To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 8 - Seacoast Bohemia

Brian held me and patted my back, then said, ‘Stop that infernal blubbering. Can't stand a woman's tears. Makes me horny.'

I stopped crying and snuggled up close to him. Then my eyes widened. ‘Goodness! A real Sunday special.' Brian maintained that the only effect church had on him was to arouse his passion, because he never listened to the service; he just thought about Mother Eve, who (he says) had red hair.

(I did not need to tell him that church had a similar effect on me. Every Sunday after church a ‘special' was likely to happen, once we got the children down for their naps.)

‘Now, now, my lady. Don't you want to look around your house first?'

‘I wasn't suggesting anything, Briney. I wouldn't dare do it here. Somebody might walk in.'

‘Nobody will. Didn't you notice that I bolted the front door? Maureen... I do believe that you didn't believe me when I said that I was giving this house to you.'

I took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. ‘My husband, if you tell me that the sun rises in the west, I will believe you. But I may not understand. And this time I do not understand.'

‘Let me explain. I can't really give this house to you, because it's already yours; you've paid for it. But, as a legality, title still rests in me. Sometime this coming week we'll change that, vest title in you. It is legal for a married woman to own real property in her own name in this state as long as the deed describes you as a married woman and I waive claim... and even that last is no ‘more than a precaution. Now as to how you bought it -‘

I bought it flat on my back, I did, ‘ringing the cash register'. The down payment was money Brian had saved while in the Army, plus money from a third mortgage his parents had accepted from him. This let him make a sizeable, down payment, with a first mortgage at the usual six per cent and a second mortgage at eight and a half per cent. The house was rented when he bought it; Brian kept the tenants, invested the rent to help pay off the mortgages.

The Howard bonus for Nancy cleared that too-expensive second mortgage; Carol's birth paid off Brian's parents. The Foundation's payment for Brian, Junior, let Brian, Senior, refinance the first mortgage down to the point where the rental income let him at last clear the property in May 1906, only six and a half years after he had assumed this huge pyramid of debt.

Briney is a gambler; I told him so.

‘Not really,' he answered, ‘as I was betting on you, darling. And you delivered. Like clockwork. Oh, Brian junior was a little later than I expected but the plan had some flexibility in it. While I had insisted on the privilege of paying off the first mortgage ahead of time, I didn't actually have to pay it earlier than June first, 1910. But you came through like the champion you are.'

A year ago he had discussed his projected programme with his tenants; a date was agreed on; they had moved out quite amicably just the Friday past. ‘So it's yours, darling. I did not renew our lease this time; Hennessy O'Scrooge knows we are leaving. We can move out tomorrow and move in here, if this house pleases you. Or shall we sell it?'

‘Don't talk about selling our housel Briney, if this truly is your wedding present to me, then at last I can make my bride's present to you. Your kitten.'

He grinned. ‘Our kitten, you mean. Yes, I had figured that out.'

We had postponed getting a kitten because there were dogs on both sides of the little house on 26^th - and one of them was a cat killer. By moving around the corner we had not gotten away from that menace.

Brian showed me around the place. It was a wonderful house: upstairs a big bathroom and a smaller one, a little bathroom downstairs adjacent to a maid's room, four bedrooms and a sleeping porch, a living-room, a parlour, a proper dining-room with a built-in china closet and a plate rail, a gas log in the parlour in what could be a fireplace for logs if the gas log was removed, a wonderful big kitchen, a formal front staircase and a convenient back staircase leading from the kitchen, privately oh, just everything and anything that a family with children could want, including a fenced back yard just right for children and pets... and for croquet and picnic dinners and a vegetable garden and a sand pile. I started to cry again.

‘Stop it,' ordered Briney. ‘This one is the master bedroom. Unless you prefer another room.'

It was a fine, big, airy room, with that sleeping porch off it. The house was empty and reasonably clean (I looked forward to scrubbing every inch), but some items not worth hauling away had been left here and there.

