Chapter 5 “All out for the morning!”

Ritz Hotel. Piccadilly, London, dining room

Edmund Molloy, a journalist, was assigned by his newspaper, The Daily Courier, to interview the notorious Professor Challenor, who was due to give a lecture on the discovery of prehistoric creatures in the jungles of Amazonia. Molloy was charmed by the Professor's flirtatious wife, Edith, who he had eavesdropped upon while she engaged in a bout of passion with her husband at their home in Bloomsbury Square Gardens.

“Honestly, Molloy, you have gone from being a complete dunce around women to having married ladies behaving towards you in the most familiar way. Sexual confidence breeds general confidence which breeds admiration which breeds more opportunity!” said Britten, as we had dinner in the splendid dining room of the Ritz Hotel. “I take some credit for your transformation, along with the ladies from the Babylon Exploration Society, of course. Although, perhaps, we should give most of the credit to the very forward Agnes!” 

“Currently I do not feel like giving Agnes credit for anything! Well, I suppose all of those influences may have had some effect. Certainly Mrs Challenor seemed very taken with me!” 

“Well if her husband is as simian as your description indicates then perhaps she is just looking for a well formed man. Intimate congress with an ape must be quite revolting!” He sipped some of his Chateau La Tour Blanche. 

 “She appeared to be enjoying it greatly, from what I could hear through the professor’s study door!” I said, cutting into my fois gras. 

“Indeed! Now continue with your account of your visit!” said Britten. 

I told him the amazing story of how Blanc and his small expedition had, based on local stories, found their way to a cave at the foot of the plateau’s escarpment. This they had entered and discovered a series of caves leading up into the interior of the mount. Cutting torches, Blanc and his daughter ascended the passage. Their few remaining Indian porters had refused to follow them, quoting the story of Puripuri, some sort of winged demon. Blanc had put their stories down to fears of large bats which they certainly found in the cave. Eventually, they reached daylight and realised that they were on the top of the plateau. Their exit was blocked by stones and logs but after several hours they could clear enough of a hole to crawl out onto the top of the mount. 

“Fully half of the journal tells of the wonders they found there," I said. "It seems, according to Professor Challenor, that this plateau has been cut off from the world for tens of millions of years and is filled with plants and creatures that have long since died out on earth!” 

“What?” asked Britten drinking some more Sauternes. I had thought it odd to have a Sauternes with the fois gras but it complimented it perfectly. There was even more to learn about wine than women, it seemed. “What do you mean?” 

“Dinosaurs, old chap! Living, breathing dinosaurs!” I said, finishing my glass. 

“Poppycock! On what basis does Challenor make such an absurd assertion?” said Britten. 

“Well, the drawings in the journal and there was even a cracked glass plate photograph of a flying reptile. A photograph of a prehistoric pterodactyl!” I said. “The Indians Puripuri is actually a flying reptile thought to be long extinct!” 

“Honestly, it sounds like Madame Challenor’s musky charms have gone to your head, old chap!” said Britten, waving for the sommelier to bring over our bottle of Latour ‘99. “Anyone can knock together a series of drawings of dinosaurs! Just get yourself down to Crystal Place or visit the Natural History Museum and sketch away! I am certain you can! Anna is delighted with that sketch you did of her last night, by the way. I think she wants to give you a special reward, if you take my meaning!” I blushed. After I had shot my seed over Hoshimi’s flat belly, having withdrawn just before the critical moment, we had washed each other and then dressed to return to the Oriental Room downstairs, where some Port and Stilton had been laid out. Britten and Anna, displaying a lot of leg from under her peignoir as she sat on his lap, were already tucking in, Britten, annoyingly, having finished the claret. The Scandinavian had looked so pretty I whipped out my reporter’s notebook and pencil and did a quick sketch of her. I then had to do one of Hoshimi too, of course. 

 “Yes, but...” I began. 

“And as for photographs, well they are very easy to fake. It would be just as easy to present photographs of fairies looking as real as any dinosaur, I am sure, with a little photographic trickery!” said Britten. 

“But Challenor explained that the depiction of the dinosaurs, particularly of Iguanodon, is completely different from those in Crystal Palace and even the more modern reconstructions of today. This Iguanodon in the journal has its tail held out horizontally behind. It is not dragging on the ground and is in a much less upright posture than is depicted now! You could not invent such a pose unless you had witnessed it!” 

