cruel,’ he said. ‘You’re unjust.’ I had no intention of marrying him, no matter how sincere he was. I didn’t care about his money. I don’t know why I abused him so. Afterwards, after I had left him, I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. I went back to him once and I begged his forgiveness. He was living with another girl—he told me so at once. ‘I would never have been unfaithful to you.’ he said. ‘I loved you. I wanted to do things for you. I didn’t expect you to stay with me forever. But you were too headstrong… you were too proud.’ He talked to me the way my father would have talked. I felt like weeping… Then I did something I never dreamt I could do. I begged him to take me to bed. He was trembling with passion. He was so damned decent, however, that he didn’t have the heart to take advantage of me. ‘You don’t want to go to bed with me,’ he said, ‘you just want to prove to me that you’re repentant.’ I insisted that I wanted to sleep with him, that I liked him as a lover. He could hardly resist any longer. But he was afraid, I suppose, of what would happen to him. He didn’t want to begin craving for me again, that was it. But I was thinking only of paying him back. I didn’t know how else to do it. I knew he loved me, my body and everything. I wanted to make him happy, even if it did upset him… It was all very confusing. Anyway, we got in bed, but he couldn’t get an erection. I never knew that to happen before. I tried everything. I enjoyed humiliating myself. As I was sucking him off I was smiling to myself, thinking how strange it was that I had to sweat like this over a man I despised… Nothing happened. I said I’d come back next day and try again. He looked at me as if he were appalled at the idea. ‘You were patient with me in the beginning, remember?’ I said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be patient now?’ It’s crazy,’ he said. ‘You don’t love me. You’re just giving yourself like a whore.’ ‘That’s what I am now,’ I said… ‘a whore.’ He took me literally. He looked frightened, thoroughly frightened…»

I waited to hear the rest of it. Did you go back?» I asked.

No, she hadn’t gone back. She never went near him again.

«He must have lived on tenterhooks,» I said to myself.

The next morning I reminded her of our proposed visit to the doctor. I told her I would phone her later in the day and ask her to meet me at the doctor’s office. I would have to consult Kronski about it. She was perfectly amenable. Anything I wanted.

Well, we visited the doctor Kronski had elected, we had blood tests taken, and we even had dinner with the doctor. He was a young man and not overly sure of himself, I thought. He didn’t know what to make of my cock. Wanted to know if I had ever had a dose—or the «syph». I told him I had had the clap twice. Had it ever come back? Not that I knew of. And so on. He thought it best to wait a few days before doing anything. In the meantime he’d have analyzed our blood. He thought we both looked healthy, though looks were often deceptive. In short, he talked around and about, as young doctors often do—and old ones too—leaving us none the wiser.

Between the first and second visits I had to visit Maude. I told her all about it. She of course was convinced that Mona was responsible. She had expected as much. It was laughable, really, what an interest she took in my sick dick. As though it were still her private property. I had to take it out and show it to her, b’Jesus. She handled it gingerly at first, but then, her professional interest aroused and the thing growing heavier in her hand all the while, she became less and less cautious. I had to be careful not to get too excited or I might have thrown caution to the winds. At any rate, before permitting me to shove it back in my fly she begged me to let her bathe it gently in a solution. She was sure that could do no harm. So I went to the bathroom with her, my prick stiff as a rod, and I watched her pet it and pamper it.

When we visited the doctor again we learned that the signs were all negative. However, he explained, even that didn’t constitute a final proof.

«You know,» he said—evidently he had been thinking it over before our arrival—«I’ve been thinking that you’d be much better off if you were circumcised. When the foreskin is removed that stuff will come off too. You’ve got an uncommonly long foreskin— hasn’t it bothered you?»

I confessed I had never given it a thought before. One is born with a foreskin and one dies with it. Nobody thinks about his appendix until it’s time to have it cut out.

«Yes,» he went on, «you’d be lots better off without that foreskin. You’d have to go to the hospital, of course… it might take about a week or so.»

«And what would that cost?» I inquired, picking up the scent.

He couldn’t say exactly—perhaps a hundred dollars. I told him I’d think it over. I wasn’t too keen about losing my precious foreskin, even if there were hygienic advantages attached to it. A funny thought then entered my head—that thereafter the head of my cock would be insensitive. I didn’t like that idea at all.

However, before I left his office he had persuaded me to make a date with his surgeon for a week hence. «If it should clear up in the meantime you won’t need to go through with the operation—if you don’t like the idea.»

«But,» he added, «if I were you I’d have it done whether I liked it or not. It’s much cleaner.»

In the interval the nightly confessions proceeded apace. Mona had not been working at the dance hall for several weeks now and we had the evenings together. She wasn’t sure what she would do next— it was always the money question which disturbed her —but she was certain she would never return to the dance hall. She seemed just as relieved as I to know that her blood test had come out all right.

«But you didn’t think there was anything wrong with you, did you?»

«One never knows,» she said. «That was such a horrible place… the girls were filthy.»

«The girls?»

«And the men too… Don’t let’s talk about it.» After a short silence she laughed and said: «How would you like it if I went on the stage?»

«It would be fine,» I said. «Do you think you can act?»

«I know I can. You wait, Val, I’ll show you…»

That evening we came home late and sneaked quietly into bed. Holding on to my cock she began another string of confessions. She had been wanting to tell me something… I wasn’t to get angry… I wasn’t to interrupt her. I had to promise.

I lay there and listened tensely. The money question again. It was always there, like a bad sore. «You didn’t want me to go on staying at the dance hall, did you?» Of course I didn’t. What next? I wondered.

Well naturally she had to find some way of raising the necessary funds. Go on! I thought to myself. Get it over with! I gave myself an anaesthetic and listened to her without opening my trap. It was all quite painless, strange to relate. She was talking about old men, nice old men whom she had become acquainted with at the dance hall. What they wanted was to have the company of a beautiful young girl— some one they could eat with and take to the theatre. They didn’t really care about dancing—or even going to bed with a girl. They wanted to be seen with young women—it made them feel younger, gayer, more hopeful. They were all successful old bastards —with false teeth and varicose veins and all that sort of thing. They didn’t know what to do with their money. One of them, the one she was talking about, owned a big steam laundry. He was over eighty, brittle, blue-veined, glassy-eyed. He was almost a child. Surely I couldn’t be jealous of him! All he asked of her was permission to spend his money on her. She didn’t say how much he had already forked out, but she inferred it was a tidy sum. And now there was another one—he lived at the Ritz Carlton, A shoes manufacturer. She sometimes ate in his room, because it gave him pleasure. He was a multimillionaire—and a little gaga, to believe her words. At the most he had only courage enough to kiss her hand… Yes, she had been meaning to tell me about these things for weeks, but she had been afraid I might take it badly. «You don’t, do you?» she said, bending over me. I didn’t answer immediately. I was thinking, wondering, puzzling over it all. «Why don’t you say something?» she said, nudging me. «You said you wouldn’t be angry. You promised.»

«I’m not angry,» I said. And then I grew silent again.

«But you are! You’re hurt…. O Val, you’re so foolish. Do you think I would tell you these things if I thought you would be hurt?»

«I