‘Briney, that old porch swing out there has a pad on it. Would you please bring that pad in?'

‘If you wish. Why?'

‘Let's ring the cash register!'

‘Right away, Madam! Honey, I wondered how long it would take you to decide to baptise your new home.'

That pad didn't look too clean and wasn't very big, but I didn't care about trifles; it would keep my spine from being ground into the bane boards. As Briney was fetching it in and placing it on the floor, I was getting out of the last of my clothes.

He called out, ‘Hey! Leave your stockings on.'

‘Yes, sir. Right away, Mister. Aintchu gonna buy a drink first, dearie?' Drunk with excitement, I took a deep breath and got down on my back. ‘What's your name, Mister?' I said huskily. ‘Mine's Myrtle; I'm fertile.'

‘I'll bet you are.' Briney finished getting out of his clothes, hung his coat on a hook behind the bathroom door and started to mount me. I reached for him. He stopped me, paused to kiss me. ‘Madam, I love you.'

‘I love you, sir.'

‘I'm pleased to hear it. Brace yourself.' Then he said, ‘Unh! Ease off a notch.'

I relaxed a little. ‘Better?'

‘Just dandy. You're wonderful, lady mine.'

‘So are you, Briney. Now? Please!'

I started to peak almost at once, then the skyrockets took off and I was screaming and just barely conscious when I felt him let go, and I fainted.

I'm not a fainter. But I did that time.

Two Sundays later I missed my period. The following February (1907) I had George Edward.

Our next ten years were idyllic.

Our life may have looked dull and humdrum to other people since all we did was live quietly in a house in a quiet neighbourhood and raise children... and cats and guinea pigs and rabbits and snakes and goldfish and (once) silkworms on top of my piano - a project of Brian, Junior, when he was in fourth grade. That required mulberry leaves, silkworms being fussy eaters. Brian, Junior, made a deal with a neighbour who had a mulberry tree. Quite early he displayed his father's talent for always finding a way to work out a deal to accomplish his ends, no matter how unlikely they seemed at first.

A deal for mulberry leaves was big excitement the way we lived those years.

We had kindergarten Crayola pictures with stars on them posted in my kitchen, and tricycles on the back porch, and roller skates beside them, and fingers that had to be kissed well and bandaged, and special projects to do at home and take to school, and lots of shoes to be shined to get our tribe ready for Sunday School on time, and noisy arguments over who gets the buttonhook next - until I got shoe buttonhooks for each child and put names on them.

Ali the while Maureen's belly waxed and waned like the round belly of the Moon: George in 1907, Marie in 1909, Woodrow in 1912, Richard in 1914, and Ethel in 1916... which by no means ended it but brings us up to the War that changed the World.

But endless things happened before then, some of which I should mention. We moved from the church we had attended while we were tenants of ‘Scrooge' soon after we moved to our new neighbourhood. In part we were upgrading in churches just as we were upgrading in houses and neighbourhoods. In the United States at that time Protestant denominations were closely linked to economic and social status, although it was never polite to say so. At the top of the pyramid was high-church Episcopalian; at the bottom were several pentecostal fundamentalist sects whose members piled up treasures in Heaven because they were finding it impossible to pile up treasures on Earth.

We had been attending a middle-level church selected largely because it was close by. We would have moved eventually to a more prosperous boulevard church now that we had moved to a more prosperous neighbourhood... but we moved when we did because Maureen got herself quasi raped.

My own silly fault. In any century rape is the favourite sport of large numbers of men when they can get away with it, and any female under ninety and over six is at risk anywhere and at all times... unless she knows how to avoid it and takes no chances - which is close to impossible.

On second thought, forget that bracket of six and ninety; there are crazies out there who will rape any female of any age. Rape is not intercourse; it is murderous aggression.