“Can’t say I would know an Iguanodon if it roamed down Piccadilly tonight!” said Britten as the decanter of wine arrived. “But what happened to the girl who drew the pictures?” 

“Well, something terrible happened. The journal entries, which had been detailed and scientific suddenly stopped. “My God, I have lost her!” were the final words in the journal, written in a shaky hand. After that, nothing. The account ends there!” I said, still thinking about the haunting face of the girl and wondering what terrible fate had befallen her. 

“Well, it is certainly a good tale. You have been looking for a subject for your adventure novel and there you have it. Jungles, cannibal Indians, monsters and some lost world in the clouds! Classic stuff! I am sure that twelve year old boys will lap it up!” 

“I have to say, that was my initial thought too but Challenor was convincing. He also said that there was a piece of physical evidence that would lend veracity to the tale! Anyway, McCandless said it was worth me attending the lecture and that he would even go too. He said at best we could be in on the story of the century and at worst we could reveal a crank and a charlatan. Both would shift more copies, anyway. Especially as none of the other newspapers seem to have picked up on Challenor’s lecture, our discrete enquiries have informed us.” 

“Perhaps because they, at least, can recognise pure bunkum!” said Britten. “Well, I am certainly intrigued to see the monkey professor’s reputation blasted into tatters, especially if the disappointed wife is looking for comfort and somewhere private to bathe naked in the sun. I have a very secluded terrace at the rear of my house! I will attend Challenor’s lecture myself and you will introduce me to his wife! After all you cannot be pursuing two women romantically at the same time, it isn’t fair!” 

“In that case you cannot pursue Mrs Challenor and Virginia. That also is not fair! In any fact, I am not pursuing Mrs Challenor, romantically or in any other way!” I said. I had enjoyed Mrs Challenor’s flirtatious ways but she was a happily married lady who was slightly older than me mammy! 

“Anyway, I thought Challenor hated journalists! Didn’t he attack a couple of your chaps not long ago?” asked Britten, dropping, I was glad to hear, the subject of Mrs Challenor. 

“Yes, well, now there is a curious thing. At no point did Challenor twig that I was a journalist. I think I convinced him that I knew something about prehistory but mainly I focused on things like whether he would require a magic lantern, a blackboard and such like. He said that he thought that had all been dealt with but he reiterated everything, anyway. I left his house about three and rushed straight to the British Museum. There I told them that I was a reporter, just come from Professor Challenor’s house and was checking on the arrangements for the following day. Fortunately, they did not know that he now required a large table so I was able to add veracity to my tale! Anyway, I secured a good place for myself at what is, it seems, a sold out event!” 

“Until he discovers that you are a reporter tomorrow and throws you out of the lecture hall! I hope it’s not upstairs!” 

“No, no. We are in the Reptile Gallery, on the ground floor. I have seen it. The Museum’s famous dinosaur skeleton dominates it somewhat, though. Now, when I got back to the office at about six I found a letter waiting for me!” I continued. “I had discussed the matter with McCandless and we had agreed that an early piece on tomorrow’s lecture was not appropriate and having delivered my updated obituary on Lord James Hoxton, that was him last night, wasn’t it?” Britten shrugged, “I went home to write up my meeting with Challenor.” 

“And the letter? It can’t have been Challenor, he didn’t know you were a reporter!” 

“Indeed, no! It was from Mrs Challenor. She had been suspicious about the nature of my questioning and had telephoned the Natural History Museum. They informed her that they had no Edmund Molloy on the staff but confirmed that the nice reporter from The Daily Courier of that name had informed them of the new arrangements for the stage tomorrow and all would be arranged. Well, she penned a letter and took herself off to Fleet Street immediately to deliver it personally to the Courier’s offices. 

“What did it say?” asked Britten nodding for the claret to be poured. 

“I have it here. ‘Dear Edmund,’” I began. 

“A familiar opening, at least!” said Britten sniffing his wine. 

“‘You are a very brave man insinuating yourself into my husband’s house without confessing that you are a reporter, as I have subsequently discovered.’ She then goes on to detail how she found me out. ‘When, not if, my husband discovers your subterfuge I suggest that you ensure that you are accompanied by two burly policemen, as even your undoubted physical fitness will give you not the slightest chance when faced with the wrath of the Professor! You really are a very naughty young man and if you were here I would put you over my knee! Affectionately, Mrs George Challenor.’” 

