I took her out of bed and used the syringe in her, explaining its purpose, and then went to bed again and gave her the time of her life! Lying between her legs but side by side an hour later, I dared her to tell me how she had lost her maidenhead. I had to tell her first what it was. She maintained stoutly that no “feller” had ever touched her except me and I believed her, for she admitted having caressed herself ever since she was ten: at first she could not even get her forefinger into her pussy she told me. “What are you now?” I asked. “I shall be sixteen next April”, was her reply.
About eleven o’clock she dressed and went home, after making another appointment with me.
The haste of this narrative has many unforeseen drawbacks: it makes it appear as if I had had conquest after conquest and little or no difficulty in my efforts to win love. In reality my half dozen victories were spread out over nearly as many years, and time and again I met rebuffs and refusals quite sufficient to keep even my conceit in decent bounds. But I want to emphasize the fact that success in love, like success in every department of life, falls usually to the tough man unwearied in pursuit. Chaucer was right when he makes his Old Wyfe of Bath confess:
And by a close attendance and attention
Are we caught, more or less the truth to mention.
It is not the handsomest man or the most virile who has most success with women, though both qualities smooth the way; but that man who pursues them most assiduously, flatters them most constantly and cleverly, and always insists on taking the girl’s “No” for consent, her reproofs for endearments and even a little crossness for a new charm.
Above all, it is necessary to push forward after every refusal, for as soon as a girl refuses, she is apt to regret and may grant then what she expressly denied the moment before. Yet I could give dozens of instances where assiduity and flattery, love-looks and words were all ineffective, so much so that I should never say with Shakespeare: “he’s not a man who cannot win a woman.” I have generally found, too, that the easiest to win were the best worth winning for me, for women have finer senses for suitability in love than any man.
Now for an example of one of my many failures which took place when I was still a student and had fair opportunity to succeed.
It was a custom in the University for every professor to lecture for forty-five minutes, thus leaving each student fifteen minutes at least free to go back to his private class-room to prepare for the next lecture. All the students took turns to use these classrooms for their private pleasure. For example, from 11:45 to noon each day I was supposed to be working in the Junior Class-room and no student would interfere with me or molest me in any way.
One day, a girl Fresher, Grace Weldon by name, the daughter of the owner of the biggest department store in Lawrence, came to Smith when Miss Stevens and I were with him, about the translation of a phrase or two in Xenophon.