The boat docked and the rain fell in torrents. I called a cab and gave
the driver directions to go to a wholesale florist, anywhere he could
find one on the way uptown. It took some persuasion to get the big bunch
of violets from the wholesaler, but I did so, and sped away to my love.
The wonderful violets alone would have told the story of my love for
her, for they personified everything beautiful.
When I arrived, Juno was waiting for me in the parlor of our hotel,
eager, and with a most ardent welcome. After the necessary formalities,
we were shown to our room. When we were alone our arms were about each
other and our lips met in the first kiss that was a pledge of a great
and beautiful love. She loved the violets and, in our enthusiasm, it was
rather hard to come to earth and make some plans.
She had arranged for a free day. That was an important point gained.
Then, being both very normal beings, we felt that we must have the
breakfast to which we were accustomed. A delicious one was ordered, and
we sat and loved and talked and thought. She wondered.
After the removal of the breakfast dishes, we began to talk of our love.
I tried to make her see that for me it was not a passing fancy and that
I believed it was a serious matter to her. We discussed all phases of
marriage, and I gave her my views, based on my own experience. She, of
course, felt that there could never be a man in her life again. So we
decided that a union such as ours was to be could be made as holy and
complete as the most conventional marriages, if not more so.
I suggested that we read the marriage ceremony together as a sort of
benediction to our union. We had built up a firm foundation for our
lives in the love we held for each other. Our coming together was not
for animal satisfaction. There was a real sympathy of ideas and ideals
and, as a by-product, as it were, was to come the physical relief of sex
desire. As I always carried my prayer book with me, we very solemnly
read the service, and meant every word of it.
It may seem incongruous that I should have carried a prayer book with me
on my journeyings. I had joined the Episcopal Church at the time when I
became engaged to the youth during my college life, as that was his
church. The prayer book was the gift of my dear sister who had passed
on. While I always have had a deep spiritual conception of life and a
deep respect for the teachings of Christ, which doubtless came to me
through my mother’s influence, at the time when my children were lost to
me and I was forced by the conventional sympathizer to believe that this
had been by God’s will, I had little respect for that God. Of course I
interpreted “God’s will” differently than they, but in applying it to my
case I could see no justice shown by a God who could create me with so
strange a nature. In using the words as written in that book, there came
back to me a certain comfort in believing that there was a Force to
bring joy, even if it had had to come through sorrow.
We both believed that I was the only one in the world who desired the
love of a woman. The time for mere conversation was over. I found
willing response to my caresses.
She, too, wanted to show her love, as I had mine. At last I had reached
the heights of physical love.
Poets have written and sung of “that day of love” or “that night of
love” in words and tones which could not express the bliss of it, so why
should I try to do so?
We lingered and loved and rested, and felt there could be no end to the
desires which arose. It was the expression of about twenty-five years of
suppression of emotion in both of us. In a sane moment, we dressed and
took a long drive and had lunch at a favorite restaurant in the Park,
and then returned to our room early in the afternoon. We had to make
plans now for the future.
One thing was certain: that we must live together. If she could make
arrangements to keep on with her work and live away from the hotel where
she was employed, it would be best for me to stay in the city and find
some work other than handling my toy. If I were to go on with that
business, it would involve traveling about and being away from her too
much. So we decided to stay in the city. I knew that I was giving up a
fortune by giving up my business, as I was assured that it was a success
and that there would be no end of the sales I could make myself.
Unfortunately, no one else was ever able to handle it. However, I had
found my mate, and no fortune could keep me from her.
Juno had to go back to her hotel that night, and it tore our hearts
terribly to have to part. I did not see her until the next evening, when
I was waiting with impatience the result of her conference with her
employers. In the meantime, I had spent the day looking for a furnished
apartment where we could make our home, and I had found one which suited
me and which I felt would please her too. The minute I saw her, I knew
that all was well. The dames had consented to a change of plans, as they
knew that otherwise they would lose their most valuable asset to the
success of the house. They arranged for her to have day duty, and all
was well. The next day I saw my friends, who were delighted to have me
re-open my little school, and in a few days we were settled in our own
home and were supremely happy.