“Oh dear. It sounds like you are in for trouble at every point!” said Britten, looking delighted. 

“There is a post scriptum. ‘My husband, still unaware of your true role, has suggested that you collect the magic lantern slides he is currently preparing, tomorrow morning and take them to the museum. He will be out from ten until four so I suggest you come at this time in order to avoid the possibility of unpleasantness!’” 

“So are you going?” asked Britten.

“I think I have to!” I said.

“Good luck! If I do not see you at the lecture tomorrow I will assume the Professor has caught you molesting his wife! I will check all the hospitals! Now would you like to join me at the Babylon Exploration Society tonight or is your mind full of the mature charms of Mrs Challenor? Madame Nathalie seemed very taken with your charms last night, she told me, before you came down. Perhaps you have been unsuccessfully focussing on young women when you should have been pursuing ladies of a certain age!” 

“I am becoming appealing to all sorts, I hope!” I laughed. “Your offer of a visit to the Babylon is very kind but I need to finish my account of my visit to Professor Challenor’s. I have to write two versions: One based on the fact that what he says is true and one lambasting him for being a fool and a charlatan. At present I am finding the latter account somewhat challenging!” 

“Ah, the good Professor has obviously gained a convert!”

"Perhaps!  I am intrigued at the very least!" I said,

"Intrigued by Mrs Challenor!"

"Certainly by her!" I laughed. 

I retired to my flat and worked on the second version of the interview with Challenor that McCandless wanted. I managed to incorporate much of Britten’s scepticism and finished the piece quite quickly. I then completed the account of my visit to the Babylon Exploration Society for my personal journal. At around one in the morning, I climbed into bed and wondered what the reaction to Challenor’s claims would be on the morrow. I did find myself looking forward to seeing Mrs Challenor again and as I thought about her sat on the footstool, sans drawers, a familiar flush of blood engorged me. I clasped my fingers around my manhood and realised, afterwards, that all thoughts of an erotically writhing Agnes had been replaced in my mind with images of Edith Challenor, 

The next morning was dark and rolling clouds threatened rain . I entered Bloomsbury Square, walked around to the far side of the square from Challenor’s house and tried to make myself look inconspicuous. I was not surprised to see Challenor emerging from his house at precisely 10.00 am. Nevertheless, I waited another ten minutes before proceeding to the front door and rapping firmly on the knocker. I was surprised when Mrs Challenor answered the door herself. 

“Good morning, Mr Molloy. My, you do look very fine today!” She stepped back from the door and bid me into the hallway. 

“So do you madam. Where is Mason?” I asked. 

“On his way to Tunbridge Wells, much to his disgust. Some family crisis involving his sister, I believe.  I think, to use the vernacular, she is in the pudding club without a husband. He will be away several days. So far, I am realising how very little he does around the house! I really cannot think why we employ the ghastly fellow! He is the only man who puts up with George, I suppose! Now, my friend Mabel has a very nice young man as butler. A pleasing fellow in every regard! Ah well! Pass me your hat and I will hang it up for you!”  She was wearing a long sleeved ivory coloured silk peignoir with ruffles at the cuffs and down the front. I glanced down and saw that she was, surprisingly, barefoot. “Ah,” she said spotting my downward gaze. “I was not expecting you quite so promptly and was about to take a bath. You really do find me completely naked, underneath, this morning!” She hung my hat on the hat stand next to the front door. I glanced appreciatively at her silk covered behind. I swallowed. 

“I am s-sorry!” I stammered, trying not to think on it and failing. “Perhaps I will take the magic lantern slides now and leave you in peace!”  

“Oh dear, I am afraid that I have not yet packed them up. George asked me to do that but I thought I would have time to take my bath first! You will have to wait, I am afraid. I do detest a cold bath and if I stop now to pack slides that is how it will be. Come upstairs and we can chat while I bathe!” She started towards the stairs. 

“Chat?” I asked, stupidly. 

“Yes! While I bathe. No doubt you have seen a naked woman before. The sight will not cause you any deep psychological problems, I am sure. You may even enjoy it!” 

“I do enjoy a naked woman, I admit. I drew a number of ladies at art school before I became a reporter.” I said, recovering my composure somewhat, while already wondering what terrible fate would befall me if Professor Challenor returned home early. “Although I was not expecting such an experience so very soon after meeting you, Mrs Challenor!” 