On third thought, what happened to me was not even quasi-rape, as I knew better than to place myself un-chaperoned in private with a preacher yet I had gone ahead and done so, knowing quite well what would happen. Reverend Timberly (the slob!) had managed to let me know when I was fourteen that he felt that he could teach me a great deal about life and love... while patting my fanny in a fatherly (!) way. I had complained to my father about it without quite naming him, and Father's advice had enabled me to put a stop to it.

But this Bible thumper - It was six weeks after we moved into our new house; I knew I was pregnant, and I was horny; Brian was away. I'm not complaining; Brian had to go where business took him and this is true of endless trades and professions; the breadwinner must go where the bread is. This time he was in Denver; then, when I had expected him home, he sent me a telegram (niteletter) telling me that he must go to Montana - just three or four days, a week at the most. Love, Brian.

Spit. Dirty drawers. Garbage. But I kept my smile because Nancy was watching me and at six she was hard to fool. I read her a revised version, then put the typed sheet where she could not get at it; she had taught herself to read.

At three that afternoon, bathed, dressed, and wearing no drawers, I tapped at the door of the study of the Reverend Doctor Ezekiel ‘Biblethumper'. My usual baby watcher was with my three, with written instructions including where I was going and the Home system telephone number of the pastor's study.

The reverend doctor and I had been doing a silent and inconspicuous barnyard dance ever since he had been called to that pulpit three years earlier. I didn't like him all that much, but I was acutely aware of him and his deep, organlike voice and clean masculine odour. It is too bad that he didn't have bad breath or smelly feet or something like that to put me off. But physically I could not fault him - good teeth, sweet breath, bathed and shampooed regularly.

My excuse for going to his study was that I needed to confer with him because I was chairman of the ladies auxiliary committee for the forthcoming whoop-te-do - I don't remember what. But twentieth century Protestant churches were always preparing for the next whoop-te-do. Yes, I do remember; a citywide revival. Billy Sunday? I think he was the one - a ball player and reformed drunkard who had found Jesus in a big way.

Dr Zeke let me in; we looked at each other and we both knew; we didn't need to say anything. He put his arms around me; I turned my face up. He put his mouth to mine and my mouth came open as my eyes closed. In scant seconds after he answered his door he had me down on the couch at the back of his desk, my skirts up, and he was trying to couple with me.

I reached down and took hold of him and got him aimed properly; he had been about to make his own hole.

Big! With a lost feeling of ‘Briney is not going to like this', I took him. He had no finesse; he just romped on home. But I was so excited that I was teetering on the edge and ready to explode when I felt him spend - just as someone knocked at his study door and he pulled out of me.

The bleeping affair had lasted under a minute... and my orgasm had shut down like a frozen pipe.

But all was not lost. Or should not have been. Once that jack rabbit jumped off me, I simply stood up and was immediately presentable. In 1906 skirts came down to the ankles and I had picked a dress that would stand up under crushing. I had left my drawers off not alone for his convenience (and mine) but because, if you are not wearing drawers and encounter an emergency, you don't have to scramble to put them on.

As for Dr Zeke the stupid geek, all he needed to do before he answered that door was to button his pants... which he had to do anyhow.

We could have brazened it out. We could have looked them in the eye, refused to look guilty, invited them into our conference.

But what he did was grab my arm, shove me into his coat closet, and turn the key on me.

I stood in there, in the dark, for two solid hours that seemed like two years. I kept my sanity by thinking up painful ways to kill him. ‘Hoisting him by his own petard' was the simplest. Some of the others are too nasty to think about.

Finally he unlocked the door, looked at me and whispered hoarsely, ‘They're gone now. Let's slip you out the back door.'

I didn't spit in his face. I said, ‘No, Doctor, we will now have our conference. Then you will escort me out the front door of the church, and you will stand there, chatting with me, until several people have seen us.'

‘No, no, Mrs Smith! I think -‘

‘You didn't think. Doctor, the only alternative is for me to run screaming out of here shouting "Rape!"... and what a police matron will find inside me that you left there will prove rape to a jury.'