The mother of two of the children who were to be in my school tried to
have me go with her and the children, as a companion and teacher, to
Rome for six months and then to Paris for another six months. A year in
Europe! How I would have jumped at it before I met Juno! But now, what
was a year in Europe compared to a lifetime in paradise?
Our days were not spent in longing for each other. We both had real joy
in our work, which was done better than ever before. We read much
together, we saw the best plays, took long walks, and lived on a plane
higher than we realized before to be possible.
Our lives blended to perfection. We seemed to satisfy in each other
every need and craving. The hypocrisy in that hotel for women disgusted
her daily, but nevertheless she put into her work the real Christ
spirit, and many poor and weary hearts were cheered and comforted by
Juno.
As our souls and hearts were drawn together, so were our bodies. We both
felt that, without the deep and true love we felt for each other, there
could be no satisfaction in sexual contact. This was a result of, rather
than a cause for, our love and happiness.
It was our equal desire to be continually doing some great or little
tender and loving thing for the other. Knowing that little rifts might
occur, Juno confessed to a somewhat unruly temper at times and that, if
she should err, it was an impossibility for her to confess her error.
She had always believed that she could never say she was “sorry,” and
had been through the tortures of Hell while obdurate on that point when
her elders had tried to force her to a confession. She asked me, if such
an occasion should arise, when she should be wholly to blame, if I would
assume the role of the guilty one; in that way, she would be able to
contradict me and say it was her fault. It seemed a silly thing, as the
acknowledgment of a fault had always been one of the easiest things I
had to do, but there was nothing I would not have promised her, and this
little eccentricity became in time a great joke.
It was years, however, before we had occasion to resort to that little
game.
I held my little school in our apartment, as I was alone there through
the day. It was a great success and, from the applications I had from
new pupils, it would soon have grown beyond its bounds. I felt, however,
that I could not give it the assurance of permanency, as my life was so
bound up in Juno’s. I felt that I could not do anything that might
interfere with our life and plans together. Another opportunity passed
by because of my great love for the woman of my heart.
Juno felt a growing disgust for her work, which was being conducted on
lines wholly base at the “semi-philanthropic memorial tablet.” So we
were casting about for some more congenial work for her. We kept on
until spring, when there came a crisis in my affairs which caused a
change in our lives.
My father’s sudden illness and death made it necessary for me to go
home, take charge of affairs, and be with my mother, for a time at
least. Before this Juno had arranged for a secretarial position in one
of the most select and fashionable private (and they were private)
finishing schools in the city. (The girls were finished in some
instances also.) This position was to be open in the fall, so this
fitted in perfectly with our plans. A separation was not to be thought
of, so Juno resigned her position, and I had again to disappoint the
parents of the children whom I was teaching. I gave up the school, and
we both went to my mother’s home in the country.
To illustrate the fact that sexual problems arise right under our very
eyes, though many times we never see them, I will here tell of an
incident connected with our life in the little apartment where Juno and
I began our life together.
I procured a young East Side girl, through the recommendation of a
laundress we employed, to come to the apartment each morning to do the
ordinary work. I did most of the cooking when we did not go out for
dinner. Lizzie’s first work was in the kitchen, next to the dining room
where I had my school. She had a wooden leg, so was not able to go into
regular service. She was very happy with us and we got used to the thump
of the wooden member of her anatomy and to the usual noises in the
kitchen, so that our school was not disturbed by them.
One day she came to work in a pouring rain. When she arrived I said,
“You have no rubbers on, your feet must be very wet,” she replied: “Oh!
me wan fut is and tother don’t count.” She evidently thought it would be
a waste of money to buy a pair of rubbers with only one “fut” to benefit
thereby.