“But you were obviously contemplating it at some juncture, perhaps?” she said. I could see the outline of her nipples beneath the thin silk. They were very prominent. “How very forward of you! Meeting a married woman for the first time and already thinking about her in her natural state. And how did I look, in your fevered imagination?” she continued. 

“No! No! It was not like that at all. I...” I paused, uncharacteristically unable to think of anything to say. 

 “What was it like, pray? Was it the revelation yesterday that I was sans culottes, so to speak?” she grinned. “I am sorry to tease you. Of course I am flattered if you thought about me in an inappropriate way. Sometimes appropriate behaviour just needs to be discarded like a pair of drawers!” 

“I suppose so,” I ventured guardedly. 

“Anyway, while we discuss the level of your arousal, engendered by my nakedness, my bath is getting cold. Do come along!” 

“But what about the staff?” I asked. 

“All out for the morning! Cook and the scullery maid have gone shopping and I have given them the money to have lunch out. Mason is on his way to Kent. Emily the chambermaid is in Clapham for her mother’s birthday. I enjoy having time to myself. I am quite alone here. You could ravish me and no one would be here to stop you!”  She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“I cannot see the point in taking a woman against her will. Where is the happily shared intimacy in such a situation?” 

“Why, Mr Molloy, what an unusually sensitive young man you are! Now come upstairs at once!” I followed her up the stairs, unable to take my eyes off her undulating posterior under its thin, clinging, covering of silk. She led me into a large bathroom, which was surprisingly modern given the decor elsewhere. It had a hot water boiler and was warm. She put her hand into the water. 

“Perfect!” She turned back to face me. “There is a chair in the bedroom next door!” she said indicating a different door from the one we had entered the room. I opened the door and found a pretty, floral and very feminine bedroom decorated in pinks and pale greens. This did not look like an environment that Professor Challenor would be at home with so I surmised that the couple had separate bedrooms. Not unusual in itself, although if I was married to Edith Challenor I would want her in the same bed as myself for as much time as possible. I picked up a wooden chair and carried it into the bathroom. “Place it there, next to the foot of the bath!” she said. I did so and was about to say something to her when she undid the tie at her waist, slipped her peignoir from her shoulders and dropped it onto a wicker linen basket. I confess that I actually audibly gasped. Her petite body seemed to me to be perfectly formed. She had wide hips, a slightly rounded belly with a thick floss of light brown curly hair beneath it and slim, well toned legs. Her bosoms thrust forward from her narrow chest and were tipped by two pale pink nipples with large, erect teats like thimbles. 

“Goodness me, Mrs Challenor, what a very fine frame you possess, if I may be so bold. I would, one day, like the opportunity to draw you in your natural state!” 

“What a delightfully forward young man you are! I would very much like to be drawn by you! So what made you become a reporter rather than an artist? You were quite convincing yesterday, I must say!” she said, bending over the bath and sloshing the water around with her hand. The sight of that soft-looking posterior had me at the edge of tumescence but for some reason I mentally fought against it, feeling it would be most inappropriate. I looked away from her as she continued. “It was just the very structured nature of your questioning that made me suspicious. Reporter or detective, I thought. That and the fact that that I had already made all possible arrangements with the museum myself as regards today’s lecture!” 

“I assume you have told the Professor,” I said. 

“Of course not! There are many things that he does not have to know. Like our current situation, of course! Here, hang this up for me!” she said handing me her robe. I looked around and saw that one of the doors had a hook on it so carefully hung it there. As I turned back she was climbing into the bath. “How adventurous are you, Mr Molloy?” she asked. 

“Not adventurous enough, according to my former sweetheart, Agnes. She has recently broken off our relationship because I lack an intrepid spirit, she told me. I am seeking an exciting assignment from my newspaper, in order to improve her view of me! Currently, I am confined to writing obituaries!” 

“Deadly dull, no doubt!” She smiled, fetchingly. “Well a woman who breaks a relationship off just because of a perceived lack of an adventurous spirit is not worth pursuing, I would suggest.” 

“Oh I have an adventurous spirit, Mrs Challenor; just a lack of opportunity to display it!” I said. 