When Brian got home, I told him about it. I had considered keeping it to myself. But we had reached a friendly agreement three years earlier concerning how and when we could each adulterate our marriage without offending or damaging the other. So I decided to make a clean breast of it and accept a spanking if he thought I rated it. I thought I did rate a spanking... and if it was a truly hard spanking, that would be an excuse to cry and that would probably wind up wonderfully.

So I wasn't too worried. But I did want to confess and be shrived.

That friendly agreement for prudent adultery - we had resolved to operate together whenever possible, and always to help each other, cover up for each other, and help the other make the kill. The discussion had come about through Dr Rumsey's confirming that I was pregnant again (with Brian, Junior) and I was feeling especially sentimental. That, plus an incitement: we had received a pianissimo ‘mixed doubles' invitation from a couple we liked.

I started in by telling Briney solemnly that I intended to be utterly faithful to him. I had been faithful for four years and now that I knew that I could be, I would be, till death do us part.

He had answered, ‘Look, stupid, you're sweet but not smart. You started in at fourteen -‘

‘Almost fifteen!'

‘Short of fifteen. You told me that twelve other men and boys had sampled your sweetness - but you wanted to know if I thought that the candidates on your Howard list need be counted? Then you revised the tally, telling me that a couple of minor incidents had slipped your mind. You also told me that you had learned to enjoy it almost at once... but you wanted me to know that I was the best. Swivel Hips, do you really think that it changed you and your happy loving ways forever just because that bonehead preacher said some magic words over you? Truth will out, the leopard does not change his spots, and the day inevitably comes. When it does, I want you to enjoy it but to stay out of trouble... for your sake. But I do not expect you to be what society calls "faithful" forever amen. I do expect you not to get pregnant, not to catch some filthy disease, not to cause a scandal, not to shame me or yourself, not to risk the welfare of our children. Mostly that means using common sense and always pulling down the shades.'

I gulped. ‘Yes, sir.'

‘Now, my love, if it is true, as you assert, that Hal Andrews causes your gizzard to throb but that you are avoiding the temptation on my account, then be assured that your forebearance gains you no stars in your crown. We both know Hal; he's a gentleman and he keeps his nails clean. He's polite to his wife. If you don't mean business, quit flirting with him. But if you do want him, go get him! Don't mind me; I'll be busy. Jane is as delectable a piece as I've seen in a long time. I've hankered to bisect her angle from the day we met them.'

‘Briney! Is that true? You never showed it. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘And give you a chance to go female and jealous and possessive? Sweetheart, I've had to wait until you admitted out loud, with no coaxing or coaching from me, that you were feeling a deep curiosity about another man... with a suggestion that perhaps I might feel the same way about his wife. It turns out that I do. So call Jane and accept their dinner invitation. We'll see what develops.'

‘But what if it turns out that you like Jane more than you like me?'

Impossible. I love you, my lady.'

‘I mean what she's sitting on. How she makes love.'

‘Possible, but unlikely. If I did, I would not stop loving you or lose interest in what you are sitting on; it's special. But that doesn't mean I don't want to try Jane; she smells good.' He licked his lips and grinned.

He did and she did and we four did and they remained our loving friends for years although they moved to St Joe two years later when he got a better offer from the school board there. That put them too far away for quiet family orgies, mostly.

Over the course of time Brian and I worked out detailed rules about how to handle sex, all of them intended to avoid the hazards while leaving both of us free to ‘sin' - not carelessly but prudently, so that we could always look Mrs Grundy in the eye and tell her to peddle her papers elsewhere.

Brian made no concessions whatever to the prevalent belief that sex was in some way innately sinful. He was utterly contemptuous of popular opinion. ‘If a thousand men believe something and believe otherwise, then it's a thousand to one that they are wrong. Maureen, I support us by having contrary opinions.'

When I told Briney about being locked in that closet, he sat up in bed. ‘That bastard! Mo, I'm going to break both his arms.'

