It's What Up Front That Counts Read online

The question now was: How had he managed to get Lady B-B under his control?

  I had no sooner thought it than she proceeded to answer it

  “Lord Brice-Bennington and I,” she said, “met through mutual acquaintances. One of my girlfriends was at the time dating Sir Cecil Applewaithe. who was a very good friend of Lord Brice-Bennington. Lord Brice-Bennington had a reputation among his friends as somewhat of a social recluse, a man who never went out with girls and who never seemed to have any inclination to. One night, I later was to learn, Sir Cecil had gotten Lord Brice-Bennington drunk and had questioned him about his sex life, which Lord Brice-Bennington most certainly would never have discussed while he was sober. Lord Brice-Bennington then admitted that he was a virgin.”

  “At age thirty-five?” I gulped.

  “At age thirty-four, actually, but I suppose one year doesn’t really make that much difference. In any case, Sir Cecil tried to persuade Lord Brice-Bennington to try making love with someone—a prostitute, perhaps, or a partygirl. But Lord Brice-Bennington wouldn’t hear of it. He felt that sex was debilitating and that it dissipates one’s mental energies, and he was for that reason determined to remain a virgin for the rest of his life. That, by the way, is why he now refuses to discuss sex with anyone; he finds it tedious to have to defend his views among people who invariably will not understand them anyway.”

  “You’re digressing.” I reminded her. “How did Sir Cecil finally bring you and lord B-B together?”

  “He capitalized on my husband’s proclivities as a gambler. He told Lord Brice-Bennington that he believed him to be a hypocrite, and he bet the Lord a substantial amount of money that the Lord wouldn’t be able to stick to his beliefs about sex if he happened to be in the company of a sexy young girl who was trying very hard to get him aroused. Lord Brice-Bennington accepted the wager, and Sir Cecil arranged through my girlfriend for me to be the girl who was supposed to arouse him. We went to the theater together, and afterwards out for a few drinks, and finally back to my flat, and the whole time I did everything in my power to awaken his sexual interest. But I failed miserably. Meanwhile he succeeded in awakening my interest in—and my appreciation of— the ascetic life.

  “He pointed out to me that there are untold intellectual pleasures available to those of us who choose to use our brains, and that by shutting off our sensual activity we enlarge our capacity to experience intellectual pleasure. I had never heard a man talk like this before, and it fascinated me.

  “Lord Brice-Bennington fascinated me too—I mean as a man. He was sophisticated, urbane and attractive. More important, he was interested in me as person, not merely as a recipient of his sexual excesses. He was the only man I ever dated who didn’t try to seduce me. And yet, though we had no sexual bond, he still was interested in me. We dated again and again. The more we saw of each other, the closer we became. I came to share his ascetic views, and I found with him greater satisfaction than I ever had experienced with any other man.

  “After we had been seeing each other for a year, he suggested that we attempt to share our bliss with the countless millions of people who had been misled into believing that sexual pleasure were preferable to intellectual pleasures. He thought that this goal could best be accomplished if we were to form an organization which would stamp out all smut and filth in England. He reasoned-and I accepted his reasoning completely-that if people did not constantly find themselves surrounded by sexual stimulation they would turn to intellectual pursuits and learn of the joys to be had in intellectual activity. But he also knew that people would be less likely to accept an anti-smut organization if it was headed by a man rather than a woman. They would think of a male reformer as another Anthony Comstock-a person whose own sexual inadequacies had turned him sour on sex. Meanwhile, if a woman who had engaged in extensive sexual activity headed the organization, people would accept her as a genuine reformer, as a person who had walked the path of sin and finally saw the error of her ways. I was the perfect woman to head this organization, and I did. With Lord Brice-Bennington’s never-obvious help, I formed the Friends of Decency.

  “Within a year, thanks to the contributions of church groups and others who were opposed to filth and smut, the Friends had become a thriving organization. By this time, Lord Brice-Benito and I had become a thriving organization. By this time, Lord Brice-Bennington and I had been married. Five years have passed since then, Doctor, and not once during those five years have we even kissed. Yet I’ve been completely happy, and so has he.”