“I see! And how adventurous are you feeling today? Quite adventurous, I would think, if you are willing to follow a married woman you hardly know into her bathroom and look at her naked body with barely a hint of surprise, protest or embarrassment. Unusually adventurous, for a man your age!” She smiled and picked up a sponge which she dunked into the water and then squeezed, distractingly, over her bosom. 

“There is something about you, Mrs Challenor, I do admit, which I find very attractive. Not just your undoubted good looks and, er, abundant charms but more to do with your personality, which is slightly wicked, humorous, flirtatious but independent, open, friendly and also comforting.” I was starting to gabble, in my nervous state. 

“You make me sound like a particularly cherished Labrador!” she laughed. A bright, high young person’s laugh. Just as her body did not look like one a person of her age would possess. The bodies of the middle aged women who had served as life models at art school were sad drooping things and nothing like Mrs Challenor’s fine form. I confess to having dug out Challenor’s draft obituary file in the office, from which I learned that she was forty-one; much younger than the professor’s fifty-six years but older than I had guessed when I first met her. Only the slight creases around her eyes and on her forehead betrayed this. Her body was smooth and pliant. 

“No, No! Far from a dog!” I said, laughing. She gave a little bark. 

“So, I say again, how adventurous are you feeling today, Mr Molloy? Will you display your unappreciated adventurous spirit for me?” 

 “In what manner?” I asked nervously. I both hoped and feared that this conversation might head in but one direction. 

 “Look, I love my husband very much, even though he treats me quite appallingly in some ways. He has other redeeming features, although I have to say that physical attractiveness is not one of them!” I declined to comment on this statement on account of the fact that I could not think of anything convincing or polite to say. “Now, as you may gather I am a very sensual woman. More sensual than dear George can cope with, alas. You caught us yesterday in the throes of a very rare bout of passion. But I had to go in there, pull my drawers down, flip my skirts up over my bottom, lean across a chair and beg him, beg him, to perform his connubial duties. He did so quite efficiently but without any real passion, as ever. I felt that I was just something of a break for him from his work, as he finished his notes for today. Rather like having a nice pot of tea and a fancy biscuit. ‘Shall I have tea or shall I roger my wife?’ Do I shock you, Mr Molloy?” 

“Surprise me, perhaps, given our brief acquaintance, although even our short meeting yesterday gave me some prescience as to that wicked side of your nature!” I said carefully. 

“Wicked? I like to think of myself as saucy, perhaps. There is no malice in my activities, although others may not see it in the same way, I suspect! So, I repeat, how adventurous and, indeed, saucy, do you feel at this particular moment, Mr Molloy?” I suspected a trap but if that trap involved a naked Mrs Challenor for an extended period I quickly decided to succumb. 

 “I am feeling very adventurous this morning, Mrs Challenor. In fact I have quite decided to grasp every adventurous opportunity with which I am presented with both hands!” I could not help but look at her deliciously thrusting bosoms. She gave me a smile. 

“Saucy indeed, Mr Molloy! In that case I suggest you remove all your clothes and climb into this really quite large bathtub with me!” 

“Oh!” I said, rather stupidly. “I thought I was going to sit on this chair!” 

“The chair is for your clothes, Mr Molloy!” The thought of being naked when Challenor burst into the room, like the Minotaur, added, however, a large element of risk over and above the situation I already found myself in. 

“But if your husband...” I began. 

“George is a creature of habit and exact time keeping. If he says he will return at four o’clock then four o’clock it will be! Now, be brave! Take your clothes off or I will be forced to remove them for you and then they will get quite wet!” I hesitated but Agnes’ goading about my lack of adventurous spirit made me abandon any reservations I might have. I decided to throw caution to the winds. How could Challenor treat this marvellous woman so badly? He had also forcibly ejected me from his house and hit me with an umbrella. If his poor wife wanted some male companionship then if it wasn’t me she would no doubt soon find another to satisfy her desires. I started to undo my tie. Mrs Challenor lay back in the bath and watched my every move as I removed my garments and placed them neatly over the back of the chair. I was soon down to my drawers. My mind flashed back to the night before and the expectant faces of Hoshimi and Madame Nathalie. 

“Are you quite sure about this, Mrs Challenor?” I asked hoping that she would say no but equally hoping she would say yes. 

“Of course! Do not be shy!” I pushed my drawers over my hips. Fortunately, my dark thoughts as regards being imminently assaulted by the furious Professor kept me in a flaccid state. 