‘Then you had better break mine, too, as I went there intending to do it. I did it. The rest derived from that bald, inexcusable fact. I took a risk I should not have taken. My fault at least as much as his.'

‘Yes, yes, but that's not the point. Sweetheart, I'm not faulting him for screwing you; any man not castrated will screw you if he has a clear chance at you. So your only protection is not to give him that chance if you don't want him to take it. What I'm angry about is his shoving my poor baby into a closet, into the dark, locking her in, frightening her. I'll kill him slowly. God damn him. I'll nut him first. I'll take his scalp. And cut off his ears.'

‘Briney -‘

‘I'll drive a stake - What, dear?'

‘I've been a bad girl, I know, but I got away with it cold. I didn't get pregnant because I am pregnant. No disease... or I don't think so. I'm almost certain nobody twigged, no scandal. I would like to watch you do all those things to him; I despise him. But, if you hurt him even a little bit, even punch his nose, it's no longer a secret... and that could hurt our children. Couldn't it?'

Briney conceded this pragmatic necessity. I wanted us to leave that church. Briney agreed. ‘But not right away, love. I'll be home for the next six weeks at least. We'll go to church together -‘

We got there early and sat down at the front, facing the pulpit. Briney caught Dr Zeke's eye and held it, all through the sermon, Sunday after Sunday.

Dr Zeke had a nervous breakdown and had to take a leave of absence.

Briney and I did not work out all our rules for sex and love and marriage too easily. We were trying to do two things at once: create a whole new system of just conduct in marriage - a code that any civilised society would have taught us as children - and simultaneously create an arbitrary and utterly pragmatic set of rules for public conduct to protect us from the Bible-belt arbiters of morals and conduct. We were not missionaries trying to convert Mrs Grundy to our way of thinking; we simply wanted to hold up a mask so that she would never suspect that we did not agree with her way of thinking. In a society in which it is a moral offence to be different from your neighbours your only escape is never to let them find out.

Slowly over the years we learned that many Howard families had been forced to face up to the fact that the Howard Foundation programme simply did not fit the Midwestern Bible belt... yet the majority of Howard candidates came from the Middle West. Eventually these conflicts and contradictions resulted in most Howards either dropping out of organised religion, or paying it lip service as Brian and I did, until we left Kansas City in the late thirties and quit pretending.

So far as I know, there are no organised religions in Boondock, or anywhere on Tellus Tertius. Question: is this an inevitable evolutionary development as mankind approaches true civilisation? Or is that wishful thinking?

Or did I die in 1982? Boondock is so utterly unlike Kansas City that I have trouble believing that they are in the same universe. Now that I am locked up incommunicado in what appears to be a madhouse run by its inmates it is easy to believe that a traffic accident that hit an old, old woman in 1982 was fatal... and that these dreams of weirdly different worlds are merely the delirium of dying. Am I heavily sedated and on I.C. life support in some Albuquerque hospital while they decide whether or not to pull the plug? Are they waiting to hear from Woodrow for authorisation? As I recall, I listed him as ‘Next of Kin' in my wallet.

Are ‘Lazarus Long' and ‘Boondock' a senile fantasy?

Must ask Pixel next time he visits me. His English is scarce but I've no one else to ask.

One fine thing we did even before we got our new house furnished: we got the rest of our books out of storage. In the crackerbox we had been living in we had had room for only a couple of dozen volumes, and that precious few only by storing them on the top shelf in the kitchen, a spot I could reach only by standing on a stool - something I did not risk when I was big with child. Once I waited three days for Brian to come home from Galena, intending to ask him to reach down my Golden Treasury for me - I could see it; couldn't reach it - then, when he did get home, I forgot it.