  “How do you pass your time without sex?” I asked acidly. “Playing tiddllywinds?”

  She smiled patiently. “Engaging in intellectual pursuits, Doctor”.

  “Like betting which end of the perch a swallow is going to land on?” My sarcasm was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

  Her smile now wasn’t merely patient; it was partronizing. “His mania for gambling is one of his private pleasures, and one which I don’t share. Our mutual pleasures are all intellectual.”

  “For example?”

  “Conversation, mostly.”

  “I thought he didn’t discuss sex, politics, religion or literature. What else is there to talk about?”

  “He doesn’t discuss these subjects publicly,” she said, eyes ecstatically aglow. “But he discusses them with me—privately and intimately.”

  Well, no doubt about it, Lord B-B wasn’t merely The Big Prig, he was also a first-class nut—and his wife apparently was as nutty as he was. But I wasn’t interested in evaluating their sanity; I was interested in getting into Lady B-B’s pants. And I suddenly thought of a way to do it.

  “What I can’t understand, Lady B,” I told her, “is how you could give up a vigorous sex life like the one you led as a playgirl and not miss the pleasures of sex. I’m inclined to think you never really discovered genuine sexual pleasure.”

  “I discovered all there was to discover,” she replied, a bit too defensively. “In three years, I had more than a hundred lovers.”

  I smiled sagely. “It’s not how much meat one eats that counts, Lady B. It’s the quality of the meat.”

  “I think my meat was pretty high quality.”

  “In other words, your lovers were physically attractive. But how skillful were they in satisfying your sexual appetites? How many of them brought you to orgasm?”

  She blushed.

  “Did any of them, Lady B?”

  “Well, Doctor,” she said quickly, “as you certainly should know, not all women have the capacity to experience orgasm. Kinsey pointed out that forty percent of all women never do.”

  “You’re misinterpreting the statistics, Lady B. It’s true that forty percent of Kinsey’s respondents said that they never had experienced orgasm. But his survey was conducted in the early 1950s and dealt with sexual experiences before the sexual revolution. A far greater number of women today have been relieved of the sexual hang-ups that prevent orgasm, and the percentage of those who don’t is considerably lower. Moreover, the fact that some women don’t experience orgasm doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t experience orgasm. Virtually everyone has the capacity—if properly stimulated.”

  “I don’t agree with you. I think that there are some people who can’t experience it, no matter how they’re stimulated.”

  The opening was perfect and I dived right in. “Let me prove my point by the most convincing proof available— experimental data.”

  “You mean—?” Her face reddened.

  I grinned. “Precisely, Lady B. Let me demonstrate that I can bring you to orgasm.”

  “Why—why—why that’s outrageous! How dare you even suggest such a thing?”

  “My motives, madame, are not lustful. I’m merely trying to prove a point.”

  “B-but you’re asking me to—to—”

  “I’m asking you, Lady B, to act like the intellectual you claim to be. An intellectual never closes his mind to an argument he finds provocative. He investigates the argument and de
termines whether it has any real merit.”

  “But—but—”

  She was weakening, and I knew it. It wasn’t my logic that was swaying her. It was her bottled-up sexual desire—five years’ worth. My logic was merely giving her an excuse to follow her natural inclinations—inclinations which had been apparent to me from our very first meeting.

  “Investigate my argument, Lady B,” I pressed. “Let me attempt to stimulate you with the sexual techniques I’ve learned during years of intense research. I’ve never yet met a woman I couldn’t bring to orgasm.”

  “But—but what about my husband? What would he say?”

  “That depends on the results of our experiment. If I fail to bring you to orgasm, you’ll be able to tell him that you proved the great Doctor Damon wrong, that you proved that not all women can be brought to orgasm. Think what a feather that would be in your cap. Lord B could only applaud your victory against an enemy of the Friends of Decency. If, on the other hand, I do bring you to orgasm, you can employ on Lord B the same sort of logic I’ve employed on you to persuade him to experiment. He’ll make love to you, and, after you’ve taught him all my techniques, he’ll be an even more satisfying lover than I was because of the emotional and intellectual bond between you. What’s more, he’ll enjoy sex himself, and your marital pleasures will be both sexual and intellectual. Either way, you can’t lose.” I grinned. “And, of course, if you think that Lord B really would disapprove of this intellectual experiment, then you need never mention it to him. I certainly don’t plan to tell him about it, and I’ll be the only other person who’ll know what has taken place between us.” My grin vanished, and I stared intently into her eyes. “What’s your decision, Lady B? Will you act like a true intellectual? Or will you retreat behind a wall of prejudice and fear? Will you be an owl or an ostrich?”