 “There!” I said and stood before her on the tiled floor of the bathroom, totally exposed. 

“Goodness me, Mr Molloy. What a very fine physical specimen you are. So fit. So...manly. Now get in the bath and let us talk about drawing!”I climbed into the bath and stood there unable to work out where to sit without coming into contact with her body. 

“Where shall I sit, Mrs Challenor?” 

“Facing me of course! Oh I see! Do not concern yourself about physical contact with my person, Mr Molloy. It is inevitable!” I sat, my feet placed outside her haunches. She assumed the same position but not before slipping her foot between my legs and, shockingly, tickling my ballocks with her wriggling toes in greeting. Given this intimate situation I did not know what I was expecting to happen next but a long discussion about my family background, my artistic studies and my moving to London was not it. I realised that I was becoming used to sitting in the bath with a naked Mrs Challenor, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do. She was just telling me of her fears that Challenor would finally ruin his career through his theories tonight when she began to soap her breasts. It was all done rather matter of factly. There was no sensual teasing, as I had experienced with Hoshimi the previous night. She washed under her arms which caused her bosoms to jiggle enticingly and her forearms to brush her nipples. It was inevitable really. I placed my hands over my groin, not so much to cover my increasing excitement, as I could not do that completely, but, at least to prevent my organ breaking the surface of the bathwater like a broaching whale. She leant forward and slipped her hand under the water to clasp my shaft. 

“I...I am so sorry Mrs Challenor, I am just...” I mumbled, nevertheless thoroughly enjoying her soft grip. 

“You are just sitting here in my bath with a very large erection!” she smiled. 

“I am mortified!” I said. “It is just that you are so...” 

“Well, I am so flattered, that is what I am, Mr Molloy. That such a desirable young man as you would find me exciting and become so...aroused! Goodness me, so very aroused indeed! Now move your hands! I did not invite you into my bath so that you would cover yourself!” I did so and I sprung upwards, my bulb popping up above the surface of the water. “Really, what a lovely one!” she said, gently massaging me with her small, soft hand. “Such an elegant, upwards curve! Such a very big glans!” 

“Mrs Challenor, if you keep doing that I cannot answer for my self control I may actually...” 

“Spill your seed? I would like to see that very much! In fact I insist on it! There really are very few things I enjoy more than the sight of an erect penis pumping forth! Let us wash and retire to my bedroom! You can spill your seed for my entertainment!” I stayed fully tumescent during this process, not surprisingly. She soaped my phallus with evident enjoyment, although not, I suspect, to the level of enjoyment I was experiencing. I did not touch her body, other than inadvertently, during the process. There seemed to be some unspoken rule that she might touch me but I should not touch her. I fancied that she saw me as some sort of plaything rather than a man. When we had stepped out of the bath and dried ourselves, Mrs Challenor took hold of my manhood and led me into the bedroom, like a faithful dog or a lamb to slaughter. She pulled the blankets down and lay on the white linen sheets. “As I said, Edmund, I love my husband so do not hold thoughts of an emotional relationship or diverting me from George. Some intimate activity, to whatever level I choose, is offered to you if you accept! However, at this point I would be grateful if you could continue, as I notice that you have been doing, in refraining from caressing me.” 

“I enjoy your company very much, madam,” I replied, looking down at her pliant body. “And understand perfectly well that in your situation you must be the ultimate arbiter of events! I am, of course flattered by your attentions and gladly accept, in a spirit of adventure, your enticing offer!” 

“Excellent!” said Mrs Challenor.   "As an initial encounter I thought it might be entertaining to watch each other stimulate ourselves until we spend!” 

“Stimulate ourselves?” I asked, not believing what I had just heard. 

“Yes, of course. Frig! I am very aroused, as are you, patently! We should stimulate ourselves until climax! I take it you do stimulate yourself regularly? If you deny it I shall not believe you, although I suppose that you are a Catholic and I know that the Roman Church is particularly negative, even more than the Church of England, on the subject of self abuse, as they mistakenly call it. Personally, if I possessed a penis I would stroke and pump it constantly! As it is, I caress myself almost every day; particularly when reading in bed, which I find very comforting.” 

“I had not been previously aware that there was a female equivalent.” I ventured. 