I had two boxes of books in storage, Brian had more than that... and I had ‘inherited' case after case of my father's books. He had written to me when he went back into the Army to tell me that he had had them packed and shipped to Kansas City Storage and Warehousing - receipts enclosed. His bank was instructed to keep the storage paid up... but if I wanted to give them a home, that would please him. Perhaps someday he might ask for some of them back, but in the meantime treat them as my own. ‘Books are meant to be read and loved, not stored.'

So we got our printed friends out of bondage and into the light and air - although we had no bookcases as yet. Briney got boards and bricks and set up temporary shelves... and I learned what my husband liked better than sex.

Books.

Almost any books but what hooked him that weekend were Professor Huxley's essays... which I hardly noticed because I had my hands on Father's Mark Twain collection, Mr Clemens' books, for the first time since May 1898 everything of his up to that date, mostly first editions and four of them signed by Mr Clemens and ‘Mark Twain' -‘signed on that great night in January 1898 when I fought to stay awake in order not to miss any of Mr Clemens' words.

For perhaps two hours Brian and I took turns touching the other one's elbow and saying, ‘Listen to this!' - then reading aloud. It turned out that Brian had never read The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg or Some Notes on the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut. I was astonished. ‘Dear, I love you - but why did they let you graduate?'

‘I don't know. The War, probably.'

‘Well, I'll just have to tutor you. We'll start with the Connecticut Yankee.'

‘I've read it. What's that fat one?'

‘That's not Mark Twain; that's one of Father's medical books.' I handed it to him and returned to The Prince and the Pauper.

A couple of moments later I looked up when Briney said, ‘Hey, this plate is not correct.'

I answered, ‘Yes, I know. As I know what plate you are looking at. Father says that any layman who gets his hands on that book invariably looks at that plate first, Shall I take off my drawers so that you can check it?'

‘Quit trying to divert me, wench; I have an excellent memory.' He thumbed on through. ‘Fascinating. One could study these plates for hours.'

‘I know. I have.'

‘Amazing how much machinery can be packed into one set of skin.' He went on thumbing through, then got hooked by a work on obstetrics, shuddered at parts of that one (Brian was a good jackleg midwife, but he didn't like blood), put it aside and picked up another one. ‘Whee!'

‘What is it this time, dear? Oh. What Every Young Girl Should Know.' (He had picked up the Forberg etchings, Figuris Veneris. I was startled, too, the first time I opened it.)

‘That's not its name. Here's the title page: Figures of Venus.'

‘Joke, dear. Father's joke. He had me study it as a sex instruction manual, then we discussed each picture and he answered any question I asked. Lots of questions, that is. He said that Mr Forberg's pictures were anatomically correct... which is more than we can say about that censored plate you complained about. Father said that these pictures should be used in school, because they were far superior to the behind the-barn cartoons or photographs that were the only thing most young people get to look at - until they were confronted by the real thing and were frightened and sometimes hurt.' I sighed. ‘Father says that this so-called civilisation is sick throughout but nowhere more so than about sex, every aspect of sex.'

‘Your father is dead right, I think. But, Maureen, do I understand that Dr Johnson gave this to you as an instruction manual? My revered father-in-law endorsed everything in these pictures? Everything?'

‘Oh, heavens, no. Just most of them. But in general Father says that anything two - or more - people want to do is all right as long as it does no physical harm. He felt that the words "moral" and "immoral" were ridiculous when applied to sexual relations. Right and wrong were the correct words, used exactly as they would be used in any other human relation.'

‘Mon beau-père a raison. And my wife is a smart cookie, too:

‘I had tutoring by a wise man all my life, until he turned me over to you. At least I think my father is wise. Here, let me sit beside you and I'll point out what he approved of, what he didn't.'

I moved across beside him, he put his arm around me and I held the book on his lap. ‘The title-page - Note the date, 1824. But the pictures are mostly classic Greece and dome, except one in Egypt. Father said that, despite that date less than a hundred years back, these pictures match murals in whorehouses in Pompeii... except that these are artistically much superior to the Pompeii paintings.'

‘Dr Johnson has been to Pompeii?'