  My reasoning, of course, was far from irrefutable. But then, Lady B-B was hardly the intellectual iceberg she liked to think of herself as. She had wanted me all along, and now she wanted me more than ever. I had given her an excuse to salve her conscience. She promptly took it.

  “Doctor Damon,” she said resolutely, “I’m going to be an owl. On with the experiment!”

  The experiment began—slowly. I knew that my chances for success would be greatest if I got her to relax, so I worked like a devil at it. Lying next to her on the bed—with both of us fully clothed—I began kissing her gently on the lips. But I didn’t touch any other part of her body, and I didn’t induce her to touch any part of mine.

  After a few minutes she said, “Really, Doctor, I don’t see the point of all this. I’ve kissed men before. You’re not going to bring me to orgasm this way.”

  “I’m conducting this experiment,” I replied softly but firmly, “so we’ll do things my way. That means, number one, you’re going to stop addressing me as ‘Doctor’ and start addressing me by my first name, ‘Rod.’”

  “Okay . . . Rod,” she agreed softly.

  “Number two, stop trying to see the point of what I’m doing. Don’t ask yourself if you’re being aroused, or if a specific type of foreplay is going to bring yourself to orgasm. Just let what happens happen. If you like what I’m doing, go ahead and let yourself like it. If you don’t, tell me that you don’t like it and I’ll do something else.”

  “Okay.”

  One thing she liked, I quickly realized, was being told what to do. She seemed to take genuine pleasure out of acquiescing to my demands. As I spoke to her, she grew more relaxed, and her breathing deepened in response to my kisses.

  I proceeded from gentle kisses to those of a more passionate variety. My tongue entered her mouth. She received it hesitantly at first, then much less hesitantly. “I like that,” she murmured appreciatingly when I paused to come up for air. “I like that very much.”

  “So do I,” I replied truthfully. “And I think we’re both going to like the next part of the experiment even more. What I want you to do now is think of a passage from one of the erotic books you’ve road, a passage about a man undressing a girl. Then I want you to describe it to me as accurately as you can. I’m going to keep kissing you while you describe it, and, at the same time, I’m going to do to you whatever the man does to the girl in the passage.”

  “What’s the purpose of that?”

  “Never mind the purpose,” I snapped impatiently. “Just do it.”

  Actually, of course, there was a very definite purpose to it. Lady B, though she probably would be the last person in the world to admit it, was an erotolaliac—that is, a person who derives sexual pleasure from using sexual words and phrases, and from reciting sexual descriptions. I realized that earlier when I observed how excited she got as she quoted me the erotic books she was condemning. Now I planned to combine her erotolalic excitement with the excitement of tactile stimulation. The combination, I was sure, would really get her worked up.

  It did. The passage she selected came from an uninspired hack-novel titled Back-Seat Love. It described the undressing of a reluctant teenager by the boy with whom she had been going steady since her freshman year in high school.

  “ ‘As they sat in the back seat of his car which was parked in a darkened corner of a neighborhood drive-in theater,’ ” Lady B-B began reciting, “ ‘David slowly began to unbutton Judy’s blouse.’”

  On cue, I went to work on Lady B-B’s buttons. At the same time, I held my mouth near hers and touched her lips and face provocatively with my tongue.

  “ ‘Judy had mixed feelings,’ ” Lady B-B continued, breathing a bit more rapidly. “ ‘She liked to have David touch her, but she was afraid that it would get her too excited. She had never gone all the way with him, but she had come close. She didn’t know how close she could come without losing her will to resist.