“How typically male, that you only contemplate sexual pleasure through stimulation for men alone! Women have just as much desire for sexual gratification as men. It is just that society forces them to suppress it!. A suppression which I reject completely, Mr Molloy!” All during this exchange Mrs Challenor was caressing her body with her hands, much to my surprise and delight. She stroked her own thighs, hips, belly and bosoms; whose nipples she squeezed, pulled and tweaked. She smiled at me throughout the process; daring me with her eyes. Enticing me.  Conquering me. 

“It is a fine thing to enjoy your own body, Mrs Challenor. Although quite understandable, given yours is so very splendid!” I said, determined not to look foolish and inexperienced before this very brazen woman. 

“Why thank you, Mr Molloy. Your own form is very fine indeed too. You have an unusually well defined musculature which is a very pleasing sight and without wanting to contribute to any vanity on your part, your erect phallus is quite the most beautiful I have ever seen!” 

“Er, thank you!” I glanced down at it, still almost painfully rampant, and wondered how many others she had seen.  I began to suspect that I was not the first man she had entertained in this manner. 

“Now come and kneel between my thighs!” she said, spreading her legs and cupping her sex. I climbed onto the bed and hopped over one slim leg. I could smell her arousal now. I looked down in excited fascination as Mrs Challenor began to stroke her sex, two fingers of her right hand gently rotating over it. It was pink and swollen and there was evidence of lubrication. “Come along, Edmund! Don’t be shy! Massage yourself for me!” 

“Very well, Mrs Challenor!” I said, nervously. I took myself in hand and rubbed my manhood a couple of times, looking intently at it as I did so. It felt most odd in several ways. I had only ever performed this act lying down, not kneeling up and also, even while enjoying myself previously, I felt some lingering guilt about the process. To perform this intimate, forbidden act before someone else, someone I barely knew, felt uncomfortable. But then, was not that what I sought to do? To challenge myself? To be adventurous? Should not sexual adventures be as valid a challenge as exploring, to my entrenched conservatism? Only by acts of derring do could I change my life! I looked up at Mrs Challenor and she smiled. encouragingly. 

“Come along Edmund! It is beautiful! Pump it for me!” she said. It was enough to give me confidence, if not entirely to remove my awareness of the situation completely. The very first time I had drunk beer, as an eleven year old at a family wedding in Donegal, I had become inebriated and felt so light headed and disembodied that I almost felt that I was looking down on myself from a point several feet above my head. I felt exactly the same that morning as Mrs Challenor rubbed her parts with increasing vigour and I worked myself too, as I knelt between her slim thighs. In Ireland self abuse was, of course, strongly denounced but in London I had started to enjoy taking pleasure in my manhood with rather less guilt than at home, as if the general wickedness of the capital somehow obscured God’s omniscience. Or perhaps it was just the fog. Anyway, who would not want to excite themselves at the sight of Mrs Challenor, lost in her own intimate passions? Her breasts bounced as she lay there, two fingers of her left hand rubbing quickly across the shaft of her clitoris (I was becoming an expert on the nomenclature of women’s parts) while one finger of her other hand rapidly penetrated her opening, making rhythmic, wet, lapping sounds like the tongue of a kitten in a bowl of cream. Indeed, cream was now pouring from her sex as she continued and her thrusting finger was glistening with it. She was rotating her hips slowly, like a dancer from Constantinople. I looked back up at her face and our eyes met. She smiled as we continued to perform what would normally be the most private of intimate actions in front of each other. I could see from her face, as much as her rapid breathing, her rising excitement. She spread her thighs even wider, pulled her knees back and I was shocked by the sight of her anus and its prominent ring of muscle. I was even more shocked when she inserted a finger into her back passage so that she was penetrating both her holes. She was gasping now, her breath coming in short staccato puffs. “Huh!” she gasped at last and lifted her hips, so her bottom rose up off the bed and her thighs closed on her hands. She held this pose for a few seconds before dropping back onto the sheets once more, sighing and then gently extracted her digits from her parts. She let her thighs flop apart. I had slowed myself down because, to be frank, I was enjoying the sight and sounds so much but now she had reached her climax I increased my speed briefly and shot with such force that my spunk spurted right up the length of her torso, splashing her bosom, belly and intimate hair as I gave forth five times. She looked at me and grinned. I grinned back. 

 “That, Edmund, was just excellent!” 

“I am glad you enjoyed it, Mrs Challenor!” I replied. 

