mean.'

'And you can swear it?'

'On the cross if you like,' he added, smiling.

'And you do not think badly of me because I am here? Well, you are the only one for whom I have ever been unfaithful to my husband; though God knows if he be faithful—my husband; God knows if he be faithful to me. Still my love does not atone for my sin, does it?'

Teleny did not give her any answer for an instant, he looked at her with dreamy eyes, then shuddered as if awaking from a trance.

'Sin,' he said, 'is the only thing worth living for.'

She looked at him rather astonished, but then she kissed him again and again and answered: 'Well, yes, you are perhaps right; it is so, the fruit of the forbidden tree was pleasant to the sight, to the taste, and to the smell.'

They sat down on a divan. When they were clasped again in each other's arms he slipped his hand somewhat timidly and almost unwillingly under her skirts.

She caught hold of his hand, and arrested it.

'No, Rene, I beg of you! Could we not love each other with a Platonic love? Is that not enough?'

'Is it enough for you?' said he, almost superciliously.

She pressed her lips again upon his, and almost relinquished her grasp. The hand went stealthily up along the leg, stopped a moment on the knees, caressing them; but the legs closely pressed together prevented it from slipping between them, and thus reaching the higher story. It crept up, nevertheless, caressing the thighs through the fine linen underclothing, and thus, by stolen marches, it reached its aim. The hand then slipped between the opening of the drawers, and began to feel the soft skin. She tried to stop him.

'No, no!' she said; 'please don't; you are tickling me.'

He then took courage, and plunged his fingers boldly in the fine curly locks of the fleece that covered all her middle parts.

She continued to hold her thighs tightly closed together, especially when the naughty fingers began to graze the edge of the moist lips. At that touch, however, her strength gave way; the nerves relaxed and allowed the tip of a finger to worm its way within the slit—nay, the tiny berry protruded out to welcome it.

After a few moments she breathed more strongly. She encircled his breast with her arms, kissed him, and then hid her head on his shoulder.

'Oh, what a rapture I feel!' she cried. 'What a magnetic fluid you possess to make me feel I as do!'

He did not give her any answer; but, unbuttoning his trousers, he took hold of her dainty little hand. He endeavored to introduce it within the gap. She tried to resist, but weakly, and as if asking but to yield. She soon gave way, and boldly caught hold of his phallus, now stiff and hard, moving lustily by its own inward strength.

After a few moments of pleasant manipulation, their lips pressed together, he lightly, and almost against her knowledge, pressed her down on the couch, lifted up her legs, pulled up her skirts without for a moment taking his tongue out of her mouth or stopping his tickling of her tingling clitoris already wet with its own tears. Then—sustaining his weight on his elbows—he got his legs between her thighs. That her excitement increased could be easily seen by the shivering of the lips which he had no need to open as he pressed down upon her, for they parted of themselves to give entrance to the little blind God of Love.