‘No. Well, I don't think he has. With Father it is sometimes hard to be sure. He did tell me that he had seen photographs of Pompeii murals in Chicago. At Northwestern or in some museum:

‘But how did he get these pictures? I hate to tell you, my sweet innocent, but I'm certain that these pictures would get us a long rest at Federal expense... under the Comstock Act. If we were caught with them.'

‘If we were caught. "Caught" is the important word. Father urged me to know the law as thoroughly as possible... so as not to get caught when I broke one. Father never felt that any law applied to him... other than in that sense.'

‘I think it is clear that your father is a subversive character, a bad influence, a wicked old man... and I admire him without limit and hope to grow up like him.'

‘I love him all to pieces, mon homme. He could have had my maidenhead just by lifting his eyebrow. He wouldn't take it.'

‘I know that, beloved. I've known it since I first met you.'

‘Yes, I'm a woman scorned... and someday he'll pay. But I want to take his advice about the Law. Briney, do you suppose I could attend classes at the Kansas City School of Law... if I could squeeze the tuition out of my household allowance?'

‘Perhaps. But you won't have to squeeze it out of your housekeeping money; any schooling you want we can now afford. But never mind such trivial matters; we're talking about sex. S-E-X, the stuff that makes the world go around. Next picture, please.'

‘Yes, sir. Missionary sty1e. Approved even by priests. ‘Me next picture is almost as widely accepted, although perhaps Mrs Grundy never gets on top. This next one is certainly not used by Mrs Grundy although by everybody else - says Father. But he noted that a gentleman, in coupling with a lady from behind and standing up, will reach under and find her button, so that she is ensured a good time, too. Now the next - Oh! Briney, someday, when we can afford it, I want a bed just the right height so that you can put me on it in that position, on my back, legs up - just the right height so that you can stand up and enter me without crouching. I like that position, so do you - but the last time we used it, you got cramps in your legs and were trembling toward the last, you got so tired. Darling, I want you to enjoy it as much as I do. Loads, that is.'

‘Lady, you're a gentleman.'

‘Why, thank you, sir! If that is not a jest.'

No jest. Most ladies are not gentlemen; they will pull stunts that would get a man ten days in the stocks... and walk on, with their noses in the air. But not my Mo. With you, fair is fair and you don't expect to get by on your sex.'

‘Ah, but I do. By "ringing the cash register".'

‘Don't confuse me with logic. You treat everyone decently, that's all, even your poor old husband. Yes, I'll build you that bed. Not only the right height but one guaranteed not to squeak. I'll get busy on the design. Hmm, Mo, how would you like a really big bed? Say one that would hold you and me and Hal and Jane - or playmates of your choice - all at once.'

‘Goodness, what a thought! I hear that Annie Chambers has a bed like that.'

‘But I'll design a better one. Mo, where did you hear of KC's top Madam?'

‘At a Ladies' Aid meeting. Mrs Bunch was deploring the open immorality of this city. I kept my ears open and my mouth closed. Darling, I'll love that bed when it's built... and in the meantime I'll be happy with any reasonably level place or even a pile of coal if Briney puts me on it.'

‘Go along with you. Next picture.'

‘Then quit teasing my right nipple. Young man masturbating, his daydreams in the background. Father strongly approves of masturbation. He said that all the stories about it were nonsense. He urged me to masturbate all I want to and whenever I want to, all my life, and to be no more ashamed of it than I am of peeing - just close the door, as I do when peeing.

‘They told me that it would make me go blind. But it didn't. Next.'

‘He's an "irrumator" and she is a "fellatrix" and that's Vesuvius in the background. Only Father says that those names are silly; it's just two youngsters discovering that sex can be fun. He pointed out that not only is it fun for both of them but also there is a major advantage. If she discovers that it smells bad, she can suddenly remember that it's bedtime; goodnight, Bill - and, no, I can't see you next Saturday. Don't come back at all; I'm entering a nunnery. Briney, I've done that - tossed a boy out because I didn't like the way his penis smelled. One was a Howard candidate. Phew! Father told me that a penis that smelled bad was not necessarily diseased, but that was the way to bet... and in any case if it wasn't sweet enough to kiss, it wasn't sweet enough to put inside me.'