  “ ‘David clumsily palmed one of her breasts. His heart was beating frantically, and he struggled to —mmmmmm, Rod, I really like the way you’re kissing me now—’he struggled to get his hand underneath her brassiere, which fit her very tightly.’“

  Not letting up on my kissing, I paralleled David’s progress. I was sure that I wasn’t as clumsy as he was when I palmed Lady B’s right breast. But I had one hell of a time getting my hand under her bra. It was so tight I wondered how she was able to breathe.

  “ ‘Judy wanted David to touch her bare breasts,’” Lady B went on. “ ‘She had let him do this often in the past, and she liked the way his hands felt against her smooth, soft skin and her tender, little-girl’s nipples. She turned toward him, so that he could unhook the straps of her brassiere and touch her breasts more easily.’”

  Good girl, Judy! I thought to myself. For a minute there, I had been afraid that Lady B’s Iron Maiden bra was going to break my fingers.

  Following Judy’s lead, Lady B turned toward me. I promptly unhooked her bra—a C-cup, judging from the fact that there were three hooks on the strap—and covered her bare breast with my hand.

  It was a surprisingly large breast—full, firm and exquisitely shaped. The nipple leaped to life as my palm moved over it, and Lady B squirmed delightedly in response to my touch.

  “ ‘David unhooked Judy’s bra, then brought his hand back around to the front of her body and covered her bare breast with it,’ ” Lady B continued, the narrative lagging behind my progress. “ ‘His fingers tickled her nipple, which hardened as he touched it. He took it between his thumb and his forefinger and began rolling it gently back and forth, which excited her all the more and made her nipple grow harder still.

  “ ‘Mmmmmmmm,” moaned Judy, very excited by what was happening to her.

  “ ‘ “Do you like what I’m doing to you?” David asked.

  “ ‘“Oh yes, David,” replied Judy. “Oh yes. It feels so wonderful.”

  “ ‘ “David then switched to the other breast, taking the nipple of this breast between thumb and forefinger, just as he had taken the nipple of the previous breast. The second nipple quickly became just as hard as the first nipple had, and
Judy’s body came alive with an exquisitely exciting sensation.

  “ ‘ “Do you like this, Judy?” David whispered softly.

  “ ‘ “Oh yes, David,” she replied in hoarse tones. “Oh yes, I like it very much.”

  “ ‘ “David then reached under Judy’s loosely hanging brassiere with both hands and began tickling both nipples at once.

  “ ‘“Do you like what I’m doing to you now, Judy?” he inquired, panting heavily.

  “ ‘ “Oh yes, David,” she answered, panting also. “Oh yes, I like it even better than the other way.’”

  I wished to hell that David and Judy would knock off the chit-chat and get down to some more serious business. But Lady B-B evidently thought their rate of progress was just fine. As I copied David’s actions, she grew more and more excited, and punctuated her narrative with an increasing number of mmmmmmm’s.

  David continued to fondle Judy’s breasts for what must have been five or six pages—all of which Lady B recited without omitting a single “Oh yes, David.” The appreciative adolescent’s nipples were palmed, fingered, stroked, squeezed, pinched, rubbed, rolled and tweaked. Also, her breasts proper were kneaded, gyrated in clockwise and counterclockwise circles, pressed against each other, pulled away from each other, pressed against her chest, pushed up as far as they would go, stretched down as far as they would go, and maneuvered in every other conceivable pattern of angles and arcs. No doubt about it, David—or the author of Back-Seat Love—was a dyed-in-the-wool breast man.

  Finally the hand action gave way to mouth action. Now David went through a whole symphony of oral foreplay techniques. Judy’s nipples were nibbled on, licked, lapped, tongued, sucked on vigorously, sucked on gently, raked over by David’s teeth, and flickered over and round by his fast-moving tongue. Then, her apparently tireless lover went to work on her breasts proper, licking, lapping, sucking, nibbling, gnawing, biting, chewing, et cetera. About the only thing he didn’t do was shove her breasts in his ears, and, as Lady B-B’s narrative—and my dutiful duplication of his deeds—continued, I wondered if he wouldn’t eventually get around to even that.