One morning it was necessary for a plumber to do some work in the
kitchen during the school session. We got used to the various hammerings
and noises connected with the work, but, after a time, I was conscious
of a regular and rather desultory knocking. Knock! knock! knock! I was
puzzled, and quietly opened the door into the kitchen, out of pure
curiosity, while the children were singing. To my astonishment, I found
Lizzie and the plumber in a compromising situation, the man at the same
time pounding away with his hammer. I gave him a look which he
remembered and quietly told Lizzie to go to the front of the apartment
and do her work there. This she did, skipping along on her unmated pair
of legs.
In the afternoon, I went to the plumber’s place of business. He had just
started on his own and looked scared to death when he saw me. I talked
with him about the affair from the girl’s point of view. He said she was
willing enough, but he soon saw that there might be serious results and
that the girl and her mother would be the ones to suffer. He was quite
ready to place a certain amount of money in my hands, in escrow, as it
were, to await developments. I told him that in case everything came out
all right, I would return the money.
When I was assured that Lizzie was not pregnant, I took the money to the
plumber and had a long talk with him. I told him of my talk with Lizzie
and that she had told me she only did as she had as “it was an easy way
to get fifty cents for her mother.” It seemed to open up a new idea to
him. Whether the impression lasted I shall never know, but at least he
asked me to keep the money he had given me and to use it for the girl in
such a way that she would never know where it came from.
I was convinced that sexual desire on the part of the girl was not
responsible for this incident, but she was willing to sell her body for
fifty cents to gratify the desire of the man, in order to help her
mother who, of course, would never have been convinced that her daughter
would do such a thing. Society still condemns the girl and the man is
considered to be enjoying his so-thought natural and necessary
privileges.
When we were to leave for the country, Lizzie begged so hard to go with
us, and her mother was likewise so anxious to have her go, that we
consented to take her. I felt it would be a good thing for her to be
away from an environment which might lead to her defeat. In her life she
had had one “country week” under the auspices of some society, and had
always carried in her mind the glorified picture of green grass, upon
which she could step without being “chased by the cops,” and of the
flowers which were free for all. We told her that at that season of the
year we should find only ice and snow and mud, with no green grass for
weeks and weeks to come, but this made no difference to her. Go she
must, and go she did.
Poor Lizzie! She could find there no semblance to the wonderful picture
she had carried in her mind for so long. The change from the bright
lights and hurdy-gurdies to a bleak northern New England farm in early
spring was too great for the poor child. She became homesick and almost
desperate with longing for “dear old Av’nyer A” and we had to send her
back. To what? We never knew, as there ended our contact with the
wooden-legged child of the slums.
As there seemed to be no other way, I took the responsibility of running
the farm for the summer. With Juno by my side we made of it a wonderful
adventure. Of course, my duties were strenuous, as I had only the help
of a young boy of fourteen. I loved the work, however. As a small girl I
had followed my father and brothers about as they were doing the work of
the farm, and it all came naturally to me.
The life was a revelation to Juno. She had never been in the country, to
see the beginnings of things agricultural, as she had always spent her
summers at the height of the season at some fashionable resort,
carefully guarded by nurses or companions. Yet she did not long for
“dear old Avenue Five” as Lizzie had for her old haunts.
Juno’s almost childish wonder and enthusiasm and her naive remarks were
a constant joy to both my dear mother and to me. Juno and Mother loved
each other from the very first. To her death, my mother was always happy
in our love and friendship for each other. Never by word, look, or act
did she ever betray in any way that she mistrusted anything unnatural in
the devotion which existed between us. How could she believe that such a
love were possible, when we both believed that we were the only ones in
the world who cherished such a love?
We never wavered in our belief that ours was the very highest type of
human love, and our joy in each other grew greater and greater all the
time. Now, in my declining years I still believe that, while it lasts,
such a relation is the highest and most complete union of two human
beings.
To our friends, ours was “an ideal friendship,” and we knew hardly a
married woman who did not envy us that oneness of heart, mind, and
purpose which we manifested to the outside world. No one knew of the
real union, of our bodies.