I moved on to the next one. ‘Same situation, comme ci instead of comme ça. Cunnilingus. Another silly word, says Father; it's just a kiss. The sweetest kiss of all... unless you combine this one with the one we just looked ar, to make a sixty-nine. Soixante-neuf. Although there is much to be said for taking the two sorts of kisses at one rime, and concentrate.'

I turned the page. ‘Oh, oh! Here's one that Father did not care for.'

‘Me, too. I prefer girls.'

‘Yes, but you can do it to a woman, too. Father said that some day some man was going to want to do that to me... and that I should think about it ahead of time and be prepared to cope with it. He said that it was not immoral, or wrong, but that it was dirty and physically risky -‘

(This was in 1906, long before AIDS showed that buggery could be a special and deadly hazard.)

‘- but that if I got curious and just had to try it, make him use a sheath and get him to be ultra slow and extra gentle - or I would wind up buying fur coats for proctologists' wives.'

‘Seems likely. Next, please.'

‘Beloved -‘

‘Yes, Mo?'

‘If you want to do that to me, I'm willing. I'm not in the least afraid that you would hurt me.'

‘Thank you. You're a silly wench, but I love you. I'm not yet tired of your other hole. Next picture, please; there are people queued up for the second show.'

‘Yes, sir. I think this one is meant to be funny: hushand surprises wife playing happy games with the housewife next door - look at the expression on his face! Briney, I had never suspected that a woman could be so much fun until that time Jane made a grab for me. She's real cuddly. Or anything.'

‘Yes, I know. Or anything. So is Hal. Or anything.'

‘Well! I must have slept through something. This next one - Briney, I can't see why women would use dildoes when there are so many live, warm ones around, attached to men. Do you?'

‘They don't all have your opportunities, my love. Or your talents.'

‘Thank you, sir.' I moved on. ‘Cunnilingus again, but two women. Briney, why are mermaids used as a symbol of Lesbos?'

‘I don't know. What did your Father say?'

‘Just what you did. Oh, this next one does show something Father disapproves of. He says that anyone who mixes whips and chains, or either, with sex, is crazy as a pet coon and should be kept away from healthy people. Hmm, the next one is nothing special, just a different position, one that we've tried. Fun for variety, I think, but not for every day. And now - Oh, this one Father called, "the hetaera's examination, or three ways for a dollar." Do you think Annie Chambers' girls are examined this way? I hear that they are top quality this side of Chicago. Maybe New York.'

‘Look, my sweet, I know nothing of Madam Chambers, or her girls. I can't support both you and Annie Chambers, not even with the, help of the Foundation. So I don't patronise brothels.'

‘What do you do in Denver, Briney? Cancel that - under our agreement, I'm not supposed to ask.'

‘That wasn't in our agreement; of course you can ask. You tell me your bedtime stories and I'll tell you mine - then we'll play doctor. Denver... I'm glad you asked that. In Denver I met this young fat boy -‘

‘Briney!'

‘- who has the most gorgeous big sister, a grass widow a little younger than you are, with long slender legs, natural blonde, honey-coloured hair down to her waist, a sweet disposition, and big, firm tits. I asked her, "How about it?" ‘ Briney stopped.

‘Well? Go on. What did she say?'

‘She said no. Hon, in Denver I'm usually too tired for anything more adventurous than Mother Thumb and her four daughters. They are faithful to me in their own fashion and they don't expect me to take them out to dinner and a show first.'

‘Oh, piffle! What is the blonde's name?'

‘What blonde?'

I've just figured out how to get a message out via pixel. So, if you will excuse me, I'll get it ready at once so that I will have it ready the next time he shows up.