“I do think, Edmund, that as you have just ejaculated a copious quantity of your semen over much of my naked body, that you might call me Edith!  Now come and lie next to me!” I did so but after only a few minutes my thoughts turned to the Professor. I looked towards the door out to the landing and then Mrs Challenor’s bedroom window and had a vision of myself being thrown through it, to land bleeding and broken onto the pavement below. 

 “Well, Edmund,” said Mrs Challenor after a minute or so, “I have to admit that I had a little wager with myself that you would not, in fact, succumb to my charms!” 

“Why did you think that?” I asked. “Your charms are irresistible!” 

“When I pressed myself against you in George’s study yesterday you pulled away from me. I was most disappointed. I was in a state of extreme arousal, engendered by your presence. I was very wet!” 

“Wet? Oh I see!” I said, still not comfortable talking about such matters. I blushed. 

“So aroused, that after you had gone I went upstairs, pulled up my skirts and frigged myself on this very bed!” 

“I am flattered. I suppose!” I said. 

“You should be, Edmund! I am still a very desirable woman and am much admired. There is no point assuming false modesty about it!” 

“Indeed, not!” I agreed. She placed her fingers around my limp member and rubbed it a little. 

“What, if I may be so bold as to ask...” she began. 

“Be as bold as you like Mrs...er, Edith!” I interrupted. She continued to massage me and I thought, to my amazement, that perhaps a little response was evident. 

“Oh I intend to be, Edmund! Now, what is your experience of intimate activity?” 

“Intimate activity?” I asked, as she pulled my foreskin down and started stroking my knob with her thumb. 

“Yes! The act of love. With a woman, Not by yourself!” she laughed. “Sexual intercourse!” My mind raced. What should I answer? Should I pretend to be a naive virgin? If I admitted experience would she be put off? 

“Well, Edith, I have a few, a very few, experiences. Well, just one of actually, you know...” 

“Doing it!” she said. 

“But some other intimate experiences. All, I should say, very recent!” 

 “Have you had cause to ejaculate during them?” she asked, now tickling my ballocks. “I would think that you must have been making such a large amount of semen for some time!” She rubbed her damp chest with her other hand. 

“It’s best, I think, not to talk of others. I would not ask you, for example!” I said, attempting to stop the direction of the conversation. 

“That is a very wise thing to say, Edmund!” she said. She turned her face to me and kissed me on the lips; the only time that she had done so that morning. 

“Perhaps we should get up!” I suggested.

“Well, perhaps we should, sadly, although I would like to continue enjoying your body but while some risk is exciting we do not want to push our luck today, I think! Cook may return shortly!” 

 “You will need another wash,” I said, looking at my essence drying on her ivory skin. I was worried about how my semen had spattered her sex and wondered if she could get pregnant that way. That would be difficult to explain, if she gave birth to an auburn haired baby! However, she later reassured me that she was barren, so the Challenors had no children. 

“I will not wash. I will wear your copious emissions as a perfume for the rest of the day. I did so enjoy the sight of you spurting forth like a fountain. The vigour of youth is its own pleasure. Appreciate it while it lasts, Edmund!” 

“I intend to enjoy my vigour greatly, Edith!” I replied pulling my drawers on. 

“We must do this again, very soon, Edmund, provided my husband hasn’t hospitalised you by then, on discovering your subterfuge regarding your profession. If he does, be sure that I will visit you at your bedside and will massage your organ for you as it may be impossible for you to do so with broken arms!” I looked at her wondering to what extent this was a joke or a prediction. She saw me looking anxious, laughed and patted my behind affectionately. 

Within ten minutes we were dressed and downstairs in Professor Challenor’s study, both still flushed with excitement. Edith carefully wrapped each glass magic lantern slide in tissue paper and placed them in a cedar wood box. Before she opened the front door she kissed me on the lips once more, placing her hands on my behind as she did so. “Good afternoon, Mr Molloy. I look forward to seeing you this evening in Kensington.” 

“Indeed, Mrs Challenor. The feeling is mutual!” I said, returning to our earlier formality. She opened the door and I stepped out into the street with the box of slides under my arm, all the time expecting the impact of a furious Professor Challenor hitting me like a Harlequins forward. She gave me a friendly wave and closed the door. The morning had been like a dream. I shook my head, took a deep breath and headed off to the Natural History Museum in Kensington